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Nancy Grace
Jodi Arias`s Anal Sex Defense
Aired February 06, 2013 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JODI ARIAS, CHARGED WITH MURDER: I was in my church clothes. He was in his church clothes. I could feel an erection.
Those are pictures of Travis`s erection.
He had anal sex with me.
I kind of felt like a prostitute.
The first night was the grinding and the next night was oral sex.
I felt used. I kind of felt like a prostitute.
I kind of felt like a used piece of toilet paper.
(INAUDIBLE) and he stopped. It became too painful.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The vow of chastity.
ARIAS: No premarital sex. Vaginal sex was off limits, and everything else was more or less OK.
It was a little confusing, the sex.
Sex is sex. He sort of had, like, the Bill Clinton version.
Oral and anal sex were also sex to me but not for him.
He finished by (EXPLETIVE DELETED) on my back.
Called me a skank.
Called me Pollyanna.
Porn star.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NANCY GRACE, HOST: Good evening. I`m Nancy Grace. I want to thank you for being with us.
Bombshell tonight: Jodi Arias back on the stand, claiming she felt like, quote, "a prostitute," and quote, "a used piece of toilet paper." This after she drives hours for oral sex, gets baptized as a Mormon, then makes a beeline straight out of full emergent baptism, heads straight back for more anal sex in her church baptism clothes.
Let`s go straight back in the courtroom.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ARIAS: I felt a little bit used, but I knew I had gone there on my own willingly.
He gets a hotel room. I show up. We hang out. We have sex. He`s not really there, presently -- like, he`s not mentally present. I`m getting a lot of attention but only while we`re engaging in sexual activity. And then we check out and he takes off. And I kind of felt like -- like a prostitute, sort of.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did he ever express a desire during this weekend to engage in anal sex with you?
ARIAS: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And did he over the course of that weekend in Arenberg (ph) discuss a desire to have vaginal sex with you?
ARIAS: No.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But it appears, based on what you`ve told us, you declined this desire to have anal sex, is that correct?
ARIAS: Yes, he was -- yes, I did. I just -- Yes. I didn`t -- we did not have anal sex.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. In expressing his desire for that, was he -- was that something he did repeatedly, or is that something that just came up one time?
ARIAS: It didn`t just come up one time. He wasn`t overly persistent about it, but it was somewhat repeated.
We were in my bedroom. We were not on the bed, but we were standing next to it and we were kissing. And I was in my church clothes. He was in his church clothes. The kissing got more passionate, more intense. And then he spun me around. He bent me over the bed, and he was just on top of me. I didn`t think anything -- I thought he was just going to keep kissing me. I was face down. My head was turned to the side.
His hands were wandering, and he lifted up my skirt and -- and he pulled down my underwear, and he was pressing against me.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What do you mean pressing against you?
ARIAS: His whole body.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did he have an erection?
ARIAS: I could feel an erection. He unzipped his pants and I guess he pulled them down. I didn`t see. But he -- he began to have anal sex with me.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why didn`t you tell him no?
ARIAS: Eventually, I did. I probably would have just let him continue, but it was -- became too painful, because I knew that was what he had been wanting for a while, and I just -- I trusted him. I had a lot of trust. And he -- I just went with what he was -- with his agenda, I guess I could say.
I don`t think it went on too long, not several minutes, maybe a few. I mean, I wasn`t looking forward to it. But definitely, pain -- I had to - - I had to have him stop, otherwise I probably would have continued.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: After he stopped, was that the end of the intimacy that day?
ARIAS: He finished by (EXPLETIVE DELETED) on my back or somewhere, like, on me. And then we were finished. And then shortly -- I mean, I think we parted ways. We kissed and embraced and he left.
Shortly after he left I felt -- I didn`t feel very good. I kind of felt like a used piece of toilet paper. I didn`t continue feeling that way, just shortly thereafter for a little while I did.
I kind of said through clenched teeth, Stop, stop, stop, and he stopped. So I think he got the impression that it was not pleasurable at that point, but I never said anything about it after that of a negative nature.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So you never advised him that you felt like, as I think you said, a used piece of toilet paper. You never (INAUDIBLE)
ARIAS: No. I wouldn`t have told him that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You would not have, is that what you said?
ARIAS: No.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why not?
