I think everyone recognizes the value of an investigation given the facts of this case. My problem, and what I think Malaika points out in the initial post, is that the police did not conduct the investigation in a timely manner and uphold their duty to apply the law equally. They seemed to take Zimmerman at his word about what had happened in his run-in with Trayvon and made no apparent effort to identify the validity of his version of events until people organized themselves over social media to express outrage, the mainstream media picked up on the story, and the DOJ then forced the issue. At that point, the evidence was stale and any investigation was going to be less useful: Zimmerman had time to solidify his story, whereas in the aftermath the police may have been able to identify inconsistencies; the physical evidence at the scene deteriorated by the time they started looking into the events; and the memories of any potential witnesses and those who were around Zimmerman in the following days would be less fresh. I agree with Malaika that it is much less likely that they would have conducted the investigation in such a manner had the races of the individuals been reversed.

In my view, this case is an example of real people knowing what the real truth is, as Judge Day suggested in today's reading. Probable cause to arrest is a legal fiction and it is not what people are demanding. The wrong they have identified is that this investigation (or lack thereof) was conducted in a blatantly sub-par way. Perhaps the police were being prejudicial or racist, as many seem to think, or perhaps they were just lazy. Either way, because of this inexcusable error it may be too late to gather the kind of evidence our justice system (the lawyers) require to prove what happened beyond a reasonable doubt. People are right to be angry that the system may have missed its window to do justice and to care that a legal fiction is intervening when what is right is what matters.

-- JessicaWirth- 03 Apr 2012