tv Anderson Cooper 360 CNN July 9, 2013 1:00am-2:01am PDT
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secrets. right here tomorrow night. and irson cooper starts right now. friends of george zimmerman testify. a witness for the defense. a big ruling from the bench. good evening. welcome to another special report, self-defense or murder, the george zimmerman trial. the judge this afternoon allowing attorneys for george zimmerman to introduce evidence that trayvon martin had thc in his system, the active ingredient in marijuana when he died. how significant that is remains to be seen. we'll talk about that in the hour ahead. prosecutors fought hard to keep the evidence out, calling it a back doorway of tarnishing trayvon martin's character in the eyes of the jury. zimmerman's drug use has always come up showing that he was on anxiety and sleep medications on the night of the shooting.
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there's yet to be a ruling on the admissibility of that. and also powerful testimony as well. a lot to get to in the hour ahead. martin savidge reports. >> reporter: it was another remarkable moment. the father of trayvon martin taking the stand, questioned by the attorney defending the killer of his son. earlier two police investigators testified that just days after the shooting, they played tracy martin the 911 call containing screams and a gunshot from that night. both said tracy martin unequivocally told them it was not trayvon he heard screaming. on the stand martin testified that he hadn't said that and said he was not certain. >> what was going through your mind when you were listening to that? >> basically i was listening to my son's last cry for help, i was listening to his life being taken and i was coming and
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trying to come to grips that trayvon was here no more. >> the defense had spent much of the morning hammering home a version of who was screaming for help. one after another, five friends of george zimmerman took the stand and asked the same question, gave the same answer. >> definitely rksz it's georgie. >> i thought it was george. >> when i heard the tape, my immediate was reaffectation that was george screaming for help. >> george zimmerman's voice. >> john donnelly, a friend of zimmermans, one like any witness said he had heard voices under similar stress as a medic in the vietnam war. >> when someone is in dire straits, whether it be combat or anything else, your voice obviously changes. i've heard a 250 pound man sound like a little girl screaming,
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and -- but before you get there, you know who he is. >> instead of the scream, the prosecution focused on zimmerman's language on his call to police, suggesting his use of profanity implied hatred, a key point when trying to prove second degree murder. >> it seemed to me like mr. de la riondo was trying to highlight it, make it sound heightened and i don't believe that way at all. i think it was more a statement. >> reporter: also called to testify was the owner of the gym where zimmerman trained in grappling and boxing for less than a year as part of a weight loss routine. >> what numbers would you assign to his abilities? >> .5. >> less than a one? >> yes. >> and he demonstrated the so-called ground and pound technique of fighting that a witness said he saw trayvon
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martin use when atop zimmerman on the night of the shooting. pollack said he's seen his shares of fight aftermaths and said after just days of the confrontation with trayvon martin zimmerman appeared black eyed and emotionally traumatized. >> let's bring in our panel, legal analyst and former federal prosecutor, sunny hostin, and jeffrey toobin. at the defen table danny and mark. forensic scientist here in manhattan. mark, let me start with you. tracy martin's testimony. do you think that mark o'mara scored the points that he wanted to? >> i think at first blush you'd say why would you ever do that? but if you think about it, i think what he was trying to do is set up the closing argument.
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he wants to argue later on, look, here's somebody who told the police initially that it wasn't him and now he's equivocating. obviously, whoever is listening is listening through the frakeswork he wanted to believe. mark telegraphed that's where he was in the press conference. it is a gutsy call, high risk/high reward in the sense that you never want to be looked at as having kind of beaten up on somebody who has gone through a tragedy like this and he didn't beat him up in any sense but the up side, i think, doesn't necessarily outweigh the potential for a down side here. >> danny, do you think the jury believes tracy martin when he says, no, the two police officers that testified are essentially wrong. it wasn't that i said i couldn't identify my son's voice, it's
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that i said i wasn't sure. >> that's a credibility determination. overall when we look at the defense, their strategy has been -- there's two ways you can go. you can say if there's something uncomfortable, we won't address it or you can meet it head on. yes, there is risk involving tracy martin. yes, it can seem inconsiderate. there's no question they've decided to meet everything head on. yes, they could be seen as a little too aggressive. they're aware he has inconsistencies and where they called one parent to say conclusively that was my son, this one wasn't so sure. >> his sadness on the stand was so palpable. i just want to play a little bit more of his testimony today. >> so they played then the cries for help and then you actually hear a shot; is that correct. >> correct. >> and am i correct in saying that you were in denial in not wanting to believe your son was dead. >> correct. >> this is a very emotional time while this was going on.
