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New Bombshells Rock Duke Rape Case; Man Shot and Killed Five People in Kansas City, Missouri; New Attempts to Bridge Sunni/Shia Gap

Aired December 16, 2006 - 14:00   ET

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

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Now in the news, they are cleaning up in the Pacific Northwest after a severe windstorm toppled trees and power lines. The storm is blamed for at least six deaths as well in Washington and Oregon. At one point more than a million homes and businesses lost power. We'll have a full report straight ahead.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas says he'll call early elections in a bid to end the mounting violence between his Fatah party and the Hamas faction which controls the legislature. He says the vote will take place within three months. Hamas denounced the move and called on Mr. Abbas to resign.

A deadly shooting spree in Kansas City. Police say a man killed five people, including three of his own children. Then he killed himself. No word yet on the motive.

A huge protest on New York's Fifth Avenue. Thousands of demonstrators jammed the streets to protest last month's police shooting of an unarmed Queens man. Sean Bell died on what would have been his wedding day.

Astronauts are scheduled to begin another walk outside the International Space Station in about 30 minutes from now. They are working on a re-wiring project, but if they have time, they will take another look at a jammed solar panel. So far efforts to get the panel to retract have been only partially successful.

How could anyone survive storm conditions while trapped on a mountain? Our own Rick Sanchez shows us ways that it can be done.

Paternity tests and DNA analysis are the latest elements to emerge in the rape case against several Duke lacrosse players. Our attorneys will debate these developments in today's legal briefs.

And you won't believe what happened when this man was found just inches from a live electric train rail. You're in the CNN NEWSROOM on this Saturday, the 16th day of December. I'm Fredericka Whitfield.

A desperate search resumes on Oregon's highest mountain. Search crews sidelined for days by a blizzard are on the hunt again for three missing climbers, an all-out assault on the mountain got underway earlier this morning. CNN's Chris Lawrence has the latest now from near Mt. Hood.

CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Fredericka, the break in the weather has given these rescue teams their best chance yet of getting on to the mountain at some of those higher elevations where they believe the climbers might actually be. You've got one Chinook helicopter up there, two Black Hawk helicopters which could be used to drop some of the rescue teams on to some of those higher elevations and a C-130 transport plane which did take several passes around the mountain yesterday, unfortunately, with no success.

You've got a team of about 25 rescue climbers on one side of the mountain. Another team of 30 attacking from the other side of the mountain.

We said the conditions were improved. That doesn't mean they are necessarily great or even good. We have been listening to some of the scanner traffic from some of those crews that are on the mountain. They have been reporting wind gusts of 30, 40 miles per hour at times, wind chill down to 35 degrees below zero, so there are some very tough conditions, and there is a very big danger of avalanche as well.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHERIFF JOE WAMPLER, HOOD RIVER COUNTY, OREGON: Right now it's hard for them to move because they are traveling in deep snow, for one, and so they are having to utilize skis and snowshoes to stay on top so they don't sink clear down, so it's hard to get around.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LAWRWENCE: Earlier this morning just a little while ago the mothers of the three climbers who are lost out there came here to the airfield here to wish some of the rescue teams luck and to thank them for all their work. They know how dangerous it is out there on that mountain, but feel that the slight break in the weather has really given them a lot of hope about what could happen over the next day or so.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLARA HALL, BRIAN HALL'S MOTHER: You've outpoured with your hearts to us, families and friends across the nation, across the world, you are saying your prayers to us. I'm very thankful, and I really appreciate that. Whenever Brian climbed a mountain, our goal was every night we're going to look at the same moon. Last night I saw the moon. I'm very hopeful about that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LAWRENCE: Yeah. A lot of the rescue teams are very hopeful as well. They have hoped if the weather holds that at some point early this afternoon a team from the south side might reach the summit. Now these team of climbers took the harder way up. The three of them, they took the north side, so the team would then summit and then perhaps come down the other side to start to look around that area where they believe at least one of the climbers may still be. Fredericka?

WHITFIELD: And Chris, at last check they were at about 8,000, the summit is at 11,000 and it might be later on today, a few hours away before they can actually reach that summit?

