Arias trial continues, defense team still calling witnesses

>>> trial continues this afternoon in phoenix with her defense team calling additional witnesses. jodi won't be on the stand herself but she spent 18 days there over nearly six weeks. an extraordinary amount of time. she faces the death penalty for killing her off again, on again boyfriend. travis alexander in 2008 shelf change her story three times. first she claimed she wasn't there. then she said two intruders killed him. then she said it was self- defense . this picture has bloody pictures, lots of talk about sex, and the two looks of jodi then and now on the stand. also a jury that gets to ask witness questions, all of which combines to make this the year's most watched trial.

>> allegedly.

>> let's bring in defense attorney to break this down. the length of time that jodi spent on the stand is extraordinary, at least to me. i've never heard of anything like that. as a criminal defense attorney, how do you read that? do you read it saying her team is saying, we have very little to no chance, given the evidence that we have, that the prosecution will present. if we put her up there for a while and maybe make people like her and understand her, they'll have less of an opportunity maybe to want to convict her?

>> i don't think it is about conviction, ultimately. i think what these defense lawyers are attempting to do is to save her life. first of all, your comment about it being one of the longest, if not the longest time a defendant has been on the witness stand is really a wise comment indeed. i had covered these cases for court tv and trutv. i have never heard of a witness, let alone a defendant on the stand for 18 days. and when you're looking to save her life, what the defense wants to do is they want to make her human. you may think she did it. you may decide to convict her, jurors, but you may not want to ultimately put her to death. that's their goal.

>> and how have they done in that goal in your opinion? how has the defense done? how has the prosecution done? do you think that her life will be saved?

>> i don't know if i can say her life different versions of what happened to her boyfriend, travis. and when you end up with a self- defense claim, the defense lawyers are stuck with this claim. and the only way to get an instruction for the jury on the issue of self- defense was to put her on the witness stand . personally, myself, i might have taken another tact and simply decided i'd forego the self- defense instruction, let them convict her, argue for the issue of life without her being thought of, potentially, as a liar for 18 days.

>> you know, rikki, there are a lot of, you know, well-documented, bizarre and grisly and sensational aspects to this case. but at the same time, it strikes me there are 10,000 to 15,000 murders a year in the united states and a lot of those murders also have bizarre and grisly and sensational aspects to them. in some cases, i think there's probably more of a mystery than maybe in this one about what actually happened. this -- i'm kind of curious when trials like this get the kind of news this one's getting, what is it do you think about this that's riveted people in a way that none of these other murders, murder case we have every year, do?

>> well, i think one of the things you were discussing earlier in your program was about the issue of race. and i do think when we have a very attractive caucasian female and we have a lot of video, you need that combination. that what we do is we find our society becomes riveted to a case. the perfect example is the scott peterson case. we see laci peterson as that beautiful woman who smiled. little jonbenet ramsey . that beautiful blond child. and we, frankly, do not see this kind of interest when we have people of color . and i think that that is a shame. in addition, we have to also look at our interests as a society to hear the kind of salacious detail that this case has had which is way over the top for daytime tv .

>> rikki, i've got to say, i'm one of the few people apparently who's not been captivated by this.

>> what?

>> sorry. how much longer can i expect this to be part of the news cycle? how much longer do you think this trial is going to go?

>> oh, this one isn't over until it's over. we are just starting the expert witnesses in this case. there are two of them. they are dealing with her psyche. we're going to find out if she has post traumatic stress disorder , of course, she claimed she is a victim of abuse and, therefore, there is a reason both for her self- defense claim as well as for her memory fog. that's going to go on for days. and then the government gets to rebut these witnesses with experts of their own, and, of course, any other witnesses they would like to call. so although you why nmay not be part of this viewing public that is glued to watching this trial, i guarantee you there may be friends of yours going to be asking you questions for days if not weeks to come.

>> wow, great.

>> let me tell you stinomething. you called my statements wise, you get to come back.

>> i am a wise woman.

>> thank you very much.

>>> up next, deal or no deal ? hosted by krystal ball.