A chat with a chaplain

John Ford's friend and chaplain Novella Smith Arnold has been on the 11th floor waiting for the verdict along with the press corps.

"I'm here because I'm the voice of the voiceless, those people who can't say thank you, those people who can't be here for themselves, I'm here for them," she says.

Arnold says Ford came to the rescue in 1989 when the Memphis Mental Health Institute was in danger of shutting down. "It was being closed by the state. He fixed it so the mentally ill would not have to die in jail," she says.

I asked Chaplain Arnold what she makes of the evidence in the case against her friend.

"The evidence in the case is vague, and I'm one of the people who believes God can do anything we ask Him to do, and that's to give him (Ford) freedom. The God I serve is a God of chances, another chance," she says.