ARIAS: Because I don`t think that would have made him feel very good.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: We are live at the courthouse, taking your calls. You are seeing on the stand Jodi Arias in her own defense. And she describes starting with oral sex in a parking lot near a Starbucks. It goes on to anal sex.
As a matter of fact, the day that Travis Alexander baptizes her at the Mormon church, they go straight back home, they make a beeline back to the apartment, back to the home for more anal sex.
You know, I`ve been thinking about this a lot. Let`s unleash the lawyers. With me, Jean Casarez, Beth Karas, both lawyers and correspondents on "In Session," Eleanor Odom, death penalty-qualified prosecutor. Also with me out of Atlanta, Peter Odom, defense attorney.
You know, Jean Casarez -- let`s see all the lawyers, please. Jean Casarez, very quickly, this is intended by the defense to paint a bad picture of Travis Alexander, that he basically used her for sex and then ignored her, mistreated her, took her for granted.
That`s the picture I`m getting, right?
JEAN CASAREZ, "IN SESSION": That`s one thing they`re trying to paint, but they`re trying to also go into what is in her head and the control that he had over her because he was her spiritual adviser who baptized her, and she seemed to follow everything he said.
GRACE: Well, of course, depending on the man that she was with, she was involved in a lot of different religions, witchcraft, Wicca, Hinduism, Buddhism, now Mormonism.
But the reality -- out to you, Eleanor Odom -- is that none of this goes toward self-defense. What it goes to is a simmering anger. They`re playing to these 11 women, or is it eight women on the jury, and they are trying their best to get them to draw (ph) into the story that Travis Alexander is a bad guy.
But what it`s really doing is showing that she was angry from day one, when he asked her to have oral sex and they were out in the car and he zips up his pants and drives off, refusing to kiss her, saying that was gross. All right. Nobody wants to hear that. But what it did was start a fire that goes from red to white to blue hot in the end, which results in a revenge killing, Eleanor.
ELEANOR ODOM, PROSECUTOR: Well, exactly right, Nancy. And the prosecution`s got to focus on that and focus on the fact that here is a person who was stabbed, the victim stabbed, 29 times. But you see what the defense is doing, and they`re just trying to distract the jury from anything other than the facts. So the state needs to keep on the facts.
GRACE: Very quickly, before we go back into the courtroom, Peter Odom -- I mean, she stabbed him 29 times. He was trying to crawl away, and she stabbed him nine times. Just think about it. Let your mind go there, stabbed him nine times in the back over and over and over again.
So what, she -- what, he wouldn`t kiss her after oral sex? That`s what I`m getting?
PETER ODOM, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: The only way that this can be self- defense is if she reasonably believed that she had to do this to protect herself. What the defense is doing is portraying Travis Alexander as building a crescendo of control over her. I think that we`re going to see this intensify until, finally, she felt she had to kill him to break the control.
GRACE: Joining me right now, Beth Karas, legal correspondent, "In Session." What else did we see on the stand?
BETH KARAS, LEGAL CORRESPONDENT, "IN SESSION": Well, you know, we`ve seen her go through such detail in their relationship. And we thought the phone sex tape was coming in today. I mean, we kind of had some notice of that. She`s about a year away from when that recording was made. So I think she`s going to be on the stand for several more days.
But the jury was fixated on her. There were uncomfortable times, Nancy, where the jurors didn`t want to look at the photograph that was up on the screen in front of them, several times larger than life, of Travis Alexander`s erection. And it was all over the courtroom, the monitors all over the courtroom. It was something that he sent to her 15 days before he baptized her, according to Jodi Arias.
GRACE: Well, let me just say, Beth -- and I don`t really know how to say this. I`m sure the photo did not surprise her after the episode in the floorboard of his car. He sent a picture of it. Hey, she`s seen the real thing, the real deal.
All right, let`s go back to the courtroom.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At this point in time, you had engaged in several, maybe a half dozen -- maybe not quite a half dozen -- instances of sexual contact with Mr. Alexander, right?
ARIAS: Yes -- well, how many did you say?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, around a half dozen, give or take (INAUDIBLE)
ARIAS: Something close to that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. And he doesn`t want anyone, seemingly, to know that you have any sort of relationship in December of 2006. So my question to you then is, how did that make you feel?
