dan abrams., it's a very complicated legal case. isn't it? because of the various laws that florida has relation to stand your ground and so on and concealed weapons and all the other facets to this make it complicated. from everything that you've seen and read that is factual so far, what is your overview about this case? should the police based on all we now know have arrested george zimmerman on that night? >> we still don't know about the most crucial question. that's exactly what happened that precipitated this event. we know a lot about all the circumstances surrounding it, but there are still some key questions. and look, i'm not in any rush here. i think that the authorities ought to take their time. with that said, i expect that there be an indictment. i expect that after the authorities review all of the evidence here, after they speak to all of the witnesses, some of whom they didn't speak to early on, it does seem that the publicity surrounding this has led to a lot more information,

abc news legal analyst, dan abrams. the defense rolling out the witnesses, speaking about his behavior before the crash. >> it's a two-part defense. number one, he wasn't drunk. and number two, that the bentley malfunctioned. currently, we're in phase one of the defense, which is the whole point he wasn't drunk. people coming in, saying, i was with him. he didn't seem drunk. the problem is the numbers. he actually blew in a breathalyzer that showed he was drunk. his claim is he started drinking after the incident. that afterwards, to calm his nerves, he took some drinks. but in each one of these instances, it's not putting a legal burden on the defendant, but a practical one, in order to demonstrate, i was drinking later. i wasn't drunk before. the bentley had the problems. these are all little facts that the defense kind of has to show, even though there's no legal burden on the defense in this case. >> these really play like hurdles, to a degree. are there any holes in the prosecution's case that the defense can explo

. >> dan abrams and pete williams are just outside and they are reading the ruling even as we go to them. pete, what do we know? is this a split decision? >> it would appear to be so. it's not signed by any single justice. the senior justice, justice john paul stephens leaves little doubt there's no room for a recount. justice suter says, we think he's talking about what could have happened. >> if there's no room for a recount, this election is over for vice president al gore. all his political aids are saying if they lose on the recount it's over. >> i see nothing in think way that's incompatible with that tom. >> that was how it ended. the presidential election was decided not in november, but in december of that year, more than a month after the election and it was decided at the courthouse. on election night, which had been 35 days before you just saw pete williams on the courthouse steps there, every other state in the union has turned in a defentive election result it was chaos. george w. bush won, maybe. after recounts and the republican so called brooks brother riot to interfere

. >> we turn to our "gma" legal analyst, dan abrams. where to begin. the defense.ng a $250,000 car on trial first. is the >> two things to explain. number one, the drinking. the reason he was drunk, he was drink after the zeaccident. they're going to call in experts from bentley to suggest that the car could have lurched forward. to say those two things happened at the same time is where it will be difficult. on his face, he shows he's drunk according to the breathalyzer. now he left the seen, now he's got to explain each and every one of those facts taken together is tough. a tough defense. >> we were saying, okay, maybe one without the other. but to have all of that and expect the jury to believe all of it seems a bit much. you say you have to have it all? >> somehow he's got to explain what happened here. there's -- someone died here. this is a serious, serious case. and he's got to explain why he was the one in the accident. why he didn't stay. and why he shouldn't be found guilty here. prosecutors have the burden of proof. you have this kind of defense, the de

we bring in legal analyst dan abrams. is this the smoking gun? we're told he was beaten up. the video don't appear to show that. >> it's a significant piece of evidence. the authorities have had this. they've seen it. they know it. i think in lar in the court of public opinion, among those who have been inclined to believe zimmerman, this could be a game-changer. suddenly, his defense of, my nose was broken. i think that was an important one. we can't see everything on this video. but there's nothing to indicate that that was the case. and so, i do think this becomes very significant in particular in the national debate, and i think it will be significant as the authorities and the state authorities and the federal authorities look into this case. >> and the timeline is important. as matt said, it was barely half an hour after the killing. >> that's right. you would expect to see something. we were talking to the professor about what to expect from a broken nose, either blood or swelling. some indication that his nose was broken. this is definitely significant. both in terms

let's bring in our legal analyst, dan abrams.this awfully tall mountain? >> in cases like this, you see one of two defenses. blame the hitman. this was his plan. i never intended for this to happen. or that it was a complete and total misunderstanding. i never wanted my husband killed. maybe i wanted him roughed up or not at all. we don't know what her defense will be. when you have this kind of evidence. the notes from her, recordings, you tend to see one of those type of defense. >> and we have what would seem to be a brutal eyewitness, the restaurant owner making the recordings, turning them over to the police. the fulcrum of the case? >> no question. the defense will go after this guy. they'll say he's not telling the truth. if he's saying she wanted her husband dead, the defense has to go after him. he'll become a crucial witness. >> we have this blog she was keeping. it reads as something written by the all-american mom. an emt. a sympathetic figure. you think that could play into the prosecution's hands? >> yes. the defens

