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Title: Trayvon Martin Case: George Zimmerman's Attorneys Quit, Said Client 'Disappeared'
Source:
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URL Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/ ... -attorneys-quit_n_1416031.html
Published: Apr 10, 2012
Author: Gene Demby
Post Date: 2012-04-10 18:42:19 by A K A Stone
Keywords: None
Views: 3688
Comments: 13
George Zimmerman's attorneys said in a press conference Tuesday afternoon that they will no longer be representing him. The attorneys claim that Zimmerman repeatedly rebuffed their legal advice, and that they have now lost contact with him. "As of now we are withdrawing as counsel for Mr. Zimmerman," Craig Sonner, one of his attorneys, told reporters outside the Seminole County Courthhouse in Sanford, Fla. "We've lost contact with him. Up to this point, we've had contact with him everyday. He's gone on his own. I'm not sure what he's doing or who he's talking to, but at this point we're withdrawing as counsel. If he wants us to come back as counsel, he will contact us." Zimmerman said he killed Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black 17-year-old, on Feb. 26 in the gated community where the girlfriend of the teenager's father lived in Sanford. Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch member, called 911 and told a police dispatcher that Martin, who was returning from a trip to a nearby convenience store, "looked suspicious." After an altercation, Zimmerman shot Martin in the chest. He told the local police that he shot Martin in self defense, and he was not arrested or charged. Protesters around the country have held rallies calling for Zimmerman's arrest, and the Sanford police department has been the focus of withering criticism for its handling of the initial investigation. The case has become a flashpoint in the national debates over racial profiling and gun control laws. Sonner said that he still believed that Zimmerman was acting in self-defense, which Zimmerman and his surrogates have maintained since the shooting. "Nothing that I've said about him or this case has changed in any way," Sonner said. Uhrig said that Zimmerman had stopped responding to their phone calls, and that they did not know exactly where he was, although they thought that he was no longer in Florida. Last week, Zimmerman's lawyers said their client was ready to surrender if charged with a crime. Uhrig said that last Thursday, he and Sonner helped George Zimmerman's father, Robert Zimmerman, set up a website to solicit donations for George's legal defense and living expenses. They said that they had not been able to reach Zimmerman on Sunday, the day before the site was to go live, although the site's address was made available to news outlets. "On Sunday we lost track of George in that he wouldn't return our phone calls, and we couldn't get hold of him," Uhrig said. "We had no reason at that time to believe that it was anything suspect." "But on Monday we began fielding questions...did we know anything about [therealgeorgezimmerman.com] website? And our initial response was, well that's probably bogus, we don't know anything about that. And we started making inquiries and frankly confirmed that he through friends or family had in fact set that site up and it was legitimate. We immediately began telling the media, disregard the earlier website we gave you that we had set up. Go for the one we now know that he set up." "We were happy enough with that, but disturbed that he had not communicated with us," Uhrig said. The attorneys said that Zimmerman had repeatedly ignored their counsel. "We learned that he had called Sean Hannity of Fox News directly — not through us," Uhrig said. "We believe that he spoke directly with Sean off the record and [Hannity's] not even willing to tell us what our client told him." Uhrig said the "final straw" was an attempt to set up a meeting with Zimmerman and the office of the special prosecutor on the case, Angela Corey. But Uhrig said that Zimmerman had contacted the special prosecutor directly, as well. "We were a bit astonished and had some conversation back and forth with the prosecutor's office," Uhrig said."They told us what we expected, '[that they] were not going to talk to a criminal or [defendant] without counsel.'" Uhrig said that Zimmerman told officials at the prosecutors office that Uhrig and Sonner were not his lawyers, but "his legal advisers." As the press conference went on, Uhrig engaged in several testy exchanges with reporters — alternately criticizing the news media's coverage of the case, lambasting the involvement of civil rights groups and activists in the case, and defending the state's Stand Your Ground law. "The gun law is a good law because it gives honest citizens the right to carry a weapon," Uhrig said. On Monday, the special prosecutor said that she would not convene a grand jury in the case, which effectively rules out murder charges in the case, as only grand juries can issue murder charges in the state of Florida. Zimmerman can still be charged with manslaughter and other crimes for his role in the shooting.
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#1. To: A K A Stone (#0)
cracker is going down!
#2. To: Brian S (#1)
No. He is just getting better help.
You and Fred must hear those words a lot, huh Briana?
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#13. To: Brian S (#1)
cracker is going down!
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