George Zimmerman had his bail revoked by the judge in Florida this past Friday and he was given 48 hours to turn himself into jail. George Zimmeran's Legal Website Reports:
George Zimmerman has returned to Central Florida, arriving late Saturday evening. On Friday, June 1, the court revoked Mr. Zimmerman's bond, ordering him to return to custody within 48 hours. The defense team has coordinated with the Sanford Police Department to ensure Mr. Zimmerman's security when he turns himself in before today's 2:30 PM deadline.
While out on bond, Mr. Zimmerman has been living in a secure, undisclosed location as there are significant threats against his life.
Mr. Zimmerman's lawyers will request a new bond hearing where they can address the court's concerns regarding the representation of funds available at the time of the original hearing on April 20. The defense team hopes that Mr. Zimmerman's voluntary surrender to Sanford police will help demonstrate to the court that he is not a flight risk. Furthermore, the vast majority of the funds in question are in an independently managed trust, and neither Mr. Zimmerman or his attorneys have direct access to the money.
On May 8, Mr. Zimmerman waived his right to a speedy trial to allow the defense team the time needed to prepare for trial. It is anticipated, though not certain, that the case will not be ready for trial until some time into 2013, and the next bond hearing will determine whether Mr. Zimmerman will wait those many months in jail or not.
New questions are being raised about just how close of a relationship George Zimmerman had with the Sanford Police. Huffingtonpost reports:
Neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman had a relationship with members of the police department in Sanford, Fla., long before he shot unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin to death in February, newly released information suggests.
During a community forum on Jan. 8, 2011, more than a year before Martin was killed, Zimmerman, then a criminal justice student, told city officials he had ridden along with Sanford police officers on patrol. Zimmerman blasted Sanford police as lazy and criticized outgoing Police Chief Brian Tooley, who was forced from office in a scandal involving the son of an officer caught on tape beating a homeless black man.
“I would just like to state that the law is written in black and white, it can not be enforced by those who are in the thin blue line,” Zimmerman told an audience that included newly elected Mayor Jeff Triplett, according to an audio recording published by the Miami Herald. Zimmerman said he saw firsthand how bad Sanford police could be during his ride-alongs.
“What I saw was disgusting,” Zimmerman said, “The officer showed me his favorite hiding spots for taking naps, explained to me that he doesn’t carry a long gun in his vehicle because, in his words, ‘anything that requires a long gun requires a lot of paperwork, and you’re going to find me as far away from it.’” Zimmerman continued: “He took two lunch breaks and attended a going away party for one of his fellow officers.”
Zimmerman found himself at the center of another Sanford police scandal a year later. Relatives of Martin, the 17-year-old who was killed while visiting his father in a gated Sanford housing development, and a chorus of supporters across the country have accused Sanford police of biased and sloppy police work. Zimmerman initially was freed by police after saying he shot Martin in self defense. A prosecutor specially assigned to the case, working with state investigators, later charged Zimmerman with second-degree murder. He is free on bail awaiting trial.
A police station video taken three days after the shooting, released by the State Attorney’s Office with a trove of other evidence, shows Zimmerman walking unescorted through the police station. That suggests a “cozy” and “comfortable” relationship with the police, said Benjamin Crump, an attorney for Martin’s family.
“This video of Zimmerman just walking through the police department so casually underscores that people in that department have a familiarity with him,” Crump told HuffPost. “It means that he had a relationship with the Sanford police department. And it’s just unusual that all along they would say they didn’t. But he went on several ride-alongs with them and he was comfortable enough to walk unescorted through their department.”
Zimmerman had longed to be a law enforcement officer and lobbied local law enforcement officials for a job. He was a student at nearby Seminole County Community College, where former Sanford Police Chief Bill Lee, who stepped down amid the Martin scandal, was a professor and ran the police academy.
According to the Herald report, city records show that in March 2010, Zimmerman’s application to ride along with the police was approved despite a background check revealing a criminal history that included resisting arrest and assault on a police officer. (The charges were later dropped.) Zimmerman wrote on the application that he hoped the ride-along would “solidify my interest in a career in law enforcement.”
