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Interview with Gladys & Jamie Scott; Delaware Uproots Neighborhood Basketball Goals; Supreme Court Rules Against Death Row Inmate Wrongfully Convicted; Plane Lands Safely with Gaping Hole in Fuselage; Plant Leaking Radioactive Water; Deadly Protests Against Koran Burning Spread in Afghanistan

Aired April 02, 2011 - 17:00   ET

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

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My husband and I looked up and saw blue sky. We can see the wiring, the cabling. We looked at each other and thought, "Oh, my gosh. This is not a good sign," immediately put our heads down -

(END AUDIO CLIP)

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: She's being calm about that one. Because some scary moments aboard a southwest airlines flight after a hole opens in the roof. Can you imagine? Now the airline is grounding some planes. This is important information that you need to know. We'll going to have a live report in just moments.

Plus this, you're looking at a live picture of the plane right now, by the way. We'll have this for you as well.

OK. So, remember those sisters in Mississippi who were released from prison for a kidney transplant? We're talking about the Scott sisters. They were hoping for a pardon from the Mississippi governor, but that may not be happening. And I'll talk to them live in just a few minutes.

And what's the world coming to when the state comes in to tear down a neighborhood favorite. You're right, it's a basketball goal. Got any hoops on your street? Then you're going to want to pay attention to this story, you're going to want to watch it.

I'm Don Lemon at the CNN World Headquarters in Atlanta. Thanks for joining us. The "CNN Newsroom" starts right now.

And we begin with a terrifying, really white-knuckle flight aboard a southwest airlines plane. The Boeing 737 was at 36,000 feet en route from Phoenix to Sacramento yesterday when the unthinkable happened. A giant hole popped open in the top of that plane. The pilot quickly descended and made an emergency landing at a military air strip in Yuma, Arizona, but it was quite a scary ride.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: I was texting my sister to make certain that she told my kids that I loved them.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: It was in back of me to the left. And I did hear it. It sounded like a shot and a lot of air decompressing. It was quick and it was scary.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: You know what was interesting is, you know, usually when you fly, no one is talking to each other. On our flight out of Yuma, everyone talking, having a good time, and just thankful to be alive.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: All right. I bet they are thankful to be alive. No one was hurt except for some battered nerves, of course. And our Ted Rowlands is in Yuma live now. Ted, we see the plane over your shoulder there. Southwest is now checking its fleet for what they call skin fatigue. What is that? And is this plane really old enough to have skin fatigue?

TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, no, it shouldn't be, but it could have skin fatigue and that's one of the things that they're looking at. Obviously, they haven't ruled anything out. This investigation has just begun. But as you alluded to, they have pulled, southwest has number of their planes and their fleet out of action, so there's been about 300 delayed flights here today, because of that or cancelled flights, so passengers are experiencing a delay because they want to make sure. You look at the plane now behind us. They have covered the gash on the top of the plane. The NTSB has investigators going in the plane.

What they're going to do is they're going to ship some of the data from the flight recorders and actually a piece of the plane, they're going to ship it to Washington to do the analyzing there. And they'll do some work here. They'll going to do a lot of work though in Washington to figure out exactly what happened. We had a chance to talk to the head of the -- the lead investigator, if you will, here on the ground in Yuma just a few minutes ago. He stressed a couple of things. He said, it is vitally important that they figure out exactly what happened here. He also said at this point, there doesn't seem to be any indication that foul play was involved.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT SUMWALT, NTSB VICE CHAIRMAN: The aviation system in this country is extremely safe. And we have hundreds and hundreds of Boeing 737s in the sky at any moment. We will be very carefully looking at this particular event to see if there are system wide deficiencies that need to be addressed, but for now we're just looking at this particular event to see what may have caused it.

ROWLANDS: Can you rule out terrorism?

SUMWALT: Well, at this point, we have no reason to suspect terrorism. However, if we find any indications of that, we will be, of course, alerting the appropriate federal authorities in that respect.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROWLANDS: One of the other things they're doing, Don, is they have sent a team of investigators to southwest's headquarters in Texas and they're going to pore over the maintenance records of this plane. They're also taking into account the two other incidents that did deal with problems with airplane skin, the last in 2009, another southwest plane had a football-size hole in it. It lost cabin pressure. There were no injuries in that case. And then, in 1988 a flight attendant was actually sucked out of a plane, in aloha airplane for the same basic scenario where there was just an unexplainable hole in the aircraft. They said, they're going to take information from here, look at what they learned from those other incidents, compare it and try to figure out as soon as possible what happened here because of course the big fear is, that there are other planes like this in the sky that could be susceptible to the same thing.

