Prosecutors in the George Zimmerman trial are facing a collapsing case and renewed question over whether Angela Corey succumbed to the political pressure and overcharged the case. The prosecution’s case has thus far been a disaster and many are now questioning whether charges should have been brought at all, let alone charged as second degree murder. For some inexplicable reason, the prosecutors led with Rachel Jeantel, who was one of the least compelling witnesses that they could have called from earlier perjury to ever-changing testimony. Now Angela Corey (right) and her office appear to be turning toward alternative areas of prosecution involving the daughter of one of the defense counsel.
Don West, who took apart Jeantel’s conflicted testimony on the stand, took his daughter out for ice cream and she posted on Instagram a picture with the caption: “We beat stupidity celebration cones #zimmerman #defense #dadkilledit.”
Prosecutors have asked for an inquiry on the basis that witnesses should be treated with respect. However, such rules apply to counsel not their progeny. West insists that he was not aware of the message.
The photo was actually taken the day before the cross examination.
I fail to see why the prosecutors would not accept the word of opposing counsel, particularly given the fact that this is his daughter.
Given the earlier allegations of withholding evidence in the case, the prosecutors should show a bit more judgment in my view. Of course, they have been busy presenting what appears a case for acquittal.
I have long been critical of Corey’s charging of the case as second degree murder and concerned that this was a case where public pressure influenced the prosecution. The video of Zimmerman’s account and the supporting testimony of these prosecution witnesses were known to Corey before the charges. Yet, she pursued second degree murder in what would be viewed as a difficult case even for manslaughter. I would leave counsel’s daughter alone and focus on the disaster unfolding in court.
Source: ABA Journal
davidm;
You are despicable, deplorable, ignorant and intolerable. A bully of the highest order; picking upon a deceased victim robbed of life.
There is no evidence – WhatSoEver – that Trayvon Martin is, or even could be at fault in this saga.
To the contrary, we have evidence of authority false testimony to Trayvon’s Mother that GZ was “squeaky clean”: when they knew such was patently false.
GZ’s father is a justice retired (the system protects its own).
On multiple occasions GZ was denied his desire to become an officer.
Unequivocally and undeniable is the evidence that the 911 operator told GZ to “stand down and await the arrival of the police”.
If an officer of the law had pursued and killed Trayvon Martin with this same evidence – He Would Be in Incarcerated Already.
There was absolutely NO Probable Cause for the pursuit of Trayvon!
An armed man pursued an unarmed youth with a desire to “prove” himself to be worthy as an officer; which resulted in a homicide.
END OF DEFENSE – the moment he pursued.
Your ignorance is uncommon and surreal. You have no pity for the deceased and a damnation desire for vindication of the wicked.
It would be best that all of U.S. here take the root of ignorance and Ignore you – so that your remarks stand as a permanent testimony to your shame
on their own merits.
laserhaas – Can you produce any evidence that a 911 operator told Zimmerman to “stand down and await the arrival of police”? I think you are lying. The police told Zimmerman that they did not need him to follow Martin. That is different than telling someone not to follow, and the verbiage is standard language because it is not proper for them to order Zimmerman not to follow. Zimmerman said okay and was waiting for police, no longer following Martin. He told police that he no longer could see Martin. The police asked if he still wanted a car sent out there, and Zimmerman said yes and was waiting for the police when Martin attacked him. Even if Zimmerman had continued to follow Martin, that is not illegal. What is illegal is for Martin to commit battery against Zimmerman.
Nobody needs “probable cause” to follow someone on the street. Probable cause is needed by police to search someone.
Your theory that Zimmerman had a desire to prove himself to be worthy as an officer is purely speculation by you. Zimmerman was turned down because of his bad credit. Following someone would not alleviate the reason the police force did not want him. The more likely motivation is that Zimmerman was concerned that Martin was looking into windows with the desire to commit burglary and he wanted the police to check him out.
davidm####, from your last comment I see that either:
(a) You really don’t understand how funny you are, or
(b) You are a Mike Appleton sock puppet that he is skillfully manipulating to make his comments even better.
Either way, carry on brother, my son tells me laughter is one of the best ways to improve circulation. 😆 😆 😆
Mike Appleton,
You are correct. The attitude is, “I’m not racist. It’s just a fact that those people are all shiftless criminals.”
I meant to add that many of the comments in this thread pretty much blow away all of the post-racial nonsense in Justice Roberts’ opinion in the Shelby County case.
My opinion from the beginning has been that this is a manslaughter case. I have not seen anything in the trial so far to change my mind.
Mike Appleton wrote: “My opinion from the beginning has been that this is a manslaughter case.”
I don’t think manslaughter applies. Zimmerman never should have been arrested in the first place.
