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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown
Man Gets Out of Jail as DNA Evidence Exonerates Him of Rape Charges; Israeli Foreign Minister Advocates Provisional Palestinian State; Lobstermen Monitor Maine Coast for Terrorists
Aired July 30, 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, again, everyone. We have as a country been wringing our hands pretty good this last week over what many people believe was a great failure of the criminal justice system.
The man charged with the kidnapping, sexual assault and murder of Samantha Runnion walked in an earlier case, the jury not persuaded by the evidence of Alejandro Avila's guilt. It is a tragedy when a guilty man walks, and if Mr. Avila was a guilty man, he was set free, and then, if he went on to do what he now stands now accused of doing, it is an especially tragic case, but it is also rare.
The system is not perfect, though, and there are people who believe changes need to made. Perhaps juries should be replaced with a panel of judges. Maybe some of the rules that limit what jurors hear should be changed. Maybe the accused should have to prove innocence. All these things have been suggested.
Maybe there is something more basic wrong with the system, maybe the adversarial system, the prosecution on one side the defense on the other, is too much about winning and not enough about getting the truth. This was on my mind today not just because of Mr. Avila. He is but one side of the coin here. On the other side is Larry Johnson, someone you'll meet in a few minutes.
He was convicted. He served 18 years. A jury heard his case, looked at the evidence, and sent him to prison for a rape. The jurors got it wrong. The DNA tests proved that Mr. Johnson -- 18 years of his life -- was an innocent man, and he walked out of prison today.
We can't know how many innocent men and women have been convicted. We do know how many -- more than 100 -- DNA evidence has cleared, nor can we know how many guilty people walk. All we know is that both happen and both are tragic in their own way, and should we seriously consider changing the system, for all its imperfections, we'd best make sure that we keep not just Mr. Avila but Mr. Larry Johnson in mind as well.
On to "The Whip," and a far happier story to start it off, the rescue of those nine miners. Tonight, what now for the mine and the workers? David Mattingly in Pennsylvania tonight. David, start us off with a headline from you, please. DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, all nine Pennsylvania miners back home tonight, but celebration gives way to reclamation and investigation. I'll have that story.
BROWN: Thank you, David.
Cleaning up corporate America. A big event at the White House today. Suzanne Malveaux following that. Suzanne, a headline from you now.
SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, a senior White House official describes a breakthrough moment on July 10, when the president met with Republican leadership and endorsed the Democratic version of the corporate responsibility bill. He called it a pretty good piece of legislation, and as for the corporate scandals, in his words, he said he was pretty hot about it.
BROWN: Suzanne, thank you. Back to you shortly.
A political story here, too, about ethics in this case, and the senator better known as "The Torch." Jonathan Karl on Capitol Hill tonight. Jon, a headline from you.
JONATHAN KARL, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, in a sternly worded letter, the Senate Ethics Committee pronounced Torricelli severely admonished for breaking Senate rules by accepting inappropriate gifts. But the committee took no further action to punish him.
BROWN: Jon, thank you. Robert Toricelli of New Jersey the senator in question. Back with all of you shortly.
Also ahead on NEWSNIGHT tonight, one of the most intriguing, important figures in the history of Israeli politics, someone who, at times, has come out against the hawkish line of his own prime minister and his own people: we'll talk tonight with foreign minister Shimon Peres.
As we said, we'll look at the case of a man who spent nearly 20 years in prison for rape, until today, when the DNA evidence cleared him. Larry Johnson, the latest prisoner exonerated with the help of Barry Scheck's Innocence Project. We'll talk with Johnson and Scheck tonight.
Fascinating controversy about the next saint to be canonized by the pope. He was a native Mexican Indian, but you would not know that from how he's been depicted by the Catholic Church.
And the people on the look-out for terror in the water. They know the waters better than anyone, and can bring home dinner at the same time. Really? Double duty for the lobstermen and lobsterwomen of the state of Maine. And, on "Segment 7" tonight, something we're very pleased to start, how you can submit your ideas for the future of ground zero. We'll tell you about that as we go tonight.
So we've got a full hour ahead. We begin, once again, at the mine with look at what went wrong and why. But mostly tonight, our focus is on what the miners saw and what some incredible forces of nature did. Much of the disaster, of course, played out underground, and much of our reporting was done at a distance.
Today, though, we were allowed a closer look. Here's CNN's David Mattingly.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MATTINGLY (voice-over): Last Wednesday afternoon, this is where nine unsuspecting miners got their last glimpse of daylight as they entered the Quecreek mine. Today mine operators invited reporters on site for their first look at efforts to make the mine safe for miners again.
