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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown
Details of Possible New Attack Emerge; Boston Archdiocese Paid $10 Million to Settle Pedophilia Cases Over 10 Years
Aired February 11, 2002 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening everyone. At about 8:00 tonight as I do every night, I began writing this page. It was to be a gentle reminder of the meaning of Ground Zero, five months after the attack, and the reason was simple. Six more bodies were found over the weekend and the story that came with the discovery, as you will hear later in the program, is a reminder of what the word hero really means.
At about 9:00 tonight, the bells in my computer went off; telling me there was an alert on the wire. The FBI had issued another terror warning, this one a little more specific than the others. The government has reason to believe a cell of perhaps a dozen men, led by a Saudi, or perhaps a man from Yemen, is planning an attack in the country, perhaps as early as tomorrow.
The first idea for this page was to gently remind that we shouldn't forget the tragedy of five months ago today. The alert that came down at 9:00 was a reminder, if one was needed that we can't forget. Days pass; months go by, the possibility of future attacks does not go away. It will someday perhaps, but not yet, not today on the fifth month anniversary.
So we begin our whip tonight with that story. Deborah Feyerick is covering it for us in Washington. Deborah, a headline on what is known.
DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, the questioning of detainees in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay has paid off. There are new specifics on a possible attack, which could happen perhaps even as early as tomorrow, Tuesday. Aaron.
BROWN: Deborah, thank you, back to you in a bit. At the Pentagon today, charges of mistaken target and abused detainees, Jamie McIntyre working the story. Jamie the headline from the Pentagon.
JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, no apologies from the Pentagon and no admissions of mistakes, as it denies it mistreated prisoners taken in a raid last month, a raid that is now the subject of an investigation, and defends a CIA attack that some local Afghans claim killed peasants instead of terrorists.
BROWN: Jamie, thank you, back with you too. A very different story, sexual abuse, priests and the Catholic Church again. Bill Delaney has been working the story now for a while out of our Boston Bureau. Bill, the headline tonight, please.
BILL DELANEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, here in Boston, calls continue for the resignation of the Catholic Cardinal here, amid a continuing avalanche of accusations that the church here didn't do enough about priests and pedophilia. We'll hear from the cardinal and his critics.
BROWN: Bill, thank you very much, back with all of you in a moment. We'll also tonight look at a troubling report about mistakes made in death penalty cases. It's a study that raises serious questions about how the death penalty is applied, based on the high number of cases that are ultimately reversed. I'm pretty sure this will be less controversial. It is nonetheless a good story.
Oscar nominations out very early tomorrow, the horse race begins, studios in a bitter fight for Oscar gold, a very expensive fight, that out of our LA Bureau tonight.
And proof that NEWSNIGHT is going to the dogs. OK, we don't have the Olympics, but we do have the Westminster Dog Show and the hotel these mutts all live in. It's (inaudible) and it's the end of the program tonight.
And one more note before we get going, remember on Friday the opening ceremonies to the Olympics? Well, I looked at the ratings today, and when I said there were 32 of you watching, I wasn't off by much. Think of what the rest of them missed.
We begin tonight with a warning, a terror alert that came down late this evening. This one, in a way, is a lot more alarming than the others, if only because there is a bit more specificity to it. Maybe not the what, when and where, but they seem to have an idea of the who. Back to Washington, CNN's Deborah Feyerick. Deborah.
FEYERICK: Well, Aaron, the names and photographs are expected to be posted on the FBI Web site any moment. Police across the country right now on very high alert. They're looking for a possible attacker, identified by officials as Fawaz Yahya Al-Rabeei. He's described as a Yemeni national, born in Saudi Arabia in 1979, making him about 23 years old.
New information indicates an attack against the United States or U.S. interests in Yemen could happen tomorrow, Tuesday, February 12th or within the next few days.
Al-Rabeei, and as many as a dozen associates may be involved, according to law enforcement officials. Right now there's no evidence Al-Rabeei or the others have entered the United States. Al-Rabeei also goes by the name Furqan. It's believed he's traveling on a Yemeni passport. Police are being asked to stop and detain the man, officials warning that all should be considered extremely dangerous.
Now, how do we know all this? Well, interviews with men being detained in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Security in the U.S. has been extremely tight because of the Olympics in Salt Lake City, and before that, the World Economic Forum. The information comes the same day a leading U.S. military official, General Tommy Franks, met with authorities in Yemen. That country has been key ever since the bombing of the USS Cole in October of 2000.
Now since the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, Yemeni officials have been cooperating with U.S. agents working the investigation. This is the third time the country has been put on the alert, but these details very, very specific. Now all suspects from Yemen and Saudi Arabia and we are waiting to get their pictures, which should appear on the web, hopefully soon. Aaron.
BROWN: All right, Deborah, rather than spend any time on questions here, why don't we just spring you, let you go back to the phone, see if you can find out more, and if you do, come back and join us. Deborah Feyerick in Washington tonight.
