<p>I’m curious what some of you think about the screaming for help. TM’s mom is going to testify that it is TM. People are saying that a parent knows when it’s their son. However I assume that GZ’s mom or dad is going to testify that it’s GZ. To me this is the one piece of evidence that I would disregard if I was a member of the jury because both families believe it’s their family member screaming for help. What do you think?</p>
<p>The interview was played for the jury in court in its entirety and entered into evidence</p>
<p>MG
I agree. Unless there is something in the testimony that is particularly compelling.</p>
<p>The point at which the persuading takes place is when the attorneys give their closing arguments. During presentation of their cases, both sides are hampered by the fact the attorneys are not allowed to express opinions as to the significance of the evidence they are bringing out, and they are limited in how much they can use their questioning to draw attention to conflicts in the evidence. They can frame some hypotheticals for an expert, but they can’t really flesh out all of the facts. </p>
<p>As each side does get to cross-examine the others witnesses, there really isn’t a phase in the trial that is one side only. That is, the prosecution has produced a bunch of witnesses and the defense has asked questions which tend to diminish the value of their testimony. When the defense puts on its own witnesses, the prosecution will ask questions that tends to diminish its value. </p>
<p>I don’t think the DNA evidence is all that significant, except to the extent that it fails to bolster GZ’s account of events. It still leaves a very real sense that GZ has told a somewhat fanciful and one-sided tale of the fight.</p>
<p>I’d add one more thing about women jurors who happen to be mothers: we moms are all very much aware that after a physical fight, the account that we will get from the apparent aggressor is generally exaggerated and casting blame on the other. It happens all the time among siblings: the bigger kid always claims that the smaller one started it or hit first. Of course the other kid has a different story to tell. Moms come to their own conclusions – but that seldom means taking the words of the participants at face value. </p>
<p>That doesn’t mean that I can predict how the jury will see things – I’m just saying that I don’t think any of the 5 moms on the jury are thinking, “if Zimmerman said that, it must be so.” Especially the part about Martin coming up on GZ and punching him in the nose with no provocation whatsoever.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>To me, the very last scream sounds like someone terrified, pleading for his life – and I simply can’t get around the fact that the scream is cut off by the gun shot. I can see GZ being terrified if TM was on top of him, smothering him – but then the sounds would be muffled, and I don’t think that the prolonged scream could come from someone who was simultaneously squirming around and struggling for control of a gun. But if any case, if I had a gun in my hand and was screaming for help, and then I fired the gun-- I wouldn’t stop screaming, especially if I was unsure whether I had killed the other person. I’d be screaming even louder. </p>
<p>I also don’t think that last wail is the scream of someone actively engaged in a fight - it sounds to me more like someone who is being physically held in some way and is very aware that they are about to be killed. So I get it as Trayvon’s voice simply because he’s the one who ended up shot. GZ may very well also have been shouting, but the ear witnesses said they heard two separate voices, with arguing preceding the screaming.</p>
<p>On the scream, I don’t know if the parents from either side are going have a big sway or not, or it could ever be conclusive on whose screams they belong to. But I think there are some advantages built into the prosecutors claims than the defense. The fact that the screams have very high pitches, they stopped at the sound of a gun, the fact that GZ said TM was covering his mouth at the right before he pulled out his gun, and the awkward fact that a person would scream for help up to the moment he had a gun in his hand and fire. Not conclusive but I believe it favors TM case rather than GZ.</p>
<p>I am with the fbi on the issue; I don’t know more than the FBI, I cannot determine if its TM or GZ screaming.
