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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees
Supreme Court Approves Assisted Suicide; Third Teen Charged in Homeless Beatings; Update on Sago Mine Survivor; Hillary Clinton's Tough Words
Aired January 17, 2006 - 23:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again. Welcome to 360. Their victims couldn't have been more vulnerable -- homeless people -- and defenseless.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER (voice-over): A third teenage suspect arrested for murder in the homeless beating case. And the life and death of the one victim who died because of random brutality.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is my oldest son, and I loved him very much.
ANNOUNCER: The Sago Mine sole survivor continues to fight for his life, but tonight, promising signs of Randy McCloy's improvement. New details on his condition from West Virginia.
And if you watch TV in your bedroom, chances are your sex life is suffering. But don't hit the off switch -- not before you see the 360 operator's manual for a good late night program.
From across the U.S. and around the world, this is ANDERSON COOPER 360. Live from the CNN studios in New York, here's Anderson Cooper.
COOPER: We're going to know more on the Supreme Court's approval of physician assisted suicide, coming up.
First, here are some of the stories we're following at this moment.
Tonight, a knowledgeable source tells CNN that some of the people killed in last week's air strike in Pakistan were Egyptians and had direct ties to Osama Bin Laden's top Lieutenant, Ayman Al-Zawahiri. U.S. officials have said solid intelligence shows that senior Al-Qaida members were expected to attend a dinner at the site that was targeted, and Al-Zawahiri could have been among them. But Pakistani officials say he apparently was not there. At this point, we simply do not know.
An apology from Ray Nagin. Today, the New Orleans mayor said he was wrong yesterday to predict New Orleans would be a chocolate city once again, and to say that God wants New Orleans to be a majority African American city. Nagin said his remarks were inappropriate and designed to tell African Americans and people of all races that they are welcome to the city.
The Bush administration's secret spy program will be headed to court. Today, two civil liberty groups sued the government, claiming President Bush's approval of the spying policy was unconstitutional. White House says the war on terror gives the president the power to authorize wire taps on citizens
The Supreme Court voted six to three today in favor of Oregon's right to make its own law where the contentious matter of assisted suicide is concerned. In other words, the statute already on the books there in Oregon, the only one in the nation allowing doctors to prescribe fatal doses of medications to terminally ill patients at their request, remains settled law.
Just to be clear about this, today's court decision was not about the morality of assisted suicide, it was about the right of a state not to be interfered with by the federal government.
On the most personal level, though, it isn't about states' rights, either. It's about something far more gut-wrenching and difficult and much more private. CNN's Frank Sesno reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
FRANK SESNO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's a good day for Greg Yaden, so he's off to enjoy one of his favorite pastimes. But at 59, he knows he hasn't got much fishing left.
You see, about a year ago, Greg collapsed after a business trip. He ended up in the hospital. The diagnosis, acute myeloid leukemia. Chemotherapy bought some time, but doctors could not find what Greg needed most, a suitable bone marrow donor. The disease is moving fast now, and Greg measures his future in weeks.
GREG YADEN, TERMINALLY ILL PATIENT: As far as dying, yes, I'm scared. But I'm also accepting. I would be terrified if I didn't have some say in how this was going to end.
SESNO: Greg is taking charge of his death. He showed me the room where he plans to die.
YADEN: All my friends can come up and visit and that sort of thing. We'll have Hospice up here. There are a series of questions...
SESNO: And read from this form he signed, requesting a lethal dose of barbiturates.
YADEN: I understand the full import of this request, and I expect to die when I take the medication to be prescribed.
Now, I'm not going to take it unless I'm really, really, really losing it. And so it's not going to be, oh gosh, I'm committing suicide. It's like, Oh God, please release me from this. I just can't take this anymore. You know, give me some help here. SESNO: Greg's help comes from his fellow Oregonians, who twice have voted for the state's Death with Dignity Act, the only such law in the country. It allows a doctor to write a lethal prescription if a patient is certified mentally competent and within six months of death from disease.
Between 1997 and 2004, 208 terminally ill Oregonians took their lives in this way, the vast majority saying they wanted some autonomy at the end, as does Greg.
YADEN: If there was any question I could live, I'd be fighting tooth and nail. I would fight tooth and nail to live. But, work of fate, whatever, I, you know, I don't. I don't.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is not what we need.
SESNO: Greg's prescription, Oregon's law, has triggered a debate as passionate as it is eternal. Who controls life and death? For 38 years, Dr. Kenneth Stevens has been a radiation oncologist in Oregon. He believes the Death with Dignity Act breaks faith with patients and his profession.
DR. KENNETH STEVENS, AGAINST RIGHT TO DIE: What I see with assisted suicide is that the patient is basically saying, I want to die. Breathing is my symptom. And the cure for that breathing is to cause my death. That is not what medicine is about.
