SANFORD, fla. — George Zimmerman is getting out of jail. Now his defense team has to worry about keeping him safe while the neighborhood watch volunteer waits to be tried in Trayvon Martin’s death.
Defense attorneys who have been in similar situations had advice for how to protect the man whose shooting of the unarmed black 17-year-old sparked nationwide protests: Get him out of Florida, keep him from going out in public and never leave him alone.
“He clearly puts himself in jeopardy unless he takes precautions,” said New York lawyer Barry Slotnick, who represented subway shooter Bernhard Goetz in the 1980s.
A half-dozen reporters, photographers and cameramen staked out the Seminole County Jail early Saturday, a day after a judge agreed to let Zimmerman out on $150,000 bail.
Zimmerman attorney Mark O’Mara said Zimmerman would not be released for a few days while his family secures collateral for the bail. Zimmerman needs to be fitted with an electronic monitoring device, and O’Mara said he must find a secure place for him to stay.
Zimmerman appeared to be wearing a bulletproof vest under his charcoal suit, and his wife and parents testified by telephone instead of in the courtroom because they said they have been threatened and feared for their safety. His wife, Shellie Zimmerman, testified she had received hate mail.
Circuit Judge Kenneth Lester indicated Friday that Zimmerman would be allowed to leave Florida if arrangements can be made with law enforcement to have him monitored.
“The initial challenge is going to be first be getting him out of Sanford,” said lawyer Jose Baez, whose former client, Casey Anthony, endured similar scrutiny when she was released from an Orlando jail last summer after being acquitted of killing her 2-year-old daughter. “Everybody knows where he is getting released from. That is the first problem.”
“I don’t know where we’re going to end up,” O’Mara said after the bail hearing. “It’s a very difficult decision to make. It’s an enormously high-profile case, and there are just a lot of emotions that exist.”
In Anthony’s case, Baez had the cooperation of sheriff’s deputies who blocked traffic from the jail and entrances to a nearby interstate so they could have unimpeded access to the highway during her late-night release. Anthony made her way to Ohio without being detected, but had to return to Florida to serve probation on a check-fraud charge.
A spokeswoman for the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office said late Friday that no special arrangements like that had been made yet for Zimmerman’s release.
