The lead story in today’s New York Times, “Prosecutor Files Charge of 2nd Degree Murder in Shooting of Martin,” at long last starts to bring some modicum of justice to a race-tinged situation.

The crime took place in February, and George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch person who committed the killing, has been free since then. There were suspicions of him becoming a flight risk, but he is now in custody.

The killing sparked protest marches across the country, and Ms. Angela Corey, a state attorney, was appointed as the special prosecutor in the case. Her decision to avoid a grand jury was widely seen as a courageous one, taking responsibility for the situation rather than trying to put guilt on a grand jury.

All the victim’s family wanted was a fair trial, and that’s what they’ll get. On the face of matters, it seems like Mr. Zimmerman is guilty, but Florida’s Stand Your Ground legislation could be a wildcard in the situation.

This law gives the benefit of a doubt to the person using deadly force, and it is now being widely reviewed in other states across the country where it has been enacted.

There are still possibilities of an acquittal and the racial tension that will cause. But one strong likelihood is a settlement of the case without a trial.

The lead article in today’s New York Times, “Supreme Court Tightens Rules in Class Actions,” describes a broadly based decision impacting the rights of women and other disadvantaged to groups to file and win cases based on discrimination. In an action brought to benefit 1.5 million women, they ruled that there was no commonality of purpose against them and thus disallowed the lawsuit from its inception.

The Justices split along 5-4 margins for many aspects of the ruling, thus showing the impact of the 5-4 ideological split in the Court. But all court watchers agreed upon the impact of the decision on a wide variety of class action suits because it seemingly overturns “40 years of precedents” of class action law.

Businesses, of course, hailed the ruling, but one wonders whether certain basic structures in our society meant to protect the disadvantaged have now been dismantled. It does certainly provide one additional reason to elect a Democratic President in 2012 because of the transformational aspect that the next Justice will have on the court. Right now, Justice Kennedy acts as the pivotal decision-maker on my Court rulings (though not on this one). If the next Justice is a conservative, even that breaking capability may be gone.