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| Trayvon Martin's mother, Sybrina Fulton, takes the stand during George Zimmerman's trial in Seminole County circuit court, Friday, July 5, 2013, in Sanford, Fla. Zimmerman has been charged with second-degree murder for the 2012 shooting death of Trayvon Martin. |
SANFORD, Fla.
(AP) -- The mothers of Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman listened
Friday to the same 911 recording of someone screaming for help, and each
said she was convinced the voice was that of her own son.
The
starkly conflicting testimony over the potentially crucial piece of
evidence came midway through Zimmerman's murder trial in the 2012
shooting of the unarmed 17-year-old.
"I heard
my son screaming," Sybrina Fulton, the teenager's mother, said firmly
after she was played a recording in which distant, high-pitched wails
could be heard in the background as a Zimmerman neighbor asked a
dispatcher to send police. Moments later on the call, there was a
gunshot and the crying stopped.
Gladys
Zimmerman, though, testified she recognized the voice all too well: "My
son." Asked how she could be certain, she said: "Because it's my son."
The
testimony came on a dramatic, action-packed day in which the
prosecution rested its case and the judge rejected a defense request to
acquit Zimmerman on the second-degree murder charge.
The
question of whose voice is on the recording could be crucial to the
jury in deciding who was the aggressor in the confrontation between the
neighborhood watch volunteer and the teenager.
The
identity of the person sharply divided the two families: Martin's half
brother, 22-year-old Jahvaris Fulton, testified that the cries came from
the teen. And Zimmerman's uncle, Jose Meza, said he knew it was
Zimmerman's voice from "the moment I heard it. ... I thought, that is
George."
The prosecution rested after calling
38 witnesses over two weeks. Defense attorney Mark O'Mara promptly asked
the judge to acquit Zimmerman, arguing that the prosecution had failed
to prove its case.
O'Mara said an "enormous"
amount of evidence showed that Zimmerman acted in self-defense, and he
argued that Zimmerman had reasonable grounds to believe he was in
danger, and acted without the "ill will, hatred and spite" necessary to
prove second-degree murder.
But prosecutor Richard Mantei countered: "There are two people involved here. One of them is dead, and one of them is a liar."
Mantei
told the judge that Zimmerman had changed his story, that his account
of how he shot Martin was "a physical impossibility," and that he
exaggerated his wounds.
After listening to an
hour and a half of arguments from both sides, Judge Debra Nelson refused
to throw out the murder charge, saying the prosecution had presented
sufficient evidence for the case to go on.
Earlier
in the day, Sybrina Fulton introduced herself to the jury by describing
herself as having two sons, one of whom "is in heaven." She sat
expressionless on the witness stand while prosecutors played the 911
recording.
"Who do you recognize that to be?" prosecutor Bernie de la Rionda asked her.
"Trayvon Benjamin Martin," she replied.
During
cross-examination, O'Mara suggested - haltingly, in apparent
recognition of the sensitivity of the questioning - that Fulton may have
been influenced by others who listened to the 911 call, including
relatives and her former husband.
O'Mara asked
Fulton hypothetically whether she would have to accept that it was
Zimmerman yelling for help if the screams did not come from her son. He
also asked Fulton whether she hoped Martin didn't do anything that led
to his death.
"I would hope for this to never have happened and he would still be here," she said.
O'Mara
asked Jahvaris Fulton why he told a reporter last year that he wasn't
sure if the voice belonged to Martin. Jahvaris Fulton explained that he
was "shocked" when he heard it.
"I didn't want to believe it was him," he said.
The
doctor who performed an autopsy on Martin also took the stand.
Associate Medical Examiner Shiping Bao started describing Martin as
being in pain and suffering after he was shot, but defense attorneys
objected and the judge directed Bao away from that line of questioning.
He
later estimated that Martin lived one to 10 minutes after he was shot,
and said the bullet went from the front to the back of the teen's chest,
piercing his heart.
"There was no chance he could survive," Bao said.
With
jurors out of the courtroom, Bao acknowledged under defense questioning
he had changed his opinion in recent weeks on two matters related to
the teen's death - how long Martin was alive after being shot and the
effect of marijuana detected in Martin's body at the time of his death.
Bao
said last November that he believed Martin was alive one to three
minutes. He also said Friday that marijuana could have affected Martin
physically or mentally; he said the opposite last year.
The
judge ruled before the trial that Martin's past marijuana use couldn't
be introduced, and so the jury did not hear Bao's opinion about the
drug's effect.
