The more education people have, the better they are able to stand up to authority

Five white women, including the wives of a lawyer and an engineer, convinced juror "Maddy" that she had to find Zimmerman innocent even though "Maddy" believed he was guilty of murder.

Why was Maddy unable to stand up to these women? Education is a likely reason. It has been proven that higher education enables people to stand up to those who misuse the authority that they are perceived to have.

See Milgram’s Experiment on Obedience to Authority

Stanley Milgram's famous "obedience" experiment showed that most people will set aside their moral inhibitions if someone wearing a white laboratory coat tells them to inflict horrible pain on a stranger.

Milgram found that education levels had a big impact on behavior.

Milgram found that people who have confidence in their own thinking ability are less likely to obey someone just because he is in a position of authority.

Juror B29, ‘Maddy,’ says ‘Zimmerman got away with murder’
Video: A member of the jury that acquitted George Zimmerman in the killing of Trayvon Martin told ABC News that Zimmerman got away with murder.
By Ruth Tam
Washington Post
July 25, 2013

Two weeks after George Zimmerman was acquitted in the death of Florida teen Trayvon Martin, the only person on the jury who is a member of an ethnic minority said in an ABC News interview that Zimmerman “got away with murder.’

Juror B29, identified only by her first name Maddy, sat down with ABC’s Robin Roberts, to discuss the trial for “Good Morning America.” As the first juror to show her face on camera, Maddy expressed both conviction and regret.

‘Justice for Trayvon’ rallies across the U.S.: Protesters chant and march, calling for a federal investigation and changes to “stand your ground” statutes after the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the 2012 shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Florida.

“You can’t put the man in jail even though in our hearts we felt he was guilty,” Maddy said of Zimmerman.

[Maura Larkins: Actually, yes you can. It's called manslaughter. He followed Trayvon, sneaking up on him with a hidden gun, and ended up shooting Trayvon dead. Zimmerman was intentionally aggressive toward Trayvon, precipitating a shooting. Zimmerman had no right to be stalking Trayvon. He disobeyed police and caused a death.]

A nursing assistant and mother of eight children, Maddy, 36, who is Puerto Rican, said she believed she owed Trayvon Martin’s parents an apology because she felt “like I let them down.”

She also said that the case shouldn’t have gone to trial and that it was “a publicity stunt.” Despite this, she said the decision weighed heavily on her.

“It’s hard for me to sleep; it’s hard for me to eat because I feel I was forcefully included in Trayvon Martin’s death. And as I carry him on my back, I’m hurting as much [as] Trayvon’s Martin’s mother because there’s no way that any mother should feel that pain,” she said.

In the interview with Roberts, Maddy also discussed the different options the jury was presented and how she “fought to the end.”

“I was the juror that was going to give them the hung jury,” she said.

In response to Maddy’s interview, Trayvon Martin’s mother, Sybrina Fulton, released a statement Thursday night.

“It is devastating for my family to hear the comments from juror B29, comments which we already knew in our hearts to be true. That George Zimmerman literally got away with murder.”

Excerpts of the interview aired on ABC’s “World News with Diane Sawyer” and on “Nightline” Thursday night. The full interview aired Friday morning on “Good Morning America.”


The 6 Decisions That Could Have Saved Trayvon Martin's Life
By Ryan Grim
Huff Post
07/15/2013

It's impossible to know whether it was Trayvon Martin or George Zimmerman who threw the first punch in the confrontation that ended Martin’s life. The jury apparently relied on that ambiguity to acquit Zimmerman of murdering Martin, because he said he killed the 17-year-old in self defense. But despite the confusion, there are plenty of facts that both sides can agree on. While Zimmerman may have been found not guilty, that doesn't mean he wasn't responsible. Trayvon Martin would be alive today, but for at least six decisions made or not made by Zimmerman and the state of Florida.

1. Zimmerman could have decided not to follow Martin.

For starters, George Zimmerman is not a law enforcement official trained in spotting suspicious or criminal behavior. Zimmerman told a 911 operator that Martin seemed suspicious and appeared to be "on drugs or something. It's raining and he’s just walking around, looking about." It was not 3 a.m. when Zimmerman spotted Martin. Rather, it was early evening, a time when people typically "walk around, looking about." Had Zimmerman simply gone about his business, we never would have heard about either of them.

2. Zimmerman could have listened to the 911 operator and not followed Martin. Talking to an operator, Zimmerman complained, "These assholes, they always get away." He later narrated, "Shit, he's running.”

"Are you following him?" the operator asked.

Zimmerman confirmed he was. "Ok, we don't need you to do that," the operator told him. If Zimmerman had simply let Martin run away, he'd be alive today. Martin, it later emerged, found Zimmerman as deeply suspicious as Zimmerman found him. Only one of those judgments turned out to be correct.

