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CNN Live Today
Senate Debate Over Judicial Nominee Continues; Idaho Suspect Questioned
Aired May 19, 2005 - 10:00 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.
BILL HEMMER, CNN CO-ANCHOR: Here's Carol Lin at the CNN Center good morning.
Hey, Carol. Good morning.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. It's good to eat a bowl of the ice cream if you're watching the news.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN CO-ANCHOR: Thank you, Carol.
Have a nice day.
Right down here at the CNN Center, we're pretty busy. Here's what's happening right now in the news.
Idaho authorities say they have located the so-called person of interest in a triple homicide. Investigators say Robert Roy Lutner contacted them but provided no new information in the case. Meanwhile, an Amber Alert remains in place for the missing 9-year-old boy and his 8-year-old sister. The bodies of their mother, a brother, and a neighbor were found in the family's home.
President Bush is on the road, en route to Milwaukee this morning to campaign for his Social Security reforms. He's going to meet with younger workers at the Milwaukee Art Museum. Now, opinion polls show the president has little support for his private Social Security accounts.
And live this hour on Capitol Hill, a hearing on the proposed military base closings. The commission that made those recommendations will hear from the military leaders most impacted by the realignments. In all, 33 major facilities are now slated for closing.
In Iraq, a day of bloodshed and rising concerns. Gunmen today carried out the brazen killing of an aide to Grand Ayatollah Ali al Sistani. Assassins also targeted an official with the Iraq's Oil Ministry. He was gunned down outside his Baghdad home.
Good morning. I'm Carol Lin. Daryn has got the day off today.
We're looking at the Senate battle over judges, which is moving into its second day. Today the debate is about appeals court nominees. But down the road a Supreme Court seat could be at stake along with crucial rulings on controversial issues. And that's key to the current Senate showdown. Our congressional correspondent Joe Johns is live on Capitol Hill right now.
Joe, we've been talking a lot about the process of perhaps an impending filibuster. Give us a quick rap of where the debate stands now.
JOE JOHNS, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Right now, Harry Reid, the Senate minority leader, is on the floor of the United States Senate just a minute ago engaging in a colloquy. A talk, if you will, on the record with Senate Chuck Schumer, the Democrat of New York. All of this, of course, about the issue of whether the filibuster ought to be in order for members of the minority. The Republicans say there ought to be a 51-person vote up or down for all of the president's nominees.
The nomination on the floor, of course, is that of Priscilla Owen of Texas. Earlier today, the action on the floor kicked off with a prayer from Senate Chaplain Barry Black.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REAR. ADM. BARRY BLACK (RET.), SENATE CHAPLAIN: Sustain them during today's challenging labors. Give them more than human wisdom to solve the problems of these momentous times. Provide them with the insight to know what is right, and the courage to do it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JOHNS: Off the floor, negotiations do continue to try to get a deal, we're told, a meeting around 11:00 Eastern Time in the office of the senator from Arizona, John McCain.
Meanwhile, Democrats have exercised their option to cut off the amount of time hearings can be held on the Senate side. Of course, that is something we expect to continue through the debate on judges, on the Senate floor -- Carol.
LIN: Joe, good wrap on the process. Give us an idea of what is at stake here and what special interest groups are rallying around this particular debate. Because while you're covering the process on the Hill, some would characterize this as a question whether morality will be one of those values injected into our future legal systems. So give us an idea of what the lobbying is like and who is gathering on the Hill to pressure this nomination through.
JOHNS: The interest groups, Carol, as you know, are almost too numerous to mention. Conservatives, evangelicals have been pushing very hard for judges, they think, will serve their interests on appeals court, on federal courts around the country. Of course, that has to figure into this equation.
And the big picture, and I think that's what you're asking for. Probably the most important question looming down the road is the issue of the Supreme Court. Republicans would very much like to try to lower the bar a bit to make it possible to have a vote of just 51 senators on any Supreme Court nominee, as opposed to 60 senators. Which is a threshold required in the event there's a filibuster. So those are probably two of the very critical things that are going on here, Carol.
LIN: All right. Joe Johns, live on Capitol Hill. Thank you very much.
Justice Priscilla Owen may be the test case in the Senate's judicial battle. But another controversial nomination is also being debated on the Senate.
CNN's John King has this profile of Janice Rogers Brown.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Janice Rogers Brown, a college liberal turned courthouse conservative, a Shakespeare. A poetry lover with a pension for provocative words of her own. "These are perilous times for people of faith," she warned in a speech last month, suggesting liberals wanted to divorce the country from its religious heritage. "It's not a shooting war but it's a war," she said. "But it's a war."
JANICE ROGERS BROWN, JUDGE, APPEALS COURT NOMINEE: The question will be whether the regime of freedom, which they founded, can survive the relentless enmity of the slave mentality.