LAWRENCE: Yeah, correct. It's slow going up there. I mean, if you listen to some of this radio traffic, it's not a steady push. We heard one crew say, boy, the wind is really whipping up here. I may have to pull back, and can you hear the ground crews say "Yeah, pull back, come on back down, come on back down." So it's not necessarily one study push up the mountain. It may be say one step back and then two steps forward.

WHITFIELD: Chris Lawrence, thanks so much for the update.

Surviving brutal mountain storms in winter, it is possible if you know what to do. CNN's Rick Sanchez traveled to the Rocky Mountains in Colorado for a few lessons.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RICK SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: There are places on earth where you feel God's furry but I can't imagine any of them being any worse than this, what we're feeling right now. We're -- almost 12,000 feet. This is the continental divide. I've been in enough hurricanes to know what hurricane force gusts if not winds feel like.

This is easily at least 60-mile-an-hour gusts that are blowing through here. At times it's difficult to stand up. It's a biting cold. It's hard to see. In fact, it's downright painful.

The question now is if you are stuck in these conditions, what do you do? How do you survive?

(voice-over): We've elicited the help of two renowned mountaineering experts who teach the first order of business is to build a snow cave. Without it, you will not survive.

PHIL POWERS, AMERICAN ALPINE CLUB: We will just get in there, into that cave, get on our packs to insulate ourselves from the snow.

SANCHEZ (on camera): I see.

POWERS: And stay warm, huddled close together all night.

SANCHEZ (voice-over): Even in a snow cave you can still get slammed by an avalanche, but experienced mountaineers avoid it by taking into account both slope and snow density when figuring out where to camp.

(on camera): We can see the top of that peak. Look straight up there. Because of this wind you can't see it, but could that start an avalanche at any time?

POWERS: It's not tall enough.

SANCHEZ: I see.

POWERS: Right now to start an avalanche. If it did slide, it has no energy. SANCHEZ: But by far the biggest killer is the weather itself. Within hours of being exposed mountaineers can suffer hypothermia which causes them to become strangely delusional.

POWERS: And you eventually become euphoric, think that the snow is really warm and soft and lay down and go to sleep forever.

SANCHEZ: It is why some victims are found disrobed. They actually believe it's warm in freezing weather.

Experts who recommend not going into these conditions without a shovel, a backpack, a head lamp, a compact stove to melt water and at least a sleeping bag, say even with these items under extreme conditions you'll still only be able to hold on for so long.

Rick Sanchez, CNN, Loveland Pass, Colorado.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: Pretty brutal weather in the Pacific Northwest and some people may have to cope without electric heat all weekend long. Washington State and Oregon are cleaning up after the worst wind storm in more than a decade. Katherine Barrett joins us live from Seattle. How are conditions there, Katherine?

KATHERINE BARRETT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Fredericka, we're a long way from the wilderness but still you can see the wreckage wrought by a storm. I'm in a suburb just about 20 minutes from downtown Seattle and we've seen scenes like this all around the area. There are still nine counties affected by power outages in Washington State. In the house behind me here this 90-foot Douglas fir came crashing down on Thursday evening. Homeowner Pat Lynch's girlfriend and daughter reported hearing a snap, a crack and then the crashing thud that speared tree limbs right through the living room ceiling. Thankfully everyone was and is safe, but still shaken.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's not a good experience, and there's going to be a lot of cleanup and a lot of work ahead of us, and just trying to get fairly normal and stuff so far as the house goes and stuff like that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BARRETT: One casualty, the family's Christmas tree was taken out by that big evergreen, and the Lynches were luckily able to stay with relatives who had a generator to provide power and heat. Power here just came back on this morning. Still, no power, no heat at my house today, and more than half a million others, as I said in, a nine- county area of Washington.

Power crews are working as hard as they can to restore power. It's not just the lines downed by trees to people's home but their whole transmission system has been affected by blowing branches and treetops. Temperatures are dropping at this hour. No power often means no heat. The Red Cross has opened six shelters around the state. If people need to go and stay out of the cold somewhere, but, also without power, traffic signals in many of the suburban cities are not working. Gas stations don't have power. There are long lines. So the storm is still wreaking havoc even several days after it's passed. Fredericka?

