Defense mendacity in Zimmerman case is disgusting

May 24, 2013

Friday, May 24, 2013

Good morning:

George Zimmerman’s attorneys, Mark O’Mara and Don West, have unintentionally confirmed this week that they have no defense to present on his behalf by knowingly and intentionally publishing false, irrelevant and inadmissible information about Trayvon Martin to incite white racists to denounce him as a pot smoking black thug who deserved to die.

I used the word “confirmed” because three weeks ago the defendant appeared in open court and waived his right to an immunity hearing. The mixture of false and misleading information released yesterday is not a defense to second degree murder. It’s deliberate character assassination by false statement and innuendo of an unarmed teenager who was stalked, restrained and shot through the heart while screaming for help.

Here’s LLMPapa:

Last I heard, skipping school, pot smoking and participating in refereed fights between equal combatants is not a death penalty offense.

In other news, the defense attorneys filed a flurry of forgettable motions and responses to prosecution motions which, like snowflakes in April, are destined to melt when they hit the ground.

I begin with Donald West’s frivolous, dishonest and intentionally misleading reefer-madness motion that he filed earlier this week arguing that a trace amount of marijuana in Trayvon Martin’s autopsy blood should be admissible to prove that he was the aggressor even though he was unarmed and the defendant stalked, restrained and shot him in the heart.

The defense motion to continue:

1. cites no authority,

2. claims he needs to investigate Dr. Reich (the State’s audio expert who identified Trayvon as the person screaming for help), which takes about an hour if you google him,

3. claims other unnamed experts told him Dr. Reich’s opinion is based on science that has fallen into “disrepute,”

4. fails to support this assertion with an affidavit from one or more of these experts, and

5. claims he needs time to find an expert to hire even though he is supposedly in touch with all of these experts.

This motion is ridiculous and will be denied because it fails to document a reason for a continuance.

O’Mara’s motion for sanctions against Bernie de la Rionda for not disclosing the evidence that the defense obtained from Trayvon’s phone and published in its 3rd evidence dump, is frivolous because the so-called exculpatory evidence that he claims BDLR withheld in violation of the Brady rule is not exculpatory.

Therefore, the Brady rule does not apply and this motion should be denied.

West’s reply to the State’s motion to exclude opinion evidence about the defendant’s guilt or innocence generally admits that witness opinions about the guilt or innocence of a defendant are inadmissible but warns that if the State attempts to attribute the delay in arresting and charging the defendant (which isn’t relevant either), then the State will have opened the door to allowing the defense to call SPD cops to justify what they did.

I don’t believe this issue will come up as it is irrelevant to whether the defendant murdered Trayvon.

Sideline mini-trials about marginally relevant or irrelevant issues are exactly what evidence rule 403 is designed to prevent.

West’s 2-page reply to the State’s motion to exclude the defendant’s self-serving hearsay statements, which does not cite a case, generally agrees that many of the defendant’s statements are hearsay, if offered by the defense, but disagrees with the State’s argument that none of the defendant’s statements are admissible under the res gestae exception or some other exception to the hearsay rule. West asks Judge Nelson to reserve ruling until the issue comes up in trial.

This is a sneaky response because West wants to be able to ask a leading question seeking agreement from a witness that the defendant said XYZ. For example, he might ask SPD Investigator Serino this question:

George told you that he killed Trayvon in self-defense, didn’t he?

Bernie de la Rionda (BDLR) would object to the question because it contains an inadmissible self-serving hearsay statement.

Judge Nelson would sustain the objection, but she cannot unring the bell, so to speak. The jury would have heard the defendant’s inadmissible statement.

He also would probably like to mention that self-serving hearsay statement during the defense opening statement to the jury or maybe during jury selection.

The purpose of the State’s motion in limine regarding the defendant’s self-serving hearsay statements is to prevent those events from happening, and I am reasonably certain Judge Nelson has seen this trick before and is savvy enough to see through West’s tactical deception.

Therefore, I expect she will grant the State’s motion.

BTW, the res gestae exception that West mentions is a limited exception to the hearsay rule similar to the present-sense-impression exception in which the hearsay statement about an event occurs as the event happens. Thus, the statement is part of the event itself or the res gestae and cannot be excised from it.

