Return to Transcripts main page

Nancy Grace

Judge Allows Prior Allegations of Abuse Into Evidence Against Michael Jackson; Battle for Terri Schiavo

Aired March 28, 2005 - 20:00   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.


NANCY GRACE, CNN HOST: Man, oh, Manischewitz, bombshell in the Michael Jackson in the sex trial. The Jackson jury will -- repeat -- will hear about other little boys who claim Jackson molested them, as well. And last ditch efforts to stop Terri Schiavo from starving to death in her hospital bed. It`s day eleven, no food, no water.
Good evening, everybody. I`m Nancy Grace. And I want to thank you for being with us.

Tonight, Terri Schiavo, the fight to save her life is back on Capitol Hill, of all places. Doctors say Schiavo will likely die by the end of this week if no one intervenes.

But first, after hearing arguments and after weeks of deliberation in the Michael Jackson trial, the trial judge will -- repeat -- will allow the Jackson jury to hear past child sex claims. They`re coming back like a boomerang in court to hit Jackson, and I mean right in the neck.

And this weekend, Jackson took to the airwaves to declare his innocence -- gag order, bye-bye -- and he dared to compare himself to human rights hero Nelson Mandela and from my hometown, Dr. Martin Luther King.

Tonight, in Atlanta, the Reverend Jesse Jackson is joining us. It was on Mr. Jackson`s show where Jackson spoke out. In New York, defense attorney Jason Oshins and psychotherapist Dr. Robi Ludwig.

But first to Santa Maria, California, and "Inside Edition`s" senior correspondent, Jim Moret.

Jim, bring me up to date, friend.

JIM MORET, "INSIDE EDITION": This is a whole new trial, Nancy. The judge is allowing evidence of five other children who Jackson allegedly groomed and inappropriately touched. Now, the jury will only hear from one of the alleged victims.

The judge is doing something unusual. He`s allowing third-party witnesses, namely other witnesses who supposedly witnessed Jackson inappropriately touching and/or grooming other children. So in all, in addition to the alleged victim who`s in this case, there are five other alleged victims that this jury will hear about. And all of that will be basically for the jury to weigh. And it could very well impact the outcome of this case.

GRACE: You know, Jim Moret, here`s my question. If we`re going to hear about five other little boys who claim they were also molested, two little boys were ruled out. So am I hearing correctly -- I`m a lawyer, not a mathematician -- that there were seven alleged victims in addition to the boy on trial?

MORET: The prosecution wanted to bring in evidence of seven other victims. You`re absolutely right. And still, five could be potentially devastating for this defense.

Remember, this entire case from the defense standpoint has been built upon discrediting not only the boy but his mother, painting them as a mother/son grifter team. And they`ve been in effect trying to whittle away at their credibility.

Now, the defense is going to be faced with allegations of five other boys. And it could very well turn this jury against Michael Jackson. Because they may think, "You know what? Jackson has gotten away with this before many times. He should pay, and he`ll pay now."

GRACE: Now, I understand that a child actor -- well, it says a former child actor. So I assume the child actor is now an adult -- is going to testify. Is that true, Jim, without naming names?

MORET: Well, without naming names, it`s not definitive yet whether that -- that child actor, the former child actor, who`s currently still an actor, as you mentioned, and is now an adult, has said on the record nothing ever happened between him and Michael Jackson. So what the prosecution`s going to do is bring in another witness who said they witnessed something between this child actor, who was then between the age of 10 and 13, and Jackson.

GRACE: OK. I want to go to the Reverend Jesse Jackson.

Reverend, thank you for being with us.

REVEREND JESSE JACKSON, RAINBOW/PUSH COALITION: Yes.

GRACE: Reverend, did Michael Jackson call in on his own to the show? There`s a gag order in place.

J. JACKSON: Well, it is a gag order. And we did talk about it. He determined that he would come on. I asked him to come on, really, to talk about issues that were not directly related to the trial. He was very skillful in not engaging in anything about the trial itself. He is free to talk about non-trial items.

GRACE: True.

J. JACKSON: It`s interesting, Nancy, how the defense in fact has dealt, in the name of gag order, invaded his home, made ransacked materials public, I mean, they have not honored anything. It looks like a gag order. That`s why you know so much in the public domain because it has all come from the sheriff and the prosecutor.

GRACE: Well, Reverend Jackson, correct me if I am wrong, somebody may have spilled the beans, but that stuff came out of Jackson`s house. That`s his problem, not the police`s problem. They can`t help it if he has got all this porn.

J. JACKSON: Well, there are two or three different issues. Number one, porn in one`s house is legal, however distasteful it is maybe to some people. But the idea of 60 armed guards going in somebody`s house armed with cameras and ransacked their house and then take the confiscated material and take it to the press, that is as unusual as the judge allowing third-party witnesses. And so I relate to Michael not as a defense attorney but as really a friend of the family who has prayed with them.

GRACE: I know.

J. JACKSON: That all, it seems to me, both invasion of the house, the confiscated material, as well as the judge now allowing third-party testimony seems to me to be a bit extraordinary.

GRACE: Hold on, Reverend, regarding this third-party testimony, these are other boys that claim the same thing. Now, you know, Preacher, I prosecuted there in inner-city Atlanta for many, many years representing the citizens of inner-city Atlanta in child molestation cases. And calling these boys third-party witnesses makes them sound like they have nothing to do with this.

But you know what? Wait a minute. I want you to take a listen to something Michael Jackson said on your show.

Would you roll that, Elizabeth?

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

MICHAEL JACKSON, SINGER ACCUSED OF MOLESTATION: I gain strength from God. I believe in Jehovah God very much. And I gain strength from the fact that I know I`m innocent.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

GRACE: Well, the religious strength, I don`t have a problem with that. But talking about his innocence, in my mind, violates the gag order, Reverend.

J. JACKSON: Well, he declares himself to be innocent. He is free to state that, certainly.

But all of these new witnesses, Michael has not been charged nor convicted. But so far, based upon the prosecutor`s approach, he has been tried at least as much in the newsroom and public discourse as is in the courtroom. And so of all of these witnesses so far, Michael has not been charged nor convicted, except that it is happening in many ways in the media.

GRACE: Well, also, except for those two multi-million settlements, one to the tune of $20 million and one to the tune of $2 million -- Duffy, if you could come over here -- I have got in my hand right here, Reverend, a sworn declaration by a young man -- I`ll leave his name out of this, who swears -- actually, Elizabeth, can we throw up a graph of this?

Let me go with the first one, Elizabeth. Here it comes. "Physical contact between Michael Jackson and myself increased gradually. First step, Jackson hugging me. Next step, him to give me a brief kiss on the cheek, then on the lips. First, briefly, then a longer period of time. He would kiss me while we were in bed together."

Reverend Jackson, there`s something wrong with that.

J. JACKSON: Well, there`s something wrong with it if in fact that is a fact. And that`s why you have a courtroom, where you have testimony, and then you have the loyal opposition and you have cross-examination.

GRACE: True.

J. JACKSON: And you being a prosecutor, you know that there is allegations and then there is cross-examination. And there is a rush, it seems to me, in some instances of some of the impropriety...

GRACE: This is in 1993. This is not a rush, Reverend.

J. JACKSON: Well, the young man who is now an actor has said publicly it did not happen. With all of these...

GRACE: That`s a different alleged victim, though.

J. JACKSON: Well, the point is, so far there`s been...

GRACE: There`s just so many it`s hard to keep them straight.

J. JACKSON: Well, so far, no charges and no conviction. And whoever does testify must face cross-examination.

GRACE: Cross-exam. Reverend...

J. JACKSON: And so let`s see how it ends up. One thing we do know is that you`re innocent until proven guilty. He`s said he`s innocent. And that`s all that either of us know tonight, is that he`s innocent until proven guilty, however speculative any of us may choose to be.

GRACE: Hey, Reverend, it didn`t bug you at all that Michael Jackson compared himself to Reverend Martin Luther King?

J. JACKSON: Well, you know, I understood the context of it. First of all, we held Dr. King as a great hero now. But our government saw him as a threat to national security. And the FBI bugged his room, and tapped his phone, and sought to destroy his home and discredit him. We hold Mandela as a great hero. Mr. Mandela today, we saw him in jail as 27 years as a terrorist.

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: Well, did I hear you say, "we"? Don`t include me in that pot. Don`t throw me in.

J. JACKSON: Well, our government did. And Michael`s point, when you put it in context, Nancy, whether it was Jack Johnson, or Paul Robeson, or Martin King, or Mandela, historically, blacks who have risen to high heights have had the target on their backs. Now, in each instance...

GRACE: Reverend...

J. JACKSON: ... they were accused of being paranoid and crazy.

GRACE: Not child molesters.

J. JACKSON: Nancy, I submit this to you, just because you are paranoid does not mean that somebody is following you.

GRACE: You`re killing me. You`re killing me, Jesse Jackson.

J. JACKSON: Well, then you...

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: Child molestation in the same breath as Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela? King would roll over in his grave.

J. JACKSON: Well, one of the things that Easter proves, you don`t have to be guilty to be crucified. And so...

GRACE: Don`t drag Christ into this, Preacher.

J. JACKSON: Dr. King was -- hey, Dr. King was innocent, but crucified by our government. Mandela, innocent, but in jail for 27 years. And so Michael feels himself to be persecuted. Now, you may not agree with that, but that it his point of view. And...

GRACE: Well, aside from guilt or innocence, I don`t appreciate an accused child molester throwing himself in the pot with Mandela and MLK.

