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tv   Hardball Weekend  MSNBC  July 13, 2013 2:00am-2:31am PDT

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the jury gets the case. let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm michael smerconish. the fate of george zimmerman is in the jury's hands now. this morning is, george's attorney mark o'mara made his closing argument emphasizing he acted in self-defense and the state had not proved otherwise beyond a reasonable doubt. then state attorney john guy asked jurors to bring common sense to bear in deciding this case and pointing out what he
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says was in zimmerman's heart on the night of the shooting. the jury had a question requesting evidence by number and description. the jury has finished deliberating for today and will resume tomorrow morning at 9:00 a.m. craig melvin has been following this case closely and joins me from outside the florida courthouse. it was an active day. now i guess quiet. >> yeah, you know what, very active. 3 1/2 hours, three hours, 30 minutes. that's how long the jury spent deliberating this afternoon into evening. shortly after they received the evidence and informed judge nelson they were done for the day. they'll go home until tomorrow morning at 9:00 a.m. and will begin deliberating once again. we should note here that judge nelson is leavinging this essentially up to the jury how long they'll deliberate, when they start, when theyal start
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their day. when they will end their day. so it will be interesting to see me sizely 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 the night. so have the handful of demonstrators who were here. they were the largest number we've seen since the trial started. we're only talking about 21, 2. law enforcement held anous conference encouraging people who live nearby and people around the country, as well to remain calm despite the verdict. i've got to be honest with you, having been here on the ground, having been over to see the protesters, it does 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, the three jurors who despite the fact they've spent the better part of the last month sequestered, they
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were alternates. >> you'd love to know what their assessment is, won't you? >> yeah, oh, yeah. we won't know for some time because their identities are being hidden till at least the verdict is reached by order of judge nelson, those three jurors. >> thank you for your great report. he for an analysis of today's events, i'm joined by legal analyst lisa bloom, veteran prosecutor paul henderson, criminal defense attorney karen desoto and former prosecutor tad nelson. as defense attorney mark o'mara told the injury 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. after all, that's what good defense attorneys do, but in it type of a case where you do something that will probably upset or enrage defense attorneys anywhere who are listening to this case, of
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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. >> i'm thinking maybe instead of defense attorneys across the country being horrified they're thinking maybe i should try that next time. >> that's what it is. what does it mean to take on the burden of proving innocence if he doesn't meet his burden, zimmerman is convicted? of course, not. the reasonable doubt standards still apply. this is just a way of his saying i'm going to prove he's innocent. i'm not just going to prove this is a reasonable doubt case, very similar to wharl tom mesereau did in the michael jackson sexual abuse case in 2005. he was he successful and perhaps that's where he got the idea. >> paul, he said he wishes the
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jury verdict slip stayed completely innocent. >> 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 in the stories and the versions that we had. you don't want to put out to the jury that your client is completely innocent in that context. leave the standard the way it is, and then just finish your argument. i thought it went too far and didn't help him in my opinion. >> karen, does he have beer muscles or does the case appear as strong to mark o'mara and to others watching as it would seem? >> let me explain this. when you have the self-defense cases, i this i all the attorneys watching, it's 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. how are you going to compensate for not doing that?
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you have to use theatrics. that's what's criminal defense attorneys too. >> tad nelson, it seemed like there was a role reversal. in the closing statements how you have the prosecution raising questions and not answering them as a strategy and then here comes the defense offering a far more definitive narrative even if the jury doesn't ultimately buy it. >> for the prosecution, that's scary when the prosecution can't clarify or have a certainty of what happened, they've got a problem. 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 even this happened. 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, if 234e of them could have happened, any of the other ones might not have happened.
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that is reasonable doubt. it was clever, his thing about innocence because it's all based on the fact that the prosecution can't really show any certainty. that's what he means by that. >> here's some more of the lawyering. defense attorney mark o'mara was silent for four minutes during his closing argument to demonstrate the amount of time he says trayvon martin had to get home after his first encounter with george zimmerman. listen to his explanation. >> the personern 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 decided 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 martin had no decisions that my client planned this? really? four minutes.
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four minutes of planning. >> and lisa, he then allowed four minutes off the clock so that the jury could appreciate that time period. there's nothing unique to this. i've had a case where a lawyer has tried to effectuate the passage of time in that way. how did it work today? >> this one left me cold. four minutes is a long time if you're saying somebody was beaten for four minutes. one thing we know about trayvon martin, he was not moving particularly quickly that day. just prior to the incident, it took him about 45 minutes to walk from the 7-eleven to the complex which would normally be about a 15-minute walk. he was strolling, talking on the phone. 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 feel that proved much of anything. >> i think what he was trying to
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say was that martin was lurking so he could assault george zimmerman. the prosecution i took note of the fact they commented upon martin still having his buds in when he lost his life. that was an effective way of saying this is a guy listening to tunes whose mind is not on george zimmerman. >> exactly. i didn't feel that the onus was on martin for what he was responsible for in the four minutes. as a prosecutor, i would have flipped that back around and saying you know what happened? trayvon martin got profiled, tracked and confronted. and then at the end of that evening, trayvon martin got killed by guess who. that's what happened during that four minutes. >> in a rebuttal argument, john guy asked the jurors to apply common sense to this case as he described what he sayses 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
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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 characterized 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. >> and karen desoto, one asks what's the evidence for that that he wanted to? i guess it's the f'ing punks,
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these ahs always get away. >> you have to go for the depraved mind and all we have is a bunch of curse words on a 911 tape. obviously the defense is going to say that that does not rise, that is not proof that should put this man in jail. you know, we have again the self-defense aspect. one of the reasons why the defense stayed away from the lesser included defense in arguing that because they feel if you find it for second degree, then you have to find it for the lesser included. >> we'll go through the elements of second defense. lisa, paul, tad, karen are all staying with us. coming up, the jury's been instructed on the law and now they have the case. let's get into the what may sway them as they deliberate the fate of george zimmerman. later to the role race may play in the jury's decision. this is "hardball," the place for politics. pores just by washing your face? [ female announcer ] neutrogena® pore refining cleanser. alpha-hydroxy and exfoliating beads work to clean and tighten pores so they can look half their size.
