An article in the Miami Herald suggests that George Zimmerman’s attorney will try to use Trayvon Martin’s twitter and Facebook posts to defend Zimmerman.
There is, of course, outrage at an attempt to blame the victim, but there is another reason why this is a bad idea: Trayvon is not here to defend himself and the posts might be used to improperly impugn his character.
The biggest problem with such posts is that we cannot reliably intuit the intent behind them. Social media posts are often short, spontaneous, and may be anywhere from revealing the inner soul of the poster to play acting at a role that is distinct from the person’s character.
We should not be surprised at a teenager saying things that are outrageous, and we should not assume they reflect who Trayvon really was.
If Trayvon were still alive, he would able to defend himself and explain his posts. He would have a chance to say what he really felt — although we would still trip over the blame-the-victim problem.
But since he is not, his postings will be, at the very best, completely uninformative. At worst, and more likely, they will be terribly misleading. It would be a scandal if a naive jury took that as the basis of reasonable doubt.
Let’s hope the judge doesn’t allow this.