DAVID REBUCK, BLACK WOLF MINING: As the water level recedes, we put the mine back together.
MATTINGLY: Going by old maps that now seem to have been off by hundreds of feet, miners inadvertently breached a wall into a neighboring, abandoned and flooded mine. The breach unleashed frightening torrents of water, trapping nine miners underground 240 feet, a mile-and-a-half from the exit.
(on camera): To give you some idea of the massive amounts of water that was involved, the night of the accident this entire pit was flooded. All of these entranceways, all of this equipment completely covered by water.
The only thing high and dry down there was the roof of that one building.
(voice-over): Muddy high water marks are still visible on the side of the building. Electricians are on site washing out equipment and trying to restore systems. It'll take weeks to pump out the water, months before mining continues. Some damage, however, may not be so easy to repair.
REBUCK: There are just many hazards, and you have to have 100 percent your wits about you, and if a guy doesn't, I don't want him in there, and I'm sure his family doesn't want him in there, and I would not try to convince him otherwise.
UNIDENTIFIED MINER: We made it out. Me and my son-in-law both said we're not going back in.
MATTINGLY: Wary miners already say they may think twice about a return to underground. Meanwhile the accuracy of old mining maps is the focus of a state investigation. And now the question of cost: who will pay and how much, as the cost of the miners' miraculous rescue and the cleanup totals in the millions of dollars.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
Millions of dollars but money well spent, just ask anyone around here. The only number that really counts, right there -- nine for nine. Everyone gets out alive -- Aaron
BROWN: David, there was talk, and I don't know how serious it was, honestly, yesterday, about whether these men who were trapped down there are eligible for workman's compensation, whether their medical was being paid, that sort of thing. Do you know anything about that tonight?
MATTINGLY: They are eligible for worker's compensation. They all have insurance from their job, and they're not losing their jobs right now. In fact, there's still plenty of work to do at the mine.
As the water is pumped out, the miners are going in, helping with the reclamation work. But it's going to be months before they actually get back to work extracting the coal. That's going to take some time before that happens.
BROWN: David, thank you. David Mattingly in Pennsylvania tonight, as he's been for a while now.
On now to corporate responsibility, and the bill signed at the White House. This is, of course, a business story, and it's fair to say that financial experts are mixed on whether these reforms passed by the Congress and signed by the president will do what they are intended to do.
It is also, of course, a political story, and an important one for the president. His father was accused of putting the economy second, and no one knows that better than the son. A CNN poll released yesterday is worth noting here. While the president continues to get huge approval ratings for his handling of the war on terrorism, his numbers on the economy are slipping.
They dropped 11 percentage points in just one month, down to a still healthy 52 percent. And the number of people who think the president is more interested in ordinary Americans than big companies dropped as well, dropped 12 points to 41 percent.
Now polls are snapshots. They reflect a moment, and given what the news has been lately, it would have been a shocker if the president's numbers did not drop, but the numbers and the history of 41, the president's father, explain why the president cooled to the Democratic reform bill earlier, a bill that was largely adopted by the Congress, signed it today, and embraced it as his own. Once again, CNN's Suzanne Malveaux.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MALVEAUX: At a ceremony in the East Room of the White House, President Bush signed into law a sweeping corporate reform bill in hopes that it will restore America's confidence in the markets.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: No more easy money for corporate criminals, just hard time.
MALVEAUX: The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 establishes new ground for prosecuting corporate corruption, sharply increases penalties for fraud, and imposes tough oversight on accountants.
Provisions include the creation of an independent board to monitor the accounting industry, up to 25 years prison sentence for those guilty of securities fraud, and a requirement for corporate heads to certify their financial statements.
The bill pushed through by Democratic senator Paul Sarbanes was much tougher than Republicans or the White House had envisioned. The administration was pushing for Securities and Exchange Commission much stronger than the independent accounting oversight board, and more flexibility for accountants to provide consulting services for their clients.
But pressure for Congress and the Administration to act quickly forced Republicans to let go of those provisions. The stock market is not yet clear from corporate fraud. The administration has required CEOs of the top 1,000 U.S. companies to verify that their books are accurate by mid-August. Aides say that may mean the discovery of more bad apples.
SEN. PAUL SARBANES (D), MARYLAND: Once you have a bad apple to punish, the damage -- much of the damage has been done. By definition, because you have a bad apple, bad things have happened.
We want to tighten up the system and improve the system so the bad things don't happen to begin with.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MALVEAUX: And that's exactly the administration is hoping for: to regain the confidence of Americans and to turn those markets around -- Aaron.
