What do infamous neighborhood watch coordinator George Zimmerman and former child star Amanda Bynes have in common? They both let out sighs, one of disgust and the other of relief, when lawsuits involving them were thrown out of court Monday.
Zimmerman, who shot 17-year-old Trayvon Martin dead in 2012, filed a suit against NBC that alleged the network’s “Today” show edited and ran a misleading audio recording of his call to police that was subject to investigation when he was tried for Martin’s death. According to Politico, a Florida judge threw out the suit, much to Zimmerman’s dismay.
An action that proved a loss for George Zimmerman was instead a huge win for actress-turned-drug-attict-turned-rehab-enrollee Amanda Bynes. In 2013, the “She’s the Man” actress was arrested after throwing a bong out the window of her New York City apartment and charged with possession of marijuana, among other things. The case has been thrown out now that Bynes has quietly avoided trouble for several months, reports ABC News.
This is the second bout of luck Bynes has experienced in the legal department. She also avoided charges for allegedly starting a fire in an old woman’s driveway in California last year.
So, in sum, today’s court decisions (or non-decisions) have told us: the Supreme Court supports religious freedom and thus the First Amendment; the justices are pushing back against labor unions; suing a major news outlet is probably a fruitless effort; and bong-out-the-window tosses are OK as long as you go to rehab after.