The State’s motion in limine seeking an order prohibiting the defense from mentioning the voice stress analysis test that the defendant took should be granted because that’s the legal rule in Florida and elsewhere. The rule is based on the lack of general agreement among scientists that this type of test can consistently produce accurate and reliable results.

In other words, the test violates the Frye Rule.

Judge Nelson should grant this motion.

The State’s 3rd motion for a gag order asks Judge Nelson to put an end to the defense effort to poison the jury pool by assassinating Trayvon Martin’s good character with false evidence and innuendo publicized after the jury pool of 500 people have received their notices to report for jury service on June 10, 2013.

It is no accident that the defense waited until after the 500 potential jurors were served with their notices, but before they report for jury service. Therefore, this was a deliberate tactic to create an unringing the bell problem regarding false, irrelevant, and inadmissible evidence.

A gag order will not unring the bell.

This is quite possibly the sleaziest tactic that I have ever seen. To intentionally poison a jury pool a couple of weeks before trial with false and misleading information about the victim of a homicide calculated to incite and unite White racists to approve of the execution of an unarmed Black teenager is astonishing.

These two lawyers are fortunate that I am not Judge Nelson because I would jail them for contempt of court and file complaints against the bar association requesting their disbarment from the practice of law.

_________________________________________________

I hate to hassle people for money, but contributions have been lagging this month.

Writing articles every day and maintaining the integrity and safety of this site from people who would like nothing better than to silence us forever is a tough job requiring many hours of work.

If you like this site, please consider making a secure donation via Paypal by clicking the yellow donation button in the upper right corner just below the search box.

Thank you,

Fred

250 Comments | Bernie de la Rionda, Blaming the Victim as a Defense Strategy, Breitbarting, Chris Serino, Contempt of Court, Defense Strategy, Depraved Mind, Don West, Evidence, False Equivalency, Featuring, fogen, Gag Orders, George Zimmerman, Hate, Have you no sense of decency, Hearsay Rule, Judge Deborah Nelson, LLM Papa, Mark O'Mara, Murder 2, Opinions of Police Officials Regarding Defendant's Guilt or Innocence not admissible, Playing the Race Card, Polygraph Test Results Inadmissible, Sanford Police Department, Trayvon Martin, Trying the Case in the Court of Public Opinion | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by masonblue

News about the site, jury selection process and latest news in Zimmerman and Arias cases

May 23, 2013

Thursday, May 23, 2013

Good afternoon:

Crane-Station and I are combining our websites, so you will be seeing her articles on a regular basis.

We are putting together a plan to live-blog each morning and afternoon session of GZ’s trial similar to the way we covered the last motion hearing. We will do the same for the hearing on May 28th.

I will post an article 30 minutes before each session to preview it and update everyone. The article will have a link to livestream coverage.

We are soliciting your comments and recommendations, so please let us know what you would like us to do.

We will use the hearing next Tuesday, May 28th, to fine tune our approach.

I do not yet know whether jury selection will be livestreamed. Hopefully, it will so that we can share our thoughts regarding each juror.

I have much to teach regarding the art of jury selection.

I hope the Court permits the public to link to the juror questionnaires for easy reference during individual voir dire, but privacy concerns may prevail over our desire to know as much as possible about each juror and make informed choices about cause and peremptory challenges. This also would allow us to more accurately evaluate the performance of the lawyers.

Individual voir dire, as the name implies, involves questioning prospective jurors individually out of the presence of the others in order to prevent their answers from potentially influencing or poisoning the minds of other jurors. For example, this is the only way to effectively question prospective jurors regarding what information about the case they have been exposed to, from what sources, and whether they have formed an opinion about the case, the guilt or innocence of the accused, and the lawyers representing each side.

Personal questions regarding whether anyone has been a victim of a crime or accused of a crime also should be asked out of the presence of other jurors. Whether we will be permitted to observe that process remains to be seen.

