prosecutor to do now is take death off the table rather than go through this again, especially considering the fact that this penalty phase has serious appellate issues. there s a new problem that we have now and that s social media and the way these trials are being covered, we had this very same problem in casey anthony, where we couldn t get mitigation witnesses because they were afraid of the online intimidation as well as the intimidation by their neighbors. we literally had a third grade teacher of casey s sic a dog on our mitigation specialist. that s how bad it got. i can tell you, this court made a serious error when she didn t sequester this jury and on top of that, she allowed for cameras in the courtroom. these were the same exact problems we would have faced had casey been convicted, and it s going to be a new appellate issue that courts are going to have to deal with, because of the way that we re changing the
i can t for a moment physical out what it s like to be her attorney. the mitigation specialist worked valiantly for months and months, if not years visiting her to put together a case to why she should live. then you have this. what do you do when you have a rogue client who may be doing things against your advice what is your alternative if are you that attorney? well, this is a really difficult situation for an attorney and these kind of issues come up fairly often. clients drive tear lawyers crazy under many different circumstances. it rarely comes to the point where the defendants, where the lawyers say, i can t deal with this, i have to leave the case, but it just underlines the nature of the conflict between the two and i agree with beth, there is no way any judge is going to let defense attorneys off the case after months and
case, outweigh the mitigating factors. any redeeming value she may have. so even if she remains silent and her lawyers remain silent, the government still has to prove this in order for the death penalty to be imposed. if the government fails to provide, then the dealt penalty cannot be imposed even if those aggravating factors are there. shepard: i can t imagine them killing someone who is a good friend and accomplish it artist. they hired a mitigation specialist who tries to weave a story to present to the jury. shepard: which is common. absolutely, and it s probably, as you have already said, part of the reason the attorneys wanted to withtrue, because she is just putting herself in the way of everything they try to do to defend her. if she does not take the witness stand, does not, then that tape of our colleagues at fox 5 in phoenix will not fox 10 excuse me will not be aired for the jury. though the jury is not sequestered and probably know of
factors. why there are reasons that the jury should show some level of mercy on jodi arias. from the very beginning of this case, she has had what s called a mitigation specialist. a team that is looking at the issue of mitigation that will present the case for mercy. that s what s going to come now. but this is it. this is the last decision the jury has to make. and things have not been going well for her so far. this third and final phase, jeff, how long do we expect it to continue? how many days? you know, i don t know. it will certainly be longer than this cruelty phase. there was only one witness in that, it was just a medical examiner who talked about the horrible wounds that travis alexander had. this will be much more extensive. i don t know how long. this case has already gone on for months. i anticipate this could be a while, because the mitigation could be quite a few number of witnesses. as we await the president in the east room, ted rolland is
reporter: well, the penalty phase is set to begin in this case next tuesday, ashlee. those are really the issues that the jury will be dealing with, the conviction on the first three the first-degree murder count. the convictions on the murdering of baby a, baby c, and baby d and really what this jury is dealing with. yes, he was found guilty of so many other charges and so many other counts, but those three charges, the first-degree murder charges certainly are the capital offenses and that is really where this case is right now. i did get the opportunity to speak with dr. gosnell s defense attorney jack mcmahon and where his focus is squarely at. he is focused on trying to save dr. gosnell s life. in that effort like many other capital cases there is more than likely a mitigation specialist working throughout the trial to find out all of the things that could save dr.