With his second degree murder trial looming, George Zimmerman’s defense attorneys on Thursday posted several items from discovery in the case, including texts and photos from Trayvon Martin’s cellphone. The words and images — including Martin exchanging text messages with friends, have the potential to be inflammatory. Zimmerman’s attorney calls them a necessary part of discovery in the case. Martin’s family attorneys call them an attempt to smear the dead teen and taint the jury.
What’s clear is that the Zimmerman trial promises to be, in part, a battle of images — a fight to shape the perceptions of jurors about the then-28-year-old neighborhood watch volunteer and the 17-year-old high school student, both of whom have blemishes in their backgrounds. The question: how much of what is in those backgrounds, of the defendant and the deceased, are relevant to the trial, in which Zimmerman is claiming self-defense.
Texts show a teen’s bravado, vulnerability
The texts, dated between November and December of 2011 and written in typical teenage shorthand, include a conversation between Martin and an unknown friend in which Martin implies he’s being “kicked out” of his home by his mother, Sybrina Fulton, and that he will have to move in with his father, Tracy Martin. “She just kicked me out 🙁 ” reads one text message, dated November 22, 2011. He also texted about witnessing a fight at school and a teacher blaming him for it.
In another text in November, 2011, Martin referred to being in a fight himself, in which the other person “got more hits” because he had him on the ground.
In texts on February 14, 2012, Martin responds to an unknown person who asks why he’s not in school. “Suspended,” he texts, later adding that his mother doesn’t want him home “caus she think ima get in mo trouble.” Martin lived with his mother, Sybrina Fulton, in Miami. His father, Tracy Martin, a truck driver, lived in Miami too, but frequently traveled to Sanford, Florida, near Orlando, to visit his fiancée and her son, who was several years younger than Trayvon.
That month, Martin and his father would go to Sanford, where they stayed at the fiancée’s townhome in the Retreat at Twin Lakes gated community. Martin had been suspended for two weeks from Michael C. Krop high school in Miami, after traces of marijuana were found in his backpack. His redacted school records were also part of the document release by Zimmerman’s defense team.
On February 17, just over a week before he was killed, Martin exchanged texts with a person identified in the transcripts as Witness 8, the young woman said to have been Martin’s girlfriend, who told police she was on the phone with Martin just before his confrontation with Zimmerman on February 26th. “I got 1 mo week” he texts.
According to the transcripts, on February 18, Martin texts Witness 8 saying, “hey bae.” He texts “I’m out Outback” — and asks what she had eaten, whether she’s got heat, and if her dad was coming over. He later texts in shorthand: “Nd b safe bae ion need ntn hapn 2 u” … “-_- Bae bullets dnt hav eyes.”
The texts are filled with teenage bravado, with Martin referencing “hiding weed,” but also vulnerability. One text says “be safe n stay focus,” followed by “I love you.”
On February 20th, Martin texts that he’s getting ready to leave for Orlando, and that he’s going for “a week.”
In a series of texts the following day, which appear to be between him and his father, Tracy Martin, a text counsels Martin to “show much respect to (name redacted” and adjust to my Lady & (name redacted)… Show them that you a good kid and you want positive things around you,” seemingly referring to the elder Martin’s fiancée and her son.
“Be a big brother and not a DONKEY …. LOVE DAD,” the next text reads.
Some of the texts contain apparent references to guns, including two messages Martin received on February 10th and 18th, reading: “you want a 22 revolver.”
Also released by the defense: photos said to be from Martin’s phone that include pictures of a handgun, what look like marijuana plants, and Martin wearing a replaceable gold tooth “grill,” extending a middle finger to the camera and blowing smoke out of his mouth. The photos were being widely reprinted in the media on Thursday, and Zimmerman’s attorney, Mark O’Mara, appeared on the Fox News channel to discuss the document release, which according to the Zimmerman defense website, also included videos from Martin’s phone and from his Youtube channel.