WHITFIELD: All right. Katherine Barrett, thanks so much. Try to stay warm there from Seattle.

Bonnie Schneider is in the weather center, and, boy, those conditions just can't get any worse than that. You don't have power. You don't have sources of heat and you're still dealing with very cold temperatures.

BONNIE SCHNEIDER, CNN METEOROLOGIST: That's true. There is only one bright side. At least it's not snowing or raining right now. Looking at the radar picture across the Pacific Northwest we're not seeing any rain or snow even in the higher elevations though because of all the rain that's fallen, the wind damage, we still have some flood warnings that are in effect for some of the rivers and that's mainly into the Oregon area around Salem so keep that in mind if you live near a river that you may have a problem there because of the water that's already slowly but surely receding.

The forecast for the Seattle area actually looks nice and dry for the next few days. What a nice change from all the wind and rain earlier in the week. As we look ahead, even Tuesday and Wednesday, partly cloudy to mostly cloudy conditions, temperatures will still be cold, though, and that's bad news for the many people without power.

In fact, look at the low temperature tonight, 28 degrees so dropping below freezing and staying dry, gradually warming up as we get our way towards the middle of next week but hopefully the power will be back on even before then.

Let's look across the country. A lot is happening. We have high pressure right through the eastern half of the nation. That's bringing very mild temperatures to the Southeast, the Northeast, all looking really, really good. One exception, extreme southern Florida right here down in the Keys.

Moisture from this stationery front is likely to trigger the potential for some flooding, especially in the low-lying areas. Right along the roadways you may find some ponding later tonight the Florida Keys so if you're driving in take it slow.

Also some rain near the nation's midsection. Dry conditions through the desert Southwest and a storm system working its way across the Rockies will produce some snow. Good news for ski resorts but a lot of snow, winter storm warnings in effect for parts of Wyoming, Colorado and Utah and even back out towards Nevada and the higher elevations will be looking for snow to fall.

Temperatures for today, they look pretty mild, 72 in Atlanta and 61 in New York City. That's 15 degrees above normal for this time of year so very warm indeed. Chicago all the way up to 50 degrees, San Francisco 52 and Phoenix climbs to 63 so a little cooler in the desert Southwest and also gusty winds for today. We do have fire danger, and that's for Tulsa, Oklahoma and into parts of Arkansas where we have warm gusty winds coming up from the south so making for dry conditions there.

But otherwise, this is definitely looking at like very nice and warm conditions as we work our way towards today and into tomorrow so good shopping weather for those of you that are getting out there. Fredericka.

WHITFIELD: All right. That's good news. Thanks a lot, Bonnie.

Well, here's some food for thought. Would you expect to find a political liberal in a Christian church?

Straight ahead we will show you how traditionally liberal environmentalists are finding a home in some traditionally conservative settings.

Also, it's another day of walking in space for the crew of the shuttle Discovery. We'll have a live update on their mission.

And in today's legal briefs pregnancy and paternity tests are the latest twists in the legal case involving the Duke lacrosse team.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITIFELD: And here are some of the most popular stories on cnn.com. A Los Angeles hospital neonatal and pediatric intensive care unit closed today. Seven babies infected by a potent germ. Doctors say they probably got it from unsterilized medical equipment. They believe the bacteria has caused one baby's death.

Cuba trying to put rumors to rest about an ailing Fidel Castro. The government newspaper says he made a flurry of phone calls Friday, one to his ally in Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez. Chavez denying U.S. assessments that Castro has terminal cancer.

And Harper Collins firing brash celebrity publisher Judith Regan. It comes weeks after her TV book and deal about O.J. Simpson stirred outrage and then fell apart. Titled "if I Did It," the project was billed as a hypothetical account of the 1994 murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman.