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welcome back to "hardball." after nearly a month of courtroom drama featuring testimony from 56 witnesses, it's 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 before recessing and the judge will allow them to deliberate throughout the weekend. their task just as important as the evidence they've seen, the
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testimony they've heard, the laws they've read are the rules they must obey. they've been provided with 7 pages of instructions to guide deliberations which will be critical to the outcome of this case. remember, these jurors are six regular people. not lawyers, certainly not criminal justice experts. as important as what the law says is how they're instructed to interpret it. i spoke with the harvard law professor alan deshwitz on my rao program earlier today. he had a very strong opinion regarding verdict in this case. >> i feel that the prosecutor engaged in serious prosecutorial misconduct. this is a simple case. reasonable doubt is written 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 lisa is, karen desoto, tad nelson. tad, would it have been better
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from a prosecutorial standpoint if they saw the manslaughter as the highest defense and not second degree murder which su the professor's point. >> you all know profess ter dershowitz sits overmellow dramatic. >> he's a pretty smart guy. >> he's a genius. no doubt. he is the high water mark but still dramatic. we all know that this case got brought because of politics and if you're bringing it for politics because they didn't charge this guy originally. if you're bring package it for politics is, you can't charge him at a lesser offense at the beginning. i think they did the right thing. i don't think they're going to make second degree murder. but the reality is, the difference dependence, we talk about the depraved heart, was he out there to hurt and 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
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of view, you've got to the shoot high especially on something with as much reasonable doubt and confusion as this one here. i think they did the right thing. >> do you agree with what tad had to say? >> i think it was 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 thank regardless of 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 mon slaughter and not feel like they were lied to. they understand why the prosecution gave them that charge and why they're debating it. >> karen, that is not an issue that was really explained to the jury by the lawyers. they heard the charge obviously the instruction. i for one anticipated there would be far more argument to
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the jurors about the differentiation between second degree and how if they couldn't by the prosecution if they couldn't meet the elements will surely you can find man slaughter. >> i understand why the defense stayed away from it because his theory of the case and he spent an awful lot of time saying if you go back there and you believe or may believe that self-defense was applicable here, then you have to rule in favor of george zimmerman. he was going to stale away from that because it's a complete defense. he's going to stay away from that. the prosecutor i thought probably really should have gone into the culpable negligence because they have a better case with that because they're missing all of the facts. go ahead and argue the negligence. it's a lower standard. i agree with alander kshwitz having elected judges and as district attorneys. the mayor himself was playing the tape. that's unusual and very odd that the mayor and the county manager were daking it upon themselves
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to get involved in this case. politics is definitely involved. >> lisa bloom, in his closing arguments, o'mara outlined the statute for self-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, be but do you need the cut on your finger? no. >> what does that mean? in their instructions the jury's been given guidance on the legal grounds of self-defense and this is what they've been told. a person is justified in using deadly force if he reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent imminent
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death or great bodily harm to himself. the danger facing george zimmerman need not have been actually. based upon appearances he must have believes the danger was real. lisa bloom, apply that to this critical juncture in this case when the two men are fighting >> onliness is so important in this case and the prosecutor miss add opportunity after mark o'mara conceded in closing argument that george zimmerman yeah he probably exaggerated. he said i mark o'mara don't believe that zimmerman got his head pounded as many times as he said. that means he exaggerated. that means he panicked and he didn't behave like a reasonable cautious and pruchbt person which another one of the instructions requires for self-defense. the prosecution should have been all over that because then what's left is you get rid you have self-defense and what you have left is manslaughter or ill will second degree murder. >> what about the possibility for martin and his self-defense
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issues? he's walking through the neighborhood and has a right to be there and he and he's stalked and followed by an armed man he does not know that is not law enforcement. >> paul, i agree with you. i agree with you. but i was surprised that wasn't argued. >> i know. if we had raised that flag and brought out some of those issues to give the jury something else to think about because we don't know the what happened. maybe it's a possibility that trayvon was defending himself against this armed man. the only thing he had were miss fists. that escalated into something else. we didn't get to contemplate a lot of those things. >> stay where you are. we're back with more after this.
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>> you know you've been covering the zimmerman trial too long when your name makes it on to a local billboard. that's what happened outside one restaurant in sanford, florida. here's the sign outside of mel's family diner featuring kerry sanders. apparently he's known around town as kerry the nbc guy. the restaurant is famous for good humored staff who wear t-shirts that say kiss my grits and frequents by larry the cable guy. that's "hardball" for now. coming up next, your business with j.j. ramberg. [ man ] 10, 9, 8, 7... [ command center ] countdown ignition sequence started. [ man ] ...6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. cleared for takeoff. [ female announcer ] introducing swiffer steamboost powered by bissell. [ command center ] all systems go. [ female announcer ] steam-activated cleaning pads penetrate deep to remove dirt that mops can leave behind.
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