SANFORD, Fla.—Prosecutors in the George Zimmerman murder trial rested their case Friday, after spending two weeks depicting the defendant as an aggressive vigilante who pursued 17-year-old Trayvon Martin and provoked their deadly altercation.More at that top link.
Among the final witnesses called by the prosecution was Sybrina Fulton, the mother of Mr. Martin, whom Mr. Zimmerman shot and killed in a gated community here last year. Dressed in a dark suit and looking stoic, she identified the screams heard in the background of a 911 call as her son's.
When a defense lawyer questioned whether she could be sure during cross-examination, she replied firmly, "I heard my son screaming."
Drawing on the testimony of 39 witnesses over nine days, attorneys for the state argued that on the night of their encounter, Mr. Zimmerman profiled Mr. Martin as a criminal, then pursued and riled him.
Mr. Zimmerman has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder and told police he was attacked by Mr. Martin and fired at him in self-defense.
Some testimony bolstered the prosecutors' case. One of their key witnesses—a friend of Mr. Martin's who was on the phone with him moments before he was killed—consistently maintained that Mr. Martin was being pursued by Mr. Zimmerman, despite enduring a long, withering cross-examination.
A medical examiner testified that Mr. Zimmerman's injuries—including a bloody nose and lacerations—were "very insignificant," undercutting the defendant's contention that Mr. Martin repeatedly bashed Mr. Zimmerman's head against a concrete walkway. Meanwhile, a different medical examiner who conducted the autopsy on Mr. Martin's body said the teen had no wounds on his hands other than minor abrasions on two fingers.
And a police investigator said Mr. Zimmerman's comments in a phone call to police the night of the incident—including the phrase "f— punks," referring to alleged troublemakers in the neighborhood—showed ill will, a necessary element to prove second-degree murder.
Yet in numerous instances, witnesses for the state offered testimony that could end up benefiting the defense, leaving some legal analysts to question whether the state had met its burden for proving his guilt. One neighbor who had one of the clearest views of the confrontation said Mr. Martin was straddling Mr. Zimmerman on the ground and appeared to be pummeling him.
And at Legal Insurrection, "Zimmerman Trial Day 9 — Families Feud Over Scream Identification."
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