Withholding Judgment in the Trayvon Martin Case

One of the things that I have learned in my 12 years as a criminal defense attorney is that the media invariably gets it wrong.  If I had a nickel for every time the media coverage of one of my cases was misleading or flat out wrong ... okay, I'd probably only have about $3, but that's still a lot of nickels.  That's why I get frustrated at posts like this one and this one that start talking about "the facts" of any particular criminal case.

Media coverage without question impacts the ability of jurors to deliberate in a fair and impartial manner.  When the media saturates the air and the interwebs with "facts" about a case like this one, it damages the criminal justice system in subtle, yet unmistakable ways.  Often times the public becomes enraged by a not guilty verdict when the news coverage presents the case as open and shut.  The Casey Anthony case is an excellent example, as is the initial case against the officers in the Rodney King beating. 

This type of backlash against legitimate verdicts - arrived at by jurors who listen to the entire case and hear only admissible evidence - leads to a perception that the criminal justice system is broken.  That, in turn, leads to citizens either attempting to avoid jury service or (even worse) actively trying to become jurors so that they can single-handedly "fix" the system.

As difficult as it is - especially in these high-profile cases - the correct approach is to: (1) acknowledge that Trayvon's death is a tragedy; (2) wait and let the criminal justice system do its job.