Featuring: Lonnie Starr Explains Why Dee Dee is Credible and I Explain Witness Tampering

Thursday, February 7, 2013

Lonnie Starr is starring in today’s Featuring feature. Day in and day out, he skins the onion with solid comments that systematically peel back layer after layer of the defendant’s lies destroying his claim of self-defense.

I follow with an explanation of the excited utterance and present sense exceptions to the hearsay rule and a short explanation why the use of doxing and character assassination of Dee Dee constitutes first degree witness tampering, punishable by up to life in prison.

At 8:12 am he wrote the following comment explaining why Dee Dee’s statements are self-authenticating and the defense efforts to access her social media accounts are irrelevant:

The social media accounts of DD are not probative, because she was not physically present in RATL when these events took place, she is only an “ear witness” to what would be hearsay if not for the exceptions to those rules.

As such, I would not allow them to go after her social media material, because it’s only utility is as impeachment material. No amount of impeachment material, that is external to her statements about what she witnessed by ear, can have any fair application. If this witness is to be impeached in any way, shape or form, that impeachment must come from a demonstration that what she is testifying to is either not what occurred or could not have occurred.

This is because, obviously, without having been present and without any knowledge of the paths, roads, houses, their locations and the distances between them, she could not possibly fashion false testimony that could fit the conditions that night, with any precision at all.

MOM needs to climb back into his cave, he’s trying to cover up his own gross stupidity with even more wasteful gross stupidity.

Even if he were to get his hands on her social media materials, and managed to find some kind of impeachment material in them, it would not be allowed in court, because it would not be either relevant or probative. In short, you cannot impeach an account that cannot be falsely fashioned.

Although I think the information in Dee Dee’s social media accounts is discoverable, assuming she has any accounts, I agree with Lonnie’s conclusion that the information is irrelevant and inadmissible.

The defendant, his defense team and his rabidly confused supporters do not seem to understand that information in Dee Dee’s social media accounts, assuming she has any accounts, is unlikely to be admissible at trial.

The rules of evidence do not permit lawyers to attack the credibility of witnesses by throwing mud in their faces to see how much of it sticks. Assuming for the sake of argument that she is everything they claim she is and worse, none of that bad act and bad character evidence will be admissible. It does not matter, for example, if she lied about going to the hospital instead of Trayvon’s funeral. She could have partied naked in a crack house all night long having sex with animals and the defense would not be permitted to mention it.

Whether she was his girlfriend, boyfriend, friend, 5 years old, 100 years old or somewhere in between, is irrelevant.

She could have been a telemarketer trying to sell him a bushel of used rubbers packaged by the Koch brothers and Trayvon nothing more to her than a voice on the phone and she still would be able to testify about the conversation.

How can this be?

Simple.

The relevancy rule and excited-utterance and present-sense-impression exceptions to the hearsay rule permit her to tell the jury what Trayvon told her about his encounter with the creepy man and what he did to get away from him as well as what Trayvon and the creepy man said to each other and what she heard when the phone went dead.

The reason his statements are admissible is that he was describing an exciting event as it was happening and influencing him. Contemporaneous descriptions of exciting events by witnesses involved in and experiencing those events have long been admissible to prove those events happened as described. Indeed, this is well-settled law. If the defense objects, it will get nothing but a stern and withering glance from Judge Nelson as she says, “Objection overruled.”

The jury will assess Trayvon’s credibility regarding his encounter with the creepy man just as it will assess the credibility of the creepy man’s numerous conflicting and inconsistent statements about that encounter. The jury will look at the rest of the evidence, particularly the physical and forensic evidence as well as the testimonies of the various witnesses to the encounter and the shooting.

It doesn’t take a weatherman to tell which way the wind blows.

As Lonnie points out, Dee Dee was not present during the encounter and did not know anything about the neighborhood. She can only tell the jury what Trayvon told her. She would not have known what to lie about because she was not there. If anything, her statement is frustratingly vague and that ironically enhances her credibility in a manner that a more detailed statement tailored to establish each element of the crime charged would not.

The defense is not likely to persuade the jury that Benjamin Crump told her what to say. Matt Gutman’s (ABC News) recording will no doubt verify that. He would not have been invited to be present and record the conversation, if Crump had any funny business in mind. That recording created a great insurance policy.

As a former criminal defense lawyer and officer of the court, I am extremely offended by the efforts to dox, demonize and intimidate Dee Dee. Pure and simple it’s criminal behavior because it is motivated by a desire to keep her from testifying or to destroy her credibility if she does testify.

Witness intimidation via character assassination by false statement and innuendo is not protected speech under the First Amendment.

Since Dee Dee is a prosecution witness in a second degree murder case, those who seek to assassinate her character with false statements and innuendo are committing the crime of first degree witness intimidation.

Intimidating a witness to a murder in Florida is first degree witness tampering punishable by a sentence of imprisonment of up to life in prison.

I sincerely hope that anyone who attempts to intimidate Dee Dee is prosecuted, convicted and sentenced to a lengthy prison term.

They deserve it.

Cyber Bullies Still Seeking Dee Dee to Harass and Intimidate in Trayvon Martin Murder

Saturday, December 15, 2012

I write today to resolve a disagreement between BettyKath and others regarding whether certain racist individuals who rabidly support the defendant, let-his-name-be-forgotten (LHNBF), committed the crime of witness tampering under Florida law when they participated in an internet doxing scheme to identify, target, defame, harass, humiliate, intimidate and ultimately terrify W8 (AKA: Dee Dee), a witness against the defendant.

The disagreement concerns whether proof of witness tampering requires proving that the person harassed or intimidated was a witness. For reasons that follow, the answer is “No.”

