Carter said he agrees with the current president and accepts the jury’s decision. Carter: Zimmerman jury 'right'

The jury made the “right decision” in the George Zimmerman murder trial, former President Jimmy Carter said Tuesday.

“I think the jury made the right decision based on 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 that he was not at all defending himself, and so forth,” Carter told Atlanta news channel WXIA. “It’s not a moral question, it’s a legal question and the American law requires that the jury listens to the evidence presented.”


Carter said he agrees with President Barack Obama and accepts the jury’s decision. “So President Obama said he thought - it was — he regretted the decision, but he had to accept the results of the jury decision,” Carter said.

( PHOTOS: George Zimmerman trial)

In a statement released after the verdict, Obama called Trayvon Martin’s death a tragedy “for America.”

“But we are a nation of laws, and a jury has spoken,” the statement said, although it didn’t mention anything about Obama regretting the decision as Carter suggested.

When asked if the trial says something about the state of racial relations in the United States, Carter said he feels America will put aside the feelings about the past.

( PHOTOS: Trayvon Martin rallies)

“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,” Carter said.

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