Zimmerman jury made up entirely of women -- no one notices

Submitted by Matt on Sun, 2013-06-30 13:24

Article here. Setting aside the question of the substance of the trial and indeed the article's main topic to point this out: The article doesn't even make a point of the jury composition. The jury is not only nearly all-white but entirely female. Really, would the media be silent on this kind of thing if the jury were made up of nearly all white males? No, they'd be screaming to high heaven. And as for gender, seriously-- again, let's say the deceased and the defendant were both female, too. The noise would be deafening. Instead, it's not even a whisper. Reminds me of this month: Men's Health Month. Tell me, where you work, did you even see a sign posted about it? Anyway, excerpt:

'But that divide epitomizes the trial itself, Mr. Deggans argues: “As each side on this murder trial tries to prove the other person had tendencies toward prejudice and violence that may have sparked the fight, how will jurors [five white women and one Hispanic woman] judge the difference between edgy culture and outright dysfunction?”
...
The big question hanging over the trial is whether it was an unarmed Martin who claimed his self-defense rights against an armed adult stranger following him in the dark, and whether Zimmerman waived his self-defense rights when he made the decision to pursue Trayvon after noting to a 911 dispatcher that “these [guys] always get away.”'

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I have not found that to be true. Whenever I flip channels and here about the Trayvon Martin case, the first thing I hear or the main subject is about the all female jury, especially in the beginning it was all over the news in bold headlines, now the hoopla over the "all female jury" has died down some and shows have moved on to other aspects of the case, but the subject still comes up.

Here are my thoughts on the case.

I want Zimmerman to get a fair trial. I don't know what the gender ratio was for potential jurors, but I beleive it was a random sample of the general public, so I assume it was close to a 50/50 ratio. For whatever reason, both the prosecutors and defense teams have elected these 6 jurors. Both teams had equal ability to dismiss or choose jurors, so I don't see anything as unfair. It may not have been what I would have gone with, but I am no legal scholar.

If the jury's final verdict is unpopular, I am sure all the blame will be placed on their gender or race. There will be no escaping it. Even though we have seen jurors of mixed races and genders come back with unpopular verdicts before. People are always looking to place blame somewhere and this all female jury makes 'gender' the easiest target.

I admit that some blame on gender will likely be deserved but not necessarily unfair since both prosecutors and defense had equal ability to choose the jurors.

PS- By the Way, the day the jury was announced the "all female" aspect was the subject of every legal news show I flipped to - I couldn't get away from the topic if I wanted to. All the legal heads (Nancy Grace, Jane whats-her-name, and Geraldo Rivera) had whole shows devoted to the topic. As far as I can tell, the next day it was on the front page of major newspapers across the country.

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Submitted by Kris on Tue, 2013-07-02 19:59