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i'm talking about the day the recording was played for you at the sanford police department, correct? >> correct. >> and as you described you pulled your chair back and in disbelief you were listening to voices for help and also more importantly the shot. >> that's correct. >> you realized that was the shot? >> that killed my son, yes. >> did you really know what to do at that point? >> no, i was -- my world was from that point until today, my world has just been turned upside down. >> you know, sunny, all of us are watching this trial on television don't see what you see because you're in the courtroom. how did the jury respond? do you think they took tracy martin's testimony at face value, that was he was in denial the first time he heard that phone call? >> absolutely. i think of all of witnesses that have testified about trayvon martin's voice, he seemed to be
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the most compelling. his sadness was so palpable. he's clearly in so much grief. he was very elegant on the witness stand and the jury was with him. they were leaning forward. one of the jurors just had her hand over her mouth like this, the entire time. i've got to tell you, i think the defense had a really good day today with a lot of their witnesses, but this was a bad call that they made, anderson. it's something that you just don't do. you don't call the victim's grieving father as your witness and try to catch him in some sort of discrepancy. it was just such a mistake. it really fell flat in the courtroom. i was watching that jury so closely and they were with tracy martin. >> mark, you argued the counter, which is at times you don't think you can tell -- a jury can be engaged but just from your
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own experience, you can't predict where that engagement leads. >> right. if somebody leans forward, i don't care who you are, you're going to feel for this man's pain. he's lost his son. anybody who has a son, it's unimaginable. so i get that. but i don't know that that means they're with him. and that's where i say that i just think sunny is so at this point emotionally involved in the prosecution's case -- >> that's not true. that's not true. >> she just can't see past it. >> sunny when you talk about this, you've referred to virtually every single trayvon martin relative, you've referred to by the term elegant. you have -- >> they are elegant. >> you are completely -- you have not referred to anybody in zimmerman's family that way. i understand that -- >> i also say that the defense had a good day. they had a good day today except for this. >> and i might agree with that but i'm saying the idea that somehow you're going to predict the jury by how they're reacting
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to a grieving father, i just don't buy that. >> they were with him. >> anderson? >> go ahead, jeff. >> well, we've now heard a lot of witnesses talk about whose voice this is, and i think the only reasonable reaction at this point is i don't know. i don't know whose voice it was. and i can't believe based on this testimony that the jury will be able to decide either, and i think that helps the defense because unless they can conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that it's trayvon martin's voice, it really doesn't help the prosecution. so here's an example where i think the burden of proof really does favor the defense because if it's mysterious, and frankly it's mysterious to me, i don't know whose voice it was, i think it's going to be mysterious to the jury. and that uncertainty will help the defense. >> as we heard from martin savidge's report, as i mentioned before, two investigators testified that tracy martin initially said it was not his
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son and then the defense attorney seemed to imply that he later told his lawyer to lie on his behalf about that change. i just want to play it for those who didn't see it. >> do you believe that the police lied when the two officers said that you said no about it being your son? >> objection, your honor. >> i'll do it this way. did you ever instruct your attorney ben crump -- you didn't have ben crump when you listened to the tape on the 28th. he was not your attorney at that point? >> no, he wasn't. >> later did you instruct him to say that the police lied when they said that you couldn't tell -- when they said that you had said no about your son's voice? did you instruct your lawyer to say that? >> i never instructed anyone to say anything. >> you never instructed ben crump to say anything about that? >> i never instructed anyone to say anything. >> do you agree with jeff that
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you have zimmerman's friends, you have tracy martin, you have sabrina fulton, george zimmerman's mother, do you agree with jeff that ultimately, the jurors are just going to say, look, i don't know? >> first, the defense put on some tremendous witnesses to counter trayvon martin's mother at the opening of their case. but jeff is right. even if we look at this like a wash, we can't figure out who it is, then when the jurors don't know something, they're going to be inclined to acquit. however, let's just assume for argument's sake that it is trayvon martin's voice on that call, then we have to ask what theory of facts does that fit into? i can't say the prosecution articulated a narrative. what exactly happened? if he was screaming, was he being beaten up? did george zimmerman hold a gun in front of him? we don't know. the more we say we don't know, when that door closes in the jury room and they say we don't know, that tends to lead towards a walk, a not guilty.