Now to the Pentagon where they're trying to sort out fact from fiction in two cases where force was used against what was thought to be the enemy. The problem as everyone is quickly discovering is figuring out who is the enemy in Afghanistan is sometimes very tricky business. Here again from the Pentagon, CNN's Jamie McIntyre.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MCINTYRE (voice over): A U.S. military recovery team has returned from the site of last Monday's CIA missile strike, near Zawar Kili, with evidence the Pentagon says supports the spy agency's claim it attacked and killed the right people.
REAR ADMIRAL JOHN STUFFLEBEEM, PENTAGON SPOKESMAN: The indicators were there that there was something untoward that we needed to make go away.
MCINTYRE: Over the weekend, the U.S. team recovered human remains for possible DNA matching. Although the U.S. won't say how it might obtain DNA for Osama bin Laden or other al Qaeda leaders.
But the soldiers also found documents, including credit card applications and airline schedules, and evidence that the group carried communications equipment and ammunition.
STUFFLEBEEM: I think that that sort of puts us in a comfort zone right now is that these were not innocents.
MCINTYRE: U.S. officials say the unmanned, but armed, CIA spy plane like this one, tracked a number of suspicious vehicles for several hours as they converged from different locations to a remote mountain slope, for what appeared to be a meeting of al Qaeda members.
VICTORIA CLARKE, PENTAGON SPOKESWOMAN: We're convinced it was an appropriate target, based on the observations, based on the information that it was an appropriate target. We do not know yet exactly who it was.
MCINTYRE: Local Afghans told the Washington Post that the three men killed were "peasants gathering scrap metal." But U.S. officials say no scavenging was observed, and when three people out of a group of 30, including one person who seemed to be the leader, moved near a tree, a remote controlled missile took them out.
The Pentagon is also on the defensive about a January 24th raid north of Kandahar, where at least 15 Afghans were killed an another 27 captured. The 27 were released from a U.S. detention facility at the Kandahar Airport after it was determined they were not Taliban or al Qaeda. Now some of those released claim they were beaten by U.S. troops during the initial assault and subsequent transfer to Kandahar.
CLARKE: We have no evidence that those sort of beatings took place.
MCINTYRE: While the Pentagon is investigating whether the raid was based on flawed intelligence, it denies anything more than the rough treatment that often occurs in the confusion of combat.
STUFFLEBEEM: In that initial encounter, you don't know who's good. You don't know who's bad, and you don't take the chance. You just secure the area. So everybody's treated the same, and it's relatively harsh I would say.
MCINTYRE: (on camera): The Pentagon appeared to be distancing itself a bit from the CIA today, implying that the Hellfire missile strike was a CIA only operation. But sources tell CNN that the U.S. military was involved in it all the way through, from ordering the initial surveillance of the convoy to viewing the live video feed from the Predator spy drone, to concurring with the CIA prior to the launch of the missile. Aaron.
BROWN: Well, there's a couple of intriguing ones there on the table. On the question of the beatings, an investigation is underway. Do we have any idea what the investigation entails? Is this anything more than interviewing the soldiers who are involved?
MCINTYRE: Well, it involves interviewing some of the soldiers, interviewing some of the locals, and also reviewing the intelligence that led to that raid. The question here is not just the treatment of the people who were captured, but there were also 15 or more people killed.
The allegation is that these were people friendly to the new government and the question is, whose intelligence was the U.S. acting on, and did they take reasonable action and were they, in fact, fired on first as they claim in the case where those 15 were killed. So, all of this is wrapped up in an investigation that's supposed to be done within two weeks.
BROWN: And on the second point, the DNA matching, are you given any idea how they're going to go about doing that?
MCINTYRE: Well, the U.S. has specifically not made it clear where they're going to get DNA for instance for Osama bin Laden, although we've been led to believe that because his family, which has essentially disowned him in Saudi Arabia, is not holding him in high esteem, that the U.S. may be able to get DNA from Osama's family through Saudi Arabia.
But it's not something that obviously Saudi Arabia wants to talk about and the U.S. isn't discussing either. The question is, if the U.S. has a DNA sample that they need to compare, we're led to believe they'll be able to determine whether it belongs to Osama bin Laden.
BROWN: Jamie, thank you. Jamie McIntyre at the Pentagon tonight, thank you. Not unlike the stories we've just been dealing with, this is one of those stories that we suspect might leave you a little bit unsure what to believe.
It involves a man being held in Britain, a man U.S. authorities have said was a key player in the Trade Center plot. They claim much evidence to support this charge, and the government in the end may be right.
But tonight, at least, there is some doubt, doubt that could lead British authorities to release the man as early as tomorrow. CNN's Sheila MacVicar is in London for us tonight.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SHEILA MACVICAR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Lotfi Raissi has been in prison now for more than four months, wanted for extradition to the United States, so far charged only with what the prosecution acknowledges are holding charges, two counts of falsifying information on a U.S. Federal form.
