ZIMMERMAN VERDICT, PART 11: RATING THE LAWYERS (DEFENSE)

Watching the Zimmerman trial in 2013 was like watching the OJ Simpson trial in 1995: while the general public got a hell of an education on how these things work thanks to live TV trial coverage, those “in the business” were assessing the skills and strategies of the key players.

The face of the defense was that of a two-man team, Mark O’Mara and Don West. The general consensus was that they did a helluva good job, and that O’Mara was the best lawyer in the courtroom during that trial. Some criticized him for not being harsher on some witnesses; I respectfully disagree. When the jurors finally tell their stories in full detail, I think you’ll find that his gentility scored big points with them. The jury figures out early in the trial that the lawyers are the Alphas and the witnesses are the Betas in the cross-examination dialogue…they tend to identify more with the “ordinary people” witnesses than with the “power-figure” lawyers…and they consciously or subconsciously resent those who bully the witnesses called by the opposing side. O’Mara got his points across without brutalizing anyone called by the state.

Don West was co-counsel in the truest sense of the term: he was O’Mara’s partner in the battle, not his sidekick. West’s long career in criminal defense practice has made him a master of caselaw and rules of evidence. But he also knows how to handle witnesses. Those who wanted a conviction complained that he was hard on Rachel Jeantel, the inarticulately angry young woman who had been speaking with Trayvon Martin just before the fight in which he was shot. I must profoundly disagree. He could have gone MUCH harder… and come across as a bully. He came across, instead, as the avuncular older man who just couldn’t get what she was saying, and let the jury come to their own conclusion that she was confessing to multiple lies.

West got a lot of crap about the “knock-knock” joke he used early in the defense’s opening statement, and clueless talking heads will mention that for as long as the case is discussed. The lightweights also said that he spent too much time on details of the defense case in that opening. But for as long as people like me teach Continuing Legal Education courses on trial tactics in self-defense cases, West will be better remembered for laying out the defense’s key elements in detail at the beginning of trial, so that each time one of the state’s witnesses spouted BS from the stand, the jury had the defense’s theory of the case to compare it to, and could recognize the BS when they heard it.

Of course, when you rate the players, you have to look at both teams…and we’ll discuss the other team next. (Spoiler alert: they were more skilled than the trial made them appear.)

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