Dee Dee is not her true name. The prosecution assigned her that name to protect her identity and her privacy from the media and people like the defendant’s rabid supporters, who routinely use character assassination to destroy anyone who dares to disagree with and criticize them.

She was Trayvon Martin’s girlfriend and she was talking to him on her cell phone when the defendant followed, confronted and assaulted Trayvon, knocking him and his cell phone to the ground. Moments later he killed him with a single gunshot wound to the heart. In fact, she had been talking to Trayvon off and on for about six hours that day and during the half-hour or so before the defendant assaulted him, Trayvon told her about a menacing creepy stranger following him in a vehicle. He told her the man scared him. He ran to get away from the man.

The defendant, who did not know that Trayvon was talking to anyone on his cellphone when he attacked him, claims self-defense. Even though he was carrying a gun and Trayvon was unarmed, but for a can of iced tea and a bag of Skittles, the defendant told the police that Trayvon approached him, punched him in the nose, stunning and knocking him to the ground. Trayvon then straddled him as as he lay on his back and rained down savage punch after savage punch to his head, MMA-style. Trayvon grabbed both sides of his head and viciously slammed the back of his head time after time against a cement sidewalk until he thought his head would explode. On the verge of losing consciousness, he started to scream for help, but Trayvon stifled his cries and began to suffocate him by placing both hands over his bloody mouth, bleeding broken nose, and began to press down. Hard.

That is when he felt Trayvon’s hand start to slide down his chest toward his hip causing him to suddenly remember something quite important that he had somehow forgotten. That would be his loaded gun concealed in a holster inside his pants behind his right hip. Yes, that would be the same gun that was pressing into his back as he lay on his back being pummeled to death.

The defendant told the police he did what any reasonable person would have done in the same situation. He reached back, pulled his gun out of his holster, extended his arm, aimed to make sure that he did not shoot his left hand, and pulled the trigger.

Despite the defendant’s incredibly detailed and bloody account of Trayvon’s savage and vicious assault that came within inches of killing him, Trayvon did not have any blood on the cuffs and lower sleeves of the two sweatshirts he was wearing and the only DNA detected in his fingernail cuttings was his own.

High resolution close-up photographs of the defendant’s face and the back of his head taken by police at the station house approximately four-and-one-half hours after the murder do not support his story, and he declined several offers to be transported to the ER for a medical exam. That is not surprising as his nose appears to be straight and unbroken with only slight swelling near the bridge. Two small capillary cuts on the back of his head did not require stitches or bandages and the defendant never exhibited any confusion or appeared to be in any pain at any time at the station house.

Even though the defendant’s claim of self-defense is contradicted by the physical evidence, including blood and DNA analysis, Dee Dee’s testimony is important to the case because, if true, it establishes that the defendant was the aggressor who menacingly pursued Trayvon first in his vehicle, and then on foot into the area behind two buildings of town homes where he confronted and attacked Trayvon as she was talking to him on her cell phone.

Dee Dee has been the subject of considerable speculation as to her true identity and loathsome character assassination on the internet by the defendant’s rabid supporters. I need not recount specifics because they have said everything you can imagine and worse to ruin her life and break her, destroying her character and her credibility.

Yes, they are that depraved and worse because she almost certainly is a child.

They mistakenly targeted two teenagers named Dee Dee, in Miami and Miami Gardens where Trayvon lived, and subjected them to their unique form of branding only to discover that neither girl was the Dee Dee they were looking for.

These internet thugs are salivating with excitement, sharpening their knives and still searching for the “real” Dee Dee.

Well, guess what. They better stop and lawyer up because they are in a helluva lot of trouble. Legal trouble that destroys lives.

That would be their lives.

Florida Statutes > Title XLVII > Chapter 914 > § 914.22 – Tampering with or harassing a witness, victim, or informant; penalties provides in pertinent part:

(1) A person who knowingly uses intimidation or physical force, or threatens another person, or attempts to do so, or engages in misleading conduct toward another person, or offers pecuniary benefit or gain to another person, with intent to cause or induce any person to:

(a) Withhold testimony . . . from an official investigation or official proceeding;

(c) Evade legal process summoning that person to appear as a witness . . . in an official investigation or an official proceeding;

(d) Be absent from an official proceeding to which such person has been summoned by legal process; or

(f) Testify untruthfully in an official investigation or an official proceeding,

commits the crime of tampering with a witness, victim, or informant.

[Emphasis supplied]

Note that intimidation of “a person” to induce “any person” not to testify constitutes witness tampering.

Question: How much trouble are these internet terrorists in?

Answer: Plenty pilikia.

(2) Tampering with a witness, victim, or informant is a:

(d) Felony of the first degree, punishable by a term of years not exceeding life or as provided in s. 775.082, s. 775.083, or s. 775.084, where the official investigation or official proceeding affected involves the investigation or prosecution of a first degree felony or a first degree felony punishable by a term of years not exceeding life.

(3) Whoever intentionally harasses another person and thereby hinders, delays, prevents, or dissuades any person from:

(a) Attending or testifying in an official proceeding or cooperating in an official investigation;

or attempts to do so, commits the crime of harassing a witness, victim, or informant.

(4) Harassing a witness, victim, or informant is a:

(e) Felony of the first degree, punishable by a term of years not exceeding life or as provided in s. 775.082, s. 775.083, or s. 775.084, where the official investigation or official proceeding affected involves the investigation or prosecution of a felony of the first degree punishable by a term of years not exceeding life or a prosecution of a life or capital felony.

I have no sympathy for the people who have sought and continue to seek to destroy the “real” Dee Dee and I hope the State of Florida traces these internet terrorists back through their proxy servers and ISPs to their lairs and prosecutes them for first degree witness tampering and witness harassment.