Florida Statute 776.013 (3) says:
“A person who is not engaged in an unlawful activity and who is attacked in any other place where he or she has a right to be has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.”
Zimmerman was not engaged in any unlawful activity, and he fired only one shot after being unlawfully attacked by Martin, sustaining injuries and being threatened with death by Martin. It seems to me that Zimmerman used the least force possible to save his own life. Many other people in his situation would have used less restraint and fired multiple times. Even a police officer would have fired multiple times. If Zimmerman is convicted of even manslaughter, none of us are safe to defend ourselves or our families from those who choose to use violence against us.
The only criminal I see in this whole situation is Trayvon Martin. If he were still alive, he should be charged with assault and battery.
David wrote:
Florida Statute 776.013 (3) says:
“A person who is not engaged in an unlawful activity and who is attacked in any other place where he or she has a right to be has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.”
Trayvon Martin was not engaged in illegal activity. He had every right to be there. The forcible felnoy was being shot by immerman for being where Zimmerman felt Martin should not have been.
You remind me of Mike Huckabee and others on the right who squeeze, manipulate, distort, exaggerate and take out of context so that they can prove their (errant) point of view.
leejcaroll – Certainly Trayvon Martin had every right to be there, just like Zimmerman did, but Martin crossed the line and committed a crime when he punched Zimmerman. Martin also broke the law when he threatened to kill Zimmerman. These laws he broke were specifically created to prevent exactly what happened here, an escalation that leads to the serious injury or death of another person. If Trayvon Martin had not broken these laws, he would still be alive today.
Most posting here (especially laserhaas) remind me of Barack Obama and others on the left who manipulate, distort, exaggerate and take out of context so that they can prove their (errant) point of view. Most of the objective people in this forum tend not to post any perspective until all the facts are presented. While I do my best to be objective, I am not afraid to take a position based upon available facts. My position, however, is always tentative and subject to change if additional facts warrant it.
I am not aware of a single issue that I have manipulated, distorted, exaggerated, or taken out of context. Nevertheless, I do sometimes make mistakes. I would appreciate you pointing out specifically any such errors rather than making vague unspecified accusations that I am guilty of such. In other words, it would be more beneficial to dialogue if you did not take an ad hominem approach to argumentation.
Mr. Voorhees,
Just keep talking. There’s really no need for anyone to interrupt your characterizing of yourself.
I doubt that you know any “black” people.
If you do, explain all of your merde to them. If you can rise to the level of their intelligence. You may actually get a reaction. Consider it a test of your convictions.
No folks here are capable of squeezing their minds into your tiny hateful crevice of a world, to understand you.
Gene H, they don’t have a choice, in my opinion, about presenting ALL the damning evidence; they have been restrained from doing it. The feds DID open an investigation but they do NOT want to make a finding. I’m familiar with this process; I call it “the investigative kiss-off” and it can be quite a deep kiss at that. In the Dept. of the Army an IKO took more than a year and involved 4,000 pages of documents back in the 90s; they came to the conclusion that there had been a lot of things happening. A sub-conclusion was that there was nothing actionable about the way the activists had brought the problems to the IG’s attention because “if the activists had not brought this to the attention of the IG, we would not have known about it.”
That prolly cost half a million dollars in 1995 money.
SPD will skate. Z will go to prison. It’s a compromise.
Malisha,
I agree without reservation that the SPD and the initial reaction of the prosecutors was not only suspect in itself, but should be being investigated by the FBI. Z almost getting a walk was simply not acceptable. That being said, what I said about the trial I’ll stand behind. “Yes” is better than betting on “maybe”.
Malisha,
Or . . . he could just be a dick. Which isn’t against the law or depraved indifference. It’s not just enough to show the result in trying to prove depraved indifference. You need to show not specific intent to kill (murder in the first) but rather the death resulted “not from a specific, conscious intent to cause death, but from an indifference to or disregard of the risks attending defendant’s conduct”. Which as I said is arguable in this case. It is not, however, a certainty. Maybe arguments or evidence will be shown to the jury that creates the impression that Z was neither indifferent nor disregarding risk but was instead operating out of fear. You don’t have to convince all of them of that either. Whereas manslaughter? What happened without question and by admission meets the legal standard for manslaughter. No arguably about it.
You may think he showed depraved indifference. I may think that. What we think is irrelevant to what the jury thinks based on the totality of the evidence presented and the arguments made by both prosecution and defense.
DOG, re: “Bite first and ask questions later” to defend one’s self against marauders? Try this one out for size:
An itchbay has had a few negative experiences in the past with men. One or two of them have raped her and one or two of them have beaten her and three or four of them have stolen from her; several lied about her; several cheated her; and they keep looking at her like they want to take her stuff.
