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Whew, that was a close one! Most people with whom I was in contact leading up to the Zimmerman verdict had been somewhat bitterly hedging their prognostications of his escaping conviction on the murder charge, resignedly saying conviction for the lesser accusation of manslaughter was the most likely outcome, given what we’ve come to expect from mercurial juries in our modern times. For myself, despite being skeptical along the way and even arguing in the later phase that a hung jury was probable, I wound up firmly predicting total acquittal (as I mainly had in numerous articles on the case...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: An entirely new perspective on this whole sordid incident was provided by Rachel Jeantel last night on CNN. Everybody's been under the impression that Zimmerman was a racist, and that's why he went after Trayvon. I went to great lengths yesterday, folks, to break this down and tell you what I think this was really all about. I'm not gonna repeat that but it is at RushLimbaugh.com. Essentially, it was about economics. You've got a bunch of people in this community that are barely hanging on. They've worked very hard to get where they are and there...

The incomparable Rachel Jeantel, the person Trayvon Martin spoke to on his phone just before he was shot and killed, last night explained why George Zimmerman was wrong to feel his life was in danger and he needed to go for his gun. It was just a case of “whup-ass”, she said on television. Her interviewer, the dense-Brit CNN host Piers Morgan, failed to immediately grasp her meaning and let the moment slip by. But if by some strange twist of fate millions of Americans were watching (they were not), any of them would have immediately understood her statement. Translated...

Prosecution star witness Rachel Jeantel was interviewed by Piers Morgan last night on CNN. When asked by Piers to explain what 'creepy ass cracka' meant, she slipped up and stated that to Trayvon, it meant a security guard or policeman. So in Trayvon's mind, George Zimmerman was either a security guard or policeman. With that said, what kind of person circles back after running away and attacks a possible security guard or policeman? Go to exactly to 2:00 in the video and watch to 2:25

Radio personality Tom Joyner has offered Rachel Jeantel, the friend of Trayvon Martin who spoke to him shortly before he died, a full scholarship to any Historically Black College or University she chooses. The website Joyner founded, BlackAmericaWeb.com, confirmed the news. Jeantel spoke to Joyner on his radio show Tuesday morning. He said to her: "If you want to graduate from high school, and go to an HBCU, even if it’s not in Florida but especially Florida,like Florida Memorial, Edward Waters or FAMU, if you want to do that, I want to help you do that. I will help you...

bombshell interview with an anonymous Zimmerman trial juror tonight with an exclusive chat with the witness everyone has been waiting to hear from since the verdict came down: Trayvon Martin‘s friend Rachel Jeantel. Jeantel, who created a media firestorm with her highly-polarizing testimony towards the beginning of the trial, appeared on Piers Morgan Live alongside her attorney. She described her reaction to Zimmerman’s acquittal as “disappointed, upset and angry” and called the jury’s assessment of what happened “just B.S.” Asked about what Trayvon Martin was like as a friend, Jeantel described him as a “calm, chill, loving person” and said...

<p>After the “Knock-Knock” joke heard around the world fell flat, the defense had nowhere to go but up. But who ever expected the State of Florida to take them there?</p> <p>With a few distinctive yet destructive missteps, the State’s presentation of evidence in the trial of George Zimmerman provided a string of reasonable doubts commencing with the testimony of Rachel Jeantel, the young woman that Trayvon Martin was on the phone with before he was killed.</p>

CNN’s Piers Morgan is scheduled to interview her Monday night during his 9 p.m. ET program, according to one of his producers who made the announcement on Twitter. Brace yourselves.

On Thursday, prosecutor Bernie de la Rionda contended that the only reason to find prosecution star witness Rachel Jeantel uncredible would be racism -- her lack of sophistication and Haitian background. “I had a dream that today a witness would be judged not on the color of her personality but the content of her testimony,” de la Rionda said. Jeantel changed her testimony with regard to Trayvon Martin’s phone call with her just before his confrontation with defendant George Zimmerman, claiming that Martin said “get off!” She also lied about her non-presence at Trayvon Martin’s funeral to both police and...

As if more evidence were needed about the tragedy of black education, Rachel Jeantel, a witness for the prosecution in the George Zimmerman murder trial, put a face on it for the nation to see. Some of that evidence unfolded when Zimmerman’s defense attorney asked 19-year-old Jeantel to read a letter she allegedly had written to Trayvon Martin’s mother. She responded that she doesn’t read cursive, and that’s in addition to her poor grammar, syntax and communication skills. Jeantel is a senior at Miami Norland Senior High School. How in the world did she manage to become a 12th-grader without...

