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CNN Talkback Live

Should Trials Involving Minors Be Shown on Television?

Aired May 10, 2001 - 15:00   ET

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

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This child is a child. He's not an adult. This is a crime by the state of Florida.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, ABC "WORLD NEWS TONIGHT")

PETER JENNINGS, ABC ANCHOR: In the Florida courtroom today, it was a spectacle, nationally televised on cable for the second day.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOBBIE BATTISTA, HOST: Nathaniel Brazill is being tried as an adult, charged with first-degree murder. Last year, when he was 13, the boy shot and killed his English teacher. There's no doubt the boy pulled the trigger. It is all on video.

The only question is, did he mean to do it?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARC SHINER, PROSECUTOR: Can you tell us why you pointed the gun at the man's brain, if you didn't want to kill him?

NATHANIEL BRAZILL, MURDER SUSPECT: I was just pointing the gun.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROY BLACK, ATTORNEY: I just don't think there's any defense here.

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BATTISTA (voice-over): So, why put Brazill on the stand, and televise the trial?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT UDELL, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: We are not asking the jury to find the defendant not guilty because he's 13. What we're asking is, remember he's 13, when they decide whether he is guilty or not.

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GOV. JEB BUSH (R), FLORIDA: I think that there ought to be a different sentence, different level of punishment for 12 to 14-year- olds.

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BLACK: I think the whole trial is a farce myself. The European Court of Human Rights held that trying children in public courtrooms is abuse. Here we are doing it on television.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BATTISTA: Should age have anything to do with a verdict, is there anything wrong with televising teens on trial?

Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to TALKBACK LIVE.

Closing arguments in the Nathaniel Brazill trial begin on Monday. Brazill insists he did not plan to kill his favorite teacher. And it appears the defense is hoping the jury will be inclined to show some compassion. Is there any other reason defense attorneys are letting him testify?

Let's meet our guests. Paul Mones is a children's rights attorney and author of "When a Child Kills: Abused Children Who Kill Their Parents" and "Stalking Justice."

Paul, thanks for joining us.

PAUL MONES, "STALKING JUSTICE": Thank you, Bobbie.

BATTISTA: Let's talk first about the legal aspects of this case before the whole media aspect of the case. That's the whole idea of trying him as an adult, and putting him on the stand. It's always risky, I think, for a defense attorney to put the defendant on the stand, isn't it? Would you have done that?

MONES: Well, I routinely do it because 99 percent of the cases I work on, the adolescents admit they committed the offense. And the issue is really probing the child's mind to find out why they did it. I think one of the problems you always face is, if you don't put the person on the stand, the jury's always left wondering why? What went through their mind?

You can have psychologists and others come to the stand, but really, unless you have the person who is responsible for the physical act of the crime testify, I think the jury loses something.

BATTISTA: What are the risks that you take when you put, particularly, a teenage defendant on the stand? MONES: Well, the biggest problem is when you put a young person on the start, again, looking at somebody in the age of 12, 13, 14 years old, they are supposedly being tried by a jury of their peers, but that's really a fiction. They are really being tried by adults.

And I think adults tend to perceive the way kids act as different than adults do, and as a result, they, in fact, put an adult standard on kids. They expect kids to speak as adults do, and to react as adults do. That's just not the case time and time again, as I have observed and many others have observed.

BATTISTA: Did you see the testimony with Nathaniel? Did you think...

MONES: Yes, I did.

BATTISTA: How do you think it affected his case?

MONES: Well, I'm not going to pass judgment how the jury is going to react. All I can say is is that he reacted I think as many, many, many 12, 13 and 14 year-old kids do, who have been involved in a horrific incident that he was involved in.

And you are not going to see many teenagers be the way adults want them to be in court. And I think that he explained as best as he could, from what I observed, what transpired in the courtroom, what transpired at the homicide scene.

BATTISTA: One of the things I thought that was striking was that he obviously is a year older, and he looked and sounded a lot older than he was when were he committed the crime. That's another risk, isn't it?

MONES: Well, it's a risk. But I think the main thing is, he is still a young teenager. And in society we know that kids are different from adults from a lot of perspectives, and we know their judgment is different, we know they react to crisis situations different. And that's why, for instance, we don't allow kids to drink until they are -- people to drink until they are 21 in most states. We don't allow you to make the important decisions of voting until you are 18 years old.

And so, for many, many purposes, we represent -- we recognize the differences between children and adults except for purposes when we are trying them for crimes around the country, we're mostly putting them in adult court in situations that are very different than the normal adult would be in the same situation.

