Now in custody, George Zimmerman could face life in prison. JACKSONVILLE -- The neighborhood watchman who shot and killed Miami Gardens tee...
Now in custody, George Zimmerman could face life in prison.JACKSONVILLE -- The neighborhood watchman who shot and killed Miami Gardens teenager Trayvon Martin is scheduled for a bond hearing Thursday at 1:30 p.m. after a special prosecutor charged him with second-degree murder following 45 days of protests, petitions and intense national media coverage of the case.
George Zimmerman, 28, turned himself in to police in Jacksonville after the charges were announced late Wednesday. Florida Department of Law Enforcement officials then transported Zimmerman from Jacksonville to Sanford, where he is now a protective custody inmate at the Seminole County Jail.
Mark O’Mara, Zimmerman’s defense attorney, said his client will plead not guilty to the charges.
He told CNN Thursday morning that Zimmerman is fatigued from more than a month of seclusion.
“He’s stressed,’’ O’Mara said of Zimmerman. “He’s tired. He’s been through a lot with the way this case has been handled to date.’’
Trayvon’s family also has been through a lot, said Sybrina Fulton, Trayvon’s mother, speaking on NBC’s Today Show Thursday morning.
“I understand that his family is hurting but think about our family, we lost our teenage son,’’ she told Today Show anchor Ann Curry. “I’m sure his parents can pick up the phone and call him, but we can't pick up the phone and call Trayvon any more.’’
Thursday’s bond hearing will be Zimmerman’s first appearance before a judge, who will explain the charges against him. The judge could order Zimmerman to be released on bail, or that he be held without bond.
Saying she believed the shooting death of her 17-year-old son was “an accident,’’ Fulton revealed on the Today Show her opinion in the case for the first time.
“I believe it was an accident,’’ she said. “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.’’
Details of the shooting and the events that led up to it are still emerging.
O’Mara, who took the case Wednesday night after Zimmerman’s previous attorneys resigned, said he has met only briefly with his client.
Though he is just getting familiar with the evidence in the case, O’Mara expressed surprise at the second-degree murder charges, and said he thought “it might be manslaughter’’ — a lesser charge.
Zimmerman was charged with second-degree murder, a first-degree felony — a far more serious charge than the manslaughter arrest most experts were predicting. The decision to file the charge was made by special prosecutor Angela Corey, the Jacksonville-based state attorney for Duval, Clay and Nassau counties, who vowed to fight a self-defense claim and insisted that she did not bow to public pressure.
O’Mara said a pre-trial motion to dismiss the charges based on a claim of self-defense “could well occur, but it’s way too premature.’’
As Zimmerman’s case begins to wind its way through the courts, news of the charges against him was welcomed by students at Krop High School in North Miami-Dade, where Trayvon was a junior.
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