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Tsarnaev Trial; Author Offers Apology; Kenya Massacre. Aired 2- 2:30p ET

Aired April 06, 2015 - 14:00   ET

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


[14:00:06] BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Good afternoon. I'm Brianna Keilar, in for Brooke Baldwin.

Nearly two years after the deadliest terror attack to hit the city of Boston, the 2013 marathon bombings, closing arguments in the case against the man charged in the attack are now underway. Twenty-one- year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev faces 30 federal counts, 17 of them carrying the death penalty or life in prison. And these charges include setting off weapons of mass destruction, acts of terrorism, conspiracy, aiding and abetting the attack and murder. The jury could get the case this afternoon and the judge has already given the jury its instructions. The defense is due up soon. The prosecution argued that Tsarnaev, quote, "chose a day when the eyes of the world would be on Boston. He chose a day when there would be civilians on the sidewalks, men, women, and children."

CNN's Alexandra Field is in Boston watching these arguments.

Give us a sense of the mood in the courtroom today, Alexandra.

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Brianna.

It's really as emotional as we've seen it over the course of this trial. And, remember, there's been some incredibly heavy, searing testimony from incredibly compelling witnesses who testified over the course of this so that gives you some feeling of what's going on in there. We're seeing a lot of people, frankly, just wiping tears out of their eyes. There are so many survivors of the blast who are in that courtroom right now. Very markedly, very pointedly, they have to listen to headphones in order to hear much of what's going on in the front of the courtroom. That's because, you'll remember, that during the blast so many people suffered injuries to their hearing. A lot of these people are with family members. There are also family members of some of the victims who lost their lives. Officer Sean Collier and the three victims of the marathon bombing.

This has been an incredibly painful, emotional day in that courtroom. The prosecution is meticulously moving to retell the story that they put together over 15 days of testimony, during which they called some 92 different witnesses. They're showing some of the heartbreaking images, some incredibly graphic images of the death and the devastation that followed in the path of both of the Tsarnaev brothers, the prosecution alleges.

They are also trying to tell a narrative here to the jury in which Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was an equal partner in these crimes with his brother because remember, Brianna, the defense has repeatedly said that it was Tamerlan who led Dzhokhar who followed. So in these closing statements, the prosecution doing everything they can to tell the jury that he participated in a number of these crimes. We're talking about 30 different charges. They really want the jury to go back into that room where they're going to deliberate and consider these two brothers as equal partners because just one of them is able to stand trial for these crimes.

Brianna.

KEILAR: Yes, it's so key to their case. We'll be watching with you in these key moments.

Alex Field, thank you.

The state's closing arguments lasted one hour and 20 minutes. Court has now, at this point, recessed for lunch. And when it resumes, it will be the defense's turn. All eyes will be on Tsarnaev's attorney, Judy Clarke, and what she says to try to save her client's life.

Joining me now to talk about this, we have CNN legal analyst and defense attorney Mark Geragos.

Mark, thanks so much for being with us.

MARK GERAGOS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: My pleasure.

KEILAR: And you look at most of these charges. You have Tsarnaev, who's accused of aiding and abetting. He's accused of conspiracy. What are the key issues here for the jury to consider?

[14:04:40] GERAGOS: Well, I hate to kind of ruin the suspense of it, but the defense is basically going to concede most of these counts. They - the defense's job and Judy - and the reason Judy Clarke is there is not to try to defend against the guilt phase of this case, but is really to try and set this up. And the argument is going to be to set up or to give you a preview of the penalty phase. And the penalty phase will be that she's going to try to argue, and forcefully argue, for life without parole as opposed to the death penalty. So everything she's doing from the beginning at the opening statement where she was talking about it was him, to now when she says it was him but, as you've seen, the description of him and she's tried to paint a portrait and she's going to flesh this out during the penalty phase, of somebody who was manipulated, troubled and dominated by his older brother.

KEILAR: OK. So I want to talk about some of the logistics that we saw. This was interesting to us. The judge gave the jury instructions first before the closing arguments. And these are instructions that lasted more than an hour. Then he's going to give the jury written instructions - a written version of what he told them. Is that normal? And what kind of impact does this have on the jury?

GERAGOS: Well, it's becoming increasing the trend, especially in federal court, for judges to - this is called pre-instruct. And that means before the attorneys argued, the judge gives them the law, then also will tell them that I'll give you the instructions to take back into the jury room. The reason or the thinking behind that is if the jurors know here's the law, then the lawyers can argue the law and then tell the jurors, look, you're the judges of the facts. The judge just told you what the law is. You have to follow the law. But, ultimately, you're the ones who judge what the facts are and you apply them to the law.

