SANFORD, FL (WFLA) -
The family of Trayvon Martin believe they're going to get a "fair verdict," an attorney for the family said at a news conference Thursday.
Martin's parents Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin appeared at the news conference outside the Seminole County Courthouse after day four of the trial of George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch volunteer accused of second-degree murder in Martin's death. Zimmerman claims he shot the 17-year-old in self-defense.
Attorney Darrell Parks spoke for the parents at the news conference, and talked about an issue that has prompted discussions across the country since the shooting in February 2012.
"We want to make it very clear to this family race is not a part of this process and anyone who tries to inject race in to it is wrong," he said.
Martin was black, and Zimmerman identifies himself as Hispanic.
Prosecutors have said that Zimmerman profiled Martin that night in his neighborhood. Before the trial began, the judge said that prosecutors could say Zimmerman "profiled" Martin but not that he "racially profiled" him.
"When you try to inject race into a case like this here that means you're trying to push somebody who's making a decision one way or the other," Parks said. "And that's not what you want."
The comments came on a day when race did come up at the trial, as defense attorney Don West questioned Martin's friend Rachel Jeantel about why she believed what happened was a "racial" thing.
Jeantel was on the phone with Martin the night he encountered Zimmerman. Jeantel said Martin told her a man was following him.
"What's one thing about what Trayvon Martin told you that made you think this was racial?" West asked Jeantel during cross examination.
"Describing the person," Jeantel responded to West.
West pressed her for more information and the attorney later said, "that's because he described him as a ‘creepy a** cracker.'"
Jeantel responded, "Yes."
The exchanges between Jeantel and West got testier as the day progressed.
At one point, West suggested that though Martin told her he was by his father's fiancee's house while Zimmerman was following him, that she doesn't know that for sure.
"Why he need to lie about that, sir?" Jeantel asked West.
"Maybe if he decided to assault George Zimmerman, he didn't want you to know about it," West replied.
"That's real retarded, sir," she said. "That's real retarded to do that, sir."
When asked by West if she had previously told investigators that she heard what sounded like somebody being hit at the end of her call with Martin, Jeantel said, "Trayvon got hit."
"You don't know that? Do you? You don't know that Trayvon got hit," West answered angrily. "You don't know that Trayvon didn't at that moment take his fists and drive them into George Zimmerman's face."
Later in the morning, West accused Jeantel of not calling police after Martin's phone went dead because she thought it was a fight he had provoked.
"That's why you weren't worried. That's why you didn't do anything because Trayvon Martin started the fight, and you knew that," West said.
"No sir!" Jeantel said. "I don't know what you're talking about."
At one point, West handed her a letter she had written with the help of a friend to Martin's mother explaining what happened. She looked at it but then said she couldn't read cursive handwriting. Jeantel later explained she is of Haitian descent and grew up speaking Creole and Spanish.
Lauren Mayk is reporting on this story from Sanford. You can follow her on Twitter for constant updates at @laurenmaykwfla
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