Thread: ZIMMERMAN TRIAL UPDATE: FULTON FALSIFIES, MEDICAL EXAMINER WORTHLESS, JUDGE NELSON CH

ZIMMERMAN TRIAL UPDATE: FULTON FALSIFIES, MEDICAL EXAMINER WORTHLESS, JUDGE NELSON CHICKENS OUT

By Donald Joy / 6 July 2013 / 595 Comment

After another dramatic day of dicey testimony and legal maneuvers in the George Zimmerman murder trial, the prosecution rested and the judge denied the defense’s request for Judgment of Acquittal based on lack of evidence.

I guess there’s just no way judge Debra Nelson was going to make the call on her own, given the ominous gravity of promised violence and even murder from mobs and mobs of “Trayvonistas.”
The day started out with dishonesty under oath on the witness stand from Trayvon Martin’s mother, Sabrina Fulton, during opening testimony.
When asked, under cross-examination by defense attorney Mark O’Mara, about the first time the audiotape of a witnesses’s 911 call was played for her, Fulton eventually said something utterly preposterous (I’m not merely referring to her claiming that the screams for help on the tape were from Trayvon).
The tape was first played for her, allegedly, at the Sanford mayor’s office in a room full of lawyers and others, including Martin family attorney Benjamin Crump and the mayor of Sanford. O’Mara asked her if anyone in the room had told Ms. Fulton (known by some bloggers as “TradeMom” for trademarking/commercializing her deceased son’s first name) anything regarding the contents of the tape before they played it for her, as a way of preparing her for what she was about to hear. Fulton said no, nobody gave her any indication of the nature of what she was about to hear.
If anyone reading this actually thinks that that gathering of schemers all got together in the mayor’s office to play the tape for Martin’s mother without first at least giving her a description of what it was, where it was from, and why it was important, then I have a health care plan to sell you.
The obvious prevarication didn’t end with that. O’Mara moved on, posing the idea to Fulton that if she were to consider the alternative, that the screams on the tape were not those of Trayvon, then of course she would have to conclude that they were from the accused, George Zimmerman; and therefore that her son had caused his own death–wouldn’t she?. Fulton hemmed and hawed, then indignantly claimed she didn’t understand the question. Where I come from, we call that bovine scat; of course she understood the question. She just refused to answer it, pretending she didn’t get it.
O’Mara then slightly altered the approach, suggesting very gently that it would naturally be her hope that her son would not have caused his own death, wouldn’t it? Fulton again evaded, pretending to need O’Mara to repeat the question and clarify it, which he very politely did. Again, Fulton tried to deflect by defiantly saying she would instead hope that the incident never happened, that her son would still be alive, etc.–and when O’Mara asked one more time, she stubbornly insisted that she didn’t understand the question. O’Mara tenderly gave up, ending his cross-examination there.
Now, before you go thinking O’Mara was some kind of callous bully beating up on a grieving mother who lost a son, be advised that he had tried to open his cross examination with a heartfelt statement of apology for her loss, but that he was cut off mid-sentence by an objection from the prosecution’s table–on the grounds that his gesture was not an actual question to the witness–and judge Nelson sustained the objection. You tell me who is heartless in that exchange.
Trayvon Martin’s older brother, Jahvaris Fulton, then took the stand, and said not what he’d originally said when he’d first heard the tape. He had originally said that he couldn’t say that it was his brother’s voice yelling for help, but in court he testified that it was. O’Mara began a meticulous impeachment of his testimony on a related timeline of a previous statement captured on an audio recording, but judge Nelson interrupted O’Mara and declared the impeachment to be inappropriate, forbidden for O’Mara to carry out.
Next we saw a train-wreck of non-testimony from the Chinese immigrant medical examiner who did the autopsy on Trayvon Martin. It would have been comical if it wasn’t so annoyingly awful and pointless. Dr. Shiping Bao’s English was halting and heavily-accented, which was not the real problem. Incidentally, the state of Florida apparently finds and hires medical examiners (remember Dr. Rao from last week? Rao & Bao, eh) by importing the most culturally-incompatible foreign voodoo practitioners from all corners of the planet, with whom attempting communication is worse than dying itself if you are a creepy-azz, English-speaking cracka such as myself.
From the witness stand, Bao basically tried to hijack the proceedings, going rogue and actually trying to argue about trial procedure and the nature of legal testimony with defense attorney Don West and whoever else might try to get him to cooperate. Instead of just answering questions, Bao wanted to speak up whenever he felt like it, and ask questions of his own! He tried to lecture the court about the way things should go. I was ready to murder the guy myself just to get him off the stand.
Bao balked at answering questions regarding his professional, medical opinion, protesting defiantly that he was under oath (to West, “I’m under oath, do you understand? If I give my opinion, it’s not fact! It’s not fact!”) and that he could change his opinion at any time from what it was weeks ago, to what it was an two days ago, from hour to hour, and so on. Again and again, he tried to interrupt his testimony to pontificate on the difference between opinion and fact, as if the attorneys before him needed to be told. West grew visibly incredulous at the piece of work before him, and made me respect him even more for his sheer patience. Even judge Nelson, normally willing to endlessly indulge any witness’ difficult conduct if it caused problems for the defense, sort of tried to get the guy to shape up.



