all right, everyone. it's the top of the >> welcome back to the continuing coverage. there is the seminole county courthouse and that courthouse probably empty, you see the fifth floor lit up. that is where the verdict was handed down. that verdict, not guilty, it's midnight eastern time, i have breaking news for you in case you missed it, a short time ago, this happened inside the courtroom where george zimmerman was standing trial on murder charges. >> this the circuit court of the 18th judicial circuit, state of florida versus george zimmerman, verdict, we the jury find george zimmerman not guilty. so say we all -- >> two words, not guilty. and george zimmerman was told he

could go home, that he was a free man, all charges against him were dismissed. the jury is 6 women deliberated for more than 16 hours, friday and most of saturday. they could have found him guilty of second degree murder or manslaught manslaughter. they chose to find him not guilty. it's the caper on of a case that has inflamed racial passions across the country and polarized opinion on race and profiling since the killing of 17-year-old trayvon martin in february of last year george zimmerman found not guilty. i want you to listen to debra nelson speak directly to george zimmerman after learning he was cleared of all the charges. >> your bond will be released. your gps monitor will be cut off when you exit the courtroom over here and you have no further business with the court. >> you have no further business with the court.

and with those words, george zimmerman shook hands with his legal team, calmly put papers away and made his way right out of the courtroom. and outside the courthouse, reaction was quick and for a while, it was quite loud. there were demonstrators outside the courthouse chanting justice for trayvon, there were emotional moments outside the courthouse. there are the protesters, demonstrators outside the courthouse. david mattingly was out there right after the verdict was read, speaking with people, and there were george zimmerman supporters out there as well. justice for trayvon. talking about the 17-year-old who was shot to death by george zimmerman last february. the jury saturday night, finding george zimmerman, of course, not guilty. i want you to listen now to attorney don west speaking after the verdict was read. >> i think the prosecution of

george zimmerman was disgraceful. i am gratified by the jury's verdict as happy as i am for george zimmerman, i'm thrilled that this jury kept this tragedy from becoming a travesty. for that we are eternally grateful. but it makes me sad too, that it took this long, under these circumstances, to finally get justice. >> all right, martin savage is here, he is our man inside the courtroom. you covered the entire trial from inside the courtroom. let's talk more about what don west said, he called the prosecution disrespectful. >> well, it's quite clear and it's not ban secret that the defense has been very angry. especially don west at times, with how things have progressed.

mark o'mara has openly stated that there could have been tactic on the part of the prosecution that were not above bored. and he feels the discovery and evidence was held back. and don west was frustrated with judge nelson and the way the rulings were going. you saw the tension ts, the nig that she walked out. rarely do you see that kind of verbal confrontation and at one point the judge said, you are overruled. it's like a educational, wham, that is it, buddy. >> and one time with mark o'mara, she said every time the court rules, you keep coming back and i have given you the rules of the court. >> you could see the defense was pushing it. >> was that on purpose? >> well, they were frustrated. they were angry. the judge, this trial moved along quickly. i would have to say. we are six, what are we? a year and a half. i think that the judge did a good job of keeping everybody on time.

the defense clearly always, their tactic was delay. delay, delay. and right up to the beginning of the trial, they wanted a delay. the judge said no, this is time to adjudicate the case. he is still trying to say it's a funny joke. he stands by his joke. can we hear it and then we will talk about it? okay, they will work on it. >> it was not funny. there was never a time it was funny. and i think what he was trying to say is that the passion that john guy delivered for the prosecution, that he was trying to diffuse some of that somehow that joke was going to do it. i don't know there's anyone that would say, john, you are right. it did not work and it never worked. for him to say that he still thinks it's funny. i don't think there was a time that it was considered funny.

