George Zimmerman Tag

The Department of Justice will reportedly announce that it will not bring federal civil rights charges against George Zimmerman over Zimmerman's self-defense killing of Trayvon Martin, reports ABC News. This decision comes as no surprise to anyone familiar with the actual facts of the case. Zimmerman's claim of lawful self-defense was overwhelmingly supported by evidence presented at trial, and there was no additional evidence suggesting Zimmerman had set out to deliberately violate Martin's civil rights. Indeed, the only shocking aspect of this is that it took the Department of Justice 19 months after Zimmerman's acquittal to make the announcement. Given the Obama Administration's incessant spinning of the news cycle so as to avoid getting pinned down to any single particular scandal, it seems likely that the announcement will be timed to coincide with the three year anniversary (February 26, two days from today) of Martin's death. Soon after the 2012 shooting, the Department of Justice ordered a team of FBI agents to interview witnesses, neighbors, co-workers, and friends of Zimmerman in a search for any evidence of racism.  They didn't just come up empty; what evidence they did find confirmed that Zimmerman was decidedly not racist.

Earlier this month we posted news that Frank Taafe, a self-proclaimed "friend" of George Zimmerman, was going to testify before a Grand Jury that he now believed Zimmerman had a racist motivation for the shooting of Trayvon Martin.  This news came just days before the hotly contested November 4 election in which the Democrats took the same kind of beating that Trayvon delivered to Zimmerman, but without the benefit of being armed.  (See: Key Witness for Zimmerman Grand Jury Changes Story.) Taaffe's Grand Jury appearance, scheduled for last Wednesday, was delayed for unexplained reasons.  (See:  We interrupt post-election gloating for news about the DOJ Zimmerman Grand Jury.)  According to reporting by the Orlando Sentinel newspaper, however, Taaffe was to appear before the Grand Jury today to testify about Zimmerman's purported racial animus. Such testimony would be a game changer in lingering efforts to seek Federal civil rights charges against Zimmerman.  Despite dozens of FBI interviews of people associated with Zimmerman, there was never so much as a smidgen of evidence that Zimmerman shot Martin for reasons of racism.  Indeed, what evidence was developed ran counter to that narrative. Among those at the time who told FBI agents that they had no reason to believe Zimmerman had a racial motive for shooting Martin?  Frank Taaffe. Here's the video: Without evidence of racial animus there was no basis for a Federal civil rights prosecution, and in fact none was forthcoming. Earlier this year, however, with public interest in him waning, Taaffe suddenly recalled that he had, after all, had a phone conversation with Zimmerman in which the media-described "white Hispanic" had voiced racial animus towards Martin.  It appeared, suddenly and literally incredibly, as if there might be a hook on which to hang a civil rights prosecution of Zimmerman after all.

The Orlando Sentinel newspaper is reporting that it appears as if no actual witnesses showed up for today's Federal Grand Jury convened to determine if civil rights charges should be brought against George Zimmerman for his self-defense shooting of Trayvon Martin. The DOJ had subpoenaed Frank Taaffe, a self-declared "friend" of Zimmerman's, to testify before the Grand Jury.  In the days following the shooting Taaffe told FBI investigators that based on phone discussions with Zimmerman he did not believe there was a racial motive for the shooting. Earlier this year, however, nearly two years later, Taaffe changed his story and said he now believed that Zimmerman did have a racial motive for shooting Martin.  We covered this change of story previously here:  Key Witness for Zimmerman Grand Jury Changes Story, and the Grand Jury convening here:  DOJ Convenes Grand Jury For Zimmerman Civil Rights Case. In that latter story we had speculated that the sudden announcement of this Grand Jury, just days before elections likely (and ultimately) to prove troublesome for Democrats was merely a political stratagem seeking to draw greater numbers of African Americans to the polls.

We wrote yesterday about the "October Surprise/Get Out the Vote" announcement by a flailing Obama administration that the Department of Justice will be holding a Grand Jury hearing next Wednesday regarding possible federal civil rights charges against George Zimmerman. The only named witness for Wednesday's hearing is Frank Taaffe, a self-declared "friend" for George Zimmerman. Earlier this year Taaffe suddenly announced that he believed Zimmerman had a racial, not merely self-defense, motive in killing Trayvon Martin. This would be more than two years after the shooting occurred. One wonders why Taaffe waited so long to speak to the FBI on this matter. Except that, of course, Taaffe had long ago spoken with the FBI on this matter, way back in May 2012 when he was interviewed by FBI Special Agent Oliver following the shooting. (h/t to Legal Insurrection commenter P4R4L3G4L for the reminder.) At that time he denied any racial discussions with Zimmerman, although he wasn't shy about expressing his own arguably racist sentiments.

