The court reconvened shortly before 10 p.m. Florida time on July 13, 2013. The jurors returned to the courtroom and took their customary seats, arranged by their designated number. As the Zimmermans held their breath—Martin’s parents had chosen not to return to the courtroom—and the world waited, the foreperson stood and read. “In the circuit court of the eighteenth judicial circuit in and for Seminole County, Florida, State of Florida v. George Zimmerman, verdict: we the jury find George Zimmerman not guilty. So say we all, foreperson.”14 Even at the moment he heard the phrase “not guilty” Zimmerman stared ahead as impassively as he had throughout the trial. There was not a sound of exultation or despair from either side. Sensing they were about to enter only a new circle of hell, Bob and Gladys Zimmerman did not so much as smile.15

  “Does either side want to poll the jury?” said Nelson, who seemed oddly pleased with the verdict. “We would your honor,” said de la Rionda. “Okay, ladies and gentlemen, I mean, ladies, I’m sorry,” said Nelson with a smile. “As your jury number is being called please answer whether this is your verdict.”

  “Juror B29 is this your verdict?” asked the female bailiff. “Yes,” said the deeply conflicted mother of eight. Zimmerman’s face began to relax just a little as each juror in turn affirmed that she, too, had voted not guilty. Nelson promptly ordered the GPS device on his ankle to be removed, his bond to be returned, and told him that he had “no more business with the Court.” Zimmerman shook hands with his attorneys and smiled only after the court had adjourned.16 After fifteen months, he was finally a free man—no electronic monitoring, no curfews, no prohibitions—but for the time being at least, he would keep his thoughts to himself. “I still see sadness in his eyes,” said his brother Robert soon afterwards. “He was definitely not the same person I had seen a few days before the incident.”17

  Immediately afterwards, although “ecstatic with the results,” Mark O’Mara did not try to conceal his disgust with the case the State brought against his client. “George Zimmerman was never guilty of anything but protecting himself in self-defense,” O’Mara said. He reminded the assembled reporters that Zimmerman’s first words when the police arrived were, “I screamed out for help but nobody came.” O’Mara heaped scorn on the State’s notion that Zimmerman was “some wannabe cop savant” who plotted an alibi from the moment of the shooting. “He believes in a system he really wanted to be part of,” said O’Mara of Zimmerman. “And then he gets prosecutors who charged with him a crime they could never, ever prove.”18

  The admittedly “blunt” Don West did not hesitate to call the prosecution of George Zimmerman a “disgrace.” On a more positive note, he added, “I’m thrilled that this jury kept this tragedy from becoming a travesty.” West also explained the rationale behind the much maligned knock-knock joke. “There needed to be a disconnect from an act that was hard to follow,” he said in reference to Guy’s histrionic opening. “But I knew, Mr. O’Mara knew, and you all found out, it was indeed just an act.”19 By the way, of all the commentators on the case, Sundance may have been the only one to divine West’s knock-knock strategy. “Have you ever personally talked with George’s defense team? I mean, your theory about the purpose of West’s knock-knock joke was 100% accurate,” a Treeper asked Sundance after West confirmed it. Sundance had not. “It was a classic [cognitive] reset,” said Sundance, “and it worked.”20

  Shortly after the verdict, Bob Zimmerman sent an e-mail to Sundance and his colleagues at the Treehouse. “I have thanked Mark Omara [sic] and Don West. Now I would like to extend our heartfelt appreciation to you, our friends at CTH,” read the missive. “Currently, our family is happy knowing our son no longer faces a malicious, unethical prosecution. Further, to whatever extent possible, I will attempt to hold every individual fully responsible for their actions. Again, Thank You.”21

  The normally restrained Sundance confessed, like O’Mara, to being ecstatic upon hearing the verdict.22 The Treepers, the best-informed group of people on this subject anywhere, shared his enthusiasm. The first post on the Treehouse verdict thread came in at 10 p.m., and it ready simply, “Woohoo!!!” Three minutes later, Chip Bennett posted, “Thank you, Jesus! God Bless you, George Zimmerman. May God’s peace and protection be upon you and your entire family.”23

  The prayers drifted skyward. The champagne corks popped. The tears flowed:

  Stella: There is some laundry calling my name! But tonight—we dance!!!

