Here’s how I knew George Zimmerman was going to walk on all charges even before the Friday version of the Cirque du Soleil trial in Sanford Florida. Here’s why the ensuing week of the defense will further cement certain victory. These are the top ten elements that guarantee the outcome:
1. The trial is in Florida
2. Two Shyster defense attorneys
3. Inept prosecutors
4. Two questionable jurors (look that one up)
5. The race of the victim
6. Gun-nutsville
7. “Stand your ground” worship
8. Florida case law that encourages unpunished killing above all else
9. Two prosecution witnesses straight out of the bar scene of Star Wars!
10. The trial is in Florida
I watched today’s (7/5/13) trial in its entirety. An HLN pundit predicted this would be “a HUGE day for the prosecution.” It certainly was, but not in a good way. The courtroom camera caught George Zimmerman repeatedly wiping his brow in the early moments of today’s trial. He need not have worried. The first witness was Sybrina Fulton, mother of victim Trayvon Martin. She’s a poised and intelligent woman with a college degree and a background in Code Enforcement and Community Development. She said the screams heard on the 911 call were those of her son, Trayvon Benjamin Martin.
Defense attorney, Mark O’Mara spent his cross-examination time on where she heard the recording, “Who was there?” He also wanted to know if law enforcement was there and were the mayor and other officials present. His questions had nothing whatsoever to do with whether it was her son screaming or not. O’Mara asked coldly if it wasn’t Trayvon on the tape, but George Zimmeran, then your son caused his own death?”
Trayvon’s mother insisted it was him. It was an insensitive and heartless O’Mara remark that could only be uttered in a setting guaranteed to be racist.
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After the usual impotent redirect, defense had the last word essentially repeating the repugnancy of its cross in saying something to the effect that you hope your son didn’t do anything or was responsible for his own death. O’Mara, who will emerge as a big media hero after the trial (Fox is probably already on the trail).
Trayvon’s older brother, Jahvaris, was the next witness. He’s in college and seems to be a very nice young man. He agreed with their mother that the voice was Trayvons. Unfortunately his testimony was worthless insofar as he had initially told a reporter he thought it was his brother but he wasn’t completely positive. Change your mind on a question like that and you might as well have stayed home.
Next came hours of courtroom theatrics that I can only describe as gruesome. The witness, by way of China, Texas and Alabama was Associate Medical Examiner, Shiping Bao. Challenging his every syllable was modern-day Mephistopheles look-alike, defense attorney, Don West. The questioning specifics are of little import here with the exception of a couple of revelations that young Martin was shot through the left ventricle and could have lived from 1 to 10 minutes. Bao also verified that the victim did, indeed, weigh but 158 pounds (Zimmerman was heavier by 46 lbs) and was 5’11” tall not close to O’Mara’s 6’2″ as implied by the defense earlier in the trial.
There were a few other points brought out when things got real strange. West discovered that Bao was reading virtually every answer verbatim off a set of notes. You can refer to notes as a witness but you can’t read off of them. The actor in West kicked in. Bao was “READING HIS NOTES” he fumed, playing to the jury. And did the prosecution know of their contents and not share them with the defense as legally required? For his part, Bao added plenty of fuel to the fire insisting that he had no memory of any events surrounding the very autopsy about which he was testifying. Considering it was performed well over a year-and-a-half ago, that was perfectly understandable, but again West blew the statement up like a Macy’s day balloon. The two then started going at it. Bao refused to give up his notes until the Judge bitch-slapped him into submission and made copies for all concerned.
There was a subsequent “Richardson” hearing. That was a discovery violation hearing where the prosecution was accused of not passing relevant information or evidence on to the defense. The prosecution was found not to be in violation of Richardson, but Pao, in particular, wasn’t finished. A couple of months ago he said there wasn’t enough THC (a by-product of weed found in Trayvon’s system) to affect his physical or mental state. In his notes Bao reversed himself. He also defended changing his mind about Trayvon living up to 10 minutes after originally estimating 3 minutes by stating, “If someone never changed opinion you can call them “mentally retarded.”
An hour or so later Bao alighted from the witness chair and the prosecution rested their case after featuring the weakest and possibly wackiest final prosecution witness in the history of jurisprudence.
It was the defense turn at offense. But first a little housekeeping. O’Mara moved for acquittal saying the prosecutors hadn’t proved their case. He quoted reams of case law where shooters and stabbers had killed, killed and killed again because Florida courts apparently get off on humans tearing each other apart under the flimsiest of circumstances. Judges and juries continuously refuse to lay murder 2 convictions on the last man standing. There’s apparently no such thing as ill-will, hatred and spite in Florida. Seminole County Judge Debra Nelson gobbled up some “immune to O’Mara” pills and rejected the request.
The first defense witness was Gladys Zimmerman assuring the jury that it was her son’s screams heard on the 911 call, just as Sabrina Fulton had assured that same jury that it was her son, Trayvon doing the screaming. Zimmerman’s uncle, Jorge Meza, a deputy sheriff and kind of an odd duck, swore to the same thing as Gladys. “That is George.”
The lengthy day ended with some more complaining at the bench and an outdoor lovey-dovey News Conference by O’Mara.
A week more of THIS???
Raised rural & small town, then lived in N.Y., Chicago & LA. Widely traveled. Returned from world wandering to pursue media life of anchorman/reporter and major, medium and small market talk radio. Highly active in politics. Once worked as orderly & security in Mens Lock Ward for the Criminally Insane at a state institution. Much more rational population than current Teapublicans. Great concern for country run by and for the extreme wealthy. The inhumane current running through this country has no precedent in modern history.
Follow me on Twitter @demwriter
