The politically-motivated prosecution of George Zimmerman continues, as further evidence of prosecutorial misconduct continues to mount.
Any reasonable and prudent person would have thrown this case out long ago.
Involve politics and race hustlers, and suddenly people are afraid to do the right thing and instead engage in misconduct to appease a certain racial segment – in this case blacks.
Orlando, FL (AP) — A court employee who retrieved photos and deleted text messages from Trayvon Martin’s cellphone has been placed on administrative leave after an attorney testified that prosecutors didn’t properly turn over the evidence to the defense, an attorney said Wednesday.
Former prosecutor Wesley White said he was ethically obligated to reveal that Fourth Judicial Circuit Information Technology Director Ben Kruidbos retrieved the data that weren’t turned over.
Kruidbos was placed on leave shortly after White testified during a hearing in George Zimmerman’s second-degree murder case on Tuesday. White said Kruidbos was interviewed by state attorney investigators twice before the action was taken.
Failure to comply with discovery rules should result in charges being dismissed with prejudice, meaning they can’t be refiled at a later time.
Not only that, but criminal charges can be filed against the prosecution as Florida laws provide criminal penalties for failing to comply with discovery rules, especially when they know the evidence is exculpatory to the defendant.
What was the evidence withheld? Also from the same AP article:
White said the photos Kruidbos retrieved were of a hand holding a gun and one depicted drugs. The content of the text messages wasn’t specified.
….. that Trayvon has pictures of unknown (?) 15 or 17 year old girl naked on his phone (sexting)
….. that Trayvon has video he took on his phone of a homeless man being beaten by his crew
….. that Trayvon sought to purchase more marijuana in Sanford
Karl Denninger nails it:
Jail The Prosecutor: Zimmerman Case
…Everyone involved in this needs to go into the dock now and face prosecution. Specifically, the question that must be answered is under who’s direction was this intentional deception fomented, constructed and executed? This is grand jury material and one must be empanelled now.
The folks over at theconservativetreehouse have been all over this; they (and I) have been watching developments in this case like a hawk. Rather than dribble it all out, however, I thought I’d wait until there was so much to present at once that a threshold was reached — essentially irrefutable evidence of prosecutorial misconduct.
We’re there at this point.
Among the material that apparently was in Trayvon’s phone was a video he made of a homeless man being beaten by Trayvon and his friends. The State has thus known since that phone was forensically examined shortly after Martin’s death that Martin had a history of committing crimes against other people, specifically, beating up other people, the precise event that would exonerate Zimmerman in that they had in their possession video evidence of him doing exactly that to another individual.
There is much more but no more is necessary. The fact of the matter is that the intentional failure to turn over exculpatory evidence, which the State knew of last summer, is a clear violation of both legal procedure and the law.
In addition to the Florida State legal issues that are raised here there is the issue of 42 USC 1983 and 18 USC 242, federal laws that provide both civil and criminal penalties attaching to individuals and thus not subject to being waved away by the State paying someone off when civil rights are violated under color of law or authority.
This is exactly the sort of offense that was often perpetrated on black people through the years when they were knowingly prosecuted and imprisoned even while the prosecution was in possession of evidence that they knew was exculpatory in nature.
More and more folks are coming to the reasonable conclusion as Myopiafree writes:
Once you FINALLY know that Mr. Martin was a violent foul-mouthed thug, that participated in a homeless-man’s “beat down” you know what Trayvon was like. So his violent attack on George is explainable. But any critic, should watch a hour-long statement that George made to the police about how this thug attacked him, and was attempting to kill Geroge by beating his head into the concrete. Once you see that video – it is hard to accept that what happened was anything other than Mr. Martin’s effort to play the “Knock-out” game with George’s nose and head.
If you would like to make a donation to the George Zimmerman Defense Fund, you can do so HERE. Please consider making a donation. They need the help as they have essentially spent the money raised earlier on mounting a defense to this scurrilous prosecution.
This could be any of us.
This isn’t about race. This is about justice.
In this case, justice will be done when the prosecutors in this case are disbarred and imprisoned for gross criminal misconduct and civil rights violations.
When this is over, George Zimmerman is going to be a wealthy man, mark my words.