YADEN: I would just ask, what business is it of yours? Do you know what I've gone through? Do you know what I'm going through?
SESNO: Missy, Greg's partner for 12 years, is right there with him.
MISSY HECTOR, GREG YADEN'S GIRLFRIEND: And the ferns are doing good.
SESNO: They face the disease and his decision together.
HECTOR: He's terminal. He's not changing what's going to happen to him. He's just hastening it in a manner to give him peace of mind.
DR. NICK GIDEONSE, SUPPORTS RIGHT TO DIE: Looking at today's patient list.
SESNO: Dr. Nick Gideonse, director of a family health clinic with more than 2,000 patients, is not Greg's doctor. But he has written seven lethal prescriptions and been present at five deaths.
GIDEONSE: I won't deny that I've cried at times around this. But it's been a tremendous privilege. I feel that I've relieved suffering in a very palpable, real way for patients. And I think I've also helped families honor their family members' final wishes in the face of terrible illness.
SESNO: Gideonse is well aware of the legal and moral arguments and the Hippocratic oath, I noticed, that hangs on his wall. (on camera): I will give no deadly medicine to anyone if asked, nor suggest any such counsel.
GIDEONSE: I can provide a patient aid in having the good death that they hope for. I don't feel I'm breaking any of the oath or -- our goal is to help patients in any way that we can.
STEVENS: I could not do it. I would become a -- basically an executioner, rather than a healer.
SESNO (voice-over): Dr. Stevens' opposition to Oregon's law isn't just professional. It's also very personal. Shortly before his first wife died of cancer in 1982, her doctor suggested an extra large dose of morphine.
STEVENS: As I helped my wife to the car, she said, "Ken, he wants me to kill myself." And it really devastated her that her doctor, her trusted doctor, would basically feel that her life is no longer a value.
SESNO: None of this changes the way Greg Yaden or those close to him, including his brother Dave, see things.
DAVE YADEN, GREG YADEN'S BROTHER: For those who say we should be in the business of living, well, my brother's dying, period. He's going to be dead. He ought to have a chance to do that in a way that gives him as much comfort than the rest of us as possible.
SESNO: Greg doesn't know if he'll swallow the bitter liquid at the end. But he sees it as an insurance policy. He'll use if he must.
G. YADEN: Then we'll call ahead and say we have an expected death. They won't then send ambulance with sirens screaming and bells ringing. So the thing of it, my neighbors will know. We're close. So I just will go to sleep.
SESNO: On your terms.
G. YADEN: On my terms.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: That was CNN's Frank Sesno reporting. And we're sorry to have to tell you that after that story was reported, Greg Yaden passed away without taking the medication he had been prescribed. He maintained his right to do that until the very end. But his illness progressed so rapidly at the last, that he did not need to have recourse to the barbiturates he'd fought to have on hand.
We spoke earlier about today's important Supreme Court decision, about what it does and doesn't do, with Arthur Caplan in Philadelphia. He is the director of the Center for Bioethics, the University of Pennsylvania. And with CNN's Senior Legal Analyst, Jeffrey Toobin.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) COOPER: So, Jeffrey, legally, is this a surprise?
JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR LEGAL CORRESPONDENT: It was a big surprise to me. I'll tell you. You know, the Supreme Court, last year, decided a very similar case out of California. California had a law that said medical marijuana could be used in certain circumstances. The court said no. Federal government's right to regulate narcotics trumps California's medical marijuana.
Here, you have the state of Oregon saying, you know, assisted suicide is a state right that we want to exercise. The Supreme Court said that's okay. The federal government doesn't trump it.
COOPER: So what changed?
TOOBIN: You know, I'll be darned. I mean, Justice Thomas wrote a dissenting opinion, who -- ask him the same question, and I think you had a good question. I think what may be at work here is that the court is sympathetic to assisted suicide. I think the world is changing, and the Supreme Court is evidence of that.
COOPER: Art Caplan, what's your take on it? Were you surprised?
ART CAPLAN, BIOETHICIST: I was surprised, too, partly for the reasons that Jeffrey just outlined. I also noted that they cited a number of times the fact that Oregon has voted on assisted suicide twice and that it seems to be working out there. And in a certain sense, that's not relevant to the issue of the federal government's control over narcotics.
So I do think there was a sentiment on the court that they wanted this experiment to proceed. It hadn't gone off the reels yet. There are no real abuses in the state of Oregon.
COOPER: Yes. In 2004, only 208 actually used their prescriptions, taking their lives. Do you think this will -- there will be an increase after this?
