reasonable doubt. the defense is usually the one that raises a lot of questions, because the defense is trying to establish reasonable doubt. so in my opinion, he did hit on a number of significant points for the prosecution, but he spent a lot of time on things that i think are relatively clear. i think it is clear to those jurors that george zimmerman followed trayvon martin. in the defense opening statement, the defense conceded that. the position has been he followed him, but that s not illegal. for the prosecutor to spend very precious closing time on that, you know, may have been a bit misspent. the key question for the jury is whether george zimmerman shot trayvon martin and killed him in self-defense. i would have preferred toss more time on that moment. i will point out this is the first time in the trial that i have heard the prosecution take note of the fact that george zimmerman indicated the gun was holstered behind him, something
her. you don t want people to dismiss the core of her testimony, the content because of the delivery or because of a cultural misreading of her. if those jurors say, wait a minute, i don t trust her because of her demeanor, something about her doesn t seem right, they may dismiss the testimony, which is very important to the prosecution. thank you both so much. coming up, what can we expect from the defense tomorrow? we will discuss, next. [ karen ] did you lock the front door?
follow deputy jarvis into the jury room. actually, it will be 8:30. 8:30. good afternoon. we ve been watching the closing arguments in the george zimmerman trial. with bernie de la rionda they will return at 8:30 in the morning where the defense will begin their closing arguments. let s get right to our panel. i m joined by legal analyst lisa bloom, managing editor of
then the prosecutor has to use open-ended questions. the fact he s leaving they questions open, but b, because we have been circumscribed in the production of certainly elements and facts, according to a racial narrative, because that s been riled out s being able to be introduced into the courtroom. so now we are floundering. you can t say what you this i is obvious. the differences are left open-ended, because depending on what that jury thinks, they will either side with the defense or the prosecution, so we re in a very dark and i think ambiguous arena here, and the inability to say with specificity what we think may have been happened is one of the real constraints here, and i think it s showing up in the way in which the prosecution is presenting its case. joy, one of the things that the prosecution send a great
going to get them to the end goal of a second-degree murder. s because nobody knows what happened, nobody knows who started the fight. one is dead and the other one is not talking. so that s the problem here the defense will give up and say these questions. they just conceded that. they could be firmly convinced thatself dense was not being used here, and that s the unfortunate problem here, and it s going to go back to the state of florida. the prosecution were working from much of what george zimmerman had said instead, reference to the a-holes who