all right. that's it for us tonight. piers, thank you for letting me sit in. the check's in the mail. i know you're watching and feeling good about your overall superiority. donny deutsch will be here tomorrow. he'll be joined by star jones on race in america. up next, "race and justice in america two," and "ac 360" town hall special. i'll see you in the morning on "new day." thanks for watching. good evening. the second in a continuing series of "360" town halls on

race and justice in america. tonight, we look at hidden biases that exist based on race, which studies show even exist among people who don't believe they have any racial biases. we're also going to look at juries in this country and how the racial makeup of a jury can impact what decisions the jury comes to. is this a discussion worth having? how you answer that question may depend on your race. there's new polling out from the pew research sent they are finds 8 in 10 african-americans say that the killing of trayvon martin raises important issues about race. but 6 in 10 white americans say the issue of race is getting more attention than it deserves. this town hall is about challenging assumptions. raising questions, contributing to a discussion we hope in a positive and helpful way. george zimmerman's attorney stated if his client was black the case would have never gone to trial. many of the african-american guests we had in our last town

hall felt if george zimmerman was black, he would have been arrested that night. take a look at a pair of photographs. think about it, had george zimmerman looked like this and trayvon martin looked like this, would the case have played out differently? would you have seen the case in the same way? so first i want to talk about hidden bias, and researching today's town hall, i came across a university of chicago study which researchers sent out identical resumes for jobs. some were given white sounding names like emily walsh or african-american names like la'keshia. emily was 50% more likely to get a call back. people make assumptions whether it's about trayvon martin, even the future president of the united states. >> there are very few african-american men in this country who haven't had the experience of being followed when they were shopping in a department store.

that includes me. there are very few african-american men who haven't had the experience of walking across the street and hearing the locks click on the doors of cars. that happens to me, at least before i was a senator. there are very few african-americans who haven't had the experience of getting on an elevator and a woman clutching their purse nervously and holding her breath until she had a chance to get off. that happens often. >> president obama joined the conversation asking americans to ask themselves, am i ringing as much bias out of myself as i can? joining us is andre perry, founding dean of urban education at davenport university. cnn contribute for charles blow. mikayla angela davis. david webb, host of the david

webb show. and hip-hop artist naz. welcome to you all. appreciate you being here. [ applause ] that picture where george zimmerman is black and trayvon martin is white, do you think had those roles been reversed this case would have played out in the same way? >> i think that's an important question to ask. it is really hard to know, but what we know from the science, and you know a lot of the science, i know a lot of this science from looking at the studies, is that most americans have implicit biases along racial lines. that's just the truth. project implicit is the biggest one of these. they looked at hundreds of thousands of people who have taken this test.

it's partially maintained by harvard, and it shows that when you break it down, whites have an incredibly high implicit racial bias that is pro right and anti-black. and they use it by asians and blacks and whatever. what is most interesting to me is that when you look at who had the least amount of bias, that group is african-americans. it's even. it's more even than the rest of them. i think part of that is because like this panel, black people spend a lot of time talking about bias, so their kids grow up talking about bias. and that weaves it out of you, to a certain degree. >> that's what was so striking looking at that photo. i identify as an image activist. a lot is because of the images all of us hav been consuming and the narratives we know. many black people have a plethora of a white experience

that we can draw on. when most people's narratives around black men are either sports related or criminal, and that's really 50% of images in the main stream media. that's what gets triggered in you. we are our stories, and the balance of the stories that people of color, of immigrants, of women are way out of balance with the stories of white male, heterosexual christian people. so we don't know who we are. i think there's a way to not even love yourself. the study with the black children will have more sympathy with a white child, because we're just learning how to -- >> that's one of the studies we did last year or two years ago, we recreated that famous doll study. very young african-american kids have a perception of white skin as somehow better.