Environmental activism, for many a liberal agenda. Now some evangelicals are embracing the movement. CNN's Dan Simon has a church with a church for a passion our planet.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): At the Amago Day Church in Portland, Oregon, a quiet revolution is taking place

PETER ILLYN, CHURCH MEMBER: It was lonely being a Christian environmentalist, and I came to Amago and I suddenly found this church of 1,600 people where from the pastor and everyone on staff, you know, understood that loving and caring for God's creation is a vital part of what their faith journey includes.

SIMON: Here at Amago Day church members sometimes in the hundreds regularly go into the community to plant trees, clean blighted areas and restore parks.

Children in their arts and crafts projects use recycled materials.

(on camera): When you come to spots like this here in Oregon it's easy to understand why the environment is such an important issue for people who live here, including those who identify themselves as Christian conservatives, but elsewhere in the country there's a growing movement among evangelicals to take a proactive stance when it comes to environmental issues.

(voice-over): It's a dramatic change. For decades evangelicals were reluctant to engage in environmental activism

REV. RICHARD CIZIK, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF EVANGELICALS: Oh, it's had impressions in people's minds of being liberal, Democratic, left wing, big government, tied to population control, all these kinds of things.

SIMON: But the escalating debate over global warming has led some top evangelicals to cast protecting the planet as a moral issue like abortion. They call it creation care.

In 2004 the National Association of Evangelicals issued an unprecedented call to civic responsibility, demanding tougher environmental standards. But that triggered a backlash from other powerful conservative Christian leaders. Protecting nature, they charge, is not God's priority and should not be high on the political agenda.

RICHARD LAND, SOUTHERN BAPTIST LEADER: The Bible clearly tells us that human beings come first and so all conservation measures have to be measured against what their human impact is going to be.

SIMON: But back in Portland many see creation care as part of a Christian's duty.

ILLYN: We're reaching a tipping point where the church is no longer saying why should we take care of the earth? They are starting to ask how should we take care of the earth?

SIMON: Dan Simon, CNN, Portland, Oregon.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: Checking up on America's other battlefront. We have the latest on who is visiting the troops in Afghanistan.

And why in the world would you want to nap on a train track? Take a look at this video. We'll explain why this man is lucky to be alive.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Now going global. Senator John McCain was wrapping up a two-day visit to Afghanistan today along with three other members of Congress. A likely Republican presidential contender McCain criticized Pakistan for letting the Taliban operate inside its borders. He also called on Europe to take a more active role in fighting the Taliban.

A new theory about the mysterious death of a former Russian spy. The BBC reports a friend of Alexander Litvinenko says he believes he was killed because he had a dossier containing damaging information about an important Kremlin figure. He says that material is now in the possession of Scotland Yard.

Meantime, British Prime Minister Tony Blair got an earful today during a visit to Turkey. The European Union has suspended talks on Turkish membership because of Turkey's failure to normalize trade with Cyprus. During a news conference with Mr. Blair Turkey's prime minister called that decision, in his words, very unfair.

Since 1927 "Time" editors have named a person of the year on the cover of a special issue of the magazine. The title is given to someone or something that has affected the world and the way we live for better or worse. Now the decision is just hours away. CNN's Carol Lin has a look at some of this year's contenders.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROMESH RATNESAR, "TIME" WORLD EDITOR: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is the president of Iran, this year kind of emerged as a dominant player on the world stage.

CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Iran's president also emerges as a candidate for "Time" magazine's person of the year. Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez gets a nod as person of the year after he uses the United Nations as a bully pulpit. Rounding out the list for global influence North Korea's leader Kim Jong-Il.

RATNESAR: The real concern with Kim Jong-Il is not so much that he would ever use a nuclear weapon but as the head of a really desperate, poor, starving country he'd be tempted to sell some of the technology need to develop weapons to other states that are interested or even to terrorist groups.

LIN: On the domestic front, the nominees are Donald Rumsfeld who stepped aside as secretary of defense. Secretary of state Condoleezza Rice makes the list as does incoming speaker of the house Nancy Pelosi.

AL GORE, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT: I used to be the next president of the United States of America.

LIN: Former Vice President Al gore gets a nomination for jumping back into the public spotlight with his film on global warming.

