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Jodi Arias Jail Life; Ranking Killers; James Holmes Offers Guilty Plea; Obama, Biden Talk Gun Violence.

Aired March 28, 2013 - 11:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Two suspects are being arraigned today for murdering a 15-year-old girl in Chicago, that's the allegations, Hadiya Pendleton was shot to death in January. She had performed at a brunch before President Obama's inauguration in Washington. Police say Michael Ward and Kenneth Williams have admitted to the shooting.

You see Jodi Arias every day in her murder trial. Sometimes, she's just listening to testimony in court, like this at the defense table. The trial's 39th day today. Sometimes, she's testifying in her own defense, the images that you see. She was on the witness for 18 days of this trial. Maybe you've seen these videos of her doing a head stand in an interrogation room. And actually just talking to herself in that same interrogation room. In fact, here's what she said under her breath just as the police had just left the room after telling her that she were going to take her down for her mug shot.

You should have at least done your makeup, Jodi.

What you don't see behind the closed doors. Court had to be canceled yesterday because Jodi had a migraine. This is not unusual. A lot of times, this has been happening. At Maricopa County. The day before, Jodi was feeling faint and needed special permission to get a protein bar. And before you roll your eyes, it might come a surprise to you that inmates at Maricopa County only get fed two meals a day, 12 hours a part. You try that. Jodi on the other hand is getting a bit of a special exception. They're splitting one of her meals into two so she actually gets feed three times a day.

I want to bring in Beth Karas, a correspondent from "In Session" on TruTV. She joins me from outside the courthouse.

Beth, it may seem unreasonable to some people that someone is fed two times a day, 12 hours apart. This is standard for inmates at Maricopa County, isn't it?

BETH KARAS, CORRESPONDENT, IN SESSION: Yes, indeed. And I'm assured that Sheriff Arpaio has consulted with a nutritionist to make sure that the meals are balanced and they're getting sufficient, obviously, nutrition and calories. It's a total of 2600 calories in a day. But 12 hours is a long period of time. The inmates at the jail and not being transported. They have a commissary and they can buy snacks. Jodi can do that. But she can't bring any snacks to court, and nobody can give her food. That's why they have to have permission to get her food during the day. Unless and until the judge says, give her more calories, give her additional food from the two meals she's getting every day, she's going to continue to get half of the breakfast at breakfast. And half of that breakfast at lunch. And she gets a warm meal at night when she returns.

BANFIELD: Beth, when people heard she had a migraine, a lot of people would think immediately, she's just faking it or woe is Jodi. But in fact, this is not unusual? You've heard of this happening before, particularly in the county?

KARAS: Well, yes. And also, apparently, there was some litigation about the treatment of inmates here in Maricopa County, but I don't have details about that. But it's not unusual for defendants on trial to get headaches over a long period of time and here when they go through this extended period of time without food and the pressure of a trial. I know the argument is, for Travis Alexander can't have a headache, he's underground. Absolutely true. However, she's not been convicted yet. She admitted doing it but she hasn't been convicted.

(CROSSTALK)

BANFIELD: Innocent unless proven guilty.

Vinnie Politan with us and Ryan Smith is with us.

When you see them coming in outside those doors. What does it look behind those doors?

VINNIE POLITAN, HOST, IN SESSION: They're in custody. They've got no place to go. A holding cell. A room with pricks. That's what they are in cells across this country. It's a holding area just outside because they are being held without bail. They are locked up. They are not free to go wherever they want. What's interesting here, when you look at your schedule, apparently to get all the inmates over to the jail, from the jail, to the courthouse, they've got to wake them up very early in the morning, so they're up in the wee hours of the morning getting ready for the day.

(CROSSTALK)

BANFIELD: Wait, getting up at 1:00 in the morning to start for a 9:00 or 10:00 a.m. court start?

POLITAN: Yes, yes. Because they've got to get all the inmates -- at least this is what her family is saying. You've got to coordinate everyone taken from the jail to the courthouse to get them to all the places.

(CROSSTALK)

POLITAN: The bottom line is, my concern is if it becomes an issue. The last thing as a prosecutor that I want is anything to interfere with that conviction. I can see them perhaps raising this issue if these alleged migraines continue.

BANFIELD: That's what we call appellate issues and you'll hear that usually being brought up for the record during the trial.

Ryan, talk to me, if you know about her daily living, as she's been awaiting trial? Is she segregated because she's so high-profile, or maybe she's only high-profile since the trial began, so she wasn't segregated from now. Did she have friends? We know about jailhouse brats. What have we heard about her daily life?

