connecticut's law allowing such statements could lead to an appeal of his sentence. today his defense attorney began calling witnesses after urging jurors to keep an opened mind. during the trial's first phase they saw weeks of testimony that was so gruesome and heartbreaking it brought a lot of them to tears. michael was in the courtroom today. sonny, is our legal contributor for "in session" and she joins us as well. this is basically the phase about proving his life is worth saving. how did they go about that? >> that's what it's about. i think they have to humanize him to the jury. this is the same jury that convicted him of 16 out of 17 counts and found that he committed these heinous crimes. so they're trying to make him into a person worth saving. a person that shouldn't get the ultimate penalty. the death penalty. and that's what we saw today. we heard from five witnesses today from the defense and we heard people that knew him as a child. knew him as a young adult. had worked with him. and they all, without fail, described him as fragile anderson.