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
Jeralyn’s comment on seven hours of video around the clubhouse:
But I can’t tell if it’s my eyes playing tricks from staring at it or whether I really see it. I see headlights of cars which could show what time and direction Zimmerman drove, and in various places, I’m sure I see Travyon. I think they may use it to show the time Zimmerman drove past the clubhouse and his direction, and the time that Trayvon was at the clubhouse, and that it was raining during some of it.
Again, I’m not sure, I wish someone with great eyesight would sit through them. I’ve watched them several times, but I often see something different, and trying to take screen grabs hasn’t worked because the film is so grainy.
Witness #6 at least, as I remember it,
Again, if I remember correctly, and in these 10 seconds the fight was still on the path. If Zimmerman claims he had to shoot him since he banged his had against the pavement, than why was he in the grass?
No, actually it was this thread: Zimmerman’s Bail Bond Agents to Testify at Bond Hearing
There is something interesting, with Tony C’s scenario in mind, at least I hope it was in that comment thread. I filed this under legal issues. Somebody pointed it out to me: False imprisonment.
If you listen carefully to Witness #6 at least, as I remember it, he say he watched the fight about 10 seconds an in these ten seconds he claimed to have called out to them he would call police. George knows they are on the way anyway. But considering the above, if George did in fact try to stop and detain Trayvon, than he would have been in big troubles, had police arrived and Trayvon was still alive.
It’s interesting too over there, mixed crowd, many Zimmerman supporters or people that out themselves as having contributed to help the Zimmerman’s to fight this “political lawsuit”.
Malisha, there was a complicated case mentioned along the lines you suggest. But I now I really have to get a couple of hours of sleep. 😉 The Zimmerman supporting side seem to ironically support your idea of corrupt courts, considered collectively, at least single voices even a lawyer among them considered it worthwhile to mention. And there is a fighter like you, called Anne, I like her.
Sling, sometimes it’s hard to argue straight, isn’t it? 😉
All, I have been reading the comments on Talk Left, JM, about the revocation of the bond. Here are the Perjury Proceedings against Shellie Zimmerman
The thread is enormously interesting. There is among others an interesting link to the Orlando Sentenel about George and Shellie’s financial situation before the big money flowed in.
Malisha: “The appeals courts are responsible for making the law so incomprehensible as to be completely unpredictable. That, in fact, is often the point.”
Looks like all the courts are responsible for this now, the Supremes confusing broccoli with health insurance, etc. None of the courts understand common sense in this 21st Century, why should they understand old words on a old paper in a old book from a time when people had reading comprehension and dignity and ethics?
A time when money did not run the Justice Department quite so much as now…
Over in the Stately Manor, someone had a question.
It’s completely evading the real question in the affair.
Just about anyone would do whatever to survive – so the question is in no way relevant to anything. There is no point to it.
Nevertheless, the muse spoke to me.
=========================================================
Hi GW
I’ve only been discussing this matter on Prof Turley’s Legal Opinion blog and latterly on some threads in this one so I have not had the opportunity to see you posing the question.
I sense that you have been touring various blogs with the question, but have not received answers.
I suspect that part of the reason is that your question really means – “What would you have done if you were George Zimmerman?”
That’s not so much a question as a big ask.
However, as you seem to be in need of a response, I’ll give it a shot. (no pun intended)
I work on Floor 7½ of the Mertin Flemmer Building in New York City.
One day I discover a small door behind a filing cabinet. I open the door and go inside.
Whoooooosh!!!
Wha? It’s dark in here!!
What the coon?
I’m on my back and there’s someone on top of me. We seem to be fighting.
Wet! Cold! Dark! What the coon is going on?
Waaaa! He’s just banged my head. Stop! Get off me you cooning moron!
Yaaaaah! He just kneed me in the ..
In the..??? Sweet Holy Coon! I’m a guy! I’m a cooning GUY?? What the Coon???
Coon! My cooning nose. It hurts! Blood!
Help! Help! Make it stop! What the coon is going on? Help!
Waaa! My head. Help!!
Now what? He’s reaching for my gun..
My gun? My gun? I got a cooning gun? What the coon? Why the coon do I have a cooning gun?
No way! No cooning way is he getting that cooning gun.
I fight for the gun. This is cooning mental. He’s going to cooning kill me!
I get a grip on the gun. Using both my hands, I manage to turn it towards him, my finger searching for the trigger.
Inner Voice: “Are you sure that you really want to do that? Who are you? What are you doing here? Are you the good guy or the bad guy? Who started this? Does he have a wife and kids? Don’t you know that every time a gun is fired, a small puppy whines?”
I think “Lookit Inner Voice, this guy is going to cooning kill me. I don’t give a flying coon for that crap.”
I manage to pull the trigger. POW!!
Whoa! Silence for a while.
The guy is stretched on the ground. I get to my feet. He’s not moving.
Then all hell breaks loose. Cops!
They are asking what happened.
THEY.. are asking ME.. what happened.???