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>> mark? >> look, the idea -- and i know that jurors get instructed on it, they're supposed to keep their mind open until they go into the deliberation room. anybody who practices trial law will tell you is that what actually happens is they make up their mind virtually as soon as the opening statement is finished. what ends up actually happening is if they've made up their mind and almost every study shows that and virtually every case i've ever tried show that is, they're going to look at this case through the prism of what they believe. if they believe and they want to find him not guilty, zimmerman not guilty, they're going to believe that was zimmerman. if they're going to find him guilty, they're going to believe and say they believe that it was trayvon martin. so i'm not so sure it's as much of a wash as the prism through which they're listening or looking that the evidence. >> there is forensic stuff to talk about, the judge ruling that the presence of thc in
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trayvon martin's systems will be allowed in. the levels, how can you compare these levels? >> first of all, i think they had to bring it in because it's part of the autopsy report. it can't be separated. and the level is critical of course. 1.5 nanograms per milliliter, that's a very low level. it's a baseline level, especially for somebody smoking cannabis on a regular basis. if somebody were not smoking on a regular basis and just perhaps smoked a joint in the morning, about six or eight hours later they would have that level. >> but you can't tell whether or not trayvon martin smoked that day. >> you cannot tell, that's correct. >> typical systems are elevated respiration and heart rate. euphoria, anxiety, paranoia. this is true with the levels are
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higher. 1.5 nanograms is a very, very low amount. i think it's impossible to say whether or not there was any kind of mental influence or physical influence. and certainly if somebody is accommodated to smoking cannabis, they would not have any effect whatsoever with that level. >> i want to talk more about the pot question when we come back but we got to take a quick break. everyone stick around. let's dig deeper into the pot thing, the family and also after trayvon martin's father's testimony today, we'll expand on the question whether jurors sunny believes tonight are just as moved as court watchers may be. let us know what you're think. we'll talk about the trial during the commercial break. we'll be right back.
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a cry for help. it could help determine who is the aggressor. the judge has barred testimony on the audio but allowed friend toss take the stand. today the defense called five of his friends. >> do you know whose voice that is in the background screaming? >> yes, definitely it's georgie. >> and how do you know that? >> i just hear it. i hear him screaming. >> do you have an opinion of whose voice it is? >> i thought it was george. >> can you identify whose voice it was in the background? >> george's.
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>> whose voice do you believe that to be screaming for help? >> there's absolutely no doubt in my mind that it george zimmerman, and i wish to god i did not have that ability to understand that. >> we're back with the ponl. i want to start about that voice, again. first, let's start off talking about the thc. let me start with you, danny. during the commercial break you were talking about how the roles are reversed here talking about the marijuana in trayvon's system. >> the traditional roles are inverted. if this was a dui case, you better believe the prosecution, their position is always any amount of marijuana, for example in pennsylvania, you're driving
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automatically at the highest intoxication, you try making that i only had a teensy bit of marijuana, they're not listening. now it's the operation saying wait a minute, and it's true, just having a presence of thc in your system. if you have alcohol in your system, you are on some level intoxicated. if you had thc, that just means you are exposed to it or whatever you want to say. you had maureen in the last three, four, five days, but doesn't necessarily mean you're intoxicated in that moment of time. >> sunny, supporters of trayvon martin and his family and supporters say, look, this is a back door way of trying to slander trayvon martin or suggest something about his character. >> i think that's true. i mean, why else would the defense want that information?
