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American Morning

Driven to Kill?

Aired February 10, 2003 - 08:33   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Now back to Houston, where closing arguments could start today in the trial of a woman who is accused of running over and killing her husband with a car. Clara Harris is expected to return to the witness stand. You might remember that on Friday, she said she never intended to hit her husband. She testified that she was dazed and in physical pain after finding him with his mistress at a Houston hotel.
Gail Delaughter, a reporter for KTHR Radio, she's been covering the trial. She joins us from Houston this morning.

Good of you to join us. Welcome, Gail.

GAIL DELAUGHTER, KTHR RADIO REPORTER: Hi, good morning, Paula.

ZAHN: What can we expect her to testify to today?

DELAUGHTER: She's going to go on redirect, and this is when George Parnham, her attorney, gets to question her some more, about some things she said in the cross-examination to clarify points there. There's also an extensive defense witness list, so we do expect to hear some more defense witnesses after her, then the prosecution is going to bring on some rebuttal witnesses. They're going to call some accident reconstruction experts with the Houston Police Department to give their version of what happened the night Clara Harris ran over her husband in that hotel parking lot with the Mercedes.

ZAHN: Let's go back to what she said on Friday. She claimed that she was trying to hit her husband's mistress car, not hit him. How did that play with the jury? Was it believable?

DELAUGHTER: I think she came off as a very, very sympathetic person. We noticed a couple of jurors were wiping their eyes, wiping tears away, when she was giving her testimony. What the defense is trying to do is to portray her as a woman who is desperate to save her marriage, a committed mother, someone who was committed to the family business. They had a huge string of dental offices, orthodontics offices, and someone who was doing her best to be a good wife and a good mother, and then all of a sudden, she finds out her husband is having an affair with a receptionist, and then even after she found out about the affair, she wanted to change herself and change herself physically and mentally to make herself more attractive to her husband.

ZAHN: How powerful was that testimony? When she actually recalled a conversation she had with her husband and where he made very direct comparisons between her and his lover when he basically said, look, according to her, you're overweight, you're too talkative, you're too addicted to your job. And in a contrast, his mistress was -- quote -- "petite, was the perfect fit to sleep with."

DELAUGHTER: Right. She actually had -- they apparently went out for drinks one night to get away from the kids and the family, to have some quiet adult time to talk about the state of their marriage. She made notes on a bar napkin in two different columns, General Clara and General Gail, referring to Gail Bridges, the other woman, and wrote down, made notes while her husband made these comparisons. Clara Harris was considered fat, loud, not a good communicator, somewhat who was pessimistic, while he said that Gail Bridges had the perfect body, she was upbeat, she was a good communicator, and basically let him do whatever he wanted to do.

And these bar napkins were present as evidence during the trial. She saved them. George Pacino pulled them out of a folder, put them on a big screen for the jury to see, and I think that made a big impact.

ZAHN: I think any woman listening to that testimony could tell how tortured she was, particularly when she talked about how he held her hand in an intimate way that he used to do with her many, many years ago, and not in the late stages of the marriage.

Just give us a sense before we let you go on the jury's reaction to the totality of what they heard on Friday.

DELAUGHTER: They were listening very, very intently, and like I said, a couple of jurors were wiping away tears. This a nine woman, three-man jury, and I think it made a huge impact. She presented herself well on the witness stand. There were a few tears on her part, but very controlled, very beautifully dressed. So she came across as this very serious professional career woman, and I think that made a big impact on the jury.

ZAHN: We appreciate your perspective on all this today. Good luck. I know you've spent many hours in the courtroom. We'd love to catch up with you as the case closes out.

Gail Delaughter, thanks for your time this morning.

We want to turn now to our own legal expert for his take on Clara Harris' testimony, on what it could mean to her defense. Legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin is here now.

What do you think so far?

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, it's really amazing when you think about it. Her testimony essentially admits the entire government's case. She's saying this guy is an absolutely pig, and there's undisputed evidence of that, and she's essentially saying, this guy is so awful, he really deserved it. That's really the defense here.