. >> we're going to bring in dan abrams. what are the issues?act from the law. he is told not the get out of the car on the 911 call. he gets how any way. he makes the comment, they always get away. >> they. >> they, right, unclear what he means, but it's not helpful to his case. allegations the police are putting words into people's mouth. and the fact that trayvon was unarmed. the difficulty here is the florida law. they have a law called the stand your ground law. in most state, you're retiquire to retreat. you don't have the right to shoot someone on the street if you feel you're in danger. in florida, you do have that right. that's what the prosecutors are relying on. >> you just said it. zimmerman got out of hais car, admitted he was following him. how can you claim self-defense when you're the aggressor? >> it's a good question. it's who is the aggressor at the moment it occurred. hypothetical situation. let's say zimmerman gets out of the car, follows trayvon. trayvon turns around and wants to know who is following him, gets aggressive w

. >> let's bring in dan abrams. five years for this investigation.s of video take place, these kinds of things. how strong of a case do they have? >> if they have all this audio and video tape, a very strong case. you hear her lawyer say they're saying a lot of things about her that are not true. he focuses on the money she has, as opposed to the actual allegations here. she's been charged with promoting prostitution. that's the claim. that's what they have to defend. promoting prostitution in new york state, the type of crime she's charged with is a class "d" felony. it's about as low and small a felony as one can get. not to suggest it's not significant or important. but it's -- it shows you that this kind of bail, $2 million bond, is a lot for a case like this. >> and erks aga, again, a case t five year on. >> every once in awhile, they have to make a high-profile prostitution bust to make sure people know it's still illegal. >> will they go after the clients? >> they could. i think those saying they're going after her black bloook, f what? i thin

let's bring in dan abrams. for more on this. first thing's first.his new law that is passed will have nothing to do with this case. >> right, ex post facto laws are not permitted under the u.s. constitution. meaning you can criminalize something after it's happened. so this law won't have any impact on this. >> more than 28 states have laws even if the teacher is over 18. this goes a bit further, it would criminalize so-called seductive communications. >> seductive, lewd and lascivious, i understand. the problem is it refers to excessive and inappropriate conduct with a student. that's where it gets a little tough to define. some might view constant political conversations as inappropriate with particular students. >> religious? >> exactly. exactly. so you've got to be careful when you're framing the language around this. because it sounds what the legislators are doing is reacting to this specific case and saying how do we prevent this kind of case from even getting to this point. and while their goals may be admirable, you have to be very careful

. >> we have more from our legal team, nancy grace and dan abrams.nt to jump through the screen and shake them both. but, is there anything the police can do about this? >> all they can do right now is an investigation. let me tell you something, a grown man is texting a girl at 6:00 a.m. in the morning, you got a problem. 8,000 text messages. photos of her sitting in his lap. that's not going to be enough to carry it at trial. they have to get the content of the text messages. look back on hotel receipts. talk to her friends at school to see if she divulged a sex affair. look and see if she bought a pregnancy test. anything that proves sex. >> you're talking travel. is there anything about that? >> california has a high age of consent, 18. if they can show any kind of physical relationship before the age of 18. >> one day. >> that's right, anything, they can charge them. what do they have? we know the number of text messages september for a long period of time. the phone company keeps the records. numbers, where things were sent from. >> 8,000. 8,00

let's bring in dan abrams.ion of the defense that the bentley lurched and the concussion was causing the problems. no witnesses have testified to that. >> that's right. we heard from a lot of witnesses. up chuding many of them that arrived on the scene. none of them saying he said, there i am in my car, the next thing i know, my car lurches forward. you would think if that's actually what happened, when he's telling people again and again what happened, how it happened, he would have said my car, i lost control of it. suddenly, it shot forward. that's the sort of thing that jurors talk about when they get back into the jury room. when they evaluate the totality of the account. can we believe it? it's the sort of thing you can expect the jurors to discuss. >> we heard from the give yesterday, the first scone call he made, didn't say a word to her about the head injury. her testimony was quite short. >> she was never that important a witness. she's a salacious witness, because she's now his daughter, as well, but