ARIAS: I didn`t give it too much thought. It didn`t make me feel good, but it didn`t make me upset. I just sort of -- it was something I kept ignoring and putting out of my mind.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ARIAS: It was a little confusing, the sex, just where the line should be drawn, I guess. Sex is sex. There`s just different ways to have sex. And it seemed like -- it seemed like Travis was kind of -- I don`t know how to put it, but it just seemed like he sort of had, like, the Bill Clinton version, whereas over here, it seemed like, you know, oral and anal sex were also sex to me, but not for him.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Throughout her testimony, she describes how badly Travis Alexander treats her, according to her. We only have her word for it. But I`d like to point out that it was her, Jodi Arias, that traveled 300 to 1,000 miles a time to go be with Travis Alexander, to slash his tires twice, to slash his then new girlfriend`s tires, to break into his bank account, to break into his e-mail. She was pursuing him.
So that`s the backdrop of all this testimony about how awful he was to her, including, she claims, calling her skank, Pollyanna, porn star.
Let`s go in the courtroom.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ARIAS: ... called me Pollyanna. He called me porn star.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In front of people?
ARIAS: Pollyanna, yes. Porn star, no.
At the time, I had long platinum-blond hair, and I think because my demeanor at that time was kind of happy-go-lucky, positive, shrug things off if they were negative -- I always looked at the bright side of things. That`s kind of how I expressed myself. So with that demeanor plus my blond hair -- and he wanted to have braids sometimes. So he gave me that nickname.
He called me a skank.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In front of other people?
ARIAS: In front of his roommate, Josh Board (ph). We were on the phone, actually, when he said that. We were talking, and then he began to have a conversation with somebody else, so I waited. And then he apologized and said, Josh just got home. I said, Tell him I said hi. Jodi says hi.
And I could hear a muffled response in the background. It sounded friendly. But Travis said -- he said, You`re a skank. So I knew it came from Travis, not Josh. And then he said, I`m just kidding.
He opened the door for me because he had the room key, and he took my hand and walked me over to the bed, sort of, kind of holding (ph) me, but walked me. And I went willingly, of course.
We started kissing. It got a little more intense, a little more passionate, and then soon we were both nude on the bed. And there were certain things that he said that -- well, like, it`s -- it`s not -- I don`t know.
We didn`t have intercourse, so to speak. There was oral sex that weekend, but -- and that particular day, we did what I guess he called -- at the time, he called it grinding. So it`s kind of, like, you know, just being together but not actually having intercourse. That`s something that I guess a lot of Mormons do, but they`re not supposed to.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK, besides the grinding and the oral sex, you said you didn`t have intercourse during this encounter, this first encounter?
ARIAS: Not vaginal intercourse or (INAUDIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you have anal intercourse?
ARIAS: No.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just oral sex?
ARIAS: Yes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Be so kind as to take a look at those. Do you recognize those?
ARIAS: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What are those pictures of?
ARIAS: Those are pictures of Travis`s erection.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And when did you -- or how did you come into possession of these photos?
ARIAS: They were sent to me.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How?
ARIAS: Via his phone.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Via a text message or a picture message?
ARIAS: A picture message.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: We are at the courthouse and taking your calls.
Out to Bill in Florida. Hi, Bill. What`s your question?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hi. My main point is exactly what you said. None of this goes to self-defense. And there`s something everybody is missing here. I want everyone to take a look at Travis in the shower right before he was stabbed to death 29 times...
GRACE: Hold on. Pull it up, Liz. Let`s see what Bill`s talking about.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When you look at the pictures of Travis in the shower, those pictures, I believe, he`s being held at gunpoint. He is not smiling. He is not posing. He`s not making happy faces.
I believe she ambushed him in the shower with the gun on him. She had the picture -- her camera on her neck and the knife nearby, and she made him take some pictures as a way of control and anger because she knew he was going out of town with this new girl, and she was going to take pictures of her last memories of murdering him.
And that`s why when she started stabbing him, he fleed (ph). You either fight or flight, and he fights, and that`s why -- he flighted. And that`s why he was running down the hall, I believe. But I guarantee you, he was...
GRACE: You know, Bill, I think that these photos -- let`s see those photos he`s talking about, Liz, of Travis in the shower just before his death.
This is, like, less than one minute before his death. I think that she was leading him on to believe he was still taking sexy photos. We agree in one point, Bill, and that is that she planned these and that she was manipulating him during these photos because we know she was fully clothed and he was naked, fully naked at the time in the photos, and they had just left having sex.