KING: She calls the New Deal, which created Social Security and Medicaid, "Our socialist revolution," suggesting it created reliance on big government, a new slavery, contrary to the Constitution's authors vision of limited government.
(BEGIN POLITICAL AD CLIP)
NARRATOR: She's so radical that she says with programs, like Social Security and Medicare, seniors are cannibalizing their grandchildren.
(END POLITICAL AD CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hear ye, the honorable Supreme Court...
KING: Perhaps her most noteworthy judicial decision, a sweeping attack on affirmative action, saying societies should be color blind and not allowed "entitlement based on group representation."
EVA PATERSON, FOUNDER, EQUAL JUSTICE SOCIETY: As a black woman, I'm here to say it doesn't matter what the color of her skin is. It matters how she's going to rule.
KING: Skin color very much mattered to young Janice Rogers, a girl in Lavern, Alabama. Whenever possible, her sharecropper father kept the family from establishments that had separate entrances and facilities for blacks.
STEVE MERSKSAMER, LONGTIME BROWN FRIEND: I know they didn't have indoor plumbing. I know that it was a very, very rough existence. And I can only imagine what it must have been like growing up as a youngster in the segregated south.
KING: She was 6 when 50 miles away in Montgomery, Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of the bus. Fred Gray was Park's lawyer, an African-American. And to young Janice, an inspiration. Rogers- Brown graduated UCLA Law School in 1977, making her dream of becoming an attorney a reality. Raising a son as a single mother made personal responsibility a guiding theme. And her political views trended more conservative.
BILL MOUNT, FORMER CHIEF OF STAFF: She believes the judiciary's single duty is to protect individuals from government overreaching.
KING: Critics see her provocative writing as evidence of ambitious, including her 2000 ruling criticizing racial quotas for even goal as contrary to a society based on equal opportunity for all.
OWEN SELLSTROM, LAWYERS CMTE. FOR CIVIL RIGHTS: It was not a typical opinion that you would see of a judge looking at the facts and applying the law. It was too much more something that appeared to be specifically drafted to catch the attention of ultra right wing conservative groups.
KING: Former Chief of Staff Bill Mount says it is not personal ambition, but instead a deliberate effort to stir debate on the involving role of courts in government.
MOUNT: She believes that something of a wrong turn was taken maybe half a century ago, when the welfare state grew. And I think she thinks the national experience of African Americans has been in some ways regrettable.
PATERSON: I think the Bush people are very brilliantly playing the race card.
KING: Eva Patterson's Equal Justice Society in San Francisco is one of an array of state and national civil rights organizations opposing the Brown nomination.
PATERSON: She is a sister and she has suffered many of the indignities that black women through our history have suffered. And so that tends to make you want to just be quiet and not oppose her. But then, my sense of political chess makes me realize that that's exactly what Karl Rove and President Bush want to have happen.
KING (on camera): Justice Rogers Brown is a regular here at the Church of Christ in Rancho Cordova near Sacramento. Friends say her deep Christian faith is a critical part of both her personal and professional life, though some critics say that faith plays too much of a role in her judicial philosophy.
Rogers-BROWN: What we ultimately pursue is a true vision of justice and ordered of liberty, respectful of human dignity and the authority of God. KING: In a 1997 case, the state's Supreme Court declared unconstitutional a law requiring parental consent before a minor could receive an abortion. But Justice Brown dissented, suggesting the majority's reasoning gave courts a green light to topple every cultural icon, to dismiss all societal values, and to become the final arbiters of traditional morality.
Her friend Steve Mersksamer says they have never discussed abortion.
MERSKSAMER: I don't know what her views would be. I think she had use the Constitution in a fairly strict constructionist sense, which is what the president says he wants to appoint people like that. But I also think that she is -- I think it's a big mistake to try to pigeonhole her.
KING: She is, for example, not always adverse to government power. "Sometimes beauty is fierce. Love is tough, and freedom is painful," she wrote in a ruling upholding drug testing for government job applicants. She also allowed cities to disburse suspected gang members without proof illegal conduct.
MERSKSAMER: Janice is an extremely private person. She's hard to -- you know, she won't open up to just anybody.
KING: Mersksamer met with Brown recently to discuss her nomination. He said she preferred to talk about her latest intellectual pursuit.
MERSKSAMER: I couldn't believe it when she said to me, "You know, I really -- could you connect me with somebody who could teach me? I want to learn Hebrew." I mean it just amazed me. And I said why? She said, "Because I want to read the Torah in the original Hebrew."
KING: Friends said two years of hearing her being labeled "combative," "temperamental," "extremist" and worse have taken a toll. But Mount says Justice Brown isn't one to flinch from a fight.
MOUNT: She told me that she went to see the Ray Charles film. And she loved the line where Ray said, "They're scandalizing my name." And that's exactly how she feels. I think she finds it brutal, just brutal. In another sense, I think she's in the eye of the storm, and she's quite calm about it all.
