Posted on 06/04/2012 2:40:56 PM PDT by SoFloFreeper
Zimmerman's defense team will file a motion today for a second bond hearing. While Mr. Zimmerman acknowledges that he allowed his financial situation to be misstated in court, the defense will emphasize that in all other regards, Mr. Zimmerman has been forthright and cooperative. He gave several voluntary statements to the police, re-enacted the events for them, gave voice exemplars for comparison and stayed in ongoing contact with the Department of Law Enforcement during his initial stage of being in hiding. He has twice surrendered himself to law enforcement when asked to do so, and this should demonstrate that Mr. Zimmerman is not a flight risk. He has also complied with all conditions of his release, including curfew, keeping in touch with his supervising officers, and maintaining his GPS monitoring, without violation.
The audio recordings of Mr. Zimmerman's phone conversations while in jail make it clear that Mr. Zimmerman knew a significant sum had been raised by his original fundraising website. We feel the failure to disclose these funds was caused by fear, mistrust, and confusion. The gravity of this mistake has been distinctly illustrated, and Mr. Zimmerman understands that this mistake has undermined his credibility, which he will have to work to repair.
At the point of the bond hearing, Mr. Zimmerman had been driven from his home and neighborhood, could not go to work, his wife could not go back to a finish her nursing degree, his mother and father had been driven from their home, and he had been thrust into the national spotlight as a racist murderer by factions acting with their own agendas. None of those allegations have been supported by the discovery released to date, yet the hatred continues.
It must be noted that, when attempting to interpret George's actions regarding the funds, that he did disclose the existence of the funds five days after the bond hearing, during his first conversation with the defense about the fund. When the defense team learned of the funds, we disclosed this to the court and to the State Attorney's Office, and the money was transferred to the Legal Defense Fund which is now independently managed.
Of the original $204,000 raised by Mr. Zimmerman's fund, approximately $150,000 was transferred to the Legal Defense Fund. $30,000 was used to make the complicated transition from private life in Sanford, FL to a life in hiding as a defendant in a high-profile court case. The balance of approximately $20,000 was kept liquid to provide living expenses for the first several months as the legal process unfolds.
Since the independently managed Legal Defense Fund was established on May 3, supporters have contributed more than $37,000. Of this amount, $2,000 has been designated for household expenses. Less than $300 has been designated for fund management and fees associated with maintaining the conditions of the bond. None of the funds have yet to be allocated to legal expenses. Neither Mr. Zimmerman or the defense team has direct access to the independently managed Legal Defense Fund.
The taunting from this one should tell you all you need to know.
Btw...still waiting for your proof.
Read Kafka, baby!
If they can’t convict him on the 2nd degree and a crime against the society, they’ll find a way to nail Zim on a crime against the Holy System.
The System must be protected!
He’s been on other threads. Pure troll.
Look again on page 4 of 8 of the motion. The state left out the part of the transcript in which Shellie offered to call her brother-in-law. And it wasn't that the state cut off the testimony. They left out the middle. Do you think the judge went back to make sure the state hadn't tried to deceive him?
As far as GZ getting bail, I was under the impression that the state had to show that “proof of guilt is evident or the presumption great” that he committed the crime in order to deny bail. What do judges normally do in situations like this? I'm sure that it happens often enough. :-)
>>Q: And you mentioned also, in terms of the ability of your husband to make a bond amount, that you all had no money. Is that correct?
A: To my knowledge, that's correct.<<
Yes, that would be hard to explain, but when Judge Lester allowed the motion to be heard, and told O’Mara that he had to defend against it “on the fly,” it seems to me that G & SZ’s rights were violated. He gave them no time or opportunity to defend themselves. Do you agree?
No one has to provide the proof you are asking for. The state has to prove to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that GZ did not act in lawful self-defense.
And if GZ goes for a self-defense hearing, GZ only has to prove to the judge by a preponderance of the evidence that he acted in lawful self-defense.
Your theory depends on Trayvon knowing that Zimmerman had a gun that he intended to use. I asked you how Trayvon would have known that. If you want to offer a credible explanation for what happened you need to explain that. If you’re not interested in showing how your explanation even works then this conversation is pointless. Are you interested in doing that?
If so, then how did Trayvon know - before Trayvon banged Zimmerman’s head on the concrete - that Zimmerman had a gun he intended to use?
When they talk about bond that a person can afford, does that mean that they can afford while still having food on their table and paying for their family to be protected from all the public threats made to them by people that no law enforcement is interested in apprehending, etc?
I don’t deal with the financial stuff in our household. If somebody asked me what money was available for what purposes I would be clueless. I suppose the eavesdropping that they did on the husband and wife might show what they knew about what funds were available for what purpose. Has the substance of that eavesdropping been publicly disclosed?
Or the picture is a mirror image, such as one gets taking a picture of oneself in a mirror.
IIRC, listening to a recording of the June 1 hearing, the judge went back and listened to a recording of Shellie's April 20 testimony.
-- I was under the impression that the state had to show that "proof of guilt is evident or the presumption great" that he committed the crime in order to deny bail. What do judges normally do in situations like this? --
This being a case with a life sentence, bail is denied if the state has a slam dunk, airtight case. That's the "proof of guilt is evident or the presumption is great" standard. But the judge is to deny bail under other conditions as well, so the state has more than one way to keep defendant in jail.