"We do not have specific dates Mr. Zimmerman may have ridden or with whom he rode, if in fact he ever did ride" with Sanford police, Capt. Robert O'Connor said in a statement. Interim Police Chief Richard Myers said it would be “inappropriate” to draw conclusions from Zimmerman’s 2010 speech before the city council.
“As a police chief, I embrace the notion that transparency helps build public trust, but in this case, the need to preserve the sanctity of a criminal prosecution, for both the prosecutor and the defense, requires us to eschew making any comments that could taint the process,” Myers said in a statement.
George Zimmeman has plead not guilty to the 2nd degree murder charge. He is charged with shooting and killing unarmed, 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in February 26. He has said that it was self-defense. After the shooting, George Zimmerman was not charged at the time, which led to a heated debate on race and racial profiling. Many protests were held calling for the arrest of Zimmerman. He was finally charged with 2nd degree murder, and is now out on bond. His attorney, Mark O'Mara plead guilty on his client's behalf and also waived Zimmerman's right to a speedy trial. Zimmerman is said to be in hiding in an undisclosed location. If convicted, he could face life in prision.
George Zimmerman appeared in court today before Circuit Court Judge Kenneth Lester. Huffingtonpost reports:
A Florida judge has granted bail for George Zimmerman, the Florida neighborhood watch captain accused of second-degree murder in the shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.
Circuit Judge Kenneth Lester set Zimmerman's bond at $150,000, but said he would not be released today, pending deliberations about the terms of the release.
The bail hearing featured dramatic testimony from Zimmerman, who took the stand and offered an apology to Martin's parents.
"I wanted to say that I am sorry for the loss of your son," Zimmerman said, adding that he did not know how old Martin was or that he was unarmed.
"I thought he was a little bit younger than I am," he said. "I did not know whether he was armed or not."
Assistant prosecutor Bernie De La Rionda requested that the judge set no bail or require a bond of $1 million, arguing that Zimmerman's past history of violence and the evidence against him in the shooting of Martin made him a threat to the public.
"Our position is that he will still be a danger to the community," De La Rionda said.
O'Mara asked for bail of just $15,000 and requested that Zimmerman be allowed to leave the state while on bond.
Judge Lester ordered O'Mara to confer with state prosecutors and the Seminole County Sheriff's Department on the terms of Zimmerman's confinement, and to request an additional ruling if an agreement could not be met.
Circuit Judge Kenneth Lester says Zimmerman cannot have any firearms, drink alcohol or use drugs and must observe a curfew. Zimmerman will also have to wear an electronic monitoring device. The judge says Zimmerman will not be released Friday.
In another turn of events, ABC News exclusively obtained a photo of George Zimmerman with a bloody head, which was reported to have been taken 3 minutes after he shot and killed Martin. Some speculate that this could give credability to Zimmerman argument that Trayvon "bashed" his head into the concrete. ABC News reports:
The exclusive image shows blood trickling down the back of Zimmerman's head from two cuts. It also shows a possible contusion forming on the crown of his head. The original police report that night notes that the back of Zimmerman's head was wet, and that he was bleeding from the nose and head.
Zimmerman told police that night that he shot and killed the teenager in self-defense after Martin punched him and pounced on him. Zimmerman told police that Martin then bashed his head into the concrete sidewalk during the altercation that took place in the tidy middle-class development of the Retreat at Twin Lakes in Sanford, Fla.
Zimmerman was treated at the scene by paramedics, then cuffed and driven in a police cruiser to the Sanford police station. He was questioned for hours and later released. In police surveillance video obtained last month by ABC News, Zimmerman's wounds are not apparent, and there were no bandages on his head.
Zimmerman was not admitted to a hospital or given stitches the night of the incident.
The person who took the photograph of a bloodied Zimmerman, asking not to be identified, told ABC News exclusively that they did not see the scuffle that night, but did hear it. The person recalled seeing Martin's prostrate body on the wet grass and said the gunpowder burns on Martin's gray hoodie were clearly visible.