Keep in mind that there is no limit to the number of challenges for cause that each side may assert. A challenge for cause is a formal request to the Court to excuse a prospective juror on the ground that they cannot or will not follow the jury instructions, which will be the law of the case. For example, a prospective juror who says she cannot presume the defendant innocent, given what she knows about the case, would be challenged for cause by the defense and excused for cause by the judge. The same result would happen to a prospective juror challenged for cause by the State, if he said that he had already decided that the defendant was innocent because TM was the aggressor and he had a right to kill him.

On the other hand, if either or both prospective jurors expressed less certainty and said they could put aside their personal beliefs and base their verdict only on the evidence admitted by the Court, the challenge for cause would be denied.

This unhappy result for the party that lost the challenge for cause would probably result in the use of a peremptory challenge to excuse the prospective juror. With three important exceptions, the party exercising a peremptory challenge does not have to give a reason to support or justify the challenge. The three exceptions are race, gender and religion.

You can reasonably expect the State will object to the defense using a peremptory challenge against a Black prospective juror. To survive the challenge, the defense will have to convince Judge Nelson that they have a reason independent of the prospective juror’s race to support the challenge.

Unless Judge Nelson increases the number of peremptory challenges, each side will get 3. A 6-person jury will decide the case.

For more information, click on Jury Selection in the Categories column on the right side of the web page or click here.

Finally, here’s a link to the latest from the Orlando Sentinel: New evidence in George Zimmerman case: Trayvon texted about being a fighter.

Rene Stutzman and Jeff Weiner breathlessly write:

The text messages about fighting may be the most damaging to the state.

Zimmerman says he acted in self-defense when he shot Trayvon, an unarmed black 17-year-old, in Sanford, Feb. 26, 2012.

Zimmerman described Trayvon to police as an aggressive young man who punched him, knocking him to the ground then climbed on top and began hammering his head onto a sidewalk.

In one text message Trayvon sent Nov. 22, 2011, he wrote about his unnamed opponent, “he got mo hits cause in da 1st round he had me on da ground an I couldn’t do ntn.”

In another text send Dec. 12 he acknowledged earning a reputation in the neighborhood – although because words were blacked out, it’s not clear what his reputation was. His reputation came, he wrote, because of “Duh way I fight nd duh golds (teeth) I had last year.”

Trayvon’s text messages also show that he was interested in guns. A few days before the shooting, he wrote an unidentified friend, “U wanna share a .380″

And about a week before that, he texted a young Miami woman who’s been described as his girlfriend, “U gotta gun?”

Her response: yes, although she did not have possession of it. “It my mommy but she buy for me,” the young woman wrote.

On November 22, 2011, three months before he was killed, he wrote a friend that his mother had ordered him to move out and that he had gotten in trouble for cutting classes.

“I promise my mom just told me I gotta move,” he wrote. Two minutes later, he wrote, “Da police caught me outta school.”

Circuit Judge Debra S. Nelson must now decide whether to allow jurors to learn about the text messages and photos. In paperwork filed earlier this month, Assistant State Attorney Bernie de la Rionda asked her to ban them, describing them as irrelevant.

Latest word on Jodi Arias: Jurors resumed deliberations this morning after reporting yesterday that they were deadlocked.

_________________________________________________

I hate to hassle people for money, but contributions have been lagging this month.

Writing articles every day and maintaining the integrity and safety of this site from people who would like nothing better than to silence us forever is a tough job requiring many hours of work.

If you like this site, please consider making a secure donation via Paypal by clicking the yellow donation button in the upper right corner just below the search box.

Thank you,

Fred

431 Comments | Challenges for Cause, fogen, George Zimmerman, Individual Voir Dire, Jodi Arias Sentencing Phase, Juror Questionnaire, Jury Selection, Peremptory Challenges, Trayvon Martin | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by masonblue

Donald West files frivolous, dishonest and intentionally misleading document in Zimmerman case

May 22, 2013

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Good afternoon:

The defense filed a silly and offensive motion yesterday in the Trayvon Martin murder case titled, Defendant’s Reply to State’s Motion for Protective Order/Motion in Limine Regarding Toxicology.

I call it silly and offensive because it makes the absurd argument that the presence of a trace amount of marijuana in Trayvon Martin’s autopsy blood sample makes it more probable than not (i.e., the test for relevancy) that Trayvon Martin attacked the defendant without provocation and attempted to beat him to death with his bare hands.

