Zimmerman Defense And Media Need To Stop Making Trayvon Martin A ‘Hypothetical’ Murderer

For all the unanswered questions in the George Zimmerman murder trial there is at least one thing on which everyone involved can agree: Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon Martin on February 26th, 2012. But the people defending Zimmerman, both in the courtroom and the media, seem determined raise so many hypothetical scenarios that both jurors and spectators forget this basic fact.

For the shooting to be anything other than murder, Zimmerman’s legal team needs to demonstrate that he feared for his life enough to shoot Martin in self-defense. But given the fact that 17-year-old Martin was armed with only a can of iced tea and a bag of Skittles, the idea that Zimmerman had no choice but to pull out his gun and shoot should, in theory, be a bit of a stretch. With Martin dead, the trial is essentially Zimmerman’s word against no one, with only scant evidence that the fight that ensued between the two men could have been life-threatening to either party without the presence of a gun.

With no way of knowing exactly what happened that night, both the media and Zimmerman’s defense attorneys have been presenting unlikely hypotheticals that do little to advance the truth and a lot to mislead the public about the facts.

One of the earlier examples of this phenomenon in the media came during a Fox News online streaming segment on the first day of jury selection in the trial last month. Fox guest Doug Burns raised the “hypothetical” that Trayvon Martin had been carrying a gun the night he was killed. “There’s certainly a very good argument to be made that the force used was out of proportion to what was going on and the kid was unarmed,” Burns admitted to host Jamie Colby. “Totally different case, let’s say the kid had a gun.”

Colby, clearly taken aback by the suggestion, clarified, “All that Trayvon—we learned later—was armed with was a bag of Skittles and an iced tea.”

“I know everybody keeps sarcastically saying about he Skittles,” Burns replied. “You could probably kill somebody with a Skittle,” he joked. While he clearly thought he had made a hilarious joke, all Burns was really doing was furthering the ridiculous notion that Martin could have killed Zimmerman with (A) a gun he didn’t have, or (B) the Skittles he did.

Watch video below, via Fox News:

The Five‘s Kimberly Guilfoyle proposed a similar hypothetical a few weeks later on Fox, this time wondering what the trial would be like if the outcome of the fight had been reversed. “If George Zimmerman had died that day,” she posited, “would you be prosecuting Trayvon Martin or would you say Trayvon had a right to defend himself, if he got up and took the stand, said ‘I was afraid, saw this guy following me, we ran into each other again, I was fighting him, trying to be able to get away, et cetera.” She argued that a scenario like that would likely be considered “justifiable self-defense.”

Of course, if this hypothetical still assumes that only Zimmerman was armed, it would have meant that Martin would have somehow been able to kill a man carrying a loaded gun with his bare hands. A self-defense plea in the face of someone who is armed is certainly more “justifiable” than the reverse–it is also excessively unlikely.

But, of course, this type of speculation doesn’t only occur on Fox News’ air–it’s also happening in the courtroom itself. One of the most jarring moments of witness testimony came earlier this week when medical examiner Dr. Valerie Rao took the stand. Rao insisted that in her professional opinion Zimmerman’s injuries after his confrontation with Martin were “insignificant” and not “life-threatening.” Defense attorney Mark O’Mara, perhaps seeing that his cause on this point was lost when it came to reality, turned to the trusty hypothetical to hammer home his point. “What about the next injury?” he asked Rao, receiving a quizzical look of incredulity from the stand. “Could the injury that he didn’t have to survive–could that have been life-threatening?”

Rao never had to answer that ridiculous question since the prosecution objected to it based on “speculation.” If Zimmerman’s self-defense claim can be based on injuries he never had to sustain rather than the ones he did, then wouldn’t he have the right to shoot and kill anyone who even possesses the capability of hurting him?

Watch video below, via Fox News:

And then of course there is Trayvon Martin’s mother Sybrina Fulton, who finally took the stand for the prosecution today. Fulton positively identified her son’s voice screaming on the 911 call made the night he died. Under cross-examination, O’Mara pressed Fulton on the notion that her “hope” it would be her son Trayvon screaming on the tape could have clouded her judgement. “If it wasn’t your son screaming,” he posed, “if it was in fact, George Zimmerman, you would have to accept the possibility that it was Trayvon Martin who caused his own death, correct?”

While Fulton agreed with this statement, she rejected the idea that she “hoped” her son’s voice was on the tape. “What I hope for is this wouldn’t have never happened, and he would still be here,” she told O’Mara. “That’s my hope.”

At that moment, Trayvon Martin’s mother did her best to fight back against the campaign by the media and the defense to demonize her son and turn him into something other than the unarmed victim who was shot dead by George Zimmerman before he had a chance to reach his 18th birthday. The jury will have to decide whether they believe George Zimmerman is guilty of murder. But there is one thing we know for sure: Trayvon Martin is not a murderer.

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This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.