Posted on 08/09/2013 11:25:20 AM PDT by Sopater
Watching the Zimmerman trial in 2013 was like watching the OJ Simpson trial in 1995: while the general public got a hell of an education on how these things work thanks to live TV trial coverage, those in the business were assessing the skills and strategies of the key players.
The face of the defense was that of a two-man team, Mark OMara and Don West. The general consensus was that they did a helluva good job, and that OMara was the best lawyer in the courtroom during that trial. Some criticized him for not being harsher on some witnesses; I respectfully disagree. When the jurors finally tell their stories in full detail, I think youll find that his gentility scored big points with them. The jury figures out early in the trial that the lawyers are the Alphas and the witnesses are the Betas in the cross-examination dialogue
they tend to identify more with the ordinary people witnesses than with the power-figure lawyers
and they consciously or subconsciously resent those who bully the witnesses called by the opposing side. OMara got his points across without brutalizing anyone called by the state.
(Excerpt) Read more at backwoodshome.com ...
I'm also going to post Ayoob's analysis of the prosecution team.
OMara got his points across without brutalizing anyone called by the state.
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Yeah. How he could question Rachel Jeantel without laughing at how utterly stupid she was took a great deal of fortitude.
He treated her with kindness, courtesy and respect. I would have burst out laughing at the responses she gave.
Self defense."If the head was split,you must acquit".But unlike in the GZ case,OJ had no discernible injuries on him that might have justified him in decapitating the mother of his children.
I'm absolutely certain that the prosecution never dreamed she would say anything like that.
She was the one that really set the scene....explicitly corroborating that Tray snuck up on George and took the first punch.
I think her brain got stuck on "following"....and the prosecutor feeding her to make sure she used that word. Unfortunately, she made additional connections to the word in George's favor.
At the time of her testimony there was a thread or two with excerprts from Tweets and Facebook postings from punks and ghetto rats like her.
Messages were like; “(Bleep) - dat b—— done gone and f-— up the case. She so stupid. She iggernant. Ho ain’t doing us no favors...” and other similar type of observations.
They knew. Even though they are no better - no smarter than she is.... they knew enough to realize she blew the prosecutions case.
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