BATTISTA: I think, if you were sitting on that jury, and I know you don't want to pass judgment per se on his testimony, but if you were sitting on that jury -- let me ask you this -- what do you want to hear or see when you see a young defendant on the stand?

MONES: Well, in all the cases I have worked on, what you basically want the person to do is relate in the best, simplest terms as they can, as a kid can, OK? That's the most important thing: as a kid would do it, as he would do it in his natural course of talking, not sounding like an adult, not sounding like somebody he is not. But just explain his thought processes the same way.

One of the problems that we don't realize with adolescents, is that their notion of consequences for their actions, their notion of what the future will hold for them is very different than for adults. When kids take actions, we expect them, if they are in adult court, to react as adults would react, and that's just not the case.

BATTISTA: Let me take a phone call. Carol in Michigan, go ahead.

CAROL: Hi. Listen, I believe that they should be charged as adults. This kid especially. It's obvious from what we've seen on the trial that he definitely meant to do something to scare the guy or something, but moreover, to televise these trials might caution other children to see the trouble that these kids get into, jail is not fun.

BATTISTA: I think a lot of people see the whole idea of trying juveniles as adults as a deterrent to other children. Do we have any sort of studies or statistical evidence on that?

MONES: Well, I don't think there's any studies on it as a deterrent. I don't think it is a deterrent for kids. I think -- I understand why, for certain classes of crime, kids are tried as adults. But we have to remember, when we're trying them as adults, they are still adolescents for many other purposes.

I don't think it acts as a deterrent, though, at all. What it does is it says -- we say to kids, we are treating you now as responsible, as if you were an adult. But if you do anything else in your life, for instance, if that same person at 14, 15 years old wants to buy a piece of property, they can't. They have to have their parents sign a document saying yeah, this person, my child can buy a piece of property. You have to be 18 years old to buy property.

Because we recognize differences in adolescents. But, it used to be until about the turn of the century, that we did try kids as adults. Kids and adults were the same; we had some recognition around the turn of the century that that should be changed, and up through about the 1970s or '80s, most kids who committed offenses as children were treated differently than adults were treated.

Then, in the last 10 years -- especially in the last five years, we have really racketed it up and we've lowered the age when we're treating kids as adults.

BATTISTA: Why do you think we are doing that, Paul? Any theories?

MONES: Well, I think we are angry, we are confused, we are frustrated with attempts at rehabilitating kids. We see that, I think juvenile crime gets disproportionate focus from the media, that study was just published a couple of weeks ago, showing kids much more often presented as violent offenders than actually more often, then they are as victims. And actually kids are much more victims than they are as offenders, and victims of adults in particular.

So, I think society now is extracting on a certain level -- it's found of flesh from children.

And I will also add that the problem is, that we typically don't act soon enough. We can recognize kids having problems early on in their school career, we don't really react until the problem gets worse. And that is an issue that many states are dealing with now, in trying to use preventive intervention techniques when kids are younger, when we can do more with them than when they are older.

BATTISTA: All right. Let me bring in Jayne Weintraub, a defense attorney in Miami. She is also host of the syndicated show, "Power Of Attorney."

Jayne, can you hear me OK?

No? I think we're having audio problems.

Let me go to the chat room, where Alpha is monitoring comments.

Alpha, what is going on in there?

ALPHA: Actually, the feelings are mixed on the chat line. Some people believe that the crime that he committed is an adult crime, and he should be punished.

And others believe that he should be punished, but not as an adult. And some are saying that putting a 13-year-old in jail won't help him anyway, wouldn't help him at all, would make him worse.

BATTISTA: We will come back to that in just a few minutes.

Jayne, can you hear me now?

JAYNE WEINTRAUB, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Yes, I can. Good afternoon.

BATTISTA: Hi. Thanks very much for joining us.

WEINTRAUB: My pleasure.

BATTISTA: But what are your thought? You're a defense attorney, and I want to talk to you about the prosecutor's viewpoint in just a moment as well, but what were your thoughts about putting Nathaniel Brazill on the stand?

WEINTRAUB: Well, as a former prosecutor, I can tell you that it must have been a prosecutor's dream to have him take the witness stand. As a defense lawyer, all I can tell you is from what I've seen on the AP and the news, like everyone else, personally I don't think I would have made that choice to put him on the witness stand. It was very predictable that a prosecutor would put a gun in the child's hands, and that's just the visual you don't want to have.

