7/13/2013

A partial list of outrageous rulings by Florida judge Debra Nelson that made it difficult for Zimmerman to defend himself

Greta Van Sustern and her guests react to the judge's unbelievable behavior in trying to force Zimmerman to decide whether he will testify before the end of this defense case.  The discussion in that segment also points out how the judge purposely controlled the calendar to keep the defense from being able to give its closing arguments on the same day as the state's, which is something that the defense strongly wanted.  Also from Investors' Business Daily:
Suppressing exculpatory evidence recovered from the (double-password-protected) cell phone of Trayvon Martin that reveal deleted texts of the 17-year-old bragging about street-fighting with friends and relatives and photos showing him brandishing guns, gangsta-style. This evidence supports Zimmerman's claim he feared Martin and shot in self-defense.
• Disallowing Martin's criminal background, including arrests by Miami-Dade school district police for drugs, theft, graffiti and other delinquent behavior. (Martin, in fact, had been suspended from school the week he jumped Zimmerman inside his gated townhouse complex, after police found stolen jewelry and burglary tools inside his backpack.)
• Excluding any testimony from audio experts who could definitively ID Zimmerman's voice screaming for help on 911 calls as Martin bashed his head against a concrete sidewalk.
• Allowing, conversely, the last-minute request of plainly desperate prosecutors to have jurors consider an alternative lesser charge of manslaughter to try to secure some kind of conviction, any kind of punishment, in the complete absence of a sound murder case.
• Never sanctioning the prosecution despite Zimmerman's lawyers justifiably filing no fewer than six formal complaints against the state for withholding exculpatory and other evidence from them in violation of discovery rules.
• Yet repeatedly overruling — at times even reprimanding — Zimmerman's lawyers when they objected to the underhanded tactics of the prosecution.
• And even, in one of the most bizarre interventions by a judge many court watchers have ever observed in a criminal case, directly grilling defendant Zimmerman not once, but three times about his intentions to personally testify — while scolding his lawyers not to counsel him in what seemed to many to be an attempt by the court to bully him into taking the stand. . . .

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1 Comments:

Blogger Martin G. Schalz said...

It is a sad thing indeed, when a person has a guaranteed right to a speedy trial by an impartial jury, and the Judge in this case suppresses evidence, gives outright support to the prosecution, ignores solid requests from the Defense, and badgers the accused in an attempt to force said accused to testify.

When government officials, be they local, state, or federal use such tactics, they should be arrested, tried, and if convicted of such outrageous abuse under color of authority, they should be imprisoned.

7/15/2013 1:50 PM  

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