KING: John King, CNN, San Francisco.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LIN: Anther storm on Capitol Hill, members of Congress are tackling another high profile issue this morning. It's steroids in pro-sports. Now, two House panels are holding hearings. NBA Commissioner David Stern, the Sports Union leader Billy Hunter and Washington Wizard's guard Juan Dixon are in one room. NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue and Players Association Chief Gene Upshaw are testifying in a separate session. Pros-sports commissioners are opposed to a mandatory uniform drug testing policy. They believe each sport can handle it itself.
And new information this morning also about the man being questioned in the Idaho triple slayings. But does he know anything about the two children that are still missing? We're going to go live to Coeur d'Alene or Idaho for an update on that.
Plus, a bank robber gets hostages to strip and then head to the airport. Hear from the FBI agent on the case.
And the force is finally with us. But does the final "Star Wars" flick live up to its hype? Mr. Moviefone is going to join me this hour on CNN LIVE TODAY.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LIN: New information out of Idaho this morning. Authorities have found a person of interest they were looking for in a triple homicide, but two children are still missing. CNN's Sean Callebs is in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho with the latest on this troubling story.
Sean, what's up? I thought this guy was going to be the key to the investigation.
SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, without question now, this is certainly somebody that authorities here had maintained could be very important to the investigation. For the better part of a day, Robert Roy Lutner was really the focus of an intense manhunt, certainly in this area and across the nation as well.
Now, Lutner knew that authorities were looking for him and he called them late yesterday afternoon. Then made arrangements and investigators, the FBI, as well as the Kootenai Sheriff's Office went over. And they spent hours talking to Lutner. But apparently he could shed no light on the whereabouts of the two missing children, 9- year-old Dylan Groene and his 8-year-old sister, Shasta.
Now, authorities say he is not a suspect. They just term him "someone of interest," perhaps a material witness, something of that nature. We're trying to pinpoint that down as well. But the sheriff's officials say that he was very important to the investigation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
We never considered him a suspect. We knew he was just a person of interest, because we had information he'd been at the house Sunday evening. If he hadn't been involved, we thought he could have possibly told us who may have been here at the residence or who they were expecting Sunday evening.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CALLEBS: He spent a great deal of time being questioned yesterday. We don't know if he was able to provide any insight on the grisly murders that took place in the modest home, not terribly far behind me. Police on Monday evening found 40-year-old Brenda Groene, her boyfriend, Mark McKenzie and Brenda's 13-year-old son Slade Groene bound. And they had been killed. The sheriff's office said it was a very brutal killing. They would not say exactly how the three were killed.
We know autopsies were performed on two of the victims yesterday. The third should be finished today. And really, the forensics team hoping they can find some information there, perhaps a fingerprint on the body. Even though by all accounts that is going to be very difficult to do.
Also, the crime scene outside the home suffered a certain degree of integrity loss Monday evening it. It simply poured here in this area. There was a dirt driveway leading up to the home. And the sheriff's office says that really, any kind of tire prints, footprints, things of that nature were simply washed away. And that could have been very important to them.
Also, they found the bodies at 6:00 p.m. It wasn't until midnight that they discovered the two children were missing. Once again their names. Dylan, he is 9 years old, about 40 pounds -- 60 pounds rather, blonde, crew cut and blue eyes. His sister Shasta, a very slight child. She is under four feet tall, about 40 pounds. She has long auburn hair and hazel eyes. The nationwide Amber Alert continues to go out. But so far, no sign of those two missing children.
LIN: Sean, investigators do feel confident though that this was not a random crime. There was somebody on a mission, whoever went into that house and killed the people.
CALLEBS: Exactly right. That is the term, the actual words, "on a mission," that Sheriff Rocky Watson told me yesterday evening, just the way the crime did play out. They don't think this was random at all. And yesterday, these hills were filled with searchers going through with cadaver dogs, and search and rescue dogs. And that has ended. They've pretty much given up on the search here in that area.
The sheriff says he is, however, holding out hope the two kids could be alive. In his rationale, why would someone kill three people, and kill the two other children, and not leave them at the scene? Why would he not take those -- the person not take those two away? So he's hopeful someone will drop those two children off safe and sound. But he is also, as time goes on, it's very difficult for these investigators. And then time is very critical.
LIN: You bet. It's going to take America's eyes, all right, on those pictures. Thanks very much, Sean. Let's keep our fingers crossed.
And we're going to stay in the Midwest and turn to this bizarre crime spree. A suspect in a bank robbery and hostage taking is in critical condition this morning after a shootout with police. The story unfolded Wednesday in Olathe, Kansas. Authorities say a 44- year-old Wichita man held up a bank and took hostages there. The suspect then forced some of the hostage into a mini van owned by one of them.