J. JACKSON: Well, Dr. King was accused of being unfaithful to the country. It was not true. Mandela was accused of being a terrorist. It was not true. Paul Robeson was accused of being unfaithful. It was not true. And so...

GRACE: Why is it that when anybody gets accused of something they immediately compare themselves to Nelson Mandela? Martha Stewart did it, and now Michael Jackson did it.

J. JACKSON: Because he is a great frame of reference. I remember two or three years ago...

GRACE: If you`re innocent, it is.

J. JACKSON: Well, you do not know whether he is anything but innocence. You cannot prove his guilt, and yet you act as if you can. And you can`t.

GRACE: No, you know what? The truth is, Jesse Jackson, I`m waiting. In a lot of cases, when I hear the evidence at the beginning, I get a pretty strong suspicion.

J. JACKSON: Well, sometimes you are not waiting, you are wowing. And let`s see what the conclusion really is, Nancy. You do not know.

GRACE: Well, I think I know. But I`m going to hold out.

With me, the Reverend Jesse Jackson. We will bring in the rest of the panel when we get back. Please stay with us.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

M. JACKSON: Just because it`s in print does make it the gospel. And you know, because they`re sensationalizing this thing to an immense degree. It`s a feeding frenzy. It`s because of my celebrity. The bigger the celebrity, the bigger the target.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GRACE: OK, in other days, Michael Jackson, he was still a huge icon. Ouch. Man, what a star. Well, right now, he`s starring in a whole new drama in a felony courtroom.

Welcome back. Let me go straight back out to Jim Moret, "Inside Edition" senior correspondent.

Jim, I know that there were five boys that the state wanted to bring in. Now, you`re telling me -- there were seven, they`re bringing in five, but only one of them is going to testify, correct?

MORET: Right. And that`s what really Jesse Jackson was talking about. So in a sense, the other four alleged victims, it is third-party testimony. They`re eyewitnesses, theoretically, to alleged acts of impropriety, for one.

GRACE: Why are you calling that third-party, Jim? An eyewitness is an eyewitness.

MORET: I understand. That`s what the judge was calling it today. And so, I mean, Jesse Jackson is right. That`s what the judge was calling it. He`s calling it third-party testimony, because it is eyewitness testimony.

But in each of these cases, Nancy, each of the cases except for one, the boy himself has said nothing ever happened. And I actually spoke with one of these alleged victims 11 years ago when I was with CNN. I spoke with the boy and his mother. The boy was then around 13 years old. And he said to me on tape, "Nothing ever happened." Now, I have to tell you, my big problem, frankly, was with the mother who allowed him to sleepover. But that`s a whole another issue.

GRACE: Was this the child actor?

MORET: No. It was one of the boys from Australia. Two of the alleged victims are from Australia.

GRACE: Jason Oshins, veteran trial lawyer, defense attorney, Jason Oshins, the fact that one of these boys is testifying, I believe, two of the mothers of the other boys are testifying, that gives me three, and the other two are eyewitnesses to acts on a child, devastating. How will Mesereau fight back?

JASON OSHINS, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: A very tough situation. You know, you have to tread carefully. And now with there being, you know, extra evidence of some other, you know, if you will, acts by Michael Jackson, it`s going to be very, very tough. I mean, to go after the accuser`s family was a tactical decision. And I think he did it masterfully in showing the inconsistencies and their statements and, you know, depicting them as liars.

Now, you`re going to have these prior acts that Judge Melville has let in. It`s very tough. You know, this is sort of a bit of piling on by the prosecutor. But it`s...

GRACE: Well, I don`t know if I agree with you on piling on. If the truth is the truth, then I don`t know why you`re calling it piling on, Jason Oshins.

Very quickly, Elizabeth, could you roll the Liz Taylor sound bite?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

M. JACKSON: My mother has always had a hard time with me all my life, forcing me to eat. Elizabeth Taylor used to feed me, hand-feed me, at times because I do have a problem with eating. But I do my very best. And I am eating, yes, I am.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Reverend Jackson, this is on your radio show, and you`ve got a grown man, Michael Jackson, talking about Elizabeth Taylor spoon-feeding him. Thoughts?

J. JACKSON: It seems he was having a food disorder, an appetite disorder. Now, that is a physical problem that has nothing to do with the case that he is on trial for.

I want to ask you a question. The piece of information you showed me a few minutes ago...

GRACE: Yes, sir.

J. JACKSON: ... the documentation. Does that fit within the gag order? Where did you get that information from?

GRACE: Which? Are you talking about the affidavit?

J. JACKSON: Yes.

GRACE: No. That is not within the gag order. That is a 1993 sworn allegation by I think a boy that was 12 years old at the time.

And speaking of, Elizabeth, let`s throw up that full screen from this sworn affidavit. This is one of the claims of prior abuse that will now come in: "Jackson then masturbated in front of me, told me when I was ready, he would do it for me. While we were in bed, Jackson put his hand underneath my underpants, masturbated me to a climax. After that, Jackson masturbated me many times, both with his hand and with his mouth."

I`m glad you asked, Reverend Jackson, because that`s just a tiny bit of what this jury is going to hear. Is it distasteful? Yes.

J. JACKSON: Yes, it`s distasteful.

GRACE: Will it be evidence in trial? Yes.

J. JACKSON: It`s distasteful. And upon cross-examination, we will know what the conclusion is. My point is, I`m not here to defend him, though I like Michael very much. I`m very close to their family. But let me submit to you that we`re not engaging in newsroom trial and public opinion trial. But in that court of law, as you know as a prosecutor, we`ll find out how valid these allegations are.

GRACE: And very quickly to Robi Ludwig. Do you think pedophiles repeat the same pattern of seducing one victim after the next?

DR. ROBI LUDWIG, PSYCHOTHERAPIST: They do, because we know that they can`t be cured. It`s a compulsion. So they really can`t help themselves. So very often, they engage in this pattern over and over again. And that`s why it`s so dangerous for Michael Jackson that this information is going to be allowed in the trial. Because where there`s smoke, there`s fire.

So people are going to be very suspicious. Well, why is this happening all the time with the same age group, the same sex? And it`s going to make Michael look more guilty than he would have if this information was not allowed in.

GRACE: Quick break, everybody. We`ll all be right back, including Reverend Jesse Jackson.

But quickly to "Trial Tracking": Today, in the Barton Corbin murder trial decided to rescind a gag order, allowing certain witnesses and potential witnesses to speak out. Corbin is a Georgia dentist. He`s charged with shooting his wife, Jennifer, to death last December. * Now, catch this. Then they dug up a 1990 shooting of his then- girlfriend in dental school, Dolly Hearn.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GRACE: Welcome back, everybody. I`m Nancy Grace. I want to thank you for being with us. Straight back out to California with Jim Moret for "Inside Edition."

Jim, when do you expect these similar transactions, the other five boy testimony, to start?

MORET: Very likely in the next couple of weeks, because the prosecutor wants to put the alleged victim`s mother on the stand within the next two weeks. And I think it would bolster her testimony if there were some prior allegations before she came on. Because remember, Thomas Mesereau, the defense attorney, has just been whittling -- he is really a boxer by nature. And he has been just punching away at these witnesses.

GRACE: You know, let`s talk about trial strategy a moment.

Jason Oshins, let`s say you have got five similar transactions, five out of seven. You have got a weak witness because of the potential for cross-examination, the mother. She may be a great witness on direct. She is going to take the heat on cross. Where would you stick her in?

You know, traditional thinking would be to put all five similar transactions, the other five boys, alleged victims of child molestation, in together in a block. But would you stick the mother in before, during or after the five?

OSHINS: I`d probably stick her in the middle somewhere and try and just...

GRACE: So just break the flow?

OSHINS: Yes, just break the flow a little bit. And just to clarify just what`s going on legally, of the five prior instances, only one victim is coming in to testify. The other four are, as has been reported by Jim and the Reverend, they are third-party witnesses because the accuser himself is not going to be speaking.

GRACE: You know what? I don`t know why you keep saying that to diminish...

OSHINS: That`s the judges words.

GRACE: These are -- so? So? A third-party witness...

OSHINS: It`s not the accuser himself. It`s other...

GRACE: Question.

OSHINS: Go ahead.

GRACE: Jim Moret, are these eyewitnesses to molestation?

MORET: Well, not in the mother`s cases. You`re talking about the mothers of the alleged victims.

GRACE: What about the others, the other two?

MORET: There`s one witness who alleges that he saw Michael Jackson in bed on several instances with boys, and their underwear was on the floor, both Michael Jackson`s...

GRACE: Hold everything.

Reverend Jesse Jackson, this suggestion that Michael Jackson is in bed with several little boys and all of their underwear is a pile by the bed?

J. JACKSON: No matter how ugly this sounds, I am not going to play judge as you are playing judge. Let`s hear, as you say, the testimony, the cross-examination. I do not know this to be true. And neither do you. And that`s why I`m patient enough to wait for the judicial process to take to its conclusion.

GRACE: Well, you know what? You`re right. I don`t know it to be true yet.

Now, let`s take another listen to Reverend Jesse Jackson`s radio show, Elizabeth.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

M. JACKSON: I know who I am inside and outside. And I know what I want to do. And I will always, you know, go with my dreams and my ideals in life. And I`m a very courageous person. And I believe in perseverance and determination and, you know, and all those wonderful things.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

GRACE: You know, I`m holding in my hand a sworn affidavit by a little boy who settled with Jackson with over 20 million to keep this case in `93 from going to trial.

Duff, if you could show that to the viewers?

Evidence from this case, and this little boy is coming in to court. Quick break.

