News
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to address NAACP amid probe of Trayvon Martin case
The investigation, run by the criminal section of the department’s civil-rights division, may turn on divining Zimmerman’s intent.
Samuel Bagenstos, the former No. 2 official in the Justice Department’s civil-rights division under Holder, said that based on what he has seen, it would be “very difficult to prove beyond a reasonable doubt” that Zimmerman was motivated by race when he followed and killed Martin.
“To prove what’s on somebody’s mind is always difficult,” Bagenstos, now a law professor at the University of Michigan, said in an interview.
The group Holder is addressing today has circulated a petition that seeks to pressure Holder’s prosecutors to bring criminal civil-rights charges in death of Martin, 17, at the hands of Zimmerman, 29.
Benjamin Jealous, president of the NAACP, said on July 14 that the organization’s staff had been in contact with Holder’s senior staff and were pushing for action in the case.
The Justice Department opened its investigation into Martin’s death a month after the shooting occurred in Sanford, Florida.
Federal prosecutors deferred to state authorities while the case made its way through Florida’s system.
Holder said yesterday that the investigation will continue in “a manner that is consistent with the facts and the law.”
The tragedy provides the opportunity, however, to engage in the “difficult dialogue” that comes with the racial tensions brought to the forefront in case, he said.
