Trayvon Martin Case Analysis

On the night of February 26, 2012, in Sanford, Florida, United States, George Zimmerman fatally shot Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old African American high school student. On April 11, 2012, George Zimmerman was charged with second-degree murder in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin. It was until Florida State Attorney Angela Corey announced the charges against Zimmerman that he decided to turn himself in to law enforcement. On July 13, 2013, the six-person jury rendered a not guilty verdict on all counts. 17 year old Trayvon Martin was a victim of an obvious hate crime that was caused by many prejudiced views towards the black community. George Zimmerman was not an African American male, therefore he was less likely to go to jail. Situations such as this one often remained unresolved due to the laws in the U.S. and how they affect African American males. Historical trends in justice administration have shown that the criminal justice system is not broken, it was designed that way. The criminal justice system was created in a way that will disadvantage, subdue, and control certain minority
They were deemed inferior to Whites and forced into slave labor in order to support the southern economy. Attempts to escape or revolt prompted Whites to pass "slave codes" which embraced criminal law and regulated almost every aspect of slave life. The unequal distribution of criminal penalties perpetuated the ideology of White supremacy and Black inferiority. These ideas of White superiority created many laws that protected and benefited White people during this era. "Black Codes", penalized African Americans for offenses such as vagrancy and prevented them from testifying against White Americans, serving on juries, and voting. These disparate laws were then enforced by criminal justice practitioners such as the police. Violators were often tried in court by all-White juries, found guilty, and then