In what may be the most ill-advised letter ever penned by a defender of someone accused of a racially motivated homicide, the conservative Daily Caller claims that an unidentified “family member” of Trayvon Martin’s shooter George Zimmerman sent a paranoid letter to Attorney General Eric Holder yesterday accusing him and much of the “black community” of racial bias:

I realize that you are no doubt aware of the events that took place on February 26, 2012 in Sanford, Florida. While the facts of the case have not been made public yet, many in the black community have formed what many are calling a “lynch mob” against George Zimmerman. The rhetoric from the black community has ranged from benign to incredibly violent. Among those that have interjected themselves include Congressmen (and women), the Congressional Black Caucus, The NAACP, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Spike Lee, President Barack Obama, and the most violent, the New Black Panthers. . . .

I am not writing this letter to discuss the intricacies of the case because, as you know, the investigation by the Florida Attorney General is not complete. I am writing you to ask you why, when the law of the land is crystal clear, is your office not arresting the New Black Panthers for hate crimes? The Zimmerman family is in hiding because of the threats that have been made against us, yet the DOJ has maintained an eerie silence on this matter. These threats are very public. If you haven’t been paying attention just do a Google search and you will find plenty. Since when can a group of people in the United States put a bounty on someone’s head, circulate Wanted posters publicly, and still be walking the streets? Many people that I know (and many that I don’t) believe that racism is the only reason that this group has not been rounded up yet. Again, we are not talking about racism on the side of George Zimmerman. There is no possible explanation for why this is not the case. The entire world has seen these threats and we can all only assume that your office has as well. . . . I would surmise that, based on your own definition of a hate crime, you have chosen not to arrest these individuals based solely on your race. There is no other explanation.

Let’s be absolutely clear. The New Black Panther Party is a repulsive, bigoted organization that’s classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Their actions are routinely indefensible, and their recent announcement that they are offering a $10,000 reward for the “CAPTURE AND CITIZENS ARREST FOR GEORGE ZIMMERMAN” cannot be squared with the rule of law — even though Florida officials have also been negligent in their own duty to investigate and prosecute a man who appears very likely to have killed an innocent teenager in cold blood.

But there is also a much more plausible explanation for the fact that the United States Department of Justice has not brought charges for this bounty on Zimmerman. It’s not at all clear that their actions violate a federal criminal law. Federal hate crimes statutes forbid the use of “dangerous weapon[s]” to “cause bodily injury” to someone because of their race, and they also forbid threats of force that hinder certain protected activities, such as voting or receiving federal financial assistance. But the New Black Panthers’ specific actions likely do not constitute a federal crime, no matter how deplorable they may be.

More importantly, however, there’s something bizarre and disturbing about this Zimmerman family member’s attempt to paint George as the victim of racial animus, given George Zimmerman’s likely role in a racially motivated homicide.

In a shocking turn of events, George Zimmerman’s two attorney’s — Craig Sonner and Hal Uhrig — announced they were withdrawing from the case. They said they have lost track of Zimmerman and have not been able to contact him for several days.

At various times during the press conference, both attorneys said they did not know where Zimmerman is currently.

Uhrig told the press that, if people are trying to find Zimmerman, they should “stop looking in Florida” and “look much farther way.” This directly contradicts what Craig Sonner said on March 23 when he assured a reporter from WFTV that “he’s absolutely in the state, he’s local.”

Watch a compilation:

Has George Zimmerman been on the move over the last two weeks?

Trayvon Martin’s family attorney expressed concern that Zimmerman may flee: “Trayvon’s family was always concerned that Zimmerman doesn’t try to skirt his legal responsibilities and become a flight risk.”

Over the last several days George Zimmerman’s attorneys, Hal Uhrig and Craig Sonner, have launched an aggressive public relations offensive on behalf of their client. They’ve appeared extensively on local and national media, frequently detailing their version of the events of February 26 as “fact.”

