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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees
Jurors Talk About Their Decision in Hernandez Case; Analyzing Jury in Hernandez Trial; Prison Conditions for Hernandez; Training of Police Volunteer Robert Bates Raises Questions; Gyrocopter Man in Court. Aired 8-9p ET
Aired April 16, 2015 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[20:00:08]
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening. Thanks for joining us.
Tonight, we know Aaron Hernandez has been convicted of murder. Tonight, the jury speaks out.
I sat down with them today and heard the story in their own words, before the life-changing verdict they reached.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Madam foreperson, on indictment 2013-983-A, charging the defendant, Aaron Hernandez, with murder, what say you, madam foreperson? Is the defendant not guilty, guilty of murder in the first-degree or guilty of murder in the second-degree?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He's guilty of murder in the first-degree.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: First-degree murder and a life sentence from the judge.
The jury foreperson calls arriving at that verdict by far the hardest thing she's ever done and having to actually say those words in front of the defendant, she describes that as well. And you will hear my interview with her and her other fellow jurors in just a moment.
But, first, I want to give you a quick look back, so you can see a little of what they experienced inside that courtroom day after day, week after week, and what they deliberated over for more than a week in the jury room.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER (voice-over): From the beginning, almost to the end.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Guilty of murder in the first-degree.
COOPER: Five men and seven women had two stories to choose from, two versions of the defendant they shared a courtroom with week after week.
MICHAEL FEE, ATTORNEY FOR AARON HERNANDEZ: Aaron Hernandez was planning his future, not a murder.
COOPER: One would leave him free to play for the Patriot, marry his fiancee, and mourn for his friend Odin Lloyd.
PATRICK BOMBERG, DISTRICT ATTORNEY: The commonwealth is going to prove to you that the defendant committed the crime of murder.
COOPER: The other could send him to prison for life.
Day after day, then week after week, 134 witnesses in all spoke to who the defendant was and how Odin Lloyd's body came to be in an isolated pit in an industrial park not far from Aaron Hernandez's home, riddled with bullets and surrounded by evidence.
A marijuana joint containing DNA from Lloyd and Hernandez putting them together at some point. A tire track matching Hernandez's rental car and a shoe print matching the kind of sneaker he was wearing that night. And they saw home security video showing Hernandez holding something.
KYLE ASPINWALL, GLOCK INC.: In my opinion, the firearm shown in the video stills is a Glock pistol.
COOPER: A pistol or was it an iPad?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Glock pistols don't have a white glow to them, do they, sir?
ASPINWALL: No, they do not.
COOPER: Two theories, but no murder weapon found. Did Hernandez's fiancee get rid of it? She got immunity and jurors heard hear from her.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The defendant had called you and said it was important that you go down and get this box and get rid of it? Is that right?
SHANEAH JENKINS, FIANCEE OF AARON HERNANDEZ: I believe so.
COOPER: Jurors heard that, then heard it challenged on cross- examination. And they had to digest the stunning 180 during defense closing arguments putting Hernandez at the scene of the crime.
JAMES SULTAN, DEFENSE ATTORNEY FOR AARON HERNANDEZ: He was a 23-year- old kid who witnessed something, a shocking killing, committed by somebody he knew. He really didn't know what to do.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Seven women and five men spent 36 hours, over more than seven days trying to decide beyond a reasonable doubt what all that every and what all those arguments added up to. None had been on a jury for this length of time before and all say that once is enough.
Listening to their stories of what it was like, it is not hard to see why.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: There were a lot of witnesses. There was a lot of evidence presented. Is that what made it so difficult, or was there also just the emotional toll of dealing with somebody's life?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Emotional.
(CROSSTALK)
SEAN TRAVERS, HERNANDEZ TRIAL JUROR: You have to consider everything too. You want to make sure that you're looking at everything, where you don't want to put more weight on something and put less on another -- when the reality is, toward the end, that is when you start to figure out where things weigh and you want to make sure that you're fair to all aspects of that.
JON CARLSON, HERNANDEZ TRIAL JUROR: Everything was equally important, and we didn't want to miss anything, especially where I think for most of us, this was the first time we ever served on a jury. So we had to take it seriously.
COOPER: Was it a lot different than you thought serving on a jury?
CARLSON: Yes.
COOPER: It was? In what way?
CARLSON: Well, you see, you know, "Law & Order" and all these different TV shows, and it is just nothing like that at all. It is just very serious. It can be very tedious at times.
COOPER: More intense than you thought?
CARLSON: Yes. Absolutely.
ROSALIE OLIVER, HERNANDEZ TRIAL JUROR: Absolutely. Draining at times.