But it's very risky because at one level, because at one level, she's just saying, well, of course, I wanted to kill him, wouldn't you? But she's essentially saying to the jury, come on, cut me a break here, because he deserved it.

ZAHN: Is that really what she was saying, she was trying to kill him, or is she saying I was really in such a daze and my judgment was so clouded by this man who had done so many hurtful things to me?

TOOBIN: It is hard for me to square ramming your car into someone with just simply being upset and in a daze. Plus, her biggest problem in this case is three times. She didn't just run over him once, she ran over him three times.

ZAHN: But she said she didn't even know she had hit him.

TOOBIN: Well, that's what she said and that's her defense, but it is hard to imagine how you could hit someone three times and not know what you were doing.

ZAHN: So if you're sitting in the jury right now, help us understand what part of this testimony you take seriously and you say, OK, I get that, and the rest that you kind of throw out?

TOOBIN: I think you sort of take it as a whole. You basically have to decide whether you want to punish this woman. She's obviously very sympathetic.

Interestingly, Texas law has a possible compromise position, that she's charged with murder, but she could be convicted of murder in passion. In Texas law, it's sort of like temporary insanity, where it could knock down her sentence considerably. I think she certainly has a good chance, if she's going to be convicted, of being convicted only of that lesser charge, but she's obviously a very sympathetic person, and I think the jury is going to at least want to do something right for her, but, I mean, hitting someone with a car three times is tough.

ZAHN: That's where I hear the former Mr. Prosecutor coming out. If you were sitting on the jury, would you acquit her, or convict her?

TOOBIN: I'd convict her.

ZAHN: You would?

TOOBIN: I don't think -- you know, as bad as this guy is, you can't kill him.

ZAHN: You can't take the prosecutor out of the guy.

TOOBIN: I know. I know.

ZAHN: We got a two-fer out of you today, how nice. Thanks for hanging around with us.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired February 10, 2003 - 08:33   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Now back to Houston, where closing arguments could start today in the trial of a woman who is accused of running over and killing her husband with a car. Clara Harris is expected to return to the witness stand. You might remember that on Friday, she said she never intended to hit her husband. She testified that she was dazed and in physical pain after finding him with his mistress at a Houston hotel.
Gail Delaughter, a reporter for KTHR Radio, she's been covering the trial. She joins us from Houston this morning.

Good of you to join us. Welcome, Gail.

GAIL DELAUGHTER, KTHR RADIO REPORTER: Hi, good morning, Paula.

ZAHN: What can we expect her to testify to today?

DELAUGHTER: She's going to go on redirect, and this is when George Parnham, her attorney, gets to question her some more, about some things she said in the cross-examination to clarify points there. There's also an extensive defense witness list, so we do expect to hear some more defense witnesses after her, then the prosecution is going to bring on some rebuttal witnesses. They're going to call some accident reconstruction experts with the Houston Police Department to give their version of what happened the night Clara Harris ran over her husband in that hotel parking lot with the Mercedes.

ZAHN: Let's go back to what she said on Friday. She claimed that she was trying to hit her husband's mistress car, not hit him. How did that play with the jury? Was it believable?

DELAUGHTER: I think she came off as a very, very sympathetic person. We noticed a couple of jurors were wiping their eyes, wiping tears away, when she was giving her testimony. What the defense is trying to do is to portray her as a woman who is desperate to save her marriage, a committed mother, someone who was committed to the family business. They had a huge string of dental offices, orthodontics offices, and someone who was doing her best to be a good wife and a good mother, and then all of a sudden, she finds out her husband is having an affair with a receptionist, and then even after she found out about the affair, she wanted to change herself and change herself physically and mentally to make herself more attractive to her husband.

