O'Mara isn't so strong. About as much passion as a social studies teacher. Forget Thomas Jefferson, bring up the fact the GZ claimed to be screaming for help BEFORE he knew a 911 call was recorded with someone screaming for help. If you believe that you must acquit.
I was thrilled that O'mara was staying calm and low-key considering the all-female jury. Only in the second half did he raise the volume, intensity or tone of his voice, and that was kept at a minimum as well. He stuck like glue to reasonable doubt, the law, that there was nothing illegal about following, the four-minute silence was powerful, and demonstrated one of the things I've argued too - that Trayvon didn't go home when he had
at least two minutes to do it (which is what I thought it was before O'Mara clearing that up just a little while ago). Trayvon was the first to make a verbal challenge according to the prosecution's own witness (friend-girl on the phone), when he could've already been sitting on the couch drinking his tea and letting his 12-year-old friend eat his Skittles.
O'mara's chart on reasonable doubt was right on point, and it included going both ways - It takes proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Zimmerman didn't act in self defense, and, if that's found, it takes beyond a reasonable doubt that he
did commit murder 2 or manslaughter, and he tied it together that if they go back and determine that it was legitimate self defense on one charge, it applies on the other charge as well, and they can go home right after that finding is read in court.
As O'Mara suggested throughout his closing, Guy had little more than "This was a kid, armed with nothing but Skittles and an Arizona Ice Tea, Zimmerman had a gun, now use your common sense to come to a verdict." If they do it that way, they will
break the law, as their common sense must comport with the evidence and beyond a reasonable doubt standard, and the state's evidence for almost anything they've asserted as elements of the crime(s) Zimmerman is accused of, are quite literally non-existent.
I also found it kind of refreshing to hear someone in the justice system acknowledge the source of that system; the Constitution, the men who wrote it and the mandates for how a trial must be conducted under its auspices. He didn't spend much time on it, but I'm glad he mentioned it just to remind the jurors what they are obligated to consider, and the "child" Trayvon Martin, or the Skittles and tea he was carrying, and the "planning" that they conjecture that Zimmerman engaged in before and after the shooting based on community college classes etc., are not among those considerations. Reasonable doubt, evidence, fairness in the way the state brought its case, all are.
I thought O'Mara did great myself.
Blues