Problems with the Zimmerman Affidavit

[Geee]

American Thinker:

I spent twenty years working Colorado law enforcement, followed by nearly two years as an investigator for the Colorado State Public Defender's Office. Ten of my twenty-two years in the criminal justice arena were in the area of criminal investigations, complex and simple.

I just read the arrest affidavit in the Florida v. George Zimmerman case. I'm pretty certain that I would have been laughed out of any judge's chambers in Colorado had I brought in a piece of evidentiary matter so poorly written. The Zimmerman affidavit is so deficient in properly sourced factual information and full of unsubstantiated, unsourced conclusions that I am appalled that a state's attorney would even give it a second look. I don't know what's going on in the Florida Courts. But where I worked as a cop, all summaries of statements from eye- and earwitnesses, whether inculpatory or exculpatory, had to be both sourced and included in a properly assembled arrest affidavit.

Every piece of information in the affidavit must be provable to a jury. This case is terribly lacking, both in supporting evidence and in veracity. To wit, from the document (with pertinent material emphasis highlighted by me):

On Sunday 2/26/12, Trayvon Martin was temporarily living at the Retreat at Twin Lakes, a gated community in Sanford, Seminole County, Florida. That evening Martin walked to a nearby 7-11 Store where he purchased a can of iced tea and some skittles. Martin then walked back to and entered the gated community and was on his way back to the townhouse where he was living when he was profiled by George Zimmerman. Martin was unarmed and was not committing a crime...

Here we have two unsubstantiated conclusions:

1) There is nothing offered by way of proof that anyone "profiled" Martin. If Zimmerman confessed to doing that, based upon the color of Martin's skin, it should be in the document. Otherwise, lacking some independent substantiation, it's a huge lie.

2) We don't know that Martin was not committing a crime or preparing to commit a crime. Zimmerman's statements to the 911 dispatcher tend to dispute the affiants' conclusion, the evidentiary source of which is not included.