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Super-Fast Hyperloop Closer To Reality; Jury Reaches Decision On Tsarnaev Sentence. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired May 15, 2015 - 14:30   ET

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

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Bottom of the hour, you're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin. The deadly Amtrak derailment in Philadelphia this week has reminded all of us that, you know, America's rail system is clearly imperfect, it's antiquated, and just given that reality, you might be surprised by what's in the works.

Transportation entrepreneurs and engineers are working right now on this project called the "hyperloop." They claim it will actually put trains out of business while it speeds passengers through a tube at more than 700 miles per hour.

I know it sounds like sci-fi, but CNN digital correspondent, Rachel Crane, just got a look at one of the companies working to make this a reality. Check it out.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RACHEL CRANE, CNN DIGITAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): You know those tubes that shoot inner office mail from floor to floor? The hyperloop is the same basic concept, except passengers would be traveling up to 760 miles per hour. Dirk Alborn says it's safer and more efficient than the railroad.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In railroads, most accidents were all human factors. Plus, a lot of the derailments are actually happening because something is on the track. We're a closed system. We're completely managed by a computer system. There's no human factor that can actually create those issues.

CRANE (on camera): Will the hyperloop kill the railroad?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The hyperloop is going to do to the U.S. what the railroads did in the 1800s. So it will change the way we live.

CRANE (voice-over): The concept of using a high-speed network of vacuum tubes to transport cargo has been around for over a century. But it wasn't until 2013 when inventor, Elon Musk, published a paper on the hyperloop that Dirk saw how the idea might become a reality for moving people around.

(on camera): You're traveling at speeds of hundreds of miles an hour, but how could this possibly be safe?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Safety is obviously very important. We have to make sure that we have safety procedures. It's a very straight line. You're inside the tube, inside the track. Nothing really can happen from the outside.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: OK, Rachel Crane, it's a super cool idea, but is this like an in our lifetime kind of idea? I mean, when do they think they can actually have this happen?

CRANE: Well, we're not going to be transported via hyperloop from Los Angeles to San Francisco any time soon. But hyperloop transportation technology is planning on breaking ground on a prototype model of the hyperloop in 2016. Now, this model, it's only going to be five miles long. So you're not going to be transported at speeds of 760 miles per hour.

BALDWIN: A big five miles.

CRANE: Yes, I know, but it can go up to 300 miles per hour, they say.

BALDWIN: Wow, but the issue is -- I know they're saying that this would rid any of the human error problems, but computers are not error free, viruses, et cetera. What's the response to all of that?

CRANE: Well, you know, as you pointed out, this does eliminate human error and also, because it's a closed system, you don't have to worry about unpredictable weather patterns impacting this system. But you're right. It will be vulnerable to cyber-attack.

The people who are building this system have been acutely aware of it from the beginning. They say they're doing all they can to put in the proper safeguards from the very beginning to protect the system from those kinds of vulnerabilities.

[14:35:11] BALDWIN: All right, Rachel Crane, thank you for the preview.

CRANE: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Next, no charges for that police officer who shot and killed 19-year-old Tony Robinson a couple months back in Madison, Wisconsin.

Up next, we'll talk with his lawyer after new video surfaces of the shooting. We'll also get the officer's response to the no charges.

Also, legendary blues man, B.B. King passed away in Vegas at the age of 89. Listen to that. His charismatic biographer joins me with five things that would surprise you about this man.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:41:02]

BALDWIN: All right. Here we go. Breaking news, this is huge coming out of Boston. Just the last couple of days, in fact, this is the third day the jury in this federal case there in Boston involving the younger Tsarnaev brother, the convicted terrorist, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

The jury has been deliberating whether or not he should be sentenced to death after placing those pressure cookers and injuring so many people just a couple years ago at that Boston marathon.

We have now learned that the jury has, in fact, reached a verdict. We do not know what the verdict is, but we know this jury has, in fact, reached a verdict here in the sentencing phase of this trial.

I've got Attorney Paul Callan standing by. Paul, let me bring you in. It was half a day of deliberations Wednesday. It was Thursday. This is Friday. What strikes you first of all, the fact it's taken two and a half days. We know it has to be unanimous. Does that seem quick to you?

PAUL CALLAN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: No, it seems about right. I think it's appropriate. It was a clear case with respect to the guilt issue, whether Tsarnaev was intimately involved in this atrocity. The only issue is whether he deserves the death penalty.

