George Zimmerman Trial to Start in June

[Scooter]

They did. Prosecution and defence had duelling experts and the judge wouldn't admit any of it.

[Econoline]

my biggest problem in all of this is that there was no positive ID of who was screaming for help. We have the technology that can identify a single person talking in a crowded room with tons of background noise, but we can't get a positive ID of who did the screaming in this case? We had to rely on the parents/friends to say whos voice was on the tape. Something don't add up.

From somebody else's post on another discussion board:

[...]the judge decided that so-called voice experts couldn't testify for either side because their science isn't reliable enough, but then she allowed lay people--friends and family of the accused and victim--to be paraded onto the stand to insist that they knew whose voice it was on that tragic 911 call. All of those people were inherently biased and had every reason to identify the voice as that of the person they loved and/or supported during the trial.

It was like, "I'm not going to let the jurors hear what audio experts have to say, but I'll let them hear what friends and family (who don't know shit about voice recognition) want to claim, and whichever side produces the most claimants scores on that point." Yeah, okay, more loved ones and friends of George Zimmerman claimed that it was his voice so the jury had to conclude that it must have been him calling out for help. The jury couldn't sort through the counter claims of expert witnesses, but they could be expected to draw conclusions based on tallying up lay witnesses' claims. Hmmmmm.

O&W, under what conceivable set of circumstances would Master Martin have been screaming for help? Try as I might, I can't imagine. As Jimmy says, it is conceivable that he would be shouting, "Don't Shoot, you nasty-ass Cracker!" but "HELP!" just doesn't work.

Here you go. From my own post on that other site--basically a rephrasing of what I said in my post above in this thread:

My own personal theory: Zimmerman drew his gun--"just in case"--as he got out of his truck to go looking for Martin. (I think it's obvious that if he had the gun in the BACK waistband of his pants as he said, and Martin was on top of him, he couldn't have reached the gun at that point.) He lost track of Martin for a few minutes, but suddenly one of them came around a corner and one or both of them were startled. Zimmerman said something insulting/angry/belligerent as befits his status as an unofficial cop-wannabe a couple of rungs below the typical rent-a-cop and his own history of violence. Martin saw the gun (not yet aimed at him), jumped to the (not unwarranted) conclusion that he was in real danger of being shot and killed, and quickly decided that the element of surprise was his only hope. He lunged for Zimmerman, knocked him down in a desperate (but futile) attempt to get the gun out of his hands, and started yelling for help, hoping that he could delay Zimmerman from shooting him long enough for someone, anyone, to hear and intervene. No one did, and Zimmerman shot and killed Martin.

[Econoline]

Did George Zimmerman's prosecutors try to get him off?

By Jarvis DeBerry, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune

George Zimmerman was acquitted of killing Trayvon Martin, a New Orleans attorney complained to me Monday, because the prosecution didn't want to win a conviction. The attorney, who has worked at Tulane and Broad as an assistant district attorney and as a defense lawyer, called me to say that he's handled hundreds of homicide cases over his career and that he's never seen prosecutors who want to win make the series of missteps that the Florida prosecutors made. So he's convinced they lost on purpose. He offered six reasons for his belief that the state threw the case.

1) Prosecutors didn't demand a change of venue. The recusal of the Seminole County district attorney and multiple judges from that county is proof that the case was a political hot potato and that there was a fear that there would be negative political ramifications following a Zimmerman conviction. Therefore, the state should have moved to have the venue changed.

2) They let jurors they didn't want stay. Prosecutors tried but failed to have two jurors removed for cause. They could have had those two removed anyway by using their peremptory challenges, but instead, they let them stay on. Here's a discussion at Slate Magazine about Juror B-37 in particular and the peculiar decision by prosecutors not to have her removed. A day after the trial she reportedly contacted a literary agent to "write" a book about the trial. But after social-media outrage, that literary agent has now decided against the deal.

3) They didn't fight to get a single man on the jury. This, my source said, is prosecuting 101. In a fatal fight between men, you fight to get men on the jury. Men are more likely to convict.

4) Rachel Jeantel was poorly prepared. The lawyer said he's dealt with witnesses from age 6 to 85 and has had to rely on witnesses who had no more than a second-grade education. Jeantel, a close friend of Martin, and the closest thing the state had to a star witness, was on the phone with him as he was being followed by Zimmerman. At times she seemed hostile to the questioning and her demeanor was all but certain, my source said, to turn off a jury that was reportedly five white women and a Latina. "We made 'em into witnesses," my source said of those folks who came with shortcomings. "That's called preparation."

5) Prosecutors played for the jury a television interview that Zimmerman gave to Fox News' Sean Hannity. The defense wouldn't have been permitted to play that tape if they'd asked, he said, "so what's the prosecution playing it for?" Didn't prosecutors play the tape to highlight Zimmerman's inconsistencies? I asked. Those inconsistencies were "microscopic," he said. He said he was taught that "if it hurts your case, let the other guy do it." But in this case, the defense wouldn't have been able to do it because, he said, the tape was clearly hearsay and not subject to cross-examination.

6) A Sanford police officer who was asked if he believed Zimmerman's story of self-defense was allowed to answer yes without the prosecution objecting. Witnesses should not be permitted to offer an opinion on the credibility of other witnesses or other evidence. The next day prosecutors asked the judge to strike that portion of the investigator's testimony, and she complied. But why did the prosecution sit quietly as the question was asked and answered?

My source said he's polled about 20 prosecutors in New Orleans, and though all aren't sure that they would have been able to get Zimmerman convicted as charged, each of them is convinced he or she could have got more than an acquittal. It was a clear case of tanking, he argued: "They didn't want to win this case."

