14 DAY TRIAL // Former US president Jimmy Carter has commented on the controversial verdict in the George Zimmerman case.
Interviewed by 11Alive, he said straight out that he agreed with the jury's call to acquit the man who fatally shot Trayvon Martin.
As we reported previously, the Martin not guilty verdict sparked riots in California and launched a media war on racism, with celebrities and political figures weighing in.
"I think the jury made the right decision based in the evidence presented because the prosecution inadvertently set the standard so high that the jury had to be convinced that it was a deliberate act by Zimmerman and that he was not defending himself and so forth. It's not a moral question, it's a legal question," Carter says.
He doesn't exactly say that he agrees with Zimmerman's innocence, but he does hint that the prosecution has overreached with a Murder Two charge.
Had they gone for manslaughter in the first place, the story might be a lot different. They had difficulty in proving intent to kill on part of the defendant.
However, the state did present the jury with the option to convict on a manslaughter count before deliberations.
"It's a legal question and the American law requires that the jury listens to the evidence presented," Carter adds.
When asked about the role that racism played in the incident, he goes off topic and notes that there have been riots over racially charged incidents before, but we have to put them past us.
"I've seen outbreaks of this before, in California when a man was beaten up by police and when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated; there were terrible race riots.
"And I think eventually no matter how deep the emotional feelings and moral feelings might be -- with time passing, we start seeing what we can do about the present and the future and put aside the feelings about the past," the ex-president elaborates.