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JANE VELEZ-MITCHELL

Did Psychologist Have Feelings for Jodi Arias?

Aired March 25, 2013 - 19:00   ET

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


JANE VELEZ-MITCHELL, HOST: Tonight, the shouting match turns shocking as prosecutor Juan Martinez accuses Jodi`s defense psychologist of having feelings for her. That`s right. Feelings for the defendant. Did that accusation cross the line, or could Jodi have mesmerized the shrink hired to evaluate her, as she has mesmerized other men? We`re going to debate it. But first, let`s go back into court and listen in.

DR. HOWARD SAMUELS, PSYCHOLOGIST: Well, maybe better the person, but they -- they have to engage in the effort to help themselves. They don`t have any external help from me if I`m not their therapist.

JUAN MARTINEZ, PROSECUTOR: That`s not -- it`s not for the purpose of assessment, those self-help books, are they?

SAMUELS: Not for the purpose of assessment, no.

MARTINEZ: With regard to this issue about covering up and creating an alternative reality, the bottom line in this case, the bottom line, covering up involves not telling the truth, correct?

SAMUELS: Yes.

MARTINEZ: And creating an alternative reality, by your definition, also indicates not telling the truth, right?

SAMUELS: Not telling the truth to me implies that the person has voluntary control over the story they`re telling.

MARTINEZ: And I know that you want to say that. But...

JENNIFER WILLMOTT, JODI`S DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Objection. Argumentative.

JUDGE SHERRY STEPHENS, PRESIDING OVER TRIAL: Sustained.

MARTINEZ: Yes or no? Isn`t it true that creating an alternative reality is talking about something that`s not truthful, yes or no?

SAMUELS Yes.

MARTINEZ: I don`t have anything else.

STEPHENS: All right. Dr. Samuels, you may step down.

Ladies and gentlemen, I`m going to ask that you go back to the jury room for approximately five minutes, and the next witness will be in the courtroom to testify. Please remember the admonition.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Please stand for the jury.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: All right. There you have it. Finally, after six days, Dr. Samuels off the stand. But boy, did he take some hits. But the question I`m going to ask: did hot-headed prosecutor Juan Martinez cross the line when, just a little while ago, he flat-out accused this defense psychologist, Dr. Richard Samuels, of having feelings for Jodi Arias? Check this out.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARTINEZ: Isn`t it true that she discussed thoughts, feelings, conversations associated with the trauma in the "48 Hours" interview?

SAMUELS: Yes.

MARTINEZ: So again, that speaks against what`s in No. 1, doesn`t it?

SAMUELS: I`m sorry, I don`t see it that way.

MARTINEZ: Right. You wouldn`t see it that way, because you have feelings for the defendant, right?

SAMUELS: I beg your pardon, sir.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Dr. Samuels looked disgusted at that suggestion. I mean, he shook his head. I`ve got to debate this. Jon Lieberman for the prosecution, Evangeline Gomez for the defense. Did prosecutor Juan Martinez cross a line by accusing this man who was there as a professional of having feelings for Jodi Arias, Jon?

JON LIEBERMAN, HLN CONTRIBUTOR: I don`t think so. I don`t think he crossed the line. I think everything that Mr. Martinez has done in this trial, for the most part, has been absolutely spot on. I mean, he`s tired of hearing about this alternative reality. The only alternate reality was the fact that Jodi didn`t want to get caught.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: He didn`t focus on the alternate reality.

LIEBERMAN: He did let his emotions, perhaps...

VELEZ-MITCHELL: He didn`t focus on it.

LIEBERMAN: Let me finish. He did let his emotions perhaps get the better of him there, but this is a prosecutor who`s now had this expert up there six days, and it`s very clear that this expert discounted anything that didn`t fit in with his hypothesis of PTSD.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: All right. I think we`re all getting exasperated. Evangeline Gomez for the defense, did the prosecutor cross the line?

EVANGELINE GOMEZ, ATTORNEY: He -- Jane, the prosecutor absolutely undercut his own credibility by making this ridiculous argument that the expert had feelings for Jodi Arias. OK. He`s trying to now turn this into some kind of soap opera, which it is not. And he looked like an absolute buffoon by making that argument.

LIEBERMAN: You went to talk about credibility.

GOMEZ: His testimony is absolutely ruined.

LIEBERMAN: Let`s talk about it.

GOMEZ: You went to the point of alternate reality...