LEMON: It's amazing that you have that picture there. As I asked you this next question, if your photographer can push into that, that is quite a big hole in the plane and we see the investigators there now on that wing taking pictures and doing the investigation. Ted, you spoke to the NTSB. You said, the average plane, the average type of plane like this is about 11 years old. This particular plane, Ted, do you know exactly how old it is and has it had an incident before or are they still checking the records of this particular plane?

ROWLANDS: This plane was put into action, if you will, it was certified flyable in 1996. So, but its shelf life should be well over 20 years plus. And according to the sheer data, it wouldn't look as though this plane was aging in any way. So, it would be, you know, it's not a quick, you know, oh, this plane is old and this is what happened and by any stretch of the imagination. This absolutely shouldn't happen. In fact, the investigator from the NTSB stressed that. He said, planes should now have a hole in them after they take off. And that is their goal, to figure out exactly, exactly what happened here. One thing we should stress is the hole you're looking at has been covered by investigators, so it appears to be a little larger than it actually is because they have put some sort of covering on it.

LEMON: All right. Ted Rowlands in Yuma, thank you very much, Ted. Great reporting there. We'll get back to Ted throughout the evening here on CNN. Southwest's entire fleet is made up of various models of the Boeing 737. All told the airline has 548 of them. The fleet has an average age of just over 30 years. Each aircraft flies an average of six flights per day. That's just under 11 hours each day. Southwest is awaiting government approval to buy AirTran Airways, by the way. And as our Ted Rowlands just mentioned moments ago, this sort of incident has happened before in 737s. Perhaps, the most memorable was 23 years ago in 1988 over Hawaii. A 20-foot section of an Aloha Airlines 737 ripped off in flight, midflight. A flight attendant was sucked out of the aircraft and killed.

Another close call in the air today to tell you about. An Atlantic southeast airlines jet, a delta regional partner, was forced to make an emergency landing after striking a block of birds. Look at the damage there, you can see the plane's nose how badly damaged it was and also, the engines as well. The 49 passengers and crew members were shaken up but nobody was hurt, fortunately.

I want to turn now to the ongoing nuclear crisis in Japan. Radioactive water from the Fukushima power plant is flowing into the ocean in significant amounts now, but so far, engineers have not figured out how to stop it. CNN's Martin Savidge is in Tokyo with the very latest. Martin.

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's not the end of a mystery but it is at least a piece of the puzzle. TEPCO officials say that they now believe they know how highly radioactive water is getting into the ocean immediately beside the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. They have found a crack in a tunnel there. It's a tunnel that used to run electric cables, and it sits right beside reactor number two. They found that there was highly radioactive water in that tunnel and it's going through the crack and getting into the ocean. OK, that's where the two are coming together. The question is where is the radioactive water in that tunnel coming from and that's the part of the equation they still don't have the answer to. Talking about water, they're having more and more of a problem of what to do with all the runoff. They have been continuing to pour water onto reactors out there and onto the fuel rod pools.

And as a result of that, the ground has completely saturated as our all the collection pools on the side, they have been shuffling some of that water around trying to make more space but there is no more space to be had, so what do you do? Well, you call in mega float. Mega float is a huge barge that right now is off of a community south of Tokyo. It's actually being used as a floating park. It is going to be brought up to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant and it is capable of holding 18,000 tons of water. This thing is massive. It's about 136 meters long, 46 meters wide, or 450 feet long, 150 feet wide. They will use that to offload all the water that's contaminated and put it on the barge. What they don't know right now is what they will do with that barge once it is completely full of water. In Tokyo, I'm Martin Savidge, back to you.

LEMON: All right. Thank you, Martin for that. Of course Japan is dealing with much bigger problems than just the Fukushima plant. The prime minister today visited one of the areas hardest hit by the tsunami on March 11th. He promised aid to the disaster victims, quote, "to the end."

All right. Some developing news when it comes to politics. President Barack Obama is spending part of his weekend trying to avoid that looming government shutdown. You know it comes at the end of next week. He called both John Boehner, republican speaker of the house, and Harry Reid, the democratic Senate majority leader. The president's message, stop squabbling and reach a solution already. Lawmakers have to pass a new spending plan as we said by Friday when the current short-term bill runs out or the government just shuts down.