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especially given the way i think our society views marijuana at this point, it's illegal in a couple of states, people sort of feel like it makes people more groovy, it, you know, could explain why he was getting candy and a watermelon iced tea. it doesn't make any sense other than it come in and trash the victim. and i think the trash the victim theme, it just never really works so i'm confused as to why they would want to put this in other than to try to argue that he was somehow paranoid or his perception was off in terms of describing zimmerman as creepy. but as dr. k. just said, there's so little that was found in his blood stream, that doesn't make sense to me. the only thing that makes sense to me is they want to trash the victim. it doesn't work. >> sunny, respectfully, law enforcement takes a different view, if you have any amount of
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marijuana, that's presumed statutorily you have bad decision making, especially when operating a motor vehicle. if you have marijuana in your system -- >> trayvon was walking, though. >> my point is the law recognizes -- it recognizes that it impairs your decision making. it impairs your decision making. so if it impairs your decision making, isn't it probative -- l moments beforal altercation, isn't it possible, sunny? >> i don't think so because of the level that was found in his blood. i mean, ask dr. k, he's sitting right next to you. it doesn't make a lot of sense. >> sunny, the problem is is there are dui lawyers all over florida tonight who have ordered the transcript of the prosecutor's argument in this case because they're going to throw it in the prosecutor's face every single day because -- >> and if we were talking about a dui case, that would make sense. >> it doesn't matter. they say they are impaired. that's the whole issue.
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and i think and i'm with you, sunny, because i've made this argument countless times that it probably doesn't impair but i guarantee you when you have those jurors and you're arguing to them in the closing argument and you start talking about the things that can be wrong with somebody and the paranoia, they're not going to get into all of, this they're not going to get into the weeds of all of this -- excuse the pun. they're going to understand he was on something and that something got out of control and he was going out to get sugar and most people are going to understand what was going on. >> jeff, i don't know of too many cases where pot is pointed at as making people violent. >> no. in fact, i think most people know that it tends not to make people violent, but it is illegal and it is a part of the medical report here, part of the autopsy report and i don't know how the judge could keep it out. i think this is one of the sort
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of uncomfortable paradoxes of this case -- >> so george zimmerman having some sleep drug or anti-anxiety drug in his system, does that need to be entered, too? >> i think it should be. it's part of the case. >> they didn't take his blood that night. >> one at a time. dr. kobilinsky, in terms of making somebody violent, i mean, there's not -- pot doesn't really -- unless it's like laced with pcp or something back in the day. >> if anything, it calms generally speaking. but people can get paranoid. but i think the answer to the question is quite simple. you cannot say to any medical degree of certainty whether he was affected mentally or physically. you simply can't say yes or no. we don't know enough about the history of his consumption of cannabis. >> everyone stay with us. up next, show and tell in front of the court. george zimmerman's defense attorney actually got down on the floor with zimmerman's
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athletic trainer to make point about his client's physical abilities. we'll talk about that when we come back. ahead. big plans. so when i found out medicare doesn't pay all my medical expenses, i looked at my options. then i got a medicare supplement insurance plan. [ male announcer ] if you're eligible for medicare, you may know it only covers about 80% of your part b medical expenses. the rest is up to you. call now and find out about an aarp medicare supplement insurance plan, insured by unitedhealthcare insurance company. like all standardized medicare supplement plans, it helps pick up some of what medicare doesn't pay. and could save you thousands in out-of-pocket costs. to me, relationships matter. i've been with my doctor for 12 years. now i know i'll be able to stick with him. [ male announcer ] with these types of plans, you'll be able to visit any doctor or hospital that accepts medicare patients.
