"George Zimmerman has filed his defamation lawsuit against NBC and three reporters for their false editing..."

"... of his non-emergency call to police to report Trayvon Martin..."

The 24-page complaint alleges “NBC News saw the death of Trayvon Martin not as a tragedy but as an opportunity to increase ratings, and so set about to create the myth that George Zimmerman was a racist and predatory villain.”

ADDED: More detail here.

George Zimmerman's lawyer can keep blogging about the Trayvon Martin case.

Says the judge.

During that hearing, [Zimmerman's lawyer Mark] O'Mara said his client had been the subject of a carefully orchestrated national media campaign by attorneys for Trayvon's family, who had traveled the country, portraying the former Neighborhood Watch volunteer as a racist murderer.

De la Rionda accused O'Mara of trying to taint potential jurors. All he wanted, de la Rionda said, is to have a fair trial, and the best way to do that is to prohibit all attorneys from talking about or publishing information about the case....

In arguing against the gag order Friday, O'Mara said that when he first took Zimmerman's case, his office was inundated with thousands of pieces of email and media queries, so he created a website, where he regularly posts blogs and court documents....

A dozen news organizations, including the Orlando Sentinel, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and CNN, opposed the gag order, calling it extreme and unnecessary.

"Judge Will Issue Subpoenas for Trayvon Martin's School Records and Social Media Accounts."

Jeralyn Merritt says this is "the correct ruling":

A defendant raising self-defense may introduce evidence regarding a victim's reputation for a particular character trait like violence to show that the defendant was not the initial aggressor, even if the defendant did not previously know about the victim's reputation. Here's the Munoz case the Judge cites from, which quotes the Dwyer case....

The judge is not saying the records are relevant or admissible at trial. Her ruling is in response to a discovery request, and the issue is whether the records could lead to relevant and admissible evidence.

From the Christian Science Monitor article on the ruling:

On Friday, Martin’s parents, Tracy Martin and Sybrina Fulton, called Judge Nelson’s decision to allow the school and social media subpoenas a travesty, suggesting that by opening up Martin’s records it would allow defense attorneys to “make a dead child seem as if they’re the perpetrator.”

In other words, the defendant is allowed to defend himself. Obviously, his only defense is that the "dead child" was the perpetrator. But the parents aren't legal experts (as Merritt is) and what do you expect them to say?

"Can Zimmerman win 'stand your ground' hearing?"

"Central Florida lawyers predicted that, based on the evidence released so far by prosecutors, Zimmerman has a strong chance of winning."

Sound bite of the George Zimmerman interview: "I feel it was all God's plan..."

I watched the entire interview Zimmerman did with Hannity, and I thought he made an excellent impression, but looking at the news coverage now, I can see that what was plucked out for quotation in headlines was the "God's plan" line. Even though Zimmerman seemed somber and sincere and truly sorry that Trayvon Martin died — he apologizes and shows empathy to Martin's parents repeatedly — that one phrase makes it sound like he thinks God wanted Martin dead. Here's the "God" quote in context:

HANNITY: Is there anything you regret? Do you regret getting out of the car to follow Trayvon that night?

ZIMMERMAN: No, sir.

HANNITY: Do you regret that you had a gun that night?

ZIMMERMAN: No, sir.

HANNITY: Do you feel you wouldn't be here for this interview if you didn't have that gun?

ZIMMERMAN: No, sir.

HANNITY: You feel you would not be here?

ZIMMERMAN: I feel it was all God's plan and for me to second guess it or judge it --

HANNITY: Is there anything you might do differently in retrospect now that the time has passed a little bit?

ZIMMERMAN: No, sir.

Zimmerman had just described how Martin was beating his head against the concrete — you can see that Hannity was inviting Zimmerman to say: If I had not had the gun, I would have died. In context, you can see Zimmerman brought up God as his way of declining to explore alternate scenarios. Note that he had trouble with Hannity's double-negative question "Do you feel you wouldn't be here for this interview if you didn't have that gun?" Zimmerman answers no, which literally would mean that Zimmerman thinks he would have survived to tell the tale, but, especially given his description of the pre-shooting attack, it seems he would have said that without the gun, he would have died. Hannity rephrases the question: "You feel you would not be here?" And Zimmerman's answer is, essentially, it's not for me to say.

