police beating and nearly los angeles being burnt down. 20 years after the riots, what does king think about trayvon and race and what it takes to keep america great? my exclusive interview. and julia louis-dreyfus having a ball as a vice president, but is she mocking sarah palin? i'll ask her. then only in america, a very pushy mother and the ghastly prom queen billboard for her daughter. this is "piers morgan tonight." good evening. a big story tonight, george zimmerman granted bail and perhaps hours away from freedom. the man charged with murdering trayvon martin will be released on $150,000 bond. zimmerman apologized publicly to trayvon martin's parents today and the prosecutor grilled him about it. listen to this. >> why did you wait so long to tell mr. martin them? >> i was told not to communicate with them. >> dramatic moments in court. new details in a moment. also rodney king has a lot to say about trayvon's case. in 1991 he was beating by police officers. the officers were acquitted by a mostly white jury. that set off days of riots. he is with me tonight for an interview on keeping america great, trayvon martin and what he thinks of the police today. and everyone's favorite sitcom star. on politics to her love life. we begin with our big story. george zimmerman granted bail after saying sorry to trayvon martin's parents. with me now is natalie jackson, the co-counsel for the martin family. obviously pretty dramatic day today in many ways. what was the family's reaction to george zimmerman being granted bail and also to his public apology? >> the family was prepared for george zimmerman getting a bail. we talked to them about that. so they were prepared for that. what they weren't prepared for was for george zimmerman to get on the stand and pretty much grand stand. we had talked about this yesterday. his attorney had reached out and also his attorney made media statements that george wanted to meet the family. we said this is not the proper time or place at this point. this was the first day this family has been in court and actually heard testimony and seen the killer of their son. it wasn't the proper time or place. so it's easy to conclude this apology was not for the family, it was for george zimmerman. >> i suppose looking at it from his point of view he's been heavy criticized for not apologizing to date for what he did. and he felt it was his first opportunity to do so. could you blame him for wanting to do what everyone's been screaming at him to do? >> well, the apology is for the family. and if it's for the family and they tell you it's not the proper time or place. you don't do it just because you've been criticized. that just leads to let people know it was self-serving. >> obviously the legal process is now started. the arrest happened as the family wanted. i've interviewed them several times. i know that was the main thing they want after. if we now have a trial and if george zimmerman gets acquitted, in other words a jury concludes he was acting under the stand your ground law as it stands in florida, how will the family feel about that? are they prepared for that eventuality? >> well, this family has said all along that they have full faith in the justice system. and they believe in angela corey. they believe that miss corey's ethical and knows what she's doing and the office knows what they're doing. they don't believe that miss corey would have brought this charge had she not believed zimmerman was guilty of murdering their son. that being said, once again, all along you've seen this family. this is a praying family. they trust in god. and they trust in what happens. and they also trust and believe in the justice system. and that's what this legal team has told them. so what happens is up to angela corey's office, it's up to this judge, and it's up to god. >> it was a very emotional day for the family. we could see particularly with trayvon's father. seemed to be in tears for a lot of what he was listening to. obviously very hard for them to finally come face to face with the man who killed their son. >> yeah. it was. and i will tell you. we saw an interesting dynamic today. normally sybrina fulton is the person who is the more emotional one. and today it was really hard to sit by tracy martin as he hears information about the killing of his son. and see him so full of emotion. sybrina was comforting him. >> natalie jackson, thank you very much. >> thank you. >> with me now are two former florida judges carrie mills francis and silas. you're both very aware of florida law. it seems this will all come down to the stand your ground law and its application. first let me ask you judge larry what you thought of what happened in court. george zimmerman being set on bail of $150,000. would you have expected that knowing florida law as you do? >> well, it was a discretionary call by the judge. the judge has to -- has to be proved in front of the court -- other than beyond a reasonable doubt like we have in a judge trial. here it has to be a great presumption that he's guilty of the crime. and then if there's substantial discrepancies in the evidence, the defendant has a right to bail. and here there was substantial discrepancies. but it was discretionary by the court. the judge could have ruled either way and we could have backed up the judge by our legal analysis. there's politics in the judicial system. it permeates all parts of it. as you know the judge in florida has to run for election for re-election once every six years. no one's blind to that. in america there's two systems of justice. there's one system for the black population and there's one system for the white population. and many times the black folks get a shorter end of the stick in our justice