It was very predictable that he was going to say he pulled the trigger. There you have the visual, even from last night, very vividly in my mind, I can see Nathaniel pulling that trigger back to shoot, and that shows -- exactly, exactly -- and that shows what was really going on.

And he's asked: Didn't you have a goal?

And he said yes. If I were the prosecutor I would have sat down. Thank you very much, Nathan. That's it, case is over.

BATTISTA: Don't you always -- or you might also take a risk, as a prosecuting attorney, to -- I mean, with the jury it seems like if the child comes and evokes any sort of compassion at all then the jury's going to start looking at this defendant with their heart rather than their head. So isn't that a risk that you take?

WEINTRAUB: I think that if he's been sitting there crying, as I'm sure he felt, the heartfelt remorse that this child is feeling, and if he genuinely came through as himself, the jury would see better and have better testimony by his silence and his weeping and his genuine remorse, than seeing him on the witness stand looking a lot older than the 13-year-old boy that shot that gun.

That's my thought as a defense lawyer, that you see him now just like Tate, older looking, bigger, larger, in a shirt and tie like a young man -- it's a terrible visual. He's asking for a jury pardon because under the law he's guilty of first-degree murder by his very words: I aimed the gun, I shot the gun. I didn't mean to pull the trigger? That doesn't fly.

The law says as long as it takes to think, "I'm going to shoot," it's first-degree murder. And the judge will have no discretion in the state of Florida but sentence him to life-25. That's a horrible result.

BATTISTA: It doesn't sound to me like Nathaniel's attorney in this case had anything but putting his defendant on the stand as the core of his case.

WEINTRAUB: I disagree.

BATTISTA: Really?

WEINTRAUB: Respectfully. I don't know his counsel...

BATTISTA: Well, I'm not a lawyer, so disagree.

WEINTRAUB: Well, I'm not his lawyer so it's easy to second- guess, so please understand that. But a way to have portrayed the defendant, the child, as the person that he is, the troubled kid that he is, would have been psychology records, would have been friends and relatives, would have been people that he spoke with, even his mother, immediately after the shooting.

Those statements would have come into evidence under particular evidentiary ruling. And I think that we could have gotten a better picture of what was going on that way. Look, obviously this kid is very, very troubled. BATTISTA: Paul, do you agree? Why do you think the attorney didn't introduce those kinds of things?

MONES: Well, I'm a little confused how statements to his mother would have gotten into evidence, but I'm not familiar with Florida law. I don't know how a statement to his mother or friends could have gotten into evidence or how psychology records would have been relevant without him testifying. I understand for sentencing purposes, that clearly could be the case of some discretion in sentencing. But I think, again I'm not going to, as I said earlier, second-guess what the attorney did.

I would say in the vast majority of cases though where you have a person, especially adolescence, who has committed the physical act of the homicide, and the jury has to determine his or her intent, that my experience is it's good to put the kid on the stand so the jury can understand the workings of their mind.

WEINTRAUB: Think about the intent what they can show. He went back, he got the gun. He loaded the gun. He had to go into the classroom, he had to go through security. He pulled the gun back, he had to load it. He had to pull the trigger, he had to aim. Then he fired.

That's an awful lot of premeditation to get away with on a witness stand, don't you agree?

BATTISTA: I've got to take a quick break. We'll continue here in just a minute. Do you think Nathaniel Brazill's testimony belongs on television? We'll talk about that. It's also the question of the day. Take our TALKBACK LIVE on-line viewer vote at cnn.com/talkback, AOL keyword, CNN. While you're there, take a look at my daily note and e- mail your thoughts to us. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(INTERRUPTED FOR LIVE EVENT)

BATTISTA: "The Florida Attorney's's Office offered Nathaniel Brazill's family a chance to plead guilty to second degree murder with a sentence of 25 years. His family rejected the offer."

We are back and we are going to move this discussion on to whether or not the testimony by Nathaniel Brazill should be televised. Our two attorneys are still with us, and joining us as well is Seth Mnookin a media critic for "Brill's Content" magazine and inside.com . Also joining us on the phone is Steven Lubet, professor of legal ethics at Northwestern University and author of "Nothing But The Truth." Let me do a couple e-mails first that have come in on this subject already.

"As for televising the trial," Judy, in Florida, says, "It should be compulsory for young people to watch when young Nathaniel is sentenced. Perhaps that might deter middle or high school students from committing murder." Kay, on the other hand, says, "I don't want to see any children prosecuted on television, and I don't want to see children prosecuted as an adult. When do children become adults? Before they pull the trigger, after they pull the trigger? What is the definition?"