Yes, it was very emotional for me. You know, as soon as we read the verdict, people were calling me, congratulating me. Congratulate me? I felt like, who won? Odin Lloyd's mother didn't win. She didn't bring back her son. Did Mr. Hernandez win? No, because he's going to serve the rest of his life in jail and he's 25 years old.
[20:05:05]
OLIVER: And the worst part for me too is, how about the little girl that is never going to see her father again? It was very emotional.
COOPER: You thought about that? You thought about Aaron Hernandez's daughter.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We thought about all of it, definitely.
OLIVER: It was the hardest decision I ever had to make.
COOPER: It was?
OLIVER: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Absolutely.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He was innocent until we proved him guilty. And we took that very serious.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What say you, madam foreperson?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Guilty of murder in the first-degree.
COOPER: Was that -- was it hard? Did you know Aaron Hernandez before? When this trial started, do you know who Aaron Hernandez was?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Didn't even know who he was. I have never watched football.
COOPER: How many of you knew who he was?
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I knew of him, yes.
COOPER: OK. But you never watched football?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No.
KELLY DORSEY, HERNANDEZ TRIAL JUROR: I watch the Patriots every Sunday.
I'm a huge New England Patriots' fan, and I filled that out on the questionnaire. Lifelong New England girl, and the Patriots are my number one team. So I knew him. I knew of him as a football player, not as a person.
CARLSON: I think that all of us, whether we knew him or not, took that out of the equation. I'm sorry, but It doesn't matter what you do for a living. It doesn't matter how much money you have or how much money you make. We are all people and we are all equal and we all deserve the same fair trial. And that is what we wanted to make sure we gave him.
COOPER: The fact that prosecutors couldn't say clearly what the motive was, how -- did that make it more difficult? Did that weigh on you at all?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Absolutely.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, yes.
CARLSON: For any of us, during deliberations, and I know for myself, if you do something, if you perform an act, you always question rationally what was the reason as to why you did it. And without that information, it made it very difficult.
COOPER: So not hearing a motive from the prosecutors, that made it hard for you?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right.
CARLSON: It did. It made it harder for us, because we had to just piece more together.
COOPER: I saw you nodding your head as well?
MARIA ANUNCIACAO, HERNANDEZ TRIAL JUROR: It was exactly what he said. There was more of the puzzle that we had to put together. It wasn't just a clean-cut answer. We really had to piece it together in order to get there.
DORSEY: My belief was, he is innocent. That man sitting in that seat deserves a chance. So that is where it was with me. I just kept rereading what the judge instructed us.
We had all that in a pretty thick pile of papers. And I just kept rereading that, and then would have someone read it to me, so I could understand that. It just -- that is where I was able to rule out different things.
COOPER: Did you think it strange that there wasn't a motive presented?
ANUNCIACAO: I think it would have probably helped for understanding. I can't -- like, us humans, we want to know a motive, but there necessarily doesn't have to be one. For us, it just made it -- we had to piece more of the puzzle together.
COOPER: You talk about pieces of the puzzle. Are there a couple of pieces of the puzzle for each of you that you point to as being key in making your decisions?
Because I know each of you came to this -- you came to the same decision, but you came to it in different ways. And I'm just wondering what pieces of the puzzle were most important to you.
TRAVERS: That is what makes a group of 12 people so great, is that 12 different people are going to look at a puzzle and each person is going to say that certain pieces stick out to them more than the other.
COOPER: Kelly, for you, specifically, was there something that jumped out to you.
DORSEY: It was the judge's instructions.
COOPER: And what about the instructions, what part of what she said?
DORSEY: The different definitions for the law. (CROSSTALK)
DORSEY: Exactly. It was definition of murder one, the definition of murder extreme atrocity or cruelty. Those were the words that I was stuck on. And my -- people helped me with that. I needed -- I needed clarity and I searched for those people that could give me that clarity in that room.
COOPER: Let me ask you that, because for murder one, they either have to show premeditation or they have to show extreme cruelty. So did you feel...
DORSEY: Extreme atrocity or cruelty.
COOPER: It wasn't premeditation?
DORSEY: No.
COOPER: You can't say this was premeditation?
DORSEY: I can't say with 100 percent certainty that he premeditated that while I was sitting in that jury room. I can't say that.
COOPER: But you do see extreme atrocity or cruelty?
DORSEY: I see extreme atrocity and cruelty.
COOPER: In -- was it the number of shots?
DORSEY: It was his indifference, and that was part of what I had to look at. And it was -- even if there was no premeditation, he could have made choices there, when he was there. He was there. They admitted that. And he could have made different choices, and he chose not to.
[20:10:08]
CARLSON: I think one thing in that regard that surprised a lot of us was that indifference. We watched the video footage at his home later in the morning or early afternoon, after the incident occurred. And he was just lounging around by the pool and playing with the baby and going about his regular life.
