Juror B37, George Zimmerman, And The Bad Guys Winning
Juror B37. Does anyone even know where to start?
Last night, the woman known only as Juror B37 appeared on AC360 to discuss the George Zimmerman verdict, the man himself, and Trayvon Martin — and if you hadn’t yet felt like you were in a movie where the villains add insult to injury for the whole last hour of the film, you probably do now.
Before Juror B37 cried on Cooper’s show, we learned that as a free man, Zimmerman would be receiving back the gun he used to shoot and kill Trayvon Martin. And why not? He’s a free man, has “no further business with the court,” and it’s his gun, after all. It makes sense, in a twisted, horrible, perfectly legal way. Not to mind his lawyers think he’ll need it “more than ever” after the verdict.
Then Juror B37 reared her identity obscured head, with a bag full of salt, coming at America’s open wound. She was writing a book, they said. (No longer, hopefully.)
B37 broke ranks with the jury to speak, in the process illustrating to all why juries are best operating behind the scenes. Watching the woman, unidentified, was one of those post-trial moments where you feel like the only person who must be so open-mouthed, so amazed a miscarriage of justice can permeate every crack of a case.
Well, you might have been before Twitter.
Thank God for the social web, and its assurance that if you felt punched repeatedly in the mouth by what you saw on your TV last night, you certainly weren’t alone.
One tweet shared thousands of times read:
Juror B37 basically admitted that they found Zimmerman guilty of manslaughter, but decided to acquit him anyway because they liked the guy.
— Tom Head, Ph.D. (@_tomhead) July 16, 2013
Others reacted to her lengthy and emotional defense of Zimmerman as a human being:
Juror B37 believes GZ has “a good heart”?! He beat his wife, molested his cousin, resisted arrest, shot an unarmed kid, racist rants on web.
— Path2Enlightenment (@Path2Enlighten) July 16, 2013
Rumors flew:
Wow!!!! Juror B37’s husband went to law school with Mark OMara.That is such a conflict of interest. Poor Baby Tray has NO chance for justice
— Ann Des (@AnnDes20) July 16, 2013
But it was perhaps her horribly condescending projection onto witness Rachel Jeantel — who was afforded no such anonymity — that really blew away the viewers last night and ultimately, thankfully, sunk her vulgar book deal aspirations. B37 said Jeantel was clearly embarrassed by her lack of education (the girl speaks three languages with fluency), her lack of intelligence (B37 gets all her news from the Today show), and the lives “they” live, when confronted with a courtroom of people who matter:
And people question Rachel Jenteal’s intellgence?!? 7 Mind Blowing Moments From Zimmerman Juror B37’s First Interview http://t.co/kbDkaEjgTH
— Greg Pinelo (@gregpinelo) July 16, 2013
Ultimately, it seems Juror B37’s presence in the media only served to drive home a pervasive and inescapable message — that whatever did happen in the Trayvon Martin case, justice was indeed not done.
