[quote=Halo]
Is it not important to be aware of the decisions being made by the judiciary system? If we, as a society, pay no attention to these things, then the potential for injustice and abuse of power increases exponentially. Taking a slightly charged example, look at the Trayvon Martin case - the courts decided in a manner people found unquestionably unjust. If everyone took your point of view, nothing would have been said, and the blatant racism that exists in court would never have been questioned and brought back into the spotlight as an issue.Now, I'm not trying to spark a Trayvom Martin case debate. I'm just using it as an example. In essence, the courts cannot simply be left to do as they wish without the knowledge or mediation of wider society, meaning it's important to pay attention to and discuss controversial court cases.
[/quote]

Perfect example to talk about what I mean. Before the trial (before the [b]**arrest**[/b] for god's sake) we had 24/7 coverage in the media proclaiming Zimmerman's guilt. There was never any chance of a fair trial, because the sharks in the media were in full-frenzy, making bookoo dollars off the corruption of every conceivable pool of jurors. To demonstrate just how complete their deception -- have you heard of 'Stand Your Ground?' Of course you have, probably a lot -- it was [i]never once[/i] invoked, at any point of the legal proceedings. 

I could go on a whole tangent about the trial, because I've actually spent a substantial amount of time reading the depositions, court documents, applicable laws and legal precedents. The short version is, the outcome was decided legally when the prosecutor filed for murder 2 -- but it was decided by MSNBC, CNN, CBS and company on day one of their coverage, by the NRA and the NAACP about an hour later, and the rest of the general public just moments after that. That frenzy is basically the entire reason race relations [url=http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/files/2013/07/29.jpg]took a gargantuan nose-dive[/url]. It's literally, demonstrably, all the media's fault. Fuck them.

....anyway, let's pretend for a minute that none of that happened, and the Martin case was a legitimately botched trial. It's hard to argue that the news could *ever* cover a case more extensively than they covered this. What did all that mobbish outrage accomplish? Did popular oversight impact that poor decision in a meaningful way? Did our collective outcry make them throw out the jury's decision and hang the killer? I'd argue that the Martin case aptly demonstrates just how pointless it is to involve the general public in any legal proceeding, other than the appropriate jury requirement. We say 'innocent until proven guilty,' and 'habeus corpus,' and 'confrontational clause,' and if we mean [b]any[/b] of it, we really need to put a stop to this bullshit.