>> jury b, 76, this is your verdict. yes. >> juror b, 37, is this your verdict? >> he y juro juror b51, is thisr verdict. juror e6, is this your verdict? >> yes. >> juror e40, is this your verdict? >> yes. ladies, i wish to thank you for your time and consideration of this case. i also wish to advise you of some very special privileges enjoyed by jurors. no juror could ever be required to talk about the discussions that occurred in the jury room except by court order. for many centuries, our society has relied upon juries for consideration of difficult cases. we have recognized for hundreds of years that a jury's deliberations, discussions, and votes should remain their private affair as long as they wish it. therefore, the law gives you the unique privilege not to speak about the jury's work. although you are at liberty to speak with anyone about your

deliberations, you're also at liberty to refuse to speak to anyone. a request to discuss either your t spv come from those who are simply curious, from those who might seek to find fault with you, from the media, from the attorneys, or elsewhere. it will be up to you to decide whether to preserve your privacy as a juror. is there anything we need to take up with the jury before they're sent back to the jury room to be discharged? >> no, your honor. >> no, your honor. thank you. >> ladies, thank you very much. you'll be taken back to the jury room to be discharged. >> the verdict in the george zimmerman murder trial is not guilty. for all of our cable viewers on fox newschannel and our broad cast viewers on fox across the nation, this is the trial we have been watching now for weeks. mr. zimmerman. we were wondering which way this would go.

17-year-old trayvon martin killed february 26th, 2012. the man you see there, 29-year-old george zimmerman, said it was in self defense. he was a neighborhood watchman, and he felt threatened by a young man he had seen and followed. and now, he has been acquitted by this jury. i understand that we have greta van sustren by phone. are you with us? >> i am, harris. i've got you. >> your thoughts on this? >> well, it's extraordinary. i've been in that position where you're waiting for a verdict. i can tell you it's sort of a happy bittersweet night for the defendant because his wife and the parents, of course, the family of trayvon martin, they are deeply disstressed by this. you know, this is not a great night for anybody, but i can tell you having stood next to someone in the courtroom and getting a verdict of not guilty, you know, as a trial lawyer, that's what you're supposed to do. you're supposed to fight for the constitution and the state or the federal government on the other side of this and everyone,

you know, everyone worked really hard and it's very difficult tonight for everybody, for the family of both the defendant and the decedent, so this is not a night for anyone to be jubilant. we've now seen our justice system work, you know. everyone wanted to see justice. both sides a had an equal opportunity to present evidence, and the jury has now spoken. we should all respect the verdict. >> you know, greta, we're watching live pictures as we talk with greta van susteren by phone. a couple of things strike me. in the beginning of this, the judge said no outburst upon reading of the verdict, and there was not one, but as you look at george zimmerman, we'll go back to him for certain. as you look at george zimmerman, he smiled a bit, subdued. this has got to be exhausting for him as well, but you're right. i mean, there's not a huge amount of celebration in all this. this has been tough all along for everybody involved, and now for trayvon martin' trayvon mart had pushed so hard for authorities to get charges in

this case. you mentioned justice has been done. a jury has made this decision. >> this is important for everybody no matter what a verdict is, harris, that both sides agreed this jury was the jury to decide it. >> yes. >> they both had a chance to ask all the jurors, and both sides agreed that these six people, these 6 women could be fair. they could weigh the evidence. both sides had equal opportunity. this is the way our system, you know, we don't have mob justice. this is the way it's supposed to work whether you like the verdict or not. you know, i just hope that there is calm among the community, those who may not like the verdict. in fact, you know, maybe those who don't like the verdict may not have even seen the trial, but you know, the lesson here is that we should all respect it, and this is what we with said before the verdict. we should be saying this afterwards, but very, very difficult night tonight for the family, and even very difficult for george zimmerman and his family as well, believe it or not, even though it could have

been a lot worse for them. >> you know, real quickly, greta, i'm could you areius because legal critics of the case said the prosecution had an uphill battle. they didn't have a lot of evidence to work with. the defense, you know, has basically been the strongest witnesses in kind of a totality type situation. is this something that you would have prehe dicted happening? >> you know, lawyers don't pick their facts. the prosecution didn't go out and look for a lousy case. the facts are what the facts are. i mean, i don't fault -- i mean, i may have made different strategic decisions with the lawyers and they probably would disagree with me on both sides of the aisling, but these are the facts as presented. i was actually surprised that the prosecution laid out so many facts as they did. they were not very tactical, and they wanted the jury to hear all the evidence. they're the ones who put on the video tape of george zimmerman when he did the reenactment the night after the shooting. the prosecution put that tape in. the defense actually couldn't

have put that tape in. the fact that the jury saw it was because of the prosecution. the defense because of evident evidentiary rules, because of the rules, they couldn't have done it. you don't pick your evidence, and you know, i hope that the prosecutors, you know, walk out of there with their heads high and the defense lawyers as well because they did their jobs, both sides. >> you know, as our viewers watched this, they're watching george zimmerman and his family, and his legal defense team walk out of that courtroom. what happens now, greta? he goes back to his life. he is a free man tonight. what is the protocol at this point legally? >> he is absolutely free. i think he's got an ankle bracelet on, and he has a curfew. well, that curfew now is gone. he's as free as you and i are, harris. he's 100% free. what happens next depends a lot on how much the community backs him. this is a very high profile case, and almost sort of a toxic case because people -- there's so much passion involved in it.

