ZIMMERMAN TRIAL UPDATE: POLAR BEAR HUNTING IS ILLEGAL IN FLORIDA

Arctic wildlife in jeopardy in the sunshine state?  What kind of hokum-sounding metaphor is that?  I’ll tell you, but first you have to wade through some legal swamps.

If I had to give you a Twitter-length summation of today’s highlights in the legal fiasco of this young century, it would be as follows:

Prosecution has no solid evidence, defense continues to triumph despite hostile judge. Z’s best friend wrote a book. TM tried to kill Z. 

Or,#zimmermantrial Update-prosec has no evidence, dfens continues 2 triumph despite hostile judge. Z’s BFF wrote a book. TM tried 2 kill Z.

That’s right troopers, 140 characters can and do capture the essential events of today’s courtroom testimony.  But if you need a bit more detail, it goes like this:

Prosecutor Bernie de la Rionda spent most of the morning loudly and belligerently trying, and failing, to get detective Serino (back for an encore after yesterday’s gritty gumshoe turn) to say Zimmerman did anything other than tell the whole truth in repeatedly presenting his account of the incident.

Then, Zimmerman’s best friend Mark Osterman, who has been a cop for twenty years, was put on the stand by the prosecution, only to be raked over the coals by de la Rionda himself as to very slight and inconsequential discrepancies in his published tale of the night in question, compared to Zimmerman’s numerous recorded interviews.

De la Rionda tried especially hard to make something out of the fact that Osterman wrote of Trayvon Martin actually getting his hand physically on part of Zimmerman’s gun, whereas nowhere in his statements did Zimmerman himself specifically say that Martin had succeeded in making contact with any part of the gun when Martin reached for it.

The rest of the day was spent with wizard-like defense attorney Mark O’Mara debunking medical examiner Dr. Valerie Rao’s ambivalence about the causes and seriousness of the wounds and trauma to Zimmerman’s head, especially in terms of what a reasonable person would perceive to be a threat to their life in the process of receiving the blows, lacerations, and so forth that Zimmerman almost didn’t survive.

The state then made an attempt to have Zimmerman’s college records of criminal justice courses taken, his unsuccessful application to become a police officer when he lived in Virginia, and his request to do a “ride-along” shift with Sanford police admitted as evidence.  De la Rionda’s intent, obviously, is to try to depict Zimmerman as an overzealous “wanna-be.”  There will be a hearing tomorrow as to whether the subject matter will be admitted.  O’Mara’s assertion is that it would be largely irrelevant and time-consuming to debate it, but also that it can also easily be seen by the jury as mere further positive indication that Zimmerman was interested in helping his community.

Then there was some fairly inconsequential testimony from a latent fingerprint expert about why no useable prints of any kind were found on Zimmerman’s gun.

So again, just as since the first witness was called, we see the prosecution putting up witness after witness who merely wind up bolstering the defense.  Hmmm.

In related news, Florida State’s Attorney Angela Corey (who filed the murder charge in the non-case) has been indicted by a citizen-organized grand jury, for malicious prosecution and for falsifying the arrest warrant and complaint against Zimmerman.  We’ll see if anything comes of that.

Meanwhile, the brilliant bloggers at The Conservative Treehouse reminded us afresh that the black funeral director (who appears to be in cahoots with Martin family attorney Benjamin Crump’s “scheme team”) lied about the autopsy results on Trayvon Martin’s body–specifically, regarding the extent of bruises and cuts on Martin’s hands consistent with raining blows onto Zimmerman’s cabeza, and about the brain and liver damage found in Martin consistent with prolonged use of the homemade street drug DXM, also known as “lean,” aka “purple drank.”