CAPLAN: I don't. I think that, remarkably enough -- and I worried about hordes of people using this and sort of going down a slippery slope when it first passed -- but it turns out that if you are aggressive on pain control, if you really support people through Hospice and that sort of thing, people don't want to hasten their lives -- hasten their deaths. They don't want to hurry up dying. They want to be here. So I don't think there's going to be a ground swell to sort of rush and do this now that this opinion has come down.
TOOBIN: A name that doesn't appear in this opinion I think also had an impact. Terry Schiavo. I think the court was appalled at what happened with the Terry Schiavo case, the way Congress rushed in to try to tell the courts and tell the state of Florida what to do. And I think this was the court saying, hey, back off. And let states control their own medical operations.
COOPER: ... other states to maybe change their laws? TOOBIN: Well, they might. I mean, as far as I'm aware -- Art may know better -- there's not a big ground swell out there to have assisted suicide. But it certainly is an invitation to states to say, if you want to experiment in this area, if you want to have tightly controlled in Florida -- and Oregon's law is very -- there's a review process. It's not, you know, willy nilly, just feel like committing suicide, but it is an encouragement to states to try something like that.
CAPLAN: Anderson, there are probably three states holding ballot initiatives. They've been on hold, waiting for this court case to come out. I think you'll see them come forward in California, in Washington state and Michigan. And I know two state legislators intend to introduce bills in Maine and Vermont. So, I think we will see some movement toward if the court's going to allow it, then maybe we should emulate Oregon. I think there will be a bit of that.
TOOBIN: But keep in mind also, we may see Congress try to change the law. There are going to be a lot of Republicans, especially in Congress, appalled by this decision. They may try to rewrite the federal narcotics laws to stop this kind of activity. This was a decision about what the federal narcotics laws say. If they change the law, these laws -- these state laws may all go out the window.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Well, the latest on that heinous videotape, the fatal beating of a homeless man in Florida. A third teenager has now been charged with murder.
Also from West Virginia tonight, a change for Randy McCloy, the only man to survive the Sago Mine disaster.
And the chilling story of a man who confessed to killing a 2- year-old child and is free anyway because of the law.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Now to Florida, and the crimes that have horrified the city of Fort Lauderdale. The victims, homeless men who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Norris Gaynor was no match for the baseball bats that killed him. Outnumbered by his alleged attackers, he didn't have a chance. Today, as a third teen was charged with his murder, Mr. Norris was buried. Here's CNN's J.J. Ramberg.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
J.J. RAMBERG, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A grieving mother at her eldest son's funeral. Georgia Gaynor whispers good-bye to her son, Norris. Bludgeoned to death last week, police say, by teenagers wielding bats. He'd been sleeping on a park bench, homeless.
GEORGIA GAYNOR, MOTHER: I'm just a ball of pain, if that can be expressed in that manner. I ache. I ache. My heart aches. This is my oldest son and I loved him very much.
RAMBERG: Georgia and her husband, Samuel, say their son was easygoing. A 45-year-old military veteran, a basketball player and a painter. They described him as without direction. They didn't know he was homeless.
GAYNOR: My son might have been a wanderer. He was entitled, if that's what he wanted to do. But he didn't bother anybody. You see what I'm saying? And to have someone to just jump on him and brutally beat him to death. I can't understand this.
RAMBERG: Gaynor was killed in one of three attacks on three homeless men. Authorities say teens in this surveillance video committed the attacks and have charged them with murder.
GAYNOR: It had to be bad. It had to be bad. If somebody is beating you with a stick like that, it has to be bad. How could somebody do something like that. I'd just like to know what they were feeling.
RAMBERG: 18-year-old William Ammons didn't answer that question when he walked out of jail today after being charged with aggravated battery in one of the beatings.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you feel bad about what happened?
WILLIAM AMMONS, HOMELESS BEATING SUSPECT: Yes, I tell you something if I can use your cell phone.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hmm?
AMMONS: Can I use your cell phone?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You need to use my cell phone?
AMMONS: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What, to call someone?
AMMONS: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can -- I'll make a call for you.
AMMONS: No, I'm all right then.
RAMBERG: Just hours after posting a $10,000 bond to get out of jail, Ammons was rearrested and charged with murder. Police say his car was used by the attackers, and a witness saw him take part in killing Norris Gaynor.
CAPTAIN MICHAEL GREGORY, FORT LAUDERDALE POLICE: William Ammons shot the victim with -- his body with a paintball gun that Ammons held in his hand. The Defendant, William Ammons, gave a detailed statement in which he explained his culpability in the aforementioned offense.
RAMBERG: Police say more people may be charged. Still, the Gaynor family remains broken. They hope the culprits won't get the death penalty, but that will be decided by a jury. J.J. Ramberg, CNN, Miami.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: It is just impossible to imagine what those people were thinking.
