and how the law protects both of them and not violate either one of them. if one of them were violated, the other one is the one that should come out of this trial with the jury saying the other one was the one whose rights we must protect. this is what this is all about. that's where your opinion and my opinion must be based on. thanks for watching. i'm al sharpton. have a good weekend. see you back here on monday. the jury gets the case. let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm michael smerconish in for chris matthews. the fate of george zimmerman is in the jury's hands now. this morning mark o'mara made his closing argument saying that

zimmerman acted in self-defense, and pointing out that state had not proved otherwise beyond a reasonable doubt. then state attorney john guy offered a rebuttal, asking juror to bring their common sense to bear in deciding this case, and pointing out what he says was in george zimmerman's heart the night of the shooting. late this afternoon, the jury had a question for judge debra nelson, requesting an inventory list of the evidence by number and description. the jury has finished deliberating for today and will resume tomorrow morning at 9:00 a.m. eastern. msnbc's craig melvin has been following this case closely and joins me from outside the florida courthouse. it was an active day, craig. now i guess quiet. >> yeah, you know, mike, very active. three and a half hours. three hours, 30 minutes, that's how long the jury of six women spent deliberating this afternoon into the evening. shortly after, they received that list of evidence, shortly thereafter they informed judge nelson that they were done for the day. they'll go home, and as you indicated tomorrow morning at

9:00 a.m., they will begin deliberating once again. we should note here as we noted before that judge nelson is leaving this essentially up to the jury. how long they'll deliberate, when they will start their day, when they will end their day. so it will be interesting to see precisely how long they go until tomorrow. you mentioned the courthouse, for all practical intents and purposes. it is clear right now. law enforcement has left for night, and so have the handful of demonstrators who were here. there were the largest number of demonstrators today that we've seen since the trial started. and when i say largest, we're only talking 21, 22, far more cameras than there were demonstrators. nonetheless this afternoon, law enforcement held a news conference encouraging people who live nearby. and people around the country as well to remain calm despite the verdict. and i've got to be honest with you, having been here on the ground for a number of weeks, having been over to see the protesters. it does not appear at least, it does not appear as if that's a

legitimate concern right now. there has not been a great deal of activity in front of the courthouse. three of the jurors were sent home a few hours ago. those were the three jurors who despite they spent the better part of the past month sequestered, they were alternates. unbeknownst to them they were alternates. >> boy, you would love to know what their assessment is, wouldn't you? >> yeah. and we won't know for some time because their identities are being hidden until at least the verdict is reached by order of judge nelson. those three juries. >> craig, thank you for your great report. for a analysis of today's events, i am joined by msnbc legal analyst lisa bloom, veteran prosecutor paul henderson, criminal defense attorney karen de soto, and former prosecutor tad nelson. as defense attorney mark o'mara began his closing argument, he told the jury that he would take on an additional burden for his client, that of proving his innocence. >> i would like you to presume whatever you can to my client's

benefit, because after all, that's what good defense attorneys do. but in this type of a case, we're going to do something that will probably upset or enrage defense attorneys anywhere who are listening to this case. of course, at the risk of confusing you, i'm going to take a side trip for just a few minutes. and that side trip is going to be i'm going to take on the obligation to prove to you that my client is innocent. >> lisa bloom, i'm thinking that maybe instead of defense attorneys across the country being horrified by the concept, they're thinking hey, pretty good theatrics in the courtroom. maybe i should try that next time. >> that's exactly what it is. that's theatrics. what does it mean to take on the burden of proving innocence. if he doesn't meet his burden, george zimmerman is convicted? of course not. the reasonable doubt standard still applies. so really, this is just a way of his saying i'm going to prove that he is innocent. i'm not just going prove after that this is a reasonable doubt case. this is very similar to what tom

mesereau did in the jackson sexual abuse case in 2005. tom mesereau was successful, and that was in all the legal journals, and perhaps that's where mark o'mara got the idea. >> paul henderson, he also said at a certain point he wishes that the jury slip said not only guilty, not guilty, but also completely innocent. >> you know, i wrote that down. i thought he went too far. that was unnecessary and unhelpful for him, especially given all of the inconsistencies associated with his client's statements and all of the inconsistencies and the stories and the versions that we had. you don't want to put out there to the jury that your client is completely innocent in that context. leave the standards the way it is. i thought it went too far and it didn't help him in my opinion. >> does he have beer muscles or does the case appear as strong to mark o'mara and to others who are watching as it would seem? >> let me explain this. when you the self-defensive cases, i think all the attorneys watching, it is usually a bar

