0 rittenhouse has to get on with his life the best he can. the attorney said i don't think he will continue to live in this area saying it's too dangerous. he's had 24/7 security since this all happened. john, great to be covering this breaking news with you. i'm sandra smith. >> john: and i'm john roberts taking off next week so have a good thanksgiving. "the story" with martha starts now. >> martha: thank you very much, john and sandra. good afternoon. i'm martha maccallum. breaking right now on "the story," not guilty verdicts for kyle rittenhouse as we look at the live scene outside of the courthouse in kenosha, wisconsin. a place that we have all become much more familiar with over the course of this trial and over the remembrance last summer of the violence that spilled in to the streets and what we saw take place on that august evening in 2020. so we have just heard from his attorney moments ago. we heard some of what his take-away was in terms of this case and as we just watched him talk about some of the different elements of it, one being the fact that kyle rittenhouse was allowed to pull the names of the jurors out that would be -- who would become alternates. that was very controversial. they said look, those are three that we hoped would be on it. an interesting side note. everybody talking about how kyle rittenhouse is about to get on with the rest of his life. when he was acquitted, it was extremely emotional. he started shaking and crying. he collapsed in to the chair. there's that moment there. there's his mom. she's off to the left in the background. there she is. his mom is in that left-hand corner there. you can see the tears on her face as well. his attorney jumped in and held him and hugged and sort of took him through breathing exercises. it's almost impossible to imagine the emotional impact of what this young man has been through over the course of this trial. there he is trying to catch his breath when he's told he's got his life back. it was potentially 60 years in prison for kyle rittenhouse or freedom. right now he's in a car and leaving that scene. he's a free young man beginning to look forward to his life in college, which he looks forward to in the fall. there's the family, kyle rittenhouse's family. alexis mcadams has been covering this for us from the courthouse. she did an excellent interview a short time ago with the family spokesperson getting immediate reaction from him. he also was very emotional, very caught up in the moment. alexis, what is the latist from kenosha this afternoon? >> very emotional but he said that the family spokesperson said this is not a celebration at this point for either kyle rittenhouse, his mom or his sisters as you mentioned broke down in the courtroom. they said kyle rittenhouse just wants to move forward with his life. leaving kenosha, wisconsin due to safety concerns. local businesses were getting ready for unrest. on the ground, it's more calm than i was expecting and that we would hear or see more action. that's what is happening right now. as for what happened inside of the courtroom, there was emotions that we talked about. kyle breaking down. at one point he grabbed his knees as they read the verdict. not guilty on all five counts. as he broke down, you can see his mother and his two sisters there crying as they listened there to the judge reading that verdict. kyle rittenhouse not guilty on all five counts. very emotional after all charged were dropped. take a listen. >> as to the fourth count of the information, anthony huber, we the jury find the defendant kyle rittenhouse not guilty. to the fifth couldn't of the information, gaige grosskreutz, we find the charges not guilty. >> a few key points that we've been talking to the rittenhouse family about have been a couple of the people that testified, that includes gaige grosskreutz. he's one of the people that took the stand, the third person that was shot by kyle rittenhouse. three people shot that night. two were killed. grosskreutz taking the stand here in kenosha county testifying that he was just defending himself that night. take a listen to what it was like when we heard more about if it was those deliberations continuing because the jurors tried to answer the questions, was itself defense or did he provoke the shooting. this is dave hancock. >> this verdict from this jury, they came back and i believe they were cerebral and they thought about every single piece of the jury instructions. so justice was done for kyle. he gets to live a life as a free young man. >> as for the unrest that people were bracing for, we haven't seen much of that on the ground. the governor of wisconsin releasing this statement moments ago saying there's no verdict that will bring back the lives of joseph rosenbaum or anthony huber. no ruling today changing our reality in wisconsin that we have to work toward equity here. account ability and justice that communities across our state are demanding and deserve. back in front of the courthouse, there's not a lot of action going on at this point. going back to talking with the family of kyle rittenhouse. they're telling us he left the area and possibly leaving the state to get out of here after he's now a free teenager. the 18-year-old being -- all charges dropped against him. according to the family, they believe there's a few things that happened here that ended up with this not guilty verdict. he took the stand himself. an important note there. the defendant didn't even tell his mom he was going to testify. they were optimistic about this case the entire time. martha? >> martha: incredible. very dramatic and a huge outcome for kyle rittenhouse today. alexis, thanks very much. we have a statement just in from kenosha county assistant district attorney, thomas bear. he said "we're grateful to the members of the jury for their diligent and thoughtful deliberations. the kenosha community has endured much the past 15 months and yet we remain resilient and strong. we ask the members of our community continue to express their opinions and feelings about this verdict in a civil and peaceful manner." so with that, let's bring in andy mccarthy, former federal prosecutor and fox news contributor. andy, we have heard a statement from mr. binger and we heard from mark richards outside the courthouse. your thoughts on the reactions that we've seen from the two attorneys, the prosecutor and the defendant. >> martha, i salute them for striking the right tone. a lot of things that mr. binger has done that we talked about the last few weeks in a critical way. this is a message that sends exactly the