We here at NANCY GRACE want desperately to help find missing people. Tonight, take a look at 13-year-old Mario Cabral, missing from Lawndale, California, since `97. Look at this little boy. Any information on Mario Cabral, please call the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, 1-800-THE-LOST. Please help us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

THOMAS ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: Hi, everybody. I`m Thomas Roberts. And here`s your "Headline Prime Newsbreak."

A powerful earthquake with a magnitude 8.7 struck off the coast of Indonesia today. The Indonesian vice president says as many as 2,000 people may have been killed in Indonesia. Fears of another devastating tsunami sent thousands of people scrambling for higher ground. But tsunami warnings were dropped several hours after the earthquake.

There`s been an arrest in connection with the shooting rampage on the Red Lake Indian Reservation in northern Minnesota last week. Federal officials say a juvenile was arrested yesterday but they haven`t said how that person might be connected to the attack. Officials say 16-year-old Jeff Weiss killed nine people before killing himself.

And in Florida, there may be one death now associated with an E. coli outbreak that may be linked to petting zoos. State health officials are investigating the sudden death of a Pasco County girl to see whether she came in contact with E. coli. There are 14 confirmed cases in the state and seven possible cases.

That is the news for now. I`m Thomas Roberts. We take you back for more of NANCY GRACE.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

J. JACKSON: I`m a warrior. And I know what`s inside of me. I`m a fighter. But it`s very painful. At the end of the day, I`m still human, you know? I`m still a human being. So it does hurt very, very, very much.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: And you know what? This is going to hurt even more, as soon as the judge allows all these other boy`s testimony to come in regarding past child molestation claims. Here is a portion of a sworn affidavit from a 1993 boy accuser.

Let`s throw that up, Elizabeth.

"Michael Jackson had me suck on one nipple, twist the other, while Jackson masturbated. On one occasion, when Jackson and I were in bed together, Jackson grabbed my buttock, kissed me, put his tongue in my ear. I told him I didn`t like that, and Jackson started to cry."

OK, all right. Here`s another one. From a sworn affidavit -- this affidavit resulted in a 20-million plus dollar settlement paid out by Jackson -- "The next step was when Jackson put his tongue in my mouth. I told him I didn`t like that. Jackson started crying and said there was nothing wrong with it."

Now, back to the Reverend Jesse Jackson. Didn`t Michael Jackson tell you on your radio show that there`s a big conspiracy against him?

J. JACKSON: He has said that. He feels himself to be persecuted. He feels that the behavior of the sheriff and invasion of his home and taking public this private stuff...

GRACE: It`s called a search pursuant to warrant, Reverend.

J. JACKSON: Well, to go into someone`s house with 70 armed guards as if you expect an armed resistance is a bit much. To have this international press conference asking for more witnesses to come forward is a bit much. And even the day when the judge says, of these people lined up, on only one is going to be able to testify. So I guess my point, Nancy, really is, while I`m very sensitive to it and concerned about it, I`m willing to wait out the judicial process.

GRACE: OK. OK. I think that`s fair.

Very quickly, back to Jim Moret. Jim, very quickly, George Lopez on the stand today. Explain, the comedian. Have you read his book? It`s great, "Who`s Crying Now?" (sic)...

MORET: I know you`re a fan of his book. I know, and he really has endurance.

GRACE: Jim, this guy came from like poverty, worked himself all the way up to become a huge star, and that makes me really like him. I guess, Jim, I feel like I know him, like he`s going to invite me to dinner with him and his wife after the trial. That`s how jurors do.

MORET: I think all of us in the courtroom felt like that. Yes, we felt like that in the courtroom.

And this is a street-smart comic who has found tremendous success on television. And he`s wildly successful, and he has a great deal of confidence. And he was not rattled at all. This was originally a witness that was supposed to be a defense witness, someone to say that this mother/son grifter team tried to bilk him for money. He didn`t say that at all.

He said the child was charming. He liked this kid. He considered this kid his hero. He liked the mom. She never asked him for anything. If anyone was vilified, it was the estranged or the now-divorced husband, ex-husband, of this mother. That`s why George Lopez broke off the relationship with the child, not because he felt he was being bilked by the mother and son, but by the ex-husband. And he became from a defense witness to a very strong prosecution witness.

So we saw -- now, it`s three witnesses that the defense had offered up to this jury that are now prosecution witnesses. I think that`s going to hurt the defense quite a bit.

GRACE: So Jason Oshins, that`s three people the defense offered, Mesereau offered in opening statement that were going to show how this family was just a set of grifters and users. Ouch, huh, Jason?

OSHINS: Well, you know, I think it shows that at least the family, from the defense point, clearly the father, the ex-husband, the mother, you have to got dissect all of it and put it all together.

The family had an agenda. Whether in this case with Mr. Lopez it wasn`t the mother and the accuser, but the father. And in other prior instances, it was the mother, the brother, the sister. I think you portray the family as they are, as the defense is doing. How it flip-flopped or how it set out in court specifically is a matter for the defense to connect together for the benefit of the jury. But let`s not mistake the fact that the prosecution certainly has an agenda against Michael Jackson. This particular...

GRACE: Hey, you know, he`s the prosecutor. He`s carrying out the will of the grand jury. Why you`re calling it an agenda like it`s something nefarious, don`t know.

OSHINS: Prosecutors are also political beasts, as well, and certainly has demonstrated in the past that he has an agenda from that, in the past as well as now.

GRACE: I forgot, the conspiracy. OK, so I guess Sneddon, the district attorney, is in with Sony and Mottola...

OSHINS: I don`t know who he`s in with, but...

GRACE: ... and everybody else that`s trying to get Michael. Listen, everybody loved Michael Jackson until this.

OSHINS: Nancy, you worked in a prosecutor`s office for many years...

GRACE: You`re darn right.

OSHINS: .... and you were a shining star. And you know that your boss was a...

GRACE: No sucking up.

OSHINS: ... your boss was a political animal, nonetheless, and he was successful at what he did, and prosecutors need to get reelected.

GRACE: Point.

OSHINS: He`s picking on the biggest pop star, the biggest international star that he can find.

GRACE: OK, you know what? You have got to come up with something better than an international conspiracy. But just hold that thought a moment.

Dr. Robi Ludwig, in this case, what does it mean to you that each of these boys, separated in time and space, very quickly, have the same scenario?

LUDWIG: Well, it`s possible that it did happen in some of these cases and not in the current case. So that he might have engaged in sexual misconduct with some of these kids, but it doesn`t mean that it necessarily happened with this sick child.

GRACE: Now, how did you decide that this kid is the one that`s lying?

LUDWIG: I`m just saying that the fit...

GRACE: It may be possibly, it could be this?

LUDWIG: Well, there is something about the family, that they`re -- you know, they look like grifters that are out for something.

GRACE: Why do you say that? Did you see them in court?

LUDWIG: Well, because of their previous manipulations with the courtroom, and asking for money, and suing for money.

GRACE: And winning?

LUDWIG: Well, but also and admitting, lying. And you know...

GRACE: True, they did admit lying.

LUDWIG: ... so there is something about this family that`s suspicious.

GRACE: Well, Robi, I do have to say you`re right. They were caught lying. And that`s going to hurt the state immensely.

Let`s switch gears very quickly.

Today, as you know, day eleven, still no food, no water for Terri Schiavo. Her family continues to hope. Tonight, in Washington, end-of- life expert, Dr. Carlos Gomez; in Philadelphia, from the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Art Caplan; in Louisville, Kentucky, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President Albert Mohler; in Seattle, Washington, Compassion and Choices director of legal affairs, Kathryn Tucker.

But first to Pinellas Park, Florida, and Washington Post reporter Manuel Roig-Franzia.

Sir, bring me up to date.

MANUEL ROIG-FRANZIA, WASHINGTON POST: Another fascinating day. You know, we learned today that, immediately after Terri Schiavo dies, an autopsy will be performed. That`s not necessarily a shocker, but the reasoning is interesting.

Michael Schiavo says that he wants that autopsy to prove once and for all that his wife was brain damaged beyond hope of recovery. Then, minutes later, you have Randall Terry, who has been the spokesman for the Schindler family, resurrecting some old allegations, some old suspicions that the Schindler family has, that Michael Schiavo may have attacked Terri Schiavo at some point, broken her bones, and that that could have been the cause for her brain injury, instead of the heart attack that all the doctors say cut off oxygen to her brain and led to the severe brain damage that has put her where she is today.

GRACE: To Dr. Carlos Gomez -- he`s an end-of-life expert -- Doctor, could you tell me, is a persistent vegetative state the same thing as a coma?

DR. CARLOS GOMEZ, END OF LIFE EXPERT: Well, it`s persistent in the sense that it`s not going to go away. A coma can, in fact, go away. So I think the big difference here is the time frame.

GRACE: Can one come out of a persistent vegetative state?

GOMEZ: Not in the way that I think the Schiavo family is asking her to. You can make progress. You can adapt. But to think that this poor woman after 15 years is going to come back to any sort of baseline I think is vanishingly small.

GRACE: Dr. Albert Mohler, is that the test? Will she come back from any baseline? Will she be like me and you, and be able to drive a car and a bicycle and flip a pancake? Is that how you manage to avoid starvation?

DR. ALBERT MOHLER, SOUTHERN BAPTIST THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY: No, we cannot make that the baseline for human dignity. She is a human person. She has a beating heart. She is breathing. She is not brain dead. We have no right, no moral qualification, to just decide that those who do not have to, what is in our judgment, arbitrarily set an adequate state of consciousness that we`ll just disconnect these people, take away their feeding tube and hydration.