3. If Zimmerman had not been secretly armed, he probably wouldn't have followed Martin. Zimmerman knew that he had an advantage in any possible confrontation with a neighbor: He was concealing a weapon. If a fight started, and Zimmerman began losing, he could pull out the gun and shoot his opponent. The state of Florida allows Zimmerman to patrol his neighborhood armed, which emboldened him.

4. If Zimmerman's weapon had not been hidden, Martin probably would have dealt with him differently. When a man follows another, tensions rise. One way or another, those tensions led to a physical confrontation. But if Florida law barred concealed carry, Martin would have been able to see that Zimmerman was armed. Zimmerman defenders suspect Martin threw the first punch. But even if that's true, would he have done so if he knew Zimmerman was carrying a loaded weapon?

5. Zimmerman could have been barred from carrying a weapon.

Zimmerman had a long history of violence, including a restraining order for domestic violence, felony charges of resisting arrest, and assaulting an officer (the charge was pled down to a misdemeanor and then closed; Zimmerman's dad was a magistrate at the time). He was bounced from a job as a bouncer for being too aggressive with patrons, the New York Daily News reported. And a family member accused him of a pattern of sexual molestation. He wasn't convicted of any felony charges, which could have barred him from a gun license, but in some societies, people would determine that such a history makes someone less than an ideal candidate for the right to carry around a hidden loaded weapon.

6. Zimmerman could have not shot and killed Martin.

Regardless of who threw the first punch, a series of aggressive decisions by Zimmerman led toward the fight that broke out. Zimmerman therefore bears some responsibility for the altercation. If one starts a fight and loses, the result is generally a bloody nose, a fat lip, a black eye, a concussion or even a broken bone. That's the price one pays for getting into a fight, and it tends to be a deterrent to starting a fight. Zimmerman could have chosen to take his lumps and rethink the decisions he had made that landed him where he was. Instead, he pulled out his gun, squeezed the trigger and killed Trayvon Martin.

Of course, there's a seventh decision that could have been made that night -- Trayvon Martin could have chosen to not defend himself.

It's important to note that the jury's verdict sends a message to anyone confronted or pursued by another man: If you engage the confrontation, even an act of self defense could be used as justification to shoot and kill you. What led up to the confrontation in the Martin-Zimmerman case was ruled irrelevant; only Zimmerman's state of mind at the time he shot him was to be taken into account by the jury. That doesn't leave someone being followed through their neighborhood many options other than fighting back.

The Holocaust couldn't happen here...or could it? 70% of ordinary citizens willing to administer 150 volts if told to do so

How many Americans are capable of critical thinking at a critical time? About 30 per cent, according to a new study. Do schools and parents put too much emphasis on automatic obedience to authority figures?







Shocking revelation: Santa Clara University professor mirrors famous torture study
By Lisa M. Krieger
Bay Area News Group
12/20/2008

Replicating one of the most controversial behavioral experiments in history, a Santa Clara University psychologist has found that people will follow orders from an authority figure to administer what they believe are painful electric shocks.

More than two-thirds of volunteers in the research study had to be stopped from administering 150 volt shocks of electricity, despite hearing a person's cries of pain, professor Jerry M. Burger concluded in a study published in the January issue of the journal American Psychologist...

The study, using paid volunteers from the South Bay, is similar to the famous 1974 "obedience study'' by the late Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram. In the wake of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann's trial, Milgram was troubled by the willingness of people to obey authorities — even if it conflicted with their own conscience.

...The haunting images of average people administering shocks have kept memories of Milgram's research alive for decades, even as recently as the Abu Ghraib scandal.

The subjects — recruited in ads in the Mercury News, Craigslist and fliers distributed in libraries and communities centers in Santa Clara, Cupertino and Sunnyvale — thought they were testing the effect of punishment on learning.

"They were average citizens, a typical cross-section of people that you'd see around every day,'' said Burger.

In the study, conducted two years ago, volunteers administered what they believed were increasingly powerful electric shocks to another person in a separate room. An "authority figure'' prodded the volunteer to shock another person, who was playing the role of "learner." Each time the learner gave an incorrect answer, the volunteer was urged to press a switch, seemingly increasing the electricity over time. They were told that the shocks were painful but not dangerous.

...participants were told at least three times that they could withdraw from the study at any time and still receive the $50 payment...

Like Milgram's study, Burger's shock generator machine was a fake. The cries of pain weren't real, either. Both the authority figure and the learner were actors...

Burger found that 70 percent of the participants had to be stopped from escalating shocks over 150 volts, despite hearing cries of protest and pain. Decades earlier, Milgram found that 82.5 percent of participants continued administering shocks. Of those, 79 percent continued to the shock generator's end, at 450 volts...

The experiment shows that people are more likely to comply with instructions if the task starts small, then escalates, according to Burger.

...Finally, they had been told that they should not feel responsible for inflicting pain; rather, the "instructor" was accountable. "Lack of feeling responsible can lead people to act in ways that they might otherwise not,'' said Burger...