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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees
Ice, Snow Pummel Southeast; Loud Music Murder Trial Jury Deliberation
Aired February 12, 2014 - 20:00 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, everyone. If you are watching this in Alabama, Georgia, or the Carolinas, please stay off the road. If you're watching anywhere else along the I-95 corridor from Virginia to Maine, get ready for a big mess. It is only just begun. And if you're trying to fly anywhere tonight or in the next few days, I wish you a lot of luck.
To breaking news, parts of the country now are at a complete standstill on ice. Highways covered with it, cars stuck in it. Nearly half a million homes without power. Thousands of flights canceled. At least nine lives lost. More than 100 million others affected or about to be affected by yet another winter wallop.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER (voice-over): The chaos started in Georgia. And now it's hammering North Carolina. Millions bracing for a storm the Weather Service called potentially catastrophic. The largest concern, ice, up to an inch thick in some places.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's pretty bad. I used to live in Indiana. And this is worse than that.
COOPER: Sleet and freezing rain are creating treacherous conditions, coating roads and bringing down tree limbs. Already power is out for nearly half a million across the region. And it could remain that way for days or even weeks.
Anticipating outages, energy companies in South Carolina brought in extra crews to help speed up the process. Officials throughout the south are pleading with people to stay safe and stay off the roads.
GOV. NATHAN DEAL (R), GEORGIA: Stay home and stay out of the way of emergency agencies and power companies.
GOV. PAT MCCRORY (R), NORTH CAROLINA: Be smart during these times. Realize these are dangerous conditions, and realize that as you put yourself in jeopardy, you're putting other people in jeopardy also.
COOPER: While South Carolina and Georgia residents seemed to heed the warnings, stocking up on the essentials before the storm hit, much of North Carolina, it seems, has not. In Charlotte and Raleigh-Durham, worsening conditions snarling rush hour traffic, causing mass of traffic jams, and in a repeat of Atlanta's mess last week, forcing people to abandon their vehicles on the roads.
All flights into and out of Raleigh's airport are canceled. Adding to the travel nightmare throughout the east where more than 3,000 flights were scrubbed. The storm will continue to march north where it will develop into a full-fledged nor'easter overnight, dumping upwards of a foot of snow or more along the busy I-95 corridor and interior New England.
Officials around Washington, which could see its largest snow totals in four years are taking no chances. Pretreating roads before the flakes start flying.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're spraying salt down in order to prepare for the roads. Anything comes down we're prepared for.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Well, in North Carolina where few things are bigger than college basketball, something happened today that best anyone can remember never has before. They called off a Duke-UNC game. The roads are just too dangerous for people to get there.
Earlier tonight, North Carolina's Department of Public Safety deployed about 170 National Guard troops to help the Highway Patrol locate stranded drivers.
On the phone right now is the mayor of Durham, North Carolina, William Bell.
Mayor Bell, I mean, the images of the traffic we saw out of Durham just a few hours ago were chaotic, to say the least. How are things now?
MAYOR WILLIAM BELL, DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA: They're much improved, Anderson, but we still have issues. Fortunately we've been able to get through most of it.
This storm came in while everybody was expecting it. No one expected it to be so sudden around 1:00. And it just dumped a lot of snow in a very short amount of time and it really caused some havoc to some of our major roads.
COOPER: And are there still people stranded on the various highways in your area?
BELL: I'm told that there are a few but not as many as there were earlier today. We've been able to work with the state and with our local crews to try to get some of this cleared up.
COOPER: I understand 911 operators received hundreds of calls if not more by now. A lot of accidents as well. How prepared do you think your community, your state was -- to respond to a storm of this caliber? How much equipment do you have?
This is obviously not a normal occurrence. BELL: Well, I think we were prepared as could be given the information that we were given. We have the equipment. We've been working cooperatively with the state. So we've been able to work this out. But obviously there have been some issues. For example, I was over at Duke's campus around 12:00. The storm came in at 1:00. And a drive that normally takes me about 15 minutes to get back to my home took three hours.
COOPER: Wow.
BELL: It was all because of the snow that was piling up on the roads.
COOPER: In terms of power outages what's the latest?
BELL: We've been fortunate. And we keep our fingers crossed right now. We haven't really had any reported outages of any significance, at least in the Durham area. But we're prepared for that also. And if need be we open shelters. We've had two of our major shopping centers to serve as shelters for stranded motorists along the interstate corridor. So that's been very helpful also.
COOPER: Mayor Bell, I know it's going to be a couple of busy days for you and everybody there. I wish the best. Thank you for talking to us tonight.
BELL: Thank you.
COOPER: Some amazing stories are emerging from the storm. Our next guest was driving home from work tonight when she got caught in traffic. What she saw next she says she'll never forget. Her name is Tricia Humphrey and she joins us now by phone.
