The evidence continues to roll in on the Zimmerman case. While the new evidence is not entirely bad for the prosecution, it does contain some evidence that will likely bolster the defense of George Zimmerman in the second degree murder trial over the killing of Trayvon Martin. Regardless of the ultimate impact, the evidence again shows (in my opinion) that prosecutor Angela Corey over-charged the case in Florida.
Some of the new evidence shows that Martin had traces of THC (the active ingredient of marijuana) in his blood stream and urine. Martin was suspended from school due to a marijuana offense (though it involved an empty marijuana baggie). Another benefit to the defense is that Martin father is shown denying that the voice calling out for help was his son — though he later changed that view when he says he was given a better recording. Other witnesses have indicated that it Zimmerman who was calling for help.
Generally, the existence of drugs in the system of a victim or defendant is admissible. The suspension would appear inadmissible under standard evidentiary rules.
There is also evidence that some neighbors described Zimmerman as a bully and a racist. That would help bolster the reported hate crimes prosecution being considered by the Obama Administration, though I still have reservations based on the evidence as it currently stands. Also the police viewed the shooting as “avoidable” — if Zimmerman had left the matter to the police.
I am not sure how much of the neighbor’s view of Zimmerman as a bully or racist could come into evidence. Such accounts, however, can have the benefit of further discouraging Zimmerman from taking the stand as a witness — always a benefit to the prosecution because (while they are told that a defendant has a right not to testify (jurors expect to hear from defendants).
On the whole, however, I would view the evidence as more positive to the defense. First, I have previously said that I was most interested in the distance of the shot and forensics. It now appears that Martin was shot from an intermediate range (no more than 18 inches and as little as an inch away). That would support the claim of Zimmerman that they were in a wrestling fight when the gun was fired. The greater the distance the stronger the case for the prosecution. The defense will likely present expert testimony to try to reduce the range further on the stand. Also, the report does have people at the scene saying that Zimmerman’s nose appeared broken — supporting the later medical report of the family doctor (though such injuries could occur from Martin defending himself).
Moreover, at least two witnesses appear to support Zimmerman in describing the man in the hoodie at straddling the other man and throwing punches. The report state that the man in the “‘hoodie’ [was] on top of a white or Hispanic male and throwing punches ‘MMA (mixed martial arts) style.’ He then heard a pop. He stated that after hearing the pop, he observed the person he had previously observed on top of the other person (the male wearing the hoodie) laid out on the grass.” One report also says that Zimmerman can be heard yelling for help 14 times on a 911 call recorded during the fight.
While the reports blame Zimmerman for getting out of his vehicle (he says that he was trying to get a house number for the police), that is not itself a crime. Of course, none of this means that Zimmerman was not the aggressor. Given the presumption of innocence and the need to prove the elements beyond a reasonable doubt, this evidence presents an added problem for the prosecution in my view. I have expressed skepticism over the way the case has developed and how it has been charged from the outset. As a criminal defense attorney, I would view this as a strong defense case even on the manslaughter charge, particularly given the poor police work at the scene.
What do you think?
Here is the police report.
Source: ABC and NY Daily News
Where is your source or witness to your assertion that Martin “threw the first punch”? It’s George right? George has already been proven to be a liar.
I’m sorry , but that dialogue comes right out of a grade school comic book. Not believable, but of course no one else heard Martin say these things but George.
Why didn’t any of the other witnesses hear these things that were supposedly said by Martin? They most certainly heard most of the fight in general.
Hi Malisha – actually you are wrong about the eyewitness seeing Martin more interested in continuing aggression while he had Zimmerman pinned in straddle position.
CITE #1: Its on page 38 of the 183 page discovery pdf. Second paragraph.
CITE #2: Its on page 86 of the 183 page discovery pdf.
Regarding your comments on the live by the sword thing…
Having a gun or sword or functioning fists is not “living by them”. Choosing to use them is where you cross into the “living by them”.