>> he sort of needed to break the ice so to speak or break the tension? >> break -- i think what he is saying is break the spell. he did deliver a powerful, concise, passionate opening argument on the part of the prosecution. it was a very different kind of lawyer. and he wanted to come out and did come out with a very methodical 3-hour break down of what the defense was going to do. it started off badly. there was a moment where he was immediately objected to from the start and i think that threw him off. he fumbled a bit and fell on the joke and the joke went flat. >> yeah, let's listen. >> sure, stop me if you heard this one before. no. i'm not going to talk about

that. no. this trial is about george zimmerman, not about pictures of ice cream cones, i still think the joke was funny. i'm sorry about that. i am sorry i did not tell it better. but there was an important reason for it that needed to be a disconnect, frankly, a disconnect from an act that was hard to follow. but, i knew mr. o'mara knew and you all soon found out that it was indeed just an act. >> i wish i had told it better. >> i don't think it would have worked. i mean, by all accounts, don west is an excellent attorney. but i think mark o'mara and others on the team felt he was not at his best during certain moments of the trial. some of which we talked already about the joke. and the ice cream. and the showdown if you will, between himself and rachel jeantel, which you began to see,

this was less about the testimony of the witness, and more like a tef of wills of two -- a test of wills between two people and there was a huge divide. and the problem for the defense on her particular cross examination was that more and more people began to watch to see how these two faced off over two days. rather than really understanding what one one witness was saying and what the defense was trying get her to take back or somehow misstate. >> let's go back into the courtroom, the -- after the verdict was announced. i was in the courtroom, but from the camera angles watch the body language. clearly, obviously relief from george zimmerman. and the families. i said the first time that i had seen the mother smile. i had never seen her smile and then the father as well. and everyone there, give us a reading of the body language inside the courtroom? >> well, we were you know, when you get to a major trial like

this, when the verdict comes out. it is always difficult to describe the electricity that is in the air. but there is. everybody in that courtroom feels it. whether you are a observer or journalist, you know that this is everything that has been built to. this moment. there is that silence that is almost beyond any measure as you wait after the judge has said, has the jury reached a verdict, and they say, yes, and they read the verdict. it's so powerful. and in this case, it caught people off guard, usually it's manslaughter. how would you rule? we thought we may hear two different takes. not guilty. now, that is all that needs to be said. but i think for a moment everyone was like, okay, is it not guilty for everything? it was not guilty for everything.

there was no gasp. there was no shock. and the judge had warned there shouldn't be. i think with the zimmerman family, there was, as you say, palpable relief, george did not burst into a smile or anything. i think because everyone knows it's a verdict but it's still a tragedy. >> was there an indication of what might happen? because the martin family was not in court. that is interesting. >> it was, they have not been in the courtroom all day today, we have been called in a couple of times. jury questions, things like that. george zimmerman's family was there. not to' equate in any way, we certainly expected. i was going up the elevator and it was crowded. a lot of journalists racing up, we get the doors open and we are joining a crowded car, the trayvon martin attorney, rides up us and we said how are you feeling and what are you feeling? and he said, he was feeling confident and he looked confident.

but of course the rule dg not go the family's way. and it's not the way they would have liked it. and they were not there. it was noticeable. you could not help but notice. we see the family every day in that courtroom and watch and know that they have to, you know, suffer as they do seeing the imaginary and hearing about the death of their child. so, you know, that you knew, and you figured at this moment, where were they? did they know in some way? we don't know. >> yeah, it was very different in his mood when he entered. he did an interview with me a couple of hours ago and then again at the post press conference after the verdict was read, ben crump i'm talking about. >> i just resonate in my mind, listening to the closing arg argume arguments, they play back in my head. the prosecution did their best in the he statements. john guy had line and the last line was george zimmerman will always have the blood of trayvon

martin's on his hands. there's a lot of truth to that. everyone acknowledges that it was a tragedy and george zimmerman will always have to live with that. he will have to live with it. regardless of being exonerated. that is on him. he knows that. that was a statement that range true for everyone in the courtroom. >> what is next for george zimmerman? he is a free man. and just hours ago, an all female jury found him not guilty in the shooting death of trayvon martin. this is the moment, just hours ago when the judge released zimmerman. how will he resume life after all the drama of the last 18 months? well, his wife wept after the verdict was announced. they said that zimmerman wishes he could get his old life back, the trial has changed zimmerman's life forever. next our legal team, our legal