fight with two guys in a bar saying are you looking at my girlfriend and they wind up stabbing each other. you turn the defendant into the victim you. can't do that in this case, because the victim, trayvon martin was a 17-year-old teenager. so how are you going to compensate for not being able to do that? you're going to have to use theatrics. that's what criminal defense attorneys do. >> you know, tad nelson, there were different aspects where it seems like there was a role reversal. i'm thinking in the closing statements how you have the prosecution raising questions and not answering them as a strategy. and here comes the defense offering a far more definitive narrative even if the jury doesn't ultimately buy it. >> well, and for the prosecution, that's scary. when the prosecution can't clarify or have a certainty what happened, they have a problem. and that's what o'mara was talking about. he said hey, i'm going to tell you what happened. i'm going to show you exactly what happened. we have a theory. they don't have a theory. they said well, this might have happened or this might have happened. maybe each this happened.

and i think that's where he drove home the nail. when the prosecution doesn't have an absolute theory and they're just like okay, any of these things could have happened, well, if any of them could have happened, any of the other ones might not have happened. and that is reasonable doubt. but it was clever, his little thing about innocence, because it's all based on the fact that the prosecution can't really show any certainty. and that's what he means by that. >> well, here is some more of the lawyering. defense attorney mark o'mara was silent for four minutes during his closing argument. he did this to demonstrate the amount of time that he says trayvon martin had to get home after his first encounter with george zimmerman. let's listen to o'mara's explanation. >> the person who decided that this is going to continue, that it was going to become a violent event was the guy who didn't go home when he had the chance to. it was the guy who decides to lie in wait, i guess, plan his move it seems, decide what he

was going to do. and when the state told you that he had no decisions? they dared to tell you that trayvon martin had no decisions? that my client planned this? really, four minutes. four minutes of planning. >> lisa, he then allowed four minutes to go off the clock so the jury could appreciate that time period. there is nothing unique to this. you and have i seen cases in the past, i've had one, where the lawyer is trying to effectuate the passage of time in that way. how did it work today? >> you know, this one left me cold. yes to establish four minutes is a long time. that's good if you're saying someone was beaten for four minutes or waiting for something for four minutes. one thing we know about trayvon martin is he was not moving particularly quickly that day. because just prior to this incident, it took him 45 minutes to walk from the 7-eleven too the complex, which would normally be about a 15-minute walk. he was strolling, he was talking on the phone with rachel

jeantel, he wasn't in any particular hurry. so the fact that it took him another four minutes to walk around the community on the way to his dad's house, i didn't really feel that proved much of anything. >> well, paul henderson, i think what he was trying to say is that trayvon martin was really not going home, but that rather he was lurking so that he could assault george zimmerman. the prosecution, i took note of the fact that they commented upon trayvon martin still having his buds in, unfortunately, when he lost his life. i thought that was an effective way of saying wait a minute, this is a guy listening to tunes whose mind is not on george zimmerman necessarily. >> exactly. i didn't feel like they shifted the burden or that the onus was on trayvon martin for what he was responsible for in the four minutes. and as a prosecutor, i would have flipped that right back around and said you know what happened during that four minutes? trayvon martin got profiled. trayvon martin got tracked, and trayvon martin got confronted. and then at the end of that evening, trayvon martin got killed by guess who? that's what happened during that four minutes. that's what i would have said. >> in a rebuttal argument, john guy asked the jurors to apply

common sense to the case as he describes what he says are inconsistencies in the defense's description of events that he says could not have physically occurred. >> common sense that tells you if trayvon martin had been mounted on the defendant as the defendant claims when he went to get his gun, he never could have got it. i don't have to pull out that mannequin again and sit on it. you remember. if you have to, do it in the jury room. if he was up on his waist, his waist is covered by trayvon martin's legs. he couldn't have got the gun. he couldn't have. they wanted a reason. it's a physical impossibility. >> and then guy bluntly carob rised george zimmerman's state of mind when he decided to shoot. >> the defendant didn't shoot trayvon martin because he had to.

