The attorney for George Zimmerman, Mark O’Mara, says he is confident his motion to have a Florida judge removed from his client’s case will be granted. On Monday night, O’Mara said, “I think she’s going to go ahead and grant it and move the case on to another judge.” After the Florida judge, assigned to the Trayvon Martin case, revealed her husband works with a CNN legal analyst, Zimmerman’s defense team formally requested on Monday that Seminole Circuit Judge Jessica Recksiedler be removed from the case.
Recksiedler said on Friday she would entertain motions to disqualify her from the trial because her husband is a law partner of Mark NeJame, an attorney whom Zimmerman approached about representing him and has widely commented on the case in the media. Nejame is currently a CNN contributor, providing analysis on the Trayvon Martin case. NeJame later declined Zimmerman’s attempt to hire him on the case because he knew how taking on “big national cases (can) take a lot out of you” and he wanted to have time with his children. “I decided simply not to,” NeJame said. Zimmerman, a 28-year-old neighborhood watchman, shot and killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida on February 26, which Zimmerman claims was self-defense. The case has since ignited national outrage and drawn intense publicity. Zimmerman is scheduled to return to court for a bail hearing on Friday.
