Posted on 07/10/2013 8:37:43 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
SANFORD, Fla. — A Seminole County Circuit Court judge dealt a blow to George Zimmerman’s defense Wednesday, blocking jurors from seeing text messages from Trayvon Martin’s cellphone about fighting and guns. Zimmerman is charged with second-degree murder in the fatal shooting of Martin.
Zimmerman’s attorneys had waged an intense battle to get the text messages admitted as evidence, arguing late into the night Tuesday during a tense and emotional evidence hearing. The debate grew so heated that Judge Debra Nelson walked off the bench and ended the hearing shortly before 10 p.m., while Don West, one of Zimmerman’s defense attorneys, was still pleading with her.
The texts might have been used to portray Martin, the unarmed teenager shot to death in February 2012 by Zimmerman, as a skilled and aggressive fighter. The defense has attempted to convince jurors that Martin was the attacker and that Zimmerman fired in self-defense. Prosecutors have emphasized that Zimmerman, then a 27-year-old neighborhood watch volunteer, was heavier than Martin, a slender 17-year-old. But defense attorneys called a local gym owner to testify that Zimmerman was unathletic and “soft.”
In one of the text messages on Martin’s phone, a friend writes, “Babe, why you always fighting?” according to Richard Connor, a computer forensics expert who testified for the defense during the evidence hearing.
Connor testified that Martin wrote about fight opponents. “I lost the first round,” a message that he punctuated with a smiley face. “I won the second and third.”
“You need to stop fighting, for real,” the friend texted back, Connor said.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
And here was Trayvon’s text response:
“Nah, I’m not done with fool. He gonna have to see me again,” Martin responded, according to Connor.
When relevant evidence is blocked by an autocratic judge, a kangaroo court results.
So do mistrials.
Heck, let’s just skip the trial and send Zimmerman to prison forever, it’s for the people!
Better yet, just haul Zimmerman out in front of the courthouse and have truckloads of stones delivered, a public stoning will surely please the frothing mob!
/s
Except there will be no conviction.
Just based on these texts, TM is NOT a guy that would be screaming “HELP! HELP!” as heard on the 911 call.
I hope you are right.
RE: Just based on these texts, TM is NOT a guy that would be screaming “HELP! HELP!” as heard on the 911 call.
Unfortunately, the jury won’t know that now because of what this judge just did.
again hiding evidence from the jury
Our city has just changed all the street signs in our neighborhood to “cursive”, so they won’t be able to find us when they start rioting.
As if George Zimmerman falsified hundreds of text messages and photos over the course of several months, just to set up Martin as a thug, so he could justify shooting him at some later date.
HAHAHAHA....great idea!
Here is the link to watch it live, this is a travesty of justice if he is found guilty. http://www.wftv.com/s/zimmerman-livestream/
From Pajama’s Media:
http://pjmedia.com/blog/disorder-judge-recesses-zimmerman-trial-excludes-damning-evidence/
The forensic expert testified that he recovered multiple conversations between Trayvon Martin and specific family members and friends (Levondrea, “Diamond”, which is one of Rachel Jeantel’s nicknames, and others) discussing multi-round street fights and schoolyard fights in which Trayvon Martin had participated. Martin’s half-brother, Demetrius Martin, even asked Trayvon when he would teach Demetrious how to fight like him. Trayvon Martin’s family appeared to know Trayvon was a street fighter.
Most troubling, Conner found multiple conversations — between four and six — where Trayvon discussed attempting to buy black-market guns.
The guns Martin discussed acquiring included a Smith & Wesson Sigma pistol and a .38 Special revolver. One conversation showed Martin trying to sell a .22 revolver, suggesting he was already in possession of it.
One of the participants in one of the gun conversations was a Fulton, possibly a relative on his mother’s side. All of these conversations took place immediately in the days and weeks before Trayvon Martin left Miami for Sanford.
The reason these conversations were hidden until recently is that the deleted texts were created by a password-protected hidden app designed to beat police surveillance by hiding data and data types as different kinds of files than what the police would be looking for.
The key facts in this development:
* Trayvon Martin’s phone was password-protected. The password-protection starts automatically after being left unattended for a certain amount of time.
* The “stealth” app designed to further conceal Trayvon’s conversations about weapons, fighting, drugs, and pornography had an additional layer of password protection. He had to log into the phone first, and then to this app to access these conversations or delete them.
* There were thousands of messages, texts, photos, tweets, Facebook posts, and other bits of evidence hidden this way.
People who participated in these conversations are all documented by screen name, real name, phone number, social media personas, etc. They are all easily identified and could be deposed – if the defense is given time to do so.
* The State hid this evidence until right before the beginning of the trial, when the prosecution’s Wesley White came forward to present testimony that the State was hiding and may have destroyed evidence. The defense has had no time to recover this data and to depose every witness.
This led to the showdown between incredulous defense attorney Don West, who can’t believe what he’s hearing, and Judge Deborah Nelson, who puts the court in recess and exits — as the defense is still trying to talk to her.
CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO
bwahahahaha! That’s funny! Thanks!
Thanks for info & links.
She's being paid to deliver, and she is failing.
First, the defense had asked for more time to despose the people on the other end of the line, which could have authenticated that it was Travon they were talking to. But they were denied that time by the judge. They needed that time because of State tried to hide that information and they didn't receive the information until June 4th. To deny the defense time to authenticate when there is a path to authentication seems wrong.
Second, I can understand the judges authenticatoin reasoning if it was Travon on trial. But to deny Zimmerman the benefit of the doubt in a self-defense case seems wrong.
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