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Aaron Hernandez Sentenced To Life Without Parole; Maurice Clarett, Jermaine Wiggins Talk About Aaron Hernandez; Nigerian Girl Talks Abduction, Escape from Boko Haram. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired April 15, 2015 - 14:30   ET

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


[14:30:00] BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Then you juxtapose that with Aaron Hernandez of today, hearing "guilty," you know, smacks him emotionally. He sits down. At points, he's turning around to his mother and fiancee, saying, "Be strong, I love you." Was he coached?

MARK GERAGOS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: No, look. I tend to agree that -- I'm surprised by it at first until I heard the closing. I thought all along that this was -- had all the earmarks of a hung jury and it was an uphill battle for the prosecution. I do not think -- in fact, I would tell you I think that he is an attractive defendant, and I don't think that his actions in any way were affected or had a monumental effect on the jury. I think other things did.

And that's unfortunate because I think, as Linda says, in a case like this, if you're going to admit that he was there, you want to start that out in the beginning. It's very difficult to overcome that. I've been there with jurors before. You can't change positions in the middle of the trial because what happens is you find that you get jurors just like that saying, oh, that corroborated it. Basically, what you've done is you've kind of embraced the basic prosecution theory. If you're going to do that, then explain it up front in the opening. Explain it through your cross examination in the prosecution's case. Don't wait and then kind of jump on your own client at the end in the closing.

BALDWIN: OK.

All agree?

JONATHAN MOORE, CIVIL RIGHTS ATTORNEY: You know, it's interesting because a lot of the cross examination during the trial of the people's witnesses was, well, that tire track could have been made by anybody. It's similar, but there's no evidence it was his car. The footprint could have been made by a similar shoe, but no evidence it was his shoe. By then saying at the end, he was there, then it's like, you've just undermined your whole cross examination.

BALDWIN: And now I'm just wondering -- and presumably, there will be an appeal process. Imaging this NFL star in prison for the rest of his life and how he'll be treated. We have an entire segment on that.

But first, Linda Kenny Baden, Jonathan Moore and Mark Geragos, thanks to the three of you.

LINDA KENNY BADEN, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Tonight, just a heads up for all of you, a special here on CNN, "The Downward Spiral Inside the Case Against Aaron Hernandez, airs tonight at 9:00 right here on CNN.

Coming up next, we'll talk to a former college football star who served time in prison. What Maurice Clarett says Aaron Hernandez felt walking back into his cell after that verdict today. Plus, Jermaine Wiggins, a former New England Patriots player, his take on Hernandez's life sentence. A lot to talk about on this Wednesday. Stay with me.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:36:58] BALDWIN: He had a stand-out career in the NFL. A $40 million contract with the New England Patriots, future ahead of him. Now 25-year-old Aaron Hernandez is a felon, convicted today of killing his friend, 27-year-old Odin Lloyd, late one June night nearly two years ago. Because of that, he'll be spending the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Jermaine Wiggins is a former NFL tight end who played two seasons with the Pats in the early 2000s. He now hosts a radio show in Boston.

Jermaine, welcome to you.

Also with me, someone who has a pretty unique perspective on the story, former Ohio State superstar college player, Maurice Clarett.

Welcome to you.

Maurice, just to clarify on you, you went in, spent some time. Tell me how many years did you spend for armed robbery?

MAURICE CLARETT, FORMER OHIO STATE FOOTBALL PLAYER: Four years.

BALDWIN: Four years. So let me begin with you. When you saw this happen today with Aaron Hernandez and you know he's going back to that jail cell and heading off to prison for the rest of his life, what is that like?

CLARETT: To clear this up, one, I don't understand the reality of going to prison for life, but I do understand the experience you have when it's leading up to the day when it's time to get sentenced or you're trying to hear the verdict of what your future will be. I know about the prayer that goes into it and the anticipation and the optimism that you're trying to have coming up to that point.

I also know what it feels like to hear out the judge's mouth on basically where you're going to be. No one wants to two to prison for a day. No one wants to go to prison for life or seven and a half years, in which I got sentenced. When I tweeted out earlier, I said I can understand that feeling because for a large part, you're standing there and you see people moving, you see the cameras around. You understand your family is there, but you're just numb toward the situation. It's like this spiritual emptiness that hits your feet. It's like a feeling that you get inside. It's inexplicable. Just transitioning back to cell, like you'll get there in a holding tank before you go back to the county jail. You just sit in there like, man, this is my reality. I had seven and a half years. There's not a lot of optimism or energy that you can build up to make yourself feel joy in that moment.

It wasn't any disrespect to the victim's family. Just to keep things in context, I was referring to understanding how that moment felt, just as if my mother watched and seen another mother crying, she would identify with that lady in that context. But her son wasn't going to prison. That's the context I was speaking in.

BALDWIN: No, no. And you had me at the spiritual emptiness that hits your feet. Four years is one thing. Life is entirely different.

CLARETT: Yes, absolutely.

BALDWIN: Jermaine, let me pivot to you.

It was almost this duality, this life he was living. You said Aaron Hernandez would end up in one of two ways, either in jail or dead.