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There came a point where it became apparent that Bao was reading answers to anticipated questions from notes, and West asked him if that was the case. There ensued a standoff among Bao, West, prosecutor De la Rionda, and judge Nelson over whether Bao would/must allow his personal notes made the night before (not the actual official notes from the autopsy) to be seen by the attorneys, and a copy made of them for the court. Bao tried to dig in his heels and insist that they were his notes, that no one else had seen them nor would he surrender them at all. He came across like a rat trapped in an outside cellar window-well, as he looked around in paranoid, smirking anxiety as the lawyers closed in around him to study the notes in his hands, and seize them from him as Nelson declared that he had to give them over.

Defeated on the question of relinquishing control of his notes, Bao sat in brief silence as defense attorneys brought them back to their table and pored over them together. The courtroom was still. Suddenly, Bao blurted into the microphone, “You see something funny there?!” Nelson had to tell him to put a sock in it yet again.
Bao’s testimony continued for another agonizing few years until he was dismissed, the court not having learned anything really except that he claimed not to remember a single detail from the autopsy of Martin, even though he claimed to be the most supremely expert and skilled performer of autopsies the world ’round, having done so many of them that everyone present should listen to his rambling blather. Bao had repeatedly changed his assessment of things such as the injuries to Martin’s hands and knuckles, and the length of time it took from the time of the gunshot to the estimated time Martin finally died. He seemed genuinely irritated that West would try to get him to commit to providing a cogent professional analysis, or an explanation of why he kept changing his opinions.
Whew.
So then it came to a cliffhanger. Mark O’Mara stood before judge Nelson and delivered a magnificent, lengthy monologue, replete with an amazingly detailed recitation of piles and piles of case law and precedents, on the manifold legal reasons why the defense believed that Nelson was obliged to render a Judgment of Acquittal, finding Zimmerman not guilty by directed verdict. That meant that if granted, the defense wouldn’t have to present a case, because the judge would have agreed with O’Mara that there simply wasn’t a valid case made by the prosecution.
O’Mara spoke for a very long time. His brain seems to be some kind of marvel of biology, storing facts from prior cases and collating aspects of the case presently before the court in a compelling, sensitive, urgent and pleasant way. He virtually never had to look down to read from notes or papers, only pausing here and there to recall a name or take a sip of water.
The upshot of O’Mara’s marathon motion was his declaration that the prosecution, even with what facts and evidence presented seen in the light most favorable to the state as is required, had not disproved the defense’s reasonable claim of self-defense. Further, O’Mara argued that no ill-will, hatred, nor depraved mind existed in Zimmerman on the night in question; nor had the state proven any such state of mind, therefore the charge of 2nd degree murder was utterly unfounded and the case should not continue on to the jury.
After one of the prosecuting attorneys (a rather toad-like creature named Mantei) mounted a somewhat sullen and snotty but forcefully-spoken, fairly well-articulated rebuttal to O’Mara’s overture (with obligatory amounts of case law quoted as well), O’Mara took one more run at closing the deal, with yet another masterpiece of speech and reasoned appeal.
No dice. Judge Nelson acted as if she never even considered not letting the case move on to the jury’s deliberations. She let O’Mara finish, then abruptly announced to the court that the case would go on.
I have to confess here, I can’t say I completely blame her for chickening out and putting it on the jury’s shoulders. The case is so highly controversial and potentially explosive that for a moment today, I saw her as a human being with a truly tremendous burden on her shoulders.
But that was only for a moment. I’m now back to seeing her as cravenly and unfairly hostile to the defense all along. She’s probably a lesbetarian, besides.

