said they heard someone say, let s dump the body in the basement. joe and his lawyers believed that at the very least, the withheld evidence provided reasonable doubt the crime could have happened differently than the state presented at trial. in july 2004, joe s team went before judge o malley to obtain a new trial. we put up all our witnesses. the newly discovered people, the newly discovered evidence. by far the most powerful witness at the hearing was chris longencker, stoney lewis alleged rape victim who had been found living in florida. neil convinced chris his testimony could save joe s life. i wasn t able to do anything for tony because so, i figured, if i could help someone else, then i ll do that.
decided to attend her funeral on joe s behalf. i asked the corrections officers, would you let me talk with joe for just a few minutes so, i can walk him through his mother s funeral. while joe was very appreciative of it, it was obvious that my goal for that meeting and his goal were not the same. a real human being i can talk to. i need help. nobody will help me. i didn t do this. i was very resistant to doing that. i knew these death row cases were immense cases. 5, 10, 15 volumes long. no, it s one volume big. that s all it is will. one volume? that s where the attorney of him kicked in. i was just stunned that a man could be brought to trial for his life and be convicted in the amount of space it took to record that event was in one volume. so, i thought, whoa. something is not right.
i don t really think it s nice when joe does it. just another chapter in the book. another day in joe s life. another layer to the legend. and another reason to love him. and to love robert gibbs who said, it was a big deal. i love it. you don t think this was a big deal? i don t get it. it was a big deal. it was a big deal. and it was a big deal. and the president mm-mm good. and the president has his press conference. i thought it was you know, it was a great ceremony. i m sure donny was silently weeping at home. he was. yesterday rocking back and forth. you know, seriously, i leave this set for one day and you turn into the marxist variety act. i did not do that. they were savaging me. they were. you did very well. you were very restrained. like a cultural revolution. you loved it. a great leap forward. i was trying to provide some balance. lawrence even said i was in the loser s box. i was.
to blackmail the late show host last year by threatening to expose his affairs if he didn t pay me a lot of money. the producer for cbs news was sentenced to six months in jail and given five years probation. he had this to say after his plea. again, i apologize to mr. letterman, his family, to stephanie burkett, her family. i will not be doing any interviews, and i thank you all for your patience. jeffrey toobin joins us now. what do you think about this punishment? letterman said the police and the district attorney s office handled it professionally and stillfully and appropriately. was justice served? i agree. i think this is a rational solution to a weird case. six months in prison is not nothing. but it s not going to ruin joe halderman s life. he s going to be able to go on. i think joe has ruined joe s life. he s not going to go back to
letterman, his family, to stephanie burkett, her family. i will not be doing any interviews and i thank you all for your patience. jeffrey toobin joins us now. what do you think about this punishment? letterman said the police and the district attorney s office handled it skillfully and appropriately. six months in prison is not nothing. but it s not going to ruin joe halderman s life. he s going to be able to go on. i think joe has ruined joe s life. he s got that long community service, 1,000 hours, that s a long time. and the letterman family gets to move on in privacy and deal with the problems that he caused. so i think it s a rational solution. it s interesting, though, to me. i was thinking back to when all