it's going to take some time to heal, but right now i suspect he'll go in another room and sit with his lawyers and talk for a little while. hhe just got hit with this. they had no idea what the verdict was going to be. he was probably mentally prepared for both. had he been convicted, the judge probably in most likelihood would have locked him up on the spot. he never would have seen the light of day if it's murder 2. if it's myrtle 1. it would be 10 to 30 years before he got out again, if he lived that long. he had no idea what was going to happen. it will take a little while to digest what happened. clearly they're happy with the verdict as they should be. it could have been a lot worse. let me remind everybody. these are not good stories for everybody. trayvon martin, the young man, his life was ended, so you know, there's great sadness in all of these trials, but the great happiness that we should have is that there was a trial, both sides had a chance to air all the facts, and they both -- and

the jury decided that they both agreed it was a jury that would be fair, so that's where we take our bow. >> greta, i want to get your perspective on something rieg now the. i don't know if you're where you can watch the television screen. >> i can see i it. >> you can see what we're watching? >> i saw this yesterday when it was starting to pick up a bit. it's a lot more. this is not a giant crowd, but any time you get a group of people together who are upset, they're liable to rev each other up. yesterday you could feel when the jury was deliberating. >> it was pal panel, yo palpabl. >> i spr" i was uncomfortable but i wasn't worried, you know. i love the exercise of the first amendment provided there's no violence. when you get a situation where there was a lot of passion, you're word it's more than -- you're worried its more than exercise of the first amendment. what i regret as a lawyer is that trials are decided in the courtroom. it's not a sporting event where you're supposed to pick sides,

your team or not. i regret when i hear lawyers say anything or anyone, any politician saying anything before we heard the facts. i regret if anyone is critical of the jury because those are the people that were selected. it's almost insulting to them, you know. here we draft them to be jurors, we say you're the ones everybody agree will with be fair. you're the ones to do the job and afterwards when it's all over, some people trash them and say they're wrong. >> these people gave up a chunk of their period of lives to be able to render justice in this case with their verdict. greta van sustren, thank you so very much for standing by with us tonight. we didn't know how long this would go. i mean, there were people who were saying oh, no, no, no. it will wrap up by noon. it took many more hours. we have a verdict in the george zimmerman murder trial. it's acquittal for the 29-year-old man who was accused in the case. greta, thank you very much. >> thank you, harris. standing by is shaun hannity. he's been all over the case.

you're with us by phone? hey, harris, how are you. i've been watching all night like everybody else. >> yeah, just trying to digest what's going on. i want to ask you, sean. we're looking outside, very calm. i have to say that law enforcement down in florida had telegraphed that this might be a situation that they needed to get basically riot gear ready for, but that judge said not an outburst in the courtroom. everybody towards the end of the trial was recognizing and saying that, in fact, the prosecution had an incredibly weak case. there were a lot of i go regulators going into this case. there was no grand jury, a lot of politics surrounding this. i don't think the charges would have been brought. the police chief, bill lee, you know, he wasn't going to bring charges because there wasn't evidence. i'll tell you why the jury,

first of all, you've got to give the jury a lot of credit here. the fact that they asked for all of the evidence, they asked for clarify if clarification on thef manslaughter. that tells me they were being extraordinarily thorough. they took a lot of time, didn't give up, they worked through dinner, but there are three factors here that this was the only and inevitable decision they had to come to. i'll tell you what they are. jury instructions said as relates to the law in florida about the justifiable use of deadly force. that was an issue here, if george zimmerman acted in self defense. a person is justified in using deadly force if he reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent not only imminent death but great bodily harm to himself. when you couple that with the testimony of the eyewitness in this case, john good, who lived right outside the area where this happened, and he was the

witness that talked about mma style ground and pound, straddling. >> a very credible witness. >> probably the most important witness in this case, and then you also couple with that the physical evidence. now, even though injuries weren't necessary for somebody to claim justifiable use of force, the injuries corresponded, corroborated exactly what john good saw and the words of george zimmerman both in my interview and in the walk that he had with the police department the day after the incident happened and without a lawyer at the time. so this was the only real -- if we're going by the law, this was the only real just verdict that the jury could have come to, but they gave great deliberation, consideration, they were thorough. the system worked this time. >> you now, sean, i think there was a lot of pressure for them

