Reuters/Joe Burbank
George Zimmerman talks to court personnel during his murder trial for 2012 shooting death of Trayvon Martin in Seminole circuit court in Sanford, Florida, June 28, 2013.
Zimmerman, a 29-year-old neighborhood watch volunteer, says the unarmed 17-year-old attacked him first, and witnesses for the prosecution are bolstering his self-defense claims, experts told The New York Times.
One of those witnesses was Jonathon Good, a neighbor of Zimmerman's who watched his fight with Martin through his blinds on a rainy night in February 2012. Despite being called by the prosecution, Good told the court that Zimmerman was on the bottom of the "tussle" with Martin.
Even more damning for the prosecution, Goode said he believed Zimmerman was the one yelling for help. Both of these observations would back up Zimmerman's belief that his life was in danger.
The other problematic witness for the state was Martin's friend Rachel Jeantel, who was on the phone with him right before he died and was supposed to be the prosecution's star witness. Zimmerman's lawyers found a number of inconsistencies in her story, potentially damaging her credibility and helping his case.
“When you are talking about state witnesses as if they are defense witnesses, that is a problem for the State of Florida,” Orlando, Fla. lawyer Diana Tennis told The Times. “And any time you end each day with either a zero-sum game or the defense coming out ahead, that’s a problem when you’re the prosecution.”
Legal analysts also told The Times that prosecutors should have gone for a manslaughter conviction instead of second-degree murder, which involves “hatred, spite, or evil intent.”
“The state is overreaching, and I think that may well come back to bite them in terms of credibility,” Miami lawyer Michael Band told The Times.
To be sure, the prosecutors did score a few points last week. Good, for example, said repeatedly that he never saw Martin slamming Zimmerman's head into the ground as the neighborhood watch volunteer claimed. It was also clear from a nurse's testimony that Zimmerman didn't sustain any life-threatening injuries from Martin.
At the same time, George Zimmerman's lawyers made a lot of bad PR moves, including telling a knock-knock joke during an opening statement and taking a photo that appeared on Instagram with a terrible caption.
Prosecutors could score some more points this week, as they plan on showing evidence of inconsistencies in Zimmerman's own account of what happened that night, ABC News points out.