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org) Home > "I Feel Sorry for George" 7 Shocking Moments From Zimmerman Juror B37s First Interview Think Progress / By Igor Volsky [1]

"I Feel Sorry for George" 7 Shocking Moments From Zimmerman Juror B37s First Interview
July 16, 2013 |

On Monday night, one of the jurors in the George Zimmerman trial offered shocking insight into how the group of six women reached its decision to acquit the defendant of all charges in the murder of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. In an interview [2] with CNNs Anderson Cooper, Juror B-37 who initially planned to write a book [3] about the trial revealed that the jurors considered Floridas Stand Your Ground law [4]in reaching their verdict, appeared to strongly sympathize with the defendant, and felt that race played no factor in the incident. Below are Juror B-37s most surprising revelations: 1. Martin was responsible for his own death. JUROR: It was just hard, thinking that somebody lost their life, and theres nothing else that could be done about it. I mean, its what happened. Its sad. Its a tragedy this happened, but it happened. And I think both were responsible for the situation they had gotten themselves into. I think both of them could have walked away. It just didnt happen. 2. Juror felt just as sorry for Zimmerman. COOPER: Do you feel sorry for Trayvon Martin? JUROR: I feel sorry for both of them. I feel sorry for Trayvon, in the situation he was in. And I feel sorry for George because of the situation he got himself in.

3. Zimmerman should continue to serve as a neighborhood watchman because he has learned his lesson about going too far. COOPER: Is George Zimmerman somebody you would like to have on a neighborhood watch in your community? JUROR: If he didnt go too far. I mean, you can always go too far. He just didnt stop at the limitations that he should have stopped at. COOPER: So is that a yes or if he didnt go too far. Is he somebody prone, you think, to going too far? Is he somebody you would feel comfortable JUROR: I think he was frustrated. I think he was frustrated with the whole situation in the neighborhood, with the break-ins and the robberies. And they actually arrested somebody not that long ago. I I mean, I would feel comfortable having George, but I think hes learned a good lesson. COOPER: So you would feel comfortable having him now, because you think hes learned a lesson from all of this? JUROR: Exactly. I think he just didnt know when to stop. He was frustrated, and things just got out of hand. 4. Verdict hinged on Stand Your Ground law, even though Zimmerman did not use it in his defense. COOPER: Because of the two options you had, second degree murder or manslaughter, you felt neither applied? JUROR: Right. Because of the heat of the moment and the Stand Your Ground. He had a right to defend himself. If he felt threatened that his life was going to be taken away from him or he was going to have bodily harm, he had a right. 5. Zimmerman was only guilty of using poor judgment and was egged on to follow Martin by the 9/11 operator. COOPER: Do you think hes guilty of something? JUROR: I think hes guilty of not using good judgment. When he was in the car and he called 911, he shouldnt have gotten out of that car. But the 911 operator also, when he was talking to him, kind of egged him on. 6. Race played absolutely no factor in Zimmermans profiling of Martin.

JUROR: I think just circumstances caused George to think that he might be a robber, or trying to do something bad in the neighborhood because of all that had gone on previously. There were unbelievable, a number of robberies in the neighborhood. COOPER: So you dont believe race played a role in this case? JUROR: I dont think it did. I think if there was another person, Spanish, white, Asian, if they came in the same situation where Trayvon was, I think George would have reacted the exact same way. COOPER: Why do you think George Zimmerman found Trayvon Martin suspicious then? JUROR: Because he was cutting through the back, it was raining. He said he was looking in houses as he was walking down the road. Kind of just not having a purpose to where he was going. He was stopping and starting. But I mean, thats Georges rendition of it, but I think the situation where Trayvon got into him being late at night, dark at night, raining, and anybody would think anybody walking down the road stopping and turning and looking, if thats exactly what happened, is suspicious. And George said that he didnt recognize who he was. COOPER: Well, was that a common belief on the jury that race was not that race did not play a role in this? JUROR: I think all of us thought that race did not play a role. [...] COOPER: It didnt come up, the question of, did George Zimmerman profile Trayvon Martin because he was African-American? JUROR: No, I think he just profiled him because he was the neighborhood watch, and he profiled anyone who came in acting strange. I think it was just circumstances happened that he saw Trayvon at the exact time that he thought he was suspicious. 7. Zimmermans history of reporting black men to the police and his decision to follow Martin played no role in the verdict. COOPER: So whether it was George Zimmerman getting out of the vehicle, whether he was right to get out of the vehicle, whether he was a wannabe cop, whether he was overeager, none of that in the final analysis, mattered. What mattered was those seconds before the shot went off, did George Zimmerman fear for his life? JUROR: Exactly. Thats exactly what happened. Juror B-37 twice used the phrase George said, even though Zimmerman himself didnt testify. Tapes of Zimmerman explaining the incident were shown in the courtroom. See more stories tagged with: martin [5],

zimmerman [6] Source URL: http://www.alternet.org/zimmerman-juror Links: [1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/igor-volsky-0 [2] http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1307/15/acd.01.html [3] http://thinkprogress.org/alyssa/2013/07/16/2306941/juror-b37-in-the-george-zimmermantrial-isnt-getting-a-book-deal-about-the-trayvon-martin-after-all/ [4] http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/07/15/2306631/zimmerman-juror-says-panelconsidered-stand-your-ground-he-had-a-right-to-defend-himself/ [5] http://www.alternet.org/tags/martin [6] http://www.alternet.org/tags/zimmerman [7] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B