Next: ‘Weapons’ in defense ‘quiver’, or tainting the jury pool?
The information released on Thursday includes material that prosecutor Bernie de la Rionda previously requested be excluded from evidence by the judge in the case, saying they are irrelevant to the charges against Zimmerman.
The attorneys representing Martin’s family released a statement to that effect on Thursday. “The only photos or videos that are relevant or admissible at trial are those of Trayvon taken the day he was shot and killed by George Zimmerman,” the statement read. “There is no evidence that Trayvon neither had gold teeth nor gave anybody the finger the night he was shot and killed. Therefore those pictures are irrelevant and will not be admitted into evidence.”
“Is the defense trying to prove Trayvon deserved to be killed by George Zimmerman because the way he looked? If so, this stereotypical and closed-minded thinking is the same mindset that caused George Zimmerman to get out of his car and pursue Trayvon, an unarmed kid who he didn’t know. The pre-trial release of these irrelevant red herrings is a desperate and pathetic attempt by the defense to pollute and sway the jury pool,” the statement continued. It concluded:
“The evidence that will be admitted at trial is the legally documented history of George Zimmerman’s propensity for violence, such as his arrest for battery on a law enforcement officer, his injunction to prevent domestic violence taken out by his ex-girlfriend, and evidence of his training as a bouncer for Data Whore Productions, Inc.”
Zimmerman was charged with resisting a police officer in 2005, which was reduced to a charge of resisting an officer without violence when he agreed to enter an alcohol training program after he allegedly shoved a plain clothes officer who was hassling a friend for alleged underage drinking. That same year, Zimmerman’s former fiancee, Veronica Zuazo, filed for a restraining order alleging domestic violence, saying Zimmerman slapped her. Zimmerman filed a restraining order of his own against Zuazo, and both were granted.
Natalie Jackson, the Sanford-based lawyer who is also part of the Martin legal team, said in a statement to theGrio: “The photo and documents released by George Zimmerman’s defense team today are irrelevant to his guilt or innocence. Their release was meant solely to prejudice a potential jury pool in the days leading up to trial. As the defense knows, it is highly unlikely that any of these red herrings will even be admitted into evidence at trial.”
Zimmerman’s attorney, Mark O’Mara, told theGrio the information was released as part of a discovery process begun by prosecutors last year, and that the disclosure was required under state law. O’Mara has aggressively sought Martin’s school records and has filed motions to include evidence that Martin used drugs, citing self-defense statutes in Florida that allow defendants to present evidence about the deceased person’s background. He said the defense hadn’t determined whether, and what, information about Martin they would try to introduce at trial.
“It depends on the way the prosecution handles their case.,” O’Mara said. “If they handle it in terms of only the five minutes of interaction between Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman, I’m not sure this would need to come into evidence.” But he said that if prosecutors make character an issue at trial, then he has to be prepared to respond. And he said he would likely try to introduce evidence of marijuana use by Martin, “because he had that in his system.” Traces of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, were found in Martin’s system, according to the autopsy report, which indicated the amount would have been insufficient to cause “performance impairment.”
If prosecutors “don’t go down the road of ‘George is this person’ and ‘Trayvon is this person,'” O’Mara said, he would be unlikely to try and introduce the items released on Thursday. “If they do open those doors then I think this information is hugely relevant.”
Kendall Coffey, the former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, who is now in private practice, said Florida law allows more latitude to defendants in murder trials, when it comes to presenting evidence about the character of the victim.
“In contrast to cases of sexual assault, there is not a generalized ‘shield law’ to protect the past character of an alleged homicide victim,” Coffey said. “However, any attempts to attack the char of Trayvon Martin will be carefully scrutinized by the judge, who performs a vital role as gatekeeper. To be relevant, the evidence concerning Trayvon Martin would have to support a self-defense claim. More specifically, f it would have to be evidence of a reputation for violence or of specific past acts of violence. So a number of items that may be fodder for the court of public opinion will not be permitted before a court of law, depending on the relevance of the alleged evidence.”
