Post date: Jul 12, 2013 9:4:7 PM
With closing arguments concluded, the George Zimmerman trial, which has captivated and divided much of the U.S. public, has now gone to the jury.
SANFORD, FLORIDA, UNITED STATES (JULY 12, 2013) (POOL) - A case that has captivated and divided the U.S. public for the past 16 months went to the jury on Friday, when six anonymous women began deliberating whether to convict George Zimmerman for the shooting death of unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin.
After presiding over 12 days of testimony and two days of closing arguments, Seminole County Judge Debra Nelson turned the case over to a jury that has been sequestered since the trial began last month.The jury will try to settle a case that has dominated U.S. media, sparked street demonstrations and raised questions about race and guns in America. [IDn:L1N0FH25J]
Jurors must reach a unanimous verdict on either second-degree murder, manslaughter or acquittal. A deadlocked jury would result in a mistrial, possibly leading to the whole courtroom drama unfolding once again.
Deliberations began at 2:30 p.m. Eastern time (1830 GMT) and the judge would allow jurors to set their own working hours, a court spokeswoman said.
Zimmerman, 29, says he shot Martin in self-defense after he was attacked on the rainy night of Feb. 26, 2012, in the central Florida town of Sanford. Prosecutors contend Zimmerman was a "wannabe cop" who tracked down the teenager and shot him without justification.
It all began when Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch coordinator, called police to report a suspicious person in his neighborhood. That turned out to be Martin, a guest in the home of his father's fiancée, who lived inside the gated community.
A fight ensued, and after Zimmerman suffered several head injuries, he shot Martin once through the heart with a Kel Tec 9 mm pistol fully loaded with hollow-point bullets.
In closing arguments on Friday, lead defense lawyer Mark O'Mara attempted to shift the blame to Martin, saying he was the aggressor who attacked Zimmerman after lying in wait.
To convict Zimmerman of second-degree murder, which could lead to a sentence of life in prison, the jury must find he acted with ill will, spite or hatred.
The hateful person that rainy night was Martin, not Zimmerman, O'Mara told the jury.
"Somebody decided they were angry. Ticked off. Ill will, spite or hatred," O'Mara said. "It wasn't some cop wannabe.
"The person who decided this was going to continue, was going to become a violent event, was the guy who didn't go home when he had a chance to. It was the guy who decided to lie in wait," O'Mara said
The jury can also opt for manslaughter, which has a lesser burden of culpable negligence. That carries a prison sentence of up to 30 years.
Earlier, O'Mara warned jurors against filling in holes in the prosecution's case, cautioning against making presumptions and assumptions.
Yet he invited them to form their own conclusions about Martin, particularly in the four-minute gap that O'Mara said passed between Zimmerman's losing sight of Martin and when Martin attacked.
He dramatized that length of time by pausing for four minutes, leaving the courtroom silent.
"Four minutes. You get to figure out what Trayvon Martin was doing," O'Mara told the jury. "Four minutes to do what? To run home. To walk home."
Prosecutors had one final rebuttal, when John Guy told the jury, "The defendant didn't shootTrayvon Martin because he had to. He shot him because he wanted to. That's the bottom line."
At the time of the encounter, Martin was on the phone with a friend from Miami who testified that she heard him ask, "What are you following me for?" Guy contended it was Martin who then feared for his safety.
"Was that child not in fear when he was running from that defendant? Isn't that every child's worst nightmare to be followed on the way home in the dark by a stranger? That was Trayvon Martin's last emotion," Guy said.
When police initially declined to arrest Zimmerman, believing his account of self-defense, it provoked demonstrations, first in Sanford's black neighborhood of Goldsboro, where people accused Zimmerman of racial profiling and demanded his arrest.
Protests spread to small towns and big cities across the United States, prompting celebrity tweets, cable news shouting matches, and scrutiny of Florida's Stand Your Ground self-defense law, which police cited in allowing Zimmerman to go free.
The case drew the attention of President Barack Obama, who said, "If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon."
After the Sanford police chief stepped down the normally assigned prosecutor recused himself, the governor appointed a special prosecutor, who charged Zimmerman with second-degree murder 45 days after the shooting.
In Sanford, officials said on Friday they were prepared for a return of the impassioned demonstrations that arose last year but expected calm.
"We recognize while this case has brought a great deal of emotion, there's no tension in Seminole County," Sheriff Donald Eslinger told reporters.