they say that she, phoebe prince, had a history of depression, had tried to harm herself before, and, in fact, had prior suicide attempts. that, at least, watt the argument they made until today when kayla's attorney changed the way he appeared to approach this case saying quite simply kayla, his client, did nothing wrong. listen. >> it's our position that that is not criminal conduct. she didn't credit any crimes when she uttered that she did utter. >> now it appears that sean's attorney is going to file a similar motion asking the judge to dismiss the case because he says his client did absolutely nothing criminal whatsoever, shep. >> shepard: a new school year has just begun. as a result of this case largely there are new rules how schools deal with bullying. >> absolutely. of the massachusetts education department issued new guidelines for this school year saying any teach his or her witnesses or is made aware of any allegations of bullying have to report them. the school then has a duet -- duty to investigate. if they find there is anything, which they believe, simply believe, mi

prosecutors say one was a popular football player with a brief relationship with phoebe and we are tollwhen it did, he get back together with his ex who is on the left hand side of the screen. prosecutors say the day price died, rathers phoebe prince diesed, the two teens called her obscene names in the school library and again later as she left school. investigators say when she got home she hanged herself in the bedroom in the closet. the defense attorneys say there is no evidence that proves that bullying led to her suicide? >> they are shaping up to argue at the trial for all the teens, that her suicide may have had nothing whatever to do with the bullying but could go back to the past because she had a history of depression and there are reports she tried to commit suicide back in island before the family moved to massachusetts and they are trying to get all of the medical records admitted into court. we are also just getting some information from the court which the hearing is going on right now, and that is that one attorney is actually going to ask a judge to dismiss the charges

>>reporter: they will use the 50 witnesses to paints the following picture: that phoebe prince has an intimate relationship with a football star who was seeing another girl on the right there, and subsequently saw the girl again. they will say that she led this group in bullying phoebe prince over her relationship with the football player, and they did it so relentlessly that on the afternoon of january 14 of this year she went home and hung herself. >>shepard: the guy has appeared in court but charged as an adult. >>reporter: he appeared in court last week charged as an adult. so did kayla and they are attorney said they did not wrong whatever, they never taunted phoebe verbally and they are going to ask the judge to have the charms against them thrown out. >>shepard: from what we read it appears this could be a difficult case for prosecutors. >>reporter: it does according to all legal experts present very difficult challenges not the least of which is proving that if indeed there were verbal tauntses they led directly to her taking her own life. defense lawyers in all of this, excus

. >> reporter: it was last january's suicide of 15-year-old phoebe prince in massachusetts that many believe was the ultimate example of school bullying. having just emigrated from ireland, phoebe killed herself after being tormented for months by six fellow students now facing felony xharncharges. >> called her names, followed her home, smart remarks and dirty looks. >> reporter: across the country principle pals, tea principal, teachers and psychologists say something has changed in america's schools. >> the prevalence of abuse of children by other children is getting worse. >> reporter: the department of education agrees. recently in washington it gathered the first national school bullying summit. >> i have to tell you, i have very little patience with the argument that kids will be kids, and there's not much schools can do to make their environment safer. >> reporter: the government reports nearly one out of three students in middle school and high school reported being bullied during the 2007 school year. one out of nine high schoolers, 2.8 million students, said they've been p

phoebe picking rachel. you know who else picked rachel? ross. you know what else ross did?what? i'm going to get a joke journal, you know? and document the date and time of every single one of my jokes. that's a good idea. yeah. you know what's a bad idea? picking rachel. that's right. ( knocking on door ) hey, you guys. hey. hey. oh, don't you guys look cute. you guys make such a cute couple. monica, what are you doing? nothing. i'm just trying to recreate some of the fun that we had at my place the other day. remember? when you picked rachel over me? ( laughing ): that was funny. yes, it was kind of funny. it wasn't funny at all. why would you do that? why didn't you pick me? fine. the reason that i was leaning a little bit more toward rachel than you is just, you know, you're... kind of high maintenance. okay, let's go to lunch. that... that is completely untrue. you think i'm high maintenance? okay, prove it-- i want you to write out a list and we're going to go through it point by point. no, you're right-- you're easygoing. you're just not as easygoing as rachel. you k