Authorities say the blown out window was caused by the suspect's gunshot. Police didn't return fire at that time. A hostage was directed to drive to a nearby executive airport. The mini van pulled up next to a plane on the runway and FBI agent picks up the story here.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JEFF LANZA, FBI SPECIAL AGENT: We don't know whether he was planning to try to get out by plane, or whether that was an afterthought in his escape from the bank. Drove up, or forced the hostage to drive up to the single engine Cessna that was sitting on the runway. He tried to get in the plane and that's when the police fired upon him.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LIN: Ah, but there's one other strange twist. The suspect made the people inside the bank strip to their underwear. One was even ordered to go outside in his underwear to give police a walkie-talkie.
Well, a new color, the color of terror changes. You could be seeing to the terror alert system, our "Security Watch" is coming up.
Plus, Gerri Willis joins me live with some simple steps you can take in for a safe summer.
GERRI WILLIS, CNN-FN PERSONAL FINANCE EDITOR: Hi, Carol. Good to see you. What do you need to teach your kids about fun at the pool this summer? We'll tell you, when CNN LIVE TODAY continues.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LIN: All right. The summer season is approaching and the danger can arise right along with the temperature. For instance, in some Sunbelt States drowning is the leading cause for children under five. But simple steps could now save those lives.
CNN personal finance editor Gerri Willis joins me now with her "Top 5 Tips" on pool safety.
Gerri, hopefully we have time to learn to swim this summer because that's your Top 5 tip.
WILLIS: Yes. That is a great thing to do, Carol. You're absolutely right. Your kids should learn how to swim when they're old enough. And that's typically four years of age; developmentally they're ready to make all the moves they need to make. But if you have little kids, toddlers who are not that old yet, you can still teach them to flip on their back so they float, and to blow bubbles. Because the big problem, Carol, little kids breathe in all that water instead of expelling it...
LIN: Ah.
WILLIS: ... and that's how they drown. It's a silent killer. You don't even know it's happening until it is over.
LIN: Right. And the panic may be setting in.
All right. So you also talk about building barriers. Most people, in fact, most cities require that fences be built around pools. Is that enough?
WILLIS: Well, it's one of the things that you want to do. When you are putting those fences in place, make sure they're at four feet high. And you've got to make sure that little kids can't put their feet and hands into the openings to get over the fence. That's a critical thing to watch. Remember, this is the gateway to the pool.
LIN: And what do you mean about layers of protection?
WILLIS: Well, Carol, you said it before. "Is this the only thing I need?" No. You need lots of layers of protection, different things that you make sure that your kid does not have access to that pool when you are not there. For example, you want a self-latching gate. You want to make sure that if your kid pushes that gate it's going to close on its own. That's another thing you can do.
And remember the wall of the house, when you go from the house to the pool is the other barrier. Make sure there's an alarm on that door, the sliders usually. And then make sure there's Alarm 2 is on the surface of the pool.
LIN: Mm-hmm. Are there other problem areas then?
WILLIS: Yes. You want to make sure that the drain in your pool, the suction is not so strong that a little girl with long hair can get caught. This is one of those problems most people don't know about. It's really something to pay attention. They are now making drain covers that make it almost impossible for that to happen. So really check that out at your local pool store, because it's critical to make sure that you don't encounter a problem like that.
LIN: Wow! I never considered that. You're right. I mean and most kids, they might put their hair in a ponytail, but that still wouldn't protect them from something like that.
WILLIS: That's right.
LIN: So you have all these great tips, what are some extras, sort of mental exercises that a parent should remember? How do you on guard?
WILLIS: Well, look. I mean I talked about layers of protection; ultimately it's the parents themselves watching these children that will make sure nothing happens. Look, a child could drown in a few minutes, in a few short minutes. You go to answer the phone. You go to make sure that nothing in the oven is burning. And your child can drown. So as long as you're alert and you give your child the tools they need to do what they need to do, you're in good shape.
Now, Carol, I want to mention to you Saturday on "OPEN HOUSE," we're having a special safety show. For the entire show, 9:30 Eastern on CNN, we're going to be talking about the dangers that lurk outside your house and inside your house.
Plus, we have a weekend project where we'll show you how to burglarproof your house. And it's just in time for summer vacation, because that's when all the burglaries occur.
LIN: Yes. Because the vacations start right then, too.
WILLIS: That's right.
LIN: Thanks, Gerri. We'll be staying tuned. Good advice.
Well, overseas an Iraqi -- Iraq progress report. It was a violent there to -- there today. It was violent there today. Are Iraqi forces not living up to earlier expectations? Lieutenant General John Bines, the No. 2 man in charge, is going to join me from Baghdad.
