Posted on 06/22/2013 2:24:03 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
The jurors are now selected in State of Florida v. George Zimmerman and opening statements are scheduled for Monday. Today was a ‘wrap up’ day, to resolve as any lingering issues that Judge Nelson hadn’t yet decided, and do general housekeeping in preparation for the trial.
Since first examining the evidence of this case I’ve been highly skeptical of both the State’s ability to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, murder in the second degree, as well as the State’s ability to disprove, beyond a reasonable doubt, self-defense.
What I’ve seen over the course of the Frye hearing and jury selection has only reinforced that perception. Indeed, it seems likely that this will be a long, painful and perhaps humiliating trial for the State. Here’s why.
It’s called the Pre-Trial Motions Phase not the “Let’s-Do-It-As-We-Go” Phase
Normally, before a trial begins, the pretrial motions phase of a case is substantively concluded well before the trial proper begins. This allows for the trial to start with a relatively fixed body of evidence for the trial, shared by both sides, with each side constructing it’s own compelling narrative from the elements of that evidence.
This isn’t what happened here. Literally one working day before opening statements (and actually nine days after the technical start of trial, as jury selection is technically part of the trial phase), the court is still deciding what evidence will be allowed.
As an illustration, consider two issues that were raised today. One is whether evidence on Trayvon Martin’s cell phone records can be used, even though it’s not been fully authenticated yet. Why hasn’t it been authenticated? Because the defense is the one who wants it admitted and they only just finally received it from the state 3 weekdays before jury selection began. And we’re not talking about a small number of records–it includes, for example, thousands of photos. The defense argues quite reasonably that they simply haven’t had time to conduct a reasonable review of the discovery. The judge’s ruling? ”We’ll decide [on admissibility] as we go along.” Wow.
The other issue is whether two particular witnesses may testify to statement they heard Zimmerman utter. In truth, however, that’s not the real issue. The real issue is why such questions remain unsettled one work day before the opening statements? One result of it is that the defense is now forced to start the trial, give their opening statement and frame out the compelling narrative to the jury, and do so without yet knowing whether potentially valuable witness testimony could be included.
Either the old Bait-and-Switch or the “Look, a Squirrel” strategy
Another seemingly benign (and not necessarily inappropriate during trial) motion today was to perpetuate the testimony of one of George Zimmerman’s professors. This can happen when a witness becomes unavailable. The parties videotape formal testimony of the witness in advance, with both sides of the court giving full examination, with direct, cross-examination, etc. The video can then be shown to the jurors during trial. Keep in mind, the state has yet to decide whether to actually show the video, they just have it in case they do decide.
Not unheard of certainly, and not necessarily wrong for Judge Nelson to grant. Still, a few things sent off a red flag. One is that O’Mara noted that the defense hasn’t yet deposed the witness. This isn’t totally unheard of with a case that has 220 witnesses. Because of the enormity of effort to depose each one, both sides must categorize their witnesses by how likely they are to actually call them. The A list will almost certainly be called, perhaps someone from B, less likely for C, etc. My guess is (and let me be clear this is only a guess) that the witness is pretty low on the list, and that’s the reason they have not yet been deposed by the defense.
So the cynic in me thinks the state may be trying to do one of two things. One, they could have put him low on the list to ‘bury’ him from the defense, only to raise them to as effectively an A-list witness on the eve of trial. Such last-minute scrambling also has the side-effect of likely destroying the last few hours of sleep O’Mara and West might have this weekend.
Crooked prejudiced against Zimmerman Judge, lying state prosecutors, what could go wrong? The only thing that stands between Zimmerman and a lynch mob is the Court of Appeals where the real decision will be made at a later date. Unless the Jury miraculously gets it right in spite of the lies of the prosecution team and the crooked decisions made by this Judge.
Strange the judge would not allow discovery by both sides? She is losing credibility. Judges are usually very strict as well as the law about that.