he shot him because he wanted to. that's the bottom line. >> karen de soto, then one asks, well, what is the evidence for that? that he had malice in his heart and wanted to, i guess it's the f-ing punks, these ah's always get away which is an important aspect of proving second-degree murder. >> absolutely. you have to go for the depraved mind. and all we have is a bunch of curse words on a 911 tape. so obviously the defense is going the say that that just does not rise that is not proof that should put this man in jail. and, you know, we have again the self-defense aspect. i think one of the reasons the defense stayed away from the lesser included offense in arguing that because if you find it for second-degree murder, you have to find it for the lesser included. >> we're going to go through the elements of second defense. lisa bloom, paul henderson, and karen de soto. they've been instructed on the law and now they have the case. let's get into what may sway

them as they get into the fate of george zimmerman and later the role that race may play in the jury's decision. this is "hardball," the place for politics. which is deposited in your fidelity account. is that it? actually... there's no annual fee and no limits on rewards. and with the fidelity cash management account debit card, you get reimbursed for all atm fees. is that it? oh, this guy, too. turn more of the money you spend into money you invest. it's everyday reinvesting for your personal economy. details are really important during four course. i want to make sure that everything is perfect. that's why i do what i do. [ male announcer ] it's red lobster's just $14.99. start your feast with a choice of soup, then salad, plus biscuits! next, choose one of nine amazing entrees like new coconut and citrus grilled shrimp or linguini with shrimp and scallops. then finish with dessert. your four course seafood feast, just $14.99.

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welcome back to "hardball." after nearly a month of courtroom drama featuring testimony from 56 witnesses, it's now up to the jury to return a guilty or not guilty verdict in the trial of george zimmerman. they deliberated for more than three hours this afternoon before recessing, and the judge is allowing them to continue the deliberations through the weekend. their task not an enviable one since a man's future is in their hands. but just as important as the evidence they have seen, the testimony they have heard, the laws they have heard are the rules they must obey. they've been provided with 27

pages of instructions to guide their deliberations which will be critical to the outcome of this case. these jurors are six regular people. they're not lawyers. they're certainly not criminal experts. as important as what the law says is how they're instructed to interpret it. i spoke with the highly respected lawyer and harvard law professor alan dershowitz on my radio program earlier today. he had a very strong opinion regarding a verdict in this case. >> i feel that the prosecutor engaged in serious prosecutorial misconduct. this is legally a simple case, reasonable doubt is reason all over it. if the judge had any guts, she would have directed a verdict of not guilty. but of course judges don't do that, particularly elected judges don't do that. >> we're rejoined by our panel of lisa bloom, paul henderson, tad nelson and karen de soto. tad, let me ask you. was there overcharging in this case? would it have been better from a prosecutorial standpoint as f they were seeking manslaughter and not second-degree murder,

which i think is professor dershowitz's point? >> well, and you all know professor dershowitz is like crazy, crazy, over melodramatic, but whatever. >> he is also a pretty smart guy. >> oh, he is a genius there is no doubt. he is the high watermark. but he is still very dramatic. the reality here, we all know that this case got brought because of politics. and if you had brought -- if you're bringing it for politics, because they didn't even charge this guy originally, and if you're bringing it for politics, clearly, you can't charge him at a lesser offense at the beginning. so i think they did the right thing. i don't think they're going to make second-degree murder. i don't think they have a chance. but the reality of it is the difference when we talk about the depraved heart, the darkness of his heart, was he out there to hurt, was he out there to kill somebody thing, that's the only difference between these two. so i don't think they can get to that level. but from a prosecutorial point of view, you've got to shoot high, especially on something as -- with as much reasonable doubt, as much confusion as this one here.

>> paul henderson, do you agree with what tad nelson just had to say? >> well, i don't agree that it was all political. i think this is in the search for justice. and i think that that issue of figuring out the depraved mind of zimmerman is more clear to me as a prosecutor from the surrounding circumstances that i heard from that case. so i'm optimistic. i don't think regardless how you slice what the prosecutors did in this case that they're going to be punished for overcharging even if the jury feels that it was overcharged. i think they can still come back with a manslaughter and not feel like they were lied to. they understand why the prosecution gave them that charge and why they're debating it. >> karen de soto, that is not an issue explained by the lawyers. they heard the charge, obviously the instruction. but i for one anticipated there be far more argument to the jurors about the differentiation between second degree and how if they couldn't by the prosecution, if they couldn't

meet those element, well, surely you can find manslaughter. >> right. well, i understand why the defense stayed away from it because his theory of the case and he spent an awful lot of time saying listen, if you go back there, and you believe or may believe that self-defense was applicable here, then you have 20 rule in favor of george zimmerman. so he was going to stay away from that, because one, it's a complete defense. so he is going to stay away from that. the prosecutor i thought probably really should have gone into the culpable negligence, because they obviously have a better case with that. >> i agree. >> because they're missing all of the facts. so go ahead and argue the negligence. it's a lower standard. >> i agree. >> and i agree with alan dershowitz about having elected officials as judges and district attorneys, because often we heard in this case that the mayor himself was playing the tape. that's really unusual and very odd that the mayor and the county manager were taking it upon themselves to get involved in this case. the politics was definitely involved. >> let me pursue this with lisa bloom. in his closing arguments, o'mara