Now, Bill, what do you make of two days of testimony of Jodi Arias on the stand?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, I`ve been in relationships very similar to like this. Basically, he`s a controlling guy. No big -- that`s not a crime. And she is the type of girl that wants to be controlled.
And once this sex thing got out of hand, where she knew she was going to be replaced by this new girl he was going to take on this trip, she knew she was no longer going to be his little pet. And that`s when she decided to go there and kill him.
This is not a crime. Sure, it was some kinky sex, but come on, that`s not a right to stab somebody 29 times, slit them from ear to ear and shoot them in the head. I mean, it`s so -- it`s ridiculous! This is the first actually anal defense, you can call it, the anal defense. She`s had sex -- it`s silly. It`s sad. But she -- I don`t know what else to say about it. It`s ridiculous.
GRACE: You know what, Bill? I think you said it all.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What do you mean by some things that had happened with some friends of his? What do you mean by that? At that time, specifically what was said?
ARIAS: Travis is -- he was a funny guy and he would make jokes a lot. And he made some jokes toward me that were not very nice, but they were jokes, but still didn`t sit well with me. So I expressed that with some of his friends when we were hanging out, and they advised me to...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Objection, hearsay.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE)
ARIAS: They advised me to stop dating him immediately.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Jodi Arias on the stand, in graphic detail describing oral sex, anal sex, round two, essentially. She did it yesterday. She did it all day long today. And we`re going to take you back into the courtroom, but my big question, Matt Zarrell, why didn`t she just leave if she was so unhappy? Why did she chase him? Why did she drive 1,000 miles to get back to him?
ZARRELL: Nancy, that`s a great question, because at no point does she say she wants to break it off with Travis. She is the one who pursues him. In fact, there`s a time in late 2006 where Travis tells Arias to date other people, and Arias ends up getting back together with Travis.
GRACE: OK. Let`s go back in the courtroom.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ARIAS: I kind of said through clenched teeth, stop, stop, stop, and he stopped. So I think he got the impression that it was not pleasurable at that point, but I never said anything about it after that of a negative nature.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So you never advised him that you felt like, as I think you said, a used piece of toilet paper? You never (inaudible) him that?
ARIAS: No, I wouldn`t have told him that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You would not have, is that what you said?
ARIAS: No.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why not?
ARIAS: Because I don`t think that would have made him feel very good.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How many sexual interactions did you have with Mr. Alexander over this time in Arenberg (ph)?
ARIAS: I would say three, I mean total. If you just, you know.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. And these were all instances of sexual -- excuse me, oral sex?
ARIAS: No. Like the first night, it was the grinding and the next night was oral sex.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And what was the third encounter?
ARIAS: It was oral sex, also. It was before we left.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When did you first have penile intercourse with Mr. Alexander?
ARIAS: It would have been April or May. I think May. I`m pretty sure May, but it could have been April. It was in the spring.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Jodi Arias on the stand. We are taking your calls. Let`s go out to Beth Karas and Jean Casarez. They`ve been in the courtroom the whole day. All of us bringing you the very latest and taking your calls. Jean Casarez, tell me the jury reaction.
CASAREZ: They`re different today than yesterday, because yesterday when we were hearing the fairy tale of the convention where she got the ball gown --
GRACE: Cinderella.
(CROSSTALK)
CASAREZ: They were -- Cinderella -- they especially were on the edge of their seats. The female jurors, really, just leaning over, listening. Today they`re back in their seats. I don`t see them on the edge, but I`m seeing a lot of notes from the men on the jury, Nancy.
GRACE: What, they`re taking notes on anal sex?
CASAREZ: Ha! I can`t tell you exactly what they`re taking notes on.
GRACE: What is it? What triggers them, Jean? When do they start scribbling?
CASAREZ: All the way through this afternoon, I saw them jotting down notes. I really did. And this was, I mean, it`s all about anal sex, right, practically? When it happened, when it didn`t happen. But I think one of the biggest points that I saw possibly them taking notes was about the vow of no premarital sex, that vow that Jodi Arias says she just followed what Travis told her.
GRACE: You know, Beth Karas, the only thing that Jodi Arias hasn`t told me is, A, anything about the day Travis was murdered, or, B, exactly what they ordered at Chili`s. I mean, this is in such detail. Why? Instead of painting a portrait of self-defense, to me they are painting a picture of a woman who had a slow burn. The way she perceived that she was being ignored and mistreated.