[14:40:16] JERMAINE WIGGINS, FORMER NFL TIGHT END & RADIO SHOW HOST: Yeah, and ultimately when you live in that lifestyle and that lifestyle being that mentality, I know people kind of use the excuse, well, I was raised, I was brought up a certain way. You come to a point in your life where you make decisions. They can be positive or negative. Aaron Hernandez was in a position where maybe he grew up in a certain way or in a certain environment, and when he got to the NFL or got to college, he couldn't break away from that environment. To me, that's the thing that I feel pain for the most. When you see people who can't break away, when they have every opportunity and they use excuses. Clearly he deserves everything he's getting right now. A lot of people are talking about Aaron Hernandez, but nobody's talking about Odin Lloyd, the victim who lost his life to a senseless act of murder and being shot in the back and basically executed.

BALDWIN: And hearing Odin Lloyd's family and those victim impact statements were incredibly powerful. We're going to play them in their entirety.

Jermaine, let me stay with you for a second.

Playing on these pro teams, how close are you with teammates? Would you have known had you been playing alongside Aaron Hernandez and sort of his past he tried to shake but couldn't? Would you try to take that on and try to help and pull him out of that, or do you just play ball and keep your distance?

WIGGINS: Well, it depends on the relationship you have with teammates. There are some teammates you have better relationships with than others. If you see a guy that might be hanging around with sketchy people, you try to relate to them if you're a veteran. Say, listen, you have great opportunity here. You have the world at your feet. Every opportunity is presented to you because of your god-given athletic ability. And you need to know, OK, you have to break away from those people.

You can take the person out of the hood, but you got to understand you got to take that mentality, that hood mentality, out of that person because you're no longer there. You're living a completely different life. That, to me, was a thing that I don't think Aaron Hernandez could break away. He still wanted to live in that lifestyle. And he was just a guy who happened to be playing in the NFL but had this gangster mentality. At the end of the day, like I said before, as I've seen many people, when you live in that mentality, you either end up dead or in jail. Ultimately, he chose the Path where he's headed now.

BALDWIN: Maurice --

(CROSSTALK)

CLARETT: Can I speak to some of that?

BALDWIN: Jump in, please. Please.

CLARETT: To speak to some of it, I think to put it in context, you're talking about a large issue. It's very easy to say from a commercial standpoint for a guy to break away from something, but if he's not developed the skills or developed that throughout his entire life or through his collegiate experience and also through his professional experience, it's not going to happen. When I rewind and go out here and talk and listen and study and just see from my own life and other kids' situations, there's not a lot of implementation of personal development programs on any of these college campuses. When you dig into it further, a lot of these kids, we come on to these campuses, play our respective sport, and get put into a bunch of lollipop classes and it never develops intellectually to understand what his position is socially to the environment or what he means to a larger crowd.

So this is no excuse to him or to any guy, it's just a different conversation, shifted specifically toward the mental development, the social development and understanding where you get these guys from. It's a drastic difference from getting a guy from any inner city and urban culture.

Speaking from myself, I come from Youngstown. There's certain ways I'm not developed socially, in regards to etiquette and so many other things that factor in just to being a responsible adult, not even understanding what I mean to a larger group of people. When I speak about this -- when you speak about it, these guys get put in places from an athletic standpoint because they seem to be dominant on fields and have a huge spot light. You have this social responsibility that you're not aware of or understanding how to control. You seem to not understand how you fit inside that mold. So I think just moving forward, I think you have to have universities become more aggressive and even high schools become more aggressive to just helping these guys understand who they are from a self-discovery standpoint but also to get these guys these cognitive skills. You have a bunch of these lollipop programs. You bring in these people who happen to have different careers -- (CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: I know. And I know you've lived it. You've served it. Kudos to you speaking as a motivational speaker. But it's like the onus falls on these universities, yes. It falls on the parents if they have parents in their lives. At the end of the day, it falls on the players as well.

CLARETT: Everybody, yes.

BALDWIN: But let me stay with you, Maurice. Wondering, if Aaron Hernandez was standing in front of you now and you could send one message to him, given your life experience and clearly his, what would you say?

[14:45:07] CLARETT: I'm not sure right now. It's not for me to judge him. I don't look at him any different because he got convicted of the crime. At some point, to be honest, I would reach out to him, just to encourage him to let him know you can continue to grow throughout the situation, to keep your spirits high because -- you know, just to encourage him. Also to the victim's family, my heart goes out to them. An individual lost his life, obviously over something senseless. I would encourage him just as much as I would encourage the victim's family to get through it or to find some place in society to help you cope through this grief and what it is you're going through. I would just wish him the best and just grow throughout the situation and be the best father he can to his child and the best husband he can to his wife, considering the circumstances.

BALDWIN: Maurice Clarett, Jermaine Wiggins, gentlemen, appreciate both of you. We have to go but thank you so, so much.

CLARETT: Thank you for having me.

WIGGINS: Thank you.

BALDWIN: This is important but we have to move away because we have to talk about Boston, Massachusetts. A very special city to me. We're moments away from the two-year anniversary of the moment those pressure-cooker bombs exploded at that Boston Marathon on Boylston Street. We have live pictures to share with you where officials will mark the event with a moment of silence for the victims, for the survivors, for their families.