BROWN: Part of the effort to regain the confidence, if that's what's required here, while the president's on vacation he's going to be doing a lot of economic business as well out in front of the cameras.
MALVEAUX: That's right. It's going to happen in Waco, Texas. That is where he's going to hold kind of an economic roundtable. It's going to be all day. He's inviting more than 200 guests; businesspeople, community leaders, a lot of folks. He wants to talk about the markets and the strength of the economy.
There are doubters, some skeptics, however, Aaron, that say until there is a CEO that they see behind bars, that they really have little faith that this has much teeth in the legislation.
BROWN: Suzanne, thank you. Suzanne Malveaux at the White House for us this evening.
Ethics now of the legislative variety. Two items to report tonight on that front.
The first concerns Robert Torricelli, the senior Democratic senator from the state of New Jersey. He was admonished today by the Senate Ethics Committee for gifts he got from a former supporter; a man, by the way, who's now serving a jail sentence for making illegal contributions to Senator Torricelli's campaign in 1996. And not long after the ethics committee had its say, the senator weighed in as well.
Here again, CNN Capitol Hill correspondent Jonathan Karl.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KARL (voice-over): The Senate Ethics Committee, quote, "severely admonished" Senator Torricelli, citing several gifts he received, including a television and stereo/CD player, loaned bronze statues and earrings for his sister.
In each case, the committee said Torricelli's actions, quote, "evidenced poor judgment, displayed a lack of due regard for Senate rules and resulted in a violation of the Senate gifts rule."
SEN. ROBERT TORRICELLI (D), NEW JERSEY: The Ethics Committee has concluded that in several specific instances rules of the Senate were violated. As a consequence, the committee has admonished me.
I want my colleagues in the Senate to know that I agree with the committee's conclusions, fully accept their findings, and take full personal responsibility.
KARL: The gifts in question came from David Chang, a New Jersey businessman now in jail for making illegal contributions to Torricelli's 1996 Senate campaign.
Even as he says he accepts the Ethics Committee's findings, Torricelli still contends he didn't accept any gifts.
TORRICELLI: It has always been my contention that I believe that at no time did I accept any gifts or violate any Senate rules. The committee has concluded otherwise in several circumstances and directed me to make immediate payment in several instances to assure full compliance with the rules of the Senate. I will comply immediately.
KARL: The committee, which deliberated in secret for several days, also said Torricelli displayed poor judgment by maintaining a close relationship with Chang and, quote, "taking official actions to benefit him," including "contacting United States government officials, writing letters to foreign government officials, and involving Mr. Chang or his representatives in situations where you were meeting with officials of foreign governments."
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KARL: And that has prompted some strong reaction from both sides.
Two very different takes I have for you, Aaron. One from Senator Daschle, the top Democrat here in the Senate and the leader of the Senate. He put out a short statement saying that he's glad the committee finished its work and did not find Torricelli guilty of any of the more sensational allegation against him and, quote, "the time has come to put this matter behind us."
But a very different take comes from New Jersey and from the person running against Bob Torricelli for reelection, running for that Senate seat up in New Jersey. This comes -- this statement comes from Mr. Forrester. He says, quote, "Senator Torricelli has failed to fight for New Jersey, failed to tell the truth" and, of course, cites that Senate Ethics Committee letter to make his case -- Aaron.
BROWN: Jon, thank you. Jonathan Karl.
I think that Mr. -- Senator Torricelli took responsibility for his actions, but I'm not entirely sure.
KARL: It's a little confusing.
BROWN: I think I'll go listen to it again later.
Thank you Jon. Jonathan Karl on Capitol Hill tonight.
I want a job where I can do that.
One more quick political story about a politician behaving badly. Clearly this politician got in a whole lot more trouble than did Senator Torricelli. James Traficant was kicked out of the House of Representatives last week. And today he was sentenced to eight years behind bars for corruption.
Traficant somehow seemed undeterred by it all. He made clear he plans to run for reelection from his prison cell, and he expects to win.
Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, a man tastes freedom for the first time after 18 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. That's in a little bit.
Up next we'll talk about the prospects for peace in the Middle East with the Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres.
This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Whoever said life is a triumph of hope over experience must have had both the Middle East and our next guest in mind.
But before we talk with Israel's Foreign Minister Shimon Peres about his hopes and the effort for peace, there is another bitter day of experience to get through.
There was a bombing today. A Palestinian blew himself up outside a falafel stand in Jerusalem. Seven others hurt, no one else dead. The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade taking responsibility for this attack.
They also claimed responsibility for a shooting earlier in the day. Two Israeli settlers killed in that one. Late today, the IDF -- the Israeli Defense Forces -- arrested a man in connection with the shooting.
