that the news in michigan keeps getting more interesting and more fraught all the time. i did not expect to be reporting on michigan so soon with a new story this confounding about michigan politics.ç but i have to ask and i'll keep asking, what's going on in michigan and why isn't what is going on in michigan bigger national news given what a mess it seems to be? that does it for us tonight. now it's time for the last word with lawrence o'donnell. the state versus george zimmerman, count one, murder in the second degree in the name and by authority of the state of florida angela b. corey, state attorney charges that in the county of seminal, state of florida, george zimmerman unlawfully and dangerous to

another and ee convincing depraved mind regardless of human life although without any premeditated design to effect the death of any particular individual, did kill trayvon martin, a human being under the age of 18 by shooting the said victim and during the commission of the aforementioned second-degree murder, the said, george zimmerman, did carry, display, use, threaten to use, or attempt to use a firearm and did actually possess and discharge a firearm as a result of the discharge, death was inflicted upon a person contrary to the provisions of florida statutes. angela b. corey, state attorney. george zimmerman is now in the -- in custody atç seminal county jail. this is his new mug shot as he appeared tonight.

he arrived at the jail just an hour ago. and a half hour -- an hour and a half ago wearing a blue and plaid shirt and what appears to be a shirt over his head, covering his head. special prosecutor angela corey began her at 6:00 p.m. on the dot. >> today we filed information regarding george zimmerman of second degree. a capias has been issued for his arrest. by turning himself in he was arrested on the capias that had already been issued. i think after meeting with trayvon's parents that first monday night after getting appointed in the case, bernie was there, john was there, our prosecution team was there. the first thing we did was pray with them. mr. crump and mr. parks were there. we did not promise them anything. >> the special prosecutor's press conference was immediately followed by a press conference led by the reverend al sharpton

who was joined by the parent of tray john martin and their lawyers. >> prosecutor and i think that the governor did not make a decisiofmr based on public pressure but i they they decided to review it on public pressure. i don't think they would not be responsible enough to proceed with the prosecution based on pressure but had there not been pressure, there would not have been a second look. >> we simply wanted an arrest. we wantedç nothing more, nothi less. we wanted an arrest and we got it. and i say thank you, thank you lord, thank you jesus. >> i'd like to thank everyone once again for being compassionate about this as we were. >> and there is a new lawyer in town. finally, george zimmerman is being represented by a professional. attorney mark owe mare ra held

the first sensible press conference on the zimmerman side of this case. >> he's been charged, he's been arrested, he's a criminal defendant now who will let the process work. do not -- let's not prejudge anyone any longer. let's just let the process work. >> joining me now is the new attorney for george zimmerman, mark omara. mark, thank you for joining us tonight. i appreciate it. i know you're in a hurry. >> sure thing. good evening. >> mark, i want to talk to you about the way the case has proceeded in the media from the zimmerman side so far. there was joe oliver peering as a spokesman for george zimmerman. there were eventually two lawyers peering on television as basically trying the case on television. i noticed today you took a very different approach. you said that you would not be commenting on the evidence at all, which is the professional approach in a situation like this.

do you think the zimmerman case has been in any way damaged by the way the previous lawyers kept coming on television and boldly asserting claims of evidence as if they were in poe selgs of that knowledge themselves? >>. >> if i had any frustration at all, it was the fact that anyone who puts out evidence in a piecemeal fashion does damage to the case but morehimportantly n a case of this nature can really sort of inflame some of the emotions that already exist and for no benefit. it's like handing out a few pieces of a puzzle and you don't get a full picture and it causes more frustration. >> i was especially struck when george zimmerman's father went on local television in florida and added evidence to the case when he said he added the dialogue assigning it to trayvon martin to george zimmerman, you're going to die now. and it seemed to me that that would have appeared in a police report because if dialogue like that occurred at the scene,

george zimmerman surely would have reported it to the police. >> well, to sort of how i followed up on it earlier, any comment on the evidence, whether it was presented from a family member, a law enforcement member or an attorney i think is inappropriate and i'd rather not say what may have been said about the case should truly be tried in a courtroom. >> mark, i have to tell you, i'm in the business of trying to ask questions and get answers. i appreciate the answer that you gave me. it's the correct answer. and i know for this audience and television audience out there today, it's a dramatic change to hear a lawyer on the sdplim zim side of this case speaking that way and that carefully. i do want to ask you about one other thing that is not an evidentiary point.