to do that. i think when their first question was an evidence list and you've got to wonder they went into deliberation and nobody gave them a list of evidence, they wanted more detail on that evidence because they also, i'm sure, are quite aware of the impact socially and nationally that this decision would have no matter what it would be, so i think that the onus was on them to make sure they were thorough. you said a couple of things. i want to touch on john good and point out the prosecution called john good, that star witness for the defeats h defense. part of that was strategy, right? they figured they could get a jump on him but he really did a lot of damage to their side. >> but i would argue that almost every single person that they brought up as their witnesses, the prosecution, worked to their detriment and helped the defense. it was very interesting because mark o'mara in his closing argument said i don't have to make this case, we don't have to prove our innocence, that the burden remains and always will remain on the prosecution side, but let me go through this evidence anyway, and at one

point when he pulled in the cement and said this is a weapon. now, i noticed tha a couple of things. the prosecution, because their case i argued was so weak that there was a lot of dots that you would have to connect. well, that's innuendo. that's not evidence. the three main factors in this case is the law, the justifiable use of force law, the eyewitness john good that placed trayvon on top of george zimmerman, ground and pound, and the third factor here is the injuries that are consistent with both george zimmerman's story and with john good, the eyewitness. >> i would throw in one other thing. >> sure. >> if i could piggy back on your top three. i'd maybe add this one. when the jurors asked for clarification on manslaughter, they never answered the judge back with more detail, specifically what do you want to know. that's what she wanted to know from them in response. that was an indication to our earlier analysts who were on set with me at the time who said well, that would indicate that they're looking at self defense,

that tha they may be looking at that. then you have to wonder. the defense, did they really make a great case for self defense? it looks like now they really did. >> well, and again, i think all of those factors, i would agree with everything you said, and again, the law is very, very clear in this. the other thing is the law goes even a little bit further and when it says that the danger facing george zimmerman not even have been actual or real but the appearance of danger must have been so real in that moment that a cautious and prudent person under the same circumstances would have believed that the danger could be avoided only through the use of force. it was a very specific instruction. it is the law in florida, and to me, and i've been saying this on the air, this was a classic case of self defense. >> sean hannity joining us by phone tonight with his perspective. you've covered this case from the beginning. sean, we're breaking away from our discussion for second

because the prosecution is speaking. let's watch and literature. >> due process for george zimmerman, that we would get all of the facts thanked details of this very difficult case before a jury and that we chose to do it that way because we felt that everyone had a right to know everything about this case. that for a case like this to come out i in in bits and pieces serves no good to no one. as mr. guy told the jury yesterday, to the living we owe respect, to the dead, we 0 the e truth. we've been respectful to the living, we've done our best to assure due process to all involved, and we believe that we brought out the truth on behalf of trayvon martin. there are so many people to thank starting with sheriff eslinger and his entire sheriff's office. they've been so good to us as has michelle kennedy and all of

the people here. as you know, we traveled from our own circuit to be here. that has not been easy, but it's been made so much the better by having so many people be gracious. you have respected our privacy, you the media, because we said after the press conference that we were going to try this case in the courtroom, not in the media. we appreciate your respecting our privacy in doing that. i have an amazing team of lawyers, paralegals and investigators who put their lives on hold and with me accepted the governor's assignment to take on this difficult investigation and this difficult case, and i'm so proud to stand here with them and to be part of the historical aspect of this case to show that the american justice system can and should only be done in a court

of law. i don't believe it helps anyone for us to be out espousing opinions about our cases, and i think as you see, we put this case in front of a jury, and that leads me to thanking the jury for the 16 hours of deliberation that they took to go over all of the facts and circumstances. what we always believed was that this was a case of details that had to be analyzed very, very carefully. i never could quite understand people, even people with law degrees, who had not read all of the police reports, who had not read all of the witness statements, yet who came up with ans approximate onopinions one . this team of people standing with me, who stand with me every day in the fourth circuit and try tough cases like this all the time knew that we had to do the best to get the entire facts and details of this case out and

before a jury. i think this jury worked very hard. which honor them for their service. judge nelson worked very hard. we want her to know we appreciate all she did to keep this case on course, and of course, our hearts as always, go out to our victim's family and to all victims of crime. but as long as they know that there will always be prosecutors fighting for truth, i think that victims will continue to rely on this justice system. i'll turn it over. bernie, would you like to say a few words? >> i want to thank you all for respecting our privacy. i am disappointed, as we are with the verdict, but we accept it. we live in a great country that has a great criminal justice system. it is not perfect, but it's the best in the world, and we respect the jury's verdict. >> john? >> i also like to thank you for

your time and attention that you've given this case. both sides are deserving of your attention. we have from the beginning just prayed for the truth to come out and for peace to be the result, and that continues to be our prayers. we believe they have been answered. >> rich? >> >> i'd just like to say to the family of the dead teenager, trayvon martin, that i appreciate the way they've handled this matter. they've been dignified. they've showed class. they've kept their pain in check when they needed to, and they've griefd when they needed to. i think they handled it like ladies and gentlemen. it can't have been easy, and it won't be easy. so i ask that i know you all have a job to do, but when you approach all of that, keep them in mind, too. thank you. >> i also want to thank the