U.S. authorities have repeatedly called him the lead flight instructor for the September 11th hijackers. They have said he would most likely be charged with Conspiracy to Murder and could face the death penalty.
In previous court appearances, British prosecutors have said there is evidence of what they called "active conspiracy," proof of telephone calls, correspondence, even videotape of Raissi with the hijackers. For months, his defense lawyers have argued there is no evidence.
RICHARD EGAN, RAISSI'S LAWYER: His treatment at the hands of the United States Government is nothing short of outrageous.
MACVICAR: The FBI has said that Lotfi Raissi trained Hani Hanjour, the pilot believed to have flown American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon. But the FBI has now privately retreated from many of its claims and the defense says much of the claimed evidence simply does not exist or does not support the allegations.
For example, the FBI has alleged that at this Arizona flight school, on five separate occasions in 1998, Raissi and Hanjour shared a flight simulator. The defense says there are no records that shows them using the simulator at the same time.
The FBI has also claimed Raissi and Hanjour flew together in the same small plane in March, 1999. The defense says that Hanjour in fact flew that day with another instructor, as noted in the instructor's logbook.
And as for the key videotape, which the court was told showed Raissi and Hanjour together, the defense says it is a webcam image of Raissi with a cousin. The U.S. has not mentioned the video in months.
MACVICAR (on camera): U.S. investigators have said they are still confident they will find more evidence linking Raissi to September 11th, but they have so far failed to bring any charges related to the terrorism plot, and a British judge has warned that based on the evidence he's seen so far, the links are "tenuous." Sheila MacVicar, CNN, London.
BROWN: We first brought you this next story last Friday night, which we called Mystery Night, the program as it was heavy on mystery, this perhaps the most intriguing. A prominent Cleveland stock broker up and vanishes and so do millions of dollars, perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars of his clients' money. Now far be it for us to steal John Walsh's act here, but just hours after we aired the piece, Frank Grugadoria (ph) gave himself up. Could it be?
Well, no reason to speculate on that here. We'll just tell you that the former fugitive was in court in Cleveland briefly today, facing the first of what's expected to be a long list of charges.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (voice over): Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good and the Cleveland office of the FBI was more than a bit lucky this weekend when, for whatever reason, Frank Grugadoria turned himself in.
MARK BULLOCK, SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE, FBI: It's always good that someone turns themselves in. I don't know if I'd call it a break. It's a lot of work that went into this as well.
BROWN: Grugadoria was apparently a better thief than a fugitive, but he did plan his flight. In September of last year, he acquired a fake Ohio Driver's License, right picture, wrong name. Then three months later, he was gone.
Officials now say with that fake driver's license in hand, Grugadoria purchased in cash a $33,000 SUV, and drove that SUV out west to Colorado Springs, Colorado where he rented a home, again paying in cash, again using an alias, six months paid up front. As Grugadoria tries to blend in, the FBI inched closer.
BULLOCK: The FBI received an anonymous call. The caller stated that he had seen the picture of Mr. Grugadoria and he thought that that individual was residing at a home in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
BROWN: While on the run, there were six letters in total sent by Grugadoria, four to loved ones, one to the FBI admitting he had misappropriated funds, and another to his Colorado landlord saying he would not be returning. As soon as Grugadoria vanished, clients of his began to wonder if their money too had disappeared, and apparently there was cause for their concern.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's not a good life on the run, but hopefully maybe he can maybe whatever, if there's any funds or anything left, that he can help get that all back to these people that he had taken money from.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm delighted that he turned himself in. It's been a bad thing for Lehman Brothers and I really think he (inaudible) everyone.
BROWN: The man responsible for the accounts of some of Cleveland's mega rich sits in a jail cell tonight. The FBI may have its man, but when it comes to the money, that $300 million mystery goes on.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (on camera): Still ahead from us on NEWSNIGHT, five months later and we are still learning the stories of heroism. Ground Zero, when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: This is one of those stories that tells you more about the heroics of September 11th than just about anything we can imagine, but it comes five months after the attack, at a point when our minds are moving in other directions. It makes it all that much more important.
It's the story of six Port Authority police officers, people who weren't even in Manhattan when the airplanes hit the towers, but raced there because they knew. That's enough to make them heroes in our book, and it's just the beginning of their story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOSEPH MORRIS, CHIEF, PORT AUTHORITY POLICE DEPARTMENT: I have Chief James Ermido (ph). Jim worked at headquarters here. He was the headquarters support section. He responded from this building.
BROWN (voice over): For the Port Authority Police Department, it was another bad day in an already terrible year.
MORRIS: Captain Cathy Mazzo (ph), again from this building which is where the police academy was located. She was a commanding officer.
MARK WINSLOW, LIEUTENANT, PORT AUTHORITY POLICE: When the plane hit and people were running out of the building, all those officers responded from over here in New Jersey and ran into the building when the building was on fire. So when people were running out, they were running in.
