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<p>The videos help GZ greatly because they explain what happened.</p>
<p>It is interesting that if GZ had exercised his right to remain silent there would not have been any videos and his defense would probably be worse. He would probably have had to testify without those videos.</p>
<p>How does GZ get an A in criminal litigation but Ds in Introduction to Criminal Justice and Juvenile Delinquency, and a C in a course called Evil Minds -Violent Predators?</p>
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<p>I don’t think that’s true, razor. The videos “explain” what GZ and his lawyer wanted to viewing audience to hear–some of which you have admitted isn’t likely true (i.e., whether he had heard of SYG or not).</p>
<p>No one can make a defendant testify. He HAS exercised his right to remain silent. Going on national television makes his earlier “testimony” part of the evidence that can be presented at trial.</p>
<p>^ Because he is not razorsharp. ;)</p>
<p>To exercise the right to remain silent, one really HAS to REMAIN SILENT. Lol</p>
<p>MDMom–good point about the prosecution not being able to cross examine GZ, I imagine the prosecution will point out the likely reason GZ isn’t testifying, which should influence the jurors.</p>
<p>I live in Florida, it isn’t pitch black 30 minutes after sunset, more like 50 minutes.</p>
<p>In the prior thread, I suggested that a problem with criticizing GZ’s tale is the assumption GZ is a capable, responsible adult. I suggested in that thread that the reason GZ’s decisions were “lame” and his story is “lame” (as in “Wow, I can’t believe he said that”) is basically that George is kind of lame. (If you don’t like the word “lame”, replace with “peculiar” or “out of the ordinary.”) George claims he doesn’t know the three streets in his neighborhood? Hard to believe. Ignore police instructions? Lie to the Judge about assets? These are George … his behavior is just too consistent to be anything else.</p>
<p>What that means is that it may not be reasonable to critique what GZ has said … even when some of those statements are, well, ridiculous. Just George being George … the guy NOBODY wants walking their neighborhood with a gun. Of course this makes teasing out what happened that night difficult. Put “I’m getting out to check street signs” together with “TM sucker-punched me” and a juror might conclude that BOTH statements should be ignored. But some of what GZ claims is probably true … because no one believes GZ followed TM with the intent of killing him.</p>
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<p>The prosecution could introduce the statements of the defendant in their case in chief as a “party admission”, which is an exception to the hearsay rule. </p>
<p>“Hearsay” is an out-of-court statement, offered as proof of the matter asserted. </p>
<p>So, let’s say you have a civil case involving a collision at an intersection. Let’s say the local news interviews bystanders at the scene, and there is an observer who tells the reporter “the blue sedan was speeding and ran a red light”. No one can play that video interview because it’s hearsay – you have to bring that witness to court, to testify under oath and be subject to cross examination.</p>
<p>But there are a number of exceptions to the hearsay rule, generally permitted on the rationale that they are the type of evidence that is particularly reliable or likely to be truthful. One is a “party admission” – which is when a person who has is a party to the action has made a statement “admitting” some fact or wrongdoing that goes against them. </p>
<p>So in the example above, suppose the driver of the blue sedan was on the scene and interviewed by the reporter, and says “It’s my fault, I’m sorry, I saw the light change but I was going too fast to stop in time.” In a law suit the opposing party can introduce that statement because it is an “admission” – the idea is that people are unlikely to lie when admitting a mistake or wrongdoing, and the are not all that likely to tell the truth at trial when asked about that – so that out of court statement becomes admissible. </p>
<p>So the prosecution can put in Zimmerman’s statements because he admitted to shooting Martin. Statements like “I reached for my gun” are an “admission” even when accompanied by a defensive statement (“I feared for my life”) - because the prosecution has to prove all elements of the case. The most critical piece of evidence for the prosecution is the fact that Zimmerman was the shooter. </p>
<p>When one side offers a statement against the other as a party admission, the party introducing that statement is required to include enough of the statement so that the context is clear, and the party against whom the statement is introduced is also entitled to insist that the entire statement be introduced. </p>
<p>In other words, if the statement is, “I shot him because I was afraid for my life” – they can’t simply introduce the “I shot him” part. </p>