Plus, take a look at this tape, a deputy slammed. There you go, by a truck. We're going to show you how this story ends when CNN LIVE TODAY returns.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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Aired May 19, 2005 - 10:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN CO-ANCHOR: Here's Carol Lin at the CNN Center good morning.
Hey, Carol. Good morning.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. It's good to eat a bowl of the ice cream if you're watching the news.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN CO-ANCHOR: Thank you, Carol.
Have a nice day.
Right down here at the CNN Center, we're pretty busy. Here's what's happening right now in the news.
Idaho authorities say they have located the so-called person of interest in a triple homicide. Investigators say Robert Roy Lutner contacted them but provided no new information in the case. Meanwhile, an Amber Alert remains in place for the missing 9-year-old boy and his 8-year-old sister. The bodies of their mother, a brother, and a neighbor were found in the family's home.
President Bush is on the road, en route to Milwaukee this morning to campaign for his Social Security reforms. He's going to meet with younger workers at the Milwaukee Art Museum. Now, opinion polls show the president has little support for his private Social Security accounts.
And live this hour on Capitol Hill, a hearing on the proposed military base closings. The commission that made those recommendations will hear from the military leaders most impacted by the realignments. In all, 33 major facilities are now slated for closing.
In Iraq, a day of bloodshed and rising concerns. Gunmen today carried out the brazen killing of an aide to Grand Ayatollah Ali al Sistani. Assassins also targeted an official with the Iraq's Oil Ministry. He was gunned down outside his Baghdad home.
Good morning. I'm Carol Lin. Daryn has got the day off today.
We're looking at the Senate battle over judges, which is moving into its second day. Today the debate is about appeals court nominees. But down the road a Supreme Court seat could be at stake along with crucial rulings on controversial issues. And that's key to the current Senate showdown. Our congressional correspondent Joe Johns is live on Capitol Hill right now.
Joe, we've been talking a lot about the process of perhaps an impending filibuster. Give us a quick rap of where the debate stands now.
JOE JOHNS, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Right now, Harry Reid, the Senate minority leader, is on the floor of the United States Senate just a minute ago engaging in a colloquy. A talk, if you will, on the record with Senate Chuck Schumer, the Democrat of New York. All of this, of course, about the issue of whether the filibuster ought to be in order for members of the minority. The Republicans say there ought to be a 51-person vote up or down for all of the president's nominees.
The nomination on the floor, of course, is that of Priscilla Owen of Texas. Earlier today, the action on the floor kicked off with a prayer from Senate Chaplain Barry Black.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REAR. ADM. BARRY BLACK (RET.), SENATE CHAPLAIN: Sustain them during today's challenging labors. Give them more than human wisdom to solve the problems of these momentous times. Provide them with the insight to know what is right, and the courage to do it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JOHNS: Off the floor, negotiations do continue to try to get a deal, we're told, a meeting around 11:00 Eastern Time in the office of the senator from Arizona, John McCain.
Meanwhile, Democrats have exercised their option to cut off the amount of time hearings can be held on the Senate side. Of course, that is something we expect to continue through the debate on judges, on the Senate floor -- Carol.
LIN: Joe, good wrap on the process. Give us an idea of what is at stake here and what special interest groups are rallying around this particular debate. Because while you're covering the process on the Hill, some would characterize this as a question whether morality will be one of those values injected into our future legal systems. So give us an idea of what the lobbying is like and who is gathering on the Hill to pressure this nomination through.
JOHNS: The interest groups, Carol, as you know, are almost too numerous to mention. Conservatives, evangelicals have been pushing very hard for judges, they think, will serve their interests on appeals court, on federal courts around the country. Of course, that has to figure into this equation.
And the big picture, and I think that's what you're asking for. Probably the most important question looming down the road is the issue of the Supreme Court. Republicans would very much like to try to lower the bar a bit to make it possible to have a vote of just 51 senators on any Supreme Court nominee, as opposed to 60 senators. Which is a threshold required in the event there's a filibuster. So those are probably two of the very critical things that are going on here, Carol.
LIN: All right. Joe Johns, live on Capitol Hill. Thank you very much.
Justice Priscilla Owen may be the test case in the Senate's judicial battle. But another controversial nomination is also being debated on the Senate.
CNN's John King has this profile of Janice Rogers Brown.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Janice Rogers Brown, a college liberal turned courthouse conservative, a Shakespeare. A poetry lover with a pension for provocative words of her own. "These are perilous times for people of faith," she warned in a speech last month, suggesting liberals wanted to divorce the country from its religious heritage. "It's not a shooting war but it's a war," she said. "But it's a war."
JANICE ROGERS BROWN, JUDGE, APPEALS COURT NOMINEE: The question will be whether the regime of freedom, which they founded, can survive the relentless enmity of the slave mentality.