BROWN: Lieutenant Mark Winslow has been at Ground Zero every day since September 12th.
WINSLOW: They were all located in one spot, readily unidentifiable by their uniforms, gunbelts, guns, wallets.
MORRIS: Lieutenant Robert Seary (ph), Bob responded from this building, also worked at the police academy.
BROWN: No one will ever know for certain, but it seems as if all five perished trying to help an obese woman, strapped in a rescue chair, out of the north tower of the World Trade Center. Surely, they must have known the south tower had already collapsed, and almost certainly they had been ordered to evacuate.
MORRIS: You have Officer James Parhan. Jim was assigned to the police academy and responded from this building in Jersey City. And, Steve Hutcko (ph), Steve was assigned to Newark Airport and was at the police academy taking an interview to become part of the staff that day.
WINSLOW: They were just, I don't know if it was a pocket or a stairwell, but reports were they were in the stairwell and they were possibly carrying down this lady in a special chair. Maybe she was overcome by smoke, and the buildings must have fell and they landed right there.
BROWN: A sixth officer was found 24 hours later.
MORRIS: You had Officer Paul Wozinski (ph). Paul was assigned to path. He responded from General Square Transportation Center with the ESU truck.
BROWN: It appears they were in or near the lobby when they died, so close to safety.
WINSLOW: The officers there and sergeants and lieutenants were actually hand digging for approximately 24 hours in that one spot to recover all those people so they could be brought back to their families.
BROWN: That is the joy that tempers the sorrow.
MORRIS: The best way I can describe it in thinking back, it was a sad day, also a glad day in that we found this whole process that the families are just so thankful. They now have closure.
BROWN: Today, five months since the attack, it is easy to use the word hero without thinking what it meant. Thirty-seven Port Authority police officers died that day doing their job.
MORRIS: That's where they were. They were rescuing people. We knew that. That's the one mission when they went into that building. It was to rescue people.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: And this is Ground Zero tonight, five months after the attack on a cold night in New York. How many other heroes remain there? This is NEWSNIGHT. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: We revisit tonight charges of sex abuse by priests in the Boston area because of the mounting pressure on the Archbishop there to resign. A poll by one of the Boston papers there show that the Catholic community is about evenly split on the question. Cardinal Law has no such uncertainty. He says he's staying.
The question, of course, is did the church, the cardinal, behave properly when confronted with allegations of sex abuse by the priests, and if not, is an apology enough? Here's CNN's Bill Delaney.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DELANEY (voice over): A man of faith, Boston's Bernard Cardinal Law, faithful to the position he's not held since 1984.
BERNARD CARDINAL LAW, ARCHBISHOP BOSTON ARCHDIOCESE: I have the ability to do something as Bishop to make things better for the future, and I think that it would not serve that cause of protecting children if I were at this point to submit my resignation to the Holy Father.
DELANEY: In recent weeks, the Archbishop has repeatedly expressed anguish over the allegations of priests molesting children on his watch. Still Catholics, even many loyal to the liturgy, only seem to get more litigious.
According to court records made public in recent weeks, the Boston Archdiocese in the last decade settled cases involving at least 70 pedophile priests, paying out $10 million to settle 50 suits against former priest John Geoghan alone, who's already convicted of indecent assault and battery and faces Rape charges next week.
Cardinal Law transferred Geoghan to St. Julia's, a church outside Boston in 1984, despite years of allegations already then of pedophillia.
LAW: I apologize once again to all those who have been sexually abused as minors by priests. Today that apology is made in a special way with heartfelt sorrow.
DELANEY: Apologies not enough for lawyer Roderick MacLeish, now representing a 26-year-old who is suing the Cardinal for negligence, saying he was molested by Geoghan in 1989 at St. Julia's.
RODERICK MACLEISH, ATTORNEY: Those like Cardinal Law, that actively made the assignment, reassignment in this case, of a known pedophile, the person who made the decision to do that has to be held personally accountable for it. The problem of pedophillia could be dealt with so much more effectively if those who were in a position of power, like the Cardinal in this state, erred on the side of protecting children, as opposed to protecting the inner circle.
DELANEY: Though when now turning over to area district attorneys, names of dozens of priests accused of pedophillia, the church says the inner circles no longer closed.
DELANEY (on camera): Part of what the Cardinal is calling a zero tolerance policy toward priestly sexual misconduct, all church personnel must now report any allegations of sexual misconduct directly to state authorities, and a blue ribbon panel of medical specialists will advise the archdiocese on detecting sexual abusers.
DELANEY (voice over): The right thing too late say former practicing Catholics Patricia and Kathleen O'Sullivan, who say a relative, a priest sexually molested Patricia's sons, Kathleen's brothers, Sean Sullivan and T. J. Sullivan back in the 1970s. They say cries for help to the church, dating back a quarter century, were ignored including calls to Cardinal Law.
