Mark Geragos

And if you really believed as the lawyer, still the one tactical decision that you don't get to make as a lawyer is whether to call your client or not.

I've actually gone into chambers in murder cases and said it's over my dead body that the client is taking pun intended, taking the stand.

uh in a self-defense case i've had a more than a few cases where i have a guy i had a result that was a voluntary manslaughter without the client taking the stand people i think in this case didn't understand i'm going to give the benefit of the doubt to the defense lawyer

this did not strike me ever as a self-defense case yes you invoke self-defense but it was always going to be based on what was reported unfortunately we didn't have cameras in the courtroom but based on what was reported this was always an excessive force

against whatever the push, the shove, whatever the initiation was.

If it's excessive force, then you're aiming for a reduction, that you're negating malice, you're trying to get a manslaughter.

You could argue both.

Go ahead, Mark.

The problem was, from their standpoint, as all cases, in my experience, it's over in jury selection.

When you don't have in jury selection African-Americans on that jury, it's preordained what your verdict's going to be.

I remember-

Tell me why.

I'll tell you why.

I remember during the George Zimmerman trial, in fact, Mark O'Mara still teases me.

Mark O'Mara was the lawyer for George Zimmerman.

As soon as they got that jury, and it was an all-white jury, I went public and said, the only way Zimmerman loses or O'Mara loses this case is if he falls and trips and hits his head.

Because

You are never, as a defense lawyer, going to change who the person is.

Just take a look at our political scene today.

Take a look at kind of the left versus right, Republican versus Democrat.