The Sanford Six Jury had no choice. Under the law of self-preservation they had to find George Zimmerman not guilty of murder. But, to be sure, they applied the law not to George Zimmerman but to themselves. Why? They have to live in Sanford Florida. And they knew that if they found Zimmerman guilty of murder their life in Sanford Florida would have been a living hell.
So under the protection of the law of self preservation, under the protection of the law of survival, they let George Zimmerman get away with murdering an innocent Trayvon Martin--a killing everyone knew Zimmerman committed and one which he never denied. How else could a woman who is the mother of eight children rationalize the stalking and killing of an innocent child by an armed assailant?
What the Sanford Six did in absolving George Zimmermn of the murder he had committed is not that unusual nor all that surprising. Self preservation and the need to survive with at least a semblance of peace among your peers has always trumped morality and justice in America. It's a part of American history. Indeed, it's a part of the American Way. And, unfortunately, it is a part of America's immorality and injustice--especially when it comes to the death of a young black males at the hands of an angry white mob or lone angry white man.
We are not so far from a time when black men were lynched for entertainment and sport, often at a church social or church picnic where the congregation likely just finished singing Amazing Grace and other soul searching hymns prior to the lynching.
We are even closer to a time when white men were never even arrested for killing black men and young black boys. It almost happened in the Trayvon Martin murder. On those few occasion in America's Jim Crow era when white killers of black men were brought to trial, the trial was mockery and a farce.
Photos taken of white defendants at these mock trials for the killing of black men and black boys would show them posing, laughing, and smirking for the camera at the proceedings. They knew the trial was a farce. They knew that the racist logic of a jury of their racially motivated peers would never convict them for killing a "nigger who deserved to die", even if the "niggers" were six little girls who were attending church at the time of their murder.
The outpouring of moral support and financial support from white America must have weighed heavily on the minds of the Sanford Six Jury. If that many white Americans were willing to suspend even a modicum of morality and send Zimmerman hundreds of thousands of dollars for his legal defense and economic survival, what did the Sanford Six have to gain by finding him guilty? Nothing. And in their minds it is likely they felt they had a lot to lose.
Whether they admit it or not, the Sanford Six had read and heard from the print and television media that the prosecution in the State Vs Zimmerman would have a difficult time proving that George Zimmerman acted with malice when he murdered Trayvon Martin. And following that bit of racist logic wasn't it easy to rationalize that Trayvon Martin caused his own death?
So, given the law of self preservation and the need to survive among their peers in a town they could not escape, six women--five of whom were mothers--acquitted an armed George Zimmerman of profiling and murdering an innocent young black boy because George had had enough of those "assholes (who) always get away".
Now that the trial is over, the smell of immorality and injsutice notwithstanding, these six women jurors at least have the satisfaction of knowing they can live among their peers with at least the comfort they enjoyed before the trial. How much comfort they have living with themselves depends on their sense of morality and justice--or their lack of it.