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De la Rionda repeatedly stressed that Zimmerman “profiled” Trayvon and “assumed” he was a criminal. But the teen was the one scared for his life, he said.
He recalled the testimony from a key witness, Miami friend Rachel Jeantel, 19, who was on the phone with Trayvon moments before he died. She told jurors that Trayvon told her a strange man was following him and she said she heard Trayvon ask the person why he was being followed.
De la Rionda did not shy away from mentioning Jeantel’s often inarticulate speech, especially evident during hours of combative cross-examination. Instead, he told jurors her youth and “colorful language” lent credibility to her account.
He invoked civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in a slide show presentation: “I have a dream,” it read, that Jeantel would be judged “by the content of her testimony.”
In his interviews with police, Zimmerman repeatedly “exaggerated” the fight with Trayvon, de la Rionda said. But while acknowledging Zimmerman suffered some injuries to the face and head, de la Rionda said: “Who suffered the most serious injury of all?”
De la Rionda also needled Zimmerman for perceived inconsistencies in Zimmerman’s accounts to police — including a point when the neighborhood watchman seemed to acknowledge approaching the teen, before backtracking and claiming Trayvon came at him.
Earlier in his closing, de la Rionda pointed at Zimmerman, who stared straight ahead.
“A teenager is dead. He’s dead through no fault on his own,” he said. “He’s dead because another man made assumption...because his assumptions were wrong, Trayvon Benjamin Martin is no longer walks on this earth.”
When jurors begin deliberating, they will be considering both the second-degree murder charge and the less-serious charge of manslaughter with a firearm, under a ruling by Seminole Circuit Judge Debra Nelson Thursday.
But Nelson declined to allow jurors to consider another charge: third-degree felony murder under the theory that Zimmerman committed child abuse on Trayvon Martin.
“I just don’t think the evidence supports that,” Nelson said.
Zimmerman is facing up to life in prison if convicted of second-degree murder with a firearm. Manslaughter with a firearm is punishable by up to 30 years in prison; the same charge without a firearm can draw up to 15 years in prison.
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