KARAS: That`s one way of looking at it. But I think their experts relied on this entire history, her entire life, this alleged abuse at the hands of her parents, and then the nature of her relationships with men, and, of course, all the details of her relationship with Travis Alexander.
You need to contrast, though, the girlfriend, Lisa Andrews Diadoni, who testified for the state -- no, testified -- who was called by the defense, who was asked questions by the jury. This jury is smart. They asked her at the end, did he ever pressure you to have sex? Did you feel uncomfortable? Things like that. Never. If she said no to him, he respected her. So it would be interesting to see what the jury has to ask Jodi Arias, because Jodi Arias made it sound like, you know, she almost had no choice. She didn`t want to spoil the mood, she didn`t want to hurt his feelings.
(CROSSTALK)
GRACE: Wait, wait, wait. Hold on. We need a shrink. Dr. Janet Taylor, psychiatrist, and MD.
Dr. Taylor, she didn`t want to spoil the mood? Janet, Dr. Janet, she says the anal sex was so painful, she had to clench her teeth, and then she went back for more. She went back for more, including the day of her baptism.
Now, listen, the whole defense sounds to me like I was taken for granted and I was ignored. And he didn`t send me roses. You don`t send me flowers anymore. That is not self-defense. This is anger.
TAYLOR: Exactly. What you have is a desperate woman who is so dependent and so needy that she is willing to put up with anal sex and not tell him she doesn`t like it, because she doesn`t want him to leave her. Their whole relationship was built around sex.
GRACE: Wait a minute. Tell him -- she had to tell him she didn`t like it. Obviously, she was clenching her teeth, it hurt. She didn`t like it, but yet she kept going back.
TAYLOR: She kept going back because she was so desperate not to lose him, and that`s the whole thing. She was willing to put up with whatever sexual activity he wanted, but once he said I`m out of here, I have another girlfriend, she was so angry, she said, that`s it. You`re not going anywhere.
GRACE: Out to the lines, Danielle in Florida. Hi, Danielle. What`s your question, dear?
CALLER: Hi, Nancy. I just had a comment. There`s the photo of Jodi and Travis in a pool.
GRACE: Right.
CALLER: With the waterfall behind them.
GRACE: Right.
CALLER: If you look at this photo, Jodi is sitting to Travis` left and she has her left hand holding his face down near his throat. Which, to me, is the same hand she probably used to slash his throat. I noticed when she was writing in court, she is a left-handed person. So I just find this photo very disturbing, because she is smiling in this photo. She doesn`t smile in many other photos, but in this situation --
GRACE: There it is.
CALLER: I just picture her, you know, as she is stabbing him in the back and she`s trying to crawl away from her, I picture her grabbing him by his head with that same smile on her face and slashing him from ear to ear with that same kind of hold that she has underneath his chin. And where her hand would be, I picture a gaping throat.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: The bombshell this week in court, Jodi Arias takes the stand in her own defense. This is the woman who cried at the photo of a dog in court. But when she took the stand under oath, she glanced at the jury and said, yes, I killed Travis, looked away, looked back at the jury as if she were a robot. She had as much life as a mannequin at Saks Fifth Avenue.
Her testimony, in my mind, hurt her, hurt the defense. That`s why the conventional wisdom is do not put your client on the stand. Why remain silent and let the jury think you`re guilty, as opposed to speaking and confirming their suspicions?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ARIAS: He had been requesting photos for a while at this point, and - -
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What was he requesting photos of?
ARIAS: Naked pictures.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Of you?
ARIAS: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Of particular body parts, or did he make any specific requests?
ARIAS: No, he didn`t specify body parts, not that I remember.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you then feel a level of guilt for not reciprocating?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Objection. Leading.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Overruled.
ARIAS: Yes, I didn`t want to disappoint him. I felt like I disappointed him. He seemed very disappointed in me.
We were in my bedroom. We were not on the bed, but we were standing next to it. And we were kissing, and I was in my church clothes. He was in his church clothes. The kissing got more passionate, more intense, and then he spun me around. He bent me over the bed and was just on top of me. I didn`t think anything was -- I thought he was just going to keep kissing me. I was face down. My head was turned inside. His hands were wandering, and he lifted up my skirt, and -- and he pulled down my underwear, and he was pressing against me.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What do you mean, pressing against you?