Two weeks ago at this very hour Randy McCloy, Jr., was clinging to life, deep beneath the ground of West Virginia. The only survivor of the Sago Mine tragedy continues his fight at Ruby Memorial Hospital in Morgantown, where there was a change for him today. CNN's Christopher Huntington joins us with more.
CHRISTOPHER HUNTINGTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Anderson, a big step up, if you will. Randy McCloy, Jr., taken out of intensive care today. His doctors say he is stable enough to go into what they're calling a step down unit. They're very much praising his physical recovery. His lungs are doing better. He's been breathing on his own for several days now. His heart and his liver are doing well. He does still occasionally need dialysis.
But, Anderson, the big, big cloud hanging over Randy's recovery is the fact that he still is in a moderate-stage coma, and doctors say that until he comes out of that coma, they really just cannot get a complete read on how much damage was done to him both mentally and physically.
Now, tomorrow morning, about 10:30 Eastern Time, we are expecting a press conference from the doctors here at West Virginia University Hospitals. Certainly, some more detail to come about his condition and about his prognosis for a full recovery.
Also, we are expecting to hear from, at least, a family representative, is how it's being put to us from the McCloys. We're not sure if that's going to be a family member, a close family member of Randy's or somebody appointed to answer questions from the media. So, Anderson, tomorrow morning a big event. We'll hear from doctors for the first time in about a week.
COOPER: All right, that would be great. Chris, thanks very much.
Erica Hill from "HEADLINE NEWS" joins us with some of the other stories we're following tonight.
Hi Erica.
ERICA HILL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi Anderson.
Her kidnappers say they will kill 28-year-old American Journalist Jill Carroll unless the U.S. releases all female Iraqi prisoners within 72 hours. Carroll, who is on assignment in Baghdad for the Christian Science Monitor was taken hostage January 7 by a group which Al-Jazeera TV identified on its Web site as the "brigade of vengeance." Back in this country, hospital officials in southern California say 92-year-old Former President Gerald Ford is responding well to his treatment for pneumonia and could be discharged later this week. Mr. Ford, who's being treated with intravenous antibiotics, has been at the Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage since Saturday.
Tuscon, Arizona, now, where French doctors at a conference revealed today the recipient of the world's first face transplant. At one point required massive doses of steroids to keep her from rejecting her new nose, lips and chin. The patient who had the historic face graft in late November is now fine and is even regaining sensation in her face.
And how do you feel about big families? All right, how about three million sons? Now that's one family reunion. And that's how many descendants scientists trace to a fifth century Irish warlord named Niall (ph) of the nine hostages. But then, even the Niall (ph) (INAUDIBLE) compared to Ghengis Khan, who seems to have passed his genetic legacy on to 16 million heirs. How about that?
COOPER: Maybe we're related to him.
HILL: Good thing he didn't have to worry about child support.
COOPER: I know. Maybe we're related to him, who knows?
HILL: We could be. Who knows?
COOPER: All right. I haven't gotten my letter in the mail.
Erica, thanks.
Much more ahead, including images that, well, they could haunt you. Children, many of them orphans, forced to endure bitter cold. And it seems the world has forgotten about them.
Also tonight, Senator Hillary Clinton invoking a racial metaphor to describe Republican-controlled Congress. Is she scoring points, settling scores or just pandering?
Plus, TV and sex. Is your sex life -- is it hurting because you're watching too much TV? Well, don't turn it off before our report. Stay tuned.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Well, if you think that after the Tsunami and after Katrina, you've seen every dimension of people in need, stay with the story because you probably have not. The littlest victims of Pakistan's recent earthquake make for a heartbreaking scene. They need help. There's no doubt about that. And in the dead of winter, they are getting precious little of it. ITN's Dan Rivers is with them now in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) DAN RIVERS, ITN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The children of Moori Patan have survived another night. Their bedding is damp. Their tents, freezing. Their shoes are wet through.
(On camera): Well, it's about 7:00 o'clock in the morning on our second day here. And as you can see, the children are just beginning to come out of these tents. It was freezing enough for us in all this warm clothing and in a sleeping bag overnight. I can't imagine what it was like for these children in this flimsy cotton (ph) tent with only a couple of blankets to keep them warm.
(Voice-over): Their day starts with a walk to the village spring. They wash in icy water. 10-year-old Nassim (ph) helps her 4- year-old sister, Tyru (ph). Nassim's had to grow up fast. Their mother died in the earthquake. They take breakfast in one of the few standing houses. Tea and biscuits is all that's on offer.
(on camera): Ask any of them, have any of them...
(voice-over): As I chat to the children, it's obvious many are suffering illnesses because of the total lack of medical supplies.
(on camera): This is little Rayman (ph) who's just two years old. And you can see he's got a really nasty eye infection. He can't see out of either eye. He's got a bit of a chesty cough, as well. Now, if this eye infection, and it is after five days, isn't treated, he could end up going blind.
