George Zimmerman Waives Right to "Stand Your Ground" Hearing
George Zimmerman won't seek immunity next month under Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law, his lawyer said Tuesday. He will instead allow a jury to decide his fate at his second-degree murder trial for killing unarmed teen Trayvon Martin.
Zimmerman, a former neighborhood watch volunteer, has pleaded not guilty, insisting that he shot the teenager in self-defense. He has invoked the state's controversial "Stand Your Ground" law, which allows people to use deadly force in instances where they feel threatened.
Also during the hearing, the prosecution told the court that the witness who was on the phone with Trayvon when he was shot had given them a false statement.
The defense did seem to get a boost Tuesday when the prosecution revealed that a teenage woman, known as Witness 8, told the prosecution she "misrepresented" herself when she said in a previous interview that she didn't attend Martin's funeral because she was in the hospital.
This is the same witness who said in a recorded interview with the attorney for Martin's parents last March that she was on the phone with him when he encountered Zimmerman the night he was killed.
She claims Martin said during that conversation that someone was following him and that she also heard a brief exchange between him and someone before the phone was cut off. Martin was shot shortly afterwards.
[Zimmerman attorney Mark] O'Mara said he wanted to wait and take her deposition later this month before commenting on whether her credibility could be an issue at trial.
"The state did what it was supposed to do and let us know there was a problem with their witness. We now know it and have an opportunity to talk to her," he said. "Credibility is always an issue with any witness. And if it rises to the level where it is evidentiary, then we'll go from there. And if it doesn't rise to that level, we deal with it."
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(Photo: Joe Burbank-Pool/Getty Images)