I think it's a good trend, frankly, and I like it when judges pre- instruct. I think it's helpful for the lawyers because it gives you the legal landscape.

KEILAR: OK. I want to bring in Ashleigh Banfield, CNN anchor, into this conversation. She's been following this case every day as it's gone on.

And, Ashleigh, you just heard Mark talking about how this phase for Judy Clarke is really about laying out a preview of the penalty phase and ultimately trying to prove that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was led around by his brother, that he wasn't an equal partner in this. But do you think the defense really has a chance here to spare his life? You have this evidence that's just overwhelming.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, ANCHOR, CNN'S "LEGAL VIEW": Yes.

KEILAR: What do you think?

BANFIELD: Well, I always love listening to Mark Geragos, because he's a lot smarter about this stuff than I am. But one thing I'll tell you I watched very closely was the wording of every single count. And, Mark, you'll agree, I know you will, every single one of the 30 counts has either the word "conspiracy" or "aiding and abetting." I don't see how you can get around that. Everybody if big brother Tamerlan led him by the hand, there's a conspiracy and there's an aid and abet even all the way down to the gun charges. I mean you've got weapons of mass destruction charges, which carry with them the death penalty, and you've got the gun charges, which re far less egregious than those. But I don't know how Judy Clarke, as smart as she is, is ever going to convince this jury that aiding and abetting, you know, can be avoided here, even if his big brother told him what to do.

KEILAR: And what about, Mark, the -

GERAGOS: Right, and I -

KEILAR: Yes, go on.

GERAGOS: I was just going to say, I mean, you know, spot on. She isn't. She - what she's doing, she - the - there is no question here that the guilt phase is a foregone conclusion. What they're looking for is the penalty phase and they're looking for mitigation evidence and they're looking to do that and to preview it for the jury at this point. They don't want - the last thing you want to do with a jury is insult their intelligence when it comes to the guilt phase because you have no credibility left at the penalty phase if you really don't think you've got a shot. And there really is no shot in the guilt phase here. And they've - they've already pretty much conceded that from the get go in the opening statements. So, Ashleigh, I wouldn't disagree with you at all. I think that's exactly what she's going to do with an idea that for the penalty phase spare his life.

BANFIELD: I don't know how they - I don't know how they get past that, Mark. I don't know how they get past that, reading this extraordinary jury form that's probably going to go on for upwards of a few dozen pages and then just forget about that later when they're asked to check off aggravators and mitigators and they know full well they're going to be checking off those aggravators. They just know it.

KEILAR: Yes, and this is a -

GERAGOS: Well, take a look, though, with the cases that Judy - that Judy Clarke has defended. I mean the Susan Smith case. Jared Loughner. You know, she -

BANFIELD: (INAUDIBLE), yes.

GERAGOS: She is known for Kaczynski and the Unabomber. I mean she's known for these kinds of defenses and for kind of telegraphing to the jury, yes, he did it but and he did it but is kind of what her specialty is.

MCGUIRK: Yes, and we'll see - we'll -

BANFIELD: Yes. I just wish - I wish I could be a fly on the wall with her conversations with the man who likely wants to be a martyr and likely wants to die.

KEILAR: Yes.

BANFIELD: Don't know how you work with someone like that.

KEILAR: All right. And this is a very key day. We'll be watching with you. Mark and Ashleigh, thank you so much.

Next, for the first time, CNN is being allowed on the college campus where dozens of people were killed in a terror attack. See what we found. Hear from one student who hid for two whole days.

Plus, as "Rolling Stone" apologizes and retracts its story about a gang rape at UVA, one of the accuser's friends will join me live on how this impacts future victims of sex assault.

And breathtaking moments as passengers rush to save a woman from a train.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:13:13] KEILAR: It's actions are being called an institutional failure and now "Rolling Stone" magazine is facing a possible lawsuit over its article, "A Rape on Campus." CNN has learned the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity plans to pursue all available legal action against the magazine. This coming a day after the Columbia Journalism School published a scathing review of the story. At the same time, "Rolling Stone" officially retracted the story of a woman that it called Jackie, a University of Virginia student who allegedly was gang raped at a fraternity part in 2012. The review found that if Jackie was attacked, the article doesn't include enough evidence to support her claim. And it also says that all of this may have been avoided if the writer, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, had made more phone calls, especially to the friends who Jackie talked to in the days following her alleged rape. One of those friends is Alex Pinkleton and she is kind enough right now to join me now from Charlottesville, Virginia, to talk about this.