A developing story to tell you about in Libya this evening. A NATO air strike takes out the wrong target. We're live from the war zone. New developments in the story out of Mississippi where two sisters served 15 years in prison because of an $11 armed robbery. Reportedly. They are going to join us live to talk about the decision that Governor Haley Barbour is pondering that will determine their future.

And children's basketball goals ripped out of the ground and trashed on camera in front of everyone. It wasn't the work of hooligans. It was state workers who did it. And we're talking to one man and his daughter whose hoop dreams have been denied. I'm online, I know you are too if you want to comment about this story. The stories on our newscast. Check us out on our social media accounts. We're back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Turning now to Libya where NATO forces may have committed one of the worst kinds of mistakes in battle. The Libyan opposition says, NATO air strikes killed 13 rebels in the eastern town of Brega and wounded seven. NATO is sorting out the details. Moammar Gadhafi's forces are showing no sign of backing down after rejecting a cease- fire offer from the rebels. And the opposition says, it has recaptured Brega after losing it on Wednesday to troops loyal to Moammar Gadhafi. And make sure you stay with CNN for the latest on the unrest in the Middle East, make sure you catch our special, it's called "Uprisings, Region in Revolt" this evening at 7:00 p.m. Eastern right here on CNN.

Elsewhere in the Middle East, this. The hunt is on for supposed snipers in the area around Syria's capital of Damascus. The Syrian Arab News agencies sites an unidentified official who claims an armed group killed quote, "a number of citizens and security forces in Damascus in a suburb there." Activists and eyewitnesses dispute that, telling CNN that it was actually government snipers firing shots at unarmed protesters. Meantime, Syrian security forces reportedly arrested about 20 people who took part in anti-regime demonstrations yesterday.

In West Africa's Ivory Coast, fighting grips the main city of Abidjan as the battle for power is claiming hundreds of lives there. Officials say, 800 people have been found shot to death in a single western town. The U.N. blames at least some of the killings on rampaging forces that are loyal to Alassane Ouattara. He is trying to oust disputed President Laurent Gbagbo. Gbagbo is refusing to give up power even though the international community says, Ouattara won the election, the presidential election.

And in Afghanistan, fury over a Koran burning by a Florida pastor has erupted in violence. Nine people are reportedly dead after demonstrations spread to Kandahar where protesters set fire to a school and cars.

(CHANTING)

Yesterday, a crowd stormed the United Nations compound in Mazar-i- Sharif. Seven U.N. workers and five demonstrators were killed. Protesters are furious after a Gainesville, Florida church held an international judge the Koran Day. The church posted a picture of a burning Koran on its Web site. Also in Kabul, three suicide bombers died while trying to attack a NATO base, Afghan authority say, they didn't take any other lives with them.

Two worlds, two truths, does freedom of religion mean freedom from suspicion? CNN's Soledad O'Brien chronicles a dramatic fight over the construction of a mosque in the heart of the Bible belt. Unwelcome, the Muslim's next door airs tonight at 8:00 Eastern right here on CNN.

And coming up, sex on the roof. It's not a new drink, but involves pornographic public displays of affection, maybe a little bit more than that, on a college campus on top of roof. We'll tell you where.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: We should call this next segment viewer discretion advised because there's a warning for this next story. Some images are not appropriate for children and we're showing you the tamer version, the really tamer version of what is some X-Rated PDA. Someone took photos of two students having sex on the rooftop of a 12 story building at the University of Southern California, it happened last weekend. An iReporter says, it happens in front of hundreds of people at a campus fund-raiser.

Our affiliate KTLA has reporting that the man, who attends USC, was suspended from his fraternity. The woman attends another school. What's behind this behavior? I don't know, can we call it crazy? I don't know what we call it. It's definitely exhibitionism of some sort, I would think. And I'm not a human behavior expert like Dr. Wendy Walsh. She's in the house right now. So, Wendy, what do you make of all of this? What do you call this behavior?

DR. WENDY WALSH, PSYCHOLOGIST: Well, it is a kind of exhibitionism but I don't actually know for sure their motivations. But remember, sex feels a lot better to some people when it's filled with fear as well. The whole S&M community knows about that. And I'm not quite sure whether their fear was fear of being discovered and basically anybody having sex outside of a dark room with the blinds closed might have some fear of discovery. But do you know they're sort of doing a canine mimic at the edge. Maybe it's vertigo, she wanted to experience some vertigo as she was feeling aroused, so it's potential. Who knows? What I do know, listen, I do have a friend from the Mexican-American Alumni Association at USC and she was over for dinner the other night, and the rumor is that this young woman is from UCLA, so finally these two rival schools are coming together. That's great. Don, are you there?