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as we saw at the top of the program, part of the defense strategy was to show that george zimmerman was not the aggressor by focusing on his physical abilities. on the stand was his athletic trainer who called zimmerman a nice and pleasant guy, but a guy who was large and overweight, physically soft, who didn't know how to throw a punch after a year of boxing training. >> if you scale off on a scale of one, you're going to do a lot more work to get to ten. usually when you see an
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accomplished athlete when they come into the gym, they've already had a history as a child of all kind of athletics they've been exposed to. if you have an adult that hasn't had that type of background exposure, they're going to have a bit more work and probably are not going to get to the same degree of accomplishment that someone who that that childhood background has had. >> on that scale of one to ten, when george zimmerman first got to you, what numbers would you assign to his ability? >> .5. >> less than a one? >> yes. >> let's bring back or panel. at one point, jeff, during the testimony pollack actually stepped down from the stand to show a grappling move on the defense attorney. i just want to show this to our viewers. >> so a mounted position, i was in a position much like this. >> you said a moment ago your legs are outside of my hips, correct? >> yes, as opposed to a dart
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position, where i would be between his legs, which would be much more of this nature, where here he's going to be able to use his hands and legs and arms to defend, here he's not going to have the same ability to use the hands and legs to defend. here he'd only be able to use his hands and he'd be impaired because i'm going to have both my hands and legs available. >> jeff, what did you make of this guy as his testimony? >> well, it's the wimp defense. george is such a wimp that he was obviously getting beaten up and that's why he pulled a gun. i think it's perhaps marginally helpful. it's based entirely on speculation about what went on there. so, you know, i think there's probably not that much to it but, you know, to me what's much more significant is that there were grass stains on the back of zimmerman's shirt. that means he was on his back. as for whether he was a bad fighter or not, who knows. but the grass stains, that is i think very significant. >> and the defense seemed to
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really want the jury to here that zimmerman was out of shape. i just want to play this other exchange. >> as far as you had testified regarding his athleticism, what words within that context, how would you define george zimmerman? >> just physically soft. you know, he's not a, you know -- he was an overweight, large man when he came to us and a very, very nice man, pleasant man but predominantly fat, not a lot of muscle, not a lot of strength. >> after a while if i was george zimmerman i'd be like all right, i got it, i was out of shape! >> sunny, how did this play in court? >> it was so weird. the jury certainly listened to him. i thought the demonstration was kind of odd. i don't know that they understood why he was there. we know that one of the witnesses testified that he saw some sort of mma-style fighting
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and then you've got someone getting up on the stand saying, yeah, he was training at my gym, i'm some mma specialist, he trained two or three times a week, he was a diligent student and he was overweight. i don't know how that helps the defense. yeah, maybe he knew mma stuff and he was losing so he pulls out a gun. you can't bring a gun to a fist fight. so i almost think it helped the prosecution. and the looks on the jurors' faces to me seemed like they didn't get it either. it was an odd witness. >> danny, jeff makes the point that it is speculation what this guy was saying, he's down on the ground talking about two different kind of leg moves. >> the only reason in this trial we're only talking about mma is because of an off-hand comment by a witness with the last name of wood made a comment the other day. if he said i looked down and saw
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people river dancing down the walkway, we'd have people talking about river dancing. it on happened because a witness said it looked like a ground and pound. we saw from the demonstration a ground and pound is really a modified wrestling move. trials are amazing because you get this circus of coming in. this man saying zimmerman was a .05, i suspect everybody's a .05 to this guy. it is fascinating when you get in these experts. it's brilliant defense strategy. all of these witnesses they use them as a fact witness. i saw zimmerman, he was injured. they also use him for other purposes. this is a guy who was too soft. as jeffrey toobin said, he was a wimp, he couldn't have done this. and it also a great show. and o'mara is the kind of guy willing to get down on his back and get involved. demonstrations sear images into jurors' minds. i think they're very effective and that went very well. >> mark, have you found that demonstrations have an impact on the jury?
