that during the trial. tanya, if you re saying the reason george zimmerman ignored 911 operators, went after him with a loaded weapon, is because he has it out for kids like this, isn t that the message you re sending to the jury? i think it very nuanced. i think the prosecution tried to explain to the jury why this happened, why trayvon martin looked so suspicious to george zimmerman, why you can conclude that he had ill will toward trayvon martin when he followed him, when he pursued him and when he made all these false assumptions about him without sort of adding that extra layer of proving that this was a racially motivated homicide, that he sought out to kill trayvon martin because he was black. i think that would have been adding more of a burden to their case than they needed to. paige, let me ask you this,
jurors in the case deliberating right now. we re waiting for their verdict. we ve been telling you that all morning. that s the job as we keep following this story throughout the hour. joining us right now, two people who know what it s like to wait for a jury. we have page pate and tanya miller. we ve been talking about race here and whether it s an issue and why it s an issue and how. let me put something on the table. prosecutors were talking about profiling and why they believe and argue that george zimmerman was targeting trayvon martin because he reminded zimmerman of black kids wearing hoodies who had been committing crimes. that was their theory, they used prior 911 calls. here is what i want to ask you, mr. pate. if race is a part of this trial
has gotten national attention, race, and the role of race in this trial. i want both of you to weigh in, but first to you, sunny, what in the trial, what role has race played in the trial that you have seen or not? you know, it certainly may have been the elephant in the room, but no one talked about race in the room. in fact, in closing, the government said to the jury, john guy said to the jury this is not about race. certainly there was the argument i think early on that the government s theory was based on racial profiling, but the word racial profiling was not introduced in this trial. in fact, what they refer to was criminal profiling. that s completely appropriate because there were other young black teens that george zimmerman says were burglarizing homes and he identified trayvon martin as another person possibly burglarizing homes.
the manslaughter charge spend could be up to 30 years. so a lot at stake, and i think people are being very critical of the judge. this is a hard job, especially when you ve got the world watching. especially, as you well noted, when they have a sequestered jury. that s something we ve heard a lot of, that she cares very much about the jury and moving things along and not wasting their time and only keeping them there as long as they need to be and getting them what they want. i think a lot of people are also taking note about that. we should be very grateful. we saw a different kind of tact in the jodi arias trial that took on and on and on. i m glad to see an efficient judge, frankly. stick with us. we ll take a quick break. when we come back, a jury consultant is going to join us, a consultant who worked with the o.j. simpson trial will be joining us. we ll talk about what goes in to picking a jury because they have such an essential role.
who has been live outside the sanford courthouse from the beginning. we ll talk more about the case in a second. a quick question to you. there s been some concern about protest demonstrations, hopefully no violence following a verdict. there have been some protests and demonstrations outside the courthouse meantime. what s the scene like there at the moment? reporter: kate, remember, when this trial started we saw a few protesters. we re seeing them now as the trial comes to an end. you see a couple dozen several dozen protesters in support of trayvon martin holding signs on one side of that area. on the other side you see a handful of people showing support for george zimmerman. so far it s been a peaceful protest here on these grounds. remember, we even heard from county officials, city officials just the other day saying here in sanford, the mood remains peaceful, remains calm. there are people who are showing, you know, protests for