Potential Zimmerman Jurors Don't Have Time for the Media

Many of the potential jurors for the George Zimmerman say they don't have time for the media.

Yesterday was day 2 for jury selection and much of the day focused on what if any media the jury candidates watched or read for their news. 

If you hear that a man listens to NPR or watches Fox News Channel, can you form a view of him? Jury selection on Tuesday yielded both an NPR listener and a Fox News viewer.

The prosecution and the defense team wanted to know how possible jurors learned about the Zimmerman case and the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin. Those questioned revealed that they watch various local stations and read the Orlando Sentinel.

One woman uses the Sentinel to line the cage of her parrot or ferret -- stations couldn't agree on the animal.

She had no use for newspapers, but the potential jurors frequently said they didn't have time for the media.

Still, the media didn't hold that against the jurors.

"We learned so much today," Jean Casarez said on HLN. "Everybody is saying these are like perfect jurors almost that are being questioned." She cited the example of a man known as B7, who said he had no opinion on the case. He said it was inappropriate to form an opinion.

Mark NeJame, legal analyst for Central Florida News 13, said he was impressed by the potential jurors because they were down the middle.

"I think we're off to a good start," NeJame said. Neither side could complain that jurors had shown a bias one way or the other, he added.

A woman known as juror E6 said she used the Zimmerman case as a teaching moment for her children. She revealed that she didn't invest the energy to form an opinion. The reason: She had things going on in her life.

WFTV-Channel 9 anchor Greg Warmoth estimated that one woman of the first nine potential jurors was leaning toward the defense. Otherwise, he said, the people seemed right down the middle.

How could these people be so open-minded? Were they too good to be true?

WESH-Channel 2 legal analyst Jeff Deen theorized that people come to jury duty wanting to do the right thing. "People want to be fair. So they're trying to give answers that sound like they're going to be fair," Deen said. "They don't know that when they're doing that sometimes they sound over-anxious or too accommodating to the comfort of the attorneys."

H/T Orlando Sentinel