You know, for us to have knowledge that he was there at the time that his close friend was murdered, personally, there's no way I could just carry on hours later like nothing ever happened. That's indifference.
COOPER: So those videotapes, in particular his own security camera tapes, were crucial?
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: Hours later.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, definitely.
DORSEY: But in the instructions, we weren't asked to use that after the murder to weigh our decision. To leave your friend on the ground, knowing that he's not there anymore, he's either dead or he's going to die, that's indifference. He didn't need to pull the trigger. He could have made different choices when that man was lying there.
COOPER: Do you feel like he did pull the trigger or do you don't...
DORSEY: I don't know. There's no evidence to support that he pulled the trigger. But he chose not to do anything about it.
COOPER: In that moment or in the aftermath?
DORSEY: Exactly. In that moment is what I was looking at because that's what I was instructed to do, in that moment.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He played a role. Whether he was the shooter or the transport, he played a role in that murder. And then that's what he was charged with.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: I think this conversation is fascinating, because you really see how contentious and thoughtful these jurors were and how seriously they took their role.
And many of them had two, three, four, more notebooks filled with notes that they had been taking over the course of the trial that were crucial once deliberations began.
When we come back, how the jurors were affected or not by the defendant's physical reaction to testimony and what, if anything, they drew from his expressions and body language in court and also in those videos. And there were a lot of videos that came into play in this trial.
And later, what life behind bars is going be like for Aaron Hernandez in a maximum-security facility that one expert tells me was built, plain and simple, for punishment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:16:00]
COOPER: We're talking tonight with the jury that found Aaron Hernandez guilty of first-degree murder. And we're talking now about body language.
Unlike most defendants, Hernandez came to court a celebrity, once a star player obviously for the Patriots. He was already accustomed to life in the public eye, to having people look at him and to being judged by the way he carried himself, never though quite like this.
Susan Candiotti reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Aaron Hernandez, his face barely registering any reaction after hearing the verdict. A totally different side of him could be seen at trial, when cameras weren't allowed to roll and jurors were not present.
But that same behavior was caught on tape during pretrial hearings, Hernandez showing a swaggering entrance, flashing a trademark Hollywood smile, often mouthing "I love you" to his fiancee or joking with his lawyers.
Even when police first arrested him, he appeared confident, if not defiant.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We used the aid of a microscope to see closer.
CANDIOTTI: During testimony, he followed every bit of evidence. He showed no reaction as he looked at bloody bullet holes in the shirt worn by his victim, Odin Lloyd. He showed no emotion when he saw graphic crime scene photos of Lloyd.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I forgive the hands of the people that had a hand in my son's murder.
CANDIOTTI: When the victim's mom says she forgives her son's killers, Hernandez does not react. He reacts just a couple of times, once when the defense plays awkward dirty dancing video of the New England Patriot at a nightclub getting close with someone who wasn't his fiancee.
Hernandez rubs his chin and during other testimony rocks in his chair, and then at the end, he's seen licking his lips and rubbing his chin when he learns he will be spending the rest of his life behind bars, even mouthing the words, "They're wrong."
Susan Candiotti, CNN, Fall River, Massachusetts.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Well, right or wrong, they reached that verdict after spending weeks in the company of the man whose fate they decided.
The question is, how does something like that affect you? How does it affect the jury? Here is part two of my conversation with the Hernandez jury.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: It's interesting. I notice a couple of you have called him Aaron. And I think people who haven't been on a jury don't understand the intimacy that exists in a courtroom, where somebody is sitting, you know, a couple of feet away from you, and...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: For three months every day.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. That is right. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
COOPER: Did you look at him a lot? Did he look at you?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
OLIVER: I did.
COOPER: You did?
OLIVER: Oh, yes. One time, we made contact and he actually nodded to me at one time.
And it is hard. You come in that room every day and you see this person. And it's hard to come to that decision at the end, because three months with him, it is almost like you -- they're part of you, and then all of a sudden, now you have got to make that decision to either put him away or let him go. It is very hard.
COOPER: We learned yesterday that he said to his guards that he didn't do it, that you all were wrong. When you hear that, what do you think?
CARLSON: My first thought was, if we were wrong, if he had something else to say, he maybe should have testified at some point in that trial. Maybe there should have been a little more, so we could have actually heard his side of the story.
COOPER: I'm wondering if after the verdict was read, I know each of you were polled, did any of you make eye contact with you and did he say anything to anybody, each -- any of you?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We -- several of us looked at him, but he didn't say anything to us.
DORSEY: It was emotional. And I didn't want to make eye contact with anybody.
And, at one point, there was so much noise over to the side of me, I went to gaze around, and I locked eyes with him. And he was shaking his head like this. And he mouthed something, and I didn't know what he mouthed, but he was shaking his head, just staring.