outlined the statute for defense which is the backbone of the defense's case. >> no injuries necessary to respond with deadly force. not a cut on a finger. the statute is clear. reasonable fear of bodily harm. captain carter told you, whoa, you can get reasonable fear of bodily harm when you're already getting your butt beat. that's certainly an indication. but do you need a cut on your finger? no. >> so what does that mean? well, in their instructions, the jury has been given guidance on the legal grounds of self-defense. and this is what they have been told. a person is justified in using deadly force if he reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent eminent death or great bodily harm to himself. the danger facing george

zimmerman need not have been actual based on appearances. george zimmerman must have actually believed the danger was real. lisa bloom, apply that to the critical juncture in this case when the two men are fighting. >> reasonableness is so important in case. and the prosecution really missed an opportunity after mark o'mara conceded in his closing argument today that george zimmerman, yeah, he probably exaggerated. he said i mark o'mara don't even believe that zimmerman got his head pounded as many times as he said. well, that means he exaggerated. that means he panicked. that means he didn't behave like a reasonably cautious and prudent person, which another one of the jury instructions requires for self-defense. the prosecution should really have been all over that, because then what is left is you get rid of self-defense. and what you have left is manslaughter, for you have ill will, second-degree murder. >> what about -- i'm sorry. what about the possibility for trayvon martin and his self-defense issues? i mean, he is walking through the neighborhood and has a right to be there. and he is being stalked and followed by an armed man that he

does not know, that is not law enforcement. >> paul, i agree with you. i agree with you. but that -- i was really surprised. that wasn't argued. >> i know. if we had just raised that flag and brought out some of those issues to give the jury something else to think about. because we don't exactly know what happened. but maybe it's a possibility that trayvon was defending himself against this armed man. and the only thing he had were his fists. and then that escalated into something else. but we didn't even get to contemplate a lot of those things. >> all right. stay with you are. lisa bloom, paul henderson, tad nelson, and karen de soto. excellent analysis. they'll be back with us later this hour. up next, how race has affected the zimmerman trial, both in and out of the courtroom. this is "hardball," the place for politics. usually when i wat to wear my favorite dress that i remember i should probably do laundry more often. yeah. yeah. cause' by the time i do there's all these mystery stains. i mean is it coffee? is it bronzer? did i play rugby at some point? could be gravy. i do like gravy. anyway, so my mom sent us these tide boost thingies to put in the wash with tide. together they're like twice as strong.

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so get allstate home insurance with claim rate guard... [ whispering ] goodnight. there are so many people in our bedroom. [ dennis ] talk to an allstate agent... [ doorbell rings ] ...and let the good life in. welcome back to "hardball." something unusual happened in the very last hour of this nearly three-week-long trial. prosecutor john guy giving his closing argument, explicitly

brought up a subject and a word that has been almost entirely absent since the start -- race. let's take a look. >> this case is not about race. it's about right and wrong. it's that simple. and let me suggest to you how you know that for sure. ask yourselves, all things being equal, if the roles were reversed, and it was 28-year-old george zimmerman, walking home in the rain with a hoodie on to protect himself from the rain, walking through that neighborhood, and a 17-year-old driving around in a car who called the police, who had hate in their heart, hate in their mouth, hate in their actions.

and if it was trayvon martin hoe had shot and killed george zimmerman, what would your verdict be? that's how you know it's not about race. >> you know, in some ways, it's remarkable up until now that race hasn't been discussed more inside the courtroom since from the beginning so much of this case in the public discourse, at least, centered around the topic. but judge debra nelson ruled in pretrial hearings that prosecutors couldn't say george zimmerman racially profiled trayvon martin, only that he profiled martin. in other words, as we saw today in the closing, race because more of a subtext to the legal case than an explicit focus. still, the question remains what role, if any race will play in the jury's verdict. joy reid is an msnbc contributor and with us from outside the courthouse, the "washington post's" manuel franzia. manuel, tell me how you read that, because i interpreted it as an acknowledgment that surely the jury must have in its mind

