at cnn who played such an important role. by the way, the news and documentary emmy awards will be handed out in new york city october 1st. that's it for me. thanks very much for watching. "erin burnett outfront" starts right now. outfront next, missile equipment intercepted on the way from cuba to north korea. we'll tell you what authorities have found on that ship. we have new developments tonight. plus new developments in the death of cory montieth. the coroner revealing tonight what killed the actor. and protests continue across the country in reaction to the george zimmerman verdict. the big question, will the department of justice file new charges? eric holder spoke today. let's go outfront. good tuesday evening to everyone. i'm erin burnett. outfront tonight, new developments on the weapons equipment that was intercepted

on the way to north korea. the shipment was discovered late monday after a dramatic and violent confrontation unfolded on a freighter that was headed from cuba through the panama canal. barbara starr is at the pentagon and, bar bara, what happened on this ship was pretty incredible, just the drama of that moment. tell me about that and what they actually found. >> reporter: well, erin, according to panamanians they found hidden weapons equipment. they think it's a missile radar used for missiles to be targeted. it was hidden under bags of sugar from cuba. it doesn't get more dramatic than this because that's only the beginning of it. the crew, when the panamanians tried to stop them, the north korean crew, 35 members of the crew resisted arrest and the captain, first he tried to fake a heart attack and then he tried to commit suicide. it all came to light when the president of panama tweeted a picture of the captured cargo. he went right to the pier and

looked at the whole operation. it's really quite extraordinary. cuba and north korea, now the u.s. believes that they were really pairing up, trying to get this radar back to north korea, possibly for an upgrade and then possibly to return it back to cuba. >> it's pretty incredible what you say. also just what happened on that ship. the captain tried to commit suicide and, you know, just how the drama of this went down. but as you say, barbara, obviously panamanian authorities seized the ship, it was in the panama canal, an incredibly narrow artery. but the u.s. military had been tracking it for several days. so how significant is this discovery for the u.s.? i mean this isn't something we hear about really ever. >> reporter: this is a very unusual circumstance. the ship was actually trying to get back into the canal to transit to go home. the panamanians clearly had been tipped off by somebody. they thought maybe there were drugs on board the ship. look, the panama canal, you know better than anybody, erin, is an economic choke point.

14,000 shipping vessels transit the canal every year. billions of dollars in shipping. a huge, huge vital waterway for the u.s. economy. so the panamanians are actually quite strict about security there. they're always worried about a terrorist attack and they do not put up with smuggling, especially of weapons. so this is a plus for panamanian intelligence, that they got the ship. you have to wonder who really tipped them off to it. >> that does seem to be the big question. barbara starr, thank you very much. i want to bring in gordon chang right now, the author of "nuclear showdown, north korea takes on the world" and tim clemente. let me start with you, gordon. you hear barbara talking about what was on the ship, the cargo, the missile radar intercepter. what does this tell you? >> well, it tells us that the north koreans are not only prelif rating to asia and the middle east but also into our hemisphere. this is a country which is just 90 miles away from american

shores. now, if they can smuggle missile radar into cuba, you know god knows what else they can put there, because we do not need a replay of the cuban missile crisis. this time with the north koreans with their finger on the triggers rather than the soviets. >> tim, how worried should this country be, should the united states be about these ties between north korea and cuba. gordon laid out a possibly frightening scenario. >> obviously the more that the western world extricates the north koreans and the cubans into a little corner, they're obviously going to conspire together. it's a concern, but what it's going to take is vigilance. this is a great job on the part of panamanians acting on intelligence, which i believe came from america and south korea both. but that kind of vigilance is going to have to be increased because in order to quarantine somebody like raul castro and his brother fidel and kim jong um in north korea, we need to be

