That's Boston, all right. It's also in a large part Bruins fans. The only time I've felt unsafe in my neighborhood was when the Bruins played a game in Fenway Park. Red Sox fans are happy, mellow, and liquored up. They come from all over the world to the Church of Baseball. Bruins fans are confrontational, rude, and mean drunks. Aggressive beasts.

Boston has a rough past with integration. Whites left in the court-ordered busing crisis in the 1970s. On paper, Boston is pretty diverse. In the neighborhoods though, it's anything but. we're famously liberal but it's more like "we're all for equality in theory, but not here." I served on a jury last year that was six whites from the suburbs, 4 blacks from black neighborhoods, 2 20-something whites from the trendy neighborhoods, 1 college student, and me. None of those groups was used to mixing with the others.

Boston is tribal, but it's home.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162- ... ?tag=stack

The Zimmerman clan sure is a credible bunch.

O'Mara is one of the most likable attorneys I've seen in a long time. Juries would believe and possibly side with him. He also seems to have impeccable ethics and honesty. George and his pappy should be careful not to piss him off. He's the only person standing between George and an extended prison vacation.

That being the case, I bet they piss him off.

It's reported that the family used $5000 from his website donations to fund his bond. How serious is it that he didn't disclose he had access to this money to judge during the bond hearing? Also, I find it hard to believe his attorney didn't know about this after his former attorneys' press conference, where they confirmed the website did indeed belong to Zimmerman.

Is it possible the family told O'Mara they didn't receive enough money from the site to fund his bond? I don't think O'Mara is a liar but Zimmermans might be .

Even if they confirmed it was his, was there any way the amount received could be verified?

The detail that gets me is not so much the fact that he had the money, but that his father was a Judge and should have known he needed to disclose it. If you can't even trust the Judges in the family to act ethically, how can you expect any of the others to?

It doesn't make sense to me that O'Mara would not have asked for an accounting at the time he agreed to take on the case, or at least prior to the bail hearing. If nothing else, he would have wanted to know what funds were available to cover expenses (investigation, experts).

I haven't visited the Zimmerman web site, but I assume that the donation mechanism is that all-too-familiar PayPal button -- meaning that it should have been obvious to O'Mara that funds would have come through a PayPal account, and the equally obvious way of getting a full accounting would have been to have the client provide a printout of the PayPal account records for the past 2 months.

If I were the lawyer, I don't think I would have taken "no" for an answer on that.

So either O'Mara is a lot less capable than he appears. or his client (or the client's family) managed to deceive him with an outright lie. (And O'Mara was careless enough to accept whatever they claimed at face value).

I really don't get it. A lawyer doesn't take on a high-profile homicide case and forget to ask the client about money.

I'm just curious. Surely that picture of Zimmerman's bleeding head cannot be taken as solid evidence alone can it? If the EMT/medical report disputes even the severity of Zimmerman's injuries or if there is no EMT report all, how strong of evidence would the picture be of Zimmerman's bleeding head? I know that trials, court cases can be fairly uncertain.

Also howmuch effort would the defense have to prove that Trayvon attacked Zimmerman at all? If there are no signs of any conflict on Trayvon's body through the autopsy, how effective is this?

What about Zimmerman's clothes? The absence of blood splatter, of strain, or the failure to take Zimmerman's clothing into evidence, may be another factor to dispute the defense's findings?

Thus far from Zimmerman all we have is:
1. His personal claim that Trayvon attacked him randomly and started the confrontation
2. Witnesses that only confirm there was a confrontation.

We have nothing else from Zimmerman. Nothing solid to prove his innocence. We already know he shot this kid, we know that Trayvon was unarmed, we also know that Trayvon doesn't have a history a violence (Zimmerman supporters claimed that his cousin supposedly posted on facebook saying he punched a bus driver, but this in itself isn't solid evidence).

It is beyond me that somebody can just get away with murder just by merely pleading self defense, and having absolutely no obligation to actually prove their innocence.

Umm. No, Zimmerman does not have to prove innocence. This is still America even if Zimmerman is a creep. Prosecution has burden of proving guilt.

You are right Pluto. I have no doubt he deserves a defense, and he needs to be proven guilty, but I just get disturbed at the thought that he may verywell be let off the hook without any or little effort. We must however respect the law. Likewise if he is released I hope that people will respect the decision of the courts.... however we feel.

I don't think he's a liar, just that he was aware of the website but didn't ask his client about it.

If they applied just $5k of the website funds to George's bail, what happened to the other $195k?

There was a prominent paypal button, and requests for donations. There's no way O'Mara didn't know about it. He either didn't ask about it or the Zimmermans lied.

Here's an update on the bail issues and the $200,000 that was raised for Zimmerman.

http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/201 ... ial-lawyer

That's the part I don't get.... how could the lawyer not ask?

The prosecution goes first and has the initial burden of proof. Assuming the prosecutors prove, in their case in chief, Zimmerman's guilt, the burden then shifts to him to raise "reasonable doubt."


My suspicion is that he did ask and was told something that may not have been meant to be a factual statement.

From esseff44's link:

I'm sorry. Nothing about the lawyer's story holds together. IMO, it isn't only Zimmerman who knew about that money before the bond hearing.

O'Mara's the one who put the bond hearing on steroids, including having the wife testify. You can't tell me he didn't go over that testimony with a fine-tooth comb. If they had that money, and were using it "on living expenses", there is no way O'Mara didn't find that out in the prep session(s).

Plus, O'Mara's taken control of that money - the money the Zimmermans supposedly need to live on and to provide somewhere secure for George to stay. And suddenly, oh gee, coincidentally, too, also, he now expects to be paid.

Regardless of O'Mara's reputation, based on what's come out so far, this thing just stinks to me.

I worked in an industry where my clients would lie to me and then try to saddle me with their issues. It happens. O'Mara didn't have control over the money until after the hearing so he had to report his discovery after the fact to the court. Not a good idea to make a jackass of one's lawyer. 3 Attorneys represented Zimmerman before O'Mara. I think the problem is Zimmerman. Maybe O'Mara will quit over this.

$54,000 spent on "living expenses" in a matter of just a few weeks?

Something stinks, big time.

Armoured Mercedes are pretty expensive even in the "slightly" used market.

He's probably paying a large sum for security and body guards around the clock.

Heck, the other N word (Nazi)s would do it for free, and they have bigger guns.

If you were a latino would you be comfortable with a bunch of stormfront assholes stomping around?

It depends on who's kids are being held hostage to seal the deal.