Actually, I think the problem for Zimmerman is less that it sounds like he thought God had a plan for him to kill Martin than that he failed to clearly state that if he hadn't had that gun to shoot Martin, he would have died. But I think the complexity is that in Zimmerman's version of what happened, Martin saw the gun:

ZIMMERMAN: At that point, I realized that it wasn't my gun, it wasn't his gun, it was the gun.

HANNITY: Did he say anything? Because you said he was talking a lot about the gun. Did he say he noticed the gun?

ZIMMERMAN: He said, "You are going to die tonight (EXPLETIVE DELETED)" and took one hand off of my mouth and I felt it going down my chest towards my belt and my holster, and that's when I -- I didn't have anymore time.

So, in the actual story, with the gun, Zimmerman's need to shoot Martin was much greater than it would have been in the alternate scenario with Martin punching him and banging his head on the concrete. Zimmerman declined to comment on the alternate scenario in which there is no gun. His form of expression brought God into the picture. Someone less given to God talk might have said: What happened happened.

But now, the "God's plan" line is out there, affecting what people think about Zimmerman, and it will be used against him in his trial. Such are the risks of doing interviews.

"Not wearing hoodies or not wearing skirts isn’t going to change anything."

Key sentence in a column by Petula Dvorak titled "Blog post about sexual assault in D.C. unleashes torrent of women’s stories."

TalkLeft says George Zimmerman "was not the aggressor" — "This is self-defense."

This opinion — by Jeralynn Merritt — is based on poring over the evidence.

Zimmerman... did nothing to provoke Trayvon Martin’s beating him, breaking his nose and slamming his head into concrete. He had every right to respond with deadly force to stop Trayvon’s physical attack on him and to prevent Trayvon from getting control of his weapon.

Much detail — Merritt's interpretation of Zimmerman's various statements — at the link. Excerpt:

George’s suspicion was aroused because he saw someone milling around between houses in the rain. He knew this person didn’t live at the house he was standing by because it had been burglarized before and he knew who lived there. The guy wasn’t exercising. He did nothing to get out of the rain. He thought to himself, who stands out in the rain and stares at houses?...

If the state has no evidence George initiated the verbal confrontation, then the affidavit for probable cause for second degree murder contained a lie....

Read the whole thing. I'm eliding a lot.

Zimmerman's reenactment "may be too perfect," says Chris Cuomo, as if "he checked every box to get himself off the hook for this crime."

I'm transcribing from the video at the link, which includes an article that doesn't contain that text. You can see the whole reenactment in the video too, and the article does have text from the reenactment. I thought the Cuomo analysis was really interesting. Is George Zimmerman's reenactment of the killing of Trayvon Martin too good?

Cuomo also says:

For the prosecution, they can look at this, match it up to the 911 call, they can match it up to witness accounts. We now know Zimmerman's own statement. Somebody may have seen the fight in progress. Huge use for the prosecutors. Measure his demeanor. Does he change his story? How is he? Calm? Too calm? His wounds, on his head... Ballistics. He says where he shot Trayvon and how....

Everything he says — detail by detail — now this could work for or against — is perfect as a justification for what he did...

Interesting to think about how the seeming perfection of the justification is what makes it suspicious and how the prosecutorial mind works its way into that statement to find how to flip it into evidence of guilt.

Barney Frank — giving a commencement speech — makes a "hoodie" joke.

At the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, giving an honorary degree to a black man:

“You know, when you get an honorary degree they give these,” Frank said, tugging at the hood on his commencement gown, “and Hubie, I think you now got a hoodie you can wear and no one will shoot at you.”

The crowd did not laugh. They gasped. Later, Frank attempted to explain: “I have used the ‘hoodie’ line to ridicule the notion that a hooded sweatshirt is somehow sinister.”

"40% Now Say Trayvon Martin Shot in Self-Defense; 24% Say It Was Murder."

In late March, 33% called it murder. It was 30% in early April.

Forty percent (40%) now think George Zimmerman, who has been charged with second degree murder in the Martin shooting, acted in self-defense. That’s up 25 points from 15% in March and up 16 points from 24% last month. Thirty-six percent (36%) remain undecided, compared to 55% two months ago.

It's heartening to see the capacity of people to receive new information and to reassess their beliefs. I was impressed even back in March that people resisted — as much as they did — the efforts in the media to stamp public opinion with a crude, racialized template.

Unsurprisingly, the opinion among black people is different, but it's not that different: 47% say murder, but the number is going down. 55% said murder in March. And 40% of black adults now say self-defense — exactly the same as percentage for adults Americans generally. Note that this means that black people are much less likely to be undecided or uncertain.