thousands of people who sent prayers our way, held us in their thoughts through the this entire process. we got a lot of encouragement from a lot of people. again, this is something that we do in our circuit. we try a lot of murder cases. we never know what a jury is going to do. we go into every case putting our best case forward and leaving it in their hands, and that's what we did in this case. is it appropriate to take questions? > [ inaudible ] >> we charge what we believe we cap prove based on our florida standard jury instructions and based on the facts of the case. so that's why we charged second degree murder. we truly believe that the mindset of george zimmerman and the words that he used and the reason he was out doing what he was doing fit the bill for second degree murder. second degree murder is a general intent crime unlike first degree murder which

requires specific intent and sort of a design -- i'm sorry. i wasn't finished with my answer. i didn't finish my answer. and so because it's a general intent crime, you look at the way the crime is committed. it doesn't have to be between two people who know each other. [ inaudible ] >> i think one of the greatest challenges we face is taking over a case that's already being investigated for as long as it was before we stepped in and were able to start conducting our own investigation. it was a challenge, but it's one we took when the governor assigned this case to us, and we did everything we possibly could. yes, ma'am. i'm sorry. would you just let me know? >> you've been watching the prosecution's reaction to a not guilty verdict against 29-year-old george zimmerman. their case did not hold up in

court, and they've lost on this. angela corey is the state's attorney in florida's fourth circuit court, and so what she's doing is she's expressing obviously her disappointment but also talking about the fact that she thought they did their duty to bring this case forward. you saw her joined there by the prosecutor. bernie spoke 30 words or fewer. he's been very vocal during the course of the case and trial, and very animated, i guess is a fair word to say about him. i want to also just let everybody know if you're just joining us here on fox news channel and our broadcast stations on fox, a verdict has been reached after about 15 or 16 hours of deliberation in sanford, florida in the george zimmerman murder trial. the death of 17-year-old trayvon martin last february 2012, was a shooting. george zimmerman said all along he shot and killed him, it was self defense. it wh would appear in the jury's

verdict they agreed with that. we knew potentially earlier in the evening that second degree murder had been wiped away because they had a question for the judge about the manslaughter charge. they wanted some clarif clarifin on that. we never got to see the back and forth between the jury pool and the judge because before we knew it, they had a verdict. i want to go to some live guests on set in studio h for us, and they were with me earlier during fox report, but before we do that, we're going to ask you to stay tuned here on fox news channel and our fox station broadcast across the country for continuing coverage of the story. i'm harris faulkner in new york. we'll take a quick pause. we will return back to our programming and stick with the story here on fox newschannel. so we have judge alist and mercedes -- alex and mercedes

colwin standing by. in the meantime, i'm told that the prosecution is speaking again. let's watch and listen. >> complicated concept, but it a schedule that is included which is why we requested it. the judge gives what he she believes is appropriate, and that is how we try cases. >> can you talk about florida stand your ground law and whether the changes in the law in 2005 affected the facts in this case and whether this case could have been won perhaps prethe changes in the law. >> well, justifiable use of deadly force has changed to a certain extent. stand your ground is the procedural mechanism, as we call it, where we full expected because of what we were hearing that the defense would request a stand your ground hearing, and we would have put on the same evidence. it would have been in front of just a judge instead of a jury. the duty to retreat aspect actually had sort of disappeared before stand your ground kicked

in. you're talking about the castle doctrine, basically, and then how that got extended into public areas? yes, it's a very complicated and difficult area of the law. i think i did allude to that pretty specifically when we first announced the charges. justifiable youth use of deadlye is one of the most difficult areas of the law and one of the most difficult affirmative defenses to which we respond in our criminal cases. yes. >> in the beginning of this case as you know, the country felt that there was such a strong likelihood that you would prove that that voice was trayvon's and then obviously things turned around. talk about that voice tape, and also any other evidence that you thought was strong and what happened to it and how it affected you. >> what was convincing to us when we listened to the tape is that the screams stopped the moment the shot is fired. that's the kind of common sense evidence that prosecutors rely on every day.

that scream stopped when the shot is fired. we always believed after hearing that tape that it was trayvon martin. >> piggy backing off that, was that the argument or one of the key ones you thought you had to win with, who was screaming for help? maybe it was the severity of george zimmerman's injuries? did you feel you had to win those and you didn't? >> you know, that's another interesting point. people said why didn't we produce the photograph of george zimmerman's injuries, the blood on the back of his head? one of the reasons is because we didn't also produce the picture of his physician's assistant who said the cut was this big. when you put together a case, you have to an lose all of it, not just what was going on at the time of the crime. so those injuries we believe did not rise to great bodily harm. children across this country, athlete get injuries like that every day and go right back into the game or their parents kiss them after they've fallen off their bikes and though go right back in. i'm not trying to minimalize

this, but we did not believe that com what the statements wee that were made by george zimmerman comported with injuries of great bodily harm, and one of the other key pieces of evidence as kristi asked earlier was we don't believe that he could have been straddled and had the gun on that inside back hollister and gotten it out a if he was truly being beaten at the time the shot was fired. that's another key element in our decision to file charges. yes, ma'am. >> hi. lisa lucas, new york daily news. >> let's talk about rachel's testimony. were you disappointed in the testimony and do you think that damaged the case. >> lisa, we deal with witnesses to our homicides on a regular basis who are sometimes friends of the defendant, who are sometimes friends of the victim. a lot of them may or may not be educated. a lot of them may or may not have good memories. eye witnesses and ear witnesses come with just a realm of issues, and so you can't say

