JackFrost
Banned
- Joined
- Jul 12, 2012
- Messages
- 3,471
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- El Monte, California
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- Political Leaning
- Libertarian
George Zimmerman's attorney today filed paperwork, asking the judge to allow jurors to leave the courthouse during the trial and travel to the Sanford neighborhood where the defendant killed Trayvon Martin.
That would allow jurors to better understand the vantage point of individual eye- and ear-witnesses, many of whom are expected to describe what they saw and heard, wrote defense attorney Mark O'Mara.
None saw or heard the entire altercation, he noted.
"In this way, the jury can best decide how reliable each witness' testimony is," he wrote.
Zimmerman is the Neighborhood Watch volunteer who shot Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black 17-year-old, Feb. 26, 2012, in Sanford after calling police and describing him as suspicious.
O'Mara's latest request is unusual but not unprecedented. Typically, when a judge agrees to such an outing, he or she orders a van or bus to transport jurors together to the scene, allows them to get out, look around then orders them back on board and returns them to the courthouse.
It can be an eerily quiet undertaking. Attorneys often go along, often in separate vehicles, but they are not allowed to talk to jurors or point out things while at the scene.
According to O'Mara's motion, state law requires the judge and defendant to be present, but it's up to the judge to decide whether attorneys will be allowed to accompany them.
O'Mara wrote that he wants to go along, to make sure the scene has been properly secured and that the process works the way it's supposed to.
George Zimmerman trial - OrlandoSentinel.com
A good idea regardless of which side you support or believe.