some of the racial dynamics to this case. and this was the prosecution trying to remove the playing surface of those concerns. >> yeah, neither side has wanted to talk about race inside the courtroom. i look at this situation here, and it's almost as if we have two trials. one is happening in the public discourse outside the courtroom. that trial is all about race. inside the courtroom, neither side wants to talk about it. >> joy, i conquer with what manuel just said. anecdotally i know from my own telephone callers and people who converse with me about this case, they largely unfortunately break along demographic racial lines. >> absolutely. and when you see african-americans at the agree owe, that is the primary audience at the agree owe, they have this tremendous emotional investment in this outcome of this case. and unfortunately, this case has tended to break down not just along racial lines, along ideological lines, even political lines. >> there is a red-blue factor to

this. let's call it out. >> there absolutely. it comes from a the time when barack obama said if i had a son, he would look like trayvon. you to remember this is a southern town, a very conservative town, a very republican town, a very red state sort of part of florida. and those jurors come from the community. they're a part of the community. so i can understand why neither side wanted to weigh too deeply into the issue of race because no one wants the jurors to feel pressure one way or the other to feel they're carrying the burden of a case primarily about race. but i thought the prosecutor was subtly trying to say that you do understand, right, that if the races of these two were reversed, you know how you would find. find the same way now. >> in his closing today, defense attorney mark o'mara claimed it was wrong to assume zimmerman had any kind of ill will toward martin that was based on race. >> that will show you by the long calls, the burglaries, the home invasion miss bertoelon

suffered through, in that community there was a rash of people burglarizing homes. and you know what else it's going to show you? it's going to show you that a lot of the people who were arrested for it, the only people who were found and arrested were young black males. we talk about race in a little bit too. but they're going to show you. and the reason why i mentioned that now as we talked about assumptions and what you sort of bring into your world. listen to the calls. anger, frustration, hatred, ill will, spite, get out here and get these guys. i hate these young black males. whatever they want you to get from that. listen to the calls. >> but you know, manuel, i think an important aspect of the case from the prosecution standpoint, meeting their responsibility for second-degree murder, the whole these ahs and f-ing punks and so forth, even though they're not saying it, i think what is implied is that george zimmerman had malice in his heart about trayvon martin because of race. >> well, the judge specifically

said that they could not say that trayvon martin was racially profiled. however, if you look at some strategic things that were done by the prosecution, they worked really hard to get in some old 911 calls that george zimmerman had made. in some of those, he mentions the race of the person that he is suspicious of. they're african-american. the defense wants to say that's no big deal. the prosecution got that in there. it might be just one of those subtle cues that are given to this jury. and mind you, this is a jury that has no african-american members. >> and michael, if i could just say there were subtle things that were also done by the defense to bring race in. the grainy picture of trayvon martin really all the in the gray hoodie looking grainy. the picture of him shirtless with the grill in his mouth. and they are the ones who put on the witness who had been burglarized by a black male. they were the ones who were putting on information that was saying you, ladies of the jury,

wouldn't you be a little afraid of this guy? >> joy, i agree with you. you know, i think pretrial, so many of us so often saw the football photograph of trayvon martin. and i took note of the fact that in the defense closing today, mark o'mara very carefully made sure to show the grill photo as you put it where he was bare chested from the waist up. >> absolutely. >> and the most recent photo of trayvon martin, the most recent photo of him is the photon horse. that was taken within ten days of his death. so that actually is the most photo of trayvon martin. but he is riding a horse. he is hugging family. >> manuel, a thought you had? >> i was just going say i don't understand julie anne's point why showing the 7-eleven photo shows race. i'm not sure what it is about that photo that says oh, jeez, this is about race. >> because it was meant to look menacing. mark o'mara fought really hard to get this in. he wanted to use a bigger blowup earlier because it is about showing this is a menacing looking person. why is he menacing?

a big, dark, hoodie-clad figure that is about race. maybe it's a cue that i see and feel as an african-american, but i think subtly they were trying to say to those jurors, it's reasonable for him to have been afraid of this guy. he is not the football jersey wearing kid, see this menacing black. >> thank you both. we appreciate both of you. back with the very latest on the zimmerman trial. the jury set to resume its deliberations tomorrow morning at 9:00 eastern. this is "hardball," the place for politics. so we could be a better, safer energy company. i've been with bp for 24 years. i was part of the team that helped deliver on our commitments to the gulf - and i can tell you, safety is at the heart of everything we do. we've added cutting-edge safety equipment and technology, like a new deepwater well cap and a state-of-the-art monitoring center, where experts watch over all our drilling activity, twenty-four-seven. and we're sharing what we've learned, so we can all produce energy more safely.

