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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

Rader Makes First Court Appearance; Supreme Court Decides Execution of Juveniles is Unconstitutional

Aired March 01, 2005 - 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.
Murder and justice take up a good portion of the program tonight. We pick up where we left off with Dennis Rader, the man accused of being the BTK serial killer.

The suspect had his first court appearance today by way of video link, common practice for murder suspects in Sedgwick County, Kansas. During the five-minute hearing, Mr. Rader heard the charges against him, ten counts first degree murder, bail set $10 million, public defender appointed in the case.

Outside the court and across the state of Kansas, attention has now turned to other cases. This is the sort of thing that always happens in a case like this. Police departments go through the unsolved cases looking to clear the books. Mostly they can't. Sometimes they do. Always they try.

Here's CNN's David Mattingly.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The headlines of the shocking crime are old and faded but people of small town Hutchinson, Kansas say their memories are still painfully clear.

People were pretty frightened not knowing the exact circumstances of the case.

MATTINGLY: Reno County Sheriff Randy Henderson was a young rookie police officer in 1977 when 23-year-old Gayle Sorensen disappeared while running an errand. Her car was found unlocked in a busy parking lot.

(on camera): So you don't know for sure but it's possible she was abducted right here from this parking lot?

SHERIFF RANDY HENDERSON, RENO COUNTY, KANSAS: That's possible.

MATTINGLY: And this was a very busy parking lot at the time. This was one of the bigger grocery stores in town.

HENDERSON: That's correct.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): Just two days later, the mystery of her disappearance took a heartbreaking turn. Her body was found outside town near the banks of the Arkansas River.

According to news reports at the time, she was hit in the head and her throat cut with a knife. Investigators had no idea how important those details and other evidence would be 28 years later with the capture of BTK suspect Dennis Rader.

HENDERSON: The one thing that was pointed out in this case that had some similarities to the BTK when I watched the interviews the other day was that one of the individuals was kidnapped, removed from an area and found in an area along a river. That's what I keyed in on.

MATTINGLY: The abduction and murder of Gayle Sorensen is the latest in a growing list of cold cases in Kansas that are heating up with the BTK arrest. They include cases long suspected by the community, the cases of Wichita State students Sherry Baker bound and stabbed in 1974 and Linda Shawn Casey (ph), bound, stabbed and sexually assaulted in 1985.

The map of the suspected cases now extends well beyond Wichita City limits into neighboring counties but some serial killer experts say the likelihood of a connection to BTK diminishes with miles.

CANDICE DELONG, FMR. FBI AGENT PROFILER: Most of the killings committed by a serial killer will be in a fairly tight geographic area where he or she is comfortable and, of course, that tends to be where we work or live.

MATTINGLY (on camera): So, this barbed wire was here before?

HENDERSON: There was barbed wire here before.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): Returning to the isolated crime scene we find little has changed in the woods where Gayle Sorensen's life came to an end, not the terrain and not the unanswered questions in a manhunt that was growing colder by the decade.

(on camera): This secluded spot doesn't that suggest that the killer was familiar with this area?

HENDERSON: I would say probably not and the reason I say that just on the opposite side of the river is the firing range for the police department and sheriff's department. I would think he would stay away from areas like that.

MATTINGLY: Occasionally, there were leads in the case but nothing that ever really panned out. Eventually, all the original investigators either retired or left the department. But to a new generation this was never a cold case. It was always the investigation into the murder of a young hometown woman that was badly in need of a very big break.

What's next?

HENDERSON: Wait to hear back from the KBI.

MATTINGLY: Do you think you're going to get the answer you're looking for?

HENDERSON: I hope so. It would be nice to bring closure to this case.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): Sheriff Randy Henderson hopes that a DNA match will soon bring them the end they've been looking for but with it the beginning of a new chill knowing that a serial killer had walked among them.

David Mattingly, CNN, Hutchinson, Kansas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: There is another kind of knowing, a worst kind. It comes with a face. The face is that of a friend.

Here's CNN's Frank Buckley.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FRANK BUCKLEY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The Dennis Rader charged with murder is not the Dennis Rader George Martin has known for 20 years.

GEORGE MARTIN, FRIEND OF DENNIS RADER: I loved you as a brother and I still love you as a brother.

BUCKLEY: Martin met Rader in the mid-'80s when their sons both became Cub Scouts. The dads became friends and fellow scout leaders.

MARTIN: He always wore his uniform carefully and neatly and he was a person that was proud of (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

BUCKLEY: Over the years they bonded over scout activities and Martin thought they shared similar sensibilities until Rader was arrested when someone said a community can now sleep at night.

MARTIN: And it's going to be a while before I can and, pardon me...

BUCKLEY: Now, Martin believes police have the right man that there were two Dennis Raders, the one who wanted to better his community in his work as a public servant and as a scout leader and the one now charged with multiple murders.

MARTIN: So many things that I admired and loved and (UNINTELLIGIBLE) suddenly went away because Dennis, the Dennis that I knew never -- he'll probably never be out of jail again so I'll never -- probably never see him again.

BUCKLEY (on camera): Rader is just a suspect but local Boy Scout officials have taken the view that he betrayed their trust. A spokesman for the local Boy Scouts Council saying in a statement that they were the "apparent victims of a deception that spanned decades."

(voice-over): Martin is still involved in the scout troop. Rader left a few years ago after serving for a number of years as an assistant Cub Scout leader. Boy Scout officials say there are no plans to investigate his years of leading boys and Martin says there's no reason to believe he harmed anyone while in the scouts.

MARTIN: I have to go to the side of Dennis that I knew and the side of Dennis that I knew would not have done that.

BUCKLEY: Still, authorities say they think they've found the killer they've been looking for but George Martin has lost a friend.

Frank Buckley, CNN, Wichita, Kansas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: There is often a stark reality in these cases. The number of people who die is eclipsed by the number of people who die inside, sometimes a little, sometimes a lot.

There are many ways, though even one way is too many, of murdering the soul without killing the body. In 1977, a 5-year-old boy had just come home from running an errand for his ailing mom.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVE RELFORD, SON OF BTK VICTIM: I let the BTK in my house. He asked where my mother was and where my parents were. My mom was sick in bed so immediately he starts pulling down the blinds, turns off the TV, reaches in his shoulder holster and pulls out a pistol.

About that time, my mother stepped to the bedroom door. About that time my brother and sister they started tripping out. He told my mom to put some toys and blankets in the bathroom for us kids, so we did.

After that, he took a rope, tied one of the doors shut, the doorknob tied to the sink, pushed the bed up against the other door, stripped my mother, taped her hands behind her back, plastic bag over her head and rope tied around her neck.

What possessed him to kill my mother and these other innocent folks out here, he had no right, made me rebel against everything I ever believed in, turned me into an alcoholic, a drug addict, tattooed up. I wouldn't have ever been like this if my mother was still living.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Steve Relford talking to Paula Zahn last night. When asked whether he thinks he'll ever have peace in his life, Mr. Relford understandably said no.

In Chicago tonight, what's undoubtedly the biggest double murder investigation that city has seen in years the victims, the husband and the elderly mother of a federal judge, a judge who is not simply respected but, as one lawyer in Chicago told me tonight, much loved as well. The main questions, of course, who killed them and why and is there a link to a threat made by a notorious white supremacist who tonight sits in jail?

And so reporting from Chicago tonight CNN's Keith Oppenheim.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KEITH OPPENHEIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the alley of a three-story home on Chicago's north side, police search through the trash. They're looking for anything that might explain what happened before U.S. District Judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow came home Monday evening.

JAMES MALLOY, CHIEF OF DETECTIVES, CHICAGO PD: Judge Lefkow arrived home last night shortly after 5:30 p.m. to find her mother and her husband slain in the basement.

OPPENHEIM: Both died from gunshot wounds. While the family and neighbors are traumatized, the idea that Judge Lefkow or her family could be targeted was, in fact, not new.

