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Jurors Deliberates Verdict in the Boston Bombing Trial; Obama Answers Critics of Iran Deal; Senator Rand Paul Announces Run for President in 2016; Ferguson City Council Election. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired April 07, 2015 - 10:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:00:50] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

Breaking now in the NEWSROOM, we're following developments in two very high-profile trials. One for the admitted Boston bomber, the other for former New England Patriot star Aaron Hernandez.

In Boston right now, jurors are deciding the fate of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. He faces 30 charges, 17 of those carry a possible death penalty sentence. In Fall River, Massachusetts, it's closing arguments in the Hernandez murder trial. But with no witnesses and no weapon, do prosecutors really have a strong case?

We begin, though, in Boston with CNN's Alexandra Field. She's going to breakdown the key moments of the Boston bombing trial for us.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The last Richard family photos, Martin is 8. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is standing behind him before, after. Martin's entire body shattered, broken, eviscerated, burned. Lindsey Lu didn't plan to be there that day. It's her last day. Crystal Campbell lives less than a minute.

The defense doesn't deny that it's the defendant you see here on Boylston Street dropping his backpack in front of the Forum Restaurant, running away with the crowd. It was him, star attorney Judy Clarke, acknowledges in opening statements, and it's him shopping for milk at Whole Foods 20 minutes later.

But Clarke argues in the plot to leave a path of destruction, Tamerlan leads, Dzhokhar follows. Tamerlan heads toward the finish line, then the first blast. Twelve seconds later, heads turn, the second blast.

Two months before the bombing, prosecutors say Dzhokhar borrows a gun from his friend. The same .9 millimeter Ruger used to kill Officer Sean Collier.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Officer down. Officer down. All units.

FIELD: Surveillance video captures two men on the MIT campus approaching his squad car and taking off. The gun is used again later that night, prosecutors say, when 56 shots are fired at Watertown Police. The firefight ends with Tamerlan dropping his gun heading into a hail of bullets. Dzhokhar driving over his brother's body before abandoning the Mercedes and hiding out in a dry docked boat. The words he etched, "Stop killing our innocent people and we will stop." The note he wrote. Blood stained, bullet riddled. "We Muslims are one body. You hurt one, you hurt us all."

Proof according to prosecutors that they felt they were soldiers, they were mujahidin and Boston was their target.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: CNN's Alexandra Field joins me now from Boston. She's outside of the courthouse.

Do you have any sense, Alexandra, based on the reaction inside the court whether the jury will come to a quick decision?

FIELD: Well, Carol, if you're listening in on the -- on the closing arguments, which of course the jurors were, you would have heard the defense say that they don't deny in any way Dzhokhar's participation in the events of that week but that if not for Tamerlan none of it would have happened. They also said that Dzhokhar was ready to accept responsibility in the form of the verdict. So when you put those together, any court watcher is going to say that it shouldn't take the jury too terribly long to return with their verdict.

That said, this is of course a high-profile case. We're talking about weeks of testimony here. 96 different witnesses who have taken the stand. So the jury is going to take the responsibility seriously here no doubt. They've got to consider each of those 30 charges. They're going to have to move through each of them. We'll see how long it takes them to discuss each of those charges.

And we know that 17 of these charges are serious enough to come with the possibility of a death sentence -- Carol.

COSTELLO: And then once a verdict is reached in phase one of the trial, what happens next?

FIELD: OK. If they come to a guilty verdict on just one of those 17 charges that we just mentioned, then phase two of the trial would begin likely in the next week. The following week. And that's when basically the trial starts all over again. You have opening statements from both sides and more witnesses called and more testimony then the jury would go out a second time to deliberate on whether or not they would share Tsarnaev's life.

Right now you've got seven women who are deliberating on the verdict charges. You've got five men who are deliberating.

[10:05:01] Of course we've been telling you this whole time that there are 10 women on the jury, eight men. That included the six alternates who have not been weeded out for this deliberation phase. But when the second phase of the trial starts, if and when that second phase of the trial starts, then again those alternates would be present in the courtroom and then held aside for deliberations unless needed -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Alexandra Field reporting live from Boston.

