Very odd that the friends of Zimmerman were so close that neither of them knew his wife.
I have no problem believing that the husband went through hell on earth in Vietnam. He might actually have more experience of listening to a voice and determining that it was, in fact, coming from someone in distress. But the idea that his war experience bestowed some magical power to determine the identify of someone who was screaming when George himself didn’t recognize what he now claims to be his voice, is ridiculous.
Also, I’d note that every Vietnam war vet I’ve known that saw front-line duty has had hearing problems. FWIW.
Even more puzzling - the husband claims he didn’t hear the 911 call until two days ago - two days before he knew he was going to testify. He claims listening to the tape was ‘his idea’, and that he listened to the tape alone.
That’s just absurd. So the Defense had this guy lined up to testify with zero idea of what he was going to testify to?
Also, the husband and wife ‘never discusssed the case’. Soooo - this couple was so close to George - the husband said that George was ‘like a son’ - that they didn’t talk about how they could help George, the husband donated close to $5K altogether ‘without the wife’s knowledge’, and they didn’t talk about George’s predicament? Really?
In which case the State should come back with George’s comment that the voice screaming didn’t sound like his own voice.
LOL. Frank Taaffe is a hoot. It’s the MEDIA who likes to trot him out as being somehow relative to the court case. What Taaffe says has no bearing on the actual court case and he certainly doesn’t speak for the defense.
I do think Taaffe is the perfect foil to Nancy Grace. Neither of their opinions are worth listening to and are for entertainment purposes only.
Why should he recognize his own voice? Your voice sounds different to you than it does to anyone else, including recordings. This isn’t a new or controversial idea.
How many people in this thread don’t care what Florida law says, or what the witnesses say, or what the evidence shows or doesn’t show and still want GZ found guilty of “something”?
There is no FLA law pertaining to “guilty of something”. The State has to prove 2nd degree murder beyond a reasonable doubt and that GZ wasn’t/couldn’t have been in imminent danger when he fired. Was it sefl-defense or not? The prosecution has to convince the jury, all six members of the jury, that GZ is guilty.
At the end of the close of the prosecution’s case, the jury didn’t get to hear the prosecution tell the judge that if she tosses the 2nd deg charge that she should still consider manslaughter. I’m not sure if that was standard proceedure or if the prosecution is admitting that they might not have proven their case.
But for the fact that TM took a bus to Sanford, this would not have happened. Should we convict the bus driver? Who cares if everything he did was legal! :rolleyes:
But for the fact that GZ driving to Target, this would not have happened. Shall we convict the gas station attendant who sold him the gas that made his excursion possible? Who cares if everything he did was legal! :rolleyes:
The “But For” line of reasoning has to begin with the illegal act to be valid.
Masterful presentation by the defense (wasn’t that hard for them, really, since that is what the facts are, but good sequencing) - first a wave of Zimmerman’s friends both IDing the screams and providing character references but without opening the door for prosecution. Capping the IDs with the Vietnam vet who actually has unfortunate vast experience with screams and recognizing people who screams. And for the cherry on top, testimony that Tracy Martin definitively and without a doubt (as the police officers testified) said no, it wasn’t his son’s voice on the tape.
“Silly” is sending people to prison for violating the jury’s personal code of moral rightness, instead of for violating the law. Which is what you’re proposing. Good luck staying out of prison when instead of obeying a published list of rules, you have to stay on the right side of 6-12 random strangers’ made-up rules.
Yeah the fact that George did not recognize his own voice seems pretty normal to me. Everyone thinks their own voice sounds different than it actually does when it is played back for them. I would not be able to recognize my own voice screaming on a tape and do not know many people that would be able to.
All of the testimony regarding whose voice was on the 911 call is pretty moot in my opinion anyway unless the jurors just choose to arbitrarily believe one person over another. There is just not enough evidence by the state to rule out reasonable doubt of self defense by Zimmerman. The prosecution should never have brought this case to trial as a Murder 2 case with the lack of evidence they had. Manslaughter should have been the charge, even though it is still probably doubtful they could even prove that given the total lack of evidence they possess.
From what I have seen the entirety of the state’s case is that Zimmerman shot Martin, Zimmerman may have been lying about certain things that happened that night, and there may have been a scenario in which Zimmerman was the aggressor in the fight, therefore he is guilty. Which is laughable that anybody could believe that is sufficient to convict.
Again, prosecution’s case is getting beaten up so bad I almost pity the prosecutors (almost).
Prosecution got all excited that Zimmerman had “MMA training”. Of course they never brought in anyone from Zimmerman’s gym to testify. Now you know why.
The instructor from the gym which Zimmerman attended is testifying right now. According to him, Zimmerman’s overall athleticism on the scale of 1 to 10 is “about 0.5”, he never got into the ring because “he doesn’t know how to punch”, and over and over he repeats just how incompetent in fighting Zimmerman was.
One is picturing the rug being pulled from under Bernie the prosecutor. Yoink!
The prosecution should probably decline to cross. Because they can only make it worse.
Now we know why George ballooned up in weight. That’s apparently his normal size. The gym work had him slim and trim before the incident. He gained it back after he had to stop training.
Actually, I haven’t watched anything on television about the case at all until the last week when I have heard a few comments during streaming video of the trial. The data I have about the case has come exclusively from what was made available on the internet in the form of real documents, photos and recordings.As far as analysis and opinion about it, that has been almost exclusively through here. I saw things in the search for evidence, but it was all strongly biased one way or another so it wasn’t really very different than these threads. And that was very disappointing, actually. The extremes bug me.