JOSH TYRANGIEL, MANAGING EDITOR, TIME.COM: You're a politician and you're associated with an ideology, Democratic, Republican and what he did is stripped all that context away and come off as a guy who cares very much about a particular issue. That's a magnificent transformation.

LIN: Person of the year doesn't have to be a person. YouTube is nominated for kicking off a revolution as millions of people share videos on the World Wide Web.

TYRANGIEL: So many of the interesting YouTube videos have been from American soldiers in Iraq, and you actually get to connection with them in a way that the nightly news never shows you, that newspapers can't convey in the same emotional level.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: The president, America's main diplomat, a war, a lady who could rule the House? Who has made the greatest impact this year? Find out who will be voted "Time" magazine's 2006 person of the year. That's tonight 8:00 p.m. only right here on CNN.

And you can vote for who you think should be the person of the year. Just log on to cnn.com.

Later, a live update on today's spacewalk by the crew of the space shuttle Discovery.

Also straight ahead, our legal team takes up the newest developments in the Duke lacrosse rape case.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Well here's what's happening right now. In Kansas City, Missouri, a gruesome scene. Police say a man shot and killed five people, including three of his children, before killing himself. Another child was shot and critically wounded. So far no word of a motive.

Huddled against the cold with no heat, parts of the Pacific Northwest still without power after the strongest wind storm in more than a decade. The storm battered Washington and Oregon.

And a desperate search and a race against time on Oregon's Mt. Hood. Crews are back on the hunt for three missing climbers. After days of blizzard conditions, the weather has cleared today allowing the search to resume.

In the Middle East, an impassioned call from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for nearly -- for early rather elections. The move is a bid to try to end the stalemate in forming a unity government with Hamas. After the call, an immediate rejection from Hamas. The militant group controls the Palestinian cabinet and parliament.

And in Iraq, a new attempt to bridge the gap between Sunnis and Shiites. At a national reconciliation conference in Baghdad, Iraq's Shiite prime minister made overtures to the country's Sunni minority. Nouri al-Maliki says Iraqis should stop digging into the past.

At the International Space Station, another busy day for the shuttle Discovery crew. A space walk is on today's schedule. Astronauts are re-wiring the orbiting space station and they'll try to get a stubborn solar panel folded up.

New bombshells rock the Duke rape case. A DNA expert says he and the prosecutor agreed to hold back information that could have helped the lacrosse players accused of assaulting a dancer. Our correspondent Joe Johns goes into that and other developments in that case.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOE JOHNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): What will most likely end here began here on the night of March 13th. An off-campus party by Duke University lacrosse players, two exotic dancers hired to perform, showed up at the door.

One of them claims she was gang raped in a bathroom by Dave Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann. All three Duke players were indicted for rape. All three say they are innocent and in a case full of surprises comes three new huge bombshells.

First, the accuser is pregnant and the prosecutor says she's due in February, but sources tell CNN she could give birth at any time. The defense and the prosecution believe none of the players is the father. The judge has ordered a paternity test. Then there's this.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He looks just like him, without the mustache.

JOHNS: You're looking at something we rarely see, part of an actual police lineup tape showing the alleged victim in the station being asked to point on a screen if she recognizes the suspects.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He was the one that was standing in front of me.

JOHNS: Defense attorneys allege the lineup was biased because it consisted of only the Duke lacrosse players wearing the team uniform. The judge will decide if it's admissible.

LISA PINTO, LEGAL EXPERT: They showed her photos of lacrosse players. There was no control here. There was no photos of other guys from the street, so clearly the police were involved in pushing her to make an identification of some kind, and then what stems from that should be thrown out of the courtroom.

JOHNS: There's more. Outside the courthouse, a shocking charge from the defense, accusing the district attorney of burying evidence, holding on to it for months, when he should have handed it over immediately.

The lawyer says the prosecutor knew a DNA report found no match between the accuser and the defendants. He wants to know why it took so long to tell him so.

JOSEPH CHESHIRE, ATTORNEY: We are extremely troubled by that. We will get all of what was said today and we will look at it and we will review it, and we will act on it.

JOHNS: There's been a lot of talk about how important DNA is to this case, but one legal expert says science shouldn't be the ultimate factor.