Today's deliberations, you heard Alexandra say it, come after weeks of dramatic testimony. Since the trial began, prosecutors have called 92 witnesses to the stand. The defense only four witnesses. Why?

Let's bring in CNN's national correspondent Deborah Feyerick to answer that question.

Good morning.

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning. It's really interesting because even at the start of the trial, Judy Clarke said we do not dispute the facts. What we dispute is why and how they happened. So the prosecution brought in a lot of witnesses, 90 plus. His side barely questioned any of them. You really can't question somebody who's had their legs blown off and engender any sympathy for your client.

But what's really interesting, and this is what Judy Clarke has said at the beginning and at the end of the trial. Keep an open mind. She said look, Dzhokhar was not an equal participant. He did not self- radicalize. If it were not for Tamerlan, none of it would have happened. And yesterday she really strove to portray him as this adolescent who was doing teenage things, who was effectively led by his brother.

Tamerlan bought the pressure cooker, Tamerlan bought the BBs, Tamerlan bought the backpacks, the smoldering gun, and he was the one who made the bomb, and they really tried to portray Dzhokhar as somebody who was brainwashed into believing that his brother's plans and his brother's actions were in fact right.

And that's why when you get to the boat and what he wrote inside that boat, they say, look, this wasn't something that he himself created. This is something that he was basically taught and was listening to and was repeating and repeating and repeating and repeating. And so what they're really trying to do is they're trying to make sure that the jury understands that Dzhokhar is willing to take responsibility but they really believe that there were circumstances which they will introduce during this penalty phase that sets him apart and makes his actions less than his brother's.

The prosecution saying do not buy it. They were hand in glove. They did the things that they were supposed to do. So it's going to be very interesting to see how this plays out. And we're going to learn a lot more about the Tsarnaev family.

COSTELLO: Yes, we will. Because phase two should be -- should bring many more interesting witnesses for the defense. Stay right there. I want to bring in Dan Schorr, former prosecutor, Sunny Hostin, the CNN legal analyst and former federal prosecutor. So, one of the things that's kind of confusing, so this guy is on

trial. He pleads not guilty but his attorney stands up in trial and says he's guilty.

SUNNY HOSTIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes.

COSTELLO: What gives there?

HOSTIN: I know. A lot of people have asked me that question. I mean, you know, Tsarnaev's defense team wanted him to plead guilty, but they wanted the death penalty off the table. And the government refused to do that for a lot of reasons. And so I think certainly they started this by saying this is not a who done it. He did this. But they're in it to save his life, not necessarily to prove him innocent.

And I think that that makes a lot of sense because Judy Clarke is a master at this. If you're facing the death penalty, this is the attorney that you want representing you but she needs credibility with the jury. Given the overwhelming evidence against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, there's no way that a defense attorney can get up in front of this jury during opening statements and say anything like the prosecution has the burden beyond a reasonable doubt.

You know, they can't prove their case. Keep an open mind. He's innocent of these charges. And so she didn't do that. That was very smart because now she goes into the penalty phase and make no doubt, there is no doubt, that there will be a penalty phase here. He will be found guilty of these crimes. Now she has that established rapport with the jury and she can now say to them I didn't lie to you. He's going to take responsibility. You found him guilty. We knew you would find him guilty. However, there's more to this story.

FEYERICK: Which is very sympathetic to the victims as well and that creates goodwill with the jury.

COSTELLO: Absolutely. So in phase two of this trial when the jurors will decide whether Dzhokhar Tsarnaev lives or dies, we'll see many more witnesses for the defense. In other words, we'll see Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's parents, let's say, or other family members.

DAN SCHORR, FORMER PROSECUTOR: Right. Any kind of mitigation that you can offer whether it's influence by the older brother, problems he's had in his past, if there are character witnesses bringing them forward, and remember, the name of the game is just finding one juror who won't vote for the death penalty. That's all they need to stop him from being executed. And that's the strategy of the defense from the very beginning.