Another day in the Middle East and, in some respects, we suppose, not even the worst of days. Every day that things don't get completely out of hand counts, in some respects, as a victory.
Among the things we can talk about with Shimon Peres about. He is Israel's foreign minister.
He joins us from Aspen, Colorado tonight, where he's been meeting with Jordan's King Abdullah.
Mr. Foreign Minister, it's always nice to see you. Thank you for joining us tonight.
The king certainly would like to see the process towards an independent Palestinian state move more quickly than President Bush has outlined.
Do you think it is reasonable that you can -- that there can be a Palestinian state in something less than three years?
SHIMON PERES, ISRAELI FOREIGN MINISTER: Well, actually we are talking about two stages. The first is within a year to create what is being called a provisional Palestinian state. It's actually a state with provisional borders. And that can be achieved in one year, which will give the Palestinians the necessary standing to behave like an independent state. And then within three years, to conclude the negotiations and have permanent borders and a permanent solution.
BROWN: As we sit here talking today, I think most everyone agrees that the situation in the West Bank in particular is quite bleak for Palestinians. The economics of the area is a disaster. People are short on food, short on jobs. Is the Israeli government concerned about those conditions, and what is the Israeli government prepared to do about it?
PERES: We are very much concerned, because we don't fight the Palestinian people, we fight the Palestinian terrorists. As you may know, we have had some meetings with the Palestinians over the last week or so, and we agreed about immediate steps to ease the situation in the territories.
What we agreed is to open our market for Palestinian workers, because this will give them immediate cash and relief. We have agreed to deblock, to defreeze some of the money that we were holding. We have agreed to renew the activities in the industrial parks on the borders. We have agreed to open up for the Palestinian trade people to come to Israel and elsewhere to renew their contacts and activities.
We are suggesting to restore the refugee camps, and finally we told the Palestinians that every place they will be able to take charge of the situation. We should enable them to get down to a normal life. We are talking about basically two areas -- one is Gaza and the other is the Judea area comprising three important cities -- Hebron, Bethlehem and Jericho.
BROWN: Is...
PERES: And we shall continue to do.
BROWN: You say, and your government has said, that you're not at war with the Palestinians. You're at war with terrorists. But the curfews cover the Palestinians, all of them. They don't distinguish between one or the other. Is that reasonable behavior?
PERES: No, we do distinguish. Every place which calms down, the curfew is being lifted, at least during the day. I'll tell you what the problem is. I know it's a little bit difficult to understand because it's unprecedented.
Our problem is not terror in the classical meaning of the word. Our problem is suicide bombers like the kamikazes. You know what damage the kamikazes did to the United States...
BROWN: Yes.
PERES: ...up to the point where the United States has had to react in the most powerful and very complicated way. Now, we are asking ourselves how can we stop the suicide bombers to come to the country. The minute they're on their way, you can't stop them, because they'll explode themselves in the face of policemen, police people, or soldiers.
The only way we can prevent them from coming to the country is before they begin their movement. Actually, when they're still an intention, and the fact is since we are in the cities, the number of suicide bombers was dramatically reduced. You know when a bomber kills himself, it's hundred percent of success.
But when we have to defend ourselves, if we have 90 percent success, still 10 percent causes a great deal of death and damage.
BROWN: Mr. Foreign Minister, one personal question, if I may. You have been a champion for peace for a long time, as long as I can remember. Given the state of play today, do you expect in your lifetime you will see peace in your region?
PERES: Hundred percent. I'm a little bit optimistic about my own life, which is normal, but I think that more and more people are discovering there is no alternative to peace, and for the first time you have not only Quartet that compromises the United States, united Europe, Russia, and the United Nations, but you have for the first time three Arab countries actively participating in bringing peace.
I'm referring to Egypt, to Saudi Arabia, to Jordan, and there are more and more voices even among the Palestinians who are sick and tired of the Intifada and the policies of Mr. Arafat. They say, where did it lead us? Again, we're missing an historic opportunity.
BROWN: Mr. Foreign Minister, we hope we get there, we hope you get there. It would be a promised land indeed. Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres tonight. Thank you, sir.
A couple of other items before we go to break here, Pope John Paul II, and his visit to Central America today, the pope delivered mass in Guatemala City before a crowd of a half million people, including every Central American president.
He focused on the rights of the Native Indians in the region, often the poorest of the poor, the ones who face the most discrimination and the worst oppression. The pope does not forget you, he said, adding that he admires the values of Indian cultures.