do you believe it's as biased and widespread, charles? >> i don't believe it's as widespread. but there is bias. there can be bias in imagery. you can see a black man getting out of a black car here in new york, and if he looks like he's in hip-hop, you're going to assume hip-hop. there are many ways we can go about this. so we can't say that bias and racism doesn't exist, but we can't pretend it exists in everything. you brought up a very good point about how we see ourselves. whether you see a sports figure or a rap star or whatever the case may be. what about what you do to create your open stories? i come from a multiethnic family, so i have seen this, i've traveled the world, i have family all over the world. when i look at this, i see what my environment was like, what i

was taught and taught how to act. so people with bias, you're never going to remove it from society. short, tall, old, young, women, there's some bias somewhere in the world. what you do with it matters. so we have to do what we should do and what we can do, rather than constantly looking for someone to blame. >> you're saying -- >> this is a question about institutionalizing our biases. 1 in 7 black men in new orleans are either in prison or parole. not because they're born prisoners but because we assume they are criminal. the statistics are overwhelming, and it's not just around criminal justice, because we've been talking about it because of trayvon. but when you look at the number of new teachers hired in our grand education reform, guess who we're hiring? young, smart people. but largely white. and so when you look at the statistics about how we want to

change in this country, it's always negativity impacts african-american and latino people. i point to the data in terms of incarceration, length of time served, who gets hired. >> charles, you were mentioning the study, you talked about doctors prescribing -- doctors are more likely to prescribe innovative surgery for african-americans than they are for whites. and it cuts across all socioeconomic lines. >> right. in addition to that, it's all kinds of doctors in the study. i mentioned last time about pediatricians and how cruel it was that -- how bias shows up in these cruel ways that the pediatricians were less likely to prescribe pain management for young black kids than they were for white kids. how cruel is that? >> but i was looking to the study. my understanding is when they were informed about that bias, they were able to correct it.

>> i have looked at that from an insurance point of view. one, access and ability, two, education, which is a key part of that. if you don't understand what you need to do for yourself, what your role as a patient or with a patient advocate, then your decision may not be the same as someone who has a better level of education. >> i don't challenge my doctor, i don't educate myself on being a patient. >> but you should. >> why should an african-american person have to do that? i can kick back and my doctor goes out of his way to be nice to me. >> because you're you. [ laughter ] >> but it is your responsibility as a patient, you cannot separate, which i think you're getting at is personal responsibility from historical

traumas. there is this much african-american history in american life, this much free african-american history in american life. and you -- there's very few periods in american life where you can look at black people and say you've had a chance to catch up. from slavery, to social and cultural violence, to jim crow, to mass incarceration, war on drugs, which is basically a war on black and brown people. you go down the line to now, and say black people, we just want you to turn on a dime or turn on a decade and pull it together an get over it. cultural memories don't work that. >> let me bring in naz here. i know because i get a lot of tweets when these town halls, when they air and i read them all. there are a lot of people who

are no doubt listening to charles and saying why is this guy talking about slavery and stuff that happened so long ago? you know, this is 2013. there's an african-american president. it's time to move on. there are going to be some viewers that say that. to them you say what? >> guilt. it's guilt. it's ignorance. we tend to judge each other. if we don't know -- if i don't know something about you, anderson, i'm going to judge you based on a bad experience i had with another white person. if you don't know me and you walk down the street and you see me, my pants are hanging, you're going to assume the worst. we need to learn now to deal with each other basically, because at this point america is looking like barbarians. i go to belgium and romania and i hear -- i go to these places and i hear how these people look

at americans. not just black americans but americans. they see the gun poacher is out of control. they look at us like afghanistan. and some people in europe, i was just there, are even scared to come to america. not because of blacks, but because of guns. >> anderson, there's a point that he brings up that's very important here. he said you'll judge it based on a negative experience. you also have the option intellectually to judge it based on a positive or a neutral experience. so making an assumption is not always the way to go. >> but assumptions aren't about intellect, it's about emotion. >> but you have to balance that, and that's something you do as you evolve as a person and as you grow and learn. >> aren't we talking about gut level instant inherent reactions? >> which we often have. >> you can intellectually think i know we're all equal and the

same, but in your gut, without even realizing it, studies show you have -- >> it's not just historic. i feel like there's been several administrations whose position it was that if we don't talk about race, then systemic racism was going to be over. so to say we do have biases, but this one around race is killing our sons. so to put it in the same space as having biases, because someone is tall is an insult. >> who is killing our sons? let's go to that issue when we talk about what happens in the community. you have this problem, and charles and i have discussed it, and we need to have an honest discussion, about what you do when black on black crime is at that level. don't blame someone else. >> these are not separate dynamics. >> but they're all part of it. >> it is part of it. no question. but how we respond to a criminal justice system has a direct