MATT HALE, WHITE SUPREMACIST: I will be the person who helps lead the white race to its resurrection.

OPPENHEIM: Matt Hale is a white supremacist. In 2002, Judge Lefkow ruled that Hale's white racist organization, The World Church of the Creator, change its name because it was trademarked by another church. When Hale refused, the judge imposed a $200,000 fine.

Hale was then arrested and last year convicted for soliciting others to kill Judge Lefkow. In fact, around the time of the trial, Lefkow's home was temporarily guarded by U.S. Marshals.

Since the conviction, Hale has been behind bars and investigators made a point to say that any connection between Hale, his followers and these murders has yet to be established.

MALLOY: This is but one facet of our investigation. We are looking in many, many directions but it would be far too early to draw any definitive links.

OPPENHEIM: On the street where Judge Lefkow lived, neighbors mourn.

GEORGE PLENSENER, NEIGHBOR: Why anything like this had to happen to such a gracious couple like them I don't know.

OPPENHEIM (on camera): At this point, neither do investigators but they have created a task force, a mix of federal agents and Chicago Police working two around-the-clock shifts to find out.

Keith Oppenheim, CNN, Chicago.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Much more ahead on the program tonight beginning with a question. Should kids who kill face the death penalty?

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BILL GREEN, FATHER OF MURDERED OFFICER: Our son was just 25 years old. Each day Michael Lopez draws a breath of fresh air it is a breath of fresh air that our son will not be able to breathe.

BROWN (voice-over): Hard cases and tough choices, the Supreme Court decides how young is too young.

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN HOMELAND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): "It is a long time coming. It brings the U.S., and Texas especially, in line with the rest of the world."

BROWN: He's not your ordinary lawyer.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN DALLAS BUREAU CHIEF: All right, so we think we have found Thomas (UNINTELLIGIBLE) here at the UT law school. The problem is he's in that room at the end of the hallway there and he's asleep, so we're going to wait for him to wake up.

BROWN: He may not have a home but he does have a case before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Can a Beanie Baby save a life? In Iraq it can.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She was standing there with a Beanie Baby in her hand. The convoy stops like why is this kid in the middle of the road? They walk up to her and she points. There's an IED in the road.

BROWN: The answer is anything but child's play.

This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: It's fewer than 20 years ago that the nine justices of the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that 16 and 17-year-olds who commit murder can be executed. Today the court, 5-4, ruled they cannot be. Seventy-two inmates on death row around the country today have been spared a death sentence.

This now brings the United States in line with the vast majority of countries in the world, which means little to the families of some of their victims or the prosecutors who sent them to death row.

In a moment one of those prosecutors, first Jeanne Meserve on one family.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You were convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death.

MESERVE (voice-over): Texas courts said Michael Anthony Lopez should die for his crimes. Now, a U.S. Supreme Court decision means he will not because he was only 17 when he murdered another young man. Janet and Bill Green find it hard to stomach.

B. GREEN: Our son was just 25 years old. Each day that Michael Lopez draws a breath of fresh air is a breath of fresh air that our son will not be able to breathe. Each sun up, sundown that he sees is one that our son will not be able to see.

MESERVE: The man they raised as their son, Michael Eakin (ph). In 1998, he was a deputy constable in Harris County, Texas. The 17- year-old Lopez, high on paint thinner, shot and killed him during a traffic stop.

JANET GREEN, MOTHER OF MURDERED OFFICER: In fact, this sort of decision today just brings it back full tilt and reminds us of the loss.

MESERVE: And despite anything the Supreme Court says, Bill Green wants Lopez executed.

B. GREEN: Personally, I would do it in a second. Should the executioner that day be sick or ill and if anybody was called by a show of hands that would like to volunteer, I'd do it in a second.

MESERVE: When Michael Anthony Lopez was sentenced to die, his family wept. Now that he will live, one of his lawyers expresses thanks. Stanley Schneider says "It is a long time coming. It brings the U.S., and Texas especially, in line with the rest of the world."

But for Janet and Bill Green, this isn't about international norms or even the future of Michael Lopez. It is about another young man whose future was lost.

Jeanne Meserve, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Nineteen states have laws allowing the death penalty for juveniles. Virginia is one of them. Today's ruling has overturned plans in that state to put convicted sniper Lee Boyd Malvo on trial again. Mr. Malvo was 17 when he took part in the shooting spree that terrorized the Washington area.

The one jury that did convict him refused to sentence him to die, a decision Robert Horan disagreed with. He prosecuted the case and he joins us tonight from Washington. We're pleased to have you with us.

Let me give you the hanging curve and then we'll go from there. Basically, you think that the court got it all wrong today.

ROBERT HORAN, PROSECUTOR, LEE BOYD MALVO CASE: Oh, I think the opinion could have been written by a sociologist rather than a constitutional lawyer. The question of moral culpability it seems to me defies chronological age questions and that's what they decided.

BROWN: All right. Let's -- does it matter or should it matter what most of the world, almost all of the world thinks and does? HORAN: I don't think it should mean a thing if you're construing what the United States Constitution means. What they might be doing in Belgium or France has nothing to do with whether or not the acts conform to the requirements of the American Constitution. That's what the court is there for to construe the Constitution, not to tell you what the rest of the world thinks about it.

BROWN: To what extent, if any extent, should the court consider what Justice Kennedy referred to today as a sort of evolving national standard? For example, was the court wrong in saying that the evolving national standard has come to a point where we wouldn't and shouldn't execute those who are mentally retarded? Is there any circumstance where the evolving national standard, whatever precisely that is, needs to be considered?

HORAN: Well, I think you make a point when you say evolving national standards precisely what they are we have no idea. That's the truth of the matter. And what the court has come down on is a simple chronological age to determine that.

The truth of the matter is that there are some 17-year-olds who far exceed their peers in many things, athletics, academics, artistry and evil and some are extremely mature at the age of 17 compared to their peers. And to put them all in the same box and to create a group that is one of a kind, one size fits all, just defies human experience.

BROWN: But, sir, we do that -- don't we do that with kids all the time? We say that until they are 18 they can't vote. Until they're 21 they can't drink. Until they're 16 they can't drive. Don't we all the time say that kids of a certain age lack the judgment and the maturity to make decisions as a group?

HORAN: That's right.

BROWN: We don't say some 17-year-olds can vote and others can't.

HORAN: That's right. We treat them all as a monolith regardless of their level of maturity or anything else. But here we're talking about the criminal law and we're talking about whether they are morally culpable for what they do.

And it seems to me the very case the Supreme Court of the United States decided today, the Simmons case out of Missouri, is a classic. In this case you have a juvenile, 17 years old, who deliberately takes a woman after he burglarizes their home. He takes her to a river. They tie her hands and legs with an electrical cord. They duct tape her head and they throw her off a bridge into a river where she dies from drowning.

Now you want to talk about cruel and unusual punishment that is it and yet the United States Supreme Court today is saying that that 17-year-old shouldn't be subject to the penalty because, the clause of the Constitution now, the Eighth Amendment says no cruel and unusual punishment for the juvenile totally forgetting about the cruel and unusual punishment administered to his victim. Now for American history, jurors have been able, 12 jurors in the jury box have been able to determine levels of moral culpability on killers. I went through the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) trial and I had a jury of 12 who determined after hearing all the evidence that the moral culpability wasn't fair and they decided the penalty should be life.

But to say that they couldn't consider death, regardless of what that juvenile was like, it seems to me it defies constitutional history and certainly you can't find that conclusion in the American Constitution.

BROWN: Mr. Horan it's good to see you and hear your arguments on an important issue on an important day. Thank you for your time tonight.

HORAN: Well, thanks for asking me.

BROWN: Thank you, sir.

Coming up on the program, war and the web, what soldiers in Iraq need on the battlefield and how you can make sure they get it online. This is a terrific story. We'll tell you after the break which comes now.