watching even submersibles. >> gordon, tim is saying it could have been a tip from the united states, which barbara reported was tracking the ship, or from south korea. but what's amazing to me is that 85% of the trade around this planet goes by ship. so there's a lot of ships out there. and it's really hard to find the ones who might be up to no good. the u.s. was tracking it, but should they have been more actively involved? if it was just out in the open sea, what do you do, just track it and let it go where it's going? what are your options? >> well, that's what we have been doing. we've been letting north korean ships go even when we know what's on board and when we think it's dangerous. that's because the security council resolutions do not permit us to board north korean ships without their permission. but we have had right to do this. the north koreans this year and three times before have abrogated the korean war armistice. that means there's no agreement not to use force. which means we could torpedo that ship, we could do that so clearly we have the right to

interdict it. because the north koreans have been selling nuclear weapons technology around the world, this is a matter of our security and we shouldn't be outsourcing it to the chinese and the russians on the security council. >> tim, should the u.s. be doing more? gordon says we have the ability to do more. it seems pretty frustrating at the least to think you're just tracking ships that you think may have, maybe in some cases nuclear missile material on board and all you're doing is saying, oh, i think it's there but not stopping it. >> well, i think using a third party like the panamanians was a great ruse. it was a great job on america's part if we were as involved as i believe we were. that gives us plausible deniability and also allows the north koreans not to point the finger at us. when a panamanian customs official says i need to board your ship and the crew goes ballistic, tries to kill everyone, cut the cables, the captain commits hariry cary, that's a great case.

>> gordon, about what that, what happened on that ship? does it surprise you the captain faked a heart attack, tried to commit suicide? >> no, no, this is the way the north koreans operate. you know, it's not just us, but that adds emphasis to the north korean actions because we are their enemy in their minds. but it's just the way the north koreans do operate. they do not want anybody on their ships. whether it's carrying melons or nuclear weapons technology, i think the north koreans would act pretty much the same way. they did that with the pong su carrying heroin into australia. this is just standard operating procedure. >> thanks very much to both of you. appreciate it. i wish i was there to see that happen. breaking news in the boston bombing investigation here on outfront. missed clues that could have led authorities to one of the suspects before the attack. our investigation and breaking news. plus the latest from the asiana crash investigation. the passengers ready to file a lawsu lawsuit. the defendant in the suit is not

asi asiana. more information about the death of cory montieth. and later, a debate that's raged for years may finally be settled. will the real t-rex please stand up.

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our second story outfront, breaking news with new details in the boston bombing case. were there missed clues in the massachusetts triple murder that actually could have led investigators to one of the suspected boston bombers before the bombing? on september 11th, 2011, brendan

mast, eric wiesman and rafael were brutally murdered, their throats slashed ear to ear, drugs spread across their bodies. the case went cold until after the boston marathon bombing, when it became clear that tamerlan tsarnaev was a key suspect in both crimes. could the bombings have been stopped? deb feyerick has this exclusive investigation. >> reporter: john allen still remembers tamerlan tsarnaev's reaction when he learned their mutual friend had been murdered. >> he laughed it off saying brendan probably got what he deserved. making bad choices, that those were the repercussions he had to case. >> reporter: tsarnaev was never interviewed in connection with his friends's murder or the murder of the other two victims. but allen and others we spoke with question whether the drugs strewn over the dead bodies were an effective smoke screen, distracting investigators from

interviewing people who could have been tamerlan tsarnaev squarely on the radar. >> did tamerlan ever tell you police had come to speak to him? what he knew about brendan -- >> no. >> -- about the drugs, about anything? >> no. around here we call it nhi. >> reporter: which is? >> no humans involved. >> reporter: okay. which means? >> they were three drug dealers that were murdered over drugs and money. >> reporter: that at least was the perception. even though only one of the three victims had drug-related charges. but four months after those murders, tsarnaev left boston and traveled to ddagastan. they wonder whether the outcome could have been different if investigators had reached tsarnaev in the first place. jamal saw brendan a few times a week. he owns the brookline lunch diner where he often ate with the other two. he says police never questioned