impact on how we respond to each other. the number of people who are in prison currently are not getting an adequate education while they're there, are currently being released into communities without opportunity to get a job, without an opportunity to get a great school. so all these things are connected. >> one of the reasons they're there, not all the reasons, but you said education. it's a proven track, especially in the black community, which by the way precivil rights, it was a factor. you look at the marriage rate in the 60s versus now, it's when you have a stronger family structure, you have a better educational foundation, you have a lower rate of going to jail. if i asked america, are there more black men in jail or in college, most would say jail, and they would be absolutely wrong. >> incarceration rates for

african-americans have gone down. >> perception is being sold or being consumed that there are more in jail. so that tells you there are other factors to this, education being a key one. >> all of those things are linked. if you have more aggressive policing in one community rather than another, you have greater rate of arrest, greater prosecutions, longer sentences. all of that impacts whether or not a man is marriageable. >> so what do you do? you work to reduce the rate. >> one second, one second. all of those things are working in concert and when you lock somebody up, you do have impacts on their educational opportunities, their employment opportunities. all those things come into play. and then all of a sudden that person is not necessarily marriage -- able to be married. maybe they don't get a great job. then the only options they see, because they're not being

creative is to go to more crime. it creates a real -- >> i want to bring in nas again. it seems like these are conversations happening among african-americans but not so much in other communities in this country. it does seem more the expectation, this is something black folks should be talking about, but you don't hear a lot of white folk talking about this. most white people believe too much is being made about race in the zimmerman trial and with the african-americans, not enough is being made about it. >> it's a scary topic. race is something a lot of whites don't want to deal with. it's hard enough to get through the day, so to put race on top of things scares people. >> in that study where you were saying white people don't feel ant race is important, they've not been oppressed by race.

it's a luxury they get to have. >> i do think there is white privilege that when you are white, a heterosexual and in the dominant culture, i grew up assuming the police were there to help me. like ponch and john and chips were going to come in and everything was going to be great. whereas a lot of the african-americans we had on the panel laughed and the idea that they were there to help you -- >> it is incredibly uncomfortable. even for good people, to talk about race. but we must, we must talk about it to move forward. particularly, you know, our white friends. i have several friends that are white, and obviously some people in my family. [ laughter ]

but we have to steer the burden, because it has been a black burden and it's fatigue. >> we are all in this together. nas, you would agree this is a discussion that is a good discussion to have and needs to be had by everybody not just the black community? >> yes, we are americans. this is the greatest country in the world. but from what i've seen going overseas is that we abuse it. and we don't really appreciate each other like the way we should. and we are in this together, and that's what we have to realize. >> we have to take a break. we'll continue the conversation when we come back. we'll be right back. my mantra?

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[ applause ] we're back now with our panel. i want to bring in cornell belcher, a regular on cnn. cornell, you've been listening. what do you make of this conversation? >> a couple of things. when you look at all this, this burden, we can quantify the burden that minorities have to carry. should we ask for a political redress to this? if we understand that bias is manifesting itself and african-americans are being arrested more, spending more time in jail, african-americans being -- having to pay higher mortgages, if there is what my parents always called the black tax, shouldn't we be asking our legislators to redress this?

because right now, there is no redress for it. we can spend more on mortgages, we can be red lined, be pulled over more, we can get more tickets. and this has not only a burden on your soul, but has a financial -- >> what would the redress look like? what are you talking about? >> wouldn't a redress look like not attacking affirmative action? if you look at what's startling to me, almost everything that we've worked very hard for and our grandparents marched for, even from the civil rights legislation to the voting rights to all these things that we've put in place, we say okay, there is bias. so what are we going to put in place to address these inequalities? if you look at what's happening in this country from a political standpoint, most of those things from voting rights about, all these things are being attacked and rolled back. my point is simply this, we can

have all these conversations in the world and have all the marches in the word. but anderson, if we're not holding people politically accountable, if we're not registering and voting, i think it's all for naught. >> i was just also wanting us to look, we do have a rich history of creating new laws, like matthew sheppard. there are things if we put enough pressure on, having new laws. there was a law where i couldn't marry you, anderson -- >> it wouldn't have worked out any way. [ laughter ] i love you, but not in that way. >> i'm just saying -- >> my mother would have been very happy, i can guarantee that. >> we could have worked something out. >> i never spent any time in her closet. >> that's where you would find

me is right in the closet. but we have a rich history of creating new laws based on -- there is an inherent need for equality. there's a drive for equality. maybe you can't institutionalize it, but you can't stop it. you can't stop the need for marriage equality. you can't stop our desire to move as a human race for equality. this is it. >> i want to bring in william and valerie bell. seven years ago, a new york city police officer shot and killed their son, sean bell. officers say they identified themselves as police, witnesses said they did not. no one was found. the officers fired 50 shots in just a few seconds. the three officers were tried and acquitted. later they lost their jobs, and since then the city has paid out more than $7 million in civil damages.

