The motion was submitted by the defense attorneys and today, the judge in the Renisha McBride case denied that motion to remove herself from the case.
Wayne County Circuit Judge Qiana Lillard rejected the motion filed by Theodore Wafer’s attorneys, who argued that her previous employment with the prosecutor’s office and associations with employees create an appearance of impropriety. Lillard was a prosecutor for more than eight years before Gov. Rick Snyder appointed her to the bench last August.
Wafer is charged with second-degree murder after shooting Renisha McBride, 19, at his Dearborn Heights home. He said he believed McBride wanted to break in. Prosecutors say Wafer should have kept the door shut and called police instead of shooting. McBride was drunk and in a car crash three hours earlier.
It is now 6:20PM, and the Jury in the Zimmerman Trial is waiting for more instructions on the manslaughter charge. The judge called all necessary participant to the court about a half an hour ago, and advised them that the Jury had sent a note.
The note read:
May we please have clarification on the instructions regarding manslaughter?
An educated guess would be that there is agreement among the jury on the more serious charge of second degree murder and need to know more about the manslaughter charge. If they find Zimmerman guilty of manslaughter, that charge carries a punishment of 30 years on jail.
The Judge has ordered a temporary recess as the Jury’s note is looked at.
Apparently, a teenager realizing that a strange man is following him should not stand his ground and defend himself if he has to.
And if the strange man follows the teenager, pulls out a gun and kills the teen for defending himself, then the strange man’s lawyer gets to blame the murder of the teenager on the teenager.
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.”
Instead, O’Mara said, Martin attacked Zimmerman
The New York Daily News reports as Zimmerman’s trial closed Friday, his defense lawyer declared in summation that the unarmed Martin was to blame .
“We know he had the opportunity to go home, and he didn’t do that,” Mark O’Mara said, brazenly turning the world on its head . “The person who decided to make the night violent was the guy who didn’t go home when he had the chance.”
“F**king punks, these a**holes always get away.” Those were the words spoken by prosecutor John Guy during his opening statements this morning as the murder trial of George Zimmerman began in Sanford, Florida. These exact words are, of course, the ones that came out of Zimmerman’s mouth during a 911 phone call he made to say that then-17-year-old Trayvon Martin was in his gated community acting suspiciously.
Guy and the rest of the prosecution are out to prove that not only did Zimmerman follow and shoot Martin because he unfairly profiled him as someone who would possibly commit a crime, but that he shot the teen because he “wanted to.”
“George Zimmerman didn’t shoot Trayvon Martin because he had to. He shot him for the worst of all reasons – because he wanted to.” The prosecutor also took time to poke holes in Zimmerman’s account to police about what happened on that fateful night in February. Guy claimed that statements made saying Martin had his hand over Zimmerman’s mouth aren’t true seeing as Zimmerman’s DNA wasn’t found on Martin’s body, and the teen’s DNA wasn’t found on Zimmerman’s gun or holster, refuting claims that Martin got his hands on Zimmerman’s firearm during their fight, according to Guy.
The screams are clearly coming from a distraught male, whose repeated cries for help end abruptly with a gunshot. What is not clear from a recording of a 911 call, however, is the identity of the screamer: George Zimmerman, the volunteer community watchman, or Trayvon Martin, the unarmed 17-year-old he killed that night.
While jurors in Mr. Zimmerman’s second-degree-murder trial, in which opening statements are scheduled for Monday, may get to hear the recording in court, they will not hear the opinions of two audio experts for the prosecution about who the screamer is, or is not. One concluded that the voice was not Mr. Zimmerman’s; the other said it was very likely Mr. Martin’s.
In an order released on Saturday, the judge in the case, Debra S. Nelson, excluded their testimony. She said the science supporting the experts’ analyses “is not as widely accepted at this time” as the more established methods relied on by defense witnesses who said it was impossible to conclude whose voice it was.
A neighbor made the 911 call on Feb. 26, 2012, during the fatal encounter between Mr. Zimmerman, who is Hispanic, and Mr. Martin, who was black and was returning to a home where he was staying after buying snacks. Citing Mr. Zimmerman’s claims of self-defense, the police did not arrest him for six weeks, setting off protests nationwide.
With just a few weeks before his second degree murder trail is set to begin, George Zimmerman’s defense team has hit another barrier. Earlier today (May 28) a judge barred the admission of Trayvon Martin’s text messages, social media posts, and other records during the trial.
Zimmerman’s team wanted to use the evidence to paint Martin as more of an aggressor than a victim. In looking into his previous school suspension records, alleged Mary Jane smoking, and other damaging actions, the defense hoped to prove that the accused killer shot Martin, 17, out of self defense.
“There’s is certainly enough evidence….that’s going to suggest Trayvon Martin involved himself longingly with fighting with other people,” Zimmerman’s lead attorney Mike O’Mara said.
Although the ruling is a blow, it may not be permanent.
Judge Debra Nelson said that during the trial she will consider motions to admit details as evidence on a case-by-case basis, outside the presence of jurors who will decide if Zimmerman is guilty of second-degree murder in the shooting death of Martin.
Capping a slew of rulings on pre-trial motions, Nelson rejected a defense request for a trial delay and ruled that jury selection will begin June 10.
“This case has dragged on long enough,” prosecutor Bernie de la Rionda said in arguing for the trial to start as scheduled.
Over the course of two hours, Nelson granted numerous motions by prosecutors, who argued that details of the slain teen’s past are not be relevant to the Feb. 26, 2012, confrontation between Zimmerman and Martin and should not be discussed before the jury.
This isn’t the first time that Martin’s personal life has seeped into the media, as well as Zimmerman’s. Since the February 2012 incident, both have had unknown public records dragged into the spotlight, but it is unclear if any of the evidence will sway jurors in either direction.
A Philadelphia jury has found Dr. Kermit Gosnell guilty on three of four counts of first-degree murder, the Philadelphia Inquirer and NBC News report.
Gosnell, a longtime abortion provider, was accused of killing four babies and one female patient, among numerous other charges. Gosnell was acquitted in the fourth baby’s death.
The jury reached the verdict Monday after initially splitting on two of the over 200 counts in the case, including racketeering and conspiracy charges, as well as abortion law violations.
A Philadelphia abortion doctor was found guilty Monday of first-degree murder and could face execution in the deaths of three babies who authorities say were delivered alive and then killed with scissors at his grimy clinic, in a case that became a flashpoint in the nation’s debate over abortion.
Dr. Kermit Gosnell, 72, was cleared in the death of a fourth baby, who prosecutors say let out a soft whimper before he snipped its neck.
Gosnell was also found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the drug-overdose death of a patient who had undergone an abortion.
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