For example, on April 4, Hal Uhrig said the following on CNN:

The reason that Trayvon Martin is dead is not because he was black or because he wore a hoodie or because he was walking in the rain. It’s because that 6’3″ young man made a terrible decision and a bad judgment, when he decided to smack somebody in the face and break their nose, jump on them and smack their head into the ground. And in doing that, put him in reasonable fear for his safety.

Such statements, which have not been established by medical records or other evidence, may be in conflict with the Florida Rules of Professional Conduct. Rule 4-3.6(a) states:

Prejudicial Extrajudicial Statements Prohibited. A lawyer shall not make an extrajudicial statement that a reasonable person would expect to be disseminated by means of public communication if the lawyer knows or reasonably should know that it will have a substantial likelihood of materially prejudicing an adjudicative proceeding due to its creation of an imminent and substantial detrimental effect on that proceeding.

ThinkProgress spoke with Pat Brussard, a law professor at Florida A&M who teaches courses in Professional Responsibility. Brussard told ThinkProgress Zimmerman’s lawyers “may be in some trouble” because “it appears they are testifying.” According to Brussard, when Zimmerman’s attorneys “put out opinion information as if it were the truth” that is “sketchy behavior.” Uhrig was a paid television analyst during the Casey Anthony trial and Brussard said he may be “confusing the role of a spin-doctor on the Casey Anthony trial with what his job is now.”

Brussard could not say definitively whether Zimmerman’s lawyers were in violation of the rules, but “at a minimum it’s right there on the edge.”

Many of Brussard’s concerns were shared by Anita Allen, a law professor who teaches legal ethics at the University of Pennsylvania. Allen noted that when information because less factual and more speculative, advocates have an ethical obligation to “keep their mouths shut” to avoid prejudicing a future legal proceeding.

Earlier today, McDonald’s revealed that it has broken ties with the American Legislative Exchange Council, the conservative group that was recently ditched by Kraft, Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Intuit, and the Gates Foundation:

The fast food giant tells Mother Jones that it recently decided to cut ties with ALEC, the corporate-backed group that drafts pro-free-market legislation for state lawmakers around the country. “While [we] were a member of ALEC in 2011, we evaluate all professional memberships annually and made the business decision not to renew in 2012,” Ashlee Yingling, a McDonald’s spokeswoman, wrote in an email. Yingling didn’t mention any specific campaign or outside pressure as playing a role in the company’s decision to leave ALEC. . . .

McDonald’s sought to clarify its relationship with ALEC after a coalition of progressive groups with members in all 50 states, including Common Cause and Color of Change, announced plans on Tuesday to target McDonald’s for its ongoing membership in ALEC. Rashad Robinson, Color of Change’s executive director, said groups in the coalition were “flooding” McDonald’s, Johnson and Johnson, and State Farm with phone calls demanding they stop backing ALEC.

It’s worth noting that McDonald’s most recent statement is a sharp break from their position just over a month ago. In a February 29 letter to Robinson, McDonald’s said that it remained a member of ALEC — although it disclaimed involvement with ALEC’s model Voter ID legislation which disenfranchises thousands of poor, minority and elderly voters.

Nevertheless, McDonald’s apparent withdraw from ALEC is welcome, even if it is a very recent development. Beyond working to strip the franchise from many Americans, ALEC is also a leading backer of the kind of “stand your ground” laws that may enable Trayvon Martin’s shooter to escape justice. McDonald’s recent claim that it is the sixth ALEC backer to withdraw its support shows that the organization is fast becoming too toxic for companies that want to do business with the very kind of people ALEC harms.

Iowa Republican State Rep. Ralph Watts is a proud member of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). And amid the rapidly growing national backlash against the corporate-funded conservative advocacy group, Watts is doubling down on that support.

Last week, Progress Iowa asked Hawkeye State legislators to cut ties to ALEC in light of its work to push voter restrictions in state legislatures around the country and what the it called ALEC’s “detrimental effect on public policy.” Twenty-one Iowa lawmakers are ALEC members, according to Progress Iowa, including House Republican Leader Linda Upmeyer, who serves as ALEC’s national second vice chairman.

