All day Monday, CNN and its sister HLN promoted the networks’ exclusive interview with Angela Corey and Bernie De La Rionda, the prosecutors who lost the Zimmerman trial late Saturday. Both networks dishonestly promoted the interview as the prosecutors “breaking their silence.”
As every sentient American knows, those prosecutors had never been silent about the case. They spent weeks arguing for Zimmerman’s guilt in court. They called witnesses. They exhibited evidence. De La Rionda spent the better part of 2.5 hours summing up their case. Then after the defense made its case, the prosecutors rebutted. After Zimmerman’s acquittal, Corey led a shameful press conference in which she continued to prosecute Zimmerman despite the verdict and the judge’s final statement to him: “You have no further business with this court.”
Corey and her cohort were “silent” for a little over one day. But they made their opinions clear throughout the trial and especially after they lost the case.
On HLN on Monday night, Corey et al continued to prosecute George Zimmerman. Speaking as an official of the state of Florida, Corey used two words to describe Zimmerman and Martin: “Murderer” for Zimmerman, and “prey” for Martin.
Neither of those terms held up to scrutiny in court.
Bernie De La Rionda continued to press his theory of the case.
“Our belief as to what happened: He chased down Trayvon Martin, he wanted to make sure Travyon Martin did not get away,” said de la Rionda. “Now at what point he pulled out the gun? We could speculate as to what happened. My theory is that he pulled it out early. He was going to make sure he didn’t get away. He wanted to be a cop.”
“We never said Trayvon didn’t do something to George Zimmerman. What we said is you can’t take a concealed weapon and encourage or incite a fistfight — which is what he did by stalking a teenager who didn’t know who he was — and then whip your gun out and shoot,” said Corey.
The prosecution never presented evidence that Zimmerman “stalked” Martin, because such evidence didn’t exist. They never presented evidence that Zimmerman used his concealed weapon to “encourage or incite” a fistfight. One of the prosecution’s own witnesses said he saw Martin on top of Zimmerman. The jurors, again, believed that Martin threw the first punch. Most of them also believed that it’s Zimmerman who is heard screaming on the 911 recordings, not Martin.
The case that she and her team put on proved nothing. Zimmerman was acquitted.
Corey and her prosecutors succumbed to political pressure that came from the White House, the Department of Justice and the likes of hoaxster Al Sharpton and put on a show trial, and lost that trial. Now they’re ceasing to be prosecutors and becoming persecutors.
Corey may soon face charges of her own, and she should. She filed a false affidavit with the court to get the second degree murder charge that the evidence clearly never supported. She withheld evidence from the court and the defense that showed Zimmerman’s injuries were consistent with his story.
Corey ought to be disbarred. In the mean time, she and Bernie De La Rionda should stop making public comments and should stop prosecuting this case. They lost. It’s over. Every word they say about it now just pushes someone out there to act against George Zimmerman — an innocent man, in the eyes of the law that Corey et al have a sworn duty to defend.
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