As you said the trial is over.  Most people accept the jury's verdict.  Respectfully however, the police aren't the only ones that profile, and the prejudice w/in the justice system isn't the be all and end all of that which needs to be addressed.  

And, I thought reasonable doubt was relevant in every case, so I'm not sure why that was added, unless it was to make one assume the verdict was incorrect.

REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT ON TRAYVON MARTIN

(Paragraphs three and four after introductory comments)

First of all, I want to make sure that, once again, I send my thoughts and prayers, as well as Michelle's, to the family of Trayvon Martin, and to remark on the incredible grace and dignity with which they've dealt with the entire situation. I can only imagine what they're going through, and it's remarkable how they've handled it.

The second thing I want to say is to reiterate what I said on Sunday, which is there's going to be a lot of arguments about the legal issues in the case -- I'll let all the legal analysts and talking heads address those issues. The judge conducted the trial in a professional manner. The prosecution and the defense made their arguments. The juries were properly instructed that in a case such as this reasonable doubt was relevant, and they rendered a verdict. And once the jury has spoken,that's how our system works. But I did want to just talk a little bit about context and how people have responded to it and how people are feeling.

Others, like me, TalkLeft and Alan Dershowitz, took a position on Zimmerman's guilt different than the camp they were closer to politically. I was outraged at how a small group of lawyers and PR types could so manipulate the media and legal system to their advantage by aiming at a poor individual whose guilt beyond a reasonable doubt was far from obvious.  But I felt uncomfortable nodding in agreement with outright racists also denouncing them.  I also had my own agenda to use the case to highlight constitutionally fixable defects in the US legal system but couldn't get anybody's attention on that.

Now I am peeved at, and made uncomfortable by, the President of the United States, whom I generally agree with politically, on his comments about Zimmerman and Martin.  He brought up the a minor facet of the gun control debate, the right when faced with a deadly threat, not to retreat before using deadly force, as something to be changed.  It didn't appear to play a role in the Zimmerman-Martin case.  He completely omitted the problem of a small group commandeering the media to manipulate the legal system.  He, invoked the case to complain, excessively, that blacks are mistrusted by many Americans.  His own case shows that the situation is improving there and he had no good suggestions on how to accelerate the progress.

of the deceased without factual substantiation in some quarters

"in some quarters" is not here. Trayvon is not being vilified here, he's just not being turned into a victim in the purest sense. There are plenty of other sites devoted to that. There's a difference between humanizing and sanctifying and he has been more humanized here than in the trial IMO. But this thread is about the president's remarks and my evolving opinion is that they've served a useful focal point for an obviously necessary conversation.

Also I think the neighborhood watch policies suggested by sheriff departments, the concealed carry laws, the self defense rules, and racial attitudes of a community are all of a piece. They are not distinct things that can be pried apart and addressed one by one. The reaction of the African-American community to this case did not arise in a vacuum. It only seems misguided to those that prefer to look at the trees and not the forest.

Well, should a growing consensus of Americans come to decide that Florida v. Zimmerman is indeed about race, then guess what? It's about race.

There is a huge element of hypocrisy and self-interest in the attempt to utilize the Trayvon Martin case to promote racial politics. Political charlatans such as Sharpton, leaders of the official civil rights organizations, affluent African American media pundits and academics, the various "left" organizations tied to the Democratic Party--have a vested interest in keeping the identity politics industry going.

These groups have no desire to address the broader social and political context of the Trayvon Martin case. In the nonstop media commentary on the Martin case, there is barely a mention of mass unemployment, rising poverty and the devastating impact of corporate wage-cutting and government austerity.

Instead of a "national conversation on race," what is needed is a "national conversation" on the horrific conditions produced by the collapse of the industrial infrastructure of the United States, the rise of a predatory financial aristocracy, the militarization and brutalization of American society, and the growth of social inequality.

