Chasing George Zimmerman

April 11, 2012
Posted by Amy Davidson

When will George Zimmerman be arrested? That depends, a little, on where George Zimmerman is. His lawyers, as they made clear in a very strange press conference during which they quit the case, haven’t the foggiest idea and maybe never did. (“You can stop looking in Florida…. Look much further away than that.”)

... The Washington Post has reported that the special prosecutor in the case, Angela Corey, will announce that she is charging Zimmerman, who shot Trayvon Martin in the chest and killed him. The police in Sanford, Florida, hadn’t managed that; they hadn’t even managed to investigate the death of an unarmed seventeen year old, or to go and find his parents that night when they were left with his body. Zimmerman said that he acted in self-defense, and that Martin, walking in the rain, looked like someone who was where he shouldn’t be. Now a press conference is tentatively set for 6 P.M. There may not be a warrant then; Zimmerman, for all we know, might have made an appointment for a later time with the prosecutors. Or he might be a fugitive by dark ...

If he does surrender, of course, the first thing he’s going to need is a new set of lawyers. And they ought to be good ones. It’s not just that Zimmerman deserves to have a thoroughly fair trial—one that is not a farce ... Florida owes it to Trayvon to make sure, finally, that his death is treated with the respect and care that match the value of his life and what was lost.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/closeread/2012/04/chasing-george-zimmerman.html