  Ytz4mee: And drink. Break open the “good” wine!

  Auscitizenmom: I can’t stop crying. I was hoping the verdict would come in tonight so I could sleep, but I wonder if I will. Thank you, God.

  Ad Rem: Words can not express my joy for George, his family, and all his loyal and steadfast friends.

  Wee Weed: Bless you and your family, George! It’s been a long haul for you and your loved ones. We rejoice with you!

  Diwataman: Thank you all for your work, thoughts and words of encouragement. Let us hope now a true accounting can begin and all of the schemers are dealt with legally and properly along with a restoration of those harmed in the process.24

  As the verdict thread moved through the Treehouse that night and the Treepers observed the unrepentant response of the State and the agitated state of the BGI, the tone changed. The Treepers did not kid themselves. The court battle may have ended, but the battle in the court of public opinion would only get bloodier and stupider, and they knew it.

  46

  DENYING REALITY

  THE WORD THEY USE IN GERMAN is Dolchstuss. It means “stab in the back.” The Dolchstuss legend gained currency after the German defeat in World War I. When the German advance on the western front collapsed in 1918, many in the military refused to believe that they lost on the battlefield. They found it much more comforting to believe that the politicians back home subverted their valiant efforts through their double dealing. The myth endured for years; still does in some quarters.

  Although there had been griping about the prosecution before the verdict, a new Dolchstuss legend quickly coalesced around the State’s defeat on the Zimmerman front. Talk of betrayal began mere hours after the verdict came down. Asked one blogger at the Democratic Underground, “Did the prosecution lose on purpose?”1 Asked another, “Did the prosecution in the Zimmerman trial ‘throw the case’?”2 New Orleans columnist Jarvis DeBerry and the attorneys he consulted came away with the impression that “the prosecution didn’t want to win a conviction.”3 “Listening to the lead prosecutor’s final argument in the Zimmerman case, it’s hard to believe he really wanted a conviction,” agreed William Boardman at Reader Supported News.4 Queried Floyd Blue of the Daily Kos in his headline, “Who Among Us Honestly Believes the Zimmerman Prosecution Tried to Win?”5

  More substantially, Steven Rosenfeld promised in the headline of his civil liberties column on AlterNet “10 Reasons Lawyers Say Florida’s Law Enforcement Threw Away George Zimmerman’s Case.” The lawyers he surveyed came down particularly hard on the State’s seemingly lax jury selection, its failure to demand a change in venue, its haphazard witness preparation, and the selection of Angela Corey to lead the prosecution team. Among other attorneys, Rosenfeld cited outspoken New York–based attorney Warren Ingber on the case. “I find it personally difficult to believe it was not thrown,” said Ingber. “I am far from alone in this assessment, and it reveals even harder truth why this case was a miscarriage of justice.” Ingber argued that Governor Rick Scott and Angela Corey, both Republicans, got a “cost-free” bargain out of defeat. They gave the illusion of taking the case seriously, but with an acquittal they spared themselves the burden of a retrial or an appeal.6

  The article evoked nearly a thousand comments, almost all of them in agreement, many of them inflammatory. “Reason 11: KILLER Z’s ex magistrate dad, court-clerk mom, & FL cop uncle—most likely pulled some strings—to initially get their boy released from custody [for 45 days] & then to pulled some more strings to influence the prosecution to botch the case,” concluded Nixak.77. “I said this a year ago, that even if they charge that turd, the state will help him walk. I hate being right,” said Gene Starwind. “In a just world, the DOJ should be taking all this into account, and arresting as many as possible who conspired to let the murderer walk free,” added AlphaNumeric111. “Florida needs a federal takeover as soon as possible[. T]hey’re too stupid, too cruel, and too criminal for self rule,” wrote bickle2.

