It’s time for some more sporadic, erratic, and scatter shot commentary on the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin trial. I hope Jack Shafer won’t be too hard on me for watching it, albeit on MSNBC and not CNN. Btw, Jack, CNN did wall-to-wall coverage of the OJ trial back when they were an outstanding news organization. It’s a live event boy-o, deal with it.
Random comment time. Guess I’m still having Mad Men withdrawals:
The defense is ahead on points. They’ve done a good job at muddying the waters, blowing smoke and whatever other legal analyst cliche you care to use. The only mistake they’ve made in presenting their case was in putting Trayvon’s father on the stand.
According to the defense, George Zimmerman is a pussy, who is not a racist and has many people who like him, and are convinced that it’s his voice on the 911 recording. I’m not.
The defense is winning the war of the medical experts. The local ME, Dr. Bao, was assigned the autopsy before the case became a big deal, which means he’s low on the totem pole at the office, as it were. (Uh oh, sound like Tonto.) The defense’s expert, Dr. Vincent Di Maio, was an awesome witness: authoritative, charming, polite, and funny. He’s also got a heavy Noo Yawk accent, which made his testimony even more entertaining. Again, I’m not sure I agree with his conclusions BUT he was the sort of witness who plays well with jurors.
Frankly, I don’t believe Zimmerman’s story. He appears to have deliberately gained over 100 pounds in an effort to appear like a out of shape wimp who was afraid of the big bad black kid. I hope he’ll be convicted but the prosecution better have a helluva closing argument or he’s likely to walk.