In the continuing theme of race baiting that has been going on during the past week in the wake of the complete acquittal of George Zimmerman of all charges in the Trayvon Martin case, President Obama added his voice to the long list of celebrities commenting on the trails outcome. Unlike other celebrities though, this blogger thinks that the President weighing in by saying ” Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago” is a MASSIVE conflict of interest.

Not that it makes much difference to this Administration since Obama’s Department of Justice (DOJ) is currently out there beating every bush they can find to conjure up a civil rights case against Zimmerman since his acquittal,  completely ignoring the fact that the standard of proof is much higher at the Federal level. Keeping in mind that I am not a lawyer, see this quote from a practitioner of criminal law describing the challenges facing the DOJ in this latest challenge to Zimmerman’s freedom:

“Federal prosecutors will have an even higher burden to meet in order to convict Zimmerman than the state of Florida faced. For the second-degree murder charge, prosecutors had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that, at the time he shot Martin, Zimmerman acted with ill will or spite. Considering Zimmerman was also acquitted of the lesser offense of manslaughter, the jurors were far from satisfied he acted out of ill will or spite.”

This blogger frankly questions the Department of Justices ability to make a hate crime case against Zimmerman given the revealing conversation that “star witness” Rachel Jeantel had on the Piers Morgan show regarding the “misinterpretation” of the beating Martin was giving Zimmerman the night he died. It seems that the young Mr. Martin was afraid that Mr. Zimmerman might be a gay rapist, and so he decided to perform “whoop ass” on him to convey his lack of interest. So, if Mr. Martin had survived that night the DOJ would likely have had a great hate crime case against him-an odd twist given the current state of outrage in urban centers across the country in the name of Trayvon-see here and here. The Federal Hate Crime law is explained below:

“…federal hate crimes legislation, known as the Matthew Shepard Act. This law covers violent crimes that are committed or attempted, and are carried out by the use of a firearm or other dangerous weapon. To constitute a civil rights violation, the DOJ must prove that the act took place because of the actual or perceived characteristics of the victim, one of these characteristics being race. This particular legislation does not cover threats; only crimes where actual violence is carried out or attempted.”

With this information, I think that Mr. Holder might want to revisit his law school days and refresh his memory regarding the state level burden of proof versus the Federal burden of proof. If the State of Florida failed to make the case that race played into the Zimmerman/Martin case, I doubt that the Feds will do any  better.

What do you think?