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>> i'm dispointsed as we are with the verdict, but we accept it. we live in a great country that has a great criminal justice system. it is not perfect, but it's the best in the world and we respect the jury's verdict. >> this case has never been about race, nor has it ever been about the right to bare arms. not in the sense of proving this as a criminal case, but trayvon martin was profiled. there's no doubt that he was profiled to be a criminal. and if race was one of the aspects in george zimmerman's mind, then we believe that we put out the proof necessary to show that zimmerman did profile trayvon martin. >> and some of the reaction following the verdict has been just as interesting as the action in court during the testimony. i want to bring in now, our legal experts.

form prosecutor for the los angeles district attorney's office, and we have got a huge team here, joining us to help us get through this. i want to go to brian, as you were watching this, you saw the reaction coming out of the courtroom, reaction puouring in from around the country, what do you make of the verdict and the reaction to it? >> i am not surprised by the verdict. the first thing we have to look at here is where did the wheels come off of the prosecution? i'm not sure that the wheels were ever on the bus of the prosecution. let's talk about the jury instruction. we have talked about the manslaughter jury instruction, and we have talked about what it looked like, but we have not

talked about the self defense, the stand your ground jury instruction in the case. that is where you really have to look and you see that the evidence that came into this case, in this trial, even the evidence that came in in the prosecution's own case, through the detective, through the police officer, through their witnesses, through the eyewitness who saw trayvon apparently on top beating george zimmerman, all of this evidence comes together and it fits right into the self defense jury instruction. so, i think that from the very first witness in the case the prosecution was in deep trouble. and i think that the jury did a good job, they spent a lot of time. there's no question it was not a rush to judgment. but at the end of the day, truly at the end of the day, the verdict that came out is what i thought the verdict was going to be a couple of weeks ago when this started. i'm not surprised. i'm focusing just on the trial. we are not looking outside the trial. we are not looking at the other issues. the emotional issues. the loss of somebody. we are just looking at the case.

and what happened here is about what you can expect given the law in florida. given the state of affairs there. given the stand your ground law and the instructions that the judge gave. everything was very well run. there was no criticism of the system here, probable it will the case should not have been brought in the first place. >> holly, you are shaker your head, is that disa agreement or agreement? >> they had to bring the case and had to let a jury decide. i think the problem is they over charged it in the beginning. had they started with manslaughter and sort of led the jury into that and explained what it was. i have made this comment since closing arguments. nobody talked about the manslaughter. everybody went whole hog, both sides with the prosecution saying, this is absolutely second degree murder. you know, and then george, or mark o'mara saying on the other side that there's no ill will,

hatred or spite and he repeated it over and over and over and. and you saw that so clearly in the style of the prosecutor, versus the style of oh, mare amp o'mara appealed to the intellect of the jurors, he said to them, this is the law and if you honestly take a emotion out of it, not that you are not going feel it, but do not apply it in your deliberations, look at the self defense law as it's written in the state of georgia, and he had a fantastic chart, do you think it could have been, might have been self defense? did the state prove to you beyond a reasonable doubt that it was not? that it was absolutely not? when you break down the law and you make it that clear for the jurors, they are going to rely on the law and they are not going to go with emotional reaction and that is what john guy was basically begging them to do. because they didn't charge it

properly and they did not prepare their witnesses. there was no excuse for witness after witness after witness saying to the prosecutor's questions, i don't know. i don't know. i don't know. how do you ask a question, you do not know the answer to? and it was not just one witness, don. >> i want to bring in faith jenkins here, i think it was made earlier, a good point, and i want to get your reaction to it. he said that george zimmerman was found not guilty, but he was not necessarily found innocent under american law. >> right, and don, very early on as a prosecutor, you learn that there's what you believe happened in a case, and then there's what you can prove in court. those are two very different things. and sometimes even though you really believe that a crime has occurred, when you do not have the evidence, you do not go to the grand jury, you do not indict a case. in this instance, i think there