Frankly, it's disturbing that so many on the left want to see this man put in a cage for years when there isn't a single shred of real evidence that contradicts Zimmerman acting in self-defense. They're obviously just as full prejudice and assumptions that they then turn around and accuse Zimmerman of being. Sacrificing Zimmerman on the altar for our societies racial sins fixes nothing and is truly disgusting.

I am older.  I was vocal throughout the late 60's thru the 80's about how minorities and women are treated, not only in the court of law but day-to-day discrimination.  

I remember saying terrible things (name-calling)about minorities as a child, having been around the bigots in my family and their friends, until I got old enough to think for myself and saw that there was nothing to fear.  That distancing brought some discord amongst our family.

What makes me sad it that, regardless of what people think of him, he too is a minority. It is all about equal rights. I guess he is just not minority enough for people of all races to stand behind him.  The jury, when presented with the evidence found him Not Guilty.

Yet he is still considered guilty of something, has to be, anything.  

This is the same kind of railroading that has been prevalent for decades.  And, IMO, the people who fight against injustices in the system ignore the fact that this case as an prime example.

For those who have never walked a foot in our shoes to tell us what is wrong about the emotions we are feeling shows just how much the point was missed by many who claim to be champions on issues of race.

My take on the Zimmerman case is that it was a very simple one based on the facts and the law.  Z was on his back getting a beat down from M eye witnessed by Good who told M to stop or he would call 911.  When M did not stop Good went to call the police and Z, claiming he was in fear for his life shot and killed M.

Seems these facts justify Z killing M in self defense under Florida law.

So what happened that a clear cut case like this became a lighting rod the media, pols, and other folks ran with.  As Jeralyn has pointed out Crump, Sharpton, and plenty of others left out known facts and added speculation when describing the case.  Crump's law firm employees someone with a title "head activist" who organized rallies to remember Travon and the national, state, and local media covered them.

Almost none of the media coverage, and President Obama's speech as well, never mention the fight; just how M thought Z was dissing him.  Often times, but not with President Obama, there is wild speculation added about Z attacking M after self inflicting wounds to bolster his self defense claim.

This is where I have great sympathy for Jeralyn.  What seems like an easy plain vanilla win for the defense gets muddied up with publicity that seems to know no limits in how far from the known facts or black letter law it gets.

He also never touches on Trayvon's actions, never considers that Trayvon could actually have been at fault. His words were even worse, wondering if Trayvon would have been able to 'stand his ground' if he were armed. Stand his ground against what? What does he think happened? Left unsaid, but can clearly be inferred, is that if Trayvon could've been justified to 'stand his ground' if he was armed, he was justified in standing his ground with his fists. I think this does a huge disservice to the African-American community.

This is the second time, that I'm aware of, that the President has waded into a legal case. The first time he got basic facts of the case wrong, but that didn't stop him from denigrating an entire police force and strongly implying that they were racist. This time, he doesn't bother to discuss any facts of the case at all, but jumps on the racial profiling angle that his own government studied and found lacking (at least before the do-over).

But here's the thing that bothers me:  I, along with a lot of other people, have been saying for a good while "there's no case here, you can't bring it with no evidence", and kept hearing "Yes, there is, he's obviously guilty and you will see at trial."  Then the trial came and, indeed, there is no evidence to speak of, the guy walks.  And now those that aren't accusing the police, DA, defense, jury, judge and media of a grand racist conspiracy, are saying "Well, time to have a conversation about race", instead of "Sorry, I was wrong."  That sounds a bit petty, except that Zimmerman is a real person, and whatever his sins that night he's been through enough.  I think it's unfair to make him the focus of the conversation when there's nothing out there but people's imaginations to establish that he's a racist.  Basically, the people that owe him an apology are the ones who want us all to sit and listen to them now in this supposed "conversation".  

"If a white male teen would have been involved in this scenario," he said, "both the outcome and the aftermath might have been different."

Wait 'til their crack researchers discover the case of Roderick Scott and Chris Cervini. Scott, a 42 year old who looked like an ex-football player, saw some teens robbing cars, including his, at 3AM.

