|
| Assistant state attorney Bernie de la Rionda presents the state's closing arguments in George Zimmerman's trial in Seminole circuit court in Sanford, Fla. Thursday, July 11, 2013. Zimmerman has been charged with second-degree murder for the 2012 shooting death of Trayvon Martin. |
SANFORD, Fla.
(AP) -- In an unmistakable setback for George Zimmerman, the jury at
the neighborhood watch captain's second-degree murder trial was given
the option Thursday of convicting him on the lesser charge of
manslaughter in the shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.
Judge
Debra Nelson issued her ruling over the objections of Zimmerman's
lawyers shortly before a prosecutor delivered a closing argument in
which he portrayed the defendant as an aspiring police officer who
assumed Martin was up to no good and took the law into his own hands.
"A
teenager is dead. He is dead through no fault of his own," prosecutor
Bernie de la Rionda told the jurors. "He is dead because a man made
assumptions. ... Unfortunately because his assumptions were wrong,
Trayvon Benjamin Martin no longer walks this Earth."
Because
of the judge's ruling, the six jurors will have three options when they
start deliberations as early as Friday: guilty of second-degree murder,
guilty of manslaughter and not guilty.
Zimmerman
attorney Don West had argued an all-or-nothing strategy, saying the
only charge that should be put before the jury is second-degree murder.
"The
state has charged him with second-degree murder. They should be
required to prove it," West said. "If they had wanted to charge him with
manslaughter ... they could do that."
To win a
second-degree murder conviction, prosecutors must prove Zimmerman
showed ill will, hatred or spite - a burden the defense has argued the
state failed to meet. To get a manslaughter conviction, prosecutors must
show only that Zimmerman killed without lawful justification.
Allowing
the jurors to consider manslaughter could give those who aren't
convinced the shooting amounted to murder a way to hold Zimmerman
responsible for the death of the unarmed teen, said David Hill, an
Orlando defense attorney with no connection to the case.
"From
the jury's point of view, if they don't like the second-degree murder -
and I can see why they don't like it - he doesn't want to give them any
options to convict on lesser charges," Hill said of the defense
attorney.
Because of the way Florida law
imposes longer sentences for crimes committed with a gun, manslaughter
could end up carrying a penalty as heavy as the one for second-degree
murder: life in prison.
It is standard for
prosecutors in Florida murder cases to ask that the jury be allowed to
consider lesser charges that were not actually brought against the
defendant. And it is not unusual for judges to grant such requests.
Prosecutor
Richard Mantei also asked that the jury be allowed to consider
third-degree murder, on the premise that Zimmerman committed child abuse
when he shot the underage Martin. Zimmerman's lawyer called that
"bizarre" and "outrageous," and the judge sided with the defense.
Zimmerman,
29, got into a scuffle with Martin after spotting the teen while
driving through his gated townhouse complex on a rainy night in February
2012. Zimmerman has claimed he fired in self-defense after Martin
sucker-punched him and began slamming his head into the pavement.
Prosecutors have disputed his account and portrayed him as the
aggressor.
During closing arguments, de la
Rionda argued that Zimmerman showed ill will and hatred when he
whispered profanities to a police dispatcher over his cellphone while
following Martin through the neighborhood. He said Zimmerman "profiled"
the teenager as a criminal.
"He assumed Trayvon Martin was a criminal," de la Rionda said. "That is why we are here."
The
prosecutor told the jury that Zimmerman wanted to be a police officer
and that's why he followed Martin. But "the law doesn't allow people to
take the law into their own hands," de la Rionda said.
De
la Rionda's two-hour presentation also included moments when he seemed
to appeal to jurors' emotions by showing a head shot from Martin's
autopsy and a face-up crime scene photo of Martin. Several jurors looked
away.
The prosecutor also repeatedly asked why Zimmerman left his truck the night of the shooting.
"Why
does this defendant get out of his car if he thought Trayvon Martin is a
threat to him?" de la Rionda asked. "Why? Because he had a gun."
Later,
when he straddled a foam mannequin to dispute Zimmerman's account of
how the struggle unfolded, the entire back row of jurors stood. One
juror even stepped down to get a better view.
De
la Rionda implored jurors to believe the account of Martin's friend
Rachel Jeantel, who was on the phone with him moments before the
shooting and said she heard him yelling, "Get off!" The prosecutor asked
jurors to discount her "colorful language," and he put a twist on a
quote by the Rev. Martin Luther King to persuade them.
"She should be judged not by the color of her personality but by the content of her testimony," de la Rionda said.
Zimmerman's lawyers are expected to deliver their closing arguments Friday morning.