[20:20:01]
And I thought, you need to look back at the judge. Just look back at the judge.
COOPER: Do you think he was mouthing something at you or just to somebody else? DORSEY: I just think at us in general. I don't know what that was. I haven't watched anything.
COOPER: A lot of people who were watching at home, who were commenting on this trial talked about sort of his swagger, his bearing. Some people said it was different when you all were in the room than when he first entered the room, that he seemed to have more of a swagger, that maybe he seemed a little different in front of you.
Obviously, you wouldn't be able to tell that, because you only saw him at one time. But did his bearing, did that register with you? Did you form opinions at all with that?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No.
TRAVERS: You want to be careful judging people off of their body language, where mine is going to be different than yours. And that doesn't mean that -- it just -- it doesn't mean concrete things. You want to be careful judging stuff like that.
CARLSON: It just leads us to reach irrational conclusions, I think.
COOPER: Irrational conclusions?
CARLSON: I think so. We have to look at specific fact, not our opinion or how we perceive something to be. We had to look at fact.
COOPER: Aaron Hernandez's girlfriend or fiancee was granted immunity. Were you aware that she had been granted immunity?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
COOPER: You were?
TRAVERS: The judge told us after she had finished testifying that -- like she had with other witnesses at that point, that she was granted immunity.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And what that means.
TRAVERS: What that meant. Before she came up, we did not know. But, as she testified, when we got the end, we were made aware of it.
COOPER: And when you had learned that she had been granted immunity, did that affect you in any way? Did it impact the way you kind of thought about her testimony?
CARLSON: There were a lot of people that testified that were granted immunity.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We were told by the judge to scrutinize that testimony. CARLSON: Right.
COOPER: Well, let's talk about her testimony. Did you believe that she had thrown out a box that weighed several pounds, she says it smelled like weed, and didn't actually look inside of the box?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't recall.
(CROSSTALK)
(LAUGHTER)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All we know is, we see her on the video removing that box and placing it in the trunk of her sister's car. What happened with it after that, we don't know. And she's the only one.
COOPER: She said she doesn't remember what dumpster it was put in. She says she didn't look in the box.
Did you find her credible?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She was very forgetful.
COOPER: She was very forgetful?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Very forgetful, yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Selective memory.
COOPER: Selective memory?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
COOPER: So you didn't find her credible?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Not at all.
COOPER: Do you believe the murder weapon was in that box?
DORSEY: No, I don't personally.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't either.
COOPER: You don't believe the murder weapon was in that box?
Does anybody believe the murder weapon was in that box?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We have no idea what was in the box. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't think anyone is ever going to know what
was in that box.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Interesting.
Some people said they didn't believe the murder weapon was in that box and others said they have no evidence what was in the box one way or another.
Just ahead, we also talked about the home surveillance video showing Aaron Hernandez with something in his hand shortly after the murder. Prosecutors said it was a gun. Here is what one juror said how that video shaped her thinking.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OLIVER: For him to be carrying a gun in his house like that around his child, it just -- I don't know. It just made me think, like, what else is he capable of?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:27:22]
COOPER: New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft proved to be a key witness for the prosecution in the Aaron Hernandez murder trial.
This is the same man who signed Hernandez to a $40 million five-year contract when other teams took a pass on him because of his troubled background. The team dropped the star tight end after his arrest.
Now, the jurors I sat down with this morning told me one piece of testimony that Kraft gave was especially damaging. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: The testimony of Mr. Kraft, the owner of the New England Patriots, how important was that? What did you come away with learning from that?
CARLSON: It was important.
I mean, I had said it yesterday too, that when Bob Kraft had testified that Aaron had came in and seen him the day after the incident, or that he went to go see Aaron the day after the incident and asked him if he did it, and Aaron said, no, I'm completely innocent, in fact, I hoped that the time that Odin was murdered is made public, because, at that time, I was at a club.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERT KRAFT, OWNER, NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS: He said he was not involved, that he was innocent, and that he hoped that the time of the murder incident came out, because I believe he said he was in a club.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Even after a professional medical examiner conducted an autopsy, he couldn't conclude the exact time that Odin was murdered. So, two years ago, how would Aaron have that information, especially if he wasn't involved? So, for me, that was important.
COOPER: The fact that Aaron Hernandez said to Bob Kraft, that he indicated he knew what time Odin Lloyd was murdered, to you, that was a tell, that was a giveaway that...
CARLSON: Correct. It was one of them, yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: One of the many.
COOPER: When the defense, in the closing arguments, said that he was there, that Aaron Hernandez was there, which is different than what they'd been saying, or they hadn't said that previously, how important was that? What did you think?