I know you think because Zimmerman was in the same zip code as Martin, might have looked cross-eyed, etc he deserved to be beaten within an inch of his life. but many others are just going to want to know “who threw the first punch”. And THAT would be Martin
and to add insult to injury he didn’t throw a single reasonable sucker punch to get Z off his feet so Martin could flee safely…NOooo…he became vicious and maniacal and with a “depraved mind” took advantage of the downed Zimmerman, sat down on top of him pinning him, and I would submit, was making good on his self-reported phrase “F them haters, I will kill em all”.
Given Martin’s recent self-reported phrases of violence (bus driver) and murder(I will kill em all), its not beyond the pale to judge that Martin would have beaten him to death and left him for dead since Zimmerman seemed to fit his description of a “hater” whatever that is.
Oh Manny O 🙂
You really need to think about what you are saying.
What you said makes Zimmerman look much worse.
If your interpretation of the noises is correct then:
– Zimmerman gets out of the SUV and starts to follow
– You say this is for about 10 seconds
– “We don’t need you to do that” – “OK”
– Zimmerman walks for 10 seconds. You say “he simply complied with dispatch and returned to his starting point”
Oh dear!
Where was his starting point?
– The SUV
Where is the SUV?
– On the street
Where did the fight and shooting take place?
– About 200 feet away from the SUV, on a footpath down behind a row of houses.
Manny O – Zimmerman’s lawyer will hate you – because you just set out to assert, using the sounds on the recording to back up your case, that Zimmerman, having said “OK” and returned to the SUV, then changed his mind and went looking for Martin.
Very impressive. Good man!
Malisha, most people who live by the gun only want to confront unarmed people for some reason.
If George didn’t have his loaded and concealed gun that night he would have met the cops at his vehicle, no doubt about that.
Manny O, what motive could Trayvon have to chase Zimmerman, and why did the chasing not start at the ““T” where the walkway leads to either Retreat View Circle or Twin Trees Lane”, were Z’s father “understands” his son walked looking for an address, but actually in the opposite direction somewhere on Trayvon’s way home?
Trayvon Martin: “Why are you following me?” (DeeDees earwitness statement)
George according to Manny O “I’m not following you”
It is ridiculous.
Zimmerman stalled when he was asked where the cops should meet him. He was vague for some reason. Why was George vague about this?
Otherwise he would have told the police to meet him AT HIS VEHICLE. He did no such thing- and that is a fact.
.
Manny O, I can’t take your views seriously. You say:
“Actually we do know martin went apeshit. Eye witnesses saw him far more interested in continuing aggression while pinning the victim Zimmeran than escape.”
Not one eyewitness who has spoken to the press yet, even anonymously, has said anything even close to this. And not one of the eyewitnesses (and only one earwitness) claims to have seen the initial contact between the two.
You say: “Heck people were calling out to them..most normal people would stop once they became famous locally, but not Martin. He was seemingly oblivious in a maniacal rage of megolamania as he furnished injury after injury on an adult 11 years older than him.”
You’ve got a ways to go with selling that version to anyone but the gun lobby and your own pro-Zim apologist club, Manny. When you get into the “maniacal rage of megolamania” you sound like you’re writing for a comic book!
You say: “The autopsy prove he was the one solely going apeshit.”
Well…uh uh, once again, the autopsy proved that he had a single, quarter-inch scrape on his left ring finger, below the knuckle, but he had a bullet in his heart, which means that it is quite possible someone with a gun went apeshit on HIM.
And you conclude: “And yes, if Martin hadn’t gone nuts he would still be alive.No doubt”
Well, there’s doubt there, see, Manny, to lots and lots of people. Those people believe they do not really know what Martin did any more than you say we do not really know what Zimmerman did. Those people think that when you have only Zimmerman’s word for what happened, you have lots of doubt, and who went “apeshit” is still quite up in the air.