Local AM radio in DFW ran a syndicated news blurb at the top of the hour one day this week. It said the Zimmerman trial in Florida was to start this week. They then described the trial as about a neighborhood watch man shooting an unarmed teen, “who could be heard screaming for his life “ in an audio recording.
You F’n kidding me? The national news introduces the story with that slanted description? It has not been established who was screaming, or if any recording exists but that did not stop the national socialist PRAVDA station from running with the States version of the story. What happened to innocent until proven guilty?
Lots and lots of strangeness here.
What credibility?
Barry Oboma’s SON gonna get Jussus!
Jussis, ya hear me?
JUSSISSS!!!!
Opening arguments Monday morning and Judge Debbie still has not ruled on the Frye hearing or this Motion:
DEFENDANT’S SPECIFIC RESPONSE TO STATE’S MOTION IN LIMINE REGARDING SELF-SERVING HEARSAY STATEMENTS OF DEFENDANT
http://www.gzdocs.com/documents/0613/re_self-serving_statements.pdf
.............................
And in her ruling yesterday the prosecution can use most of the inflammatory words that the defense objected to. The state admitted in court that the lie being propagated by the scheme team and their talking head accomplices that Zimmerman got out of the car after being told not is not true. It allowed this lie to be perpetuated for 16 months without correction.
The state also in court said that the use of the word “confronted” is the heart of its case for which they claim to have evidence which brings to mind this exchange at the April 2012 hearing:
“confronted” :
O’MARA: Zimmerman confronted Martin, those words. Where did you get that from?
GILBREATH: That was from the fact that the two of them obviously ended up together in that dog walk area. According to one of the witnesses that we talked with, there were arguing words going on before this incident occurred. But it was between two people.
O’MARA: Which means they met. I’m just curious with the word confronted and what evidence you have to support an affidavit you want in this judge to rely on that these facts with true and you use the word confronted. And I want to know your evidence to support the word confronted if you have any.
GILBREATH: Well, it’s not that I have one. I probably could have used thirty words.
O’MARA: It is antagonistic word, would you agree?
GILBREATH: It could be considered that, yes.
O’MARA: Come up with words that are not antagonistic, met, came up to, spoke with.
GILBREATH: Got in physical confrontation with.
O’MARA: But you have nothing to support the confrontation suggestion, do you?
GILBREATH: I believe I answered it. I don’t know how much more explanation you wish.
O’MARA: Anything you have, but you don’t have any, do you?
GILBREATH: I think I’ve answered the question.
This is nothing more than a Black Racist Lynching
The only hope is this jury.....who the prosecutors fought to keep some off
JU$$I$$$!!!!
There fixed it
LOL!
Facts are irrelevant. The left has a lot of its credibility riding on winning this. They WILL cheat to win.
Anybody know the make-up of the Jury?
After all this time of watching the build-up to Civil-War II, I think that we may have been watching the trigger being assembled and now soon to be pulled.
I don’t think the outcome of this trial really matters, It’s going to blow anyway. It’s just a matter of how quickly and how hard it will be. All of the other things that have been done in Congress, and in the Administration can be seen as the piling up of the boxes of dynamite in a cartoon. There needs to be a trigger, a detonator of sorts. And this ‘could’ be it.
Think about it, the MSM is putting out all sorts of spin and frankly lying through it’s teeth, the Just-us department wants ‘Z’ fried. And we are heading into a really hot summer, Summertime heat just increases the frustration index in the hood and elsewhere and they are just itching for any ‘good’ reason to go on a “shopping spree’ aka riot and loot.
On the other hand the taxpayers are just about fed up with it all too. put it all together and... Well you pick your own outcome and scenario.
HATE the title....it’s NOT a GAME!
This trial is a symbol, not a real trial. Just as OJ’s trial was a symbol of all the eeevvvvviiiillll White people who said the ‘n word’ against all those poor oppressed minorities.
Cw2 ping
Has anyone thought that maybe this is what zero is going to use to trigger racial and civil unrest in the inner cities?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.