Once a human life like this is discounted, Nancy, every human life is discounted. The question is, who`s next? What will be the next qualification? What will be the next barrier crossed? Terri Schiavo now, where next?

GRACE: That`s an excellent point, Reverend.

To Kathryn Tucker, number one, Kathryn, do you believe we can trust this husband to truly carry out what she wanted instead of pursuing his own interests with this new woman in his life, this new family? And don`t you get a little nervous when the courts and Congress start butting in?

KATHRYN TUCKER, DIR. LEGAL AFFAIRS, COMPASSION AND CHOICES: Well, look, what we have to be careful about here is not discounting Terri Schiavo`s wishes. Her wishes, as expressed to her husband, were that, if she ever were in this kind of situation, she would not want to be maintained. And her husband is giving voice to those wishes.

And we discount her life. And we discount the honor of her life by ignoring those wishes. We have to give respect to the patient`s wishes, which in this case, under Florida law, are properly voiced by her husband.

Can we trust him? There has been court proceedings examining in some minute detail whether he is the appropriate person to speak for his wife. And the courts have all concluded that he is. And so I think we have to let him continue to speak for her since she can no longer speak for herself.

GRACE: We`ll be right back with our Washington Post reporter, Manuel Roig-Franzia. Stay with us.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BOB SCHINDLER, FATHER OF TERRI SCHIAVO: I don`t want to overestimate her condition. But she`s failing. But she`s still with us. And she`s shown just a determination to live. It`s incredible.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

B. SCHINDLER: She`s still communicating, still responding. She`s emaciated, but she`s responsive. And she`s responding to me. And she`s begging for help. We`re begging for help. She has amazing, amazing endurance.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: So says Terri Schiavo`s father.

Let me quickly go to Dr. Art Caplan. He`s the chairman of department of medical ethics at University of Pennsylvania.

Thank you, sir, for being with us.

DR. ART CAPLAN, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA: Hi, Nancy.

GRACE: Sir, in light of what Terri`s family, her parents, her blood relatives, are saying -- not the husband with the girlfriend and two children -- what`s your response to their theory, their statement, their assertion that Terri is alive and aware of what`s going on around her?

CAPLAN: Doesn`t square up with the medical facts at all. I know they wish it did. I know they want it to. But if you looked at her CAT scan, as at least seven doctors have done over the many years that this case has been debated back and forth, there`s no way that she`s going to be responding or communicating.

I know we`ve all seen that tape run again and again and again. But that`s a couple of minutes out of four hours. It`s a little bit of advocacy to put it that way.

So what I`d say is this: The facts of the case, in some sense, after thirty trials up and down the Florida courts, up and down the U.S. courts, you almost have to say, "I don`t know about Michael Schiavo. He may not be the world`s nicest guy, but he has held up again and again in front of, you know, objective jurors as the person who has the best idea about what she would want." I`m ready to go with that. No starving...

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: When you say objective jurors, I don`t necessarily know, Doctor, if I want a judge, much less a federal judge who`s in for life -- you can`t get rid of them, Doctor. Did you know hat?

CAPLAN: Nancy, I`m going to tell you...

GRACE: I`d hate for him to make a decision about me and my feeding tube, which I`m going on the record again. Don`t pull my tube anybody. I want to remain a burden.

CAPLAN: I`m going to say this. If people start -- you know, it used to be interesting to hear about criticism of the court trials here. It`s a not interesting anymore. Every possible court in the land has reviewed it. I`m putting that one to bed.

GRACE: You have got me over the barrel on that one, Doctor.

Robi, when it comes to the parents, why would they feel differently than other people?

LUDWIG: Well, when you`re a parent, you see things that you need to see. So their daughter`s not responding. They have a strong desire to believe that she`s reacting to them.

GRACE: Why are you so quick to say she`s not responding, to jumping on the bandwagon?

LUDWIG: No, I have actually spoken with many doctors about it, including neurosurgeons who say, listen, the brain works like this: You use it or you lose it. She`s been in this state for a very long time. Not only that, the tape that we see over, and over, and over again is a very old tape.

GRACE: That is true, Dr. Robi.

Let`s play that bite, Elizabeth, from Schiavo`s lawyer, Felos.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE FELOS, MICHAEL SCHIAVO`S ATTORNEY: Terri`s eyes do look more sunken than when I saw her last. And also her breathing was a little on the rapid side.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: You know, Reverend Mohler, what concerns me is, like, if she were on a ventilator and you unplugged the ventilator and she dies, that`s entirely different in my mind than taking someone off nutrition. To stand by and watch a human starve to death with no pain -- to eat no pain medication, Reverend?

MOHLER: Well, like you, I think most Americans just know this doesn`t make any sense. None of us would consider food and water to be medical treatments. And I realize that the courts have determined that. But I think that`s why we need a law to fix what the courts have decided. Because I think it just doesn`t fit common moral sense to believe that food and hydration are to be considered medical treatments.

And to hear George Felos, who`s an enthusiast for euthanasia, you know, pushing this is as if this is some kind of beautiful death, I find this one of the most macabre, scary and frightening things I`ve seen in America in a very long time.

GRACE: Well, I`ve got to tell you this much, Reverend. I imagine all of us had a nice meal tonight, a little surf and turf, a little salad, a little iced tea. And we`re all sitting back saying how she doesn`t feel any pain.

Speaking of pain, Manuel is joining us, the Washington Post reporter. Manuel, I`m going to tackle your last name again, Manuel Roig-Franzia, I think.

ROIG-FRANZIA: Very good.

GRACE: Thank you. What about any -- is she getting any pain medication whatsoever?

ROIG-FRANZIA: Well, today, George Felos said that she has received what he described as a minuscule amount of morphine, not the morphine drip that had been reported in some venues, but a suppository of 50 milligrams of morphine that had been administered twice since her feeding tube was removed. He said that it was administered because of some physical symptoms that had been identified by the staff in the hospice. But he didn`t go into details about what those symptoms were.

GRACE: Well, for them to want to give the woman morphine, they obviously think she`s in pain. And these objective doctors are giving her morphine. So that suggests to me they know the poor woman is in pain.

Very quickly, Manuel, before I go to break, Terri is a Catholic. Has that figured into the case at all?

ROIG-FRANZIA: Oh, it`s had a huge emphasis in this case. Her Catholicism has been talked about a lot. The Vatican has taken a much more direct involvement in this case than they have in other recent right-to-die controversies.

You had Pope John Paul last year make a general statement that removing feeding tubes was a sin unless, in all instances, in which it was not providing nourishment or alleviating suffering.

GRACE: Yes. Well, I was thinking not so much about what the Pope over in Vatican City has to say about it, but what her true wishes would be in light of her religion.

Manuel, don`t go away, I have got to go to break.

Everybody, as we go to break, you may remember this past weekend, final good-byes to nine-year-old little Jessie Lunsford, kidnapped from her home a month ago. There was a private funeral Friday. And over 1,000 people came to remember little Jessie on Sunday. Her little body found last week after a convicted sex offender, John Couey, confessed to kidnapping and killing nine-year-old Jessie.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SUZANNE VITADAMO, TERRI SCHIAVO`S SISTER: She`s weaker, but she`s still trying to talk. She has a different look on her face, though. The look on her face is, "Please help me." And that`s exactly what I get from her when I`m in there. So she`s fighting. She`s struggling. And does this sound like somebody that wants to die? I don`t think so.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: That was Terri Schiavo`s sister speaking out.

To Dr. Carlos Gomez, an end-of-life expert. Dr. Gomez, they`re giving her morphine, just a minuscule amount. Is she feeling pain?

GOMEZ: Can I go back to something you said a little bit earlier...

GRACE: Yes, sir.

GOMEZ: ... about her symptoms? To compare what Terri Schiavo or somebody in a persistent vegetative state is going through, to one of us not eating a full meal or having a drink of water, really does a disservice to the people that are listening to you.

GRACE: But that`s not what I said. I said it`s easy for us to sit around and talk about her feeling no pain when we`ve all had dinner, whatever we want.

GOMEZ: But you`re saying essentially the same thing. You`re saying that she -- you`re saying that we`ve been sated, that our hunger has been sated, our thirst has been a sated. And the reason that we feel hunger and feel thirst is because we`re awake. That`s the way our brain works. So that`s number one.

GRACE: True.

GOMEZ: Number two, a patient whose kidneys have shut down does not ask for food and water. And I`ve taken care of hundreds of patients whose kidneys have shutdown who are awake and describing their symptoms to us. And they don`t ask for food and water.

So I think that we`re doing a gross disservice here to the entire situation. It doesn`t say whether her families are correct or not. It simply says that the way we`re describing what this poor woman is going through, I think, is purple prose.

GRACE: Dr. Art Caplan, I`ve only got 30 seconds left, at this juncture, is she feeling pain? And if so, is letting a slow starvation occur the right answer?

CAPLAN: I don`t think she can feel pain. I agree with what Carlos Gomez says. Her brain is not in a position to sense or feel. I think that, unfortunately, one of the ways that a lot of us are going to die is with a feeding tube removed. It`s going to be something that we`ll have to deal with.

GRACE: Reverend Mohler and Kathryn Tucker, I wish I could have revisited with you.

I want to thank all my guests tonight, Manuel Roig-Franzia, Dr. Carlos Gomez, Dr. Caplan, Reverend Mohler, Kathryn Tucker, earlier, Jessie Jackson, Jim Moret, Jason Oshins, and Dr. Robi Ludwig.

But as always, my biggest thank you is to you for being with us tonight, inviting all of us into your homes. I`m Nancy Grace signing off for tonight. See you tomorrow. Good night, friend.

