Kendall Coffey, partner with Coffey Burlington and former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, was featured in theGrio recently discussing the Trayvon Martin case and George Zimmerman- especially the bail recently set by the judge in the case. The amount of the bond was much lower than teh $1 million requested by the prosecution, and many are calling it a travesty.
"It shows you the worth of a 17-year-old black boy in America, who's been unjustly murdered and whose life is taken for granted," said Dr. Michael Eric Dyson, an MSNBC contributor and Georgetown University professor.
However, Kendall Coffey explained that the cost of a bail is based on the presumption that defendants are innocent until proven guilty.
"Obviously, if this were Donald trump or Bill Gates accused of a crime, that would be grossly inadequate, but you cannot set a bond that a person could not possibly come up with," Coffey told theGrio. "From everything we saw, George Zimmerman is broke. His wife doesn't work, they don't own a home [they were renting the townhome in the Retreat at Twin Lakes gated community where Martin was killed.] There's no reason to believe that he could even bond out with $150,000."
He also corrects the common misconception that Zimmerman would only have to come up with 10 percent of the $150,000 in order to be released. While that 10% is the premium you pay the surety company most defendants still have to "fully collateralize that $150,000, meaning that either George Zimmerman or his parents have to come up with a $150,000 second mortgage on their house or from a bank. The bonding company is not a charity. They stand to lose the money. They have more than just fugitive hunters [to track down a defendant who flees.] They get collateral up front."
Despite all the criticism, Kendall Coffey believes that the prosecution did the right thing. "The prosecutor knew exactly wheat he was doing," Coffey explained.
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