Those comments make for an interesting backdrop to this next story. The pope arrived in Mexico tonight, where he'll canonize Juan Diego, making him the first saint who was a native Mexican Indian. That is not the controversial part. It's the image of this man from the 16th century that was picked by the archdiocese in Mexico City ahead of the pope's visit.
It doesn't look like the native Mexican Indian that he was, more like the people who conquered Mexico hundreds of years ago and most of the people who run the Vatican now, namely, Europeans.
The controversy from CNN's Harris Whitbeck.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HARRIS WHITBECK, CNN MEXICO CITY BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): The faithful pray to him, venerate him. His name: Juan Diego. He will be the Catholic Church's next saint and the first indigenous saint from the Western Hemisphere. But how the future saint is depicted is angering some Mexicans.
At issue, the physical characteristics of the man who, according to Catholic tradition was visited in 1531 by the Virgin Mary. Many say he appears too European for a person universally described as an Indian.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Of course he was an Indian, he says. So they should have used a more ethnic depiction of Juan Diego. In all of the depictions of the moment when Juan Diego is visited by the Virgin, he is shown wearing a thick beard.
Anthropologists say it is impossible that one of the Indians who inhabited Mexico in the 1500s could have had such a full beard. The beard that Indians could have grown then was much thinner, he says, because they were genetically linked to Asians, who have less facial hair. The Mexican Catholic Church says that position is racist.
WHITBECK: One of the bishops charged with promoting the canonization of Juan Diego says people should concentrate more on his deeds than on his physical appearance.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Juan Diego was a human instrument that God used to achieve what was impossible, he says, that two cultures that were opposed, Spaniards and Indians, stop killing themselves and become one. WHITBECK: What is not disputed: Juan Diego was a native Mexican Indian, and that he will be the first Indian to be elevated to the altars of the Catholic Church.
(on camera): And he won't be the only one. Two Zapotec Indians will be beatified during the pope's visit to Mexico in an effort to reach out to a sector of the Latin American Church that many believe has been marginalized.
Harris Whitbeck, CNN, Mexico City.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Later on NEWSNIGHT, some new proposals on what to do with ground zero. They come from you. Up next, a story of man starting over after 18 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: We began tonight talking about the tragedy when the criminal justice system fails. We were talking about Larry Johnson. Mr. Johnson, and you'll meet him in a moment, is a free man tonight. Well, last night he was serving the last day of a life plus 30-year sentence for a crime he did not commit.
It may be that everyone did the right thing here: that prosecutors and their witnesses told the truth as best they could, that the defense lawyer did a good job, too.
But the fact remains, the jury got it wrong 18 long years ago.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(voice-over): This is Larry Johnson putting prison in Cameron, Missouri behind him. Eighteen years ago a jury convicted Johnson of rape.
Today, not far from Cameron, in a courtroom in St. Louis, there was another verdict, the verdict of science. DNA tests confirmed Larry Johnson did not commit the crime for which he has being punished.
The last act of this drama did not take at all.
UNIDENTIFIED JUDGE: We need to cut to the chase: 99.999 percent of this is that Mr. Johnson breathe free air sooner rather than later.
I'm going to sign...
BROWN: The judge faxed the release order to the prison in Cameron to save time.
UNIDENTIFIED JUDGE: Please file-stamp this order, and let's see to it that it gets to the facility as quickly as possible.
BROWN: And there was an apology on behalf of the state delivered to Johnson's gathered family.
UNIDENTIFIED JUDGE: Obviously a gross injustice has occurred to your family member. And nothing I can say will take that pain away.
BROWN: So the last act was quick. But the last act had been a long time coming. A very long time.
BARRY SCHECK, CO-DIRECTOR, INNOCENCE PROJECT: We've been trying to get this DNA evidence since 1995.
BROWN: Barry Scheck, the co-director of the Innocence Project of the Benjamin Cardozo Law School, and Chet Pleban, Johnson's Missouri lawyer, have been in a seven-year-long tug of war with prosecutors in St. Louis over the evidence that today freed their client.
The state said there wasn't any evidence to be subjected to DNA testing. They said it was lost. Then they said they would not look for it, nor confirm nor deny the existence of the evidence at all.
SCHECK: We have had to go to federal court to file a lawsuit to get an opportunity for access to this evidence.
BROWN: Ultimately, the evidence was found, delivered and tested, and Larry Johnson is free.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hello. Oh babe, I've been waiting on you.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hey baby, how you doing? Yes, you're listening? Waiting on you. Now what do you want to eat?
BROWN: As of today, 109 men have been exonerated as the result of post-conviction DNA testing, many of them with the help of Scheck and the law students who work with him at the Innocence Project.