it was something that robert zimmerman, george zimmerman's father said in that same interview and i'm going to quote him now. in what happened after the fact of this incident, he said, quoting, i neverç foresaw so mh hate coming from the president. have you seen any hate coming from the president in regards to this case towards anyone? >> i watched it like most people. i saw some of the comments that were made by a lot of people, including president obama. you know, my opinion doesn't matter but i didn't feel hatred at all. i think what's happened is whenever you have a wound like this and i'm sure mr. zimmerman senior, his swund that he has a son going through what george is going through, that anything can be misinterpreted from a parent's perspective, just like trayvon's family when they are dealing with everything that they are dealing with, any little piece or failure piece of information has got to have an enormous stinging effect on them. but they are the parents

involved. they are allowed their emotions. >> mark, when do you expect to have your first meeting with your client? >> 25 to 30 minutes from now. >> you're going from this interview straight to where he's being held? >> that's the plan. >> and you will be -- >> don't follow me however, please. >> mark, your life has changed today and i think you know it and i imagine your family knows it, too. did you have to have a discussion about whether you would take on a burden like this and it is an enormous burden for an attorney like this. >> absolutely. that was the first phone call that i made, to sort of discuss that. it's certainly going to be an enormous undertaking and it's going to be in effect life changing because it'sç such a focused case in the media. then, of course, i had talk to my staff because it's going to affect the workload and we're lrtd busy. i talked to myself.

this is a type of case that i have grown with, doing this for 30 years, this is the type case -- the type case that has a lot of these issues involved, not just pretrial publicity but a statute that has its effect. a real question about a lot of evidence out there that needs to be looked into. so i just wanted to make sure that i was up for the task as well because i know that everything we do is going to be scrutinized. >> mark, have you used the stand your ground law as a defense in a case before? >> in doing this for 30 years, the self-defense argument comes up many, many times, in murder cases and even nonmurder cases and i've had many murder cases and several death penalty cases. i have had cases since the statute but we've been sort of able to work through them. so if the question is, have i ever tried a stand your ground case to a jury? no. >> so you worked through a case like that to a plea bargain is what i seem to be hearing?

>> yeah, it got resolved. >> mark owe mare ra, thank you very much for joining us on this day that is absolutely going to change your life. i appreciate you giving us some time. i saw your first national television interview tonight which was with brian williams and the very first thing you said was you wanted to extend your condolences to trayvon martin's family and i am sure that the country was very appreciative to hear you say thatç across the aisle of this case to that family. >> uh-huh. sure. they -- it was horrible what they now have to live through. however it occurred, it's extraordinarily sad. you should never lose a child for any reason. >> mark owe mare ra, we are all glad you're on the case. we want to see this conducted professionally. thank you very much for joining us tonight. >> sure thing. thank you. >> joining me now, natalie johnson, co-counsel for trayvon

martin's family. do you know or does any of your family know mark owe mare ra or have you tried cases against mark owe mare ra? >> i've never tried a case against mark owe mare ra. but he has a reputation of being a very good lawyer in central florida. i'm here in orlando and i do know him and i appreciate his professionalism thus far. >> what does it mean to you as a lawyer, now a friend of family and just as a person to hear the very first thing he said tonight, about an hour ago to brian williams was, he wanted to express his condolences to trayvon martin's family. how do you think that would be received by the family and what did it make you feel as an attorney to hear the other attorney say that? >> as an attorney, it made me feel very proud. this case is going to be handled professionally and with humanity and i think for the family, i haven't talked to them about his comments, but i will tell you, there is something that goes to be said and i think it's