  Angela Corey gave life to the Dolchstuss legend with her oddly chipper performance at the post-verdict press conference. “What we promised to do was get this case in front of a jury and give George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin each their day in court,” Corey said, all but affirming Ingber’s theory that the State was more interested in staging a trial than winning a conviction. This was a theme that Corey repeated throughout the press conference. “We felt that everyone had a right to know everything about this case,” she contended, and in that goal the State largely succeeded. It was less her words, however, than her tone that irked, if not outraged, the Martin faithful. She did not seem remotely upset about losing the case.7 The Twitchy headline captured the bewilderment of the pro-Martin camp: “Viewers wonder: Why is Florida state attorney Angela Corey smiling so big?”8

  “FL State Atty Angela Corey happy & smiling way too much. Does she not know prosecution lost???” tweeted former CNN anchor Rick Sanchez. “Head Prosecutor Angela Corey is she for real? Proud of the job they did? No remorse in their loss. I’m APPALLED,” comedian Steve Harvey weighed in. “Angela Corey and the entire prosecution team are idiots. For someone who just lost a major case she sure is smiling a lot,” chimed in Aquarian Rick Stro. “Florida State Attorney Angela Corey smiling this much right now is really upsetting,” added Adam Burton, like Stro, an engaged citizen watching the press conference and tweeting.

  Although much of the Dolchstuss commentary was empty-headed and virtually all of it off the mark, the question that the commenters raised was a legitimate one: Did the State do all it could to convict George Zimmerman? The answer was not a simple one. Yes, on the surface at least, the State went above and beyond the call of duty. Prosecutors collaborated with Team Trayvon in creating a story line that was in large part false. They enabled Jeantel’s largely fictitious account of her final phone calls with Martin. They conspired to keep Martin’s damaging phone and social media data first out of the hands of the defense and then out of the trial. They blustered and lied shamelessly throughout the trial itself. Indeed, they fought hard enough and dirty enough to merit a disbarment recommendation by Alan Dershowitz. And yet, the four of them, Corey included, had to feel conflicted about their assignments. They knew too much not to be uneasy.

  Unlike the defense, however, the prosecutors had no Conservative Treehouse or Legal Insurrection or TalkLeft to reassure them or to help shore up their line of attack. In this regard, the pro-Martin pundits were hardly in a position to complain about a Dolchstuss. In the sixteen months between the emergence of the case and the verdict, they did almost no useful research. They did not even do their homework. At the two critical junctures when the prosecution did drop the ball, either through neglect or intent, they did not even notice.

  Those two instances deserve a quick review. In the one, prosecutors left unchallenged Don West’s assertion that Jeantel changed her account of what Zimmerman allegedly said in his encounter with Martin. In fact, on this point at least, she did not change her story. With Crump, with de la Rionda, and at the trial, she consistently claimed Zimmerman confronted Martin with the territorially aggressive response, “What are you doin’ around here?” The second prosecutorial oversight was more damaging, and that was the unchallenged discrediting of Selene Bahadoor’s testimony. Contrary to what O’Mara insisted, Bahadoor told state investigators in her very first interview that she “heard running outside . . . and saw shadows running from left to right.” Had prosecutors been able to presents these accounts as credible, they would have at least had a story to tell. Yes, Martin made it back to Green’s townhome. Zimmerman found him there, chased him back to the T, and confronted him aggressively. It is likely that de la Rionda got lost in the fog of Jeantel’s testimony. That was easily done. Besides, he seemed genuinely disappointed with the verdict, more so than his colleagues. John Guy was another story. It was he who had interviewed Bahadoor in March 2012. He should have remembered what she told him. At the post-verdict press conference, he seemed unbowed. His one prepared statement was ambiguous to a fault: “We have from the beginning just prayed for the truth to come out and for peace to be the result, and that continues to be our prayers and we believe they have been answered.”9 One could argue that his prayers were answered. The truth did come out, but it was not the kind of truth that was going to result in any kind of peace.