So you're in one of the hardest hit areas in your state, Tricia. Your commute I understand from work normally takes you about 25 minutes on a good day. How long did it take you today?
TRICIA HUMPHREY, RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA, COMMUTER: Well, today was about six hours.
COOPER: Wow.
HUMPHREY: I know.
COOPER: Oh, my goodness. Did you -- I mean, did you -- were you prepared for that? Did you expect that?
HUMPHREY: Well, I actually was prepared because I had seen the situation in Atlanta. And I said that will not happen to me. And I was expecting it to happen later in the day. And what happened is, folks called me from my area and they said, we see flurries. And it came on so fast and furious, it just happened so quickly, that is why so many of us were caught.
COOPER: And --
HUMPHREY: And we were -- COOPER: No. Sorry. Go ahead.
HUMPHREY: Well, we were all just caught out leaving our offices at the same time, which we saw happened in Atlanta. So it was just a repeat.
COOPER: And I know you shared some pictures of what you saw. We're going to show them to everybody. I mean, it really looks a lot like Atlanta in the last storm as you said.
HUMPHREY: Yes.
COOPER: And it looks like there was a car on fire that you were close to.
HUMPHREY: Yes. A lot of cars were abandoned. They just left. And I saw folks walking, families, people. But my car was actually -- had really good traction. And then the next thing you know I see flames. And a gentleman came up and said, turn off your car. Just relax. You're not going anywhere for awhile.
And then the -- finally the police came. And they didn't really have anything to put out the flames, so then the actual fire truck came. And they put out the flames. And the car was just a shell when I went by it later.
COOPER: There was nobody inside, though.
HUMPHREY: No, no, no.
COOPER: Well, that's good.
HUMPHREY: No. I think -- there are a lot of people out helping each other. And I imagine they got them, you know, out. And I'm sure the person in the car saw that it was --
COOPER: Well, that's one of the -- blessings in this as you do see people kind of reaching out and helping their neighbors and getting to know one another.
HUMPHREY: Oh, they were.
COOPER: Yes.
HUMPHREY: There were a lot of guys out there just pushing people and helping. That was very cool to see.
COOPER: It's nice to see. Well, listen, Miss Humphrey, thank you so much. I'm glad you got home and appreciate you talking to us.
HUMPHREY: Yes, thank you very much.
COOPER: All right.
HUMPHREY: All right.
COOPER: All right. You take care. Hope it's better tomorrow.
We now have a live shot from Durham reporter Derick Waller from CNN affiliate WNCN joins us.
How's it looking out there?
DERICK WALLER, WNCN REPORTER: It's looking a lot better, Anderson, than it was just a few hours ago. Still kind of sleeting right now here in Raleigh. Earlier today, though, this was kind of a whiteout mess.
This is Wake Forest Road kind of in the heart of town. And earlier today between about like 1:00 and 5:00 today, this -- all this was a parking lot. This was full of cars that were really going nowhere fast.
Now you can see it's pretty open. Just a few cars on the roads. People are really -- heeded the warnings to stay off the roads this afternoon. But you can see the roads are still kind of a mess out here. They are snow packed, only going to turn into ice as these temperatures drop later on tonight.
You can also see that snowplows have really already been down this road. So the DOT crews are out, they are trying to clear the roads, but -- and it's still pretty treacherous and dangerous. Earlier today we actually saw some people abandoning their cars on this road. So people were taking this pretty seriously earlier. And it was a pretty bad situation. But thankfully now it's cleared up tremendously.
Again, bad conditions on the road, but at least there's no traffic at this hour, Anderson.
COOPER: That is certainly good news.
Derick, I appreciate you reporting. I know you've been out there all day. Thanks very much.
More now on the big picture. We'll check in with Chad Myers throughout the hour because we really do want to get a sense of where this storm is right now and where it's heading.
Chad, in terms of the latest what's going on in North Carolina? I mean, is the worst still yet to come there or are they over the worst?
CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Depends on where you are. If you're in the triad, the Piedmont, you're still going to get an awful lot of snow that will change over to sleet. We're talking about this higher elevation here. If you're in the lower elevations of North Carolina it's going to be warm enough that it will either be a little bit of freezing rain at 33, 34. As it comes down it may freeze a little bit but it's going to be warming up to 35. So it will just be solid rain eventually.
In between this kind of that no man's land in this pink area that is the sleet and freezing rain mixed together. People will say, what is the difference? The difference is that sleet hits you and it's frozen already. It hits you. It hurts. But it bounces off things. If it's rain and it's liquid and you're 30, then all of a sudden it sticks to you like a tree or a car or branches and limbs. And then things start to fall down, especially power lines because they get heavy. The freezing rain is really the problem because it's liquid.
Back out here, it is snowing like it hasn't snowed in a long time in Birmingham. And it's snowing all the way through Chattanooga and all along the higher elevations here right along I-81. And the snow now coming up into Washington, D.C. as well.