END


Aired March 28, 2005 - 20:00:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
NANCY GRACE, CNN HOST: Man, oh, Manischewitz, bombshell in the Michael Jackson in the sex trial. The Jackson jury will -- repeat -- will hear about other little boys who claim Jackson molested them, as well. And last ditch efforts to stop Terri Schiavo from starving to death in her hospital bed. It`s day eleven, no food, no water.
Good evening, everybody. I`m Nancy Grace. And I want to thank you for being with us.

Tonight, Terri Schiavo, the fight to save her life is back on Capitol Hill, of all places. Doctors say Schiavo will likely die by the end of this week if no one intervenes.

But first, after hearing arguments and after weeks of deliberation in the Michael Jackson trial, the trial judge will -- repeat -- will allow the Jackson jury to hear past child sex claims. They`re coming back like a boomerang in court to hit Jackson, and I mean right in the neck.

And this weekend, Jackson took to the airwaves to declare his innocence -- gag order, bye-bye -- and he dared to compare himself to human rights hero Nelson Mandela and from my hometown, Dr. Martin Luther King.

Tonight, in Atlanta, the Reverend Jesse Jackson is joining us. It was on Mr. Jackson`s show where Jackson spoke out. In New York, defense attorney Jason Oshins and psychotherapist Dr. Robi Ludwig.

But first to Santa Maria, California, and "Inside Edition`s" senior correspondent, Jim Moret.

Jim, bring me up to date, friend.

JIM MORET, "INSIDE EDITION": This is a whole new trial, Nancy. The judge is allowing evidence of five other children who Jackson allegedly groomed and inappropriately touched. Now, the jury will only hear from one of the alleged victims.

The judge is doing something unusual. He`s allowing third-party witnesses, namely other witnesses who supposedly witnessed Jackson inappropriately touching and/or grooming other children. So in all, in addition to the alleged victim who`s in this case, there are five other alleged victims that this jury will hear about. And all of that will be basically for the jury to weigh. And it could very well impact the outcome of this case.

GRACE: You know, Jim Moret, here`s my question. If we`re going to hear about five other little boys who claim they were also molested, two little boys were ruled out. So am I hearing correctly -- I`m a lawyer, not a mathematician -- that there were seven alleged victims in addition to the boy on trial?

MORET: The prosecution wanted to bring in evidence of seven other victims. You`re absolutely right. And still, five could be potentially devastating for this defense.

Remember, this entire case from the defense standpoint has been built upon discrediting not only the boy but his mother, painting them as a mother/son grifter team. And they`ve been in effect trying to whittle away at their credibility.

Now, the defense is going to be faced with allegations of five other boys. And it could very well turn this jury against Michael Jackson. Because they may think, "You know what? Jackson has gotten away with this before many times. He should pay, and he`ll pay now."

GRACE: Now, I understand that a child actor -- well, it says a former child actor. So I assume the child actor is now an adult -- is going to testify. Is that true, Jim, without naming names?

MORET: Well, without naming names, it`s not definitive yet whether that -- that child actor, the former child actor, who`s currently still an actor, as you mentioned, and is now an adult, has said on the record nothing ever happened between him and Michael Jackson. So what the prosecution`s going to do is bring in another witness who said they witnessed something between this child actor, who was then between the age of 10 and 13, and Jackson.

GRACE: OK. I want to go to the Reverend Jesse Jackson.

Reverend, thank you for being with us.

REVEREND JESSE JACKSON, RAINBOW/PUSH COALITION: Yes.

GRACE: Reverend, did Michael Jackson call in on his own to the show? There`s a gag order in place.

J. JACKSON: Well, it is a gag order. And we did talk about it. He determined that he would come on. I asked him to come on, really, to talk about issues that were not directly related to the trial. He was very skillful in not engaging in anything about the trial itself. He is free to talk about non-trial items.

GRACE: True.

J. JACKSON: It`s interesting, Nancy, how the defense in fact has dealt, in the name of gag order, invaded his home, made ransacked materials public, I mean, they have not honored anything. It looks like a gag order. That`s why you know so much in the public domain because it has all come from the sheriff and the prosecutor.

GRACE: Well, Reverend Jackson, correct me if I am wrong, somebody may have spilled the beans, but that stuff came out of Jackson`s house. That`s his problem, not the police`s problem. They can`t help it if he has got all this porn.

J. JACKSON: Well, there are two or three different issues. Number one, porn in one`s house is legal, however distasteful it is maybe to some people. But the idea of 60 armed guards going in somebody`s house armed with cameras and ransacked their house and then take the confiscated material and take it to the press, that is as unusual as the judge allowing third-party witnesses. And so I relate to Michael not as a defense attorney but as really a friend of the family who has prayed with them.

GRACE: I know.

J. JACKSON: That all, it seems to me, both invasion of the house, the confiscated material, as well as the judge now allowing third-party testimony seems to me to be a bit extraordinary.

GRACE: Hold on, Reverend, regarding this third-party testimony, these are other boys that claim the same thing. Now, you know, Preacher, I prosecuted there in inner-city Atlanta for many, many years representing the citizens of inner-city Atlanta in child molestation cases. And calling these boys third-party witnesses makes them sound like they have nothing to do with this.

But you know what? Wait a minute. I want you to take a listen to something Michael Jackson said on your show.

Would you roll that, Elizabeth?

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

MICHAEL JACKSON, SINGER ACCUSED OF MOLESTATION: I gain strength from God. I believe in Jehovah God very much. And I gain strength from the fact that I know I`m innocent.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

GRACE: Well, the religious strength, I don`t have a problem with that. But talking about his innocence, in my mind, violates the gag order, Reverend.

J. JACKSON: Well, he declares himself to be innocent. He is free to state that, certainly.

But all of these new witnesses, Michael has not been charged nor convicted. But so far, based upon the prosecutor`s approach, he has been tried at least as much in the newsroom and public discourse as is in the courtroom. And so of all of these witnesses so far, Michael has not been charged nor convicted, except that it is happening in many ways in the media.

GRACE: Well, also, except for those two multi-million settlements, one to the tune of $20 million and one to the tune of $2 million -- Duffy, if you could come over here -- I have got in my hand right here, Reverend, a sworn declaration by a young man -- I`ll leave his name out of this, who swears -- actually, Elizabeth, can we throw up a graph of this?

Let me go with the first one, Elizabeth. Here it comes. "Physical contact between Michael Jackson and myself increased gradually. First step, Jackson hugging me. Next step, him to give me a brief kiss on the cheek, then on the lips. First, briefly, then a longer period of time. He would kiss me while we were in bed together."

Reverend Jackson, there`s something wrong with that.

J. JACKSON: Well, there`s something wrong with it if in fact that is a fact. And that`s why you have a courtroom, where you have testimony, and then you have the loyal opposition and you have cross-examination.

GRACE: True.

J. JACKSON: And you being a prosecutor, you know that there is allegations and then there is cross-examination. And there is a rush, it seems to me, in some instances of some of the impropriety...

GRACE: This is in 1993. This is not a rush, Reverend.

J. JACKSON: Well, the young man who is now an actor has said publicly it did not happen. With all of these...

GRACE: That`s a different alleged victim, though.

J. JACKSON: Well, the point is, so far there`s been...

GRACE: There`s just so many it`s hard to keep them straight.

J. JACKSON: Well, so far, no charges and no conviction. And whoever does testify must face cross-examination.

GRACE: Cross-exam. Reverend...

J. JACKSON: And so let`s see how it ends up. One thing we do know is that you`re innocent until proven guilty. He`s said he`s innocent. And that`s all that either of us know tonight, is that he`s innocent until proven guilty, however speculative any of us may choose to be.

GRACE: Hey, Reverend, it didn`t bug you at all that Michael Jackson compared himself to Reverend Martin Luther King?

J. JACKSON: Well, you know, I understood the context of it. First of all, we held Dr. King as a great hero now. But our government saw him as a threat to national security. And the FBI bugged his room, and tapped his phone, and sought to destroy his home and discredit him. We hold Mandela as a great hero. Mr. Mandela today, we saw him in jail as 27 years as a terrorist.

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: Well, did I hear you say, "we"? Don`t include me in that pot. Don`t throw me in.

J. JACKSON: Well, our government did. And Michael`s point, when you put it in context, Nancy, whether it was Jack Johnson, or Paul Robeson, or Martin King, or Mandela, historically, blacks who have risen to high heights have had the target on their backs. Now, in each instance...

GRACE: Reverend...

J. JACKSON: ... they were accused of being paranoid and crazy.

GRACE: Not child molesters.

J. JACKSON: Nancy, I submit this to you, just because you are paranoid does not mean that somebody is following you.

GRACE: You`re killing me. You`re killing me, Jesse Jackson.

J. JACKSON: Well, then you...

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: Child molestation in the same breath as Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela? King would roll over in his grave.

J. JACKSON: Well, one of the things that Easter proves, you don`t have to be guilty to be crucified. And so...

GRACE: Don`t drag Christ into this, Preacher.

J. JACKSON: Dr. King was -- hey, Dr. King was innocent, but crucified by our government. Mandela, innocent, but in jail for 27 years. And so Michael feels himself to be persecuted. Now, you may not agree with that, but that it his point of view. And...

GRACE: Well, aside from guilt or innocence, I don`t appreciate an accused child molester throwing himself in the pot with Mandela and MLK.

J. JACKSON: Well, Dr. King was accused of being unfaithful to the country. It was not true. Mandela was accused of being a terrorist. It was not true. Paul Robeson was accused of being unfaithful. It was not true. And so...