This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: People often ask if we read the e-mails that you all send. The answer is yes and not long ago a viewer sent us an e-mail and we read it. She wanted to let us know about a Web site that people can check out and help soldiers in Iraq.

The site lists items the soldiers have requested, small things to make their lives a little bit easier, snacks and toothbrushes. "They need our help," this viewer wrote. It's a wonderful story and it is.

Here's NEWSNIGHT's Beth Nissen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BETH NISSEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): When it comes to supplying an army in the field, there are thousands of materiel specialists, quartermasters and supply officers and then there are the special forces, like the Horn family in La Plata, Maryland.

SUE HORN, CO-FOUNDER, ANYSOLDIER.COM: We're a family-run effort that's just trying to show our support and we got a little more involved than most people.

NISSEN: Their involvement began in 2003 when their son Brian was deployed to Iraq, a forward location with no running water, eating only military rations. He soon grew dirty, think, haggard.

MARTY HORN, CO-FOUNDER, ANYSOLDIER.COM: He finally sent us a couple of pictures. When I showed Sue the pictures, she gasped. NISSEN: They sent him baby wipes so he could clean his weapon and himself, sent more food and favorite snacks, sent enough for him to share with his unit. Brian, home between deployments, remembers that first shipment.

SGT. BRIAN HORN, 173RD AIRBORNE: Oh, it was great. It was touch of home. I mean, it was everything from raviolis, the baby wipes, obviously, toothpaste, just the stuff that I couldn't get my hands on.

NISSEN: Stuff that most troops in combat units far from the nearest P.X. still struggle to get their hands on. The Horns devised a plan to get more of these comfort items to more troops, by getting the word out on just what troops needed and how to send it to them.

Marty Horn, a 20-year Army veteran, now retired, built a Web site, AnySoldier.com. He began collecting the names of soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who would accept mailed packages and distribute them to their unit. For security reasons, all boxes sent to troops must be addressed to a specific person.

M. HORN: We currently have almost 1,000 contacts over there. Those contacts tell us what they need.

NISSEN: Those posted notes are a window on the war. A soldier with the 10th Special Forces asks for DVDs to distract from the sounds of bombing. A sergeant working the night shift in a combat support hospital in Baghdad asks for coffee, chocolate, "things to help us stay awake."

The requests show how eager troops are for distraction, how young many are, how lonely they are. "We don't need anything special, just someone to write to," noted a sergeant with the 1st Cavalry. "A simple letter will do." From the first, the Horns were struck by how often troops asked for items they could give to local children, especially toys, especially Beanie Babies.

M. HORN: The soldiers love them, because they weigh almost nothing. They fit into a knapsack or rucksack or their baggy uniform pants. And then, as the kids show up, they just whip one out, toss it to the kid, and it changes everything.

NISSEN: A Beanie Baby changed everything for one Marine convoy in Iraq.

M. HORN: As they're going, there was this like 4 or 5-year-old little girl standing in the middle of the road. Now, they had met this girl a couple days before and given her some toys, Beanie Babies. She is standing there with the Beanie Baby in her hand. The convoy stops, like, why is this kid in the middle of the road? They walk up to her and she points. There's an IED in the road.

S. HORN: She saved their lives.

NISSEN: The Horns don't know who sent that Beanie Baby, don't know how many donors there are. Most of them mail letters in boxes directly to the contact addresses listed on the Web site. Others opt to buy preassembled treat boxes that the Horns, their five children, their children's friends and their friends assemble, pack and package in the family's suburban ranch house.

S. HORN: Pretty much, they always need hygiene products, especially the women. I send a package of toilet paper in every single kit. Everybody needs to have cookies and candy and peanuts, beef jerky, Slim Jims, stuff that they can throw in their pocket when they go out on a mission. And I think more than anything, it's a taste of home.

NISSEN: Getting something from home, hearing from someone back home, keeps the troops going. The Web site is full of photos and messages that make that clear.

M. HORN: This is about support, not just stuff. You can't have an Army fight something as ugly as this and have bad morale. Anything that improves morale is going to help get these folks get back home.

NISSEN: And might give them some measure of comfort until they are.

Beth Nissen, CNN, La Plata, Maryland.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Coming up on NEWSNIGHT, is it, just possible, that recent events across the Middle East herald real change? We'll hear what officials in the region have to say.

And later, a lawyer who's may not fit the image, but his persistence got a battle over the Ten Commandments all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Sadly, we think you can get rich betting against peace in the Middle East. Sometimes, a single bomb or bulldozer or bullet is all it takes for things to unravel. The item in question lately, the suicide bombing of a nightclub in Tel Aviv last week.

Today, while attending a conference in London on Palestinian reform, Secretary of State Rice pointed a finger in the direction of Syria. She spoke today with ABC News.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, ABC NEWS)

CONDOLEEZZA RICE, SECRETARY OF STATE: There is firm evidence that Palestinian Islamic Jihad, sitting in Damascus, not only knew about these attacks, but was involved in the planning.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Secretary of State Rice stopped short of blaming the Syrian government, though she did call Syria an obstacle, she said, to the kind of Middle East the United States is trying to grow, which raises the question, is a new Middle East taking root?

Here's CNN's Christiane Amanpour.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was a conference designed to support the new Palestinian Authority and the march towards peace negotiations.

But there seemed to be some optimism about the whole region, about a whiff of change settling over contentious parts of the Middle East. The new Palestinian foreign minister told us that not only the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is moving closer towards proper peace negotiations for the first time in five years, but a convergence of realities on the ground and the Bush administration's democratization plan makes for new hopes and possibilities.

NASSER AL KIDWA, PALESTINIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: I would say the situation in the region, the U.S. agenda in the whole region to ensure all the democratization and all these things strongly suggest that we might be heading into different situation.

AMANPOUR: The Jordanian foreign minister put it bluntly.

HANI AL MULKI, JORDANIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: I think the train has just left the station.

AMANPOUR: What got this particular train out of the station was the demise of the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat. That ushered in new Palestinian elections, a new president and government, as well as new momentum and a consensus within the international community to help the Palestinians achieve a viable democracy and peace with Israel.

MAHMOUD ABBAS, PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY PRESIDENT (through translator): We believe and many believe that we are the only people in the area fighting in the region or that the conflict in the region is only of interest to us. But, actually, due to your efforts that the whole international community is interested in this issue, because it has become, as you said, an issue of the whole world and the peace of the region is the peace of all the world.

AMANPOUR: Other parts of the region are showing a new face to the world, too. After a great deal of pressure, both from outside and inside the kingdom and still reeling from the fallout from 9/1, Saudi Arabia, just last month, took the first tentative steps towards democracy, albeit partial. Women could not vote, but men were allowed to cast ballots in municipal elections.

And just this week, Hosni Mubarak, who has been the undisputed ruler of Egypt since 1981, suddenly announced that there will be multiparty presidential elections later this year. He is, nonetheless, expected to still win.

(on camera): The Bush administration believes that its vision of democratizing the Middle East is slowly inching towards reality, a point emphasized by the U.S. secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, who was here at the London conference.

AMANPOUR (voice-over): She highlighted the political drama now playing out in Lebanon since the assassination of the former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. There have been daily demonstrations against Syria and the Syrian-backed Lebanese government was forced to resign.

RICE: Obviously, events in Lebanon are moving in a very important direction. It is also the case that the Lebanese people are beginning to express their aspirations for democracy, their aspirations that they be able to carry out their political aspirations without foreign interference. This is something that we support.

AMANPOUR: It's something both the U.S. and France can agree on, as the French foreign minister told us.

MICHEL BARNIER, FRENCH FOREIGN MINISTER (through translator): The Lebanese people are saying, enough. We want to be free and live without foreign interference.

Everyone, especially the Syrians, should take heed.