right note. they respect the verdict and they ask people to express themselves in a civilized manner, which is exactly the right tone. you heard from the defense lawyer who, he wasn't in a celebratory frame of mind obviously. there's relief, and i hope that kyle rittenhouse takes his lawyers very good advice, which is, you know, don't be too notorious. go be a kid. go live your life. resist the urge to turn this in to a spotlight. because one of the things i think you see here is there's a big juxtaposition between the drama that goes in to the trial and what we all expect to get out of it. and then the sort of lack of catharsis at the end. in point of fact here, there's a very narrow legal point that is resolved here. did the state have sufficient evidence to prove beyond a recall doubt the charges that they brought against kyle rittenhouse. the answer to that question, which i think the jury found in a just way is clearly no. he had a valid self-defense right. therefore they couldn't convict him. that doesn't make all of the rest of this story go away and it doesn't take away the suffering that has happened. it doesn't take away the fact that probably this case should have never been brought against rittenhouse in the first place. yet it doesn't also take away the pain of the people that lost their lives and they were almost people that almost lost their lives in this case. all of those people will have to grope for a way to deal with this and come to terms with it. as much importance as we put in to the criminal justice process, it's clearly very important. it doesn't solve all of those issues. i think sometimes we rely on it too much to do that when we can't. >> martha: i don't think anybody could say it better, andy. i think that you are touching on what is so important and what i think has been lost in the shuffle here. that is that it was the burden of proof was on the state. they brought this case. some people questioned whether or not it should have ever been brought. but they did. five counts against kyle rittenhouse. the burden of proof was to determine and establish whether or not there was beyond a shadow of a doubt that he did not act in self-defense. so you know, to prove that -- you know, almost to prove a negative in this case. that was their burden. there's going to be a lot said about how the prosecution handled this case. we just heard from mark richards. he talked about the fact that the provocation point was brought in late in the game. we obviously had the issues with the video. when it came down to it, this jury of seven women and five men had to determine whether or not kyle rittenhouse acted in self-defense. in the end, they determined that he had. there's all of these bigger issues that really don't mean anything to the jury, right? they have that one mission before them. they're not supposed to solve society's ills or figure out whether or not kyle should have been out there that night. mark richards said if you had it to do over again and knew the havoc that exists in his life, he probably would choose not have gone out at all. how narrow this decision on the part of this jury was and how specific. >> that's totally right, martha. the thing is, it resolves a question that has to be resolved. the first order of question. if you have somebody that you can prove whether they committed a terrible crime, that had to be addressed. in a lot of ways, we rely on the system too much for accountability because the trial is the place where you get a full unfolding of the evidence of some event. so obviously it bears on how we remember the history of things. in the end, it resolves what you just described, is was there reasonable doubt or not with respect to these charges. it doesn't resolve whether or not it was just or unjust to have the unrest on the streets there. doesn't resolve whether kyle rittenhouse should have been there, whether he should have been armed, whether our laws should change. there's a lot of very profound questions to come out of this. i think we just -- we can't overrely on the justice system to resolve them because as we see, it doesn't. >> martha: yeah. and that is the burden that rests on the jury and these 12 individuals who have dealt with this over the last several days. in fact, over several weeks. i want to bring in robert bianci. there's been a lot of discussion about the job that they did and the questions raised. we just heard from mark richards. he said i've known tom binger a long time but i didn't like a lot of what he did in this courtroom. >> we talked about this before. first off, as a former homicide prosecutor, having gone out and investigated cases before they're chargele, it's shocking in a matter of days before the autopsy results are in, before the evidence is gathered, before witness statements are reviewed and videotapes are reviewed that a decision of this magnitude was made so quickly. i figured weeks or months before i filed charges. that played into the defense narrative that this was a rush to judgment because of the politics of things. that's number 1. number 2, i was apoplectic about the prosecutor did some things that any lawyer knows that they shouldn't be doing and clearly is an act of desperation when rittenhouse was on the witness stand and commenton his arrest silence. the judge waited so he didn't have to rule on it. but the jury came back and said guilty, he would have to rule on that. that was an outrage. when i was the head prosecutor, he would be going downstairs to my office with i'm the i boxes to pack his office because he would be gone. that was completely inappropriate and jeopardized the trial of the families of the love ones that were killed, rittenhouse, the judge, the jurorses and the whole system. and there's certain evidence rules. and the video. on and on we can go about this. made me wonder as a former prosecutor, what is this prosecutor doing? do i have confidence in his judgment to properly assess the case? as colleagues now, prosecutors have a lot of discretion whether or not they charge an individual and how extensively they charge an individual from the beginning of a case. for me, the narrative that the defense attorney said and i'm sad to say this as a former prosecutor, that this was a political decision to bring these charges, a rush to judgment before the evidence came in, was borne out by the fact, martha, that by my count, four of six witnesses on behalf of the state testified in a manner that was completely consistent with rittenhouse's claim of self-defense. at one point in time on my show, i listened to a witness testify and i had to