GRACE: Why is it that when anybody gets accused of something they immediately compare themselves to Nelson Mandela? Martha Stewart did it, and now Michael Jackson did it.

J. JACKSON: Because he is a great frame of reference. I remember two or three years ago...

GRACE: If you`re innocent, it is.

J. JACKSON: Well, you do not know whether he is anything but innocence. You cannot prove his guilt, and yet you act as if you can. And you can`t.

GRACE: No, you know what? The truth is, Jesse Jackson, I`m waiting. In a lot of cases, when I hear the evidence at the beginning, I get a pretty strong suspicion.

J. JACKSON: Well, sometimes you are not waiting, you are wowing. And let`s see what the conclusion really is, Nancy. You do not know.

GRACE: Well, I think I know. But I`m going to hold out.

With me, the Reverend Jesse Jackson. We will bring in the rest of the panel when we get back. Please stay with us.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

M. JACKSON: Just because it`s in print does make it the gospel. And you know, because they`re sensationalizing this thing to an immense degree. It`s a feeding frenzy. It`s because of my celebrity. The bigger the celebrity, the bigger the target.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GRACE: OK, in other days, Michael Jackson, he was still a huge icon. Ouch. Man, what a star. Well, right now, he`s starring in a whole new drama in a felony courtroom.

Welcome back. Let me go straight back out to Jim Moret, "Inside Edition" senior correspondent.

Jim, I know that there were five boys that the state wanted to bring in. Now, you`re telling me -- there were seven, they`re bringing in five, but only one of them is going to testify, correct?

MORET: Right. And that`s what really Jesse Jackson was talking about. So in a sense, the other four alleged victims, it is third-party testimony. They`re eyewitnesses, theoretically, to alleged acts of impropriety, for one.

GRACE: Why are you calling that third-party, Jim? An eyewitness is an eyewitness.

MORET: I understand. That`s what the judge was calling it today. And so, I mean, Jesse Jackson is right. That`s what the judge was calling it. He`s calling it third-party testimony, because it is eyewitness testimony.

But in each of these cases, Nancy, each of the cases except for one, the boy himself has said nothing ever happened. And I actually spoke with one of these alleged victims 11 years ago when I was with CNN. I spoke with the boy and his mother. The boy was then around 13 years old. And he said to me on tape, "Nothing ever happened." Now, I have to tell you, my big problem, frankly, was with the mother who allowed him to sleepover. But that`s a whole another issue.

GRACE: Was this the child actor?

MORET: No. It was one of the boys from Australia. Two of the alleged victims are from Australia.

GRACE: Jason Oshins, veteran trial lawyer, defense attorney, Jason Oshins, the fact that one of these boys is testifying, I believe, two of the mothers of the other boys are testifying, that gives me three, and the other two are eyewitnesses to acts on a child, devastating. How will Mesereau fight back?

JASON OSHINS, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: A very tough situation. You know, you have to tread carefully. And now with there being, you know, extra evidence of some other, you know, if you will, acts by Michael Jackson, it`s going to be very, very tough. I mean, to go after the accuser`s family was a tactical decision. And I think he did it masterfully in showing the inconsistencies and their statements and, you know, depicting them as liars.

Now, you`re going to have these prior acts that Judge Melville has let in. It`s very tough. You know, this is sort of a bit of piling on by the prosecutor. But it`s...

GRACE: Well, I don`t know if I agree with you on piling on. If the truth is the truth, then I don`t know why you`re calling it piling on, Jason Oshins.

Very quickly, Elizabeth, could you roll the Liz Taylor sound bite?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

M. JACKSON: My mother has always had a hard time with me all my life, forcing me to eat. Elizabeth Taylor used to feed me, hand-feed me, at times because I do have a problem with eating. But I do my very best. And I am eating, yes, I am.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Reverend Jackson, this is on your radio show, and you`ve got a grown man, Michael Jackson, talking about Elizabeth Taylor spoon-feeding him. Thoughts?

J. JACKSON: It seems he was having a food disorder, an appetite disorder. Now, that is a physical problem that has nothing to do with the case that he is on trial for.

I want to ask you a question. The piece of information you showed me a few minutes ago...

GRACE: Yes, sir.

J. JACKSON: ... the documentation. Does that fit within the gag order? Where did you get that information from?

GRACE: Which? Are you talking about the affidavit?

J. JACKSON: Yes.

GRACE: No. That is not within the gag order. That is a 1993 sworn allegation by I think a boy that was 12 years old at the time.

And speaking of, Elizabeth, let`s throw up that full screen from this sworn affidavit. This is one of the claims of prior abuse that will now come in: "Jackson then masturbated in front of me, told me when I was ready, he would do it for me. While we were in bed, Jackson put his hand underneath my underpants, masturbated me to a climax. After that, Jackson masturbated me many times, both with his hand and with his mouth."

I`m glad you asked, Reverend Jackson, because that`s just a tiny bit of what this jury is going to hear. Is it distasteful? Yes.

J. JACKSON: Yes, it`s distasteful.

GRACE: Will it be evidence in trial? Yes.

J. JACKSON: It`s distasteful. And upon cross-examination, we will know what the conclusion is. My point is, I`m not here to defend him, though I like Michael very much. I`m very close to their family. But let me submit to you that we`re not engaging in newsroom trial and public opinion trial. But in that court of law, as you know as a prosecutor, we`ll find out how valid these allegations are.

GRACE: And very quickly to Robi Ludwig. Do you think pedophiles repeat the same pattern of seducing one victim after the next?

DR. ROBI LUDWIG, PSYCHOTHERAPIST: They do, because we know that they can`t be cured. It`s a compulsion. So they really can`t help themselves. So very often, they engage in this pattern over and over again. And that`s why it`s so dangerous for Michael Jackson that this information is going to be allowed in the trial. Because where there`s smoke, there`s fire.

So people are going to be very suspicious. Well, why is this happening all the time with the same age group, the same sex? And it`s going to make Michael look more guilty than he would have if this information was not allowed in.

GRACE: Quick break, everybody. We`ll all be right back, including Reverend Jesse Jackson.

But quickly to "Trial Tracking": Today, in the Barton Corbin murder trial decided to rescind a gag order, allowing certain witnesses and potential witnesses to speak out. Corbin is a Georgia dentist. He`s charged with shooting his wife, Jennifer, to death last December. * Now, catch this. Then they dug up a 1990 shooting of his then- girlfriend in dental school, Dolly Hearn.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GRACE: Welcome back, everybody. I`m Nancy Grace. I want to thank you for being with us. Straight back out to California with Jim Moret for "Inside Edition."

Jim, when do you expect these similar transactions, the other five boy testimony, to start?

MORET: Very likely in the next couple of weeks, because the prosecutor wants to put the alleged victim`s mother on the stand within the next two weeks. And I think it would bolster her testimony if there were some prior allegations before she came on. Because remember, Thomas Mesereau, the defense attorney, has just been whittling -- he is really a boxer by nature. And he has been just punching away at these witnesses.

GRACE: You know, let`s talk about trial strategy a moment.

Jason Oshins, let`s say you have got five similar transactions, five out of seven. You have got a weak witness because of the potential for cross-examination, the mother. She may be a great witness on direct. She is going to take the heat on cross. Where would you stick her in?

You know, traditional thinking would be to put all five similar transactions, the other five boys, alleged victims of child molestation, in together in a block. But would you stick the mother in before, during or after the five?

OSHINS: I`d probably stick her in the middle somewhere and try and just...

GRACE: So just break the flow?

OSHINS: Yes, just break the flow a little bit. And just to clarify just what`s going on legally, of the five prior instances, only one victim is coming in to testify. The other four are, as has been reported by Jim and the Reverend, they are third-party witnesses because the accuser himself is not going to be speaking.

GRACE: You know what? I don`t know why you keep saying that to diminish...

OSHINS: That`s the judges words.

GRACE: These are -- so? So? A third-party witness...

OSHINS: It`s not the accuser himself. It`s other...

GRACE: Question.

OSHINS: Go ahead.

GRACE: Jim Moret, are these eyewitnesses to molestation?

MORET: Well, not in the mother`s cases. You`re talking about the mothers of the alleged victims.

GRACE: What about the others, the other two?

MORET: There`s one witness who alleges that he saw Michael Jackson in bed on several instances with boys, and their underwear was on the floor, both Michael Jackson`s...

GRACE: Hold everything.

Reverend Jesse Jackson, this suggestion that Michael Jackson is in bed with several little boys and all of their underwear is a pile by the bed?

J. JACKSON: No matter how ugly this sounds, I am not going to play judge as you are playing judge. Let`s hear, as you say, the testimony, the cross-examination. I do not know this to be true. And neither do you. And that`s why I`m patient enough to wait for the judicial process to take to its conclusion.

GRACE: Well, you know what? You`re right. I don`t know it to be true yet.

Now, let`s take another listen to Reverend Jesse Jackson`s radio show, Elizabeth.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

M. JACKSON: I know who I am inside and outside. And I know what I want to do. And I will always, you know, go with my dreams and my ideals in life. And I`m a very courageous person. And I believe in perseverance and determination and, you know, and all those wonderful things.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

GRACE: You know, I`m holding in my hand a sworn affidavit by a little boy who settled with Jackson with over 20 million to keep this case in `93 from going to trial.

Duff, if you could show that to the viewers?

Evidence from this case, and this little boy is coming in to court. Quick break.