You're a friend of Jackie's, Alex. Also you're a sexual assault survivor. And you're someone who was mentioned in the article. You know the author has apologized, saying that, "I hope my mistakes in reporting this story do not silence the voices of victims that need to be heard." I know that you think that is so key. Do you accept her apology? Do you think it's enough?

ALEXANDRIA PINKLETON, FRIEND OF "JACKIE": I think her apology could have been better for sure. I think what she pointed to is her mistakes were that she put so much trust in this one source. And I don't really think that should have been part of what she called a mistake because it's not a mistake to believe someone who says they're sexual assaulted, it's not a mistake to want to protect them at all. The mistake was the fact that she, as a journalist, didn't verify the story. And that's really where she went wrong.

KEILAR: Now, yourself, as a victim yourself, where do you want to see this conversation go? And are you worried that because of the fact that this article in "Rolling Stone" has really been - has come into question, are you worried that this changes the conversation in a way that's bad for sex assault victims?

PINKLETON: I think it has the potential to be detrimental to sexual assault victims, but I also think that there's a lot of opportunity to now say, now that we have this story past us, what does sexual assault on college campuses really look like? And if we're looking at an accurate portrayal, I think you would see a range of experiences on the spectrum with a lot of nuances, such as alcohol involved and like if they know the perpetrator, which statistics show that the majority of people do.

So I think when you have those nuances and you factor in that a lot of experiences are not that violent in terms of the bloody image that was portrayed in the article, then I think that if we re-evaluate what we're actually dealing with on college campuses and then from there talk about prevention efforts and how to adjudicate these crimes, I think that we have a great opportunity to now refocus ourselves.

KEILAR: You were - you can - or, Alex, I should say, Jackie confided in you. You were mentioned in this article. If the author, Erdely, had contacted you and asked you about this recounting, what would you have told her that would have been different?

PINKLETON: So, she did contact me and I was in contact with her throughout the process of the article. However, she - when she first initially approached me was talking about my own assault and wasn't referencing Jackie's. But then later on it turned into an article just focusing on Jackie's and I became the supportive figure. So in that role I talked -

KEILAR: But that portrayal - that portrayal of you as a supportive figure, was that something that was, I guess, conceived of by Jackie, not as much as - not as much by you, right, your descriptions?

PINKLETON: So, I did talk to her as a friend of Jackie's to tell her about what I had done to support her. But I also - the majority of the time talked about my advocacy efforts. And then, in the article, that was left out completely and she painted it as UVA's environment is without a strong feminist base, it's without any sort of survivor support, which is completely untrue. I had been supporting her for a really long time and other people as well. And we do have people that, when they come to you and say I've been sexually assaulted, the majority of people don't react how Sabrina had portrayed the three friends in the article that they would say, oh, my reputation would be in danger and so is yours, don't go to police, don't go to the hospital. And I think that that's really detrimental because I don't want survivors to read that and take it away and go, maybe I shouldn't disclose my story because what if my friends tell me that? And that's really unfortunate, a strong fear I have resulting from the article.

KEILAR: Sure. So you see that as a fabrication that she completely omitted what you shared with her being an advocate and even letting perhaps other victims know that there are resources out there and there are support systems that they can tap into. Do you think that Sabrina Erdely, through that article, did something that was really hurtful to other potential victims? Should she be fired?

PINKLETON: I definitely think she did do a lot of harm to potential victims who haven't disclosed to friends or to the administration who she painted as covering up sexual assault and as being these heinous people that when you tell them about the assault they are protecting the university more than the safety of the students. Which, in my own experience, and I had relayed this information to her, that I had spoken to Dean Eramo, who she villainized in the article, and she's one of my favorite people at the university and was extremely supportive throughout the process when I went through in formal trial. She was there every step of the way, very encouraging, would give you the resources.

