Mark O'Mara says photograph released after months of asking is 'significant' in supporting defence in Trayvon Martin case

This article is more than 7 years old

This article is more than 7 years old

Lawyers for George Zimmerman have accused a Florida prosecutor of deliberately hiding evidence, which they say is frustrating their attempts to build a strong self-defence argument for their client over the death of teenager Trayvon Martin.

The claim relates to a new colour photograph of Zimmerman's facial injuries taken soon after the neighbourhood watch captain shot and killed Martin, 17, during a confrontation at a gated community in Sanford in February.

The picture was released by the Duval County state attorney's office only after months of asking and the intervention of a judge, Zimmerman's lawyer Mark O'Mara said.

He accepted that the photograph was "not a game-changer" but was "significant" in supporting the defence assertion that Martin was the assailant during the encounter and that Zimmerman, 29, had to pull the trigger to save his own life.

Under Florida law, prosecutors are required to provide original photographs among "discovery" evidence released to the defence but in this instance, O'Mara said, he had been working since April with only a grainy, black-and-white photocopy.

The picture, which was taken by an officer in the back of a police car, shows the defendant with a cut, bruised and bloodied nose, injuries sustained while Martin was slamming Zimmerman's face on to a concrete pavement, O'Mara has insisted.

"I get frustrated when certain evidence gets out and other evidence is withheld," he told reporters.

"It just seems like it's been pulling teeth for discovery in this case. This case is the opposite of any I've normally taken. Usually, discovery is dumped on your desk, because it's normally good for [the prosecution]. They usually try to shove it down your throat."

In an earlier brief to circuit court judge Debra Nelson, which included a request for the release of other reports, witness statements and audio recordings he said were being suppressed, O'Mara wrote: "The state should not be allowed to play hide and seek with the evidence."

There was no response to his claims from special prosecutor Corey, who charged Zimmerman with second-degree murder in April, weeks after Sanford police released him without charge and sparked a series of public protests.

But Benjamin Crump, the lawyer representing Tracy Martin and Sybrina Fulton, the dead teenager's parents, said he had offered numerous times to provide one of the key items O'Mara was complaining about, namely a clear recording of an interview with a teenage girl who claimed she was on the phone to Martin when the fatal confrontation took place.

"The family can't control the state's case against George Zimmerman. They are powerless. They are not focused on anything negative, or any distractions," he told the Miami Herald.

Verbal sparring between the lawyers is becoming increasingly frequent and hostile as the case works its way towards a trial scheduled for next June, unless Nelson first dismisses the charge under Florida's stand-your-ground law that justifies deadly force in certain situations.

Last week, responding to criticism over Zimmerman's newly announced strategy of selling signed thank-you cards to those who donate to his depleted legal defence fund, O'Mara said it was Crump who was cashing in on the case.

"If profiteering is a concern, that analysis should begin with those who crafted the misinformation blitz and racially charged rhetoric, shouted with reckless disregard for the truth, the result of which has been significant financial gain, not ruin," he said in a statement.

"We speak not of the Martin family, who have suffered the tragedy of losing a son; we speak of the family's handlers and attorneys."

Crump replied in a tweet that he had no comment. "Staying focused on justice, no time to waste on distractions," he wrote.

Meanwhile, Corey released public a new round of discovery evidence on Wednesday, including testimony from an FBI civil-rights investigation that heard an accusation that the Sanford police department, which released Zimmerman without charge, was "a good ol' boys' network" ingrained with racism.

"It is hard to be an African American male in Sanford and not have a criminal record," one witness told agents.