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What's Next after the "Nuclear Option? Chemist to be Sentenced in Criminal Scandal

Aired November 22, 2013 - 10:30   ET

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

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning everyone. I'm Christine Romans.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm John Berman. Carol Costello is off today.

Republican lawmakers say they are outraged by yesterday's historic rule changes led by the Senate Democrats. The so-called "Nuclear Option" means the Senate can end debate on presidential appointments on most traditional nominees with 51 votes instead of 60. Democrats can now end what they see as Republican blockage of President Obama's political appointments. Since then, Majority Leader Harry Reid defended the change saying it was needed to end Washington gridlock.

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SEN. HARRY REID (D), MAJORITY LEADER: So this is not just about Republicans versus Democrats. This is about doing what is right for this institution to evolve and remain responsive to the needs our country has. And we have not been doing that.

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ROMANS: But what does this mean for future negotiations in Washington? Republicans warn the rule change will hurt bipartisanship. And the change could hurt Democrats if they lose their Senate majority in the 2014 midterm elections.

Joining us now is CNN political analyst John Avlon and CNN political commentator Marc Lamont Hill. John let's start with you. Will this -- with this change, will it create a freeze on bipartisanship?

BERMAN: Not that there's much bipartisanship going on right now anyway.

JOHN AVLON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: That's exactly right. I mean, Washington's nuclear winter is coming. But the point is the bipartisanship has been broken for years now. And the reason that Harry Reid pulled this option is that the filibuster has gotten out of control. We are at a point where the number for example blocking -- Republican obstruction of Obama nominees are over 80 that's almost half the historic total.

So you know, is this going to make it worse going forward in the near term? Absolutely. Trust has been broken even further. Detonating the nuclear option is a big deal in an already fractured Senate. But the reality is that things were already bad so let's not get Pollyannaish about the immediate past.

BERMAN: Now Marc, there are warnings from Republicans, so I'm not sure are looking out for the benefit of the Democrats. I'm not saying that there are kindness of their heart but they're telling Democrats that what goes around comes around. And the Democrats can one day be in the minority. And they will lament the fact that they made these changes.

But look at the flip side here. Do you think the Democrats made a calculation that when the time comes if they are in the minority that the Republicans would have ultimately used the nuclear option?

MARC LAMONT HILL, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, what you -- what I mean, certainly they've considered that. But what they also have considered is that elections have consequences. And if they happen to be on the wrong end of that balance of power, they'll accept the consequences of the elections.

The problem is over the last five, really last ten years, but especially the last five, the Republican Party hasn't wanted to accept the consequences of elections. They have held up, for example, on the D.C. District Circuit Court of Appeals three nominations, purely because they say they don't think -- they think the balance of Democrats and Republicans is good and they don't want so many Democrats on the court.

Well that's what happens when Republicans lose elections. But if they don't -- they're not accepting the consequences. So again this is a necessary step. It's not good public relations for the Democratic Party. Because it looks like they didn't -- the rules aren't working for them so they change them.

But at the core, because the Republican Party has used the filibuster in the ways that it wasn't intended, because they have refused to play ball in any sort of bipartisan fashion that they really left Harry Reid with no choice.

BERMAN: John, what does this change now for the president's agenda. What do you think he will be able to do over the next two years that he would not have been able to do before?

AVLON: It's a great question. In the near term he's going to get more appointees judicial and administrative. So that gridlock will be broken. But the key question is at what cost? You know, right now there's a bipartisan committee trying to deal with the budget to avoid another shutdown in the New Year. This all of a sudden, this action by the Senate Democrats make that sort of bipartisan compromise which is necessary to get anything done in divided government even more difficult.

Clearly part of the gamble is that the Democrats believe that they can -- they can fulfill the President's agenda in a narrow sense and then win the next election. That is a big "if." And it's a been Reid to hang your whole strategy on and so this will make it even more difficult for the President to get anything done outside nominations in the next two years unless he uses leverage to push through a more fundamental filibuster reform something that is deeply necessary, but probably even more difficult.

BERMAN: All right John Avalon and Marc Lamont Hill, thank you so much for joining us today after history made in Washington.

ROMANS: And a lot of budget -- that was a very good point about budget negotiations where you're going to need bipartisanship and how you know just how poisoned is atmosphere now in Washington. Thanks guys.

All right still to come, a drug lab scandal rocks the Massachusetts justice system. And now the fate of the chemist who started it. Her fate will soon be revealed.

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BERMAN: Welcome back, everyone.

A former Massachusetts state chemist who admitted to faking test results for thousands of criminal cases will learn her fate at noon today.

Annie Dookhan's actions have shaken the Massachusetts justice system, shaking it to its core calling into question some get this 40,000 cases where she may have either mishandled drug samples or she lied about test results all in a bid to move her career forward.

BERMAN: Stunning story.

ROMANS: Wow. Yes.