Next: Lawyer blames prosecutors for disclosures
O’Mara was sharply critical of what he calls prosecution evidence releases that cast a negative light on his client. He spoke repeatedly of the release of a call to police by a woman known as “Witness 9,” a cousin who claimed Zimmerman sexually abused her when both were young children. And he says that implications that Zimmerman “is racist,” make character evidence relevant to his defense of his client.
“Why did they put out that George had mutual injunctions [against him] five years ago” with a former girlfriend. “Why does the [Martin] family put out a picture of Travyon at 12 years old in a football uniform? The problem with cases today particularly in Florida is that it really is wide open.”
O’Mara denied that his intent was to send a warning to prosecutors to stay away from character issues related to Zimmerman, who temporarily had his bail revoked for misstating his finances to the previous judge in the case (for which Zimmerman’s wife, Shelley, faces perjury charges.) And he denied that his intent was to taint the jury pool. But whether the information is ultimately excluded, it is now readily available to the public, both via media outlets, and on the defense website.
O’Mara repeatedly referred to what he believed was inflammatory, negative information about his client, released by prosecutors, and he blamed prosecutors for the flurry of negative images of both Martin and Zimmerman that have flooded into the public domain.
“The witness 9 stuff — that ‘s not going to be relevant,” O’Mara said. “But that gets disclosed. What gets into a courtroom, that’s what the judge has to decide, based on what comes up in the trial. Let’s say Sybrina Fulton gets on the stand and says ‘my son has never touched a gun and if he would have seen a gun he would have run?’ All of a sudden because of what she said the picture of a gun now has new relevance because it counteracts what the mother said.”
“We don’t have any pretrial agreement to say we’re not going to talk about this or that, so you have to be ready for what happens, not to mention the way the state has treated this case from the beginning.”
As to the perception that he’s tarnishing a dead teenager and encouraging the public to pore over the contents of his cellphone, O’Mara staunchly defended the releases as both legally required, and necessary for any lawyer zealously defending his client. And he put the burden back on prosecutors from keeping the now public information out of the hands of a jury.
“If the state makes Trayvon Martin’s history relevant then it’s relevant,” O’Mara said. “If they don’t then it’s not. I’m a warrior with a whole bunch of different weapons available to me. If you’re saying why don’t you put those nasty weapons away because the person passed away, I’m not going to do that. If the state does not make reputation relevant, then those things don’t come out of the quiver. But to say I shouldn’t prepare for the kind of case they try… Look, from day one I’ve been frustrated with the way they’ve handled discovery. And I’m hoping that’s not going to work its way into their trial presentation. [But] if they try to attack George and say he’s something he’s not, then I’m probably going to bring up similar information about Trayvon.”
Motions to delay, and to get the lawyers off TV
O’Mara has filed a motion seeking to delay the trial’s start date, saying he needs more time to review the qualification of voice experts who examined the 911 calls on the night of the shooting.
On Thursday, prosecutors filed a motion of their own, seeking a gag order in the case, citing O’Mara’s frequent television appearances discussing the case, and the fact that the attorney “continues to publicize the case through the use of a website, providing commentary and encouraging comments about the case through social media.” The motion by prosecutors, which O’Mara also posted to the defense website, states that “unless Defense Counsel stops talking to the media about the case, in person or by use of Defendant’s website, it will be more difficult to find jurors who have not been influenced by media accounts of the case.”
The motions will be heard on Tuesday.
Asked whether he believed the jury pool has been tainted, in part by his own actions, O’Mara told theGrio: “Yesterday, six months ago, the day after the shooting, this jury pool has been inundated with information that we have to vet through jury selection, to say ‘what have you heard, and can you put it aside.'”
Follow Joy Reid on Twitter at @thereidreport.