that you're disappointd in them as long as you've asked them to take the stand and tell the truth and you believe that your witnesses have done that. >> yes, sir. i'm sorry. i keep -- i apologize for messing up the protocol. i apologize. yes, ma'am. >> i'm barbara liston. you said earlier one of the greatest challenges of this case was taking over an investigation that had been handled by another agency for so long. >> yes. >> are you saying that the sanford police department messed up this case. >> absolutely not. >> would it have been different if you had handled it from the beginning? >> absolutely not. what i'm talking about is the burden that it put on us to come in after the fact. the way we work shootings in our jurisdiction is we work side by side with the police from the time of the shooting. that's not a criticism of anybody. it just made it more difficult for us than what we're used to. no. i think during the press conference i told you all that we believe the sanford police did everything that they could that night. let me remind people again that

when a citizen does a shooting and it's not in the commission of a felony, a full-blown felony like they're being robbed, they're being raped, it's sort of an encounter that happens like this in mutual territory. those are a lot more difficult, and we have to look at those very carefully. jusjustifiable use of deadly foe is a defense we look at when police officers have to take a life or have to apply deadly force, when citizens have to do it, and when it happens inside their dwelling or inside the store that they own or during the commission of a forcible felony. that is so much easier of a decision to make. when two people are on mutual ground and make no mistake about it, trayvon had every much as right to be on the premises that they were on as did george zimmerman. ithat then goes to all the facts and circumstances min behind the

case. that's why this case was unique in that sense, and that's why it was difficult. >> once you found out you could not determine who started that cob frontation, why did you decide to go forward because isn't that a key point of a case like this? >> i'll let bernie answer that. >> i think we have to go back to the beginning. who was following who? it really boiled down to a kid mining his own business being followed by a stringr. i would submit that's when it started. i don't know if that answered your question or not. that's not the theory. that's the facts. the jury honestly disagreed at

-- obviously disagreed at some point. you'll be able to inquire them of what they thought. it boils down to you have a 17-year-old kid, minding his observownbusiness, wearing a hos accosted, followed by an individual who wants to be a cop. >> i do want to mention one more thing. this case has never been about race nor has it ever been about the right to bear arms. not in the sense of proving this as a criminal case, but trayvon martin was profiled. there is no doubt that he was profiled to be a criminal. and if race was one of the aspects in george zimmerman's mind, then we believe we put out the proof necessary to show that zimmerman did profile trayvon martin, but the right to bear arms is the right in which we all believe. i especially believe in that right. what we want is responsible use when someone feels they have to

use a gun to take a life. their use and we believe thatn this case all along was about boundaries and that george zimmerman exceeded those boundaries. yes, ma'am. i'm sorry. yes. >> just a quick question for you. you mentioned you're disappointd in today's verdict. can you talk a little bit? you guys put a lot of effort, a lot of time, grueling schedule, 17 months. talk a little bit about that frustration. >> well, let me make sure i say it clearly. i respect the jury's verdict. this is no criticism of the jury verdict. i expect believe whole heartedly that we live in the greatest country of the world. i'm disappointed. i've been trying a lot of cases. i tried 300 cases, 80 something murder cases. this is only my second murder case that i've lost. am i disappointed? yes. i thought he was guilty. what matters is what the jury said and i accept it.

i don't know if that answered your question. >> could i get your impression of the 2005 expansion of the florida self defense statutes? does this make your job harder? >> you know, self defense has existed for a long time, and we've dealt with it in jacksonville for a long time. i personally have tried 10 or 15 self defense cases. they're tough cases, but we accept them. the law really hasn't changed that much. stand your ground was a big thing. really, the law hasn't changed. we believe in the right to bear arms and the right to self defense. we felt in this case it was not appropriate. >> hi. john guy talked about the fact that this was going to be a verdict that sent a message and this was going to be about what happens when a guy follows a young child and then shoots him. can you tell me what you think about what this verdict means to the nation and what it says? >> yeah. i don't believe i ever said it was going to send a message.

