Problems with the Zimmerman Affidavit

By John Work

I spent twenty years working Colorado law enforcement, followed by nearly two years as an investigator for the Colorado State Public Defender's Office. Ten of my twenty-two years in the criminal justice arena were in the area of criminal investigations, complex and simple. I just read the arrest affidavit in the Florida v. George Zimmerman case. I'm pretty certain that I would have been laughed out of any judge's chambers in Colorado, had I brought in a piece of evidentiary matter so poorly written. The Zimmerman affidavit is so deficient in properly sourced factual information and full of unsubstantiated, unsourced conclusions, I am appalled that a State's Attorney would even give it a second look. I don't know what's going on in the Florida Courts. But, where I worked as a cop, all summaries of statements from eye and ear witnesses, whether inculpatory or exculpatory, had to be both sourced and included in a properly assembled arrest affidavit. Every piece of information in the affidavit must be provable to a.... (Read Full Article)