him and so he never told him about a meeting weeks before the murders which made mess and weisman very, very nervous. >> he sounded different and acted different and they were all nervous. he was very serious and wasn't himself. >> reporter: neither was eric weisman, co-owner of hit man glass, a high-end bond company. journalist bobby black, who new weisman felt too many solid leads weren't followed. >> anyone who knew eric would know he wasn't a dangerous drug dealer. he was a college-age kid who loved weed. >> reporter: they didn't take the money and didn't take the drugs. >> and i think the police writing it off as that early on possibly may be the reason they didn't investigate further, which could have possibly prevented the boston bombings. >> reporter: now, the murders took place in the house behind me on the second floor. this is still very much an active investigation, erin, and a source that we spoke to who is intimately familiar with these killings defended how this all was handled, saying that both

state and local police handled it professionally and according to protocol. erin. >> deb, thank you very much. passengers of asiana flight 214 are now taking the first steps in a major lawsuit against, drum roll, boeing. asiana, let me explain, the company manufactured the plane, it was a boeing 777. that plane crashed onto the runway in san francisco last weekend. three were killed, 180 more injured. a legal filing is asking for information about component parts of the plane. i want to emphasize at this point, though, nothing from the ntsb points to any equipment failure as the cause of the crash. nothing with the auto pilot, the flight director or auto throttles. kyung lah is outfront on the story. obviously this crash just over a week ago. authorities are still investigating. the ntsb chief so far when she's spoken has said no sign of any equipment failure. is it too early for lawyers to be suing boeing? >> reporter: well, according to the lawyers, no.

getting in early is the smart thing to do here. they're representing 83 passengers. 83 passengers who were injured in some way on this plane crash, erin. what they are saying is that they have filed a petition for discovery. basically they want to know who built what on the plane. why? because they're saying they're hearing a repeated tale among the passengers that they were trapped by the seat belts. that the seats collapsed. that some of them were injured when the emergency slides deployed inside the cabin. here's what the lead lawyer told us. >> once we receive all the information from boeing, we will be filing the lawsuit because we will have an idea as to who we're going after. right now we do not have all the defendants. we obviously know that boeing will be named. asiana airlines will be named. most likely the company that provided the training for the pilots. but we do not know yet the identity of the different component part manufacturers of

the plane. >> reporter: and she says the next step will be a lawsuit. so getting back to your earlier question, erin, why file so quickly? it leads to faster and higher amounts for the plaintiffs, these passengers in this case, erin. >> you've got to beat all the other lawyers rushing in. i know the lawyer you just spoke with is representing 83 passengers, as you just said. but what shape are they in? are some of these people among the most injured? you know, when you're talking about the kinds of damages that they're going to go for. >> reporter: we know at least one of the passengers that she's representing is one of the most injured, severe spinal injuries and a broken leg. other passengers have bumps and bruises. all of them were injured in some way. maybe some of them have severe physical injuries, but a lot of them can't sleep. granted, this is just one week after the accident, but they can't eat and any sort of loud noise still alarms them. so they believe that they can win something for these passengers, erin. >> all right, kyung lah, thank you very much. still to come, new

information about the death of cory montieth. we found out tonight how he died. plus the latest from the nsa saga. we now know in which country edward snowden is seeking asylum. and a massive power plant implosion. look at this. we'll show you the full video later in the show. ♪ norfolk southern what's your function? ♪ ♪ hooking up the country helping business run ♪ ♪ build! we're investing big to keep our country in the lead. ♪ load! we keep moving to deliver what you need. and that means growth, lots of cargo going all around the globe. cars and parts, fuel and steel, peas and rice, hey that's nice! ♪ norfolk southern what's your function? ♪ ♪ helping this big country move ahead as one ♪ ♪ norfolk southern how's that function? ♪ [ whirring ] [ dog barks ] i want to treat more dogs. ♪ our business needs more cases. [ male announcer ] where do you want to take your business? i need help selling art.

