Update 4:30 a.m: Latest reports: There has been an official impromptu news conference. The MIT officer is dead, another officer is in surgery. It began with a robbery at a 7/11, followed by the killing of the MIT officer in his car, a carjacking of a Mercedes and a car chase to Watertown. One suspect, reportedly the one in the black hat in the FBI photo, is dead. The suspect in the white hat is at large. Police have surrounded a commercial building in Watertown. [More...]

One year ago today George Zimmerman was arrested and charged with second degree murder for the shooting death of Trayvon Martin.

Today, Zimmerman's brother posted a letter to the public from his mother on his Twitter feed. You can read it here.

The 5th District Court of Appeals has ordered the state to file a response to Zimmerman's petition for writ of cert to overturn the trial court judge's refusal to allow the defense to depose Martin family lawyer Benjamin Crump. The response is due April 28. It also granted the defense 10 days to file a reply to the state's response.

The case against Zimmerman began with this affidavit for his arrest. As many, including me, said at the time: Affidavit: Fail. [More...]

While the rest of the nation is in financial straits due to the sequester cuts, the DEA soldiers on. It just finished spending months on yet another Most Excellent African Adventure, which ended with traipsing 5 Africans, who had never set foot on U.S. soil or planned to commit any crime here before the DEA suggested one to them, to New York where they face potential life sentences.

Once again, the case involves FBI informants pretending to be Colombian providers of cocaine offering to fly drugs from South America to West Africa. Had the drugs been real, they would been shuttled from Africa to Europe. For jurisdictional purposes, the informants made sure to tell the Africans that a minor portion of the drugs would go to the U.S. and Canada.

To make the case fit the DEA’s “narco-terrorism” meme, the informants also asked the Africans to supply missiles and weapons, telling them they wanted to use them in Colombia to shoot down U.S. aircraft destroying their cocaine fields.

There never were any drugs or weapons of course. It was just another sting. [More...]

George Zimmerman's lawyers have filed a petition for writ of cert in the 5th District Court of Appeals (available here) seeking to overturn the trial court's denial of its request to depose Martin family lawyer Benjamin Crump about his interview with Witness 8, the young woman who claims to have been on the phone with Trayvon Martin minutes before the shooting.

The 43 page petition is supported by a 271 page appendix which includes several transcripts as well as pleadings.

I think Zimmerman should win based on the waiver argument alone. I also don't think Crump comes close to being an "opposing counsel" in the case. In a criminal case, there are two parties: the Defendant and the State. Crump represents the family of the deceased -- that shouldn't make him opposing counsel. Nor does he represent Witness 8. Even if he were "opposing counsel, O'Mara explains why that doesn't prevent his deposition from being taken on the Witness 8 issue. [More...]

There will be a hearing Monday in the James Holmes Aurora shootings case. Monday is the date by which the District Attorney is expected to announce whether he will seek the death penalty. According to a recent defense filing republished by the Denver Post, Holmes offered to plead guilty before his arraignment earlier this month and accept a sentence of life without parole.

Prosecutors dispute the defense made an "unconditional" offer to plead guilty and object to the defense referencing its "purported" offer in a court pleading. It appears from the DA's response that they wanted information from Holmes before deciding whether to take the death penalty off the table. The DA says Holmes has refused to provide the requested information, thus it does not consider his offer to be a true offer. I don't get the state's position at all. [More...]

As I wrote the other day, George Zimmerman attorney Mark O'Mara filed a motion for sanctions against Florida prosecutors for withholding information favorable to the defense. It was a very civilized pleading, supported by factual instances, letters and e-mails.

Late yesterday, in response, the state filed one of the most scurrilous, unprofessional pleadings I have ever had the misfortune to read. I have uploaded it here.

I cannot imagine such a pleading being filed in our federal courts by any Assistant U.S. Attorney. If this is acceptable protocol for Florida state prosecutors, I'm glad I neither practice nor live there.