RYAN SMITH, HOST, EVENING EXPRESS: We've heard a lot about her. First her jail cell, she shares it with someone else. We're talking about a space that's probably not bigger than a closet that she says she grabbed a gun from that she shot Travis with. She lives in there with another inmate. She's got a toilet, a writing desk and things like that. Her daily life is just like many across the country. She can get out during points in the day. She gets sunlight. She gets to take classes. And then at night, she's locked down for a number of hours as it is in most prisons. A lot of people see that and say how come she's not treated more harshly because of what happened to Travis. It's like you said earlier, innocent until proven guilty, and she's entitled to the same rights in as any other prisoner.

BANFIELD: Death row is no place that anybody wants to be. It's the worst for anybody who winds up in prison.

Beth Karas, Ryan Smith, Vinnie Politan, thank you to all of you.

You can watch the Jodi Arias court proceedings on HLN. Ryan covers it daily and CNN.com as well. You can get your fill and not miss a bit of it.

Have you ever read "Dante's Inferno" where he talks about the circles hell? There's one psychiatrist that developed a gradation of evil scale. Where do the women we talked about on this program rank among the killers? Don't forget we have accused killers and convicted killers and then we have crazy killers. You'll find out where they rank and why they rank in a moment.

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BANFIELD: We know that Jodi Arias killed her boyfriend. She has admitted to that, but does that make her evil? She said she did it in self-defense. If she's telling the truth, she's a victim. If she's lying, she may be among the worst of the worst. Is she among the worst?

Dr. Michael Stone says not all killers are created equal. There's evil and then there is evil. He's a forensic psychiatrist and a professor at Columbia University, and he created a scale that ranks killers based on their mental state.

And Dr. Stone is kind enough to join me now.

This is the kind of information that people just thrive on. They're trying to categorize how bad somebody can really be. We've covered a few women in this case, you heard Aileen Wuornos, we talked about Lizzie Borden, who was not found guilty. Jodi Arias is still to be adjudicated. How do they fit on your scale? DR. MICHAEL STONE, FORENSIC PSYCHIATRIST & PROFESSOR, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY: I went down and gave numbers that I had given before. I put number nine for Jodi Arias if she's convicted, which seems likely. And that has to do with people who are in a state of rage and have some psychopathic traits. By psychopathic traits, I mean quality of charm and superficial lying and manipulativeness and callousness and lack of remorse. She has some of those. Those traits. But she's not at the far end of the scale where there's prolonged torture and things like that.

BANFIELD: Let me ask you, you said number nine would be a number ascribed to her. Again, we can't do that because we don't know what the jury's determined. But nine sits between one and, is it 20 --

STONE: 22.

BANFIELD: -- 22. So 22 is a Jeffrey Dahmer.

STONE: Yes. There are even more 22s. I just came across one that's so horrifying I thought I better make it 23.

BANFIELD: Did you change it?

STONE: I'm thinking about it because it's been published as from one to 22.

BANFIELD: Before you go beyond Dahmer, just as a reminder, Dahmer, 1991, Milwaukee, murdered 17 people. Sentenced to 936 years, killed by another inmate. He raped, he dismembered, he cannibalized.

STONE: Now, you've got one worse. Sedrey Alley --

(CROSSTALK)

STONE: Sedrey Alley, like alley cat. There was a lovely 19-year-old Marine female corporal. And she was in Virginia at the base there, taking a little evening stroll in the park and she was accosted by this very big guy, who, even though she's a Marine and knew how to defend herself pretty well. But captured from behind, a woman doesn't have much chance.

BANFIELD: And what happened?

STONE: He took off a tree limb, he broke off a tree limb, 31.5 inches long tree limb, after knocking her out he thrust that --

BANFIELD: Before you say any more, I just want to give a quick disclaimer if you have children in the room. I don't know where you're going, I do to be careful, if you can mitigate somewhat --

STONE: He thrust it in her all the way to her lungs, in and out on a number of occasions.

BANFIELD: So he gets a 23. Ted Bundy was a 17. Most people thought after killing 30 people, he'd be up on 22. Charles Manson, only a 15. And, for Americans, Charles Manson would be the epitome of evil. We'd often see the pictures of himself being marched down the halls in the 1970s. Here's a quick sound bite of him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHARLES MANSON, CONVICTED OF MURDER: I live in the underground. I don't kill people. I know what to do. If they know what to do, they don't come around me because I'm very mean. I am very mean. Do you understand what I say when I say mean?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Why is he only a 15?

