paul callen is with me right here on set. paul, let's talk about this first. my question is 17 counts of murder. reports are he had killed 16 afghan civilians. can you help us make sense of that? >> this is very strange. the original reports were 9 children, 3 women and 4 men were killed in this rampage and now we seem to have another victim, so 17 counts would look like another victim. i suppose they could have indicted him on two theories relating to one count of murder, that's a possibility as well, but we'll have to wait to see the details. >> would it be if perhaps one of the victims, one of the women were pregnant? would that be another possibility? >> it's unlikely that that would be the case. you would really -- you'd have to have a fetus that was ready to be born. you know, one of the major problems in this case, and this has been said by the defense attorney, how do we know how these individuals were killed, because this took place in a field of battle, were there autopsies done? were the bodies now? not an easy case to produce the actual victims when you're in the state of war so we'll have to look at that and see how it gets proved. >> i want to bring chris lawrence into this conversation, our pentagon reporter. what can you tell us, chris? >> reporter: erin, i think we're going to learn a lot more when these charge sheets come out, particularly why the death count may have increased from 16 to 17. but i think that the thing to keep your eye on -- i apologize for that, i'm with my daughter and these charges don't seem to be making an impression on her right now. but i think the thing really to keep your eye on is the fact that when we talked to the officials earlier, they said they had limited forensic evidence. the fact that a lot of these deaths were committed with a high-powered rifle at very close range meant that some of the bullets passed through the victim' bodies and lodged in the walls, so they do have some measure of forensics. i think the key going forward will be how much they are actually able to prove, what they were able to determine from some of the eyewitness accounts. remember this occurred in the middle of the night, in the dark, with allegedly a soldier who was in full gear with very little of his face possibly showing. so down the road you start to ask questions about how much the witnesses will be able to identify a suspect and things like that. but for the immediate future, i think we look ahead to tomorrow and see how much detail about the crime the military releases in the charge sheets. >> i think we could also say that this is a circumstantial evidence case as well. i say that because there were admissions allegedly made by sergeant bales to some of his fellow soldiers in which he claimed at least that he wasn't shooting women and children, he was shooting men of military age. now, that would be an admission by him that would link him to the crime scene. if they then link his gun to the specific victims, then they easily make a connection and they can prove their case. >> do we have any information, chris, at this point or are you anticipating finding out any more in terms of what sort of punishment that prosecutors will be looking for? >> reporter: i think from everyone that i have been speaking with, it's likely that they would pursue a death penalty case in this case. but a lot of the military legal experts i've been speaking with have repeatedly pointed out that the last soldier who was executed for a crime was in 1961. to have a u.s. service member basically go on death row, the president himself has to personally sign off on that. the last time it happened was in 2008 when president george w. bush did so. that service member is actually still on death row. his case is still going through appeal. erin, here's the interesting thing. the crimes that that service member committed were back in the late '80s. you can see how long it takes for these cases to move through the legal system. so ultimately staff sergeant robert bales' case may end up on the president's desk of a president who is in office in the year 2025, not president barack obama or whoever even follows him. >> paul, could you weigh in on that. is this something president obama would have to make a decision on death row on? in this case there's so much anger out there that they would have to move quickly. >> i don't think that the president would be involved in the death penalty decision right now. i do think that because this is one of the biggest alleged massacres in memory, you have to think back to the melei massacre to think of something as horrific. and you have the diplomatic and political problems that are being caused by this crime. afghan citizens will be looking saying is the u.s. seeking justice in this case. i would think they will seek the death penalty. but will it be imposed? we're looking 20 years down the line on that so i'm doubtful it will be imposed. >> so even given all the anger, that this trial could take how long? >> oh, no, the trial itself could happen within the next year or so. this will be fast tracked, i assure you of that. but the appellate process in these cases take 20 years because they go up the chain and are knocked back down, there's a retrial and by the time it's over you have 10, 15, 20 years before the sentence is upheld. >> when chris was talking with how they would proceed with the death penalty, we had sergeant bales' football coach on this show. a lot of other people have talked about this being a man that was greatly admired. does that help him? does that make up for any of this? or would all these vouches of good character, financial duress, marital difficulty, ptsd that was undiagnosed, will all of that help him or not? >> lawyers will call those mitigating factors and they certainly will help him. he's not being described as somebody who was brutal and nasty throughout his military career. he looks like somebody who sn d snapped. and for that reason there will be a lot on his side in terms of not imposing the death penalty. unquestionably the prosecutors