KATHLEEN O'SULLIVAN, SISTER OF ALLEGED PEDOPHILE VICTIMS: His hands are just as dirty as everybody else who's been involved in this mess, and it's going to last for a long time because a lot more people are going to come forward, and well they should.
DELANEY: After being sentenced to probation in 1984 for sexual assault on an altar boy, the priest was transferred to New Jersey. The Boston Archdiocese says that priest is now retired. It would make no further comment. As for the two brothers, T.J. O'Sullivan died of a heroin overdose in 1989. Sean O'Sullivan died of AIDS in 1995.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
DELANEY (on camera): Over the weekend, Cardinal Law said no more active priests in his archdiocese have any history of pedophillia. What makes some Catholics here uneasy though is that the Cardinal said the same thing January 25th. Between then and now, eight more priests serving actively in the Catholic Archdiocese had to be removed from their posts for alleged histories of pedophillia -- Aaron.
BROWN: Any explanation for that?
DELANEY: An explanation for removal?
BROWN: For the fact that -- no that he said on the 25th there were no priests who had a history of allegations, and the fact that eight were removed subsequent to that statement, do they explain that at all?
DELANEY: No and he hasn't explained it.
BROWN: OK.
DELANEY: When he was asked that question, Aaron, at the airport returning from a trip from Rome on Friday, he sort of didn't answer the question by saying, we are so involved now in searching through our own documentation to determine who may have had a background, who allegedly had a background in pedophillia that well, despite the fact that I said that on January 25, we found eight more. And in fact, he took some credit for that, that they had found eight more rather than, as some wished he had here, apologizing for saying on January 25 that the diocese was free of alleged pedophiles and then having to remove eight more.
BROWN: Bill, thank you. Bill Delaney in our Boston bureau tonight. Cardinal Law said one other intriguing yesterday, we thought, he said -- quote -- "a bishop is not a corporate executive." That comment, in a way, goes to the heart of the controversy, of course, in Boston. And other cases like it around the world. This isn't just Boston, of course. The Catholic Church and its leadership; is it accountable? And if so, to whom?
Joining us from New Orleans tonight, Jason Barry, the author of a book "Lead us not Into Temptation," about priests and sexual abuse. Mr. Barry, nice to see you.
JASON BARRY, "LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION": Thank you.
BROWN: Do we have any idea how much the church, the American Catholic Church -- the American branch of the Roman Catholic Church has paid out to settle these cases over the years?
BARRY: Yes, over the last 15 years in the range of $1 billion. And I would imagine that that number is going to increase significantly in the coming years.
BROWN: Why would you imagine that?
BARRY: Because there are so many of these cases that have not gotten the media scrutiny, as has been the case in Boston, in recent weeks. The diocese of Camden, New Jersey, alone has -- it's my understanding -- 34 priests who against whom various civil and criminal charges have been filed. Tucson, just the other day, according to news reports, settled cases involving 11 priests. I don't think the American bishops have at all been forthcoming in dealing with this crisis. And until there is a concerted effort on the part of the hierarchy to give a complete accounting, both of the number of priests and the financial losses, I imagine it's going to be reported incrementally, as has been the case for a number of years now.
BROWN: We have been -- we have been reporting these stories now for, feels like a decade, is there a clear, discernable change in the way the church's hierarchy handles those cases now, compared to 10 years ago?
BARRY: To an extent, yes. Some of the dioceses, I think, have become more vigilant in not recycling men who have these backgrounds. But there is no uniform policy that applies across the board, from one end of the country to another.
I think the chances of an active pedophile being reassigned today are rather remote, although I must say, you know, in the next breath, the personnel decisions that Cardinal Law has made in recent days do make one wonder whether the men -- the eight men, I believe, who've just been removed -- would be considered active pedophiles or people who had treatment and perhaps had gotten into some sort of recovery.
I would add only one thing, Mr. Brown. The term "child sexual abuse" -- behind that term lies a range of behaviors, not just pedophillia. And while not in any way meaning to minimize the damage that is done to young people, there are some people who, because, say, of alcohol or drug abuse, act out in inappropriate ways. If they get into sobriety, they may not act out against children.
So pedophillia itself is a sort of blanket term that's being used. What I'm more curious about is whether any of the bishops have really begun to explore the underlying causes of why so many priests have shown this proclivity.
BROWN: Well, let me ask you about that, because I got a couple of e-mails today, who I assume came from Catholics who are pretty upset that we're taking a look at this again, and their argument is, You people in the media only look at Catholics and Catholic priests and their behavior, and the same things go on amongst Protestants and Jews and Muslims and what-have-you.
And so that's the question. Is there in fact any evidence that the same things are going on to the same degree in other churches but just not getting reported?
BARRY: Well, I think there are cases in other churches, absolutely. What is so painful -- and I say this as a Catholic -- about the crisis in our church is that the bishops have had adequate information about this problem for a long time and yet have mishandled it so consistently over quite a long period of time.