Welcome back to 1936 and Reefer Madness. Come on, son!

The State seeks to exclude any testimony regarding Trayon Martin’s toxicology report that shows the use of marijuana around the time of his death, February 26, 2012. As part of the autopsy protocol, the Medical Examiner submitted Trayvon Maritin’s blood for laboratory analysis. Among the findings includes a positive level for THC and its metabolites. The active THC was measured at 1.5 ng/ml whereas the metabolite was measured at 7.3 ng/ml. This level is sufficient to cause some impairment (although it is connsidered to be less than that required for a DUI arrest) according to the state’s toxicologist, Dr. Bruce Goldberger. At his deposition, Dr. Goldberger cited to the research of Dr. Marilyn Heustis, who studies the residual effect of marijuana on cognitive functioning. Dr. Heustis has found that measurable impairment continues for days or weeks in chronic users. Dr. Godlberger opined that Trayvon Martin may have used marijuana within a couple of hours of his death or it could have been longer than that depending on whether Trayvon Martin was chronic user or an occasional user. From other evidence in the case, it is known that Trayvon Martin brought marijuana with him from south Florida to use while he was in Sanford and he used it at least one time after arriving in Sanford prior to his death. Trayvon Martin was suspended from school for possessing a baggie containing marijuana residue and was known to smoke marijuana with his friends.

In George Zimmerman’s NEN call to the police, he described the person later identified as Trayvon Martin, as appearing as though “he was on drugs.” Additionally, on close inspection of Trayvon Martin’s appearance at the 711, where he was recorded on video within ah hour of his death, he “sways” at the counter as if he is under the influence of some substance. Taken altogether it is likely that Trayvon Martin was under the influence of marijuana at the time of his death and that his thinking and judgment were impaired, at least to some degree. This is relevant evidence for the jury to consider when it evaluates TM actions that night, and the jury should be allowed to give whatever weight it believes it should.

There is so much wrong here that I almost do not know where to begin.

First, West should have attached an affidavit from Dr. Heustis. He did not, so I checked her out on PubMed. A search using “Marilyn A. Heustis and cognitive impairment,” pulled up two articles:

1. Cannabis effects on driving skills.

The Summary states:

Differences in study designs frequently account for inconsistencies in results between studies. Participant-selection bias and confounding factors attenuate ostensible cannabis effects, but the association with MVA often retains significance. Evidence suggests recent smoking and/or blood THC concentrations 2-5 ng/mL are associated with substantial driving impairment, particularly in occasional smokers. Future cannabis-and-driving research should emphasize challenging tasks, such as divided attention, and include occasional and chronic daily cannabis smokers.

2. The dose effects of short-term dronabinol (oral THC) maintenance in daily cannabis users.

The Conclusion states:

Dronabinol’s ability to dose-dependently suppress cannabis withdrawal may be therapeutically beneficial to individuals trying to stop cannabis use. The absence of gross cognitive impairment or side effects in this study supports safety of doses up to 120mg/day. Continued evaluation of dronabinol in targeted clinical studies of cannabis treatment, using an expanded range of doses, is warranted.

(Emphasis supplied)

Ahem! Now we know why there is no affidavit from Dr. Heustis.

Next, we have,

Dr. Godlberger opined that Trayvon Martin may have used marijuana within a couple of hours of his death or it could have been longer than that depending on whether Trayvon Martin was chronic user or an occasional user.

Not terribly helpful, but wait . . .

From other evidence in the case, it is known that Trayvon Martin brought marijuana with him from south Florida to use while he was in Sanford and he used it at least one time after arriving in Sanford prior to his death. Trayvon Martin was suspended from school for possessing a baggie containing marijuana residue and was known to smoke marijuana with his friends.

The famous reliable witness known as “It” knows that Trayvon brought marijuana with him. Funny how this fella named “It” failed to provide an affidavit or even an address. Oh, well.

Next,

In George Zimmerman’s NEN call to the police, he described the person later identified as Trayvon Martin, as appearing as though “he was on drugs.” Additionally, on close inspection of Trayvon Martin’s appearance at the 711, where he was recorded on video within ah hour of his death, he “sways” at the counter as if he is under the influence of some substance.

