Last week, the judge presiding over George Zimmerman’s trial for the alleged murder of Trayvon Martin revoked Zimmerman’s bond because he failed to disclose $200,000 donated to him through a website. Earlier today, his legal team released a statement claiming that Zimmerman should be allowed to post a new bond because “in all other regards, Mr. Zimmerman has been forthright and cooperative.” The statement also suggests that part of the blame for Zimmerman’s misstatements rests on the many activists who worked to ensure that Zimmerman’s guilt or innocence would be evaluated by a court of law:

The audio recordings of Mr. Zimmerman’s phone conversations while in jail make it clear that Mr. Zimmerman knew a significant sum had been raised by his original fundraising website. We feel the failure to disclose these funds was caused by fear, mistrust, and confusion. The gravity of this mistake has been distinctly illustrated, and Mr. Zimmerman understands that this mistake has undermined his credibility, which he will have to work to repair.

At the point of the bond hearing, Mr. Zimmerman had been driven from his home and neighborhood, could not go to work, his wife could not go back to a finish her nursing degree, his mother and father had been driven from their home, and he had been thrust into the national spotlight as a racist murderer by factions acting with their own agendas. None of those allegations have been supported by the discovery released to date, yet the hatred continues.

Zimmerman was originally released on a $150,000 bond. It’s not clear yet whether the judge will allow him to pay a higher bond in the wake of his misstatements to the court.

It took 44 days before George Zimmerman was arrested for Trayvon Martin’s death because police claimed he was “standing his ground” when he fatally shot the teenager. But these kinds of delays are not all that uncommon under the ALEC-sponsored law, a new report by Tampa Bay Times concludes. The report finds that in nearly one-third of 200 Stand Your Ground cases, the defendant had initiated the fight, shot an unarmed individual or first pursued the victim, and were never even charged with crimes.

Additionally, Stand Your Ground has allowed police a wide latitude of interpretation, resulting in uneven enforcement for whites and blacks. Some of the report’s findings include:

Nearly 70 percent of those who have invoked “stand your ground” to avoid prosecution have gone free.

73 percent of those who killed a black person walked away without penalty, while 59 percent of those who killed a white person went free.

Attorneys are increasingly invoking Stand Your Ground in ways state legislators didn’t originally intend, and use of this defense has grown five-fold in nonfatal cases between 2008 and 2011.

Among the incidents where defendants walked free: “One man killed two unarmed people and walked out of jail. Another shot a man as he lay on the ground. Others went free after shooting their victims in the back.”

There are three times more concealed carry permits in Florida since 2005, when Florida passed the law.

In Florida, the number of Stand Your Ground cases is on the rise, being invoked in cases with both minor injuries and where the defendants shot a person who was unarmed or whose back was turned. As Tampa Bay Times writes, “If you claim ‘stand your ground’ as the reason you shot someone, what happens to you can depend less on the merits of the case than on who you are, whom you kill and where your case is decided.” For George Zimmerman, these inconsistencies have played out in national media, but many times these cases escape notice and even police records.

Last night, state prosecutors released a large amount of evidence — including 183 pages of documents and numerous multimedia files — related to their murder case against George Zimmerman. Here are eight notable pieces evidence that were just made public:

1. Two days after Trayvon Martin’s death a woman called the police to say that George Zimmerman has “racist tendencies” and is “fully capable of instigating a confrontation.”

The woman refused to identify herself.

2. PHOTO: Trayvon Martin’s can of Arizona Iced Tea

According to the police, Martin’s body was under the yellow tarp in this photo.

3. The lead police investigator wanted to charge Zimmerman with manslaughter.

“The encounter between George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin was ultimately avoidtable by Zimmerman, if Zimmerman had remained in his vehicle and waitied the arrival of law enforcement, or conversely if he had identified himself to Martin as a concerned citizen and initiated dialogue in an effort to dispel each party’s concern.” The lead investigator wanted to charge Zimmerman with manslaughter notwithstanding the fact he believed it was Zimmerman, not Martin, yelling for help on the 911 tapes.

Read more

Among the evidence in the Trayvon Martin case released by the Florida state prosecutor yesterday was a 15-minute interview with a former work colleague of George Zimmerman. The man, who is not identified by name, says that Zimmerman relentlessly bullied him at work.

Zimmerman, according to the witness, targeted him because he was Middle Eastern. He repeatedly called the man a “fucking moron” and mocked him using the voice of “Achmed the terrorist.” Zimmerman’s stories about the man would involve “bombing,” “I’ll kill your family” and other “jokes” about “Middle Eastern stuff.” According to the man, this went on “for days and days.”

Listen:

After a few months, Zimmerman was terminated. According to the witness, “he was fired for calling HR hotline so many times…he would complain about each and every manager and employee.”

Zimmerman is currently being investigated by the FBI, who reportedly may charge him with a hate crime.

The State of Florida has charged George Zimmerman with murdering Trayvon Martin. But that might not be the end of his legal problems.

According to WFTV, an affliate of ABC in Orlando, Zimmerman may soon be charged with a hate crime by the FBI:

WFTV has learned charges against George Zimmerman could be getting more serious. State prosecutors said Zimmerman, a neighborhood watchman, profiled and stalked 17-year-old Trayvon Martin before killing him, so the FBI is now looking into charging him with a hate crime. [...]

FBI investigators are actively questioning witnesses in the retreat at the Twin Lakes neighborhood, seeking evidence for a possible federal hate crime charge.

WFTV notes that “if Zimmerman is charged and found guilty of a federal hate crime involving murder, he could face the death penalty.” FBI officials confirm to ABC News that the investigation is ongoing but say the “hammer won’t be dropped” anytime soon.

Most of the evidence against Zimmerman has yet to be disclosed. Late yesterday, Florida prosecution delivered 67 CDs of evidence against Zimmerman to his attorney. Under Florida law, most of it should be available to the public soon.

Targets featuring the likeness of Trayvon Martin

While the targets don’t feature a photo of Martin, they do depict a silhouette of a hoodie clutching a can of iced tea and a pack of Skittles hanging out of the pocket, details pulled directly from the descriptions of Trayvon Martin on the night of February 26, when he was shot and killed by George Zimmerman.

According to a local news station in Orlando, the seller of the targets readily admits he’s hoping to make a profit over the tragic shooting of a teenager:

In an email exchange with reporter Mike DeForest, the seller wrote, “My main motivation was to make money off the controversy.”

The seller would not disclose how many paper targets had been made, but said in an email, “The response is overwhelming. I sold out in 2 days.”

Some of those targets were sold to two Florida gun dealers, according to the seller.

The listing, which appeared to have been posted on the online gun outlet store gunbroker.com, has been removed, although as of publication the Google Cache of the page is still available. For $8 plus shipping, anyone could purchase a 10-pack of the paper targets.

Mark O’Mara, the lawyer for Trayvon’s killer George Zimmerman, strongly rebuked the targets, calling it “hate-mongering.”

Gun owners, even those who believe George Zimmerman is innocent, were quick to criticize the targets and the person behind them. “Even though I fully believe Zimmerman was justified in shooting, Trayvon was still a human being and does not deserve that kind of disrespect in death,” one member of the firearm owners association told the Orlando station.