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At This Hour

Not Guilty Verdict for Barajas; Testing Begins on Experimental Ebola Vaccine; A Look at Children and Addiction; Award-Winning TV Producer Handcuffed

Aired August 28, 2014 - 11:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: All right. To a story out of Texas a jury returned a non-guilty verdict for a man accused of killing a drunk driver. David Barajas and his boys 12 and 11 were pushing their truck that stalled down a road in 2001 not far from their home. Jose Banda ran into the truck killing the young boys. An eyewitness says Barajas left the scene, returned minutes later, leaned into Banda's car, the witness heard a gunshot but did not see a gun.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: The defense claims the victim was a gang member and that someone else shot him. And also the blood of a third unknown person was found in his car.

I want to bring in legal analyst, Danny Cevallos; and HLN legal analyst, Joey Jackson.

Danny, start with you here. Because we just downloaded a bunch of information right there.

PEREIRA: That's a lot.

BERMAN: People want to know about this case is, did the jury decide for the defendant simply because they felt bad for him and felt that if he did, in fact, kill this man, he had a right to?

DANNY CEVALLOS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Couple things going on, and one is probably what Joey is thinking -- jury nullification. Juries have the power but never told they have this power, to issue -- ultimately when they go in the room they can decide on whatever verdict they want. They have the power even if a conviction should be had to acquit a defendant and may have exercised that although we as attorneys can never let them know they have that power.

The other thing to add is this, this case is amazing because the jury clearly made some kind of credibility judgment on the two passengers in the victim's car because logically there's an inescapable conclusion here. They must have believed, the jury, those two guys in the car are the kind of guys who potentially could have done the murder because otherwise there just isn't any reasonable doubt.

PEREIRA: There was an eyewitness we spoke about.

JOEY JACKSON, HLN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes.

PEREIRA: Talk about how that plays into all -- they're not the same witness in the vehicle. You have to follow the bouncing ball here.

JACKSON: Very problematic. As to the jury nullification issue, I first thought it might be that. That's when the jury gives you clemency, give you a pardon by virtue of sympathizing with you.

(CROSSTALK)

JACKSON: But when you look at it more, John, I'm thinking there was reasonable doubt here why do I say that? Look at the facts. No gun recovered. The police do a gun residue test on him. He has no gun powder on him, right. You look at that and then look at the fact that in a police officer's report they said they heard another shot coming from another direction. There was the witness back to your point, Michaela, a witness that tried to say he had some choice words for the person that he killed and then following the choice words heard the gunshot. What do we know about that witness? Felony record and in addition to that, he left the scene, in addition to that, he was a little high himself. And so when you put all of this together based upon the facts, you can reasonably conclude or unreasonably conclude that they had doubt in that case and it wasn't only jury nullification.

BERMAN: Is this a case of good lawyering here?

JACKSON: Always.

BERMAN: Where the attorney --

CEVALLOS: I think so.

Man, I have lost cases with less evidence than this. It's amazing.

BERMAN: What you're doing is giving the jury enough reasonable doubt so they can vote what they want to vote which is to say, look I understand where this guy's heart was.

CEVALLOS: No, I am with Joey on the idea this could have been a jury nullification, but when you read -- even though there is a lot of very strong prosecution evidence, really that here's a guy, he's got a reason to kill and they found rounds and a holster in his house that ostensibly match the weapon the defense is essentially you can't prove it was me and amazingly enough based on the witnesses and people in the car, it apparently worked. But make no mistake about it, if the only witnesses and only passengers for the prosecution were a church group coming back from a bingo hall, this would have been a conviction.

JACKSON: Right.

PEREIRA: Last thought. The victim is dead.

JACKSON: Yes.

PEREIRA: Was drunk at the time. Does his family have any recourse at all?

JACKSON: They don't. I mean ultimately what happens, Michaela, there's a process, that process is the prosecution tries to hold you to the proof. They could go after the family in a wrongful death action, they could go after the shooter here, but usually ins those actions, it's a different standard of proof, right, wrongful death saying you killed him, because it's civil, it's a preponderance the evidence, a lower standard than criminal which is beyond a reasonable doubt. That's their only recourse which is money. Certainly criminality is done. He is not guilty.

BERMAN: Talking about victims, a lot of victims in this case to go around.

Joey and Danny, thanks for being here.

PEREIRA: Ahead, @THISHOUR, for a TV producer heading to a pre-Emmy party that's not the curbside service he was looking for or expected. We'll speak with Charles Belk. I had a chance to do that earlier this morning. Was he profiled?

BERMAN: An Ebola outbreak in Africa getting worse. Much worse. Anxiety is mounting this morning. We're getting word that human trials for an experimental vaccine will begin very, very soon. We'll have the details next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PEREIRA: As the Ebola virus continues its deadly march across West Africa a highly anticipated weapon in the battle against the virus is moving out of the lab.