AMANPOUR: But lest one get carried away by these events, analysts warn that it's worth remembering the many perils facing democracy in the region. Even as many around the world took heart from Iraqis turning out in their first free elections in January, it did not defeat the insurgency. This week saw the worst attack in Iraq since the fall of Saddam in 2003, 127 people killed in one massive suicide attack.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: On a sobering postscript, the new Iraqi government has declared a national day of mourning on Wednesday for those people who were killed.

On a slightly more optimistic note, at the London conference, the donors pledged $1.2 billion to support Palestinian economic, political and security reforms and institutions. But whether democracy fever has set in and is really sweeping the whole region, analysts say the jury is still out on that -- Aaron.

BROWN: It is, though -- it's a fascinating kind of first act in a drama that we don't really know exactly where it ends up. Is there any concern? Do you pick up any concern that is sort of the devil you know is better than the devil you don't, that, as they become more democratic, they may not necessarily install governments that are favorable to the United States?

AMANPOUR: Well, you know, that has been a concern, particularly in countries like Saudi Arabia or even in Egypt, which have quite a lot of fundamentalism, quite a lot of fundamentalist parties. And people do wonder what would happen if the doors to democracy were thrown wide open.

But on the other side and on the other hand, many people in the region have been calling for democracy for many, many years, way before there was a plan implemented by the Bush administration or a vision implemented by the Bush administration. So, you've got a bit of both going on, Aaron.

BROWN: Christiane, good to see you -- Christiane Amanpour, who is in London for us tonight.

Ahead on the program, taking on the Ten Commandments, the unlikely plaintiff in a case that has made it all the way to the Supreme Court.

Also ahead, as always, the rooster stops by. We bring you morning papers, because this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: When the Supreme Court convenes tomorrow to hear arguments on whether the Ten Commandments can be displayed on public grounds in Texas and in Kentucky, Thomas Van Orden will not be present. He won't be there, even though he's the lawyer who first brought the Texas part of the case. In fact, exactly where he will be is a real question.

Here's CNN's Ed Lavandera.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Finding Thomas Van Orden takes time and patience. All we really know of him is that he spends a lot of time in libraries.

(on camera): That's the building where the state law library is and where Thomas Van Orden hangs out throughout much of the day. And just a few feet away is the monument of the Ten Commandments, which is just in the shadow of the state Capitol here in Austin.

(voice-over): You'd think, if you wanted to talk to the lawyer who sued the state of Texas to remove a Ten Commandments monument from public grounds, that you would just pick up the phone and call him. But this lawyer doesn't have a phone, much less than an assistant.

(on camera): We're told this is the area Thomas Van Orden normally hangs out in throughout the day.

(voice-over): These desks in the state law library are his office, no brass nameplates here, only a newspaper clipping on the wall with his picture.

(on camera): This is where he likes to have lunch throughout the day. So, we'll keep looking for him.

(voice-over): Eventually, we end up at the University of Texas Law School.

(on camera): We think we have found Thomas Van Orden here at the U.T. Law School. The problem is, he's in that room at the end of the hallway there and he's asleep. So, we're going to wait for him to wake up.

THOMAS VAN ORDEN, ATTORNEY: Not only I'm creative...

LAVANDERA (voice-over): A few minutes later, Van Orden is awake and we go outside for an interview. It's impromptu. And we quickly learn he's not your typical attorney.

VAN ORDEN: It's a little bit of the que sera, sera attitude, you know? I think we all go through life that way sometimes, you know?

LAVANDERA: For the last three years, Van Orden has been writing legal briefs and documents, filing and mailing the paperwork himself. It doesn't sound like a big deal, except Thomas Van Orden is homeless.

VAN ORDEN: Each day you're writing, it's hard to get out of your mind that all this is a joke, because, when you finish, you don't have money to make copies or you don't have money to make to send it to New Orleans. That wears on you. It really does.

LAVANDERA: He agreed to share his story of how a homeless attorney living off $150 a month in food stamps spearheaded such a controversial Supreme Court case, on the condition we don't talk about how he ended up on the streets or show you the tent he lives in.

VAN ORDEN: It's just not their business. I mean, I -- there may be aspects of their life that would fascinate me too, but I don't go asking about it. The niceties of polite society apply to me to.

LAVANDERA: Van Orden describes himself as a Robert Kennedy liberal, a strict believer of separating church and state. But he worries people think he's anti-religion.

VAN ORDEN: I did not sue the Ten Commandments. I didn't sue Christianity or Judaism. I sued the government.

LAVANDERA: It is said that arguing a case before the Supreme Court can be the professional pinnacle of an attorney's career. Van Orden will reach the peak on Wednesday, but he won't be there to enjoy it. Another attorney will argue the case for him.

VAN ORDEN: I follow it on the news media.

LAVANDERA: Van Orden refused to let friends pay his way to Washington. Instead, he'll find out what happens from the law libraries, where his legal journey started. Win or lose, he'll go back to his tent, wherever it is, to sleep.

Ed Lavandera, CNN, Austin, Texas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: That was a great story. That's a great story.

Morning papers when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) (ROOSTER CROWING)

BROWN: Okeydoke, time to check morning papers from around the country and around the world. And they are a mess tonight. I mean, not -- they're a mess on my desk tonight.

We'll start with "The Washington Times," because it's on top. Just about everybody, one way, shape or form, put the death penalty decision on the front page. And "The Times" did too. "High Court Bans Death Row For Minors. Eighth Amendment Cited in 5-4 Ruling." And then they localize it. "Decision Saves Malvo From Facing Execution." There was another trial scheduled for Lee Boyd Malvo in the sniper case.

It's interesting, though, when you talk about evolving national standard, that the jury in Virginia that convicted him decided not to send him to death row. It does tell you something. I'm not sure exactly what.

"Philadelphia Inquirer." "Court Bars Teen Death Sentences." Over here, "NCAA's New Standards Could Hit Hard. Temple" -- Temple University -- "Teams Are Among Those Falling Short Academically." And it lists local schools not doing so well or doing OK. But here's I think the big story, OK? "Parties See Bush Slipping on Social Security. A Key Conservative Conceded This Might Not Be the Year for Privatization." Polls show low support.

I think our poll showed about a third of the country supports the idea. You kind of get the feeling this thing is almost over. I mean, it's almost ready to put a fork in it. Almost, not quite.

"Dallas Morning News." This is a -- any death penalty story is going to be a big story in Texas. "High Court Bans Juvenile Execution, Inmates Who Kill Before Age 18 Affected, Including 29 in Texas. State's Option, Life in Prison," a big story there. They also put the Chicago judge's murder, the murder of the mother and the husband, on the front page. This is a very big story.

"The Detroit News," right in the middle. "Michigan Smokers Feel the Heat as Bans Widen." I don't know if you can see -- how well you can see the picture, but there's a guy working in a factory and he's smoking a cigarette. There's not a building in New York City -- there may be one -- the Philip Morris, building -- where you can smoke. I think, otherwise, you can't do that. Anyway, this guy started firing anybody who works for him who smokes. And it seems to be spreading. A lot of interesting issues, but it's not a terrible idea. I mean, I don't think firing people...

But "The Oregonian" out West. Should get one West Coast paper in tonight. "West Nile Threat Multiplies." My goodness. I thought that was a local story here, but not so.

Weather tomorrow in Chicago, "annoying." Man, I know that.

We'll wrap it up in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: We've already gotten a lot of notes from people wanting, again, the address, the Web site address for -- so they can send little of this and little of that to soldiers in Iraq.

So here we go. The Web site is AnySoldier -- one word -- AnySoldier.com. And click on that if you're interested. And I assume they'll take you through the process and you can do a nice thing. It would be a nice thing. We do read your e-mails. So send them on our way, though we don't really want to refinance our home and we don't really want to buy prescription drugs without seeing a doctor. other than that, we love to hear from you.