I have no interest in the diatribe contained in the pleading. But I do want to discuss a few factual allegations and the legal issue.[more..]

There are lots of new developments in the George Zimmerman-Trayvon Martin case. Before I get to them, some readers will remember that about 10 days ago, I wrote about the newly released ABC recording of a portion of Benjamin Crump’s March 19, 2012 interview with Witness 8 and said I would follow-up with analysis. [More...]

The Supreme Court in Italy has overturned Amanda Knox's acquittal by a lower appeals court. According to media accounts, a new trial will be held. According to her U.S. Attorney, Ted Simon, only a "revision" of the acquittal was ordered, which is like a reconsideration, and it's far from certain a new trial will occur.

He characterized the outcome of Tuesday’s court decision as a "revision" of the case, as opposed to a retrial, saying: "Merely because they have sent it back for revision does not mean that anything else will happen other than she will be recognized as not guilty and the same thing will happen again."

[More...]

A suspect in the murder of Colorado prison chief Tom Clements has been killed in a shootout with Texas police. The suspect, a 28 year old white supremacist and parolee from a Colorado prison, was stopped by a police officer in Texas. He shot the officer and took off.

The officer was wearing a bullet-proof vest. Two shots were to the chest and did not injure him. The third shot grazed his head. He was able to radio in the car description.

According to a live news conference I just watched here, it was a a drug interdiction stop. The officer had no idea the driver might be connected to the Colorado shooting of Director Clements.

When officers in Wise County, TX spotted him, they tried to stop him and he stuck his gun out the window and started shooting. A high speed chase ensued, and a big 4-wheeler crashed into Ebel's car, setting it on fire. Ebel got out and started shooting at the officers. They shot him multiple times, including in the head. [More...]

Tom Clements, the Executive Director of Colorado's Department of Corrections, was at home last night when someone rang the doorbell around 8:30 p.m. He opened the door and was shot dead.

There are no suspects and it does not appear robbery was a motive. Clements' home is in Monument, Colorado, which is near Colorado Springs.

Officials with the El Paso County sheriff’s office said they were looking for a “boxy” two-door car that had been spotted Tuesday night in the neighborhood, its engine running but with nobody inside. There were few other insights about who had shot Mr. Clements, or why.

...They said Mr. Clements’s post, overseeing more than 20,000 inmates in Colorado’s prisons and parole system, might have made him a target.

[More...]

The indictment against Matthew Keys, the former Sacramento KTXL FOX 40 web producer and Reuters journalist charged in the Eastern District of California yesterday for providing members of Anonymous with network login credentials to hack into the server of the station and the LA times (both are owned by the Tribune company), is a bit of a head-scratcher. It seems he started out as double agent of sorts, infiltrating the group for journalistic purposes. Did he change from role-playing in internet chat room sessions to joining in the group's illegal activity? Clearly, the Government believes he did.

The Indictment is here. One person who turned on him seems to be Anonymous Sabu, aka Hector Monsegur. But others may have as well. [More....]

Found in a comment by Tara at Conservative Treehouse: this link to ABC's website with 5 minutes of ABC's recording of the telephone call between Martin family lawyer Benjamin Crump and Witness 8, Trayvon's phone friend, recorded on March 19, 2012. Crump has acknowledged ABC's Matt Guttman and his assistant were present during the interview and Guttman tweeted at the time he had a recording of the conversation.

Why are we only finding this clip now? Did ABC recently release this? It appears so. Does it have anything to do with O'Mara's motion for a subpoena to ABC News for the original recordings, to which it filed an objection but which has not yet been heard by the court? Or does it have to do with Benjamin Crump's oh-so carefully worded affidavit about his interview with Witness 8 and the circumstances of the recording?

While this ABC clip is only 5 minutes and 19 seconds of the 14 minute recording, it is so much clearer than any version Crump or the State have produced to date. Witness 8 is much easier to understand.

I'm still working on the analysis I began last night, and won't get to finish it until this evening. In the meantime, please see Diwataman's preliminary analysis.