BERMAN: Starting next week, human testing is due to begin here in the United States on an experimental vaccine.

Joining us with more now, senior medical correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen.

Elizabeth, tell us about this vaccine how promising, how long until we know whether it works?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: You know, John, it would be so great if we could just get this out there immediately, right. That would be so amazing. This process takes time. First they have to start with phase one where they try it out in a small group in 20 people. Take a look at some of the basics of what they're trying to do here. They'll be giving this vaccine to healthy volunteers and then measuring whether they see an immune response when they take their blood. They'll be starting at NIH and moving on to try this in U.K., Gambia and Mali. One of two candidate vaccines. The one question that is so important, I mean usually this would take years, but they said look, we're going to finish this first part by late 2014, by late this year and have discussions about whether we want to bring the drug to Africa like maybe directly to Africa which usually they don't do that. Usually they do more testing. They'll have discussions about when and how they get this to the people who need it.

PEREIRA: Certainly promising news especially when today the WHO, the World Health Organization, is announcing this virus is spreading, kind of like wildfire. Startling numbers about how many new cases there are.

COHEN: It is. What's really so sad about all of this, too, is that there's so much effort, I mean the world health organization, the CDC, so many people are trying to fight this and take a look at what the results have been so far. If you look at it there's been more than 1500 deaths, 3,000 people have gotten sick with this virus and this is the part that's really so awful. 40 percent of these cases have occurred in the last three weeks. So in other words, this is not getting better. In fact, it appears to be getting worse.

BERMAN: It shows the difficulty, though, you know, sometimes you have in fighting an outbreak like this. Everyone now knows this is going on. Everyone now knows where it's going on. Yet it can't be stopped in its tracks, Elizabeth?

COHEN: That's a great way to put it. Awareness is not the issue. But we all know this now and so one of the issues is fear. I was talking to a CDC workers who was in Africa for a month trying to do contact tracing and she would ask someone sick with Ebola, tell me how many people have you been eating -- tell me the names of people you've been eating with and who you live with and might have had contact with your bodily fluids and she would often get an answer like my wife and that's it. She knew it was more than his wife. She knew he had a family, but didn't want to name people because in his community there was a rumor if you named someone they would die. Not only would they die but they would die in the order they appeared on the list. When trying to fight those kinds of misconceptions, it's extremely difficult to contain an outbreak.

BERMAN: Tough battle.

Elizabeth Cohen, great to have you with us today. Appreciate it.

COHEN: Thanks.

PEREIRA: Ahead @THISHOUR, as we continue our series on addiction, we will hear from a mom who saw the signs of drug abuse but just didn't believe them.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: All this week CNN is looking at addiction, deadly fixes. For one mother, there were signs but her son was so young. The truth is 28 percent of kids in this country have used alcohol by the eighth grade, more than 16 percent have tried marijuana. This can lead to the abuse of the prescription drugs often as close as a parent's medicine cabinet.

PEREIRA: The U.S. has six -- 5 percent, rather, of the people, the world's people and uses 75 percent of its prescription drugs. This is startling statistics. It added up to a stark reality for this mom. Her son is an addict.

Kelly Wallace has our story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DEBBIE GROSS LONGO, UNIDENTIFIED MOTHER OF ADDICT: He loved to make you laugh. That would make him feel really good. He was on Division I soccer. He was on basketball, he was on baseball. This is him and I when we were in a pool and I would be the cautious mother.

KELLY WALLACE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: What did it feel like when you felt like he was addicted to prescription drugs?

LONGO: Well, at first I didn't realize she was I would find pill bottles with no names on them, so it was just a straight bottle. Sometimes I would find straws. Sometimes I would find spoons. I would Google everything and started realizing, there's a problem here. You start questioning yourself, did I fail him in some way? There's a stigma attached to it. The bottom line is it's a disease.

WALLACE: How hard was that stigma for you?

LONGO: I really suffered in silence, and it's a horrible place to be because you end up crying yourself to sleep. You start going back in time and looking at how they used to be.

WALLACE: For all mothers who have children who are addicted, it is that balance between supporting your loved one and enabling.

LONGO: His hand was always out. Always out.

WALLACE: How scary was that when you said, done, the enabling stops?

LONGO: I started to think to myself, well, if he's so darn clever to get the drugs, he can be clever enough to find a piece of pizza somewhere, you know? OK, you sleep in your car. Well, that's your choice. So I grew a little bit stronger. But I really grew strong with the addicts mom. I mean, that group was my saving grace. It truly was. I saw women who were having the same problems that I was having. Only our children's names were different.

WALLACE: What's the number one piece of advice you'd give any mom watching who has an addict as a child?