LIEBERMAN: You want to make this about credibility?

GOMEZ: ... and you focus on credibility, which the prosecutor has clearly undercut. Now you please let me finish. Thank you.

The prosecutor is not winning any points with the jury. In fact, he`s confusing them, and he`s turning them off by throwing the soap opera element into this trial.

LIEBERMAN: I could not disagree more. You want to talk about credibility? Jodi Arias has none. This expert has none. And if Mr. Martinez made one clear...

GOMEZ: The question of him...

(CROSSTALK)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: All right. Guess what?

GOMEZ: ... expert of having feelings...

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Order in the non-court. You want to see -- do you think that`s fireworks? Whoa. The fireworks in the courtroom when the arguments between the prosecutor and the shrink literally almost came to blows. This was extraordinary. I`ve rarely seen anything like that. Both of them pounding their desks. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SAMUELS: She reported to me that she was having difficulty in her general reading. That was one example. There were other -- there were other examples, as well. I would have to refer through my notes in order to find specific ones, but based upon my clinical judgment and my expertise and experience, she met that criteria.

MARTINEZ: And you can bang on it all you want, and it`s still your judgment, isn`t it?

SAMUELS: Of course, it`s my judgment.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Selin Darkalstanian, you were inside the courtroom. What the heck is going on? I`ve seen many trials where there was animosity, but the banging on the table, has this crossed a line into some kind of surreal performance art piece?

SELIN DARKALSTANIAN, HLN PRODUCER: I have to tell you, Jane, the entire court was looking down, taking notes or listening, and it was kind of a very mellow -- and then all of a sudden, he slammed the court (ph). Everybody woke up. That was definitely a shocking moment from today.

There`s a lot of animosity between the two sides. You can feel the tensions rising. And you can feel the tensions rising between the two families every time we break for court, and we have to walk to the same elevator and take the same elevator down from court leaving that courthouse.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Tanya Young Williams, you are the celebrity spokesperson for the National Domestic Violence Hotline. Up next on the stand, possibly the final defense witness, Alyce LaViolette. She`s coming up any moment now. She`s a champion for battered women who`s going to testify on behalf of the defense, even though a lot of people feel Jodi Arias has made a joke out of the whole battered woman`s defense. What do you think of that?

TANYA YOUNG WILLIAMS, CELEBRITY SPOKESPERSON, NATIONAL DOMESTIC VIOLENCE HOTLINE: Well, Jane, I first have to say that, in the capacity of speaking today, I`m not speaking on behalf of the National Domestic Violence Hotline. I am speaking primarily as an advocate for women and survivors of domestic violence, because I just think that Jodi Arias -- and I`ve never held this position before -- but I don`t think that Jodi Arias exhibits the position that one who has experienced domestic violence before exhibits. It`s not in the testimony she`s given. It`s not in the manner in which she`s given the testimony.

And the biggest issue for me is she hasn`t been able to answer why. Why didn`t she write anything down? Why didn`t she go to the authorities? Why didn`t she tell anyone? I mean, you don`t have to do it, and very often some domestic violence victims do not. But they do have an answer as to why. Maybe they`re afraid that no one will care. Maybe they have no one to tell. But she could never even answer that simple question, and that -- that was a big red flag to me.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yes. And the whole idea of testifying that this person, this defense expert feels that Jodi Arias was a victim of domestic violence, there is no corroboration, as you just heard Tanya Young Williams mention. It`s really taking Jodi`s word for it.

So is that going to bite her? We will see. She`s going to be up soon. Let`s go back. The sidebar has ended. Let`s go back into court.

WILLMOTT: Defense calls Alyce LaViolette.

STEPHENS: Please come forward right up here to be sworn. Right up here.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Raise your right hand. Do you solemnly swear the testimony you`re about to give will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God?

ALYCE LAVIOLETTE, DOMESTIC VIOLENCE EXPERT: I do.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Please walk right around here and have a seat.

WILLMOTT: Did you want some water? If you want to, you can pour some now.

LAVIOLETTE: Thank you.

WILLMOTT: Maybe the other cup though.

LAVIOLETTE: What`s that?

WILLMOTT: In a clean cup.

LAVIOLETTE: A clean cup. All right.

WILLMOTT: All right.

All right. Good afternoon.

LAVIOLETTE: Good afternoon.

WILLMOTT: Could you tell us your name please.

LAVIOLETTE: My name is Alyce LaViolette.

