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Harvard Prof. Alan Dershowitz: Zimmerman Arrest Affidavit is ‘Irresponsible And Unethical’
Harvard Prof. Alan Dershowitz contends on MSNBC that the Arrest Affidavit that was filed against George Zimmerman is “Irresponsible and Unethical” because “everything in the affidavit is completely consistent with a defense of self-defense. Everything.”
He went on to make it very clear, that any objective observer should see that (Which excludes the vast majority of the mainstream media), this was political, not a sound common law decision by the prosecutor Angela Corey , who just so happens to be up for reelection this year. She kicked off her reelection campaign last December.
The heightened charge filed by Corey, murder two, has many legal analyst saying that no judge is going to let this pass on the evidence presented.
Richard Hornsby, who is a defense attorney in Florida, contends, “There’s a “high likelihood it could be dismissed by the judge even before the jury gets to hear the case,” and Karin Moore, who is one of the assistant professors of law at Florida A&M University, says that the law “puts a tremendous burden on the state to prove that it wasn’t self-defense.” From the evidence that we have seen in the public, this is going to be next to impossible to do.
Even though Corey started off the news conference by trying to iterate that hey office does not make decisions based on politics or public pressure, if you listen to the speech she gave at the announcement of the charge, it sounded a lot like a campaign speech. Whether or not she had meant to do this or not, no justice can be served when people are using the Martin family to advance a political agenda.
Prof. Alan Dershowitz commented on this very thing:
“I think what you have here is an elected public official who made a campaign speech last night for reelection when she gave her presentation and overcharged. This case will not – if the evidence is no stronger than what appears in the probable cause affidavit – this case will result in an acquittal.”
One would hope that the prosecutor would not have charged Zimmerman with the full knowledge that the case would just be denied by the judge. But the media has not given the justice system the room is should have to decide whether charges should have been brought or not.
Having said that, Prof. Dershowitz is right about including information that would have been favorable to the defendant in the affidavit “It’s irresponsible and unethical in not including material that favors the defendant” and “This affidavit does not even make it to probable cause.”
The whole situation has brought out the worst in some people. We have members of the media who failed to ratiocinate in a way that would have avoided such a rush to judgment. We are not yet sure of what other evidence the prosecution has that could possible refute what the evidence already points to, but judging by the constricted nature of the affidavit, one has to wonder if they really have anything but what has been advanced by those with the agenda.
The media was so quick to claim that Zimmerman was linked to this malefaction, that there is an overwhelming amount of pressure on this prosecutor to make something happen. It is never good to judge a person in the media, and then allow private citizens with high emotional charged opinions to force something that the authorities originally thought was not provable. It seems that manslaughter would have been the right charge to go for here, but as of now, it is still doubtful that charge would have stuck as well.
The problem here is that it is going to be next to impossible to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Zimmerman did or did not engage Martin. Even the eyewitnesses can only tell so much of the story, and on the original police report, eyewitnesses had placed Martin on top of Zimmerman, as well as the injuries that the shooter is said to have. If charges are not dismissed by the judge, it is hard to believe that a jury will find it without a doubt that Zimmerman was not in danger. The jury does not even have to believe Zimmerman, its whether they can say for sure that he was not in danger, the medical records will only exasperate this.
This is sad on so many levels; a young man who was looking forward to a life in college was killed. The thing is, justice is not making someone pay for that death if they were indeed using self-defense. Still no one knows for sure what happened, but every time new information comes out, the information starts to point towards Zimmerman telling the truth, at least about being attacked by Martin.
The country is going to have to hope those who are supporting each side in this can allow the justice to take hold, no matter which way the evidence points. Prof. Dershowitz made it clear he does not see the prosecution having a lot more than what was released in the affidavit, because they would have never tried to pass off the flaccid document. In addition, if there were talks of a plea bargain already, then that would indicate that the prosecution understands that they cannot win murder two.
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