Lawyer Games and Trayvon Martin’s “Missing” GPS Data for February 26, 2012

Friday, February 1, 2013

Good afternoon to all of you.

The topic today: Lawyer Games and Trayvon Martin’s “Missing” GPS Data for February 26, 2012.

I have played my fair share of lawyer games over the years and I must admit that the adrenaline rush from winning a round of Gotcha! can become quite intoxicating and addictive. We have what appears to be a splendid game afoot between Mark O’Mara and Bernie de la Rionda.

Allow me to briefly set the stage.

MOM kicked off to BDLR with a Motion to Continue (the trial date). He wrings his hands and whines incessantly for fifteen pages about how the prosecution has so inconvenienced the defense that it cannot possibly be ready to try this case on the scheduled trial date of June 10, 2013.

BDLR’s response paints a very different picture of the prosecution cooperating with the defense by waiving the subpoena requirement and producing its witnesses for deposition only to have MOM cancel entire days of scheduled depositions at the last minute.

Then he kicks him where the Sun don’t shine by asking rhetorically if the real reason MOM filed the defense motion was to get more time to replenish the internet fund.

I urge all of you to read MOM’s motion and BDLR’s response because they are instructive and entertaining.

I am going to focus on one small part of the motion. On page 8, MOM asserts that on January 8th, he was provided with “an enormous amount of additional information” obtained from Trayvon Martin’s cell phone by CelleBrite, a company in New Jersey that claims to be able to obtain logical and physical information from cell phones. The information Cellebrite obtained was in addition to information obtained by the FDLE and a California law enforcement agency.

So far so good. However, there may be a catch. MOM complains that, although he has been provided with GPS data for the month of February 2012, he was not provided with any GPS data for the date of February 26th, the date of the murder. Apparently, the GPS data that has been provided is more accurate than we knew.

Damn! What a teaser. Don’t you hate it when that happens?

If I were O’Mara, I would proceed very cautiously because it looks and feels like gossamer-thin ice, a trap set for the unwary in the Gotcha! game.

I noticed that BDLR did not respond to MOM’s claim that the GPS data for the only date that matters in this case is missing.

I commented earlier:

“We have no choice except to wait until the Tuesday court hearing, because neither BDLR nor the FDLE have responded in writing regarding O’Mara’s claim about the “missing” GPS phone data for 2/26.

My best guess now, given MOM’s characterization of the data that was retrieved by CelleBrite, the New Jersey company that specializes in retrieving information from cell phones, as “an enormous amount of additional information” (i.e., additional to the information obtained by FDLE and a California LE agency), is that that information annihilates the defendant’s narrative of what happened.

In other words, Game, Set, Match!

Assuming I am right, that would be a rather brilliant strategic move by BDLR to put MOM in a position where he publicly demands to know something that BDLR will now reveal in open court on Tuesday, thoroughly demolishing the defense.

The defense may need to have an ambulance standing by at the ready.”

It’s not as if the defense has not asked for such rude treatment. MOM’s behavior must be especially galling to BDLR, who is limited to responding in court to issues properly before the court. MOM’s incessant whining, added to his blatantly dishonest effort to try the case in the court of public opinion would try Job’s patience, and I do not get the feeling that BDLR is a patient man.

Wise man say:

If you keep drawing a target on your chin while daring your enemy to hit you, sooner or later he will break your jaw and put you in the hospital.

This thinly disguised effort to get more time to replenish the defense coffers by falsely blaming the prosecution for the need to continue the trial date may have been the last straw.

After all, as with all of his miseries, the defendant has only himself to blame.

Any complaint about lack of money should draw a comment about the $100 grand that went to a bail bondsman because the defendant and his wife lied to the Court about their funds.

Any complaint about being pressed for time and needing a continuance should draw a comment that the multiple month delay last summer was caused by the defendant and his wife lying to the Court about their funds.

Back in December we saw BDLR fire a couple of shots across the defense bow with his reference to two identifiable voices in the background of a 911 call and his reference to Chris Serino’s multiple capias drafts recommending that the defendant be charged with murder 2 and eventually manslaughter. That silenced MOM until last week when he moved for the continuance.

Whether or not this is a Gotcha! game, the prosecution has to turn over all exculpatory information that it has as well as all information obtained from the phone that it intends to introduce at trial. I seriously doubt that any information obtained from that phone is exculpatory. I believe the information from 2/26, assuming that it has been retrieved from the phone, will be introduced at trial. Therefore, the prosecution must provide it.

If they were unable to retrieve it, they are going to have to explain why.

I do know this: If the defendant had not squandered so much money and defense counsel had used it for its proper purpose and retained a phone technology expert, we might not be having this conversation.

Assuming I have called this one right, BDLR will have delivered a mighty fine birthday present to Trayvon and his family on his 18th birthday.