<p>In a civil case, each side also has the right to call the other party to testify and cross-examine them, but in a criminal case the defendant can never be compelled to give testimony. So there is no way that the prosecution could force Zimmerman to be cross-examined. </p>
<p>At the same time, if the prosecution had not offered those statements, Zimmerman’s lawyers would not have been able to introduce them, because the “party admission” rule doesn’t apply. When a person makes a statement that is favorable to their own position, it is assumed to be “self-serving”, and there is no particular reason to expect that such a statement would be likely to be truthful.</p>
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<p>If that were the case, the prosecution wouldn’t have introduced them.</p>
<p>The prosecution wanted them in because GZ made statements that are easily demonstrated to be untrue. The prosecution will argue that GZ lied because he wanted to cover up the true facts of the case. </p>
<p>The prosecution will argue to the jury that GZ cannot claim self defense if he was pursuing Martin. (Detailed discussion of some Florida case law here: [Florida</a> Cases Interpreting Section 776.041: Person Who “Initially Provoked” Incident May Not Claim Self Defense](<a href=“Welcome ohioverticals.com - BlueHost.com”>Welcome ohioverticals.com - BlueHost.com) )</p>
<p>They will argue that the 911 call shows that GZ was pursuing Martin, and that GZ’s statements about looking for an address are false. GZ had already given the police dispatcher the street name – it would make no sense for him to walk over to the houses facing the next street over in order to get a street number. The prosecution will point out that GZ’s motive for lying is that he probably knew from his criminal justice course that if he admitted pursuing Martin that he would not be able to claim self defense-- which is also the reason that GZ lied on Hannity about his knowledge of the stand your ground law. </p>
<p>The prosecution will argue that GZ lied about Martin punching him and getting on top of him at the place where he said he first encountered Martin, because of the position where Martin’s body was found. The force of the bullet did not cause Martin’s body to fly 40 feet away. But GZ had a motive to lie, again because of the pursuit problem. </p>
<p>The prosecution will also argue that GZ’s account of the final minutes before the fight are a lie, because the injuries and physical evidence are not consistent with the severity of the claimed beating, and GZ’s description of how he reached and drew his weapon are implausible, especially given the angle of the bullet. </p>
<p>The advantage to the videos for the prosecution is that GZ does not have an opportunity to explain or amend any of those statements, unless he testifies. They can structure their case largely around knocking down those lies – so essentially GZ’s statements give them a straw man argument they can easily knock down. </p>
<p>If there were no statements from GZ, then the prosecution would have a harder time anticipating what GZ might say, and GZ’s lawyers would have been able to help him clean up the weak spots in his story before testifying. (I certainly can think of a better and more credible story than the one that GZ gave).</p>
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<p>They aren’t allowed to do that – because a defendant has an absolute right to refuse to testify under the 5th amendment, it is a violation of the US Constitution for a prosecutor to comment in any way on a defendant’s decision not to testify. It just becomes an elephant-in-the-room thing, that the prosecution can’t mention – and the defense attorneys can explain or ignore depending on what they thing is best.</p>
<p>I’d note that they CAN comment on any refusal to answer or evasion of Zimmerman when he was talking voluntarily to the police – so if there is any spot on the tapes where the police ask him a question and he simply is silent or doesn’t offer up an answer, that prosecution CAN argue that type of “silence” is indicative of guilt. That’s from a case that the US Supreme Court decided at the end of term this year, just about 2 weeks ago. (One more reason that people charged with crimes should not talk to police without getting legal advice first)</p>
<p>Watching this only at the gym and hearing recaps elsewhere, my impression is the state didn’t prove the case. That has nothing to do with actual guilt or innocence, just whether the state is able to prove guilt or not.</p>
<p>It was dark in Sanford 2-26-12 at 6:46 p.m. Dusk was 6:23 p.m.</p>
<p>lizard, if that is true, then much of the rest of what Zimmerman claimed to have seen is false, if he could not see anything. If he could not see TM, then he couldn’t see him running, he couldn’t see him looking into condo windows, and he couldn’t see TM appearing suspicious. And the witnesses couldn’t see anything. </p>
<p>The alternative to all this is that the condo development had outdoor lighting, in which case it wasn’t pitch black, and we’re still at square one in terms of GZ claiming not to have seen TM. </p>
