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June 2013

A neighbor, John Good, who witnessed the fight between Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman has just devastated the State's case, testifying that he saw the fight between the two, that Trayvon was on top punching Mixed Martial Arts style, and that the scream must have come from Zimmerman because Zimmerman was on the bottom and Trayvon was faced away from the witness. https://twitter.com/LawSelfDefense/status/350618707069906945 https://twitter.com/LawSelfDefense/status/350619058535800834 https://twitter.com/LawSelfDefense/status/350618313795178496 https://twitter.com/renestutzman/status/350620377791201280 https://twitter.com/renestutzman/status/350619551010004993

Today we will again be covering the Zimmerman Trial live, all day, with streaming video. Continuing commentary will be posted in the Twitter feed of selected contributors below the first video feed, and breaking news will be added at the bottom of this post. During the lunch recess, or immediately thereafter, we will post a mid-day update (not just a list of tweets this time!). We'll then follow up with the usual detailed end-of-day wrap up, including video and embedded Tweets, at the usual time in the evening. This morning Court is expected to start at 9:00AM. To see yesterday's video of witness testimony and our exclusive analysis, click here: Zimmerman Trial Day 4 – End-of-Day Analysis & Video of State’s Witnesses For all of our prior coverage on day-to-day events in court, as covered here at Legal Insurrection, click here: ARCHIVE: Zimmerman Trial LIVE coverage all day, every day For all of our prior coverage on issues specific to the Law of Self Defense as covered at my own blog, click here: Law of Self Defense Blog: Zimmerman Trial

Live Stream Video

WITH COMMENTARY FROM CHANNEL 9 IN SANFORD [For live-stream video without commentary, see NBC live feed at bottom of this post.]

Twitter Feed:

(My tweets can be identified as coming from @lawselfdefense.)

I made the rare mistake of watching Morning Joe today. Wendy Davis was on the show to take a "victory" lap, a word used by Joe Scarborough. This clip was being described by Davis and all the panelists as one of the most outrageous personal attacks since...

A fairly good metaphor. A follow up to the earlier post about Barack Obama Avenue in East St. Louis, sent to us by a reader, who writes: Update : E.St. Louis Barack Avenue Building the case he’s Santa Claus...

Once again, it was simply not a very good day at all for the prosecution. The primary State witnesses today were Rachel Jeantel, Jenna Lauer, and Selma Mora. The first had her credibility substantively destroyed, the second was powerfully--almost humiliatingly--co-opted by the defense, and the third provided testimony entirely consistent with the defense's theory of lawful self-defense. There was also some (I expect temporary) hubbub that O'Mara may have inadvertently opened the door to allow the State to introduce evidence of specific prior bad acts by George Zimmerman, and I address that in detail, as well, below. [caption id="attachment_56868" align="alignnone" width="560"]Screen Shot 2013-06-27 at 1.46.41 PM Rachel Jeantel, State witness[/caption] With that said, let's get to it:

Rachel Jeantel, Star "Ear"-Witness of the State

Much of the day was consumed in West's continuing cross-examination of Rachel Jeantel, the State's star "ear-witness." She was purportedly on the phone with Martin up to the final moments of his confrontation with Zimmerman, and has over time come to claim an increasing amount of knowledge of the details of that confrontation. It has become common knowledge that Jeantel has perpetrated a number of lies on this case, both under oath and otherwise, and West made certain to touch on each of these, albeit with a relatively light hand. She lied about her age--she was 18-years-old not 16-years-old at the time, she lied about why she did not attend Martin's funeral or wake, she lied about her name to Martin's mother and others, and so on. For many of these lies she offered a relatively innocuous excuse--she didn't go the funeral because she doesn't like to see dead bodies, for example. But the sheer number and variety of them cast Jeantel as someone who was perfectly comfortable creating a fabrication if it served her convenience or purposes. What most damaged her credibility, however, was not West's exposure of these numerous falsehoods. Instead, West took a far more clever approach to his cross-examination of Jeantel. Many legal (and non-legal) pundits had wondered how West would walk the fine line of impeaching Jeantel's testimony without overreaching and causing the jury to become empathetic to the poor young woman in a difficult situation not of her making.

Note: You may reprint this cartoon provided you link back to this source. To see more Legal Insurrection Branco cartoons, click here. Branco’s page is Cartoonist A.F.Branco...

Hey folks, We're trying something different for today's mid-day update. Rather than write a bunch of text, I've imbedded below some of the more key tweets I've made over the course of the morning. (This has the benefit of giving me a few minutes to each some lunch.) Hopefully, the tweets below will give you a sense for how West's cross-examination of Rachel Jeantel has gone so far this morning. We'll have a detailed analysis, of course, in this evening's end-of-day wrap-up post. Enjoy, and be sure to check back in to our live coverage page at 1:14PM (EST), here: Zimmerman Trial LIVE VIDEO – Day 4 – State’s Witnesses https://twitter.com/LawSelfDefense/status/350240679101861888 https://twitter.com/LawSelfDefense/status/350241151351144448 https://twitter.com/LawSelfDefense/status/350241932192129025 https://twitter.com/LawSelfDefense/status/350244762567196672 https://twitter.com/LawSelfDefense/status/350255988445687809

There was joy in liberal blogospheric Mudville when it was reported that terms like "progressive" also were used as a screening mechanism. PROOF! The IRS Scandal was not a scandal! Uh, yes, it was a scandal. Via The Hill, Treasury IG: Liberal groups weren't targeted by IRS like...

Today we will again be covering the Zimmerman Trial live, all day, with streaming video. Continuing commentary will be posted in the Twitter feed of selected contributors below the first video feed, and breaking news will be added at the bottom of this post. During...

At the start of day two things of note occurred. First, the Court ruled that Zimmerman's prior calls to police would be admissible as evidence. (Accordingly, later in the day Ramona Rumph returned to Court to testify as to their authenticity.) https://twitter.com/LawSelfDefense/status/349875159211061248 Second,...

I'm going to let him explain. In full. https://twitter.com/marcorubio/status/349965969613000706 Update: But not unrebutted: ...