LEMON: I'm here. You always make me -- I'm turning rust and blushing. OK, so, you know, you said its fear of being cut. But I mean if you do something which is such a public display of affection there, I would think that might be exhibitionism or just sort of thrill of like, oh, look, everybody is looking at me, everybody is looking at me, so.

WALSH: That's the key word, thrill.

LEMON: Thrill.

WALSH: It increases the thrill factor. LEMON: Should they be punished or should we relax our -- what we think is bad or good about nudity and sex?

WALSH: Well, I think there were some laws that were broken. Don't we have some laws about public nudity and that kind of stuff? And when students break laws, then they're breaking school rules too. So, let the administration take care of that. But yes, there were some laws broken.

All right. Let's move on now, go from roof back to the computer. Maybe, it's safer there. A new Web site, it's called eduHookups.com, eduhookups.com expanding. So, take a look at this. It's just like it sounds. The Web site is a place where college students Dr. Wendy who want a casual sexual encounter, they connect. Is that a good thing or bad? I mean, what's the difference? Isn't that, you know, one of the other Web sites like Craigslist and all that, isn't that what's all about?

WALSH: Yes. Like, first of all, if you want to have sex on a college campus, do you need a Web site, first of all? And secondly, why are we talking about college students having sex? Isn't that sort of hard of what they do, although, you know, a new study came out this week saying that right now, we have record numbers of college virgins, 25 percent apparently are claiming to be a virgin on college campuses. So, the question is really do you need a Web site to hook up? And who are these people that do need a Web site to hook up?

LEMON: OK. So, for college men and older, right, they're going to be able to create a fake girlfriend on Facebook as if we needed more fakes online. A new service cloud girl friends plans to let buyers interact with her publicity on your favorite social network. Would you recommend using a service like this, a fake girlfriend? I don't even understand. What is that all about?

WALSH: You know, Don, it's come part mentalizing the human intimacy experience again. Now, we've separated emotions from the hookup and now we're trying to separate the intimacy experience from the actual live relationship. So, maybe some of these men with the cloud girlfriend are getting their sexual needs met through online pornography, so why not get their emotional needs -- apparently it's a real human who will be responding to them.

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: As if it's their girlfriend. Yes.

WALSH: As if it's their girlfriend. But they don't actually have to date her, see her and I don't necessarily think this is practicing for anything. I think you need a real, live, warm human being to practice intimacy with.

LEMON: What happened to the days of blow-up dolls seems so old- fashioned now.

WALSH: Oh, that was nothing.

LEMON: We're going to get in trouble if we keep on. Thank you, Dr. Wendy.

WALSH: Exactly. Good to see you.

LEMON: Good to see you.

WALSH: OK. On to more serious news now, two sisters released from prison for medical reasons. They're looking for a full pardon. Now, Mississippi's governor weighing in on this topic. And we'll tell you what he has to say and get reaction from the sisters. They'll join me just minutes from now.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: OK. This is a developing story and a very interesting one. Some new developments in the emotionally charged case from Mississippi involving two sisters who served 15 years in prison but were released back in January for medical reasons. One of the sisters, Jamie, needed a kidney transplant and Haley Barbour released them so that Gladys could donate that to her sister. Jamie and Gladys Scott, it looks like Governor Haley Barbour is not convinced though that they need a full pardon. According to his spokesman, a new petition for a pardon will be denied and according to publish reports, the governor is saying, don't hold your breath.

Barbour allowed the Scotts to be released from prison as I said under the condition that Gladys donates a kidney to her sister. The two convicted of an armed robbery, that's reporters say, needed only $11 that they have always maintained their innocence. Gladys and Jamie Scott join me now by phone along with their attorney Chokwe Lumumba. Thank you, ladies, so much for joining us and the attorney as well. What do you make of the news when you hear the governor saying don't hold your breath, I don't think I'm going to pardon you?

JAMIE SCOTT, REQUESTING PARDON: At first it really disturbed me because, you know, what he's saying is he pardoned five -- six men now that all were convicted of murder. And some of them -- one of the cases where they even murdered a 90-year-old elderly person and another case, one of the guys even amputated, you know, chopped someone up and all this and so, you're saying they deserve to be pardoned, but my sister and I who never had a criminal record, hadn't even had a traffic ticket, we don't deserve to be pardoned.

