Florida boy killed by Neighborhood Watch (2 Viewers)

[BroadwayG]

Here, link is from Fox, so the mouthbreathers shouldn't take offense:

Zimmerman website shut down

Any point you'd like to make?

Not currently. Is posting news relevant to the thread wrong now?

Nope, just wondering.

 

[parasaurolophus]

Here, link is from Fox, so the mouthbreathers shouldn't take offense:

Zimmerman website shut down

Any point you'd like to make?

Not currently. Is posting news relevant to the thread wrong now?

perhaps he just figured you had other motives based on such a stupid disclaimer with your post

 

[kentric]

Body language expert.

Angry

Prediction #1: 75%+ of posters in this thread will dismiss the expert because it conflicts with their view.

Prediction #2: If Zimmerman is found not guilty, he will kill again.

If I posted something as ridiculous as this I'd be too ashamed to show my face here again. Which says alot considering the anonymity of internet sites.

I'll bump this post for you when he kills again.

LMAO. You kill me. oops...

 

[Christo]

I find it interesting that you didn't include paragraphs 8 and 9:

[8] The prohibition against offering or using false evidence applies only if the lawyer knows that the evidence is false. A lawyer’s reasonable belief that evidence is false does not preclude its presentation to the trier of fact. A lawyer’s actual knowledge that evidence is false, however, can be inferred from the circumstances. See Rule 1.0(k) for the definition of “knowledge.” Thus, although a lawyer should resolve doubts about the veracity of testimony or other evidence in favor of the client, the lawyer cannot ignore an obvious falsehood.

[9] Although paragraph (a)(3) prohibits a lawyer from offering or using evidence the lawyer knows to be false, it permits the lawyer to refuse to offer testimony or other proof that the lawyer reasonably believes to be false. Offering such proof may impair the integrity of an adjudicatory proceeding. Because of the special protections historically provided criminal defendants, however, this Rule does not permit a lawyer to refuse to offer the testimony of a criminal defense client where the lawyer reasonably believes, but does not know, that the testimony will be false. Unless the lawyer knows the testimony will be false, the lawyer must honor the criminal defendant’s decision to testify.

If he knows it's false, he can't let his client testify.

Nothing you've presented either conflicts what I quoted, supports your initial assertion, or supports your conclusion in this post. Try again.

Well, either you need to distinguish what I quoted or assert that the NY Bar Association has been publishing conflicting ethics standards for years.

Jesus, it's two distinctions I've already discussed. The baseline is that a lawyer can't put a client on the stand if he knows he's going to lie. If a client who's a criminal defendant insists upon lying, the lawyer can petition the court on his client's behalf and let the court decide whether the client can take the stand and lie. If the court grants permission, the lawyer does not ask questions because the testimony must be given as a narrative.No lawyer is going to allow his client get on the stand and lie.

Wow, that's really poor statutory reading. "We further note that not only has the narrative approach received approval in California (People v. Guzman, supra, 45 Cal. 3d 915; People v. Gadson, supra, 19 Cal. App. 4th 1700) but it has also been approved by several other jurisdictions (see Lowery v. Cardwell, supra, 575 F.2d 727, 731; Coleman v. State (Alaska 1980) 621 P.2d 869, 881; State v. Waggoner (1993) 124 Idaho 716, 721-722 [864 P.2d 162, 167-168]; People v. Taggart (1992) 233 Ill.App.3d 530, 558-559 [174 Ill.Dec. 717, 599 N.E.2d 501, 521]; Matter of Goodwin (1983) 279 S.C. 274, 277 [305 S.E.2d 578, 580]; State v. Layton (1993) 189 W.Va. 470, 484-485 [432 S.E.2d 740, 754-755] [". . . the trial court appropriately weighed the conflicting interests involved and, in this Court's opinion, adopted a procedure which allowed the defendant to testify, which shielded the attorney from unethical and illegal conduct, and which advanced the societal interest in the administration of justice"]; see also Com. v. Jermyn (1993) 533 Pa. 194, 200 [620 A.2d 1128, 1131]).

We conclude the narrative approach best accommodates the competing interests of the defendant's constitutional right to testify and the attorney's ethical obligations." People v. Johnson, 62 Cal.App.4th 608 (1998)

How does that contradict what I said? As a matter of fact, it looks like it supports it.

 

[dparker713]

I find it interesting that you didn't include paragraphs 8 and 9:

[8] The prohibition against offering or using false evidence applies only if the lawyer knows that the evidence is false. A lawyer’s reasonable belief that evidence is false does not preclude its presentation to the trier of fact. A lawyer’s actual knowledge that evidence is false, however, can be inferred from the circumstances. See Rule 1.0(k) for the definition of “knowledge.” Thus, although a lawyer should resolve doubts about the veracity of testimony or other evidence in favor of the client, the lawyer cannot ignore an obvious falsehood.

[9] Although paragraph (a)(3) prohibits a lawyer from offering or using evidence the lawyer knows to be false, it permits the lawyer to refuse to offer testimony or other proof that the lawyer reasonably believes to be false. Offering such proof may impair the integrity of an adjudicatory proceeding. Because of the special protections historically provided criminal defendants, however, this Rule does not permit a lawyer to refuse to offer the testimony of a criminal defense client where the lawyer reasonably believes, but does not know, that the testimony will be false. Unless the lawyer knows the testimony will be false, the lawyer must honor the criminal defendant’s decision to testify.

If he knows it's false, he can't let his client testify.

Nothing you've presented either conflicts what I quoted, supports your initial assertion, or supports your conclusion in this post. Try again.

Well, either you need to distinguish what I quoted or assert that the NY Bar Association has been publishing conflicting ethics standards for years.

Jesus, it's two distinctions I've already discussed. The baseline is that a lawyer can't put a client on the stand if he knows he's going to lie. If a client who's a criminal defendant insists upon lying, the lawyer can petition the court on his client's behalf and let the court decide whether the client can take the stand and lie. If the court grants permission, the lawyer does not ask questions because the testimony must be given as a narrative.No lawyer is going to allow his client get on the stand and lie.

Wow, that's really poor statutory reading. "We further note that not only has the narrative approach received approval in California (People v. Guzman, supra, 45 Cal. 3d 915; People v. Gadson, supra, 19 Cal. App. 4th 1700) but it has also been approved by several other jurisdictions (see Lowery v. Cardwell, supra, 575 F.2d 727, 731; Coleman v. State (Alaska 1980) 621 P.2d 869, 881; State v. Waggoner (1993) 124 Idaho 716, 721-722 [864 P.2d 162, 167-168]; People v. Taggart (1992) 233 Ill.App.3d 530, 558-559 [174 Ill.Dec. 717, 599 N.E.2d 501, 521]; Matter of Goodwin (1983) 279 S.C. 274, 277 [305 S.E.2d 578, 580]; State v. Layton (1993) 189 W.Va. 470, 484-485 [432 S.E.2d 740, 754-755] [". . . the trial court appropriately weighed the conflicting interests involved and, in this Court's opinion, adopted a procedure which allowed the defendant to testify, which shielded the attorney from unethical and illegal conduct, and which advanced the societal interest in the administration of justice"]; see also Com. v. Jermyn (1993) 533 Pa. 194, 200 [620 A.2d 1128, 1131]).

We conclude the narrative approach best accommodates the competing interests of the defendant's constitutional right to testify and the attorney's ethical obligations." People v. Johnson, 62 Cal.App.4th 608 (1998)

How does that contradict what I said? As a matter of fact, it looks like it supports it.

See anywhere in there where the attorney is required to obtain the court's permission to use the narrative approach? You'd do well to read the whole opinion though, you might actually understand the law on this topic afterwards.

 

[Christo]

Jesus, it's two distinctions I've already discussed. The baseline is that a lawyer can't put a client on the stand if he knows he's going to lie. If a client who's a criminal defendant insists upon lying, the lawyer can petition the court on his client's behalf and let the court decide whether the client can take the stand and lie. If the court grants permission, the lawyer does not ask questions because the testimony must be given as a narrative.

No lawyer is going to allow his client get on the stand and lie.

Wow, that's really poor statutory reading. "We further note that not only has the narrative approach received approval in California (People v. Guzman, supra, 45 Cal. 3d 915; People v. Gadson, supra, 19 Cal. App. 4th 1700) but it has also been approved by several other jurisdictions (see Lowery v. Cardwell, supra, 575 F.2d 727, 731; Coleman v. State (Alaska 1980) 621 P.2d 869, 881; State v. Waggoner (1993) 124 Idaho 716, 721-722 [864 P.2d 162, 167-168]; People v. Taggart (1992) 233 Ill.App.3d 530, 558-559 [174 Ill.Dec. 717, 599 N.E.2d 501, 521]; Matter of Goodwin (1983) 279 S.C. 274, 277 [305 S.E.2d 578, 580]; State v. Layton (1993) 189 W.Va. 470, 484-485 [432 S.E.2d 740, 754-755] [". . . the trial court appropriately weighed the conflicting interests involved and, in this Court's opinion, adopted a procedure which allowed the defendant to testify, which shielded the attorney from unethical and illegal conduct, and which advanced the societal interest in the administration of justice]; see also Com. v. Jermyn (1993) 533 Pa. 194, 200 [620 A.2d 1128, 1131]).

We conclude the narrative approach best accommodates the competing interests of the defendant's constitutional right to testify and the attorney's ethical obligations." People v. Johnson, 62 Cal.App.4th 608 (1998)

How does that contradict what I said? As a matter of fact, it looks like it supports it.

See anywhere in there where the attorney is required to obtain the court's permission to use the narrative approach? You'd do well to read the whole opinion though, you might actually understand the law on this topic afterwards.

I bolded it for you.Perhaps you should go back and read what both of us have posted. All of it clearly states that in order for any attorney to be covered the tribunal must order it.

The Florida Rule:

A lawyer may not offer testimony that the lawyer knows to be false in the form of a narrative unless so ordered by the tribunal.

Your earlier post:

You just quoted a rule of conduct that said when the court so orders a lawyer must due exactly that.

"A lawyer may not offer testimony that the lawyer knows to be false in the form of a narrative unless so ordered by the tribunal."

ETA: I think someone needs more Ethics CLE.

The note from the NY Rules of Professional Responsibility you quoted:

I havent needed to cite anything to dispute it. You did it for me. But if you want something more, try comment 7 of the New York Rules of Professional Responsibility 3.3

"If a criminal defendant insists on testifying and the lawyer knows that the

testimony will be false, the lawyer may have the option of offering the testimony in a narrative

form, though this option may require advance notice to the court or court approval. The lawyer’s

ethical duties under paragraphs (a) and (b) may be qualified by judicial decisions interpreting the

constitutional rights to due process and to counsel in criminal cases. The obligation of the

advocate under the Rules of Professional Conduct is subordinate to such requirements."

I do find it amusing that you keep refusing to acknowledge the majority rule.

 

[Christo]

And your California case isn't quite as convincing as you make it out to be on the issue of whether the attorney can just put his client up on the stand and let him lie in a narrative or whether court has to be involved:The defendant's attorney did bring the issue to the trial court's attention:

At trial, after the prosecution had completed its case-in-chief, defense counsel requested and was granted an in camera hearing. Johnson was present during the in-chambers conference. Defense counsel told the court he had "an ethical conflict" with Johnson about Johnson's desire to take the stand and testify. Defense counsel explained, "I cannot disclose to the court privileged communications relating to that, but I'm in a position where I am not willing to call Mr. Johnson as a witness despite his desire to testify." In response to the court's question, Johnson indicated defense counsel had accurately described the situation and defense counsel indicated he would "[n]ot voluntarily" call Johnson as a witness.

The trial court accepted the attorney's position that he could not put him on the stand:

"THE COURT: All right. I will note, then, that you believe that there are ethical reasons, strong ethical reasons, apparently, because otherwise we wouldn't be sitting in here right now,--"[DEFENSE COUNSEL]: Correct."THE COURT: --That cause you to come to the conclusion that you cannot under any circumstances call the client. And I will note that. And I will note that it's over his objection, and that he desires to testify."

The Appellate Court described some problems with the narrative approach:

This standard, adopting the free narrative approach "was not included in the 1980 second edition of the ABA Standards for Criminal Justice (hereafter ABA Standards). The editorial note to that edition explained, 'the question of what should be done in situations dealt with by the standard has been deferred until the ABA Commission on Evaluation of Professional Standards reports its final recommendations.' In the 1983 Model Rules of Professional Conduct, standard 7.7 was rejected by rule 3.3 (lawyer has duty to disclose falsity of evidence, even if disclosure compromises client confidences.)" (People v. Guzman, supra, 45 Cal. 3d 915, 944, fn. 8.)The narrative approach has been criticized on the basis the attorney participates in committing a fraud on the court. (See Stephenson v. State (1992) 206 Ga.App. 273, 275 [424 S.E.2d 816, 818, fn. 1] [appellant's "suggestion he should have been permitted to testify in narrative form would constitute the attorney's participation in fraud, and thus is no answer"].) The narrative approach has also been criticized as communicating to the jury that the defendant is committing perjury. One court has stated, "This procedure could hardly have failed to convey to the jury the impression that the defendant's counsel attached little significance or credibility to the testimony of the witness, or that the defendant and his counsel were at odds. Prejudice to the defendant's case by this trial tactic was inevitable." (State v. Robinson (1976) 290 N.C. 56, 67 [224 S.E.2d 174, 180].) fn. 16 Another commentator has stated: "by telegraphing her own belief in the inveracity of the accused, the defendant's lawyer arguably violates the ethical prohibitions against counsel serving as a witness and against expressing a personal opinion about the client's 'credibility . . . or . . . guilt or innocence' and also contravenes the evidentiary restrictions on opinion evidence and on testimony presented without oath or affirmation or the laying of a proper foundation." (Silver, Truth, Justice, and the American Way: The Case Against the Client Perjury Rules, supra, 47 Vand. L.Rev. 339, 422, fns. omitted.)

But it noted as follows:

Finally, we note that in California, no statutes, judicial decisions or ethical rules require preclusion of a defendant's testimony when the attorney believes or "knows" a client will commit perjury. California case law has approved of the narrative approach, which avoids the problems of prior factual determinations by defense counsel (and/or the court) that the defendant will commit perjury, allows a defendant to exercise his constitutional right to testify, permits defense counsel to play a passive role and places the factfinding and credibility determinations with the jury as should be the case.

And the Appellate Court concluded as follows:

We conclude the trial court erred in denying Johnson his constitutional right to testify. The trial court should have followed the narrative approach, which has been approved by the courts in California and which would have best accommodated the conflicting interests of Johnson and his defense counsel.

Notice how is says "the trial court erred" and "the trial court should have . . ." Nothing in this decision says that a defense attorney can just put his client on the stand and let him lie without informing the court.Since you're such an expert on the issue, perhaps you can point me to a case that actually says an attorney can put his client on the stand to lie in a narrative without bringing it to the court's attention.