Yes, there are pedophiles in other walks of life, in other churches, in other professions. But based on everything I learned during the years that I researched and wrote about this, I would say that the church has a rather striking problem, and at least according to the available data, it does appear as though the incidence of this kind of behavior is higher in the priesthood than in the general population of men.
BROWN: Mr. Barry, it's nice to talk to you. Jason Barry in New Orleans tonight. Appreciate your time.
Coming up next on NEWSNIGHT, one time when you really can't afford to make any mistakes is when you're dealing with the death penalty. A controversial new study out when NEWSNIGHT continues on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: There are few topics guaranteed to bring in a lot of e- mail. They're sort of the perennials of controversy, abortion, the Clintons, and certainly one we're going to talk about tonight, and that's the death penalty.
Whether you are for it or against it, we think you'd agree, we hope you would, that when it comes to the death penalty, it has to be as close to error-proof as humans can make it.
Researchers at Columbia University have been looking at this for years now. The results they've come up with are not encouraging. They found that 68 percent of all death sentences reviewed over a 22- year-period -- OK, lot of numbers thrown at you -- were reversed because of serious errors. And in those that were reversed, 82 percent of the defendants eventually got a lesser sentence than the death penalty. Nearly 10 percent were found not guilty.
Latest study out today looks at why these mistakes are being made, what can be done about it.
Joining us, the lead researcher on the project, Professor James Liebman, and from the prosecutor's side of this, from South Carolina, the attorney general of the state of South Carolina, Charlie Condon. Mr. Condon joins us from Charleston.
Mr. Liebman, let me -- or Professor Liebman, let me give you the first word here. Is there a pattern to the kinds of errors that lead the appeals court to reverse these cases?
JAMES LIEBMAN, PROFESSOR OF LAW, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY: Well, we looked at 500 reversals at the second two stages of appeals. There are three stages of appeals. And we found three errors that accounted for about 75 percent of all of those 500 reversals -- egregiously ineffective assistance of counsel by defense lawyers, prosecutors who withheld evidence that suggested that the defendant either was innocent or at least that there mitigation in the case, and thirdly, bad instructions, flawed instructions to jurors.
Those accounted for nearly three -- or over three-fourths of the errors.
BROWN: And Attorney General Condon, when you hear that, do you just -- well, I assume you don't dismiss it out of hand, you look at what the report is. How do you react to it?
CHARLIE CONDON, ATTORNEY GENERAL, SOUTH CAROLINA: Well, Aaron, it says to me that the system is working. I've been involved with many, many capital cases, and the review system is extremely thorough. There's some 20 to 30 appeals. These appeals can go on for upwards of 20, 25 years. And the fact that there've been so many reversals shows, I think, the great extent that the criminal justice system goes to to bend over backwards in favor of the defendant.
BROWN: That's a central point here, and I want to -- I want the professor to respond to it. But let me ask one quick question first. Is -- in South Carolina, which i assume you're most familiar with, is the rate of reversal on a death penalty case higher significantly than the rate of reversal on other criminal cases?
CONDON: Aaron, I haven't studied that. But based upon my personal experience, I'm sure that it is. What happens in these cases, because of the penalty -- and I'm not disagreeing with this -- but the whole appellate system bends over backwards. If there's even a technical error that doesn't go to guilty or innocence at all, there'll be reversals. And so the system is geared up to give every benefit of every doubt to these defendants.
And of course if you start thinking about it, of course there are no appeals rights for the victim who's 10 feet underground.
BROWN: All right. Let's go back, professor, to the point that the attorney general made, which is that contrary to this being a sign that the system doesn't work, quite the reverse is true.
LIEBMAN: Well, there are two problems with that. The first is that, like any inspection system, this inspection system fails some of the time. We have four cases studies in our study of men who were convicted, given a death sentence, and approved for execution by all of the appeals, and turned out to be innocent. And we looked at those cases. And what we found was the courts in each case said, We see problems with this case, but the standards for reversing are so high that we have to let this case stand.
And yet they were innocent people. And those are the kinds of errors. We have 40 percent reversal rate at the first phase of review and 40 percent reversal rates at the last phase of review. Supposedly, inspections should have less error by the time you get to the last inspection. We don't have that, and that's an indication that we're not catching, and can't catch, all of the error.
BROWN: Do you think race is a issue here?
LIEBMAN: We found in our findings that race does seem to play a role in the likelihood that a state's capital verdicts will be found to be seriously flawed. The more African-Americans in a state's population, the more evenly homicide is spread out to the white community as well as to the black community, the more likely it is that verdicts of death in that state will be found to be seriously flawed.
BROWN: I want to make sure I followed that. The likelihood is -- are you saying that the likelihood that an African-American convicted and sentenced to death, his case will be reversed, is higher than a white suspect?
LIEBMAN: No, actually it turns out that when a state has a high proportion of African-Americans in its population, and when a high proportion of the victims of homicide are white as opposed to black...
BROWN: Got it.
