In all the coverage of the George Zimmerman trial, where Zimmerman was charged with second degree murder for the death of Trayvon Martin, then the lesser charge of manslaughter was given to the jury to consider, both of which were rejected by a jury of six women when they rendered a not guilty verdict, one refrain has been heard consistently, "no blacks were on the jury."
In the initial coverage, the mainstream media made a big deal out of that fact, reporting "The jurors, none of them black, include a Hispanic woman with eight children, an animal rescuer who once had a concealed-weapons permit, and a woman who said she had used Mr. Martin’s death as a cautionary example for her two adolescent children. Of the four alternates chosen for the case, two were men, and all were white. Nearly all of the jurors have children.
That the final jury was made up solely of women was unusual, legal experts said. But what might resonate more in this racially charged case is that all but one of the jurors is white."
Then after the not guilty verdict came down, Trayvon Martin supporters, protesters, the media, again, focused on the fact that there were no black jurors.
In the video below Reverend Jesse Jackson, interviewed by MSNBC, answers a question about the makeup of the jury, and says " Well, it was a stretch, trying to avoid the obvious. There was no — you speak of jury of your peers: there was no man on the jury — Trayvon was a black boy — there was no man, no black on the jury. So at least the idea of jury of your peers was a stretch all the while.”
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On July 13, 2013, Jackson tweeted "The jury, no black and no men, was always suspect. The whole world observed this painful conclusion. Every avenue in the law was watching."
The media's and Trayvon supporters all continue to imply that if a black person had been on that jury, "justice" would have been served, Zimmerman would have been found guilty or at least the jury would have been hung and Zimmerman could have been retried.
It wasn't the Zimmerman defense that excluded a potential black juror, it was the prosecution and according to Michael Skolnick, who sits on the board of directors of Trayvon Martin Foundation, it was" problematic for the prosecution," that the black juror that the prosecution excluded, was a "Fox News Watcher."
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Transcript, via NewsBusters:
COSTELLO: Although if I remember correctly one of the prosecutors struck a black, a potential black juror from the jury.
MICHAEL SKOLNICK, POLITICAL DIRECTOR TO RUSSELL SIMMONS, CO-PRESIDENT GLOBALGRIND.COM: Yeah, he was also, I was just, he was also a Fox News watcher. So that was, you know, problematic for the prosecution.
It wasn't just a black juror the prosecution wanted on the jury, it was a black liberal they wanted.