system. and i saw it when i was in juvenile court. they would make an arrest of a juvenile for a shoplifting case. where if it was a white boy committing the crime, his parents would get a phone call and not have to go through the criminal justice system. >> let me bring in judge karen then. strong words from judge larry. do you agree with what he just said? >> piers, i have been in a legal community for well over 20 years. we have so many cases set for hearing in dade county we have a judge assigned just to hear the cases. what i saw today in that courtroom was one of the most inept hearings that i have ever seen. it was very hard for me to believe that this case with all the national attention, the prosecutor calls in one detective and his first word was i didn't expect to testify today. the way the prosecutor questioned the detective, it sounded like he had been handed the file this morning. you have to remember a week or so ago, we hear angela corey tell us she did an intensive investigation. and i believe she did an intensive investigation. we got to remember the governor took this case away from the prosecutor in seminole county. he took this case away from the investigators in seminole county. that's what we heard from today. it's obvious because it's left everybody feeling they don't really have a case. i think what was very obvious is that this prosecutor didn't know about the evidence. this prosecutor doesn't know what the fbi investigation came up with. this prosecutor doesn't know anything about forensics. he tries to bring in some conflicting testimony that the defendant has given. and we couldn't hear that. there was one thing that i did hear today. we heard him say that zimmerman said trayvon had his hand on his mouth and his nose and he was able to break away, grab his gun, and shoot him. how do you account for the 12 or 15 cries for help? i have said from the beginning that this case comes down to who was crying for help on the 911 tape. the prosecutor says today we have fbi evidence about the tape. why didn't that introduce that today? 101 in law school, you learn that florida is a wide open cross examination state. what that means is you are not limited in your cross examination by what is brought out in direct testimony. this grand standing today to allow zimmerman to get on the stand and make a statement and then basically not be able to cross examine him, i have never seen that in my life. he may as well have sat on the stand and said i'm innocent. >> fascinating assessment there. for now, thank you both very much. >> i want two other attorneys to weigh in. fascinating comments i thought from the two judges who know florida well. let me start with you, if i may jeff ashton, as a former prosecutor, did they have a point there? what did you make of what they were saying? >> well, i don't really agree with at least the last commentator. it is not an usual at all for a witness -- the cross examination of a witness to be limited based on what's asked in direct. that happens every day in the courtrooms i've been in. i was not surprised judge lester did not allow free rein. i felt that this hearing was handled as i expected. i didn't expect them to present a whole lot of evidence. i expected them to present the affidavit. to correct one of the judges who just spoke, the defense called the investigator, not the prosecutor. the defense seemed very prepared to cross examine the investigator about what he said in the affidavit and why. i thought that was done very well. i felt the prosecution in this case planned on presenting as little as they needed to in order to have the arthur hearing. so i did not -- i don't agree with the last two commentators that this was somehow done incompetently. >> roy black, you've been a defense attorney for many years. would you be confident if you were defending george zimmerman now from everything you've seen, read, and heard? >> well, piers, i was really sort of shocked watching this hearing. the state gave these press conferences saying they do this very detailed examination. they charge this man with murder. yet they back it up with nothing in court. they say this man is a danger to the community. and they don't present any evidence that proves any of that. i'm very shocked that the state did not put forth any real evidence to support this charge. >> does that mean they don't have any evidence or does that mean they're holding it back for the full trial? what's your gut tell you? >> well, it may be they're holding it back. but how can you go in as an elected prosecutor saying we've charged this man with murder. not only that but we think he's a danger to the community so we ought to keep him in jail. but then not present any evidence to prove that. that's what lawyers do. our job is to come to court and present evidence to a judge in a bail hearing like this. the judge wasn't presented with any evidence that this man was a danger to the community. he wasn't presented with any real evidence that this man was guilty of murder. how do you expect a judge to do a decent job in making a ruling when you don't give him any evidence? >> yeah. it's certainly a fascinating case. today was just one of many dramatic days. and i guess we'll all just have to wait and see how this trial unravels. for now jeff ashton and roy black, thank you very much. >> thank you. it's been 21 years since another infamous case of race and violence galvanized the country. the beating of rodney king still tough to watch. a black motorist pulled over in a car chase. the officers were found not guilty. joining me now is rodney king. the trayvon martin case must bring back a lot of memories for you. and me motions. what do you feel about it? >> well, you know, i