LIEBMAN: ... then everybody who's tried in that state has a higher risk of capital error, whether they're white or black.
BROWN: And Attorney General Condon, any concerns about race down in South Carolina? It's a very touchy issue down there.
CONDON: Well, if I could respond to the...
BROWN: Please do.
CONDON: ... professor's earlier point, he made the claim that he's got four case studies of people that were certified for execution. I don't know what that means. What -- as I understand it, these were cases that were in fact reversed, that the system did in fact catch the wrongfulness of the conviction. So again, it proves the point the system is working.
As regards the question of race, every time that you look behind these statistical arguments, it of course fails to take into account the individual case, but even statistically speaking, in this state, for example, from eh standpoint of pure statistics, when you look at who actually has -- who is charged with murder in this state, relatively to who's on death row from a race standpoint, in fact the case can be made that you're more likely to get the death penalty in this state if in fact you're Caucasian.
BROWN: Attorney General Condon, thank you for your time. I know we've had a little bit of audio problems down there, you've been...
CONDON: (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
BROWN: ... you've been a trouper to hang in there, I appreciate it. Go ahead, take your earpiece out. Thank you. Professor, just in 10 seconds, do you think an innocent man has been executed in the United States of America?
LIEBMAN: I think there is a very high risk that an innocent person has been executed in the past 20 or 30 years, and that if we keep going the way we are now, it will happen again.
BROWN: Thanks for coming in, very much. Nice to meet you. Thanks to both of you.
We'll change gears when we come back. Something worth fighting for in Hollywood, believe it or not.
This is NEWSNIGHT from New York.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Well, we read somewhere that an Oscar, the actual statuette, is worth about $330. But we all know an Oscar is worth much, much more than that, and not just for the actors. The studios want them too, and the final stretch of campaigning begins tomorrow when the Oscar nominations, very early in the morning, are announced.
If you're looking for drama that involves big egos, cut-throat tactics, and a whole lot of money -- thought you were talking about this business -- here's one for you.
CNN's Anne McDermott is in Los Angeles tonight.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GINGER ROGERS, ACTRESS: I don't know how it happened, but I have it in my hand.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNE MCDERMOTT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Ginger Rogers is talking about Oscar. So how does it happen?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "LORD OF THE RINGS")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS: If you want to, come and claim me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MCDERMOTT: While studios claim Oscar nominations by publicizing movies like "Ali" and "Lord of the Rings"...
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "LORD OF THE RINGS")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: What must I do?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MCDERMOTT: ... well, you must give thousands of interviews while the studios must spend thousands and thousands on ads, all done to reach Academy voters like this guy, who says picking best picture this year is a toughie.
ERIC GOLDBERG, ANIMATION DIRECTOR: Nothing went, you know, just to that next level.
UNIDENTIFIED INTERVIEWER: It sounds like a lot of them stunk.
GOLDBERG: Those are your words, not mine.
MCDERMOTT: Nothing new about romancing the Oscar. They've been doing it since Chaplin's day with wooden dolls, paper dolls, special recordings, vanity billboards, and sometimes, according to one old- timer, a studio might even get you drunk.
But the system works. Only the best of the best win nominations. Right, Hollywood reporter Bob Thomas?
BOB THOMAS, AP HOLLYWOOD CORRESPONDENT: Oh, the list of nominees that were unworthy would take an hour of your air time.
MCDERMOTT: On the other hand, this film was never nominated.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "DUDE, WHERE'S MY CAR!!?")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: You got a tattoo. (UNINTELLIGIBLE)?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MCDERMOTT: Does movie marketing make any difference? Well, studios think enough nominations can boost box office business.
UNIDENTIFIED MOVIEGOER: Hi, (UNINTELLIGIBLE) for "In the Bedroom," please?
MCDERMOTT: But some, like Kevin Costner, think the promotion is getting a wee bit shameless.
KEVIN COSTNER, ACTOR: I think those monies could go to charity or something.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "THE OTHERS")
NICOLE KIDMAN, ACTRESS: No!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MCDERMOTT: Well, much of Hollywood might agree with Nicole Kidman in "The Others," but other others say, pour the money into popcorn so it doesn't cost a billion dollars a bucket.
Anyway, once the nominees are named, the studios can just relax, right? Heck, no, now they got to go for the gold.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS: Oh, this is lovely.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MCDERMOTT: Well, she can relax.
But the losers have to start all over.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "SHREK")
EDDIE MURPHY, ACTOR: Let's do that again!
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: No, no!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MCDERMOTT: Anne McDermott, CNN, Los Angeles.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Up next, Segment Seven. This is great, this is great. Inside the world's biggest doghouse.
This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: In Segment Seven tonight, we want to bring you an exclusive report on the human drama of athletic competition, the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat. Wait, we're not actually allowed to say that, because I think ABC owns the right to that sentence.