there, a 15-year-old girl, phoebe prince, committed suicide after she was bullied and prosecutors haveed thalled perpetrators with a range of crimes, including statutory rape, criminal harassment, and civil rights violations. katie. >> couric: jan crawford, jan, thank you. if you or someone you know has been bullied, cbsnews.com has a list of resources where you can get help. now turning to the economy. it's ironic that just as mortgage rate have fallen to the lowest level on record, more and more americans are losing their homes. foreclosures jumped nearly 5% from april to june this year. chase has become the second bank to announce a temporary moratorium on repossessing homes. and today bill whitaker tells us people from all over the country were trying to refinance at those lower rates. bill, they're hoping to save their homes. >> reporter: that's right, katie. thousands of people are here, some from as far away as new york and florida, seeking free help to modify their loans at lower rates, hoping to avoid foreclosure. >> good morning. >> reporter: some stood in line up to sick hou

in massachusetts, prosecutors say classmates tormented 15-yr-old phoebe prince in school hallways anded herself at home. the children's movement of florida has been studying the problem of bullying. >> it's notoing away. frankly, it's escalating. every school ought to have a anti-bullying program. >> reporter: bullying in schools. one in three teenagers say it's happened to them. the difficulty, getting the victims to speak up before it blows up. for "today," kerry sanders, nbc news, miami. >> and for more insight we're joined by susan lipkin, psychologist and bullying expert. good morning. >> hi. >> it's such a sad thing to see because i think as a parent all of us can see ourselves in that man's position, where you're so angry. he contacted the school. nothing was being done to his satisfaction. and so he lost it. and he admitted it. he said he was sorry. but you say not only is it perhaps inappropriate to do that, but you say it's not productive. noing comes ofhis type of behavior. >> yeah, what really happens is it backfires. and it's worse for the child. ther was a bus driver, ot

. >>> when 15-year-old phoebe prince committed suicide after classmates allegedly harassed her, schoolotlight. now a florida dad took matters into his own hands, after his daughter told him other children were bullying her on the school bus. nbc's kerry sanders has the story. >> everybody sit down. >> reporter: on a school bus in suburban orlando a father's fury caught on a security camera. >> my daughter [ bleep ] this damn bus and [ bleep ] and now this is it. >> reporter: 42-year-old james jones arrested for disorderly conduct admits his temper got the better of him when he unloaded on some children who he claims were bullying his 13-year-old daughter, who suffers from cerebral palsy. in the deputy's report, jones alleges school boys on the bus had placed an open condom on his daughter's head, smacked her on the back of the head, twisted her ear and shouted rude comments at her. >> my daughter is not going to be hated and -- what they done, okay? i'm very sorry. i apologize. i served -- this is not just me. >> reporter: in the deputy's report, it said jones had called the school to

. >> they are among a group charged earlier this year. 15-year-old phoebe prince was stalked and harassedstantly until she killed herself in january prosecutors say the witnesses who are in the college will likely be on winter break and make it into court. >> the students involved famous several charges, including statutory rape. >>> a woman in montana fights off a bear. and you'll never guess exactly what she used. a zucchini. montana police say the bear attacked the dog on the porch. the 200-pound bear attacked the dog on the leg. zucchini smacked the bear on the head. and it ran off into the woods. >>> and picking the wrong person to rob. he hoped to get a purse but got much more than he bargained for. >> this is how it ended. with 34-year-old donald billby, lying on the ground. all slashed up and in police custody. moments before, he had confronted arby's employee, ronet jenkins with a knife and demanded her purse. but jenks -- jenkins, who is 6 months pregnant, grabbed the knife and started slashing away. >> this woman made a a wise decision to make refuge inside the building. where

we have the phoebe prince case in massachusetts, she took her life the you cannot have vigilantism but have feelings for this father and i would not charge him. i would not charge him because we can understand his explosive reaction weapon the system does nothing, a parent has to act. and i hope the kids are charged. i hope the school officials are charged, too. >>shepard: if i'm the parents of one of the other students who did not do a darn thing on that bus and here comes this dad ranting and threatening to kill people i am not happy. >> you have to see both perspectives. someone is handy capped -- handicapped and putting condoms on her. but you are outraged but do not lead by example. in this case, absolutely, the parents should be outraged at the father threatening him but that is not an example to live by. >>shepard: the father told everyone sit down on the bus, a big guy, among the little kids, and everyone sit down and looked at his daughter and said, tell me who was doing this. and the little girl said this one and this one and that is when he went on his rant. it seems like ..

