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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
Facebook search OK'd
Judge rules Martin's online activity fair game
Stephen M. Dowell / Orlando Sentinel / MCT Tracy Martin (left) and Sybrina Fulton, parents of Trayvon Martin, watch during a hearing for George Zimmerman in Florida. (TRIBUNE MEDIA MCT)
SANFORD, Fla. -- A judge ruled Friday attorneys for a Florida neighbourhood watch volunteer can inspect the school records and social media postings of the unarmed teenager he is accused of murdering.
Judge Debra S. Nelson said defendant George Zimmerman's attorneys need to know whether Trayvon Martin's school records and social media postings give any evidence he had violent tendencies.
The 29-year-old Zimmerman fatally shot the 17-year-old Martin in February. Zimmerman has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder, saying he shot Martin in self-defence. He was present Friday, his first appearance in public since his July bond hearing. He and his wife, Shellie, remain in hiding somewhere in Seminole County because of safety concerns.
The judge said she would review Zimmerman's medical records to see if they should be turned over to prosecutors. Nelson set another hearing for Oct. 26.
She will also take up an emergency motion filed Thursday by defence attorney Mark O'Mara that asks the court to grant depositions of several Sanford police officers, including former chief Bill Lee.
"I'm glad to have some of the discovery issues resolved. Now we can move forward," O'Mara said afterwards.
In regards to the emergency motion, O'Mara said in the filing he he learned during a recent deposition of police Sgt. Joseph Santiago that investigators held several meetings in the weeks after the shooting and reached a consensus Zimmerman should not be charged with a crime.
"If all those witnesses had a similar opinion, I'm very concerned of what the basis for the prosecution is," O'Mara said. "We certainly now have a lot more to look into. I didn't know we'd be going down this path. Now it's been opened up to us, we're going to investigate it to wherever it leads us."
Nelson ruled the defence can subpoena the Twitter and Facebook accounts of Martin under case law: Because Zimmerman is making a self-defence claim, any evidence that supports possible aggressive tendencies by Martin is valid.
O'Mara said he has heard "anecdotal evidence" that the 17-year-old Martin had been involved in mixed martial arts fighting.
Attorney Benjamin Crump, who is representing Martin's parents, said they didn't think his social media activity before the shooting was valid, but they don't have any fear of it being revealed.
-- The Associated Press
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition October 20, 2012 A30
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