WILLMOTT: And Ms. LaViolette, what do you do for a living?

LAVIOLETTE: I`m a psychotherapist. I do consulting and training, and I do expert witness, occasionally.

WILLMOTT: OK. And so psychotherapy in what?

LAVIOLETTE: Psychotherapy -- I have a private practice.

WILLMOTT: OK.

LAVIOLETTE: And I have a specialty in domestic violence. I have -- I conduct two groups a week for men who perpetrate domestic violence, and I have a broad-based private practice where I do marriage counseling.

I also do work with individuals. I work with adults. I work with battered women. I work with adult survivors of childhood abuse. And then I do a broad-based private practice with a variety of issues.

WILLMOTT: OK. Let`s talk about your education. So what I want to know is -- is what qualifies you to do this type of work? So could we talk about your education for a second?

LAVIOLETTE: Yes. I went for two years here in Arizona at Glendale College -- Glendale Community College. The first year at the campus that we used to call Reedmore (ph) in Florida University, because it was right next to Reedmore (ph) in Florida, and then the actual campus was -- the campus that`s there now was built for the second year.

And I went to become a teacher. I got interested in psychology and then went over to...

VELEZ-MITCHELL: This woman, Alyce LaViolette, has worked on behalf of battered women since 1978. And now she`s taking a big risk, according to most observers, by standing up and testifying on behalf of Jodi Arias.

Undoubtedly, she will argue that Jodi Arias is a battered woman, that Travis was sexually violent toward her, violent toward here. We`ll have to see what her argument is. But is she putting the whole issue of battering of women on its head, the way Jodi Arias stood on her head?

More when we come back. We leave you for this break with Juan Martinez very, very angry. But we`ll be back with more testimony.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARTINEZ: Did you report it to any of the officers in the Maricopa County jail system? Do you remember me asking that?

SAMUELS: I do.

MARTINEZ: Do you remember that you told me back then, "Well, I don`t know anybody to report it to"?

WILLMOTT: Objection, judge. Can we ask the prosecutor not yell at the witness?

MARTINEZ: I`ll object to the speaking objection.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARTINEZ: And you enjoyed the Tootsie Pops and the Pop Rocks. Correct? You think that the braids are hot, don`t you?

JODI ARIAS, MURDER DEFENDANT: I think cute was more appropriate.

TRAVIS ALEXANDER, MURDER VICTIM (via phone): I like the braids.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: I think everyone would agree that Travis Alexander and Jodi Arias had a kinky relationship, maybe even an S&M relationship, but the link that prosecutors say is just sheer fancy is this claim by the defense that Travis was beating on her. Jodi claims, "Oh, he hit me, kicked me, tried to joke me, hurt my finger." But there`s no police reports. There`s no request for a restraining order. There`s nothing but her word. She didn`t even say anything about it in her diary.

Let`s go back into court, where this domestic violence expert for the defense is on the stand. What was she saying about their relationship?

LAVIOLETTE: About eight years later I went back and did my master`s degree in community clinical psychology and then sat for the licensing exam. I had to do 3,000 clinical hours that were supervised, and then I sat for the licensing exam and became licensed in the state of California.

WILLMOTT: All right. So let`s talk about your undergraduate degree first. So you said you finished up at Cal State North Beach.

LAVIOLETTE: Cal State Long Beach.

WILLMOTT: Long Beach. I didn`t go there. So all right, you finished up. Is that where you get your bachelor`s?

LAVIOLETTE: That`s where I got my bachelor`s.

WILLMOTT: And you were talking about becoming interested in psychology?

LAVIOLETTE: Yes.

WILLMOTT: OK. And so what is your bachelor`s in?

LAVIOLETTE: My bachelor`s is in clinical psychology, and my master`s is in community clinical psychology.

WILLMOTT: OK. What`s the difference between a bachelor`s and a master`s degree?

LAVIOLETTE: About two years. There`s -- there`s -- I completed my master`s in two years. It can sometimes take three, but I actually did it in about a year and a half to two years.

WILLMOTT: All right. And your master`s, you said, is in community clinical psychology?

LAVIOLETTE: Yes.

WILLMOTT: What does that mean?

LAVIOLETTE: Community clinical psychology is a program at Cal State Long Beach that was kind of unique. You are interviewed by faculty and students who had been through the program, and you had to pass -- well, actually, they had to select from the applicants 12 people who would be part of this program.

