08/03/12: Try the Trayvon case in court, not in public

This op-ed appeared in USA Today on the date shown.

The prosecutor in the Trayvon Martin case is doing a bang-up job — if her goal is to convict George Zimmerman in the court of public opinion. Last month’s release by the state attorney’s office of an interview with “Witness 9” provides more accusations that Zimmerman is a bad, bad man: not only a racist and a murderer, but a child molester, too.

Except the court of public opinion is not where this case needs to be tried.

The job of State Attorney Angela Corey, who is special prosecutor in the case, will be to convince jurors that Zimmerman was guilty of second-degree murder. It is a stretch to imagine that accusations of sexual abuse by Zimmerman at age 8 to a girl two years his junior has any relevance to a murder trial decades later.

For Martin to get speedy justice, Zimmerman must get it as well. A conviction of Zimmerman that will stand up both before the legal system and before the public — the goal of all those outraged by the needless death of a teenager — is predicated upon finding jurors who haven’t already made up their minds. That task is made more difficult when the prosecutor goes out of her way to sensationalize the case.

Before the trial can begin, defense attorneys will have the opportunity to ask for a change of venue, which is granted when impartial jurors can’t be found, an outcome that could delay the trial still further.

Corey should know better.

Our system of justice requires that she resist the temptation to divulge information — particularly extraneous information such as this — that comes her way in the course of a murder investigation, because it might imperil the defendant’s right to a fair trial.

Of course, that doesn’t mean to ignore it. If investigators and prosecutors believe Zimmerman has perpetrated sexual assault, they can charge him.

If Zimmerman is convicted of second-degree murder, it should be because the jury found, beyond a reasonable doubt, that he was guilty as charged. Not because the prosecutor says he’s a child molester.