EDITORIAL:: Should George Zimmerman take the stand for "standing his ground?"

Photo Credit: AP

"I plead the fifth" has become somewhat comedic in recent years, particularly after a 2005 Dave Chappelle sketch, but the Constitutional Amendment is no laughing matter when it comes to the preservation of one's freedom. The Amendment under the Bill of Rights grants the right to an American's right not to incriminate his or herself and states no person "shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself." In essence, the accused has the right to refuse to testify in open court about any crime they are suspected of committing.

Given the eyewitness, earwitness, and third party testimony for key witnesses for both the prosecution and the defense, the discrepancies of George Zimmerman's multiple accounts and re-enactments seem to be adding up begging the question: Are his own words on the stand going to be the only thing that can clear his name?

The water held by Zimmerman's story first began to fall into question with the infamous Witness 8, Trayvon Martin's good friend Rachel Jeantel. Jeantel's testimony led counsel, jurors, the judge, and the public to believe that certain aspects of Zimmerman's accounts were outright untrue and possibly intentionally misleading. Jeantel testified that Trayvon Martin's first words to his killer were essentially "What are you following me for?" while Zimmerman maintains that the teen's initial statement was "You gotta problem mother f***er?" which are obviously two statements on two completely different levels of confrontation.

Jeantel then went on to state that Martin said he was going to attempt to "lose" Zimmerman, which is understandable, however she testified that Martin told her this in response to her telling him he "better run" which can be deduced to mean he did not intend on outright fleeing yet simply attempting to take a route unable to be followed by a vehicle.


The next discrepancy came from the eyewitness testimony of Jonothan Manalo, the first person on the scene post-shooting. Manalo testified to seeing Martin face-down, the same position the first responders testified to finding Martin in while Zimmerman maintains he forced Martin to his back after shooting him, reportedly telling him to "stop moving."


After such contradiction one would hope to hear from a friend right? Well ask and you shall receive! Zimmerman's "best friend" Mark Osterman took the stand and testified that his friend George did not have time to properly identify himself or initiate a dialogue with Martin before he was bumrushed and assaulted while Zimmerman's own re-enactment illustrated a three-minute 100+ yard walk from his vehicle to the dog path where Martin was walking.

Another hopeful that one would assume Zimmerman would count on would be the testimony of the only person to see the infamous "fight" Jonothan Good. Good testified that he saw the entire altercation once Martin alledgely was in a straddling, dominant, "ground and pound" position yet however as soon as he left to call the police came the stage of the struggle that involved the lone gunshot that killed Martin, leaving Zimmerman with no one to corroborate his account of how that phase of the struggle occured exactly.
The injuries sustained by Zimmerman, which accompany his account of having his head repeatedly slammed into concrete have even been contradicted and described by both a physician's assistant as well as a county medical examiner as being "insignificant" and "exaggerated" and not consistent with any account of a struggle involving the possibility of threat to life.

So what we have here is a failure to authenticate. We have a defendant who has every piece of his verbal account of what happened discredited and disregarded as not entirely being true or even likely. Facing the loss of freedom in this instance due to gross inconsistency, one would certainly believe anyone would choose not to exercise their Fifth Amendment Rights and finally alleviate any and all suspicion of their sole eyewitness account.

This man is facing potentially losing a decade or more of his life to incarceration and the only thing that could end up saving him is his own testimony. The way the law works is that once a defendant takes the stand under oath, THAT is the recollection that counts to both judge and jury.

Re-enactments, audio, and video are allowed to show discrepancy, at the very worst their inaccuracy can be attributed to any number of factors not relevant in the court of law as it applies to conviction.
If this man is really convinced he was standing his ground and 100% justified to act in the manner in which he did, there is only one way to set the record straight once and for all. There is only one way to clear his name. There is only one way to take a stand, and that is to take THE stand and testify.