JAMES TARANTO: In Praise of Juror B29: She did the right thing despite her prejudices.

B29 turns out to be the very model of civic virtue. She didn’t play God by mistaking her prejudice for omniscience. Instead she put it aside, examined the facts, applied the law, and concluded that the prosecution had failed to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. She was therefore obliged to find him not guilty, notwithstanding her personal feeling that he was not innocent.

Whether or not it was good form to speak publicly after the trial–and let us note that B29 was not the first Zimmerman juror to do so–she performed the juror’s role flawlessly.

And Lisa Bloom’s suggestion that B29 should have taken the opportunity “to stand her ground in the jury room”–ha ha, “stand her ground,” get it?–is irresponsible and despicable. Bloom is calling for jury nullification of fundamental constitutional rights: the presumption of innocence and the requirement that prosecutors prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

To be fair to Lisa, she went to Yale Law and thus may have only a hazy idea of how those things work. I don’t know what Kevin Drum’s excuse is for his legal error described in the item below . . .