LEMON: Who is speaking right now? Who was that just speaking?

JAMIE SCOTT: This is Jamie sir.

LEMON: That was Jamie speaking.

JAMIE SCOTT: Yes.

LEMON: OK. Jamie, real quickly, how are you doing? Because you're the one who needs the transplant?

JAMIE SCOTT: Yes, I'm doing good. I'm getting better each day and I'm looking forward to coming up off that machine because that machine drives so much life out of me. LEMON: All right. And you needed both of you, you said, you guys needed to lose some weight. I understand you've been exercising, you're losing the weight and you're going to go on with it.

JAMIE SCOTT: Yes.

LEMON: OK. So, Gloria, I'll direct this question to you, you always maintained your innocence, Gladys, excuse me, Gladys you've always maintained your innocence even though there are people who say, not so, you wouldn't have gone to jail, you wouldn't have gotten a double life sentence if you were innocent.

GLADYS SCOTT, REQUESTING PARDON: Yes, that is so true. That's why I don't understand Governor Haley Barbour. He wants us to admit guilt, saying that we're guilty in order for him to give us a pardon. And I will not -- I will not admit that I'm guilty because I am innocent and I have, me and my sister have claimed our innocence from day one. And we're going to keep on. And like my sister say, I don't understand it. It's OK to murder somebody. You'll give a pardon. But somebody that's innocent and is telling the truth and the facts is there, the evidence is there showing that me and my sister is innocent, but we can't go on with our lives because right now, we're under a law of restrictions. We're on parole for the rest of our lives, in which we have to pay $64 a month. We have to ask our probation officer, could we go out, you know, could we go to this place, could we go to that place?

LEMON: You can't vote.

GLADYS SCOTT: No. No, we cannot, we cannot vote. No, we can't vote. I have been trying to look for a job to try to help me and Jamie. And, you know, every time I look for a job and I put convicted felony on there, you know, they never call me, or, you know, I never hear from them no more. You know, if something happen right now, you know, we can't go nowhere unless we get permission. We have to be in the house from 12:00 to 6:00, we cannot leave our house. It's a lot of restriction, and I don't understand.

LEMON: Jamie, real quickly, during the trial, why didn't you guys -- did you say this during the original trial?

JAMIE SCOTT, RELEASED FROM JAIL: No. At the original trial, we was like so many other people. We was ignorant to the law. We trusted our first attorneys. He told us that there was no need -- he said, I don't want you all testifying because they have absolutely no shred of evidence to convict you all. He said, ain't no way you're going nowhere because they have nothing to say you all did this. And we trusted in that. And, you know, we didn't -- it didn't happen the way we trusted in. We knew in our heart that we hadn't committed the crime so we knew it was going to be proven.

And like say, what you said earlier to my sister, there's a lot of people say that we don't deserve a pardon because we was tried and convicted. Let's look at all the millions of people that have been tried and convicted. 20, 30 years later, DNA come back and prove that they was, what, innocent. Everyone in prison don't deserve to be in prison.

LEMON: Jamie, let me ask you this. Do you admit that you at least did something wrong? Were you with the wrong crowd? Did you do something? If not -- if you don't want to admit guilt to the robbery.

JAMIE SCOTT: Are you talking about in order to get a pardon?

LEMON: No. Did you do something wrong on that day by being with the people you were with or, in any way, did you do anything wrong?

JAMIE SCOTT: No, no, no. I knew those guys and I have always admitted to that. I used to party with them.

LEMON: Yes.

JAMIE SCOTT: You know, I used to party with them. I didn't know they was that young because they stayed out all night long. They kept plenty of money. But as the trial went on, I found out those guys were in Mississippi because they did a string of robberies in California from where they was from.

No, I would never, ever say that I did anything wrong because I didn't. I played that night over in my head a thousand times. There's nothing that I could have done different.

LEMON: OK.

Have you tested for the kidney transplant? Are you a match?

JAMIE SCOTT: We have a date. Right now, our lawyer don't want us to disclose the date. The date will be disclosed -- our attorney will handle all that. But I have a date to be tested and to be put on the active list.

LEMON: All right.

Gladys, Jamie, best of luck. Thank you.

GLADYS SCOTT: Thank you.