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i'm milissa rehberger. here is what is happening. a third person has died from the asiana flight that landed in san francisco. the patient was a little girl who had been in critical condition since saturday's accident. authorities in london are investigating the cause of a fire on board a boeing 787

dreamliner at heathrow airport. the plane was operated by ethiopian airlines. no passengers were on board. at least six people were killed in france after a train packed with passengers derailed and crashed. dozens more were injured. back to "hardball." welcome back to "hardball." the jury has wrapped up deliberations for the day. they'll pick things up again tomorrow morning at 9:00 eastern. nbc's kerry sanders is outside the courthouse in sanford, florida. kerry, we of course watch on television. we don't get to see their faces. you have been in that courtroom. how have you read whatever reaction there has been during the course of the presentation of the evidence on the part of these jurors? >> you know, i wish i could say that i can read the faces and know what they're thinking, because that's what we all want to know. during closings today, there were stone faces.

that's that what they were. they were paying complete attention. but they were not involved in any sort of real serious note-taking. they were taking a few notes, at times, at one point maybe 25 seconds, one juror tacking a few notes, more scribbling than anything else. i was sort of surprised because during the presentation of all of the evidence during this, there was a tremendous amount of note taking. in the courtroom where i'm sitting, which is more often on as you walk into the courtroom on the left side, i've sat on the other side, which is considered the public seating side, the left side is where the media is seated, during the presentation of some of the evidence, especially during some of the scientific evidence, there was actually somebody who was sitting next to me that fell asleep. trust me, today nobody was falling asleep. so this is what the passes looked like for those who were in the courtroom up until now. now the court has issued passes like this. and these are the verdict passes. and so everybody is waiting to

find out when there will be a verdict. it could be tomorrow. we don't know there is no time limit on the jury to come back with a verdict. this courthouse is basically closed tomorrow. so on a normal day, people can come and go in the courthouse. tomorrow only those who possess this pass will be even allowed inside the courthouse. in fact, we're encouraged to be inside the courthouse for most of the day, because if the jury comes back, the lawyers representing trayvon martin's family and his parents, the prosecutors and the defense attorneys and george zimmerman and his family will all be in the courthouse. and if the jury comes back with a verdict. >> wow, it will be please come into the courtroom, and the verdict will come straight out. there will be no delays. >> wow, with no advanced warning. nbc's kerry sanders, thank you for your report. >> sure. >> let's bring back our panel, lisa bloom, paul henderson, tad nelson and karen de soto into the conversation. presumably, lisa, by now they have deliberated for three hours, they called it a night. they selected a foreperson among

them. they have also requested the listing of what the exhibits are and the evidence they can have access to. can you read anything into the tea leafs? >> i'm going to make a prediction that the foreperson is female. other than that, of course, we really don't know. i know they asked for a list of exhibits. i liked that. i know one of the women, although we often talk about most of them being mothers and that's true, one supervised a call center of 1200 people. that's a fairly high-ranking person. another ran a construction company. two others work in the medical field. i'm thinking this is a relatively professional and intelligent jury. they want all the evidence there. they want it accessible. they want to go through it. given that, i'm not necessarily expecting a quick verdict when they come back tomorrow. it sounds like the kind of jury that is going to want to walk through testified and take a good look at it. >> you know, paul henderson, i can understand, because of the demographics of the area, i can understand, not agree with, but understand the lack of a person of color among those jurors. i have never seen or heard of a case where it's all one gender or another. >> well, it's not very common.

and as you know, the law is clear. you're not entitled to -- you're entitled to representation from your community. but that does not mean that let's say if i'm on trial, i can demand that there be black people on the jury, or if i were asian, that there be asian people on the jury. you just have to have a fair pool. i think it's really interesting that they all settled upon, and both sides using their challenges, this pool of women to be the jurors. and i'm really interested to see what the dynamic is of having a jury made up of just women when they evaluate this evidence, when they look at the testimony, how they're going to rule, and what that means that they're all women as they're in that room interacting with each other and communicating. that's going to be really interesting to me afterwards, presuming some of them will talk with us. >> tad nelson, if this were a case that you were prosecuting, would you have been happy with an all female jury? >> well, you know, it's a double-edged sword. yeah, i think overall, i wouldn't have had a huge problem with. and here is why. i mean, we all know that five of

these women have chirp. and that's a big deal. but the thing about women here is they're going to -- george zimmerman also has a mother. so they're going to be able to look at this thing. and just like lisa said, they have already asked for the list of the evidence. they're three hours in, they want to go through it piece, by piece by piece by piece. i think i think in a case as confusing as the one we're in, the fact that women by and large, i mean everybody knows they're a little bit more diligent more times than not than men. they're willing to take more time dotting their i's, crossing their t's where a man might be more of a fast decision. i would be comfortable as a prosecutor. they're going to look at something. and, again, i think women, more than men, are more likely to compromise verdict. >> i thought you were going to say they're willing to stop and ask for directions when men aren't. karen de soto, if you were the defense lawyer in this case, karen, how would you feel about an all female jury? >> i would think about all those studies that i read that say

