Update On The Zimmerman Trial

 

It's hard to even take this seriously any more as anything but a lynching.

The prosecution's own case seems to be exonerating George Zimmerman of second degree murder by default.





















The first prosecution witness, Rachel Jeantel claims to have been talking to Trayvon Martin at the time of the altercation, saying he told her 'some creepy ass cracker' was following him, and that she heard a bump and a voice she identified as Trayvon's yelling 'get off! get off!' followed by a bump.

The only problem with that is she's changed her story several times, came across as borderline illiterate and even the prosecution admitted she had perjured herself a number of times under oath. Not a lot of credibility, and she undoubtedly sunk even further in the jury's estimation when defense Attorney Don West asked her if she thought 'cracker' was a racist term and she said without missing a beat that it wasn't.

To add to the mix, either she or the prosecution engaged in a wholesale purging of Jeantel's Twitter account, removing over half of her published tweets, just as the prosecution did with Trayvon Martin's phone and social media accounts.

Not exactly the most credible witness.

Then we come to the only real eyewitness to what actually occurred, John Good. Keep in mind that he was called as a prosecution witness.

Good testified under oath that it was Trayvon Martin who was the aggressor, that he was on top of Zimmerman, straddling him and raining down blows on him.Good also testified that Zimmerman was the individual screaming for help as he was being punched by Martin.

Then there was Sanford, Florida detective Doris Singleton.



She was the first police officer to interview George Zimmerman, and made two important points - but not for the prosecution. First she testified that George Zimmerman did not show any anger or ill-will toward Trayvon Martin during questioning after the shooting.

This is important, because to convict for second degree murder, you have to show that the defendant had anger or hostility towards the victim. Aside from that, she testified that Zimmerman was apparently unaware he had killed Trayvon Martin:

The first police officer to interview George Zimmerman the night he shot Trayvon Martin testified Monday that Mr. Zimmerman appeared “shocked” when she told him Trayvon was dead.testified Monday that Mr. Zimmerman appeared “shocked” when she told him Trayvon was dead.

“He’s dead?” Detective Doris Singleton, the Sanford police investigator, recalled Mr. Zimmerman saying in an interview at the Sanford police station the night of Feb. 26, 2012.

“I thought you knew that,” Detective Singleton told the court she said in reply. “He kind of slung his head and just shook it,” she testified.

To add to the debacle, prosecutors called to the witness stand an experienced FBI voice analyst who testified that the 911 call that captured shouts for help was too short and too far away to be used for evaluation.

"That type of sample is not fit for voice comparison," the analyst, Hirotaka Nakasone, said.

Nakasone was one of the audio experts whose testimony at a pretrial hearing discredited state voice experts who said Trayvon Martin was the one screaming for help.

Finally today we saw an interview Zimmerman did with detective Christopher Serino, who was the most aggressive in wanting to charge Zimmerman with manslaughter. Even he admitted under cross examination to Zimmerman defense attorney Mark O'Mara that the Zimmerman story remained consistent and that he was cooperative. He also said that he believed Zimmerman's story - in Serino's words, "either he was telling the truth, or he's a pathological liar".

What was one of the things that convinced him? Serino testified Monday that when he told Zimmerman that the encounter between he and Trayvon Martin had been caught on video, Zimmerman's immediate response of "Thank God" changed his mind.

That had such an impact on the jury that Judge Debra Nelson ordered the six-women jury to ignore that exchange, stating that it was the jury's business to decide who to believe. She's correct up to a point...but where was she when witnesses were impugning Zimmerman's credibility and saying he wasn't believable? If a policeman's testimony about the impression the defendant made on him isn't  admissible, what is?

That's where things stand at the moment.

The bottom line is this...there's no real evidence that Zimmerman stalked Trayvon Martin and deliberately murdered him. In fact, all the evidence points towards self-defense.

If Zimmerman was on the ground and being beaten (and it appears he was) it doesn't matter if he was following Martin or not. That's not against the law...although assault is, which is what Zimmerman claimed happened, and there's no evidence to the contrary.

My own opinion on what likely happened? A person in their right mind who was confronted by a neighborhood watch person (and again, there's no evidence Zimmerman actually confronted him) is to tell him you're a registered visitor and on your way home,and if Martin had done that it probably would have been the end of it.

Could it be that Martin was high on choom or something else, not in his right mind and instigated things? That could explain why no drug testing was done by the county during the autopsy.

Another fact that no one's brought up yet...I have a bit of experience with firearms myself. The very first thing you're taught is that you never point a loaded weapon at anyone unless you're prepared to kill.

If I was stalking someone I intended to shoot, I'd have my gun out and that person would never get close enough to me to lay a finger on me or anyone else again. They'd be dead.

If Zimmerman was the psychotic racist just looking to shoot a black man that  the prosecution contends he was, there's no way he would have let Martin get close enough to him to inflict the kind of head injuries and the broken nose he received. He would have had his gun out, not holstered. And there's no way that Martin would have been shot at point blank range in the midst of a scuffle as he was.

Unless it really was self-defense and happened pretty much as Zimmerman described.

UPDATE:Whaddya know..Angela Cory, the special prosecutor who put together the case aqainst Zimmerman has just been indicted for falsifying the arrest warrant and the complaint that led to Zimmerman being charged with the second-degree murder. This fits in beautifully with the prosecution already being busted for withholding and destroying evidence.