ARIAS: His whole body.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did he have an erection?
ARIAS: I could feel an erection. He unzipped his pants, and I guess he pulled them down. I didn`t see, but he -- he began to have anal sex with me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: We are taking your calls. I want to go out to you as the defense attorney, Peter Odom. What`s the point of showing an enlarged photo of Travis Alexander`s erect penis, putting it up all day in the courtroom? What`s the point?
P. ODOM: Well, they`re trying to do two things, I believe, Nancy. First of all, they are trying to make her look like a victim. They`re trying to make him look like a sexual pervert, and they`re trying to desensitize the victim to this kind of testimony. Remember, this is all building towards something.
GRACE: What?
P. ODOM: This is all building toward an ultimate climax.
GRACE: I really don`t appreciate the pun even if it`s unintended. But Peter--
P. ODOM: I intended no pun -- I intended no pun.
GRACE: (inaudible) by his -- by his penis, by the penis photo, I mean Lord knows she`s seen it plenty of times and up close. So I don`t understand. To me, as a juror, I would question the defense motives. And, another thing, Peter, and this is not about you. What I`m saying is in general. If I were on that jury listening, I would wonder why the defense is bringing in every single detail about their sex life and painting him out to be the bad guy, and she`s right there in it. She never says no. She never says stop, never, ever. In fact, she drives thousands of miles to be with him.
P. ODOM: That`s what I mean when I say they`re desensitizing the victim and they are making her look like someone who was under his sexual control. That dehumanizes him while humanizing her. And they have to do that, Nancy. I think it`s what they have to do.
GRACE: OK. Janine Driver, president of the Body Language Institute and author of "You Can`t Lie to Me." She`s joining us tonight out of Houston, Texas. Janine, thank you for being with us. I`d like you to please analyze -- I know my own anecdotal interpretation of her body language, but you`re the expert. I would like to hear your analysis.
JANINE DRIVER, PRESIDENT, BODY LANGUAGE INST.: You know, Nancy, you hit the nail on the head when you said she is like a robot or a mannequin, and this is going to hurt her in the long run, this no affect.
Think about it, a jury, what they do is they mirror the behavior of the person who is on the stand. Because we don`t see sadness, the eyebrows aren`t pulled together, the lip isn`t coming out, and we don`t see fear when she is talking about when she might be fearful, we see no emotions. What does this mean? They are going to have no emotions in the jury.
This is a blessing for us, for the prosecutor. Why? Because now we`re thinking, wait a minute, maybe this is a heartless person that could commit this crime.
Listen, she is looking down quite a bit, we see her looking down nonstop. Here is the problem. We do look down when we`re emotional, Nancy. However, we should see her lip buckle when she looks down. We should see her eyes furrow, her brows. We don`t see it. This is someone who is void of emotion, and it is going to hurt her in the long run.
GRACE: You know, with me, Janine Driver, she`s taking your calls. She is the authority, president of the Body Language Institute, author of "You Can`t Lie to Me." Back to Janine Driver.
Janine, I still recall the moment when I came down off the witness stand in my fiance`s murder trial, and I saw his bloody shirt that he had been wearing that morning when I last saw him. I will never forget it. The reason I bring that up is because that moment that I saw that is just ingrained in my memory. But she turned to that jury as cold as a cucumber and said, I killed Travis Alexander. And looked right back at her lawyer. I mean, she cried when she saw a picture of a pet dog, but when she is talking about stabbing this man, and this young man, just starting his life, nine times in the back. And, think about it, again, I said this earlier, I don`t let my mind go there when I`m analyzing evidence, but just think of stabbing him in the back over and over with a butcher knife, nine times in the back. Finally, after 29 stab wounds, shooting him in the head, and she did not shed a tear. Not a tear.
DRIVER: Nancy, Nancy, you sharing your story about your fiance and how you even get animated and emotional, it makes me emotional. I don`t even know him. Right? I didn`t know him. I`m emotional. Why? Because when you`re sharing your story, it`s genuine, the tone, the pitch, and the facial expressions are all there. It`s congruent. That`s what we look for with body language is congruency.