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>> yes, i've done the exact same thing that o'mara's done on at least 10, 15 occasions in murder cases where you have someone get down off the stand and demonstrate on me how they reenact it. i do it often with pathologists. having said that, what i hate about this and where the defense is right now is that people watching this are going to assume that most judges in most cases are going to let you go to this extent. most judges will not. most judge would have said sorry and excluded most, if not all of this. >> why? because it's speculative? >> because it's speculative number one. number two, its cumulative. there's no basis for it. this case would have been over three or four days ago if there was not tv cameras. a judge would have said you're done with, this you've made your case, i'm going to give you just this much more time.
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this is part of the downside of tv covering these things. >> jeff, do you agree with this? >> i don't think it's tv. i think judges have different styles. i think judge nelson who has done a wonder of job of moving this on, errs on the side of letting these events in. you could argue the thc is irrelevant. tomorrow she is weighing the computer simulation of how this attack could have taken place. i think most people wouldn't allow the jury within ten feet of that. it's ridiculous. here's a cartoon that shows how my client is innocent. i don't see how you can allow that. >> you can't allow that in. and part of the problem is you get these cases that become high profile and there's a tendency. i've been in the middle of it. you get into this psychosis almost of overtrying the case. both sides are guilty of it.
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i think this case has been terribly overtried at this point. it's enough. they've established what each of them need to establish. the fact that as commentators people are getting polarized shows it. this needs to get to the jury. everybody's made their point. >> i think you are getting polarized. >> we have 20 minutes. we have to take a quick break. i want to move on to what do jurors see when a mom or dad, close friend of the victim takes the stand. i also wanted to take you inside more of today's testimony. but they live so far away. i've been thinking about moving in with my daughter and her family. it's been pretty tough since jack passed away. it's a good thing you had life insurance through the colonial penn program. you're right. it was affordable, and we were guaranteed acceptance. guaranteed acceptance? it means you can't be turned down because of your health. you don't have to take a physical or answer any health questions.
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so much of this case revolves around the families of trayvon martin and george zimmerman. today as we mentioned the defense called trayvon martin father, tracy, who may have helped the prosecution with his powerful account of listening to the 911 call that caught the confrontation that left his son dead. >> i was listening to my son's last cry for help, i was listening to his life being taken, and i was coming trying to -- trying to come to grips that trayvon was here no more. it was -- it was just tough. >> it's hard as an observer not to be moved. the question is do jurors react the same way? some answers now from randi kay. >> reporter: duelling testimony from mothers on both sides over just who was screaming on that 911 call. >> ma'am, that screaming or yelling, do you recognize that? >> yes. >> and who do you recognize that
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to be, ma'am? >> trayvon benjamin martin. >> do you know whose voice that was screaming in the background? >> yes, sir. >> and whose voice was that? >> my son george. >> reporter: during emotional trials, family members are often star witnesses, put on the stand for their sometimes emotional insight in hopes of gaining favor with the jury. the question is is it effective? sometimes yes and sometimes no. >> a lot of times jurors will simply disregard family testimony because they simply believe there's so much bias involved that that's not a useful witness or necessarily a truthful witness. >> but that hasn't stopped attorneys from trying. sometimes the person testifying helps. after sentencing one of the killers to death, several jurors from a horrific triple murder case from cheshire, connecticut said they were amazed by the strength of the victim's husband and father in court. >> seeing him there, seeing his courage and seeing his strength after everything he's been
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through, that transferred to us. >> reporter: but it can be risky and back fire. after michael jackson was acquitted of child molestation charges, jurors said they had a hard time believing the accuser's own mother. >> we just couldn't buy the story of the mother for one. we just thought that she was not a credible person. >> in george zimmerman's case, both sides clearly see it as a risk worth taking. two members of his family have testified and three from trayvon martin's. >> as i said over and over, my best friend in life and to have him gone is -- is tragic. >> i was on the computer and that voice just came and hit me. it hit me the way that i heard that but more than heard that, i felt it inside of my heart. i says that is george. >> they've got to believe somebody and a lot of it simply goes down to credibility.