will seek the death penalty given the importance of this case. >> chris, what are your military sources telling you about how much pressure there is right now to go for the most tough, the worst situation for sergeant bales? >> reporter: i'm told in a lot of these cases, erin, the legal process is somewhat removed from that pressure. especially when you consider the investigative team is usually separate from sergeant bales' command structure. a lot of pains i'm told are taken to make sure that that legal process is sort of removed from the political process in much the same way that the supreme court operates sort of outside of the day-to-day wranglings between the administration and congress. i think one of the things to really keep an eye on is the fact that the army will have to present its case first. that means the defense will get a chance to take a look to see how much evidence is out there and then choose which strategy they want to go for, whether they think the evidence is weak and they can simply try to get a not guilty verdict or if they think the evidence is strong and perhaps pursue more of a diminished capacity defense, bringing things like traumatic brain injury and ptsd into their argument. >> i wanted to bring in michael breen into this conversation, a former army captain, and just ask you, captain, what you make of these charges as someone who has served, has been there and presumably you have a little bit of understanding about what sergeant bales may have been going through. >> hi, erin. thanks for having me on. let me just say that sergeant stein took the exact same oath that we all took and that's an oath that says if you have the privilege to serve in the united states military, if you have the privilege to wear that uniform, you're held to a higher standard. and that standard exists to protect the constitution. >> i'm sorry, michael. you didn't hear me. just so our viewers know, we will be talking about sergeant stein in just a couple of moments. michael, talking about sergeant bales and the 17 charges of murder that we have just found out about are going to be filed tomorrow, what do you make of those charges? >> well, i think there's nothing particularly surprising about it. he committed a horrific series of crimes. i think we need to remember as we talk about this, it did happen in the context of war time. sergeant bales has been through a lot as a soldier. many of us have. that is certainly no explanation or excuse for the gross violation of his code of honor, to say the least, and the horrific crimes that he committed. this is an action by an individual. i fear and hope it will not reflect on the honorable conduct of the almost million people, men and women, who have served in uniform in iraq and afghanistan. >> it is true as part of the sergeant bales story there has been a lot of focus, a lot good, about 20% of troops coming home that suffer from ptsd but there also, as part of that narrative, more and more people have said, gosh, are there other soldiers who are ticking time bombs. are there a lot of people who haven't been diagnosed with ptsd that are out in the field now. do you think that's a fair concern or is it offensive for the people out there serving to be questioned like that? >> i think it's unfair and i think it's inaccurate. there's no evidence that says that ptsd or tbi makes someone inclined, certainly not a ticking time bomb but inclines someone toward violence. this is one incident among millions who have served, about a million who served in these current conflicts. so the ticking time bomb thing comes up every time there's an incident either by a veteran or serving military member, but these are outdated stereotypes. the va has looked into this and i don't think they have found any evidence of a correlation between post trauma stress brought on by combat experience and the inclination to commit murder. >> he'll be back and also chris lawrence, our pentagon reporter, as he gets more we'll bring that to you if we get more tonight. we do expect those 17 charges for murder to come tomorrow. our breaking news continues tonight because at this moment thousands of rallying in florida demanding justice for trayvon mar tip. more breaking news because a toxicology report for whitney houston now released an we now know what happened in the singer's final few hours. ever but why energy? 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[ male announcer ] it's a network of possibilities -- helping you do what you do... even better. ♪ like in a special ops mission? you'd spot movement, gather intelligence with minimal collateral damage. but rather than neutralizing enemies in their sleep, you'd be targeting stocks to trade. well, that's what trade architect's heat maps do. they make you a trading assassin. trade architect. td ameritrade's empowering, web-based trading platform. trade commission-free for 60 days, and we'll throw in up to $600 when you open an account. more breaking news tonight. thousands gathering right now in melon park in sanford, florida, all to support 17-year-old trayvon martin. the teenager was shot and killed last month by neighborhood watchman george zimmerman. this is now a case which the entire country is watching. the crowd tonight calling for zimmerman's arrest. at this point no charges have been filed. zimmerman maintains it was self defense. some experts have told us it might not be until there is a grand jury next month that george zimmerman may actually be charged, although they expect he will be. the question is could it happen sooner. earlier today sanford police chief, bill lee, who has been a lightning rod in this case, stemmed down after receiving a no confidence vote from city commissioners. trayvon martin's parents said they were not satisfied. >> the temporary stepdown of bill lee is nothing. we want an arrest. we want a conviction and we want him sentenced for the murder of my son. >> all right. an arrest is still a question tonight as prosecutors are forced to deal with florida's stand your ground law. we're going to