And we'll see you tomorrow. Good night for all of us.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com

Aired March 1, 2005 - 22:00 ET
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.
Murder and justice take up a good portion of the program tonight. We pick up where we left off with Dennis Rader, the man accused of being the BTK serial killer.

The suspect had his first court appearance today by way of video link, common practice for murder suspects in Sedgwick County, Kansas. During the five-minute hearing, Mr. Rader heard the charges against him, ten counts first degree murder, bail set $10 million, public defender appointed in the case.

Outside the court and across the state of Kansas, attention has now turned to other cases. This is the sort of thing that always happens in a case like this. Police departments go through the unsolved cases looking to clear the books. Mostly they can't. Sometimes they do. Always they try.

Here's CNN's David Mattingly.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The headlines of the shocking crime are old and faded but people of small town Hutchinson, Kansas say their memories are still painfully clear.

People were pretty frightened not knowing the exact circumstances of the case.

MATTINGLY: Reno County Sheriff Randy Henderson was a young rookie police officer in 1977 when 23-year-old Gayle Sorensen disappeared while running an errand. Her car was found unlocked in a busy parking lot.

(on camera): So you don't know for sure but it's possible she was abducted right here from this parking lot?

SHERIFF RANDY HENDERSON, RENO COUNTY, KANSAS: That's possible.

MATTINGLY: And this was a very busy parking lot at the time. This was one of the bigger grocery stores in town.

HENDERSON: That's correct.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): Just two days later, the mystery of her disappearance took a heartbreaking turn. Her body was found outside town near the banks of the Arkansas River.

According to news reports at the time, she was hit in the head and her throat cut with a knife. Investigators had no idea how important those details and other evidence would be 28 years later with the capture of BTK suspect Dennis Rader.

HENDERSON: The one thing that was pointed out in this case that had some similarities to the BTK when I watched the interviews the other day was that one of the individuals was kidnapped, removed from an area and found in an area along a river. That's what I keyed in on.

MATTINGLY: The abduction and murder of Gayle Sorensen is the latest in a growing list of cold cases in Kansas that are heating up with the BTK arrest. They include cases long suspected by the community, the cases of Wichita State students Sherry Baker bound and stabbed in 1974 and Linda Shawn Casey (ph), bound, stabbed and sexually assaulted in 1985.

The map of the suspected cases now extends well beyond Wichita City limits into neighboring counties but some serial killer experts say the likelihood of a connection to BTK diminishes with miles.

CANDICE DELONG, FMR. FBI AGENT PROFILER: Most of the killings committed by a serial killer will be in a fairly tight geographic area where he or she is comfortable and, of course, that tends to be where we work or live.

MATTINGLY (on camera): So, this barbed wire was here before?

HENDERSON: There was barbed wire here before.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): Returning to the isolated crime scene we find little has changed in the woods where Gayle Sorensen's life came to an end, not the terrain and not the unanswered questions in a manhunt that was growing colder by the decade.

(on camera): This secluded spot doesn't that suggest that the killer was familiar with this area?

HENDERSON: I would say probably not and the reason I say that just on the opposite side of the river is the firing range for the police department and sheriff's department. I would think he would stay away from areas like that.

MATTINGLY: Occasionally, there were leads in the case but nothing that ever really panned out. Eventually, all the original investigators either retired or left the department. But to a new generation this was never a cold case. It was always the investigation into the murder of a young hometown woman that was badly in need of a very big break.

What's next?

HENDERSON: Wait to hear back from the KBI.

MATTINGLY: Do you think you're going to get the answer you're looking for?

HENDERSON: I hope so. It would be nice to bring closure to this case.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): Sheriff Randy Henderson hopes that a DNA match will soon bring them the end they've been looking for but with it the beginning of a new chill knowing that a serial killer had walked among them.

David Mattingly, CNN, Hutchinson, Kansas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: There is another kind of knowing, a worst kind. It comes with a face. The face is that of a friend.

Here's CNN's Frank Buckley.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FRANK BUCKLEY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The Dennis Rader charged with murder is not the Dennis Rader George Martin has known for 20 years.

GEORGE MARTIN, FRIEND OF DENNIS RADER: I loved you as a brother and I still love you as a brother.

BUCKLEY: Martin met Rader in the mid-'80s when their sons both became Cub Scouts. The dads became friends and fellow scout leaders.

MARTIN: He always wore his uniform carefully and neatly and he was a person that was proud of (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

BUCKLEY: Over the years they bonded over scout activities and Martin thought they shared similar sensibilities until Rader was arrested when someone said a community can now sleep at night.

MARTIN: And it's going to be a while before I can and, pardon me...

BUCKLEY: Now, Martin believes police have the right man that there were two Dennis Raders, the one who wanted to better his community in his work as a public servant and as a scout leader and the one now charged with multiple murders.

MARTIN: So many things that I admired and loved and (UNINTELLIGIBLE) suddenly went away because Dennis, the Dennis that I knew never -- he'll probably never be out of jail again so I'll never -- probably never see him again.

BUCKLEY (on camera): Rader is just a suspect but local Boy Scout officials have taken the view that he betrayed their trust. A spokesman for the local Boy Scouts Council saying in a statement that they were the "apparent victims of a deception that spanned decades."

(voice-over): Martin is still involved in the scout troop. Rader left a few years ago after serving for a number of years as an assistant Cub Scout leader. Boy Scout officials say there are no plans to investigate his years of leading boys and Martin says there's no reason to believe he harmed anyone while in the scouts.

MARTIN: I have to go to the side of Dennis that I knew and the side of Dennis that I knew would not have done that.

BUCKLEY: Still, authorities say they think they've found the killer they've been looking for but George Martin has lost a friend.

Frank Buckley, CNN, Wichita, Kansas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: There is often a stark reality in these cases. The number of people who die is eclipsed by the number of people who die inside, sometimes a little, sometimes a lot.

There are many ways, though even one way is too many, of murdering the soul without killing the body. In 1977, a 5-year-old boy had just come home from running an errand for his ailing mom.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVE RELFORD, SON OF BTK VICTIM: I let the BTK in my house. He asked where my mother was and where my parents were. My mom was sick in bed so immediately he starts pulling down the blinds, turns off the TV, reaches in his shoulder holster and pulls out a pistol.

About that time, my mother stepped to the bedroom door. About that time my brother and sister they started tripping out. He told my mom to put some toys and blankets in the bathroom for us kids, so we did.

After that, he took a rope, tied one of the doors shut, the doorknob tied to the sink, pushed the bed up against the other door, stripped my mother, taped her hands behind her back, plastic bag over her head and rope tied around her neck.

What possessed him to kill my mother and these other innocent folks out here, he had no right, made me rebel against everything I ever believed in, turned me into an alcoholic, a drug addict, tattooed up. I wouldn't have ever been like this if my mother was still living.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Steve Relford talking to Paula Zahn last night. When asked whether he thinks he'll ever have peace in his life, Mr. Relford understandably said no.

In Chicago tonight, what's undoubtedly the biggest double murder investigation that city has seen in years the victims, the husband and the elderly mother of a federal judge, a judge who is not simply respected but, as one lawyer in Chicago told me tonight, much loved as well. The main questions, of course, who killed them and why and is there a link to a threat made by a notorious white supremacist who tonight sits in jail?

And so reporting from Chicago tonight CNN's Keith Oppenheim.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KEITH OPPENHEIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the alley of a three-story home on Chicago's north side, police search through the trash. They're looking for anything that might explain what happened before U.S. District Judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow came home Monday evening.

JAMES MALLOY, CHIEF OF DETECTIVES, CHICAGO PD: Judge Lefkow arrived home last night shortly after 5:30 p.m. to find her mother and her husband slain in the basement.

OPPENHEIM: Both died from gunshot wounds. While the family and neighbors are traumatized, the idea that Judge Lefkow or her family could be targeted was, in fact, not new.