CARLSON: Well, it surprised us that the defense attorney would say something like that. However, in our deliberation, that wasn't a statement that we could consider in our verdict.
COOPER: Why not?
CARLSON: We were told right from the beginning, before the trial began, that anything that an attorney says or asks or if he objects to something, that is not a piece of admissible evidence.
COOPER: Did it make you then doubt the defense in general that, well, wait a minute, why didn't they say that from the get-go? Would -- maybe it would have made a difference if they had acknowledged that early on.
Did it then make you feel -- I mean, it would be human nature to make you -- at least for me, to feel, well, wait a minute, what else is there that they haven't said, and now, all of a sudden, they are saying, oh, he was there after this entire trial?
CARLSON: It made me question their integrity and it made me question a lot of the arguments that they made or the questions that they asked throughout the process. You know, just kind of reflecting back earlier when they made a claim that Aaron wasn't present at the time of the murder and then in closing arguments they contradicted themselves. And then I started thinking back and kind of going through the evidence, we were looking through, you know, stills from the video we watched in addition we watched the videos again and some of the images that could appear to be a handgun, their original questions were trying to insinuate that it was a remote control or a clicker, and then later of all, then to what (INAUDIBLE) was his iPhone or it could be a telephone, too, but maybe it's a gun but is it a .45.
COOPER: The video that was much discussed as well publicly on television and the like about, was there a gun in Aaron Hernandez' hand or was it an iPhone or was it something else, was that important to you?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was? In what way?
ROSALIA OLIVER, HERNANDEZ TRIAL JUNIOR: It didn't look like a clicker to me, it looked like a gun. And for him to be carrying a gun in his house like that, around his child, it just -- I don't know, it just made me think like what else is he capable of?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: I also want to point out that this jury in particular made a point with me before our interview saying they didn't want to talk about what happened inside of the jury room, about the dynamics between them, whether there was crying, whether there were arguments and things like that, because they wanted to protect the sanctity of that jury room for future jurors, because they wanted future juror to know that at least in this case, what happened inside that jury room, opinions that people gave, that wasn't going to be shared with the public at large and unlike many juries I've interviewed, this jury is sticking together, it doesn't seem like they are out there looking for fame or anything as some people tweeted me suggesting. They want people to know - they are not doing a lot of interviews, I think this is one of two interviews, one, a local news interview that they are doing today as well, and they could have done a lot more if what they wanted was fame. They want people to know how seriously they took this, how much they weigh the evidence and the decision process that went into that decision.
As you just heard, Aaron Hernandez's actions and demeanor as seen on the video taken out for the murder were a big factor for the jurors. Joining us now, CNN legal analyst, Mark Geragos and Sunny Hostin, also Dr. Drew Pinsky, host of HLN's "Dr. Drew On Call".
It was interesting, Sunny. You heard - I'm talking about Bob Kraft's testimony.
SUNNY HOSTIN, CNN ANALYST: Sure.
COOPER: And how for some of the jurors, they immediately zeroed in on the fact that Aaron Hernandez seemed to indicate he had a sense of what time Odin Lloyd was killed and when the juror raised the question on how could he know what time Odin Lloyd was killed because even the medical examiner doesn't know.
HOSTIN: Isn't that fascinating? I mean what I loved about your interview with these jurors, and what they had to say, is it really affirms what I've always thought about juries. They worked really hard. They want to do the right thing. And most importantly when we are talking to juries as lawyers, we often tell them, when you go back into the jury room, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, don't leave your common sense behind, and what you heard from them is a lot of common sense. They thought, well, how could Aaron Hernandez know what time it happened and a medical examiner doesn't know what time it happened and that's just a common sense argument that they are making and it makes a lot of sense.
COOPER: Mark, you know, the fact that, you know, the defense - the jurors really zeroed in on the defense, pulling a 180 in closing arguments admitting that Aaron Hernandez was, in fact, at the scene of the crime, one of the jurors said it made him question a lot of what the defense said during the trial, about their, you know, kind of their whole take on it. Have you ever seen a defense team -- is it common that a defense team completely changes their narrative like that at the end of a trial?
MARK GERAGOS, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, yes, it is common. Because there is this perception and I admit to having done it earlier in my career, that you can argue two different theories that may be mutually exclusive or that are at odds with one another and I've abandoned that in the last decade or so because I just don't think it works, number one, and number two, I think you get exactly the reaction from jurors that this juror, I think, eloquently stated, which he questions the integrity of the defense lawyer and after all, that is all you've got when you talk to them.