and christy is also here. appreciate all of you being with us. [ applause ] this conversation about biases and the way african-americans are perceived by some, do you think that played a role in what happened to your son? >> yes, to a certain extent. he was at a club, having fun, at a bachelor party. the officers that were there heard that somebody had a gat. but my husband was there and my son said he was going inside to get his hat. they had an altercation with that young man who had his hand on his hip. why did they not investigate him? instead, this one officer chose to follow my son. for what reason? i said one time, if he would

have stopped and frisked him, he would have been alive. >> but like she was saying, you look at it this way. you think about five young men, it was actually three black young men, going to their car. they say they have a weapon. if you're a police officer, wouldn't you stop them before they get there or call backup or have somebody stop that vehicle before he gets in and starts his car? it only took a couple seconds to murder him. by the time i got home i got the call he was in the hospital. he didn't have no confrontation inside the place, which they claim he did. he didn't have no problem whatsoever. i made sure of that. i was his best man, as you say. >> was that a conversation you had? that's one of the things that stood out from me the last time we did a town hall. just about every african-american parent i know has had that conversation with their child about do not run --

>> of course. >> and charles was saying, don't walk too slow. charles famously asked this question, what is the pace at which a african-american child should walk, is that a conversation you had? >> yes, of course. be very respectful, make sure you say yes, sir if they stop you. he had got stopped before he went to the club. >> i don't know any white friend of myself felt like they had the need to have that conversation with their child. >> there is a pace, and unfortunately, it is to ingratiate yourself. >> inside your house. >> when you have unwarranted authorities asking for you to pull over, they want to hear i was in your way, sir. how can i help you, sir? but i just don't think an upright black man in america

will teach their son that, because i have to go -- i have to -- most people, lots of poor people do every day, because they've got to do this, and at any moment they can be fired, so they have to swallow their pride. but it is very hard for anyone who considers themself upright, to tell their son when a police officer or a security guard of any -- with unwarranted authority, i'm not talking about police, someone who doesn't have the right, walks up to you, and you have to go, yes, sir, yes, sir. >> may i say something? i taught my son to respect all elders. i'm saying what i taught my kids. i want to get that straight. i am not that poor i didn't teach my kids. a lot of us out there work and we work hard. and we work hard to make sure

our kids do the right thing. sometimes out of control things happen. we can't do nothing about it. you talk about 50 shots. come on. you put a man against the wall, you shoot him one time. >> which is for a lot of black men, it is the moderation of masculinity. that you have to put a dial on your masculinity that nobody else has to have, and you have to crank it up when you want it to be at your regular pace and crank it down in the presence of authority. that is an exhausting exercise. it's a horrible idea. >> it's heartbreaking. it's not just exhausting, it's heartbreaking. how can you build self-esteem? when they were saying that they didn't see race, it was infuriating to me. i was raised on say it loud, i'm black and proud, my parents worked really hard for me to love my race. then you say you don't see it.

and it's not the truth. so you have been trying to build this self-esteem, and then how do you build self-esteem when part of your survival is to make someone else feel comfortable in a moment? >> i want to bring christy in. you are raising a young black son. how old is he? >> he will be 14 in september. >> how tall is he? >> he's 5'10". >> that worries you. >> it does, because i certainly have done my best sacrificialry to give him the education he needs, to give him the world exposure he needs. and it is heartbreaking. what you said on saturday night, i made sure that i was at home when the verdict came in. i had been at work and i made sure i was at home. what he said to me, is so for the rest of my life, mom, i'm a suspect? and how does that make a mother

feel? and it's something that -- what i have to explain to him is that it's not your burden. this is someone's perception of you. and what someone thinks of you is not what you have to think of yourself. and it's very difficult when he was really young, he was in third grade. i said you need a scripture for your life. and what is that scripture? he told me it was joshua 1:9. i will be brave and courageous for the lord thy god is with me. that's what he goes into the world with, knowing that at some point i have to calibrate how much of a young man he is. i have to calibrate that boldness if i'm coming home at the end of the day. to it is a rough road, because i didn't want to fall out in tears when he says for the rest of my life, i'm a suspect? to i waited until he went to bed before i wept. >> but i read in the article that you wrote, you were talking about, and worrying about this