Sadik (ph) is eight. He seems healthy, and so he removes his hat. He has scabies. Like the eye infection, it's easily treated, if only he could get to a doctor.
Lacking the proper protection against the biting cold, the children are run down and succumbing to infections. A pathetic and depressing situation.
Everywhere, the sound of coughing children. They survived the earthquake, but can they really survive living like this?
Dan Rivers, ITV News, Pakistan.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: It is hard to imagine anyone, let alone children, living in those conditions. If you'd like to help, you can donate to Doctors Without Borders. They're one of the groups that are working there. Their website is msf.org. You can also donate to UNICEF at unicef.org. For a more complete list of organizations, you can go to cnn.com, click on how to donate on the right side of the page. There are so many villages like that one.
Here in the states, criticism over some tough talk by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. Did her comments, comparing the House of Representatives to a plantation go too far? We'll talk with the pastor who was there. Plus, a man accused of murder finally admits to committing the crime. So why would the law keep him outside of jail? It is an unusual twist in a tragic case. We'll have that and more when 360 continues.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: So how did TV's talking head react to Hillary Clinton's plantation remark? We'll have a sampling ahead. But first, here are some of the other stories we're following at this moment.
His doctor says that Randy McCloy, the only survivor of the Sago Mine disaster, is out of intensive care. That's because his collapsed lung and other organs are recovering. But McCloy has not regained consciousness and is listed in serious condition.
Mississippi, now Former Republican Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott announced today that he will seek a fourth Senate term. Lott, who lost his Pascagoula home in Hurricane Katrina, said, quote, "I have chosen Mississippi and America once again." Lott was pushed out of the GOP leadership in 2002 after he seemed to suggest that the U.S. would have fared better if a segregationist had been elected president in 1948.
Cape Canaveral will try again tomorrow, but since it will take a decade to get to Pluto, NASA's scrub of today's space probe launch, well it shouldn't really matter. The new Horizon space craft, about the size of a baby grand piano, will capture the first up-close imagery of Pluto.
Well, if you're a lawmaker in Washington, especially one who may someday run for president, you know every public word that you say will be recorded and transcribed. You also know that pundits and the opposing party will scrutinize everything, looking for the juicy tidbits.
So yesterday, when Senator Hillary Rodhmam Clinton compared the House of Representatives to a plantation, of all things, she must have known she was going to get a strong reaction, and that she did. Here's CNN's Mary Snow.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MARY SNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It may be her harshest criticism yet of the Bush administration.
SEN. HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON (D), NEW YORK: I predict to you that this administration will go down in history as one of the worst that has ever governed our country.
SNOW: Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton told an audience in Harlem Monday that the Bush White House was filled with cronyism and incompetence. She also apologized to a handful of Katrina evacuees in the audience.
CLINTON: And we want to apologize to you. Apologize to you on behalf of a government that left you behind.
SNOW: White House Spokesman Scott McClellan was asked about the Senator's remarks.
SCOTT MCCLELLAN, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: In terms of the comments you referenced from Senator Clinton, I think that they were out of bounds.
SNOW: Not everyone agrees. In an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer, Democratic Senator John Kerry said, Clinton is right.
SEN. JOHN KERRY (D), MASSACHUSETTS: I think this administration is one of the most derelict in responsibility in the history. Sure. I don't disagree with her. I mean, almost every single issue of importance, with a completely apolitical point of view. Look at healthcare in America. What's their plan? They have no plan.
SNOW: Senator Clinton's harsh criticism of the Bush administration comes in contrast to recent moves towards moderation. Teaming up with Republicans like Newt Gingrich and John McCain. On Monday, she broke from that trend at an event hosted by black activist Reverend Al Sharpton, honoring Martin Luther King.
The event's audience was largely African-American. Clinton blasted the Republican-controlled Congress, saying it did not tolerate dissent.
CLINTON: Because, when you look at the way the House of Representatives has been run, it has been run like a plantation. And you know what I'm talking about.
SNOW: Her choice of words has drawn critics.
REP. PETER KING (R), NEW YORK: That definitely is using the race card. It definitely has racist connotations. She knows it. She knew the audience knew what she was trying to say, and it was wrong. And she really, you know, she should be ashamed. This was a wrong thing to say.
SNOW: Al Sharpton didn't think it was wrong.
REV. AL SHARPTON, ACTIVIST: I absolutely defend her saying it because I said it all through the '04 elections.
SNOW (on camera): A spokesman for Senator Clinton defended the comments, saying that the House Republican leadership has stifled real and substantive debate. Mary Snow, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Well, so did Senator Clinton go over the line? Earlier I discussed her comments with the Reverend Joseph D. Johnson, Sr., pastor of Canaan Baptist Church of Christ in Harlem. He presided over the Martin Luther King Day event at which Senator Clinton spoke. Here's some of what he had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Pastor, what were your reactions to Senator Clinton's comments?
