. . . Or, perhaps considering it's such a high profile trial, they should have been prepared for anything? Simple incompetence, or just "too many cooks stirring the pot", and the prosecutorial side has failed to adequately assign responsibilities, or clear chains of command? . . .
Given the high-level intrusion of politics, I'd guess that nobody wants to take initiative - i.e., people will do
exactly the
specific tasks they're assigned, and no more, and they'll do them in exactly the manner in which they're specifically instructed; it's probably "CYA" time in the DA's office.
Note also that they're on the 3rd judge in the rotation - the first one was very sure to bring up her possible conflict of interest, and the next judge in the rotation indicated that he had a possible conflict, too. It's almost as if everyone involved senses that between politics and protests, involvement with this case has very little upside, and
lots of downside. (I think that will hold true no matter the ultimate outcome.)
What I found very telling in other coverage is that at the hearing the prosecution admitted that they had
no evidence as to who actually started the fight between Martin and Zimmerman.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE [de la Rionda]: And isn't it true that a lot of statements that he made do not make sense in terms of the injuries that he described. Did he not describe to the police that Mr. Martin had him on the ground and kept bashing his head on the concrete over and over and just physically beating him with his hands?
GILBREATH: He has said that, yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And isn't it true that there is evidence that indicates that's not true?
GILBREATH: Yes.
Does this suggest that the prosecution did
not have access to the picture of Zimmerman's bloody head, shown in the OP? Combined with the medical records of a broken nose that the defense is apparently going to provide and the eyewitness testimony that Martin was on top of Zimmerman whilst beating him, this would seem to go a long way towards supporting Zimmerman's statements unless the prosecution has evidence that hasn't been released yet.
(BTW, have the results of Martin's autopsy been released? It's been a couple of months, and besides actual cause of death, wouldn't they have done a tox and drug screen? Be interesting to know the results, considering Martin was on school suspension for a minor drug offense.)