I’ve never done any trial work, but I’d guess what he/she was getting at was potential bias, which actually *is *the point of voir dire as I’m sure you’re well aware. However I’m guessing there was no challenge for cause based on that and it probably wouldn’t rise to the level of having the judge dismiss the juror sua sponte.
edit: I got called for a jury once and made it past a pretty cursor mass voir dire. At that point I raised my and when called on said I didn’t think I could be objective. They hustled me out of there pretty fast.
I just read the affidavit of probable cause for the first time, and WOW does the prosecution make presumptions. “Zimmerman felt”, “Zimmerman perceived”, “Zimmerman falsely assumed”, “Zimmerman profiled”. Are all probable cause affidavits usually this slanted?
This is what I’m thinking as well. An all-female jury might be more inclined to sympathize with the guy who felt threatened by the thuggish-looking teen.
If the jury was all-male, these same pundits would be proclaiming this as a coup for Zimmerman. There is so much spin going on in the coverage of this case that nothing is reliable.
The affidavit was heavily criticized by Alan Dershowitz and many other legal experts. Mark OMara filed a motion to ban some of the more inflammatory words/phrases from opening statements. The judge ruled today and denied the motion. I’m very surprised. Words like vigilante can unfairly influence the jury. I can’t imagine a more loaded word other than actual racial slurs.
From the reports I’ve seen, the prosecution sought to strike several white women in a row (there’s a sentence one doesn’t type very often) and was challenged to provide a race-neutral basis for those strikes. It was apparently unable to do so for each one, as two of the proposed strikes were denied by the court.
From the 7-11 video, and pictures, I wouldn’t put much faith in the black (perhaps biased) undertaker’s height and weight estimates. You’ll likely find Trayvon to be described as much taller and heavier at the trial.
Contrary to what was stated in previous reports, Nelson ruled today on words that can be used by the prosecution during opening statements. Bottom line, they are allowed to say Zimmerman profiled the kid.
So the defense’s war against vocabulary turned out to be a fail.
Twelve persons shall constitute a jury to try all capital cases, and 6 persons shall constitute a jury to try all other criminal cases.
The SC has set a MINIMUM of 6, but the verdict must be unanimous, not so with 8-12 members.
Ohio has 12 for misdemeanors and felonies, both must be unanimous.
The thing that ticks me off about the prosecutors is that they had Martin’s voice recording for months. This is essentially hiding potential evidence, even if it can’t be matched with the 911 tape. Trayvon defintely has a deeper voice than George.
I’d call it a split decision – they can’t say “racially profiled,” but they can say “profiled.” A win for the state, but not a sweep.
And of course, they lost on the expert testimony for voice analysis. I suspect, if they were given a choice, they’d rather be forced to find a synonym for “profiled” and be able to put their voice expert up than the other way around.
That, if I understand it correctly, will mean that only friends or relatives of Martin will be able to claim it was him screaming - and his father is already on record as saying it wasn’t.
One of the experts who’s testimony is valid claims that age cannot be determined from the voice, so the witnesses who claimed they heard a “boy” screaming should perhaps be considered invalid.
It looks like the prosecution will have to rely on circumstantial evidence to show that Zimmerman was not the one screaming, which will be, to put it mildly, difficult. That or explain how, despite the fact it was him screaming in terror, he was not in reasonable fear.
Another fun thing about this ruling is that it means that Owen and Reich are basically finished as audio forensic “experts” for any future work. No lawyer will want to put on the stand an expert where the first cross-exam question would be “has your testimony ever been rejected by a court in a Frye hearing”?
Since this is Florida I don’t think there’s anything to analyze about the makeup of the jury except that it will be all Floridians. There’s hardly any point into going through all the motions of presenting evidence and arguments, a dart board would produce the same results.
As for audio experts, it’s one of those areas where they shouldn’t be able to produce an expert opinion, just to present to the jury the process of their analysis and let the jurors use their own ears to decide. That is, if you’re not in Florida, where it hardly makes any difference what you tell the jury.
We’ll see happens with the 911 tape. I think the Frye ruling is a setback for the State, but it doesn’t actually help the defense. Because now the prosecution can play back that tape and leave it up the jury’s imagination, and there will be no witness from the defense side saying it’s impossible to id the voice. Rather than science leading the way, it’ll just be emotion and gut feelings.
Anyone who actually thinks Zimmerman is innocent (not in the legal sense but in the actual sense) should be wondering why this guy has tried so hard to keep experts from weighing in on that tape.
Owen’s own testimony trashes Owen’s testimony. Only by using the software incorrectly was Owen able to “conclude” who was screaming.
…For the software-reliant analysis, Mr. Owen used software called “Easy Voice,” a software program he markets and in which he has a small financial interest. Easy Voice recommends a sample length of 16 seconds to conduct its analysis. Mr. Owen only isolated seven seconds of screams from the 911 call. The seven second sample was rejected by the Easy Voice software program. To correct this problem, he ran the seven second sample twice (sometimes referred to as “looping”). Based upon conversations with sales representatives for the software manufacturer, he believed looping was an appropriate solution. As part of his technique, he adjusted the pitch of the known spoken voice sample of the Defendant to raise it up to the same pitch as the screams in the 911 tape.
However,
…*Dr. Nakasone testified that the processes of aural perception and spectral
analysis are commonly used in the field of speaker identification and generally accepted within the field. He used these techniques in his own analysis of the 911 call. His opinion is that no scientist is able to make a conclusion about the identity of the person(s) screaming in the 911 call given the current state of scientific technology and for a scientist to claim that he or she is able to do so is “disturbing”.
Dr. French testified that there is no basis to compare spoken words to screaming. He explained that screaming under the type of stress present in this case changes the voice in an unpredictable manner and cannot be replicated in laboratory conditions. Moreover, without distinct words there are no characteristics that lend themselves to comparison. A forensic expert cannot hear the variables used with aural comparison in screams, including the pronunciation of certain phonemes, accents, speech rate, and pitch variations. Dr. French is not aware of any studies that have concluded it is possible to compare normal spoken words to screaming.
…Drs. French, Doddington and Nakasone were “disturbed” by the scientific
techniques used by Mr. Owen and Dr. Reich. Drs. French and Doddington went even further to characterize such techniques as “ridiculous”.
…The Court accepts the opinions of Drs. French, Doddington, Nakasone and Wayman that reliable comparison of normal speech to the screams in the 911 call is not possible.*
The jury will be able to hear the 911 call(s) but will the jury will hear the experts who have said that it’s impossible to determine who was screaming? Can these experts be called to rebut witness/family testimony stating “I think that’s Martin’s/George’s voice”?
I don’t think Zimmerman is innocent, but I do think the state has a weak case. That doesn’t matter though, I don’t believe the ability of ‘audio experts’ to determine who screamed what on the tape recording is very reliable. I wouldn’t want them testifying against me in a trial whether I was innocent or guilty of committing the crime.