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our third story outfront, cory montieth's deadly cocktail. according to the toxicology report that came out today, the 31-year-old star died from an overdose of heroin and alcohol. early saturday morning. canadian officials say there's

no evidence to suggest montieth's death was anything other than a tragic accident. sanjay gupta is outfront. why is that particular combination -- you can take alcohol or heroin on their own and both can be very lethal, but the combination? >> what happens with both these drugs and heroin is a morphine derivative. what we know about morphine derivatives, they both affect your central nervous system. so your body is doing things you don't have to think about. your heart is beating on its own, your drive to breathe is on its own. when you start to suppress the central nervous system -- >> those things stop too? >> yeah. your drive to breathe sort of stops, so the typical tragic scenario is that someone taking these substances, they fall asleep and then their drive to breathe stops. and you hear about this with michael jackson, you hear about this in countless other cases. that's the typical situation. >> which is so frightening because you don't realize it. cory montieth had had problems with addiction. he had just finished a rehab cycle. i don't know what the right word

might be, but back in march. how common is it for a person to relapse so quickly? >> heroin is probably the most addictive substance on the pl planet. it's very hard to come by data in terms of relapse rates. most addiction experts will say it's not a failure if after one stint of rehab you relapse. people often go through multiple stints in rehab. but it is one of the most addictive substances. keep in mind we're talking about heroin and alcohol, which either one of them in too high a dose can potentially lead to death. but when it comes to prescription drugs, pain killers, someone dies in this country every 19 minutes of an accidental prescription drug overdose. >> you mean sleeping medications and things like that? >> things like that. >> every 19 minutes? >> every 19 minutes. oftentimes it's because they combine it with alcohol. it's easy to get. it's legal. oftentimes it's a drug of choice that's combined with some of these other things. >> the night before montieth died he was out to dinner with his manager, another friend and

a friend described him, he looked so good and so healthy. those were the words. when you think of someone that's a heroin addict, you don't think of they look so healthy. but that's what they said. would family and friends have picked up any signs that he was on such a dramatic downward spiral? >> it is so hard in part because someone who is actively using and someone who may be actively withdrawing, they may look very similar. so it could be that they're both in a terrible sort of state or they could both seem like they're in a pretty good place, so it can be really hard to tell sometimes. some of the character traits, they're not eating ads well, sleeping as well, behavioral changes. >> for someone that's getting better or getting worse. >> that's part of the problem. a lot of addiction specialists will say there's probably people around who may have a pretty good idea just because they know him well, they're interacting on a regular basis. but you find sometimes the closest friends don't know for sure. >> maybe they don't want to so you don't look. dr. sanjay gupta, thank you. still to come, the trayvon

martin movement. protests continuing tonight across this country. the big question, will the department of justice file charges against the man who killed him? attorney general eric holder spoke today directly on that issue. plus what we're just learning about the jury that acquitted george zimmerman tonight of the and was he or wasn't he a natural-born killer? it's taken over 60 million years, but tonight we may finally have an answer. and our shoutout, a power plant implosion. experts in florida demolished florida power & light's port everglades plant earlier this morning. it's kind of a beautiful thing to watch something being destroyed. i feel sick saying that but when it's done perfectly like that, the explosives used -- it was a 1960s-era plant. it's going to be replaced with a cleaner, more efficient one. our shoutout goes to the demolition experts who safely, successfully and, frankly, beautifully brought down four 7500-ton boilers and four 350-foot stacks. rest in peace. engineer: rolling...take 13.

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welcome back to the second half of "outfront. " we focus on reporting we do from the front lines. president barack obama has someone in mind for janet napolitano's job. the president today told a univision affiliate that he would consider new york police

commissioner ray kelly as a candidate. the president says he wants to know if kelly is happy in his job because if he's not, quote, he'd be very well qualified for the job. hope you're watching somewhere, ray kelly, because that's about as direct as it gets. i assume you've probably already gotten a phone call. edward snowden has applied for temporary asylum in russia. a russian lawyer tells us that he helped snowden with the request. i want to show you the letter. there's the letter, everybody's. i guess it's kind of what you'd expect from a guy who doesn't really care about specific forms. anyway if asylum is granted, snowden will be able to live in russia for a year and travel abroad, which is significant. accordsing to the lawyer, snowden wants to stick around russia. a former ambassador to the ukraine tells us it would be best for u.s./russian relations if snowden left the country as soon as possible. a military jury has been selected in the murder trial of major nidal hasan. he is accused of killing 13 people in a shooting spree in

