It is now up to federal prosecutors to decide if they will retry John Edwards on the five felony counts on which the jury could not come to a unanimous decision.

People who work in federal courthouses will agree, prosecutors likely view the single not guilty verdict along with the five counts declared mistrials as losses and are still letting the news sink in.

Meanwhile, a lot of people are talking about Edwards, giving their opinion on the case and whether it should move forward.

“I mean, come on, man. Give the man a break, you know. How long’s this been going on?” said Charlotte resident Captain Seegars.

Experts like Jack Knight, who is a former federal prosecutor, think prosecutors will not try the case again. Knight worked on several public corruption cases and knows at least one of the Edwards prosecutors personally.

“This one would just be so difficult to retry for lots of reasons,” he said. “A case is always more difficult to retry than it was the first time. I mean, the defense now, there are no more surprises.”

Another former federal prosecutor, Brian Cromwell, said the Edwards prosecutors have “other fish to fry.”

He said people should not expect a decision on a retrial to be made right away.

Tony Scheer said they just spent so much time and effort on the case to be let down by the outcome that prosecutors need a break.

“A loss, when you believe that the person’s guilty, stings. A loss in a high-profile environment like this stings a lot,” he said.

Since the Edwards trial was so high-profile, Scheer and Knight said they expect high-ranking Justice Department officials to weigh in on whether to try the case again.

Most experts believe the decision to try the case again will take weeks.