BERMAN: CNN national correspondent Susan Candiotti is here with the details -- Susan.

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I'll tell you what, it's not over yet. The a judge about to sentence chemist Annie Dookhan calls her tragic, unbroken and undone by her own ambition. Yet the impasse of doctoring evidence sent people to jail even if it was done unwittingly is described as catastrophic.

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CANDIOTTI: Crime lab chemist Annie Dookhan is expected to go to prison after her behavior helped put hundreds of others behind bars illegally. In a lab similar to this one Dookhan allegedly admits falsifying drug tests, for example, by adding cocaine to samples, tainting trial evidence. When she was finally caught last year, Dookhan allegedly tampered logs.

The result? Look at all of these faces. A fraction of the tens of thousands of people Dookhan street flying for anyone whose evidence she handled; 300 convictions set aside in Boston alone.

MARTHA COAKLEY, MASSACHUSETTS ATTORNEY GENERAL: Her actions totally turned the system on its head.

CANDIOTTI: A review of every case the chemist later hands on from 2003 to 2012 is still under way.

(on camera): In the court system the fallout is staggering consider the numbers. According to a special counsel's report more than 40,000 cases have been reviewed involving more than 86,000 drug samples and the analysis of more than five million documents. And it cost taxpayers of at least $7 million and climbing.

TIMOTHY CRUZ, PLYMOUTH COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: When you throw a stone into a pond, there is a ripple effect.

CANDIOTTI: Arguably the worst ripple effect felt by Plymouth county district attorney Timothy Cruz because of Donta Hood. In 2009, a cocaine conviction put him behind bars for five years. But when the lab scandal exploded, Hood was set free because Dookhan had lied on the stand about her credentials claiming she had a Master's degree in chemistry. Eight months after he was fraud, Hood allegedly shot and killed Charles Evans in this parking lot in a fight over drugs. The victim's family declined to comment.

CRUZ: There's no bigger pain than somebody being released that goes out and kills somebody.

CANDIOTTI: For cops on the beat like Stanley David, frustration.

STANLEY DAVID, BROCKTON, MASSACHUSETTS POLICE: It's like a pass -- had passed they beat the system once. They think they can beat it again.

CANDIOTTI: Which brings us to why? Why did Annie Dookhan do it? She declined our request to explain. But her lawyer says the mother of a disabled young son only wanted to help her career by taking short cuts to get more cases done never considering the consequences.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The furthest thing from her mind is that this is going to ultimately cost millions of dollars it's going to throw the entire Massachusetts criminal justice system into a tail spin. And thousands of --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They have --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Absolutely they have --

CANDIOTTI: And why nearly every day more Dookhan cases are back in court as Massachusetts tries to restore faith in its criminal justice system.

(on camera): After her sentencing, Dookhan is expected to head straight to prison. Her parents will take care of her 7-year-old disabled son. Massachusetts will continue to spend millions to undue the mess created in its courts.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: The scope of this is outstanding.

CANDIOTTI: Oh yes, yes.

BERMAN: You know, I guess there're two questions here. What steps does Massachusetts take to make sure it doesn't happen again? And how do you unwind what's been done here?

CANDIOTTI: That's what a lot of people would like to know. But some of the steps they're taking include the Massachusetts state police has now taken over all forensic testing in the state. And from now on, all evidence has to be stored indefinitely. Because in some cases when they went to retry some of these people to fix it -- they couldn't because there wasn't enough room to store everything, evidence was destroyed. They couldn't retry things.

And we haven't even talked about the people who already served their time, were freed and now they didn't even get to try to repair what happened to those people if they want to go back and clear their name, for example or --

ROMANS: This is a big question of supervision, too. How one person could do so much damage without the supervision of superiors and finding this out earlier?

CANDIOTTI: Yes. And the lab where it happened has been shutdown that's why the state police have taken over everything.

BERMAN: All right. Susan Candiotti, thank you so much. Appreciate it.

ROMANS: Thank you Susan.

All right. To say the rollout of Obamacare was a shaky one -- that might be an understatement of the century but the birth of Social Security wasn't much prettier.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: Take a look at our top stories right now.

Police say it was a bomb that was put inside a child's teddy bear and then left in a North Carolina neighborhood. According to CNN affiliate WSOC, a man on a paper route found the bear and took it home. He later called the cops when he saw that wires were attached to it and it smelled like gas. Police there are investigating.

ROMANS: Checking top stories this morning -- thousands of child abuse in Arizona have been ignored. That's according to the states welfare system director. Governor Jan Brewer released a statement regarding the report, saying quote, "the most urgent priority to make sure that each one of the children involved in these cases are safe. Every case must be investigated -- no exceptions, no excuses. The state director says it's unknown if any of those children are still at risk.

BERMAN: Prosecutors are appealing a ruling granting a new trial for Michael Skakel. Skakel walked out of a Connecticut courthouse after he was granted a $1.2 million bail. The Kennedy relative has spent more than a decade in prison for the 1975 murder of Martha Moxley. A judge overturned Skakel's verdict last month ruling that he was poorly represented.