Scott asked his girlfriend to call 911. He picked up a handgun and went outside to detain the miscreants.

Rather than accept their detainment with good grace one of the teens (legally drunk and with amphetamine in his system) said something like "I'll get him" and moved towards Scott in a manner Scott took to be threatening.

Scott didn't await developments - he fired twice, killing 17 year old Chris Cervini.

Scott was black and Cervini white. This happened in upstate NY in 2009.

And we and Obama all know the rest, right? Not really. Scott (unlike Zimmerman) was promptly arrested. The DA wanted a murder indictment but the grand jury came back with manslaughter. After a trial in which Scott testified, he was acquitted - self-defense, reasonable doubt.

Rather than fulminate about the horrors and absurdities of NY self-defense law, the NY Times opted for no coverage at all. And most people, evidently including our President, remain blissfully unaware that yes, in America a black man can gun down a white teen, plead self-defense, and walk away.

We live in a country were a university actually contemplated firing a man for READING a book with KKK in the title -- that he got from THEIR library. The groug FIRE stepped in to help him, and the university backed down.

You are considered a racist if you don't believe in Affirmative Action, as well as other issues.

Individual, isolated, or personal, anecdotal stories, while interesting, would also tend to send the Conversation into a million different directions, kind of like a mirv missile. For instance, in the Scott/Cervini case, the question shouldn't be, "can a black man be treated the same as a white man in a shooting situation?" The question should be, "why is it that blacks are overwhelmingly treated harsher by police, and, irrefutably, given longer prison sentence than whites for identical, or similar, crimes?"

Same goes for the, in my opinion, canard, "Reverse Racism." When White towards Black racism is a million times more prevalent than "Black on White Reverse Racism," it may not be completely disingenuous to bring it up but outliers like that are a dime a dozen and really would just derail subjects having great impact.

I respect the focus on court procedure and evidence, but am seriously turned off by the disrespect for the feelings of a community that has to bury so many lives taken early. I mean, fine, the verdict stands... why host a discussion that puts the deceased on trial for his own death, after his killer is already been found not guilty?

On the face of it, the answer to his question doesn't seem all that ambiguous. My understanding is that, besides eliminating a duty to retreat, SYG still leaves the "reasonable person" standard required for self-defense and I don't see the evidence supporting a self-defense claim by Trayvon.

However, maybe the real issue is that SYG makes it harder to disprove false claims of self-defense. We don't ordinarily corner people in our routine everyday interactions. Not even if you're following someone or keeping an eye on them. Conversely, it appears to me, that inflicting great bodily harm on someone requires "cornering" them in some way. If you pull out a gun, you've pretty much "cornered" everyone within range. So requiring a duty to retreat may simply make it harder to make false self-defense claims, without putting an excessive burden on true self-defense claims.

We are a nation of laws.  They jury has spoken (3rd time he's said this)
Don't hold your breath for DOJ charges.  They're not happening
Peaceful protesting is fine, but any violence will not be tolerated
Gun violence should be addressed (good luck with delusional republicans around)
The black community needs introspection and work on their own increased crime rate (He slipped in a little Bill Cosby in his speech.  Well done.)

I thought it was excellent.  This country needs to heal and move on.  If Obama said everything Jeralyn wanted to, it would be one of the worst political moves in the history of this country.  The far right will continue to hate him.  The minimal amount of centrists that approve of the message already are on his side, and the left and his own community would be outraged at him.

A 17 teen year old got angry about a call Mr. Portillo made and punched him in the head ONCE.  

He fell into a coma and died a few days later.

He died from one punch to the head by a teen.

Amends the Criminal Code of 1961. Provides that in no case shall any act involving the justified use of force in defense of one's self or another person or in defense of one's dwelling or other property give rise to any claim or liability brought by or on behalf of any person acting as an aggressor, or the estate, spouse, or other family member of such a person, against the person or estate of the person using such justified force. Effective immediately.