Witness Makes Key Admission That He Never Saw Trayvon Martin Throw A Punch At Zimmerman

[DallasNE]

38. We Agree On Some Things And Have A Different View On Other Things.

One correction however. The prosecution has to prove that Martin died at Zimmerman's hand. That is a given since not even Zimmerman denies that he shot Martin. Zimmerman cannot simply declare self defense, he must prove it -- not the other way around where the prosecution has to prove it wasn't self defense. If Zimmerman does not prove self defense then he is guilty of manslaughter at the minimum.

Too much of what the defense is claiming is pure speculation. They are speculating that the rain washed the blood off of the sidewalk and off of Martin's hands (which were under his body) yet did not wash the blood off of Zimmerman's head. Excuse me. Zimmerman is claiming that Martin was pounding his head into the sidewalk while Good is saying the person on top was raining down blows MMA style. The prosecution asked if he saw Martin also slamming his head into the sidewalk and Good said "no". How does that help the defense since it is at odds with what they are claiming. Expect the prosecution to point out the likelihood of mistaken identity on who was on top since the description does not support self defense for Zimmerman getting his head pounded into the sidewalk (where there is no blood) and the nature of the blows being struck (MMA style) supports it being Zimmerman on top. This testimony actually helps support the girlfriends testimony more than Zimmerman's defense if you allow for the possibility of mistaken identity in the dark. What the guy saw was basically silhouettes -- did he say whether Martins hood was up or down, for instance. O'Mara appeared blindsided by the MMA revelation and objected when the prosecutor brought it up. That is when it came out that Zimmerman acknowledged aerobics and when the medical examiner asked what kind and how often Zimmerman told her MMA 3 times a week for 3 hours (not clear whether that was 3 one-hour sessions or 3 sessions that were each 3 hours). Could Zimmerman have been hiding this important fact from his defense team?

I would say that if a jury had to decide today they would probably convict on the lesser charge of manslaughter. So far these are all prosecution witnesses and next week we get a bunch of the physical evidence and the expert testimony on how that evidence can be interpreted. Only after that do we get the defense witnesses. I suspect the MMA instructor will be asked to evaluate Zimmerman's MMA skills -- I think they allow late additions as witnesses when new things are discovered during testimony.

Lastly, I don't think you directly challenge an eye-witness on what they think they saw but in closing you point out how a piece of testimony just doesn't fit in with all of the other evidence and explain it away due to the darkness. If I am wrong on this then the prosecution did fumble by not challenging more strongly some of Good's testimony. Keep in mind we did not yet know about the MMA classes Zimmerman had been taking. Nobody thinks the nicks on the back of Zimmerman's head reflect anything but the results of the struggle. The minor scrapes on both sides of Zimmerman's head don't fit the pounding on the sidewalk so I don't understand O'Mara hitting that so hard. They were so minor the medical examiner missed them the next day. Were they old or self-inflected? We just differ on the importance of some of the evidence. I have no special insight so I could very well be misreading things but I think the prosecution has done a fine job to date. You see it differently. I'm fine with that.