ask my producer. is this a defense witness that was called out of turn? this is actually rosenbaum. they gave testimony that he was the one being pursued. he was being attacked. they felt that he was in danger. they were throwing rocks at him. shots were being fired. people were going at him. the perfect self-defense claim. >> martha: yeah, indeed it was. that was gaige grosskreutz that was shot in the arm. he also said that he pointed his pistol at kyle rittenhouse. that was how their interact began, which a lot of people thought the trial could have been over in that moment. andy, the question of whether or not the prosecution sort of went too far in the way they charged this case. first degree reckless homicide and that first -- in the first count with regard to the death of joseph rosenbaum. and i thought it was interesting. goes on down the line. five counts. the option for second degree counts in some of these as well. i watched mark richards closely as you see them listen to this verdict. you could hear a pin drop. everybody is holding their breath as we wait for this verdict. i'm looking at mark richards's face. he buries his face in his hands. he said i was a little bit afraid because of the amount of time the jury took that they might have bartered. in essence that they might have chosen one count here or there to find him guilty on. so of course, the not guilty, the first and the second one didn't matter. there were more coming down the line. what did you think about that? >> yeah, that's one of the things that i was worried about. i thought if there was a quick verdict in this case, which was certainly possible because it was not a very long trial and there was really one issue that needed to be resolved, that it would clearly be a not guilty verdict. the longer it went on, two possibilities it seems that by the way the junior defied today. the things that you worry about in that circumstance is either they hang, which is to say they for whatever reason they can't decide the case, at least some jurors that won't go with the other jurors to a final resolution, or exactly the kind of bartering that you're describing takes place. we call those compromise verdicts and they're allowed. but they tend to be scandalous. when jurors split the baby in order to get to the end, what you frequently find is that either the verdict on its face looks irrational or whatever guilty verdicts that they decided on in the compromise when you match that up with the evidence in the case, it's not rationale. so it's a scandalous development in the system when it happens. it's rare. but when it happens, it can be really bad and we should be very happy it didn't happen here. you know, given the intensity of the attention to this and how much this becomes emblematic of our justice system. if it was resolved in a way that had scandal attached to it, it would have been bad for all of us. >> martha: yeah. i mean, i would imagine that that was an eventuality that mark richards and corey had prepared kyle rittenhouse for. you can see as they get to the end of the counts, kyle rittenhouse's jaw just starts shaking. he's hopeful and realizing that perhaps he has gotten not guilty verdicts on all of these. incredibly dramatic to watch. thanks, andy and bob. we're waiting for live events as they come throughout the hour as well. i want to bring in my next guest. she's a veteran jury expert and trial consultant. well-known for developing a jury profile of the 12 people that acquitted o.j. simpson in 1995. she picked the jury and worked for the rittenhouse defense, consulted with the attorneys and gave them here feedback on the witnesses. flew back early for the verdict for safety purposes and sat with kyle's mother, wendy in the courtroom. dr. joelle len joins us for the first interview. doctor, thanks very much for being here. your thoughts as you watched all of this play out this afternoon. >> well, i think it isn't lost on anyone that kyle's release was the same release that we saw when he actually testified. you know, we have a young man that was in the wrong place at the right time. 12 jurors have spoken that heard all the evidence, that took the time, that weighed the jury instructions, that asked for reviewing some of the video. so i think there's no one that can fault this jury for taking the time that they did. and also, i think it's important to note that with the polarization of the country over this case and clearly what will happen with this verdict, this jury knew that going in to it. as a matter of fact, one of our jurors during vior dire said i have reservations, no matter what verdict is returned, half the country will be upset and the other half will be happy. these jurors as some of us know were followed by not only members of the media in a van, actually, the other day, but they were also followed by a member of the public. this was before the deliberation process. so we have 12 citizens that served their duty. everyone can armchair whether or not it was the right verdict. but clearly they took their time and came back with the not guilty verdicts. >> martha: yeah, it's a great point. they took their time. as the days ticked by and we reminded viewers that the o.j. simpson jury came back in four hours, you look at the charges and obviously the judge said it as well, it was a very thoughtful jury that sat for this trial. understood, as you point out, the burden on them with regard to the weight of this case and the way that -- and all that it carried with it outside of what they needed to decide. you know, there was a lot of discussion about the alternates being picked out of that -- out of the till to be discarded or to have to stand by and not be part of the decision making in this. mark richards, the defense attorney, said, you know, kyle pulled them out but we lost a couple of jurors, three jurors that he wanted to be in it based on the pretrial interviews and discussions with them. what are your thoughts on that? >> number 1, i do feel badly for those 1 -- excuse me, the six individuals because how hard would it be to have sat through the entire case and then to learn as you're going in to deliberations that you're not going to be one of the 12. and on top of that, knowing that every day you have to come back to the courthouse. you can't be with the 12 deliberating, you can't even talk about the case with the other five jurors, five alternates that you're there with. so my hat goes off to them for going through that process. it's very unusual for a judge to have a system similar to what the judge did here where you have a till that is operated