And you go to the Bible to continue to instruct me in how to view the Zimmerman Martin case: “I don’t know if any of you know the Bible very well, but there is an interesting and somewhat relevant story from the life of Christ where the phrase, “Live by the sword, die by the sword” was coined. The saying is derived from a Biblical(Matt 26) source to the effect that if you use violence, or other harsh means, against other people, you can expect to have those same means used against you. The story in the bible is that Christ and his disciples were hanging out in the Garden of Gethsemane. The police come to arrest Jesus When they do, Peter a disciple, attacks one of the guards injuring him, but then Jesus intervenes telling Peter to stop and then tells Peter: “…for all who draw the sword will die by the sword”
Manny O, Trayvon Martin was living by the skittles and iced tea when Zimmerman was living by the loaded gun. The whole Bible thing doesn’t exactly apply as you have used it. In a court of law, it would be called a fallacious argument.
And you conclude, “If Martin had not chosen to use violence in the first place he would not have been killed.”
So here you have (a) Martin making a choice; and (b) making that choice “in the first place” and
You do not know either one is true. I know you feel in your heart it is true because you really want George Zimmerman to come off innocent, but fact is, even if all this “apeshit” stuff were true, it would not matter in view of the clear inference that George Zimmerman caused the entire thing to happen and he ended it HIS WAY.
Live by the loaded gun, still might not die by the loaded gun, but might have to pay a price for the way you lived.
By the way, Jesus’ advice to Peter was good advice; he probably kept Peter from being killed. Had there been another authority figure on the scene on 2/26/2012 to intervene between Zimmerman and Martin, a great little quote might have resulted from that encounter as well.
Sling!
Just follow your own logic and the sounds on the tape actually confirm his compliance!
Zimmerman did begin to follow (you hear the rustling sounds) then the dispatcher (also hearing the rustling sounds) ask if his following him to which Zimmeran says he is. At this point about 10 seconds have elapse
And lets say 10 seconds is the distance to travel 60ft as you say
Then the dispatch says we dont need you to follow him and Zimmerman says okay, agreeing not to follow him
NOW what does he do? where is he at? HE NEEDS TO WALK BACK!
Thats why you hear the rustling for about the same amount of time…it proves compliance.
If it had gone on indefinitley then it would make sense to conclude, okay this has gone on alot longer than it would have taken him to merely return the short distance he had started. He didnt encounter Martin, he simply complied with dispatch and returned to his starting point
What is also significant is there was literally NO DELAY in Zimmerman replying “okay”. He wasn’t defiant, he didnt take a second or two to think about whether he should comply. With no guile, he immediatley responded okay. When someone doesnt like a suggestion or command they usually take a little extra time to process and evaluate options versus immediate verbal agreement
Shano/Malisha – I am surprised that you would completely ignore the other 301 non-zimmerman 911 callers in the same timeframe and continue to tenuously assert that Zimmernan was a “frequent caller” at a piddly 11 calls in 14 months. I suppose you would have us believe that the 301 non-zimmerman callers were also all calling for superfluous reasons?
The nonsense that started this was a typo in an early report that Zimmerman called police 111 times in the last 14 months,,,but wait, oopsie, they actually retracted that later saying it was really 11 times in the last 14 months. Had an extra “1” on there…hmm I wonder if Sling was behind that : ) j/k
Manny O
What you are demonstrating there is bias on your part and not on mine. Your bias results in your attributing thoughts to me that I have never indicated.
If you read my postings around this incident you should understand that to me
“Dispatcher: Are you following him?
Zimmerman: Yeah.”
means simply that we have Zimmerman saying that he was following. That is all. Nothing more.
The reason that have mentioned this is that there are those who despite Zimmerman saying that he was following, insist that he was not following.
That is all.
If you read my postings, you should understand that to me, Zimmerman saying “OK” means simply that he said “OK”. It only shows that he acknowledged what was said to him. It does not actually prove that he stopped following.
While “OK” might well indicate compliance, the background noises on the recording indicate otherwise.
If you listen to the recording you should hear that the pattern of noises caused by Zimmerman’s movements continue absolutely unbroken in the same pattern for a further 10 seconds. He doesn’t even break his step. Those 10 seconds would have carried him about 60 feet.
That would indicate 60 feet of following because following is what he says he was doing when he was asked.
60 feet is not “quickly complied”. 60 feet indicates “OK” means “I heard what you said.”
He appears to stop walking after those 10 seconds as he pays attention to the conversation about his own name, location and route for the patrol car.