that women are more likely to find guilt, and, you know, try and weigh that the best i could. and try to bring in those factors. i mean, obviously if they're moms, the emotional thing is obviously important in this case. and you want to stay way from the emotions and say listen, you may have a gut feeling, but you have to follow the rules. you have to read the laws and apply them. i know that this is tragic and this is awful, and there is a 17-year-old teenager, and you would have to do that. but, you know, that's a problem. >> this may sound odd. i'm going to say it, karen. my experience has been that women can be very critical jurors when there is a female witness whose credibility is at issue. very circumspect. >> i agree with that. >> can i just jump in? i get so tired of all this talk of female jurors. if this was an all african-american or all jewish jury or 65-year-old jury, would we be engaging in this?

>> yes, we would. >> absolutely would. >> it's an oddity. >> like we're some kind of strange life form and like we can make generalizations about women. if this case teaches us anything, it's not to generalize based on immutable characteristics like race or gender. >> lisa, i think the world of your opinion. i totally disagree. it is a monolithic jury. >> it's not monolithic. >> i don't know how to read it. >> they're different ages. they're different occupations. >> have you ever seen a jury all male or all female? >> no, i haven't. but these women are very different from each other. just because they're all women? >> i'm not being critical of them. i'm just saying i think it's very unusual. and the fact that both sides would settle on them. i want to find out later what went into the jury selection. >> than the fact that they are women. one of them supervises 1200 people. another is a chiropractor's assistant. can we talk what they do? >> condescending statement about females. it's not. >> the fact that they're all women, there is a lot more to them. >> if they were all green, i would be saying i find it unusual they're all green.

lisa bloom, paul henderson, tad nelson and karen de soto are all staying with us. we're back as deliberations in the george zimmerman trial resume tomorrow morning. this is "hardball," the place for politics. ♪ if you have high cholesterol, here's some information that may be worth looking into. in a clinical trial versus lipitor, crestor got more high-risk patients' bad cholesterol to a goal of under 100. getting to goal is important, especially if you have high cholesterol plus any of these risk factors because you could be at increased risk for plaque buildup in your arteries over time. and that's why when diet and exercise alone aren't enough to lower cholesterol i prescribe crestor. [ female announcer ] crestor is not right for everyone. like people with liver disease or women who are nursing, pregnant or may become pregnant. tell your doctor about other medicines you're taking.

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apparently he is known around town as kerry the nbc guy. the restaurant is famous for its good humored staff who wear t-shirts that say kiss my grits, and it's freaked by another tv personality that would be larry the cable guy. we'll be right back. ♪ pnc virtual wallet®. for seeing the big financial picture. for knowing the days your money is going out, and when it's coming in. for having danger days, to warn you when you're running a little low. for help seeing your money in a whole new light go to pncvirtualwallet.com and see everything pnc virtual wallet® has to offer. pnc bank. for the achiever in you®.

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the bottom line is who is responsible for trayvon martin lying on that ground? trayvon martin didn't kill himself. and who is responsible for the state not being able to ask

trayvon martin to step forward so i can put my hand on his shoulder -- god, i'd love to do that. who is responsible for that? >> welcome back to "hardball." we're back with lisa bloom, paul henderson, tad nelson, and karen desoto. paul, the emotional appeal by the prosecution stands in contrast to the more stoic workmanlike presentation that we got from the defense. is that typically how it breaks down in a criminal case in terms of what you get in a prosecutor and what you get in a defense lawyer? >> in a case like this, you almost expect that from the prosecution. when you're talking about a dead teen and you're closing that case, you want to leave that jury with a sense of sympathy. with a sense of empathy. because you want to make sure that that person's voice that is no longer there is being heard by that jury and it's certainly what i expected. quite frankly, i actually wanted it to go a little bit further. i wanted a little more empathy. i wanted more of a reminder that that son, son, is dead.