JAMIE SCOTT: Thank you.

LEMON: We appreciate you coming on.

Of course, the attorney, Shukway Labumba (ph), thank you as well, on the line, making sure that they didn't say anything that would get them in trouble.

So again thanks to all of you. Come back and talk to us once we figure out what's going to happen with the transplant and with the pardon, OK?

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: While the rest of the country is caught up in March madness, kids playing basketball, a common sight all across America. But in this neighborhood, childhood hoop dreams were ripped out of the ground and smashed courtesy of the state of Delaware. The homeowner who cried foul, right after this break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Time now to check your top stories on CNN.

Federal investigators are inspecting a badly damaged Southwest airlines plane in Yuma, Arizona. The plane landed safely at a military air strip yesterday after a gaping hole suddenly tore open in the top of the plane. It happened as the plane was at 36,000 feet, headed to Sacramento from Phoenix. Luckily, no one was hurt, but Southwest is now checking about 80 of its planes for aircraft skin fatigue.

In Japan, official says radioactive water leaking into the ocean from a damaged nuclear plant appears to be coming from an eight-inch crack in a concrete pipe outside the reactor. Efforts to seal the crack today with concrete were not successful. They will try again tomorrow to plug the leak using synthetic material, but they still don't know where the contaminated water is coming from.

In Libya, NATO air strikes may have accidentally killed 13 rebels with friendly fire, according to an opposition spokesman. Seven others were reportedly wounded by the attack in the eastern oil town of Brega. NATO is sorting out the details of exactly what happened.

President Barack Obama is spending part of his weekend trying to avoid a looming government shutdown. He called John Boehner and Harry Reid today. The president's message to them, stop squabbling and reach a solution already. Lawmakers have to pass a new spending plan by Friday when the current short-term bill runs out or the government shuts down.

A quiet cul-de-sac in Delaware has become a battlefield of sorts. The town is Claymont, which is near Philadelphia. The Delaware Department of Transportation, citing a 2005 law, recently went through several suburban neighborhoods yanking basketball hoops out of the ground and hauling them right away. DOT called it a matter of public safety, but one family was having none of it.

Melissa McCafferty, perched on top of her kids' goal to prevent workers from taking it. That was right in front of her house.

DOT returned with state police. Look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(INAUDIBLE)

JOHN MCCAFFERTY, HOMEOWNER: What? You just told me I could keep it. You lied! You said we had the option of keeping the pole.

UNIDENTIFIED POLICE OFFICER: You can come and pick it up --

MCCAFFERTY: No, you didn't say that. You said I could keep my pole. UNIDENTIFIED POLICE OFFICER: You can't right now. Go in the house.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Wow. The man you saw in that video is homeowner, John McCafferty. He joins us now from Philadelphia, with his daughter, Samantha.

Thanks to both of you.

You live on that cul-de-sac. It's not a busy street. How long had the basketball pole been on the curb, John?

MCCAFFERTY: Hi, Don. I bought the house in 2005. I'm part of the civic association. There's two different stories. One is the builders put it up and played basketball on it when they were building my neighborhood. The other is that one of the first or second owners of the house custom built the pole. I'm going to get to the bottom of the legend. But the pole is at least 40, 50 years old.

LEMON: Before I talk to you, Melissa, I see you're holding the basketball. You've got a basketball there, and I know you're a big B- ball fan. Here's what the Delaware DOT says, DelDOT. They sent us a statement. "DelDOT is sympathetic to parents wishing to provide young people with recreational opportunities. However, DelDOT's removal of the basketball hoop at Mr. McCafferty's residence was pursuant to Delaware law, which protects children, motorists and property owners from unsafe recreational areas, such as the street."

If that's true, why didn't they take down all the basketball goals in all neighborhoods? Why did it take them so long, after years and years, to tear this one down? Why were you singled out, John?

MCCAFFERTY: It was a select eight. There was 26 in the neighborhood that remained. It's believed to be a person's route out of the neighborhood and that's why it was this exact eight. It's a route out to -- it's a mile out of the neighborhood to get to the main road.

LEMON: Samantha, what were you thinking during all this? You saw your dad out there talking to the police officers and to the people who took it away --

MCCAFFERTY: She wasn't home.

LEMON: And the mom, of course, you saw her on top of that basketball goal and she stayed there for a long time. What were you thinking?