I will tell you that this is an incredible jury in terms of they knew and they followed the law and I'm saying this as a defense lawyer, they followed the law and they knew exactly what to answer with you. They knew, when you asked did you consider that when you went back there, the defense lawyer's changing of his strategy so to speak, he said we were instructed not to consider that as evidence, but we did take what they had done or their tactics into account because of that. That is exactly what you are supposed to do.
HOSTIN: That is right.
GERAGOS: Virtually everything they've said is spot on. They followed it.
20:35:00
GERAGOS: So, highly -- highly intelligent jury and I'm incredibly impressed, even as a defense lawyer.
COOPER: And I've got to say, I mean I said this to the jury after the interview because I didn't want them to think I was buttering them up, but I mean I've interviewed a lot of juries, and a, it is rare they stick together like this, but also their conscientiousness really impressed me. I mean - and I threw them some questions that they could have very easily said, oh yes, this body language in court, he got a swagger, they didn't go for any of that. They were saying look, that's all speculation, that's ridiculous, you don't want to pay attention to body language - in court, it had nothing to do, you know. We don't - I was just worried ...
GERAGOS: Which is exactly ...
COOPER: Right.
GERAGOS: Which is exactly - it is a defense lawyer's worst nightmare. You watch one of this hoping that you are going to have some appellate issue to pop up, that the jurors are going to say, they didn't get anything for the defense to work with.
COOPER: Dr. Drew, in terms of Aaron Hernandez's behavior, and from what we know of it, you think it is likely in line with a definition of a sociopath. Can you explain that?
DR. DREW PINSKY, HOST OF HLN'S DR. DREW ON CALL": Yeah, I just - someone who feels grandiose, feels above the law, feels that it doesn't apply to him, feels that he can lie with impunity and it is kind of a - there's a sense of hubris and specialness and it's not going to be - you are not going to get him. You got it wrong if you think it is him and that you are supposed to see the world the way he sees it and according to some of the family history that has been told, he's been really very much anti-social and what his mom called rebellious since his dad died as a young boy.
But I want to comment something you said there, Anderson, about his swagger, his attitude and the jury - you can't help but affect him on some level. There's - there's implicit bias, there's sort of a way of looking at somebody that are nonverbal, non-rational ways of affecting what it is we think about and how we think about them that has to affect us. And I think his attitude in court you heard it bleeding through in terms of the evidence they did look at, with how was he able not to care, how was he able to seem so hubristic, how was he able to carry a gun around his children ...
COOPER: Well, that ....
PINSKY: If they'd seen something totally different in the courtroom that may not have affected him quite as much.
COOPER: That was one of the interesting things. I mean his demeanor and attitude in the surveillance video, in the video, the security camera video inside this house, that affected them very much and was key, the video of him getting out of the vehicle, you know, four guys go to the site, three of them return, Odin Lloyd not being one of them, but they didn't see Hernandez coming and going as the rest of the country saw him coming and going, they were only there once he was already there. So, they didn't kind of see that swag, right? I think they saw more in the video tape.
And Sonny, for first-degree murder in Massachusetts, it is either premeditation ...
HOSTIN: Right.
COOPER: ... or it's extreme cruelty and they couldn't say it was premeditation, even though some thought maybe it was, but they said there wasn't evidence to prove that, but they all felt there was cruelty.
HOSTIN: Yeah, and I actually think that was unique to this situation in Massachusetts, the Massachusetts law, because in a lot of other jurisdictions quite frankly, premeditation means you've had to plan the murder. And so unlucky for Aaron Hernandez, but I think what is so interesting about it is, it is almost a character assault. Because they again using their common sense thought if you just saw your friend murdered and even if you weren't - even if you didn't pull the trigger, how could you drink smoothies in the morning, how could you hand your child to them - how could you behave this way?
COOPER: And the fact the fact that they sought, Aaron, and felt through the evidence that Aaron Hernandez was the ringleader of that little group. That also may have been ...
HOSTIN: Absolutely.
COOPER: Sonny, Mark Geragos, thank you Dr. Drew Pinsky.
Just ahead, more in the life in the maximum security prison that Aaron Hernandez is now facing. You might be surprised to learn how much time he's going to spend in his cell in prison every single day.
Plus, breaking news about the volunteer deputy charged with murdering an unarmed suspect. He says he got his training in Arizona. But sheriff's office tells CNN that is not true.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Immediately after sentencing, Aaron Hernandez was taken to a maximum security prison in Walpole, Massachusetts, just miles from the stadium where he used to play for the Patriots. It is just a first stop for processing. Ultimately, Hernandez will be sent to the state's flagship maximum security prison, the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center about 40 miles outside of Boston. He spent at least two years of his life sentence there, the first two years and then depending on how he behaves he may go elsewhere, a less maximum- security prison. Leslie Walker is executive director of Prisoners Legal Services in Massachusetts. She spent a lot of time at the prisons with past 15 years. And I spoke with her shortly before air about what conditions will be like.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Leslie, this maximum-security prison where Hernandez is going to be going, Souza-Baranowski, what is life like for him there?