something that we all have to learn. and expressing condolences, saying i'm sorry, there's a hum humanç empathy that we all hav to have with each other. even with these people out there upset about this decision, there still is a humanness and a child died. >> natalie, i want to listen -- >> why did your investigation lead to you a second-degree murder charge? >> when you have a homicide, florida's jury instructions even say that before you can reach a degree of homicide, you have to determine whether a person has committed an excusable homicide or a justifiable homicide. all murders are homicides but not all homicides are murders. and florida clearly says if there is the affirmative defense

of excusable homicide, that should be determined before you go to the degree of the crime. that's the process that this case took. >> natalie, as a close watcher of this case, i was stunned today by murder 2 charges, to see something that was by the sanford police department swept away, no charges, no arrests, no charges, to see that taken from nothing to second-degree murder was stunning. i expected charges but i expected them to be some level of manslaughter. how surprised were you in the trayvon martin legal team when you heard it was second-degree murder, the highest charge she could bring without having ap grand jury? >> you know, we2thought that there is a lesser included manslaughter. this is the appropriate charge

and as a prosecutor, he's she's constantly doing the right thing, the consequence ps because anyone else would have charged this as a manslaughter. just to apiece everyone. she did the right thing. she looked at the evidence and came out with her charge. >> natalie jackson, thank you very much for joining us tonight. >> thank you. >> joining us now is a formal federal prosecutor. how surprised were you? >> i was surprised, i admit it. not because i doubted at that time that there were going to be very serious charges brought. what second-degree murder means is that he intended to do it essentially without premeditation but it was intentional. and just sort of watching this from a distance, knowing that there's much that i don't know, i still honestly perceive as just pointed out, the jury has the ability to downgrade the charge to a form of manslaughter

and, let's face it, when prosecutors charge the most aggressive possible count that they can, it certainly improves a chance for getting a plea bargain and complicates the defendant's chance of getting a bond. one of the early battles may be whether or not george zimmerman is going to spend the coming months in jail or whether there would be some alternative, some form of house arrest, assem you can find a safe house with various conditions imposed, which would not be extraordinary for a case like this where there is going to be a serious defense of self-defense attempted. >> this is angela corey versus mark owe mare ra. let's look at what mark owe mare ra is up against if and when he pleads the stand your ground defense. listen to what he said about the stand your ground defense today. >> if stand your ground becomes

an issue, we fight it. if we believe it's the right thing to do. so if it becomes an issue in this case, we will fight that affirmative defense. >> kendall, she's not going to be an easy one to get by with any defense and i have to say that everything that we -- you and i know, from our distance from this evidence, everything about the evidence could justify some form of mans lawsuit sister charges and i think it means very clearly she knows a lot that we don't know in order to elevate that charge to murder two. she obviously has access to an autopsy report that we don't have. and all sorts of evidence that must have material in it that pushes the charge up. what would you expect, given what you know about the evidence, where you would say, yep, this is second-degree murder? >> well, let me first of all

pick up on your comment. we do have two very goodcuçó ambassadors for the legal profession and that's a very good thing for the public as they continue to fall what is right now the most intensely watched case iíç the country. one of the things that i wondered about and we have an individual who would have been consistent with some kind of real fist a cuff. the essence of george zimmerman's defense is this was a tough fight. he had to pull out the gun rightly or wrongly to save his life. i'm also fascinated and i'm not sure if this was an element in the charging decision, if there is going to be a forensic

ability to say who was crying for help, my goodness, if they can reliably establish that it was trayvon martin crying for help, that's a big factor here. >> kendall, we had the funeral director who prepared his body for burial and he said absolutely no evidence whatsoever of a struggle, just a gunshot wound, no other markings on that body. that's not courtroom evidence. they have better evidence than that with the medical examiner and we'll be learning about that soon. kendall coffey, thank you very much for joining us on our breaking news coverage tonight. >> thanks for having me. we'll have more on the state of florida versus george zimmerman. [consumer:] the economists make some good points. [announcer:] conocophillips says, you're right. find out how natural gas answers both at powerincooperation.com. gives you a 50% annual bonus. and who doesn't want 50% more cash?