ft. hood, texas. it's a 13-member court-martial panel made up of 11 men and two women that will decide his fate. he is acting as his own attorney. given the strength of the government's case, a guilty verdict appears imminent for major hasan. opening arguments begin august 6th. it will have been 1,356 days since the alleged crime took place in 2009. that is a really long time because hasan has been getting paid that entire time. and now, a new find proves tyrannosaurus rex was a predator. i was a dinosaur adorer so i care about this story. wait, we already knew that, right? pop culture like "the land of the lost" certainly didn't make you think twice about this proposition, but for decades scientists argued about whether t-rex was a scavenger like a vulture killing things that are already dead, i.e. a big wuss

not a pierce predator. now there's proof that he was a tough man. researchers in kansas found a t-rex tooth inside a duckbill dinosaur and they say that duckbill dinosaur was alive after the attack which means they pursued the duckbill dinosaur. when t-rex was huge, those tiny arms couldn't have made hunting very easy. >> it has been 710 days since we lost our top credit rating. in the year since marissa mayer took over, the stock price of yahoo! has gone up. it's now nearly $27 a share. now our fourth story outfront. the trayvon martin movement. a million people have now signed a petition urging the department of justice to file federal civil rights charges against george zimmerman. protests are flaring up around the country tonight again, a call for a prayer vigil in 100 cities is scheduled for saturday and just a short time ago late

today, the attorney general, eric holder, spoke in detail about the case. >> trayvon's death last spring caused me to sit down, to have a conversation with my own 15-year-old son. like my dad did with me. this was a father-son tradition i hoped would not need to be handed down. but as a father who loves his son and who is more knowing in the ways of the world, i had to do this to protect my boy. >> will the u.s. government take legal action? that is a crucial question and far from certain from that personal anecdote you just heard. outfront tonight, cornell belcher, our legal analyst paul callan and michael medved. good to have all of you with us. cornell, you just heard attorney general eric holder personalize this story with that story about his son. makes it something that we can all connect to and understand hopefully a little bit. is this a case where the

attorney general should transfer that personal story into a charge? >> well, i think it's tough. i mean i think the attorney general and the president to a certain extent are in tough places. i think it is important that for the first time i think where i can imagine -- can remember that the attorney general talking about the law in a very sort of personal way. but i think it's tough to transfer that to we should now sort of prosecute or we should bring a case. i mean he's still got to go through the investigation, which they apparently do, but i know there's a lot of pressure on the white house and a lot of pressure on the attorney general to bring a case because people are hurting and they want an avenue for their hurt. but i've got a feeling that in the end they're going to have to find another avenue other than -- other than the attorney general bringing a case, because from everyone i talked to, it's a very high hurdle for them to cross to bring this case against mr. zimmerman. >> it is a high hurdle, of course. as we've talked about on this program for a hate crime and the fbi has looked into it, interviewed more than 30 people

and they have said they haven't found evidence to show that this was specifically motivated by racial bias. michael, when you hear the attorney general, when you see the statement from the president that he's put out, you say this is politics at its worst. >> no, i don't. i think the president's statement was fine, and i think the attorney general's speech today was, for the most part, fine. the one thing he felt a need to do was when he spoke personally, and he spoke very personally, he spoke about being profiled himself when he was a young man. and all of this was entirely appropriate. he was speaking in orlando to the naacp. he had to respond in some way. what was not appropriate, it seemed to me, was marrying it to a condemnation of stand your ground laws, because the idea that there is some kind of connection between race and racial prejudice and between inequality and the criminal justice system and stand your ground laws is very dubious. the stand your ground law was not a factor in the zimmerman