Let me start first with you Steven -- or Seth, rather -- what sort of public service do we serve here by televising these trials, particularly when the defendant is a teenager?

SETH MNOOKIN, MEDIA CRITIC: Well, I think one public service that we can achieve by publicizing the trials and by televising the trials is to raise issues and maybe prompt some discussions about our judicial system and the fact that we are trying 13 and 14 year-olds as adults in adult courts.

I found the most chilling aspect of yesterday's testimony to be when Nathaniel was being grilled by a prosecutor, really some pretty intense severe grilling. And you know, we need to remember that he is just barely a teenager.

BATTISTA: Professor Lubet, it may put spotlight on bigger are issues like that, but how does it affect the trial itself and, or the defendant, and the process?

PROFESSOR STEVEN LUBET, NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY: Sure because it's hard enough for a 14-year-old boy to be grilled in a situation like that where his life is at stake, and there is not much reason to make it harder but having him do that on national television. I agree that it's important for people to be aware of these issues but at some point the effect on the defendant has to be more important than the exposure to the public.

MNOOKIN: I mean, I think that's an issue that we need to look at in terms of televising any trial. Any time you bring TVs into the courtroom you're going to affect witnesses, you're going to affect defendants, you're going to affect prosecutors. But if we televise trials and we want to try this person as adult, there is really no excuse then to say, that we can't televise this trial because of some special circumstance.

LUBET: Well, that's just got to be wrong. You are saying if we're going to televise any trials, then we have to televise them all. And I'm saying there is room for judgment here. I don't think it should be illegal to put the child on television. I just think that in the exercise of good judgment, news organizations ought to consider the impact that it will have on this particular be young man in this particular circumstance and how much it jeopardizes his future to have it be television.

MNOOKIN: In the exercise of good judgment the state of Florida could decide that they're not going to try a 13-year-old as adult. I don't think that it's news organizations purpose to censor themselves or to tell the American public that you can't see this, even though a state has decided that we're going to treat this person as a fully culpable adult. I do think there are very valid issues about having a 13-year-old be tried as an adult for murder.

BATTISTA: But that's the whole point. Let me ask you this: do you think that television, when they decide to do this, do you think they are providing enough context on these issues, or do you think it just comes off as a spectacle or as sensational?

LUBET: I would rather see the television stations, if they are concerned about issue, to go into the detention centers and see what the conditions of imprisonment are like for 13 year-olds. Seth and I agree about that. There's a real problem here, but I think in this particular case, in this particular instance, televising it makes it worse, not better.

MNOOKIN: I mean I do think that what a lot of the cable networks and what a lot of the regular networks have done were just to explore the issues of televising news trials is a good thing and I would be upset if there was any effort to sort of sensationalize this.

I haven't seen that at all, so, you know, the type of discussion that you're having here today, the type of discussion that I saw this morning on the morning news shows where people were starting to talk about the issues and the implications of our criminal justice system of putting children in adult penitentiaries. I think all those are very valid public service issues that the media can perform.

WEINTRAUB: We can have that without sacrificing Nathan, and that's the problem. Nathan is the one being sacrificed. His life is being sacrificed by being the poster boy for these issues right now. The issues can be, in the headlines, they can be discussed on all of these talk shows, but having this visual of Nathan up there with the gun takes away a lot (UNINTELLIGIBLE) we're all trying to say, that children should not be tried as adults.

MNOOKIN: I agree that children shouldn't be tried as adults. I'm confused as to how televising this trial victimizes him any more than what the state of Florida is already doing.

LUBET: It's not just a question of stigma, it's a question of his ability to defend himself. I hope you never cross-examined when your live is at stake. I've seen it happen. It's an enormously stressful circumstance. Very very hard, even on a mature adult. Terribly difficult, terribly difficult for a young man, and knowing that what he says is being beamed out of the courtroom to however many millions of people around the country just makes it that much harder for him to defend himself. He doesn't need...

(CROSSTALK)

MONES: I think you all are missing a point that when you have a kid in a courtroom like that, typically, after a period of time, they forget about the camera. They forget about everybody but who's asking the questions.

LUBET: You want to bet your life on that?

MONES: I tell you what, how many kids have you put on stand in trial?

LUBET: Me?

MONES: Yes.

LUBET: Oh, probably 100.

MNOOKIN: I think it's interesting -- we agree here...

MONES: With a camera on?

MNOOKIN: ... that there are some problems with having a child be tried as adult, but what I feel very strongly is that if you refuse to televise it, then you are sweeping it under the rug. You're not...