STONE: Well, I have trouble with him because he didn't -- in other words, he was like Hitler. He didn't literally kill he may have killed one person that we discovered later. Basically, he mesmerized other impressionable people to do the killing, like Susan Atkins killed Sharon Tate.

BANFIELD: The family members, yes.

STONE: Yes. So not having literally subjected the victims to murder and torture, I put him at a lower number where there were like multiple spree-like killings. He didn't do the killings. But with an evil mind, you would have to put him at the top, I agree. Because he is the quiescence of evil.

BANFIELD: And frightening as well. I think a lot of people are still frightened when you see him speak.

Dr. Stone, thank you to you again for coming in. That was awful information, but nonetheless, it is fascinated. People are riveted by this.

Just days before prosecutors are going to seek the death penalty for James Holmes, the gunman in the Aurora Colorado gun shooting is offering to spare us all from the machinations of a trial. Is he trying to avoid the death penalty? Are the prosecutors interested in anything he has to offer? That conversation is next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: We're getting some new information about the Colorado movie theater shooting trial. The suspect in that case, James Holmes, apparently, his legal team now offering up to plea guilty for killing 12 people, this presumably so he can avoid any death penalty that might come along with the trial that he most assuredly would be in. It would mean effectively he could spend his life behind bars without any chance of getting out with parole ever. So far, the prosecutors have not weighed in on whether they're going to accept his offer. But if they do, the case could be resolved by next month. I think this is very quickest.

Our CNN legal contributor Paul Callan, our CNN legal contributor joins me now with this.

So many questions. There is so much evidence in this case, such damning evidence, such evidence nobody would be able to prevail it would seem in an insanity defense. Why wouldn't prosecutors say, too bad, we're going ahead with it anyway?

PAUL CALLAN, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY & CNN LEGAL CONTRIBUTOR: They may very well. It is one of the most horrific homicides in American history. Holmes meticulously planned this, had diagrams of the theater, entered wearing body armor. He fired a shotgun up into the ceiling so people would look up and then he started killing them with automatic hand guns for which he had plenty of ammunition.

BANFIELD: That proves he was good at planning.

CALLAN: He was a good planner.

BANFIELD: But when you want to prove someone is criminally insane by the standards that are so, so high, don't you need to prove he had no idea of the nature of his actions? Meaning, the evidence afterwards becomes more important. He wanted a quick escape, didn't want to get caught, he knew it was bad. He knew it was wrong.

CALLAN: It all comes into the picture. One thing he did was wired up his apartment so when the police arrived they would be killed by explosives. The planning shows an understanding of the difference between right and wrong.

BANFIELD: So why not just go ahead? So as a prosecutor why wouldn't you say I'm not taking your offer? I'm giving you the ultimate penalty. What do they have to gain by taking the offer?

CALLAN: I would be stunned if they accept this offer, the prosecutors. I think the prosecutors can prove he is sane even under this difficult sanity law in Colorado.

BANFIELD: It is backwards there. They have to prove he is sane as opposed to he has to prove he is criminally insane.

CALLAN: That's right. They throw in another little thing in Colorado. You can do impulsive -- irresistible impulse can be used as a part of the insanity defense. A lot of other states don't allow it.

BANFIELD: Can I just ask you, if the family members involved here not just of the dead but the injured, if they've had enough and don't want to go through a death penalty trial and don't want be hauled up on the stand and see other people up on the stand or, god forbid, see him on the stand gloating or maybe wearing a T-shirt saying "killer" on it, if they don't want that, how important are their wants and needs in any factoring the prosecution has to do?

CALLAN: It is always important. When I was a homicide prosecutor myself, the victims' feelings about the sentence was always important. Here is the problem here. You have 12 families of 12 homicide victims. You have 58 families of people who were shot and injured in the incident. How do they vote? Is it a weighted vote? Do the murder victims get more votes? What if it's half and half? This is why you have an elected or appointed district attorney throughout the United States because it's his decision or her decision to make that decision for the public because it is not just the victims here. It's the public at large that's affected by this decision.

BANFIELD: I'm glad you said that. Some people don't know what not guilty by reason of insanity means. It doesn't mean you walk out the back door of the courtroom and go get an ice cream. It means that you're committed. But it also means that legally you can be released if you are deemed well enough. There is a big, huge, you know, formula that you have to accommodate. But it can happen.