was enough evidence to go forward, based on the facts and everything that the prosecutor knew, however, still, you go in court and you make the presentation. trials are not necessarily about the truth all the time. it's about what you can prove in court and meeting your burden in court and the second thing i want to say about race, i have heard a lot of comments about this case was not about race and this trial was not about race. i often find when people talk about that in the criminal justice system, it's people who have perhaps never worked in the criminal justice system, because the two greatest influences in the criminal justice system are race and money, i have found in my experience. two huge factors here, and you can see, most people do not, cannot afford the defense that george zimmerman was afforded in this case. this case, this defense is an exception to the general rule. >> do you think that this case was over charged? should she have gone for

manslaughter instead of second degree murder? >> you know, i do not have a problem with the second degree murder chaurge, don, i think there was evidence of the ill will and hatred that the prosecution could put on and argue to the jury. i do think that the basic problem with the case was reasonable doubt. reasonable doubt about was there the ill will and hate? and reasonable doubt about whether george zimmerman had a legitimate right to self defense or not. so that was the biggest hurdle for the prosecution. the prosecution did what they could with the evidence that they had. but we all saw, as that evidence came out in front of the jury, the holes in the evidence, which is what happens when you have all of these difference eyewitnesss and ear witnesses. but no one witness to the entire thing except for of course the defendant, and you have credibility issues there. i want to go back to what you said about the innocence versus not guilty. i think it's so important to be said at this time: the jury did

not find george zimmerman innocent. i know that mr. o'mara kept saying that in his closing argument that george was absolutely innocent. but this not guilty verdict did not say that the jurors believed he was innocent. all it says is, they could not find beyond a reasonable doubt every element of the kriep. that was the hardest thing for the jury to overcome. as many people looked in the case, in their gut, they feel that something wrong happened here. in their gut, they feel that george zimmerman did something wrong. but under the law, which is very cold and dispassionate, could they look and say, the prosecution proved beyond a reasonable doubt, if they could, they have to say, i'm sorry, you will not be held liable under the criminal justice system. so it's then jump and say, well they are saying he is innocent. i think it's a jump that people

should not take. that the defense should not say. that no one should say and i think when we hear from the jurors if we do, they will make it clear that they were not saying he was innocent, they are just saying that they could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt. and therefore the law gave them no choice but to write not guilty. >> lion, you took the words out of -- lonnie, you took the words out of my mouth. if we hear from the jurors, that is no doubt, probably what we are going to hear from some of them here. so, stick around, more legal analysis coming up plus this. those that have been riveted by the trial, speaking out tonight, reaction from social media, unbelievable. you will hear that next. vo: traveling you definitely end up meeting a lot more people but a friend under water is something completely different. i met a turtle friend today so, you don't get that very often. it seemed like it was more than happy to have us in his home.

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>> george zimmerman was never guilty of anything, except for protecting himself in self defense, i'm glad that the jury saw it that way, and i hope that everyone thinks, especially those that doubted george's reasons and doubted his background now understand that the jury knew everything that they knew, it was enough for them to find him not guilty. >> that was a defense attorney mark o'mara. after the not guilty verdict was read. here is inside the courtroom when the verdict was read. >> circuit court of the 18th judicial circuit is, state of florida versus george zimmerman, verdict, we the jury find george zimmerman not guilty. so say we all -- >> two words, not guilty.

george zimmerman was told he could go home, that he was a free man, all charging against him were dismissed. the jury of six women deliberated for 16 hours, they could have found him guilty of second degree murder. reading through twitter, the reactions from social media from trayvon martin's family and famous twitter users. his mother, she writes, lord during my darkest hour, i lean on you, you are all that i at the end of the day, god is still in control. thank you all for your prayers and support, i will love you forever, trayvon in the name of jesus. this is from his father, tracy martin. he said quote, god bless me and sybrina with tray and even in his death i know my baby is proud of the fight we put up for him. i will always love my baby,

tray. thanks to everyone who was with us and who will be with us so we together can make sure that this doesn't happen again. and this is from russell simmons. russell simmons wrote, i know many people are very upset about the verdict, but we must remain peaceful no matter what. remain peaceful and from singer john legend, my heart hurts and from the naacp, they have responded, they said this from the president, we are outraged and we are heart broken over today's verdict. we stand with trayvon's family and we are called to act. we will pursue civil rights charges with the department of justice and we will continue to fight for the removal of stand your ground laws in every state. and we will not rest until racial profiling in all its forms is outlawed. more reaction coming. more from our legal experts that will go back in the courtroom as well with our man who was inside the courtroom, and that is none other than martin savage on the other side of the break. this is greta. she works in quality control.