http://clashdaily.com/2013/07/zimmerman-trial-update-fulton-falsifies-medical-examiner-worthless-judge-nelson-chickens-out/


Can you say railroaded!!!!!

Zimmerman Trial Update: State’s Attempted Railroading Goes Off The Rails


By Donald Joy / 8 July 2013

It’s George Zimmerman’s defense team’s turn to put forth their case, and quite frankly, they have a fairly easy path ahead. The wind is at their backs because no real, compelling evidence was brought before the jury by the prosecution in their initiative phase of this kangaroo charade (because none actually exists).

Nonetheless, despite the lack of evidence against the accused, rather than issue a judgment of acquittal last Friday, the judge punted the whole matter onward, and eventually toward the jury phase. So now we watch attorneys Mark O’Mara and Don West solidify the fortress of exculpatory factors for their client. Meanwhile, prosecutors can only make rather vain displays of flailing stabs at discrediting defense witness’ statements, while trying to throw out evidence & throw up procedural blocks to the defense.
This having been the first full day of defense testimony in this unsavory spectacle of prosecutorial misconduct, it started off featuring witness after witness taking the stand to swear that the voice of someone yelling desperately for help on the 911 call recording which has come to be known as the “Lauer tape” (after the last name of the witness who made the phone call) is that belonging to George Zimmerman.
The parade of highly competent defense witnesses making that same testimony actually began late last Friday, after the prosecution rested its case and the judge denied a defense motion for a Judgement of Acquittal based on lack of evidence against their client (earlier that day, Trayvon Martin’s mother and older brother had claimed it is Trayvon’s voice).
At the end of Friday’s drama, Zimmerman’s mother and uncle briefly took the stand in the first volley of the defense phase, and both stated very firmly and with steadily-controlled passion that it is George’s voice screaming on the tape. Their statements, delivered in thick “Spanglish” accents, seemed to come from a visceral level, and evoked visible reaction from Zimmerman himself, to the point where his eyes appeared to be tearing up while locked onto his uncle–a former U.S. Army command sergeant major and current sheriff’s deputy–speaking forcefully of his role in George’s early life, and of his adamant conviction about the subject of his testimony; that his nephew is the one yelling over and over for help on the tape.
This morning’s developments saw and heard no less than five close friends of Zimmerman, at least two of whom have direct past experience hearing Zimmerman’s voice yelling loudly at multiple political rallies, support his story. Furthermore, at least two also testified that the kinds of profanity used by Zimmerman on his calls to police non-emergency dispatch did not, in their view, indicate ill will, hatred, nor the depraved state of mind required for a charge of second-degree murder.
Remember, the police dispatcher himself said the same thing on the witness stand last week–that Zimmerman’s comments about “these a**holes always get away” and “f***ing punks” were, in his six years’ experience as a 911 dispatcher, fairly normal remarks, of the type which often come from ordinary citizens calling police to report suspicious activity.
Zimmerman’s friend from last week, federal air marshal Mark Osterman, was again on the stand, describing how no law enforcement agency (that he knows of) has a policy which allows any officer to carry out duties without having a live round in the chamber of their weapon, and that the lack of an external safety on a semi-automatic pistol is not necessarily a safety feature in all circumstances. (for what it’s worth, I can corroborate what Osterman says, from a professional standpoint.)
Adding fuel to the fire in the belly of the defense juggernaut, encore performances were given by both of the Sanford police detectives who’d already been called to testify for the state last week, Doris Singleton and Chris Serino.
Singleton and Serino both testified that upon playing the Lauer tape for Trayvon Martin’s father, Tracy Martin, he had said in their presence that it is not his son’s voice screaming.
Later, when Tracy Martin himself was called to the witness stand by Mark O’Mara, he told a different story than Singleton and Serino did: Martin swore that he had at that time said instead that he couldn’t tell whether it was Trayvon’s voice or not. He also acknowledged that he changed his position later on, claiming that the voice is Trayvon’s.