We here at NANCY GRACE want desperately to help find missing people. Tonight, take a look at 13-year-old Mario Cabral, missing from Lawndale, California, since `97. Look at this little boy. Any information on Mario Cabral, please call the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, 1-800-THE-LOST. Please help us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

THOMAS ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: Hi, everybody. I`m Thomas Roberts. And here`s your "Headline Prime Newsbreak."

A powerful earthquake with a magnitude 8.7 struck off the coast of Indonesia today. The Indonesian vice president says as many as 2,000 people may have been killed in Indonesia. Fears of another devastating tsunami sent thousands of people scrambling for higher ground. But tsunami warnings were dropped several hours after the earthquake.

There`s been an arrest in connection with the shooting rampage on the Red Lake Indian Reservation in northern Minnesota last week. Federal officials say a juvenile was arrested yesterday but they haven`t said how that person might be connected to the attack. Officials say 16-year-old Jeff Weiss killed nine people before killing himself.

And in Florida, there may be one death now associated with an E. coli outbreak that may be linked to petting zoos. State health officials are investigating the sudden death of a Pasco County girl to see whether she came in contact with E. coli. There are 14 confirmed cases in the state and seven possible cases.

That is the news for now. I`m Thomas Roberts. We take you back for more of NANCY GRACE.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

J. JACKSON: I`m a warrior. And I know what`s inside of me. I`m a fighter. But it`s very painful. At the end of the day, I`m still human, you know? I`m still a human being. So it does hurt very, very, very much.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: And you know what? This is going to hurt even more, as soon as the judge allows all these other boy`s testimony to come in regarding past child molestation claims. Here is a portion of a sworn affidavit from a 1993 boy accuser.

Let`s throw that up, Elizabeth.

"Michael Jackson had me suck on one nipple, twist the other, while Jackson masturbated. On one occasion, when Jackson and I were in bed together, Jackson grabbed my buttock, kissed me, put his tongue in my ear. I told him I didn`t like that, and Jackson started to cry."

OK, all right. Here`s another one. From a sworn affidavit -- this affidavit resulted in a 20-million plus dollar settlement paid out by Jackson -- "The next step was when Jackson put his tongue in my mouth. I told him I didn`t like that. Jackson started crying and said there was nothing wrong with it."

Now, back to the Reverend Jesse Jackson. Didn`t Michael Jackson tell you on your radio show that there`s a big conspiracy against him?

J. JACKSON: He has said that. He feels himself to be persecuted. He feels that the behavior of the sheriff and invasion of his home and taking public this private stuff...

GRACE: It`s called a search pursuant to warrant, Reverend.

J. JACKSON: Well, to go into someone`s house with 70 armed guards as if you expect an armed resistance is a bit much. To have this international press conference asking for more witnesses to come forward is a bit much. And even the day when the judge says, of these people lined up, on only one is going to be able to testify. So I guess my point, Nancy, really is, while I`m very sensitive to it and concerned about it, I`m willing to wait out the judicial process.

GRACE: OK. OK. I think that`s fair.

Very quickly, back to Jim Moret. Jim, very quickly, George Lopez on the stand today. Explain, the comedian. Have you read his book? It`s great, "Who`s Crying Now?" (sic)...

MORET: I know you`re a fan of his book. I know, and he really has endurance.

GRACE: Jim, this guy came from like poverty, worked himself all the way up to become a huge star, and that makes me really like him. I guess, Jim, I feel like I know him, like he`s going to invite me to dinner with him and his wife after the trial. That`s how jurors do.

MORET: I think all of us in the courtroom felt like that. Yes, we felt like that in the courtroom.

And this is a street-smart comic who has found tremendous success on television. And he`s wildly successful, and he has a great deal of confidence. And he was not rattled at all. This was originally a witness that was supposed to be a defense witness, someone to say that this mother/son grifter team tried to bilk him for money. He didn`t say that at all.

He said the child was charming. He liked this kid. He considered this kid his hero. He liked the mom. She never asked him for anything. If anyone was vilified, it was the estranged or the now-divorced husband, ex-husband, of this mother. That`s why George Lopez broke off the relationship with the child, not because he felt he was being bilked by the mother and son, but by the ex-husband. And he became from a defense witness to a very strong prosecution witness.

So we saw -- now, it`s three witnesses that the defense had offered up to this jury that are now prosecution witnesses. I think that`s going to hurt the defense quite a bit.

GRACE: So Jason Oshins, that`s three people the defense offered, Mesereau offered in opening statement that were going to show how this family was just a set of grifters and users. Ouch, huh, Jason?

OSHINS: Well, you know, I think it shows that at least the family, from the defense point, clearly the father, the ex-husband, the mother, you have to got dissect all of it and put it all together.

The family had an agenda. Whether in this case with Mr. Lopez it wasn`t the mother and the accuser, but the father. And in other prior instances, it was the mother, the brother, the sister. I think you portray the family as they are, as the defense is doing. How it flip-flopped or how it set out in court specifically is a matter for the defense to connect together for the benefit of the jury. But let`s not mistake the fact that the prosecution certainly has an agenda against Michael Jackson. This particular...

GRACE: Hey, you know, he`s the prosecutor. He`s carrying out the will of the grand jury. Why you`re calling it an agenda like it`s something nefarious, don`t know.

OSHINS: Prosecutors are also political beasts, as well, and certainly has demonstrated in the past that he has an agenda from that, in the past as well as now.

GRACE: I forgot, the conspiracy. OK, so I guess Sneddon, the district attorney, is in with Sony and Mottola...

OSHINS: I don`t know who he`s in with, but...

GRACE: ... and everybody else that`s trying to get Michael. Listen, everybody loved Michael Jackson until this.

OSHINS: Nancy, you worked in a prosecutor`s office for many years...

GRACE: You`re darn right.

OSHINS: .... and you were a shining star. And you know that your boss was a...

GRACE: No sucking up.

OSHINS: ... your boss was a political animal, nonetheless, and he was successful at what he did, and prosecutors need to get reelected.

GRACE: Point.

OSHINS: He`s picking on the biggest pop star, the biggest international star that he can find.

GRACE: OK, you know what? You have got to come up with something better than an international conspiracy. But just hold that thought a moment.

Dr. Robi Ludwig, in this case, what does it mean to you that each of these boys, separated in time and space, very quickly, have the same scenario?

LUDWIG: Well, it`s possible that it did happen in some of these cases and not in the current case. So that he might have engaged in sexual misconduct with some of these kids, but it doesn`t mean that it necessarily happened with this sick child.

GRACE: Now, how did you decide that this kid is the one that`s lying?

LUDWIG: I`m just saying that the fit...

GRACE: It may be possibly, it could be this?

LUDWIG: Well, there is something about the family, that they`re -- you know, they look like grifters that are out for something.

GRACE: Why do you say that? Did you see them in court?

LUDWIG: Well, because of their previous manipulations with the courtroom, and asking for money, and suing for money.

GRACE: And winning?

LUDWIG: Well, but also and admitting, lying. And you know...

GRACE: True, they did admit lying.

LUDWIG: ... so there is something about this family that`s suspicious.

GRACE: Well, Robi, I do have to say you`re right. They were caught lying. And that`s going to hurt the state immensely.

Let`s switch gears very quickly.

Today, as you know, day eleven, still no food, no water for Terri Schiavo. Her family continues to hope. Tonight, in Washington, end-of- life expert, Dr. Carlos Gomez; in Philadelphia, from the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Art Caplan; in Louisville, Kentucky, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President Albert Mohler; in Seattle, Washington, Compassion and Choices director of legal affairs, Kathryn Tucker.

But first to Pinellas Park, Florida, and Washington Post reporter Manuel Roig-Franzia.

Sir, bring me up to date.

MANUEL ROIG-FRANZIA, WASHINGTON POST: Another fascinating day. You know, we learned today that, immediately after Terri Schiavo dies, an autopsy will be performed. That`s not necessarily a shocker, but the reasoning is interesting.

Michael Schiavo says that he wants that autopsy to prove once and for all that his wife was brain damaged beyond hope of recovery. Then, minutes later, you have Randall Terry, who has been the spokesman for the Schindler family, resurrecting some old allegations, some old suspicions that the Schindler family has, that Michael Schiavo may have attacked Terri Schiavo at some point, broken her bones, and that that could have been the cause for her brain injury, instead of the heart attack that all the doctors say cut off oxygen to her brain and led to the severe brain damage that has put her where she is today.

GRACE: To Dr. Carlos Gomez -- he`s an end-of-life expert -- Doctor, could you tell me, is a persistent vegetative state the same thing as a coma?

DR. CARLOS GOMEZ, END OF LIFE EXPERT: Well, it`s persistent in the sense that it`s not going to go away. A coma can, in fact, go away. So I think the big difference here is the time frame.

GRACE: Can one come out of a persistent vegetative state?

GOMEZ: Not in the way that I think the Schiavo family is asking her to. You can make progress. You can adapt. But to think that this poor woman after 15 years is going to come back to any sort of baseline I think is vanishingly small.

GRACE: Dr. Albert Mohler, is that the test? Will she come back from any baseline? Will she be like me and you, and be able to drive a car and a bicycle and flip a pancake? Is that how you manage to avoid starvation?

DR. ALBERT MOHLER, SOUTHERN BAPTIST THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY: No, we cannot make that the baseline for human dignity. She is a human person. She has a beating heart. She is breathing. She is not brain dead. We have no right, no moral qualification, to just decide that those who do not have to, what is in our judgment, arbitrarily set an adequate state of consciousness that we`ll just disconnect these people, take away their feeding tube and hydration.