But this tug of war goes on.
SCHECK: We now have five cases pending in this court, which plainly ought to be subjected to DNA testing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'll make this prediction to you: Just stay tuned, and more just like Larry Johnson will walk out of jail, and soon.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: In a moment we'll meet Larry Johnson, who is with his family tonight, a free man for the first time in 18 years.
We'll talk with Barry Scheck too.
This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: More now on the latest case of a man cleared through DNA evidence with the help of the Innocence Project. We're joined by the co-founder of the Innocence Project, Barry Scheck here in New York. And in St. Louis with us tonight, Larry Johnson who, as you just heard, was freed today.
Mr. Johnson, good to talk to you. Thanks for joining us.
When did you start to believe that you would, in fact, get out?
LARRY JOHNSON, SERVED 18 YEARS OF LIFE SENTENCE: The first time I heard that was Friday evening.
BROWN: And what happened Friday evening that made you believe that?
JOHNSON: When I called home and -- to explain to my nephew that I had been excluded from my tests. And I found out myself, at that time, that I had been all on the news and didn't know it.
BROWN: And through the course of the 18 years that preceeded this, did you actually believe you'd get to a day like today?
JOHNSON: Yes. I never gave up at all. But a lot of times I felt that I was getting real close, and then sometimes you get to the point to where nothing is happening and -- but still I keep that hope.
BROWN: Well, 18 years is a long time. This must be about as good as a day can get.
Barry, let me turn to you on a couple of things.
The prosecuting attorney, the district attorney in St. Louis County today was effusive in her apologies, and talked a good deal about her efforts to make this day happen.
In fact, do you see it that way? Was she a great hero in this story?
SCHECK: No, unfortunately she wasn't.
It turned out that when she got into office, this prosecutor, Jennifer Joyce, we had already filed this federal lawsuit. And we spoke with her, and she said she was going to look at all these cases. And it took a year and four months before she finally came around to consenting to the test in Larry's case.
And what's tragic is that in five other cases where people are claiming their innocence -- and I don't know whether they're innocent or not -- but I know this, the DNA can prove it one way or another.
And, you know, you made a very good point at the beginning of the show about this man Avila who was -- may be guilty and acquitted and then committed this terrible crime.
You know, that doesn't have to be. Larry Johnson, now we all know is innocent. We're going to put the DNA profile from this case into a databank. And I predict we're going to get a hit and we're going to find the person who really did it, who may very well be a convicted offender, committed some other unsolved crime.
And the idea here is that you do this -- you do the testing in these cases so people who are claiming they're innocent, you put it in the databank and you get hits. And hopefully you can do it before people go out and commit other crimes.
Larry was trying to get this evidence. We got his case in 1995. He was trying since 1993; he was convicted in 1984.
If they had done this earlier and we had this DNA in a databank, it may very well have apprehended somebody before he committed more crimes.
BROWN: They have literally 1,000 cases that they, I think, in the state of Missouri, they need now, by law, to retest, right?
SCHECK: No, this prosecutor tried to make a big deal -- I'm going to look at 1,400 cases, now I've narrowed it down to 50. The only problem is we had filed a lawsuit, and he said, well, here are the five guys or six guys that are saying they didn't do it. They're the first ones to pay attention to. And she has been raising all these frivolous objections that have been rejected now by every judge.
BROWN: Why do you think it is -- I mean, whether it's this case -- there was one in Pennsylvania a few months back we talked about here, others -- that prosecutors are so reluctant to -- it's not retesting DNA, because in most cases the technology didn't exist in the first place -- to test the evidence?
SCHECK: Well, it's a certain rigidity. And unfortunately in a case like this, it's just bad law enforcement and ignorance.
As we go around the country now, prosecutors are saying, I'm glad you're here, let's do it, let's do the test; if the person is innocent, let's get him out, let's go find the real assailant.
Because, you know, I mean I worked with the mayor of the city of New York, Rudy Giuliani. We went back and retested old unsolved rape kits and we're trying to get people all across the country to do this.
So it's just good law enforcement. There's no excuse for this prosecutor in St. Louis. We don't run into this that often.
The other thing that has to happen is that Congress has a very important decision. The Innocence Protection Act, which is this federal legislation that would now extend the statute we finally got in Missouri that got Larry out of jail, is -- came out of the Senate Judiciary Committee, it's before the House on recess.
There are 246 sponsors in the House of Representatives, people like Dan Burton on the Right, and great sponsor of this, Delahunt of Massachusetts, and LaHood of Republican of Illinois. This is the most important legislation that we've had for criminal justice reform in two decades. We're on the verge of passing it. Larry is the kind of guy that people ought to be paying attention to because we need to get this in every state. There are 22 states where we don't even have this shot.