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>> reporter: and with a case where the facts remain so elusive, credibility may ultimately be the key. randi kay, cnn, new york. >> credibility of course is key for everybody who testifies. i want to bring back our panel, danny savalos, jeffrey tubin, sunny hostin, mark geragos. i want to talk about the credibility of another person who testified. i want to play part of this testify to our jurors, of the medical examiner. >> i believe he was alive for one to ten minutes after he was shot. his heart was beating until there was no blood left and then it stopped and it would be silent. >> this would be an obvious question.
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this was a fatal shot, is that correct? >> there is two holes on the right ventricle of the heart. there is no chance he can survive. no chance, zero. >> are you saying his brain is still technically alive, in other words? >> yes. >> that's what you mean by in terms of conscious, his brain is still live? >> yes. >> he can still feel pain in other words? >> yes. >> didn't he originally say trayvon martin was alive for one to three minutes? and now he said one to ten. >> he did, he did. that's correct. this testimony gave me agina. i just didn't quite follow what he was talking about. first of all, the heart can stop but of course can you resuscitate a person and live. so there's a physiological death when the heart stops but there's also brain death, which is the legal understanding of death. at that point there are no longer any brain waves, it's irreversible.
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and the way it happens is usually four or five minutes without oxygen to the entire brain starts the cells dying. and in a few more minutes, there's brain death. the issue of whether trayvon martin felt pain or not has to do with consciousness. how long was he conscious and feeling pain. so there's a lot of confusion here. the testimony was just awful. you could go unconscious in a minute or two, remain alive theoretically because there's still electrical activity in the brain. >> mark, what did you make of this witness? he was reading from his notes, which i haven't seen any other witness do and, frankly, does that help the credibility of somebody that they don't know the case well enough that they're reading from their notes? >> if i understood correctly, he said he changed his opinion because he came across another case that had a longer shelf life so to speak. >> somebody who was alive for ten minutes. >> for ten minutes. therefore, he went back and changed his opinion.
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by the way, without giving anybody any notice except the prosecutor, once again which tends to be the theme of the prosecution in this case in a trial by ambush. what i made of this witness was he was just trying to tailor his testimony to what his pay masters, the prosecution, wanted him to say. i thought it was abysmal. i can't believe that somebody who is a scientist would do that. generally when you have either a pathologist or a criminalist or anybody else, they're up there to tell what you the science of it is. they're not up there to be for one side or the other. they're supposed to be taking someone by definition what science says is an objective view of things. >> jeff, what did you think? >> i thought this was another example of how this case has been somewhat overtried. cause of death is not at issue here. everybody knows how trayvon martin died. it is not controversial.