KING: She calls the New Deal, which created Social Security and Medicaid, "Our socialist revolution," suggesting it created reliance on big government, a new slavery, contrary to the Constitution's authors vision of limited government.
(BEGIN POLITICAL AD CLIP)
NARRATOR: She's so radical that she says with programs, like Social Security and Medicare, seniors are cannibalizing their grandchildren.
(END POLITICAL AD CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hear ye, the honorable Supreme Court...
KING: Perhaps her most noteworthy judicial decision, a sweeping attack on affirmative action, saying societies should be color blind and not allowed "entitlement based on group representation."
EVA PATERSON, FOUNDER, EQUAL JUSTICE SOCIETY: As a black woman, I'm here to say it doesn't matter what the color of her skin is. It matters how she's going to rule.
KING: Skin color very much mattered to young Janice Rogers, a girl in Lavern, Alabama. Whenever possible, her sharecropper father kept the family from establishments that had separate entrances and facilities for blacks.
STEVE MERSKSAMER, LONGTIME BROWN FRIEND: I know they didn't have indoor plumbing. I know that it was a very, very rough existence. And I can only imagine what it must have been like growing up as a youngster in the segregated south.
KING: She was 6 when 50 miles away in Montgomery, Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of the bus. Fred Gray was Park's lawyer, an African-American. And to young Janice, an inspiration. Rogers- Brown graduated UCLA Law School in 1977, making her dream of becoming an attorney a reality. Raising a son as a single mother made personal responsibility a guiding theme. And her political views trended more conservative.
BILL MOUNT, FORMER CHIEF OF STAFF: She believes the judiciary's single duty is to protect individuals from government overreaching.
KING: Critics see her provocative writing as evidence of ambitious, including her 2000 ruling criticizing racial quotas for even goal as contrary to a society based on equal opportunity for all.
OWEN SELLSTROM, LAWYERS CMTE. FOR CIVIL RIGHTS: It was not a typical opinion that you would see of a judge looking at the facts and applying the law. It was too much more something that appeared to be specifically drafted to catch the attention of ultra right wing conservative groups.
KING: Former Chief of Staff Bill Mount says it is not personal ambition, but instead a deliberate effort to stir debate on the involving role of courts in government.
MOUNT: She believes that something of a wrong turn was taken maybe half a century ago, when the welfare state grew. And I think she thinks the national experience of African Americans has been in some ways regrettable.
PATERSON: I think the Bush people are very brilliantly playing the race card.
KING: Eva Patterson's Equal Justice Society in San Francisco is one of an array of state and national civil rights organizations opposing the Brown nomination.
PATERSON: She is a sister and she has suffered many of the indignities that black women through our history have suffered. And so that tends to make you want to just be quiet and not oppose her. But then, my sense of political chess makes me realize that that's exactly what Karl Rove and President Bush want to have happen.
KING (on camera): Justice Rogers Brown is a regular here at the Church of Christ in Rancho Cordova near Sacramento. Friends say her deep Christian faith is a critical part of both her personal and professional life, though some critics say that faith plays too much of a role in her judicial philosophy.
Rogers-BROWN: What we ultimately pursue is a true vision of justice and ordered of liberty, respectful of human dignity and the authority of God. KING: In a 1997 case, the state's Supreme Court declared unconstitutional a law requiring parental consent before a minor could receive an abortion. But Justice Brown dissented, suggesting the majority's reasoning gave courts a green light to topple every cultural icon, to dismiss all societal values, and to become the final arbiters of traditional morality.
Her friend Steve Mersksamer says they have never discussed abortion.
MERSKSAMER: I don't know what her views would be. I think she had use the Constitution in a fairly strict constructionist sense, which is what the president says he wants to appoint people like that. But I also think that she is -- I think it's a big mistake to try to pigeonhole her.
KING: She is, for example, not always adverse to government power. "Sometimes beauty is fierce. Love is tough, and freedom is painful," she wrote in a ruling upholding drug testing for government job applicants. She also allowed cities to disburse suspected gang members without proof illegal conduct.
MERSKSAMER: Janice is an extremely private person. She's hard to -- you know, she won't open up to just anybody.
KING: Mersksamer met with Brown recently to discuss her nomination. He said she preferred to talk about her latest intellectual pursuit.
MERSKSAMER: I couldn't believe it when she said to me, "You know, I really -- could you connect me with somebody who could teach me? I want to learn Hebrew." I mean it just amazed me. And I said why? She said, "Because I want to read the Torah in the original Hebrew."
KING: Friends said two years of hearing her being labeled "combative," "temperamental," "extremist" and worse have taken a toll. But Mount says Justice Brown isn't one to flinch from a fight.
MOUNT: She told me that she went to see the Ray Charles film. And she loved the line where Ray said, "They're scandalizing my name." And that's exactly how she feels. I think she finds it brutal, just brutal. In another sense, I think she's in the eye of the storm, and she's quite calm about it all.