MATT HALE, WHITE SUPREMACIST: I will be the person who helps lead the white race to its resurrection.

OPPENHEIM: Matt Hale is a white supremacist. In 2002, Judge Lefkow ruled that Hale's white racist organization, The World Church of the Creator, change its name because it was trademarked by another church. When Hale refused, the judge imposed a $200,000 fine.

Hale was then arrested and last year convicted for soliciting others to kill Judge Lefkow. In fact, around the time of the trial, Lefkow's home was temporarily guarded by U.S. Marshals.

Since the conviction, Hale has been behind bars and investigators made a point to say that any connection between Hale, his followers and these murders has yet to be established.

MALLOY: This is but one facet of our investigation. We are looking in many, many directions but it would be far too early to draw any definitive links.

OPPENHEIM: On the street where Judge Lefkow lived, neighbors mourn.

GEORGE PLENSENER, NEIGHBOR: Why anything like this had to happen to such a gracious couple like them I don't know.

OPPENHEIM (on camera): At this point, neither do investigators but they have created a task force, a mix of federal agents and Chicago Police working two around-the-clock shifts to find out.

Keith Oppenheim, CNN, Chicago.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Much more ahead on the program tonight beginning with a question. Should kids who kill face the death penalty?

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BILL GREEN, FATHER OF MURDERED OFFICER: Our son was just 25 years old. Each day Michael Lopez draws a breath of fresh air it is a breath of fresh air that our son will not be able to breathe.

BROWN (voice-over): Hard cases and tough choices, the Supreme Court decides how young is too young.

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN HOMELAND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): "It is a long time coming. It brings the U.S., and Texas especially, in line with the rest of the world."

BROWN: He's not your ordinary lawyer.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN DALLAS BUREAU CHIEF: All right, so we think we have found Thomas (UNINTELLIGIBLE) here at the UT law school. The problem is he's in that room at the end of the hallway there and he's asleep, so we're going to wait for him to wake up.

BROWN: He may not have a home but he does have a case before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Can a Beanie Baby save a life? In Iraq it can.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She was standing there with a Beanie Baby in her hand. The convoy stops like why is this kid in the middle of the road? They walk up to her and she points. There's an IED in the road.

BROWN: The answer is anything but child's play.

This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: It's fewer than 20 years ago that the nine justices of the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that 16 and 17-year-olds who commit murder can be executed. Today the court, 5-4, ruled they cannot be. Seventy-two inmates on death row around the country today have been spared a death sentence.

This now brings the United States in line with the vast majority of countries in the world, which means little to the families of some of their victims or the prosecutors who sent them to death row.

In a moment one of those prosecutors, first Jeanne Meserve on one family.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You were convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death.

MESERVE (voice-over): Texas courts said Michael Anthony Lopez should die for his crimes. Now, a U.S. Supreme Court decision means he will not because he was only 17 when he murdered another young man. Janet and Bill Green find it hard to stomach.

B. GREEN: Our son was just 25 years old. Each day that Michael Lopez draws a breath of fresh air is a breath of fresh air that our son will not be able to breathe. Each sun up, sundown that he sees is one that our son will not be able to see.

MESERVE: The man they raised as their son, Michael Eakin (ph). In 1998, he was a deputy constable in Harris County, Texas. The 17- year-old Lopez, high on paint thinner, shot and killed him during a traffic stop.

JANET GREEN, MOTHER OF MURDERED OFFICER: In fact, this sort of decision today just brings it back full tilt and reminds us of the loss.

MESERVE: And despite anything the Supreme Court says, Bill Green wants Lopez executed.

B. GREEN: Personally, I would do it in a second. Should the executioner that day be sick or ill and if anybody was called by a show of hands that would like to volunteer, I'd do it in a second.

MESERVE: When Michael Anthony Lopez was sentenced to die, his family wept. Now that he will live, one of his lawyers expresses thanks. Stanley Schneider says "It is a long time coming. It brings the U.S., and Texas especially, in line with the rest of the world."

But for Janet and Bill Green, this isn't about international norms or even the future of Michael Lopez. It is about another young man whose future was lost.

Jeanne Meserve, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Nineteen states have laws allowing the death penalty for juveniles. Virginia is one of them. Today's ruling has overturned plans in that state to put convicted sniper Lee Boyd Malvo on trial again. Mr. Malvo was 17 when he took part in the shooting spree that terrorized the Washington area.

The one jury that did convict him refused to sentence him to die, a decision Robert Horan disagreed with. He prosecuted the case and he joins us tonight from Washington. We're pleased to have you with us.

Let me give you the hanging curve and then we'll go from there. Basically, you think that the court got it all wrong today.

ROBERT HORAN, PROSECUTOR, LEE BOYD MALVO CASE: Oh, I think the opinion could have been written by a sociologist rather than a constitutional lawyer. The question of moral culpability it seems to me defies chronological age questions and that's what they decided.

BROWN: All right. Let's -- does it matter or should it matter what most of the world, almost all of the world thinks and does? HORAN: I don't think it should mean a thing if you're construing what the United States Constitution means. What they might be doing in Belgium or France has nothing to do with whether or not the acts conform to the requirements of the American Constitution. That's what the court is there for to construe the Constitution, not to tell you what the rest of the world thinks about it.

BROWN: To what extent, if any extent, should the court consider what Justice Kennedy referred to today as a sort of evolving national standard? For example, was the court wrong in saying that the evolving national standard has come to a point where we wouldn't and shouldn't execute those who are mentally retarded? Is there any circumstance where the evolving national standard, whatever precisely that is, needs to be considered?

HORAN: Well, I think you make a point when you say evolving national standards precisely what they are we have no idea. That's the truth of the matter. And what the court has come down on is a simple chronological age to determine that.

The truth of the matter is that there are some 17-year-olds who far exceed their peers in many things, athletics, academics, artistry and evil and some are extremely mature at the age of 17 compared to their peers. And to put them all in the same box and to create a group that is one of a kind, one size fits all, just defies human experience.

BROWN: But, sir, we do that -- don't we do that with kids all the time? We say that until they are 18 they can't vote. Until they're 21 they can't drink. Until they're 16 they can't drive. Don't we all the time say that kids of a certain age lack the judgment and the maturity to make decisions as a group?

HORAN: That's right.

BROWN: We don't say some 17-year-olds can vote and others can't.

HORAN: That's right. We treat them all as a monolith regardless of their level of maturity or anything else. But here we're talking about the criminal law and we're talking about whether they are morally culpable for what they do.

And it seems to me the very case the Supreme Court of the United States decided today, the Simmons case out of Missouri, is a classic. In this case you have a juvenile, 17 years old, who deliberately takes a woman after he burglarizes their home. He takes her to a river. They tie her hands and legs with an electrical cord. They duct tape her head and they throw her off a bridge into a river where she dies from drowning.

Now you want to talk about cruel and unusual punishment that is it and yet the United States Supreme Court today is saying that that 17-year-old shouldn't be subject to the penalty because, the clause of the Constitution now, the Eighth Amendment says no cruel and unusual punishment for the juvenile totally forgetting about the cruel and unusual punishment administered to his victim. Now for American history, jurors have been able, 12 jurors in the jury box have been able to determine levels of moral culpability on killers. I went through the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) trial and I had a jury of 12 who determined after hearing all the evidence that the moral culpability wasn't fair and they decided the penalty should be life.

But to say that they couldn't consider death, regardless of what that juvenile was like, it seems to me it defies constitutional history and certainly you can't find that conclusion in the American Constitution.

BROWN: Mr. Horan it's good to see you and hear your arguments on an important issue on an important day. Thank you for your time tonight.

HORAN: Well, thanks for asking me.

BROWN: Thank you, sir.

Coming up on the program, war and the web, what soldiers in Iraq need on the battlefield and how you can make sure they get it online. This is a terrific story. We'll tell you after the break which comes now.