 

[identikit]

George Zimmerman: Prelude to a shooting





By Chris Francescani

SANFORD, Florida | Wed Apr 25, 2012 4:09pm EDT

(Reuters) - A pit bull named Big Boi began menacing George and Shellie Zimmerman in the fall of 2009.

The first time the dog ran free and cornered Shellie in their gated community in Sanford, Florida, George called the owner to complain. The second time, Big Boi frightened his mother-in-law's dog. Zimmerman called Seminole County Animal Services and bought pepper spray. The third time he saw the dog on the loose, he called again. An officer came to the house, county records show.

"Don't use pepper spray," he told the Zimmermans, according to a friend. "It'll take two or three seconds to take effect, but a quarter second for the dog to jump you," he said.

"Get a gun."

That November, the Zimmermans completed firearms training at a local lodge and received concealed-weapons gun permits. In early December, another source close to them told Reuters, the couple bought a pair of guns. George picked a Kel-Tec PF-9 9mm handgun, a popular, lightweight weapon.

By June 2011, Zimmerman's attention had shifted from a loose pit bull to a wave of robberies that rattled the community, called the Retreat at Twin Lakes. The homeowners association asked him to launch a neighborhood watch, and Zimmerman would begin to carry the Kel-Tec on his regular, dog-walking patrol - a violation of neighborhood watch guidelines but not a crime.

Few of his closest neighbors knew he carried a gun - until two months ago.

On February 26, George Zimmerman shot and killed unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin in what Zimmerman says was self-defense. The furor that ensued has consumed the country and prompted a re-examination of guns, race and self-defense laws enacted in nearly half the United States.

During the time Zimmerman was in hiding, his detractors defined him as a vigilante who had decided Martin was suspicious merely because he was black. After Zimmerman was finally arrested on a charge of second-degree murder more than six weeks after the shooting, prosecutors portrayed him as a violent and angry man who disregarded authority by pursuing the 17-year-old.

But a more nuanced portrait of Zimmerman has emerged from a Reuters investigation into Zimmerman's past and a series of incidents in the community in the months preceding the Martin shooting.

Based on extensive interviews with relatives, friends, neighbors, schoolmates and co-workers of Zimmerman in two states, law enforcement officials, and reviews of court documents and police reports, the story sheds new light on the man at the center of one of the most controversial homicide cases in America.

The 28-year-old insurance-fraud investigator comes from a deeply Catholic background and was taught in his early years to do right by those less fortunate. He was raised in a racially integrated household and himself has black roots through an Afro-Peruvian great-grandfather - the father of the maternal grandmother who helped raise him.

A criminal justice student who aspired to become a judge, Zimmerman also concerned himself with the safety of his neighbors after a series of break-ins committed by young African-American men.

Though civil rights demonstrators have argued Zimmerman should not have prejudged Martin, one black neighbor of the Zimmermans said recent history should be taken into account.

"Let's talk about the elephant in the room. I'm black, OK?" the woman said, declining to be identified because she anticipated backlash due to her race. She leaned in to look a reporter directly in the eyes. "There were black boys robbing houses in this neighborhood," she said. "That's why George was suspicious of Trayvon Martin."

"MIXED" HOUSEHOLD

George Michael Zimmerman was born in 1983 to Robert and Gladys Zimmerman, the third of four children. Robert Zimmerman Sr. was a U.S. Army veteran who served in Vietnam in 1970, and was stationed at Fort Myer in Arlington, Virginia, in 1975 with Gladys Mesa's brother George. Zimmerman Sr. also served two tours in Korea, and spent the final 10 years of his 22-year military career in the Pentagon, working for the Department of Defense, a family member said.

In his final years in Virginia before retiring to Florida, Robert Zimmerman served as a magistrate in Fairfax County's 19th Judicial District.

Robert and Gladys met in January 1975, when George Mesa brought along his army buddy to his sister's birthday party. She was visiting from Peru, on vacation from her job there as a physical education teacher. Robert was a Baptist, Gladys was Catholic. They soon married, in a Catholic ceremony in Alexandria, and moved to nearby Manassas.

Gladys came to lead a small but growing Catholic Hispanic enclave within the All Saints Catholic Church parish in the late 1970s, where she was involved in the church's outreach programs. Gladys would bring young George along with her on "home visits" to poor families, said a family friend, Teresa Post.

"It was part of their upbringing to know that there are people in need, people more in need than themselves," said Post, a Peruvian immigrant who lived with the Zimmermans for a time.

Post recalls evening prayers before dinner in the ethnically diverse Zimmerman household, which included siblings Robert Jr., Grace, and Dawn. "It wasn't only white or only Hispanic or only black - it was mixed," she said.

Zimmerman's maternal grandmother, Cristina, who had lived with the Zimmermans since 1978, worked as a babysitter for years during Zimmerman's childhood. For several years she cared for two African-American girls who ate their meals at the Zimmerman house and went back and forth to school each day with the Zimmerman children.

"They were part of the household for years, until they were old enough to be on their own," Post said.

Zimmerman served as an altar boy at All Saints from age 7 to 17, church members said.

"He wasn't the type where, you know, 'I'm being forced to do this,' and a dragging-his-feet Catholic," said Sandra Vega, who went to high school with George and his siblings. "He was an altar boy for years, and then worked in the rectory too. He has a really good heart."

George grew up bilingual, and by age 10 he was often called to the Haydon Elementary School principal's office to act as a translator between administrators and immigrant parents. At 14 he became obsessed with becoming a Marine, a relative said, joining the after-school ROTC program at Grace E. Metz Middle School and polishing his boots by night. At 15, he worked three part-time jobs - in a Mexican restaurant, for the rectory, and washing cars - on nights and weekends, to save up for a car.

After graduating from Osbourn High School in 2001, Zimmerman moved to Lake Mary, Florida, a town neighboring Sanford. His parents purchased a retirement home there in 2002, in part to bring Cristina, who suffers from arthritis, to a warmer climate.

YOUNG INSURANCE AGENT

On his own at 18, George got a job at an insurance agency and began to take classes at night to earn a license to sell insurance. He grew friendly with a real estate agent named Lee Ann Benjamin, who shared office space in the building, and later her husband, John Donnelly, a Sanford attorney.

"George impressed me right off the bat as just a real go-getter," Donnelly said. "He was working days and taking all these classes at night, passing all the insurance classes, not just for home insurance, but auto insurance and everything. He wanted to open his own office - and he did."

In 2004, Zimmerman partnered with an African-American friend and opened up an Allstate insurance satellite office, Donnelly said.

Then came 2005, and a series of troubles. Zimmerman's business failed, he was arrested, and he broke off an engagement with a woman who filed a restraining order against him.

That July, Zimmerman was charged with resisting arrest, violence, and battery of an officer after shoving an undercover alcohol-control agent who was arresting an under-age friend of Zimmerman's at a bar. He avoided conviction by agreeing to participate in a pre-trial diversion program that included anger-management classes.

In August, Zimmerman's fiancee at the time, Veronica Zuazo, filed a civil motion for a restraining order alleging domestic violence. Zimmerman reciprocated with his own order on the same grounds, and both orders were granted. The relationship ended.

In 2007 he married Shellie Dean, a licensed cosmetologist, and in 2009 the couple rented a townhouse in the Retreat at Twin Lakes. Zimmerman had bounced from job to job for a couple of years, working at a car dealership and a mortgage company. At times, according to testimony from Shellie at a bond hearing for Zimmerman last week, the couple filed for unemployment benefits.

Zimmerman enrolled in Seminole State College in 2009, and in December 2011 he was permitted to participate in a school graduation ceremony, despite being a course credit shy of his associate's degree in criminal justice. Zimmerman was completing that course credit when the shooting occurred.

On March 22, nearly a month after the shooting and with the controversy by then swirling nationwide, the school issued a press release saying it was taking the "unusual, but necessary" step of withdrawing Zimmerman's enrollment, citing "the safety of our students on campus as well as for Mr. Zimmerman."

A NEIGHBORHOOD IN FEAR

By the summer of 2011, Twin Lakes was experiencing a rash of burglaries and break-ins. Previously a family-friendly, first-time homeowner community, it was devastated by the recession that hit the Florida housing market, and transient renters began to occupy some of the 263 town houses in the complex. Vandalism and occasional drug activity were reported, and home values plunged. One resident who bought his home in 2006 for $250,000 said it was worth $80,000 today.

At least eight burglaries were reported within Twin Lakes in the 14 months prior to the Trayvon Martin shooting, according to the Sanford Police Department. Yet in a series of interviews, Twin Lakes residents said dozens of reports of attempted break-ins and would-be burglars casing homes had created an atmosphere of growing fear in the neighborhood.

In several of the incidents, witnesses identified the suspects to police as young black men. Twin Lakes is about 50 percent white, with an African-American and Hispanic population of about 20 percent each, roughly similar to the surrounding city of Sanford, according to U.S. Census data.

One morning in July 2011, a black teenager walked up to Zimmerman's front porch and stole a bicycle, neighbors told Reuters. A police report was taken, though the bicycle was not recovered.

But it was the August incursion into the home of Olivia Bertalan that really troubled the neighborhood, particularly Zimmerman. Shellie was home most days, taking online courses towards certification as a registered nurse.

On August 3, Bertalan was at home with her infant son while her husband, Michael, was at work. She watched from a downstairs window, she said, as two black men repeatedly rang her doorbell and then entered through a sliding door at the back of the house. She ran upstairs, locked herself inside the boy's bedroom, and called a police dispatcher, whispering frantically.

"I said, 'What am I supposed to do? I hear them coming up the stairs!'" she told Reuters. Bertalan tried to coo her crying child into silence and armed herself with a pair of rusty scissors.

Police arrived just as the burglars - who had been trying to disconnect the couple's television - fled out a back door. Shellie Zimmerman saw a black male teen running through her backyard and reported it to police.

After police left Bertalan, George Zimmerman arrived at the front door in a shirt and tie, she said. He gave her his contact numbers on an index card and invited her to visit his wife if she ever felt unsafe. He returned later and gave her a stronger lock to bolster the sliding door that had been forced open.

"He was so mellow and calm, very helpful and very, very sweet," she said last week. "We didn't really know George at first, but after the break-in we talked to him on a daily basis. People were freaked out. It wasn't just George calling police ... we were calling police at least once a week."

In September, a group of neighbors including Zimmerman approached the homeowners association with their concerns, she said. Zimmerman was asked to head up a new neighborhood watch. He agreed.

"PLEASE CONTACT OUR CAPTAIN"

Police had advised Bertalan to get a dog. She and her husband decided to move out instead, and left two days before the shooting. Zimmerman took the advice.

"He'd already had a mutt that he walked around the neighborhood every night - man, he loved that dog - but after that home invasion he also got a Rottweiler," said Jorge Rodriguez, a friend and neighbor of the Zimmermans.

Around the same time, Zimmerman also gave Rodriguez and his wife, Audria, his contact information, so they could reach him day or night. Rodriguez showed the index card to Reuters. In neat cursive was a list of George and Shellie's home number and cell phones, as well as their emails.

Less than two weeks later, another Twin Lakes home was burglarized, police reports show. Two weeks after that, a home under construction was vandalized.

The Retreat at Twin Lakes e-newsletter for February 2012 noted: "The Sanford PD has announced an increased patrol within our neighborhood ... during peak crime hours.

"If you've been a victim of a crime in the community, after calling police, please contact our captain, George Zimmerman."

EMMANUEL BURGESS - SETTING THE STAGE

On February 2, 2012, Zimmerman placed a call to Sanford police after spotting a young black man he recognized peering into the windows of a neighbor's empty home, according to several friends and neighbors.

"I don't know what he's doing. I don't want to approach him, personally," Zimmerman said in the call, which was recorded. The dispatcher advised him that a patrol car was on the way. By the time police arrived, according to the dispatch report, the suspect had fled.

On February 6, the home of another Twin Lakes resident, Tatiana Demeacis, was burglarized. Two roofers working directly across the street said they saw two African-American men lingering in the yard at the time of the break-in. A new laptop and some gold jewelry were stolen. One of the roofers called police the next day after spotting one of the suspects among a group of male teenagers, three black and one white, on bicycles.

Police found Demeacis's laptop in the backpack of 18-year-old Emmanuel Burgess, police reports show, and charged him with dealing in stolen property. Burgess was the same man Zimmerman had spotted on February 2.

Burgess had committed a series of burglaries on the other side of town in 2008 and 2009, pleaded guilty to several, and spent all of 2010 incarcerated in a juvenile facility, his attorney said. He is now in jail on parole violations.

Three days after Burgess was arrested, Zimmerman's grandmother was hospitalized for an infection, and the following week his father was also admitted for a heart condition. Zimmerman spent a number of those nights on a hospital room couch.

Ten days after his father was hospitalized, Zimmerman noticed another young man in the neighborhood, acting in a way he found familiar, so he made another call to police.

"We've had some break-ins in my neighborhood, and there's a real suspicious guy," Zimmerman said, as Trayvon Martin returned home from the store.

The last time Zimmerman had called police, to report Burgess, he followed protocol and waited for police to arrive. They were too late, and Burgess got away.

This time, Zimmerman was not so patient, and he disregarded police advice against pursuing Martin.

"These #######s," he muttered in an aside, "they always get away."

After the phone call ended, several minutes passed when the movements of Zimmerman and Martin remain a mystery.

Moments later, Martin lay dead with a bullet in his chest.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/25/us-usa-florida-shooting-zimmerman-idUSBRE83O18H20120425

 

[BustedKnuckles]

George Zimmerman: Prelude to a shooting





By Chris Francescani

SANFORD, Florida | Wed Apr 25, 2012 4:09pm EDT

(Reuters) - A pit bull named Big Boi began menacing George and Shellie Zimmerman in the fall of 2009.

The first time the dog ran free and cornered Shellie in their gated community in Sanford, Florida, George called the owner to complain. The second time, Big Boi frightened his mother-in-law's dog. Zimmerman called Seminole County Animal Services and bought pepper spray. The third time he saw the dog on the loose, he called again. An officer came to the house, county records show.

"Don't use pepper spray," he told the Zimmermans, according to a friend. "It'll take two or three seconds to take effect, but a quarter second for the dog to jump you," he said.

"Get a gun."

That November, the Zimmermans completed firearms training at a local lodge and received concealed-weapons gun permits. In early December, another source close to them told Reuters, the couple bought a pair of guns. George picked a Kel-Tec PF-9 9mm handgun, a popular, lightweight weapon.

By June 2011, Zimmerman's attention had shifted from a loose pit bull to a wave of robberies that rattled the community, called the Retreat at Twin Lakes. The homeowners association asked him to launch a neighborhood watch, and Zimmerman would begin to carry the Kel-Tec on his regular, dog-walking patrol - a violation of neighborhood watch guidelines but not a crime.

Few of his closest neighbors knew he carried a gun - until two months ago.

On February 26, George Zimmerman shot and killed unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin in what Zimmerman says was self-defense. The furor that ensued has consumed the country and prompted a re-examination of guns, race and self-defense laws enacted in nearly half the United States.