REV. JOSEPH D. JOHNSON SR., CANAAN BAPTIST CHURCH OF CHRIST: Well, quite frankly, I was rather impressed that Senator Clinton was as passionate about some of the things that many of the persons in the audience had felt for a very long time. So, I wasn't offended at all by the statements. And in fact, I thought it affirmed what a lot of people were feeling in the audience. And affirmed many of the things that I feel about.
COOPER: I just want to play the byte that's gotten so much attention, and also the reaction it received afterwards. Let's play that and then talk about it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CLINTON: When you look at the way the House of Representatives has been run, it has been run like a plantation. And you know what I'm talking about. It has been run in a way so that nobody with a contrary point of view has had a chance to present legislation, to make an argument, to be heard.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: It doesn't sound like it was a rapturous response at all.
JOHNSON: Well, it was not a rapturous response. There was a very notable response to the comment. For me, I interpreted the response to be an affirmation of what this audience has been feeling about things that go on in Washington, the current policies of this administration for a very long time.
COOPER: Is there any sense -- I mean, there were some who said look, invoking the word "plantation" is obviously a very -- it's a potent word, and there were many people who were offended by it for different reasons. I mean, some say it belittled the African-American experience on plantations, to be comparing it to politics in Washington.
JOHNSON: I didn't interpret it that way at all. I think that the use of the word plantation was actually tantamount to what Dr. King himself often used metaphors to describe the frustrations of a people who yearned for something better.
As she articulated that particular concern about what's going on in Washington, she was speaking to a people who have often felt disenfranchised. They felt marginalized, not included, feeling like there's no voice for them in the chambers of the United States Congress.
COOPER: But does it seem patronizing at all -- I mean, that she or that any politician would come and, in front of one audience, speak in a different way or act in a different way. You know, in her statements today, she doesn't use the word plantation at all. She says she was talking about a top-down, you know, form of government.
JOHNSON: In all fairness to her, Senator Clinton was actually responding to a question from a panel who was asking about -- was raising the question, but how do we differentiate between Democrats and Republicans today. And what she was responding to is how difficult it has been for Democrats in the House of Representatives or in the other branches of government to promote and to push through legislation that speaks on behalf of marginalized people, minorities and others.
So actually, the use of the term plantation was a passionate response out of concern, I think, for how difficult it is to get things done in Washington for this particular demographic of people.
COOPER: So for you, sitting there, it didn't seem patronizing at all?
JOHNSON: Not at all. Not at all. In fact, I probably was one of those who was very much inspired by the passion that she put into arguing about the difficulties in getting things done in Washington.
COOPER: Pastor, appreciate you joining us. Thank you.
JOHNSON: Thanks for having me.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: So coming up, the law is supposed to protect the innocent, right? Well, when we return, a terrible example of exactly the opposite happening. A killer confesses and goes free, thanks to the law.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: While the law is designed, complexly and carefully designed, to protect the innocent and to punish the guilt, every once in a while -- a terrible while, though -- legal wires get bizarrely crossed, and the opposite actually happens. Someone who ought to be punished is protected, instead, by the law.
Now, the story that follows concerns the death of a 2-year-old, and it's hard to watch without reason, but there is reason to watch, nonetheless. CNN's Ted Rowlands reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): On a Sunday morning, 15 years ago, in this Salt Lake City house, something terrible happened to a 2-year-old boy. His name was Paul Watts. They used to call him P.J.
JENNIFER WATTS, MOTHER: One day, you know, he was running around and he was playing and I was running after him, you know, and the next day he was gone.
ROWLANDS: Since he appeared as the New Year's baby in a local newspaper, P.J.'s mother, Jennifer Watts, says her son was a special little boy.
WATTS: He was innocent, and he was outgoing, and he was spoiled. And he was just starting to really talk and walk.
ROWLANDS: Jennifer Watts found PJ dead in his crib. She'd been to church that morning, leaving her son with her boyfriend for a few hours. She says P.J. was fine when she left. And when she came home, she thought he was sleeping.
WATTS: Hours had gone by, and I hadn't heard anything out of the baby's room, and so I decided to check on him. And that's when I found him.
ROWLANDS: Two days later, Michael Lane, Jennifer's live-in boyfriend of two months, was arrested for murder.
DETECTIVE AARON LEAVITT, SALT LAKE CITY POLICE: We have a gentleman that's in a house by himself, has got no explanation and is not offering any kind of an explanation as to how this child, who's 2- 1/2 year old, sustains such violent injuries.
ROWLANDS: An autopsy revealed that P.J. Watts died as a result of multiple head injuries.