i mean, criminal cases are about defendants and victims. you know, most instances like this one are a one on one confrontation. it was a determination about what happened between those two individuals. i certainly didn't mean to character eyes this as sending a message outside the courtroom. >> one more question. >> this question is about ben. since testifying in that pretrial hearing about discovery evidence, we understand he was terminated. can you talk to us about why he was terminated from your office? >> i believe we have released a letter that detailed why he was terminated, and again, we want to keep the focus on what we promised 15 months ago which was to get all of the facts of this case in front of a jury or in front of a judge if it had been a stand your ground hearing. i believe that's what we've done. i believe the focus needs to be on how the system works and how now everyone in this country because of you all, because of

you all covering this case, can say that they know the facts that were allowed in front of the jury and now they know and can make up their own minds about the guilty of george zimmerman and know that this jury gave it a lot of time and attention. i don't think anybody will tell you that they don't appreciate how much the jury did. one more thing that i did forget to mention earlier is when you asked about second degree murder, remember that the definition of that is an act or a series of acts, and we beliee the series of acts of mr. zimmerman and what he did leading to trayvon martin's death were why we were able to 2350eufile second degree murder. i'm sorry, jackie. was that the last question? again, we want to thank all of you. we want to thank all the people who sent prayers our way. we want to thank again the people of seminole county for allowing us to come here and try this case. god bless you, and we do ask for peace and for privacy to the

extent that trayvon martin's family wants that privacy. thank you very much. >> and we have been watching here on fox news channel the prosecution following the george zimmerman acquittal. tonight inside that courtroom in sanford, florida. i'm harris faulkner. you're watching us live now from fox news headquarters in new york. angela story is the state's attorney down in florida's fourth district. she was explaining why they prosecuted this case and then taking some pretty heated and tough questions about why they lost, and you saw bernie, the prosecutor who was very vocal during the trial get up and talk. i'm hearing we're going to hear from the defense. >> he was okay with me reading this message to you so we want to take a minute just to acknowledge. not only the court system and of course what judge nelson did and making sure this trial got moved forward and to a good

conclusion, but i don't think that anybody here realizes what effort was put into by the sheriff's office and sanford police department to make sure that everything that we had to do in this case was done properly, and it was done in a way to ensure the safety of the community. if you would indulge me for a minute, you'll notice in my arguments, if not in my letter as well. i want to take a moment to express my and my team's sincere thanks and appreciation for the way that your organization has handled the george zimmerman matter. i also want to get this letter to you before the verdict. this is july 8th, last week, because i did not want its message to be impacted one way or the other by the eventual outcome. i know your involvement preceded my involvement back on april 2012 and you used the entirety of your department's resources to properly address the reality of where this case was. while i understand i'm unaware of most of the work your department has done, i'm very

aware of at least some of the results. i always want to stand by virtue of the confidential nature of the efforts. you'll never receive true recognition for the unsign work that ensured each positive result. i have what i perceive to be a unique perspective on the county wide impact on this case and your responses to it. the integrity and the dedication that you and the entire sheriff's office has brought to this difficult and complex situation has in large part helped direct it towards a more rational and peaceful unfolding. i'm not sure what the next couple of weeks may bring, but i am coqfident that you'll continue to protect your county, it sideses citizens, and it's te institution, particularly the now often asailed judicial system. i also want to express my heart felt gratitude the way you handled me and my team throughout the difficult times. the men and women of your department have treated all members in the prosecution in a completely professional and rft

respectful way. it's been such an organized and seamless manner that your presence went almost completely unnotice $. what i have noticed is your department's calm certainty that they know what to do, how to do it, and how to protect all of those involved including the process while accomplishing their task. personally, this made my job much easier because i can focus my team's efforts on the proper presentation of our case without concerns for outside influences or logistic cal concerns. we come to the courthouse every day knowing that you have that covered. i doe h do know not what awardsd commendations are available for your department in handling these events, but i'm certain you have the vote of every member of my team, the prosecution's team, the jicialg staff and every citizen who has interacted with your department in this case. thanks again. anyway. i just thought that was appropriate because both sheriff eslinger and sanford pd have done an amazing job in making

this process peaceful and successful. having said that, we appreciate the jury's time and effort. we really do. they spent an enormous amount of time during the trial listening. it was very intent. i mentioned at one point that some jurors had to wake them up by shoutin shouting or dropping. not this you are j. they listened, they took notes, and they were as engaged as everybody else in the process. it made for the type of verdict that we had to have which was a verdict that listened to all available facts. not all the facts but all the available facts, the evidence, the law, and the timed consideration that the jury gave to it before making that final decision. obviously we are eck stalt i can with thecstatic withthe results. george zimmerman was never guilty of anything except for protecting himself and self defense. i'm glad the jury saw it that way. i hope that everyone who thinks, especially those who doubted

george's reason and doubted his background now understand that the jury knew everything that they knew was enough for them to find him not guilty. you know even more than the jury knows about both parties' past and we know that george is the type of individual from what you know and his involvement in his community that this was not a unique event for george to try and be involved with his community, to be involved with the police when necessary. i'm just glad that the jury saw it that way. very, very happy with the result. thank you. >> sometimes i can be a little more blunt. i think the prosecution of george zimmerman was disgraceful. i am gratified by the jury's verdict as happy as i am for george zimmerman, i'm thrilled that this jury kept this tragedy from becoming a traffi travesty.

