There’s a good possibility that no one will ever know exactly what happened at the moment of the shooting of Trayvon Martin in Florida. What happened in the minutes leading up to the shooting, and the seconds after the shooting, may be the closest thing to really knowing. This also means the role of the criminal defense attorney is testing the limits of two witnesses to those two moments of time. The testimony of these two very different prosecution witnesses was strongly questioned in court by the criminal defense attorney. The first witness eventually conceded some important ground under questioning, The second witness, a friend of Trayvon Martin’s, also showed the growing importance of cell phones and recorded 9-1-1 calls in modern crime.
The first witness was a neighbor, called by the prosecution, to testify about who was screaming for help at the scene. At first, the neighbor, who insisted “the voice” she heard calling for help must have been that of Trayvon. At the trial, under the intense questioning of the criminal defense attorney, the neighbor admitted the voice calling for help “could have” been that of a man with a high-pitched voice. The admission was seen as an important point by the criminal defense attorney to make the state meet its burden of proof.
Described as the prosecution’s “star witness,” the second witness testified that she had been on the phone with Trayvon in the minutes leafing up to the shooting. But the criminal defense attorney had more success in shaking another part of the second witness’s testimony. The second witness had earlier said the voice captured on the 911call was Trayvon’s voice. At trial, it was pointed out by the criminal defense attorney that the unidentified voice (described by the second witness as a sort of “baby” voice) heard on the 911 tape could have been George Zimmerman. Once again, showing the limits of a witness’s actual knowledge is something requiring the skills of an experienced criminal defense attorney.