And it's ironic, literally with this storm, Anderson, how this is following I-95. There's 95 right there, right there, right there, and all the way into Boston. If you're east of there, you're in the clear. You're going to get something, an inch or two. But if you're west of there, and especially if you're 50 miles west of there, all of this pink is a foot of snow.
So it really is amazing how the low pressure tonight is going to travel up the East Coast. If you're too close to the low you're going to be warm and you're going to be in good shape. If you're far enough away from the low, that's where you're going to get into the snow.
COOPER: You know, talking to Tricia just a couple of minutes ago there, you know, she was saying they saw what had happened in Atlanta. She was like, that's not going to happen to me. And yet lo and behold that's exactly what happened to her. I mean, you look at the images out there, it looks like they're having the same issues that Atlanta had two weeks ago.
MYERS: They are because it happened at the same time of day. Somewhere around 12:00, 1:00. That's when it happened in Atlanta. People thought they had time in Atlanta either to send their kids to school -- didn't go to school today -- or they thought they could go do one more thing and then they got caught because it snowed right in the middle of the day.
The difference between Atlanta's pictures today which is completely blank roads is because it started at 2:00 a.m. and people looked out at 5:00, 6:00 in the morning and said, I'm not going out in that and they stayed home. That's the difference between this ice storm and last week's or two weeks ago snowstorm where there was like two different cities because we were prepared this time and it started at a completely different time of day.
COOPER: All right. We're going to be checking in with Chad throughout this hour. Also in our 10:00 hour.
Chad, thank you.
Let us know what you think. You can follow me on Twitter @andersoncooper. Tweet us using #ac360 tonight.
Up next, our storm coverage continues at the airport. What you need to know if you're planning to fly anywhere anytime soon. We'll also check in on the situation in and around Atlanta where so many people have lost power. A lot more ahead. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: That's Capitol Hill tonight looking like the inside of a souvenir snow globe which is really coming down at 2:00 from the storm that forecasters said would be perhaps catastrophic and it's turned out to be in some ways precisely that for some areas. Even for people not directly in the path of it, namely air travelers, would-be travelers, that is, who are grounded.
Aviation correspondent Rene Marsh joins us now with the latest and a whole lot of cancellations.
So what do we know about the flights in the air right now?
RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION AND GOVERNMENT REGULATION CORRESPONDENT: Well, Anderson, we're looking at it right now. This is real-time planes over the mid-Atlantic just over 5,000. The folks at FlightAware say that's a little bit lower than they would expect.
But let's talk about the cancellations today. Today Delta saw the most cancellations. And that makes a lot of sense because their hub is in Atlanta. So Atlanta got hit really hard. 1700 cancellations today. Tomorrow they project 1200.
JetBlue, they've had a really rough winter. Today only had 41 cancellations. That's because the storm hadn't reached New York as yet. But it's on its way. And they already have pre-canceled some 300 flights for tomorrow.
But, Anderson, the big question is, what about those plane that do get into the air? Well, we went behind the scenes to look at the operation as to how they coordinate all those planes that are in the air as that big storm is moving its way up the East Coast.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Still Atlanta with the freezing rain real soon. We'll check in with them. It just started to snow now at Charlotte. So no changes to that.
MARSH (voice-over): Conference calls every two hours inside the FAA Command Center as another winter storm moves up the East Coast dumping rain, ice and snow.
On the call, airlines, airports and air traffic control. They're coordinating how to get planes around this winter storm and minimize traveler delayed. Six large screens displayed the storm. Planes in the air and planes grounded.
At Atlanta's Hartsfield Airport, the busiest in the world, planes are parked.
(On camera): I see a lot of blue by Atlanta. What is it -- what are you monitoring here?
TONY TISDALL, FAA AIR TRAFFIC MANAGER: This is one of our primary traffic management tools. And blue was actually the cancellations that are coming in from the carriers.
MARSH: Atlanta is down to nothing.
TISDALL: Atlanta is pretty much getting down to nothing.
MARSH (voice-over): All airports have a weather plan, and this FAA command center in Warrington, Virginia, helps coordinate the execution by communicating with 21 regional centers.
(On camera): You do real math here as far as how many planes can you deice per minute.
TISDALL: Once an airplane deices we want to minimize the time from that happening to them departing. So that's where the numbers really starts slowing down a little bit. And we do not want to put anybody in a position where they are staying on the ramp where they have to go back to deice.
MARSH (voice-over): You could call this the calm during the storm. It really gets busy here after the system passes and airlines scramble to get their planes back into the air.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: So, Rene, you talked about a little bit about what's going to happen tomorrow. How -- I mean, how does it look more on tomorrow?
MARSH: In a word, Anderson, it looks bad. Already more than 3700 flights pre-cancelled. Majority of those are Atlanta, Philadelphia and New Jersey. So right around where you guys are.