LESLIE WALKER, EXEC., DIR. PRISONERS' LEGAL SERVICES OF MASSACHUSETTS: Life for him will be crowded. There are a thousand people in that prison. A thousand prisoners and several hundred staff. It is a maximum-security prison built as a super-max. It is built for punishment. There are very little opportunities for education or programming of any sort. Prisoners at Souza-Baranowski are locked in their cells 19 hours a day. They are only allowed outside approximately three times a week and that is if the stars are aligned and the weather is perfect. Movements are restricted. People are not allowed to wander anywhere. You must remain in your cell block from the very most time you are out. But for the very most part it is boring. It is a very boring place. It's also dangerous and it's very difficult up here - a drug addict because the prison is unfortunately awash with opiates.
COOPER: And at this point, we don't know if he's going to be placed in solitary confinement or in the general population of the prison. But if he ends up in solitary, what are the conditions like there?
WALKER: The solitary confinement is 23 hour a day lock-up in a cell that has a window. Approximately six inches wide by maybe 24 inches high. It is a long vertical window that looks to the outside. There's also a small window in the door where a corrections officer can see what a prisoner is doing. The 23-hour lockup is five days a week, which means one hour of exercise, five days a week, Saturday and Sunday, no time out of the cell. People are allowed showers three times a week. Food is delivered to the cell front and prisoners eat three meals a day alone sitting on their bed next to their toilet.
COOPER: So, is someone like him who is well-known, I mean would he be part of general population?
20:45:02
WALKER: I suspect he will be in a general population block after the department of correction has had the time to figure out who he thinks may be enemies in the system and who they think may be enemies of him.
COOPER: What kind of contact at least initially would he be able to have with visitors, with his fiancee?
WALKER: Well, it is two-tier. If he is in an orientation unit, at Souza-Baranowski, he can have visits with his fiancee. They are limited. If he's in segregation, he can still have visits with his fiancee, that is an appointment that has to be made 24 hours in advance and the interviews - the meetings, rather, are between - behind glass or plastic actually. If he is in general population cell block, he can, I believe, get three visits a week. His block would have the ability to have three visits a week and those are typically contact visits where people can have an initial kiss, a hug and sit across from each other holding hands. I've seen children sit on their father's laps, so I assume his daughter would be able to have that kind of contact with him, which I believe she has not had in the time he's been pretrial - because there are no contact visits to my knowledge in the jails in Massachusetts.
COOPER: I appreciate the level of detail, Leslie, thank you so much.
WALKER: You're welcome.
COOPER: Well, up next, breaking news in the Tulsa volunteer deputy story. There is new information about the training he had or the training he did not have, I should say.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: There's breaking news in the case of the volunteer deputy in Tulsa who shot and killed an unarmed man during undercover sting operation. That deputy, 73-year old Robert Bates is now under the microscope and tonight now there are multiple allegations about his training or lack thereof. After the shooting, Bates said he was trained in acting shooter situations by the Maricopa sheriff's department in Arizona. Tonight that sheriff's department tells CNN that is not true. In addition, the "Tulsa World" newspapers reporting that there is evidence that Bates' training records were falsified. Ed Lavandera has more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Roll on your stomach.
(INAUDIBLE)
ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You can only see a quick glimpse of Tulsa Sheriff Reserve Deputy Robert Bates in the video when Eric Harris is shot and killed during an undercover sting operation.
20:50:01
LAVANDERA: But how the Tulsa county sheriff's department allowed Bates to work the streets is under intense scrutiny. "The Tulsa World" newspaper reports that supervisors in the department were told to falsify Bates' training records and that at least three supervisors were transferred to other jobs for refusing to alter the records. A sheriff department spokesman refused to comment saying they don't respond to rumors. Sheriff Stanley Glanz and other sheriff officials have repeatedly insisted Bates was properly trained.
MAJ. SHANNON CLARK, TULSA CO. SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT: ... proper training and all the techniques that he needed, we feel he did.
LAVANDERA: The Tulsa sheriff's department has only released a summary of Bates' training courses over the last seven years. The department rejected CNN's request last week for the full training records because Bates' case is under investigation. But in an interview with a Tulsa radio station the sheriff acknowledged some of Bates' gun qualification records are missing and the deputy who handled that paperwork is no longer working with the sheriff's office.
GLANZ: We can't find the records that she supposedly turned in. And so we are going to talk to her to find out if for sure if he did qualify with those.
