Asked to confirm that the police recommended a manslaughter charge, special prosecutor Angela Corey said: “I don’t know about that, but as far as the process I can tell you that the police went to the state attorney with a capias request, meaning: ‘We’re through with our investigation and here it is for you.’ The state attorney impaneled a grand jury, but before anything else could be done, the governor stepped in and asked us to pick it up in mid-stream.”
A capias is a request for charges to be filed.
The Seminole County State Attorney’s Office declined to comment on whether its prosecutors ever recommended against filing charges.
“If you go with what was reported in the press the first night, there would have been an arrest right away, but obviously something gave investigators pause,” said a source in the Seminole State Attorney’s office who did not want to speak publicly, because the case is now assigned to a different prosecutor. “We get capias warrants all the time. That doesn’t mean we file charges right away. We investigate to see if it’s appropriate. That’s the responsible thing to do.’’
The Seminole County State Attorney’s Office was consulted the night of Trayvon’s killing, but no prosecutor ever visited the scene. As the controversy intensified, Gov. Rick Scott replaced Seminole State Attorney Norm Wolfinger with Corey, the state attorney for Duval, Nassau and Clay counties, based in Jacksonville.
“The case now has a new state attorney, and they didn’t file charges the first day they got it, either,” the Seminole prosecutor who asked to remain anonymous said.