During the time Zimmerman was in hiding, his detractors defined him as a vigilante who had decided Martin was suspicious merely because he was black. After Zimmerman was finally arrested on a charge of second-degree murder more than six weeks after the shooting, prosecutors portrayed him as a violent and angry man who disregarded authority by pursuing the 17-year-old.

But a more nuanced portrait of Zimmerman has emerged from a Reuters investigation into Zimmerman's past and a series of incidents in the community in the months preceding the Martin shooting.

Based on extensive interviews with relatives, friends, neighbors, schoolmates and co-workers of Zimmerman in two states, law enforcement officials, and reviews of court documents and police reports, the story sheds new light on the man at the center of one of the most controversial homicide cases in America.

The 28-year-old insurance-fraud investigator comes from a deeply Catholic background and was taught in his early years to do right by those less fortunate. He was raised in a racially integrated household and himself has black roots through an Afro-Peruvian great-grandfather - the father of the maternal grandmother who helped raise him.

A criminal justice student who aspired to become a judge, Zimmerman also concerned himself with the safety of his neighbors after a series of break-ins committed by young African-American men.

Though civil rights demonstrators have argued Zimmerman should not have prejudged Martin, one black neighbor of the Zimmermans said recent history should be taken into account.

"Let's talk about the elephant in the room. I'm black, OK?" the woman said, declining to be identified because she anticipated backlash due to her race. She leaned in to look a reporter directly in the eyes. "There were black boys robbing houses in this neighborhood," she said. "That's why George was suspicious of Trayvon Martin."

"MIXED" HOUSEHOLD

George Michael Zimmerman was born in 1983 to Robert and Gladys Zimmerman, the third of four children. Robert Zimmerman Sr. was a U.S. Army veteran who served in Vietnam in 1970, and was stationed at Fort Myer in Arlington, Virginia, in 1975 with Gladys Mesa's brother George. Zimmerman Sr. also served two tours in Korea, and spent the final 10 years of his 22-year military career in the Pentagon, working for the Department of Defense, a family member said.

In his final years in Virginia before retiring to Florida, Robert Zimmerman served as a magistrate in Fairfax County's 19th Judicial District.

Robert and Gladys met in January 1975, when George Mesa brought along his army buddy to his sister's birthday party. She was visiting from Peru, on vacation from her job there as a physical education teacher. Robert was a Baptist, Gladys was Catholic. They soon married, in a Catholic ceremony in Alexandria, and moved to nearby Manassas.

Gladys came to lead a small but growing Catholic Hispanic enclave within the All Saints Catholic Church parish in the late 1970s, where she was involved in the church's outreach programs. Gladys would bring young George along with her on "home visits" to poor families, said a family friend, Teresa Post.

"It was part of their upbringing to know that there are people in need, people more in need than themselves," said Post, a Peruvian immigrant who lived with the Zimmermans for a time.

Post recalls evening prayers before dinner in the ethnically diverse Zimmerman household, which included siblings Robert Jr., Grace, and Dawn. "It wasn't only white or only Hispanic or only black - it was mixed," she said.

Zimmerman's maternal grandmother, Cristina, who had lived with the Zimmermans since 1978, worked as a babysitter for years during Zimmerman's childhood. For several years she cared for two African-American girls who ate their meals at the Zimmerman house and went back and forth to school each day with the Zimmerman children.

"They were part of the household for years, until they were old enough to be on their own," Post said.

Zimmerman served as an altar boy at All Saints from age 7 to 17, church members said.

"He wasn't the type where, you know, 'I'm being forced to do this,' and a dragging-his-feet Catholic," said Sandra Vega, who went to high school with George and his siblings. "He was an altar boy for years, and then worked in the rectory too. He has a really good heart."

George grew up bilingual, and by age 10 he was often called to the Haydon Elementary School principal's office to act as a translator between administrators and immigrant parents. At 14 he became obsessed with becoming a Marine, a relative said, joining the after-school ROTC program at Grace E. Metz Middle School and polishing his boots by night. At 15, he worked three part-time jobs - in a Mexican restaurant, for the rectory, and washing cars - on nights and weekends, to save up for a car.

After graduating from Osbourn High School in 2001, Zimmerman moved to Lake Mary, Florida, a town neighboring Sanford. His parents purchased a retirement home there in 2002, in part to bring Cristina, who suffers from arthritis, to a warmer climate.

YOUNG INSURANCE AGENT

On his own at 18, George got a job at an insurance agency and began to take classes at night to earn a license to sell insurance. He grew friendly with a real estate agent named Lee Ann Benjamin, who shared office space in the building, and later her husband, John Donnelly, a Sanford attorney.

"George impressed me right off the bat as just a real go-getter," Donnelly said. "He was working days and taking all these classes at night, passing all the insurance classes, not just for home insurance, but auto insurance and everything. He wanted to open his own office - and he did."

In 2004, Zimmerman partnered with an African-American friend and opened up an Allstate insurance satellite office, Donnelly said.

Then came 2005, and a series of troubles. Zimmerman's business failed, he was arrested, and he broke off an engagement with a woman who filed a restraining order against him.

That July, Zimmerman was charged with resisting arrest, violence, and battery of an officer after shoving an undercover alcohol-control agent who was arresting an under-age friend of Zimmerman's at a bar. He avoided conviction by agreeing to participate in a pre-trial diversion program that included anger-management classes.

In August, Zimmerman's fiancee at the time, Veronica Zuazo, filed a civil motion for a restraining order alleging domestic violence. Zimmerman reciprocated with his own order on the same grounds, and both orders were granted. The relationship ended.

In 2007 he married Shellie Dean, a licensed cosmetologist, and in 2009 the couple rented a townhouse in the Retreat at Twin Lakes. Zimmerman had bounced from job to job for a couple of years, working at a car dealership and a mortgage company. At times, according to testimony from Shellie at a bond hearing for Zimmerman last week, the couple filed for unemployment benefits.

Zimmerman enrolled in Seminole State College in 2009, and in December 2011 he was permitted to participate in a school graduation ceremony, despite being a course credit shy of his associate's degree in criminal justice. Zimmerman was completing that course credit when the shooting occurred.

On March 22, nearly a month after the shooting and with the controversy by then swirling nationwide, the school issued a press release saying it was taking the "unusual, but necessary" step of withdrawing Zimmerman's enrollment, citing "the safety of our students on campus as well as for Mr. Zimmerman."

A NEIGHBORHOOD IN FEAR

By the summer of 2011, Twin Lakes was experiencing a rash of burglaries and break-ins. Previously a family-friendly, first-time homeowner community, it was devastated by the recession that hit the Florida housing market, and transient renters began to occupy some of the 263 town houses in the complex. Vandalism and occasional drug activity were reported, and home values plunged. One resident who bought his home in 2006 for $250,000 said it was worth $80,000 today.

At least eight burglaries were reported within Twin Lakes in the 14 months prior to the Trayvon Martin shooting, according to the Sanford Police Department. Yet in a series of interviews, Twin Lakes residents said dozens of reports of attempted break-ins and would-be burglars casing homes had created an atmosphere of growing fear in the neighborhood.

In several of the incidents, witnesses identified the suspects to police as young black men. Twin Lakes is about 50 percent white, with an African-American and Hispanic population of about 20 percent each, roughly similar to the surrounding city of Sanford, according to U.S. Census data.

One morning in July 2011, a black teenager walked up to Zimmerman's front porch and stole a bicycle, neighbors told Reuters. A police report was taken, though the bicycle was not recovered.

But it was the August incursion into the home of Olivia Bertalan that really troubled the neighborhood, particularly Zimmerman. Shellie was home most days, taking online courses towards certification as a registered nurse.

On August 3, Bertalan was at home with her infant son while her husband, Michael, was at work. She watched from a downstairs window, she said, as two black men repeatedly rang her doorbell and then entered through a sliding door at the back of the house. She ran upstairs, locked herself inside the boy's bedroom, and called a police dispatcher, whispering frantically.

"I said, 'What am I supposed to do? I hear them coming up the stairs!'" she told Reuters. Bertalan tried to coo her crying child into silence and armed herself with a pair of rusty scissors.

Police arrived just as the burglars - who had been trying to disconnect the couple's television - fled out a back door. Shellie Zimmerman saw a black male teen running through her backyard and reported it to police.

After police left Bertalan, George Zimmerman arrived at the front door in a shirt and tie, she said. He gave her his contact numbers on an index card and invited her to visit his wife if she ever felt unsafe. He returned later and gave her a stronger lock to bolster the sliding door that had been forced open.

"He was so mellow and calm, very helpful and very, very sweet," she said last week. "We didn't really know George at first, but after the break-in we talked to him on a daily basis. People were freaked out. It wasn't just George calling police ... we were calling police at least once a week."

In September, a group of neighbors including Zimmerman approached the homeowners association with their concerns, she said. Zimmerman was asked to head up a new neighborhood watch. He agreed.

"PLEASE CONTACT OUR CAPTAIN"

Police had advised Bertalan to get a dog. She and her husband decided to move out instead, and left two days before the shooting. Zimmerman took the advice.

"He'd already had a mutt that he walked around the neighborhood every night - man, he loved that dog - but after that home invasion he also got a Rottweiler," said Jorge Rodriguez, a friend and neighbor of the Zimmermans.

Around the same time, Zimmerman also gave Rodriguez and his wife, Audria, his contact information, so they could reach him day or night. Rodriguez showed the index card to Reuters. In neat cursive was a list of George and Shellie's home number and cell phones, as well as their emails.

Less than two weeks later, another Twin Lakes home was burglarized, police reports show. Two weeks after that, a home under construction was vandalized.

The Retreat at Twin Lakes e-newsletter for February 2012 noted: "The Sanford PD has announced an increased patrol within our neighborhood ... during peak crime hours.

"If you've been a victim of a crime in the community, after calling police, please contact our captain, George Zimmerman."

EMMANUEL BURGESS - SETTING THE STAGE

On February 2, 2012, Zimmerman placed a call to Sanford police after spotting a young black man he recognized peering into the windows of a neighbor's empty home, according to several friends and neighbors.

"I don't know what he's doing. I don't want to approach him, personally," Zimmerman said in the call, which was recorded. The dispatcher advised him that a patrol car was on the way. By the time police arrived, according to the dispatch report, the suspect had fled.

On February 6, the home of another Twin Lakes resident, Tatiana Demeacis, was burglarized. Two roofers working directly across the street said they saw two African-American men lingering in the yard at the time of the break-in. A new laptop and some gold jewelry were stolen. One of the roofers called police the next day after spotting one of the suspects among a group of male teenagers, three black and one white, on bicycles.

Police found Demeacis's laptop in the backpack of 18-year-old Emmanuel Burgess, police reports show, and charged him with dealing in stolen property. Burgess was the same man Zimmerman had spotted on February 2.

Burgess had committed a series of burglaries on the other side of town in 2008 and 2009, pleaded guilty to several, and spent all of 2010 incarcerated in a juvenile facility, his attorney said. He is now in jail on parole violations.

Three days after Burgess was arrested, Zimmerman's grandmother was hospitalized for an infection, and the following week his father was also admitted for a heart condition. Zimmerman spent a number of those nights on a hospital room couch.

Ten days after his father was hospitalized, Zimmerman noticed another young man in the neighborhood, acting in a way he found familiar, so he made another call to police.

"We've had some break-ins in my neighborhood, and there's a real suspicious guy," Zimmerman said, as Trayvon Martin returned home from the store.

The last time Zimmerman had called police, to report Burgess, he followed protocol and waited for police to arrive. They were too late, and Burgess got away.

This time, Zimmerman was not so patient, and he disregarded police advice against pursuing Martin.

"These #######s," he muttered in an aside, "they always get away."

After the phone call ended, several minutes passed when the movements of Zimmerman and Martin remain a mystery.

Moments later, Martin lay dead with a bullet in his chest.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/25/us-usa-florida-shooting-zimmerman-idUSBRE83O18H20120425

Oh that Zimmerman . he`s a nice a boy

 

[Clifford]

This is exactly why the prosecution lost the case the second they went for murder instead of manslaughter. Trying to turn this guy into some angry murderer is going to be impossible because it simply isn't true. They will spend all their time trying to build that, fail, and will not get manslaughter either. Again, unless the prosecution is sitting on some truly mind-blowing evidence that can refute Zimmerman's claim, he walks, and walks easily.

 

[BustedKnuckles]

George Zimmerman: Prelude to a shooting





By Chris Francescani

SANFORD, Florida | Wed Apr 25, 2012 4:09pm EDT

(Reuters) - A pit bull named Big Boi began menacing George and Shellie Zimmerman in the fall of 2009.

The first time the dog ran free and cornered Shellie in their gated community in Sanford, Florida, George called the owner to complain. The second time, Big Boi frightened his mother-in-law's dog. Zimmerman called Seminole County Animal Services and bought pepper spray. The third time he saw the dog on the loose, he called again. An officer came to the house, county records show.

"Don't use pepper spray," he told the Zimmermans, according to a friend. "It'll take two or three seconds to take effect, but a quarter second for the dog to jump you," he said.

"Get a gun."

That November, the Zimmermans completed firearms training at a local lodge and received concealed-weapons gun permits. In early December, another source close to them told Reuters, the couple bought a pair of guns. George picked a Kel-Tec PF-9 9mm handgun, a popular, lightweight weapon.

By June 2011, Zimmerman's attention had shifted from a loose pit bull to a wave of robberies that rattled the community, called the Retreat at Twin Lakes. The homeowners association asked him to launch a neighborhood watch, and Zimmerman would begin to carry the Kel-Tec on his regular, dog-walking patrol - a violation of neighborhood watch guidelines but not a crime.

Few of his closest neighbors knew he carried a gun - until two months ago.

On February 26, George Zimmerman shot and killed unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin in what Zimmerman says was self-defense. The furor that ensued has consumed the country and prompted a re-examination of guns, race and self-defense laws enacted in nearly half the United States.

During the time Zimmerman was in hiding, his detractors defined him as a vigilante who had decided Martin was suspicious merely because he was black. After Zimmerman was finally arrested on a charge of second-degree murder more than six weeks after the shooting, prosecutors portrayed him as a violent and angry man who disregarded authority by pursuing the 17-year-old.

But a more nuanced portrait of Zimmerman has emerged from a Reuters investigation into Zimmerman's past and a series of incidents in the community in the months preceding the Martin shooting.

Based on extensive interviews with relatives, friends, neighbors, schoolmates and co-workers of Zimmerman in two states, law enforcement officials, and reviews of court documents and police reports, the story sheds new light on the man at the center of one of the most controversial homicide cases in America.

The 28-year-old insurance-fraud investigator comes from a deeply Catholic background and was taught in his early years to do right by those less fortunate. He was raised in a racially integrated household and himself has black roots through an Afro-Peruvian great-grandfather - the father of the maternal grandmother who helped raise him.

