Amen.

Now hopefully, the truth about what happened will come out and, if appropriate, result in a conviction.

It'll be interesting to see how much evidence the state has that we haven't seen. I certainly haven't seen enough to convince me the state can overcome its burden, but I'm assuming they've played their hand in the media. We'll see I guess.

I doubt she would have charged murder rather than manslaughter unless she had something else up her sleeve.

The truth. Not the media's truth.

That much is obvious.

Some people don't see it that way. Lots of people spouting off my FB status feed, might as well be saying to hang the guy. I'm interested to see how this plays out and what evidence there is that the public doesn't know about.

This is now going beyond the court of public opinion.

The criminal justice and legal realms are not confined to what the media and people on FB are saying.

We all know that a good percentage of the population (outside of GC) either does not know this or does not care. What is obvious to some will need to be made very plain to them.

Did I read correctly that there will be no jury? I saw it when browsing Yahoo! News so I apologize for not being able to give a source.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/...220301336.html

No, the special prosecutor says there will be no GRAND jury. That means they will not be seeking an indictment through the normal route. To our GC lawyers, I wasn't aware you could skip the grand jury. How is this possible?

Not a lawyer, so I'll defer to more knowledgeable opinions, but one of the articles linked (or maybe it was one I read on the case) mentioned that in Florida the prosecutor is not required to call a grand jury unless the charge is 1st degree murder.

ETA: I just looked back a page, and I think SWTXBelle mentioned this from an article she linked.

If I remember right, Feds always have to have a Grand Jury because of the Fifth Amendment, but every state can have their own situations regarding Grand Juries due to their own rules of criminal procedure.

That's how I read it; Zimmerman is charged with 2nd degree murder so there isn't a Grand Jury requirement.

As an aside, Pam Bondi the Florida Attorney General, definitely doesn't look like she will be 47 this year. She's a fair complected Florida native, how has she managed to avoid sun damage? She's a University of Florida Delta Delta Delta alumna, so perhaps she regularly swims with initiation dolphins and the water has magical preservation and healing powers?
http://myfloridalegal.com/

ETA: Zimmerman's new attorney is Mark M. O'Mara, who has been a "legal analyst" for a local television channel, and he's a member of S.A.E. (I'm assuming from University of Central Florida). http://www.markomaralaw.com/Attorney...M-O-mara.shtml It looks like it is him and one associate who was admitted to the bar in 2011. Zimmerman's previous attorneys were also kind of interesting. Hal Uhrig used to be a cop and is part of a practice with five attorneys, whereas Craig Sonner looks to be in solo practice and has Esq. after his name on his webpage (lulz to Bill S. Preston). This has the potential to get farcical, real quick.

In his mugshot, I have to admit it doesn't look like his nose was broken, but then again I'm not an expert.

I still do not think this was a racial incident. My neighborhood is a no outlet, newer construction subdivision with pretty expensive homes. It's small enough to know which kids live where. One night around 1:30am in the morning I saw 5 teens walking down my street with black hoods up. I didn't recognize any of them so I knew they were up to something, especially when one saw me looking out my window and they all stopped. They were all white. I didn't give a shit WHAT color they were, I called the cops and while I was on the phone with them, I heard some kind of gun- paintball or BB (they shot at a house 2 houses down). They didn't arrest them so I don't know what they were doing. Point of the story, if you're walking through a neighborhood you shouldn't be in (like a gated one), with a hood up at night, you ARE going to look suspicious. Zimmerman disobeying orders to stop following and then fatally shooting the kid is what he needs to be convicted of, not a racially motivated crime.

I know I'll get flamed for this but oh well. There are real hate crimes going on out there that Americans should focus on. His parents and the media are what deemed this a hate crime. It was just some guy playing cop and thinking he was a hero.

So, basically, wearing a hoodie makes everyone look suspect?

No one should ever get shot because 'they fit the description'. When it becomes ok to shoot people on sight for them being in the wrong place and not looking like the status quo for that area, then it just proves that we are moving backwards not forwards.

Also, , his father (with whom he was staying with) also lived in that gated community so he had EVERY RIGHT to be there.

You say there are real hate crimes out there? Gunning someone down in cold blood for no other reason than they look suspicious IMO is a hateful action but I am not the court. If Zimmerman wanted to play hero, all he simply had to do was stay inside and let the cops do their job and we really wouldn't have to have this convo right now.

So true. Not to mention, this wasnt in the middle of the night. I've been reading all of these posts with PM Mama admonishing people to wait for the facts, but this post sure got me. How does she know it wasn't racially motivated any more than others think it was? Wait for the facts to come in. Thankfully he has been arrested and the system will now be allowed to play out.

That's not what she said. I tend to agree with her though, a group of teenagers at 1:30 a.m., with or without hoodies in a place they don't belong is pretty darn suspect. Having been a teenager once and been out at 1:30 a.m. a number of times, it's a damn miracle I don't have a rather lengthy juvenile record.

To be clear, are you suggesting that she was claiming it was okay to shoot those 5 hoodied teenagers in her post? I sure didn't see that.

So did Zimmerman. The 'right to be there' aspect is pretty irrelevant on these facts. It's whether Zimmerman has a valid claim of self defense.

Not all the facts match up with your narrative. Of course it's not okay to gun someone down for looking suspicious. I don't think any of the facts of this case suggest it's quite that simple.

I think the point is that Martin was not "walking around in a place he didn't need to be in" -- he was visiting someone who lived there.