Circuit Court Judge Jessica Recksiedler, who has been assigned the case of George Zimmerman, held a quick status conference by telephone with the lawyers today to disclose her husband's law partner will be commenting on the case for CNN. The video of the hearing is here. (new link, old one removed by network.)

The judge hearing the George Zimmerman case today announced that her husband works for the law firm of Mark NeJame, who's been hired to act as a CNN analyst for this case.

Circuit Judge Jessica Recksiedler said she had an ethical obligation to disclose that and allow Zimmerman's attorney or the special prosecutor to ask her to step down.

(Added:) The news didn't get it quite right. He doesn't just "work for" the analyst's firm, he's a partner in the firm. The judge used the words "works with" not "works for."

Mark O'Mara says the issue "concerns him" and he may ask for another judge next week. A bond hearing has been set for April 20, one week from today. [More....]

Atrios makes the much expected choice of Joe Klein as one of the Wankers of The Decade. He recounts many, but not nearly all of Klein's wankerific moments. I wrote a lot about him back in the day, when he seemed more important. Here's one example, a post I wrote in 2005, Diagnosing Joe Klein, when Klein sided with Republicans on the Terri Schiavo issue:

A federal court in Virginia today will hear arguments on what to do with the data on the MegaUpload servers.

Jury selection is underway in the John Edwards trial. The witness list was released late yesterday. Not surprisingly, it includes Rielle Hunter and Andrew Young. The Judge told prospective jurors:

"This is not a case about whether Mr. Edwards was a good husband or politician," U.S. District Judge Catherine Eagles told the jury pool. "It's about whether he violated campaign finance laws."

....“You can watch 'Law & Order’ and 'CSI’ 24 hours a day,” she said. “I know this will shock you, but they make stuff up.”

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

How do Florida's Stand Your Ground and self-defense laws fit into the George Zimmerman-Trayvon Martin case and what's the difference between them?

Read this account in the Miami Herald by Scott Hiassen and David Ovalle of the Quentin Wyche case, which is still ongoing. It involves two FIU football players. One, Kendall Berry, is dead. The other, Quentin Wyche, has been charged with second degree murder as a result of stabbing Berry to death. Wyche raised "Stand Your Ground" as a bar to prosecution, which required the judge to hold a factual hearing. The judge said he couldn't decide between the competing evidence presented by the state and defense, so he denied the motion. It will go to a jury trial where Wyche can still raise both stand your ground and self defense.

The Judge is Miami Circuit Court Judge Milton Hirsch, whom I know and respect. He was a long time criminal defense lawyer before becoming a judge. I asked Scott Hiassen for a copy of the opinion and he graciously emailed it to me. I have uploaded it here.

While the facts are different than those involved in the George Zimmerman - Trayvon Martin shooting, after reading a dozen or so Florida court opinions on Stand Your Ground and self-defense, I think Judge Hirsch explains them and the court procedures most clearly (minus his Shakespeare and historical references, sorry Judge Hirsch.) [More...]

Here's the affidavit of probable cause submitted for the arrest of George Zimmerman on second degree murder charges for the shooting death of Trayvon Martin. It is written and sworn to by States' Attorney Special Investigators T.C. O'Steen and Dale Gilbreath, both former investigators with the Jacksonville Sheriff's Department. They don't believe there was a racial slur.

During the recorded call Zimmerman made reference to people he felt had committed and gotten away with break-ins in his neighborhood. Later while talking about Martin, Zimrnerman stated "these a*sholes, they always get away and also said “these f*cking punks.”

[More..]

George Zimmerman had his first court appearance today. His arraignment was set for May 29. Unless he's granted bail before then, he'll remain jailed. At a news conference I just watched that took place after the brief court hearing, the prosecutor who will be in charge of the case refused to answer questions about the facts that led to the second degree murder charged. By the end of his conference, he displayed a short fuse and testy demeanor.

George Zimmerman's new lawyer, Mark O'Mara, addressed the media, and said he and Zimmerman decided a few hours before the hearing to delay their request for bail. He said they will be requesting bail sometime within the next few weeks. He also said Zimmerman is in protective custody at the jail, and that he supported the placement for safety reasons. [More..]

Busy today.

Open thread.

Update: Is this Florida's modified version of the perp walk? There was a throng of media outside the jail awaiting George Zimmerman's arrival. When the garage doors opened, two black cars pulled in, one of which had George Zimmerman inside. Orlando TV aired his arrival live, pointing their cameras through the window to get the shot of him exiting the vehicle and being taken inside.

At a press conference today, Florida state's attorney Angela Corey, the chief prosecutor assigned to the investigation into the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, announced George Zimmerman has been charged with second degree murder. You can read the charges here. [More...]

CBS and other media organizations say they have confirmed through law enforcement officials that state's attorney Angela Corey has decided to charge George Zimmerman with a crime in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin. She is expected to make the announcement later this afternoon.

The announcement, which Corey's office describes as a release of new information (rather than a decision on charging) will be made at 6:00 pm at her office in Jacksonville, FL. Here is her press release. [More...]

Discussing Rachel Maddow's book Drift, Kevin Drum writes:

Maddow decided to write a book about America and the way we use our military. Specifically: why is it so damn easy to go to war these days? [...] The book is, basically, a series of potted histories that explain how we drifted away from our post-Vietnam promise to make sure we never again went to war without the full backing and buy-in of the American public. [...] Maddow's premise is that, just as the founders intended, our aim was to make war hard. Presidents would need Congress on their side. The Abrams Doctrine ensured that reserves would have to be called up. Wars would no longer unfold almost accidentally, as Vietnam did.

Drum posits that George H.W. Bush changed all that. That is not historically accurate in my view. The times getting into war was not easy was after wars that had been very costly and not particularly successful from the US point of view. Think World War I and Vietnam. Otherwise, going to war has been one of the great American pasttimes. I'm all for making going to war hard, but the history does not demonstrate that, except for isolated periods, that was ever really the case in the United States.

Speaking for me only

Serious GOP VP contender Allen West has a list of 80 Communist Party members in the Democratic Caucus.

REP. ALLEN WEST (R-FL): I believe there's about 70, 80 to 81 members of the Democratic Party that are members of the Communist Party [in the House of Representatives].

Hearkening to the good old days:

So says WaPo poll:

More Americans think Supreme Court justices will be acting mainly on their partisan political views than on a neutral reading of the law when they decide the constitutionality of President Obama’s health-care law, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. Half of the public expects the justices to rule mainly based on their “partisan political views,” while fewer, 40 percent, expect their decisions to be rooted primarily “on the basis of the law.” The rest say both equally or do not have an opinion.

This is hardly surprising in light of the partisan oral arguments. Ann Althouse objects: