Zimmerman Trial Juror Breaks Her Silence
MIAMI (CBS4) - Less than 48 hours after finding George Zimmerman not guilty in the death of Trayvon Martin, a juror has broken her silence.
In an exclusive interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper, Juror B37 chose to keep her identity hidden.
In silhouette, she told the CNN host being chosen for the jury was "unreal."
"Why would they want to pick me," she asked.
Juror B37, along with 5 other women, decided Zimmerman's fate after more than 15 hours of deliberations.
"I think his heart was in the right place. It just went terribly wrong," she said. "I think he's guilty of not using good judgement.
The jury found he was not, however, guilty of second degree murder or manslaughter.
Juror B37 said Zimmerman should not have gotten out of the car the night he followed Trayvon Martin in Sanford.
She went on to say she thinks the teen from Miami Gardens threw the first punch and Zimmerman had a right to defend himself.
B37 weighed in on the 911 call heard over and over again in court.
We still don't know her name, but now we know more of what was going through her mind during deliberations in the George Zimmerman trial.
"I don't think there was a doubt that everybody else thought it was George's voice," she said.
She said she did not find Rachel Jeantel, Trayvon Martin's friend and the prosecution's star witness, to be credible.
After weeks of testimony, B37 says the women were split when they first began deliberating.
"We had 3 not guilties (sic), one 2nd degree murder and two manslaughters," she explained.
She admitted the thought Zimmerman was not guilty for the get-go and said she doesn't think race played a role in the case.
The juror said their decision came down to how they read the law, confusing as it may be.
She said they tried to focus on the actual confrontation, and not the circumstances leading up to it.
"There was a couple of them in there that wanted to find him guilty of something," she said. "After hours and hours and hours of deliberating over the law and reading it over and over and over again, we just decided there's no other place to go."
She calls her time on the jury "emotional".
"We cried over it afterwards," she said, her voice cracking. "I don't think any of us could ever do anything like that ever again."
Initial reports Monday said the juror was considering writing a book, however, she has since changed her mind and is not planning to write a book.