A criminal justice student who aspired to become a judge, Zimmerman also concerned himself with the safety of his neighbors after a series of break-ins committed by young African-American men.

Though civil rights demonstrators have argued Zimmerman should not have prejudged Martin, one black neighbor of the Zimmermans said recent history should be taken into account.

"Let's talk about the elephant in the room. I'm black, OK?" the woman said, declining to be identified because she anticipated backlash due to her race. She leaned in to look a reporter directly in the eyes. "There were black boys robbing houses in this neighborhood," she said. "That's why George was suspicious of Trayvon Martin."

"MIXED" HOUSEHOLD

George Michael Zimmerman was born in 1983 to Robert and Gladys Zimmerman, the third of four children. Robert Zimmerman Sr. was a U.S. Army veteran who served in Vietnam in 1970, and was stationed at Fort Myer in Arlington, Virginia, in 1975 with Gladys Mesa's brother George. Zimmerman Sr. also served two tours in Korea, and spent the final 10 years of his 22-year military career in the Pentagon, working for the Department of Defense, a family member said.

In his final years in Virginia before retiring to Florida, Robert Zimmerman served as a magistrate in Fairfax County's 19th Judicial District.

Robert and Gladys met in January 1975, when George Mesa brought along his army buddy to his sister's birthday party. She was visiting from Peru, on vacation from her job there as a physical education teacher. Robert was a Baptist, Gladys was Catholic. They soon married, in a Catholic ceremony in Alexandria, and moved to nearby Manassas.

Gladys came to lead a small but growing Catholic Hispanic enclave within the All Saints Catholic Church parish in the late 1970s, where she was involved in the church's outreach programs. Gladys would bring young George along with her on "home visits" to poor families, said a family friend, Teresa Post.

"It was part of their upbringing to know that there are people in need, people more in need than themselves," said Post, a Peruvian immigrant who lived with the Zimmermans for a time.

Post recalls evening prayers before dinner in the ethnically diverse Zimmerman household, which included siblings Robert Jr., Grace, and Dawn. "It wasn't only white or only Hispanic or only black - it was mixed," she said.

Zimmerman's maternal grandmother, Cristina, who had lived with the Zimmermans since 1978, worked as a babysitter for years during Zimmerman's childhood. For several years she cared for two African-American girls who ate their meals at the Zimmerman house and went back and forth to school each day with the Zimmerman children.

"They were part of the household for years, until they were old enough to be on their own," Post said.

Zimmerman served as an altar boy at All Saints from age 7 to 17, church members said.

"He wasn't the type where, you know, 'I'm being forced to do this,' and a dragging-his-feet Catholic," said Sandra Vega, who went to high school with George and his siblings. "He was an altar boy for years, and then worked in the rectory too. He has a really good heart."

George grew up bilingual, and by age 10 he was often called to the Haydon Elementary School principal's office to act as a translator between administrators and immigrant parents. At 14 he became obsessed with becoming a Marine, a relative said, joining the after-school ROTC program at Grace E. Metz Middle School and polishing his boots by night. At 15, he worked three part-time jobs - in a Mexican restaurant, for the rectory, and washing cars - on nights and weekends, to save up for a car.

After graduating from Osbourn High School in 2001, Zimmerman moved to Lake Mary, Florida, a town neighboring Sanford. His parents purchased a retirement home there in 2002, in part to bring Cristina, who suffers from arthritis, to a warmer climate.

YOUNG INSURANCE AGENT

On his own at 18, George got a job at an insurance agency and began to take classes at night to earn a license to sell insurance. He grew friendly with a real estate agent named Lee Ann Benjamin, who shared office space in the building, and later her husband, John Donnelly, a Sanford attorney.

"George impressed me right off the bat as just a real go-getter," Donnelly said. "He was working days and taking all these classes at night, passing all the insurance classes, not just for home insurance, but auto insurance and everything. He wanted to open his own office - and he did."

In 2004, Zimmerman partnered with an African-American friend and opened up an Allstate insurance satellite office, Donnelly said.

Then came 2005, and a series of troubles. Zimmerman's business failed, he was arrested, and he broke off an engagement with a woman who filed a restraining order against him.

That July, Zimmerman was charged with resisting arrest, violence, and battery of an officer after shoving an undercover alcohol-control agent who was arresting an under-age friend of Zimmerman's at a bar. He avoided conviction by agreeing to participate in a pre-trial diversion program that included anger-management classes.

In August, Zimmerman's fiancee at the time, Veronica Zuazo, filed a civil motion for a restraining order alleging domestic violence. Zimmerman reciprocated with his own order on the same grounds, and both orders were granted. The relationship ended.

In 2007 he married Shellie Dean, a licensed cosmetologist, and in 2009 the couple rented a townhouse in the Retreat at Twin Lakes. Zimmerman had bounced from job to job for a couple of years, working at a car dealership and a mortgage company. At times, according to testimony from Shellie at a bond hearing for Zimmerman last week, the couple filed for unemployment benefits.

Zimmerman enrolled in Seminole State College in 2009, and in December 2011 he was permitted to participate in a school graduation ceremony, despite being a course credit shy of his associate's degree in criminal justice. Zimmerman was completing that course credit when the shooting occurred.

On March 22, nearly a month after the shooting and with the controversy by then swirling nationwide, the school issued a press release saying it was taking the "unusual, but necessary" step of withdrawing Zimmerman's enrollment, citing "the safety of our students on campus as well as for Mr. Zimmerman."

A NEIGHBORHOOD IN FEAR

By the summer of 2011, Twin Lakes was experiencing a rash of burglaries and break-ins. Previously a family-friendly, first-time homeowner community, it was devastated by the recession that hit the Florida housing market, and transient renters began to occupy some of the 263 town houses in the complex. Vandalism and occasional drug activity were reported, and home values plunged. One resident who bought his home in 2006 for $250,000 said it was worth $80,000 today.

At least eight burglaries were reported within Twin Lakes in the 14 months prior to the Trayvon Martin shooting, according to the Sanford Police Department. Yet in a series of interviews, Twin Lakes residents said dozens of reports of attempted break-ins and would-be burglars casing homes had created an atmosphere of growing fear in the neighborhood.

In several of the incidents, witnesses identified the suspects to police as young black men. Twin Lakes is about 50 percent white, with an African-American and Hispanic population of about 20 percent each, roughly similar to the surrounding city of Sanford, according to U.S. Census data.

One morning in July 2011, a black teenager walked up to Zimmerman's front porch and stole a bicycle, neighbors told Reuters. A police report was taken, though the bicycle was not recovered.

But it was the August incursion into the home of Olivia Bertalan that really troubled the neighborhood, particularly Zimmerman. Shellie was home most days, taking online courses towards certification as a registered nurse.

On August 3, Bertalan was at home with her infant son while her husband, Michael, was at work. She watched from a downstairs window, she said, as two black men repeatedly rang her doorbell and then entered through a sliding door at the back of the house. She ran upstairs, locked herself inside the boy's bedroom, and called a police dispatcher, whispering frantically.

"I said, 'What am I supposed to do? I hear them coming up the stairs!'" she told Reuters. Bertalan tried to coo her crying child into silence and armed herself with a pair of rusty scissors.

Police arrived just as the burglars - who had been trying to disconnect the couple's television - fled out a back door. Shellie Zimmerman saw a black male teen running through her backyard and reported it to police.

After police left Bertalan, George Zimmerman arrived at the front door in a shirt and tie, she said. He gave her his contact numbers on an index card and invited her to visit his wife if she ever felt unsafe. He returned later and gave her a stronger lock to bolster the sliding door that had been forced open.

"He was so mellow and calm, very helpful and very, very sweet," she said last week. "We didn't really know George at first, but after the break-in we talked to him on a daily basis. People were freaked out. It wasn't just George calling police ... we were calling police at least once a week."

In September, a group of neighbors including Zimmerman approached the homeowners association with their concerns, she said. Zimmerman was asked to head up a new neighborhood watch. He agreed.

"PLEASE CONTACT OUR CAPTAIN"

Police had advised Bertalan to get a dog. She and her husband decided to move out instead, and left two days before the shooting. Zimmerman took the advice.

"He'd already had a mutt that he walked around the neighborhood every night - man, he loved that dog - but after that home invasion he also got a Rottweiler," said Jorge Rodriguez, a friend and neighbor of the Zimmermans.

Around the same time, Zimmerman also gave Rodriguez and his wife, Audria, his contact information, so they could reach him day or night. Rodriguez showed the index card to Reuters. In neat cursive was a list of George and Shellie's home number and cell phones, as well as their emails.

Less than two weeks later, another Twin Lakes home was burglarized, police reports show. Two weeks after that, a home under construction was vandalized.

The Retreat at Twin Lakes e-newsletter for February 2012 noted: "The Sanford PD has announced an increased patrol within our neighborhood ... during peak crime hours.

"If you've been a victim of a crime in the community, after calling police, please contact our captain, George Zimmerman."

EMMANUEL BURGESS - SETTING THE STAGE

On February 2, 2012, Zimmerman placed a call to Sanford police after spotting a young black man he recognized peering into the windows of a neighbor's empty home, according to several friends and neighbors.

"I don't know what he's doing. I don't want to approach him, personally," Zimmerman said in the call, which was recorded. The dispatcher advised him that a patrol car was on the way. By the time police arrived, according to the dispatch report, the suspect had fled.

On February 6, the home of another Twin Lakes resident, Tatiana Demeacis, was burglarized. Two roofers working directly across the street said they saw two African-American men lingering in the yard at the time of the break-in. A new laptop and some gold jewelry were stolen. One of the roofers called police the next day after spotting one of the suspects among a group of male teenagers, three black and one white, on bicycles.

Police found Demeacis's laptop in the backpack of 18-year-old Emmanuel Burgess, police reports show, and charged him with dealing in stolen property. Burgess was the same man Zimmerman had spotted on February 2.

Burgess had committed a series of burglaries on the other side of town in 2008 and 2009, pleaded guilty to several, and spent all of 2010 incarcerated in a juvenile facility, his attorney said. He is now in jail on parole violations.

Three days after Burgess was arrested, Zimmerman's grandmother was hospitalized for an infection, and the following week his father was also admitted for a heart condition. Zimmerman spent a number of those nights on a hospital room couch.

Ten days after his father was hospitalized, Zimmerman noticed another young man in the neighborhood, acting in a way he found familiar, so he made another call to police.

"We've had some break-ins in my neighborhood, and there's a real suspicious guy," Zimmerman said, as Trayvon Martin returned home from the store.

The last time Zimmerman had called police, to report Burgess, he followed protocol and waited for police to arrive. They were too late, and Burgess got away.

This time, Zimmerman was not so patient, and he disregarded police advice against pursuing Martin.

"These #######s," he muttered in an aside, "they always get away."

After the phone call ended, several minutes passed when the movements of Zimmerman and Martin remain a mystery.

Moments later, Martin lay dead with a bullet in his chest.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/25/us-usa-florida-shooting-zimmerman-idUSBRE83O18H20120425

Zimmy killed the wrong teenager...he shoulda killed Emmanuel Burgess, at least he committed a real crime

 

[TexanFan02]

Zimmy killed the wrong teenager...he shoulda killed Emmanuel Burgess, at least he committed a real crime

It's like a make up call by a referee. This time the kid wasn't going to get away.

 

[dparker713]

And your California case isn't quite as convincing as you make it out to be on the issue of whether the attorney can just put his client up on the stand and let him lie in a narrative or whether court has to be involved:

The defendant's attorney did bring the issue to the trial court's attention:

At trial, after the prosecution had completed its case-in-chief, defense counsel requested and was granted an in camera hearing. Johnson was present during the in-chambers conference. Defense counsel told the court he had "an ethical conflict" with Johnson about Johnson's desire to take the stand and testify. Defense counsel explained, "I cannot disclose to the court privileged communications relating to that, but I'm in a position where I am not willing to call Mr. Johnson as a witness despite his desire to testify." In response to the court's question, Johnson indicated defense counsel had accurately described the situation and defense counsel indicated he would "[n]ot voluntarily" call Johnson as a witness.

The trial court accepted the attorney's position that he could not put him on the stand:

"THE COURT: All right. I will note, then, that you believe that there are ethical reasons, strong ethical reasons, apparently, because otherwise we wouldn't be sitting in here right now,--

"[DEFENSE COUNSEL]: Correct.

"THE COURT: --That cause you to come to the conclusion that you cannot under any circumstances call the client. And I will note that. And I will note that it's over his objection, and that he desires to testify."

The Appellate Court described some problems with the narrative approach:

This standard, adopting the free narrative approach "was not included in the 1980 second edition of the ABA Standards for Criminal Justice (hereafter ABA Standards). The editorial note to that edition explained, 'the question of what should be done in situations dealt with by the standard has been deferred until the ABA Commission on Evaluation of Professional Standards reports its final recommendations.' In the 1983 Model Rules of Professional Conduct, standard 7.7 was rejected by rule 3.3 (lawyer has duty to disclose falsity of evidence, even if disclosure compromises client confidences.)" (People v. Guzman, supra, 45 Cal. 3d 915, 944, fn. 8.)

The narrative approach has been criticized on the basis the attorney participates in committing a fraud on the court. (See Stephenson v. State (1992) 206 Ga.App. 273, 275 [424 S.E.2d 816, 818, fn. 1] [appellant's "suggestion he should have been permitted to testify in narrative form would constitute the attorney's participation in fraud, and thus is no answer"].) The narrative approach has also been criticized as communicating to the jury that the defendant is committing perjury. One court has stated, "This procedure could hardly have failed to convey to the jury the impression that the defendant's counsel attached little significance or credibility to the testimony of the witness, or that the defendant and his counsel were at odds. Prejudice to the defendant's case by this trial tactic was inevitable." (State v. Robinson (1976) 290 N.C. 56, 67 [224 S.E.2d 174, 180].) fn. 16 Another commentator has stated: "by telegraphing her own belief in the inveracity of the accused, the defendant's lawyer arguably violates the ethical prohibitions against counsel serving as a witness and against expressing a personal opinion about the client's 'credibility . . . or . . . guilt or innocence' and also contravenes the evidentiary restrictions on opinion evidence and on testimony presented without oath or affirmation or the laying of a proper foundation." (Silver, Truth, Justice, and the American Way: The Case Against the Client Perjury Rules, supra, 47 Vand. L.Rev. 339, 422, fns. omitted.)

But it noted as follows:

Finally, we note that in California, no statutes, judicial decisions or ethical rules require preclusion of a defendant's testimony when the attorney believes or "knows" a client will commit perjury. California case law has approved of the narrative approach, which avoids the problems of prior factual determinations by defense counsel (and/or the court) that the defendant will commit perjury, allows a defendant to exercise his constitutional right to testify, permits defense counsel to play a passive role and places the factfinding and credibility determinations with the jury as should be the case.

And the Appellate Court concluded as follows:

We conclude the trial court erred in denying Johnson his constitutional right to testify. The trial court should have followed the narrative approach, which has been approved by the courts in California and which would have best accommodated the conflicting interests of Johnson and his defense counsel.

