George Zimmerman was found not guilty of criminal charges, but U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said he is committing to investigating for possible civil rights charges. (Photo by Michael Fleshman.)
By Ashley Lopez
Florida Center for Investigative Reporting
While the state criminal case against George Zimmerman is over, federal officials are continuing their investigation into the shooting that took place over a year ago.
Zimmerman, the man who shot and killed unarmed teen Trayvon Martin, was found not guilty of second-degree murder and manslaughter over the weekend. Zimmerman’s attorneys said he fired his gun in self-defense after following Martin in a Sanford neighborhood.
Since the verdict was announced, people have gone online and into the streets to express their outrage. In some cities, demonstrators have marched through the streets.
Despite Zimmerman’s acquittal on state criminal charges, U.S. Department of Justice said it will continue its investigation into the case for possible hate-crime charges. In a speech on Monday to an African-American sorority, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said he shared concerns about the Zimmerman verdict.
According to The Washington Post:
In a speech at the social action luncheon of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority, Holder pledged that the Justice Department would “continue to act in a manner that is consistent with the facts and the law” and would work to “alleviate tensions, address community concerns and promote healing” in response to the case.
“We are determined to meet division and confusion with understanding and compassion — and also with truth,” he said. “We are resolved, as you are, to combat violence involving or directed at young people, to prevent future tragedies and to deal with the underlying attitudes, mistaken beliefs and stereotypes that serve as the basis for these too common incidents. And we will never stop working to ensure that — in every case, in every circumstance, and in every community — justice must be done.”
Today, Holder will travel to Orlando to talk to Florida’s NAACP, and he is expected to address the group’s recent petition asking the Justice Department to file civil rights charges against Zimmerman.
Within hours of the petition’s debut, the Justice Department released a statement saying its civil rights division still had an open investigation into Martin’s death, launched more than a year ago. Working with the FBI, federal prosecutors are reviewing evidence gathered during a Justice Department investigation — and revealed during the Seminole County trial — to see whether the case fits within “the limited federal criminal civil rights statutes,” the statement said …
The legal standard in a civil lawsuit is lower — a preponderance of the evidence, rather than proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Zimmerman chose not to testify in his criminal trial, but it is likely he would have to testify and be deposed in a civil lawsuit, said Daniel Petrocelli, who led the legal team that won $33.5 million in damages in a civil wrongful-death trial against O.J. Simpson after his murder acquittal.
“In that sense, civil trials are a more pure search for the truth,” Petrocelli, a partner in the O’Melveny & Myers law firm, said in an interview Sunday.
Much of today’s NAACP conference in Florida will focus on the Zimmerman trial.