This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: People often ask if we read the e-mails that you all send. The answer is yes and not long ago a viewer sent us an e-mail and we read it. She wanted to let us know about a Web site that people can check out and help soldiers in Iraq.

The site lists items the soldiers have requested, small things to make their lives a little bit easier, snacks and toothbrushes. "They need our help," this viewer wrote. It's a wonderful story and it is.

Here's NEWSNIGHT's Beth Nissen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BETH NISSEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): When it comes to supplying an army in the field, there are thousands of materiel specialists, quartermasters and supply officers and then there are the special forces, like the Horn family in La Plata, Maryland.

SUE HORN, CO-FOUNDER, ANYSOLDIER.COM: We're a family-run effort that's just trying to show our support and we got a little more involved than most people.

NISSEN: Their involvement began in 2003 when their son Brian was deployed to Iraq, a forward location with no running water, eating only military rations. He soon grew dirty, think, haggard.

MARTY HORN, CO-FOUNDER, ANYSOLDIER.COM: He finally sent us a couple of pictures. When I showed Sue the pictures, she gasped. NISSEN: They sent him baby wipes so he could clean his weapon and himself, sent more food and favorite snacks, sent enough for him to share with his unit. Brian, home between deployments, remembers that first shipment.

SGT. BRIAN HORN, 173RD AIRBORNE: Oh, it was great. It was touch of home. I mean, it was everything from raviolis, the baby wipes, obviously, toothpaste, just the stuff that I couldn't get my hands on.

NISSEN: Stuff that most troops in combat units far from the nearest P.X. still struggle to get their hands on. The Horns devised a plan to get more of these comfort items to more troops, by getting the word out on just what troops needed and how to send it to them.

Marty Horn, a 20-year Army veteran, now retired, built a Web site, AnySoldier.com. He began collecting the names of soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who would accept mailed packages and distribute them to their unit. For security reasons, all boxes sent to troops must be addressed to a specific person.

M. HORN: We currently have almost 1,000 contacts over there. Those contacts tell us what they need.

NISSEN: Those posted notes are a window on the war. A soldier with the 10th Special Forces asks for DVDs to distract from the sounds of bombing. A sergeant working the night shift in a combat support hospital in Baghdad asks for coffee, chocolate, "things to help us stay awake."

The requests show how eager troops are for distraction, how young many are, how lonely they are. "We don't need anything special, just someone to write to," noted a sergeant with the 1st Cavalry. "A simple letter will do." From the first, the Horns were struck by how often troops asked for items they could give to local children, especially toys, especially Beanie Babies.

M. HORN: The soldiers love them, because they weigh almost nothing. They fit into a knapsack or rucksack or their baggy uniform pants. And then, as the kids show up, they just whip one out, toss it to the kid, and it changes everything.

NISSEN: A Beanie Baby changed everything for one Marine convoy in Iraq.

M. HORN: As they're going, there was this like 4 or 5-year-old little girl standing in the middle of the road. Now, they had met this girl a couple days before and given her some toys, Beanie Babies. She is standing there with the Beanie Baby in her hand. The convoy stops, like, why is this kid in the middle of the road? They walk up to her and she points. There's an IED in the road.

S. HORN: She saved their lives.

NISSEN: The Horns don't know who sent that Beanie Baby, don't know how many donors there are. Most of them mail letters in boxes directly to the contact addresses listed on the Web site. Others opt to buy preassembled treat boxes that the Horns, their five children, their children's friends and their friends assemble, pack and package in the family's suburban ranch house.

S. HORN: Pretty much, they always need hygiene products, especially the women. I send a package of toilet paper in every single kit. Everybody needs to have cookies and candy and peanuts, beef jerky, Slim Jims, stuff that they can throw in their pocket when they go out on a mission. And I think more than anything, it's a taste of home.

NISSEN: Getting something from home, hearing from someone back home, keeps the troops going. The Web site is full of photos and messages that make that clear.

M. HORN: This is about support, not just stuff. You can't have an Army fight something as ugly as this and have bad morale. Anything that improves morale is going to help get these folks get back home.

NISSEN: And might give them some measure of comfort until they are.

Beth Nissen, CNN, La Plata, Maryland.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Coming up on NEWSNIGHT, is it, just possible, that recent events across the Middle East herald real change? We'll hear what officials in the region have to say.

And later, a lawyer who's may not fit the image, but his persistence got a battle over the Ten Commandments all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Sadly, we think you can get rich betting against peace in the Middle East. Sometimes, a single bomb or bulldozer or bullet is all it takes for things to unravel. The item in question lately, the suicide bombing of a nightclub in Tel Aviv last week.

Today, while attending a conference in London on Palestinian reform, Secretary of State Rice pointed a finger in the direction of Syria. She spoke today with ABC News.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, ABC NEWS)

CONDOLEEZZA RICE, SECRETARY OF STATE: There is firm evidence that Palestinian Islamic Jihad, sitting in Damascus, not only knew about these attacks, but was involved in the planning.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Secretary of State Rice stopped short of blaming the Syrian government, though she did call Syria an obstacle, she said, to the kind of Middle East the United States is trying to grow, which raises the question, is a new Middle East taking root?

Here's CNN's Christiane Amanpour.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was a conference designed to support the new Palestinian Authority and the march towards peace negotiations.

But there seemed to be some optimism about the whole region, about a whiff of change settling over contentious parts of the Middle East. The new Palestinian foreign minister told us that not only the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is moving closer towards proper peace negotiations for the first time in five years, but a convergence of realities on the ground and the Bush administration's democratization plan makes for new hopes and possibilities.

NASSER AL KIDWA, PALESTINIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: I would say the situation in the region, the U.S. agenda in the whole region to ensure all the democratization and all these things strongly suggest that we might be heading into different situation.

AMANPOUR: The Jordanian foreign minister put it bluntly.

HANI AL MULKI, JORDANIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: I think the train has just left the station.

AMANPOUR: What got this particular train out of the station was the demise of the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat. That ushered in new Palestinian elections, a new president and government, as well as new momentum and a consensus within the international community to help the Palestinians achieve a viable democracy and peace with Israel.

MAHMOUD ABBAS, PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY PRESIDENT (through translator): We believe and many believe that we are the only people in the area fighting in the region or that the conflict in the region is only of interest to us. But, actually, due to your efforts that the whole international community is interested in this issue, because it has become, as you said, an issue of the whole world and the peace of the region is the peace of all the world.

AMANPOUR: Other parts of the region are showing a new face to the world, too. After a great deal of pressure, both from outside and inside the kingdom and still reeling from the fallout from 9/1, Saudi Arabia, just last month, took the first tentative steps towards democracy, albeit partial. Women could not vote, but men were allowed to cast ballots in municipal elections.

And just this week, Hosni Mubarak, who has been the undisputed ruler of Egypt since 1981, suddenly announced that there will be multiparty presidential elections later this year. He is, nonetheless, expected to still win.

(on camera): The Bush administration believes that its vision of democratizing the Middle East is slowly inching towards reality, a point emphasized by the U.S. secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, who was here at the London conference.

AMANPOUR (voice-over): She highlighted the political drama now playing out in Lebanon since the assassination of the former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. There have been daily demonstrations against Syria and the Syrian-backed Lebanese government was forced to resign.

RICE: Obviously, events in Lebanon are moving in a very important direction. It is also the case that the Lebanese people are beginning to express their aspirations for democracy, their aspirations that they be able to carry out their political aspirations without foreign interference. This is something that we support.

AMANPOUR: It's something both the U.S. and France can agree on, as the French foreign minister told us.

MICHEL BARNIER, FRENCH FOREIGN MINISTER (through translator): The Lebanese people are saying, enough. We want to be free and live without foreign interference.

Everyone, especially the Syrians, should take heed.