ROMANS: $290 million that's how much a jury has ordered Samsung to pay Apple after Samsung was found guilty of patent infringement. The two tech giants locked in a series of lawsuits over smart phone technology. This latest judgment on top of a 640 million dollars Samsung already owes Apple from an earlier settlement -- the same suit. Both sides will appeal -- likely appeal this.

BERMAN: Starbucks baristas must share their tips with shift supervisors. A federal appeals court handed down the ruling Thursday saying the supervisors spend of their time doing that same job as baristas. An attorney for the baristas says the ruling allows employers to subsidize the pay of supervisors of money that should go to lower earning workers.

ROMANS: OK. To call the Obamacare rollout rocky would be giving it a little too much credit, right, as everyone is talking about the impact of the Affordable Care Act as one of government big great mistakes. I want to look back at how some other government plans fared when they were just starting out. Look.

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SEN. TED CRUZ (R), U.S. SENATE: Stop this broken law.

MITCH MCCONNELL: Premiums are going up, jobs are being lost.

REP. JOHN BOEHNER (R-OH), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: This is a train wreck. The rollout of Obamacare's health exchanges has been a fiasco. Even the president admits it.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We fumbled the rollout on this health care law.

ROMANS: But nearly 80 years ago the birth of social security wasn't much prettier. Signed into law by FDR in 1935.

EDWARD BERKOWITZ, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIV.: It was not popular. In fact, I think you could say unpopular when it started in a time of deep depression. This program was taking money out of people's pockets.

ROMANS: But eventually the public embraced it.

JONATHAN ENGEL, CITY UNIVERSITY NEW YORK: You have people who were used to get nothing and all of a sudden they were getting something.

ROMANS: Today, social security is one of the government's most popular programs. So is Medicare. But a 1962 Gallup poll shows that was not always the case. A year before that, a future president warned against socialized medicine.

RONALD REAGAN, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it once was like in American when men were free.

ROMANS: But with former president, Harry Truman at his side, LBJ signed Medicare into law in 1965. It rollout a year later was smooth, thanks in part to intense planning. In a 1956 memo, President Johnson wrote, quote, "Perhaps never accepting mobilizing for war has the government made such extensive operations for any undertaking. So is that where the Obama administration fell short.

ENGEL: Many of the comparisons between Medicare and Obamacare are misplaced. What the Johnson administration was trying to do was much simpler administratively.

ROMANS: Not to mention, technologically.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are so beholden to computers and have such faith in technology to solve our problems. Some of the problems are essentially more complex than that.

ROMANS: Also more complex -- Americans view of the government.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In 1935 and 1965, people were much more willing to accept the fact that the government was a benevolent force working on their behalf. In today's world, there are many, many people, maybe a majority of the people, who just don't believe that.

ROMANS: A disastrous rollout of President Obama's signature achievement certainly isn't helping.

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ROMANS: So was it the planning or will time make this a very different kind of endeavor the way it did for Social Security? We just don't know.

BERMAN: Yes. And of course, the political environment has made the rollout more difficult --

ROMANS: Yes.

BERMAN: With big laws like Medicare and Social Security in the past, they were tweaked after the original legislation went through. There was no tweaking to Obamacare because of the gridlock in Washington.

ROMANS: There have been a few tweaks you know, where they put the employer mandate forward a year -- right. And now you've got what the President is trying to get people to stay on their canceled plans. But that is not really the --

BERMAN: No legislative tweaks.

ROMANS: Right. No legislative tweaks so we'll see how history will write this. But social security was politically not very pretty, just like this isn't. All right. Honoring the late president, John F. Kennedy. He was assassinated 50 years ago today. An eternal flame stands on his grave at Arlington National Cemetery to remember. We're going to have special coverage of all the ceremonies today beginning at 12:30 Eastern.

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BERMAN: I want to thank you for joining us today. I'm John Berman.

ROMANS: And I'm Christine Romans. LEGAL VIEW with Ashleigh Banfield is next. But before we go, we want to give you a very special moment that happened this morning at Arlington National Cemetery.

BERMAN: Throughout the morning we've been honoring the life of President John F. Kennedy. It has been 50 years since he was shot and killed in Dallas. Flags fly at half step across the country today. And just a few moments ago, there was a remarkable and emotional tribute, "TAPS" as it was played on the day remembering John F. Kennedy 50 years ago in that ceremony there. We want to leave you with that this morning.

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ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN HOST: Today, we pause to remember the moment that forever changed our nation, honoring President John F. Kennedy on the 50th anniversary of his tragic assassination.

Hello everyone. I'm Ashleigh Banfield, it's Friday November. His administration lasted only a thousand days cut short by an assassin's bullet in Dallas

On this very day, 50 years ago -- John F. Kennedy here with the first lady Jackie Kennedy.