PINTO: The trouble with DNA nowadays with all the TV shows with crime scenes and people in lab coats is that the American juries believe that there should be some compelling forensic evidence in order to convict a defendant of a crime, but that's not what the law says.

JOHNS: Joe Johns, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: And one more bombshell. North Carolina Congressman Walter B. Jones is asking the Justice Department to investigate the district attorney's handling of the case. Jones says Mike Nifong may have engaged in prosecutorial misconduct and violated the students' civil rights.

Let's hear what our experts have to say. Avery Friedman is a civil rights attorney and law professor. Good to see you.

AVERY FRIEDMAN, CIVIL RIGHTS ATTORNEY: Hi, Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: And Richard Herman is a New York criminal defense attorney. Good to see you as well.

RICHARD HERMAN, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Hi, Fred.

WHITFIELD: All right Avery, let me begin with you. Civil rights violations involving these lacrosse players. Do you see that as feasible?

FRIEDMAN: Never going to happen. A very interesting political development, but the fact is Mike Nifong under existing Supreme Court case law, Fredricka, is absolutely immune from prosecution. Now there may be possible civil rights claims after the end of the trial against certain police officers, but we really have a long way to go to see what kind of evidence surfaces.

WHITFIELD: Richard?

HERMAN: Well, I just don't agree with that. I think and I've been calling for a criminal investigation of this guy from very early on. He has violated.

WHITFIELD: Of Nifong?

HERMAN: Nifong -- of his ethical obligations. He has no -- he has no chance, no chance to possibly get a conviction in this case. Forget about the science, forget about there's no DNA which would have helped him. There's no DNA, just DNA of other people on and in her, but, instead, she has 15 different versions of what happened.

The jury is going to hear. The burden of proof is on the prosecution to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt, 15 different versions, her own dancer came with her and discredits everything she said.

WHITFIELD: So I'm hearing from you, Richard, that this case is simply a mess. You don't even think it should go to trial. Is it that messy?

HERMAN: It is that messy, Fred. This case should not go to trial. This prosecutor, this unethical prosecutor, has ruined the lives of these three gentlemen.

FRIEDMAN: Oh, hold it, wait.

HERMAN: These men are innocent until proven guilty. They have been thrown out of school. Their lives have been turned upside down. It's outrageous what's going on in North Carolina.

WHITFIELD: Avery, you go.

FRIEDMAN: We've got the criminal law mixed up with the question you asked, Fredricka. The question is, are there civil rights claims that these young men have?

And based on existing precedent, I don't care how lousy this case is, and I'm not going to disagree with that. The question is what's the state of the law and in so far as the civil rights claim, you want to have a congressional investigation, that's fine. It's not going to happen, but there is no claim against the prosecutor, who I agree doesn't have a chance at winning this case.

WHITFIELD: So what aside from these civil rights violation accusations really puts this entire case, Richard, in your view in jeopardy?

HERMAN: Fred, there is no case. They can't possibly prove a prima facie case here. The only evidence they are going to have is this alleged victim, who already gave 15 different versions, was found passed out in a car in some parking lot that night with DNA on and in her of three other people who screwed up three different lineups here.

It's outrageous, and now you've got side deals. Can you imagine a jury hearing about a side deal between Nifong and the medical examiner to withhold information? Can you imagine when a jury hears that?

FRIEDMAN: That doesn't even get to the jury. That doesn't even get to the jury.

WHITFIELD: It doesn't, but has already kind of tainted the jury pool because everyone is hearing about every little nuance in the case including now the judge asking for a paternity test involving this young lady, and whether her pregnancy has anything to do with these allegations involving these lacrosse players, Avery?

FRIEDMAN: Right. I mean, whatever value the paternity test is going to be, I think it's marginal at best. This incident occurred on the 13th of March. We're now 10 months later, but more importantly and I'm in accord with the fact that DNA Securities, which is this private firm hooked up with the prosecutor and made a decision unilateral to withhold evidence on the basis that it was the right thing. That's a terrible thing to do. The fact is, those are legal issues which a court has to consider. It's not a jury issue.