In response to this call for lawmakers to distance themselves from the increasingly toxic conservative organization, Watts fired back in a House floor speech yesterday:

How should we respond to Progress Iowa? … I say, Nuts to you! Your intimidation tactics may work on some legislators and even some high-level executive offices, but it doesn’t get traction with this legislator.

This hostile reaction from Watts is unsurprising: the top quote on his campaign website, the late arch-conservative Sen. Jesse Helms (R-NC), begins “Compromise, hell! That’s what has happened to us all down the line – and that’s the very cause of our woes.”

Watts has done ALEC’s bidding in the Iowa legislature and nationally. In 2010, he signed an ALEC letter to Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) railing against the EPA’s plan to regulate greenhouse gases. A 2011 analysis by the Daily Iowan and the Center for Media and Democracy found that Watts sponsored three bills closely modeled on ALEC drafts. These included:

HF285, based on ALEC’s Intellectual Diversity in Higher Education Act (a bill to force more “intellectual diversity” on campuses);

HR 4, based on ALEC’s State Withdrawal from Regional Climate Initiatives bill; and

HF 95, based on ALEC’s Voter ID Act.

Watts also sponsored the radical HJR 4, closely modeled on ALEC’s “Resolution Calling for the Congress of the United States to Call a Constitutional Convention Pursuant to Article V of the United States Constitution to Propose a Constitutional Amendment Permitting Repeal of any Federal Law or Regulation by Vote of Two-Thirds of the State Legislatures.”

Watts dismissed the significance of ALEC and it pro-corporate legislation mill, telling the Daily Iowan “There’s nothing sinister, there’s nothing secretive about it… The Exchange Council is open to the public. Anyone can be a member.”

But given that ALEC is well-known for its undisclosed corporate funders and membership and its opaque legislative agenda, much indeed remains secretive about the tax-exempt organization on which Watts relies so heavily.

Parts of Arizona’s immigration law are likely to be deemed unconstitutional, according to Ken Starr, former United States Court of Appeals judge, Solicitor General under George H. W. Bush and the lead inquisitor against President Clinton during his presidency. Starr and another former solicitor general, Neal Katyal, both agreed on CNN’s State of the Union this Sunday that parts of the “show us your papers” bill could be struck down when the law goes to the Supreme Court in two weeks:

STARR: There are parts of the law, though, that I believe are quite problematic. And in particular, the provision with respect to individuals who are undocumented seeking work. Congress saw fit not to make that a crime. To have employer sanctions, but not employee sanctions, and I feel that’s problematic.

CROWLEY: Do you in general agree with that?

KATYAL: I certainly agree. I think Judge Starr has nailed it on the head when he said those provisions that make certainly things criminal are really likely to go down. I think those are very hard to defend.

Watch it:

Starr is certainly right about what will happen in this case if the Supreme Court decides to follow the law. The Constitution does not permit states to intrude deeply into immigration policy because of immigration’s close connection to foreign policy and national security — both of which are issues that are reserved for the federal government. Unfortunately, after last month’s argument in the Affordable Care Act case, it remains an open question whether the Constitution still applies in the Roberts Court.

The Southern Poverty Law Center reports that a teacher in Michigan was fired last week for helping her students organize a fundraiser for Trayvon Martin’s parents.

Brooke Harris, an eighth grade teacher at a charter school in Pontiac, Michigan, saw Trayvon Martin’s death as a moment when many of her students were politically engaged and energized. They wanted to help Martin’s parents, and so she tried to take the moment as an opportunity to teach them how to plan a fundraiser. They came up with a proposal: Every student would donate one dollar to wear a hoodie for the day.