COOPER: All right. More misery out on the airports. Rene, thanks very much.
Now Atlanta which is getting a kind of do-over second chance after about two inches of snow and ice a couple of weeks ago turned the city into America's parking lot. Hard to forget those images, people stuck in cars hour after hour, some all day, all night, kids stuck at school, people sleeping in grocery store aisles.
This time the warnings, the closings, and preparations all came early, as Chad was talking about earlier. People stayed off the roads. Salt trucks had room to roll. A big, big difference.
Our Gary Tuchman has been out and about. He joins us now.
Now you're on the streets in downtown Atlanta. Looks pretty good there right now.
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Much different situation, Anderson, than two weeks ago. We do have a situation where there are 150,000 homes without power here in Georgia. A lot of people call Atlanta the city of trees because it's so green. Countless trees have been destroyed, power lines down. But people have taken this storm much more seriously. And the downtime connector which is the merger of Interstate 75 and 85 which goes through downtown Atlanta, one of the busiest highways in the United States, almost completely empty today. Roads throughout the city almost completely empty. It reminded me of Hurricane Katrina just before it came and all the streets in New Orleans being empty.
And Gulfport, Mississippi, and Biloxi, Mississippi, being empty. People took it very seriously. And it really worked. I mean, that's the thing. When politicians and parents and everyone in between take it seriously and don't send their kids to school, don't go to work when they know lots of snow is coming in place that doesn't get much of it, things work. And it seems to have worked today.
COOPER: And will businesses be closed tomorrow? Certainly I guess schools will be.
TUCHMAN: Yes. Most schools we already know would be closed again. They were closed Tuesday because it's anticipated this weather would move in on Tuesday. It really didn't but the schools for the most part were closed Tuesday.
Every school was closed today. Most schools will be closed tomorrow. And there's a good chance this being the south and people being wary the schools may still be closed on Friday because there still will likely be some ice on the streets.
COOPER: All right, Gary, thanks very much.
Gary just mentioned Hurricane Katrina. I want to bring in retired army, Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, who of course spearheaded military relief and recovery operations following the hurricane.
You know, you spoke out a couple of weeks ago about Georgia's -- the lack of preparations there during the last snow storm. They are certainly weathering this one a little bit better, it looks like, or a lot better.
Can we expect things to get worse? I mean some of the situation seems pretty bad in North Carolina.
LT. GEN. RUSSEL HONORE, AUTHOR, "LEADERSHIP IS THE NEW NORMAL": Absolutely. It will get worse before it gets better. Imagine what happened two weeks ago. They did better this time around. This time we had the lights out. And when we get the electricity out to large populations, it's set back the way we live 80 years. Water stops running, no flushing toilets. It really creates a mess when we lose power. But they are doing a lot better, both the mayor and the governor. And congratulations to them.
COOPER: And in terms of infrastructure, I mean, hundreds of thousands of people without power as you just mentioned in the southeast. It's really the ice, not the snow, that causes the power lines to fall.
Is it just a matter of money that communities are not putting power lines underground? HONORE: Yes. That, Anderson, and the absence of any tree trimming, seriously. If you drive around Atlanta, a beautiful city, I love it there, you will see mile after mile of trees that are taller than the power lines. Atlanta is referred to as a forest with a city in it.
Eighty percent of the power lines in America are above ground. I live in both Harlem and Germany. In both of those locations the power is generally underground in most communities. And -- but the downside of underground power is cost. And who pays to put that in the ground? It costs about double the amount to put underground power as it is above ground.
Above ground mile in a new subdivision is about $200,000. Underground in that same distance in a new subdivision is over -- right at $500,000. To put it in an existing inner city neighborhood is over $700,000.
Who pays the cost --
COOPER: Right.
HONORE: -- if you want to do that? The other downside is flooding, Anderson. Like it happens in New York sometime, they have underground power but there can be flooding and they have catastrophic effects also.
COOPER: The other big thing is tree maintenance, which is obviously important. But then again that's a question of money.
HONORE: Money. Most of our power companies, they do lean operations, only trim where they have to. And they're helped in a negative way by the green people in the communities who refuse to allow you to cut a tree. If you wanted to cut a tree in Atlanta, you've got to get a permission from an arborist who will come out and look at the tree on your property and tell you if you can cut it or not.
The downside of it is when we have a storm like this, everybody wants to know why isn't the power underground and why are those trees allowed to fall on the power lines. It's a dilemma, short-lived. Next week people will be talking about something else. But we have a problem in America with our infrastructure, particularly with our power grid. This is just one of them. And we must address it with some standards.
COOPER: Yes. General Honore, it's good to have you on. Thank you, sir.
For more on the story you can go to CNN.com.
Tonight up next Michael Dunn's fate is now in the hands of the jury in his murder trial. The "Equal Justice" panel weighs in on today's closing arguments. We'll tell you what both attorneys said.
