Mediaite
by James Crugnale
April 11th, 2012
Following special prosecutor Angela Corey‘s announcement that George Zimmerman would be charged with second-degree murder in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, CNN senior legal expert Jeffrey Toobin weighed in on the new developments and what they meant going forward. “She threw the book at him,” Toobin observed.
John King was curious of Toobin’s reaction that Corey decided to go with a charge of second-degree murder which could carry life in prison instead of a lessor charge of manslaughter.
“This is a very, very major charge,” Toobin explained. “It carries the potential of life in prison. The jury instruction that the jury will receive is, he can only be convicted if he showed a depraved attitude towards Trayvon Martin’s life. That’s a tough burden for a prosecutor to meet but she has access to facts that we don’t. The missing couple of minutes where in-between the 911 call that Zimmerman made and the shots being heard on the other 911 call, we don’t know what happened there but there may be other evidence, there may be witnesses that the public doesn’t know about and apparently, it was enough to let the prosecutor bring these charges.”