How the holy coon should I know? I only just cooning got here. Who the coon are you people? Where is this?
The cops cuff me and put me in a car. All sort of shit happening. Questions, questions, questions.
Listen! You think you got questions? I got cooning questions!
Then it all goes sort of black.
I feel a bump.
I look around. They’ve all gone. The cuffs are gone. I hear heavy traffic.
Where am I?
The New Jersey cooning Turnpike?? What the coon?
I stumble homewards.
My head reeling, but already I am thinkingg about who I hate enough to sent them through that door.
I shot someone. Absolutely. The way I saw it, it was him or me. Thank coon that I didn’t have to stay in that guys head and get faced with all the whys and wherefores.
————————————————————————————————
The way I got there was by going in through a small door behind a filing cabinet on Floor 7½ of the Mertin Flemmer Building in New York City.
The way Zimmerman got there was by going out the door of his truck.
Leander, it appears to me that the defense making an initial successful move to get rid of the first judge assigned to the case might come back to bite them. You can’t start moving against every judge who makes a decision you don’t like.
This judge seems to have had quite a tantrum about being lied to at the bond hearing. Of course, that may be the result of so many people being vocal about the VERY LOW BOND he assigned to Zimmerman initially; he didn’t want to look like a fool.
Anyway, the decision to let the Zimmerman statements go public is a significant decision in this regard: it makes a plea deal a lot more difficult. Public perception of a “trick” that involved both prosecution and defense would be a very bad thing right now in the case. It would be better to go ahead and allow a trial and if Zimmerman loses badly, to go ahead and sentence him and let the appellate courts take the heat from here on out, in crafting a way to free poor Georgie from his incarceration — and they will.
Appellate courts can be the most political of all places. A lot more political than the legislators’ halls, a lot more political than the executive branch, and of course, A LOT MORE SILENT AND HIDDEN UNTIL THEY COME UP WITH SOMETHING THAT SHOCKS THE CONSCIENCE, but they lay it between the lines so sweetly, you can hardly even understand it.
I’ve seen this a thousand times. The appeals courts are responsible for making the law so incomprehensible as to be completely unpredictable. That, in fact, is often the point.
Judge Lester agrees with what you wrote above 😉
Strange to say, but Judge Lester seems to be protecting the public’s right to know what happened that night.
I didn’t understand what you meant with that. Now I do.
So Judge Lester, agrees with you you wrote above. Maybe he read you. ,) LeaNder says good night.
I am guardedly hopeful that the public is not going to be as “snowed” as usual in cases like this.
I am guardedly pessimistic, admittedly, concerning the final results, Sling.
May I introduce you to the Community Advisors’ Conspiracy.
A polite manipulator? I couldn’t help but comment. Maybe I manage to get banned. Let’s see if he has a little humor.
In his daytime photo, he pulls the red X up the pathway towards the T-junction.and right behind the first house.
Sling, I had exactly your impression. It felt a bit manipulative to me too. But strictly the location doesn’t rule out Zimmerman’s story, the encounter at least could have happened at the T-junction, and in the process of shouting moved slightly down.
Jeralyn Merritt’s analysis, that supports Zimmerman’s narrative too, relies heavily on the location of the teacher’s house, and the fact that the other witnesses that registered the early encounter all are close to the T-junction, something she claims to have checked in official registers. I am not completely convinced myself, since the space we are talking about is open and sound spreads in a ball shape ( ?), which makes it very hard to locate. a source. It could well be that the other witnesses only noticed later for the most diverse reasons. Loud TV, other noise distractions, being in rooms facing Retreat View Circle?
But I have to admit that this felt slightly manipulative to me too. Given the spot from which the photograph was taken there may well be a little foreshortening in play too. We do not have a precise location, we would need an aerial view, a precise map with the exact location of all evidence.
But the little flash-light with Toyota key holder, or however you call it, seems to have been pretty close to the t-junction indeed. There seems to be a withered leaf on the footpath close to it. Who did it belong to? Selma and Mary report Zimmerman moving away from Trayvon’s body, which direction exactly? I am assuming he would expect police from that direction. Would they have noticed if he dropped something? How does their story fit into John’s tale? I haven’t listened to their interview, was there another one? Didn’t they complain no one interviewed them again after the night?
Many, many questions.
Release of the statements will have (probably) a certain effect on the “settle-ability” of this case by means of manslaughter plea. What you have is a situation where the PUBLIC will be aware that the statements George made to the cops were blatantly false and — when matched up against what the police already knew THAT NIGHT — plainly ridiculous.
Together with the damage to George’s credibility resulting from the “no money, low bond, extra passport” caper, self defense becomes harder and harder to prove.
Now there’s a strange tack to O’Mara’s explanation of Zimmermans’ (s first, then apostrophe) lies:
1. “scared, mistrustful, confused”
and
2. Well George turned over the money to ME (O’Mara) very soon after the first bond hearing so he must be basically honest.
OK.
When George is “scared, mistrustful and confused” he lies? OK. And what was he after killing Trayvon Martin, “scared, mistrustful and confused”?