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Between the testimony of the two detectives and Martin came that of a rather interesting and compelling witness, the owner/operator of the gym of which Zimmerman was a member in the year leading up to the incident in question.

Adam Pollock presented a somewhat charismatic, energetic, and forceful personality, describing his involvement in bodybuilding, martial arts, and all kinds of fitness-related competition, training, and instruction from his early childhood to his current professional standing as a consultant and entrepreneur.
O’Mara put Pollock through the paces for awhile, picking his brain as to the different kinds of fighting skills and mixed-martial arts techniques which exist, and which are taught in classes at his gym.
O’Mara then had Pollock physically, positionally mock-demonstrate on him, on the courtroom floor in front of the jury, the same “ground-n-pound” technique that primary eyewitness John Good described last week, when he testified as to what he saw Trayvon Martin doing to Zimmerman while mounted on him “MMA style.”
Pollock described Zimmerman having come to him and to his gym as a flabby, soft, heavy, and utterly non-athletic specimen with the goal of “losing weight and getting in shape.”
Although Zimmerman did succeed in losing quite a lot of weight through his exercise and dieting efforts–Pollock said 70-80 lbs.–he simply did not have the adequate athletic background from childhood sports activities, nor the overall inclination/scheduling flexibility, to really develop any fighting skills at all. Pollock described at length and in detail the heavy commitment required for someone of Zimmerman’s profile to attain accomplishments of proficiency in the realm of even basic boxing, and that Zimmerman’s non-athletic softness and lack of total dedication/sparse class participation just couldn’t cut it in the least. When asked over and over again by both the defense and prosecuting attorneys, Pollock was steadfast and rock-solid in insisting, rather forcefully, that someone like Zimmerman was only a “0.5″ on a scale from 1-10 in terms of being able to even throw a punch effectively. He refused to let Zimmerman ever get in the ring, not rating him beyond mere shadow-boxing out of safety & liability concerns.
Pollock greatly helped the defense by firmly putting into the jury’s minds that Zimmerman was not in any way in a capacity to counter nor withstand the physically overwhelming, blitzkrieg onslaught of flying fists from Trayvon Martin, especially once Martin had him pinned underneath him flat on his back, even attempting to smother him.
What the jury may or may not know is that Martin was a strapping, athletically-conditioned high school football player who had an ardent lust for fighting, even texting to a friend that he wanted a rematch with one opponent he’d already beaten because the guy “didn’t bleed enough for me, only his nose.”
Otserman’s additional testimony helps show the jury that Zimmerman carried his concealed firearm in a conventional, responsible, and safe way, and that Zimmerman deployed it only as a last resort to save his own life.
As for the rest of the day’s courtroom action, once the day’s witnesses had been heard, things pretty much bogged down in involved arguments over prosecutors trying to get judge Nelson to throw out testimony and evidence unfavorable to their side.
Nelson has been helping the prosecution all along, as everyone has been able to see for themselves. I can understand why De la Rionda and his cohorts are grasping for all the help they can get, because they are pushing a train that has no tracks underneath it.
We can only pray that the jury can also recognize this for what it is.

Read more: http://clashdaily.com/2013/07/zimmer...#ixzz2YZyg66sZ
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