that that son will never be with his family again. because of this man in the courtroom, because he is the one that's responsible for it. he murdered trayvon martin. now, the legal issue is going to be whether or not that murder was justified, but at the end of the day, we're all clear that he murdered that son and he's no longer here with us, and that's the impression that i would want to leave with that jury when they tgo into that room and stat deliberating and thinking about what the facts are and what the testimony is in this case. >> karen desoto, a defense lawyer in a case like this needs to be came, make sure they're showing respect for all parties in a case like this while representing their client zealously. >> that's very difficult in self-defense cases. a lot of the time you're taking your defendant and turning them into the victim. you can't do that in this case because you have a 17-year-old teenager. you don't have two guys in a bar stabbing each other because one is looking at his girlfriend. >> how do you rate the stylistics we saw in the

closings only? >> the defense was stylistically better and an excellent use of visual aids. nobody can sit and watch somebody talk hour after hour. even if it's a fascinating case. he brought in chunks of concrete, giant cutouts. i mean, really anything he could think of. he uses his body over and over to illustrate things. you don't get bored watching mark o'mara. john guy for the prosecution has a fantastic rhetorical style. and i understand that everybody in the courtroom wases really gripped by the way he spoke. almost like a preacher giving a sermon. >> tad nelson, to the uninitiated who will watching this guy and may have seen charts on burden of proof for the first time, they're normally part in parcel of a case like this. >> absolutely. the new chart that o'mara brought about the self-defense, that was pretty interesting. we're always going to hear the lawyers talk about the burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. what it takes to get there. and we've kind of seen it with cheney mason now, in the michael

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welcome back to "hardball." we're back with lisa bloom, paul henderson, tad nelson and karen desoto. paul, is there an aspect of this case, the evidence of this case you think is being overlooked by those of us who are paying very close attention? something that you're saying, you know, i think this is going to have great meaning in the minds of those jurors? >> i really think it's the race issue. i mean, it's the one thing i wanted to hear more of. i think there was an expectation that ultimately both sides were going to address. and that that never happened. and i believe that the jurors are feeling the same way. it's something that i feel, colors, no pun intended, a lot of the evidence, and i think would have helped them come to a faster conclusion and would have facilitated the deliberation process. >> lisa bloom, what are you reading in this case that's not getting wide circulation? >> yeah, first of all, i'm growing very fond of that paul henderson. i agree about race. this jury can be trusted to look

at gruesome autopsy photos. >> right. >> yet we can't trust them to hear a little evidence about race and a little bit of argument about race? it's not the only issue in the case or the predominant issue. it is an issue. we should stop shying away from it. that's why this case had a ground swell of public support. you know, i would like to have heard more about that. you know, one of the last witnesses was a young woman who was burglarized, in the closet with her baby she's so scared because an african-american burglarized her home. on cross-examination i would have liked to see questions about, well, was it trayvon martin who burglarized you? did he break in? of course it wasn't trayvon martin. are we going to extrapolate we should be afraid of all african-american males? that's racism, taking one bad act and applying it to the entire group. why did we even hear that testimony in the case if not to show there was fear of african-american males on the part of george zimmerman? the prosecution should have hit back hard on that. >> tad nelson, what is everyone else overlooking?

>> the only other thing other than race, i don't think the defense beat it home enough, you know, we heard all the stuff george zimmerman was doing. i mean, the fact he had a gun, legal. the fact he was a neighborhood watchman, legal. the fact he got out of his car in the rain and followed a kid, legal. the fact that he asked the kid what he was doing, legal. that should have been beat for three straight weeks. george zimmerman, as much as trayvon martin was doing everything legal, george zimmerman was doing nothing illegal either. >> karen desoto -- >> there was nothing illegal. >> you get the final word, but take only 20 seconds to do it. >> you bet. along the same lines, if there's a justifiable homicide in this case, it's on the heads of the state of florida who are handing out concealed weapons to people who are not military, not police. that's like putting a machete in a 2-year-old's hand and saying, go play with it. so there's liability on the part of florida and they need to take a real look at this. i would have hammered that at home week and week and week after. >> thank you, all, for great analysis. lisa bloom, we haven't seen enough of you, lisa bloom. >> i know.

9:00 to 11:00, we're doing a special. >> paul henderson, tad nelson, karen desoto. that's "hardball" for now. thanks for being with us. "all in with chris hayes" starts right now. good evening, from new york. i'm chris hayes. it was 16 1/2 months ago, february 26th, 2012, the altercation between trayvon mention min martin and george michael zimmerman took place in sanford, florida. tonight the fate of george zimmerman rests in the hands of a jury of six. there's other news tonight including an actual appearance of edward snowden in moscow. we'll show you later. we begin, of course, in florida, where 5 1/2 hours ago after 12 days of testimony, the jury was handed the case of the state of florida versus george zimmerman. the man that's charged with second-degree murder in the killing of trayvon martin. mr. zimmerman has pleaded not guilty. claiming