Lawyers for Zimmerman Rest Their Case Without Calling Him to the Stand

Lawyers for Zimmerman Rest Their Case Without Calling Him to the Stand

Lawyers for Zimmerman Rest Their Case Without Calling Him to the Stand

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Pool photo by Gary W Green

Mark O'Mara, a defense attorney, uses a foam dummy to describe the altercation between George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin.

By LIZETTE ALVAREZ

Published: July 10, 2013

SANFORD, Fla. — The defense in the George Zimmerman trial rested its case on Wednesday after days spent walking the jury through the foundation of his self-defense claim: his visible injuries, the mechanics of the fight and the contention that he was crying for help on a 911 recording.

Mr. Zimmerman, who is charged with second-degree murder in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, did not take the witness stand, a signal that his lawyers are confident that prosecutors have not overcome reasonable doubt in the case. Asking a defendant to testify is fraught with risk and, in this case, is mostly unnecessary.

The jury has already heard from Mr. Zimmerman, whose many statements to the police about the shooting were recorded and played in the courtroom, as was a televised interview that he gave to Sean Hannity.

After the defense’s last witness left the courtroom, Mr. Zimmerman was asked by Judge Debra S. Nelson whether he had come to a decision on whether he would take the stand.

“After consulting with counsel,” Mr. Zimmerman said, his decision was “not to testify, your honor.”

In a news conference after court recessed on Wednesday, Mark O’Mara, Mr. Zimmerman’s lawyer, said his client had wanted to take the stand.

“You know, a big part of him wanted to get in front of the jury and talk to them and say, ‘This is what I’ve done and this is why I did it,’” Mr. O’Mara said. “It was a very difficult decision for George to make.”

In the end, Mr. O’Mara said, Mr. Zimmerman listened to his lawyers, who had advised against it.

Under Florida law, prosecutors must prove that Mr. Zimmerman did not shoot Mr. Martin in self-defense on Feb. 26, 2012. That is a high bar in a case in which the defendant — the sole survivor of an encounter that no one clearly witnessed — contends that he feared being killed.

Defense lawyers also chose not to tell the jury about a toxicology report showing small amounts of marijuana found in Mr. Martin’s body. Mr. O’Mara said in the news conference that he decided not to bring up the marijuana because he has tried to balance defending Mr. Zimmerman without needlessly tarnishing Mr. Martin’s memory.

“It didn’t seem to be significant enough,” Mr. O’Mara said of the toxicology report.

With both sides having rested, the judge announced that the state had called 40 witnesses and the defense had called 19. The prosecution will present its closing statements Thursday, with the rest of the statements concluding Friday.

Robert Zimmerman, Mr. Zimmerman’s father, was the last person to take the stand for the defense on Wednesday. He recounted that he was asked by the police to listen to a recording of a 911 call in which a voice could be heard shouting for help during the fight that night. The police then asked him if he recognized the voice.

“I told them absolutely; it was my son, George,” Mr. Zimmerman said.

Over four days of testimony, the defense tried to convince the jury that Mr. Zimmerman shot and killed Mr. Martin only because Mr. Martin was on top of him, punching him and slamming his head into concrete. Mr. Zimmerman told the police that he feared for his life. Mr. Martin was unarmed as he walked back to the house in the gated community where he was a guest.

Prosecutors said Mr. Zimmerman, the volunteer neighborhood watch coordinator, “profiled” Mr. Martin, a black 17-year-old who was wearing a hoodie and walking in the rain. They contend that he pursued Mr. Martin and began the confrontation that ended in the teenager’s death. Although the issue of race rarely entered the proceedings, the case was propelled initially by civil rights leaders who viewed the handling of the case by the police as unjust.

To bolster its case, defense lawyers called a widely known expert in forensic pathology, who stated that the trajectory of the bullet and Mr. Zimmerman’s injuries were consistent with Mr. Zimmerman’s account of how the struggle unfolded. The lawyers also put on the stand nine people who identified the voice on the 911 call as Mr. Zimmerman’s. Relatives of Mr. Martin, however, said it was his voice on the recording.

Tracy Martin, Mr. Martin’s father, also was called to testify. Two police officers testified that two days after the shooting Mr. Martin said it was not his son screaming for help. But on the stand Mr. Martin told the jury that the police were wrong. Mr. Martin said he told the police that he could not tell whether it was his son’s voice.

About two weeks later, after he heard the recording of the 911 call again in the Sanford mayor’s office, where his family had gathered in private to listen to it, Mr. Martin identified it as his son’s voice.

Despite the fact that the defense called about half as many witnesses as the state, Mr. Zimmerman may have benefited from the testimony of several prosecution witnesses who appeared to bolster his self-defense claim.

On Wednesday, the defense also got the chance to remind the jury that Mr. Zimmerman’s town house development had experienced a rash of crime. This prompted Mr. Zimmerman to set up the neighborhood watch program, they said.

Olivia Bertalan testified that on Aug. 3, 2011, she was home with her baby when she saw two young men ringing her doorbell. They left and then came back. She ran upstairs and called the police. The youths came into her house, and as they rattled the doorknob of her son’s bedroom, she cowered in the corner, her baby in one hand and a rusty pair of scissors in another, she said.

One of the youths, a resident, did not enter the room, but stole her laptop and camera elsewhere in the house, and then left. He was later arrested and released because he was a minor. After she moved out, she received a letter saying he had been rearrested.

The day of the home invasion, Mr. Zimmerman came by to see how she was doing. He later brought her a second lock for her sliding glass door.

“I was very appreciative,” Ms. Bertalan said.

A version of this article appeared in print on July 11, 2013, on page A15 of the New York edition with the headline: Lawyers for Zimmerman Rest Their Case Without Calling Him to the Stand .