LordofHats wrote:

 Jihadin wrote:
Five 911 calls out of 50 over a span of eight years. That's a big leap

Not necessarily if those five bare a resemblance to Martin's case and the others do not as the prosecution has claimed (but of course as should be obvious by now I'm not a lawyer XD)

 d-usa wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:

 Jihadin wrote:
Five 911 calls out of 50 over a span of eight years. That's a big leap

Not necessarily if those five bare a resemblance to Martin's case and the others do not as the prosecution has claimed (but of course as should be obvious by now I'm not a lawyer XD)

I think they were trying to build a pattern of "somebody is black, therefore they are breaking the law" for Zimmerman.

 LordofHats wrote:
Stanford has an above average crime rate, so I wouldn't surprised in a good number people there have made at least one or even a few 911 calls.

 Ahtman wrote:
Almost everyone I know has made 0 calls to 911 over the course of 8 years; I imagine anything more than 1 call is getting into outlier status.

 d-usa wrote:
I forgot the 911 call I made while at the part with my brother late one night to report the woman that was driving in the grass drunk.

Of course I also reached in the car and stole her keys to keep her from driving away when she saw the lights from the cops. I was a bad boy that night.

 Ahtman wrote:
It must be weird to be surrounded by so much disaster and drama on such a regular basis.

 whembly wrote:
I think d-usa is correct that folks don't call 911 enough. I've had people tell me that they don't call because they're so sure that some else already did... what if that person thought the same thing?

 d-usa wrote:

 whembly wrote:
I think d-usa is correct that folks don't call 911 enough. I've had people tell me that they don't call because they're so sure that some else already did... what if that person thought the same thing?

One of the basic lessons in any CPR course:

Firmly instruct someone "YOU, call 911!".

 d-usa wrote:

 Ahtman wrote:
It must be weird to be surrounded by so much disaster and drama on such a regular basis.

Big city as well as big country.

SANFORD, Fla. (AP) — A friend who was on the phone with 17-year-old Trayvon Martin moments before he was fatally shot by George Zimmerman testified that she heard the Miami teen shout, "Get off! Get off!" before his telephone went dead.

Rachel Jeantel, 19, recounted to jurors in Zimmerman's second-degree murder trial how Martin told her he was being followed by a man as he walked through the Retreat at Twin Lakes townhome complex on his way back from a convenience store to the home of his father's fiancee.

Jeantel is considered one of the prosecution's most important witnesses because she was the last person to talk to Martin before his encounter with Zimmerman on Feb. 26, 2012.

She testified that Martin described the man following him as "a creepy-ass cracker" and he thought he had evaded him. But she said a short time later Martin let out a profanity.

Martin said Zimmerman was behind him and she heard Martin ask: "What are you following me for?"

She then heard what sounded like Martin's phone earpiece drop into the grass and she heard him say, "Get off! Get off!" The phone then went dead, she said.

Zimmerman, 29, could get life in prison if convicted of second-degree murder for killing Martin. Zimmerman followed him in his truck and called a police dispatch number before he and the teen got into a fight.

Zimmerman has claimed self-defense, saying he opened fire after the teenager jumped him and began slamming his head against the concrete sidewalk. Zimmerman identifies himself as Hispanic and has denied that his confrontation with the black teenager had anything to do with race, as Martin's family and its supporters have claimed.

Jeantel's testimony came after two former neighbors of Zimmerman testified Wednesday about hearing howls and shouts for help in the moments before the shooting.

Jayne Surdyka told the court that immediately before the shooting, she heard an aggressive voice and a softer voice exchanging words for several minutes in an area behind her townhome at the Retreat at Twin Lakes.

"It was someone being very aggressive and angry at someone," she said.

During the struggle, she said, she saw a person in dark clothes on top of the other person. Martin was wearing a dark sweatshirt and Zimmerman wore red clothing. Surdyka said she saw the person who was on top get off the body after the shot was fired.

Surdyka said she heard cries for help and then multiple gunshots: "pop, pop, pop." Only one shot was fired in the fatal encounter.

"I truly believe the second yell for help was a yelp," said Surdyka, who later dabbed away tears as prosecutors played her 911 call. "It was excruciating. I really felt it was a boy's voice."

During cross-examination, defense attorney Don West tried to show there was a lapse in what Surdyka saw. Defense attorneys contend Martin was on top of Zimmerman during the struggle, but after the neighborhood watch volunteer fired a shot, Zimmerman got on top of Martin.

West also challenged Surdyka about her belief that the cry for help was a boy's voice, saying she was making an assumption.

The other neighbor, Jeannee Manalo, testified that she believed Zimmerman was on top of Martin, saying he was the bigger of the two based on pictures she saw of Martin on television after the fight. Manalo also described hearing howling, but she couldn't tell who it was coming from, and then a "help sound" a short time later.

Under cross-examination, defense attorney Mark O'Mara asked why Manalo had never mentioned her belief that Zimmerman was on top in previous police interviews. He also got her to concede that her perception of Martin's size was based on five-year-old photos on television that showed a younger and smaller Martin.

