The prosecutor cursed and the defense attorney told a joke as both sides laid out opening arguments in the murder trial of George Zimmerman, the man who killed Florida teen Trayvon Martin in what his lawyers say was self-defense and authorities say was a case of fatal profiling.
The all-female jury of six took in both unconventional statements, alternately stunned, taking notes and at times appearing to nod in agreement. Jaws in the jury box dropped when prosecutor John Guy electrified the courtroom with a short, but profanity-laced and impassioned argument that sought to paint the defendant as an angry and out-of-control vigilante who was stalking Martin when he shot the teen in the gated community in Sanford, where he lived.
“F---ing punks,” prosecutor John Guy said in open court, quoting Zimmerman's own words to a non-emergency police dispatcher. “These a--holes, they always get away.”
The language -- rare for open court -- appeared to stun the six female jurors who must decide whether Zimmerman shot and killed the 17-year-old African-American teen in self defense, or if he stalked the youth and provoked the deadly 2012 confrontation.
“And excuse my language, but those were his words, not mine.”
- Florida Prosecutor John Guy
“Those were the words in that grown man’s mouth as he followed, in the dark, a 17-year-old boy who he didn’t know,” continued Guy, as jurors in the Florida courtroom listened intently, some taking notes. “And excuse my language, but those were his words, not mine.”
When Guy said Zimmerman "made a decision that brought us all here today," the juror identified as E6 nodded her head in apparent agreement
Zimmerman appeared to show no emotion inside the courtroom as Guy made his statements.
Guy discounted the expected defense version of events, that Zimmerman was on the losing end of a violent confrontation and pulled his registered gun in self-defense, calling it a "tangled web of lies."
The prosecutor said Martin had no blood or DNA from Zimmerman on his hands or under his fingernails, and he wrapped up his statements in about a half-hour, telling jurors Zimmerman "did not shoot [Martin] because he had to, but because he wanted to."
Don West followed with opening statements on behalf of Zimmerman, offering a knock-knock joke that fell flat before the stone-faced jurors.
"Who's there?" West said. "George Zimmerman. George Zimmerman who? Okay, good. You're on the jury."
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