Ah, yes. The always accurate and reliable eyewitness George Zimmerman, who would never think of giving a self-serving statement.

So, now we are down to swaying at the counter.

Yeah right.

How about the conclusion:

Taken altogether it is likely that Trayvon Martin was under the influence of marijuana at the time of his death and that his thinking and judgment were impaired, at least to some degree. This is relevant evidence for the jury to consider when it evaluates TM actions that night, and the jury should be allowed to give whatever weight it believes it should.

Put another way, this legal pleading is pure speculation based on a dishonest premise and no evidence.

What really pisses me off about Mr. West’s pleading is the underlying and unspoken assumption that Trayvon Martin deserved to be killed because Mr. West believes he was high on marijuana.

Don West should be assessed terms for contempt of court by filing a frivolous, dishonest and intentionally misleading reefer-madness document.

_________________________________________________

I hate to hassle people for money, but contributions have been lagging this month.

Writing articles every day and maintaining the integrity and safety of this site from people who would like nothing better than to silence us forever is a tough job requiring many hours of work.

If you like this site, please consider making a secure donation via Paypal by clicking the yellow donation button in the upper right corner just below the search box.

Thank you,

Fred

444 Comments | Contempt of Court, Don West, fogen, George Zimmerman, Reefer Madness document | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by masonblue

The Honeybee Crisis

May 22, 2013

by Crane-Station

Hello everyone. Fred is going to post later today about the case in Florida. In the meantime, we have made a decision to try and merge our independent sites into this one. This is a post I first shared this morning at Firedoglake/MyFDL (Over Easy). My posts are on a variety of topics unrelated to Zimmerman. Many people are interested in the incarceration experience Frog Gravy, and I will attempt to put some of that here as well.

The Honeybee Crisis

According to statistics released by the US Department of Agriculture earlier this month, 31 percent of the managed honeybee colonies died in the winter. Since fruiting is dependent on fertilization, a result of pollination, honeybee decline can impact agriculture. We can directly link honeybees to one out of every three bites of food that we put on our table.

The Plight of the Honeybee
Billions of dollars—and a way of life—ride on saving pollinators.

Western nations rely heavily on managed honeybees—the “moveable force” of bees that ride in trucks from farm to farm—to keep commercial agriculture productive. About a third of our foods (some 100 key crops) rely on these insects, including apples, nuts, all the favorite summer fruits (like blueberries and strawberries), alfalfa (which cows eat), and guar bean (used in all kinds of products). In total, bees contribute more than $15 billion to U.S. crop production, hardly small potatoes.

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) explains that Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) is a hive condition where “very low or no adult honey bees present in the hive but with a live queen and no dead honey bee bodies present.” According to interviews of beekeepers in the documentaries, this condition can occur within a matter of a few hours.

The USDA further suggests that possible causes of colony decline could be due to unusually warm winter, bee diet (ie: protein, in particular), or cyclic disease, but also states that scientific connections are lacking for the theories. While the European Commission (EU) has ” has banned the pesticides associated with colony collapse disorder in bees,” the US has not done so yet. Oddly, the report contains this statement:

A comprehensive and sensitive analytical survey was done for the presence of 200 pesticides in bee, comb, and pollen samples from 23 states. No specific pattern of pesticide residues emerged that correlates with honey bee deaths March 2010

To be precise, the study linked in the statement says this:

Conclusions/Significance

The 98 pesticides and metabolites detected in mixtures up to 214 ppm in bee pollen alone represents a remarkably high level for toxicants in the brood and adult food of this primary pollinator. This represents over half of the maximum individual pesticide incidences ever reported for apiaries. While exposure to many of these neurotoxicants elicits acute and sublethal reductions in honey bee fitness, the effects of these materials in combinations and their direct association with CCD or declining bee health remains to be determined.

Will we fund or ignore the “remains to be determined” part? Would it surprise you at all to learn that yesterday, three large agrichemical pesticide companies came forward with plans to fund research for bee decline?

