The Prosecutor Takes Sides in the Martin/Zimmerman Affair, and Justice Sighs

I caught today on radio the first few minutes of special prosecutor Angela Corey’s news conference in the Martin/Zimmerman affair, at which she announced (link) second degree murder charges against George Zimmerman for the killing of Trayvon Martin, and I was shocked to hear her opening remarks refer to speaking with the family of the dead young man and her sympathy for them.  Prosecutors are supposed to examine the evidence in a dispassionate manner and make determinations in a fair, impartial manner without even the appearance of impropriety or bias.  Well, not so here, not at all so here.   

Here are special prosecutor Corey’s opening words after introducing herself:

“Just moments ago we spoke by phone with Sabrina Fulton and Tracy Martin.  It was less than three weeks ago that we told those sweet parents that we would get answers to all of their questions no matter where our quest for the truth led us.  And it is the search for justice for Trayvon that has brought us to this moment.”

“Those sweet parents”?!  “Search for justice for Trayvon"?!  And the prosecutor's on an intimate, first name basis already with the deceased?!

We have already seen, in this highly politicized affair, black liberal Democrats such as Obama, Sharpton, and Jackson foment a lynch-mob atmosphere, and major liberal news organizations NBC and ABC distort the facts through highly deceptive and prejudicial editing of audio and video tapes.  We have seen some news organizations, such as the New York Times and Gwen Ifill, a black liberal public TV commentator, refer to the half-Hispanic and half-white Zimmerman as “half-white” and “white” respectively, terms apparently never before used by them for a person at least half Hispanic.  We have seen the New Black Panthers, a racist organization already on video record for intimidation of white voters in Philadelphia in a case that black Obama Attorney General Holder ignores, issue “Wanted Dead or Alive” posters for alleged shooter Zimmerman.  So much for Obama’s Hope and Change and a new era of race relations in America.  And now the local prosecutor in Florida has joined the mob.     

Attorney William Jacobson writes (link) at Legal Insurrection blog:  “What irked me was to hear the prosecutor thank the Martin family attorneys....  For the prosecutor to embrace the Martin family attorneys with thanks at the press conference, and for AG [Obama Attorney General] Eric Holder verbally to praise Sharpton today, tells me that a case which should be about facts of who did what to whom is going to turn into an even bigger racial narrative for a variety of purposes which have nothing to do with the guilt or innocence of the accused.”

A commenter to the above-referenced post wrote: ‘The [prosecutor’s] comment about seeking “justice for Trayvon” did not sit well with many attorneys that I know who heard the comments. It was unprofessional at best on the part of a prosecutor who should KNOW better with a case this potentially charged. The prosecutor attempted to mitigate through her later comments, but the damage was done.  It is not to seek justice for an individual, but simply to do justice (whatever that happens to be).’

It’s the Duke Lacrosse racial lynch mob hysteria all over again – for some, dispassionate examination of the facts is avoided, and all that matters is for blacks to get a sacrificial offering to make up for past injustice. Whether or not the actual accused is guilty matters not.  Here are comments from today from a law professor, a law professor for God's sake, in the Obama Administration (link):

Christi Cunningham, an associate secretary of regulation at the [Obama Administration] Department of Labor and a law professor at Howard University, spoke today at the National Action Network’s conference in Washington, D.C. Cunningham started her speech by calling for “justice for Trayvon Martin” and preempting the impending trial of George Zimmerman by asking rhetorically, “Why are people acting like this is a confusing situation and we don’t know what happened? We know exactly what happened, because it’s happened before.”

In reaction to the second degree murder charge based on how the facts known so far match up against what is required for the prosecution to prove second degree murder, one commenter at National Review Online said “How disgusting the State Attorney denied a grand jury the opportunity to review the evidence and determine what, if any, charges it supported against Zimmerman in order to make a craven, politicized, possibly unethical charging decision on her own.” 

I have no idea what happened that night, but I'm repelled by the lynch mob atmosphere and the stated effort of the special prosecutor to "search for justice for Trayvon".  I want to see justice done, not justice for Travon Martin or justice for George Zimmerman.  Just justice.

John M Greco