for that we are eternal grateful. it makes me sad it took this long under these circumstances to finally get justice. >> sure. absolutely. >> i have a question for you, mr. west. this case became a little personal, some threats made to your family, things got heated between you and judge nelson. can you talk about what this was like for you, this trial, these last few weeks just personally he. >> sure. stop me if you've heard this one before. no. i'm not going to talk about that. this trial is about george zimmerman, not about pictures of

ice cream cones. i'm sorry i'm not going to tell the story better, but there's an important point. there needs to be a disconnect, frankly, a disconnect from an act that was hard to follow. i knew, mr. o'mara nude knew, au all soon knew that it was just an act. i couldn't follow that act with all that passion and glaring and staring. unlike what miss corey said, they brought the facts, they didn't. anybody knew who watched this trial knew that the defense put on the case. we proved george zimmerman was not guilty. so no, i won't talk about it. thank you. >> ben montgomery, tampa bay times. can you give us any insight into mr. zimmerman's state of mind upon hearing the verdict? >> i don't know exactly how you can feel when you're in trauma and stress for 16 months and he's very, very happy with the result, obviously. it's just a rea release, an

emotional release, an endorphin release, and it will occur when he's with his family and he doesn't need to come back to the courthouse tomorrow or ever again unless he wants to. i think he is going to be great. i think he's still worried. hopefully everyone will respect the jury's verdict as they should and most have said they would, and we'll take it day by day. he's doing good. >> this is grace long. i know this is a yes or no question, but i want you to expand on it after i ask the question. was this a fair fight for you? >> let me say it this way. i need to apologize to every public defender in the state for this reason. i said that the way that we would treat it in the discovery process and the fights that we

had to go through in the discovery process made me think that maybe the prosecution thought they were dealing with a couple of young overworked public defenders, and that insulted public defenders. john west was one. i learned my craft from public defenders because when i was a prosecutor, that's who i learned from. so to the extent there was some insult there, i apologize for it. what i meant to say was that it seemed as though the prosecution is used to getting away with some of what they got away with with the enormous demands they put upon us to try and get discovery that in 30 years of experience i've always gotten on the table right up front. so yes, it was a fight that we had to fight. they outfunded us. they made it extraordinarily difficult. if only we had the time back that it took us to fight for the stuff, the information, the discovery, the just results that we had to fight for, this case might have been tried six months ago and certainly i wouldn't have had the hundreds and

hundreds of hours wasted in a situation where they never should have made us waste time. was it fair? you know, it was a little bit david and goliath, but we won. >> george had a very good poker face on when the verdict came in. at what point did he express his gratitude to you and how excited he was to finally be able to go home? >> i think what we discussed with him before hand, it was after every sort of left the room when you can actually show a little more emotions. when you have an emotional outpouring like that, sometimes you get that on a camera or something like that, it's not what you want to see. he certainly thanked us, obviously. he was final able to emote as he came to the realization that he truly is done. >> lisa lucas, new york daily news. i'd like to ask you what you feel was your best moment and your weakest moment and ask the same of you to say that for the prosecution.

>> i think the best moment was when they said not guilty. i dii think that was probably te best moment right then. >> i grie with that. >agree with that.>> during the ? >> during the trial. if you haven't heard of trial hypnosis, i'll explain it to you. i absolutely believe every time i open my mouth, it was a great moment. nobody else thought so, but i always did. it was -- it's a trial. it's where we live. really, it's like a surgeon being in surgery. it's where you want to be, it's what you want to do, so i would -- everything that we did was for the purpose and a plan. most of it worked out how we wanted, every motion we filed, every argument we made. it's just what we do as decent trial lawyers. >> lisa lamb kin, nbc news. a couple of legal questions. one is speaking about the state attorney's office, now that you've gotten the not guilty verdict you wanted, are you still going to pursue the

sanctions, number one, and then second of all, hopefully not upsetting your wife because i'm sure you're going to need a vacation, but how are you going to address the civil aspect of this now as far as the stand your ground and keeping george zimmerman from being liable. >> sure. the sanctions hearing is to be set. there's not only that, but of course the state is then responsible for a lot of the costs that we've incurred to acquit george zimmerman runningo we're going to have hearing on that as well. we're not quite done yet. on the civil aspect, if someone believes it's appropriate to sue george zimmerman, then we will seek and we will get inmenuty in a civil hearing. we'll see how many civil lawsuits are spawned from this fiasco. >> what happens to -- it's kind of a basic follow up.

what happens now to mr. zimmerman? are we going to hear from him? whawhat does he do now, where ds he go? what's next for your client? >> i don't know what you do after 16 months of this. i'm really not >> i'm not sure, i think you have to go somewhere and relax, and get your bearings back, you know, i think that he would like to, once he settles in, let you know who he really is, since that could only be told through us and that, even that, quite limited. i think if he could wave a wandewand, he would bring his life back. i know it's compared to a life lost forever, and i understand that maybe now the jury has found that he acted in self defense we can give him the idea

that he needs to get on with his life. >> i have a two-part question. the first part is, the prosecution raised this question of whether the outcome would be different if the races of the defendant and the victim were different. do you think it would have been different in george zimmerman was black and the other part of my question is, does he fear for his safety? have precautions been made surrounding his security? >> i think the things would have been different if george zimmerman would have been black, for this reason, he would never have been charged with a crime. it seemed that the event that was looked into by sanford police department and now as we know, looked into quite well. i have taken advantage of the police departments that have not done a good investigation of crim do for a living. when i looked into this investigation, they had done quite a good job and you can compare what they did across the country to see who does good or

