Trayvon Martin’s mother, Sybrina Fulton, joined with Democratic lawmakers in Florida to seek the repeal of the Stand Your Ground law that George Zimmerman is using as a defense after killing the youth last February.
Fulton appeared at a press conference yesterday in Tallahassee with Florida state Rep. Alan Williams and state Sen. Dwight Bullard, calling for the law’s repeal. Williams introduced a bill in the state house, but the bill is unlikely to get enough support from the Republicans who control the legislature to have much chance of passing — particularly since a panel created by Republican Gov. Rick Scott to examine the law recommended no major changes to it.
In another development in the Zimmerman trial, the shooter’s lawyers finally got their hands on Trayvon’s school records. On Oct. 19, Circuit Judge Debra S. Nelson granted lawyer Mark O’Mara’s request to get the records, but the defense team does not have permission to release them or enter them into evidence.
The request for the records launched a wave of criticism, as many people feared the defense lawyers would use them to demonize the 17-year-old.
State prosecutors and Benjamin Crump, an attorney for Trayvon’s parents, objected to releasing the records, claiming they were irrelevant to the case since Zimmerman did not know Trayvon before the Feb. 26 shooting.
At the time of the shooting, Trayvon was serving a 10-day school suspension after being caught at the school with an empty marijuana baggie.
But Zimmerman’s legal team promised through their website that it would not “demonize” the teen.
“A number of parties have expressed concern that we will use information found in the school records to ‘demonize’ Trayvon Martin,” the website said. “The Zimmerman defense has no intention to demonize Trayvon Martin.”
When he made the request for the records, O’Mara apologized but said he owed it to his client to look into Trayvon’s past.
In order to have any parts of the school records entered into evidence and publicly released, the defense lawyers would have to prove at a hearing that they were relevant to the case. The “self-defense immunity hearing” could happen in April if requested by the lawyers.