After that we don’t know exactly what he did in relation to following.
It does seem however that “OK” did not mean “OK. I’ll stop right now and not follow further”.
“OK” is not a magic phrase that proves he never followed after he said it.
That’s just your biased view of it.
Regarding: Well, we do not know that he DID go “apeshit” and we don’t know what Zimmerman’s demeanor or intentions (or perhaps absence of intentions by reason of great emotional disturbance or something) were at the point of contact.
Actually we do know martin went apeshit. Eye witnesses saw him far more interested in continuing aggression while pinning the victim Zimmeran than escape. Heck people were calling out to them..most normal people would stop once they became famous locally, but not Martin. He was seemingly oblivious in a maniacal rage of megolamania as he furnished injury after injury on an adult 11 years older than him.
The autopsy prove he was the one solely going apeshit
And yes, if Martin hadn’t gone nuts he would still be alive.No doubt
I don’t know if any of you know the Bible very well, but there is an interesting and somewhat relevant story from the life of Christ where the phrase
“Live by the sword, die by the sword” was coined.
The saying is derived from a Biblical(Matt 26) source to the effect that if you use violence, or other harsh means, against other people, you can expect to have those same means used against you.
The story in the bible is that Christ and his disciples were hanging out in the Garden of Gethsemane. The police come to arrest Jesus
When they do, Peter a disciple, attacks one of the guards injuring him, but then Jesus intervenes telling Peter to stop and then tells Peter:
“…for all who draw the sword will die by the sword”
If Martin had not chosen to use violence in the first place he would not have been killed
If someone called the cops on me for walking back from the store while talking on my cell phone I would be really, really annoyed.
Manny O, you can argue minutiae from now until forever, but it is already an accepted fact that Zimmerman was a “frequent-caller” who should have gotten bonus miles from the phone company. I read the collection of prior reports, by the way. Apart from the numbers and jargon, they said nothing except that Zimmerman’s anxiety level was up again. Saw a Black kid, uh oh, saw a garage door open, uh oh, saw kids playing, uh oh, lots of uh uh uh and lots of oh oh oh.
It may not have even caused the police to slow down that night, I’m not sure it had ANY effect one way or other other, but it could have. Another factor is that the report he made (a suspicious guy) was not in itself very compelling.
As far as the real issues that are important are concerned, it doesn’t matter, because what did not happen cannot be re-done. But what DID happen (which was not a reasonable thing to have happened, as the police concluded when they pointed out that the shooting was “preventable”) was a result of unreasonable conduct on Zimmerman’s part. Whether it was unreasonable murder or unreasonable manslaughter or unreasonable behavior not otherwise specified, it wasn’t reasonable.
As to your comment: “Unbiased conclusion: Zimmerman was going to follow him, but then quickly complied with ceasing to follow him upon dispatch advice.. Zimmerman did not follow him.”
That’s not what O’Mara would characterize as an unbiased conclusion. I don’t think he is going to stake his client’s chances on any effort to convince a jury that “Zimmerman did not follow Martin.”
If he were to do so he would not be able to earn that money the website brought in or the gun folks contribute to his “save the shooter” fund.
Manny we imply think the reasons Geoprge called 911 were trivial, a waste of police time & tax dollars and did nothing to help the community.
If someone called the cops on me for leaving my garage door open I would really think that was going too far. If someone called the cops about my kids playing or walking on the sidewalk I would be annoyed.
Manny bases all his support for Zimmerman on this curious point. George states he is CURRENTLY following Martin. You want to call him a liar?
Not -Zimmerman was GOING to follow, he was following! No doubt about that.
And he continued to follow.
In fact a witness states that the fight between the two covered the ground of 5 houses. Someone was chasing the other according to someone who saw it.
After the initial confrontation, was George being chased or was he the chaser?
That is the question. The evidence will show George is a LIAR. And that clouds everything else he says.