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was justice. >> that's right. >> that's right. >> that was one of the attorneys for trayvon martin speaking today. coming up, an attorney who has tried cases with and against angela corey. we also will have joy-ann reid joining us on this breaking news coverage. i checked the schedule and it's not on it. [ laughs ] you never know when advil® is needed. well most people only know one side of my life. they see me on stage and they think that that is who i am. singer, songwriter, philanthropist, father, life's a juggling act. when i have to get through the pain, i know where to go. [ male announcer ] take action. take advil®. and if pain keeps you up, sleep better with advil pm. until i show them this. the new oral-b pro-health clinical brush. its pro-flex sides adjust to teeth and gums for a better clean. the new pro-health clinical brush from oral-b.

adjust to teeth and gums for a better clean. easy label, right? but that label can lead to prejudice and discrimination, and we don't want to go there. so let's try to see people for who they really are. you can help create a more united states. the more you know. our request for the truth led us and it's the search for justice for trayvon that has brought us to this moment. >> and i say thank you, thank you, lord, thank you, jesus.

i just want to speak from my heart to your heart because a heart has no color. it's not black, it's not white. it's red. and i want to say thank you from my heart to your heart. >> joining me now is the mayor of sanford, florida, jeff triplet and defense attorney who has worked with angela corey when he was an assistant state attorney and has also faced her as a defense attorney. mayor triplet, i want you to listen to something that attorney parks, one of the martin attorneys said about you and about your courage. let's listen to that. >> so many courageous -- i have to say, when i saw the mayor of sanford release those tapes and what he must have been going through. mayor triplet, wherever he is,

it's hard when many people who have made very courageous moves to make this right even after theç wrong day ought to be commended. >> mayor, tell us about your decision is in releasing some of the evidence that the police had in this case. >> well, you know, when we went through the steps, we made the phone calls and asked, you know, why we wouldn't release these tapes to put a little bit of ease into the parents' mind, whether it did or didn't, just to give them information about what transpired and it was a tough dedigcision. it was a tough call but we thought it was the right thing to do. >> what they wish that piecemeal evidence had not been released either by the police or in this instance by you? >> that's okay. i think miss corey hand killledn

a very professional manner. it's in their hands. after what i saw tonight, i have the upmost confidence for her and her team. >> the mayor isn't the only one that has confidence in this special prosecutor tonight. we've heard from the trayvon martin lawyers expressing the same sentiment. tell us about her as a prosecutor and what it's like to go up against her in a case like this. you've both worked with her as a prosecutor when you were on the same team but more interestingly to me tonight, you've faced her, you've worked against her. what's that like? >> just to be clear, i faced her in a case where she was on the other side. we never actually got to trial because we ultimately resolved i've faced many of her assistant, including some of the ones that are going to be involved in the trayvon martin-george zimmerman prosecution. i can tell you that her office

is very tough. the people that she has assigned to this task are extremely thorough and they will do a very thorough job and they will make sure that they essentially look at every piece of evidence if they have not already done so. miss corey obviously has a wealth of experience in murder cases. >> mitch, there's some speculation tonight, including by the zimmerman family, george zimmerman's brother on cnn said he thinks the prosecutor overcharged, throw the hardest charge they can so they can use that as leverage in a plea negotiation, negotiating it down. is that what you would expect her to do in a case like this? or would you expect her, under this kind of scrutiny, to be very surgically precise in landing these charges exactly where they should go? >> well, i think as a prosecutor what she's doing is essentially taking the facts, looking at the law and seeing if she can plug the facts into the law and

support the second-degree murder charge. personally, i think manslaughter is a more appropriate but in reality, the way the law is written in florida, she can sustain a second-degree murder charge, the depraved mind, the act without concern for human life, things like that without intent to kill. manslaughter i think is more appropriate based upon the act that occurred here if there is going to be a conviction but most prosecutors in situations like thisç will start high because you can always reduce if you need to and of course the jury can always come back with a lesser included and therefore you don't want to start too low. so it's a negotiating tool. it's typical for a tough prosecution to go after somebody as -- with a highest charge. >> may juror triplett where would we be tonight if trayvon martin had taken what the police

