guesswork. jenna: so as a criminal defense attorney then what is your strategy? we saw the prosecutor make the opening statement, saying this is these are the words, these hateful wordn our screen right now george zimmerman used. what is your strategy? how would you present this case? first i wouldn t make that joke that the defense attorney made early on. i this i that fell flat and i think it s grounds for jurors to hate him. jenna: what is the joke? i don t think we have that i hate to not have it for our viewers much i want to make sure we re clear. it was a knock-knock joke which quite frankly i didn t get. it had no place as part of an opening statement. in my opinion it fell very, very flat. if i was handling this case it would be simple, the first couple of moments i would open by acknowledging that this is a tragic situation, that somebody has died, and it s unfortunate. that being said, this all occurred in self-defense, that mr. zimmerman was justified in
it s clear while the prosecution will want to bring the family member up onto the stand. they want the jury to feel the pain that this family is feeling, and even though they are bringing them forward for the purposes of testifying regarding a 911 call, the real reason is simply to get the jury to feel the pain that this family is feeling. so, can it backfire? potentially, but it s clear that the family members will be here to pull on the jurors heart strings. jenna: thank you so much for your expertise. we ll try to find the knock-knock joke for our viewers. it sound like it was very important in this opening statement and good advice by you that knock-knock jokes can sometimes go wrong. jon: does seem like a strange way to open the trial. the u.s. government is asking a little favor of russia, return edward snowden before he flees moscow. and so far russia is saying net. what could this mean for the already frayed relationship between our new nations. the obama administration push
knock-knock joke? do we know what that was supposed to be? was it supposed to be funny? reporter: you know, a lot of us have been wondering what was it supposed to be? it was clearly a defense dud. there was not a snicker. no one laughed. you looked at the jury and no one on that jury thought it was funny. was it an attempt by don west to kind of lighten the mood because you had this very strong aggressive presentation by the prosecution? i don t know. there had been an objection by the prosecution just before all of that. and it seemed to rattle don west. maybe it threw him off his game. maybe getting back into it was that joke. but just by measuring reaction from people who heard it, it was awful. and a really awkward way to begin what is still the ongoing opening statement by the defense team. it is now well over two hours. they had to break to have lunch in between. and don west is still going on. whereas, before that, you had
also important, it was a big part of this controversy, was that a lot of these groups waited for years to get tax exempt status. they have put in place a mechanism for those who have been back logged that those can be expedited now. up next, a murder trial is certainly no laughing joke. so why did george zimmerman s lawyer begin his case today with a knock-knock joke? and how did the zoo here in the nation s capital lose the red panda in the first place? i m part of an american success story,
a seat reserved from him was empty it. on the run facing federal espionage charges. later the defense apologized after a knock knock joke fell flat. and a former chicago bulls star scottie pippen could face charges after cops in southern california say he was in a fight over the weekend that put a man in the hospital. and on this day in 1812, the french emperor napoleon bonaparte invade russian. at the time france was one of the most powerful nations in the world. napoleon apparently wanted to conquer more of it. for months he and 500,000 soldiers and russians kept pulling back. the brutal winter forced the grand army to retreat. that s when russians stepped up their fight. in the end, just 20% of napoleon s militia would escape russia but they