And back at the time the reason I wanted to do this program was because it was hands-on. You actually got to go out in the field and work 20 hours a week doing field work, and that`s what I wanted to do.

WILLMOTT: When you say field work, what does that mean?

LAVIOLETTE: You could pick a practicum, a place to work that had to be approved by your department. And so at that time, I did ten hours in -- in a community facility, a community, like, neighborhood kind of facility where I was doing tutoring and registering voters and that sort of thing. And then I did ten hours a week in the battered women`s shelter, which I didn`t really know anything about and was wanting to work in some form of impacting violence against women, since I had known people who had been raped and sexually assaulted.

And so I was going to work with sexual assault. And one of my friends was volunteering at the shelter and told me that it was a very interesting place to work and it was a very new field. So I decided that I would apply there, and I volunteered there ten hours a week.

WILLMOTT: When you volunteer -- when you`re working on your master`s and in that particular community clinical psychology and you`re volunteering in a -- at a battered women`s shelter, what is it that you`re doing there?

LAVIOLETTE: Well, you`re doing a lot of different things. I worked on the hotline. I was trained to work on the hotline, so I worked on the hotline.

WILLMOTT: What`s a hotline?

LAVIOLETTE: The hotline is a 24-hour crisis line, where people can call anonymously, where they can give you their name, and they can tell you -- they can talk to you about what`s going on in their lives, and your job is to listen to them, sometimes make referrals, sometimes recommend that they come into the shelter, that sort of thing.

And in addition to that, I did clerical kinds of work. I did fund- raising for the shelter. I did casual -- what was called casual counseling with the women, where you just sat with the women and the kids in the shelter and talked to them or ran a group.

I did a self-defense class for them one time, because I`d taken one self-defense class, and I wasn`t very good. But it was fun for the women to be up and moving around and doing physical things.

WILLMOTT: Can we talk time line? When in -- when in the time line of your life are we talking about? What year is this?

LAVIOLETTE: 1978. 1978.

WILLMOTT: 1978 is when you started with your master`s?

LAVIOLETTE: 1978 is when I started with my master`s. 1980 is when I completed my master`s. And I volunteered at the shelter until 1979, and then I was hired in 1979.

WILLMOTT: OK. And when you were hired at the shelter in 1979, what were you hired to do?

LAVIOLETTE: I was hired to start a program for men who battered their wives, and the reason for that was that we did a little piece of research on women who had been in our shelter. The shelter opened in 1977. And we did a little piece of research to find out what happened to women after they had left the shelter, a year after they left the shelter. And we -- of the women that we could find, over 80 percent had returned to the person who abused them within the first year after they left.

And so our director was very far-sighted, and she said, "We need to start a program for the men who are in relationship to the women in our shelter so they go back -- so the women and children go back to a safer place."

And actually, I didn`t want to do that. Nobody actually at the shelter wanted to do that. But I needed a paid position. I had two children, and I needed a job.

MARTINEZ: Objection. Relevance.

WILLMOTT: Why did you -- why did you ultimately take the job then? Why did -- well, let me ask you this. Why didn`t you want to take the job of starting a men`s group?

LAVIOLETTE: Because I`d worked with the women and the children, and it was really hard to see what had happened to them. And so I didn`t initially want to do that, but I began to do it. I began to develop the program, because I liked, you know, program development. And then when I started the work, I really liked the work, and I stayed with it.

WILLMOTT: And when you talk about working at the shelter, and starting to work on this men`s group...

VELEZ-MITCHELL: All right. There, Alyce LaViolette, possibly the final defense witness, an advocate for battered women, worked with a battered women`s hotline to help battered women, and now she`s helping Jodi Arias? A lot of people feel this is a very, very risky, risky move on her part. Is she going to be decimated and annihilated the way prosecutor Juan Martinez went after the defense psychologist" Stay right there. We shall see.

Quick break. More on the other side.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ARIAS (via phone): You know what I liked was when we were in the bath with the candles and I had the braids.

ALEXANDER (via phone): I love the braids.

ARIAS: I know. They`re hot.

ALEXANDER: I`m going to tie you to a tree and put it in your (EXPLETIVE DELETED) all the way.

ARIAS: Oh, my gosh!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALEXANDER (via phone): The way you moan, baby, it sounds like -- it sounds like you are this 12-year-old girl having her first orgasm. It`s so hot.