LEAVITT: The child died of a subdural hematoma, with bleeding in the brain.
ROWLANDS: The medical examiner estimated the time of death to be sometime Sunday. And since Michael Lane was the only one home alone with the child, police thought he had to be guilty. But Michael Lane denied that he'd done anything wrong.
LEAVITT: He, at the time, from the report, said that he didn't know what happened to the child, and that he was not rough with the child and had no explanation as to how those injuries occurred to the child.
WATTS: I felt like they weren't pursuing all the avenues. You know, I felt like they just were looking at Mike and that was it.
ROWLANDS: At trial, Jennifer Watts stood by her boyfriend, while Lane's attorney tried to introduce other possibilities to explain how P.J. Watts may have died. They attacked the timeline, arguing that the estimated time of death wasn't exact. And the injuries could have occurred anytime over a three-day period.
CHARLES LOYD, LANE'S ATTORNEY: During those 72 hours, there was just no way to know who had been in and out of the house. There was only a two-hour period of time there where Michael was basically alone with the child.
ROWLANDS: Another theory was that maybe it was an accident. According to Jennifer, P.J. had hit his head on this coffee table the morning he died. As you can see, in these crime scene photos, that theory was looked into by police, but ruled out by the medical examiner. JO FACER, JURY FOREPERSON: There was a great deal of reasonable doubt brought up almost from the very beginning.
ROWLANDS: After a week-long trial and four hours of deliberation, the jury found Michael Lane not guilty.
FACER: There was always those questions, you know, was it really a murder? I wasn't ever really sure it was.
ROWLANDS: And there was also Jennifer Watts.
JAMES COPE, PROSECUTOR: I think that some of the jurors may have said, well, if she can't be sure about this, or if she's not convinced of this, how can we be convinced of this?
FACER: She seemed to be all wrapped up in herself. You know, everything that she talked about on the stand seemed to, you know, center more around herself and her relationship with him, and the boy was just maybe in the way kind of thing.
I think it was the right decision, as far as Mr. Lane was concerned. I never believed that he did it.
ROWLANDS: Michael Lane and Jennifer Watts continued to see each other for several years after the trial, until...
WATTS: He kicked the dog, and the dog's leg was broken, and I mean bad broken, and at that moment when I saw that, I even looked at him, and I said, that's what happened that night, that day. I said, you lost your temper. P.J. was crying, and you lost your temper, and that's what happened, right?
ROWLANDS: Lane continued to deny it until, out of the blue, almost 15 years after P.J. Watts was killed, Michael Lane walked into a Salt Lake City police station and confessed.
MICHAEL LANE: I was responsible for Paul's death, and I just want that be known.
ROWLANDS: Lane told police the morning of the murder he was high on meth and P.J. was crying after his mother left.
LANE: I had him on the floor, and I pulled his diaper off, picked him up. I was being rough and mean. He fell back down and he stopped crying for a minute. Then he started crying again, so I picked him up and threw him back down again, probably did this a couple times. At one point, he kind of went out, passed out. Freaked me out. Put him in his crib. Mom came home later that night, went in and he was dead.
LEAVITT: He said he came in to -- he's prepared to face whatever consequences he may face and go to jail if he needed to. He wanted to put this behind him and get it off his conscience.
ROWLANDS: Lane told police he came in to confess on the advice of his bishop. He says he's never hurt anyone else, but he didn't seem to have a reason why he killed P.J. Watts.
DETECTIVE: What makes you think that slamming a two-and-a-half year old on the ground's going to make him be quiet?
LANE: I don't know.
WATTS: And it's all real. And everything that I imagined is true, you know. And everything I've lived with all these years is true. And it's very hard to look back on everything and realize that I defended the man that killed my son.
ROWLANDS (on camera): When Michael Lane was finished confessing, he got up and simply walked out the front door of the Salt Lake City Police Department. There was no arrest, no handcuffs. Investigators simply let him go. The reason, even though Michael Lane was now confessing to murder, it was a crime that he had already been tried and acquitted of. This was a clear case of double jeopardy.
ROBERT STOTT, SPOKESMAN, SALT LAKE COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: Not only can we not try him for the murder, but we couldn't try him for any lesser included charge. And because there's no transcript and we believe he did not take to the stand during the trial, we can't -- neither can we charge him for perjury.
FACER: If you can't retry somebody, I feel bad, because, but there was just so much there that said it was not him.
WATTS: He stole a part of me I can never get back. I'm a different person now. Angry. It's not fair.
ROWLANDS (voice-over): Jennifer Watts has moved out of state, but says she's had trouble moving on with her life. She says she thinks about her son, P.J., almost every day. He would be 17 now. She also says she wants Michael Lane to pay for what he did.