However, it is my opinion that when Mrs. Martin gets on the stand and cries: “that’s my baby!” (my prediction), I think it will weigh more heavily on the female juror’s minds than if/when Gz’s dad says the same thing.</p>
<p>The good Reverend Al was a major player. Is he going to testify?</p>
<p>I agree, younghoss, that the FBI expert was very good. I saw some of his testimony. He was actually a defense witness but the state called him. He said that there wasn’t a long enough clean sample to do any analysis, but that humans can sometimes recognize voices when the computer algorithms can make a match. </p>
<p>I don’t think the state has presented a timeline of the shooting and preceding events. This was a very documented event in some ways. If you compare Z’s story to the timeline, there are some glaring discrepancies. But it doesn’t look like the state will use this.</p>
<p>calmom: “I also don’t think that last wail is the scream of someone actively engaged in a fight - it sounds to me more like someone who is being physically held in some way and is very aware that they are about to be killed.” Some people think that GZ was holding onto Trayvon’s 2 sweatshirts, near the bottom, as he tried to get away right before the shooting. This could account for the (substantial) misalignment between the bullet holes in the sweatshirts and the entrance wound in Trayvon’s chest. It could also account for the fact that the sweatshirts were in contact with the gun while the chest was a couple of inches away. I believe that the state is saying that the can of juice in the kangaroo pocket was pulling the sweatshirt down, at least the outer hoodie. I don’t see how that explains the inner sweatshirt being pulled down.</p>
<p>FBI only testified to the infeasibility of using scientific method to analyze these particular screams and not to the contextual or situational analysis of the events relating to the scream.</p>
<p>
Literally? Not “the first thing?” Not even the names of important concepts involved? </p>
<p>We’ve got a guy who carries a loaded gun to buy groceries, majors in criminal law at community college and applies for police officer jobs, and you find it credible that after taking a course in which Florida’s stand your ground law was discussed “extensively” along with other self defense concepts he doesn’t remember ever having so much as heard of “stand your ground?”</p>
<p>kluge…I didn’t say I found his version “credible”, I just said I didn’t make the same “auto-leap” to the conclusion that best suits my beliefs like others did. Big difference. That would be the whole “open-mind” part I mentioned earlier. If you want to immediately accept as gospel any evidence that matches your viewpoint…have at it. I prefer to wait until all the evidence has been presented. I’m funny that way. :)</p>
<p>Actually, I found the teachers discussion of “imperfect self defense” more interesting – it sounds like a student who took his class would know that a fist-fight wouldn’t justify a shooting, and that the defendant would have to show that he was clearly in fear for his life. Hence the head-bashing & smothering story.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I don’t know about the relative positions of the holes in the clothing, but I do feel from the screaming that the shooting victim was being pinned or held in some way immediately before the gun went off. </p>
<p>This is just my take on things, based largely on GZ’s own statements:</p>
<p>I think that GZ did draw the gun when TM was on top of him. I think he was on the grass and not the concrete (no head bashing) and that there had been a 2-sided struggle in which GZ either pulled TM to the ground or else TM knocked him to the ground and got on top of him. I think that GZ pulled the gun when TM started to sit up and move away from him, perhaps in response to the neighbor saying he would call 911. It’s possible that TM was in an upright position (possibly on his knees rather than standing) and that GZ was also upright at the same level when the shot was fired. I also think it’s possible that GZ had rolled over on top of TM and shot him from above, but then rolled the body over, face-down, after the shooting. </p>
<p>The reason I think this, aside from the wail heard immediately before the shot, is from GZ’s own account. I don’t think the bullet path/angle is possible from the position GZ described of pulling the gun out at hip level while simultaneously struggling with TM, who is supposed to be smothering him with one hand while reaching for the gun with the other. I’d expect that a bullet fired from that point to have hit TM in the thigh, groin or abdomen – but to get it to chest/heart GZ would need to have been in a position to raise the gun higher – and that wouldn’t have been possible with TM on top and continuing to fight him. And I don’t think that someone who had just been struggling to gain control of a gun would be holding their fire while they aimed – if he was going to fire, he’d fire as soon as he could get the gun unholstered and his finger on the trigger. Anything else and the gun could easily be turned on him. </p>