There are a lot of questions on the jury verdict sheet involving what they call aggravating circumstances and mitigating circumstances. So I have no doubt there's been a spirited debate among the jurors as to whether this is a death penalty case.

But frankly, I think this is enough time for a jury to carefully consider all of the factors before making a decision.

BALDWIN: Can you -- take us inside that jury deliberation room. What exactly did they have to walk through? Because as I mentioned a moment ago, it has to be unanimous, if there is even one holdout who doesn't believe that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev should be put to death, he won't be.

CALLAN: That's correct. You know, Brooke, it's even more complicated than that because there were, I believe, 17 counts which the death penalty would attach to. Even if the jury on, let's say, hypothetically 16 of those counts thought no death penalty, but all 12 agreed on only one count, the death penalty would be administered and would be appropriate in terms of the jury verdict.

So that's the way it works, but in deliberations like this, you have what's called, first of all, a death qualified jury. That means anybody who agreed to sit on this jury has said that given the right set of facts, they could go along with and impose the death penalty.

In many cases, people who are at least in theory and philosophically opposed to the death penalty still agree to serve on a jury like that, saying that although I'm really opposed to the death penalty, if the law clearly requires it, I can apply the law.

But when you get into this debate, it becomes very, very personal. If you're conscientiously opposed to the death penalty, maybe you hold out regardless of how bad the facts are. On the other hand, many people may think life in prison is worse than death, given the fact he'll be probably at the Colorado super max in solitary confinement for the rest of his life.

So you can imagine that all of these debates are going on as to whether death is the greater punishment or life in this kind of facility and whether the death penalty is ever appropriate.

BALDWIN: I know in the state of Massachusetts, capital punishment is illegal, but this is obviously at the federal level. I'm wondering just in bigger, broader federal cases, Paul, can you give me examples.

I'm thinking of big cases that we've covered. Montgomery County, Maryland, and the sniper trial there or Timothy McVeigh, Oklahoma City, can you give me examples in which this was really in the forefront, sort of nationally, after a massive tragedy.

[14:45:01] And how the juries in the end deliberate. What were the results in other huge trials?

CALLAN: The major terrorism cases like the McVeigh case, many of them have resulted in death penalty findings by juries. But I think this is a tougher case because on the one hand, it's one of the most brutal pieces of carnage that the American public has ever seen.

I'm sure you'll remember, Brooke, that at one point in the trial when videos were shown of children and men and women being dismembered and killed by this bomb, actual videotape of it, not only the jurors were crying, but hardened members of the press were crying in court.

I mean, it was that gripping and that awful to behold. So this would be a case that at least on the facts would appear to be the kind of case that the death penalty would be administered in.

But of course, on the other hand, the American public, like public in countries throughout Western Europe, seems to be shifting away from the death penalty. It's rarely administered in the United States.

And you're in a jurisdiction like Massachusetts where majority of the people have voted against the death penalty. Although, as you say, this is a federal case, and it's legal in a federal case. So this is a real nail biter in terms of trying to figure out what this jury will do.

BALDWIN: I mean, when this happened in Boston two years ago, I happened to be in Boston the weekend before, and I turned around and covered this story for an entire month afterwards. I've talked to a lot of people in the two years since.

This story rocked the consciousness of Boston. That's a strong town. That is a town so many people have healed. There are so many survivor stories because of what happened there on Boylston Street, but to hear the stories, to know that three people were killed and then the fourth, that police officer at MIT.

And to hear their testimony, you know, day after day, week after week there inside that federal courthouse, but then you have to juxtapose that with what the defense has said, especially with this nun who took to the stand who had met with Dzhokhar Tsarnaev who had said that, you know, at least she believed in meeting with him a couple times that he showed remorse.

I don't know if the people in the courtroom felt that he showed remorse or the people who experienced the atrocities on that street two years ago, but how do you think that -- the defense closing arguments, that he was the younger brother, not the older, the leader here. How did all of that potentially work into these jurors' minds?

CALLAN: You raise an interesting issue about the testimony from the nun. She became famous from that movie "Dead Man Walking." Of course, she's somebody who has met with many people on death row and has written books about it and of course, ultimately that movie was made.

I doubt, though, that she will have much impact on this jury. She really didn't know him. She was sort of brought in at the last minute to meet with him. I really doubt that any serious jurors could think that she was able to look into his soul and come to understand who he was.