WATTS: There was a little life there. And that means something and it needs to mean something to everybody. Nobody's held accountable for it, you know. And that's not right.
ROWLANDS: Ted Rowlands, CNN, Salt Lake City, Utah.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Man, that's just hard to imagine.
Erica Hill, from "HEADLINE NEWS" joins us with some of the other stories we're following -- some of the business stories we're following tonight.
Hi Erica.
HILL: Hi Anderson.
We'll check in first with the market. If words can move them, today they did. World oil prices surging nearly four percent after militants in Nigeria said they would broaden their attacks on the country's oil industry. Now, the price of U.S. crude rose to 66.31 a barrel. That's the highest since early October.
In the meantime, the Securities and Exchange Commission cracking down, proposing some new regulations that could curb excessive pay for CEOs. The rules would require companies to more fully and more clearly disclose just what they're paying those top execs. We're talking bonuses, all those kinds of things. They would be the first major changes in pay disclosure since 1992.
Soon you won't have to travel all the way to New York to stay at the Waldorf. Hilton Hotels Corporation, which owns the Waldorf Astoria, is launching a new luxury chain, the Waldorf Astoria collection. In addition to the actual Waldorf, the chain will debut with three luxury resorts in Arizona, California and Hawaii.
And in Scottsdale, Arizona, back to the future. The auction of concept cars from the 1950s and early '60s began today. And we're showing you a few here. These cars are what automobile designers of that era believed future cars would look like. At last year's auction, a 1954 Oldsmobile concept car sold for more than $3 million.
COOPER: That would be cool. I love those concept cars.
HILL: They are kind of neat.
COOPER: Yes. I always wanted to get one. There you go.
HILL: Not so practical in the city, though.
COOPER: Not at all, no. No car is. Erica, thanks very much.
It's not that we don't want you to watch us here on TV. We do, definitely. It's just that you might want to do that, maybe watch in the living room or the den or the kitchen, anywhere but in the bedroom. We'll explain why ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: So, if you're currently watching me in your bedroom, well, thanks to a recent study, I know more about your love life than I have any right to. And I got to tell you, my condolences. CNN Jeanne Moos explains.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Want to get turned on? Then you better turn off the TV because if the TV's in the bedroom...
ANNOUNCER: Stay tuned for scenes from the next "One Life to Live."
MOOS: ...it may have more of a sex life than you do.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Of course. If I can watch Eva Longoria get it on with some sexy gardeners, why would I have sex with my husband?
EVA LONGORIA, ACTOR: Well, let's see what you've learned.
MOOS: A study of over 500 Italian couples shows that those who have a TV set in the bedroom have sex half as often as couples who don't have a set in the boudoir.
This guy has one.
(on camera): And do you think it's been a sort of distraction?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Especially around football time, yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I've never had a TV in my bedroom.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're discouraging me now. I was thinking about it.
MOOS (voice-over): Well, think about this, on average, the couples in this study without a TV in the bedroom had sex eight times a month. The couples with a TV had sex only four times.
Remember who we used to blame Johnny Carson for diminished desire? Watching TV in bed isn't exactly portrayed as hot stuff in movies like "Fargo."
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm turning in, Norm.
NORM: Oh yeah?
MOOS: Only rarely does the TV inspire. Oh sure, maybe a "Midnight Cowboy" remains oblivious to the charms of a TV. But the rest of us are hooked.
You guys have a TV in your bedroom?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. And I'm not getting rid of it.
MOOS: Bad move, says Sex and Dating Advice Author Emma Taylor.
EMMA TAYLOR, NERVE'S SEX ETIQUETTE FOR LADIES & GENTLEMEN: It's really (INAUDIBLE), but there's no TV.
MOOS: She practices what she preaches in her own bedroom. As for the study...
TAYLOR: I mean, it's one of those things that you're kind of like, well duh, it's not even so much that it's time when you could be having it sex, it's time when you could be having a conversation, which is more likely to lead to sex.
MOOS: The Italian study showed some programs kill desire more than others. For instance, violence is said to quell passion more than say, reality shows.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, let me ask you this. Has there been a study on whether Jeanne Moos is an aphrodisiac in the bedroom? MOOS: If you're watching this on your bedroom TV, don't start any action under the covers just yet,or you'll miss what happened when we told our favorite couple about the study.
(on camera): Have sex only half as much as couples who don't have TVs.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Let's think back, Julie (ph), do you remember years ago?
MOOS (voice-over): Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Man, what a couple. We believe in love here at 360. We also believe in ratings, and we don't want to give up the latter any more than we want you to give up the former, so move the TV out of the bedroom, but keep watching us, OK?
More on 360 in just a moment. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Well, "LARRY KING" is next. Tonight, the debate over gay marriage. Gay people and religious conservatives face on.
Thanks for watching 360. Good night.
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