SAMANTHA MCCAFFERTY, DAUGHTER OF JOHN MCCAFFERTY: I was mostly in school, but I saw the video on YouTube. I think, I was very proud of them. I was really proud that my dad stood for his rights.

LEMON: And when you saw the goal coming down or when you got home from school and it was gone?

SAMANTHA MCCAFFERTY: I was kind of sad, but I'm really happy that we're probably going to get it back. LEMON: So you haven't gotten it back yet?

MCCAFFERTY: No, we did go yesterday with my state representative, Brian Short, he's been working on this since September with the House attorneys from Delaware, the House of Representatives' attorney, and DelDOT's attorney. So going up last September up until the time they were pulling it, attorneys were actually negotiating out whether they even had the right to be there.

LEMON: Yes. Here's the thing. On my block, we have a portable -- someone threw away a portable basketball hoop or goal that needed some repair, and someone -- one of the guys fixed it up in the neighborhood and everyone just goes by and plays basketball. Why not one of the ones on wheels, a portable one. Is that allowed?

MCCAFFERTY: When I bought my house, that's the first thing I saw, and I kids up and down the street playing. I grew up with a basketball pole almost identical to it. I just thought of my childhood memories. Portables are OK but they're disposable. That one has history. Many families up and down that neighborhood have played on that basketball pole.

LEMON: And this was --

MCCAFFERTY: It was the first one on the block.

LEMON: And a neighbor actually called and complained about it, right? Is that who drew --

MCCAFFERTY: One anonymous complaint was sent in. Nobody complained to me or to our civic association. Nobody every complained to the police. For some reason, one complaint was sent to DelDOT.

LEMON: All the ones we saw in the back of -- there was a bunch in the back of the truck. Were they from the same street or all from your neighborhood?

MCCAFFERTY: Three of them from my street that were all cemented in and had been there at least since the '70s. The other streets had some that were permanent and some that were portable.

LEMON: Yes.

So, Samantha, what do you want to say to the people who took your goal down and the person who called to complain about it?

MCCAFFERTY: That's for them to work with. We just want to go out and play basketball again. That's all we want to do.

MCCAFFERTY: Yes.

LEMON: I'm sorry, Samantha, go ahead.

SAMANTHA MCCAFFERTY: Nothing really. Because I don't like to be mean, and this is for everyone else to deal with, not really for me.

LEMON: You just want to play basketball, right?

SAMANTHA MCCAFFERTY: Yes. Yes.

MCCAFFERTY: Yes.

LEMON: Samantha and John, thank you, OK.

MCCAFFERTY: Don, thank you very much. You have a great day.

SAMANTHA MCCAFFERTY: Bye.

LEMON: You too.

MCCAFFERTY: Bye.

LEMON: And speaking of basketball, time now for a quick basketball tournament update. The Butler Bulldogs are hoping to make their second straight NCAA men's finals. They have to get through Virginia Commonwealth first, another team almost no one predicted would make it this far. Those two teams meet a little later in Houston. What that came is over, it's Kentucky versus Connecticut, two teams everyone expected to make a run for the title. The national championship game Monday night.

Held on death row more than a decade, he won $14 million in damages, but the Supreme Court this week ruled against him. What is going on? Our legal analyst, Sunny Hostin, will explain.

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LEMON: Let's talk legal matters now. As always, Sunny Hostin is here. She's a contributor to "In Session" on our sister network, TruTV.

I'd like to say it's always sunny when Sunny Hostin is around. So, Sunny --

SUNNY HOSTIN, CONTRIBUTOR, IN SESSION: Oh, you're too kind.

(LAUGHTER)

LEMON: Come on, it's the truth, though.

Let's start with the Supreme Court today. By a 5-4 decision this week, justices threw out a $14 million verdict awarded to a New Orleans man who was wrongly convicted of murder and spent 14 years on death row. So this man, John Thompson, is his name, spent all of those years on death row and he was innocent. Why did the high court rule against him?

HOSTIN: You know, this is a tough case. This case was about the fact that prosecutors hid exculpatory evidence, evidence that would have freed him, from the defense team. And the defense team later found this years after he was on death row. And this man was arguing, listen, the district attorney, the person in charge, failed to train his prosecutors and failed to let them know they had to turn over this evidence. Supreme Court said that's not true. This isn't a pattern of indifference. Lawyers learn about this in law school. So this was an isolated case. So, no, you're not going to get the $14 million that you were awarded.

