let s go to craig, craig melvin, please. thank you so much. should let folks know just got word a few moments ago the judge will be giving the jury an option, an option to deliberate on sunday if they do not reach a verdict today. we re approaching the eighth hour of jury deliberations on the second day. as we await a verdict, take a look now at some of the trials biggest moments. please be seated. for 22 days it was predictably unpredictable, including the prosecutor s blunt opening statements. good morning. good morning. [ bleep ] punks, these [ bleep ] they always get away. the knock-knock joke that fell flat and for which the defense later apologized. knock, knock, who s there? george zimmerman. george zimmerman who? all right. good.
you re on the jury. nothing? that s funny. the parade of witnesses. of course you don t know if he was telling you the truth or not. why need to lie about that, sir? rachel jeantel, the friend on the phone with him moments before he was shot said he was trying to get away from a man who was following him. creepy ass cracker. i heard trayvon saying get off, a little bit as i was calling his name. then came neighbor john good, a prosecution witness whose story seemed to bolster zimmerman s defense. i could tell the person on the bottom had a lighter skinned color. police officer christopher soreno, the lead detective the night of the incident that originally recommended manslaughter charges testified about trying to catch zimmerman in a lie. you feel he exaggerated the manner in which he was hit? yes, sir. state would call sybrina fulton. the courtroom was riveted by
not either/or. it is not about race, it is not right and wrong. this is about the way that race can influence the way that we understand right and wrong. in addition to this, this is also about our gun laws, the fact that mr. zimmerman was able to be armed that night and this proactive idea of self-defense where the florida legislature and others like them pass laws about self-defense seem to be taking confusing law with football as the best defense is a good offense, and so all of these things combined, what kind of makes the active ingredient in this toxic brew is racial. i want to come to you now. let s just say you have been covering this thing almost from the beginning. let s just say that there was not that 44-day period between when trayvon martin was shot and killed and when george zimmerman was arrested. let s just say hypothetically
murder. i have taken a great deal of time not only watching this entire trial but reviewing the primary source materials, the same evidence the jury has looking at the videos over and over again and trying to find what i see in there, filtering out the attorney s interpretation. i think it is there. the evidence of intent that i just referred to, i think self-defense is weak because the positioning of the bodies really doesn t match up with zimmerman s story. if you don t believe that trayvon martin saw the gun and was reaching for the gun, then i think self-defense is eliminated. what you have is an intentional killing. george zimmerman can see he intentionally pulled out his gun and pointed it at trayvon martin and pulled the trigger. this is not an accidental killing. without self-defense i think the evidence is there. i would have liked to have seen more from the prosecution in closing arguments connecting the dots, pulling it altogether, matching up the legal elements with the evi
and make clear what his argument is about not trying to add their own common sense to what they think could have happened on that evening. seema, here is part of prosecutor john guy s closing. take a listen. this isn t a complicated case. it is a common sense case. it is not a case about self-defense. it is a case about self denial. george zimmerman s. what do we make of that? what do we think about the tactic of essentially telling george to rely on the common sense? that was a familiar refrain, not just there with john guy but also earlier with the initial close from bernie de la rionda. we already know from john guy about the jump of this case is he is very passionate and he is almost poetic in his presentation. at this point which was crucial