WHITFIELD: OK.

FRIEDMAN: But again, if you look at the big picture this case drips, well, it's soaked in reasonable doubt.

WHITFIELD: All right, well there's another case that I really want to get you all's thoughts on, and this is dealing with executions on hold in Florida.

Governor Jeb Bush calling them off all together at least temporarily after prison officials botched the execution of this man, convicted killer Angel Nieves Diaz. A medical examiner says it just took too long, 34 minutes for him to die from lethal injection.

He also required a second dose apparently because the needles were inserted in the wrong place. So there's a moratorium on executions in California as well. A federal judge there ruled lethal injection could violate the constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Let's talk about Florida first and Avery, I feel like we've had this conversation before about a botched execution in Florida so what is going on? Are we saying that whether it's Florida or California, they're just not carrying out these executions properly? Is there a big problem in the system?

FRIEDMAN: Well, the Supreme Court has held, Fredricka, that capital punishment, either by lethal injection or similar to that, are constitutional.

The issue here is how they are doing it, and I think Governor Bush is exactly right. He is avoiding what happened in San Jose, California where a federal judge held that the way they are carrying out capital punishment violates the eighth amendment to the constitution. You know what? You can find thousands of American first-year nursing students who know how to do an injection.

What kind of prison officials in Ocala can't do something as basic as that? They are the reason that this whole controversy has occurred, and Governor Bush is correct in looking into how to do it right.

HERMAN: Right. Fred, the problem in Florida was that when they decided to give the three-drug cocktail, which is the protocol here, the first drug being the barbiturate which renders the person unconscious, the second drug being the paralyzing agent, which basically prevents you from breathing and moving and speaking. And then the third drug which basically stops your heart -- when they tried to give the first drug to render the person unconscious, they couldn't find the vein, so it was just going in under the skin, not into the vein.

It took 34 minutes to execute this person in Florida, and the courts all over the United States, 37 states, have this death penalty. Courts have held that it is unconstitutional to render the second and third drugs if the person is not unconscious, and that's a big problem, but like Avery said, there are thousands and thousands of people who know how to give injections properly.

The California judge has basically noted that in his decision. This will be remedied. This is not the end of it. The death penalty is going nowhere.

WHITFIELD: Yes, that California judge saying it really can be fixed. He's not necessarily saying it needs to be done away with all together,but just fix the problem.

FRIEDMAN: Right.

WHITFIELD: Avery and Richard, thanks so much and happy holidays.

HERMAN: Bye, Fred.

FRIEDMAN: Same to you, take care.

WHITFIELD: Well, coming up our own space expert, Miles O'Brien will have the latest on today's space walk many miles above us all.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Some of the stories making news across America now. The bodyguard for a Chicago Bears player was shot to death at a bar. Chicago police can't say for certain whether the Bears' defensive tackle Tank Johnson was present during the shooting. The Bears say Johnson will not play in tomorrow's game, however.

Another restaurant food scare. More than 250 people got sick after eating at an Olive Garden restaurant in Indianapolis. The restaurant has been closed while health officials investigate. This follows a recent e. Coli outbreak at several Taco Bell restaurants.

And just three weeks after Senator Evan Bayh tossed his hat into the ring, he's now taking it back out. The Indiana Democrat says he will not be a candidate for president after all. He says the odds against him were just too steep.

While one Democrat is getting out of the presidential race, one Republican may be getting in. Aides say Tommy Thompson has filed exploratory papers with the Federal Election Commission. Thompson was President Bush's first Health and Human Services secretary. He is also a former Wisconsin governor.

And now for something that's out of this world, a space walk is getting underway outside the International Space Station and CNN's space correspondent Miles O'Brien is following it from New York. What's the latest?

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, Fred. They are about 20 minutes into the space walk, and we just lost the big wide picture which really gave you a great sense of the scale of the space station versus the space walkers.

Take a look at what it looks like to be a spacewalker. This is a helmet display for I believe this is Sunny Williams, the space walking rookie on this mission and soon to spend six months on the International Space Station. She's there, the beginning of a long stay there, and what they are -- there you see them just a few moments ago coming out of the hatch.

