NYT: In Zimmerman Trial, Prosecution Witnesses Bolster Self-Defense Claims

[NaturalHigh]

SANFORD, Fla. — As the trial of George Zimmerman enters its second week on Monday, it appears that the prosecution is struggling to meet the burden of proving him guilty of second-degree murder, legal analysts said.

The first week of the trial featured testimony from prosecution witnesses that in many instances bolstered Mr. Zimmerman’s argument of self-defense rather than the state’s case, the analysts said.

“When you are talking about state witnesses as if they are defense witnesses, that is a problem for the State of Florida,” said Diana Tennis, a prominent Orlando defense lawyer who is following the case. “And any time you end each day with either a zero-sum game or the defense coming out ahead, that’s a problem when you’re the prosecution.”

More...

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/01/us/in-zimmerman-trial-prosecution-witnesses-bolster-self-defense-claims.html?_r=0

[Nye Bevan]

1. A polite way of saying that the prosecution's "case" has been an unmitigated disaster thus far.

I have never seen a trial with a weaker case presented.

[NaturalHigh]

3. So far, I would agree.

I would think that if they had stronger elements to the case they would have wanted them to come out immediately, definitely before the Rachel Jeantel testimony.

[TorchTheWitch]

9. nope, better to get the iffy stuff over with in the beginning

Save the best toward the end so that it's more likely to be remembered by the jury.

Yep, so far the witness testimony has been pretty ho-hum, but again, the prosecution said in opening statements that most of what would condemn Zimmerman are his own words, and we haven't gotten there yet. His lies and wild contradictions to police concerning the very evidence that's already been confirmed during trial even by the defense is utterly damning.

[NaturalHigh]

10. Well, I considered that too, but...

I wouldn't think the prosecution would want a sequestered jury sitting on its thumbs all weekend thinking wtf.

[TorchTheWitch]

13. here's some fun...

Zimmerman's re-enactment video to police:

And his original interrogation:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023096266

Let's play count all the wild contridictions... first one to 20 wins!

[NaturalHigh]

14. I'll look at that tomorrow.

I don't think I can make it through that video at this time of night. Thanks for the link, though.

[Pelican]

2. At a broad glance, probably true....

How the individual emotions of each juror will push them away from logic? I dunno...

[marshall]

4. It may not get to the jury

The judge could decide that the prosecution has not met the burden of proof for the charges. The chances are low because of the publicity, but it could happen. I don't think the judge will want to take the heat, and will punt it to the jury.

[NaturalHigh]

5. Possible, but I think that's pretty rare.

Plus, like you said, the judge in this case is not going to want to take the heat and endure the conspiracy theories if she were to dismiss before sending it to a jury.

[Pelican]

8. Odds of that happening are about equivalent to...

Odds of getting struck by lightning, being attacked by killers bees and a large rhinocerous at the same time... while Kate Upton wanders out of the woods looking for company.

[dmr]

6. It seems to me that O'Mara & West use their cross examination time to testify.

It seems that they use their questioning time to make long, long statements; like using a question to give testimony.

I yell at my TV that they're testifying for Zimmerman.

I wish I could explain it better and think of an example, but I can't at the moment.

There are times I want to smack the prosecutor on the head because he needs to make objections. The defense acts like they own that courtroom, & aren't shy about it.

The prosecution lets the defense go on and on and on instead of objecting to something like 'ask & answered'. They should have also never allowed the defense to abuse Rachel Jeantel.

I'm looking forward to Detective Sevino. I sure hope John Guy does the direct examination because as nice as Bernie is, I'm not all that impressed by him.

[NaturalHigh]

7. Yeah, I kind of think so too...

Of course, it's the defense attorneys' jobs to push the envelope as far as possible until the prosecution or judge shuts them down. I almost wonder if the prosecutors think this case is a lost cause and are just going through the motions.

[grok]

11. Serino is problematic also

He has been demoted, pressured witnesses to say one thing, concluded one thing but didn't push the issue, been pressured himself by various other parties and just has been as inconsistent as anybody else in this case. All over the map.

I bet the side that treats him the most kindly will get the results they want. but either way, he will probably add more confusion, and that does not bode well for the prosecution who need CLEAR determinations in order to convict. Not maybes.

With good reason he has lawyered up himself. No matter what, he isn't coming out of this good. Probably will lose his job.

http://frederickleatherman.com/2012/11/21/zimmerman-why-i-am-so-critical-of-spd-investigator-chris-serino/

[NaturalHigh]

12. Didn't realize that.

That's not good when the detective has to get his own lawyer. Sounds sort of like Mark Furman in the OJ Simpson case.

[TorchTheWitch]

16. oh, it's clear as day that O'Mara in particular is testifying

It's about as obvious as it could possibly be.

I actually agree with prosecutions strategy in letting them get away with all the harassment of the witnesses. The more they do it the more is totally pisses off the jury just like it pisses us off. West's outrageous harassment of Rachel, his very obvious attempts to confuse her by continually misstating her testimony in the hope that she'd trip up (which she never did), and his humiliating her with ludicrous details like whether or not she was Martin's girlfriend and his assumption that she wanted to be, his gross belaboring of her for not being able to read or write in cursive as well as his sick questions at the end about how well she knew the English language because she sometimes couldn't understand his big words or his use of "legalese" to humiliate her because of her dialect and lack of superior education along with his perpetually repeating the same questions over and over again are going to totally backfire on him. Especially with this jury of women most of whom likely have kids of their own and can totally relate to feeling this harassment and humiliation as a mother would. I really believe that every one of the jurors were having fantasies of leaping over the barrier and smashing West in the mouth.

One thing that most jurors that are willing to talk following a trial say was the most difficult part in almost any kind of trial is that because they are allowed to talk to no one including each other until deliberations they get more emotional toward everyone involved because they have no outlet to get rid of those emotional feelings, so they just stew and grow out of normal proportion. So emotional feelings of anger toward a witness or attorney become more acute as the trial goes on and feelings of sadness/hurt for witnesses or a victim also become more acute as the trial goes on, so that by the time of deliberations when they can finally get those feeling out to each other those feeling have actually grown in intensity simply because they were unable to deal with them by sharing their feeling with someone else.

If West and O'Mara keep this up by the time of deliberations the jurors may despise them so much they may not be able to separate that bias from the defendant. Frankly, both of these guys really astonish me in how harassing they are to witnesses particularly over petty things. I actually can't think of anyone that was more disagreeable and alienating, and I can't understand for the life of me how they don't realize it. Every defense attorney knows their job is to try to impeach a witness but even ones relatively new to the job aren't so dumb that they do it by such an outrageous degree of harassment and badgering especially over pettiness so that they piss off the jurors so much they may take it out on their client. The jurors can clearly see that even the judge is disgusted with them, and they pay close attention to that sort of thing. I still can't believe that West was so epically stupid to throw in that knock knock joke, and he really didn't understand why it fell so flat. Right out of the gate he alienates them, and they aren't going to forget that.

Bernie knows exactly what he's doing letting defense get away with this.

[Demo_Chris]

15. IMO: It might seem that way now, but the prosecution is simply getting the junk...

...out of the way first.

The BIG witness in this case is Zimmerman himself, or rather his statements and lies. Simply put, the physical evidence does not match Zimmerman's stories. Not even close. And while interesting, everything that these witnesses have testified to is only evidence for the defense IF you accept or at least consider Zimmerman's account of what went on before all this. Once that is shown to be no longer credible the defense case falls apart.

In my opinion.

[NaturalHigh]

17. Do you think he'll testify?

I haven't heard for sure one way or the other.