But that is not the same as being limited to the evidence presented in court, of course. The fact that I knew so much already would disqualify me, forget what opinion I hold as a result.
I was unclear: I have not been watching the trial closely, so my judgment is coming from what I have learned looking at the evidence directly. If the jury is not seeing what I have seen that would be different, of course.
Nothing magical is required when someone is such a bad liar. Zimmerman sucks at it as I’ve said before. As for what supports his story: very little, and in only the broadest, crudest outlines. He claims many things that are supported by nothing or actually refuted by evidence, and other things which are supported only minimally.
Martin beating GZ’s against the ground? He has a minor injury to his head, indicating that it hit something at least once. But the degree of injury is not consistent with having his head picked up and bashed into the cement, however, especially more than once. So the matter of how that injury occurred is open. If it was Martin, it didn’t happen the way GZ claims.
Punch in the face? Supported by injury, but nothing about when, or why, or in what order alongside what other actions by each actor. There hasn’t been much disagreement about the fact that the two had some kind of altercation, so that’s not particularly enlightening or even important, as we’ve established.
Did Trayvon speak first? Yeah, and we know what GZ replied. After that, no evidence outside of Jeantel’s uncertain claim about “get off me”, which I don’t give a whole lot of weight to.
Nothing else comes immediately to mind as being supported by the evidence, especially to the exclusion of other reasonable possibilities. Or the evidence refutes it:
Got on Trayvon’s back and spread his arms apart because he believed Trayvon was alive and he needed to restrain him? Not only is there no evidence, the evidence that we do have makes that look like a major invention designed to cover something untoward, otherwise why? Of course, as we have seen it is possible to believe Zimmerman by inferring that Martin continued to be alive, conscious, and capable of pulling his arms underneath himself, and that he did so in the tiny sliver of time possible, without anyone noticing. But there is no evidence that any of those things are true, and the only thing to support that inference is the fact that the evidence does not agree with Zimmerman’s claim. Is it legitimate and acceptable to infer such a series of things based on the absence of any evidence supporting the claim? I think we have to check with our legal eagles, but my gut tells me no.
I’m sure there are other things, but they aren’t coming to mind. So right now this constant refrain about how all or most of the evidence supports Zimmerman seems pretty weak to me.
Thank you for noticing.
No, my understanding is that the state has to prove that GZ did not reasonably believe that he was in danger - it is not necessary that someone be objectively in real danger, they simply have to have a reasonable perception that they are.
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By what imaginary rule book?
Which tells me what it always told me: the idea that anyone can readily identify such unearthly and intense terror as being from someone specific, without ever having heard them sound like that previously, is hard to believe on its face.Which is one of the reasons I find the ID testimony so unworthy of consideration, from either side. The only thing readily identifiable about that voice is that it is almost certainly someone very young, probably male, and 100% terrified, the kind of terror that comes from seeing a loaded gun intended for you when you have nothing but your screams and what terror-driven strength you can muster to stop it or escape it. The other things we know from our own ears is that it does not stop beyond breaths until the shot, when it stops abruptly, it does not sound shaky or garbled, and it does not sound muffled as though the person doing the screaming has had their air supply cut off. So the scream tells us a whole lot without having to ask anyone else anything about it.
Again, would just love to see someone act it out the way GZ says and show us how that could be true. It would be an amazing thing to see.
See, what I was gonna say to him I’ll say to you: if the evidence convinces you that Zimmerman is guilty of the elements necessary for 2nd degree, then it does. Just because someone else would find differently doesn’t mean you would have to. That’s the jury’s function: weigh the evidence, decide what is true. If the evidence you’ve seen convinces you beyond a reasonable doubt, you don’t have to apologize for that or feel like you are going outside the rules. Those ARE the rules. And now that the judge has declined the motion for aquittal , there’s no question remaining. The jury can absolutely find him guilty by seeing it pretty much the way the prosecution is laying it out and as I and many others have seen it all along:
He’s a liar who has lied about many things which are critically important to the case, which I find leads directly to my belief that he has a very clear consciousness of his own guilt and has attempted to avoid the consequences of his actions by telling those lies for that specific purpose. What we know from his own lips about his mental state and his actions from the NEN call is plenty to find that he behaved arrogantly, stupidly, recklessly and dangerously in whatever followed between the two, leading to the altercation. Even if he experienced some genuine fear, which I do not believe, I do not find it was reasonable at all and his response was depravedly excessive, showing a gross carelessness and indifference with Martin’s life without good cause.
Of course it’s not. What I’m saying is that if even George can’t recognize his own voice, how the HELL can this guy say that he ‘knows’ it’s George? Based on what he says he heard 50 years ago? He says he worked, ate, slept and showered with these guys 24/7. How many hours total do you think he spent with George? Do you think even 3 seconds of that total time was in an environment even remotely resembling the front lines of the Vietnam war?
And the wife says that - after not meeting George for some years - ‘knew’ it was him based on how he sounded at a local political rally. :rolleyes:
It’s ridiculous. I’m not saying they’re lying - I’m sure they both mean well - and I’m not saying it’s proof it’s Martin’s voice. But their testimony is beyond laughable. At the very least I can reasonably assume that a family member might actually know what the person’s voice sounds like. There’s zero logic to these two ‘absolutely knowing’ it was George’s voice.
Sadly, the prosecution is still gawd-awful. I swear I could do a better job with this case than these brain-dead eggplants could.
They decided to cross. They ARE making it worse.