By now you have heard the news that George Zimmerman has been charged with second degree murder in the death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.
Yesterday you also probably aware that Zimmerman's pro bono attorneys held a press conference saying that they didn't know where he was but that he wasn't in the state of Florida. Their press conference was as bizarre as the behavior of the client that they had never met face-to-face but whose innocence they believed in unequivocally.
Zimmerman has a new lawyer. His name is Mark M. O'Mara and he specializes in Criminal and Family Law. O'Mara, who is a legal analyst for Florida's WKMG-Channel 6 had this to say about the crackerjack legal pair who hosted the ethically-challenged press conference:
WKMG-Channel 6 legal analyst Mark O’Mara said he was “surprised that two attorneys who were no longer counsel talked for an hour about a case that they’re no longer involved in. I think that was a little problematic. You’re not supposed to talk about a client’s case, for the most part at all, and yet they answered dozens of questions.”
Anchor Lauren Rowe asked: “What if another attorney comes along and starts to represent him? Would this news conference actually be detrimental to their case?”
O’Mara replied: “Very potentially. If George Zimmerman came to me tomorrow and said, ‘I want you to represent me,’ I would look at the press conference and say, ‘Mr. Uhrig identified a potential defense. He outlined the facts of what happened, and he cemented what George Zimmerman can now say.’ And that’s problematic if other evidence comes out that conflicts with it.”
http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/...
Here's O'Mara talking about his understanding of the Stand Your Ground Law presumably before he knew he would be defending Zimmerman.
Comments begin at 0:17
Reporter: Can you confront someone, shoot them and get away with that?
Mark O'Mara: Well under certain circumstances with our laws the way they are today, the answer would be, yes.
Reporter's voiceover: O'Mara says that's due to the controversial Stand Your Ground law, approved in 2005 in response to hurricane looters. if you fear that somebody is about to greatly injure or kill you, you can kill them.
Reporter: With this law on the books, it sounds like people have a license to kill.
O'Mara: Other people call it the License to Murder statute because it doesn't require actions to avoid the confrontation.
VO: And it appears that is what happened on February 26. Neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman spotted 17-year-old Trayvon Martin and called police to report a suspicious person. Police told Zimmerman not to interfere but a fight broke out and Zimmerman shot and killed the unarmed teenager. Sanford police said that they do not have any evidence to dispute Zimmerman's self-defense claim.
O'Mara: If you can present evidence or at least your own testimony that I felt in fear that he was going to commit great bodily injury or death, that is what kicks in the statutory protection that you're allowed to respond with deadly force.
As I was researching O'Mara's TV analyst role, it was interesting to see that his Stand Your Ground interview only had 67 hits on Youtube. A few refreshes later that turned into 122 hits.
I expect that number to grow exponentially over the next few days and months along with scrutiny of Mr. O'Mara as he defends the most controversial client of the year.
For what it's worth, based on the excessively scant research I've done, O'Mara doesn't seem to be a fire-breathing, publicity hungry, culture warrior. He seems to be a laid back guy, who likes his dog, and is about to have all that quietude and national obscurity change as he steps into America's latest trial of the century.
UPDATE: Here's is an excerpt from Mark O'Mara's press conference as the newly appointed lawyer for George Zimmerman.
Reporter: Mark his former attorneys made him sound a little frantic. How did he sound to you? How was his voice?
Mark O'Mara: He is troubled by everything that has happened. And I cannot imagine living in George Zimmerman's shoes for the past number of weeks. Only because he has sort of been at the focus of anger and maybe confusion and maybe some hatred. That's got to be difficult. I mean truly it must be frightening to not be able to go into a 7-11 or into a store and literally to be in effect a prisoner wherever he was. So that would trouble all of us. I am sure that he is wearing some of the fallout.
You'll forgive me if I do not for a single moment dwell on how harrowing this must be for George Zimmerman not being able to travel freely to 7-11 without fearing for his safety.
You'll forgive me that I gave this insensate, tone deaf lawyer the benefit of the doubt before I heard him utter these words about George Zimmerman when he surely he must know that Trayvon Martin's parents will hear that we all should feel sad about George Zimmerman being inconvenienced from going to 7-11 to maybe pick up some Skittles and an iced tea and that he is "wearing the fallout" of that tremendous life-altering setback, while Trayvon's parents wear theirs.
Ending here before I cuss throughout the rest of this diary.