Now, on the other hand, the defense put on the board a number of compelling arguments about the older brother being domineering, about this Islamic terrorist ideology, that he and members of his family seemed to subscribe to, influencing him as a young man.

Those factors may combine and have convinced at least one of the jurors that perhaps he doesn't deserve the death penalty.

BALDWIN: Forgive me, let me jump in and I want to come back to you, but I have Deborah Feyerick, who is on the phone with me now. Tell me exactly where you are and when this verdict will be read.

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): Brooke, we're standing online just outside the courthouse waiting to go in. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's lawyers are just walking past me. They, too, have to check in, in order to get into the courtroom.

We're waiting for the prosecutors to come down. We got word just a couple moments ago the jury, Brooke, has been deliberating for about 14-1/2 hours. It's a little bit longer than the verdict that was returned for Timothy McVeigh.

That jury then took about 11 hours. So this is about 14-1/2 hours. Everybody was sort of waiting around to try to figure out specifically when this might happen. They sent out two notes yesterday.

Right now, we are waiting for everybody to get back in court. There are a couple of spectators, Brooke, who have been outside this court -- who have been inside the court, actually, in support of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one young lady.

She's standing there, at one point put her hands together in prayer. So we are waiting, and we should know within the next couple of minutes. One of the prosecutors, he's walking by me right now. So a lot of nervous energy right now as we await the verdict -- Brooke.

[14:50:02] BALDWIN: Deborah Feyerick, let's stay in close contact with you as we await that verdict. I've got Deb with me. I have Paul Callan and also I have Jean Casarez, who's following this as well.

Jean, I'm wondering who else -- Deb just mentioned some people in that courtroom who are supporters of Tsarnaev. Are there family members, survivors, victims? Can you help paint the scene there in that federal courthouse for me?

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I mean, there were so many victims that survived. So to have them in the courtroom, I think some of them cannot be there, but many are. As far as the defendant, he had aunts, cousins come over from Russia to testify for him, but as of yesterday, there was no one there supporting him.

He was all alone. But this is really the pinnacle of this trial because the guilt portion was necessary, but now the penalty portion, death or life, that is really, many say, the culmination of all of this. Everyone is just at the edge of their seats to see exactly what this jury has determined.

BALDWIN: You know, I think it's important to remind everyone it was just about a month or so ago the family of the youngest victim, Martin Richard, it was their parents, little Genie Richard lost a leg as they were standing along the marathon.

And the parents wrote this opinion piece in "The Boston Globe" essentially saying they don't want him to die. The reasoning is because they don't want to be emotionally dragged along for years and years assuming, of course, there would be appeals processes.

So this family made it very clear that they didn't want Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to be put to death. Did that factor in? Can that factor in?

CASAREZ: It sure did not come into the courtroom in regard to the prosecutor because the prosecutor said to the jury in closing arguments, if you say that life is the proper punishment, then you are saying that the most minimum punishment there is, is appropriate for this person that did this act of terrorism here in the United States. He deserves the death penalty. So it was quite contrary to what that family was saying.

BALDWIN: OK, tell me a little bit more about the jurors. Who are they?

CASAREZ: Seven women, five men so it's a predominantly female jury. This is a 24-page verdict form that they have had to go through. It is extraordinarily sophisticated. It is complex. It is like a flowchart because if they find, A, then they go to B, but there are multiple questions.

The end all is they have to be unanimous on a number of things besides weighing aggravating and mitigating factors and really where the defense went through all of this was that this young man here was merely a pawn for his brother, that he was brainwashed.

So if you believe and you have that empathy for him, then a juror could decide that the mitigating factor, besides his age and no prior criminal history, that he deserves life in prison.

But if you believe, as the prosecutor said, that he was a conspirator, that he and his brother, even if the brother led the way, he had the intent, agreeing with his brother furtherance of that conspiracy, and they already found him guilty on that.

Then he's as much responsible as the worst criminal, his brother died of course, in this criminal act, so you should find death.

BALDWIN: OK, just looking through all these notes I'm getting as we're anticipating this verdict being read, and you mentioned the complexities here of everything that these jurors have to go through, this 24-page form.

Also, I just want to manage expectations for people who are waiting to hear whether he will, you know, be put to death or not and the note I'm reading is that it will take some time before we actually get to question 39, Jean.

That is the only question that will tell us if he gets life or death. So when the verdict is being read, there are many points, right, that are reached before that final question 39, which is what so many people are waiting for.