Join us here Tuesday at noon to chat about the lawyer's thoughts, Zimmerman's acquittal, nationwide protests and the request that the Justice Department pursue charges against Zimmerman.

Jarvis DeBerry can be reached at jdeberry@nola.com. Follow him at twitter.com/jarvisdeberry.

Reading this, I couldn't help but wonder what BSG/Karla's take on this (as a professional prosecutor) would've been....

[oldr_n_wsr]

Thanks for the info econoline. I did not know that.

[dgs49]

Econoline, is that version of events what you believe happened, or a hypothetical construction that you believe could explain A version of the events?

I admit that it COULD have happened that way, but it is so unlikely as to be discounted immediately. To believe that Z would have had his gun drawn in advance under those circumstances (he was under no threat whatsoever, and knew the police were on the way) infers a homicidal inclination with no support in reality.

[Crackpot]

Everyone knows that only black people can have homicidal inclinations

[Long Run]

A lot of speculation. This we know, the local police refused to arrest Zimmerman and the DA declined to take the case on the basis that they did not believe the evidence supported an arrest or conviction. The State then stepped in (speculation: mostly for political reasons) to try to prosecute the case. And we are supposed to believe that the state appointed prosecutor tanked the case? Again, you have to infer or speculate based on the most likely reason, which is that the special prosecutor has more incentive to win the case to justify taking the case in the first place. Tanking the case is extremely unlikely; where is the motivation and to what purpose would the prosecutor or governor have for that?

[Econoline]

Econoline, is that version of events what you believe happened, or a hypothetical construction that you believe could explain A version of the events?

I admit that it COULD have happened that way, but it is so unlikely as to be discounted immediately. To believe that Z would have had his gun drawn in advance under those circumstances (he was under no threat whatsoever, and knew the police were on the way) infers a homicidal inclination with no support in reality.

Mostly hypothetical, but not nearly as unlikely as you seem to think.

Zimmerman certainly believed he could be in danger--that's the whole reason he had a gun with him, after all, and it doesn't seem at all unlikely that he would have wanted to have it ready just in case he needed it. And I believe that, like many gun owners, he felt that you can and should show a gun as a warning, not because of a "homicidal inclination" but because that's the way to prevent a troublemaker from causing trouble. Also, he had no idea exactly how long it was going to take the police to get there (that's why he went after Martin instead of waiting for backup, right?), and we have absolutely no evidence whatsoever as to who said what to whom when they came face to face. Anyway, it certainly strains credulity to believe that someone that heavy and out of shape could have gotten his pistol out of the back waistband of his pants while (1) lying on his back (2) with someone on top of him (3) who was pummeling him with his fists and banging his head against the pavement.

Yes, if someone is coming at you with a gun, I think it's pretty foolhardy--stupid even--to defend yourself by attacking him with your bare hands...but I guess a man who feels his life is in immediate danger just might, sometimes, do something stupid--something stupid, like shooting an unarmed teenager to death. And finally, I don't think it's unlikely that either of the two of them, believing his life was in danger (one, as it turns out, with more reason than the other) might have cried out loudly for help.

[Econoline]

Yeah, Long Run, I'm not sure I buy that "the state threw the case" theory, either, but I thought it was an interesting take, a bit far-fetched but not ridiculous--and it would explain some of the oddities Jim was commenting on earlier in this thread.

Also, earlier in this thread (here) Andrew said:

One thing we can all (re)learn from this case: If the government does not want a conviction, there will not be a conviction.

...so I guess he might agree with some of the points Jarvis DeBerry brought up.

[Gob]

Zimmerman certainly believed he could be in danger--that's the whole reason he had a gun with him, after all, and it doesn't seem at all unlikely that he would have wanted to have it ready just in case he needed it.

Should read; "Zimmerman certainly went looking for danger--that's the whole reason he had a gun with him, after all, and it doesn't seem at all unlikely that he would have wanted to use it if he got the chance"

Come on Econo, the guy is obviously a wannabe vigilante, he almost got lucky with the kid.

[RayThom]

... into the realm of conspiracy theory. And I bet everybody will have one.

However, I know for a fact the Sanford Police Department wanted to see how Zimmerman would react to a confrontation under real world conditions. They hired a youth from the Antioch Missionary Baptist Church acting troupe, Martin, to go into the gated development and look suspicious, and wearing a hoodie would really seal the deal. Little did the SPD know that Zimmerman was strapped and just itching to shoot someone. Before they knew it Zimmerman had jumped out from the inky shadows shooting at anything that moved. Martin and five others -- who happened to be white -- lay dead. The SPD, knowing how this would look, sent in a squad of retired mafia crime scene detailers who removed all the bodies except for Martin's, and then stuccoed over more than fifty bullet holes. The "repairs" took from 2/26 to 4/11 and once completed the SPD arrested Zimmerman telling him if he'd just keep mum about their "testing blunder" the Florida court system would have him exonerated and released by no later than 7/13/13. And the rest is history.

So there you have it. Everybody in Sanford FL knows this story to be true but State prosecutors has given all Seminole County home owners ten years of property tax forgiveness in return for their silence. Sadly, Ethel and Errol Foster of 3401 E. 25th Street had planned to break silence and a write book about what they knew. Their bodies were recovered from Lake Monroe near Fort Mellon Park on Sunday night. No one dares to talk now.

Now, let's all move along. Nothing of relevance left to speak about. So how about the new, Royal, baby? That's something to talk about.