prosecutors in south hadley, massachusetts say the girls relentlessly bullied 15-year-old phoebe princeer she had a brief relationship with a boy one of them had dated. in january, she hanged herself with a scarf her sister had given her for christmas. all togeer, six teens from south hadley high school face charges that range from stalking to civil rights violations. prosecutors said today they plan to call up to 50 witnesses to prove their case. president obama could soon find out whether he needs a new chief of staff and now two other members of the inner circle at the white house are saying they plan to leave, too. we'll be live in d.c. on the top story at the bottom of the hour plus a record number of americans decided to skip the wedding and just live here together. keep the government out of this thing! researchers say they noticed something else about these couples that may explain the trend. see you in a minute. [ male ann] this is steven, a busy man. his day starts with his arthritis pain. that's breakfast with two pills. the morning is over, it's time for two more pills. the

the bullies that bullied phoebe in connecticut to death have been charged and are being prosecuted. there are currently prosecutions except for this case in new jersey and indictments of people who have bullied gay and lesbian teenagers. there has been no accountability and this is not permissible. >> dan savidge, thank you very much for joining us. i should point out the cases of the 13-year-old and 15-year-old, we understand those are under investigation. thank you, dan, greatly appreciate it. >>> a standoff between pakistan and nato forces this morning is affecting american troops in afghanistan. pakistan has closed a vital supply route for nato forces after coalition helicopters allegedly attacked a pakistani security post killing three troops. nato vehicles carrying food, water, fuel are now bakd up waiting to cross from pakistan into afghanistan. nbc's jim miklaszewski is at the pentagon for us. jim, it's like 100 vehicles that are backed up. what is the latest and give us an idea on why this is so significant. >> nato happens to be changing its story as we speak. they first d

and we've seen it with the phoebe story, that took her life, and so many others that we've all coveredt. and remember the commercials where they used to say, it's 10:00, do you know where your children are? they were talking about, are they out in the yard, down at the corner, out in the mall? do you know where your kids are? now we have to know where they are in cyberspace. because you've got a child back in the bedroom and you think they're back there doing their homework or watching tv. they should be in a social networking site, in a chat room, getting bullied, being called name, having people tell them they wished they were dead. so the schoolyard's gotten a whole lot bigger. i now includes the internet. it used to be, all right, we're going to change schools and get a fresh start. but the internet goes with you now. so there are some unique challenges -- >> larry: how do you solve that? >> well, the problem is, you've got to stay on top of what your children are doing. nowhere they are at 10:00 in cyberspace. know what chat rooms they're going to. know what people are saying to t

group of students, six of them in all, with murder in the case of that young student, 14 years old, phoebe prince. she committed suicide after allegedly being relentlessly bullied. one 18-year-old student is dead tonight and two others have their lives changed forever in this tragic case. >> mighty sad. thank you. former president carter we thought was going to be out of the hospital a couple of days ago but he's still in a hospital in cleveland as fox reports tonight. his medical team says a virus of some kind is likely to blame for keeping him there and that the infection is now clearing up. president carter is 85 years old now and suffered some stomach problems, he said, during a flight from atlanta to cleveland prompting medics to meet him on the tarmac. a hospital spokeswoman says president carter has been in good spirits. according to family members, the former president will resume his book tour sometime later this week. president obama says the military option is on the table when dealing with iran. but one senator says the president should go even farther. to keep tehran from gett

here's nbc's tom costello. >> reporter: it was last january's suicide of 15-year-old phoebe prince in psychologists say something's changed in america's schools. >> the prevalence of abuse of children and other children is getting worse. >> reporter: the department of education agrees. recently in washington it gathered the first national school bullying summit. >> i have to tell you i have very little patience with the arguments kids will be kids and there's not much schools can do to make their environment safer. >> reporter: the government reports nearly one out of three students in middle school and high school reported being bullied during the 2007 school year. one out of nine high schoolers, 2.8 million students, said they've been physically abused or spat on during the last year. and 900,000 reported being cyber bullied. 11-year-old stokes got so fed up with being bullied in her philadelphia school, she wrote president obama asking for his help. >> it's very hard to be a kid because, like, when you know you're going to school, you're trying to get your education and you still h