Anyway, we'll bring you the very latest from the Salt Lake City Olympic Games, the 2002 Winter Games, where today American Ross Powers won the gold medal in the men's half-pipe. I know you know what that is. Actually we can't show you that either, because as you can see, the rules over exactly what we can and cannot show don't allow us to show anything at a time when you might be interested in it. But after extensive consultation with our many top-flight lawyers, we did determine that we can show you about 30 seconds of what was a terrific hockey match between Slovakia and Latvia yesterday.
Except for one small problem. Just as the game got kind of cool, someone in Atlanta turned the dish around to watch "Ace Ventura." I'm not kidding, this actually happened. Somebody did that.
So here's what we can show you, what we're allowed to show you, some speed skating.
They have a long way to go. We'll check back.
Anyway, as you can see by the rules, there's really no point in us covering the Olympics every day because -- could we have made that type smaller? Anyway, we'll try.
So what we decided to do was our own sporting event, and it's going on right across the street from us in Madison Square Garden, is, yes, the Westminster Dog Show.
Good folks at USA, which is airing the event live, said not only could we show it, but show all of it you want. And so we did. And then there's the place where they stay, those dogs. Here's CNN's Beth Nissen.
UNIDENTIFIED DOG SHOW COMMENTATOR: ... something that comes natural to the dog. It comes with the dog. If you're looking for a dog, you got to consider all those things. If you don't like that...
BROWN: Here's CNN's Beth Nissen.
Not yet.
Oh, good. Well, all right, here's the theory of this story. You know how they always do those things about the Olympic Village?
UNIDENTIFIED DOG SHOW ANNOUNCER: ... chief in cattle (ph), and as such is fearless in the...
BROWN: We wanted one of those too. You know, where do the dogs hang out when they're not out there performing?
UNIDENTIFIED DOG SHOW ANNOUNCER: ... two years old. This breed is being...
BROWN: And Nissen did that.
UNIDENTIFIED DOG SHOW ANNOUNCER: ... in this country to...
BROWN: And she will.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BETH NISSEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The Hotel Pennsylvania, one of New York City's oldest and grandest hotels, has gone to the dogs, as it does every year for a few days when the Westminster Dog Show is in town.
URMAS KRAMER, ASSISTANT FRONT OFFICE MANAGER, HOTEL PENNSYLVANIA: We will have approximately 1,000 dogs staying with us during Kennel Show week.
NISSEN (on camera): A thousand dogs under one roof.
KRAMER: That's correct.
NISSEN (voice-over): A thousand dogs of every shape and size, dogs who look like Scooby-Doo and like Nana from "Peter Pan," little furballs with sweet faces, and dogs with faces like this, Westland Highland terriers, Australian shepherds, wire-haired Dachshunds, Chinese Sharpeis (ph), Dalmatians, all here in a three-star doghouse.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Pennsylvania Hotel is really the tradition and the heartbeat of the Westminster Dog Show.
NISSEN: The hotel is popular with Westminster entrants because it's just across the street from where the show is held, and because it caters to the high-strung and breeding-conscious, and their dogs, who arrive in carrier groups.
GARY BURKE, DOORMAN, HOTEL PENNSYLVANIA: They bring pillows for the dogs, they bring the little beds for the dogs. They always bring water from home. That's because when -- if they drink water from New York, they'll get diarrhea. They're not used to the water.
NISSEN: New York City water isn't the only problem. There's the noise and dirt. It's almost impossible to keep a snow-white Samoyed clean. The hotel has set up a dog spa in an old banquet room, where a best-in-breed contender can get a blow-dry and a comb-out.
And as an experienced business hotel, the Hotel Pennsylvania has set up a place for canine guests to do their business.
JOAN DEVER, DOG OWNER: This is a country dog. He's used to grass and trees. But he will do this.
NISSEN: On show days, 85 percent of the hotel's 1,700 rooms contain a Westminster hopeful. In this room, Stacey Bass from Wimberly, Texas, and her dog, champion Beaujolais Weekend Warrior, also known as Gumbo. Gumbo is a fairly typical Hotel Pennsylvania guest. He drools.
(on camera): Now, you're slobbering all over this blanket.
(voice-over): He sheds hair on the carpet, the blankets. The housekeeping staff cleans up dog hair by the pound.
FAY CARVEY, HOUSEKEEPER, HOTEL PENNSYLVANIA: You have to vacuum it every day, because the smallest dog is like a little cat, and the biggest dog is like a little pony.
NISSEN: The hotel's management says these show dogs are no trouble, really, not smelly, not noisy.
Well, that's what hotel management says.
KRAMER: These four-legged guests are actually a pleasure to host. They're so well behaved. They're the prime representatives of their species. They're always satisfied with their accommodations.
NISSEN: A hotel can't ask for a better clientele than that.
Beth Nissen, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Lead-in Was a mess, the story was terrific.
Jeff Greenfield, "GREENFIELD AT LARGE," is next. I'm Aaron Brown. We'll see you tomorrow. Good night for NEWSNIGHT.
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