nancy grace and dan abrams. nancy, i would like to start with you.he defense rests on the thought that mr. neuman was inasane at the time. he was wearing a diz guise, driving a rental car. doesn't that prove he knew what he was doing was wrong? >> you're right. getting rid of the gun, driving the rep tall car, indicates he knew what he was doing. he underwent five hours of police interrogation and he didn't crack. what is really damning is the defense's own two shrinks. flores says she didn't read his whole file. he skroefr saw thousands of engineers at g.e., had no history of mental illness. then his over shrink gets on the stand and says, it reminds me of david and bathsheeba. you don't say that in the bible belt. in that story, david plans the execution of his love object's husband. intentionally. that was a bad comparison. >> dan, dr. flores also testified she had no independent confirmation that mr. neuman had not had the visions. >> i'm not going to defend the defense. you're a psychologist, you don't tend to have corroboration for visions. the

. >>> we're going to bring in "gma" legal analyst, dan abrams right now.ot unusual, the death row love affairs. but this goes beyond what we usually see. >> it does. anytime we see a high-profile case when someone is put on death row, immediately, that person gets all sorts of love letters, inquiries. there are websites dedicated to death row inmates. you think of scott peterson. he would get, at one point, 85 to 100 letters a day. that's probably tailed off a little bit in the time. it's amazing. and you talk to psychologist why this occurs. they have all sorts of explanations for the quote/unquote attraction. >> it's unbelievable to so many people. but it goes on. we heard in steve's piece, she's exhausted all of her appeals. but this plot does not help her. >> it doesn't help the uh be it's not going to hurt her. she was 18 years old. she has mental issues. she is saying she got ineffective assistance of counsel. none of the legal issues will be impacted by the attempted escape because effectively, what she's trying to get is life in prison, instead of

. >>> we're going to bring in "gma" legal analyst dan abrams. the police don't believe there's foul play. but some believe when cocaine and illegal substance, there could be more of an investigation. >> i don't expect there will be any charges here, but there are two possible avenues, one is the possibility of evidence tampering. did someone clean up the scene there? don't expect anything to come out of that. the other, of course, is the cocaine use. people will say, who gave her the cocaine? we hold our doctors to higher standards than we do our drug dealers, right? when we talk about investigations like this, we often say, who is the one that supplied, where did the prescription drugs come from? that's because you're talking about someone who prescribed the drug. selling cocaine is illegal. are they going to be able to figure out who that was? who sold her the cocaine? maybe, but i don't think that's going to be -- >> you mentioned witness tampering. there's two possibly scenarios that they are saying could have caused her death. >> that's rig

here in new york is "gma" legal analyst dan abrams. good morning to you both.e to start with you. the whole case from the defense rests on the thought that mr. neuman was insane at the time. yet testimony that he was wearing a disguise, he was driving a rental car, that he lied to police. doesn't that prove he knew what he was doing was wrong? >> well, you're absolutely correct. not only that, the disguise, the rental car, the getting rid of the gun in lake lanier which is a substantial distance away from where the incident occurred. all indicate that he knew what was going on. plus, he underwent five hours of police interrogation and never cracked. and what's really damning are the defense's own two shrinking. the main one, dr. flores, says she didn't read the whole file. evidence has come out that this guy who oversaw literally thousands of engineers at g.e., had no history of mental illness. then his other shrink gets on the stand and says, it reminds me of david and beth sheeba. you don't say that in the bible belt. where the jurors know what you're talking

. >>> we're going to bring in "gma" legal analyst dan abrams. you heard matt's report right there.nd zimmerman's account of what he says happened. how does this change? >> the eyewitness account that backs up zimmerman, at least provides some context as to why the police could have done what they did. does that mean the investigation should be over? absolutely not. does that mean that zimmerman's in the clear? no way. but it does at least provide more information as to why, maybe, the police were so quick to accept zimmerman's story. >> the witness says that he saw zimmerman on the ground. that trayvon martin -- doesn't say he saw trayvon throw the first punch. we still don't know who started the altercation. >> that's right. we talk about this law. there's no question that this law was not designed -- >> stand your ground law. >> the stand your ground law was not designed to protect an aggressor who starts losing a fight. that's not what this law is for. and that would not protect zimmerman in this case. meaning, if the facts were that zimmerman goes after him, they get into an al