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and i thought by asking him all these questions about how how long did he live, the prosecution just opened doors that they didn't need to open. this is a witness who should have been on and off the witness stand in ten minutes but by trying too hard to help the prosecution, and i think he did try too hard, he opened up attacks on his own credibility when he shouldn't have had to deal with it all. >> is part of the reason he was trying to establish how long trayvon was alive for to support the notion -- there's the disagreement over the position of trayvon martin's hands that apparently his hands were up front and george zimmerman claimed his hands were over his head but his hands were actually found underneath his body. is that part of why the amount of time would matter? >> yeah, i think that may go to part of the government's case, but i also think it was sort of the emotional piece of it, that he actually suffered, and that there was pain and suffering
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there. as a prosecutor, you do want that kind of evidence in front of the jury because you want to humanize trayvon martin, you want them to know what the victim felt, how the victim felt and that's why prosecutors generally ask those kinds of questions. but i've got to tell you, i think it was a disaster. i was in the courtroom for his testimony. he started out kind of okay and then he just became this loose cannon, he was going all over the place. but again, prosecutors don't get to pick the m.e.s that conduct the autopsy on the victim. you get what you get. i think they put him on the witness stand and were sort of caught flat footed by what he said. i don't think he was trying to help the -- i don't think the prosecution thought he was helpful to them. i think it was a disaster for them and they knew it would be. >> sunny, there's no reason in the world that i can think of that he would say ten minutes that would help the defense. the only reason i think of that he would say ten minutes he was still alive was precisely the reason you gave, which most
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prosecutors would want, is it adds to the emotional drama of the death. >> but you're suggesting that the government somehow fed him that or asked him to say that. i don't think anyone could control that witness. >> i am suggesting that what happens in courtrooms all throughout america is that prosecutors put on witnesses and they -- and the witnesses know what the prosecution wants and they testify and they tailor their testimony to it and i think that's what this witness was trying to do. >> everyone don't go away. i want to get your take on where the trial is headed to next. going pretty quickly if you ask mark. we'll be right back.
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day ten of a trial that was expected to move a whole lot slower than it has. back with our panel. mark, where do you see this thing going? how quickly do you think the defense is going to wrap this up? >> the defense is definitely going to be done this week. there's no question. mark, remember we said early on he's going to need bodyguards to stop from falling on his head in order to lose this case. he doesn't need to do much more to win this case. there's no way he's going to put george zimmerman on the stand, i'll increase the odds from 50 to 100% to anyone who wants to take this bet. jeff, i see you smiling. >> no, i'm with you on this. >> they're shutting this down my guess is by wednesday, thursday at the latest. >> sunny, do you believe they have proved guilt beyond a reasonable doubt of second degree murder? >> they've put enough evidence
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to get it before the jury. i mean, the judge ruled that. i think that the only question is whether or not the judge will instruct them on lesser includeds like manslaughter and if there are those on the jury that perhaps don't think second degree murder is appropriate, then all of them -- >> wait -- >> does anybody on this panel believe that they have proved second degree murder? sunny, you believe they have? >> yeah. i do. >> jeff, do you think the jury will -- do you think manslaughter or do you think george zimmerman will get off? >> i think manslaughter is very possible. predictions are not exactly a great skill of mine but i think manslaughter remains a possible verdict. not guilty all together remains possible. i think murder two is very unlikely. >> danny savalos, what do you
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think? >> the attorneys will say is any part of george zimmerman's defense argument is reasonable? can you disprove it beyond a reasonable doubt? if not, he walks. >> mark geragos, do you agree with that? >> was that an answer? >> i'm thinking he's think he's going to walk. i'm guessing that. >> not guilty. >> i was trying to be dramatic. >> i said this case was over ten days ago. it's only gotten worse for the prosecution. for sunny's point that the judge let this go to the jury, the standard is the defendant is breathing. >> we have to leave it there. following other stories, we have the 360 bulletin. video surfaced on youtube showing slides on the asiana
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airlines saturday. investigators are looking at the pilot experience and the slowing air speed as factors in the crash that killed two. at least 13 are dead and others missing when a train exploded saturday when firefighters put out hot spots. they are finding bodies, some too badly burned to identify. security forces -- 51 people were killed, 400 injured. morsi was removed from office and they demanded he be reinstated. edward snowden who has been weighing asylum options may go to venezuela. they received a formal asylum request from snowden today. bolivia and nicaragua also made offers. >> that does it for us. we'll be back at 10:00 p.m.
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i may have been through hell and back, but i am strong enough to walk through hell with a smile on my face. >> through hell and back with a smile. breaking overnight, the three cleveland women held prisoner for more than a decade break their silence. hear their voices for the first time in moments. >> stories of survival from the jet liner crash. new information about the crash and the truly amazing rescue. massacre in cairo. more than 50 dead, hundreds injured. is the situation there out of control? what the president is now saying about this bloodshed.
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