That is Robert Curbeam, you can tell it's him. He's got red stripes. See those red stripes. Sunny Williams with the unstriped suit and they are beginning their six-hour space walk to do some significant re-wiring to the International Space Station.

Right now the U.S. portion of the space station has been on sort of a temporary wiring rig for about the last six years. There you see Sunny Williams is about to make her way out as well and they're going to continue the process of unplugging, plugging in a series of cables with close coordination with folks on the ground.

This is as much a space walk about the folks on the ground sending up computer commands, making sure things are off when they should be, on when they should be as, it is for the space walkers to do their plugging and unplugging.

Now take a look back at the live picture. You can see right now. You can see some of the pictures. There's the big wide shot I wanted to show you, and let's -- I want to try to find everybody. It's kind of hard to find them in the infrastructure.

Right up here, that's Sunny Williams up there. It really gives you a sense of the scale of the space station. This is the destiny lab. That's the U.S. laboratory component, the unity module, which is kind of a connector joint for a tinker toy kind of thing.

And a minute ago I saw -- there he is. There he is. There's Beamer. Robert Curbeam, as they do their work on the space station and do the rewiring work.

In any case if they have some time and they get all the wiring done and the last time they were out, Beamer was with another spacewalk at that time, they did things way ahead of schedule, and they may get to a problem that they have had with this solar ray which would not attract all the way.

On Wednesday they tried to bring it in and get it out of the way for a move later, and it only got to about -- stop it right about there. It got to about that point. Now it's important that they retract it because they are bringing -- part of the wiring thing is to bring the solar rays online, and they need to rotate to do their jobs that had to be out of the way. So they are going to try to take care of fixing a problem with the folding on this solar ray. I'll show you quickly how they wiggled it and did a series of things trying to get that -- essentially refold a map. And the wiggling hasn't worked. They even tried exercising inside the space station to wiggle it a little more. No matter what they did, they haven't been able to get this thing unjammed. If they have time, they may go over and do what you and I would do here on earth, which is go up and try to jiggle it and get it back in place.

WHITFIELD: All right, good job. Thanks so much, Miles.

Well, next, tracking down a pretty heavy sleeper. Find out what happened when this man was found asleep on the rails.

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WHITFIELD: So he's no sleeping beauty. Maybe a tipsy Rip Van Winkle? A judge fines a man for taking 40 winks on a train track. Here's ITV reporter Paul Davies.

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PAUL DAVIES, ITV CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It looked like a body on the busy railway line outside Epsom Station. Only a witness noticed the body was snoring.

Former company director Kevin Craswell was drunk when he wandered onto the track, laid his head on the rail and went to sleep. A police helicopter filmed the chaos that ensued. Trains on four lines had to be stopped and diverted.

Railway workers had to disconnect power, because Mr. Craswell's foot was just a few inches from the third live rail. And through all the drama, he slept on, even when a train passed just a few feet from where he slept, oblivious to the noise, oblivious to the risk and unaware that thousands of commuter journeys were being disrupted. Eventually, when the track was safe, police officers and paramedics were able to reach him and only then did he wake up.

(on camera): Kevin Craswell says he's deeply ashamed of what he did that day. He says he had been drinking so heavily, he has absolutely no recollection of walking onto the track here and then lying down to sleep on it. British transport police say he's incredibly lucky not to have been electrocuted.

GRAHAM COTTINGTON, BRITISH TRANSPORT POLICE: If he had outstretched his leg, he would have touched the third rail and he would have been electrocuted at 750 volts. If he had moved his leg one foot, he would have been dead.

DAVIES (voice-over): A recovering alcoholic, Kevin Craswell was told he could be been sent to jail. Instead, he was fined and ordered to undertake community service. Paul Davies, ITV News, Epsom.

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WHITFIELD: All right, well CNN's "Welcome to the Future" is next. That's some lucky man, I still can't believe it.

Then at 4:00 p.m. Eastern, find out how you can fight back against reckless drivers this holiday travel season. A check of the day's headlines is next and then CNN's "Welcome to the Future."

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