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Zimmerman Juror Says He 'Got Away With Murder'

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The only minority on the all-female jury that voted to acquit George Zimmerman said today that Zimmerman "got away with murder" for killing Trayvon Martin and feels she owes an apology Martin's parents

"You can't put the man in jail even though in our hearts we felt he was guilty," said the woman who was identified only as Juror B29 during the trial. "But we had to grab our hearts and put it aside and look at the evidence."

She said the jury was following Florida law and the evidence, she said, did not prove murder.

The court had sealed the jurors' identities during the trial and still hasn't lifted the order, but Juror B29 edged out of the shadows in an exclusive interview with "Good Morning America" anchor Robin Roberts. She allowed her face to be shown, but -- concerned for her safety -- used only a first name of Maddy.

Watch More of the Interview Thursday on "World News" at 6:30 p.m. ET and Friday on "Good Morning America" at 7 a.m. ET

The nursing assistant and mother of eight children was selected as a juror five months after she had moved to Seminole County, Fla., from Chicago.

All six of the jurors were women and Maddy, 36, who is Puerto Rican, was the only minority to deliberate in the racially charged case. Zimmerman, 29, was a white Hispanic and Martin, 17, was black.

Despite the prosecution's claim the Zimmerman profiled Martin because he was black, Maddy said the case was never about race to her, although she didn't want to speak for her fellow jurors.

But her feelings about Zimmerman's actions are clear.

"George Zimmerman got away with murder, but you can't get away from God. And at the end of the day, he's going to have a lot of questions and answers he has to deal with," Maddy said. "[But] the law couldn't prove it."

Catch up on all the details from the George Zimmerman murder trial.

When the jury of six women—five of them mothers—began deliberations, Maddy said she favored convicting Zimmerman of second degree murder, which could have put him in prison for the rest of his life. The jury was also allowed to consider manslaughter, a lesser charge.

"I was the juror that was going to give them the hung jury. I fought to the end," she said.

However, on the second day of deliberations, after spending nine hours discussing the evidence, Maddy said she realized there wasn't enough proof to convict Zimmerman of murder or manslaughter under Florida law.

Zimmerman concedes he shot and killed Martin in Sanford on Feb. 26, 2012, but maintains he fired in self-defense.

"That's where I felt confused, where if a person kills someone, then you get charged for it," Maddy said. "But as the law was read to me, if you have no proof that he killed him intentionally, you can't say he's guilty."

When asked by Roberts whether the case should have gone to trial, Maddy said, "I don't think so."

"I felt like this was a publicity stunt. This whole court service thing to me was publicity," she said.

As a mother, Maddy said she has had trouble adjusting to life after the verdict, and has wrestled with whether she made the right decision.

"I felt like I let a lot of people down, and I'm thinking to myself, 'Did I go the right way? Did I go the wrong way?'" she said.

"As much as we were trying to find this man guilty…they give you a booklet that basically tells you the truth, and the truth is that there was nothing that we could do about it," she said. "I feel the verdict was already told."

Maddy said she has sympathy for Martin's parents and believes she, too, would continue the crusade for justice if this had happened to her son.

She said she believes she owes Trayvon Martin's parents an apology because she feels "like I let them down."

"It's hard for me to sleep, it's hard for me to eat because I feel I was forcefully included in Trayvon Martin's death. And as I carry him on my back, I'm hurting as much Trayvon's Martin's mother because there's no way that any mother should feel that pain," she said.

Maddy is the second juror to speak in a televised interview, and the first to show her face.

Juror B37, whose face and body were hidden, appeared last week on Anderson Cooper's CNN show, and said that she believes Zimmerman's "heart was in the right place" when he became suspicious of Martin and that the teenager probably threw the first punch.

Since then, four other jurors distanced themselves from B37's remarks and released a statement saying B37's opinions were "not in any way representative" of their own.

George Zimmerman Juror Says He 'Got Away With Murder' - ABC News
 
:lamo
No surprise.
Stealth juror.


Had to follow the law with the other eyes on her. :lamo


Says he got away with murder, yet it was murder.
That is some stupid **** right there. :lamo
 
I have to say, I hate cowards like this - people who make a decision, find out it's controversial, then attempt to walk away from it and appear someone else made them do it. If she felt he committed a murder, she should have stuck with a guilty plea and let the result be a hung jury. That would have been the honest thing to do.
 
I have to say, I hate cowards like this - people who make a decision, find out it's controversial, then attempt to walk away from it and appear someone else made them do it. If she felt he committed a murder, she should have stuck with a guilty plea and let the result be a hung jury. That would have been the honest thing to do.