verdict, and people need to know that. >> paul, let me ask you, attorney general holder also opened his speech talking specifically about the verdict and that the jury has spoken. i wanted to play that. >> we are all mindful of the tragic and unnecessary shooting death of trayvon martin last year in sanford, florida, just a short distance from here. and we're also aware of the state trial that reached its conclusion on saturday evening. today i'd like to join president obama in urging all americans to recognize that, as he said, we are a nation of laws and the jury has spoken. >> we are a nation of laws, the jury has spoken. that does not sound like an attorney general setting himself up to press charges. in fact it sounds the opposite. >> it does sound the opposite. and frankly, i think this loose talk about federal charges is counterproductive to both sides. to trayvon martin's family, to have this hope that somehow the case is going to be reopened and

there will be a second trial, it's a false hope because in the end, they won't come up with anything new in this federal investigation. and on the other hand, of course, george zimmerman has been acquitted of these charges and he's lived under, you know, these charges for such a long period of time. the specter of new indictment hangs over him. and, frankly, you've got to be able to prove that it was a killing based on racial hatred -- >> right. >> i don't see a systemic failure of the justice system in florida, which is what you usually see in the cases that the federal government gets involved in. >> cornell, the naacp has collected a million signatures to urge the department of justice to file charges, and obviously that's a lot of people. just as a comparison to make the point to veers, a movement by the tea party has collected a million signatures to prosecute and remove eric holder from office. there are people passionate about a lot of things, you can get signatures. where do you see the justice for trayvon movement ending at this pointing, if not with these

charges, how does this resolve? >> that's a really good question, erin. i was down there at the naacp convention yesterday talking to people. look, the naacp is a historic group of organizers. i think what you look at what we have to do moving forward is i'm all for protests, i'm all for vigils, but bring organization to that. if you think these stands your ground laws are wrong, these ridge station forms to these protests. bring registration forms to these protests. take out -- send groups of these protesters out around those neighborhoods, around those communities and register people. actually take -- speaking of the tea party, take a page from the tea party. too often on the left i think our protests turn into speeches. see occupy wall street and a lot of sounding and fury signify nothing. but in the end if we take a page from the tea party and turn these protests into organizing and actually hold political leaders' feet to the flame here

and actually challenge political leaders in primaries the way the tea party did, if they are not with them on this, i think that is an avenue that would be positive. >> thanks very much to all of you. we appreciate it. with a full acquittal, george zimmerman's defense team certainly seems to have gotten the jury that they wanted at the end of the day. last night juror b-37 spoke out for the first time. she spoke to anderson and she said she couldn't help but find zimmerman's story believable. >> i think george zimmerman is a man whose heart was in the right place but just got displaced by the vandalism in the neighborhoods and wanting to catch these people so badly that he went above and beyond what he really should have done. but i think his heart was in the right place. it just went terribly wrong. >> what did the rest of the jury think and what was the defense team's strategy when picking this jury? outfront tonight, robert

hershhorn. robert, you just heard juror b-37 talk about george zimmerman, that she believed his story. when you look at her biography, mother of two daughters. she used to carry a concealed weapons permit which could be significant. her father was in the air force. obviously you're looking through, you have possibly people, 400 people on this jury. you're going through her stats. when you first looked at her stats, when you first saw her and heard her, did you think, boom, i want her on my jury? >> good evening, erin, thanks for having me. so the process of jury selection is you don't get to pick who you want. it's a deselection process. so you take off the people you don't want and the folks that are left, those are the jurors that end up serving on your jury. what i can tell you about this juror is this was someone we were never going to strike. i had this juror -- this juror had my absolute highest rating. and i not only look at who i think we're going to keep or we're going to strike, i also look at who the prosecution

should strike and i had this juror down as a ps or prosecution strike. >> so that's pretty fascinating that you would have thought if you were in their shoes that you would have put a strike against her. the jury ended up being all female and almost all white. did you -- was there a moment when this finished when you thought this is too good to be true? that you were surprised that it ended up being, when you looked at that list and said, wow? >> yeah. i can tell you that what we were looking for were honest, sincere, genuine, smart jurors that didn't come in with an agenda. and when i looked over at that jury panel and saw people that had every one of those qualities, that's the first thing i noticed. the second thing i noticed is they were all women. >> and that was good for you. now, the jury did acquit unanimously, they had to, right? but it took more than 16 hours to get there. here's what juror b-37 said about the process. >> there was a couple of them in there that wanted to find him

