At Colorlines, Brentin Mock writes that the only good news about Florida's colorblind trial against George Zimmerman is that it now allows the U.S. Department of Justice, which has broader resources and authority, to build a stronger case against the former neighborhood-watch captain without excluding race.
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Veteran civil rights attorneys and advocates are convinced that enough evidence of wrongdoing remains from the George Zimmerman case to allow the U.S. Department of Justice to file additional charges against Trayvon Martin’s killer. Over a million people have signed an NAACP petition in agreement. The Justice Department has responded by reopening the investigation they started early last year, when the Sanford police still were figuring out for weeks if they would even arrest Zimmerman.
“I am concerned about this case and as we confirmed last spring, the Justice Department has an open investigation into it,” U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder told the NAACP at their national convention in Orlando yesterday. “While that inquiry is ongoing, I can promise that the Department of Justice will consider all available information before determining what action to take.”
Civil rights division attorneys in the Justice Department are working with the FBI to evaluate the Zimmerman case above and beyond what was argued in state court. There are two main differences between this federal investigation and the state’s: One, the federal government has broader resources and authority to examine everything that went wrong in the Zimmerman case; and, two, unlike the state’s prosecution, they have no reason to leave race out of it.
Read Brentin Mock's entire piece at Colorlines.
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