Trial By Error

The self-serving interview of anonymous Zimmerman trial juror B37 on CNN's Anderson Cooper last night actually turned out to be informative, as the juror basically admitted that on multiple occasions the jury disregarded jury instructions in order to find Zimmerman not guilty.

In an interview on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 Monday night, an anonymous juror said the panel that found George Zimmerman not guilty considered Florida’s Stand Your Ground law in its deliberations. Earlier reports suggested the notorious law that authorizes the unfettered use of deadly force in self-defense was not applied to the case, because Zimmerman’s lawyers opted not to request a Stand Your Ground hearing. But as ThinkProgress explained in a post earlier today, the jury instructions contained the law’s key provision and instructed jurors that self-defense meant Zimmerman was entitled to “stand his ground” with “no duty to retreat.”

COOPER: Because of the two options you had, second degree murder or manslaughter, you felt neither applied?

JUROR: Right. Because of the heat of the moment and the Stand Your Ground. He had a right to defend himself. If he felt threatened that his life was going to be taken away from him or he was going to have bodily harm, he had a right.

So the jury did consider SYG when they shouldn't have.  Even worse,  the juror admitted that she failed to follow the judge's instructions not once, but twice.

COOPER:  Did you feel - a lot of the analysts who were watching the trial, felt that the defense attorneys - Mark O'Mara, Don West - were able to turn prosecution witnesses to their advantage - Chris Serino, for instance, the lead investigator.   Did he make an impression on you?

 JUROR:  Chris Serino did.  He - but he - to me, he just was doing his job.  He was doing his job the way he was doing his job and he was going to tell the truth regardless of who asked him the questions.

 COOPER:  So you found him to be credible?

 JUROR:  I did, very credible.

 COOPER:  So when he testified that he found George Zimmerman to be more or less and overall truthful, did that make an impression on you?

 JUROR:  It did.  It did.  It made a big impression on me.

The judge gave strict instructions that Serino's opinion on Zimmerman's truthfulness was to be disregarded.  That clearly wasn't done here, by the juror's own admission.  It happened again:

COOPER:  When the defense in their closing argument played that animation of what they believe happened, did you find that credible?

 JUROR:  I found it credible.  I did.

The judge ruled that animation as inadmissible, and yet here the juror admits she found it credible, implying that she considered it in her deliberations.  Once again, this was in direct violation of the judge's instructions.

No wonder the juror's book deal was canceled, and it got canceled by people speaking up and giving a damn about how ridiculous it is to profit off the death of a young man. We've got a juror admitting 48 hours after the verdict that she and the rest of the jury ignored the judge's instructions multiple times in order to reach that not guilty verdict.

You would think that somebody in the Department of Justice might have been paying attention to this interview, too.