"To some legal experts, the new evidence backs up Zimmerman’s original story..."

"... that he followed Trayvon, lost him, and was then attacked with 'mixed martial arts' blows to a point where he feared for his life."

A medical report that was not referenced in the state’s charging affidavit states that Zimmerman sustained a broken nose, two black eyes, and two cuts on the back of his head.

The new forensic facts challenge the second-degree murder charge, which, to stick, requires a jury to be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that Zimmerman acted with malicious recklessness in causing Trayvon’s death, says Alan Dershowitz, a Harvard Law School professor whose criticisms of the prosecution stepped up as the state’s evidence was revealed.

Given the new evidence, “the prosecutor is at least guilty of willful blindness,” says Mr. Dershowitz in a phone interview....



Medical examiners found that Trayvon had THC, the euphoria-inducing compound found in marijuana, in his blood – a potentially salient fact given that Zimmerman told a dispatcher he thought the man he had spotted “was on drugs or something.”...

The report also revealed the FBI findings from one of the most controversial tenets of the case: whether a voice that can be heard screaming for help during a 911 recording was Trayvon or Zimmerman. The FBI was unable to conclusively determine whom the voice belonged to, and was also unable to corroborate suggestions that, at one point, Zimmerman uttered a racial slur.

According to police, Tracy Martin, Trayvon’s dad, said he didn’t believe the voice crying for help belonged to his son. When asked, Officer Chris Serino wrote: "Mr. Martin, clearly emotionally impacted by the recording, quietly responded 'no.' "

The stakes in the case are high. It set off national introspection over so-called Stand Your Ground laws, which critics call “shoot first” laws. Zimmerman is likely to argue his use of that law in a special “mini-trial” to precede a jury trial, in which a judge can dismiss the case outright and shield Zimmerman from civil liability.

Others, meanwhile, worry what impact an acquittal or hung jury could have, sparking columnist Mansfield Frazier at the Daily Beast to suggest that the legal system has a responsibility to help avoid a “large scale racial calamity.”

That makes it sound like Frazier is advocating conviction not based on the legal standards, but on the practical goal of controlling the public's emotions. What did Frazier actually write?

If this case goes all the way to trial, it’s a train wreck waiting to happen. The time is now for strong hands to take the helm and steady the ship of state—not to mention our national racial, political and legal discourse. The paramount concern has to be to avert a large-scale racial calamity....

To my mind, the government offers Zimmerman a plea deal that has him back on the street within this decade, and he accepts it quietly. That seems like a conclusion most reasonable Americans could live with....

If [Zimmerman’s lawyer, Mark] O’Mara were successful in brokering such a resolution, he should be viewed as nothing less than a savior. A protracted murder trial of George Zimmerman is the last thing this country needs right now. America can only dodge so many racial bullets, and a not-guilty verdict in this case could very easily turn the racial cold war into a very hot one.

O'Mara has a professional obligation to represent his client, not the overall good of the nation.  Frazier seems to think he's the voice of reason, but he's calling for the subversion of the legal system. Frazier likes the fact that Zimmerman is "in isolation right now" so he's kept away from "the more rabid right-wingers from getting inside his head and convincing him to take the case to trial, based on the belief that no matter what the evidence shows, in Florida at least one juror will never vote to convict. Unfortunately, this reasoning is not crazy. The South, after all, is still the South."

What?! What about the ordinary legal analysts who don't think the prosecution can prove the elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt? There's absolutely nothing rabid, right-wing, or Southern about that opinion.

"George Zimmerman is as black as Obama's son would have been had Obama married a white woman."

Says commenter Hari, at the post "George Zimmerman is 'one-fourth black, four times as black as Warren is Indian, though the New York Times describes him as a "white Hispanic."'"

See also, "Who is this woman?"

Don't you think Genevieve resembles Obama's mother, who was white? Imagine being a heterosexual man and feeling that you weren't supposed to be attracted to a woman who reminds you of your mother. There's this alternate never-to-be-written Obama search-for-identity book titled "Dreams From My Mother."

And "Obama — trying to be 'careful' — addresses the Trayvon Martin killing": "You know, if I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon."

***

By the way, I assumed it was conventional wisdom that men tend to feel attracted to women who remind them of their mothers, but I can see that I'm being mocked over at a blog I won't link to for referring to that relatively banal reality. Oh, hell, I don't care: here's the link.