guilty of something. and after hours and hours and hours of deliberating over the law and reading it over and over and over again, we decided there's just no way -- other place to go. we had three not guilties, one second-degree murder and two manslaughters. >> so half the jury felt he was not guilty, two manslaughters and one second-degree. >> exactly. >> can you say -- do you want to say where you were on that? >> i was not guilty. >> it sort of sounds like from the way she was saying that, she was not guilty. she was very confident in that, right? she was from that point of view early on. you already said if you were on the state, the prosecution there you might have put a strike against that particular juror. did you feel that way about any of the other jurors? >> i certainly felt the strongest about her, erin, and here's why. one of the things that she said in jury selection is that she would give more credibility and more believability to law enforcement. now typically in a criminal case, that's the kind of juror

that the defense wants to strike. but we knew that the law enforcement would actually be good jurors for george zimmerman. that these are jurors that would verify that what george told them is what he honestly felt happened that night. so we knew that law enforcement would be good for us and that's why this is a juror that was obviously on my radar screen as great for us, but is a juror that was a problem for the state. the other thing i want to say is this juror and those other nine -- i'm sorry, the other five jurors that actually served and the three alternates, they were courageous. this took a lot of hard work and dedication on their part. they didn't volunteer for this job. they didn't seek this job. i think they should be commended for doing an extraordinarily difficult task. >> all right. robert, thank you very much. really appreciate your taking the time and explaining and being so honest about what he thought about this. still to come, a witness and a juror break their silence. was the george zimmerman jury motivated by race? you heard him say the second thing he noticed was that they were all women. we didn't talk about their race,

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our fifth story outfront, was zimmerman's jury motivated by race? rachel jeantel, the prosecution's star witness who was on the phone with trayvon martin just moments before he was shot and killed by zimmerman, toelds our piers morgan she was not surprised by the verdict. >> the jury -- the jury never really discussed race as being a motivating factor here. >> imagine. they're white. well, one -- one hispanic. but she is stuck in the middle. >> five white women on the jury and one hispanic lady. >> yeah. i had a feeling it was going to be a not guilty, so -- >> outfront tonight, radio host stephanie miller, and sophia songhi and the 2008 black miss massachusetts. do you agree, she said, look, race -- the juror said race played absolutely no role, it never came up in the room, which i have to say i found almost

impossible to believe. did race play a role? >> did race -- does race play a role in our everyday lives? the second that a black person and a white person enter america and have american citizenship, they are conditioned from the second they are born to have totally different experiences. so i mean the idea that race played a role in the case, yes, it played a role in the case. he's on the tape saying f'ing coons. automatically it got racial. it definitely played a role in the jury. the situation is that the defense just had to pull out the fear that white america is conditioned to feel about black men. they're scared of black men. not because they feel this way intrinsically because they're conditioned to feel this way. all the defense had to do was tap into that fear and instantly george zimmerman is sympathetic. they're sympathetic to him and trayvon martin is instantly the aggressor until proven otherwise. and trayvon martin was on trial. >> stephanie, let me ask you about this issue. when you look at the jury, we were just talking about the man who worked for george zimmerman's side in selecting and he said with that juror b-37

he was shocked that the state did not strike her. that he would have cut her. he thought it was almost too good to be true for her to be on that jury. this jury was six women, five of them were white. can well, you know, erin, i don't know if you saw the internet going around but it said a jury of his peers and it was all paula deen on the jury. that may be, you know, somewhat tasteless joke but what thinking person thinks that race didn't have something to do with this? >> right. >> what thinking person thinks that if this was a white frat kid from university of miami walking down the street this would have ended the same way? i think we have to have an honest conversation about race, and to say race played no role is just ridiculous. >> dean, this jury did not reflect the sense of seminole county, florida which is 65% white, 18% hispanic and one

