that is not another one of the jury instructions talks about a reasonably cautious and prudent person. a person who s panicking is not reasonably cautious and prudent. that means would no longer have self-defense. we have at minimum manslaughter, because we know george zimmerman intentionally shot trayvon martin. in his closing argument, o mara made this argument, it s the prosecution s job to connect the dots and not yours. how many what ifs have you heard from the state in this case? well i don t think they get to ask you that. i don t think they get to say to you, what do you think? no, no, no. no, no, no. what have i proven to you. what have i convinced you beyond a reasonable doubt occurred in this case so much so that you don t have any reasonable doubt, those issues that i presented to
have been met shall here s the standard for man slaughter. and of course, we ve met this burden, something like that. you re the prosecutor. talk to me on that issue. well, you know, i don t really take umbrage with them not really explaining it that much. you know, i think they went out of their way. they used, you know, the f-ing punks and the things they said, and they tried to, you know, raise the level of intensity in the courtroom, tried to hake it more racial, more provocative. but the only difference between the two charges is the dark heart, the hatred and all that. that s such a minor part of it. other than that, they pretty much read verbatim. and if you don t think you can get the top one that s why it s there. they re going to keep pushing. they re going to keep pushing. and they re looking for this comfort level of falling back on this compromised verdict. they re going to keep bringing those words up because the words is their narrative. and they re creating their na
perspective now. greta van susteren is with us. she is the host of on the record and live in central florida for us tonight. greta, your thoughts on today? well, shep, i think actually the defense did a very bad day today. i think the prosecution actually sort of abandoned murder in the second degree in their argument. they would have to show ill will or hatred. what they went for was manslaughter. steve harrigan talked about man slaughter carries a huge penalty in florida up to 30 years in prison. what the problem is now that they said that george zimmerman essentially profiled trayvon martin and as a result of his negligent profiling that trayvon martin died, which is essentially manslaughter. really pushed that they pushed the manslaughter. they did mention a little bit of ill will and hatred with respect to some comments that george zimmerman made on the phone about trayvon martin. but they really pushed manslaughter. that s a problem for the defense tomorrow because the defens
florida. steve? shepard, it s likely that the bloody photos of george zimmerman will be front and center in the final arguments of the defense tomorrow. also, it s likely that those seven witnesses who claimed they heard george zimmerman s voice crying out for help on those 911 tapes will also play a key role in their arguments. in addition, what could become key will be the judge s instruction to the jury. expected to last about 15 minutes. she has added the charge of manslaughter to that second degree murder charge. that could carry a penalty of up to 30 years. one thing also to keep in mind, if the jury gets this case tomorrow afternoon, it is quite possible they could work late into the night on friday, possibly the weekend as well. this jury made up of six women, some of whom have young children, they have been sequestered for three weeks, obviously eager to get back to their families, they have been denying their breaks and getting them home quickly is something the judge has s
given up tracking of trayvon martin. they have got the jury has got to believe all those audio statements and the video statements of george zimmerman to believe that he was not the aggressor and that he was surprised and had a reasonable fear of his life. but i will tell you, this was actually i know a lot of people didn t think it was a great closing argument by the prosecution but if you look at it and it dissect it they sort of abandoned the murder in the second they really focused on manslaughter. that s a serious charge here. the jury may want to compromise and give a little bit to the defense and a little bit to the prosecution. that s the defense s big es nightmare. shepard: how much auto could it be that the jurors were promised one thing and in closing arguments they really got another? well, i don t know. i guess i have been there, done that we always sort of promise things in opening statements. we re very ambitious lawyers in prosecution and defense. i think that the