Professor Montre D. Carodine and Defense Attorney Mark O’Mara recently discussed race and what role it played in the George Zimmerman trial at a program sponsored by the Duquesne University School of Law.
Zimmerman fatally shot Trayvon Martin in 2012, and his acquittal of second-degree murder and manslaughter sparked a national conversation on racial profiling and civil rights.
Carodine opened the discussion by sharing her own reaction to the verdict with O’Mara. Shortly after the verdict, she watched Bishop T.D. Jakes devote time usually reserved for his sermon to discuss the case with churchgoers.
“He said that many people had texted him or phoned him from across the world expressing a sense of devastation, a feeling that I felt as well. Are you surprised by the type of reaction that level of reaction to the case?”
O’Mara said: “I was very surprised that the African-American community reacted as emotionally as they did to it. I think I mentioned this to you earlier. I actually spent time, like just me, trying to make sense of that, trying to figure out how I misjudged so much, so badly what had happened because still in my mind it happened the way it should have.”
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Images from Pittsburgh Black Media Federation and Duquesne University School of Law