Notice how is says "the trial court erred" and "the trial court should have . . ." Nothing in this decision says that a defense attorney can just put his client on the stand and let him lie without informing the court.Since you're such an expert on the issue, perhaps you can point me to a case that actually says an attorney can put his client on the stand to lie in a narrative without bringing it to the court's attention.

HTHETA: You've just posted some of the worst legal reasoning I've ever seen. Thank you, I will cherish it always.

 

[Christo]

And your California case isn't quite as convincing as you make it out to be on the issue of whether the attorney can just put his client up on the stand and let him lie in a narrative or whether court has to be involved:

The defendant's attorney did bring the issue to the trial court's attention:

At trial, after the prosecution had completed its case-in-chief, defense counsel requested and was granted an in camera hearing. Johnson was present during the in-chambers conference. Defense counsel told the court he had "an ethical conflict" with Johnson about Johnson's desire to take the stand and testify. Defense counsel explained, "I cannot disclose to the court privileged communications relating to that, but I'm in a position where I am not willing to call Mr. Johnson as a witness despite his desire to testify." In response to the court's question, Johnson indicated defense counsel had accurately described the situation and defense counsel indicated he would "[n]ot voluntarily" call Johnson as a witness.

The trial court accepted the attorney's position that he could not put him on the stand:

"THE COURT: All right. I will note, then, that you believe that there are ethical reasons, strong ethical reasons, apparently, because otherwise we wouldn't be sitting in here right now,--

"[DEFENSE COUNSEL]: Correct.

"THE COURT: --That cause you to come to the conclusion that you cannot under any circumstances call the client. And I will note that. And I will note that it's over his objection, and that he desires to testify."

The Appellate Court described some problems with the narrative approach:

This standard, adopting the free narrative approach "was not included in the 1980 second edition of the ABA Standards for Criminal Justice (hereafter ABA Standards). The editorial note to that edition explained, 'the question of what should be done in situations dealt with by the standard has been deferred until the ABA Commission on Evaluation of Professional Standards reports its final recommendations.' In the 1983 Model Rules of Professional Conduct, standard 7.7 was rejected by rule 3.3 (lawyer has duty to disclose falsity of evidence, even if disclosure compromises client confidences.)" (People v. Guzman, supra, 45 Cal. 3d 915, 944, fn. 8.)

The narrative approach has been criticized on the basis the attorney participates in committing a fraud on the court. (See Stephenson v. State (1992) 206 Ga.App. 273, 275 [424 S.E.2d 816, 818, fn. 1] [appellant's "suggestion he should have been permitted to testify in narrative form would constitute the attorney's participation in fraud, and thus is no answer"].) The narrative approach has also been criticized as communicating to the jury that the defendant is committing perjury. One court has stated, "This procedure could hardly have failed to convey to the jury the impression that the defendant's counsel attached little significance or credibility to the testimony of the witness, or that the defendant and his counsel were at odds. Prejudice to the defendant's case by this trial tactic was inevitable." (State v. Robinson (1976) 290 N.C. 56, 67 [224 S.E.2d 174, 180].) fn. 16 Another commentator has stated: "by telegraphing her own belief in the inveracity of the accused, the defendant's lawyer arguably violates the ethical prohibitions against counsel serving as a witness and against expressing a personal opinion about the client's 'credibility . . . or . . . guilt or innocence' and also contravenes the evidentiary restrictions on opinion evidence and on testimony presented without oath or affirmation or the laying of a proper foundation." (Silver, Truth, Justice, and the American Way: The Case Against the Client Perjury Rules, supra, 47 Vand. L.Rev. 339, 422, fns. omitted.)

But it noted as follows:

Finally, we note that in California, no statutes, judicial decisions or ethical rules require preclusion of a defendant's testimony when the attorney believes or "knows" a client will commit perjury. California case law has approved of the narrative approach, which avoids the problems of prior factual determinations by defense counsel (and/or the court) that the defendant will commit perjury, allows a defendant to exercise his constitutional right to testify, permits defense counsel to play a passive role and places the factfinding and credibility determinations with the jury as should be the case.

And the Appellate Court concluded as follows:

We conclude the trial court erred in denying Johnson his constitutional right to testify. The trial court should have followed the narrative approach, which has been approved by the courts in California and which would have best accommodated the conflicting interests of Johnson and his defense counsel.

Notice how is says "the trial court erred" and "the trial court should have . . ." Nothing in this decision says that a defense attorney can just put his client on the stand and let him lie without informing the court.Since you're such an expert on the issue, perhaps you can point me to a case that actually says an attorney can put his client on the stand to lie in a narrative without bringing it to the court's attention.

HTHETA: You've just posted some of the worst legal reasoning I've ever seen. Thank you, I will cherish it always.

 

[Christo]

I'm still waiting for that case--because the one you posted does not say that the attorney can just put his client on the stand to lie.

Once the lawyer “knows” the client intends to testify falsely, both Mitchell and Mass. R. Prof. C. 3.3(e) provide guidance to a defense attorney. The appropriate conduct depends on the circumstances facing the lawyer when he or she learns of the proposed false testimony:

First, if the criminal defense attorney discovers the client’s intent to testify falsely prior to accepting the case, he or she must refuse representation.

Second, if the criminal defense attorney discovers the client’s intent to testify falsely after taking the case, the attorney shall attempt a quiet withdrawal. If the attorney discovers the client’s intent to testify falsely before trial, he or she must seek the required permission to withdraw. The attorney should not disclose the perjury. In the motion to withdraw, “disclosure of privileged or prejudicial information shall be made only to the extent necessary to effect the withdrawal.” If it is necessary to disclose confidential or prejudicial information, the lawyer should file the motion ex parte and seek to have the motion heard in camera and the record of the proceeding impounded, except for the order granting the motion to withdraw. Mass. R. Prof. C. 1.16 (b) and ©; Mass. R. Prof. C. 3.3(e) and Comment 8; Butler v. U.S., 414 A.2d 844 (D.C. 1980).

Third, if the criminal trial has begun and the defense attorney discovers that the client intends to testify falsely at the trial, the attorney may seek to withdraw but is not required to do so. The defense attorney should not withdraw if he or she reasonably believes that the client will be prejudiced. If the criminal defense attorney is unable to get permission to withdraw, he or she may not prevent the client from testifying in his or her own defense. See Mass. R. Prof. C. 3.3(e). The client has a constitutional right to effective assistance of counsel, due process of law, and a fair trial, including his right to testify in his own defense. Commonwealth v. Mitchell, supra at 544.

The Mitchell decision requires that the defendant be present at the sidebar conference at which Rule 3.3(e) is invoked. Once the matter is called to the court's attention, Mitchell then indicates that the judge should instruct the lawyer on how to proceed. (“In evaluating the situation, the judge will have to rely on the representations of counsel, which of necessity will be cryptic, because counsel is the one who must make the disclosure while maintaining client confidences and allowing for continued zealous advocacy at trial.”) Before giving instruction, it may be appropriate for the judge to conduct a colloquy with the defendant, “if it appears that the defendant does not clearly understand the situation he has created.”

The attorney is permitted to ask the client to testify in a narrative fashion and to remain standing while the client testifies. In Mitchell, counsel asked his client “‘what do you wish to tell these jurors?’” The attorney may not examine the client or elicit any testimony from the client that he or she “knows” to be false. The attorney is permitted to object to the prosecutor’s cross-examination as appropriate, mindful not to assist the client in presenting false testimony. The attorney must not argue the false testimony in the closing argument or in any other proceeding, including appeals. Mass. R. Prof. C. 3.3(e).

http://www.mass.gov/obcbbo/false.htmI think you're full of #### that a California attorney doesn't have to go through a similar process.

 

[pantherclub]

I'm still waiting for that case--because the one you posted does not say that the attorney can just put his client on the stand to lie.

Once the lawyer “knows” the client intends to testify falsely, both Mitchell and Mass. R. Prof. C. 3.3(e) provide guidance to a defense attorney. The appropriate conduct depends on the circumstances facing the lawyer when he or she learns of the proposed false testimony:

First, if the criminal defense attorney discovers the client’s intent to testify falsely prior to accepting the case, he or she must refuse representation.

Second, if the criminal defense attorney discovers the client’s intent to testify falsely after taking the case, the attorney shall attempt a quiet withdrawal. If the attorney discovers the client’s intent to testify falsely before trial, he or she must seek the required permission to withdraw. The attorney should not disclose the perjury. In the motion to withdraw, “disclosure of privileged or prejudicial information shall be made only to the extent necessary to effect the withdrawal.” If it is necessary to disclose confidential or prejudicial information, the lawyer should file the motion ex parte and seek to have the motion heard in camera and the record of the proceeding impounded, except for the order granting the motion to withdraw. Mass. R. Prof. C. 1.16 (b) and ©; Mass. R. Prof. C. 3.3(e) and Comment 8; Butler v. U.S., 414 A.2d 844 (D.C. 1980).

Third, if the criminal trial has begun and the defense attorney discovers that the client intends to testify falsely at the trial, the attorney may seek to withdraw but is not required to do so. The defense attorney should not withdraw if he or she reasonably believes that the client will be prejudiced. If the criminal defense attorney is unable to get permission to withdraw, he or she may not prevent the client from testifying in his or her own defense. See Mass. R. Prof. C. 3.3(e). The client has a constitutional right to effective assistance of counsel, due process of law, and a fair trial, including his right to testify in his own defense. Commonwealth v. Mitchell, supra at 544.

The Mitchell decision requires that the defendant be present at the sidebar conference at which Rule 3.3(e) is invoked. Once the matter is called to the court's attention, Mitchell then indicates that the judge should instruct the lawyer on how to proceed. (“In evaluating the situation, the judge will have to rely on the representations of counsel, which of necessity will be cryptic, because counsel is the one who must make the disclosure while maintaining client confidences and allowing for continued zealous advocacy at trial.”) Before giving instruction, it may be appropriate for the judge to conduct a colloquy with the defendant, “if it appears that the defendant does not clearly understand the situation he has created.”

The attorney is permitted to ask the client to testify in a narrative fashion and to remain standing while the client testifies. In Mitchell, counsel asked his client “‘what do you wish to tell these jurors?’” The attorney may not examine the client or elicit any testimony from the client that he or she “knows” to be false. The attorney is permitted to object to the prosecutor’s cross-examination as appropriate, mindful not to assist the client in presenting false testimony. The attorney must not argue the false testimony in the closing argument or in any other proceeding, including appeals. Mass. R. Prof. C. 3.3(e).

http://www.mass.gov/obcbbo/false.htmI think you're full of #### that a California attorney doesn't have to go through a similar process.

 

[jon_mx]

George Zimmerman: Prelude to a shooting





By Chris Francescani

SANFORD, Florida | Wed Apr 25, 2012 4:09pm EDT

(Reuters) - A pit bull named Big Boi began menacing George and Shellie Zimmerman in the fall of 2009.

The first time the dog ran free and cornered Shellie in their gated community in Sanford, Florida, George called the owner to complain. The second time, Big Boi frightened his mother-in-law's dog. Zimmerman called Seminole County Animal Services and bought pepper spray. The third time he saw the dog on the loose, he called again. An officer came to the house, county records show.

"Don't use pepper spray," he told the Zimmermans, according to a friend. "It'll take two or three seconds to take effect, but a quarter second for the dog to jump you," he said.

"Get a gun."

That November, the Zimmermans completed firearms training at a local lodge and received concealed-weapons gun permits. In early December, another source close to them told Reuters, the couple bought a pair of guns. George picked a Kel-Tec PF-9 9mm handgun, a popular, lightweight weapon.

By June 2011, Zimmerman's attention had shifted from a loose pit bull to a wave of robberies that rattled the community, called the Retreat at Twin Lakes. The homeowners association asked him to launch a neighborhood watch, and Zimmerman would begin to carry the Kel-Tec on his regular, dog-walking patrol - a violation of neighborhood watch guidelines but not a crime.

Few of his closest neighbors knew he carried a gun - until two months ago.

On February 26, George Zimmerman shot and killed unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin in what Zimmerman says was self-defense. The furor that ensued has consumed the country and prompted a re-examination of guns, race and self-defense laws enacted in nearly half the United States.

During the time Zimmerman was in hiding, his detractors defined him as a vigilante who had decided Martin was suspicious merely because he was black. After Zimmerman was finally arrested on a charge of second-degree murder more than six weeks after the shooting, prosecutors portrayed him as a violent and angry man who disregarded authority by pursuing the 17-year-old.

But a more nuanced portrait of Zimmerman has emerged from a Reuters investigation into Zimmerman's past and a series of incidents in the community in the months preceding the Martin shooting.

Based on extensive interviews with relatives, friends, neighbors, schoolmates and co-workers of Zimmerman in two states, law enforcement officials, and reviews of court documents and police reports, the story sheds new light on the man at the center of one of the most controversial homicide cases in America.

The 28-year-old insurance-fraud investigator comes from a deeply Catholic background and was taught in his early years to do right by those less fortunate. He was raised in a racially integrated household and himself has black roots through an Afro-Peruvian great-grandfather - the father of the maternal grandmother who helped raise him.

A criminal justice student who aspired to become a judge, Zimmerman also concerned himself with the safety of his neighbors after a series of break-ins committed by young African-American men.

Though civil rights demonstrators have argued Zimmerman should not have prejudged Martin, one black neighbor of the Zimmermans said recent history should be taken into account.

"Let's talk about the elephant in the room. I'm black, OK?" the woman said, declining to be identified because she anticipated backlash due to her race. She leaned in to look a reporter directly in the eyes. "There were black boys robbing houses in this neighborhood," she said. "That's why George was suspicious of Trayvon Martin."

"MIXED" HOUSEHOLD

George Michael Zimmerman was born in 1983 to Robert and Gladys Zimmerman, the third of four children. Robert Zimmerman Sr. was a U.S. Army veteran who served in Vietnam in 1970, and was stationed at Fort Myer in Arlington, Virginia, in 1975 with Gladys Mesa's brother George. Zimmerman Sr. also served two tours in Korea, and spent the final 10 years of his 22-year military career in the Pentagon, working for the Department of Defense, a family member said.

In his final years in Virginia before retiring to Florida, Robert Zimmerman served as a magistrate in Fairfax County's 19th Judicial District.

Robert and Gladys met in January 1975, when George Mesa brought along his army buddy to his sister's birthday party. She was visiting from Peru, on vacation from her job there as a physical education teacher. Robert was a Baptist, Gladys was Catholic. They soon married, in a Catholic ceremony in Alexandria, and moved to nearby Manassas.

Gladys came to lead a small but growing Catholic Hispanic enclave within the All Saints Catholic Church parish in the late 1970s, where she was involved in the church's outreach programs. Gladys would bring young George along with her on "home visits" to poor families, said a family friend, Teresa Post.

"It was part of their upbringing to know that there are people in need, people more in need than themselves," said Post, a Peruvian immigrant who lived with the Zimmermans for a time.

