night bashing a fellow panelist for going on TV and leading the
country to believe she spoke for them.
Just moments after CNN aired part two of its interview with the juror
known as B37, four of her fellow members on the six-woman jury issued
a joint statement.
"We also wish to point out that the opinions of Juror B37, expressed
on the Anderson Cooper show were her own, and not in any way
representative of the jurors listed below."
The jurors added, "We ask you to remember that we are not public
officials and we did not invite this type of attention into our
lives."
In the interview aired Tuesday night, juror B37 said Trayvon "played a
huge role in his death" and that race had nothing to do with it.
The anonymous juror said she believes neighborhood watchman George
Zimmerman, who is half-Peruvian, was "justified in shooting" the
17-year-year high school student.
"I don't think race had anything to do with this trial," she told Cooper.
"I mean just because he was black and George was Spanish or Puerto
Rican, I don't think it had anything to do with this trial," she said.
"But I think people are looking for things to make race play a part."
The jury's post-trial conflict played out as U.S. Attorney General
Eric Holder said he is gunning for "Stand Your Ground" laws.
The nation's top lawman said during a speech at an NAACP convention in
Orlando that the law — which featured prominently during the murder
trial of George Zimmerman — should be reexamined and reformed.
"It's time to question laws that so dangerously expand self-defense
and sow dangerous conflict in our neighborhoods," Holder said, just
miles from the Sanford, Fla., courtroom where Zimmerman, 29, stood
trial in Trayvon Martin's death.
Stand Your Ground laws give the benefit of the doubt to the gunman if
he can prove he fired because he feared for his life. The law, which
exists in some form in more than 20 states, does not require that a
person retreat if possible — a concept Holder said is critical in
legal concepts of self-defense.
"By allowing — and perhaps encouraging — violent situations to
escalate in public, such laws undermine public safety," Holder said.
He did not comment on the Justice Department's ongoing investigation
into whether Zimmerman's shooting of Trayvon, an unarmed black teen,
was motivated by racial bias.
But Juror B37 said Zimmerman is only guilty of "not using his senses"
when he confronted Trayvon.
"I don't think he profiled him as a racial thing," the juror said. "I
think he profiled him just as someone in the neighborhood who was
suspicious."
The Rev. Al Sharpton has been one of many civil rights leaders urging
Holder to bring civil rights charges against Zimmerman, who was
acquitted Saturday of murdering Trayvon, 17.
Sharpton announced Tuesday he is organizing 100 rallies in cities
around the country to press the Justice Department to bring the
charges.
Sharpton did not say which cities are involved in the protests planned
for this weekend.
Meanwhile a tell-all book by Juror B37 — one of six unnamed women who
acquitted Zimmerman — is off the table following an outcry that she
was trying to profit from the trial and its controversial conclusion.
The anonymous juror had announced Monday through a literary agent that
she hoped to write the book that would give a behind-the-scenes look
at the trial.
The plan was scuttled after the juror gave an interview to CNN's
Anderson Cooper in which she sympathized with Zimmerman, saying his
"heart was in the right place."
"Now that I am returned to my family and to society in general, I have
realized that the best direction for me to go is away from writing any
sort of book and return instead to my life as it was before I was
called to sit on this jury," the juror said in a statement Tuesday.
Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, authorities remained on guard for further
rowdy protests after about 150 people split off from a demonstration
Monday night and ran through the streets, committing vandalism and
assaults and stopping traffic. Fourteen people were arrested.
With News Wire Services
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