George Zimmerman's attorney Mark O'Mara told jurors Friday in closing argument that his defense team has proven the neighborhood watch volunteer's "pure, unadulterated innocence" of second-degree murder when he fatally shot 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, the Associated Press reported.
O'Mara told jurors the burden was on prosecutors, and he said they had not proven Zimmerman's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Rather, O'Mara argued that prosecutors built a case on a series of hypothetical "could've beens" and "maybes."
"If it hasn't been proven, it's just not there," O'Mara said. "You can't fill in the gaps. You can't connect the dots. You're not allowed to."
Prosecutor John Guy made his rebuttal and accused Zimmerman of telling "so many lies." He said Martin's last feeling was fear.
"Isn't that every child's worst nightmare, to be followed on the way home in the dark by a stranger," Guy said. "Isn't that every child's worst fear?"
The six jurors could begin deliberating Friday, news reports said. The panel, comprised of six women, will likely rely heavily on testimony from police, neighbors, friends and family members. These jurors will have to decide if they can determine who was yelling for help on a 911 call that recorded the shooting, and whether Zimmerman was a wannabe cop who took the law into his own hands or someone who was in a fight for his life, with his head being repeatedly slammed into the ground.
Zimmerman has been charged with second-degree murder in the February 26 2012 shooting, but the jury will also be allowed to consider manslaughter. Under Florida's laws involving gun crimes, manslaughter could end up carrying a penalty as heavy as the one for second-degree murder: life in prison.
