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| George Zimmerman waits for his defense counsel to arrive in Seminole circuit court for his trial, in Sanford, Fla., Monday, June 24, 2013. Zimmerman has been charged with second-degree murder for the 2012 shooting death of Trayvon Martin. |
SANFORD, Fla.
(AP) -- George Zimmerman was fed up with "punks" getting away with
crime and shot 17-year-old Trayvon Martin "because he wanted to," not
because he had to, prosecutors argued Monday, while the neighborhood
watch volunteer's attorney said the killing was self-defense against a
young man who was slamming Zimmerman's head against the pavement.
The
prosecution began opening statements in the long-awaited murder trial
with shocking language, repeating obscenities Zimmerman uttered while
talking to a police dispatcher moments before the deadly confrontation.
The
defense opened with a knock-knock joke about the difficulty of picking a
jury for a case that stirred nationwide debate over racial profiling,
vigilantism and Florida's expansive laws on the use of deadly force.
"Knock. Knock," said defense attorney Don West.
"Who is there?"
"George Zimmerman."
"George Zimmerman who?"
"All right, good. You're on the jury."
Zimmerman,
29, could get life in prison if convicted of second-degree murder for
gunning down Martin on Feb. 26, 2012, as the unarmed black teenager,
wearing a hoodie on a dark, rainy night, walked from a convenience store
through the gated townhouse community where he was staying.
The
case took on racial dimensions after Martin's family claimed that
Zimmerman had racially profiled Martin and that police were dragging
their feet in bringing charges. Zimmerman, whose mother is Hispanic and
whose father is white, has denied the confrontation had anything to do
with race.
Prosecutor John Guy's first words
to the jury recounted what Zimmerman told a dispatcher in a call shortly
after spotting Martin: "F------ punks. These a-------. They always get
away."
Zimmerman was profiling Martin as he
followed him, Guy said. He said Zimmerman viewed the teen "as someone
about to a commit a crime in his neighborhood."
"And he acted on it. That's why we're here," the prosecutor said.
Zimmerman didn't have to shoot Martin, Guy said. "He shot him for the worst of all reasons: because he wanted to," he said.
The
prosecutor portrayed the watch captain as a vigilante, saying,
"Zimmerman thought it was his right to rid his neighborhood of anyone
who did not belong."
West told jurors a
different story: Martin sucker-punched Zimmerman and then pounded the
neighborhood watch volunteer's head against the concrete sidewalk, and
that's when Zimmerman opened fire.
Showing the
jury photos of a bloodied and bruised Zimmerman, the defense attorney
said, "He had just taken tremendous blows to his face, tremendous blows
to his head."
West said the story that Martin
was unarmed is untrue: "Trayvon Martin armed himself with a concrete
sidewalk and used it to smash George Zimmerman's head."
The
prosecutor, however, disputed elements of Zimmerman's story, including
his claim that Martin put his hands over Zimmerman's mouth and reached
for the man's gun. Guy said none of Zimmerman's DNA was found on
Martin's body, and none of the teenager's DNA was on the weapon or the
holster.
But West said that doesn't prove
anything, arguing that crime-scene technicians didn't properly protect
Martin's hands from contamination.
Two police
dispatch phone calls that could be important evidence for both sides
were played for the jury by the defense. Martin's mother, Sybrina
Fulton, left the courtroom before the second recording, which has the
sound of the gunshot that killed Martin.
The first was a call Zimmerman made to a nonemergency police dispatcher, who told him he didn't need to be following Martin.
The
second 911 call, from a witness, captures screams in the distant
background from the struggle between Zimmerman and Martin. Martin's
parents said the screams are from their son, while Zimmerman's father
contends they are his son's.
Circuit Judge
Debra Nelson ruled last weekend that audio experts for the prosecution
won't be able to testify that the screams belong to Martin, saying the
methods used were unreliable.
On Monday, one
of the first witnesses for the prosecution was a custodian of police
dispatch calls. During the witness' testimony, prosecutors started
playing police calls Zimmerman had made in the months before he shot
Martin. The defense objected, arguing the calls were irrelevant.
The
judge said she would address the matter Tuesday and sent the jurors to
the hotel where they are being sequestered for the duration of the
trial, which could last several weeks
Other
witnesses who testified Monday included a convenience store clerk and
the 911 dispatcher who took Zimmerman's call when he was following
Martin. Martin had gone to the convenience store to buy Skittles and a
can of iced tea.
The 911 dispatcher, Sean Noffke, testified that he had advised Zimmerman not to follow Martin.
Randy
McClean, a criminal defense attorney in Florida with no connection to
the case, called the prosecution's opening statement "brilliant" in that
it described Zimmerman's state of mind. But he described the
knock-knock joke as less than stellar.
"If you're defending your client for second-degree murder, you probably shouldn't start your opening with a joke," McClean said.
One thing missing on Monday was visible demonstrations outside the courthouse.
Late Monday, the Seminole County NAACP held a town hall meeting at a church near a memorial site for Martin.
Martin
family attorney Benjamin Crump, who as a potential witness in the case
can't be present in the courtroom until he testifies, told the crowd
that the outcome of the case would have far-reaching implications.
"It
became a civil rights matter the night the police did not arrest the
killer of an unarmed child," Crump said.
"It's going to be a litmus test
to show how far we have come."