CALLAN: It's not such a big formula. It's a couple psychiatrists looking at you and saying, hey, He's cured. He's safe. We can release him. You know, psychiatric testimony is very uncertain and lot of times they say after a few years he is capable of being released.

BANFIELD: Wouldn't that factor into a prosecutor to say, I never want the opportunity for that to happen? If we go to trial and asserts an insanity defense and we don't prevail, he could walk out one day. It probably won't happen but it could.

CALLAN: It is theoretically possible and, of course, prosecutors are afraid of that. And jurors who sit on insanity cases are fearful of that as well. They're not supposed to factor it in. They're going to look at him and say, do we want to face him in a movie theater 15 years from now?

BANFIELD: They also, as I've heard, I've never had to sit on a jury for this, but they don't like the words "not guilty."

CALLAN: Especially with 12 victims and 58 people seriously injured.

BANFIELD: We did a segment with Christine Romans this week about the cost to actually go through a death penalty case and then all of the subsequent appeals, housing that person until he or she is executed, and it is, by many accounts, infinitely more expensive to do that. Is that something the prosecutor will actually look at in making this determination?

CALLAN: Absolutely not.

BANFIELD: Absolutely not?

CALLAN: They will not look at that at all.

BANFIELD: Paul, I've heard it can cost up to $30 million for some kinds of inmates. Not everybody. The average is around $3 million.

CALLAN: I've never heard a figure that high. I think it is well established that you spend more defending a death penalty case through its course than incarcerating a defendant. But I don't think the prosecutor is looking at that.

BANFIELD: See that little window in the bottom of the screen where the president is? I just want to divert for a moment so I can go into the East Room of the White House where the president about is to speak with a group of supporters of gun control. This is the National Day of Action. Sitting alongside of him, standing, are a number of people affected. Let's listen in.

KATERINA RODGAARD, MOTHER OF 2 VICTIMS & MEMBER, MOMS DEMAND ACTION FOR GUN SENSE IN AMERICA: First, I would like to thank from the bottom of my heart the president, the vice president, for inviting me to speak here today. Never in a million years did I think an average citizen such as myself would ever get an opportunity like this. My name is Katerina Rodgaard. I reside in suburban Maryland and I am the mother of two beautiful young children. I have a unique background both in the performing arts and in law.

I have been personally affected by gun violence. As a dance teacher I lost one of my students at the massacre at Virginia Tech. Rehema was a bright, beautiful, talented dancer who lost her life. It was stolen from her at the age of 18. I will never forget her presence in my classes and her enthusiasm for dance. As the mother of a first grader, I cannot even look at my own daughter without thinking about the poor, innocent victims at Sandy Hook. My heart breaks for them and their families and the families of the eight children every day who are killed by guns in this country.

After losing Rehema and seeing the horror at Sandy Hook, my reaction was that I no longer felt it was safe to raise a family in this country. I felt I either needed to leave the country or do something. As an attorney, I vowed to do something because I feel that my right to feel safe in this country and the rights of our children to feel safe in this country are paramount and worth fighting for. I have never been an activist before. But I have found a voice with Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. I am proud and honored to help them fight for better laws in this country.

I am also honored to acknowledge Vice President Joe Biden, a strong proponent of gun violence prevention measures in the Senate for decades and now in the White House. He is also an advocate for the rights of women and children. As mothers, we are eternally grateful for your support.

Enough is enough. The time to act is now.

I am now extremely honored to introduce to you the president of the United States of America, Barack Obama.

(APPLAUSE)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

OBAMA: Thank you very much. Thank you, everybody.

(APPLAUSE)

OBAMA: Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

OBAMA: Thank you, Katarina, for sharing your story. Rehema was lucky to have you as a teacher and all of us to have you here today. I'm glad we had a chance to remember her.

Katarina, as you just heard, lost one of her most promising students in Virginia Tech, the shootings that took place there six years ago. And she and dozens of other moms and dads, all victims of gun violence, have come here today from across the country, united not only in grief and loss but also in resolve and in courage, a deep determination to do whatever they can as parents and as citizens to protect other kids and spare other families from the awful pain that they've endured.

As any of the families and friends here today can tell you, the grief doesn't ever go away. That loss, that pain sticks with you. It lingers on in places like Blacksburg and Tucson and Aurora. That anguish is still fresh in new town. It's been barely a hundred days since 20 innocent children and six brave educators were taken from us by gun violence, including Grace MacDonald and Lauren Russo and Jessie Lewis, whose families are here today. That agony burns deep in the families of thousands.