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but for all these symptoms, you also take kaopectate. new kaopectate caplets -- soothing relief for all those symptoms. kaopectate. one and done. >> welcome back to our coverage now of the george zimmerman not guilty verdict, i want to bring in the team of legal experts. all former prosecutors and now all cnn legal analysts. sunny, i want to go, i want to speak with you about this.

what did we do with this conversation? where do we go next? >> yeah, i mean we have to have a conversation, and that may be one of the good things that has come out of this. i think people are going to talk about race relations, they are going to talk about stand your ground. they are going to talk about how is it that in 2013, you have someone able to profile a young teenager, follow them, pursue them, make all the wrong aassumptions, because let's remember that all of the assumptions were wrong, and not be culpable in any way shape or form. you have someone like michael vick chowho was put in jail forg fighting. you have people that were put in jail for tax evasion, you have people put in jail for shooting themselves in the leg. but you have no culpablity here

and i think that's a discussion that we have to have. and hopefully we will open up that dialog. >> yeah, mark, i want to change your job and make you a former prosecutor, and i know that you are not. so, for give me for that. so where does this discussion go next? what happens next? weigh talked about what should happen with george zimmerman, he said that he needs to heal now, is this over? you hear calls from the the naacp and the justice department and what have you, what happens next, here? >> well, as i said, when this first came out, this is not a time for jubilaton or blame or high fiving, it's a time for reflection and figuring out how to do better, history is good enough if we keep make the same mistakes, we will repeat the failures of the first time. i'm bothered, as we said many times this whole case was up side down on. you know, one of the things to

be discussed is the prosecutors over charging people. and interestinged, we have the complete reversal here in that george zimmerman, in my opinion, should never have been charged with second degree, i understand the manslaughter, and that is what they should have charged. you do not start high and hope and play a crap shoot with someone's life and hope that the jury comes back lower. this omp ften comes back and effects african-american men. this is a game, if you take a look, especially at this prosecutor's office in duval county and you look at their philosophy and policies it relates to prosecution. we have a issue here. i'm bothered by the fact that the team is seemingly in some ways coming in on their horse and saving the day. take a look at the policies. we have over charging that happens all the time to young people, young black men in the country. and from -- in my opinion, from

the very office that prosecuted this case. if this case was handled efficiently with a manslaughter charge, and alleged the fact that there was -- george zimmerman was irresponsible, that he over reacted, that he should not have been carrying a gun while it all took place, and keep it clean and keep the eye on the ball. they may have had a better chance of a prosecution. no, they went ahead and flexed their political muscle and look at what happened. and i think people need to be upset about that who are concerned about an acquittal in this case. that was one of the things that needs to be looked at. >> paul, iethere are people tha are upset with the members of other team here. our panel here for saying, hey, listen, not guilty does not mean innocent. people are saying, it does mean he is innocent. what do you say to that paul? >> it does not mean innocent, and it does not mean that in any

case. sometimes it means innocent. sometimes an innocent man is found not guilty. but other times a guilty man, there's not enough evidence to prove he is guilty. in this case, i think when you look at it overall, it was, the prosecution just did not have the ammunition here to present to the jury. and essentially, i think when the jurors are interviewed, i think they will say there was wrong on both sides. george zimmerman improperly thought that trayvon was a criminal. he thought he was protecting his community and followed him. i think they may say that try von was angry that had this guy was following him when he was in his own community and maybe he turned and punched him in the face. punched george zimmerman in the face. zimmerman thinking that he was dealing with a criminal, then

acted in self defense to defend himself from what he thought was a deadly threat. there was, you know, there was fault on both sides but unfortunately, a 17-year-old is dead, and why? because there was a gun in the picture. what i take away from last night. every african-american that i have spoken to, sees their own children in trayvon martin. and says is, in america today, do we have to worry when our kid goes out that he will be shot? because someone thinks he is a burglar? and i know, if this case, i tried cases like this in new york, as a prosecutor. and we used to call it, if you bring a gun to a fight and you kill somebody, you will get convictimed of manslaughter, and there will not ab prosecutor holding a press conference as they did earlier this evening saying we support the right to bare arms. this is not about the right to bare arms.

