Also today, Sanford police turned over their file on the case to the FBI. Anyone who doesn't think the outcome will be anything other than there is no case to be made is delusional. As is anyone who thinks the woefully misinformed public will believe it.

I wonder if people using social media have any idea what ignormamuses they sound like.

What's no so easily overlooked or brushed off are the number stupid tweets calling for throwing the Bill of Rights out the window because of the verdict in this case. There were calls to reduce the burden of proof in criminal cases. Calls to change the law so that the state could appeal a not guilty verdict. Calls to repeal the privilege against self-incrimination so that a defendant could be forced to testify against himself. Calls to end the requirement that a verdict be unanimous. Calls to do away with expert testimony. Calls to change the rules of evidence so that negative character evidence as to the defendant (only)could be introduced.

In my opinion, this is all happening because the public was sold a false bill of goods from the start by the media, civil lawyers for the Martin family (more here) and civil rights leaders. I think they should all hang their heads in shame. The repeated misrepresentation of this shooting as a monumental civil rights issue has polarized the public to such an extent that everyone is closing their ears to the real problems of racial injustice in the criminal justice system.

President Obama didn't help when he tied his remarks on racial profiling to Martin and Zimmerman. It was another missed opportunity to address the real cause of racial disparity. The problem is not profiling by individuals (although there's no evidence that occurred in the Zimmerman case.) It's not little old ladies in elevators or people who lock their car doors. It's not those who act in self-defense. It's the Government. It's always been the Government.

Racial inequality and economic injustice have a long history in the United States. Equal justice for all should be everyone's goal.

As the President of this country, Obama should lead and teach by his example. And that means demanding changes from his Justice Department and Congress. Not just for "African American boys," but for African American girls and all minorities, of all ages. It's unfortunate that we are now into his 5th year as President and he has done so little to reverse the discriminatory practices that have permeated the system for years.

The public needs to recognize the very real problems that minorities face in our criminal justice system. Check out the Equal Justice Initiative and incredible photographs in the 2013 Equal Justice Initiatives Calendar.

The lives of African Americans have been profoundly shaped by the era of slavery, the era of racial terror that continued from the end of Reconstruction until World War II, the era of Jim Crow and racial apartheid that produced the civil rights movement, and now the era of mass incarceration.

Too often we have appropriately celebrated black achievement and triumph in the face of these obstacles without exploring the very difficult reality of racial inequality and subordination. EJI believes a deeper understanding of this history is necessary for us to achieve the truth and reconciliation that overcoming historic injustice requires.

Check out the image of U.S. Marshals escorting six-year-old Ruby Bridges, the first student to integrate William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1960.

Look at the photo of 14 year old George Stinney, executed by South Carolina in 1946.

Read the brief paragraphs accompanying the photos about convict leasing. And the photo of Black orphaned children and juvenile offenders who were forced to serve as laborers for white planters in many Southern states from 1865 until the 1940s. How could this happen?

After the Civil War, slavery persisted in the form of convict leasing, a system in which Southern states leased prisoners to private railways, mines, and large plantations. While states profited, prisoners earned no pay and faced inhumane, dangerous, and often deadly work conditions. Thousands of black people were forced into what authors have termed “slavery by another name” until the 1940s.

What about the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery that was passed in 1865? It explicitly exempted those convicted of crime.

In response, Southern state legislatures quickly passed “Black Codes” – new laws that explicitly applied only to black people and subjected them to criminal prosecution for #8220;offenses” such as loitering, breaking curfew, vagrancy, having weapons, and not carrying proof of employment. Crafted to ensnare black people and return them to chains, these laws were effective; for the first time in U.S. history, many state penal systems held more black prisoners than white – all of whom could be leased for profit.

Remnants of these practices exist today. As recently as 2010, a federal court held that “prisoners have no enforceable right to be paid for their work under the Constitution.”

Don't miss the photos of the incarcerated juveniles, or the accompanying text which states that nearly 3,000 children have been sentenced to die in prison in the United States, some as young as 13 and 14. More than 70% of the youngest ones are African American or Latino.

Or the description of how in the 1920's, more than 65,000 women were forcibly sterilized as a result of laws that banned reproduction rights for “undesirables?"

In the 1920s, many states authorized forced sterilization of thousands of “undesirable citizens” – people with disabilities, prisoners, and racial minorities – on the theory that, as the U.S. Supreme Court put it in upholding Virginia’s forced sterilization law in 1927, “three generations of imbeciles are enough.” American proponents of Eugenics, a scientific movement to “improve” the genetic composition of the human population, soon accelerated sterilization programs, which served as a model for Nazi programs implemented during the Holocaust.

Or the segregated bathrooms in 1960.

This is a fascinating, accurate and horrifying look at how unfairly African Americans have been treated by the justice system over the course of history. It has zero to do with Trayvon Martin or George Zimmerman, and everything to do with the real problems of racial disparity that continue to plague and infect our justice system.

The victims of this injustice are not just African American "boys" as Obama refers to them. African American girls, Latinos, the undocumented from all over the world, are also treated more harshly.

The crux of the problem is that America has become a Prison Nation. Per capita, we have the highest incarceration rate in the world. More than 2.2 million people are incarcerated in the U.S, and nearly 60% of them are Blacks and Latinos. That's twice as many as the their percentage in the general population. (From the report described below.)

The Obama Administration needs to realign its priorities. It needs to focus on curtailing law enforcement and prosecutorial abuses, ending the war on drugs, repealing mandatory minimum sentencing laws, ending life sentences for juveniles, and stop catering to the private prison industry. We need to invest in alternatives to prison, not more prison space.