No, it would have been the wrong thing to do absolutely. The jurors are dependent on the evidence presented; murder could not be proven, so to go with "guilty" would have been wrong.

At any rate, given that other jurors are distancing themselves from the first interviewed juror's remarks, at least people can now stop saying "the jury looked at the evidence and believed Zimmerman innocent."

No such thing occurred. Further, it doesn't need to occur for there to be an acquittal.
 
What evidence does she think is out there that would've convicted him?
 
I have to say, I hate cowards like this - people who make a decision, find out it's controversial, then attempt to walk away from it and appear someone else made them do it. If she felt he committed a murder, she should have stuck with a guilty plea and let the result be a hung jury. That would have been the honest thing to do.

I don't take it as her "walking back" anything. She was for murder 2 right out of the gate but at that point she hadn't had the law explained to her. I actually commend her for putting her personal opinions aside and offering up a proper legal opinion.
 
I have to say, I hate cowards like this - people who make a decision, find out it's controversial, then attempt to walk away from it and appear someone else made them do it. If she felt he committed a murder, she should have stuck with a guilty plea and let the result be a hung jury. That would have been the honest thing to do.

But she realized that the evidence wasn't there to convict him. So she's one of those people who FEELS like he's a murderer, but knows that the law says he's not.
 
"That's where I felt confused, where if a person kills someone, then you get charged for it..."

That's the part the worries me about the justice system. There are people out there who think this way.
 
Code:
The only minority on the all-female jury that voted to acquit George Zimmerman said today that Zimmerman "got away with murder" for killing Trayvon Martin and feels she owes an apology Martin's parents

"You can't put the man in jail even though in our hearts we felt he was guilty," said the woman who was identified only as Juror B29 during the trial. "But we had to grab our hearts and put it aside and look at the evidence."

She said the jury was following Florida law and the evidence, she said, did not prove murder.

The court had sealed the jurors' identities during the trial and still hasn't lifted the order, but Juror B29 edged out of the shadows in an exclusive interview with "Good Morning America" anchor Robin Roberts. She allowed her face to be shown, but -- concerned for her safety -- used only a first name of Maddy.

Watch More of the Interview Thursday on "World News" at 6:30 p.m. ET and Friday on "Good Morning America" at 7 a.m. ET

The nursing assistant and mother of eight children was selected as a juror five months after she had moved to Seminole County, Fla., from Chicago.

All six of the jurors were women and Maddy, 36, who is Puerto Rican, was the only minority to deliberate in the racially charged case. Zimmerman, 29, was a white Hispanic and Martin, 17, was black.

Despite the prosecution's claim the Zimmerman profiled Martin because he was black, Maddy said the case was never about race to her, although she didn't want to speak for her fellow jurors.

But her feelings about Zimmerman's actions are clear.

"George Zimmerman got away with murder, but you can't get away from God. And at the end of the day, he's going to have a lot of questions and answers he has to deal with," Maddy said. "[But] the law couldn't prove it."

Catch up on all the details from the George Zimmerman murder trial.

When the jury of six women—five of them mothers—began deliberations, Maddy said she favored convicting Zimmerman of second degree murder, which could have put him in prison for the rest of his life. The jury was also allowed to consider manslaughter, a lesser charge.

"I was the juror that was going to give them the hung jury. I fought to the end," she said.

However, on the second day of deliberations, after spending nine hours discussing the evidence, Maddy said she realized there wasn't enough proof to convict Zimmerman of murder or manslaughter under Florida law.

Zimmerman concedes he shot and killed Martin in Sanford on Feb. 26, 2012, but maintains he fired in self-defense.

"That's where I felt confused, where if a person kills someone, then you get charged for it," Maddy said. "But as the law was read to me, if you have no proof that he killed him intentionally, you can't say he's guilty."

When asked by Roberts whether the case should have gone to trial, Maddy said, "I don't think so."

"I felt like this was a publicity stunt. This whole court service thing to me was publicity," she said.

As a mother, Maddy said she has had trouble adjusting to life after the verdict, and has wrestled with whether she made the right decision.

"I felt like I let a lot of people down, and I'm thinking to myself, 'Did I go the right way? Did I go the wrong way?'" she said.

"As much as we were trying to find this man guilty…they give you a booklet that basically tells you the truth, and the truth is that there was nothing that we could do about it," she said. "I feel the verdict was already told."

Maddy said she has sympathy for Martin's parents and believes she, too, would continue the crusade for justice if this had happened to her son.

She said she believes she owes Trayvon Martin's parents an apology because she feels "like I let them down."