The trial phase gave them a first opportunity to put out some sort of mitigation evidence but they didn't put everything out there because they're saving it for the penalty phase.

COSTELLO: The interesting thing, Deborah, I think, and we're talking about this earlier, Tamerlan's wife, right? Supposedly she had no idea it was going on. Totally controlled by Tamerlan Tsarnaev's, right? Just as Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was supposedly controlled by his brother. Could she possibly take the stand?

FEYERICK: There's a possibility she could. The prosecutors have not brought any charges. Her lawyer had had one key mission and that is to make sure she does not get charged so -- if they can show that Tamerlan had the same effect on her that he may have had on Dzhokhar.

[10:10:13] But you have to remember that this bomb was built off a side room of the kitchen, right? Somebody said, you know, it's like a scrap yard because there were so many different pieces and components. So if she didn't see that, you know, that's going to -- it's going to be kind of interesting what her role is but there will be mitigating circumstances.

They're going to show, and they brought this in, that his life was falling apart, he was failing out of school, his parents were getting divorced. He was reapplying for financial aid, which he was just about to lose, and his college said no, you don't deserve it, we're not going to give it to you. So there will be --

COSTELLO: But that's the story about a million young people in America.

(CROSSTALK)

HOSTIN: And I actually think one of the questions that, you know, everyone has been chatting about is, will he take the stand? And I would imagine that that decision has not been made yet by Judy Clarke because that's what lawyers do. They sort of assess the situation. And once you've been found guilty of 30 crimes, 17 of which will make you eligible for the death penalty, sometimes, you know, you change. And so I suspect that that decision hasn't been made. But I think that is his best chance, quite frankly.

COSTELLO: Isn't that, Dan, a hail Mary? Let's say, you're like, you know you're losing. Last hail Mary pass, you put your --

SCHORR: We have to separate --

COSTELLO: Put your client on the stand?

SCHORR: We have to separate the strategy to put your client on the stand during the trial and then in the penalty phase -- in the trial, it's a hail Mary because the defendant is going to be cross-examined on all sorts of bad or suspect things that that person did. In the penalty phase, we already know if he's convicted, which he probably will. At the penalty phase, we already know that he committed these crimes, and then it's just about trying to get sympathy and once again appealing to just one juror to stop the vote for the death penalty.

(CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: Yes, but I'm thinking one question.

FEYERICK: And he's been so unsympathetic.

COSTELLO: One question would do him in. You planted a bomb. You killed an 8-year-old boy and then you went to Whole Foods and bought some milk, right? Explain that to me.

HOSTIN: It's going to be very difficult for him.

FEYERICK: Yes.

HOSTIN: Because we haven't seen a very sympathetic defendant.

FEYERICK: At all. Not at all.

HOSTIN: He hasn't shown remorse but Judy Clarke has done, I think, a decent job of sort of humanizing him. She's been fixing his tie, she's been sort of rubbing his back. And so as you say, Dan, one juror -- we've got, you know, seven women, five men. One juror that thinks, gosh, this is a young kid. This could be my kid. This could be my brother. This could be my -- you know, my nephew.

That is all that it takes because in a federal death penalty case unlike other state death penalty cases, you need a unanimous jury. And let's face it, we're in Massachusetts. There's no state death penalty. I remember when I was covering the Connecticut case, that home invasion case, so many people were saying, I'm not in favor of the death penalty but if anyone deserves a death penalty, these guys deserve it and they got it.

COSTELLO: Yes.

FEYERICK: And when I went into court that day and really thought, OK, nobody is going to vote for the death penalty, but after hearing the witnesses, after hearing how they bled out on the street, how -- so many people took the stand and said, I thought that was my last day on earth, I thought that was the day I was going to die, and you hear about these crimes, it's very hard -- Judy Clarke is going to have to convince them that in fact he was so brainwashed that he didn't have free choice. That's going to be nearly impossible.

COSTELLO: All right.

(CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: I've got to end it there. I'm sorry. Dan, Sunny, Deborah --

HOSTIN: There's so much stuff.

COSTELLO: I know. Thank you so much. I appreciate your insights.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, the doctor is in. Rand Paul ready to run. Dana Bash up next with more on the newest candidate vying for the White House.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Carol, you can see the lights have dimmed. They are getting ready for the festivities here to start in about an hour. It is certainly not a surprise that Rand Paul is getting in but what could be surprising is the kind of coalition he's going to need to build in order to get the Republican nomination. We'll have more on that on the other side of the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:17:17] COSTELLO: A top Democrat is going against President Obama. New York Senator Chuck Schumer says Congress and not the president should have the final decision on any nuclear deal with Iran. The senator backed a bill that would allow Congress to reject a deal.

The move complicates Obama's latest effort to dodge Republican opposition. The White House says the bill could prevent negotiations. The U.S. and other nations were aiming to complete with Iran by June 30th.

Iran was the hot topic in a recent NPR interview with President Obama. The president candidly opening up about nukes and his goals for government officials at the table.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The notion that we would condition Iran not getting nuclear weapons in a verifiable deal on Iran recognizing Israel is really akin to saying that we won't sign a deal unless the nature of the Iranian regime completely transforms and that is I think a fundamental misjudgment.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Sunlen Serfaty has more on this from the White House.

Good morning.

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. Yes, another interview, another just the latest round of aggressive sales pitch that the White House is making to try to sell this deal to critics both here in the U.S. and abroad. And Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu being one of the fiercest and most vocal critics among them calling for this deal to be killed in Congress, and demanded that any final deal be predicated on Iran recognizing the state of Israel.

Now you saw just there in that clip that President Obama really fiercely pushed back on that saying it's unrealistic of the prime minister to expect this deal with a country like Iran not like a country like Germany or France, he said, which would be another set of conversations, would hinge on something like that.

The president also pushing back in this NPR interview on other critics, possible Republican candidate, Governor Scott Walker, Wisconsin governor, candidate potentially for president, I should correct myself. He said that if he is elected president on day one he would cancel, nullify this deal even if other members of the P5+1 pull out of the arrangement.

Now here's President Obama's pointed response to that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: It would be a foolish approach to take and perhaps Mr. Walker after he's taken some time to bone up on foreign policy will feel the same way.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SERFATY: And the president making note that he believes that whomever takes over at the White House will not nullify this deal in the end.

But, Carol, I have to say this is the second time that President Obama has criticized the Wisconsin governor in the last few months. Interesting that he's wading into presidential politics -- Carol.

[10:20:03] COSTELLO: All right. Sunlen Serfaty reporting live from the White House this morning. Thank you.

The Republican field for 2016 set to get a little more crowded as Rand Paul is set to join the race officially this afternoon. Kentucky's junior senator set to make the announcement at a Louisville hotel and that's where we find our chief congressional correspondent Dana Bash.

Good morning, Dana.

BASH: Good morning, Carol. And you know, one of the things that separates Rand Paul from the other contenders for president on the Republican side is that he's inheriting a very enthusiastic, pretty large grassroots movement that has been around since his father ran for president last time just four years ago. But for Rand Paul, his father also has some unwanted baggage because some of his positions at least for the Republican side are a bit fringed.

So what you're going to see today is his father, Ron Paul, on the stage when his entire family comes up but he's not going to have a speaking role, I'm told. That really gives you a sense of the delicate balance Rand Paul is trying to strike.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEN. RAND PAUL (R), KENTUCKY: It's time for a new president.

BASH (voice-over): In this preview video, Rand Paul unveiled a new tagline for his emerging presidential campaign. Standing up to the Washington machine put Paul on the political map five years ago when the first-time candidate snatched his Senate seat from the GOP establishment.

PAUL: There's a Tea Party tidal wave.

BASH: The libertarian Kentucky senator quickly bucked the president and his own Republican leadership, grabbing headlines with a 13-hour filibuster protesting the U.S. drone policy.