Back in 60 seconds.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:42:35] BALDWIN: Want to come back and show you live pictures in Boston, Massachusetts. It was two years ago to the moment here. Live pictures of Boylston Street, other pictures as well. It was 2:49 p.m. when those two bombs exploded near that finish line two years ago. So as we saw the last year and the year prior, we're going to have church bells ringing through the city here. You have Boston Mayor Marty Walsh here declaring April 15th One Boston Day. And I think this is so lovely. One Boston day. This obviously

applies to anyone in the wonderful city of Boston, Massachusetts, or elsewhere, to just show on this day one act of kindness, pay it forward somehow, show your generosity in honor of the survivors, in honor of these families, in honor of the victims from this horrendous day two years ago. Just remind all of you, and so many of us have been watching the trial play out so you know the details as well as I do, but those victims who lost their lives on that day two years ago, 8-year-old Martin Richard, his mother and sister were severely injured in that blast as well. Also, 23-year-old Lingzi Lu, a graduate student at Boston University, from China. 29-year-old restaurant manager, Krystle Campbell. And also that MIT police officer, 27-year- old Sean Collier. 260 other people were injured as well.

Let me just pause and let's all take a moment.

(BELL TOLLS)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:54:56] BALDWIN: One year, one year since nearly 300 young schoolgirls were forced from their dormitories overnight. They were loaded in trucks, taken away by Islamic terrorists. Families only get to see this one glimpse of these young women, their missing daughters here. A video from the deadly militant group Boko Haram who abducted them. A couple of girls were able to escape.

Now flash forward one year later, one of them wanted to come tell us her story here on CNN. Her name is Saa. She joins me now. She's wearing sunglass glasses to mask her identity and to protect her family still living in danger.

Also with me, Emmanuel Ogebe, the international human rights lawyer who helped her and nine other girls.

Welcome to both of you.

I admire your courage for coming on and sharing your story live.

If you can, take me back to that night April 14th, 2014, when Boko Haram came, attacked your school, grabbed you, and all these other young women. What happened?

SAA, ABDUCTED BY BOKO HARAM BUT ESCAPED: OK. On 14 April, that night we were at school. We were all sleeping. So the Boko Haram just came. We were at school. We just came out of our rooms and got ourself together. So the Boko Haram just came into the school and took our teachers and came to us. When we heard the sound of the motorcycle, we were all thinking that maybe our teachers and securities that came to save us.

Well, we didn't know they were the Boko Haram. When they came and started explaining themselves, we heard what had happened in other areas. Today they were with us. If we didn't tell them what they want to know, they are going to kill all of us. So the first question they ask us is where are the boys, where are the boys at. When we tell them, they still ask for a machine that we don't know anything about. And to point out to girls among us to show them the store where our food are kept. We didn't know they brought a lot of cars and pack all of the food. They ask us to move out from the school premise without letting us take anything. When they burn everything at school, they took us to a Bush and put us under a tree and bring a small car and a big truck. The truck was long. They said we were climb the small car and enter the truck. If we didn't do it, they were going to kill all of us. They said if you don't want to enter the truck, you have to come out and they're going to shoot you.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: So you got in the truck.

SAA: Yeah.

BALDWIN: With all these girls, because you knew your life was on the line. At what point did you risk your life in jumping off?

SAA: Yeah, you know, so we were going with them in the forest. I decided to jump out of the truck. I tell my friend that I'm going to jump out of the truck because I'd rather die, my parents will have my body, than to go with the Boko Haram because they didn't tell us where we were going. So she said she's going to jump out with me. When I jump out and she followed me, she injured her leg. She can't even walk, but she crawled. She tried, and we hide somewhere in the forest and spent the night there. The next day, I tried to look for help and go in the forest and found a shepherd who helped us and took her on his bicycle and bring us to a village. From there, we find a man with a motorcycle that helped us and took us from there back home to our family.

BALDWIN: Oh, my goodness. I'm sitting here hanging on your every word, almost just shaking my head. The notion that this group came to your school, burned everything down, had the rifles, got you on the truck. You risked your life with a friend, off the truck. You go back home.

Emmanuel, now she's in Tennessee getting an education, living quite a different life. How have you helped this happen? What about the other girls?

EMMANUEL OGEBE, INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS LAWYER: Yes, thank you very much, Brooke.

I tell you, it was stunning for me to meet the very first girl who escaped and to find out that the girls who escaped had somehow been forgotten. Not only the girls who were missing. They hadn't been put back in school. They were not getting medical attention. And so I stepped up and started a project to bring them back to school.

But remember, because of the trauma of the experience, most of them didn't want to go back to school. So providing relocation and reenrollment in school was a huge incentive for them to be able to come out and do that. And right now 10 of them are in schools on the east coast and on the West coast, continuing their education. [15:00:03] BALDWIN: These are not forgotten girls. That is why I

wanted to make sure this was in the show today one year later. We will not forget.

Saa, my best to you. Thank you so much for sharing your story.