Throughout the history of the criminal justice system, the defenses of people who have allegedly committed crimes have included many traditional arguments as well as extremely creative attempts to defend then. In two recent cases, defense attorneys used an updated version of a traditional self-defense argument, and another case involved a previously unheard-of defense that was given in order to justify the actions of the defendant. This paper will discuss the George Zimmerman trial in Florida, and the Ethan Couch trial in Texas, exploring the types of defenses that were used, the evidence included to support the defense, and the outcomes of the trials.
In the Zimmerman trial, the defendant was accused of shooting an unarmed black teenager, Trayvon Martin, after a struggle between the two men that resulted in Zimmerman firing his gun and killing Martin. Zimmerman was ultimately charged with second-degree murder, and his lawyers contended that he was acting in self-defense; Zimmerman claimed that he shot Martin only after the teenager had knocked him to the ground, punched him, straddled him, and slammed his head into the concrete (Alvarez, 2013.) Because Florida has a “Stand Your Ground” law in which people have the right to use deadly force if they believe that their lives are in danger, it was believed that Mr. Zimmerman had a great deal of power on his side. In addition, his case was assisted in part because the police investigation was clumsy and the prosecution made a variety of mistakes, according to trial watchers and legal experts (Alvarez, 2013.)
Evidence that was used to support the self-defense claim included photographs of Zimmerman’s injuries such as a bloody nose, and cuts and lumps on the back of his head. In addition, they had several witnesses who testified that he appeared bruised and his nose was swollen after the incident occurred. Although the prosecution maintained that Zimmerman was motivated by racial hatred and profiling of Martin, they actually presented little evidence to support the claim that he had been filled with hatred or had evil intentions when he shot Martin. Character witnesses were also called to support Mr. Zimmerman, claiming that he was a mild-mannered man who had never showed any signs of racial animus. The defense claimed that Mr. Zimmerman’s actions were warranted because he was genuinely in fear for his life; that Mr. Martin’s physical strength and behavior constituted possession of “a weapon” that he used to batter Zimmerman. It is believed that the self-defense strategy caused the police to initially decide not to arrest Mr. Zimmerman, and it also potentially affected the way that police interviewed witnesses and examined the crime scene.
The outcome of the trial was an acquittal of Mr. Zimmerman; he was found not guilty of second-degree murder. There was a great deal of outrage about the case, because there was a strong feeling that there was racial bigotry involved in both his attack on Martin and in the jury’s decision to acquit. Nevertheless, Zimmerman was able to avoid a potential life in prison sentence.
The Texas case of Ethan Couch, a teenager who had driven drunk and caused a crash that killed four people and injured two, was ultimately viewed by many as him getting away with murder. His case became prominent because it was argued in his defense that he suffered from “affluenza”, i.e., that he shouldn’t be held as responsible as he might because his parents were so affluent and permissive in their style of child rearing that he never learned socially appropriate consequences for his behavior (Rosenberg, 2013.) The defense team argued that Couch should have a lenient sentence because, they argued, his family’s affluence included giving him whatever he wanted, so that he was never held responsible for his misbehaviors.
The main support for Couch‘s defense came from a psychologist, who testified that the teenager was unable to connect his unacceptable behavior, i.e. drinking, with the terrible consequences that resulted from his actions. The psychologist presented the theory that Couch never learned to be accountable for his actions, and so he did not deserve to be punished harshly because his upbringing had produced the behavior that ultimately led to four deaths. This justification clearly had an impact on the sentencing procedure, in which the judge opted not to give the defendant the 20 years of jail time asked for by the prosecution, but instead gave him a sentence of no jail time at all. Instead, she sentenced him to 10 years probation and a mandated stay in a long-term treatment facility that cost $450,000 a year and would be paid for by his wealthy parents; this facility was considered extremely lenient, offering equine therapy as well as menus that featured organic food (Rosenberg, 2013.)
This outcome produced a tremendous amount of outrage by the public, who contrasted the sentence with long and harsh sentences that have been meted out to many other defendants who have killed people while driving drunk. In addition, it was also felt that Couch had an added advantage of parents who could afford to hire a brilliant creative defense team that came up with the defense of “affluenza”. In some ways, like the Zimmerman case, race and social class were deciding factors in the public’s perception of the way these cases ultimately were decided. In the Zimmerman case, the self-defense argument was seen by many as ludicrous since the teenager had no gun and Zimmerman was armed. In the Couch situation, the fact that the teenager was brought up by upper class parents appear to be instrumental in his ability to avoid the harsh sentence that was requested by the prosecutors.
