George Zimmerman to be charged over Trayvon Martin death

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/11/george-zimmerman-trayvon-martin

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George Zimmerman will be charged over the death of Trayvon Martin, law enforcement sources in Florida say.

Angela Corey, the special prosecutor who has been investigating the February 26 incident in which the self-appointed neighbourhood watch captain shot the unarmed teenager, has called a press conference for 6pm on Wednesday, when she is expected to announce the decision.

It is not yet clear what charge Zimmerman, 28, will face, but first-degree murder was removed as an option on Monday when Corey decided against calling a grand jury to look at the evidence.

A statement released by Corey's office on Wednesday afternoon made no mention of any charges and, said only that she was "prepared to release new information regarding the Trayvon Martin shooting death investigation."

But an anonymous law enforcement source close to the investigation told multiple media sources that Zimmerman would be arrested and charged.

A local radio station in Sanford said that sheriff's deputies had begun erecting barricades at the Seminole County jail, where new inmates are booked.

Meanwhile, Benjamin Crump, the attorney representing Martin's parents, said on Wednesday that the state attorney's office had requested to know where they would be on every day this week.

Zimmerman, who claimed he was acting in self-defence and was not arrested at the time of the incident, will need to find new legal representation. His lawyers, Hal Uhrig and Craig Sonner, said they were dropping him as a client because he was refusing to return their emails and phone calls.

Uhrig and Sonner said they had not heard from Zimmerman since Sunday and that he was no longer returning their calls or emails. They dropped Zimmerman as a client, they said, because he had contacted Corey's office against their advice and set up his own fundraising website outside of their guidance.

In a Tuesday press conference, the pair questioned Zimmerman's mental state, suspecting him to be "emotionally crippled" by the reaction to the case, admitted they had never had a face-to-face meeting with him and expressed their belief that he had already left Florida.

But they said they would be happy to work with him again if he got back in touch.

Zimmerman, meanwhile, has been careful to cover his tracks, online at least. His website, therealgeorgezimmerman.com, was set up through a company in Scottsdale, Arizona, that specialises in private and anonymous registrations.

With every new development in the case analysed publicly, other high-profile lawyers have been quick to offer opinions. Jose Baez, Casey Anthony's former attorney, and Mark Geragos, who represented Michael Jackson, both appeared on CNN to criticise Uhrig and Sonner.

"It's unbelievable that you would get on television and talk about your client's mental state. It's reprehensible," said Baez.

Geragos likened the press conference to a Saturday Night Live comedy sketch. "What do they have in the water down there in Florida?" he said.

"This is just absolutely the worst thing I can remember seeing any lawyer do in regards to their client. Some of the previous interviews were train wrecks, those things were toy cars compared to what this is."