Curious what peoples opinions of Zimmermans lawyer Mark O’mara are now that its over.
I didn’t follow the trial closely but did listen to all the closing arguments for both sides etc… and seen some interviews. Here is a long one on CNN http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/12/justice/zimmerman-omara/index.html?iid=article_sidebar
I think he comes across very intelligent and calm. No passion really but appears to believe in his clients innocence.
I know folks are creaming their pants in glee over this case, but do we need yet another thread devoted to this mess? It’s ridiculous.
Oh shit! My bad, I forgot to PM you to ask your opinion before I posted. :rolleyes:
He did a decent job.
It was simultaneously amusing and frightening to see folks here announce how terribly O’Mara was doing, when he was just putting forward a reasonably efficient job. Many Zimmerman critics seemed incapable of hearing anything related to the trial and processing it in any kind of a detached, neutral evaluation.
I believe O’Mara’s defense team made one error that could have had serious consequences. During the trial, at the close of the prosecution’s case-in-chief, he moved for an acquittal. That was not a mistake – to the contrary, it would have been unprofessional NOT to. But in arguing that motion, he said something like, “At least the prosecution failed to prove second-degree murder; the jury should be given an instruction on the lesser-included offense of manslaughter.”
Unfortunately, that concession came back to bite him at trial’s end, when the prosecution switched tactics and argued for the inclusion of manslaughter as a lesser-included. He could hardly argue – though he tried – that the prosecution’s case now didn’t establish a legally sufficient case for manslaughter when he had essentially conceded it did just the previous week.
Fortunately for him, it turned out not to matter.
Apart from that slip, he ran a decent case.
In my opinion.
He got an acquittal for his client. He gets one in the win column. Hard for a defense attorney to better in any one case.
As a matter of style, he had the winning style this time, so it’s also hard to criticize that style just based on this one case.
I think he had an easy case because the prosecution was inept and didn’t even seem to try to meet the burden of proof, and that’s what he focused on in the defense and it worked.
Is this over yet?
I really didn’t like the knock-knock joke in his opening statement. Otherwise, as Bricker notes, opening the door to a manslaughter instruction could have bitten him in the ass.
Strongly disagree with Tripolar in that this was not an “easy” case. There are no “easy” trials from a criminal defense point of view. It’s a high stakes game, and this one played out on a national stage.
I didn’t mean it in that sense. He had a simple defense to use. I agree that does not in itself make it an easy victory.
west told the knock knock joke, not o’mara.
should my life be on the line, i would want my o’mara on my side. he presented a logical, calm, respectful, defense.
mr west on the other hand, no, i wouldn’t call him.
I saw a theory presented at the time of the opening that said:
And in this video, West seems to confirm that that’s what the joke was supposed to do.
In terms of O’mara–I hope his hourly goes way up; I’d certainly hire him.
He’s well known locally as a family law practitioner. I’ve met him a time or two, and had no idea he even practiced criminal law other than the occasional first-time DUI until the Zimmerman thing came up. He did rather well, though, especially considering he was saddled with Don West as co-counsel. I’m expecting to see his retirement announcement any day now.
Don West has a lot of Federal court experience. That may be critical if Civil Rights charges are filed against Zimmerman. I hope that doesn’t happen, but it’s good that West is involved. He left the federal public defender’s office in Orlando to join O’Mara on the Zimmerman case.
Everyone knew from the get go that the state was going to ask for Manslaughter.
Well, the state didn’t appear to know this – their opening statement didn’t lay the groundwork for it at all, for example. And more to the point: the prosecutor’s information failed to charge it.
But the point I made was not what the state was going to ask for, but what O’Mara had in his arsenal to argue against the instruction. His apparently inadvertant concession at the end of the state’s case left him very little room to argue against the state.
Here’s a thought experiment: suppose, from the beginning of the case, the defense strategy had been to admit that Zimmerman was criminally negligent, but deny any hatred, spite, or ill-will… to argue to the jury, in effect, “Yes, my guy was guilty of manslaughter, but he’s charged with second-degree murder, and for that you need to find hatred, spite, or ill-will… and there’s no evidence of that!”
The state would have a tougher time arguing to add manslaughter under those circumstances, since the entire defense strategy was predicated on admitting manslaughter but denying second-degree murder.
The prosecutor’s information didn’t have to charge it. It’s a lesser included. In Florida, lesser included charges are (mostly) always at issue unless the charging document indicates otherwise. There are a few categories of offense where that’s not the case (certain drug crimes, off the top of my head) but not homicide.
It’s not fact-specific? It doesn’t depend on the theory of the case?
If that’s so, I’m having a hard time understanding why there was any argument at all in front of the judge about the inclusion of manslaughter. If you’re correct, it sounds like it should have been a ten second exchange:
PROSECUTION: We’d move that the jury be instructed on manslaughter.
DEFENSE: Objection. it’s not…
JUDGE: It’s a lesser-included. Overruled.
What was the substance of the extended argument, if not to argue the merits of inclusion?
Bricker, are you saying the manslaughter charge would be precluded by the failure of the prosecution to charge it initially, and/or the defense’s use of it as a way of excluding the murder charge?
The prosecution must still lay a factual predicate for culpable negligence. Sometimes the evidence they put on for intent will do that, in the sense that the jury can reject it as evidence of intent but take it as evidence of negligence. Sometimes it doesn’t.
Don West argued that homicide lesser-includeds were now non-automatic based on a case from a different Florida circuit. I don’t know what the rest of the discussion was about. He may have argued that the state didn’t lay a sufficient evidentiary predicate for manslaughter; in that case, there would be no jury instruction.
Right, which was my initial point: having conceded in an earlier argument that the state DID lay a factual predicate for manslaughter (but not second-degree murder) the defense then had to turn around and argue that they didn’t.
O’Mara was OK, I didn’t think he was amazing or anything.
But he came across like a fucking Perry Mason compared to the ineptitude of De la Rionda.
Omara was calm and professional. BDLR seemed to be having a prolonged panic attack, which caused him to keep raising his voice.