Today we will again be covering the Zimmerman Jury Selection Day Six live, all day, along with a separate end-of-day wrap-up post. To catch up on the lastest events in State of Florida v. Zimmerman, click here and take a look at our re-cap of last week’s events.
As usual we will be maintaining live-stream video coverage, just below, as well as rolling Twitter coverage from selected commentators, including me, at the bottom of this page. In between the video stream and Twitter feed I’ll post regular updates throughout the day to note any events of particular significance. At day’s end I will put up a separate wrap-up post discussing major events of the day, and their implications for the case moving forward. Thanks for joining us!
Live Stream Video
Monday, June 17
Court is scheduled to begin at 9AM, although typically there are a few minutes of non-public court business before the live TV coverage begins in earnest.
Breaking News
Frye Hearing Testimony to Conclude Today, 4PM
The Court has announced its intention to wrap-up its still unfinished Frye hearing this afternoon. A fourth defense expert witness on speech recognition and speaker identification was unable to be heard two weeks ago along with other experts due to travel complications. He is now scheduled to testify to the court via video conference at 4PM today.
Prospective Juror Contributed to Zimmerman Defense Fund
While being questioned by the State this afternoon a prospective juror offered that he had contributed $20 to the Zimmerman defense fund, a fact apparently unknown to the State until mentioned. Despite this modest contribution, the prospective juror stated that he would nevertheless be able to be a fair and impartial juror.
Religious Beliefs Get One Prospective Juror Dismissed
Another prospective juror was quickly dismissed this morning when he adamantly insisted that his religious beliefs simply do not allow him to sit in judgment of another human being.
Racial Character of Case Leads to Extensive Questioning
The racial characteristics of the case have also driven some extensive questioning of prospective jurors. H13, for example, was questioned by the State and Defense counsel Don West for about an hour on issues around the racially-tinged protests that had occurred in the weeks following the shooting.
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Andrew F. Branca is an MA lawyer and author of the seminal book “The Law of Self Defense” which shows you how to successfully fight the 20-to-life legal battle everyone faces after defending themselves (second edition shipping in June – save 30% and pre-order TODAY!). Many thanks to the Professor for the invitation to guest-blog on the Zimmerman trial here on Legal Insurrection!
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Comments
Is it overly paranoid of me to suspect that potential jurors are being coached? Perhaps in/by churches?
What exactly is the race heirarchy in the United States? It seems to me that the current state of affairs mandates that some minorities are more deserving of sympathy and preferential treatment before the law than others. I’m finding that the phrase “equal before the law” doesn’t mean what I thought it meant.
Andrew, thank you for the great coverage so far, I have a question for you concerning a post of yours I believe I read on another forum, the Fl. concealed carry forum, in it you had stated that when the police retreived George’s gun on the night of the shooting that the magazine of his gun had only 1 bullet missing vs. a full magazine, now as a person who carries on a daily basis this indicates to me that George does not normally carry with one in the chamber, per the statements given, which you are much more familiar with than me, does George ever state whwn he chambered the bullet? Obviously it wasn’t during the struggle and to me may indicate his frame of mind during the incident. And could something like this have any bearing in the actual trial?
In reviewing the FDLE report it appears the facts as earlier presented may have been mistaken.
The crime laboratory analysis report states that they recovered:
“DMS-11. One fired 9mm Luger caliber cartridge case.”
“ME-4. One fired bullet jacket portion. two fired bullet jacket fragments and one lead bullet core.”
“TS-1. One 9mm Luger caliber Kel-Tec model PF-9 semiautiomatic pistol. serial number RJY08. one 9mm Luger caliber cartridge. one holster and one magazine containing six 9mm LUger caliber cartridges.”
The Kel-Tec PF-9 pistol is a single-stack 9mm handgun with a 7+1 capacity–that it, it would normally be carried with 7 rounds in the magazine and 1 round in the chamber.
If loaded to capacity, the round in the chamber would be fired, one of the 7 rounds in the magazine would be chambered, and there would now be 6 rounds remaining in the magazine.
The recover of the cartridge case (DMS-11) and the bullet fragments (recovered from Martin’s body by the medical examiner as ME-4) would constitute the remains of the single fired round.
The reference in TS-1 to “one 9mm Luger caliber cartridge likely refers to a round removed from the recovered gun’s chamber.
The reference in TS-1 to “one magazine containing six 9mm Luger caliber cartridges”, when added all together with the prior two sentences come to 8 rounds in total.
This would be consistent with Zimmerman having carried the gun in a condition of 7+1, as intended by the gun’s design.
Incidentally, not to turn things morbid, but from a terminal ballistics perspective the Sellier and Bellot 115g 9mm JHP round recovered as ME-4 performed extremely well.
Anyone still listening to the Frye hearing? Dr. Wayman is a hoot. Guy obviously loves his work, but it is extremely technical. Although I understand he is good at bringing this information down to a level that a layman can follow, I think at this point West is just letting him go until Judge Nelson just submits and agrees to exclude the experts.