number of protesters here today, carol. all right, brian todd, an exciting day. we expect that decision to come in just about an hour in the 10:00 eastern hour of newsroom. special coverage and wolf blitzer will be here and brian todd, i m sure you ll be back. just an amazing sight at the u.s. supreme court in washington, d.c. the star witness in the zimmerman murder trial may take the stand at any time now. i m talking about trayvon martin s girlfriend, the young woman talking with martin on his cell phone just before he was killed. as you can see, court proceedings have gotten under way and we understand the judge has also riluled on emotion to allow 911 calls to be admitted on evidence. george howell is in florida. george, fell us more. carol, good morning. right now you see jane, she is on the stand and we re still waiting it learn her relevance to the case as a far as being a prosecution witness. we also now know that juror b-72
was released for reasons unrelated to this case. we understand that that was one of the male jurors. one of those alternates that was released. i can tell you aegd yesterdyest very difficult for a lot of people, including the family of trayvon martin and i want to warn you some of the images you re about to see may be disturbing. it was too much for tracy martin and sabrina faulten, the parents of trayvon martin had to leave the courtroom. leaving jurors and the public to see this, the lifeless body of their 17-year-old son, some images too graphic for tv. they were shown during the testimony from sergeant anthony romaun romando, the second officer who arrived at the scene and tried to perform cpr. were you able to get a pulse? no, i was not. reporter: also called on diane smith. jurors saw the evidence she collected by george zimmerman s
trayvon martin. trayvon martin told george zimmerman or asked why are you following me and in response there was some sort of scuffle and the phone went dead. that is really crucial and it really combats immediately what george zimmerman is saying, which is that he was the one that was attacked. whoever started this encounter is the person i think that the jury is likely to find guilty. and, so, you know, she, her testimony is going to be very, very important. okay, you two stick around. i have a bit of breaking news i have to get to from wall street because the dow, it s rocking. it s up, what? 135 points or so. at least i think so. let s check in with cnn business anchor christine romans. the bell has just rung and, wow, that s good. strong morning and what s so interesting. a strong morning after a not so strong reading on how strong the economy was in the first quarter in a way because you had a weak gdp report and only 1.8%
defen marriage act. they may very well do that. they had a tendency to do that on other cases, not just same-sex marriage but other cases. remember dozens of states that do not, that have not legalized same-s same-sex marriage. it is very much a state issue and moving fast on the political front and that may be where the court decides to kind of put it back to, just letting it go on the political front and let the states move on this and kind of decide the social temperature of the country on this, carol. all right, brian todd, thanks so much. take you back to sanford, florida, when we come back. george zimmerman on trial for the murder of trayvon martin. one of the alternate jurors has been dismissed. we ll talk about why, next.
audiotapes now admitted as evidence, it is a very important part of their case and also one more witness that we expect to hear from. could hear from this witness today. witness number nine. this is the girlfriend of trayvon martin who was on the phone with him the night of the shooting. again, that will be very key for the prosecution and could be very difficult for the defense because what she has to say could very well contradict what george zimmerman has been saying about that night. george howell, thank you so much. we ll take you back to sanford, florida, once another witness takes the stand. especially if trayvon martin s dpro girlfriend takes the stand. a tearful paula deen in her first tv interview since scandal sent her career into a tail spin. she says she is not a racist. here s what she said on today show. are you a racist? no. no i m not.