well, let s just be straight about it. it frustrates me to no end about the dancing that goes on. of course race is a central issue to this trial. just because you don t mention race doesn t mean that it s not been discussed. most of our communication is non-verbal. by saying there s a profiling going on, absolutely suggests that there is a young black teenager walking in the streets with a hoodie on, and that s suddenly discussing the issue of race. you heard that time and time and time again from the prosecutor. it didn t escape the defense. what did the defense do? remember the one witness, the african-american lady who was ill and she was in her bed. that was brought in timely. why? because they wanted to show george was universal in his embracing of people, black or white. that was a conscious decision, to have an african-american friend come in thole make a statement. then the defense injected race. that s what i just said.
judge nelson, she has been really strong, especially with the defense. we ll show you a little taste of how the judge has run this trial. take a look and a listen. i understand. i ve already ruled, and you have you continually disagree with this court every time i make a ruling. i have provided you on three separate occasions with the court s professional conduct in the courtroom, and included in that is do not continue to argue with the court after we ve ruled. if i have made a mistake in this case, you will appeal. if there is a conviction, it will get appealed to a higher court and they can review it to determine whether or not i made a mistake. this is my ruling on this issue. you are free to communicate that to the jury in your closing argument. i am not instructing them on that. moving on. i would like to moving i m not disagreeing. there s just a little taste of it. we ve watched a lot of this.
charging decisions, you are invested with a certain degree of discretion. your job is to protect the public, and if you see a crime and you think it warrants the highest charge notwithstanding the fact that reasonable people might differ, you re still going to go for that highest charge, give the jury the opportunity to consider your case as strong or as weak as it may be and ultimately make the decision. prosecutors do it all the time. it s very common. if i can add one thing to that? i think it s easier for the prosecution to prove a manslaughter case if they initially charge him with second degree murder. it s very hard for a jury to simply analyze one charge and say, okay, we re going to convict him of this or we re going to let him completely go. if you give the jury an option, you re more likely to walk out with a conviction. appreciate it from both of you. page, tanya, thank you for the insight. we ll move on now. it s an important point you made. people want to put a lot of
androgel 1.62%. welcome back everybody. the jury on their second day of deliberations now. their job obviously to figure out the fate of george zimmerman. we are monitoring the courthouse throughout the hour as we get any developments. we ll be bringing them to you. one of the interesting aspects of this trial has been the dynamic in the courtroom as orchestrated by the judge.
not the state. i said everybody did. the reality of it is is that race is a central issue. if race wasn t an issue, why do we have the trayvon martin family attorney saying this is the biggest civil rights case in this century so far. of course it s an issue and we need to take the scales off our eyes and understand that we still have racial issues in the united states. it s not an issue in the trial. because i ve taken the legal position that i didn t think there was probable cause, i ve had people write to me and say i m a racist because i have a legal opinion. of course race is an issue. and it rears its ugly disgusting head throughout. and we have a long way to government we ve done well but we have a long way to go. all the subtle overtones have been there from before the arrest, during the arrest and it weaved its way through this trial without stop. to remind our viewers, as the focus now obviously is on the jury at this moment, it s just after 1:00 in the east.