BROWN: Let me give Larry the last -- the last word here. Are you angry tonight? Do you have anger at what happened to you. How do you look at it all?
JOHNSON: I'm not bitter at all about the case, in general. But I am angry at -- and about Miss Jennifer Joyce in not doing what she should be doing as far as humanity-wise there, because there's a lot of people that's in prison for crimes that did they didn't commit, and they're willing to give up DNA to prove otherwise.
And she should at least open the door -- open enough to where -- to give these people a chance.
BROWN: Mr. Johnson, we see you surrounded by your family. We wish you nothing but the best of luck. Congratulations on a great day. Barry, congratulations for a victory, not a small one. Thanks for joining us tonight as well.
Barry Scheck and Larry Johnson tonight. Before we go to break, a couple other quick stories around the country making news tonight, beginning with an intriguing story about Osama bin Laden.
U.S. officials are telling CNN that some members of bin Laden's security detail, his bodyguards, have been captured, and are among the detainees at Guantanamo. The guards have been in custody since February. The sources believe that if the bodyguards were captured away from bin Laden, it is likely bin Laden is dead.
Now, whether in fact that proves to be true, we do not know right now. It is just a theory.
Another funeral for another child today, 6-year-old Casey Williamson laid to rest in Valley Park, Missouri. She was snatched last Friday from a home where she was staying, found dead a few hours later, a 24-year-old transient charged now with that murder. Casey Williamson would have been a first grader in a few weeks.
And as feared, the beached whales who got back into the waters of Cape Cod yesterday beached themselves once again today. This is quite tragic in its own way, isn't it? Twenty-eight pilot whales were euthanized this evening. They beached themselves in a bad spot today for volunteers to help them get back to the water. The whales were sunburned and suffering from sun stroke. Some were in shock, and the vets believed the best thing to do was to euthanize them.
Ahead tonight on NEWSNIGHT, a look at some new proposals from you about what to do with ground zero here in New York. Up next, some new citizens being deputized in the war on terror. This is NEWSNIGHT.
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BROWN: With all the debate over how to prevent future acts of terrorism, especially that plan for everyday people to keep an eye out and phone in an international tip line, we thought it worth a look at a pilot program that's pretty similar but has hardly gotten any attention at all. That's because the people doing it, doing the watching here, aren't the mailman or the meter reader or the cable TV guy. They'll never come to your door or doing anything to entrap you -- well, unless you're a lobster.
Our story begins at Land's End. Here's CNN's Bill Delaney.
BILL DELANEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Watching lobsterman Brad Parady work the waters off Kittery, Maine not long after sunrise, it doesn't exactly seem he's working the front lines of anything, save maybe a few restaurants, but the war on terror's here, too, because he too remembers 9/11.
BRAD PARADY, LOBSTERMAN: I was in a store where they sell commercial fishing supplies. Everybody was pretty devastated, I think.
DELANEY: Men and women of few words, most who fish, doers, frustrated, since 9/11, for a way to fight back. Finally, way up in Maine, there is. The Coast Guard's Coastal Beacons Program: Fishermen and women helping watch the coast they can trace every nook and cranny of.
PARADY: I thought it was a real good idea, real good idea. I mean, fishermen know the coast. They work the area. They know the boats. They know what's going on.
DELANEY: Know what doesn't look right, what could be terrorists infiltrating by sea along Maine's jigsaw 3,500-mile vulnerable shores.
LT. DEAN JONES, U.S. COAST GUARD: They're very patriotic. They want to help support the cause for the country. They're on the water more than anybody else. They've been there, for, some of them, 20 or 30 years.
DELANEY: A pilot program that could go national, as first Maine fishermen register over the next several months to phone-in information, including anyone taking photos, notes or sketches near naval, commercial, or passenger terminals or bridges, anyone attempting to buy or rent a vessel with cash for short-term use, foreign yachts cruising the coast, suspicious attachments to bridges, scuba divers near entrances to harbors.
PATRICE FARREY, MAINE LOBSTERMAN'S ASSOCIATION: Think about your neighborhood where you live, and you know just the normal activity that you see day to day, you know people, you know cars. For guys on the water, that's their workplace. They know that. They understand it. They know the rhythm of what goes on out here.
DELANEY: Not too long ago, though, the whole program almost sank.
(on camera): As natural as it may seem, as much of a no-brainer to enlist the men and women who fish and lobster this coast to watch it, that bane of no-brainers, red tape and lawyers, nearly scotched the whole idea. (voice-over): Coast Guard legal experts blocked the idea, concerned about having to spend years satisfying both security concerns and federal privacy laws, as several hundred fishermen signed up, gotten around now by deciding to register not people but their boats.