It's really astounding how prissy lefties have become over the years. I remember when folk of the left-wing persuasion loved to delve into Freudian analysis. Now, they're so strait-laced about sex. They hew to politically required points about sexual/reproductive freedom, but there's no curiosity, no depth, no originality, no exploration of ideas. So dull!

"In an unusual move during the more than 2-hour bail hearing, Mr. Zimmerman... briefly took the stand and offered an apology to the victim’s parents..."

"... who were in the courtroom."

“I wanted to say I am sorry for the loss of your son,” Mr. Zimmerman, 28, said, speaking publicly for the first time about the Feb. 26 shooting. “I did not know how old he was. I thought he was a little bit younger than I am. I did not know if he was armed or not.”...

According to their lawyer, Benjamin Crump, Mr. Martin’s family was “completely devastated” by the judge’s decision that Mr. Zimmerman could be freed on such a low bail [$150,000]. He also described Mr. Zimmerman’s apology from the stand as “self-serving” and said he considered it a ploy to help win his release from jail.

"Get her off the stage right now" — said of Trayvon's mother...

... who's not on script but speaking like a human being with her own moral core.

"One of the things that I still believe in, a person should apologize when they are actually remorseful for what they've done. I believe it was an accident. I believe that it just got out of control and he couldn't turn the clock back. I would ask him, did he know that that was a minor, that that was a teenager, and that he did not have a weapon?"

What would you do if you were monitoring a dark, rainy world and you suddenly encountered someone who had a mind of her own and said what she really thought?

She doesn't look like she belongs here.... get her off the stage right now....

"The prosecutor has most likely deliberately overcharged, hoping to intimidate Zimmerman into agreeing to a plea bargain."

"If this case goes to trial, Zimmerman will almost definitely be found 'not guilty' on the charge of second-degree murder," opines John R. Lott Jr.

Some extremely relevant information from the police report is completely excluded [from affidavit of probable cause]: There is no mention of the grass and wetness found on the back of Zimmerman’s shirt, the gashes on the back of his head, the bloody nose, or the other witnesses who saw Martin on top of Zimmerman, beating him, before the shot was fired. There is not even an attempt to say that the police report was in error; instead the affidavit just disregards it.



Even if everything in the affidavit is correct, it does not even begin to deal with the most crucial question: Who attacked whom? Even if it is true that “Zimmerman confronted Martin and a struggle ensued,” there may have been no wrongdoing on Zimmerman’s part. “Confronted” does not mean “provoked” or “assaulted.” It could simply mean that Zimmerman followed Martin and asked him what he was doing in the neighborhood. Surely Zimmerman had the right to investigate a strange person in his neighborhood. The police operator’s advice that “we don’t need you to do that” was merely suggestive, not an order to stop. Indeed, the police had no authority to give Zimmerman such an order.

Now take the charge of “second degree” murder. There is no way that the affidavit justifies such a charge. In Florida, second-degree murder is defined as “the unlawful killing of a human being, when perpetrated by any act imminently dangerous to another and evincing a depraved mind regardless of human life, although without any premeditated design to effect the death of any particular individual.” But if Zimmerman was being beaten, there was no “depraved mind regardless of human life,” and the act “imminently dangerous to another” would be justified as self-defense.

"Stand your ground is not a defense, but an immunity statute, providing immunity from criminal prosecution."

Jeralyn Merritt (at TalkLeft) explains the law:

A defendant charged with a crime who wants to raise Stand your Ground files a motion to dismiss claiming stand your ground immunizes him from prosecution....

A hearing is held before trial. The burden is on the defendant to prove by a preponderance of evidence that stand your ground immunity applies.

The judge weighs the facts. If the judge agrees the defendant has shown stand your ground immunity applies by a preponderance of evidence, the charges are dismissed. The defendant can't be prosecuted.

If the judge finds the defendant hasn't met his burden, (including if the disputed evidence is so equal on both sides the judge can't decide one way or the other) the case goes to trial to be decided by the jury. At trial, the defendant can still argue both self-defense and stand your ground immunity -- he only has to establish some evidence of his theory, which can be just his own testimony, that he acted in self-defense.



The prosecution must prove his guilt at the jury trial beyond a reasonable doubt. Which means, if the defendant raises self-defense or stand your ground at trial and gets the jury instruction, the state, which has the burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, must disprove self-defense. If the jury has a doubt, the defendant must be acquitted.

Merritt is discussing a decision by a Florida judge she respects who denied an immunity motion and explained how different the burden of proof is at trial. That case was not the one involving George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin, but it explains the way the Stand Your Ground law does have some application to Zimmerman, even though the facts in Zimmerman's case don't seem to involve whether or not there is a duty to retreat.

