Reading Andrew McCarthy's dissection at NRO of the charging affidavit used in the  indictment of George Zimmerman inspired me to do a bit of legal research. McCarthy, an accomplished prosecutor described the Florida special prosecutor's affidavit thusly:

This affidavit is not law, it is agitprop: invoking, for example, the explosive term "profiled" but carefully avoiding any discussion of what it means and failing to note that (a) there is no evidence of racial profiling, and (b) absent an invidious racial component there is nothing wrong with profiling (indeed, we want police to do it so that innocent people don't get hassled).

I decided to look into the legal basis of that term profile and here's what I found:

 At the federal government's online legal glossary site, there is no listing for profile or profiling. nor is there a listing for racial profiling.

While I could find no online glossary for the Eighteenth Judicial Circuit of Florida, which has jurisdiction in Sanford, at the official website for the next-door Ninth Judicial Circuit of Florida, covering Orlando, there is no listing for profile or profiling. A search of a few other Florida Judicial Circuit websites found no such mention. One could reasonably believe that legal glossaries would be consistent across the Florida Judicial Circuit system.

A search of the glossary at the official website of the Florida Supreme Court revealed no such term as profile or profiling.

The website for the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, with federal jurisdiction in Seminole County and Sanford, has no glossary but again, one could reasonably believe the Middle District would follow the above-cited legal glossary at uscourts.gov.

Moreover, a search for racial profiling in Florida reveals that while there are proscriptions and policies against the practice of such discrimination by officials, there appears to be no Florida statute rendering its practice by ordinary citizens illegal. And while Zimmerman may have been on neighborhood watch, he was not a serving public official.

McCarthy is correct in stating that the term "profiled" is explosive. And without any apparent legal basis in Florida law, it is without question such a racially charged term that its inclusion in this affidavit is both reckless and inappropriate. Considering the almost merry demeanor of special prosecutor, Angela Corey, an elected Republican, in announcing the indictment to the media, it is not unreasonable to suspect an element of sorely out-of-place, political motivation and media grandstanding in what should be a true search for truth and justice.

With her "irresponsible and unethical" affidavit, is Ms. Corey attempting to profile George Zimmerman?