Post recalls evening prayers before dinner in the ethnically diverse Zimmerman household, which included siblings Robert Jr., Grace, and Dawn. "It wasn't only white or only Hispanic or only black - it was mixed," she said.

Zimmerman's maternal grandmother, Cristina, who had lived with the Zimmermans since 1978, worked as a babysitter for years during Zimmerman's childhood. For several years she cared for two African-American girls who ate their meals at the Zimmerman house and went back and forth to school each day with the Zimmerman children.

"They were part of the household for years, until they were old enough to be on their own," Post said.

Zimmerman served as an altar boy at All Saints from age 7 to 17, church members said.

"He wasn't the type where, you know, 'I'm being forced to do this,' and a dragging-his-feet Catholic," said Sandra Vega, who went to high school with George and his siblings. "He was an altar boy for years, and then worked in the rectory too. He has a really good heart."

George grew up bilingual, and by age 10 he was often called to the Haydon Elementary School principal's office to act as a translator between administrators and immigrant parents. At 14 he became obsessed with becoming a Marine, a relative said, joining the after-school ROTC program at Grace E. Metz Middle School and polishing his boots by night. At 15, he worked three part-time jobs - in a Mexican restaurant, for the rectory, and washing cars - on nights and weekends, to save up for a car.

After graduating from Osbourn High School in 2001, Zimmerman moved to Lake Mary, Florida, a town neighboring Sanford. His parents purchased a retirement home there in 2002, in part to bring Cristina, who suffers from arthritis, to a warmer climate.

YOUNG INSURANCE AGENT

On his own at 18, George got a job at an insurance agency and began to take classes at night to earn a license to sell insurance. He grew friendly with a real estate agent named Lee Ann Benjamin, who shared office space in the building, and later her husband, John Donnelly, a Sanford attorney.

"George impressed me right off the bat as just a real go-getter," Donnelly said. "He was working days and taking all these classes at night, passing all the insurance classes, not just for home insurance, but auto insurance and everything. He wanted to open his own office - and he did."

In 2004, Zimmerman partnered with an African-American friend and opened up an Allstate insurance satellite office, Donnelly said.

Then came 2005, and a series of troubles. Zimmerman's business failed, he was arrested, and he broke off an engagement with a woman who filed a restraining order against him.

That July, Zimmerman was charged with resisting arrest, violence, and battery of an officer after shoving an undercover alcohol-control agent who was arresting an under-age friend of Zimmerman's at a bar. He avoided conviction by agreeing to participate in a pre-trial diversion program that included anger-management classes.

In August, Zimmerman's fiancee at the time, Veronica Zuazo, filed a civil motion for a restraining order alleging domestic violence. Zimmerman reciprocated with his own order on the same grounds, and both orders were granted. The relationship ended.

In 2007 he married Shellie Dean, a licensed cosmetologist, and in 2009 the couple rented a townhouse in the Retreat at Twin Lakes. Zimmerman had bounced from job to job for a couple of years, working at a car dealership and a mortgage company. At times, according to testimony from Shellie at a bond hearing for Zimmerman last week, the couple filed for unemployment benefits.

Zimmerman enrolled in Seminole State College in 2009, and in December 2011 he was permitted to participate in a school graduation ceremony, despite being a course credit shy of his associate's degree in criminal justice. Zimmerman was completing that course credit when the shooting occurred.

On March 22, nearly a month after the shooting and with the controversy by then swirling nationwide, the school issued a press release saying it was taking the "unusual, but necessary" step of withdrawing Zimmerman's enrollment, citing "the safety of our students on campus as well as for Mr. Zimmerman."

A NEIGHBORHOOD IN FEAR

By the summer of 2011, Twin Lakes was experiencing a rash of burglaries and break-ins. Previously a family-friendly, first-time homeowner community, it was devastated by the recession that hit the Florida housing market, and transient renters began to occupy some of the 263 town houses in the complex. Vandalism and occasional drug activity were reported, and home values plunged. One resident who bought his home in 2006 for $250,000 said it was worth $80,000 today.

At least eight burglaries were reported within Twin Lakes in the 14 months prior to the Trayvon Martin shooting, according to the Sanford Police Department. Yet in a series of interviews, Twin Lakes residents said dozens of reports of attempted break-ins and would-be burglars casing homes had created an atmosphere of growing fear in the neighborhood.

In several of the incidents, witnesses identified the suspects to police as young black men. Twin Lakes is about 50 percent white, with an African-American and Hispanic population of about 20 percent each, roughly similar to the surrounding city of Sanford, according to U.S. Census data.

One morning in July 2011, a black teenager walked up to Zimmerman's front porch and stole a bicycle, neighbors told Reuters. A police report was taken, though the bicycle was not recovered.

But it was the August incursion into the home of Olivia Bertalan that really troubled the neighborhood, particularly Zimmerman. Shellie was home most days, taking online courses towards certification as a registered nurse.

On August 3, Bertalan was at home with her infant son while her husband, Michael, was at work. She watched from a downstairs window, she said, as two black men repeatedly rang her doorbell and then entered through a sliding door at the back of the house. She ran upstairs, locked herself inside the boy's bedroom, and called a police dispatcher, whispering frantically.

"I said, 'What am I supposed to do? I hear them coming up the stairs!'" she told Reuters. Bertalan tried to coo her crying child into silence and armed herself with a pair of rusty scissors.

Police arrived just as the burglars - who had been trying to disconnect the couple's television - fled out a back door. Shellie Zimmerman saw a black male teen running through her backyard and reported it to police.

After police left Bertalan, George Zimmerman arrived at the front door in a shirt and tie, she said. He gave her his contact numbers on an index card and invited her to visit his wife if she ever felt unsafe. He returned later and gave her a stronger lock to bolster the sliding door that had been forced open.

"He was so mellow and calm, very helpful and very, very sweet," she said last week. "We didn't really know George at first, but after the break-in we talked to him on a daily basis. People were freaked out. It wasn't just George calling police ... we were calling police at least once a week."

In September, a group of neighbors including Zimmerman approached the homeowners association with their concerns, she said. Zimmerman was asked to head up a new neighborhood watch. He agreed.

"PLEASE CONTACT OUR CAPTAIN"

Police had advised Bertalan to get a dog. She and her husband decided to move out instead, and left two days before the shooting. Zimmerman took the advice.

"He'd already had a mutt that he walked around the neighborhood every night - man, he loved that dog - but after that home invasion he also got a Rottweiler," said Jorge Rodriguez, a friend and neighbor of the Zimmermans.

Around the same time, Zimmerman also gave Rodriguez and his wife, Audria, his contact information, so they could reach him day or night. Rodriguez showed the index card to Reuters. In neat cursive was a list of George and Shellie's home number and cell phones, as well as their emails.

Less than two weeks later, another Twin Lakes home was burglarized, police reports show. Two weeks after that, a home under construction was vandalized.

The Retreat at Twin Lakes e-newsletter for February 2012 noted: "The Sanford PD has announced an increased patrol within our neighborhood ... during peak crime hours.

"If you've been a victim of a crime in the community, after calling police, please contact our captain, George Zimmerman."

EMMANUEL BURGESS - SETTING THE STAGE

On February 2, 2012, Zimmerman placed a call to Sanford police after spotting a young black man he recognized peering into the windows of a neighbor's empty home, according to several friends and neighbors.

"I don't know what he's doing. I don't want to approach him, personally," Zimmerman said in the call, which was recorded. The dispatcher advised him that a patrol car was on the way. By the time police arrived, according to the dispatch report, the suspect had fled.

On February 6, the home of another Twin Lakes resident, Tatiana Demeacis, was burglarized. Two roofers working directly across the street said they saw two African-American men lingering in the yard at the time of the break-in. A new laptop and some gold jewelry were stolen. One of the roofers called police the next day after spotting one of the suspects among a group of male teenagers, three black and one white, on bicycles.

Police found Demeacis's laptop in the backpack of 18-year-old Emmanuel Burgess, police reports show, and charged him with dealing in stolen property. Burgess was the same man Zimmerman had spotted on February 2.

Burgess had committed a series of burglaries on the other side of town in 2008 and 2009, pleaded guilty to several, and spent all of 2010 incarcerated in a juvenile facility, his attorney said. He is now in jail on parole violations.

Three days after Burgess was arrested, Zimmerman's grandmother was hospitalized for an infection, and the following week his father was also admitted for a heart condition. Zimmerman spent a number of those nights on a hospital room couch.

Ten days after his father was hospitalized, Zimmerman noticed another young man in the neighborhood, acting in a way he found familiar, so he made another call to police.

"We've had some break-ins in my neighborhood, and there's a real suspicious guy," Zimmerman said, as Trayvon Martin returned home from the store.

The last time Zimmerman had called police, to report Burgess, he followed protocol and waited for police to arrive. They were too late, and Burgess got away.

This time, Zimmerman was not so patient, and he disregarded police advice against pursuing Martin.

"These #######s," he muttered in an aside, "they always get away."

After the phone call ended, several minutes passed when the movements of Zimmerman and Martin remain a mystery.

Moments later, Martin lay dead with a bullet in his chest.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/25/us-usa-florida-shooting-zimmerman-idUSBRE83O18H20120425

Oh that Zimmerman . he`s a nice a boy

He is not the racist blood-thirsty villain you make him out to be. Seems like a likable guy, who was responding to a community need, but might have taken it a little too seriously. I really don't get all the hatred, people voicing opinions that they want him dead. This is not the portrait of a murderer. It is a portrait of a guy who put himself in a bad situation and the results were tragic.

 

[dparker713]

I'm still waiting for that case--because the one you posted does not say that the attorney can just put his client on the stand to lie.

....

I think you're full of #### that a California attorney doesn't have to go through a similar process.

5. The Narrative Approach

Under the narrative approach, the attorney calls the defendant to the witness stand but does not engage in the usual question and answer exchange. Instead, the attorney permits the defendant to testify in a free narrative manner. In closing arguments, the attorney does not rely on any of the defendant's false testimony.

In the early 1970's, the American Bar Association adopted the narrative approach in its Project on Standards for Criminal Justice, Standards Relating to the Defense Function. Standard 7.7 provided:

"Testimony by the defendant.

...

"© If withdrawal from the case is not feasible or is not permitted by the court, or if the situation arises during the trial and the defendant insists upon testifying falsely in his own behalf, the lawyer may not lend his aid to the perjury. Before the defendant takes the stand in these circumstances, the lawyer should make a record of the fact that the defendant is taking the stand against the advice of counsel in some appropriate manner without revealing the fact to the court.

8. The Narrative Approach Represents the Best Accommodation of theCompeting Interests

We conclude the narrative approach best accommodates the competing interests of the defendant's constitutional right to testify and the attorney's ethical obligations.

I can keep busting you up all day chump.

 

[Christo]

I'm still waiting for that case--because the one you posted does not say that the attorney can just put his client on the stand to lie.

....

I think you're full of #### that a California attorney doesn't have to go through a similar process.

5. The Narrative Approach

Under the narrative approach, the attorney calls the defendant to the witness stand but does not engage in the usual question and answer exchange. Instead, the attorney permits the defendant to testify in a free narrative manner. In closing arguments, the attorney does not rely on any of the defendant's false testimony.

In the early 1970's, the American Bar Association adopted the narrative approach in its Project on Standards for Criminal Justice, Standards Relating to the Defense Function. Standard 7.7 provided:

"Testimony by the defendant.

...

"© If withdrawal from the case is not feasible or is not permitted by the court, or if the situation arises during the trial and the defendant insists upon testifying falsely in his own behalf, the lawyer may not lend his aid to the perjury. Before the defendant takes the stand in these circumstances, the lawyer should make a record of the fact that the defendant is taking the stand against the advice of counsel in some appropriate manner without revealing the fact to the court.

8. The Narrative Approach Represents the Best Accommodation of theCompeting Interests

We conclude the narrative approach best accommodates the competing interests of the defendant's constitutional right to testify and the attorney's ethical obligations.

I can keep busting you up all day chump.

Right, the lawyer should make a record. How do you think he does that? Singing in the shower the morning of trial?

 

[jon_mx]

I'm still waiting for that case--because the one you posted does not say that the attorney can just put his client on the stand to lie.

....

I think you're full of #### that a California attorney doesn't have to go through a similar process.

5. The Narrative Approach

Under the narrative approach, the attorney calls the defendant to the witness stand but does not engage in the usual question and answer exchange. Instead, the attorney permits the defendant to testify in a free narrative manner. In closing arguments, the attorney does not rely on any of the defendant's false testimony.

In the early 1970's, the American Bar Association adopted the narrative approach in its Project on Standards for Criminal Justice, Standards Relating to the Defense Function. Standard 7.7 provided:

"Testimony by the defendant.

...

"© If withdrawal from the case is not feasible or is not permitted by the court, or if the situation arises during the trial and the defendant insists upon testifying falsely in his own behalf, the lawyer may not lend his aid to the perjury. Before the defendant takes the stand in these circumstances, the lawyer should make a record of the fact that the defendant is taking the stand against the advice of counsel in some appropriate manner without revealing the fact to the court.

8. The Narrative Approach Represents the Best Accommodation of theCompeting Interests

We conclude the narrative approach best accommodates the competing interests of the defendant's constitutional right to testify and the attorney's ethical obligations.

I can keep busting you up all day chump.

Maybe you can, but it seems to go against the original assertion that you made that started this whole argument.

 

[timschochet]

He is not the racist blood-thirsty villain you make him out to be. Seems like a likable guy, who was responding to a community need, but might have taken it a little too seriously. I really don't get all the hatred, people voicing opinions that they want him dead. This is not the portrait of a murderer. It is a portrait of a guy who put himself in a bad situation and the results were tragic.

Whether he is what the article portrays, or he is closer to what other, more critical people have written, what difference does it make? It's still going to come down to his credibility on the witness stand.

 

[dparker713]

I'm still waiting for that case--because the one you posted does not say that the attorney can just put his client on the stand to lie.

....

I think you're full of #### that a California attorney doesn't have to go through a similar process.

5. The Narrative Approach

Under the narrative approach, the attorney calls the defendant to the witness stand but does not engage in the usual question and answer exchange. Instead, the attorney permits the defendant to testify in a free narrative manner. In closing arguments, the attorney does not rely on any of the defendant's false testimony.

In the early 1970's, the American Bar Association adopted the narrative approach in its Project on Standards for Criminal Justice, Standards Relating to the Defense Function. Standard 7.7 provided:

"Testimony by the defendant.

...

"© If withdrawal from the case is not feasible or is not permitted by the court, or if the situation arises during the trial and the defendant insists upon testifying falsely in his own behalf, the lawyer may not lend his aid to the perjury. Before the defendant takes the stand in these circumstances, the lawyer should make a record of the fact that the defendant is taking the stand against the advice of counsel in some appropriate manner without revealing the fact to the court.

