Trayvon Martin death won’t go to Fla. grand jury

MIKE SCHNEIDER

Asso­ci­ated Press

ORLANDO, Fla. — A grand jury will not look into the Trayvon Mar­tin case, a spe­cial pros­e­cu­tor said Mon­day, leav­ing the deci­sion of whether to charge the teen’s shooter in her hands alone and elim­i­nat­ing the pos­si­bil­ity of a first-degree mur­der charge.

That pros­e­cu­tor, Angela Corey, said her deci­sion had no bear­ing on whether she would file charges against George Zim­mer­man, the neigh­bor­hood watch vol­un­teer who has said he shot the unarmed black teen in self-defense. Corey could still decide to charge him with a seri­ous felony such as manslaugh­ter, which can carry a lengthy prison sen­tence if he is convicted.

A grand jury had been set to meet Tues­day in San­ford, about 20 miles north­east of Orlando.

Corey has long had a rep­u­ta­tion for not using grand juries if it wasn’t nec­es­sary. In Florida, only first-degree mur­der cases require the use of grand juries.

Corey’s deci­sion means she doesn’t have to rely on poten­tially unpre­dictable jurors, said David Hill, an Orlando crim­i­nal defense attorney.

“Let’s give her the ben­e­fit of the doubt. Maybe she knows there isn’t enough for first-degree mur­der but she wants to main­tain con­trol and charge him with some­thing else,” Hill said. “What does she need a grand jury for? She cuts out the unpre­dictabil­ity of the grand jury. She goes where she feels she has more evidence.”

Corey took over the case last month after the pros­e­cu­tor who nor­mally han­dles cases out of San­ford recused him­self. That pros­e­cu­tor, Norm Wolfin­ger, had orig­i­nally called for the case to be pre­sented before a grand jury.

“From the moment she was assigned, Ms. Corey noted she may not need a grand jury,” said a state­ment from Corey’s office.

Pros­e­cu­tors some­times use grand juries to avoid the polit­i­cal fall­out from con­tro­ver­sial cases. But Corey was elected by vot­ers more than 100 miles away in the Jack­sonville area, so polit­i­cal prob­lems are less of an issue for Corey, Hill said.

Mar­tin was killed Feb. 26 dur­ing a con­fronta­tion with Zim­mer­man in a gated com­mu­nity in Sanford.

Zim­mer­man has claimed self-defense, and Florida’s self-defense law gives wide lee­way to use deadly force and elim­i­nates a person’s duty to retreat in the face of danger.

Zimmerman’s attor­ney, Craig Son­ner, said he didn’t want to com­ment on Corey’s decision.

An attor­ney for Martin’s par­ents said in a state­ment that he is not sur­prised by the deci­sion to avoid the grand jury and hopes a deci­sion is reached soon.

“The fam­ily has been patient through­out this process and asks that those who sup­port them do the same dur­ing this very impor­tant inves­ti­ga­tion,” said attor­ney Ben­jamin Crump.

The case has led to protests across the nation and spurred a debate about race and the laws of self-defense. Mar­tin was black; Zimmerman’s father is white and his mother is Hispanic.

In Geor­gia, a civil rights activist is chal­leng­ing that state’s so-called stand your ground law. The Rev. Markel Hutchins said he sued Mon­day in Atlanta in response to Martin’s death. The law­suit claims the law leads to the unnec­es­sary use of lethal force.

On Mon­day, one protest led to the tem­po­rary clos­ing of the San­ford Police Depart­ment offices to the pub­lic for most of the day as about a half dozen stu­dent activists blocked the build­ing entrance.

Police offi­cers took no action to remove the pro­test­ers, who were part of a group of stu­dents who marched from Day­tona Beach to San­ford over the weekend.

Cit­i­zens want­ing to do busi­ness with the police depart­ment were directed to City Hall.

Call­ing them­selves “the Dream Defend­ers,” the pro­test­ers demanded Zimmerman’s arrest; a spe­cial inves­ti­ga­tion into the San­ford Police Depart­ment; a com­mu­nity meet­ing; and the fir­ing of the city man­ager and the police chief who tem­porar­ily stepped down after Martin’s death, Bill Lee. Dar­ren Scott, a 23-year vet­eran of the San­ford Police Depart­ment, was named act­ing chief. Lee is still employed with the depart­ment and receiv­ing his salary.

After meet­ing with six of the pro­test­ers, city offi­cials agreed only to a com­mu­nity forum next week.

“The city cer­tainly is com­mit­ted to jus­tice for Trayvon Mar­tin,” said City Man­ager Nor­ton Bona­parte Jr.

Posted by AP News on Apr 9 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.