Former public defender Aram James, and co-founder of ACJP, has seen the inner-workings of the courtroom for decades. The Zimmerman verdict, he writes, is emblematic of systemic issues such as racial bias in jury selection that must be addressed if justice is ever to be achieved for black life like Trayvon Martin.

Over the last several weeks I have had a chance to see many hours of the Zimmerman trial on television and have paid close attention to many of the instant, self-described, legal scholars and commentators on both sides of the issues raised by this trial.

Spoken and unspoken throughout the trial, and the proceedings leading up to the trial, including the media coverage was a palpable racial tension from the start, going back to 2012 when the Sanford Florida police refused to arrest George Zimmerman for the murder of Trayvon Martin. And then we found, once the long delayed trial began, that the jury that was selected was made up all most exclusively of white folks. Continue reading →