hispanic and black woman is not representati representative. >> it's not. are the people racist on this jury? you can have a jury of all white people and a fair verdict but how much experience with people of color. you live in a county where everyone is white, you'll relate more. jeantel did not find her credible. not that she was a liar because she could understand the ex p x expressions she was using. she discounted her credibility on her testimony. so of course, race plays a role. it doesn't mean you're a racist. you go on a jury and bring your baggage of life with you. you're not a blank slate and that pres sen of evidence comes through your life. >> rachel jeantel, so many talked about her. she had heavy lidded eyes so it looks like maybe she's not paying attention when she is. when you ever judgments about people. juror 37 spoke to anderson and rachel spoke to piers and i want to talk about the phone call

trayvon use that language. here is what they said. >> i don't think it's really racial. i think it's just everyday life, the type of life they live and how they are living in the environment that they are living in. >> what is your reaction to that? well, the jury, they see their side. no offense to the jury, they old. they old school people. we in the new school, our generation, my generation. >> that group reacted well to her. >> i must say after the piers morgan interview, i absolutely fell in love with rachel jeantel and i wish she felt as comfortable in that interview as she did on the trial day. i understand the fear that she was -- you know, the intention anxiety that she felt this is her best friend. she was the person two minutes before he's done with life. so i completely understand that, but the issue with the word

cracker is that it was never a white person. it was the person who was tearing somebody's back up and sometimes that was a black person, sometimes white. i think with rachel jeantel she proved her deep-seeded history. that was a surprise to me because it's somebody that thinks themselves in an authority figure. that's what george zimmerman thought he was. >> let us know if you think race played a role that night. anderson, you have a lot more of your exclusive conversation with that juror tonight? >> yeah, that's part two of my interview, 15 minutes worth of the interview with juror b 37. much has been made if race played a role, and i asked her about that. so you don't believe race played a role in this case? >> i don't think it did. i think if -- 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. >> two part two will include how difficult it was to reach a verdict and what happened in that jury room. >> looking forward to that. the jury consultant side thought he would have struck that jury. he was shocked she made the cut. we take a look at the "out front out take." you may notice it's very hot today in the continental united states, lots of places in nevada, michigan, california. the heat wave expected to continue for the rest of the week. air conditioners are flying off shelves. elevators are shut down in timewarner center but as hot as it is, it's a far cry from the hottest temperature ever. death valley california three days over 130 degrees. one of the days hit 134 and recently picked, using that word purposely, everybody, picked as

the highest temperature recorded on earth. i say picked because it didn't used to be the highest ever record holder. that went to libya. in 1922 libya recorded 136.4 degree reading, 2.4 higher than the one set in death valley. libyan record stood for 90 years as the hottest. after a two-year investigation by an arican expert and the world meteorologist investigation that found serious questions about the thermometers and operators that recorded that temperature. america got the record back. two year-investigation into libya. nice to see someone investigating something in libya. still to come, washington dc prepares to celebrate, but should america choose a new capital? "i'm part of an american success story," "that starts with one of the world's most advanced distribution systems," "and one of the most efficient trucking networks," "with safe, experienced drivers." "we work directly with manufacturers,"

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big birthday news, washington dc today 2 33 years old. on july 16th, 1790 established washington d.c. as the american capital. since then it's a mixed bag for d.c. while some of the district's power players regularly ranked as the most powerful and wealthy people of the country, skorps at the bottom when it comes to education, traffic congestion and sobriety. it made us wonder if washington

d.c. with the depressing record is the best choice for america's capital. philly, trenton, new york served as capital. maybe there is a better alternative out there. is washington still the best choice if you can pick? if not, which city should win? let us know on twitter at erin burnett or out front.com. good to see you. good to see you. "ac 360" starts now. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com part two of my interview with juror b 37 and no less revealing than part one. she never served on a jury before and never wants to again and has plenty to say about the instructions the jury was given, instructions she says guaranteed george zimmerman would go free and reminded self-defense doesn't retreat from danger if possible n. orlando attorney general ass