Cmon Malisha – You are honestly going to assert that one guy that calls 911 11 times in 14 months when other residents of the SAME GATED COMMUNITY called 391 times in the same timeframe, and the 11 time guy is “not really reasonable”?. Its just bad ole Manny who is trying to fool me into thinking its reasonable? You are losing objectivity here. The numbers don’t lie and obviously the community was crime ridden. That community is calling 911 on average of 1.044 times EVERY SINGLE DAY continuously for the last 14 months and Zimmerman is responsible for less than a THIRD OF ONE PERCENT of those calls.
Step back and get some perspective. Zimmerman was no chicken little, in fact he showed profound restraint and judgement before calling 911
@Manny O “The numbers don’t lie and obviously the community was crime ridden. ”
Sorry Manny but I think there is a lot of truth in that old saw “There is lies, there is damn lies, and then there is statistics.’
One of the best men I ever knew with numbers and financial data told me ‘you have to make the numbers talk to you’.
I think the implications of statistical data frequently mislead even the very best and most sophisticated.
You may be right but then again maybe not.
Finally I will assert one thing with confidence. The crime statistic numbers regarding the neighborhood are totally meaningless without some kind of comparison.
And it is not just the numbers of calls, but the subject matter or quality of the calls as well. Were these 400 calls regarding drive by shootings, or 400 calls regarding barking dogs? I know I don’t know and I suspect you do not know either.
Was this community a great community to raise a family, mediocre, or Fort Apache? I don’t know. And Manny, unless you are holding back data you have not shared with us, you don’t know either.
Sling
Lets pretend you are objective and don’t “omit” key phrases in an audio recorded conversation to create an illusion that is not reality
–Sling’s biased portrayal of the 911 call
Dispatcher: Are you following him?
Zimmerman: Yeah.
Slings conclusion: Looky looky he FOLLOWED him!!! Off with his head that scum of the earth!
–Unbiased accurate portrayal of the 911 call
Dispatcher: Are you following him?
Zimmerman: Yeah.
Dispatcher: We don’t need you to do that
Zimmerman: Okay
Unbiased conclusion: Zimmerman was going to follow him, but then quickly complied with ceasing to follow him upon dispatch advice.. Zimmerman did not follow him.
Sling – I think there is a vacancy at NBC for a journalist position that recently got fired for doing the same deceptive omission you just tried to perpetrate. Don’t take that job, or you’ll get fired too
Oh and another thing: They did not enter the neighborhood with the lights flashing and the sirens at full blast; if they had, this might have been averted. Although, maybe not.
Manny O, the observer affects the observed.
You speak of Zimmerman’s “entirely reasonable 911 call behavior.”
Yep. You use the same reasoning Zimmerman does, so you find his behavior completely reasonable. But actually, the cops did NOT turn up so very soon that night…
To the people insinuating Zimmerman called 911 “all the time” so much he was frustrated at being ‘chicken little’, cops thinking “ZImmerman calling again”…
Absolute utter and complete and provable BS. Shame on those perpetrating known falsehood like this
Now for the dispassionate facts about Zimmerman’s 911 call behavior for those that have the time to set aside the anti-zimmerman pitchforks
First, “The Retreat at Twin Lakes”…the community where Zimmerman lived had called police 402 times in the previous 14 months prior to the Martin shooting.
Wanna guess how many times Zimmerman was the one making the call in the same time frame? A mere 11
Perfectly reasonable for the neighborhood watch captain and the 402 calls just shows what a crime infested dump the community was.
Its speaks to Zimmerman’s concern and bravery to take on a Watch role when obviously there was a TON of crime going on.
Please find some other factually based reason to assassinate this guys character other than his entirely reasonable 911 call behavior
@Manny O
I think you have raised some interesting questions, but I don’t think I could share your conclusions without more data.
Before I could conclude the neighborhood was a ‘crime ridden dump’ I think I would have to know something about the crime statistics in other similar size communities, preferably close by in in similar urban/suburban areas.
I believe Zimmerman was know to local LE for other reasons. My recollection, one officer seem to have near a mentoring relation with him. If his 11 calls struck other officers as ill-founded, unserious, or frivolous, he might well have had a reputation.
I am not asserting that as a fact because I do not know. I am just saying that counting the number of calls may not be sufficient to understand Zimmerman’s reputation among LE or his neighbors.