inside that room, susan, what will that conversation be like? between the lawyer and the defendant, we know that the conversation went so badly that the defense lawyer looked for a competency exam so something s going on there. what s going to happen on the record in open court is proper and correct procedure. the judge has to canvas the defendant. she has two decisions, whether to plead guilty and whether to take the stand. this will take place in the open courtroom? not in front of the jury. okay. does he just say as just sort of proforma, do you understand that you have the right or will he go more into it? no, no, no. you have the right to testify. it is your decision not to testify. are you doing this freely? have your rights been explained to you? they want to make it appeal proof. they want to make it so there s no possible appellate issue. john, if you re her lawyer and want her to be able to
honestly answer, yes, i understand what s at stake and i have made the decision, what are you saying to her? you have to explain to her the pros and cons of her testifying and make sure she understands that she has weighed the options before making that decision. and, you know, the other thing is, too, this goes on a lot of times with defense counsel they ll she ll indicate she wants to testify but the lawyers advised strongly against it and therefore she is not going to. defendants often like to indicate to the jury they want to testify but they re being held back as sort of a message to the jury and might be going on here, too. john, susan, thanks to both of you. we ll keep watching. they have taken a break i think for 15 moneys. i don t know why. if it s a normal morning break or something has happened. do we know? do we know why they have taken this 15-minute break? normal break. okay. it s a normal break and we ll keep you posted throughout the day. meantime, that ferociou
york city, both supporting him. his wife put out a statement saying she doesn t believe for a second the accusations are true. this is the same woman who stood by him during an admitted affair by dominique strauss-kahn back in 2008. the wife has been through a lot and she remains firmly in his corner here in court today. our correspondent jeff rossen, thanks so much. as we mentioned, a decision on bail for strauss-kahn could come down at any moment. joining us to offer some legal insight into the ongoing court proceedings is msnbc senior legal analyst susan filen. thanks again for joining us, susan. the prosecution is saying this is a man who s likely to flee, he has the means to flee. do you think that he s going to be granted bail? well, the test for bail is two-prong. whether he s a rick of flight and whether he s a danger to the community. the prosecution is saying if anybody is a flight risk it s dsk and now they re saying he s dangerous, too, because he has a propensity of
trip. in terms of here in ireland, i think that there is at least among the irish there is a welcoming mood. as i say, the irish security is going to be less for the president s visit than it is for the queen s visit and the president, of course, will go to his an ses toral home. i think there s a positive sense for the president s visit here. thank you for joining us, john. more on the arrest of dominique strauss-kahn. joining us to offer some legal insight is msnbc legal analyst susan filen. susan, i have been reading the details of the criminal complaint. we ve got one count of rape, one count of sexual abuse, even imprisonment. but today the defense team is suggesting in some measure that this was a consensual act of sex. what kind of a defense is that going to run?
he would be considered a flight risk. and he s certainly a flight risk. but will the court go along with the prosecution s request to have him surrender his passport? think about it, this man, who is responsible for the funding essentially to the globe, around the globe, not being able to travel, not being able to leave the united states. he lives in france. you can t go home, you can t travel, you can t work. he s pretty much shut down. a presidential contender for france, too. to point out as jeff was talking about, they do have dna evidence from the room and the woman and also now from him. they say they do. we don t know what they exactly have. they say they have body fluids. we don t know who they are. they don t know from what they re from, and we don t know that there s a match. we just don t know. they wouldn t have lab results back that quickly. we have to be a little careful about that. we don t know what they are and we don t know what they match or what they prove.