PAUL: I will speak as long as it takes.

BASH: Paul argued he's more electable than other Tea Party presidential candidates like Ted Cruz, citing his work reaching out to minorities.

PAUL: The biggest mistake we've made in the last several decades is we haven't gone into the African-American community.

BASH: The Senate is his first elected post but Paul has politics in his blood.

PAUL: Ron Paul believes in the Constitution. That there are checks and balances.

BASH: Spending years campaigning for his father, former congressman and presidential candidate, Ron Paul. Rand Paul is inheriting legions of his father's young anti-government supporters for his own White House run now.

PAUL: The phone records of law-abiding citizens are none of their damn business.

BASH: But his father's appeal had limits. For Paul to win, he knows he has to move more mainstream especially on foreign policy. Paul used to sound isolationist calling for broad cuts in military spending and all foreign aid.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Including the foreign aid to Israel as well, is that right?

PAUL: Yes.

BASH: But with ISIS and other emerging threats, GOP primary voters want a more muscular foreign policy and Paul has been inching that way.

PAUL: A stronger, better, more agile military.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BASH: But, Carol, not everyone is Republican buying his evolution on foreign policy. In fact, the man who started the swift boat attacks, those infamous attacks against John Kerry back in 2004, of course John Kerry being a Democrat, he's going to turn his attacks inward on a fellow Republican, Rand Paul. He's got about $1 million in ad buys, or so his group says, for the first four states that Rand Paul is going to be in, attacking him on foreign policy, saying he is akin to the president specifically on the issue of Iran because he opposes more sanctions and he supports the nuclear talks -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Should be interesting.

Dana Bash reporting live from Kentucky this morning.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, voters in Ferguson, Missouri, heading to the polls to pick new local leadership. It's an election that's being watched across the country. We'll talk about it next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [10:27:23] COSTELLO: In Ferguson, Missouri, voters are hitting the polls right now eight months after teenage Michael Brown was shot dead and the anger, protests, and outrage that followed. Voters have the opportunity to send several African-Americans to the city council. Right now there's just -- I think there is one -- let's talk to Missouri State Representative Courtney Allen Curtis. She knows more about this than I do.

Welcome. Hey, I'm sorry.

REP. COURTNEY CURTIS (D), MISSOURI HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVE: Hi, how are you? I apologize.

COSTELLO: I'm just all discombobulated this morning, and I apologize.

CURTIS: No problem.

COSTELLO: I was trying to get information as far as voter turnout is concerned. And I just read an article from the "Post Dispatch" that in the Third Ward voter turnout has so far been light. And of course the polls have been open since 6:00. Does that surprise you?

CURTIS: No, it doesn't. It's actually raining and pretty dreary outside today and that has a way of kind of dampening turnout.

COSTELLO: Well, but this is a very important election, too, so some might say that the rain shouldn't dampen people's enthusiasm for voting.

CURTIS: It shouldn't, but that's just the case. It actually does. But what we typically see in elections like this we see a lot of individuals that vote after they get off of work which is typically between 4:00 and 7:00 and the polls are open until 7:00.

COSTELLO: Are you hopeful that there will be a larger turnout this afternoon, later this afternoon?

CURTIS: I am. You know, the day is really just getting started for a lot of people. They have to get their kids off to school and whatnot, and with some of the activity from the national organizations that came in such as NAACP and the Working Families Party, the engagement that they've had over the past couple of weeks I hope that that will bring other people.

COSTELLO: OK. And I ask you these questions because right now there's just one African-American on the Ferguson City Council. A lot of people were thinking that this would be the turning point. This election would be the turning point. In your mind, will it?

CURTIS: It could possibly be. There's a couple of things that we have to look at. The city government has made some changes but there is no one there that has actually protested or that supports the protester agenda so if we do get some of those individuals on the council, now those individuals that want to provide a mandate for change will provide an opportunity to be heard or have an opportunity to be heard. And it's an opportunity for faster change if those individuals get on

the council.