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| George Zimmerman smiles as attorney Mark O'Mara questions potential jurors for Zimmerman's trial in Seminole circuit court in Sanford, Fla., Thursday, June 20, 2013. Zimmerman has been charged with second-degree murder for the 2012 shooting death of Trayvon Martin. |
SANFORD, Fla.
(AP) -- A jury of six women, five of them white and the other a
minority, was picked Thursday to decide the second-degree murder trial
of George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer who says he shot an
unarmed black teenager, Trayvon Martin, in self-defense.
Prosecutors
have said Zimmerman, 29, racially profiled the 17-year-old Martin as he
walked back from a convenience store on Feb. 26, 2012, in the rain,
wearing a dark hooded shirt. Zimmerman identifies himself as Hispanic.
The race and ethnicity of the minority chosen for the jury was not immediately available.
Prosecutors
and defense attorneys chose the panel of six jurors after almost two
weeks of jury selection. In Florida, 12 jurors are required only for
criminal trials involving capital cases, when the death penalty is being
considered.
Martin's shooting death and the
initial decision not to charge Zimmerman led to public outrage and
demonstrations around the nation, with some accusing Sanford police of
failing to thoroughly investigate the shooting.
The six jurors were culled from a pool of 40 jury candidates who made it into a second round of jury questioning.
Before
selecting the jurors Thursday, defense attorney Mark O'Mara explored
potential jurors' views on whether they thought sympathy should play a
role in deciding a case. Juror B-72, a young Hispanic man, said he
wasn't affected by sympathetic people because he's never had many close
relationships.
"So when a person might seem sympathetic, to me it's indifferent," he said.
O'Mara
also asked the jurors about when they thought self-defense could be
used. Juror H-6, a white man in his 30s, said he thought deadly force
could be warranted if a person feels danger.
"I
feel that if you're somewhere you're supposed to be and allowed to be,
you should have the right to defend yourself," he said.
O'Mara met resistance from the judge when he tried to characterize the definition for justifiable use of deadly force.
Prosecutor
Bernie de la Rionda objected multiple times during O'Mara's line of
questioning, eventually leading to Judge Debra Nelson to twice read what
will be the jury instruction once the final jury is selection.
"I don't want either side to give an interpretation on the law," Nelson said.
O'Mara
said screening the prospective jurors for any biases or prejudices "is
probably as critical if not more critical than the evidence."
"If you bring that into the courtroom, then what we can't get is a fair verdict," he said.
