A Charge Gone Wrong

Along with the rest of the country, I have been watching the unfolding events of the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman tragedy.  While I have more thoughts to share, I'm trying to stick to my relatively new rule of watching a while before making up my mind.

A couple items worth sharing include this note about Alan Dershowitz's criticism of the indictment affidavit of George Zimmerman.

The arrest affidavit did not mention the photograph, or the bleeding, gashes, and bruises on Zimmermans’ head. Professor Alan Dershowitz of Harvard Law School stated upon release of the arrest affidavit that it was “so thin that it won’t make it past a judge on a second degree murder charge … everything in the affidavit is completely consistent with a defense of self-defense.”


After the release of the photo, however, Dershowitz went much further, telling Breitbart News that if the prosecutors did have the photo and didn’t mention it in the affidavit, that would constitute a “grave ethical violation,” since affidavits are supposed to contain “all relevant information.”


Dershowitz continued, “An affidavit that willfully misstates undisputed evidence known to the prosecution is not only unethical but borders on perjury because an affiant swears to tell not only the truth, but the whole truth, and suppressing an important part of the whole truth is a lie."

Astute readers will recall that Mr. Dershowitz is not exactly known as a firebrand for right-of-center politics.

Update - It may be that Mr. Dershowitz's comments were misinformed.  I haven't had the time to look just yet.  His comments are not the only ones I've heard/read along those lines, so the criticism may still be appropriate.  Now returning to your regularly scheduled post....

Just One Minute goes on to point out that the prosecution displayed a depressing level of incompetence at the bail hearing.  Fair warning, JOM was not depressed by the lack of competence on display.  However, I think they make some valid points about the presence of exculpatory information that is readily known and yet being ignored by the prosecution.

I don't have a conclusion to offer based on the above.  I do think it is useful information to be assimilated as we all follow the unfolding events.