George Zimmerman's trial defense attorney Don West recently reported he received e-mails from people threatening his daughters with rape over a controversial post on Instagram. Rachel West, who was not in the family picture, was in the courtroom Monday. In a response to a July 2nd prosecution's request to investigate the social media post, West said the family photo prompted "threats of violence" that were "vicious." West also said he was distressed that in a request to investigate the post, the prosecution had made "reckless, dangerous and inaccurate allegations." Prosecutors linked the motive for the post to witness Rachel Jeantel,...

With a single phrase, Rachel Jeantel, that friend of Trayvon Martin's, may have lit a fuse in the trial of his accused killer. Asked by the defense what Martin told her on the phone that night when he first spotted George Zimmerman, she testified a "creepy-ass cracker" was following him. There is nothing illegal about that. Jeantel said she didn't even know it was a racial slur, and numerous commentators have noted that some in Florida use the term in a non-derogatory, colloquial sense. But for plenty of rural, white southerners, "cracker" is a demeaning, bigoted term, and its appearance...

Watching the testimony of Rachel "Dee Dee" Jeantel last week and the strong reaction her testimony elicited in the press and on social media provides a fertile opportunity for us to examine if we are, as Chief Justice John Roberts and the Supreme Court argued in Shelby County v. Holder, truly post racial. In 1865, the state of Mississippi sought to disqualify blacks from participating in legal proceedings as witnesses by subjecting them to "rules and tests of the common law as to competency and credibility." At a time when very few African-Americans had the benefit of an education, literacy...

Prosecution witness Rachel Jeantel during day two of her testimony in George Zimmerman’s murder trial for the 2012 shooting death of Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Fla., on June 27.Racial justice in America is disintegrating at warp speed. On matters of race, the ugly America of yesteryear — segregationist George Wallace’s America — is still with us. We must stanch its revival before it spreads and, like locusts, blankets our country with anti-black sentiments. The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder striking down what has been called “the heart” of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 made...

Tom Joyner Morning Show commentator Roland Martin talks with Rachel Jeantel’s attorney Rod Vereen about the 19-year-old’s crucial testimony in the George Zimmerman case, the misrepresentation of her character in the media and he reveals exclusive details about her friendship with Trayvon. According to Vereen, Martin was one of the good guys who did not ridicule the teenager. Vereen recounted a prior interview with Jeantel where she explained their bond, “she said he was one of the few guys that never made fun of me, about the way I dressed, about the way I talked, about my hair, about my...

Witness Rachel Jeantel watches defense attorney Don West while on the stand during George Zimmerman’s second-degree murder trial for the 2012 shooting death of Trayvon Martin in Seminole circuit court in Sanford, Florida, June 26, 2013.The media berated Rachel Jeantel last week throughout her testimony during George Zimmerman’s trial for the murder of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. So much so that other media took to defending Jeantel—who spent much of her day on the phone with Martin, whom she had first met in second grade, the day he was killed. That kind vitriol and subsequent support were absent, however, during yesterday’s...

The murder case against George Zimmerman is rapidly unraveling, due in large part to the compelling testimony of key witnesses. Ordinarily, there is nothing unusual about compelling testimony changing the course of a trial, but in this case it is witnesses presented by the prosecution that are bolstering the case for the defendant. Thus, with each passing day it is becoming more apparent that the real reason for bringing this case to trial was to assuage the media-driven concerns of the racial grievance industry, led by chief arsonists Al Sharpton and Jessie Jackson. Shamefully aiding and abetting them is the...

Yesterday, the jury in the George Zimmerman murder trial heard, at length, Zimmerman describe in his own words what happened the night he shot and killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. He didn’t take the stand, but the prosecution played for the court three separate audio and video recordings of Zimmerman’s interviews with the police and read aloud his written statement from the night of February 26, 2012. His description of the events were generally consistent with the story he has repeatedly told. But to my mind, the case really comes down to what the jury will believe happened in one specific...

I hope President Barack Obama is tuning in to the George Zimmerman murder trial. It is showing off his greatest failure. Last week, media pundits, trial commentators, and internet racists ridiculed Rachel Jeantel, the 19-year-old star witness who was on the phone with Trayvon Martin right before Zimmerman shot the boy. This cruel crew made fun of her manner of speech and her embarrassing admission that she cannot read or write in cursive. Her shortcomings personify the first African-American commander-in-chief's refusal to help this nation's blacks obtain the same opportunities he and his wife had. First-class education helped the first...

On Monday, Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto expanded on themes he recently wrote about relating to Florida’s thin case against George Zimmerman, the man accused of murdering Trayvon Martin in 2012. Taranto told WSJ’s Mary Kessel that the prosecution of Zimmerman, in the words of one Slate columnist, was supposed to serve as a “referendum” on racial privilege in America. “There’s a word for a trial that is held as a referendum – it’s a show trial,” Taranto said. “We don’t do show trials in this country.” “Why has the press been so convinced from the very beginning that...