you never hear that in new york then talking about that. they do not believe in arms of any kind in new york. it shows how different juries react in different areas to having a gun. and i think it shows how different america is in many regions about the use of guns and disproceeds portion nate force. force. which i think the case is about. x in atlantis blue is mine! i was here first, it's mine. i called about that one, it's mine. mine! mine. it's mine. it's mine. mine. mine. mine. mine. it's mine! no it's not, it's mine! better get going, it's chevy model year-end event. [ male announcer ] the chevy model year-end event.

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>> welcome back now to our coverage of the george zimmerman not guilty verdict, right after the not guilty verdict, was announced in the courtroom, george zimmerman's brother, robert zimmerman, jr., he talked to cnn's piers morgan, and here is part of that conversation can. >> we are live, i'm here with robert zimmerman. you have just heard the verdict, i have interviewed you six or seven times over the last year, and always in tense circumstances, i now am interviewing you when you know your brother is a free man, how does that feel? >> i cannot put in words how relieved we are as a family,

that was the first thing my father said. at the same time, it's not the time for high fiving, we all acknowledge that mr. trayvon martin lost his life. it was not an act of murder or manslaughter. the jury has spoken. the judicial system has spoken, but that does not diminish the tragedy, death is tragic in any circumstance of a someone, a young person losing their life for whatever circumstances exist. you have just spoken literally in the last moments to your sister, gracie who has spoken directly to george after the verdict, how did she describe his mood? >> he is still processing the reality or notion of being a free man, and as the judge described, no further business with the court. he has had a gps monitoring his every step, his whereabouts and his curfew. none of that exists anymore. so i think, you know, he has

some decompression to do, decompressing and he has to align himself with himself again as the free george. >> was he emotional? >> did gracie describe how he was on the phone? >> she didn't, our family was. george is just now getting around to processing, i think, as most of our family is, just now processing the reality that we are not on the other end of this mountain of miss information, now the jury has spoken. and now we are exonerated as a family, but more importantly, george is exonerated as a defendant and we are going to process that. it takes time. you know, we have been on the other end of this for the better part of a year and a half now, it will take us time to heal. >> what will he do? he is a free man. he has come out tonight into a world where many people dis -- despise him, you know that. will he have concerns for the

quality of life for the rest of his life, for his safety? >> we have always feared for his safety and our safety as a family. clearly, you know, he is a free man in the eyes of the court. but he is going to be looking around his shoulder for the rest of his life. there are factions and groups and people that would want to take the law into their own hands as they perceive it or be vigilantes? some sense is, they will not respect a verdict no matter how it was reached and they will always present a threat to george and his family. >> let me replay the moment that your brother heard that he was a free man. >> in the circuit court of the 18th judicial circuit in and for seminole county, florida state florida versus george zimmerman, we the jury find george zimmerman not guilty, so say we all. does either side want to poll the jury?

>> we would, your honor. >> ladies and gentlemen, ladies, i'm sorry, as your juror number is called, answer whether it's your verdict. >> junior b-76, your verdict? >> yes. >> juror b-73 is this your verdict? >> yes. >> yes. >> juror e-40, is this your verdict? yes. >> thank you. >> it was extraordinarily calm. george, on hearing that. let me ask you the difficult questions here, many people have reactsed with fury tonight. you know, many people have reacted that thinking it's a right decision, many have said it's an outrage, nobody has been made accountable for the death on of trayvon martin. what do you say to those people? >> we do not make people accountable for death as it were because there's a death.

