Excerpted from ABC News: George Zimmerman’s attorney has begun what could be a lengthy legal battle to free his client from the second-degree murder charge filed in the case.
The first step for Zimmerman attorney Mark O’Mara will be to try to get his client out of jail while the legal process continues. A hearing for the 28-year-old probably will be held on April 20 to determine if he will be allowed to post bail and leave jail, O’Mara said late Thursday.
Earlier Thursday, Zimmerman stood straight and held his shaved head high during a four-minute hearing at a jailhouse courtroom while prosecutors briefly outlined their murder case in court papers.
O’Mara said his client’s appearance and demeanor belies what he is going through.
“He is tired. He has gone through some tribulations,” said O’Mara after the court appearance. “He is facing second-degree murder charges now. He is frightened. That would frighten any of us.”
Zimmerman did not enter a plea during the hearing, although O’Mara previously said his client ultimately will plead not guilty. Zimmerman will be able to enter a plea during his May 29 arraignment.
At some point soon, O’Mara also is expected to ask the judge for a hearing on Florida’s “stand your ground” self-defense law, which gives people a broad right to use deadly force without having to retreat from a fight.
“It is going to be a facet of this defense, I’m sure,” he said in an interview. “That statute has some troublesome portions to it, and we’re now going to have some conversations and discussions about it as a state. But right now it is the law of Florida and it is the law that is going to have an impact on this case.”
For all the relief among civil rights activists over the arrest, legal experts warned there is a real chance the case could get thrown out before it ever goes to trial because of the “stand your ground” law.
At a pretrial hearing, Zimmerman’s lawyers would only have to prove by a preponderance of evidence — a relatively low legal standard — that he acted in self-defense in order to get a judge to toss out the second-murder charges. And if that fails and the case does go to trial, the defense can raise the argument all over again.
There’s a “high likelihood it could be dismissed by the judge even before the jury gets to hear the case,” Florida defense attorney Richard Hornsby said. Karin Moore, an assistant professor of law at Florida A&M University, said the law “puts a tremendous burden on the state to prove that it wasn’t self-defense.”
To prove second-degree murder, prosecutors must show Zimmerman committed an “imminently dangerous” act that showed a “depraved” lack of regard for human life. The charge carries a mandatory sentence of 25 years in prison and a maximum of life.
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