Also tonight take a look at this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) COOPER: Are you going to put that in there? Wow, look at that. Good job.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: We began a really remarkable series of this tonight on babies and their brains. You know, a lot of people think babies are just kind of a blank slate. But the question is and what researchers at Yale University are looking into is the question are babies born knowing the difference between right and wrong?
We're talking about babies three months old, six months old. Wait until you see what these researchers at Yale have discovered. It's really fascinating. That's coming up tonight.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: "Crime and Punishment" tonight, a jury in Jacksonville, Florida, is now deciding the guilt or innocence of Michael Dunn. Jurors began deliberating late this afternoon. But we've just learned that they've wrapped up for the night without reaching a verdict. They're going to resume obviously deliberations tomorrow morning at 10:00.
Now as you know, Dunn is charged with murder in the shooting death of a 17-year-old man, Jordan Davis, at a gas station in 2012. He claims he acted in self-defense during a confrontation with a group of teenagers in an SUV.
Our Martin Savidge was inside the courtroom today.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In closing arguments, prosecutors said 17-year-old Jordan Davis may have a big mouth, but he never had a weapon.
ERIN WOLFSON, PROSECUTOR: Let me be very clear. On November 23rd, 2012, when this defendant shot and killed Jordan Davis, there was no gun in that Durango. There was no stick. There was no bat. There was no lead pipe. There was no gun.
SAVIDGE: 47-year-old Michael Dunn says it all started when he exchanged words over loud music coming from an SUV carrying four teens. He says he pulled his weapon after he thought he saw the teens, at least one of them, point something out the rear window toward him.
Dunn fired nine shots at near point blank range into the SUV, killing Davis. Assistant state's attorney Erin Wolfson depicted Dunn as an angry trigger happy man with a predisposition for hate.
WOLFSON: This defendant fired round after round after round into that car.
SAVIDGE: Without warning, she startled the courtroom playing the sounds of gunfire captured by a surveillance recording.
On the witness stand, Dunn said he shot in self-defense after Davis got out of the SUV to attack him. But prosecutors say the SUV and Dunn's car were parked too close for Davis to get out. And they say Dunn didn't shoot to protect himself. He shot because he was angry, because Davis has talked back to him. Prosecutors say it wasn't self- defense, it was murder.
WOLFSON: But this defendant took it upon himself to silence Jordan Davis forever.
Even people who have a right to self-defense do not have the right to take the life of a child when that self-defense is unreasonable.
SAVIDGE (voice-over): Prosecutors said leaving the scene and never calling 911 that night or the next day was further proof Dunn thought he got away with it. But Defense Attorney Corey Strolla quickly countered claims his client was angry, saying the other teens testified the only person they saw upset was Davis, not Dunn.
CORY STROLLA, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Even they admitted on cross- examination, did you see him get angry? No, sir. Did you see him curse? No. Did he punch anything, throw anything? Nope.
SAVIDGE: Then Defense Attorney Strolla began a systematic attack on the state's case, claiming witnesses with criminal past got favorable legal treatment from the prosecution for their testimony. That the medical examiner's findings Davis could suffer the wounds he did only while remaining seated in the SUV didn't match bullet trajectories.
STROLLA: It's physics. It's the law of a universe that can't change. This isn't the matrix.
SAVIDGE: As for the state's contention the teens had no gun, Strolla said there was a gun, police just didn't find it. He says after fleeing the gun fire the SUV stopped for 3 minutes at a plaza next door. Plenty of time, Strolla said for the occupants to toss a weapon. He said in a sign of sloppy police work investigators failed to secure the crime scene and didn't look for a weapon for days.
STROLLA: Never asked about the plaza, never asked about underneath the cars in the plaza, never checked the bushes, never checked the dumpsters, but you know what the detective alleges they did it? Five days later.
SAVIDGE: Strolla never attempted to explain why his client failed to call 911 after the shooting, instead going to a hotel with his fiancee and ordering the pizza. The defense attorney simply said all that mattered was that his client felt threatened. As a result, the jury was required to find Michael Dunn not guilty. Martin Savidge, CNN, Jacksonville.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Lots to talk about. Let's bring in our legal justice analysts, Sunny Hostin, a former federal prosecutor was inside the courtroom in Jacksonville today and Mark Geragos, a criminal defense attorney. Sunny, you hear the defense saying it was sloppy police work. They didn't secure the crime scene. But Dunn didn't call police until or didn't admit what he had done publicly until the next day. It wasn't as if the police were on scene right after the shooting.
SUNNY HOSTIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, that's right. I mean, it was really an interesting argument that he tried to make, saying that the police never searched dumpsters, never searched the grounds for this alleged shotgun. In John Guy's closing argument, rebuttal argument which I thought was absolutely brilliant, he pointed out that the only reason that police didn't search the grounds is because they didn't know Michael Dunn's story until days later. He never called the police, Anderson. Actually the police looked for him.