PARADY: I think we all want to help as much as we can.
DELANEY: In a conflict in which, after all, the front lines are just about everywhere. Bill Delaney, CNN, Kittery, Maine.
BROWN: Coming up next, what to do about ground zero. We want to hear from you. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.
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BROWN: OK, a lot to do and not much time.
We ended the program last night with a tall tale from Nissen. Call it the case of the purloined pocket money: A gold coin vanishes from the U.S. mint 70 years ago. It reappears in the palace of an Egyptian king with a taste for pretty women, forbidden treasures, aspirin tablets -- we're not kidding -- and razor blades. But that's not really what's important.
What's important is, he won't give up the coin. There's wartime intrigue, and the coin vanishes again. U.S. Treasury agents hot on its trail. They finally get their man, but they lose the coin in court, sort of.
The coin is put up for auction, and today at Sotheby's in Manhattan the gavel came down on another chapter in the story of the gold double eagle.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Payment for the coin, that is hammer price plus the 15 percent buyer's premium is payable directly to the treasurer of the United States. In addition, the purchaser must pay to the treasurer of the United States as the face value of the coin an additional $20. That's so you can buy $20 worth of groceries with it.
Accompanying the coin will be a special bill of sale and transfer title, and a certificate of monetization. The arrangements to pick up the coin must be made directly with the United States mint.
So, there the mint is, shining on the stage, awaiting its new owner.
And I need to begin the sale with a bid of $2,500,000.
On my right $2,570,000 is Barry Goldwater Jr., National Collectors. Two million five hundred thousand dollars; $2,500,000, 2,500,000. Second row, 2,500,000. Two million six hundred. Two million seven hundred thousand on the telephone. I have $2,700,000 now. Two million eight on the right. Two million nine hundred thousand on the center aisle. Now at 3 million on the telephone at 6,600,000; at 6,600,000 on the left. Six million six hundred thousand dollars; that's $6,600,000. It's on my left, all the way left. Six million, six hundred thousand dollars -- anyone else. Six million six hundred thousand dollars, fair warning, on my left, on the telephone. Fair warning at $6,600,000. Six million six hundred thousand.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: All right, here goes the accounting. Including the 15 percent premium and the bill to the treasury: $7,590,000 and $20 to the gentleman or the lady on the phone.
Finally from us tonight, we begin a conversation that we think is one of the most important ones we could have over the next year with you: what to do with Ground Zero.
It seemed to us the six initial proposals that came out a week or so back were the product of narrow vision and a narrow set of interests. We are not experts in this, but we do think the former mayor of New York had it right when he called for something soaring and beautiful on those 16 acres.
And with all due respect to the families of the victims -- and we mean that -- it truly is American ground, something we all have a stake in.
We here at NEWSNIGHT want to collect your visions for what to do with lower Manhattan. We'll talk about them from time to time -- maybe a lot in the months ahead.
Go to our Web site, cnn.com/NEWSNIGHT and look for World Trade Center, your proposals. You'll have to click through a few pages to submit your own ideas. They can be detailed or whimsical, practical or far-out. You may want to look at what other people are submitting; that's available as well.
Clearly there's an interest. We've already gotten some suggestions. And this is -- we haven't even talked about it, and they started coming in.
This comes from Patrick in Canada: the Universal Towers, four buildings representing the four corners of the earth. They can be as professional or not, depending on how you feel about it.
This comes from Karen in Florida. It's a drawing envisioning a large complex like a large embrace. She writes: "inside is a park with a fountain and flags representing every person lost that day."
Andrew in New York has an idea of a one-acre site surrounded by -- surrounding the footprints, rather of each tower; also a central garden.
And pools also figure in this idea from San Francisco -- comes from Mark -- reflect pools and tower footprints. And that is very cool, isn't it?
And you can have yours. Send them to the Web site.
Oh, this one is from Jason in New York. I don't want to pass on that. That is also kind of an interesting design.
Anyway, if you want to send them to us, go to the NEWSNIGHT page at cnn.com/NEWSNIGHT. This is not a contest. We are not giving prizes here, OK, but we are very interested in what you come up with, and I think a lot of people are going to be.
So if you have some ideas, sketch them out or build them up, however you can do it, and the Web site will help explain how to get them to us as well, and we'll show them a lot, so do it. We'll take a look.
Good to have you with us. We'll see you tomorrow at 10:00. Good night for all of us at NEWSNIGHT.
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