{"id":46330,"date":"2013-06-29T04:50:37","date_gmt":"2013-06-29T03:50:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/will-zimmerman-be-acquitted\/46330\/"},"modified":"2013-06-29T04:50:37","modified_gmt":"2013-06-29T03:50:37","slug":"will-zimmerman-be-acquitted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/will-zimmerman-be-acquitted\/","title":{"rendered":"Will Zimmerman Be Acquitted?"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n by Alex Newman
<\/span>The
\n New American<\/i><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n \"\"<\/a>
\n <\/p>\n

The prosecution\u2019s
\n \u201cstar witness\u201d against former neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman,
\n accused of murder in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, endured
\n an embarrassing grilling both inside the Florida courtroom and in
\n the national media. From potentially incriminating social-media
\n posts publicized by reporters to major gaffes during her testimony,
\n Rachel Jeantel, 19 (shown), has sparked even more criticism of what
\n legal experts say appears to be an overzealous bid to convict Zimmerman
\n regardless of the
\n evidence<\/a> supporting his claims of self-defense. <\/span><\/p>\n

First, reporters uncovered<\/a>
\n a Twitter account used by Jeantel, who was on the phone with Martin
\n shortly before he was killed and has been repeatedly described as
\n prosecutors\u2019 \u201cstar\u201d witness in the case. While dozens of the expletive-laced
\n and potentially incriminating messages were deleted or \u201cscrubbed\u201d
\n in recent days, the controversial posts were captured by journalists
\n before being taken down. Jeantel tweeted about everything from \u201cgetting
\n high\u201d and drug use to underage drinking and apparent drunk driving.\n <\/p>\n

Inside the courtroom, matters went even worse for prosecutors. Among
\n other controversies, the key witness was forced to admit in cross-examination
\n that she could not understand the handwriting in a letter that she
\n supposedly \u201cwrote\u201d about the killing. \u201cI don\u2019t read cursive,\u201d she
\n responded when Zimmerman\u2019s defense attorney asked Jeantel if she
\n could read the document. The witness claimed that a friend had helped
\n her write it, but media accounts said<\/a>
\n the explosive revelation sent a \u201chush\u201d through the courtroom. <\/p>\n

Jeantel\u2019s testimony also revealed other major holes in the prosecution\u2019s
\n case. For example, while the establishment media and race-profiteers
\n have been fiendishly trying to paint Zimmerman, who is Hispanic,
\n as a racist, Jeantel said that Martin had in fact made a racist
\n comment about Zimmerman over the phone. According to the witness,
\n Martin told her there was a “creepy-a** cracker” following him.
\n Cracker, of course, is generally considered a racist
\n term<\/a> used to describe whites. <\/p>\n

There were also some apparent contradictions in Jeantel\u2019s story
\n \u2013 major ones. During her testimony, for instance, she claimed
\n that shortly before the shooting, she heard Martin ask Zimmerman
\n \u201cwhy are you following me?\u201d After that, Jeantel claimed she heard
\n Martin tell Zimmerman to \u201cget off!\u201d Under cross-examination by the
\n defense, however, Jeantel alleged that she had not mentioned the
\n supposed remarks in earlier statements because she did not think
\n they were important. In a taped interview with prosecutors before
\n the trial, Jeantel had also said she \u201ccouldn\u2019t hear\u201d Martin tell
\n Zimmerman to get off. <\/p>\n

While on the witness stand, Jeantel even admitted to telling several
\n lies under
\n oath<\/a>. Defense attorney Don West pointed out that the witness,
\n who had known Martin since elementary school, lied to Martin\u2019s mother
\n about her age, claiming she was 16 when she was in fact two years
\n older than that. Jeantel also told Martin\u2019s mother that she did
\n not attend the funeral due to hospitalization, which was untrue
\n as well. The witness claimed the lies were told because of how she
\n felt. <\/p>\n

Unsurprisingly, defense attorneys seized on the testimony to argue
\n that Jeantel was an unreliable witness. West, co-counsel for Zimmerman,
\n also suggested that Jeantel did not call the police after hearing
\n the confrontation \u201cbecause Trayvon Martin started the fight, and
\n you knew that.” Jeantel responded by denying the accusation and
\n saying she did not know what West was talking about. Eventually,
\n Jeantel was finally forced to admit under oath that she did not
\n know who started the fight. <\/p>\n

In the court of public opinion, meanwhile, the \u201cstar\u201d witness was
\n being grilled as well. The Smoking Gun, an online service that publicizes
\n \u201cexclusive documents,\u201d managed to track down Jeantel\u2019s profiles
\n on social media services. In a series<\/a>
\n of explosive
\n reports<\/a>, the site exposed numerous Twitter posts by the witness
\n that were embarrassing at the very least \u2013 and incriminating
\n at worst. The account was promptly scrubbed, but the damage was
\n done. <\/p>\n

\u201cParty time let get high,\u201d one of the posts read. Another said:
\n \u201cOmg everybody high\u201d followed by \u201cLol we going to hell for smoke
\n on Sunday I need some more drink.\u201d Separate tweets apparently referring
\n to driving while under the influence were also deleted. \u201cI hope
\n I dnt hit no one tonight lord plz watch my driving,\u201d Jeantel reportedly
\n wrote. \u201cJust got home thank u lord good night,\u201d she added later.
\n Numerous pictures and expletive-filled comments were deleted as
\n well.<\/p>\n

Read
\n the rest of the article<\/b><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

June
\n 29, 2013<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Copyright
\n \u00a9 2013 The New American<\/a>
\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

Republished with permission from:: Lew Rockwell<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Alex NewmanThe New American The prosecution\u2019s \u201cstar witness\u201d against former neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman, accused of murder in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, endured an embarrassing grilling both inside the Florida courtroom and in the national media. From potentially incriminating social-media posts publicized by reporters to major gaffes during her testimony, Rachel Jeantel, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-46330","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-breaking-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46330\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}