KING: John King, CNN, San Francisco.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LIN: Anther storm on Capitol Hill, members of Congress are tackling another high profile issue this morning. It's steroids in pro-sports. Now, two House panels are holding hearings. NBA Commissioner David Stern, the Sports Union leader Billy Hunter and Washington Wizard's guard Juan Dixon are in one room. NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue and Players Association Chief Gene Upshaw are testifying in a separate session. Pros-sports commissioners are opposed to a mandatory uniform drug testing policy. They believe each sport can handle it itself.
And new information this morning also about the man being questioned in the Idaho triple slayings. But does he know anything about the two children that are still missing? We're going to go live to Coeur d'Alene or Idaho for an update on that.
Plus, a bank robber gets hostages to strip and then head to the airport. Hear from the FBI agent on the case.
And the force is finally with us. But does the final "Star Wars" flick live up to its hype? Mr. Moviefone is going to join me this hour on CNN LIVE TODAY.
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LIN: New information out of Idaho this morning. Authorities have found a person of interest they were looking for in a triple homicide, but two children are still missing. CNN's Sean Callebs is in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho with the latest on this troubling story.
Sean, what's up? I thought this guy was going to be the key to the investigation.
SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, without question now, this is certainly somebody that authorities here had maintained could be very important to the investigation. For the better part of a day, Robert Roy Lutner was really the focus of an intense manhunt, certainly in this area and across the nation as well.
Now, Lutner knew that authorities were looking for him and he called them late yesterday afternoon. Then made arrangements and investigators, the FBI, as well as the Kootenai Sheriff's Office went over. And they spent hours talking to Lutner. But apparently he could shed no light on the whereabouts of the two missing children, 9- year-old Dylan Groene and his 8-year-old sister, Shasta.
Now, authorities say he is not a suspect. They just term him "someone of interest," perhaps a material witness, something of that nature. We're trying to pinpoint that down as well. But the sheriff's officials say that he was very important to the investigation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
We never considered him a suspect. We knew he was just a person of interest, because we had information he'd been at the house Sunday evening. If he hadn't been involved, we thought he could have possibly told us who may have been here at the residence or who they were expecting Sunday evening.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CALLEBS: He spent a great deal of time being questioned yesterday. We don't know if he was able to provide any insight on the grisly murders that took place in the modest home, not terribly far behind me. Police on Monday evening found 40-year-old Brenda Groene, her boyfriend, Mark McKenzie and Brenda's 13-year-old son Slade Groene bound. And they had been killed. The sheriff's office said it was a very brutal killing. They would not say exactly how the three were killed.
We know autopsies were performed on two of the victims yesterday. The third should be finished today. And really, the forensics team hoping they can find some information there, perhaps a fingerprint on the body. Even though by all accounts that is going to be very difficult to do.
Also, the crime scene outside the home suffered a certain degree of integrity loss Monday evening it. It simply poured here in this area. There was a dirt driveway leading up to the home. And the sheriff's office says that really, any kind of tire prints, footprints, things of that nature were simply washed away. And that could have been very important to them.
Also, they found the bodies at 6:00 p.m. It wasn't until midnight that they discovered the two children were missing. Once again their names. Dylan, he is 9 years old, about 40 pounds -- 60 pounds rather, blonde, crew cut and blue eyes. His sister Shasta, a very slight child. She is under four feet tall, about 40 pounds. She has long auburn hair and hazel eyes. The nationwide Amber Alert continues to go out. But so far, no sign of those two missing children.
LIN: Sean, investigators do feel confident though that this was not a random crime. There was somebody on a mission, whoever went into that house and killed the people.
CALLEBS: Exactly right. That is the term, the actual words, "on a mission," that Sheriff Rocky Watson told me yesterday evening, just the way the crime did play out. They don't think this was random at all. And yesterday, these hills were filled with searchers going through with cadaver dogs, and search and rescue dogs. And that has ended. They've pretty much given up on the search here in that area.
The sheriff says he is, however, holding out hope the two kids could be alive. In his rationale, why would someone kill three people, and kill the two other children, and not leave them at the scene? Why would he not take those -- the person not take those two away? So he's hopeful someone will drop those two children off safe and sound. But he is also, as time goes on, it's very difficult for these investigators. And then time is very critical.
LIN: You bet. It's going to take America's eyes, all right, on those pictures. Thanks very much, Sean. Let's keep our fingers crossed.
And we're going to stay in the Midwest and turn to this bizarre crime spree. A suspect in a bank robbery and hostage taking is in critical condition this morning after a shootout with police. The story unfolded Wednesday in Olathe, Kansas. Authorities say a 44- year-old Wichita man held up a bank and took hostages there. The suspect then forced some of the hostage into a mini van owned by one of them.