AMANPOUR: But lest one get carried away by these events, analysts warn that it's worth remembering the many perils facing democracy in the region. Even as many around the world took heart from Iraqis turning out in their first free elections in January, it did not defeat the insurgency. This week saw the worst attack in Iraq since the fall of Saddam in 2003, 127 people killed in one massive suicide attack.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: On a sobering postscript, the new Iraqi government has declared a national day of mourning on Wednesday for those people who were killed.

On a slightly more optimistic note, at the London conference, the donors pledged $1.2 billion to support Palestinian economic, political and security reforms and institutions. But whether democracy fever has set in and is really sweeping the whole region, analysts say the jury is still out on that -- Aaron.

BROWN: It is, though -- it's a fascinating kind of first act in a drama that we don't really know exactly where it ends up. Is there any concern? Do you pick up any concern that is sort of the devil you know is better than the devil you don't, that, as they become more democratic, they may not necessarily install governments that are favorable to the United States?

AMANPOUR: Well, you know, that has been a concern, particularly in countries like Saudi Arabia or even in Egypt, which have quite a lot of fundamentalism, quite a lot of fundamentalist parties. And people do wonder what would happen if the doors to democracy were thrown wide open.

But on the other side and on the other hand, many people in the region have been calling for democracy for many, many years, way before there was a plan implemented by the Bush administration or a vision implemented by the Bush administration. So, you've got a bit of both going on, Aaron.

BROWN: Christiane, good to see you -- Christiane Amanpour, who is in London for us tonight.

Ahead on the program, taking on the Ten Commandments, the unlikely plaintiff in a case that has made it all the way to the Supreme Court.

Also ahead, as always, the rooster stops by. We bring you morning papers, because this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: When the Supreme Court convenes tomorrow to hear arguments on whether the Ten Commandments can be displayed on public grounds in Texas and in Kentucky, Thomas Van Orden will not be present. He won't be there, even though he's the lawyer who first brought the Texas part of the case. In fact, exactly where he will be is a real question.

Here's CNN's Ed Lavandera.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Finding Thomas Van Orden takes time and patience. All we really know of him is that he spends a lot of time in libraries.

(on camera): That's the building where the state law library is and where Thomas Van Orden hangs out throughout much of the day. And just a few feet away is the monument of the Ten Commandments, which is just in the shadow of the state Capitol here in Austin.

(voice-over): You'd think, if you wanted to talk to the lawyer who sued the state of Texas to remove a Ten Commandments monument from public grounds, that you would just pick up the phone and call him. But this lawyer doesn't have a phone, much less than an assistant.

(on camera): We're told this is the area Thomas Van Orden normally hangs out in throughout the day.

(voice-over): These desks in the state law library are his office, no brass nameplates here, only a newspaper clipping on the wall with his picture.

(on camera): This is where he likes to have lunch throughout the day. So, we'll keep looking for him.

(voice-over): Eventually, we end up at the University of Texas Law School.

(on camera): We think we have found Thomas Van Orden here at the U.T. Law School. The problem is, he's in that room at the end of the hallway there and he's asleep. So, we're going to wait for him to wake up.

THOMAS VAN ORDEN, ATTORNEY: Not only I'm creative...

LAVANDERA (voice-over): A few minutes later, Van Orden is awake and we go outside for an interview. It's impromptu. And we quickly learn he's not your typical attorney.

VAN ORDEN: It's a little bit of the que sera, sera attitude, you know? I think we all go through life that way sometimes, you know?

LAVANDERA: For the last three years, Van Orden has been writing legal briefs and documents, filing and mailing the paperwork himself. It doesn't sound like a big deal, except Thomas Van Orden is homeless.

VAN ORDEN: Each day you're writing, it's hard to get out of your mind that all this is a joke, because, when you finish, you don't have money to make copies or you don't have money to make to send it to New Orleans. That wears on you. It really does.

LAVANDERA: He agreed to share his story of how a homeless attorney living off $150 a month in food stamps spearheaded such a controversial Supreme Court case, on the condition we don't talk about how he ended up on the streets or show you the tent he lives in.

VAN ORDEN: It's just not their business. I mean, I -- there may be aspects of their life that would fascinate me too, but I don't go asking about it. The niceties of polite society apply to me to.

LAVANDERA: Van Orden describes himself as a Robert Kennedy liberal, a strict believer of separating church and state. But he worries people think he's anti-religion.

VAN ORDEN: I did not sue the Ten Commandments. I didn't sue Christianity or Judaism. I sued the government.

LAVANDERA: It is said that arguing a case before the Supreme Court can be the professional pinnacle of an attorney's career. Van Orden will reach the peak on Wednesday, but he won't be there to enjoy it. Another attorney will argue the case for him.

VAN ORDEN: I follow it on the news media.

LAVANDERA: Van Orden refused to let friends pay his way to Washington. Instead, he'll find out what happens from the law libraries, where his legal journey started. Win or lose, he'll go back to his tent, wherever it is, to sleep.

Ed Lavandera, CNN, Austin, Texas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: That was a great story. That's a great story.

Morning papers when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) (ROOSTER CROWING)

BROWN: Okeydoke, time to check morning papers from around the country and around the world. And they are a mess tonight. I mean, not -- they're a mess on my desk tonight.

We'll start with "The Washington Times," because it's on top. Just about everybody, one way, shape or form, put the death penalty decision on the front page. And "The Times" did too. "High Court Bans Death Row For Minors. Eighth Amendment Cited in 5-4 Ruling." And then they localize it. "Decision Saves Malvo From Facing Execution." There was another trial scheduled for Lee Boyd Malvo in the sniper case.

It's interesting, though, when you talk about evolving national standard, that the jury in Virginia that convicted him decided not to send him to death row. It does tell you something. I'm not sure exactly what.

"Philadelphia Inquirer." "Court Bars Teen Death Sentences." Over here, "NCAA's New Standards Could Hit Hard. Temple" -- Temple University -- "Teams Are Among Those Falling Short Academically." And it lists local schools not doing so well or doing OK. But here's I think the big story, OK? "Parties See Bush Slipping on Social Security. A Key Conservative Conceded This Might Not Be the Year for Privatization." Polls show low support.

I think our poll showed about a third of the country supports the idea. You kind of get the feeling this thing is almost over. I mean, it's almost ready to put a fork in it. Almost, not quite.

"Dallas Morning News." This is a -- any death penalty story is going to be a big story in Texas. "High Court Bans Juvenile Execution, Inmates Who Kill Before Age 18 Affected, Including 29 in Texas. State's Option, Life in Prison," a big story there. They also put the Chicago judge's murder, the murder of the mother and the husband, on the front page. This is a very big story.

"The Detroit News," right in the middle. "Michigan Smokers Feel the Heat as Bans Widen." I don't know if you can see -- how well you can see the picture, but there's a guy working in a factory and he's smoking a cigarette. There's not a building in New York City -- there may be one -- the Philip Morris, building -- where you can smoke. I think, otherwise, you can't do that. Anyway, this guy started firing anybody who works for him who smokes. And it seems to be spreading. A lot of interesting issues, but it's not a terrible idea. I mean, I don't think firing people...

But "The Oregonian" out West. Should get one West Coast paper in tonight. "West Nile Threat Multiplies." My goodness. I thought that was a local story here, but not so.

Weather tomorrow in Chicago, "annoying." Man, I know that.

We'll wrap it up in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: We've already gotten a lot of notes from people wanting, again, the address, the Web site address for -- so they can send little of this and little of that to soldiers in Iraq.

So here we go. The Web site is AnySoldier -- one word -- AnySoldier.com. And click on that if you're interested. And I assume they'll take you through the process and you can do a nice thing. It would be a nice thing. We do read your e-mails. So send them on our way, though we don't really want to refinance our home and we don't really want to buy prescription drugs without seeing a doctor. other than that, we love to hear from you.

And we'll see you tomorrow. Good night for all of us.

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