COOPER: And Mark, do you agree with that? This was kind of a red herring by the defense?
MARK GERAGOS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: No, not at all. I mean, clearly, they knew something had happened. I agree that probably the worst fact for the defense is that he didn't call 911 or that he didn't report it immediately. I'm not going to fight that. But that doesn't excuse what I consider to be and what the defense is arguing shoddy police work. Remember, the prosecution has the burden of proof. The defense doesn't have to prove a thing here. They've got to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.
COOPER: But in terms of searching for a gun, Dunn never said there was a gun until days later, Mark.
GERAGOS: Right. But the police obviously know something happened. Shots were fired. That doesn't -- the idea that somehow they weren't going to explore this or they weren't going to go and find out where they went afterwards or anything else I think is not real good police work. I can't tell you how many cases I've had where the police will scour the grounds, so to speak, and scour anybody's route in order to see if they can find something else. You can't believe, and you have to have a healthy skepticism to what anybody is telling you in any kind of a criminal investigation.
COOPER: Sunny, how did you think both sides did in closing arguments?
HOSTIN: You know, I think it was quite a surprise to everyone that Erin Wolfson, the third chair, the youngest assistant state attorney, delivered the closing argument. But she was very good, very confident, very methodical, and really did a terrific job of pointing out all the defendant's inconsistencies.
I also actually, though, thought that the defendant attorney did a pretty good job in arguing self-defense, in arguing reasonable doubt, in arguing this notion of shoddy police work. But the best argument of the day, and I know Mark is going to say that I'm saying this because it came from McDreamy, but it did come from McDreamy.
Assistant State Attorney John Guy brought cash and he was spot on in his arguments. He was spot on, Mark, and you know that. And there wasn't a dry eye in the courtroom after his argument. He made sure that Jordan Davis was front and center in that courtroom.
In fact, he ended his examination on Jordan Davis' picture and said to the jury that the dead are owed the truth. I thought it was brilliant. It t was masterful. I would be surprised if the jury isn't thinking about that rebuttal argument when they walked into that jury room.
COOPER: Briefly before I go to Mark, Sunny, how diverse is the jury? What's the makeup of the jury in terms of races?
HOSTIN: It I quite diverse. It's very different from the Zimmerman Jury. We know there were only six in the Zimmerman jury. There are 12. There are two African-American women, Anderson. I think they are about in their 20s or 30s. There is also an Asian woman. There is also a Hispanic male. All the rest are white. Seven of them are women, five are men.
COOPER: Mark, how do you think that plays? At the start of this you said a lot of this just depends on jury selection and the makeup of the jury.
GERAGOS: That's one of the reasons I've said I think the best the defense can hope for in this case is a hung jury. I don't think you're going to see an acquittal. We'll see. It's Florida, but my guess is, my best guess is that the best thing the defense can hope for is some kind of a split and a hung jury. I don't think you're going to see a not guilty.
COOPER: Interesting. All right, Sunny Hostin, appreciate it. Mark Geragos, as well --
HOSTIN: We can agree on that.
COOPER: Yes. We'll see what happens tomorrow.
Up next, some incredible insight on baby's brains, it could really change the way you think about your own children.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: So when most people think of babies as blank slates, your experiments say that's not true.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Also tonight, an up close look at the mess in Atlanta. She followed the advice, stayed at home when the storm hit, and look at what happened. A tree slamming through her house, we'll tell you how she's doing now.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Tonight we start a three-part series on babies' brains over the next three nights. Have you ever wondered what a baby is thinking and whether they know the difference between good and bad, even when they're born, even when they're 3-months-old or 6-months-old? Researchers at Yale University have spent nearly a decade studying the minds and behaviors of babies in order to find out if they're really born as a blank slate as many people think or with a moral belief system already built in, hard wired in.
Of course, babies can't talk or write, but that doesn't stop the folks at Yale's baby lab from seeking answers. What they've discovered is really eye-opening. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER (voice-over): Meet Meghan. She's 6-months-old.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Look how pretty you are.
COOPER: So is Connor. Hazel is 11 months and Lyle just 3-months-old. These babies are helping to answer one of life's biggest questions, are we born knowing right from wrong?
(on camera): So when most people think of babies as blank slates. But your experiments say that's not true, that it's not that they have to be taught wrong from right.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: From very early ages we know there is a lot going on in there.
COOPER: Can you put that in there? Wow. Look at that. Good job.
(voice-over): This is the Infant Cognition Center at Yale University, otherwise known as the baby lab. Based on over eight years of studies, researchers here believe that babies are not taught the difference between good and bad, but instead are born knowing it. As these babies grow, their moral beliefs are enhanced by parents and society, but they aren't created by them.