told them at face value or simply decided, we can't fight the police, we can't fight city hall and if they had not gone out and south legal counsel and brought public attention to this, including some of the demonstrations that you've seen in your city? >> i want to think that we'd be in the same position or the investigation process was ongoing. you know, the police department continued with the investigation, that it would have been presented in the exact way. would it have been this quick? i don't know the answer to that. but i know she made a statement that i respect that she had full cooperation of the sanford police department and she respected what they did and took that and used it. >> mitch stone and sanford mayor jeff triplett, thank you both for joining me tonight. >> thank you, lawrence. coming up, more on the state of florida versus george zimmerman. letters and packages a year.

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trayvon martin's mother thanked the special prosecutor today and she thanked god for the charges. charles m. blow of the "new york times," mark thompson, and joy-ann reid, they are all here for more of our coverage coming up. [ male announcer ] this is corporate caterers, miami, florida.

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arrest. he will have a right to appear in front of a magistrate within 24 hours of his arrest and thus formal prosecution will begin. >> joining me now is charles m. blow, "new york times" opinion writer, mark thompson, host of make it plain, and joy-ann reid. msnbc contributor. charles, we are now talking about florida versus zimmerman case number 171-2f04573. it seems like it took a long time to get here but really it's only been a matter of three weeks since this special prosecutor came into the picture and that seems to have changed everything. let's see. joy-ann reid, can you hear me? >> i can hear you.

>> we lost charles' audio. mark thompson, we're going to check your audio. joanne, she made arrangements last week for taking george zimmerman into custody, how they would do that and had -- they had discussions with the judge about how they would handle a bail hearing involving this case and they had that discussion last week. so shd7s known for a while that she was headed for these charges today. >> yeah. and i think angela corey actually, she's getting a lot of applause from people that i've spoke with tonight for the careful way that she's handled the case and the deliberate way that she managed the expectations of the family of trayvon martin, in speaking to

them and then proceeding to what everyone that i've talked to tonight feels is a just result. >> charles m. blow, we have your sound restored at this.. the problem, charles, is that you are in the world headquarters of the msnbc. so of course we're going to have wiring trouble there. joy-ann is standing out in the street in florida and we can hear her. charles, this emotionally has been a long time coming but when you look at the juris prudential course, especially as she was having discussions last week with a potential judge in the case about how to handle a bail hearing, she, i think, we can now say, moved very quickly from the day she picked up this file. >> right. i think that you can probably say that because the investigations like this can can take quite a long time, particularly when you're jumping in kind of late in the ball game, the sanford police have the investigation first. and they were kind of -- they were -- the state investigator

was thrown in after public pressure had been applied and the ante had been upped in this case. yes, i don't see any problem with the timing there at çall. >> let's listen to what tracy martin, trayvon's father, told reverend al sharpton earlier tonight. >> i would -- did he have any regrets, did he realize that he destroyed a life, he destroyed a family and that had he second guessed it, would he just have stayed in the car? most certainly i have no hatred towards him but i would just like for him to look into my eyes and feel my hurt, feel my family's pain. a seed has been taken away from us that can't be given back to us. but at the same time, i just would want to know how he feel about taking our son's life.