weeks after he was born. this is a life-long concern that you have had, and i'm sure a lot of people have had. >> this isn't a conversation that we started having in 2012. it's a conversation my grand parents had with my uncle. it's a conversation my great grand parents had with my grandfather. so drew has always understood this. i've known from the very beginning that he would be tall. his father is tall. i knew that. so from the very beginning, he calls it my proverbs. how is it you respond to authority? you look at my house looking like a prospect, not a suspect. i say that to him. so when he came to me one day and said -- i think he wanted to wear his baseball cap. i said sweetie, do gentleman wear their hats that way? some do, but the assumption is how you wear your hat determines who you are. and it doesn't. if my son wants to wear his hat backwards, he should be able to. but i want him home at the end

of the day, so he will turn it around. >> president obama said he believes things are getting better. >> i do. >> that the next generation, that his children, that their friends, things are getting better. >> i believe we're getting better, because my daughter is proof of it. it breaks my heart that she has a trayvon martin as an icon like my mom had an emmett. that is heartbreaking that she has that as a distinction. but she and her friends, they don't have the same burden that we do. i'm seeing that some of the young people in this audience that are feeling this differently, so yeah, i'm e extraordinarily optimistic. >> when you look at race and class, i don't know if we're getting better and the significance study that came out, talking about the significance of place, we know

ant the significance of place, the significance of education. when all these things come together, it is very difficult to elevate yourself socially. >> we've got to take a break. a lot more to talk about. i want to dig deep into the criminal justice system, the zimmerman trial in particular, jurors, juries, how is that affected by race? we'll be right back. rmers care more about the land than probably anyone else. we've had this farm for 30 years. we raise black and red angus cattle. we also produce natural gas. that's how we make our living and that's how we can pass the land and water back to future generations. people should make up their own mind what's best for them. all i can say is it has worked well for us. a body at rest tends to stay at rest... while a body in motion tends to stay in motion. staying active can actually ease arthritis symptoms.

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♪ welcome back. we're talking about race and justice in america, and the notion that the vast majority of americans, as many as 85%, say they are not prejudiced. even though study after study shows otherwise. not that people are good or bad, just whether we acknowledge it or not, whether we admiter to ourselves or not, race registers. we make assumptions based on it, whether we know it or not. many court watchers argued in the wake of the zimmerman trial that race and assumptions about race are baked into the criminal justice system. look to what juror b-37 told me in our interview recently. do you feel that george zimmerman racially profiled trayvon martin? do you think race played a role in his decision, his view of trayvon martin as suspicious? >> i don't think he did. i think just circumstances caused george to think that he might be a robber or trying to do something bad in the

neighborhood, because of all that had gone on previously. there were unbelievable number of robberies in the neighborhood. >> so you don't believe race played a role in this case? >> i don't think it did. i think if there was another person, spanish, white, asian, if they came in the same situation where trayvon was, i think george would have reacted the exact same way. >> she clearly identified with george zimmerman. she could relate to his experience, and largely saw the confrontation through his eyes and the way the defense portrayed it. but she couldn't identify with trayvon martin's friend. so that term creepy-ass cracka that rachel jeantel said trayvon used, you're saying that's simply how they talked to each other? >> sure. that's the way they talk. >> did you sew that as a negative statement or a racial statement as the defense suggested? >> i don't think it's really

racial. i think it's just everyday life, the type of life that they live and how they're living and the environment that they're living in. >> so you didn't find her credible as a witness? >> no. >> so juror b37 was part of a six-member panel. one of our guests said the trial was over when the jury was seated. do you think that's a fair statement? and more broadly, is racial bias built into the system? let's talk about it with sunny hostin, jeffrey toobin, jose baez, robert horshorn, and mark geragos, who said the trial was over in jury selection. sunny, i want to start with you. when this trial started, you said race had nothing to do with this. you did not see it through a

prizm of race at all, yet after the verdict you changed your mind. >> i have changed my mind, and you're right, because i was seated in the courtroom and i listened to all the evidence come in as a former prosecutor, i didn't see this racial angle. because clearly the government was precluded from arguing race, and they claimed that it was a profiling case. but a criminal profiling case. but i think where i missed that piece was that i think that the jurors, especially when you listen to b37, sort of had these racial biases, these notions running in the backdrop of their mind. it was clear in that interview, it was an us and them reaction. she didn't find rachel relatable. she did relate to george zimmerman. so i think it was -- race was that elephant in the room that made its way into the jury room. >> mark, you said after jury selection when there was no