That is, there is a pretrial motion to be made, with a judge making the decision about the evidence and a preponderance burden of proof on the defendant. The defendant can win at that point or be sent on to trial, where the prosecution will have the burden, even the burden to disprove self-defense, and the standard of proof is beyond a reasonable doubt, much higher than what the defendant would have had to prove to avoid the trial.

So, to put it somewhat crudely — and please correct me if I'm wrong — assume, hypothetically, that any factfinder will decide there's only, at most, an equal chance that it was self-defense, but there's some reasonable likelihood. The judge as factfinder at the immunity motion phase must deny the motion, but the jury as factfinder after the trial phase must acquit.

Florida special prosecutor will charge George Zimmerman in the Trayvon Martin case.

WaPo reports, based on information from "a law enforcement official close to the investigation."

It was not immediately clear what charge Zimmerman will face.

UPDATE: The charge is second-degree murder:

“We did not come to this decision lightly,” [Angela B.] Corey said. She added, “Let me emphasize that we do not prosecute by public pressure or by petition.”

“We will continue to seek the truth about this case,” she said.

George Zimmerman's lawyers withdraw... because they can't get in touch with him.

"Attorney Craig Sonner and Hal Uhrig said...  they haven't heard from George Zimmerman since Sunday... and against their advice, Zimmerman contacted the special prosecutor who will decide if he should face charges."

Sonner said: "He's gone on his own. I'm not sure what he's doing or who he's talking to. I cannot go forward speaking to the public about George Zimmerman and this case as representing him because I've lost contact with him."

Uhrig said he's "not doing well emotionally."

Meanwhile, Zimmerman has a website: here. He's trying to collect donations, and he says: "I am attempting to respond to each and everyone of my supporters personally." Speaking so freely... it's not the way a lawyer would tell you to deal with a potential prosecution.

At his home page, there's a set of links, one of which is "My Race." If you click, you get to a picture of an American flag and the quote, under the heading "My Race": "The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion." — Thomas Paine. There's also the Edmund Burke quote — which appears on every page — "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil, is that good men to do nothing."

I'm not a psychologist. Perhaps you are. I won't say how this strikes me. What do you think?

ADDED: From the Orlando Sentinel:

The lawyers said Zimmerman called Sean Hannity of Fox News without consulting them. He also called the special prosecutor in the case, something the attorneys said they'd never have told him to do....

Uhrig added that he thinks Zimmerman is going through post-traumatic stress and is "largely alone... he's at least emotionally alone.... I will not tell you where George Zimmerman is, because I don't know."

The NYT characterizes the decision whether to prosecute George Zimmerman as dependent on "Florida’s lenient self-defense law, known as Stand Your Ground."

Why stress "Stand Your Ground" other than to demagogue about guns?

It seems to me there are rival descriptions about what happened, but none of them have to do with Zimmerman passing up an opportunity to retreat. Either Zimmerman stalked Trayvon Martin and shot him down or Martin punched Zimmerman, had him on the ground — not standing, but lying — and he was hitting his head into the concrete. Who's describing a scenario in which Zimmerman wins or loses depending on whether there is a Stand Your Ground law on the books?

Why inject an inapplicable, controversial issue? To inflame passions? To skew judgment? To take any opportunity/nonopportunity to push your pet issue?

"The Zimmerman family is in hiding because of the threats that have been made against us..."

"... yet the DOJ has maintained an eerie silence on this matter. These threats are very public. If you haven’t been paying attention just do a Google search and you will find plenty. Since when can a group of people in the United States put a bounty on someone’s head, circulate Wanted posters publicly, and still be walking the streets?"

A letter from some unnamed relative of George Zimmerman to Attorney General Eric Holder.

Good lord, what an ugly place we are in right now. Who would have thought that in the last year of Obama's presidential term, the public mind would obsess over race at this level? I'm recalling the media coverage of election night, 2008, and the inauguration, when there was a rhapsody of closure and a feeling — some called it "hope" — that we had entered a new era of harmony. How did we get sucked into some nightmare parody of the past? If it's not Obama's fault, can he at least do something to yank us up out of this awful place? In 2009 or even 2011, he would have given a speech. He would have believed he could rescue us with a speech, perhaps because we kind of thought he could. Maybe no one believes anymore. There's a hope vacuum, and look what's moving in.