The photographer said that after the shooting, Zimmerman asked the photographer to call his wife. When the photographer asked him what to say, Zimmerman blurted out, "Man, just tell her I shot someone."
Investigators have seen the photo.
Martin family attorney Benjamin Crump is skeptical.
"How bad could it have been if they didn't take him to the hospital [and] didn't stitch him up," he said in a statement to ABC News in response to the image. "The special prosecutor has seen all the evidence and still believes George Zimmerman murdered Trayvon Martin."
Zimmerman's attorney, Mark O'Mara, said his client has spent enough time behind bars.
"He needs to get out. He should not be in jail," O'Mara said. "I want him out because I need him out. He wants to get out. His family wants it out. It should happen."
Michelle Obama has commented on the Trayvon Martin case. She says that her "heart goes out to the parents"of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, the unarmed teenager who was fatally shot by a self-professed neighborhood volunteer in Florida on February 26. She also added that all parents understand "the tragedy of that kind of loss." Martin was shot by neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman, who has claimed self-defense.
Potus adds it's important "not to lose sight of the fact that this is a family that's grieving and there's been a tremendous loss.', 'we all have to rally around that piece of it."
The judge that was appointed in the Trayvon Martin case has stepped down. Huffingtonpost reports:
The judge who was set to preside over the trial of George Zimmerman in the killing of Trayvon Martin has stepped aside.
Jessica Reckseidler's recusal from the trial comes after Mark O'Mara, Zimmerman's attorney, suggested that her husband's job as a partner to Mark NeJame, a CNN legal analyst covering the trial, represented a conflict of interest.
NeJame was initially contacted by Zimmerman's family to represent him, but NeJame suggested O'Mara.
The new judge in the case will be Kenneth R. Lester, Jr., who has presided over several much-covered cases, including ordering the release of a schizophrenic woman from a state mental hospital after she was found not guilty by reason of insanity in the shooting deaths of her parents and sentencing an ax murderer to death after he killed a 71-year-old man. According to the Orlando Sentinel, Lester is popular among attorneys and is known for acting quickly.
The judge who would have been next in line to handle the Zimmerman case after Jessica Reckseidler could not take on the case because he had previously worked with O'Mara, Zimmerman's attorney.
Zimmerman is facing second-degree murder charges in the killing of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed 17-year-old whom he shot on February 26 in Sanford, Fla. after an altercation. Zimmerman was not initially arrested or charged in the shooting. After weeks of public outcry calling for a reinvestigation of the case, Zimmerman was arrested and charged on April 11.
The case has become a flashpoint in the national conversations around gun laws and racial profiling.
Saturday Night Live mocked the coverage of the Trayvon Martin Case by the media, Pier's Morgan, Kanye West, Kim Kardashian all in one skit. It was quite a funny spoof that is a must-see! Some are calling this season of the show one of the best in a very long time.
As the Trayvon Martin case continues to develop, a new twist has emerged in the case. The judge who would be overseeing the case in Florida has revealed there may be a conflict of interest in the case. Judge Jessica Recksiedler held a status hearing in the case yesterday and revealed that her husband is a partner at the law firm, Mark NeJame, that has been hired by CNN to give analysis on the case. She made the revelation that Zimmerman's attorney or the State Prosecutor may want her to step down from the case.
Next week, a request may be made to have the judge removed, which Mark O,Mara, Zimmerman's attorney, said he may do. If such a request is made it is almost certain Judge Recksiedler will step down from the case. NeJame has said that Zimmerman had contacted his law firm on March 15, 2012, stating that he needed a defense attorney, but he declined because he has two small children. After a period of two weeks passed, his law firm signed a contract with CNN. Around this time, Zimmerman made contact through a friend for a referral of a defense attorney and his current attorney was recommended.
A bond hearing for the defendant is already scheduled for April 20, 2012, but if the judge has to step aside, then it will have to be rescheduled. With all this taking place, a previous revelation, Tracy Martin made to USA Today has come to light, he says he warned his son years ago that he may be targeted because of his race, He said:
“I’ve always let him know we as African Americans get stereotyped,” he told USA Today three weeks after he son was killed. “I told him that society is cruel."
