No. I was farther down the walkway and so was he, like three doors farther down, in the direction of where I now know his father’s house was.
Like this?
That’s about right, yes.
Mr. Zimmerman, according to a Internet source named Bricker, you were secretly harboring some lustful fantasies about Mr. Martin. Are Mr. Bricker’s statements factual?
You’ve got him right where you want him now Stoid.
Time for the kill.
No, no…let’s get into his mental state first.
Yes to all of these. You can also see how his answers are carefully phrased to prevent contradictions. I bet there are thousands of defense attorneys who wish that that they **Bricker **as a client. (Not that I’m suggesting Bricker commit any crime, but it seems such a shame that his talents are wasted. Maybe shoplifting something from 7-11 would be in order?)
I read an account from a prosecutor who said how hard it was to successfully nail defendants on cross examinations. A halfway decent attorney isn’t going to allow a poor liar to take the stand. The fact that Bricker’s attorney is allowing his client to take the stand shows the confidence he has. Of course, the attorney could also be taking into consideration the overconfidence and inexperience of the prosecution.
Now I’d like to back up and ask you some things about your call to police.
The call lasted for four minutes and five seconds. You have testified that you passed Mr. Martin, then stopped to make the call. You were on the south side of the street, and Martin was walking on the lawn on the north. You describe in the call what you’ve told us regarding your suspicions.
Then you tell the dispatcher that he is staring at you:
Did Martin stare at you as he walked past your truck, or did he stop, face you, and stare at you for any length of time?
Since you were reporting his movements and describing him to the dispatcher, is it correct to say that you were also “staring” at Martin from the truck, which is to say you were watching him the whole time you were on the phone?
Then you said:
Did that mean that Martin was still behind your truck and was continuing to head in the same direction he had been, or were you saying that he was changing course to actually come towards you in your truck on the south side of the street from his position on the north?
You went on to say:
Why did you say “these assholes always get away”, and why did you say it at that point? He didn’t start to run until 20 seconds or so later.
You have testified that Martin broke into a run close to the cutaway, as indicated on the map, so he had gotten fairly well past you at that point, since you also testified that you stopped to make the call very shortly after passing Martin.
Then:
What happened at this point in the call, Mr. Zimmerman?
Next:
Then there’s another minute of discussion about the police and your location:
Mr. Zimmerman, according to your statements to police, your deposition, your directed testimony, and your refresher narrative, you didn’t know where you were. Yet you describe the location flawlessly in this conversation with the dispatcher, which isn’t surprisng, because the distance between the clubhouse, where you first observed Martin, to the cutaway where he began running is a straight line of 320 feet…100 yards, a football field. So when did you become confused about your location, forcing you to exit the truck to look at the stop sign that you couldn’t read in the dark and the rain, but **which didn’t actually turn out to even exist? **
Both. When he saw I had noticed him casing the houses - or what I thought then was casing the houses - he looked at me. Then he pretended he was looking around at other stuff but his gaze would come back to me.
Yeah, I had my eyes on him, sure.
The first. He didn’t cross the street. He stayed roughly on the yellow arrow (2) from your first map, only more sort of in the shadows.
I’d object to the ‘why’ question, but let’s assume I lose the argument because it goes to establishing the depraved mind, hatred, or I’ll will.
Because the police were not showing up and I started to think that yet again the suspect would get away. I probably shouldn’t have said ‘asshole,’ but I thought he was a burglar and that seemed like an ok thing to call a burglar.
[/quote]
You have testified that Martin broke into a run close to the cutaway, as indicated on the map, so he had gotten fairly well past you at that point, since you also testified that you stopped to make the call very shortly after passing Martin.
Objection to counsel’s summary of the testimony and to counsel’s argument. If the state wants to know how far past Zimmerman Martin was, she can ask. She can’t argue conclusions in the middle of her cross.
I got out of my truck.
Ma’am, I don’t know how you say I was flawless, when right there on the tape I told the dispatcher that I didn’t know the address. And I never said I went to look at a stop sign. I was trying to find a street sign to conform which curve of Twin Trees I was at. And the street signs have little numbers at the bottom of the street name so I could figure out which block it was. Yeah, maybe I shoulda just known, but it was dark and raining, and you can hear me on the tape telling the dispatcher I don’t know where I am.
Yes, the basis of your suspicions… since your first sighting of him was by the clubhouse, not by any residence, what house did you think he was “casing”, Mr. Zimmerman?
So he was actually meaning to be looking at you, and only pretending to be looking at other things? (Object to “pretending” for speculation but I’d rather ask this question)
Have you ever been the subject of someone’s scrutiny, Mr. Zimmerman, in a manner similar to the way Trayvon was the subject of your scrutiny that night?