will see a lot more serious charges especially civil rights charges used by the prosecutor in the phoebehe modern way of approaching it. >> a student went online and to told others to log into this and watch this. if unwittingly they did this, could they be accomplice to this? >> no. we're allowed in this country to watch terrible things happen an not report them as long as we don't have a special relationship. we're here far too often to talk about this. it has to stop. i'll help rutgers do it. i have kids who knew him and work with me and knew tyler and knew what a huge loss it is. >> this is an incredible lesson not only about remembering and respecting privacy of others, i know privacy makes you nervous. we are not safe. we have a laptop computer next to you, simply open, has a camera on it, could record this entire conversation or anything else in the room. >> absolutely. if somebody puts a trojan horse, hacking type program without your knowledge, can turn it on and off when ever they want to, walk oo your bathroom, having sex, a private conversation, you are now on national tv. >>

these federal programs or the hope of a federal promise hasee phoeb hraoeuszed -- immobilized everybodyong to get there. banks didn't want to for close in case the government was going to do something. people were staying in their homes rather than deal with the issue because well maybe the government is going to bail me out. they are much worse off today having waited two years than dealing with this two years ago. federal government programs or any government programs really don't work and they hurt people. jenna: at the same time it's tough to stand by and watch. you see people really affected by the housing crisis, you see them losing their jobs. how can the government just stand there and not do anything? >> well, you know, i think, pat and jonathan both make great points. perhaps if they hadn't intervened to the degree that they did we might be further around in the rebound. it's all been about a soft landing, whether it's the economy, jobs or in this case housing. there is a certain amount of pain that was built into this market. there was a certain amount of -- home prices were

they don't work the way people think they do and that was used in the phoebe prince case.yler's life was worth more than that. >> let's talk about the laws that were broken. and what could this man be held accountable for, duran, specifically, and then also, the young lady who allowed him to come into her room and actually call up skype so this could be broadcast? >> well, i think we need to have v the full facts but civil rights violations, wiretap laws, federal and state apply. a number of other things with harassment to apply, as well. once we start digging into this enough, i expect there's more crimes to be charged with. >> and so, could this case because of how brutal it is and what's happened somehow trigger any type of legislation or changes when it comes to -- i know it's a broad question because could it lead to anything to somehow put restrictions or changes on the internet? >> well, i don't know that the internet needs more restrictions and i think we have the laws. we just need to make sure the prosecutors understand them. what we need to do here is change beh

in massachusetts classmates tormented phoebe prince in hallways and in class.d herself at home. the children's movement of florida has been studying the problem. >> it is not going away. it is escalating. every school ought to have an anti-bullying program. >> bullying in school. 1-3 teenagers say it happened to them. the difficulty, getting the victims to speak up before it blows up. nbc news, miami. >> pope benedict apologizes to victims of sexual abuse by catholic priests. the pope met with several victims of clergy abuse and expressed sorrow and shame for the suffering of the victims and their families. in a crowd of 4,000 people, the pope spoke. it was his latest attempt to help heal the scandal that has rocked the church. >> there is still plenty of news ahead, including tips for estate planning. >> and how to protect children from stress and strain with backpacks. >> even if you close an old >> welcome back. we want to talk about backpacks in "medical alert." we have a doctor from towson orthopedics associates, along with maddy and her packback. >> there

. >> we've heard a few other, phoebe prince that committed suicides. there precedent for this?e of these cases and so forward on as far as the judgments are meeted out? >> we have, people come and say there's been a posting about me. it's defamatory to my reputation. there seems to be a feeling among young people in this country because they've been on computers for so long that there are no consequences. they can say or do whatever they want online and it doesn't count. well, it does count. here, a human being is dead. many times, people's reputations are trashed or destroyed. and the legal system does provide a remedy. it's been slow to catch up with the internet. but the remedy is there, going to see more and more legislators dealing with it. we've got to teach our kids, too. you have to be careful, you're playing with human lives here. this is such a horrific case. and it resonates with people around the country. >> paul, great to talk to you this morning. it dovetails into an issue here on "american morning." we've been following bullying. most say, yes, i was bullied both