ZAHN: How powerful was that testimony? When she actually recalled a conversation she had with her husband and where he made very direct comparisons between her and his lover when he basically said, look, according to her, you're overweight, you're too talkative, you're too addicted to your job. And in a contrast, his mistress was -- quote -- "petite, was the perfect fit to sleep with."

DELAUGHTER: Right. She actually had -- they apparently went out for drinks one night to get away from the kids and the family, to have some quiet adult time to talk about the state of their marriage. She made notes on a bar napkin in two different columns, General Clara and General Gail, referring to Gail Bridges, the other woman, and wrote down, made notes while her husband made these comparisons. Clara Harris was considered fat, loud, not a good communicator, somewhat who was pessimistic, while he said that Gail Bridges had the perfect body, she was upbeat, she was a good communicator, and basically let him do whatever he wanted to do.

And these bar napkins were present as evidence during the trial. She saved them. George Pacino pulled them out of a folder, put them on a big screen for the jury to see, and I think that made a big impact.

ZAHN: I think any woman listening to that testimony could tell how tortured she was, particularly when she talked about how he held her hand in an intimate way that he used to do with her many, many years ago, and not in the late stages of the marriage.

Just give us a sense before we let you go on the jury's reaction to the totality of what they heard on Friday.

DELAUGHTER: They were listening very, very intently, and like I said, a couple of jurors were wiping away tears. This a nine woman, three-man jury, and I think it made a huge impact. She presented herself well on the witness stand. There were a few tears on her part, but very controlled, very beautifully dressed. So she came across as this very serious professional career woman, and I think that made a big impact on the jury.

ZAHN: We appreciate your perspective on all this today. Good luck. I know you've spent many hours in the courtroom. We'd love to catch up with you as the case closes out.

Gail Delaughter, thanks for your time this morning.

We want to turn now to our own legal expert for his take on Clara Harris' testimony, on what it could mean to her defense. Legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin is here now.

What do you think so far?

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, it's really amazing when you think about it. Her testimony essentially admits the entire government's case. She's saying this guy is an absolutely pig, and there's undisputed evidence of that, and she's essentially saying, this guy is so awful, he really deserved it. That's really the defense here.

But it's very risky because at one level, because at one level, she's just saying, well, of course, I wanted to kill him, wouldn't you? But she's essentially saying to the jury, come on, cut me a break here, because he deserved it.

ZAHN: Is that really what she was saying, she was trying to kill him, or is she saying I was really in such a daze and my judgment was so clouded by this man who had done so many hurtful things to me?

TOOBIN: It is hard for me to square ramming your car into someone with just simply being upset and in a daze. Plus, her biggest problem in this case is three times. She didn't just run over him once, she ran over him three times.

ZAHN: But she said she didn't even know she had hit him.

TOOBIN: Well, that's what she said and that's her defense, but it is hard to imagine how you could hit someone three times and not know what you were doing.

ZAHN: So if you're sitting in the jury right now, help us understand what part of this testimony you take seriously and you say, OK, I get that, and the rest that you kind of throw out?

TOOBIN: I think you sort of take it as a whole. You basically have to decide whether you want to punish this woman. She's obviously very sympathetic.

Interestingly, Texas law has a possible compromise position, that she's charged with murder, but she could be convicted of murder in passion. In Texas law, it's sort of like temporary insanity, where it could knock down her sentence considerably. I think she certainly has a good chance, if she's going to be convicted, of being convicted only of that lesser charge, but she's obviously a very sympathetic person, and I think the jury is going to at least want to do something right for her, but, I mean, hitting someone with a car three times is tough.

ZAHN: That's where I hear the former Mr. Prosecutor coming out. If you were sitting on the jury, would you acquit her, or convict her?

TOOBIN: I'd convict her.

ZAHN: You would?

TOOBIN: I don't think -- you know, as bad as this guy is, you can't kill him.

ZAHN: You can't take the prosecutor out of the guy.

TOOBIN: I know. I know.

ZAHN: We got a two-fer out of you today, how nice. Thanks for hanging around with us.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com