To me, it is interesting that BOTH prosecution AND defense wanted George’s statements hidden. I think that was because with the statements hidden, a deal was far more likely. Strange to say, but Judge Lester seems to be protecting the public’s right to know what happened that night.
I am guardedly hopeful that the public is not going to be as “snowed” as usual in cases like this.
Bettykath,
On Mike McDaniel’s x’s and dots:
Over there, yesterday, I had raised the question of the body ending up 50 feet South of where the confrontation is said to have taken place.
I queried the state of Zimmerman’s clothing not being consistent with Zimmerman moving 50 feet on his back over saturated grass/concrete with Martin straddling him.
Mike McDaniel’s comment on that was:
So
– George is innocent.
– The story of the fight attributed to him can’t be true.
– We don’t know where the fight began or how it progressed up to the end
– We don’t actually know what did or didn’t happen – but George is innocent.
in http://statelymcdanielmanor.wordpress.com/2012/06/01/the-trayvon-martin-case-update-9-of-tea-and-skittles-and-blunts/
His Big Yellow Dot is correctly centred on where the body ended up.
He uses the night time photo of the blanket covered body. That shows it is behind the second house down (“John”s). “John is the guy who shouts at the pair wrestling in his ‘back yard’. THat’s where the pair were on the ground. That’s where the body is.
You can see the white porch separator in that photo.
In his daytime photo, he pulls the red X up the pathway towards the T-junction.and right behind the first house.
He then counts paving slabs ( which “appear to be” of a vague dimension) down to the red X. See? It’s a piddling little distance – maybe 12 or 16 feet. We’re taking less than most people’s living rooms. Sheeeehs! Gimmie a break already!
Meanwhile over on Google Earth, the planet turns.
Ruler distance from the T-junction to the body position outside the porch of the second house, beyond the white porch separator – 50 feet.
I’m assuming that Mike is aware of the problem for Zimmerman.
In his Update 4, he just had that yellow dot in the right place. Now he’s adding a red X way up by the T-junction.
Just wishing the body North towards the T-junction isn’t going to fix anything.
It will be interesting to see the statements in a week or so.
If a brief exchange followed by immediate decking turns out to be actually what Zimmerman said, somebody is going to have a lot of explaining to do.
Note the charge:
Evidence photos released by the Fourth Circuit Court State Attorney’s Office in the shooting death of teen Trayvon Martin. Sanford resident George Zimmerman has been charged with manslaughter in Martin’s death.
I just looked briefly at McDaniel’s. He has moved the confrontation spot in the plan view from the yellow spot to a red x near the intersection of the T. If the yellow pile is where Martin fell, the yellow spot is more accurate than his red x. This is true whether you count the sidewalk blocks or refer to the buildings on the right.
I don’t understand why Zimmerman would reach for his phone before backing off, at least out of reach of Martin. If he really thinks he has a bad guy, wouldn’t this bad guy be likely to go after him if he calls the cops right there within arms reach? I’m skeptical of his story that he was reaching for his phone, but that he really was reaching for his gun. Speculation, of course.
Would M lead this weird guy to a house where it might take some time getting in and where there was a younger child?
When I was a teen I was followed. I was in one car and was being followed by boys in another car. I didn’t go home until I had lost them. I didn’t know them and I didn’t want them to know where I lived. I’m not sure that it was a factor, and we’ll never know.
I am a realist enough to state that the class of drugs Adderal is in (amphetamine) is much more likely to produce violence than marijuana would be.
Any doctor or lawman would back me up with experience.
The rush of power would amplify the effect.
The drug Zim was high on was POWER.
He was gonna bring in his crook.
HE was gonna be the hero, the MAN.
He was gonna show everyone.
Until there’s an effective war on THAT DRUG, we’re not turning the ship around.
Shano, I know a white family who live in the burbs and have three kids and in addition they took in a fourth who is Black. Their middle child (white) got into drugs and the police would call dad and tell him, at 3 a.m., hey, we have your little girl down here, and he’d go take care of it (not with bribes, just with concern and a promise to get things straightened out, which he did, by means of rehab and specially designed boarding school). Then the Black kid got in miniscule trouble of the same token. BAM, the cops acted like they had caught Terrorist #3 on American soil. His athletic scholarship to college was endangered; it was time to go to a diversion program as if he was an addict alcoholic celebrity criminal, DAMN! So I took him aside and spoke with him. “This is your Auntie Malisha talking; you listen to ME.” I told him he couldn’t count on ever getting another “warning” or “slide.” I let him know he got lucky — probably because the same folks were involved who had just gotten a pretty little blondie off a couple of months back — but that luck only holds with the strongest of personal glue. I painted the picture, to which, of course, the other white folks did not allude because they thought it would look racist to come on as strong as I did.
But I ended the lesson with: “I have nothing personally against marijuana, OK? I have something against you getting your life totally screwed because of a few grams of vegetable matter so DO NOT DO IT!” And it was not about the drug itself; it was about race, and he needed to understand that.