Monsanto, Bayer, Sygenta Fund Bee Research

Bayer and Sygenta “produce neonicotinoids,” and Monsanto uses the pesticides to coat seeds. These pesticides have been banned in Europe, as mentioned above. From wiki: “Neonicotinoids are a class of neuro-active insecticides chemically related to nicotine. The development of this class of insecticides began with work in the 1980s by Shell and the 1990s by Bayer.[1]“

Leo Tolstoy said, “The closer we examine the honeybee, the more we realize the workings of a beehive encompass territories beyond our comprehension.” USDA bee laboratory scientist Dr. Jeffrey Pettis explains in Vanishing of the Bees that CCD is difficult to study because there are no bee corpses to examine when a colony literally vanishes. (video at 15:30). So far, scientists have investigated, and eliminated as possibilities, several microbial and viral suspects. Haunting how accurate Tolstoy’s quote really was. But what is maybe even more haunting is that the beehive workings will be studied with funds that have direct interest in the outcome of the research.

One of the scientists in the documentary reveals other suggestions for honeybee decline, that he has received in his email, including cell phones, the Rapture, Outer Space, and the ‘Russians-have-implanted-genes-and-they-are-beaming-them-from-satellite.’ While the scientist is confident that the persistent cell phone tower rumor is now known nonsense, he does say that the issue of genetically modified crops, while scientists have observed no direct evidence, deserves a bit more attention.

What saddens in the documentary is that we have exploited the honeybee, with factory farming practices such as feeding the bees empty sugar calories, killing the queens and replacing them with younger queens introduced in cages, and artificial insemination, with the likes of a scientist’s backward after-remark, “She looks a little rough, but she’ll come around.” There have been only too few, it seems, efforts at returning the bees to their natural state. When bees disappear, it’s wrong- surely some basic humanity instinct still exists in all of us.

Vanishing of the Bees full documentary:

BBC Documentary titled Who Killed the Honeybee?

Related:

One-Third of U.S. Honeybee Colonies Died Last Winter, Threatening Food Supply

Bees and the European neonicotinoids pesticide ban: Q&A

The US rejects Europe’s banning of these chemicals:

US rejects EU claim of insecticide as prime reason for bee colony collapse
“Government study points to a combination of factors for decline in population, breaking away from singling out pesticides”

Beepocalypse Redux: Honeybees Are Still Dying — and We Still Don’t Know Why

Monsanto stung by drop in bee population

Monsanto, Bayer seek answers to bee losses

“This is a difficult, high stakes battle,” said Peter Jenkins, a lawyer with the Center for Food Safety, which sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in March on behalf of a group of U.S. beekeepers and environmental and consumer groups over what they say is a lack of sound regulation of the pesticides in question.

“They may have a lot of money. But… we’re going to win,” Jenkins said.

22 Comments | Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by masonblue

Stop building a mountain of the dead

May 22, 2013

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Good morning:

Searching Mind inspired this post from an old and tired voice for the damned.

Let him who is without sin hurl the first stone.

Your passionate voice for simple nonjudgmental human decency does not go unheard,

as the inexorable tinkering with the machinery of death continues

in this latest sad chapter,

unabated.

She does not fit,

She is mentally ill, abhorred and damned,

but not legally insane.

Vengeance serves no relief to anyone.

A mouth full of sawdust cannot spit out the venom from a fresh kill.

No satisfaction will be found today

in the halls of the Maricopa County Courthouse.

Instead,

emptiness shall reign

as it always has and always will,

unabated.

Until at last

people listen

and stop building

a mountain of the dead.

Unabated.

77 Comments | Death Penalty, Jodi Arias, Machinery of Death, Mountain of the Dead | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by masonblue

Proof of premeditation requires proof of reflection on decision to kill and discussion of the Arias allocution

May 21, 2013

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Good afternoon:

To prove premeditation, a prosecutor must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant intended to kill the victim and, upon reflecting on the decision to kill, decided to go ahead and kill the victim. This process can occur quickly and only requires more than a moment in time to take place. Therefore, time is not particularly important to proving premeditation.