<p>None of GZ’s story of the initial confrontation makes a lot of sense to me, from the absence of bushes, to the “he jumpted” him and then punched him, to the failure to properly identify himself to TM, to where the actual shooting took place vs where GZ says he was beaten.</p>
<p>^just what I was thinking hayden</p>
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<p>I don’t think the state has “proven” anything yet. They did persuade the judge not to grant the defense’s motion to acquit yesterday. So many inconsistencies in GZ’s story HAVE to be concerning to the jury.</p>
<p>What the lighting was like and who could see what is uncertain. There was no natural sunlight. Car headlights, working or not working flashlight, indirect lighting from apartment windows or porch lights, street lamps, some people have better night vision than others, TM’s and GZ’s eyes adjusted to dark better from already being in dark than those ‘witnesses’ walking right out of their brightly lit apartments? It was dark and who saw what, or didn’t see what is uncertain.</p>
<p>GZ claimed his flashlight wasn’t working, and I thought I read that there were no lights in the grassy area where the shooting occurred.</p>
<p>^ These were posted in the previous thread. Draw your own conclusions:</p>
<p><a href=“http://justoneminute.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451b2aa69e20168e96a4266970c-800wi[/url]”>JustOneMinute;
<a href=“http://media.syracuse.com/post-standard/photo/2012/03/10743612-standard.jpg[/url]”>http://media.syracuse.com/post-standard/photo/2012/03/10743612-standard.jpg</a></p>
<p>GZ claimed in the re-enactment that the flashlight was not working but there were 2 different flashlights, one found by the body which was not working but the one by the T with keys was working from what I can recall. The distance of the flashlight with keys to the body and the gap in time from the point where he stopped speaking to the dispatcher is a big question mark and a big hole in GZ statement.</p>
<p>The primary elements that the prosecution needs to prove is that:</p>
<p>a) Somebody was killed.
and
b) The defendant is the person who did the killing.</p>
<p>Part b. is generally the hardest in a criminal case. That’s why Casey Anthony got acquitted – the evidence just wasn’t there to convince the jury that she was the person who killed the baby. </p>
<p>In this case, (a) and (b) have been proven easily.</p>
<p>Here are the other things that need to be proven by the prosecution.</p>
<p>(c) (for murder 2): that the killing was done by an imminently dangerous act “evincing a depraved mind regardless of human life”</p>
<p>or
(d) (for manslaughter) that the killing was done through “culpable negligence”</p>
<p>and</p>
<p>(e) that the killing was not self-defense. </p>
<p>The prosecution does not have to prove every last detail by direct evidence – they can ask the jury to draw inferences from the physical evidence. A defendant’s motive is not an element of the crime, but typically prosecutors focus on motive because that is often the information which allows the jury to draw an inference as to what happened.</p>
<p>For example: let’s say that a woman is killed and her former husband is suspected of killing her, but there’s not much evidence about the exact circumstances of death. Let’s imagine that the woman died of gunshot wound, and the husband testifies at trial that the gun went off accidentally when he was cleaning it, but it turns out that the husband bought a million dollar life insurance policy on the wife a month before she died, and the wife filed for divorce a week before her death. So now we have a motive to kill. </p>
<p>Even though there are no witnesses and the husband claims it was an accident, he can still be convicted of 1st degree murder – and under that factual scenario very likely will be. There is no way at all that the prosecutor can bring out hard evidence to prove that the shooting was not an accident–certainly no other witness who can give a different account of the shooting – but the motive part will typically be enough for the jury to make that leap. </p>
<p>So back to Zimmerman: the reason the prosecution harps on his 911 statements and the overall circumstances, is that Zimmerman’s expressed animus against burglars who “always get away” provides a motive for Zimmerman to follow Martin and to initiate a confrontation by trying to apprehend him. That’s not the same as an intent to kill, but the prosecution doesn’t need a direct intent to kill: they just need either culpable negligence (manslaughter) or an imminently dangerous act coupled with that depraved mind stuff. </p>
<p>So the whole case may very well come down to: why did Zimmerman get out of his car? House number check, or pursuit of Martin?</p>
![http://media.syracuse.com/post-standard/photo/2012/03/10743612-standard.jpg[/url]](http://media.syracuse.com/post-standard/photo/2012/03/10743612-standard.jpg%5B/url%5D){kind=link}
