George Zimmerman bond hearing: 5 new things we learned

A judge ruled Friday that George Zimmerman can go free on $150,000 bond as he awaits trial in the Trayvon Martin case. The hearing turned into a mini-trial when defense attorney Mark O’Mara surprisingly challenged prosecutors' probable-cause affidavit. Here are five things we learned.

5. Amid threats, judge allows unusual bond stipulations

Gary W. Green/Orlando Sentinel/AP
Judge Kenneth Lester Jr. listens to proceedings in the courtroom Friday during a bond hearing for George Zimmerman.

In his decision to allow a $150,000 bond, Judge Lester quickly set aside as "run of the mill" Zimmerman’s two previous brushes with the law – an assault arrest and an injunction over an allegation of domestic violence – and said the case at hand was his main focus.

Because of various threats made against Zimmerman, the judge said he would allow Zimmerman to move to another state for the time being, if it can be arranged, given that he wear a GPS locator and check back in with Florida authorities every three days.

“I’m concerned [for his safety], I just am,” O’Mara said. “There’s been an upswelling in this case because of the way it was handled initially, and that seems to be focused on George. Now that we see the evidence, maybe that frustration will be refocused away from George. We’ll see. I would hope so.”

5 of 5

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.