Once a human life like this is discounted, Nancy, every human life is discounted. The question is, who`s next? What will be the next qualification? What will be the next barrier crossed? Terri Schiavo now, where next?

GRACE: That`s an excellent point, Reverend.

To Kathryn Tucker, number one, Kathryn, do you believe we can trust this husband to truly carry out what she wanted instead of pursuing his own interests with this new woman in his life, this new family? And don`t you get a little nervous when the courts and Congress start butting in?

KATHRYN TUCKER, DIR. LEGAL AFFAIRS, COMPASSION AND CHOICES: Well, look, what we have to be careful about here is not discounting Terri Schiavo`s wishes. Her wishes, as expressed to her husband, were that, if she ever were in this kind of situation, she would not want to be maintained. And her husband is giving voice to those wishes.

And we discount her life. And we discount the honor of her life by ignoring those wishes. We have to give respect to the patient`s wishes, which in this case, under Florida law, are properly voiced by her husband.

Can we trust him? There has been court proceedings examining in some minute detail whether he is the appropriate person to speak for his wife. And the courts have all concluded that he is. And so I think we have to let him continue to speak for her since she can no longer speak for herself.

GRACE: We`ll be right back with our Washington Post reporter, Manuel Roig-Franzia. Stay with us.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BOB SCHINDLER, FATHER OF TERRI SCHIAVO: I don`t want to overestimate her condition. But she`s failing. But she`s still with us. And she`s shown just a determination to live. It`s incredible.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

B. SCHINDLER: She`s still communicating, still responding. She`s emaciated, but she`s responsive. And she`s responding to me. And she`s begging for help. We`re begging for help. She has amazing, amazing endurance.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: So says Terri Schiavo`s father.

Let me quickly go to Dr. Art Caplan. He`s the chairman of department of medical ethics at University of Pennsylvania.

Thank you, sir, for being with us.

DR. ART CAPLAN, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA: Hi, Nancy.

GRACE: Sir, in light of what Terri`s family, her parents, her blood relatives, are saying -- not the husband with the girlfriend and two children -- what`s your response to their theory, their statement, their assertion that Terri is alive and aware of what`s going on around her?

CAPLAN: Doesn`t square up with the medical facts at all. I know they wish it did. I know they want it to. But if you looked at her CAT scan, as at least seven doctors have done over the many years that this case has been debated back and forth, there`s no way that she`s going to be responding or communicating.

I know we`ve all seen that tape run again and again and again. But that`s a couple of minutes out of four hours. It`s a little bit of advocacy to put it that way.

So what I`d say is this: The facts of the case, in some sense, after thirty trials up and down the Florida courts, up and down the U.S. courts, you almost have to say, "I don`t know about Michael Schiavo. He may not be the world`s nicest guy, but he has held up again and again in front of, you know, objective jurors as the person who has the best idea about what she would want." I`m ready to go with that. No starving...

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: When you say objective jurors, I don`t necessarily know, Doctor, if I want a judge, much less a federal judge who`s in for life -- you can`t get rid of them, Doctor. Did you know hat?

CAPLAN: Nancy, I`m going to tell you...

GRACE: I`d hate for him to make a decision about me and my feeding tube, which I`m going on the record again. Don`t pull my tube anybody. I want to remain a burden.

CAPLAN: I`m going to say this. If people start -- you know, it used to be interesting to hear about criticism of the court trials here. It`s a not interesting anymore. Every possible court in the land has reviewed it. I`m putting that one to bed.

GRACE: You have got me over the barrel on that one, Doctor.

Robi, when it comes to the parents, why would they feel differently than other people?

LUDWIG: Well, when you`re a parent, you see things that you need to see. So their daughter`s not responding. They have a strong desire to believe that she`s reacting to them.

GRACE: Why are you so quick to say she`s not responding, to jumping on the bandwagon?

LUDWIG: No, I have actually spoken with many doctors about it, including neurosurgeons who say, listen, the brain works like this: You use it or you lose it. She`s been in this state for a very long time. Not only that, the tape that we see over, and over, and over again is a very old tape.

GRACE: That is true, Dr. Robi.

Let`s play that bite, Elizabeth, from Schiavo`s lawyer, Felos.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE FELOS, MICHAEL SCHIAVO`S ATTORNEY: Terri`s eyes do look more sunken than when I saw her last. And also her breathing was a little on the rapid side.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: You know, Reverend Mohler, what concerns me is, like, if she were on a ventilator and you unplugged the ventilator and she dies, that`s entirely different in my mind than taking someone off nutrition. To stand by and watch a human starve to death with no pain -- to eat no pain medication, Reverend?

MOHLER: Well, like you, I think most Americans just know this doesn`t make any sense. None of us would consider food and water to be medical treatments. And I realize that the courts have determined that. But I think that`s why we need a law to fix what the courts have decided. Because I think it just doesn`t fit common moral sense to believe that food and hydration are to be considered medical treatments.

And to hear George Felos, who`s an enthusiast for euthanasia, you know, pushing this is as if this is some kind of beautiful death, I find this one of the most macabre, scary and frightening things I`ve seen in America in a very long time.

GRACE: Well, I`ve got to tell you this much, Reverend. I imagine all of us had a nice meal tonight, a little surf and turf, a little salad, a little iced tea. And we`re all sitting back saying how she doesn`t feel any pain.

Speaking of pain, Manuel is joining us, the Washington Post reporter. Manuel, I`m going to tackle your last name again, Manuel Roig-Franzia, I think.

ROIG-FRANZIA: Very good.

GRACE: Thank you. What about any -- is she getting any pain medication whatsoever?

ROIG-FRANZIA: Well, today, George Felos said that she has received what he described as a minuscule amount of morphine, not the morphine drip that had been reported in some venues, but a suppository of 50 milligrams of morphine that had been administered twice since her feeding tube was removed. He said that it was administered because of some physical symptoms that had been identified by the staff in the hospice. But he didn`t go into details about what those symptoms were.

GRACE: Well, for them to want to give the woman morphine, they obviously think she`s in pain. And these objective doctors are giving her morphine. So that suggests to me they know the poor woman is in pain.

Very quickly, Manuel, before I go to break, Terri is a Catholic. Has that figured into the case at all?

ROIG-FRANZIA: Oh, it`s had a huge emphasis in this case. Her Catholicism has been talked about a lot. The Vatican has taken a much more direct involvement in this case than they have in other recent right-to-die controversies.

You had Pope John Paul last year make a general statement that removing feeding tubes was a sin unless, in all instances, in which it was not providing nourishment or alleviating suffering.

GRACE: Yes. Well, I was thinking not so much about what the Pope over in Vatican City has to say about it, but what her true wishes would be in light of her religion.

Manuel, don`t go away, I have got to go to break.

Everybody, as we go to break, you may remember this past weekend, final good-byes to nine-year-old little Jessie Lunsford, kidnapped from her home a month ago. There was a private funeral Friday. And over 1,000 people came to remember little Jessie on Sunday. Her little body found last week after a convicted sex offender, John Couey, confessed to kidnapping and killing nine-year-old Jessie.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SUZANNE VITADAMO, TERRI SCHIAVO`S SISTER: She`s weaker, but she`s still trying to talk. She has a different look on her face, though. The look on her face is, "Please help me." And that`s exactly what I get from her when I`m in there. So she`s fighting. She`s struggling. And does this sound like somebody that wants to die? I don`t think so.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: That was Terri Schiavo`s sister speaking out.

To Dr. Carlos Gomez, an end-of-life expert. Dr. Gomez, they`re giving her morphine, just a minuscule amount. Is she feeling pain?

GOMEZ: Can I go back to something you said a little bit earlier...

GRACE: Yes, sir.

GOMEZ: ... about her symptoms? To compare what Terri Schiavo or somebody in a persistent vegetative state is going through, to one of us not eating a full meal or having a drink of water, really does a disservice to the people that are listening to you.

GRACE: But that`s not what I said. I said it`s easy for us to sit around and talk about her feeling no pain when we`ve all had dinner, whatever we want.

GOMEZ: But you`re saying essentially the same thing. You`re saying that she -- you`re saying that we`ve been sated, that our hunger has been sated, our thirst has been a sated. And the reason that we feel hunger and feel thirst is because we`re awake. That`s the way our brain works. So that`s number one.

GRACE: True.

GOMEZ: Number two, a patient whose kidneys have shut down does not ask for food and water. And I`ve taken care of hundreds of patients whose kidneys have shutdown who are awake and describing their symptoms to us. And they don`t ask for food and water.

So I think that we`re doing a gross disservice here to the entire situation. It doesn`t say whether her families are correct or not. It simply says that the way we`re describing what this poor woman is going through, I think, is purple prose.

GRACE: Dr. Art Caplan, I`ve only got 30 seconds left, at this juncture, is she feeling pain? And if so, is letting a slow starvation occur the right answer?

CAPLAN: I don`t think she can feel pain. I agree with what Carlos Gomez says. Her brain is not in a position to sense or feel. I think that, unfortunately, one of the ways that a lot of us are going to die is with a feeding tube removed. It`s going to be something that we`ll have to deal with.

GRACE: Reverend Mohler and Kathryn Tucker, I wish I could have revisited with you.

I want to thank all my guests tonight, Manuel Roig-Franzia, Dr. Carlos Gomez, Dr. Caplan, Reverend Mohler, Kathryn Tucker, earlier, Jessie Jackson, Jim Moret, Jason Oshins, and Dr. Robi Ludwig.

But as always, my biggest thank you is to you for being with us tonight, inviting all of us into your homes. I`m Nancy Grace signing off for tonight. See you tomorrow. Good night, friend.

END