LONGO: Well, I think try to get them into -- into rehab. Scare them straight almost. But I really think that you have to start talking to your children when they're young. And warn them about everything. I don't want to hear another mother getting a knock at the door saying their son or daughter is dead. I don't want one mother out there suffering in silence and feel she has nowhere to go.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: That was Kelly Wallace reporting. For more of her report, you need to visit CNN.com/living. You can also find ways to help addicts by visiting CNN.com/deadlyfix. PEREIRA: Ahead @THISHOUR, an award-winning African-American business

executive and TV producer ends up there, in handcuffs, on a curb in Beverly Hills. Why? He says he fit the description. My interview with him next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: Police in Beverly Hills have apologized to an award-winning businessman and TV producer for this. Charles Belk, seen here handcuffed and sitting on a curb, was arrested Friday because police say he fit the description of a suspect in a bank robbery.

PEREIRA: Yeah, Belk was detained for six hours. He missed a pre-Emmy party that he was supposed to be attending in a business capacity.

Earlier today, I asked him what happened after he was arrested. Take a listen to part of my interview from today on "New Day."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHARLES BELK, BUSINESS EXECUTIVE & TV PRODUCER: Eventually -- so after sitting down for about two or three minutes, that was when -- first it was just one cop. Then there were about four, five, six more cops came. One came right out of the car and immediately came over to me, approached me very aggressively, hand me stand up, patted me down, put handcuffs on me and then indicated that I needed to sit back down on the curb. Took a very strong kind of approach with me. But again, I did not want to give them any reason to think that I was not going to cooperate. So I sat out there probably for 45 minutes to an hour on the curb on busy Los Angeles Boulevard which I'm sure you're familiar with, rush hour traffic on Friday, on Emmy Awards weekend.

PEREIRA: Everybody's watching.

BELK: Emmy awards weekend. Everybody's watching me. So I sat there with my head down in handcuffs on the curb.

PEREIRA: This is how you expected your day to go at all, and I'm sure people were expecting you where you were supposed to be conducting business. At any point, were you able to protest, sort of explain who you were, what you were doing? You are an award-winning professional. You are a person that is, you know, well respected in your community for the work you do and philanthropic ventures. Were you able to tell them that you were the wrong guy?

BELK: A lieutenant came over, and he -- that's probably five or ten minutes into it. He then kind of explained the situation. There was a bank robbery, a little before, and that's when I went into hey, look, I own a company. I consult in the industry. You know, I consult with various organizations. I did not rob a bank. I did not do anything. But once they asked me to stand up, get into their car, they kind of, you know, pushed -- got me into the back -- not pushed, I'm sorry -- but got me into the back of the police car and hauled me away to the station, I still didn't know what was going on, what I was being charged for. I was all the time thinking to myself, this will sort itself out. PEREIRA: Well, and it did.

BELK: Clearly, there were cameras.

PEREIRA: It did because you were able to call a friend. They called the NAACP. They were able to get you out. You're now free. They have apologized. Is that apology enough for you?

BELK: Well, so I appreciate that apology. Let me just clarify you on one point. I actually was not able to call a friend. A friend was there with me.

PEREIRA: Oh.

BELK: Explaining to the officer that we had just finished eating. We were just around the corner. I kind of yelled back to my friend. I was, like, please call so and so. He called a friend of mine, Robin Harrison from the NAACP Hollywood bureau who then called an attorney. If it wasn't for that, I think I really would have been on my own at that police station. When I got to the Beverly Hills police station and once they went through the process of taking my fingerprints, taking my photo, they had taken my belt, my shoes, my wallet, everything out of my wallet, I asked them -- I said, "Wow, this is a real -- this is like a nightmare." And one of the officers -- the booking officer said to me, "This is a serious crime you committed."

PEREIRA: Oh.

BELK: And I thought to myself, I've been convicted.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PEREIRA: Well, what's interesting here is there was video from the bank from the robbery. And if they had looked at that earlier, police had, they would have realized that he did not fit the description. They looked very different. Once they finally did, he was freed, but that was after six hours.

BERMAN: Unbelievable.

All right, I want to give you a little bit of information that we're just getting into CNN. A lot of people are talking about this on Twitter. Joan Rivers was rushed to the hospital. CNN has been told that she was not breathing at the time. A source close to Joan Rivers has just confirmed that. Again, as I said, a lot of people have been talking about this online. We want to fill you in.

PEREIRA: Following some sort of throat surgery and she stopped breathing. So that's the latest we know. Stick with CNN. We'll cover that as more news comes out.

Thanks for joining us at THIS HOUR. I'm Michaela Pereira.

BERMAN: "LEGAL VIEW" -- and I'm John Berman.

"LEGAL VIEW" with Ashleigh Banfield starts now. .