ARIAS: It sounds like what?

ALEXANDER: Twelve-year-old girl having her first orgasm. (EXPLETIVE DELETED) this hot little girl.

ARIAS: You`re bad. You make me feel so dirty.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yes, Travis and Jodi had a kinky S&M relationship. But that doesn`t mean that he was physically abusive to her, as she claims.

Well, now there is a domestic violence expert on the stand for the defense. Is Jodi`s life in the hands of Alyce LaViolette? Let`s listen in as this possibly last defense witness gets under way.

WILLMOTT: And to get your master`s, are you taking classes, as well?

LAVIOLETTE: I`m taking classes. I had a graduate seminar that met three hours a week and a supervision group that met three. And I had taken a lot of my classes prior to actually getting into the program. They could count classes I had taken between my bachelor`s degree and my master`s degree.

WILLMOTT: OK. And so at the time that you`re now working at the shelter and you`re working on starting this men`s group, is there also something -- something that you have to do to finish up your master`s?

LAVIOLETTE: Yes. I had to do a thesis. After I completed my class work, I did a thesis.

WILLMOTT: What does that mean? What does that mean?

LAVIOLETTE: You write, basically, a research paper, and it`s a significant research paper on a topic that your clinical supervisor approves and that is something that would be of interest. And I did mine on perpetrators of domestic violence, and it was one of the -- I guess one of the early theses on that -- on that topic, because at that time I had sort of a corner on the market. I had one of the only -- there were only two programs in Los Angeles County that actually dealt with working with folks who perpetrated violence, and so I had clients to -- who volunteered to participate in that study.

WILLMOTT: OK. And when you talk about clients, you`re talking about the men, the perpetrators?

LAVIOLETTE: Yes. The men who were in my -- the men who were in my group.

WILLMOTT: OK. And that`s the group that you -- that you were part -- that you created?

LAVIOLETTE: Yes.

WILLMOTT: What was the purpose of that group?

LAVIOLETTE: The purpose of that group was to -- to teach people skills and maybe help them to work on issues that would -- that would enable them to be more effective parents, to be more effective partners in their relationships.

And at the time I hadn`t had counseling experience, much counseling experience. And so I sort of based my group on a healthy family: What would a healthy family look like?

And I talked to the women at the shelter, because at that time, I think there were three groups around the country that were doing this work. And I wrote to all of those groups and got information about what they were doing, and they were all doing work at about 6 to 12 weeks. They were doing short-term work.

And I talked to the women in the shelter, and what was consistent from those women was that the men they were involved with had grown up in abusive families and needed help. That they needed, you know, to have work on trauma issues. And so we created the group to deal also with some of those trauma issues.

WILLMOTT: And so this group that you created that you worked with, was it just men who would be in this group?

LAVIOLETTE: Yes. In the state of California now, you have to have same-sex groups. At that time you didn`t, but we didn`t have any referrals from women at that time.

WILLMOTT: OK.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: This noted champion of battered women is now testifying on behalf of Jodi Arias, even though the prosecutor says she`s not a battered woman. She`s making the whole issue -- she`s making a mockery of this whole battered woman defense, and that perhaps this witness is drinking the Kool-Aid. And will she be attacked the way the defense psychologist was attacked for putting the issue of battered women syndrome on its head? Is she being manipulated by Jodi Arias?

We shall see. Let`s take a very short break. On the other side, more testimony from Alyce LaViolette.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ARIAS: When he say, "Tie you to a tree and put in your (EXPLETIVE DELETED)" the first image that flew to mind was the scene from the movie "Me, Myself and Irene." I thought, "How degrading," so I said that, and then as I said, "How degrading, so degrading," I didn`t want him to feel bad for expressing himself and his fantasies, so I quickly added, "I like it," just so he didn`t feel like I was insulting his personal fantasy.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Here`s your shoes; why don`t you go ahead and put those on. Go ahead. Sop right there and just turn around. Put your hands behind your back.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Hear that click, click, click. That`s Jodi Arias being arrested. She`s a liar. She first lied and said she wasn`t there when Travis was killed. Then she said two masked ninjas killed Travis and then she ultimately argued I did kill him but it was in self-defense. I`m a battered woman. He abused me. He beat me. He kicked me. He hurt my finger.

