Stay updated with breaking news from Zimmerman trial. Get real-time updates on events, politics, business, and more. Visit us for reliable news and exclusive interviews.
In the zimmerman trial. we talk about cameras in the courtroom. i m all for it. but sometimes people might say i don t want to testify if it s going to be on tv because i might have to go through that same thing. that s the only concern i have in the back of my mind with cameras in the courtroom. when you get to race, the one thing i want to say, i don t want to take it off-topic, the one thing true for o.j. simpson and trayvon now, white americans didn t want to talk about race then. after trayvon, there was a poll. 80% of african-americans said it s a good time to talk about race. only 25% of white america wanted to talk about race. while things have changed in this country, still, there s a hesitance in the white community because they view it as an accusation. even with dna, over 300 people exonerated, of those, almost 2 willed are actually african-american, they go that s just happenstance. it s not. there s a bigger issue involved. the way you talk about arnelle simpson is ....
Murder trying to escape police and he s obviously not going to be able to do it and i think that s when it hit them that this is really a sad situation. what a bizarre little slice of memory. can you believe it s been two decades? i can t. kyra phillips is joining me. you spoke with a.j. could ywlin? you saw the cast of characters. we had them on the show during the zimmerman trial. all right. the one person that everyone has wanted to talk to since 20 years ago when i was covering this whole case, a.c. cowlings, the man with $90,000 in his pocket and a bag, a mustache, goatee, adhesive, a loaded gun. he s trying to keep o.j. from killing himself, right? i go back to my source from 20 years ago and i said, do you by chance have a phone number? ....
George zimmerman who says he shot trayvon martin in self-defense was found not guilty by apall female nearly all white jury. the stand your ground law altered the way the jury was instructed. it also raised questions about how the case was prosecuted, particularly after jurors started speaking out, including mattie, the lone member of the jury who was nonwhite. it s very hard to be one of the persons that had to deal with him being free right now, but just to know that in my heart, you feel that a person is guilty, but when it comes down to the law, they give you so much that you can work with. now a new book takes up inside the george zimmerman he map jury room and we re learning more about maddy, about her interaction with other jurors and about the potential missed opportunity by prosecutors in the zimmerman trial. ....
Joining me now is lisa bloom, a legal analyst for the today show and avo.com. she is also a frequent guest on this show during and after the zimmerman trial. thank you for being here, lisa. thank you, reverend. in your book, you highlight this photo. george zimmerman showing police where his gun was holstered the night of the shooting. why did you say this is an example of how the prosecution dropped the ball in the trial? because this should have been one of the most important pieces of evidence in the case. this is what the prosecution should have started with. this is what they should have ended with. this is what they should have shown witnesses on cross-examination. this is what they should have called an expert witness to talk about, because george zimmerman showed in that photo and two other times on a videotape that his gun was holstered behind him. he claims that he was lying on his back, trayvon atop him when trayvon saw the gun, reached for the gun and threatened to ....
Let s listen to a little bit of what she said about their deliberations. why were you and the others so convinced that dunn was guilty? we all believed that there was another way out, another option. and yet, the actual jury instructions prevented them from using sort of that common sense reasoning to go to the next step, which is to say, he s guilty of murder in the first-degree, which was required spite and ill will. but they would have had to have found him not guilty on the murder of the first degree to go to murder in the second-degree, because that was a lesser included. and they hung on the murder in the first-degree. and, so, before stand your ground was put into place in 2005 and signed by governor jeb bush, this is the way florida jurors were instructed in case like the michael dunn case and cases like the zimmerman trial. the defendant cannot justify the use of force, likely to cause death or great bodily harm, unless he used every reasonable means within his power ....