A prosecutor must rely on circumstantial evidence to prove premeditation, unless the defendant has admitted that he or she premeditated the murder. The most powerful circumstantial evidence of the defendant’s intent is the defendant’s conduct. The greater the length of time between formation of intent to kill and the act that causes death, the more likely the defendant reflected on the decision to kill and decided to complete the act.

Many of us, including me, have speculated that GZ premeditated the death of Trayvon Martin. However, a prosecutor must restrict himself to charging what he believes he can prove beyond a reasonable doubt. This is why GZ is charged with second degree murder. It is a conservative charging decision based on the uncertainty of convincing all of the jurors beyond a reasonable doubt that GZ reflected on a decision to kill Trayvon Martin and decided to go ahead and do it.

Now consider the Jodi Arias case. Seems to me that there is overwhelming evidence of careful planning before the murder, and the use of two weapons (knife and gun) to carry it out, including a coup de grâce, eliminates any doubt in my mind that she had opportunities to reflect on her decision to kill and decided to complete the act.

Jodi Arias just finished addressing the jury (her right to allocution) and the Court is now instructing the jury.

What did you all think about her allocution and what do you think the sentence will be?

Keep in mind during the jury deliberation that any mental illness qualifies as a potential mitigating factor. Insanity is a legal definition that requires proof that, due to a mental illness, a defendant could not distinguish between right and wrong at the time of the act. Any effort to conceal the commission of the crime and/or the person’s role in committing the crime normally defeats the insanity defense. Arias is not claiming insanity.

Closing arguments will begin at 1:30 pm PDT.

_________________________________________________

I hate to hassle people for money, but contributions have been lagging this month.

Writing articles every day and maintaining the integrity and safety of this site from people who would like nothing better than to silence us forever is a tough job requiring many hours of work.

If you like this site, please consider making a secure donation via Paypal by clicking the yellow donation button in the upper right corner just below the search box.

Thank you,

Fred

225 Comments | Allocution, Defendant's right to Allocution, fogen, George Zimmerman, Jodi Arias Sentencing Phase, More than a Moment in Time, More than a Moment in Time, Premeditation | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by masonblue

Judge denies motion for mistrial in Arias penalty phase

May 20, 2013

Monday, May 20, 2013

The Chicago Tribune is reporting that Maricopa County Judge Sherry Alexander denied a defense motion for a mistrial today during the penalty phase in the Jodi Arias case. Court recessed for the day and will resume tomorrow with Ms. Arias presenting her plea to the jury.

The defense moved for a mistrial when its only mitigation witness, Patricia Womack, refused to testify claiming that she had received death threats and was conflicted about the case.

I couldn’t do it,” she told NBC News in an email. “I feel there is so much good in Jodi to be saved but then also someone’s dear life was taken.

Defense attorney, Kirk Nurmi also alleged a separate ground. He accused the prosecutor of intimidating Ms. Womack by threatening to charge her with a crime. However, the Tribune reports that

Prosecutor Juan Martinez told the court on Monday that, in a prior interview with Womack, she had refused to answer questions about her drug use. He said that her refusal to incriminate herself would have precluded her from testifying.

Defense attorney Kirk Nurmi claimed that Womack’s absence would deny the jury a full picture of Arias’ life prior to meeting Alexander in 2006.

Maricopa County Judge Sherry Stephens ruled there was no basis for a mistrial. She also denied a subsequent request by Nurmi to withdraw from the case, and adjourned the court for the day.

This is an interesting issue because prosecutors are not permitted to intimidate defense witnesses into not testifying for a defendant. Unfortunately for the defense, Ms. Womack appears to have been more concerned about her conflicted feelings and if that is the case, I believe this issue will not get Ms Arias a new penalty phase, assuming the jury sentences her to death.

_________________________________________________

I hate to hassle people for money, but contributions have been lagging this month.

Writing articles every day and maintaining the integrity and safety of this site from people who would like nothing better than to silence us forever is a tough job requiring many hours of work.

If you like this site, please consider making a secure donation via Paypal by clicking the yellow donation button in the upper right corner just below the search box.

Thank you,

Fred

125 Comments | Death Penalty, Jodi Arias Sentencing Phase, MITIGATING CIRCUMSTANCES, Prosecutorial intimidation of defense witnesses, Volunteers | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by masonblue

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