Seven months since the jury returned the not guilty verdict in his murder trial the public has seen little of zimmerman, aside from his various scrapes with the law. now two years after shooting the unarmed teenager he describes his life as a lightning rod for criticism and death threats. chris cuomo of cnn s new day sat down for an extensive one on one interview. two main reasons to interview george zimmerman. first is because there s so many questions that remain about his case and we got to ask him about all of them and people can judge their answers for themselves. and the second is that there s so many big issues that resevere berated out of that case we sautin michael dunn case, questions for society that george zimmerman is given a lot of credit of accalculate zal being a calculated zealot. is that who he really is or something less? do you regret that you killed trayvon martin?
In danger. reasonable may mean overreaction in some people s minds. do you think this is why the jury could not decide to convict or acquit dunn on the first-degree murder charge? is it the way the law is written. i disagree with the premise of the question. being reasonable and overreacting are two different things. we learn in law school that the reasonable standard is an objective standard. now, i ll certainly concede that we have the worst justice system. some might look at dunn s testimony and say, oh, my gosh, he overreacted. other people might say he acted reasonably. it is difficult to determine. it obviously was for this jury. well, i will concede that we have the worst justice system on the planet earth except every other justice system ever created. we tilt every advantage toward the accused and, yes, because we have a system where juries, not robots makes the decisions, sometimes a member or a couple
He s an example of what happens when someone who is relatively unsophisticated and makes a series of bad decision and gets bailed out by a law, the florida self-defense statute that makes it too easy for someone to get away with murder. it doesn t punish stupid the way the law should carol and as a result you ll have verdicts where juries are tested and you ll see that even a good jury like michael dunn can t come out to the right situation because of the law and also because of a lot of other prejudice and culture issues that we have to deal with outside of the courtroom. in my mind he s clearly troubled. he hasn t been able to find a job. he s been getting into these scrapes with the law, accused of domestic violence and he s traveling at high rates of speed when he knows he ll be stopped by police and that the spotlight will shine ever brighty on him. he seems troubled to me. did he seem that way to you? absolutely. he s got to wear a bullet proof vest. he s got people making de
Him. he s generous, protects himself. if he sees another way that s what he s going to do. we go to jacksonville, florida for more. reporter: good morning, carol. jury deliberated for about 30 hours before reaching their partial verdict. now both sides are preparing for the next step. mr. dunn, your having been convicted of count ii, iii and iv by a jury. reporter: michael dunn guilty of three counts of second-degree attempted murder in the shooting that killed jordan davis. but on the charge related to the 17-year-old s death the jury could not agree. based on the jury s inability to reach a verdict as to count i i would declare that mistried. reporter: following the verdict outrange disappointment outside the courthouse. and on twitter many questioned how the jury could fail to reach
Outcomes that you don t like, you don t indict the law. if on average you look at the benefit the law has had. in my state, we are having fewer murders because we have a robust self-defense system. i think that that s probably a positive thing. had i been on the dunn jury with the evidence i saw, i probably would have voted to convict but, again, we have a jerseys stim where individuals bring their viewpoints. you would have voted to convict michael dunn of first-degree murder in the death of jordan davis? yes. just like i would have voted to convict casey anthony but that doesn t mean because there was a result i didn t agree with, that we throw out the entire criminal justice system. you don t think the jury, in part, couldn t come to a conclusion on that charge had anything to do with florida s stand your ground law? well, stand your ground in the dunn case was not an asserted defense. just like it wasn t an asserted defense in the zimmerman case.