8. The Narrative Approach Represents the Best Accommodation of theCompeting Interests

We conclude the narrative approach best accommodates the competing interests of the defendant's constitutional right to testify and the attorney's ethical obligations.

I can keep busting you up all day chump.

Right, the lawyer should make a record. How do you think he does that? Singing in the shower the morning of trial?

So, all of your records are filed with the court? Interesting. Glad all of your files on your clients are public records.Wow, that is such a horrible argument, if you made it in court I'd move for sanctions and get them. I do find it amusing how far down the rabbit hole you'll go.

 

[Christo]

I'm still waiting for that case--because the one you posted does not say that the attorney can just put his client on the stand to lie.

....

I think you're full of #### that a California attorney doesn't have to go through a similar process.

5. The Narrative Approach

Under the narrative approach, the attorney calls the defendant to the witness stand but does not engage in the usual question and answer exchange. Instead, the attorney permits the defendant to testify in a free narrative manner. In closing arguments, the attorney does not rely on any of the defendant's false testimony.

In the early 1970's, the American Bar Association adopted the narrative approach in its Project on Standards for Criminal Justice, Standards Relating to the Defense Function. Standard 7.7 provided:

"Testimony by the defendant.

...

"© If withdrawal from the case is not feasible or is not permitted by the court, or if the situation arises during the trial and the defendant insists upon testifying falsely in his own behalf, the lawyer may not lend his aid to the perjury. Before the defendant takes the stand in these circumstances, the lawyer should make a record of the fact that the defendant is taking the stand against the advice of counsel in some appropriate manner without revealing the fact to the court.

8. The Narrative Approach Represents the Best Accommodation of theCompeting Interests

We conclude the narrative approach best accommodates the competing interests of the defendant's constitutional right to testify and the attorney's ethical obligations.

I can keep busting you up all day chump.

Right, the lawyer should make a record. How do you think he does that? Singing in the shower the morning of trial?

So, all of your records are filed with the court? Interesting. Glad all of your files on your clients are public records.Wow, that is such a horrible argument, if you made it in court I'd move for sanctions and get them. I do find it amusing how far down the rabbit hole you'll go.

HFS, the guy doesn't even know what making a record is in the context of a trial.

 

[dparker713]

Maybe you can, but it seems to go against the original assertion that you made that started this whole argument.

There are situations where an attorney must allow a client to take the stand and lie.

How, exactly, does what I've cited go against this assertion?

 

[dparker713]

I'm still waiting for that case--because the one you posted does not say that the attorney can just put his client on the stand to lie.

....

I think you're full of #### that a California attorney doesn't have to go through a similar process.

5. The Narrative Approach

Under the narrative approach, the attorney calls the defendant to the witness stand but does not engage in the usual question and answer exchange. Instead, the attorney permits the defendant to testify in a free narrative manner. In closing arguments, the attorney does not rely on any of the defendant's false testimony.

In the early 1970's, the American Bar Association adopted the narrative approach in its Project on Standards for Criminal Justice, Standards Relating to the Defense Function. Standard 7.7 provided:

"Testimony by the defendant.

...

"© If withdrawal from the case is not feasible or is not permitted by the court, or if the situation arises during the trial and the defendant insists upon testifying falsely in his own behalf, the lawyer may not lend his aid to the perjury. Before the defendant takes the stand in these circumstances, the lawyer should make a record of the fact that the defendant is taking the stand against the advice of counsel in some appropriate manner without revealing the fact to the court.

8. The Narrative Approach Represents the Best Accommodation of theCompeting Interests

We conclude the narrative approach best accommodates the competing interests of the defendant's constitutional right to testify and the attorney's ethical obligations.

I can keep busting you up all day chump.

Right, the lawyer should make a record. How do you think he does that? Singing in the shower the morning of trial?

So, all of your records are filed with the court? Interesting. Glad all of your files on your clients are public records.Wow, that is such a horrible argument, if you made it in court I'd move for sanctions and get them. I do find it amusing how far down the rabbit hole you'll go.

HFS, the guy doesn't even know what making a record is in the context of a trial.

I expect a certain minimum level of reading comprehension from a lawyer. Sadly, you fall well below this level.

 

[Christo]

Maybe you can, but it seems to go against the original assertion that you made that started this whole argument.

There are situations where an attorney must allow a client to take the stand and lie.

How, exactly, does what I've cited go against this assertion?

The attorney isn't allowing it, the court is. How many times do I have to say this?????????????????

 

[Carolina Hustler]

Zimmy killed the wrong teenager...he shoulda killed Emmanuel Burgess, at least he committed a real crime

Why would he kill Emmanuel Burgess? When Emmanuel Burgess wasn't the one who attacked him and forced him to defend himself?

 

[Christo]

I'm still waiting for that case--because the one you posted does not say that the attorney can just put his client on the stand to lie.

....

I think you're full of #### that a California attorney doesn't have to go through a similar process.

5. The Narrative Approach

Under the narrative approach, the attorney calls the defendant to the witness stand but does not engage in the usual question and answer exchange. Instead, the attorney permits the defendant to testify in a free narrative manner. In closing arguments, the attorney does not rely on any of the defendant's false testimony.

In the early 1970's, the American Bar Association adopted the narrative approach in its Project on Standards for Criminal Justice, Standards Relating to the Defense Function. Standard 7.7 provided:

"Testimony by the defendant.

...

"© If withdrawal from the case is not feasible or is not permitted by the court, or if the situation arises during the trial and the defendant insists upon testifying falsely in his own behalf, the lawyer may not lend his aid to the perjury. Before the defendant takes the stand in these circumstances, the lawyer should make a record of the fact that the defendant is taking the stand against the advice of counsel in some appropriate manner without revealing the fact to the court.

8. The Narrative Approach Represents the Best Accommodation of theCompeting Interests

We conclude the narrative approach best accommodates the competing interests of the defendant's constitutional right to testify and the attorney's ethical obligations.

I can keep busting you up all day chump.

Right, the lawyer should make a record. How do you think he does that? Singing in the shower the morning of trial?

So, all of your records are filed with the court? Interesting. Glad all of your files on your clients are public records.Wow, that is such a horrible argument, if you made it in court I'd move for sanctions and get them. I do find it amusing how far down the rabbit hole you'll go.

HFS, the guy doesn't even know what making a record is in the context of a trial.

I expect a certain minimum level of reading comprehension from a lawyer. Sadly, you fall well below this level.

What do you think making a record is? Putting a post-it note on the inside of the file folder?

 

[GreatLakesMike]

I'm still waiting for that case--because the one you posted does not say that the attorney can just put his client on the stand to lie.

....

I think you're full of #### that a California attorney doesn't have to go through a similar process.

5. The Narrative Approach

Under the narrative approach, the attorney calls the defendant to the witness stand but does not engage in the usual question and answer exchange. Instead, the attorney permits the defendant to testify in a free narrative manner. In closing arguments, the attorney does not rely on any of the defendant's false testimony.

In the early 1970's, the American Bar Association adopted the narrative approach in its Project on Standards for Criminal Justice, Standards Relating to the Defense Function. Standard 7.7 provided:

"Testimony by the defendant.

...

"© If withdrawal from the case is not feasible or is not permitted by the court, or if the situation arises during the trial and the defendant insists upon testifying falsely in his own behalf, the lawyer may not lend his aid to the perjury. Before the defendant takes the stand in these circumstances, the lawyer should make a record of the fact that the defendant is taking the stand against the advice of counsel in some appropriate manner without revealing the fact to the court.

8. The Narrative Approach Represents the Best Accommodation of theCompeting Interests

We conclude the narrative approach best accommodates the competing interests of the defendant's constitutional right to testify and the attorney's ethical obligations.

I can keep busting you up all day chump.

Not a lawyer, but how would an attorney go about making a record during a trial without notifying the court?

 

[dparker713]

Maybe you can, but it seems to go against the original assertion that you made that started this whole argument.

There are situations where an attorney must allow a client to take the stand and lie.

How, exactly, does what I've cited go against this assertion?

The attorney isn't allowing it, the court is. How many times do I have to say this?????????????????

You can say it as many times as you want. Doesn't make it any less wrong.

 

[jon_mx]

He is not the racist blood-thirsty villain you make him out to be. Seems like a likable guy, who was responding to a community need, but might have taken it a little too seriously. I really don't get all the hatred, people voicing opinions that they want him dead. This is not the portrait of a murderer. It is a portrait of a guy who put himself in a bad situation and the results were tragic.

Whether he is what the article portrays, or he is closer to what other, more critical people have written, what difference does it make? It's still going to come down to his credibility on the witness stand.

I will grant you that it is important, there is a lot more to the case than just that. You have to take into account what the other witnesses saw, the phone calls, what physical evidence there was at the scene, and Zimmerman's injuries. Just not believing Zimmerman is being completely truthful is not enough to convict him. You have to be convinced by the totality of all the evidence that he was not acting in self-defense. A gut feeling should not be the basis of the conviction. I am pretty confident at this point that Martin was on top of Zimmerman beating him up at the time he shot him. If all the evidence points to that being the case, I would not convict him. Just the presence of the gun means it is a life or death situation, and that it is more than reasonable that Zimmerman was fearful for his life.

 

[jon_mx]

Maybe you can, but it seems to go against the original assertion that you made that started this whole argument.

There are situations where an attorney must allow a client to take the stand and lie.

How, exactly, does what I've cited go against this assertion?

The attorney isn't allowing it, the court is. How many times do I have to say this?????????????????

You can say it as many times as you want. Doesn't make it any less wrong.

At this point you two are being stubborn anal and are arguing about a minor point of semantics.Fixed for clarity.

 

[dparker713]

I'm still waiting for that case--because the one you posted does not say that the attorney can just put his client on the stand to lie.

....

I think you're full of #### that a California attorney doesn't have to go through a similar process.

5. The Narrative Approach

Under the narrative approach, the attorney calls the defendant to the witness stand but does not engage in the usual question and answer exchange. Instead, the attorney permits the defendant to testify in a free narrative manner. In closing arguments, the attorney does not rely on any of the defendant's false testimony.

In the early 1970's, the American Bar Association adopted the narrative approach in its Project on Standards for Criminal Justice, Standards Relating to the Defense Function. Standard 7.7 provided:

"Testimony by the defendant.

...

"© If withdrawal from the case is not feasible or is not permitted by the court, or if the situation arises during the trial and the defendant insists upon testifying falsely in his own behalf, the lawyer may not lend his aid to the perjury. Before the defendant takes the stand in these circumstances, the lawyer should make a record of the fact that the defendant is taking the stand against the advice of counsel in some appropriate manner without revealing the fact to the court.

8. The Narrative Approach Represents the Best Accommodation of theCompeting Interests

We conclude the narrative approach best accommodates the competing interests of the defendant's constitutional right to testify and the attorney's ethical obligations.

I can keep busting you up all day chump.

Right, the lawyer should make a record. How do you think he does that? Singing in the shower the morning of trial?

So, all of your records are filed with the court? Interesting. Glad all of your files on your clients are public records.Wow, that is such a horrible argument, if you made it in court I'd move for sanctions and get them. I do find it amusing how far down the rabbit hole you'll go.

HFS, the guy doesn't even know what making a record is in the context of a trial.

I expect a certain minimum level of reading comprehension from a lawyer. Sadly, you fall well below this level.

What do you think making a record is? Putting a post-it note on the inside of the file folder?

Make a record <> on the record. This is really sad Christo.

 

[Christo]

I'm still waiting for that case--because the one you posted does not say that the attorney can just put his client on the stand to lie.

....

I think you're full of #### that a California attorney doesn't have to go through a similar process.

5. The Narrative Approach

Under the narrative approach, the attorney calls the defendant to the witness stand but does not engage in the usual question and answer exchange. Instead, the attorney permits the defendant to testify in a free narrative manner. In closing arguments, the attorney does not rely on any of the defendant's false testimony.

In the early 1970's, the American Bar Association adopted the narrative approach in its Project on Standards for Criminal Justice, Standards Relating to the Defense Function. Standard 7.7 provided:

"Testimony by the defendant.

...

"© If withdrawal from the case is not feasible or is not permitted by the court, or if the situation arises during the trial and the defendant insists upon testifying falsely in his own behalf, the lawyer may not lend his aid to the perjury. Before the defendant takes the stand in these circumstances, the lawyer should make a record of the fact that the defendant is taking the stand against the advice of counsel in some appropriate manner without revealing the fact to the court.

8. The Narrative Approach Represents the Best Accommodation of theCompeting Interests

We conclude the narrative approach best accommodates the competing interests of the defendant's constitutional right to testify and the attorney's ethical obligations.

I can keep busting you up all day chump.

Not a lawyer, but how would an attorney go about making a record during a trial without notifying the court?

He wouldn't. Making a record is just that--making it part of the official court record. Just like I quoted above, you ask for a sidebar, tell the judge your client wants to testify against your advice, you don't tell him the specific reason because it would violate attorney-client privilege. But once you ask that your client be permitted to testify in a narrative format everyone knows you think he's going to lie. Because if it was just a matter of the client testifying against your advice for tactical reasons you could still lead him through the testimony with direct questions. The only reason you wouldn't ask questions is to keep from violating your duty not to present false facts to the court.

 

[Christo]

I'm still waiting for that case--because the one you posted does not say that the attorney can just put his client on the stand to lie.

....

I think you're full of #### that a California attorney doesn't have to go through a similar process.

5. The Narrative Approach

Under the narrative approach, the attorney calls the defendant to the witness stand but does not engage in the usual question and answer exchange. Instead, the attorney permits the defendant to testify in a free narrative manner. In closing arguments, the attorney does not rely on any of the defendant's false testimony.

In the early 1970's, the American Bar Association adopted the narrative approach in its Project on Standards for Criminal Justice, Standards Relating to the Defense Function. Standard 7.7 provided:

"Testimony by the defendant.

...

"© If withdrawal from the case is not feasible or is not permitted by the court, or if the situation arises during the trial and the defendant insists upon testifying falsely in his own behalf, the lawyer may not lend his aid to the perjury. Before the defendant takes the stand in these circumstances, the lawyer should make a record of the fact that the defendant is taking the stand against the advice of counsel in some appropriate manner without revealing the fact to the court.

8. The Narrative Approach Represents the Best Accommodation of theCompeting Interests

We conclude the narrative approach best accommodates the competing interests of the defendant's constitutional right to testify and the attorney's ethical obligations.

I can keep busting you up all day chump.

Right, the lawyer should make a record. How do you think he does that? Singing in the shower the morning of trial?

So, all of your records are filed with the court? Interesting. Glad all of your files on your clients are public records.Wow, that is such a horrible argument, if you made it in court I'd move for sanctions and get them. I do find it amusing how far down the rabbit hole you'll go.

HFS, the guy doesn't even know what making a record is in the context of a trial.

I expect a certain minimum level of reading comprehension from a lawyer. Sadly, you fall well below this level.

What do you think making a record is? Putting a post-it note on the inside of the file folder?

Make a record <> on the record. This is really sad Christo.

How do you make a record off the record?