So it's harmful now for people to talk about the administration as this other (INAUDIBLE) and that maybe they don't support their student and maybe they are covering up sexual assaults, which is completely untrue. And I do think that Sabrina deserves some sort of ramifications. And I'm sure that she's getting those in other ways, maybe not from being fired, but I'm not sure who would trust her at this point with a story. I'm sure - I mean I know from personal experience that I would not recommend it. So -

[14:20:06] KEILAR: Yes. What - give us your advice as an advocate. What would you say to a young woman who may, unfortunately, be going through the aftermath of a sexual assault in an environment like this as this is going on, might be worried about coming forward. What would you say to her? PINKLETON: I would say that if you reach out to a trusted friend, that

would typically work out well. I'm sure that they would support them. But also, if they're not comfortable with that or if they're not comfortable with their university's administration, there are third party resources. I know in Charlottesville, we have multiple ones of those. But just more generally speaking, I'm sure that a lot of universities can work on gaining better ways to like show survivors how to access these resources. But there are a lot of third party resources out there.

KEILAR: There - and that's very good to know. And then finally, before I let you go, we just learned that the fraternity, Phi Kappa Psi, is going to pursue legal action against "Rolling Stone." What do you make of that?

PINKLETON: I think they definitely should. I think they deserve everything that they get, to be honest, because I think this was definitely an unfair portrayal of them. It should not have been published, the article itself. And this is not something, as a sexual assault advocate, we are never advocating for the accused to be vilified in the media. That is not something that we advocate for. And actually I don't really even advocate for knowing really who the perpetrator is. And if I do, I don't pass any judgment towards them. My job is solely to - if someone tells me that they are sexually assaulted, to validate their story, validate their pain, and then give them the proper resources and let the authorities ask the questions.

KEILAR: Do you think, ultimately looking back on this, that something happened to Jackie that night?

PINKLETON: I'm not really sure and I don't think we'll ever know. I do know that she had a lot of pain and I saw that. Her friends that night saw that. But we do know that this - this story is not true. So it's a very unfortunate thing that happened. And I think she is at least, if nothing else, definitely a victim of this story being published because "Rolling Stone" did not do their job in verifying it.

KEILAR: All right, Alex, thanks so much for coming forward and also for sharing your message as a sexual assault advocate.

Alex Pinkleton joining us. Thank you.

PINKLETON: Thank you.

KEILAR: And next, blood stains and bullet holes. We're getting our first look at the aftermath of that brazen terror attack on a college campus in Kenya. CNN cameras taking you to that campus next.

Plus, trapped by a train. Subway commuters come to the rescue in an extraordinary moment caught on camera. We'll show you what happens next. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:27:28] KEILAR: I'm Brianna Keilar. Just days after a terror attack at a university in Kenya killed 147

people, Kenyan war planes have bombed al Shabaab's hideouts in neighboring Somalia. A military source tells CNN the air strikes are not in direct retaliation for Thursday's massacre at Garissa University, but rather it's part of an ongoing operation against the Somali based terror group. This as university officials opened the campus for journalists to see the horrific aftermath. CNN's Christian Purefoy is there.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRISTIAN PUREFOY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Garissa University has now been opened to the media. We're not allowed into the dormitories where the al Shabaab militants came in about 5:00 a.m. in the morning and began to kill 147 people. The silence here is deceptive. It's extremely difficult to imagine the absolute horror that must have gone on in these grounds a few days ago.

We managed to get inside one of these dormitories but we have not been allowed to film. But the students' belongings are still in their rooms and there's evidence of the attack. Bullet holes and grenade attacks and shrapnel just being spread out across the corridor. This is where they slept.

As you can see, it's just all destruction and also signs of the cleanup. We've got tape of the crime scene, do not cross. The Kenyan military sent a tank in this direction to try and break the siege of the terrorists who had holed up in this dormitory and you can still see bullet holes all across the wall, and broken glass from the windows. We're told that the terrorists had set up sniper positions inside to try and keep the military out. You can still see down here, this walkway, blood stains.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KEILAR: The big question today, could more lives have been saved in this attack? A police source tells CNN that it took hours for Kenya's elite anti-terror team to arrange transport, even though officials had intelligence about a planned attack. Politicians, even journalists, beat the squad to the scene. But the government defends its response and is stressing that the team saved a lot of students. One of those students, a 19-year-old woman, telling CNN's Christian Purefoy that she hid in a cupboard for two days, drinking lotion to survive, because she was too afraid to come out.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PUREFOY: Were you scared?

CYNTHIA CHAROLTICH, GARISSA UNIVERSITY ATTACK SURVIVOR: Huh?

PUREFOY: Were you scared?

CHAROLTICH: I was scare so much.

PUREFOY: You were hiding? CHAROLTICH: Yes, I was hiding. You know, I had covered myself with -

with the - with the clothes.

PUREFOY: While you were hiding, what did you hear?

CHAROLTICH: The shooting. They were shooting everywhere. And I had closed my eyes.