According to the SPLC, the principal of the school signed off on the kids’ proposal, but then superintendent Jacqueline Cassell got her hands on it:

Superintendent Cassell was less enthusiastic. She refused to approve the proposal, despite having supported many other “dress down” fundraisers. Brooke’s students took the disappointment in stride, but asked to present their idea to Cassell in person. . . . Brooke asked that a few of her students be allowed to attend her meeting with Cassell. Outraged by the request, Cassell suspended Brooke for two days. The explanation given—she was being paid to teach, not to be an activist.

Those two days morphed into a two-week, unpaid suspension when Brooke briefly stopped by the afterschool literacy fair (she had previously organized) to drop off prizes (paid for with her own money) and to pick up materials for several students whose parents were unable to attend. Supporting her students was insubordination.

The final offense? Brooke asked Cassell to clarify her original transgression so she could learn from her mistake. Cassell referred her to the minutes of their first meeting. Still confused, Brooke again requested an explanation. Cassell fired her.

Trayvon Martin’s death has raised a lot of political tension in the last weeks, but it also sparked conversations about racial profiling and race-based assumptions of guilt. Harris’s students were undoubtedly exposed to some of the hateful comments in the fallout of Trayvon Martin’s killing, and so it only makes sense for them to also explore the motivations and prejudices from which those comments stemmed.

Our guest blogger is Jon Soltz, founder and chairman of VoteVets.org.

The Trayvon Martin case has gripped the nation, and forced the country to re-examine our gun laws. But the horrible affair has struck me in another way, because of my two tours in Iraq. One fact stands out in my mind: The “Stand Your Ground” law in Florida, which may let George Zimmerman off the hook for the killing of Martin, gives more leeway to shooters than our own military gives to soldiers in war.

VoteVets.org has more than 105,000 members who take a wide array of views on gun control and the 2nd Amendment, but the Trayvon Martin case is less about the right to bear arms than it is the “use of force.” It’s impossible to ignore the legal protection George Zimmerman enjoys in suburban Florida vs. the Rules of Engagement that outline when one of our troops can shoot while in combat in Iraq or Afghanistan.

The U.S. military issues Rules of Engagement (ROE) for every conflict to guide servicemembers’ ability to protect themselves from deadly threats while responding only with the necessary and proportionate level of force in a dangerous situation. The Rules of Engagement for Operation Iraqi Freedom laid out a clear set of steps that U.S. forces must take, up to and including deadly force if necessary, when responding to a threat or hostile act.

A key component of the ROE used during the height of violence in Iraq in 2007 was the requirement to use “Graduated Force” when time and circumstances permit. Section 3.G.(1) states that if an individual “commit[s] a hostile act or demonstrat[es] hostile intent” — meaning he or she attacks U.S. or designated allied forces, nationals, or property, or threatens the imminent use of force against any of them — U.S. Force “may use force, up to and including deadly force, to eliminate the threat.” However, the rule also explicitly instructs forces, “when time and circumstances permit,” to use the following “graduated measures of force” when responding to hostile act or hostile intent:

3.G.(1)(A) (U) Shout verbal warnings to halt;

3.G.(1)(B) (U) Show your weapon and demonstrate intent to use it;

3.G.(1)(C) (U) Physically restrain, block access, or detain;

3.G.(1)(D) (U) Fire a warning shot (if authorized);

3.G.(1)(E) (U) Shoot to eliminate the threat.

This rule laid out a code of conduct that troops in Iraq adopted and employed in high-risk hostile situations. We were trained to respond to a threat by quickly assessing its level and urgency and, where time and circumstances permit, to “Shout – Show – Shove – Shoot.” As the shorthand makes clear, we approached threats with a clear set of steps to take before firing a weapon. The bottom line goal was always to minimize unnecessary deaths.

These rules are enforced: using deadly force after failing to follow this procedure leads you open to charges of manslaughter and a court-martial.

In fact, Richard Allen Smith, the vice chairman of VoteVets.org, recently told me a story he had heard during his time in Afghanistan, which illustrates this point.

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