Well, the prosecutor says that`s an absolute lie. There`s no corroboration. Now an expert for the defense, an advocate for battered women on the stand expected to argue Jodi was battered by Travis. Why? Why this testimony? Let`s listen in. Let`s go back into court.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JENNIFER WILLMOTT, DEFENSE ATTORNEY FOR JODI ARIAS: How long did you keep working with this particular group? You received your masters in 1980, is that right?

ALYCE LAVIOLETTE, DEFENSE WITNESS: Yes.

WILLMOTT: When you received your masters -- let me back up a second - - when you received your masters, you said you have to write a thesis.

LAVIOLETTE: Yes.

WILLMOTT: Is that right. Do you have to do anything with that thesis?

LAVIOLETTE: You have to have it approved and you have to sit for orals so you sit with a group that questions you on your thesis and has to approve your thesis and feel that it`s worthy of -- if it`s to be published. I don`t believe mine was published. I think parts of it might have been used but I never pursued publishing my thesis. I was just happy to get through with it actually.

WILLMOTT: All right. So once you received your masters -- is that what you said -- in 1980?

LAVIOLETTE: Yes.

WILLMOTT: And then are you still then at the shelter working in the men`s group?

LAVIOLETTE: I`m still at the shelter and I am working with the men`s group but I`m also doing volunteer recruiting and training and I`m doing all the community education for the group. So for instance I worked with the probation officers locally and we set up the first eight hour training program for probation officers on domestic violence in L.A. County and then went around the state and I worked with two probation officers on that. I did training for mental health.

Initially really in 1979 the only people that kind of wanted training were church groups. And I went to United Methodist women, I remember, were one of the first groups that supported the shelter and I would go to speak to their church women`s groups. I went to speak to the Soroptimist. I went to speak to the Rotary. I went to speak to mental health agencies. So, anybody actually who wanted to hear about it.

And by the way at conferences we would have maybe three people in a workshop. People really didn`t want to hear too much about it then.

WILLMOTT: Well, I was going to ask you, you know, in the late `70s when this is occurring, was domestic violence something that was wide known?

LAVIOLETTE: No, it wasn`t. There were very few shelters. Shelters began to open in the late `70s and early `80s in the United States.

WILLMOTT: You said you were one of three groups in the U.S. who had a men`s group, is that right?

LAVIOLETTE: There were three other programs that were outside groups. There was one program in Washington State that was at a veterans hospital and they had a residential program there that Anne Ganley (ph) did.

WILLMOTT: I`m sorry -- that who?

LAVIOLETTE: Anne Ganley.

WILLMOTT: Ok. Is that somebody who`s involved in domestic violence for battered women or --

LAVIOLETTE: Yes, she`s involved with battered women but also involved in doing programs for the men.

WILLMOTT: Ok. And so when you`re doing the -- how did you feel working with these men?

LAVIOLETTE: I guess that I felt -- I felt hesitant at first but I quickly saw that they were in pain and that they for some of them really wanted to change. Some of them didn`t. They just wanted to get their partners back.

And so the men that I worked with who continued to stay in group because they had an option back then about staying in group really seemed to want to change and I was excited about that. I thought that was terrific and I wanted to be part of that process and by the way, I worked with a male co-facilitator.

We wanted to set it up to look like as much a family as we could so I thought having a male/female team would be a good way to go with that. And having that power dynamic where you see respectful interaction between a man and a woman would be good role modeling in that group so we did a lot of that. And I worked with him for 28 years until he retired.

WILLMOTT: Your cohort on that?

LAVIOLETTE: My co-facilitator, yes.

WILLMOTT: Did any of these men working -- you had started working with just the women in 1978, is that right?

LAVIOLETTE: Right.

WILLMOTT: Did any of these men ever frighten you when you started working with perpetrators?

JUAN MARTINEZ, PROSECUTOR: Objection. Irrelevant.

WILLMOTT: Goes to her expertise, Judge.

SHERRY STEPHENS, PRESIDING JUDGE: Overruled.

LAVIOLETTE: Occasionally. I have been frightened probably three or four times in my career if I was frightened very much I wouldn`t keep doing it because it would be too frightening. So there were several times where I really worried. One time with a guy that was a gang banger who was someone who had -- I know had murdered people.

WILLMOTT: When you talk about the three or four times, how many men have you counseled throughout your career? Ballpark?