So actually, rather than “coming towards” you, he was simply continuing in the same direction he’d already been traveling, wasn’t he?
Why? If I’m not trying to establish a specific element of the crime I’m not allowed to ask you why you did something? I don’t get it…?
She isn’t arguing, she is trying, given the way we’re doing this, to keep the witness and the court on the same page of her understanding of what we’ve already heard as she asks the question about something related to that. Without asking again.
To do what?
Not knowing the address is not the same as not knowing where you are, Mr. Zimmerman. We can all see on the map that there are only two options for turning left after you enter the gate. You told the dispatcher:
Which described your location exactly.
No, Mr. Zimmerman, we do not at any time hear you saying that you do not know where you are. What we hear you saying is this:
It is clear from your description that you know precisely where you are. Yet you have repeatedly claimed that you got out of your truck to look at a street sign to determine where you were. You said:
But we’ve just heard that
- You knew exactly which end of the road you were on.
- There was no street sign.
Why did you get out of your truck, Mr. Zimmerman?
Oh good fuck. :rolleyes:
The houses across the street, and the ones towards the pond.
That was my impression, yes.
Stoid, this is a really bad question. The reason is that the witness can pretty much answer however he wants and you have to accept it. It’s a collateral matter. It’s not relevant to any fact in question. As a witness, I might say something like yes, I have and I always knew that even though I wasn’t doing anything wrong I might appear that way to others and so I was always interested in clearing up any misunderstandings in a forthright fashion, and that’s what I always did. And you can’t do a blessed thing to contradict it. So I would like to assume the judge would take mercy on you and sua sponte stop the question.
I guess so, basically.
There are a boatload of reasons. In general, unless intent is being established, why is not particularly relevant, and it allows the witness to be very self-serving in his answer, since you can’t peer into his head to show he’s not being honest, and you can’t impeach on collateral matters. *
Ok. But when you take a summary of the question and turn it into a conclusion, not a question, that’s argument. I agree this format makes it tougher to be a purist on the point.*
To look for a street sign that would show me the address. I knew where I was in the sense that I wasn’t utterly lost, but I didn’t know the address and I wasn’t sure exactly which cut through I was at. I thought there was a street sign there that I just couldn’t see.
That’s what I told the dispatcher at the time. It’s no big mystery.
And at this time I’d like to make a continuing objection to the prosecution’s asking Mr Zimmerman why he got out of his truck. It’s badgering, and it’s been asked and answered repeatedly.
With different answers, I’m trying to find out which one is true.
But I’ll ask a different question: Mr. Zimmerman, why do you continue to claim that the reason you got out of your truck was to check a street sign that you couldn’t see because it was too dark, when:
- No such sign existed.
- You knew exactly where you were
- You were following Trayvon at the moment he began running?
Isn’t the simple truth, Mr. Zimmerman, that you got out of your truck to follow Martin, wich you did until you found him?
Is “Objection, asked and answered” another one of those phrases written in clear English you are somehow unable to comprehend?
It’s a well established fact that SOMETHINGS NEED TO BE WRITTEN LARGE, BOLD, UNDERLINED AND IN RED for them to be true.
(I didn’t see that you had posted answers before the continuing objection…)
You saw him by the clubhouse: he was 100 feet from any house. Walking slowly it would have taken him awhile to get to one to look into. When was he near those houses so that you had this impression that he was casing them?
Your impression was that you were his true focus and he was merely pretending to look elsewhere.
Your impression was also that he was peering into people’s homes to see if they were home, which he could not have been doing by the clubhouse when you first saw him.
So are you saying now that your impression was that he was pretending to peer into people’s homes, and if so why would that make you suspicious?
I sense an objection…I’ll withdraw the question.
You mean like the street sign in front of the development, which does not?
Please show us on this map of the whole development what other cut through you could have been at…if any.
And please explain why, if you did not know “which cut through” you were at, you were able to tell the dispatcher this:
I’m sorry, I’m not clear on what you are saying you told the dispatcher. Are you saying you told the dispatcher that you were looking at the street sign?
I think Bricker has demonstrated a way in which Zimmerman’s account “makes sense.” It’s kind of a weird format for a Q&A session but overall I thought Stoid did just fine.
I have to agree. What this thread really needs or needed is a judge, just to keep things moving and to cut out repetition. This kind of format could be interesting applied to any number of topics.
I’m quite curious about exactly how “casing a house” and “looking at a house” differ.
CMC fnord!