<p>GZ says that TM sat up and said “you got me” or something like that-- and I don’t think that is possible after the shooting – so either GZ completely invented that or else he is describing something that happened immediately before the shooting. So I am thinking that GZ managed to get his gun and either push TM away from him or roll over so that GZ was on top, with TM flat on his back, and he is describing what TM said after he saw the gun pointed at him. </p>
<p>I’ve always been puzzled by GZ’s claim that he pulled TM’s arms out to the side when the arms were clearly found tucked under the body. The only thing that makes sense to me is that GZ was describing the way that TM looked before he was shot – leading GZ to mistakenly assume that the hands were in that position on the prone body as well. </p>
<p>It’s odd that GZ claims that he was pulling both of TM’s hands out to the side while he was still holding the gun in his hand – he’s only got 2 hands and I don’t think he would be putting his gun hand anywhere near the prone TM’s hands if he thought TM could still be alive – so I think that whole story is an effort to explain what he was doing when witnesses saw him crouched on top of or standing over TM’s body. And if he’s making up a false explanation, I have to ask myself what he’s trying to cover up. To me, the most likely thing is that he did try to change the position of the body.</p>
<p>Obviously there is no direct evidence to support the above: it’s just what I end up with when I try to visualize what happened.</p>
<p>What evidence are you waiting for wolverine?</p>
<p>For me, the 911 call where he was told not to follow and the ME evidence stating that the injuries were not significant, coupled with the fact that if Z were being smothered he could NOT be screaming, and there would be DNA for sure in that case, is pretty damning imho.</p>
<p>All we have is Z’s word, honestly. I can see why so many different versions were presented at the trial. I imagine the prosecution will go through all of the inconsistencies, as well as a time line of what facts are in evidence.</p>
<p>I don’t know what else the defense can or cannot prove. </p>
<p>I can’t imagine there will be a long defense.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Are you serious? How about ANYTHING the defense has to offer? Maybe I’ll find it more persuasive than the prosecution’s case, maybe not. But isn’t that the whole point?</p>
<p>Trials sure would go a lot more quickly if we only let one side present evidence and decided on a verdict before that one side was even complete, but it just doesn’t seem very judicious now does it?</p>
<p>Wolverine. You are aware that this is a message board and that the jury had been sequestered, right? I mean its interesting to discuss things here, but none of us get a vote. So it’s safe to breathe and discuss. </p>
<p>Incidentally, does anyone know if it is common to sit only six on murder jury in Florida?</p>
<p>
Carefuly, Wolverine. I wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself with all that self-back patting you’re doing about your “open-mindedness”.</p>
<p>People draw inferences from information they have. That’s a jury’s job. It’s not their job to say “Well, nobody showed me a video of exactly what happened so… I guess I just don’t know.”</p>
<p>I’m not sure what additional evidence you’re waiting for on this point. You are accusing people who have made a reasonable inference from what is probably the only information which will be brought out on this point of making a “leap.” My take is that by denying that the inference is simply the most reasonable one to draw from the evidence - indeed, you characterize it as a leap from A to Q - you’re taking a position of your own: “Well, he might have skipped all of those classes, or simply completely forgotten about a central and controversial issue from a class directed to the job he dreamed of having. It’s possible. So I guess I just don’t know.” That’s not “open-minded” it’s “being in denial.”</p>
<p>Well I’ve also heard juries interviewed after a verdict and heard them say, " we didn’t believe him/her". They don’t take everything said as “fact”. </p>
<p>I’m interested in this because a lot of the women on this thread find Zimmerman off putting and incredible, in the true meaning of that word. Fwiw</p>
<p>I’m with you wolv
Maybe we can wait and see what the defense is. Novel idea I know. Of course whatever they bring out I’m sure it will fully support the guilty meme. Every other bit of evidence does.
And I don’t know how anybody knows now exactly what info will or won’t be brought out later. It was just a little while ago people were asserting falsehoods about the DNA</p>