CASAREZ: There are many points. There are many sections. The first one being that has he reached the age of 18 when these crimes took place? But as it goes along, if they're not unanimous on any element of a particular section, then it ends there. And they don't go any farther.

So we have to first see how far they get as they go along this flowchart. If they get to the very end, as you're saying, then death is a real possibility.

BALDWIN: Do we have any idea, and you probably don't know, when the verdict will be read?

CASAREZ: We had heard there was going to be 20 minutes once the announcement of a verdict and then the reading of the verdict. But of course, if there are families that need to get there, many times they wait a bit longer. So those families can arrive to the courthouse to watch in person the reading of that verdict.

[14:55:04] BALDWIN: Jean, stay with me. I have Paul Callan also with me as well and I think it's just worth. We touched on this a moment ago before I had to interrupt you to go to Deb Feyerick who is in the courthouse.

But I think it's worth just revisiting, you know, those closing arguments from both sides. We alluded to how the defense is essentially telling the jurors, listen, this is the younger brother. He was coerced.

He was working under the older brother who died, and then on the flip side, you have the prosecution bringing witness upon witness, survivor upon survivor, just telling the tale of the atrocities from that day, saying he should absolutely be put to death.

CALLAN: It was a compelling set of closing arguments. When you look at this case, I think in a lot of ways this case really is not about whether the death penalty is appropriate on this fact pattern. This is a poster child case for the death penalty.

It has carnage. It has a terroristic attack. It has the death of children. It has everything you could imagine that would fit into a case that you would give the death penalty.

However, I think that there are many people who in their hearts and minds oppose the death penalty and think that it's inappropriate for the state to take a human life and in a way this will be the jury's opportunity to make that kind of statement that as guilty as this young man is of the carnage that even under that circumstance life is more appropriate for this crime in the United States today.

So I think we're going to see really a social statement about the death penalty as much as a determination as to whether the elements of the death penalty have been established in this trial.

BALDWIN: OK, Paul, we're looking at some -- I believe these are live pictures. Correct me if I'm wrong. Outside the federal courthouse here, you can see clearly a police presence, anticipating whatever this verdict will be.

Members of the media, even probably some passersby, so many people invested in what will happen, the fate of this younger Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. A couple notes just passed on to me.

First, I've been told the public is now being allowed inside this courthouse. Microphones are being tested. Apparently the defense attorneys are already inside. The prosecution is seen walking in.

So just a little bit of color as we're anticipating this verdict being read and many, many eyes and ears waiting to hear the fate of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Will this jury decide to put him to death or will he be locked away in presumably this super max prison in Florence, Colorado, barely even seeing daylight for the rest of his life?

Paul, when the verdict is being read, tell me the machinations. How will it be read? Who will be in the courtroom? Where will Dzhokhar Tsarnaev be?

CALLAN: Well, the courtroom is likely to be set up exactly the same way it was during the trial. He'll be seated next to his defense attorneys. One of the things lawyers look for in these moments, and I've tried murder cases myself as both a prosecutor and a defense attorney, is when the jury walks back into the room. There's an old courtroom tale that the jurors will not make eye

contact with the defendant if they have come down with the harshest sentence against him. So I think that's the first thing we'll be looking at, is the jury looking in his direction?

And it's an extremely solemn moment. This, of course, being a death penalty case, is the most solemn of all moments when a verdict is handed down. The fact that the state now is going to take a human life in recompense for such a horrible crime is a big moment in a courtroom and one you don't see often in America these days.

So it's going to be quite a scene in that courtroom. I would expect it'll be in total silence as the jury verdict sheet is read possibly by the clerk to the judge. I'm not sure what procedure this judge will follow on that issue. I doubt that the foreman will read the entire sheet but he could.

BALDWIN: With regard to the jurors, Paul, the seven men, the seven women, at what point will the juror jurors, if they so choose, will they open up and talk to the media?

CALLAN: Well, at the conclusion of the verdict, I think you would expect they'll be polled at the request of the defense. The defense will ask that each one be asked by the judge if this is their verdict. Now, whether they speak or not is entirely up to them.

BALDWIN: Could it happen right afterwards?

CALLAN: It could. They could go right outside the courtroom and talk. There's no constitutional restriction against a juror talking to the press. The first amendment to the constitution applies. They have the right to talk completely and forthrightly about the verdict. The lawyers in federal cases traditionally are not permitted to talk to the jurors right after the case in many state courts, they are allowed to talk to the jurors --