I will say this, this was a sharply divided Supreme Court. Ruth Bader Ginsburg read her dissent from the bench, and that is very unusual. And she said, no, this was wrong. He certainly should get the $14 million. And so a lot of legal experts are saying now this is sort of shutting the door on prosecutors being held responsible for these wrongful convictions.

LEMON: That's what I was going to say. Are prosecutors ever held liable in these situations? They are, right? But you said this is shutting the door to that.

HOSTIN: It's rare. Prosecutors have what's prosecutorial immunity. And that is because it is difficult for a prosecutor to do his or her job if they think they're going to be put in jail for doing their job. But sometimes their supervisors are sometimes found liable, but it's so rare. And after this Supreme Court decision, very unlikely.

LEMON: It's not worth the added burden they believe puts on top of it.

HOSTIN: Let's talk about bullying, Sunny. A 13-year-old Texas boy, his name is John Carmichael, killed himself one year ago this week and his parents have just filed a $20 million lawsuit against officials at his former school. They say their son was being bullied but the school did nothing about it.

Sunny, the details pretty rough here. If the parents' claims are true, the son endured more than just stereotypical bullying. Can school employees be held liable in a case like this?

HOSTIN: Yes. Certainly, I think they can be. This is a case, if the allegations are true, as you mentioned, it really, really went to the next level. This was a kid that was bullied, apparently stripped naked and put in a trash can with other -- with supervisors, with school personnel watching. And this was also placed on YouTube. Someone called, a supervisor called to report it. So people saw this, teachers saw this, supervisors saw this and didn't intervene. Apparently, looked the other way. I think in a case like that, if those allegations are true, absolutely, they may very well be held responsible.

LEMON: And I have to read the statement. Here's what the school superintendent says. He wouldn't comment on the case but he did say this, Sunny, that, "The school system has had anti-bullying policies in place for at least a dozen years." So, Sunny, how much responsibility does the school have to prevent bullying?

HOSTIN: Well, a high responsibility. I mean, certainly, parents expect that when their kids are at school, they are safe, and that the adults there are taking care of things. So absolutely, schools are now really held responsible for making sure that they do have these anti-bullying policies. and there's a lot of legislation now because we know bullying is happening so much. You see all of these sort of public service announcements now even on "Cartoon Network" and "Nickelodeon" and those sorts of networks. Absolutely, schools are held responsible. And shouldn't they be?

LEMON: Yes.

HOSTIN: I think they should be.

LEMON: And this one is terrible. As you said, video was put on YouTube, and the school watched it, the superiors.

HOSTIN: Disgraceful.

LEMON: Yes. Sunny, thank you. Much appreciated.

HOSTIN: Thanks.

LEMON: A former child actor on a very successful sitcom is now on the way to becoming a successful lawyer and doing it blind. Dr. Sanjay Gupta introduces him straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Each week we take a look at ordinary people who are accomplishing extraordinary things as part of our "Human Factor" series. Isaac Lidsky first drew attention as a young actor on TTV, but his real goal was to study law. But that goal may have seemed in doubt when, as a teenager, he was told he was going blind. CNN chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, tells the story.

(HUMAN FACTOR)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Let's check your top stories.

Federal investigators are now inspecting a badly damaged Southwest Airlines plane in Yuma, Arizona. The 737 jet landed safely at a military air strip after a gaping hole suddenly tore open in the top of the plane. It happened as the plane was at 36,000 feet, headed to Sacramento from Phoenix. No one was hurt, but Southwest is now checking about 80 of its planes for aircraft skin fatigue.

In Japan, officials say radioactive water leaking into the ocean from a damaged nuclear plant appears to be coming from an eight-inch crack in a concrete pipe outside the reactor. Efforts to seal the crack today with concrete were not successful. They will try again tomorrow to plug the leak using synthetic material but they still don't know where the contaminated water is coming from.

In Libya, NATO air strikes may have accidentally killed 13 rebels with friendly fire, according to a Libyan opposition spokesman. Seven others were reportedly wounded by the attack in eastern oil -- in the eastern oil town of Brega. NATO is still sorting the details of what happened. Coming up at 7:00 p.m. eastern here on CNN, a special report. It's called "Uprisings: Region in Revolt." We devote the hour to uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East. Please join me, 7:00 p.m. eastern, on CNN.

In the meantime, I'm Don Lemon at the CNN headquarters in Atlanta. Thank you so much for watching. We'll be back here in one hour.

"THE SITUATION ROOM" with Wolf Blitzer begins right now.