 

[dparker713]

At this point you two are being stubborn anal and are arguing about a minor point of semantics.

Fixed for clarity.

Hi, have you met me or Christo?

 

[jon_mx]

At this point you two are being stubborn anal and are arguing about a minor point of semantics.

Fixed for clarity.

Hi, have you met me or Christo?

No, but I am familiar with Christo's work. He is anal about words. Either of you could be correct depending on how you interpret 'force' or 'allow'. There is no argument that would compel either of you to admit error, so I would recommend stopping now. Everyone has a decent understanding of the issue at this point. No point for further discussion.

 

[dparker713]

I'm still waiting for that case--because the one you posted does not say that the attorney can just put his client on the stand to lie.

....

I think you're full of #### that a California attorney doesn't have to go through a similar process.

5. The Narrative Approach

Under the narrative approach, the attorney calls the defendant to the witness stand but does not engage in the usual question and answer exchange. Instead, the attorney permits the defendant to testify in a free narrative manner. In closing arguments, the attorney does not rely on any of the defendant's false testimony.

In the early 1970's, the American Bar Association adopted the narrative approach in its Project on Standards for Criminal Justice, Standards Relating to the Defense Function. Standard 7.7 provided:

"Testimony by the defendant.

...

"© If withdrawal from the case is not feasible or is not permitted by the court, or if the situation arises during the trial and the defendant insists upon testifying falsely in his own behalf, the lawyer may not lend his aid to the perjury. Before the defendant takes the stand in these circumstances, the lawyer should make a record of the fact that the defendant is taking the stand against the advice of counsel in some appropriate manner without revealing the fact to the court.

8. The Narrative Approach Represents the Best Accommodation of theCompeting Interests

We conclude the narrative approach best accommodates the competing interests of the defendant's constitutional right to testify and the attorney's ethical obligations.

I can keep busting you up all day chump.

Not a lawyer, but how would an attorney go about making a record during a trial without notifying the court?

This all goes back to the underlying reason for using the narrative approach in the first place. CA courts want to preserve client confidentiality as much as possible. Explicitly telling the court that your client is about to commit perjury is a breach of that confidentiality and something the CA courts decided was unnecessary. The record referred to here is a CYA device for the lawyer. It proves that while they knew the testimony was going to be false, they did as little as possible to facilite such a crime while preserving the client's Constitutional rights.

 

[dparker713]

At this point you two are being stubborn anal and are arguing about a minor point of semantics.

Fixed for clarity.

Hi, have you met me or Christo?

No, but I am familiar with Christo's work. He is anal about words. Either of you could be correct depending on how you interpret 'force' or 'allow'. There is no argument that would compel either of you to admit error, so I would recommend stopping now. Everyone has a decent understanding of the issue at this point. No point for further discussion.

Christo can stop this at any time.

 

[dparker713]

I'm still waiting for that case--because the one you posted does not say that the attorney can just put his client on the stand to lie.

....

I think you're full of #### that a California attorney doesn't have to go through a similar process.

5. The Narrative Approach

Under the narrative approach, the attorney calls the defendant to the witness stand but does not engage in the usual question and answer exchange. Instead, the attorney permits the defendant to testify in a free narrative manner. In closing arguments, the attorney does not rely on any of the defendant's false testimony.

In the early 1970's, the American Bar Association adopted the narrative approach in its Project on Standards for Criminal Justice, Standards Relating to the Defense Function. Standard 7.7 provided:

"Testimony by the defendant.

...

"© If withdrawal from the case is not feasible or is not permitted by the court, or if the situation arises during the trial and the defendant insists upon testifying falsely in his own behalf, the lawyer may not lend his aid to the perjury. Before the defendant takes the stand in these circumstances, the lawyer should make a record of the fact that the defendant is taking the stand against the advice of counsel in some appropriate manner without revealing the fact to the court.

8. The Narrative Approach Represents the Best Accommodation of theCompeting Interests

We conclude the narrative approach best accommodates the competing interests of the defendant's constitutional right to testify and the attorney's ethical obligations.

I can keep busting you up all day chump.

Right, the lawyer should make a record. How do you think he does that? Singing in the shower the morning of trial?

So, all of your records are filed with the court? Interesting. Glad all of your files on your clients are public records.Wow, that is such a horrible argument, if you made it in court I'd move for sanctions and get them. I do find it amusing how far down the rabbit hole you'll go.

HFS, the guy doesn't even know what making a record is in the context of a trial.

I expect a certain minimum level of reading comprehension from a lawyer. Sadly, you fall well below this level.

What do you think making a record is? Putting a post-it note on the inside of the file folder?

Make a record <> on the record. This is really sad Christo.

How do you make a record off the record?

Sad.

 

[jon_mx]

At this point you two are being stubborn anal and are arguing about a minor point of semantics.

Fixed for clarity.

Hi, have you met me or Christo?

No, but I am familiar with Christo's work. He is anal about words. Either of you could be correct depending on how you interpret 'force' or 'allow'. There is no argument that would compel either of you to admit error, so I would recommend stopping now. Everyone has a decent understanding of the issue at this point. No point for further discussion.

Christo can stop this at any time.

Waiting for Christo to concede a point.

 

[Christo]

I'm still waiting for that case--because the one you posted does not say that the attorney can just put his client on the stand to lie.

....

I think you're full of #### that a California attorney doesn't have to go through a similar process.

5. The Narrative Approach

Under the narrative approach, the attorney calls the defendant to the witness stand but does not engage in the usual question and answer exchange. Instead, the attorney permits the defendant to testify in a free narrative manner. In closing arguments, the attorney does not rely on any of the defendant's false testimony.

In the early 1970's, the American Bar Association adopted the narrative approach in its Project on Standards for Criminal Justice, Standards Relating to the Defense Function. Standard 7.7 provided:

"Testimony by the defendant.

...

"© If withdrawal from the case is not feasible or is not permitted by the court, or if the situation arises during the trial and the defendant insists upon testifying falsely in his own behalf, the lawyer may not lend his aid to the perjury. Before the defendant takes the stand in these circumstances, the lawyer should make a record of the fact that the defendant is taking the stand against the advice of counsel in some appropriate manner without revealing the fact to the court.

8. The Narrative Approach Represents the Best Accommodation of theCompeting Interests

We conclude the narrative approach best accommodates the competing interests of the defendant's constitutional right to testify and the attorney's ethical obligations.

I can keep busting you up all day chump.

Not a lawyer, but how would an attorney go about making a record during a trial without notifying the court?

This all goes back to the underlying reason for using the narrative approach in the first place. CA courts want to preserve client confidentiality as much as possible. Explicitly telling the court that your client is about to commit perjury is a breach of that confidentiality and something the CA courts decided was unnecessary. The record referred to here is a CYA device for the lawyer. It proves that while they knew the testimony was going to be false, they did as little as possible to facilite such a crime while preserving the client's Constitutional rights.

What record would this be?

 

[pantherclub]

I'm still waiting for that case--because the one you posted does not say that the attorney can just put his client on the stand to lie.

....

I think you're full of #### that a California attorney doesn't have to go through a similar process.

5. The Narrative Approach

Under the narrative approach, the attorney calls the defendant to the witness stand but does not engage in the usual question and answer exchange. Instead, the attorney permits the defendant to testify in a free narrative manner. In closing arguments, the attorney does not rely on any of the defendant's false testimony.

In the early 1970's, the American Bar Association adopted the narrative approach in its Project on Standards for Criminal Justice, Standards Relating to the Defense Function. Standard 7.7 provided:

"Testimony by the defendant.

...

"© If withdrawal from the case is not feasible or is not permitted by the court, or if the situation arises during the trial and the defendant insists upon testifying falsely in his own behalf, the lawyer may not lend his aid to the perjury. Before the defendant takes the stand in these circumstances, the lawyer should make a record of the fact that the defendant is taking the stand against the advice of counsel in some appropriate manner without revealing the fact to the court.

8. The Narrative Approach Represents the Best Accommodation of theCompeting Interests

We conclude the narrative approach best accommodates the competing interests of the defendant's constitutional right to testify and the attorney's ethical obligations.

I can keep busting you up all day chump.

Not a lawyer, but how would an attorney go about making a record during a trial without notifying the court?

This all goes back to the underlying reason for using the narrative approach in the first place. CA courts want to preserve client confidentiality as much as possible. Explicitly telling the court that your client is about to commit perjury is a breach of that confidentiality and something the CA courts decided was unnecessary. The record referred to here is a CYA device for the lawyer. It proves that while they knew the testimony was going to be false, they did as little as possible to facilite such a crime while preserving the client's Constitutional rights.

What record would this be?

 

[Christo]

At this point you two are being stubborn anal and are arguing about a minor point of semantics.

Fixed for clarity.

Hi, have you met me or Christo?

No, but I am familiar with Christo's work. He is anal about words. Either of you could be correct depending on how you interpret 'force' or 'allow'. There is no argument that would compel either of you to admit error, so I would recommend stopping now. Everyone has a decent understanding of the issue at this point. No point for further discussion.

Christo can stop this at any time.

Are you making this part of the record?

 

[dparker713]

At this point you two are being stubborn anal and are arguing about a minor point of semantics.

Fixed for clarity.

Hi, have you met me or Christo?

No, but I am familiar with Christo's work. He is anal about words. Either of you could be correct depending on how you interpret 'force' or 'allow'. There is no argument that would compel either of you to admit error, so I would recommend stopping now. Everyone has a decent understanding of the issue at this point. No point for further discussion.

Christo can stop this at any time.

Are you making this part of the record?

Sure, why not. The record already reflects you're ignorance of the subject matter. Might as well also reflect my stubbornness.

 

[dparker713]

At this point you two are being stubborn anal and are arguing about a minor point of semantics.

Fixed for clarity.

Hi, have you met me or Christo?

No, but I am familiar with Christo's work. He is anal about words. Either of you could be correct depending on how you interpret 'force' or 'allow'. There is no argument that would compel either of you to admit error, so I would recommend stopping now. Everyone has a decent understanding of the issue at this point. No point for further discussion.

Christo can stop this at any time.

Waiting for Christo to concede a point.

I'm content to have him keep memorializing his incompetence.

 

[GreatLakesMike]

I'm still waiting for that case--because the one you posted does not say that the attorney can just put his client on the stand to lie.

....

I think you're full of #### that a California attorney doesn't have to go through a similar process.

5. The Narrative Approach

Under the narrative approach, the attorney calls the defendant to the witness stand but does not engage in the usual question and answer exchange. Instead, the attorney permits the defendant to testify in a free narrative manner. In closing arguments, the attorney does not rely on any of the defendant's false testimony.

In the early 1970's, the American Bar Association adopted the narrative approach in its Project on Standards for Criminal Justice, Standards Relating to the Defense Function. Standard 7.7 provided:

"Testimony by the defendant.

...

"© If withdrawal from the case is not feasible or is not permitted by the court, or if the situation arises during the trial and the defendant insists upon testifying falsely in his own behalf, the lawyer may not lend his aid to the perjury. Before the defendant takes the stand in these circumstances, the lawyer should make a record of the fact that the defendant is taking the stand against the advice of counsel in some appropriate manner without revealing the fact to the court.

8. The Narrative Approach Represents the Best Accommodation of theCompeting Interests

We conclude the narrative approach best accommodates the competing interests of the defendant's constitutional right to testify and the attorney's ethical obligations.

I can keep busting you up all day chump.

Not a lawyer, but how would an attorney go about making a record during a trial without notifying the court?

This all goes back to the underlying reason for using the narrative approach in the first place. CA courts want to preserve client confidentiality as much as possible. Explicitly telling the court that your client is about to commit perjury is a breach of that confidentiality and something the CA courts decided was unnecessary. The record referred to here is a CYA device for the lawyer. It proves that while they knew the testimony was going to be false, they did as little as possible to facilite such a crime while preserving the client's Constitutional rights.

So what happens when the false testimony is discovered?

 

[Christo]

Let's take this from a different direction. Say your client tells you before lunch to put him on the stand when court's back in session. You ask him why and he tells you that he's going to testify that he was nowhere near the scene at the time the crime occurred. But he's already admitted to you that he did commit the crime. Following your CYA procedure, you run back to the office and dictate a memo to the file that says you cannot believe he's going to take the stand and lie but gosh darn it there nothing you can do about it. At 2:00 p.m. you're back in court and you call your client to the stand. Not wanting to violate your duty, you ask him to tell the jury his story but before he gets a word out the prosecutor objects to your client providing a narrative. What do you do?

 

[dparker713]

I'm still waiting for that case--because the one you posted does not say that the attorney can just put his client on the stand to lie.

....

I think you're full of #### that a California attorney doesn't have to go through a similar process.

5. The Narrative Approach

Under the narrative approach, the attorney calls the defendant to the witness stand but does not engage in the usual question and answer exchange. Instead, the attorney permits the defendant to testify in a free narrative manner. In closing arguments, the attorney does not rely on any of the defendant's false testimony.

In the early 1970's, the American Bar Association adopted the narrative approach in its Project on Standards for Criminal Justice, Standards Relating to the Defense Function. Standard 7.7 provided:

"Testimony by the defendant.

...

"© If withdrawal from the case is not feasible or is not permitted by the court, or if the situation arises during the trial and the defendant insists upon testifying falsely in his own behalf, the lawyer may not lend his aid to the perjury. Before the defendant takes the stand in these circumstances, the lawyer should make a record of the fact that the defendant is taking the stand against the advice of counsel in some appropriate manner without revealing the fact to the court.

8. The Narrative Approach Represents the Best Accommodation of theCompeting Interests

We conclude the narrative approach best accommodates the competing interests of the defendant's constitutional right to testify and the attorney's ethical obligations.

I can keep busting you up all day chump.

Not a lawyer, but how would an attorney go about making a record during a trial without notifying the court?

This all goes back to the underlying reason for using the narrative approach in the first place. CA courts want to preserve client confidentiality as much as possible. Explicitly telling the court that your client is about to commit perjury is a breach of that confidentiality and something the CA courts decided was unnecessary. The record referred to here is a CYA device for the lawyer. It proves that while they knew the testimony was going to be false, they did as little as possible to facilite such a crime while preserving the client's Constitutional rights.

So what happens when the false testimony is discovered?

The attorney must remain silent, unless and until he is faced with criminal charges, in which case he's allowed to break the confidence of his client to defend himself.

 

[dparker713]

Let's take this from a different direction. Say your client tells you before lunch to put him on the stand when court's back in session. You ask him why and he tells you that he's going to testify that he was nowhere near the scene at the time the crime occurred. But he's already admitted to you that he did commit the crime. Following your CYA procedure, you run back to the office and dictate a memo to the file that says you cannot believe he's going to take the stand and lie but gosh darn it there nothing you can do about it. At 2:00 p.m. you're back in court and you call your client to the stand. Not wanting to violate your duty, you ask him to tell the jury his story but before he gets a word out the prosecutor objects to your client providing a narrative. What do you do?

You missed a few steps.