  47

  LEARNING NOTHING

  IN THE ARCHIVES OF LEGAL FICTION, two characters best embody liberal self-perception. One is attorney Atticus Finch of To Kill A Mockingbird fame. The other is Juror #8, the character played by Henry Fonda in the 1957 movie Twelve Angry Men. In his screenplay notes, Reginald Rose describes #8 as “a man who sees all sides of every question and constantly seeks the truth. A man of strength tempered with compassion. Above all, he is a man who wants justice to be done and will fight to see that it is.” Not one for nuance, Rose describes #8’s nemesis, Juror #3, played by Lee J. Cobb in the film, as “a humorless man who is intolerant of opinions other than his own and accustomed to forcing his wishes and views upon others.” Set as the film was in the mid-fifties, Juror #3 serves as the inevitable Joe McCarthy proxy. In the drama that follows, he allies himself with Juror #10, “a bigot who places no values on any human life save his own.”1 Such was the conservative profile in the liberal mind nearly sixty years ago. Not much has changed.

  The plot of Twelve Angry Men unfolds fully in the jury room. The jurors have convened to discuss the case. As fate would have it, the defendant is a young, five-foot-seven-inch, Hispanic man accused of killing a much taller man. Sound familiar? In this case, however, the victim was the father and the weapon was a knife. In the initial go-round, only #8 votes not guilty. The other jurors are stunned. “I just think he’s guilty,” says Juror #2. “I thought it was obvious. I mean, nobody proved otherwise.” The Fonda character responds sagely, “Nobody has to prove otherwise. The burden of proof is on the prosecution. The defendant doesn’t have to open his mouth. That’s in the Constitution. The Fifth Amendment.”

  When one of the jurors points out that the accused cannot even remember what movie he was alleged to have seen on the evening of the murder, #8 answers, “Do you think you’d be able to remember details after an upsetting experience such as being struck in the face by your father.” This being Hollywood, the good liberal juror persuades the others one by one to his point of view. “We may be wrong,” #8 concedes. “We may be trying to return a guilty man to the community. No one can really know. But we have reasonable doubt, and this is a safeguard that has enormous value in our system.” Finally, even #10 and #3 yield to his wisdom, and the jurors vote to acquit.

  That was then. This is now. If the Zimmerman jurors honored the Constitution, the prosecutors, politicians, and pundits showed in their posttrial comments a stunning indifference to the traditional protections built into our legal system. As the jurors quickly discovered, liberalism isn’t what it used to be. The finely wrought verdict that they had anguished their way to after three weeks of testimony and sixteen hours of deliberation was widely maligned, and their own efforts mocked.

  Although the prosecutors made all the appropriate noise about “respecting” the jury’s verdict, their extended comments showed little respect at all. After getting blistered for her too-cheerful press conference, Angela Corey started talking tough. Her one-word response to a question on the show HLN After Dark was as tough as it gets. When host Vinnie Politan asked her to sum up George Zimmerman, Corey paused thoughtfully and said “murderer.”2 Alan Dershowitz and other legal commentators rocked back in disbelief. “Clearly [Zimmerman] is somebody who was acquitted by a jury on the grounds of self-defense,” said Dershowitz, “and she shouldn’t be going around second-guessing the jury verdict and calling him a murderer. He probably has a defamation action against her.”3

  Corey and de la Rionda seemed to actually believe the story line the prosecutors had been feeding the jury. “What we said,” explained Corey, “is you can’t take a concealed weapon and encourage or incite a fistfight, which is what [Zimmerman] did by stalking a teenager who didn’t know who he was, and then whip your gun out and shoot.” De la Rionda added new imaginative detail. “My theory is that he pulled [the gun] out early,” said the defeated prosecutor. “He was going to make sure [Martin] didn’t get away. He wanted to be a cop.” The pair implicitly faulted the female jurors for failing to see through Zimmerman’s many presumed fabulations. “Those lies were put in front of the jury, one after the other,” said Corey, who had obviously learned nothing about memory or about mercy from Juror #8.4

  For every Alan Dershowitz monitoring the case, there was a Richard Thompson Ford. In a July 16 New Republic article, this Stanford professor of law and author of several books on race and crime mined several new veins of misinformation. Ford made the larger point that underemployment in the black community and an overworked court system conspired to put more African-Americans in prison than there ought to be. This, in turn, led people like Zimmerman to project criminality even onto a “kid” like Martin, “who had avoided a run-in with the law.”5