african-american on the jury, you said this trial is over. >> and we saw that it was. i mean, there is no way that you can divorce race from the criminal justice system in america. i don't care where you are, where you're trying a case, race is absolutely the central feature of the criminal justice system. it has been for over 100 years. it is as much today as it ever has been. i mean, we may not overtly talk about it. we may not overtly have the same kinds of discussions that we had 20 or 30 years ago, but for nibble, and i love sunny. >> how can you say that, though? >> i say that, she was just naive. the idea that somehow this case wasn't going to be played against a racial backdrop to me was just -- >> mark, to play devil's advocate, how can you say that, that race is at the core of

everything in the criminal justice system, where do you see that day-to-day? >> you see it in the dispositions you get, meaning when prosecutors offer you deals. the deals you'll get with a young black male markedly different than you'll get from a young white male or a young white female. so it's totally naive, and the only people who will take that position, i always hear people not in the trenches every day in the criminal justice system. >> robert, you were the jury consultant for the defense in the george zimmerman trial. you have a different view of juries. do you believe along with mark that race is at the core of the criminal justice system? >> everybody, every single juror brings into the jury room their life experience and their value system. and that's what you have to ferret out as a jury consultant, is to find out what is that value system the juror brings in, what is that life system and how will it affect your case? what i can tell you, having

worked countless hours on this trial, i can tell you that race was not a factor in george zimmerman's mind. i believe that i'm pretty good at sizing people up and reading body language and analyzing folks and i'm here to tell you and sunny and everybody watch thing show, in terms of george zimmerman, race was not a factor in what happened out on that tragic night. >> what about the jurors? >> so the kind of jurors i wanted to take off that jury had absolutely nothing to do with their race, it had to do with their views on guns, with how open their mind was and whether or not they were willing to withhold judgment until all the evidence was in. >> you look at juries all the time. how does race play in that jury room? >> i think it's a factor. i think it's hard to say, as robert just did, that he could look at zimmerman and know that race was not a factor for him. i think it's hard to put yourself in anyone else's mind and have a sense of it, whether

you're talking about in this case the defendant or the jurors. it's a part of what we know -- >> i have never met anybody whoa admits that they do have racial bias. i've interviewed neonazis who have said to me they aren't racist, they just really love white people. that is amazing to me. i'm not making a value judgment against george zimmerman. i just think everybody -- studies show people have hidden subconscious racial biases that they don't know about. >> this classic research in psychology show it is you have somebody standing in a subway car and you asked who has a knife in their hands, people will place it more off in the hands of the black man than the white man. what do we take into account and what do we consider? >> it interests me that the presence of one african-american juror on a jury can make the

difference in how a sentence is cast. >> one of the phrases that we hear all the time that i think people sometimes have a misunderstanding of is jury of your peers. you're entitled to a jury of your peers. that does not mean if you are a 35-year-old white male christian of irish ancestry, you get 12 people like that. all you get is a random sampling of where the trial went on. here it was a six-person jury. florida is unusual to try felonies with just six people. so the odds of an overwhelmingly white jury in a community with 78% whites were pretty good. so this was, i think, a relatively random cross section. >> i have read studies, you're not allowed to strike somebody off of a jury because of their

race. but i also read studies where they say sometimes prosecutors try to game the system, striking people, taking african-american jurors off, but using other reasons for doing it. >> in florida, it's just gave me a race neutral reason why you're striking this person. if you question a juror long enough, you'll find a reason you don't like them other than the color of their shoes. a lot of times i'll ask them a question and i'll take them down a certain road and they know when -- both sides are trying to get the perfect juror for their case. they're both advocates. to say a prosecutor is up there saying well, i'm going to be the minister of justice, and take race and put it aside is really unrealistic. >> mark, studies have shown that empathy is critical for a jury, correct? >> that's correct. and what you do as a trial lawyer, all you're trying to do is you're trying to get your

jurors to want to have empathy as you say, to want to walk in the shoes or want to help my client. that's why the defense outfoxed, if you will, the prosecution in this case. when they put on that woman who talked about the black males at the door, trying to break into the house while she was holding her child, you could not have tapped into a more vibrant, if you will, stereotype for that jury and for that case. the defense told the narrative that was perfectly timed and perfectly calibrated to this particular jury. you could not have found a worse narrative by the prosecution if they had scripted it from the beginning. >> i just like to say, i think the evidence matters, too. the defense had real evidence in this case on their side. this jury was not acting in a completely irrational manner.