The studies are conducted with the help of puppet shows. The puppets act out good and bad behavior. Watch as this puppet struggles to open a box. A green bunny comes along and helps to open the box. Green bunny, nice and helpful. Then an orange bunny comes along and slams the box shut. Orange bunny, mean and unhelpful.
The actions are repeated a number of times. But what does this mean to 6-month-old Meghan? She watches the show and is then presented with the two puppets, the nice green bunny and the mean orange bunny.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Who do you like?
COOPER: Megan grabs for the green bunny, the nice one. Dr. Karen Wynn runs the Yale baby lab. She says by grabbing with her hands, Meghan shows she understands the difference between good and bad.
KAREN WYNN, PSYCHOLOGY PROFESSOR, YALE UNIVERSITY: When it comes to the social world, little Meghan here who is hugging -- that's cute -- she's showing the really typical response of all of the babies that come in. They gravitate towards the helpful characters and the friendly characters from very early on there.
COOPER (on camera): But how do we know what she's really thinking?
WYNN: Well, we don't know the subtleties of what she's really thinking. But what we find is when they look at a social interaction between two individuals they can tell whether that's a positive one or a negative one, and they're drawn towards the positive character.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Up goes the curtain.
COOPER (voice-over): Connor and Soshi watch the same show. Nice bunny, mean bunny. According to the studies, over 80 percent of the time the nice bunny ends up in the arms of the baby. Wynn and her team wanted to see if babies even younger than six months would recognize good and bad behavior.
So they tried this experiment with 3-month-olds. Babies this young don't have the motor skills to grab for anything, so how do they show their preference? It turns out by staring. Babies this young are known to stare longer at things they like, and they avert their eyes from things they don't like.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Noah, who do you like?
COOPER: Noah looks at the bad orange bunny then switches his gaze to the good green bunny. And he keeps staring.
WYNN: They're not old enough to reach, but in their looking they will orient visually to the positive characters much, much more so.
COOPER (on camera): They look more at the positive character.
WYNN: They look lots longer at the positive characters.
COOPER: Does that surprise you?
WYNN: It did. It did. That did surprise me and what it's caused me to believe is that it's just a kind of a fundamental value. We're built to say this is good, this is positive, this is bad.
COOPER: Incredible. Incredible, yes.
(voice-over): What's also incredible is that about 90 percent of 3-month-olds tested seemed to recognize good behavior. The 19- month-old Natalie takes the experiment one step further. By not only recognizing good and bad behavior but acting on it. Natalie is presented with two empty bowls placed in front of the two puppets from the show.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: No.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, Natalie, look. There's only one treat left. There's only one treat left to give.
COOPER: Watch as she gives it to the good puppet.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Who do you want to give a treat to? That guy, OK.
COOPER (on camera): So what does it tell you?
WYNN: They're actually -- I think it tells us that they're actually evaluating who's deserving of what types of behavior in the world, and who do they feel warrants getting the benefits.
COOPER: And the babies take a step further. They don't just reward, they punish as well. Here they're given a choice to take a treat away from a good or bad puppet.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Who do you want to take a treat from?
COOPER: Almost 90 percent of the time, the babies will punish the bad puppet.
(on camera): Now, is it possible this is just coincidence that they're just kind of gravitating to a color of the shirt they like more or where the placement is?
WYNN: Good question. We switch the colors of the shirts. So for half the babies the green shirted puppet is nice. For half the babies it's the orange-shirt puppet that's nice. What we find over and over again, it really doesn't relate to color of the shirt or which puppets on the left and on the right. It's who's been the positive character.
COOPER (voice-over): Even though these babies can't tell us what they're thinking, their actions here at the baby lab are helping us understand more about what's going on behind those eyes.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: It's really fascinating. A lot more going on behind their eyes than we probably previously thought. We just saw babies recognizing good behavior, bad behavior. In part two of our series tomorrow, we're going to look at situations where bad guys have something that babies want, and then we'll see what it takes for the baby to actually interact with the bad guy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER (voice-over): After the show, the good green bunny and the bad orange bunny each offer Lucy some graham crackers. The good bunny has just one cracker to offer, but the bad bunny has two. Which one will Lucy choose?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: We answer that tomorrow on 360 at 8:00 p.m. Eastern.
Coming up tonight, the latest on the ice and snow making a mess of the southeast and heading for the northeast as well, we'll check back in with Chad Myers.
Also an 86-year-old woman in Atlanta, her harrowing storm survival story, her roof collapsed on top of her while she was sleeping in bed. We'll meet her coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: The storm that's hitting southeast isn't just treacherous for the people out driving on snowy icy streets. Just before dawn today a woman in Atlanta found the nasty weather can come right into your home. Gary Tuchman has her story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The advice in Atlanta was to stay at home. For an unlucky few trying to stay safe in the freezing rain, sleet and snow, it would have been safer to be away from home. A huge tree fell on top of this Atlanta house and this is what happened inside. An elderly woman was sleeping on this bed when the roof came down on top of her. That woman is Leila Grier who was hospitalized for bruises and lacerations.
