Special Prosecutor Angela Corey
Patience, please, says Angela B. Corey, the tough, conservative special prosecutor appointed six days ago as a result of the firestorm burning officials' behinds in the Trayvon Martin shooting. "We're asking—we're begging people—just give us a chance."
Nonetheless, undoubtedly feeling the pressure, she says there may be no need of the grand jury now slated to convene in the case on April 10. "It's possible that we’ll just make a decision without the grand jury." That decision could be an indictment of George Zimmerman, the man who shot Martin. Or, Corey might choose to do what the Brevard/Seminole counties state attorney did, refuse to press charges because of Zimmerman's claims of self-defense and there not being enough evidence indicating otherwise.
The latter was apparently not the view of the lead homicide detective. After interviewing Zimmerman the night of the shooting, he didn't buy the 28-year-old's self-defense argument and recommended he be charged with manslaughter:
But Sanford, Fla., Investigator Chris Serino was instructed to not press charges against Zimmerman because the state attorney's office headed by Norman Wolfinger determined there wasn't enough evidence to lead to a conviction, the sources told ABC News.
It was Wolfinger who finally agreed last week to convene the grand jury before Florida Gov. Rick Scott took him off the case and appointed Corey, a rising star who is state attorney for Duval, Nassau and Clay counties.
While everyone awaits the conclusions of Corey's investigation, the excavation of the minutiae of Trayvon Martin's prematurely ended life continues, some of it by the merely curious and some by the smear merchants. Martin's Twitter and Facebook accounts have been fodder for both. Of this, Alexandra Petri at the Washington Post wrote:
And now his Facebook page (the one I found, wall full of friends’ condolences, seems to have vanished) and Twitter account (the Daily Caller claims to have located it) are coming under the brutal scrutiny of the finger-pointers. There’s enough for them to make a meal. Of course there is. He was a teenager, the textbook definition of “someone not concerned that his job might later require elaborate background checks.”
I would say “Let the one who has never been a teenager cast the first stone,”but the stones have already been cast, and they’re flying thick and fast. [...]
If Twitter had existed 2,000 years ago, we would have almost no saints. No one would have met the criteria for admission.
All this dredging has turned up nothing of note, nothing that has shed one photon of light on why Martin was shot dead the same month he turned 17. He was, indeed, a bright, cheerful, fairly typical teenager.
Only one thing matters now, and that is what the special prosecutor's team believes when they have completed their investigation. Boiled down to its essentials:
Did George Zimmerman stalk Martin, attack him and feloniously shoot him to death? Or did he follow him and then return to his SUV and get attacked by Martin who knocked him to the ground with a single punch in the face and then banged his head repeatedly against the sidewalk, prompting Zimmerman to pull his pistol and fire in self-defense? The team has Zimmerman's story, some 911 calls, some witnesses and some hard physical evidence which would be more complete if the Sanford Police Department had done a better job on Feb. 26. Of Trayvon Martin they have an autopsy.
Based on what is publicly known, Det. Chris Serino's initial assessment makes a lot of sense. Whether Corey chooses to agree with it we'll know soon enough.