bad jobs with their investigation, but they were doing quite a lo-- doing quite lot. what happened it was -- they decided that george zimmerman would be the person to blame and sort of use as the creation of a civil rights violation none of which was born out by the facts. the facts that night, was not born out that he acted in a racial way. the mystery is a nonracist and you know, all the things about the children living in his home, when he was -- so, only those that decide to condemn mr. zimmerman as quickly and viciously as they did, would have taken just a little bit of time to find out who it was that they were condemning, it would never have happened.

it would not have happened if i was black. and they decided they would make him the scapegoat. >> i'm sorry? >> i will ask the question, because i wanted to ask that too. how concerned is he, is he going to sort of stay in hiding for a while and see what happens and the second question, is i have never seen defense attorneys giving thanks for giving jury instructions. my jaw dropped open, what was your reaction when they thanked you for explaining the law? >> as to the first question. yes, he lived cautious of his safety.

there's been a fringe element that said through tweets and everything else that they want revenge. i think everyone in the room would agree that it was a fair trial. it's a fair trial in the sense that the state got to present everything that they had. can't help it, but we need to worry about it. second question, i think everything that i do is done well. it was, the verbalizing of thank you to me, when i'm trying help them understand an area of law that is utterly unique and we drag them off the street and ask them to take our mantel of how we work our lives in the courtrooms, i will take it as a compliment that they were listening.

and obviously they got an opportunity to do it in practice with investigator verdict. >> done west, to cross exam rachel jeantel, and others, did you relish the challenge or was it a nightmare? >> no question it was a challenge. i think what was established with ms. jeantel, there were challenges within it. we showed through her testimony, the second to last phone call ended with trayvon martin. it started and then when the event itself occurred, through that testimony, it was pointed out that there were four minutes in between the time when trayvon

martin ran off until he reappeared and the confrontation with george zimmerman occurred. as well, the circumstances under which ms. jeantel was asked to answer questions were extraordinarily challenging for her. my goodness. she wanted to be left alone. she did not volunteer anything until she was pulled out of this. and the first interview she gave was with the family lawyer, with the family present on the other end of the phone. it was an interview made for tv, not for law enforcement. it was then followed by an interview with state attorney's office on april 2nd under the most extraordinary circumstances. it took place in miss fulton's living room with miss fulton sitting next to ms. jeantel,

that was the witness saying i was uncomfortable. i changed my testimony to accommodate the feelings of miss fulton. that was the set issing for all of this. plus, as mr. o'mara pointed out, she really did not want to be there. was that a challenge? of course it was. but i think ultimately, when you distil it to its important parts that we did accomplish ultimately what we wanted. as to dr. bao, much of the cross examine was to set a stage. indicate where they clearly disagreed and identify how and why they disagreed and to offer the foremost expert in the country on the issue in the case. >> hi, fox 35 news. two questions, do you think the judge was fair or unfair to you. and my other question is, do you think this verdict will hurt race relations?

>> judge nelson runs her courtroom very well. and she moved this case along at a pace that i appreciated. obviously, we were asking for motions to continue along the way, not because of her timeline, as much as because the state's concerns over discovery. it turns out that we were able to accomplish what we needed to in the time that she gave us. within the context of the courtroom, as i mentioned a couple of times. i appreciate that she reminds me when i do things like speaking objections or somehow no, no, no comes out of my mouth. and that is okay. she kneeleds to run a strict kroop. and i think she did. and i am okay with that. we had concerns about rulings but we respect them. do you have a second part on that? >> do you feel it will affect race relations? >> i kept saying last year, i hope they don't.

i suggested to mr. crump that we do not suggest that it's the civil rights case of the century, it is not. it's a self defense case. did it bring up that young black males were treated differen eed? absolutely. do we need to have that conversation? absolutely. if portending that on the verdict of this case, and it affected the verdict, shame on them. that conversation needs to be had, and now we have artificially separated the two camps if you will, over this verdict. this verdict still has nothing to do with civil rights. civil rights need to be talked about, but not in the context of the george zimmerman verdict. >> george, cnn, this question, specifically to you, mr. west. as far as the relationship with the judge, the back and forth, can you talk a bit to us about

that, do you feel you were getting fair treatment, and a second question that is similar to both of you. what do you say regarding the tensions, what do you tell people that have dug in on one side or the other? >> i would like to keep my bar license for a couple more years. and second part of the question? >> second part of the question was, what do you tell people this has become, people have watched around the country and have dug in on either side of this, what do you tell people given the tension that could follow this verdict? >> you know, that has been such a challenge for me. obviously while i have tried a number of cases over the last 33 years or so, a number of them with very high stakes. death penalty cases. nothing of course like this with the media attention. nothing that had the case tried over and over and over again in the media. nothing where the media was