The President promised hope and change and five years into his Presidency, he has failed to deliver. It's time to let him know we don't want a discussion about ladies in elevators clutching their purses.

We need to let the President and Democrats in Congress know deflecting the attention to stand your ground laws in unacceptable. We want what Obama promised. Change. Equality for everyone, not just one minority group, but all minorities and everyone else sucked into the criminal justice system.

Take the focus off guns and Stand Your Ground laws. The right of self-defense has been recognized this country since the early 1800's. The right to bear arms is a constitutional right. There's no evidence to support that removing no duty to retreat language from state statutes will make a whit of difference in cases where there is no means of retreat.

Has anyone studied how many murders, rapes, assaults, and robberies are prevented each year by average citizens with guns?

The Florida Task Force that recently submitted a report on Stand Your Ground laws called for funding a study of that would include variables such as race, ethnicity, gender, application and fairness of the Florida's stand your ground law, including a statistical comparison with other states. No action should be recommended or taken before those studies have been concluded. The Task Force estimated that once funded, they will take about two years to complete.

The Cato Institute makes a good point in its report on criminals and armed citizen response:

Federal and state lawmakers often oppose repealing or amending laws governing the ownership or carrying of guns. That opposition is typically based on assumptions that the average citizen is incapable of successfully employing a gun in self-defense or that possession of a gun in public will tempt people to violence in “road rage” or other contentious situations. Those assumptions are false. The vast majority of gun owners are ethical and competent. That means tens of thousands of crimes are prevented each year by ordinary citizens with guns.

Less funding should go to law enforcement and more provided for prevention, reduction of recidivism and providing rehabilitative services to those leaving prison.

The President needs to realize that equal justice is not limited to one topic or group. He told the nation the other day,

Traditionally, these are issues of state and local government, the criminal code. And law enforcement is traditionally done at the state and local levels, not at the federal levels.

That same principle should be applied to state laws that legalize marijuana. Otherwise, he's cherry-picking and perpetuating arbitrary enforcement of our federal laws.

It's time to end the focus on Trayvon Martin and stop blasting George Zimmerman who was neither charged nor found guilty of racial animosity. President Obama should not have used the case as the reason for his first conversation on racial injustice.

It's not the President's place to take sides while a criminal investigation is ongoing or a trial is underway and it's disrespectful to denigrate a verdict as I think he did by implication when he extended his sympathy to the Martin family without mentioning the Zimmerman family, and in using this case to discourage private citizens from racially profiling minorities after a jury rejected the state's arguments that Zimmerman profiled Martin. It was especially troubling that he failed to even acknowledge that Martin's attack on Zimmerman was wrong.

We don't need change for Trayvon Martin. We need change for all the minorities who are adversely impacted by the racial disparity in our justice system every day. The Equal Justice Initiative project is a good place to learn about how it began and evolved for African Americans. And we should similarly examine the historical perspective and present day injustices to other minorities. Male and female. Young and Old.

We should also put more focus on the children of the incarcerated, to whom society owes an equal chance to succeed in life. Mass incarceration deprives them of a fundamental need: the love and presence of a parent while growing up. They are blameless. They deserve better.

And there is something that everyone concerned about racial disparity and injustice should do today. Contact your Congresspersons and Senators and demand they pass emergency funding for the Judiciary. Our federal courts are quickly rapidly approaching a constitutional crisis due to sequester cuts. Without adequate funds for federal defenders and court-appointed indigent defense counsel, minority defendants will suffer the most. Our courts will come to a stand still.

Instead of using social media to act like kindergartners and make jokes about George Zimmerman, use it for something positive. Tweet Obama the link to the recently released report Eliminating Racial and Ethnic Disparities I wrote about here. It both identifies the problems and proposes solutions. And read it yourself.

At the very least, urge Obama to support and Congress to pass the End Racial Profiling Now Act of 2013 which will prohibit racial profiling by federal law enforcement.

Move past Trayvon Martin. Stop bashing George Zimmerman. Martin is not blameless and Zimmerman is not a racist. The trial is over. While the public wallows in misinformation about the case, real discrimination in the criminal justice system continues unabated. The continued focus on one shooting death that only catapulted to national prominence because the media gave too much air time to lawyers with a public relations team advocating on behalf of a single client, has taken enough attention from the real problems.

For those who need the Cliff Notes version. Here's what's needed:

• outlawing racial profiling practices by police;
• strengthening civilian review and control of local police departments;
• reforming bail policies to make release for non-violent offenders the default, and reducing or eliminating the requirement of cash bail;
• bringing transparency and accountability to prosecutorial decisions, especially charging and plea bargains;
• decriminalizing more non-violent drug offenses;
• ending the practice of adjudicating juveniles in adult courts;
• repealing mandatory minimum sentencing schemes;
• repealing zero-tolerance school discipline policies that funnel youth into the criminal justice system;
• reforming “truth-in-sentencing” laws that prevent or delay the consideration of parole;
• repealing post-conviction consequences that impede the successful
re-entry of those with criminal histories; and
• assessing the impact of political fund-raising and corporate contributions on sentencing.

If this is all too much too take in at once, start with this:

I don't expect to have more to say about the trial of George Zimmerman. It's over. Thankfully, he was not wrongfully convicted, other than by the public. I may follow his suit against NBC and matters related to the prejudicial media coverage.

(Note: Do not use comments here to accuse anyone of being a racist. Commenting here is not a right, and those who abuse it will be deleted and banned.)