Originally Posted By: Matter-eater Man
The phrasing was that "they accepted" not believed. Considering that the lead investigator felt Zimmerman should have been charged, I also question the phrasing of that sentence.


Look, I'm sorry but I'm calling "20 plus years of traffic court lawyer expertise--both as a prosecutor and as a defense attorney" on this one.

When a defendant isn't charged and the police "accept" his or her story that defendant is essentially cleared.

We can quibble about why law enforcement officials changed their mind. We can disagree on whether they would have given credence to Martin's uneducated, lying, friend but for media pressure.

However, what isn't really in dispute in any commonly accepted legal definition of the term, and given the presumption of innocence, is that the people who counted had originally cleared Zimmerman.