LAVIOLETTE: Well, probably a couple thousand, but I`m not sure -- maybe less than that. I`ve done two groups a week for 34 years and I`ve had normally not more than 12 people in a group; usually somewhere between 8 and 10 people in a group.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: So you`re listening to domestic violence expert Alyce LaViolette talking about respectful relationships between men and women. Arguably something that Travis and Jodi did not have. They had a kinky, kind of raunchy relationship but does that equate to domestic violence? What`s the strategy going to be?

We have some insight from Tanya Young-Williams, advocate for victims of domestic violence. Give us your insight into how the defense is going to use this particular witness.

TANYA YOUNG-WILLIAMS, SPOKESPERSON, NATIONAL DOMESTIC VIOLENCE HOTLINE: Well, listening to this witness -- and of course, she`s wonderfully qualified to offer testimony here. But it seems to me that she`s not going to try to convince the jurors that Jodi is in fact a victim of domestic violence as much as she`s going to be able to that Travis exhibits the personality traits of an abuser.

And what makes her testimony different than our last expert is she`s not only going to have to rely on Jodi`s testimony. She`s going to look at his text messages. She`s going to listen to his voice messages and she`s going to be able to say to the jury taking his own words he exhibits some of the personality traits that abuser has.

And that`s very different than just saying that Jodi is not the victim or Jodi is the victim of domestic violence.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: And of course, the prosecutor is going to counter. Hey, you`re taking all this out of context. They were playing kinky sex games. They were going back and forth. She was an eager and willing participant and she said things like "I`m looking forward to my well- deserved spanking."

So how is that going play on cross? We shall see. Fascinating stuff. Let`s take a very short break. We`re going to be back with more on the other side. Just getting started.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JODI ARIAS, ON TRIAL FOR MURDER OF TRAVIS ALEXANDER: You should have at least done your make-up Jodi. Gosh.

Goodness.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: We are bringing you every single minute of the Jodi Arias trial. We`re also keeping an eye on other important stories.

Lindsay -- Lindsay, Lindsay, Lindsay; what are we going to do with you? New claims tonight Lohan spent the weekend partying all over town just days after being sentenced to rehab. We`re also learning tonight there is no such thing as locked-down rehab which is what her lawyer offered the court.

What does that mean for the actress? Will she instead be sentenced to jail or will a judge trust that Lindsay will stay in rehab on her own? Really? We`ll stay on top of it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KURT NURMI, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Do you remember seeing e-mails in which Mr. Alexander referred to Miss Arias as a quote, "(EXPLETIVE DELETED) wonder".

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

MARTINEZ: Objection. Hearsay.

STEPHENS: Overruled.

NURMI: As a slut?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

NURMI: As a whore?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: And for good measure we`re going to show you some video of what you can decide for yourself if Jodi Arias is making an obscene gesture or not. How much do you want a bet now that we have a domestic violence expert on the stand for the defense we`re going to hear all those raunchy phone sex conversations again as each side tries to use it to score their own points. Was she a battered woman, wasn`t she?

Let`s go back into court and listen to Alyce LaViolette, a domestic violence expert for the defense.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILLMOTT: All right. So going from the first men`s group, what kind of therapy do you do now?

LAVIOLETTE: I do very broad-based therapy. I`ve worked with couples, high-conflict couples, people who need anger management. I work with adult survivors of childhood abuse. I continue to do that. I work with battered women. I continue to do that. I`ve worked with a few men who have been abused as well. I continue to do the groups and I work with adolescents and occasionally I work with parents on parenting issues.

WILLMOTT: When you are doing this work, do you work always with groups or do you sometimes work with just an individual?

LAVIOLETTE: I work with individuals. I work with couples. I work with -- I haven`t worked with large families but I`ve worked with, you know, like I`m working with a grandmother and granddaughter now, who has custody of her granddaughter and that kind of thing.

WILLMOTT: All right.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELEZ-MITCHELL : All right. Somebody who has been in court every day watching all this testimony, Kathy Brown, a.k.a. the famous "cane lady of court"; and Kathy thank you for joining us. I see you have your cane there. You are a fixture in court. You are there all the time, every day. You have had the prosecutor sign that cane?

KATHY BROWN, "CANE LADY OF COURT": Yes, I did. Thank you for having me.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: And you`re a fan of Travis Alexander, I understand.

BROWN: Absolutely.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Why have you decided to make this your cause in a sense?