there was plenty of evidence to conclude that george zimmerman was not guilty. >> in order for this jury to have found george zimmerman not guilty, they had to believe that trayvon martin was an aggressive boy. he was an aggressive person, that he attacked first. and part of i think the reasoning behind why they would believe that narrative is because they were afraid of and they feared that young black boy. and they saw him as an attacker. >> i want to bring in raymond santa santana. he was convicted of a brutal attack on a new york jogger in 1995. the public outcry at the time was enormous. the media used that term "wilding" they called it a wolfpack of young men in the park. raymond santana did not do it but served 13 years?

>> 7 years. >> 7 years in jail and still has a civil case against the city. juror ronald gold held out for a while but voted to convict. he is also here. ronald, can you take me into that jury room? what was it like? did you feel the pressure at the time? >> for most of the time, there were 11 of them against me. so i had a lot of pressure. my total impression was, there is something wrong with these confessions. the facts -- the three kids are telling three different stories. none of them are the stories we know that actually happened to the jogger. so what is happening here? how did this happen? and i thought all the rest of the jury was going to have the same kind of doubts that i did. none of them. >> you've never met raymond?

>> we met earlier. >> what did you say to him? >> hello. [ laughter ] >> that's a good start. [ applause ] >> raymond, take us back to that time. because there were all these confessions. what was it like to be at the center of this media firestorm? you had politicians calling you and the other young people all sorts of names. yet there was no dna evidence. >> at that point, we felt like the whole world was against us. we felt like we was going in an uphill battle. we lost a lot of hope, and the prosecutor was against us. we felt we didn't get good representation. some of our family turned against us, and we felt like at the end of the day, that last line of defense was the jury. we felt that they would see -- these are a jury of our peers. >> how do things improve? >> a step in the right

direction. you have to start giving criminal defendants the same type of resources that law enforcement has and the state has, to be able to fight for their life. they have to have the resources. and many people just do not. a vast majority can't even afford a lawyer. the ones that get appointed to represent them are overworked and underpaid. now adays in florida, even for conflict counsel, when the public defender has a conflict, they will pay for george zimmerman's defense, they would have made approximately $5,000, the lawyer, to handle a second degree murder case. that's insane. >> the biggest problem with the criminal justice system is over the last 30 years, we have let the prosecutors run wild in the system. prosecutors overcharge. prosecutors have a duty, an ethical duty where they're supposed to seek justice. the only problem is, you can rarely hold them accountable because prosecutors are immune,

with one slight exception, a prosecutor can put away somebody who they know is not guilty, and there's nothing you can do about it. the u.s. supreme court has famously said that's it. if you stripped prosecutors of their immunity and allowed people to sue prosecutors, just like they could see me or jose, why shouldn't people be able to sue prosecutors? >> i notice we put jeffrey and sunny are in the hotseat now. burn the prosecutors! >> i think being a prosecutor is also a job, you don't make a lot of money and you are also overworked. most prosecutors, at least most prosecutors are trying to do the right thing. they're seeking the truth and justice. to it's unfair for mark to blame the failures of the system -- >> let me tell you one thing.

>> there are a lot of prosecutors out there, or even a substantial number -- >> let jeff go. >> being a prosecutor means never saying you're sorry. >> that's our love story, mark. the problem is not intentional misconduct. the problem is people seeing through perhaps a prism of seeing nothing but guilty defendants day after day. they think everybody is guilty and they make misjudgments. but the idea that there are a lot of prosecutors out there who are intentionally prosecuting innocent people is just absurd. >> i want to thank all our guests for joining us tonight for part two of this "360" town hall "race and justice in america." have a good night. huh...anybody? julie! hey...guess what day it is?? ah come on, i know you can hear me. mike mike mike mike mike... what day is it mike? ha ha ha ha ha ha! leslie, guess what today is?

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good evening, everyone. we'll have the latest on britain's new prince making his public debut today. but breaking news, and there's no prince charming in it. anthony weiner, the sexting congressman who