"It's hard for me to sleep, it's hard for me to eat because I feel I was forcefully included in Trayvon Martin's death. And as I carry him on my back, I'm hurting as much Trayvon's Martin's mother because there's no way that any mother should feel that pain," she said.

Maddy is the second juror to speak in a televised interview, and the first to show her face.

Juror B37, whose face and body were hidden, appeared last week on Anderson Cooper's CNN show, and said that she believes Zimmerman's "heart was in the right place" when he became suspicious of Martin and that the teenager probably threw the first punch.

Since then, four other jurors distanced themselves from B37's remarks and released a statement saying B37's opinions were "not in any way representative" of their own.

[url=http://abcnews.go.com/m/story?id=19770659&ref=http%3A%2F%2Ft.co%2FbTmuAcWlEV]George Zimmerman Juror Says He 'Got Away With Murder' - ABC News[/url]

I have to wonder if this is more yellow journalism on the part of the media and they misconstrue her comments or if that is really her personal opinion not based on any facts.
 
The media just has to keep this story going. If they allow it to die then there goes their whole "Race war to make more money" idea.
 
The article lead in and title is completely misleading to everything that woman said. She stated there was not enough evidence to find him guilty of murder or manslaughter AND she said it was a publicity stunt and that there was not evidence to go to trial in the first place.
 
I don't take it as her "walking back" anything. She was for murder 2 right out of the gate but at that point she hadn't had the law explained to her. I actually commend her for putting her personal opinions aside and offering up a proper legal opinion.

I'm not buying it.
 
But she realized that the evidence wasn't there to convict him. So she's one of those people who FEELS like he's a murderer, but knows that the law says he's not.

Like I said, she wants to have it both ways. How does she know he's a murderer, which is a legal term, if there wasn't evidence to prove he was a murderer? Why does she claim she voted originally for 2nd degree murder if there wasn't sufficient evidence to convict him? What does she accomplish, other than protection of herself, by claiming that he's a murderer but not guilty? She should have kept her mouth shut, period.

What she accomplishes is providing race baiting bigots the opportunity to continue to rail against Zimmerman, the justice system and stand your ground laws and blame "whitey" for it, since she was the "only minority" on the jury.
 
Well, she is from Chicago. :roll:
 
"I felt like this was a publicity stunt. This whole court service thing to me was publicity," she said.
The only reason for a juror to speak out is to have a personal publicity stunt.
 
I have to say, I hate cowards like this - people who make a decision, find out it's controversial, then attempt to walk away from it and appear someone else made them do it.

Only in this case, based on this woman's words (as opposed to what I might erroneously choose to read into them) it's wasn't someone who forced her hand, it was something (the evidence, Florida law, and the jury instructions she received).

Quoting her from the article:

Maddy said:
"As much as we were trying to find this man guilty…they give you a booklet that basically tells you the truth, and the truth is that there was nothing that we could do about it," she said. "I feel the verdict was already told."

That's the way it's supposed to work. Justice is supposed to be blind like that.

There is the evidence (and the manner in which it's presented). There is the law.

You put the two together and it tells a story.

Personal feelings, which this woman obviously experienced very strongly, shouldn't come in to it.

Personally, I believe that this was a case of manslaughter. And I believe that if the prosecutor had charged the dude with manslaughter from the beginning and made a manslaughter case against him it was perfectly winnable.

So I would argue that Zimmerman "got away with manslaughter".
 
If I were this juror, I would've kept my mouth shut. She's going to be more of a target now from the rabid anti-Zimmerman crowd because she didn't, oddly enough, stand her ground.
 
Only in this case, based on this woman's words (as opposed to what I might erroneously choose to read into them) it's wasn't someone who forced her hand, it was something (the evidence, Florida law, and the jury instructions she received).

Quoting her from the article:



That's the way it's supposed to work. Justice is supposed to be blind like that.

There is the evidence (and the manner in which it's presented). There is the law.

You put the two together and it tells a story.

Personal feelings, which this woman obviously experienced very strongly, shouldn't come in to it.

Personally, I believe that this was a case of manslaughter. And I believe that if the prosecutor had charged the dude with manslaughter from the beginning and made a manslaughter case against him it was perfectly winnable.

So I would argue that Zimmerman "got away with manslaughter".

I'm still not buying it. She said "he got away with murder" and she also said he never should have been charged, it was a publicity stunt. That's having it both ways.

Perhaps, as a minority, she's torn and doesn't want her friends and others spitting out she's an uncle tom because she went along with the white jurors because we all know how blacks view other blacks who don't walk the required racism line.

Her words ring hollow to me and add nothing beneficial.
 