ft. melon park in a couple of moments but this controversial law is at the center of this and we want to talk about it because it would protect george zimmerman from being prosecuted. since the law was passed in 2005, justifiable homicides have more than tripled in the state of florida. a senator has tried to change that. bradford cohen is with the association of criminal defense attorneys and feels differently. justifiable homicides have tripled since the law has passed. doesn't it definitionally mean the law is bad? >> on a very simple level, yes, i will agree with you. if you examine it, the only reason why that is increased in my opinion is because more people are using that law in regards to the justifiable homicide issue. what happens is you're not counting the people -- those people might have gone to trial and gotten not guilty by way of self defense. they're just not having to raise that because they are raising it before trial or they're not getting arrested at all because they're raising it. so just because it's increased -- >> so you're saying justifiable is the adjective that matters here. that homicides overall aren't going up? >> no. i think it's justifiable. that's the only issue that i have a concern about, because you're looking at one number. you're not looking at whether or not the murders in all went up. we're not talking about the ok corral here. people aren't shooting other people and using this law. these people that are using the law are using it justifiably. if they went to trial they could have been found not guilty by way of self defense but they are raising it before trial and raising it at a stage where they're not being arrested. >> senator, obviously you disagree. tell me what the biggest issue with this stand up ground law is for you. >> i do. i really think he brought up one of the biggest issues. people are not even going to trial so we're not even having a court case where we talk about whether or not the person did use self defense or whether they were attacked. we're not even looking into the facts. we're having people that are ending up just like zimmerman. that's the biggest problem with the law right now, it's too vague and it does not speak to the real -- it does not give the prosecutor the ability to actually have a trial. >> i don't -- >> let me just ask the senator one quick follow-up on this. the tampa bay times looked at this law, some great reporting. found that it's been used in 132 cases since it took effect in 2005. 74 times the defendant cleared, obviously 58 times he was not. is that an indication that it seems to work? it doesn't look like it always goes in favor of the person doing the shooting. >> you know, it doesn't always work. you know, let me just say this. i mean i don't think that someone shouldn't be able to defend themselves or that we could persecute someone for defending themselves. but when you get into a case like this where someone is pursuing, then at that point you need to say that's not really self defense and we can't have someone with a nonrebuttable presumption when they're the ones that did the chase, so that's one of the biggest problems there. >> there's a couple of things wrong with what he said. number one is we don't know if this individual actually chased him and then cut off the chase as what he's saying. number two is you're actually putting faith in the police and the police department to do their own investigation and come up with whether or not it's self defense. so essentially what he's saying is he does not trust the police departments, he doesn't trust investigators, he doesn't trust the detectives that are doing their job and saying to themselves this was a case of self defense. we don't even know the facts of this case. we don't know if the keys were in the car, if the keys were in the ignition. if there's other things that back up what he was saying is that he was leaving and that he was attacked when he was leaving, we don't know any of those facts. >> i'm not trying to argue the case. >> should a police department not just have the unilateral right to do that without transparency, senator, is that what you're saying? >> exactly. that's my point. i'm not even talking about the case, i'm talking about the actual law. just yesterday in miami a man got off in this case where he chased the man down and stabbed him. it was a chase, it was caught on film. he got off on this exact same law. >> and that was by a judge, though. a judge made that decision. >> and you know what, if this went to a judge, then -- if zimmerman goes to a judge, then i might be okay with that. but it points out the loopholes that are in this law right now. i mean would you agree that you should be able to chase someone and then stab them if you felt like they were intimidating you back when you started the chase? >> we don't know -- >> brad, answer his question because i think it's an interesting intellectual exercise. >> if someone chases someone down and kills them not in self defense, no, then i don't think the law is applicable to that. but if someone is -- if there is more to the case than that, if there's something additional, which i'm sure there is, because judges in miami and judges in broward are very up to the law, they understand the law and they understand how to apply this and they did apply it and they found that it was dismissible. so he's saying if this case depose in front of a judge, if zimmerman goes in front of a judge and this case is dismissed, are the rallies over? because i don't think that's what's going to happen. >> i think at that point that's where we step in and change the law. if he gets off and if the facts are the facts that we've heard so far and he gets off, then that's why i say the law needs to be changed because i just don't fundamentally believe that's the way things should work. >> the one thing is you don't know the facts. >> one fact we do know is that trayvon martin did not have a gun. >> right. >> and if it's stand your ground, shouldn't you be at such a point that you're worried for your life that t