can't -- i feel that the pain that the family's going through. it brought back memories from 20 years ago. but i know that -- how the justice system works. it's a slow process, but it does work. you know what i mean? with the way the law is set in place. it's just a slow process. the most frustrating part is the wait. and because of how the law works in the country. but i don't want to jump to any conclusions. >> do you believe that race was a big factor in the trayvon martin case? do you think that george zimmerman was a racist who targeted trayvon because he was black? >> well, what i think is the laws are -- the rules are old and a lot of them are outdated. and some people who tries to be -- to get on the police's side, to be overfriendly to make themselves likable and they have a little common sense about them and they know the law. sometimes they take the law into their own hands and they take it too far. law enforcement get to a point where they say we're tired of doing our beatings. we're tired of doing the killing. we're getting blamed for it. so we're going to leave it into the citizens' hands. >> the big question for this case is would george zimmerman have shot trayvon martin if he didn't know the stand your ground law existed? >> some people know the law and they'll go right to the edge of what they can get away with. and this case is no different. this is a case where the family deserves justice. bottom line. >> what do you feel about trayvon's family? >> i feel sorry for them, man. that was just a baby. he's just a baby. i feel sorry he had to pay with his life for that type of law. it's just -- we just got to wait and see how things turn out. and just hold on to our tempers and keep our country together like we're supposed to be. but we'll get -- we got to get through it and make sure that this never happens again. i'll never be able to hold a gun. i'm a felony. so if i had a gun and i could represent myself on hold my ground, i don't know how my mind would change. i don't know. i don't know. but i know that every -- some of those rules need to be changed and especially that stand your ground law. some people shouldn't have a gun. >> i think that's true. let's come back and talk more about this. ♪ ♪ [ male announcer ] not everything powerful has to guzzle fuel. the 2012 e-class bluetec from mercedes-benz. see your authorized mercedes-benz dealer for exceptional offers through mercedes-benz financial services. 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"the riot within." time for keeping america great. it's a regular segment we run. one of the key things america has to deal with is the issue of race. and how it has moved forward from the days of '60s and '50s. still there's a sense of there's a lot of racism in this country. and that black people don't generally get a fair equality yet in this country. what do you think of that? >> you know, it's probably a whole stigma also because you got to look at the way our country was built. it was built, you know, from slavery days and the process of getting to where we are to this day, to modern day. there's always going to be some type of racism. that's up to us as individuals in this country to look back and see all the accomplishments that we have gotten up to this far. >> when you wrote the book, what are your feelings when you finished it towards the officers who did what they did to you that day 21 years ago? >> first of all, thank goodness that i stayed alive. i mean -- >> could you really believe it was happening in your country in america that you were being effectively beaten to within an inch of your life for being black, it seemed to most people. >> yeah. i mean, it happens all -- it used to happen all the time. for it to happen to me, i never thought it would happen to me. >> have you forgiven, in your mind, the policemen that did what they did? >> yeah. i've forgiven. america has forgiven me. i've been in this country all my life. it's one of the wonderful things about it is you get to have a second chance. and i've been given a second chance, you know. >> despite how awful the incident was, do you think that the whole episode and all the notoriety and attention it got, did it in a strange way benefit your life, do you think? going forward? >> oh, yes. that's what i'm saying. i'm here. if i was anywhere else in the world, i would have been dead by now or shot and killed. i wouldn't have been able to have my book out after 20 years. it took 20 years to get this far. had i been in the '50s, i wouldn't have survived through it. there wouldn't be a book writing. there wouldn't be no book. so i wouldn't have any grounds to tell my story. >> how do you feel now about the police? >> i have much respect for them. much respect. because i've been -- they've -- some of them have went out their way over the years to try to make it up to me. i say it's okay. not all of them is bad. but the ones that are just messes up the whole program of what they really trying to do. but i know that we definitely need them. i do appreciate having the police. >> it's good to see you, rodney. i'm glad you've written a book. it's a very powerful and emotional book. it tells an extraordinary book. there's no sense of self-pity or bitterness. you tell your story honestly, i think. for that it has raw power. i appreciate you coming in. >> thanks. >> and good luck with your life. next, from seinfeld to a new sitcom, julia louis-dreyfus joins us. when it comes to home insurance, surprises can be a little scary. and a little costly. that's why the best agents present their clients with a lot of options. because when it comes to what's covered and what's not, nobody likes surprises. 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