The other ways to keep defendant in jail, even without an airtight case against him, the judge must find the defendant to be a flight risk, or, in the alternative, the judge must find the defendant to be a danger to society. A typical scenario had defendant out on bail, then committing another crime, or violating one of the condition of release.
-- ... it seems to me that G & SZ's rights were violated. [Judge Lester] gave them no time or opportunity to defend themselves. Do you agree? --
Yes. And as suggested by my remarks about conditions for denial of bail, I also think Judge Lester failed to make a finding necessary to support revocation of bail. He didn't find the state to have an airtight case, he didn't find Zimmerman to be a flight risk, and he didn't find Zimmerman to be a danger to society.
While in the universe of possibilities, Lester may revoke bail, he lacks the justification to do so on the facts in hand.
One of his options is to modify the amount of bail, and I don't think that option is viable now that the defense fund money is sequestered from defendant.
I don't think he has the option of a contempt of court against George, for sitting there like a potted palm. But, assuming for the sake of argument he does have that power, he didn't use it.
I think Lester screwed up more than one way, and O'Mara is chicken to point it out.
Did I read correctly on TalkLeft that GZ loses his $15,000 bond fee because Lester revoked his bail without even giving GZ and MOM a chance to adequately prepare for the state’s motion?
Yes. The idea is to put enough money at risk that the defendant will not be tempted to flee.
-- Has the substance of that eavesdropping been publicly disclosed? --
Only parts of it, in the state's June 1 motion to deny bail. I don't trust Corey or de la Rionda, and suspect the conversation excerpts may be cherry picked out of context; but admit the possibility that George and Shellie were in fact considering "hiding" a substantial amount of money from O'Mara and from the court. No wrong doing in the conversation, by the way. Any wrongdoing happens on April 20th (or when completing a net worth inventory, if one was completed, for bail purposes), not before.
Yep. That fifteen grand is gone, down a rathole, with the loss assignable to Lester.
Lester knew this, and I believe bmaz when he says this is a typical prosecutor/judge "trick" in a criminal case. Allow the defendant to bond out, then revoke bail on some pretext so the bond is forfeit. Gives them a chance to wring more loot from defendant or his friends and family. The legal system is a close cousin to organized crime.
>>The legal system is a close cousin to organized crime<<
I certainly believe that! My favorite quote about the legal system is that the law is a game lawyers play using other peoples’ money to keep score.
It cost my family a bucketload of money to attorneys to keep my gravely disabled brother-in-law from being forced by the state into an inappropriate and unsafe community care home.
“Look again on page 4 of 8 of the motion. The state left out the part of the transcript in which Shellie offered to call her brother-in-law. And it wasn’t that the state cut off the testimony. They left out the middle. Do you think the judge went back to make sure the state hadn’t tried to deceive him? “
Excellent question. Who will ask it of the judge?
And if the recorded eavesdropping was also selectively edited, that raises questions about that too. I think maybe the judge should look at the whole thing to see if the state was misleading him. Would O’Mara have seen the full transcript of the tapes, or heard the whole thing?
I think the large amount of money given by donations should be a clue to Corey, Judge Lester, etc that the American people trust this system, prosecutor, and media about as much as Zimmerman did during that time period when Z’s lawyer said he was afraid and confused. Who was it who rightly said that it’s not only Zimmerman who has to earn back trust? The integrity of the whole system is shot to heck with the lies, witness tampering, and prosecutorial misconduct in this case, much like in the Duke lacrosse case with Mike Nifong.
One other thing about bail. If he put up his parents’ home as security for bail, that is worth more than money. For me to skip town and send my parents out on their ears after all they have done for me would be a shame that no $200,000 could even begin to touch.
Zimmerman’s dad is a judge, right? I wonder what he thinks about all this garbage.
Might have been me. I mentioned that trust is a two way street. Judges chronically forget that, or just flat out don;t care because, to them, it's all and only about power.
-- The integrity of the whole system is shot to heck with the lies ... --
Yes, it is. Calling what is going on with Zimmerman "rule of law" is a farce. It is rule by mob, using the court as a prop.
>> “Where you see a hero, I see a wannabe cop with a gun’ <<
.
You soil this site by your presence.
You either know absolutely nothing about the affair, or you know the truth but disregard it to make an obviously false accusation.
Zimmerman isn’t a ‘wannabe cop’ and agreed to be a neighborhood watchman after requests by his neighbors. He didn’t even want to get a gun, but thank God he did get one.
Nothing you so boldly assert has a shred of truth to it, and if you had followed these threads from the begining, you would know it.
>> “Martin had no record of violence” <<
.
That is a lie and you know it.
His own brother said that he had severely beaten a bus driver and that was the reason that he was on suspension, and in Zimmerman’s neighborhood.
He also had posted considerable violent comments on internet sites, that have been noted here, although they have now been taken down.
Why are you always on the evil side here?
Not to split hairs or anything... the fund was set up expressly for legal expenses... perhaps in their minds it wasn’t “theirs”. “Theirs” would be to do with as they wished... oh, that’s what the disclaimer on Trayvon’s Memorial Fund says.... She did tell them who had the correct answer.
I read today that donations for GZ have jumped since Friday. So there, Crump & Corey!
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