Juror B37 On George Zimmerman Verdict: 'He Was Justified In Shooting Trayvon Martin'

Juror B37 from the George Zimmerman trial spoke out on CNN about why she believed the neighborhood watchman was not guilty of murdering Trayvon Martin in February 2012. In a two-part series on “Anderson Cooper 360” Monday and Tuesday nights, the juror expressed sympathy for Zimmerman and said he had “good in his heart.”

When asked by the CNN journalist what she wants for Zimmerman she said, “I hope he gets some peace,” and added, “I hope his family can live a normal life.”

Though many in the nation are outraged that Zimmerman was acquitted, feeling he literally got away with murder, juror B37 doesn’t think he did anything wrong. “I think he told the truth, basically.”

She believes so firmly that Zimmerman didn’t do anything wrong, that to her it wouldn’t have made any difference had he taken the stand.

Cooper raised the popular theory that the prosecution overcharged Zimmerman by going for second-degree murder. But juror B37 believed so strongly in what Zimmerman did that the lesser manslaughter charge would not have yielded a conviction. “We went by the laws,” she said. “It would have turned out the same exact way.”

She wanted to find him guilty of something, she admitted to Cooper, but she couldn’t because the way the law was written, there was nothing to convict him of. “I wanted to find him guilty of not using his senses.”

As she struggled to find the right words, Cooper interjected: “It wasn’t right [what Zimmerman did], but it wasn’t against the law.”

“Exactly,” she agreed. “He wanted to do good. He had good in his heart.”

Further, when asked if Zimmerman did the right thing, she replied: “I’m 101 percent sure he should have done what he did.” Then she finished, “He was justified in shooting Trayvon Martin.”