Remember with Casey Anthony, when the mother was on the stand, right? What happened? When she breaks down and cries, your heart was breaking for her. My heart. Cindy Anthony, when she was on the stand crying, we were feeling the grief of the loss of a grandchild of a grandmother.
Here we feel no emotions. We have mirror neurons. When someone yawns, someone else yawns. The jury is going to feel nothing for Jodi Arias.
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GRACE: We are taking your calls. Yvette, California. Hi, dear. What`s your question?
CALLER: Hi, Nancy. I love your show. Thank you for being the voice for the victims who can`t speak for themselves. I hope you have time for a couple of comments for me. Right now, I`m so filled with so many different emotions. I try not to call myself a victim. I`m a survivor. But her gestures on the stand are so disingenuous, because I have been abused, sexually abused, physically abused, emotionally abused, every kind of abuse that you can imagine, from the age of 4 from a stepfather that got (ph) to be a triple murderer, was out of jail. The judicial system I`m a little leery of. I`m so afraid that these jurors are going to believe her.
But when I think of my abuse, my doctors have cried because they can`t even imagine the things that I`ve gone through. And I cannot imagine being on that stand. And I`m sitting now thinking about my story, because I wrote (ph) it in my head, and I look out like it is a video in front of me and I --
GRACE: You know what, Yvette? You are so brave so call in and describe only a little bit of what you`ve been through. And as you are seeing Arias on the stand, you know, to Bonnie Druker, I want to follow up on what Yvette in California is saying. Has there been any emotion from Arias whatsoever, other than when she has seen some photos of Travis and photos of a dog? But during her testimony, I see nothing.
DRUKER: No. I mean, she`s like a stoic, demure, calm person. The attorneys ask her questions. She looks at them. And then she turns to the jury and looks at them. Very, very calm. Very, very monotone. And I think the jury is going to get sick of listening to her.
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GRACE: We remember American hero, Army Staff Sergeant Christopher Cabacoy (ph), 30, Virginia Beach, Virginia. Army Commendation Medal, Army Achievement Medal, Combat Action Badge. Parents Carmelita and Dennis, brother Paolo. Widow Tammy. Son Aidan. Christopher Cabacoy. American hero.
Straight out to the lines. To Susan, California. Hi, Susan. What`s your question, dear?
CALLER: Hi, Nancy. Thank you for taking my call. I am also a long, long-standing survivor. Now been out of the marriage for about seven years. (inaudible), could have ended up in prison or a mental hospital. Didn`t.
My question, though, to anyone that has expertise knowledge about body language is this. As an abused survivor, I learned over the years, through my abuser, to become stoic, because every movement, every breath, everything about me was challenged. Why are you doing this? Why are you doing that? Why are you thinking this? Why are you thinking that?
GRACE: OK. So you want to ask how that jibes with what you see on the stand. Janine Driver, president of Body Language Institute, author of "You Can`t Lie to Me," Janine, has Arias been conditioned -- I hear what Susan in California is saying.
DRIVER: But listen, Nancy. One of my best friends is a battered woman survivor. Her husband tried to kill her and their young child. The baby was an infant, 3 months old. And you do learn to fake it, because you put the wrong outfit on the baby, you`re going to get hit by your husband that day.
But here`s the deal. That`s why you bring in an expert like me, Nancy, because I`m looking for microexpressions. You can fake it as the big dramatic crying and sobbing, but I`m looking for microexpression. It happens in a 15th of a second, Nancy, a fifteenth of a second. There are seven universal emotions. It doesn`t matter who you are, a man, a woman, 7, 77, born in Chicago or Zimbabwe. Happiness, sadness, fear, surprise, anger, contempt, disgust. We see none of it here. None of it. We don`t see fear. We don`t see sadness. Not even a 15th of a second. And that is what the jury`s going to get bored with. They are going to say she`s boring, this is a woman that could have done it, there`s no affect.
GRACE: Eleanor Odom, is her testimony helping or hurting her?
E. ODOM: I think it`s hurting her right now, Nancy. And just as we heard earlier, the jury is just now sitting back in their chairs, they`re not paying any attention.
GRACE: Congratulations tonight to parents Stephanie and Tony. They are now welcoming tiny crime fighter baby boy Lenox -- oh, look at that. Don`t drop me, I know Nancy Grace. Dr. Drew`s up next, everybody. I`ll see you tomorrow night, 8:00 sharp Eastern. And until then, good night, friend.
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