George Zimmerman Trial: Key State Witness Rachel Jeantel Goes Toe-To-Toe With Zimmerman Defense Team

by Patrick H. Moore

Trayvon Martin’s female friend, key State witness Rachel Jeantel, went toe-to-toe with George Zimmerman’s defense team for five taut, drama-packed hours of cross-examination on Thursday June 27th, Day 14 of the Zimmerman second-degree-murder trial. Although Zimmerman’s attorney Don West tried mightily to get Jeantel to admit that she never heard Trayvon say “Get off” to Zimmerman during their confrontation on February 26, 2012, Rachel stubbornly refused to bow to West’s desire.

During the grueling cross-examination, Jeantel never wavered from her basic narrative: that Martin — who was a friend, not a boyfriend — told her a “creepy assed cracker” was following him. Jeantel explained that the two young people discussed how Trayvon could “lose” the man and that he finally came right out and asked the interloper:

“What are you following me for?”

Zimmerman’s defense team tried to maneuver Jeantel into admitting that a key statement she made in a deposition she gave in April was correct and that her testimony on Thursday was incorrect. The statement in question, which appears in the written transcript of the April deposition, was that she “could have” heard Martin telling someone to “get off” during an apparent confrontation with Zimmerman. Jeantel, however, in what may be the single most important piece of evidence in the trial up to this point, simply refused to acknowledge that she had said “could have heard” at the deposition rather than that she “had heard”, which is what she insisted upon yesterday.

“Trust me, they messed up,” said the 19-year-old Jeantel, testifying that the court reporter at the deposition had simply written the wrong words at a critical point in the proceedings.

During a particularly tense exchange with defense attorney Don West during the cross-examination, Jeantel testified that she said at the deposition that she “could hear Trayvon” say, “Get off.”

In effect, West was suggesting that she had altered her story under oath during direct-examination and lied about her recollections of the night Martin was killed.

In an online news article posted Thursday afternoon after the day’s testimony had concluded, Tina Susman of the LA Times wrote:

The exchange is important because the prosecution says Zimmerman was responsible for a scuffle that led to Martin being shot dead in Sanford, Fla., on Feb. 26, 2012. Prosecutors say if Jeantel heard Martin telling someone to “get off,” it suggests the 17-year-old was attacked. The defense says Martin instigated the confrontation and pounded Zimmerman’s head against the pavement, leading Zimmerman to fire in self-defense.

Under pointed defense questioning, Jeantel acknowledged yesterday that she had added details to her version of events since speaking with the Martin family attorney, Benjamin Crump, in March 2012. Jeantel admitted that at the Crump interview, she had neglected to mention that, while talking with Trayvon Martin on the phone, she had heard Martin saying, “Get off.” Nor had she mentioned at the March hearing that she heard someone say to Martin, “What are you doing here?”

When asked by West why she had not brought up these apparently key details at the Crump interview, Jeantel’s answer was logical, albeit perhaps defensive:

“Nobody asked me,” Jeantel said.

It is noted that Jeantel also did not include these details in a brief note she wrote to Martin’s mother, Sybrina Fulton, in March 2012. Jeantel first brought up these details in April 2012 when she met with prosecutor Bernie de la Rionda and gave her deposition.

West spent much of Thursday morning’s cross-examination reviewing that deposition.

Jeantel’s explanation as to why the discrepancies had occurred was simple, if not completely convincing:

“It’s how I speak,” Jeantel said when pressed her to clarify the discrepancies.

West specifically asked whether she recalled telling De la Rionda in April that she heard a noise on the phone “like something hitting somebody.” Jeantel response was that she did recall telling De la Rionda precisely that and added for good measure, “Trayvon got hit.”

West took exception to this and he stated:

“You don’t know that Trayvon got hit. “You don’t know that Trayvon at that moment didn’t take his fist and drive it into George Zimmerman’s face, do you?”

“That’s real retarded, sir,” Jeantel said in her blunt fashion as West continued a path of questioning aimed at showing Martin had attacked Zimmerman.

Although for the most part, Jeantel held her ground on Thursday, West may well have scored points by closing his cross-examination by asking Jeantel about another exchange during her April deposition:

In that exchange, De la Rionda asked Jeantel whether Martin had told her that the man following him had gotten out of his car. According to a written transcript, Jeantel replied, “You want that too?”

On Thursday, Jeantel insisted that she had not said that. West then confronted her by playing a recording of the deposition, on which she could be heard uttering the words.

West’s success in demonstrating the above discrepancy may help the defense undermine Jeantel’s credibility. She has already admitted lying in the past about her age; she said she was 16 when she was 18, and also lying about why she did not attend Martin’s funeral. Jeantel’s original story was that she had not attended the funeral because she was hospitalized, but she has since admitted she made up that story because she did not want to see Trayvon’s dead body at the funeral.

Why Jeantel’s Testimony Is So Important:

The prosecution’s ultimate success in convicting Zimmerman on second-degree-murder charges may well ride on whether the jury believes she is a credible witness. This is because the various witnesses who heard the fatal altercation between Zimmerman and Martin, while hearing “yelps,” “cries,” and finally the single fatal gunshot, have been unable to nail down to anyone’s satisfaction “who did what.”

For example, although the sounds of anguished wails for help once again filled the courtroom during the fourth day of testimony, “as prosecutors returned jurors to the scene of the crime by playing a recorded 911 call from a woman who lived in the housing complex where the shooting occurred,” the evidence was simply not definitive:

A witness, Jenna Lauer, described hearing feet shuffling outside her apartment, followed by desperate “yelps.”

“Whoever it was really needed help,” Lauer said. At some point, she said, “the yelps turned to ‘helps.’”

The cries could be clearly heard during her recorded call, as could the single crack of a gunshot, which ended the screams.

Lauer said she could not identify the voice of the person screaming.

A second witness on Thursday, Selma Mora, stated that she too heard two screams outside on the night of Feb. 26, 2012, and she too saw two figures on the ground, one on top of the other, but that it was too dark to identify either.