BROWN: Well, I started coming to trial mainly because I have a cousin on death row so I started figuring -- wanted to know how they get to that process. But as time went on, of course in watching this case, it`s just unbelievable and I feel so sorry for this whole family.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Travis Alexander`s family. Do you buy that Jodi was a victim of domestic violence, which is essentially what the defense is trying to imply right now?

BROWN: Not at all. There`s no evidence to support anything she has said.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: So does it bother you that Travis who is not here to defend himself has to essentially almost be used by the defense in her defense. They`re going to use his words and they have used his words on the phone sex tape in her defense.

BROWN: Yes, they have. And that bothers me. I`m sure a lot of people that I have spoken to -- you know, it`s terrible that they have to drag him through the mud the way they are and that we have to sit and listen to her say these horrible things about him. It`s just -- a lot of people are just very frustrated.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: All right. Yes or no question very briefly. Do you think prosecute Juan Martinez is yelling too much and coming on too strong? Yes or no?

BROWN: No. Not at all.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: All right. Thank you, cane lady of court. We`re going to take a very short break. We`re going to be back with more testimony in just a moment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARTINEZ: You were a little bit sloppy, right?

RICHARD SAMUELS, DEFENSE PSYCHOLOGIST: Based upon my clinical judgment and my expertise and experience, she met that criteria.

MARTINEZ: You can bang on it all you want and it`s still your judgment. It`s nothing more than a lie, right?

SAMUELS: In your words, sir.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RYAN BURNS, WITNESS: I never touched her breasts or anything like that, at one point I had my hands on her thighs. She was, you know, things were -- she just definitely seemed to be into the moment.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: That`s Ryan Burns, the guy that Jodi Arias made out with hours after killing Travis Alexander. Let`s go back into court, and Alyce LaViolette, the domestic violence expert for the defense. Listen in.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILLMOTT: -- shelter with the men`s group.

LAVIOLETTE: I worked at the shelter from 1978 until 1984.

WILLMOTT: Ok. And all that time from `79 to `84, was that where you were working with the men`s group?

LAVIOLETTE: I worked with the men`s group from `79 to `84, but also worked with the women and I also did community education and I also recruited volunteers and trained them.

WILLMOTT: Ok. So you were doing a myriad of things.

LAVIOLETTE: Yes, I was.

WILLMOTT: All right. In 1984 what did you move to?

LAVIOLETTE: In 1984, the funding collapsed for the shelter and I needed a job, and I thought that it might be a really good idea to try to start my own business which is something I never actually considered in my life before. I had two children so I needed --

MARTINEZ: Objection. (Inaudible)

STEPHENS: Sustained.

WILLMOTT: Did you start your own practice?

LAVIOLETTE: Yes, I did. I started my own practice in 1984.

WILLMOTT: All right. And what kind of practice was that?

LAVIOLETTE: It was --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: All right, will this woman argue that the victim, Travis Alexander, had traits of an abuser. Let`s debate it with our side bar panel, starting with Jon Leiberman for the prosecution.

JON LEIBERMAN, HLN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, look, you can find an expert to testify to anything. And I think we are going to hear a lot of victimizing the victim. The problem is the entire defense case is built on a foundation of lies, and it`s all going to crumble just like the foundation of lies.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: All right, under two seconds, let`s go, Evangeline Gomez for the defense.

EVANGELINE GOMEZ, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Lisa Daidone spoke about the control that Travis Alexander had over her. How can you say this person did not exhibit any signs, or didn`t have the profile of being a domestic violence perpetrator, even if you discard the Jodi`s testimony?

Look, this is the issue. Victims of DV don`t come out because -- I got hit by the buzzer, Jane.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: All right. We`re going to continue the debate on the other side. Stay right there, more testimony and debate in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Will this domestic violence expert save Jodi`s life, or will she be a bust. Quick round robin starting with Evangeline Gomez for the defense.

GOMEZ: This domestic violence expert is going to connect all the dots. She`s going to show that domestic violence victims have different levels of resilience. Just because one person may write in a diary, another may not, it doesn`t mean they`re not a victim of domestic violence. And that`s important.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Tanya. Tanya.

YOUNG-WILLIAMS: I got it. This expert has worked very long and very long to build her reputation and her credibility. I do not expect her to go out on a limb for Jodi Arias. I do expect her to use very broad strokes and great generalizations when explaining domestic violence.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Got to leave it right there. Fantastic panel.

Leiberman: I want extra time tomorrow night.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Nancy Grace is up next. Sorry Jon. Thanks.

END