However, on the second day of deliberations, after spending nine hours discussing the evidence, Maddy said she realized there wasn't enough proof to convict Zimmerman of murder or manslaughter under Florida law....


"That's where I felt confused, where if a person kills someone, then you get charged for it," Maddy said. "But as the law was read to me, if you have no proof that he killed him intentionally, you can't say he's guilty."
....



Poor thing, she's not too bright is she.... bless her heart.
 
Perhaps, as a minority, she's torn and doesn't want her friends and others spitting out she's an uncle tom because she went along with the white jurors because we all know how blacks view other blacks who don't walk the required racism line.

Perhaps.

Perhaps it takes a racist to read such outrageous racial motivations into other people's behavior?

You really don't know anything about this woman but you seem to weight her ethnicity pretty freaking heavily, pretty much to the exclusion of anything else.

What does that honestly say about you and your judgement?

A Puerto Rican woman must be an "uncle tom" because blacks (all blacks of course) fear they'll be labeled as such if they don't "walk the required racism line"?

What the hell is the association there?

Oh yeah, Blacks are "brown", Hispanics are kinda "brown".

Makes perfect sense that they'd think alike, and that all members of both groups would think identically.

Are you off your meds or something? Raised in a cave? There has to some reasonable explanation for thinking the way you do. It can't just be that you're an ignorant racist.

My wife is Hispanic. She's perfectly capable of forming opinions without taking into consideration how all other Hispanics in particular, and how all other "minorities" in general will view her.
 
My wife is Hispanic. She's perfectly capable of forming opinions without taking into consideration how all other Hispanics in particular, and how all other "minorities" in general will view her.

Maybe your wife should have been on the jury - clearly, this juror didn't know how to think for herself.

As for the rest of your rant, I'm simply going by her words - you apparently seem to know all about me based on a few of my words but I'm not allowed to posit a theory as to why she may have chosen hers, based on her apparent weakness of character clearly demonstrated therein.

Save your fake outrage for someone who might be silenced - maybe the juror in question would be cowed into silence by your words.
 
As for the rest of your rant, I'm simply going by her words...

Are you?

Please cite in the article where it was that she said she was afraid of being percieved as an Uncle Tom because Black people always think that Blacks who don't toe the racist line are Uncle Toms and that her friends who (we have to assume) are all Black and Hispanic will probably consider her an Uncle Tom if she doesn't provide some excuse for her conflicted feelings in relation to the verdict the law and evidence forced her to hand down.

Because crazy as it may seem I didn't see her saying anything that even remotely approached that and for you to "go by her words" she would actually have had to say something similar.

So no dude, you weren't "going by her words".

You were imagining all kinds of crazy bull****.

Now, I speculated that you did so because you're either deeply ignorant or because you're a racist.

If there's some other excuse for it I'd love to hear it.

But whatever the explanation is, it most certainly is not that "you were going by her words".

Save your fake outrage for someone who might be silenced...

I don't want you to be silent.

I want you to explain yourself.

So far you're zero for one on your explanations because in order for me to believe your excuse this woman would had to have said something in that article that she plainly didn't say.

And besides, I come here for entertainment and there are few things more entertaining than watching weasles trying to weasle their way out of being weasles.

So by all means, continue making justification for your racist weasledom.

And I'll continue sitting here haking my head in a perplexed and pitying manner.
 
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Are you?

Please cite in the article where it was that she said she was afraid of being percieved as an Uncle Tom because Black people always think that Blacks who don't toe the racist line are Uncle Toms and that her friends who (we have to assume) are all Black and Hispanic will probably consider her an Uncle Tom if she doesn't provide some excuse for her conflicted feelings in relation to the verdict the law and evidence forced her to hand down.

Because crazy as it may seem I didn't see her saying anything that even remotely approached that and for you to "go by her words" she would actually have had to say something similar.

So no dude, you weren't "going by her words".

You were imagining all kinds of crazy bull****.

Now, I speculated that you did so because you're either deeply ignorant or because you're a racist.

If there's some other excuse for it I'd love to hear it.

But whatever the explanation is, it most certainly is not that "you were going by her words".



I don't want you to be silent.

I want you to explain yourself.

So far you're zero for one on your explanations because in order for me to believe your excuse this woman would had to have said something in that article that she plainly didn't say.

:yawn: - your mistake is thinking I'm a person who feels even a passing need to explain myself to you - run along and find someone else to preach to.
 
"You can't put the man in jail even though in our hearts we felt he was guilty," said the woman who was identified only as Juror B29 during the trial. "But we had to grab our hearts and put it aside and look at the evidence."

Huh?

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