death is unfortunate. death is a bi-product of the law prescribes, as returning appropriate force. the jury found he acted appropriately in defending his life in accordance with the law. we respect the rule of laul and respecting this verdict as we called for it before the verdict was in, is the only appropriate thing to do as americans. this is our system, this is what we have. it's the best in the world. and i think that conjecture and speculation and emotional reaction to what people think may or may not have happened is dominating the discussion for a long time. people called for an arrest, and called for his day in court. they have had the their day in court. they have seen the blood, they have seen what trayvon martin did for my brother. and it's time, it's high time that they accept that the jury system that we have in this country is a system that we

should respect. >> but they have also seen what your brother did to trayvon martin and many people feel, why did your brother pursue him? why did he get us on of the vehicle and pursue him and why did he carry a gun why is he not feeling responsibility for what happened? without those two things trayvon martin would be alive. >> i don't think that he feels responsibility. george was sorrowful after this happened. just because he is not over the top emotional does not mean that he does not feel terribly bit. as we saw in court, when he asked if a woman was catholic, yes, because no matter what happens, losing lived is horrible. from my previous answer, they are not paying attention to facts. you said pursued, which is a key word, that comp come -- that comes from benjamin crump, the

state never proved that he continued to follow. any reference to george following trayvon martin, catching up to and confronting him is conjecture to format and errors. >> the truth is we do not know. >> no, we do know. >> you know what your brother told you. >> in your country, we may not know, and we may be subject to continual conjecture to the end of time. >> no, i respect the verdict of any jury, that is how you respond to these things. you know about my view about this from the start. i respect the jury. i will ask you this, if the situation was reversed and if you were the brother of trayvon martin and -- or say you are the brother of george zimmerman and he had been killed in the same situation reversed. trayvon got out of the vehicle, had got a gun, got involved in an alter indication and pulled

out the gun and killed your brother dead, how do you feel on a human level and emotional level about that? >> two things, that is tragic. and if trayvon were my brother and he was the one armed and legally armed and you know, able to carry that firearm in a legal way, and my brother blind sided him by breaking his nose and pummeling him into concrete and continued to punch him. i would find and the jury has found that unfortunately he had the greater hand in his own demise, which was causing by his own hand, his death. that is unfortunate, but that is what i believe. >> you believe that a 17-year-old boy armed with a bag of candy. >> look, we can be synical about it to the end of time. >> no, i want your clear opinion. >> i think i have been clear and

the jury was clear. self defense means that you were defending your life from a perceived threat. whether you were injured to the degree that you were injured to in order to shoot someone or not, you perceived a threat of great bodly harm or death. that was is what surrounded george in the moment that he fired his gun. having said that, you asked me if the role were reversed. i don't begrudge anyone for trying to get to answers to why their son died. i take issue when the answers are not immediately forthcoming throwing the race card on the table and accusing everyone from george the san ford police department and the chief of police and the state of attorney's office, and everyone in between of being racist or sweeping a murder under the rug. >> mark o'mara said tonight, in george zimmerman had been black,

he never would have been charged with any offense? >> perhaps not, that happens in chicago every day. there's many people that go out and shoot other people that are black, and shoot other people that are black and are not charged for whatever reason. >> well, some of them are, obviously. >> some but there's many more that are not. there's nor unsolved homicides in chicago than in florida. we will have the right conversation that we need to have going forward. trayvon is a victim of many things. he is not the victim of a murder. he is not the victim of a manslaughter and as much as you want to spin it or talk about skittles or trash george on your program or any other cnn program, he is an innocent man. >> it's not about trashing, it turned out to be a fact after george pulled the trigger and killed trayvon martin that

trayvon was unarmed. >> he was armed with the sidewalk, and his nose breaking fist and whatever aggression he brought to the moment. a bag of whatever you want. >> i'm don lemon live in san ford florida, good night. thanks to dad. ...and nope eeeeh... oh, guys let's leave the deals to hotels.com. ooh that one! nice. got it! oh my gosh this is so cool... awesome! perfect! yep, and no angry bears. the perfect place is on sale now. up to 40% off. only at hotels.com happy birthday! it's a painting easel! the tide's coming in!

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