Before noon Thursday, University of Toledo law students Maysaa Ouza and Lauren Smith were convinced that George Zimmerman should have been found guilty in the 2012 murder of Trayvon Martin. An hour later, the two were less sure.
“It’s interesting to hear all this,” Ms. Ouza said after defense attorney Donald West’s recount of the 2013 trial and how it was portrayed by the mass media. Instead of feeling certain of his guilt, Ms. Ouza and Ms. Smith were undecided.
Mr. West gave an hourlong presentation to a nearly full house at the university’s Richard and Jade McQuade Law Auditorium, showing photos of the trial, playing calls made to Sanford, Fla., police, and reviewing media coverage. The lecture was sponsored by the College of Law and the Phi Alpha Delta law fraternity.
The story had been in the national spotlight for about six weeks when Mr. West joined Mr. Zimmerman’s defense team and, at the time, “the case didn’t seem very special to me,” he said, but the lack of an immediate arrest of Mr. Zimmerman for the shooting death of the 17-year-old Martin youth “triggered absolute fury in the media.”
The Martin youth and Mr. Zimmerman met, in what turned out to be a fatal encounter, on Feb. 26, 2012, in the Sanford neighborhood where Mr. Zimmerman lived and the Martin youth was visiting his father.
Mr. West said some media coverage of the case wasn’t entirely accurate. He said Mr. Zimmerman was not, as reported, acting as a neighborhood watch commander the night the Martin youth was killed, but rather was on his way to Target. He also took issue with the photos used by the media, a years-old picture of Mr. Zimmerman, showing him bigger than he was at the time of the shooting, and a 12-year-old Trayvon Martin, rather than an age-appropriate photo.
After the lecture, not everyone was convinced. Some questioned how the case could not have been seen as racially motivated when Mr. Zimmerman described the Martin youth to a police dispatcher, as seeming “suspicious” and as if there was “something wrong with him.”
“I don’t think a guy who is planning a murder calls police first and then waits four to five minutes to do it,” Mr. West said.
Others said that Mr. Zimmerman should not have followed the Martin youth and that, by trailing the teen, Mr. Zimmerman, who was legally armed, could not have claimed self-defense.
Chris Pryor, president of Phil Alpha Delta, said he was pleased with the discussion and turnout. Law students, he said, tend to take one side or another during major cases as they play out in the media, and, after hearing Mr. West speak at a convention last summer, wanted to bring Mr. West to Toledo.
“It was a good opportunity to shed light on this case,” Mr. Pryor said.
Contact Taylor Dungjen at tdungjen@theblade.com, or 419-724-6054, or on Twitter @taylordungjen.
First Published February 27, 2015, 5:00 a.m.