Note: Title has been updated. The Orlando Sentinel newspaper today reported that the Department of Justice has assembled a Federal Grand jury to meet next week to hear testimony about whether George Zimmerman violated Trayvon Martin's civil rights on the night that Zimmerman ultimately killed Martin in self-defense. It was only last month that the Washington Post reported that unidentified Federal law enforcement officials thought it very unlikely that federal charges would be brought against Zimmerman, due to insufficient evidence.  Indeed, despite having dozens of FBI agents interview scores of people regarding Zimmerman's shooting of Martin, not even a smidgen of racism was uncovered in Zimmerman's past or in the particular events surrounding his self-defense shooting of Martin. Indeed, quite the contrary: what evidence was uncovered with regard to race showed the opposite of racial animus.  For example, Zimmerman and his wife tutored black school children. Zimmerman's elderly black neighbor testified at his trial (by television, due to severe illness) in glowing terms about Zimmerman's kindness towards her.  One of Zimmerman's college professors, a black Naval officer, also spoke glowingly about him, and noted that Zimmerman had told him he'd planned to become a prosecutor someday.  When a local black youth was beaten by the son of a local police official, Zimmerman organized the community to rally in favor of accountability.

Well, this is interesting. I came across the University of Miami Law School Summer 2014 edition of their law review, and noted that it had a particular focus on Stand-Your-Ground. Awesome! I dug right into the Foreword, "Stand Your Ground” in Context: Race, Gender, and Politics," by University of Miami School of Law Professor Donna Coker. As you might expect, it was chock full of the race, gender, and political facets of Stand-Your-Ground, none of which is really in my wheelhouse.  It did, of course, talk about several of the recent (and upcoming) self-defense cases, including Zimmerman, Dunn, and Alexander--none of which, of course, actually are Stand-Your-Ground cases, but whatever. Here's a sample of prose to give you a taste of things, for those of you who daren't click on the link above for the entirety of it:

If the phenomenon of violent crime is "classed," surely the social construction of criminality is more so. Professor Jones calls attention to the intersections of gender, race, class, and youth in the popular imagination of the "thug," which he argues is evidenced in George Zimmerman's assessment of Trayvon Martin and is perpetuated by Zimmerman's supporters.  Jones deftly demonstrates that the identity ascribed to young Trayvon Martin by Zimmerman's supporters--and Zimmerman--is an intersectional identity defined by race (black), age (youth), gender (male), and class (poor): "[t]he same moral panic, which once targeted all blacks, has refocused on black males in urban areas with saggy pants and hoodies," images that are "deeply associated with criminals and crime."  The references in the blogosphere to Trayvon as a "thug, vandal, burglar, pothead and/or drug dealer" illustrate this widely held association.

(internal footnote references removed) So, there's 17 pages of that kind of stuff, if you're interested. I have to confess I didn't make it all the way through myself, as I bumped up across an interesting factual claim with regard to the Zimmerman trial.

The Washington Post reported yesterday that "The Justice Department is not expected to bring civil rights charges against George Zimmerman in the 2012 shooting death of Trayvon Martin." The reasons why appear in the 10th paragraph of the story:

Mark O’Mara, the lawyer who represented Zimmerman, said that approximately 40 witness statements collected by investigators in 2012 indicated there was no evidence to support a civil rights prosecution. “I was watching the whole case pretty closely for two years, and they didn’t do anything except take those 40 statements,” O’Mara said. The statements “suggested that George acted in very non-racist ways. He took a black girl to the prom. His best buddy was a black guy. He mentored two black kids. He sought justice for a black homeless man beaten up by a white cop’s son.” “To those who have seen civil rights investigations and civil rights violations,” he said, “it looked as though the Department of Justice was just placating pressure that existed by suggesting there was an ongoing investigation.”

[caption id="attachment_69481" align="alignnone" width="500"] (George Zimmerman, immediately following the vicious attack upon him by Trayvon Martin)[/caption]

How can we miss her, when she won't go away? Judge Debra Nelson, who presided over the murder trial of George Zimmerman, today issued a ruling dismissing his libel suit against NBC (a copy of that ruling can be found at the bottom of this post). Those of us who followed the Zimmerman murder trial closely will recall Judge Nelson as ruling so consistently in favor of the Prosecution, fairly bending over backwards in her deference to prosecution arguments. In contrast, her rulings in favor of the defense were few and far between.  It was surely a similar perception by the defense that inhibited them from ever seeking self-defense immunity for Zimmerman, as provided for under Florida statute 776.032 "Immunity from criminal prosecution and civil action for justifiable use of force." That the same judge who so consistently ruled against Zimmerman at his murder trial would be the one chosen to also preside over his libel suit against NBC is eye brow raising, to say the least. Zimmerman's libel suit against NBC was based on NBC's admitted doctoring of the audio of his 911 call to police, apparently done with the intent of making Zimmerman appear to be racist. Purported evidence of racism on the part of Zimmerman was, at the time, extremely important to the prosecution of the case, for two reasons.