So when she sees one of them who she believes to be capable of any of this bad behavior, regardless of whether or not it can be proven that he actually HAS ENGAGED in this behavior, she finds him “real suspicious” and she doesn’t know what his thing is. She feels he is up to no good.
I think she should bite him first and ask questions later.
I KNOW where she should bite him, too.
Gene H, I agree that the prosecution is functioning in a peculiar way. I do not attribute it, however, to either a weak case OR a desire to throw the case by leaving way too much room for argument. I attribute it to Corey’s desire NOT to feed the wolf that is at the door of the SPD. I think Bernie DLR has to be really careful not to make it obvious (although it IS obvious) that SPD was corrupt in their decisions to: (1) make sure Z did not get charged with a crime; and (2) let evidence get thrown away or not even collected; and (3) give Z every chance to make up ridiculous, ludicrous, unbelievable bullsh*t and to pretend to go for it so it looked like there had been an investigation when in truth there was only a cover-up; and (4) tell outrageous lies to the public; and (5) try to get the Fulton-Martins to agree that their own son caused his death by attacking an armed stranger; and (6) promulgate to the news media several knowingly false stories to throw them off the track early on and in a continuing manner at least until the defense counsel took over that function.
I think Bernie’s job was to convict Z while protecting the SPD. I think he’s brilliant. Also malevolent. But if he were 100% honest and refused to conduct the prosecution this way, he would not have been chosen to lead it and Corey would have found the “plenipotentiary” who would.
So that’s my take on it and here’s a little green guy for you.
Gene,
Compare this mindset:
“these a$$holes, they always get away” – one Black teen walking home in the rain
“fxnking punks” – one Black teen walking home in the rain.
“suspect” x 16 – one Black teen walking home in the rain.
“no don’t call 911, help me restrain this guy” – one Black teen lying still in the wet grass
while assuming the Black teen lying still in the wet grass is still alive, discusses the kind of ammo he used; no CPR; no 911.
with this mindset:
“some creepy a$$-cracker is following me” – one creepy a$$-cracker in a car watching and following
“I lost him” – whew!
gonna watch the championship basketball game – back to Rachel
“here he is again” – damn creepy a$$-cracker is back! followed me on foot
“what you following me for” – to creepy a$$-cracker
“get off, get off”
“helllllllllllllllp! helllp meeee! STOP” – gun shot, silence.
Malisha, It was a connected thought – OJ and prosecution mishandling a case, not a one to one comparison.
I agree with your take on it, Zimmerman was wrong.
Kvoorhees, where in the world did all your hatred come from?
“They’ve got evidence of the kill,”
Yep.
“of the ill will and of the depraved mind ‘without regard to human life.’”
Arguably.
Now which is the better presentation for the jury assuming your goal is conviction? A scenario with no room for argument according to legal standards or one with room for argument according to legal standards?
So rare that I get something PERFECT. But I keep trying. Glad you think I scored a ten on that one! ➡ ➡ ➡ ➡ PERFECT ❗
I don’t care who calls me a racist or anything else. It’s stupid and you can’t fix stupid. But if racism = survival, think about that. Zimmerman survived his attack on Trayvon Martin. And it was a racist attack on Trayvon Martin and yes, the racist did survive.
Nick — I was talking about evidence. They’ve got evidence of the kill, of the ill will and of the depraved mind “without regard to human life.” So OK. Impressions are just that. No problem distinguishing them and hey, neither of us is on the jury so no stress. One thing I must admit bothers me is the idea that it was just a fight so it doesn’t matter who won. I once said to a journalist, “If you wrote up the Holocaust the way you wrote up this story [back in 1990], you’d have to say: ‘The Jews and the Germans had a big fight. The Germans won.'” He hung up on me. 🙄
Bettykath,
How is racism bout power at its basic core….
Gene,
I think you know who your neighbors are…. It’s kinda stupid for someone to tell you who your neighbors aren’t…..
Malisha,
I have been called a racist because I don’t like Obama…. Now that’s one person…. If I have friends of various culture ethnicities….. Does that make me an elitist….
Here’s a summary of where things stand from a former defense attorney who specialized in death penalty cases.
http://frederickleatherman.com/2013/07/04/defendant-faces-hobsons-choice/#comment-172909
davidm, The defendant did not take a polygraph. He took a voice stress test that has been found to be as reliable as flipping a coin. He was asked about a half dozen questions for which he and the examiner had agreed on the questions and the answers ahead of time. Considering that the emt’s checking his vitals found them all to be normal immediately after killing a teen, I don’t see the defendant having a problem lying about anything.
As the witness who saw him immediately after the shot was fired said the defendant was “calm” and answered questions about what kind of ammo he used (trial testimony)