MONES: Yes, I agree with that. We need to let people know.

(CROSSTALK)

MNOOKIN: We are all reacting to this very visceral image of having a 13-year-old be on TV. I think that that does nothing except highlight the problems of trying children as adults.

(CROSSTALK)

BATTISTA: Most of the e-mails I'm getting from folks out there are kind of, of this nature: "Americans need to see children on TV being tried as adults. Maybe then we will realize that they do not belong there." Which is along the lines that we're saying. The other ones that we are getting mainly talk about it, again, as being a deterrent.

MONES: Well, it's not a deterrent for adults when we put adults on TV, so why do people believe that putting kids on TV is going to be a deterrent?

BATTISTA: I don't know. We are getting a lot though from parents, you know, saying, gee, you know, if I make my kid watch this then they will understand there are consequences to a heinous action like that.

MNOOKIN: I would agree that I'm not sure that any child is going to see this and view it as a deterrent because I think there's a level of unreality in the whole thing, and seeing this kind of trial televised, it's sort of like the argument that capital punishment is a deterrent which has been borne out no to be the case time and time again. But you know, obviously, as I said...

WEINTRAUB: Someone Nathan's age can't vote, can't drink. They are not mature enough to understand these things. They can't be in our armed services because they are kids. They are different. They recognize things differently. So what is the message, what is deterrent? It is not a deterrent except that he's viewed as an adult, and is that what we want to do to our children?

BATTISTA: Let me get to the audience on here and get them. Deb, go ahead.

DEB: Well, I disagree that it should be shown on television as well, because the media will sensationalize it. I think that's what a lot of kids are looking for, they're looking for the attention, they're looking to be seen on TV.

And, as all the experts there say, that it's not a deterrent -- it's not a deterrent for adults as well. Well, that's probably because you are showing the trial, you are showing them being on TV. Maybe we should turn it around and should show the penalty phase of it. And if we want to show something on television, show them when they are in prison and doing the time. That might be the deterrent.

MNOOKIN: I don't think we are going to see...

(APPLAUSE)

BATTISTA: I agree.

MNOOKIN: I don't think we are going to see a lot of kids going out and committing crimes because they have seen this trial and want to get on TV. I disagree that...

WEINTRAUB: We had a very famous murder case here -- we had a famous murder case here about 15 years ago, with a 14-year-old boy named Ronny Zamora, and his defense was television intoxication.

(CROSSTALK)

MNOOKIN: ... not because he wanted to get on TV, not because he wanted his trial to be televised. I mean, you're mixing apples and oranges. There are copycat crimes all the time.

(CROSSTALK)

WEINTRAUB: ... trial in my community in one month trying a 14- year-old child for first degree murder. It's getting harder to explain to my 9-year-old son.

MNOOKIN: But there are copycat crimes all the time, but there has never been a case where a defense has been: "Well, this kid wanted to go and get on live TV so his trial can be televised." I mean, that's -- that's bizarre.

WEINTRAUB: Is it an issue why is he being tried as an adult?

MNOOKIN: Absolutely, but if he is being tried as an adult and if we allow cameras into courtrooms, there's no argument...

WEINTRAUB: Why take that jump?

MNOOKIN: That's not a jump that we are making, that's the jump that the government has made. The government has allowed cameras into courtrooms, the government -- the state of Florida has decided to try this child as an adult. That's not a jump that any of us or any media companies are making. BATTISTA: I have to take a quick break here, you guys. We will be back in just a moment.

Nationwide, about 16,000 juveniles live in adult prisons. Nearly 10 percent of them are in Florida. The state Juvenile Justice Reform Act of 1994 gave prosecutors, rather than judges, the right to decide whether a minor would be tried as an adult.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BATTISTA: We'll take a quick look at the poll there, we'll show to you our question, but let me go quickly to Mary in the audience who says she has changed her mind during the show.

MARY: As I was saying, my parents lived about five miles from where this crime was committed, and during the course of the crime, they heard that this youth was mentally impaired, that he wasn't responsible. But when they saw it televised, they saw that he was competent. They saw that he was responsible, so they changed their minds about what happened by seeing it.

BATTISTA: That will have to be the last word, because we tried to do an awful a lot here in a short amount of time. We appreciate our guests hanging with us, being patient and for all of your input.

Thank you so much for joining us. Paul Mones and Jayne Weintraub, Seth Mnookin and Professor Lubet, thank you so much. We will see you again tomorrow, free-for-all Friday.

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