LEILA GRIER, STORM VICTIM: I woke up with the top of the roof of the house on top of me.
TUCHMAN: Three weeks ago, Leila became a widow, her husband of 67 years passing away.
(on camera): How old are you, Leila?
GRIER: Eighty six.
TUCHMAN: You're 86 years old. You look younger, despite that shiner on your face. Are you doing, OK?
GRIER: Yes, I'm fine.
TUCHMAN: You're a brave woman. It must have been scary.
GRIER: It was scary.
TUCHMAN: Tell me what happened.
GRIER: Well, ways just laying in the bed, and I heard all this noise, and all this stuff was on top of me.
TUCHMAN: Did you know what was going on?
GRIER: No, I didn't.
TUCHMAN: What did you think was happening?
GRIER: I thought it was judgment day.
TUCHMAN: You thought what?
GRIER: It was judgment day.
TUCHMAN: You thought it was judgment day.
GRIER: Once Leila realized it was her roof, she yelled for help. Her son and nephew found her and rescued her.
GRIER: I'm still kind of shaky from it because I realize I could have been hurt worse.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): As a matter of fact, the empty bedroom next to hers was even more heavily damaged. Leila will now move in with other family members and hopes her insurance policy will enable her to rebuild her damaged home.
GRIER: I thank the Lord for taking care of me.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Wow, what an amazing lady. I love she thought it was judgment day. It's so sad she just lost her husband of so long. How is she doing tonight?
TUCHMAN: What a great woman. We're so happy she let us in her house after all she's gone through, Anderson. She's doing fine. She was at the hospital before we talked to her. Police came to visit her and make sure that she was doing, OK. Most of her house is OK, just the two bed rooms that were damaged.
She wanted to stay there, but because the tree that fell on the house is tangled up the power lines they're afraid the house could explode, that there could be a fire. They turned off all the power and tonight she is safe and sound at her daughter's house.
COOPER: Let's hope her insurance company doesn't give her any problems. Gary, appreciate the update. Thanks.
Let's get an update from our meteorologist, Chad Myers. So the main area of concern out there right now is what?
CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Virginia and D.C., Baltimore and it's just starting to snow in Philadelphia. So I need everybody home as fast as you can in those areas because it's going to start to get pretty slick. If you can't get out and it looks pretty bad then stay where you are. It will be just probably 24 hours but you'll be there awhile.
There's Birmingham getting heavy snow. Atlanta still seeing snow and sleet. Raleigh seeing the sleet as we expected. Here's how it runs out for the next few hours. This is right now, it moves across Jacksonville, the low does. But very heavy snow, extremely heavy snow as you wake up in Baltimore, D.C., almost down to I'd say Charlottesville.
Also very heavy snow into New York City, this is 6:00 a.m. By the time we get to noon it's mixing in D.C. with a little bit of sleet. Mixing in New York City with a little bit of sleet. And it has mixed all the way over to rain in Boston. That's why Boston's snow amounts are going to stay down. But right along the I-95 there'll be some very big amounts, at least a foot in some spots -- Anderson.
COOPER: All right, Chad, thanks. We'll check in again with you at our 10:00 hour.
We talked about Hurricane Katrina earlier in the program and talked to Russell Honore. The verdict is in for former New Orleans' Mayor Ray Nagin in his corruption trial. We'll tell you what the jury decided next, whether or not they found him guilty of corruption.
Also check out these pictures. Those are corvettes being swallowed up by the earth. We'll tell you where and why and what happened when we continue.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: A quick update on some other stories at the 360 Bulletin. Randi Kaye is here -- Randi.
RANDI KAYE, CNN INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: Anderson, the former mayor of New Orleans Ray Nagin, was convicted today of a slew of corruption charges. He was found guilty of bribery, money laundering, fraud and filing false tax returns. Nagin could face 20 years in prison, but he vows to appeal.
A federal judge ruled today the Boston marathon bombing suspect, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev will go on trial November 3rd. Now in doing so the judge rebuffed a request by Tsarnaev's lawyers to delay the trial until late 2015.
Toyota is recalling more than 2 million vehicles including its Prius, Rav 4, Tacoma and Lexus models. It needs to update the software apparently in the vehicles.
Take a look at this video from inside the National Corvette Museum in Kentucky. A sink hole, Anderson, caused the display floor to collapse, swallowing those two cars. A total of eight of the classic vehicles were damaged by that sink hole said to measure 40 feet wide and 20 feet deep. Apparently a cave is actually under that museum and the director says that the cost of the damage to the cars is expected obviously to be substantial.
COOPER: That's incredible. All right, Randi, thanks very much. That does it for us. We'll see you again one hour from now at 10 p.m. Eastern another edition of 360.