>> mark thompson, there is no evidence yet that the zimmerman family does feel the martin family's hurt. robert zimmerman was on once again trying to try the case on television, talking about the fear that his brother had and all that sort of thing. but the new attorney in the case, mark o'mara, the very first thing that he said on national television was he extended his condolences to the martin family. do you think that this is now the possible beginning of some kind of calm coming over what is now the case of florida versus zimmerman? >> i believe so, lawrence. i certainly hope so. i think you said it best. george zimmerman now for a changeç does have professional legal representation. and i think mark o'mara represented himself well. i think angela corey represented herself well. she showed a great deal of

compassion toward whom she called the constitutional victims in this case and those would be the martin family. i think there is an opportunity for calm here because what has happened, as reverend sharpton has said, this is not a moment for celebration because a tragedy has occurred but the people of this country, all over the country cried out and everyone spoke up and while it's probably not appropriate to say that prosecution was brought as a result of people crying out and protesting and what have you, and wearing hoodies, it is probably appropriate to say that there was another review, a greater and more careful and more deliberate review of the case because people cried out. i think chris matthews said earlier, the heat brought light and so as a result of that we have this. we may even be able to say at this moment, and i think that we

can at this very moment, that this is an example of the justice system working. frankly, i think it works for zimmerman. why wouldn't he want to put on his own defense? that's the right one has in america. why would you want to be tried in the court of public opinion? why would you want to have to hide your face from now on? so i think even for him this works out for the best. >> attorney general eric holder verbally stepped into the case today in washington. there is aç separate federal investigation that is still going on and he reminded us of that. let's listen to what he had to say today. >> as a parent, i reacted to it. this is a pain that no parent should have to endure. we also have i think a reaction that is based on issues that we have faced in this nation over the years. the primary responsibility that we have in the justice department is to support the state in the ongoing

investigation to do our own thorough and parallel investigation which we are in the process of doing. and try to resolve this matter in as fair and complete a way and as quickly as we can. >> charles blow, i will spare you rush limbaugh's reaction to all of this kind of thing. but it seems that we're at a point in our politics where it is a risky for the attorney general of the united states, politically in this environment, this very contentious environment that we have to simply make what would be normal public comment about a federal investigation like this. >> right. thank you for sparing me, russ. i don't want to hear about russ. this is not about any of the pundits or about me or people marching in the streets, although that pressure actually helped to bring justice in this case. this is about a 17-year-old boy in a florida grave. this is about his family that will never get a chance to hear his voice ever 3vñiymagain.

this is about a man who took his life and whether or not the law protects george zimmerman or george zimmerman violated that law, it is about justice. it's about people's faith in the justice system. the only way itç works is thate have faith that the justice system will work for us. martin luther king said in the mountain top speech in 1968, all we say to america is just be true to what you said on paper. if you are saying that all people are created equally and that justice is blind and justice must be blindly applied and blindly pursued. that means that if a black person commits a crime, they should be no more harshly prosecuted or no more leniently prosecuted than anybody else. if a black person is the victim of a crime, then that person who committed the crime against them

should be no more leniently prosecuted or harshly prosecuted. lawrence, i love america, not because america is perfect but because america strives towards perfection. but america is like a garden. and you have to constantly tend that garden so if the weeds don't take it over. and whenever the weeds of injustice spring up, you have to work to pull it out he a that is what is happening in this case. america has risen up and said there is a weed in this garden and we need to get it out. eric holder needs to be able to say that, the president needs to be able to say that and nobody should take that as a partisan jab. >> we will have more on the breaking news developments in the case of florida versus zimmerman coming up. stay with us. actually, it's cruze e-co, not ec-o. just like e-ither. or ei-ther. or e-conomical. [ chuckling ] or ec-onomical. pa-tato, po-tato, huh? actually, it's to-mato, ta-mato. oh, that's right. [ laughs ] [ car door shuts ]

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we're back with what is now the case of florida versus george zimmerman. take us through the public steps that we will see in these proceedings. >> okay. lawrence, tomorrow george zimmerman will have his first hearing before the judge at 1:30. that's the first time that we'll actually see him in a courtroom. >> and that will be televised? >> that will be. there will be a pool camera there. we will be able to see him