Authorities say the blown out window was caused by the suspect's gunshot. Police didn't return fire at that time. A hostage was directed to drive to a nearby executive airport. The mini van pulled up next to a plane on the runway and FBI agent picks up the story here.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JEFF LANZA, FBI SPECIAL AGENT: We don't know whether he was planning to try to get out by plane, or whether that was an afterthought in his escape from the bank. Drove up, or forced the hostage to drive up to the single engine Cessna that was sitting on the runway. He tried to get in the plane and that's when the police fired upon him.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LIN: Ah, but there's one other strange twist. The suspect made the people inside the bank strip to their underwear. One was even ordered to go outside in his underwear to give police a walkie-talkie.
Well, a new color, the color of terror changes. You could be seeing to the terror alert system, our "Security Watch" is coming up.
Plus, Gerri Willis joins me live with some simple steps you can take in for a safe summer.
GERRI WILLIS, CNN-FN PERSONAL FINANCE EDITOR: Hi, Carol. Good to see you. What do you need to teach your kids about fun at the pool this summer? We'll tell you, when CNN LIVE TODAY continues.
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LIN: All right. The summer season is approaching and the danger can arise right along with the temperature. For instance, in some Sunbelt States drowning is the leading cause for children under five. But simple steps could now save those lives.
CNN personal finance editor Gerri Willis joins me now with her "Top 5 Tips" on pool safety.
Gerri, hopefully we have time to learn to swim this summer because that's your Top 5 tip.
WILLIS: Yes. That is a great thing to do, Carol. You're absolutely right. Your kids should learn how to swim when they're old enough. And that's typically four years of age; developmentally they're ready to make all the moves they need to make. But if you have little kids, toddlers who are not that old yet, you can still teach them to flip on their back so they float, and to blow bubbles. Because the big problem, Carol, little kids breathe in all that water instead of expelling it...
LIN: Ah.
WILLIS: ... and that's how they drown. It's a silent killer. You don't even know it's happening until it is over.
LIN: Right. And the panic may be setting in.
All right. So you also talk about building barriers. Most people, in fact, most cities require that fences be built around pools. Is that enough?
WILLIS: Well, it's one of the things that you want to do. When you are putting those fences in place, make sure they're at four feet high. And you've got to make sure that little kids can't put their feet and hands into the openings to get over the fence. That's a critical thing to watch. Remember, this is the gateway to the pool.
LIN: And what do you mean about layers of protection?
WILLIS: Well, Carol, you said it before. "Is this the only thing I need?" No. You need lots of layers of protection, different things that you make sure that your kid does not have access to that pool when you are not there. For example, you want a self-latching gate. You want to make sure that if your kid pushes that gate it's going to close on its own. That's another thing you can do.
And remember the wall of the house, when you go from the house to the pool is the other barrier. Make sure there's an alarm on that door, the sliders usually. And then make sure there's Alarm 2 is on the surface of the pool.
LIN: Mm-hmm. Are there other problem areas then?
WILLIS: Yes. You want to make sure that the drain in your pool, the suction is not so strong that a little girl with long hair can get caught. This is one of those problems most people don't know about. It's really something to pay attention. They are now making drain covers that make it almost impossible for that to happen. So really check that out at your local pool store, because it's critical to make sure that you don't encounter a problem like that.
LIN: Wow! I never considered that. You're right. I mean and most kids, they might put their hair in a ponytail, but that still wouldn't protect them from something like that.
WILLIS: That's right.
LIN: So you have all these great tips, what are some extras, sort of mental exercises that a parent should remember? How do you on guard?
WILLIS: Well, look. I mean I talked about layers of protection; ultimately it's the parents themselves watching these children that will make sure nothing happens. Look, a child could drown in a few minutes, in a few short minutes. You go to answer the phone. You go to make sure that nothing in the oven is burning. And your child can drown. So as long as you're alert and you give your child the tools they need to do what they need to do, you're in good shape.
Now, Carol, I want to mention to you Saturday on "OPEN HOUSE," we're having a special safety show. For the entire show, 9:30 Eastern on CNN, we're going to be talking about the dangers that lurk outside your house and inside your house.
Plus, we have a weekend project where we'll show you how to burglarproof your house. And it's just in time for summer vacation, because that's when all the burglaries occur.
LIN: Yes. Because the vacations start right then, too.
WILLIS: That's right.
LIN: Thanks, Gerri. We'll be staying tuned. Good advice.
Well, overseas an Iraqi -- Iraq progress report. It was a violent there to -- there today. It was violent there today. Are Iraqi forces not living up to earlier expectations? Lieutenant General John Bines, the No. 2 man in charge, is going to join me from Baghdad.
Plus, take a look at this tape, a deputy slammed. There you go, by a truck. We're going to show you how this story ends when CNN LIVE TODAY returns.
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