Will Zimmerman Have Special Hearing For Self-Defense Claim? SYG Hearing Held Before Trial

SANFORD, Fla. -- The lawyer for the man accused of killing Trayvon Martin said it's too soon to know it they'll claim self-defense under the Stand Your Ground law.

In Florida, if a person is charged with murder and is able to prove Stand Your Ground, then the case will never see trial, and experts said that is what they feel Zimmerman and his team will try and to prove.

Zimmerman will have a special immunity hearing before the case ever goes to trial.

At Zimmerman's bond hearing on Friday, one of the lead investigators said they did not know who started the fight between Zimmerman and Martin and that he did not have any evidence to contradict Zimmerman's story that Martin attacked him.

Veteran defense attorney and prosecutor Jeff Deen said Zimmerman's attorney, Mark O'Mara, moved closer to proving self-defense under Stand Your Ground in the hearing.

"The state is at a terrible disadvantage. They never had the evidence, apparently, and they don't have any now. To have charged second-degree murder is very problematic at this point," said Deen.

"All of the experts, they haven't seen any evidence," said Martin family attorney Natalie Jackson. "So I would take what they say with a grain of salt."

From 2001 to 2004, Florida Department Law Enforcement statistics show the average number of justifiable homicides per year was around 12. After Stand Your Ground was passed and implemented, that average jumped to 40 or more annually in 2007 to 2010.

O'Mara said he feels Zimmerman's murder charge will be wiped away if Stand Your Ground applies.

"It's much too early. I'm not even certain [the] Stand Your Ground statue applies yet. It seems like it will have some application, but it's too premature," said O'Mara.

You turned out to be correct, as usual. I watched most of the hearing. The judge wanted more facts before he ruled, and didn’t seem upset at all. He is one professional, cook cucumber. He wasn’t even sure if he has the power to rule on the money. I guess it would depend on who has control of it. It’s possible Zimmerman didn’t even know how much was there last week at the bond hearing. But it sure gave ammunition to the Trayvon supporters.

Now that O’Mara has control of the money, I wonder how Zimmerman is going to eat and have a place to stay. The money has to come from somewhere.

Did you see that they may even disclose the donor list? Since I’m on it, it does concern me.

-- Now that O'Mara has control of the money, I wonder how Zimmerman is going to eat and have a place to stay. The money has to come from somewhere. --

I'm sure O'Mara will provide an allowance of sorts, pay the bills for Zimmerman. The money is there, and O'Mara disclosed to the court that Zimmerman had been using it for living expenses. I'm sure the court has no problem with that sort of usage, whatsoever.

-- Did you see that they may even disclose the donor list? --

Yes, but I'm not sure how transparent that is. I have a paypal account, and it uses my PayPal handle. I do have a confirmed name and address, but I don't believe that information appears in a PayPal statement. When I've had receipts into my PayPal account, they are id'd by PayPal handle.

That said, O'Mara will figure out a way to get the accounting to the state, without disclosing donor information. Donor ID is irrelevant to the state's concern, which is cash resources available to Zimmerman. The source of the money is irrelevant. The fact that the money is there is the only relevant consideration. The Court wants to know the timing of cash flow, to investigate whether or not Zimmerman's family knew or should have known of the resource, and whether O'Mara knew or should have known (all that being before the bond hearing).

“when challenging candidates for the jury, the questions of media exposure to the presidents speech and the follow up propaganda could most certainly be asked”

It was a few comments after being directly asked about it, not a speech; unless you’re talking about some speech with which I’m unfamiliar. That being said, well, yeah, Obama could taint potential jury members, but that’s a very weak and indirect way for Obama to violate due process. It would be based less on his authority as a government figure than his being a celebrity. Though, of course, he is a celebrity because he’s a government figure.

But I really do think his violating due process would have to come from him intefering in an official capacity, not from casual comments at a press conference. Which comments, by the way, fell far short of “String Zimmerman up!” You might as well charge Spike Lee, or the entire MSM for that matter, with violation of due process according to that logic.

“the presidents propaganda initiative on the case”

I disagree with this characterization. Look, the president is a lot of things, politically almost all of them bad. But he did not carry out a propaganda initiative against Zimmerman. Perhaps Democrat operatives did, less likely administration officials in official capacity did. If they did so, I’m not aware of it. If it happened, it probably would have been part of drumming up a federal case of some sort against him, rather than an attempt to influence state criminal procedings.

If they did influence state procedures, it was behind the scenes and therefore not propaganda.

“This also violates the whole issue of the presumption of innocence. It is the greatest weakness created by HOW fascism works.”

It would be the most subtle form of fascism I’ve ever seen. What I think’s going on here is that you’re mistaking the whole big propaganda job by the MSM against Zimmerman with the eensy weensy little sliver of participation in it by Obama. He evinced pro-Martin/anti-Zimmerman sympathy, but it hardly consisted of an insurmountable prejudicing of the potential jury pool.

I happen to believe presidents shouldn’t comment on ongoing cases, even casually. But them doing so does not erase the possibility of avoiding a show trial. Arguing otherwise is frankly in the realm of wild conspiracy theorizing.

“which can indeed lead any reasonable person to conclude that this is a political show trial”

If it’s a show trial, it is at the state level. As for Obama’s connection, every potential jury member interviewed, when asked if they’ve seen any news coverage of the case, may respond, “Yes, the president says he’s guilty, and therefore I say bring on the chair!” In that case, yes, it would be Obama’s show trial. But that won’t happen. At most, the president’s comments will be one of many, many news pieces influencing them.

“This case reminds me of the Dreyfus case”

I can see similarities, especially in the drastic overcharge. I’d be less likely to say it was an out and out set-up had Zimmerman been charged with manslaughter. It’s certainly set the ideologues against eachother. But, again, it is not a federal case, and therefore less resembles Dreyfus. At most it’s Florida’s Dreyfus.

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