actually go before the judge and this would be the hearing, as far as my understanding is, which we will establish whether or not he will be able to qualify for bond. this is the just the typical first hearing that happens in a criminal defense proceeding. >> mark thompson, in everything that -- all of the developments of the day, what for you is the fought you're left with at the end of watching everything that happened today, all of the press conferences, the sequencing of everything, this drama that unfolded? >> i'm here with washington with reverend sharpton, attending the action network convention. he was having a press conference approximately in the 2:00 hour this afternoon with trayvon martin's family and attorney crump. and i got an e-mail that there was going to be an announcement, that there was going to be an arrest. i took my blackberry up to the podium and we all looked at each other and then attorney crump said, let's just wait. let's just confirm this before we make the announcement but it was incredible to get that

e-mail ride in the midst of ç this. i tell you what i'm feeling and it goes to what eric holder said and charles said a moment ago. we all have done something great and beautiful here, i think. sometimes the simplest thing is the most beautiful thing. all we have tried to do, all we've ever wanted to do is to defend the life of an unarmed innocent child. we only ask that zimmerman be arrested. it would be unfair to judge and try him in the way that he really, in many people's views, judged, tried, and even executed trayvon martin. we have not only stood up for justice but we have in some way defended trayvon martin. we stepped in the shoes of his parents, you, lawrence, charles, joy, with all of the reporting. we really made trayvon one of our own children and sometimes that's the real meaning of life and love to be able to empathize with others so much you know what it feels like.

and so trayvon became our own child. and so in defending him and standing up for him, we've done something for all of our children. we've reclaimed in many ways, especially those with african-american parents who have to have these talks with our children, we've reclaimed our adulthood, our parenthood and for many of us as black men, our manhood. >> charles, as a journalist you've worked this case very hard and as a father of a teenage son, i just want to get your personal reaction, your gut. what hit you when you saw that news today, the charge is murder in the second degree. >> two teenage sons. ifç i had hair, it would all b gray. what struck me most was the second-degree murder charge. i just didn't think it would be that strong of a charge. i thought it would be more like manslaughter, number one. that's the first thing. but the second thing is, that, you know, in my gut i believe

that killers should be in custody until you figure the thing out. the fact that a person is allowed to basically, you know, shoot and kill someone, walk out of a police station on the weight of their own word before an investigation is completely finished and then we have to, y you know, figure out if you can be brought back into custody struck me as wrong and did not seem to me to be an equal application of the law and of justice. >> charles m. blow, mark thompson, joy-ann reid, thank you all for joining me tonight. >> thank you, lawrence. the rewrite is next. ♪

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time for a quick rewrite. last week i analyzed the political motivation behind this

attack by mitt romney on president obama's religion. >> well, i think there is in this country a war on religion. i think there is establish a religion in america known as secularism and i know that based upon reports the obama administration gave this a lot of thought, a lot of discussion. >> i then pointed out that romney was obviously lying about the president trying to create a new religion and as i developed my point, i referred to joseph smith and the creation of mormonism in two sentences that i shall not repeat because they offended m@íy but not all of the mormons watching who then reacted on twitter and elsewhere. in fact, the mormon reaction on twitter was over we'll meegly negative. i only had a couple of mormon defenders and according to

twitter, those same words were irritating to other religious viewers. and i am truly sorry if i said something inaccurate about joseph smith and i am happy to provide time on this show to a church of latter day saints spokesman to correct any inaccuracy. in fact, i have more than once invited spokesman fand they hav always declined. and i am sorry that my word choice ripped some people's attention away from my point, that we should not tolerate religious intolerance in voting. my -- pardon the expression -- preaching on the politics of religion has always been addressed at one essential point, religious intolerance is wrong. refusing to vote for a more man is wrong. refusing to vote for a catholic is wrong. refusing to vote for a jewish candidate is wrong.

refusing to vote for a muslim candidate is wrong. and, yes, refusing to vote for a nonbelieve is wrong. and, again, i'm very sorry that for some that message got lost because of my insensitive phrasing in two sentences i wish, i just wish i could take those words çback. and now that i've apologized for using those pointed words last week, we can all patiently await mitt romney's apology for lying about president obama trying to create a new religion. but we must be prepared for a long wait. because oddly enough, not a single person who has objected to what i said has also objected to mitt romney's lie about president obama's religion. and that's tonight's last word. "the ed