LAVANDERA: Earlier this week CNN obtained Robert Bates' signed statement about the shooting that he gave to investigators. He writes that he last qualified at the gun range in the fall of 2014 and has been taser certified for at least three or four years. Then Bates writes that he received training by the Maricopa County sheriff's department on response to active shooters. Maricopa County is run by the controversial Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Arizona, but a Maricopa sheriff's official tells CNN Bates didn't come to Arizona and he certainly didn't train with us.
The lawyer for Eric Harris's family says Bates received favorable treatment because the 73-year old reserve deputy is a personal friend of the sheriff.
DAN SMOLEN, HARRIS FAMILY ATTORNEY: There is a number of records that the sheriff's office, they just simply haven't come forward with them. And if they don't come forward with them, it is a reflection that the training never happened. LAVANDERA: There are growing calls for an independent investigation
into the sheriff's department. Earlier this week a department spokesman boldly rejected any idea of outside investigators into the Eric Harris' shooting death.
CLARK: We are not scared to prosecute our own. You know, and I'll tell you there is nobody in this culture that could be more tougher on cops than our own. You know, that own analogy that you'll eat your own hand. That is the same thing with in law enforcement. If we have a dirty cop in our ranks, we'll disclose them much quicker than the media.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: And Ed joins me now from Tulsa. Has Bates' lawyer responded to any of these allegations?
LAVANDERA: Oh, we'd asked him about the question for the Maricopa County sheriff's department and the "training" that went there. The lawyer says that it wasn't training, that it was actually a lecture that Bates attended in Washington, D.C. to see a speech given by Sheriff Joe Arpaio and that he received a certificate for that. He disputed our questions around all that. But it was not, quote, "training", it was a lecture in Washington D.C., Anderson.
COOPER: Wait a minute. He got a certificate for attending a speech of Sheriff Joe Arpaio. I've had Joe - ....
(CROSSTALK)
LAVANDERA: On this training.
COOPER: I've had Sheriff Joe Arpaio on this show. Do our viewers get a certificate for watching that? I mean ...
(LAUGHTER)
COOPER: That is kind of amazing. Wow.
LAVANDERA: And we thought it was significant, Anderson, because in that statement that Bates gave to authorities, he mentioned that it was quote, "training" with the Maricopa County sheriff's department which we thought was far different from attending what we were told was later a lecture.
COOPER: Yeah, to say the least. Ed, we'll keep on. Ed Lavandera, thanks so much.
Coming up next, the gyrocopter man and his day in court and a closer look at how he managed to do what he did.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: The gyrocopter pilot who landed on the capital lawn today was in court - excuse me, yesterday, was in court today. Douglas Hughes was charged with operating an aircraft and violating National Defense Airspace and released on his own recognizance. As for how he did it, Tom Foreman joins us. So, Tom, what can you show us about the areas that he flew through?
TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, Anderson, I can show you that what happened here involved this guy flying for a long time through a lot of space where somebody should have an eye on him. He took off apparently, up here near Gettysburg, it would have taken him at least an hour and a half when he hit this orange ring out here, he would have been in airspace where the FAA is supposed to know who you are. When he hit that red ring in the middle, he is in the no-fly zone and by the time he moves all the way into the real middle of it all here, he is in one of the most protected pieces of air in this entire country.
Let me bring up the 3-D map and talk about why that is so. Think about this. The White House is right over here. There is the Washington Monument. He was headed all the way up here to the Capitol, and if you look at this point of view flying along this would have taken at least a minute and a half for him to cover this at 50-70 feet in the air he would have been flying past hundreds of officers of all different types, national park police, capitol police, D.C. police, security guards and all sorts of buildings along here, Anderson. It is almost unconceivable that somebody in official - they didn't see him and yet we have no reports that anybody did, Anderson.
COOPER: How is that possible?
FOREMAN: Really, I can't say that I know. I know there are technical reasons why it might be hard for the FAA to see them. For example, we talk to experts that say this kind of gyrocopter like this is so small, moving so slow and so close to the ground, that on radar, if it's seen at all, it would look more like a flock of birds than an aircraft, and height may have played difference. He may have come in from Pennsylvania, at about 300 feet in the air, but it was clearly down around 50 to 75 feet or so when he got into town. That would have made it hide - among the buildings, but the bottom line is, even if that is possible, Anderson, it exposes a really significant crack in the wall of defense around Washington, D.C. And a crack that many here feel needs to be filled very quickly.
COOPER: And especially because now so many people know about it and so many people saw it because it was such a public event. Tom Foreman. Tom, thanks.
And one final note in what can only be described as the best statement of the week. The Postal Service weighed in late today with this: "Mr. Hughes wasn't authorized to place postal service logos on the vehicle. He had no authority to attempt to deliver mail to Congress."
21:00:01
COOPER: Mike Rowe's, "Somebody's got to do it starts now.
