I'm Confused - Remarks from Zimmerman's Lawyers

“If you're not confused, you're not paying attention.” ― Tom Peters, Thriving on Chaos: Handbook for a Management Revolution

Confusion is my reaction to the Trayvon Martin verdict. I keep trying to remind myself, logic and common sense has nothing to do with the “letter of the law.”  Compounded this confusion are the remarks made by the defense lawyers. 

“Zimmerman's lawyer Mark O'Mara also practically dared the family of Trayvon Martin to file a widely expected civil suit against him, but said that Zimmerman might be filing lawsuits of his own.” (exclusive interview with ABC News)

“O'Mara, in an exclusive interview with ABC News, suggested that Zimmerman has no regrets about carrying a gun on Feb. 26, 2012, the night he killed Martin, a teenager.”

See remarks like those confuse me into thinking the defense could care less for the loss of human life – for whatever reason.  Are dead children not a loss to their generation?  In my confusion, the remarks seem callous, self-righteous, and arrogant.   Is that lawyer talk?

“Each new life, no matter how brief, forever changes the world.” Trayvon Martin matters because he was.  He has add to our history – the American experience of bringing a gun to a fist fight.  As a parent – mother – who carried a child for nine months, realizing you could not help your child reach home safely.

‎”There is, I am convinced, no picture that conveys in its entire dreadfulness, a vision of sorrow, despairing, remediless, supreme. If I could paint such a picture, the canvas would show only a woman looking down at her empty arms.” -Charlotte Bronte

The pink, blue, orange child is as important to the parent as the brown, yellow, green child – when you look at your empty arms.

“Some say you’re too painful to remember. I say you’re too precious to forget.”

On November 28, 2008, Plaxico Antonio Burress suffered an accidental self-inflicted gunshot wound to the right thigh in the New York City.  On August 20, 2009, Burress accepted a plea deal that would put him in prison for two years with an additional two years of supervised release.  He shot himself.

In July 2007, Michael Dwayne Vick and three other men were charged by federal authorities with felony charges of operating an unlawful interstate dog fighting venture.  Vick was assigned to United States Penitentiary, Leavenworth, a federal prison facility in Leavenworth, Kansas, to serve his sentence.  Separate Virginia charges against Vick in the dog-fighting case were brought following indictments by the Surry County grand jury when it met on September 25, 2007.  He submitted a guilty plea to a single Virginia felony charge for dog fighting, receiving a 3-year prison sentence suspended on condition of good behavior, and a $2,500 fine.

Tammy Brown lives off $508 a month. That's the Social Security disability payment she gets because of her degenerative bone disease and hypertension. About $300 goes to the mortgage and utilities leaving $200 for food, medicines and whatever else comes up.  She didn’t have money for vet care for her dog.  The case went to trial, and on March 20, 2013 a jury convicted her of animal cruelty.  She could face up to five years in prison.

Two former Butterball workers at a North Carolina turkey facility were convicted of animal cruelty on Feb. 22. 2013 following a 2011 undercover investigation It revealed mistreatment of the birds, including kicking, dragging and throwing.  These birds ultimately ended up as someone meal.

Jurors convicted a Dallas man Friday of felony animal cruelty for killing his girlfriend’s cat.  The same jury acquitted Edwon Julian of assault after the woman and her two teenage daughters said he attacked them with a stun gun that same day.   Julian could face two to 20 years in prison.

An Alaska mother who disciplined her 7-year-old for misbehaving in school by pouring hot sauce down his throat and then giving him a cold shower – all the time videotaping what she was doing so she could be considered for an appearance on Dr. Phil – was found guilty of one misdemeanor count of child abuse.

We send people to prison for shooting themselves, but not stalking a child.  We send people to prison for animal abuse, but not the abuse of killing, harming or terrorizing a child.  I’m so confused!

“We are grieving, We are not contagious, We are not sad all the time, We laugh, We smile, We cry, We weep for being happy, We live, We talk, We feel, We come from every background, We are sad, we lost a baby, We are…” -Jennifer Davis