Defense attorneys Mark O'Mara, left, and Don West confer
with George Zimmerman at a court hearing June 6, 2013.
Fifteen months after he took the life of Trayvon Martin with a single shot from his semi-automatic pistol, George Zimmerman will go on trial this week at the Seminole County courthouse in Sanford, Florida. He is charged with second-degree murder. If convicted, he could serve life in prison.
A pre-trial hearing on evidence that failed to be completed Saturday is scheduled for this morning. That will be followed by the selection of a six-member jury, which could take as long as three weeks. You can watch here beginning at 9 AM ET.
The case has roused a plethora of hot-button issues, including racism, gun regulations, police competence and Florida's much-criticized Stand Your Ground law that gives people the statutory right to defend themselves with lethal force if they have a reasonable fear for their life. Not all those issues will make their way into the courtroom itself, but they certainly will be raised again in coverage of the trial by the traditional media and the blogosphere. At least 200 journalists have obtained credentials to cover the trial.
Two "public assembly zones" have been established outside the courthouse. Anyone in them will subject to police search. A handful of protesters, supporters of Bob Avakian's Revolutionary Communist Party, a cultish Maoist throwback dating to the 1970s, was already on hand Sunday to give their particular spin to the trial and the remedy they propose for all that ails America. The Knights Party, also known as the Ku Klux Klan, was reported to be in town and planning to hand out flyers in support of the Second Amendment.
Some local vigils are expected, including one by Al Sharpton's National Action Network. But other organizations—including the NAACP, which holds its national convention in Orlando on July 13-17, right when the trial may come to a conclusion—have announced no plans for protests yet. The city of Sanford told a television news station that it has received no requests for permits required for large demonstrations.
"You saw the protests die down once the arrest was made,” said Martin family attorney Natalie Jackson. “The people said the process is fair now. There is a fair process, so now let him have a fair trial."
Another Martin family lawyer, Ben Crump, was more hard-edged:
"I honestly think this is a civil rights/equal justice issue because everybody in the world is watching to see if everybody in America gets equal justice," Crump said. "This family has wanted to have their day in court. They wanted to not have their son's death be in vain. They pray continuously that the justice system does not fail them."
Everything will depend on how the jurors view who did what when in the struggle and the confrontation that led up to it that ended in Martin's slaying. Millions of Americans have long since made up their mind about that.