Prosecution in Zimmerman case relying on innuendo rather than evidence

This is TIME magazine’s interpretation of what occurred so far this week in the George Zimmerman trial:

The George Zimmerman second degree murder trial continued Tuesday with the testimony of his friend Mark Osterman who described the incident that resulted in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin to assistant state prosecutor Bernie de la Rionda, based on what Zimmerman told him. Later on in testimony, Sanford Police Detective Chris Sorino told prosecutors that he felt Zimmerman exaggerated how he was hit by Martin.

Also, Dr. Valerie Rao, a medical expert brought in by prosecutors, told the court that Zimmerman’s injuries were “so minor” and not consistent with the type of force he is claiming Martin used against him.

That’s it. It is fair to say that TIME is long past its prime as a credible purveyor of national news, but the truth is that like most of the media that has been extremely partisan in the Trayvon Martin case, it reports only so much as  suits the narrative that it has chosen. The reality is—as famed attorney Alan Dershowitz suggested last year—that there is very little to justify the second-degree murder charge that has been rent through with advocacy politics from the start. In this case, such a charge can only be sustained by proof of “ill will, spite or a depraved mind.” Frankly, in light of the context and facts, most of the evidence of ill will, spite and depravity of mind has come from Martin partisans who have bent into many illogical contortions to demonize Zimmerman and turn Martin into an innocent “child.”

So far, the truth of the matter is this: The prosecution’s case is built on a prejudicial view of the defendant and innuendo--not based on the knowable facts. In testimony today, they even tried to suggest that Zimmerman’s desire to be a police officer explained his use of his gun. Isn’t the prosecution also impugning the police as well?  Previously, a paramedic who was actually at the scene testified that she treated Zimmerman’s injuries for five minutes as he complained of dizziness, while another granted that Zimmerman's nose appeared to be broken. Yet as noted in the TIME capsule, the only "important" prosecution witness worth mentioning in this regard, Rao (who was not at the scene), claimed that Zimmerman’s injuries were “minor” based on blurry images taken at the police precinct—after the blood had been cleaned by the paramedic at the scene. 

On cross-examination, Rao's credibility took a further hit when she practically admitted that she was brought into the case by state attorney Angela Corey merely to serve as a sycophant for the prosecution’s version of events. We may recall that Corey was in the middle of an election fight at the time, and hoping to get some free campaign publicity dismissed the grand jury looking into the shooting, so that she could charge Zimmerman with second-degree murder without properly vetting the facts.

Meanwhile, the judge in the case, Debra Nelson—who has been frankly hostile to the defense—did the prosecution a perhaps unethical favor by striking Det. Christopher Serino’s “opinion” that based on his observations, Zimmerman’s account of what happened that night was credible. Serrino was a prosecution witness, but many of his statements were damaging to its case. For example, he admitted that there was nothing “illegal” about Zimmerman following Martin, particularly since he was on “watch” duty that night. Noting Zimmerman’s claim that Martin was “bashing” his head against the pavement, Serrino also admitted that “concrete” in this context could be construed to be a “weapon.” Serrino also admitted he was persuaded to believe Zimmerman’s account after initial doubts when he suggested that the shooting may have been captured on video, upon which Zimmerman told him “Thank God.”  It was also Serrino’s “opinion” that Zimmerman was always cooperative and didn’t display any “ill-will” in regard to the Martin. 

A “key” prosecution witness, Martin’s friend Rachel Jeantel, has been described as “hostile, uncooperative and difficult to understand.” She admitted that Martin referred to Zimmerman as a “creepy-ass cracker” during their cellphone conversation; she claimed that this did not suggest any “racial” connotation. She also made the bizarre claim that Martin thought that Zimmerman was a “rapist.” Jeantel’s account of their conversation seemed made on the fly and a product of her own expectation of what people wanted to hear from her.  Again, if her account is seen as not credible and harmful to the prosecution, one has to ask why the case even went this far. 

Again damaging to the prosecution was one of its “own” witnesses, audio expert Hirotaka Nakasone. The prosecution has intended to call to two such experts who would testify that the voice calling for “help” on the 911 calls was either not Zimmerman or was Martin, but these witnesses were quashed after Nakasone’s pre-trial testimony, which he repeated during the trial, questioning any assumptions about the identity of the voice. Nakasone made it clear that in his “expert” opinion any such claim would be inherently biased based on what a listener wanted to hear.

As expected, eyewitness testimony was inconsistent, but again the most credible testimony was from those who backed the defense account of the case rather than the prosecution’s. John Good, who was the closest to the event, testified that that he saw two men “grappling” on the ground and told them to stop. He also testified that—by the color of clothing and skin—that Martin was on top of Zimmerman. He also testified that he heard the man on the bottom say “help.” In response to a question by the defense, Good replied in the affirmative that the person on top was “pounding” the person on the bottom. Another witness, Jonathan Manalo, who arrived moments after the shooting, testified that Zimmerman looked like “he got his butt beat.” An officer at the scene noted that it had been raining earlier, and Zimmerman's back and pants were wet and had bits of grass.

Coincidentally, I arrived at work just in time to see on the break room television a program or movie depicting someone who looked to be Martin's age viciously stomping on another person's head; I'm not sure what the motivation was, although it had something to do with a car. A quick close-up of the head of the person being stomped on had something that suspiciously looked like brain matter coming out of his nose. The other people watching the stomping also appeared to be rather young, and the incident was only broken up when a grandfather came out to see what was going on. Someone in the break room then said "That's how we handle that." Myself, I just had this sick feeling.

Now, after most of a day wasted on pointless ruminations on DNA evidence, the prosecution will rest its case on Friday, hoping that the jury will ignore its weak case when Martin's mother takes the stand. While her loss is best expressed by she herself, the likelihood that she will commit wanton perjury on the stand is a given. Will she tell the court about the 17-year-old whose delinquent behavior she could no longer control--to the point that she kicked him out of her house the day before the shooting? Will she tell the court how her "sweet, innocent boy" became under her care what a friend called a "hoodlum" and Martin himself styled as "gangsta"? Doubtful.
 

I don’t know how the all-female jury will ultimately view all of this, but there is no doubt that in order for the prosecution to “prove” its case, it has had to rely on innuendo and illogic rather than the knowable facts. That Martin is dead and Zimmerman shot him is one set of facts; that Martin was “pounding” Zimmerman on the ground before he was shot seems to be another reasonable view of the evidence. The issues of whether Martin was “profiled” or followed” only have relevance if they provided the motivation for the shooting; to ask if they were motivation for the beating is of course not “relevant” in the minds of Martin partisans. The only question is whether a reasonable person who is armed would use it in a similar circumstance as Zimmerman claims that he was in.