Martin's parents have said they believe the cries for help heard by neighbors came from their son, while Zimmerman's father believes the cries belong to his son. Both prosecutors and defense attorneys believe they could show whether Zimmerman or Martin was the aggressor in the encounter. Defense attorneys successfully argued against allowing prosecution experts who claimed the cries belonged to Martin.

Jeantel on Wednesday testified that she believed the cries were Martin's because "Trayvon has kind of a baby voice." The defense attorney challenged that, claiming she was less certain in a previous deposition.

Jeantel, 19, also explained that she had initially lied about her age — she claimed to be 16 — to protect her privacy when she was initially contacted by an attorney for Martin's family to give a recorded statement over the telephone about what she knew about the few moments before Martin's encounter with Zimmerman. She was expected to finish her testimony on Thursday.

While being cross-examined, Jeantel had several testy exchange with West, including one moment when she prompted the defense attorney to ask his next question: "You can go. You can go."

Before the February 2012 shooting, Zimmerman had made about a half dozen calls to a nonemergency police number to report suspicious characters in his neighborhood. Judge Debra Nelson on Wednesday ruled that they could be played for jurors.

Prosecutors had argued that the police dispatch calls were central to their case that Zimmerman committed second-degree murder since they showed his state of mind. He was increasingly frustrated with repeated burglaries and had reached a breaking point the night he shot the unarmed teenager, prosecutors say.

Defense attorneys argued that the calls were irrelevant and that nothing matters but the seven or eight minutes before Zimmerman fired the deadly shot into Martin's chest.

Seven of the nine jurors and alternates scribbled attentively on their notepads as the calls were played.

 MrDwhitey wrote:
Situation still would've been avoided if he hadn't pursued him, that is what was being said.

 Seaward wrote:
Did you even bother to read what I was responding to? I'll use history as a guide and assume not. I suggest going back and reading the screed Ahtman posted that assures us Martin did absolutely nothing wrong and committed zero crimes. You know, based on nothing but what the author's own favorite media sources have said.

I've said from the start that Zimmerman may well be guilty, but that potential prosecution should proceed organically, rather than being the end result of the screaming mob.

 LordofHats wrote:
Stanford has an above average crime rate, so I wouldn't surprised in a good number people there have made at least one or even a few 911 calls.

Stanford has an above average crime rate, so I wouldn't surprised in a good number people there have made at least one or even a few 911 calls.

The Constitution requires, via the Sixth Amendment, that “the accused shall enjoy a right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury” where the crime was committed. There is no constitutional requirement that the jury shall be made up of the defendant’s “peers.”

Jury selection was expected to take 2-3 weeks. It began with an initial pool of 211 people that filled out questionnaires. By the end of Day 7, only 58 of the 211 were questioned by attorneys about their knowledge of the case; additionally, the attorneys selected 40 of 58 to advance to the next round of more in-depth questioning. Of the final 40, with regard to gender: 24 were women, and 16 were men. With regard to race: 27 were white, 7 were black, 3 were of mixed race, and 3 were Hispanic.

In just two days, Days 8 and 9, both sides questioned all 40 potential jurors.

By the end of Day 9, 30 of the people were dismissed and the remaining 10 were selected as the primary and alternate members. Both sides moved way too quickly.

Both sides lost focus. As a result, the composition of the selected jury is guaranteed to reignite racial debates before the trial even begins.

All of the six members are women. Five are white, one is Hispanic. The four alternates include two women and two men, all of whom are white, but for one male Hispanic.

Seminole County, the area from which the jury pool was selected, is more than 81 percent white, between 9-11 percent African-American, and consists of more than 50 percent women, according to the Seminole County Government and U.S. Census. Sanford, the city where the incident occurred, is approximately 29 percent African-American.
Zimmerman’s jury is 100 percent women and 0 percent African-American.

This jury needed at least one African-American jury member, and one male. The selected panel can certainly be “impartial,” but because previous racially charged trials focused on the jury, the Zimmerman trial attorneys should have been aware of how the make-up could impact responses outside of the courtroom and, potentially, to the safety of the jurors.

 sebster wrote:

I did read what you were responding to. And Ahtman's piece commented on the large number of people who have presumed guilt on the part of Martin, based almost entirely on a picture of him looking altogether a bit too much like a young black guy.

Which, of course, you ignore entirely, and focus entirely on people presuming Martin's innocence.

And do all of that as part of a half baked complaint about the whole process, a hilariously naive argument that the process should be 'organic', as if police and state prosecution will by themselves always come to the best decision. Built around some freshly invented worldview that just ignores the long history of public outcry and media coverage being used to drive new efforts to bring about justice, to overcome local interests and local bias.

Now, like you I don't know, and don't want to claim I know what the verdict in this case should be. But the idea that it going to trial is some great outrage just because it only got there through media and public interest is really stupid.

 whembly wrote:
Saw this on youtube... yeesh, that ain't going well for the prosecution: