held. the texas state senate has approved one of the strictest abortion measures in the country and bans abortions after 20 weeks and requires abortion clinics to meet standards that could force many or most to close. rick perry called a special session to get the bill through. you might remember it died last month following a nearly 11-hour filibuster. now, back to the zimmerman case. in an interview you're going to see first right here on cnn, his closing arguments behind him zimmerman's lead defense attorney opened up to cnn's martin savidge. mark o'mara talking about his early concerns of taking on a client he was being called the most hated man in america. >> was it a concern for you that he might have been a racist? >> when i saw the 12-year-old trayvon martin picture and the 270-pound george zimmerman picture, yes, no question. and strangely enough, i think that's why most of the people who believe george zimmerman is a racist today got their belief

when they saw those two pictures 16 months ago. and you can't not have that thought. you can't look at 12-year-old trayvon martin and the size of george zimmerman and say there's any reason why trayvon martin should have lost his life that night. when you look at the reality, it's completely different. i see race being injected into this case in the first week that it existed. and i see that it's never left this case. >> let's consider the race factor now with two legal veterans on the scene right there, my cnn colleague don lemon and criminal defense attorney jeff gold, live in sanford, don? >> thank you very much, john. let's talk about the race factor in this. why do you think -- you were standing here when i interview ben ging crump an hour or so ago, why do you think race has been -- besides the obvious, that came up in the beginning. what do you think race has been such a factor in this case? >> it's been such a factor because we know that tracy

martin, trayvon's dad, called benjamin crump the day after the killing. he was already suspicious, he was already concerned. was his son getting the treatment that a white person would get. whether that's true or not, it was in his heart. it is something that black men feel. >> is that legitimate for him to feel that? >> it's legitimate to the degree that you don't get charged with driving while white and you can get charged driving while black in america. race still exists. it's a subconscious subtext of things that go on. you know, whether this is about race is another matter, but it was in at least his heart, what was going on here. >> yeah. you mentioned to me, you said that he feels no different than many men in america, tracy martin does. >> you know, look, identify just don't think you can take race out of it. sometimes i go into a courtroom in a predominantly white county and they bring in defendants that are going to get bail, have been arrested and get bail, and i see 80% black men. i don't know why it is, but there's something in america that black men still get treated

differently than white men, so i don't blame them for feeling that. that doesn't mean i think this case is about race. it really doesn't. it's about what's in people's hearts. >> there are people saying maybe the black men are committing most of the crime in that area. >> they may be. they may be committing them on other black men, too, this idea that it's blacks and whites, i'm is just saying that race in america is not gone. the president of the united states i don't think helped things by putting himself into a local criminal case saying trayvon martin looks like he could be his son or whatever else. you know, that -- you know, traditionally the president may get involved in a civil rights case, by commenting on this case he was elevating its status to perhaps a several rights case and i wonder if that aggravated the situation. >> how is it -- how is the president bringing race into it he's saying he could be my son, the president is a man of color, trayvon martin is a man of color, how is it -- >> he's the president of the united states, and he hasn't given a speech or said anything about any local criminal case other than this one that i can

remember and one which also invites -- >> he talked about the shootings in chicago. he talked about the young lady who was shot in chicago and killed. this was after trayvon martin. his wife talked about the young lady as well in chicago who -- >> it elevates -- it elevates the status of it, you know, it reminds one of presidents that spoke about civil rights cases. >> yeah. listen, and just -- i have to play devil's advocate here because when the president talked about that, he said -- when he talked about it, he said he would be a son he would look like me, and he mostly talked about the family. any parent hates losing a child. he didn't mention black -- a black child. he didn't mention racial profiling. he talked about on the human level as a family. i think that's a talking point really for people who want to find some fault with the president. i don't think that there was -- that elevated this to some sort of racial discussion in the country. >> look, i'm not making a political -- >> for people -- for people who are looking for that. >> i'm not making a political comment whatsoever. it's an observation. i am a criminal defense

attorney, a former prosecutor and i don't hear the president of the united states commenting on local criminal cases very much so it's interesting to note he's not commenting on it now. >> yeah, yeah. and i heard jay carney the other day saying the president said what he said, absolutely. >> look, it was in his heart as well. i think it was from the president's heart as well, i don't, you know, it's just a matter when the president speaks, everyone listens. >> i agree with you, but i think the president was speaking as a parent. >> he's the president, too. >> the president of the united states. again, you said race as far as you're concerned is -- >> look, i don't think race -- >> -- an overriding -- >> the media has made it a black/white issue and a lot of people will tell you now that mr. zimmerman is hispanic or part hispanic and if it was played in the beginning as hispanic shoots a black man, it might have been a very different case. it's taken on its own story line. >> i appreciate your perspective. thank you, mr. gold. >> pleasure. >> john king, back to you.

>> great conversation, don, appreciate it. and just to button up on that at the end of the press sectary jay carney said the president has no plan -- no plan -- to issue a statement if there is a verdict. coming up a cnn report that's getting a lot of buzz. a look at the african-american women on the george zimmerman defense team and their thoughts on this case. that's next. [ nurse ] i'm a hospice nurse. britta olsen is my patient. i spend long hours with her checking her heart rate, administering her medication, and just making her comfortable.

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she's sitting with the wrong lawyers, the african-american law student on the george zimmerman defense team has drawn attention in a case riddled at times with racial overtones and our david mattingly sat down with shawna lloyd and asked her if her client is a racist. >> reporter: in a case so inflamed by racially charged opinion it was almost impossible not to notice the young african-american woman on george zimmerman's otherwise all-white defense team. shawna lloyd tells me she just had one question for mark o'mara. >> i said is george a racist. he said, no, i wouldn't work for him if he was. >> reporter: why was that so important to you? >> being an african-american, even if he was a client in need of representation, i don't know that i would have been able to divorce that and you have to have proper representation and people that can do that. >> reporter: if you find lloyd's involvement surprising you might be even more surprised to find out she's a volunteer working

for free. shawna lloyd is a third-year law student in orlando, a 34-year-old intern working a case of a lifetime. have you had to explain what you're doing to any of your friends? >> sure. some of my friends debate with me all the time about it. >> reporter: what do they say? >> some of them think doesn't matter, he's guilty. some of them say, well, i'm willing to hear the evidence. they span the range. >> reporter: observations span the range online as well. most are just curious who is she. why is she there. >> kind of what our position is, wh our role is, am i only there because i'm black, those kind of things. i've seen more curious questions than anything. >> reporter: but some comments are clearly judgmental and personal. there was one that caught my eye this tweet. black woman seated with zimmerman defense team is on wrong side of the courtroom and wrong side of history. what would you say to that person? >> i would say that they're not really aware of what history is if they think that this is a

completely racial issue, i would tell her to go back, him or her, to go back and revisit the case. i think it's misplaced. >> reporter: is this case about race? >> i don't think the case is about race. i think that was the way it was presented initially and i think that might have been erroneous. >> reporter: in the courtroom for the most part, she sits iexcelle silently with other interns. for the past year lloyd's provided support and research, spending long hours and getting to know george zimmerman. is he a racist? >> no. >> reporter: how do you know? how did you come to that opinion? >> you can just kind of tell. i've been african-american, you encounter people who are racist and i just know that he's not. >> reporter: and at the end of this trial, lloyd sees only a beginning of a career in criminal defense. daeffed mat in david mattingly, cnn, sanford, florida. up next if you watched the closing arguments, you may have noticed trayvon martin's walked in late and his mother walked in

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relatives of trayvon martin and george zimmerman sat quietly in the courtroom for most of the 14-day trial. on friday trayvon martin's parents arrived as defense attorney mark o'mara was delivering his closing argument. later that day martin's mom sybrina fulton caught o'mara's attention when she left the courtroom, she got up when they were talking about photos taken during her son's autopsy. >> the other thing about autopsy photographs is that there's muscle tone. because there's no nerves, there's no movement. he lost half his blood. we know that. so, on that picture that we have of him on the medical examiner's table, yeah, he does look emaciated. but here's him three months before that night. >> let's bring back cnn legal

analyst sunny hostin and danny cevalos, let's start with that, sybrina martin leaving the courtroom and mark o'mara seemed to notice

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disregard the fact that you have trayvon martin who was unarmed walking home from the store when he was profiled and pursued and followed by his client for whatever reason. we will never know, i don't know if george zimmerman is a racist or not, but he profiled trayvon martin for something, whether the way he looked or his ethnicity, we will never know, but i know he got out his car. he made the decision to pursue trayvon martin. we have objective evidence, so if this was your child, would you just say, okay, police tell me i'm not going to arrest the killer of my unarmed son, this is very personal to many people and that's why the whole world is watching this case because you cannot have people kill unarmed teenagers walking home legally whether they're black, white, brown or gray. >> basically what mark o'mara accusing you, i've heard many people say you are a charlatan

and a race baiter. >> when we got involved in this case, my partner and i talked about it, i do a lot of civil rights cases, and we have far too many cases where little black and brown boys are killed, dead on the street, and nobody says a word. trayvon martin got a lot of attention, martin leanderson got a lot of attention, other cases got a lot of attention, every trayvon martin we have 100 little black boys that get killed and nobody says a word. when we took this case my law partner said, crump, we're probably going to spend a lot of time and money and resources and it ain't going to happen. do you know what we said, we went to law school to try to make a difference in our community to try to have equality for everybody. we took the case thinking we were not going to profit a penny. >> mr. crump also telling cnn that in the event george zimmerman is acquitted, he said the martin family will accept that verdict. when we come back, the jury now done with 11 hours in

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this is the verdict sheet here. a jury in sanford, florida, has three choices they can find george zimmerman guilty of murder in the second degree, guilty of manslaughter or the jury can find george zimmerman not guilty. the deliberations now beginning their 12th hour in sanford,

florida, i'm john king in washington. thanks for watching. after a quick break, our continuing coverage live with don lemon in sanford, florida. you know throughout history,

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you are in the "cnn newsroom," i'm don lemon live in sanford, florida, where we are awaiting a verdict in the george zimmerman murder trial. they are inside that courthouse right there and they are deliberating going into their 12th hour. right now the zimmerman jury, again, going into the 12th hour of deliberations, the six female jurors deciding george zimmerman's fate, deliberating straight through lunch today. the case has sparked passionate debate on race in america and gun laws. people across the nation have very strong opinions. but it all comes down to six women to decide whether george zimmerman should go to prison for the shooting death of 17-year-old teenager trayvon martin or walk away a free man. the jury has four options. find zimmerman