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Take Pregnant Woman Off Ventilator?; Vin Diesel Meeting With Studio, Actors To Discuss Future Of "Fast And Furious"; Fey, Poehler: Globes' First Ladies Of Comedy; Police Union Backs Cop Who Shot 100- Pound Man

Aired January 10, 2014 - 14:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: This is a case that has a lot of you talking and tweeting. The question is this, who is in control of your body when you are not in a position to speak for yourself? In this case, I'm talking about a pregnant woman considered brain dead. Her husband wants to take her off life support, but the state disagrees. Here's CNN's Ed Lavandera.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): She was a 33-year-old mother of a young baby boy, a paramedic married to another paramedic, the couple expecting their second child when it happened. Marlice Munoz collapsed in her home of an apparent blood clot in her lung. Her family got the devastating news shortly after. They said doctors told them she was brain dead and would never recover. Her body is now connected to a ventilator inside this Fort Worth, Texas, hospital despite her family's wishes.

ERICK MUNOZ, HUSBAND: We've reached a point where you wish that your wife's body would stop.

LAVANDERA: The hospital refuses to unplug the ventilator because Munoz is pregnant and Texas is one of about 30 states that restrict a woman's ability to be disconnected from life support if they are pregnant regardless of the patient or the family's directive. Erick Munoz and his wife are paramedics and end of life issues is something they talked about often.

MUNOZ: We have seen things out in the field and we both knew we didn't want to be on life support.

LAVANDERA (on camera): Officials at John Peter Smith Hospital here in Fort Worth will not say if Marlice Munoz is brain dead, but in a statement the hospital officials did say that the hospital will follow the law as it applies to health care in the state of Texas. Every day we have patients and families who must make difficult decisions. Our position remains the same. We will follow the law.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And I think they got it wrong.

LAVANDERA (voice-over): Tom Mayo was one of the advisers who helped write this law 15 years ago, which was signed by then Texas governor George W. Bush, the Southern Methodist University law professor said if Munoz is indeed brain dead like her family says, then the hospital has the law all wrong.

TOM MAYO, SMU LAW PROFESSOR: If she is brain dead, she is already dead. Letting her die is not really the concept. Can he say take her off the ventilator? I believe he can. Surrogate decision makers make those kinds of decisions with their doctors every day.

LAVANDERA: Marlice Munoz was 14 weeks pregnant when she collapsed. The fetus is now almost 20 weeks. The family says the fetus still has a heartbeat, but it's not clear if it can even survive. In the meantime, Erick Munoz has to stand by and watch his wife trapped in a position he said she never wanted to be in.

MUNOZ: I can't say enough about her and everything I do will always be short of what she was. I can't do her justice. She is a great woman.

LAVANDERA: Ed Lavandera, CNN, Fort Worth, Texas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: Ed Lavandera, thank you.

The husband now has attorneys. We were told they are figuring out exactly what kind of legal action to pursue, looking ahead. No doubt this is heading to court. So for both sides on this debate, we are going to talk to CNN legal analyst, Sunny Hostin, and HLN host, Jane Velez Mitchell, just getting seated. We'll hear her side of the story in just a minute.

But Sunny, since we have you, let's begin with you. I cannot imagine being this husband and seeing his wife on this ventilator, knowing she is pregnant. Two different sides of this case, from what I understand, your perspective, you are essentially taking or speaking for the mother in this case, yes?

SUNNY HOSTIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, you know, the father and the family in this case, Brooke, keep on saying that they had this end of life discussion or they had this end of life discussion. She had explained that she didn't want to be put on life support. But I think this is a different situation. I haven't heard from the family that they had the discussion that if I am pregnant still don't put me on support.

So I think that's a consideration that we have to think about. The law is very clear, yes. If there is a pregnant woman that she is to be kept on life support and I've got to tell you, this case is not necessarily unusual, rare perhaps, yes, but not unusual. Since 1982, there have been 30 women that have given birth while brain dead, many of them to healthy children.

And so I suspect this is a case of a grieving father and overwhelmed father that may not want to be a parent to two children. But I suspect that this sort of discussion about end of life directive that she didn't want to be kept alive, even if she were pregnant, I just can't imagine that that discussion took place.

Remember this was a wanted pregnancy. This was a woman who had another child. I think that the hospital is following what the law mandates in Texas.

BALDWIN: Right. They are following with the law mandates. Again, you and I were not on the inside of this conversation that this woman had with this husband, but that's what at least, you know, the family is saying.

Jane Velez Mitchell, I know we have you now and you would disagree with Sunny, but again there is no paperwork. There is no documentation showing these wishes that this woman or even a husband would want to be taken off of life support. That has to complicate things tremendously.

JANE VELEZ-MITCHELL, HLN HOST: Brooke, this is a bad law and it's being twisted into even worse behavior. This law essentially says if you are a pregnant woman, you can't be taken off life support. There is no life. She is brain dead according to the family. She is a corpse that is being used as an incubator for a baby the family does not want.

Let me finish please with due respect. Sunny, I love you, but I couldn't disagree more with your position. This is Orwellian. It's obscene. It's something out of a tale and robbing women of their power. A hundred years ago, women didn't have the right to vote. In this post-feminist age, we forget that and assume all the rights we have we will keep forever. But there forces out there --

HOSTIN: This is not women's rights.

MITCHELL: Yes, it is, absolutely. This would not happen to a man. This is a woman who was being used as a mere vessel. Women have been reduced to vessels. She is a corpse being uses as an incubator against the wishes of the father of the child. This child according to the family could have severe disabilities. She was passed out for an hour. The circumstances of the pregnancy are dicey.

HOSTIN: There is no indication that the child has any issues.

BALDWIN: Hang on. One voice at once, ladies. We heard Jane. Sunny, respond to Jane.

HOSTIN: Listen, there are no -- there is no indication at this point that this child has any issues. Again, I suspect that this is about a father --

MITCHELL: There is no indication it doesn't.

HOSTIN: This is not about a father not wanting to care for a child that is less than perfect, but that doesn't -- I think sort of -- you know, you can't be dismissive of what the law is in Texas. It's really I think crafted so that most people who do want to bring their babies to life are protected.

MITCHELL: You can't be insistent of what a woman's desire. She was an EMT.

HOSTIN: I think it is a question.

BALDWIN: We don't know. Let me jump in.

MITCHELL: Could I argue why? It opens a Pandora's Box.

BALDWIN: Hang on. I hear the passion in both of your voices, but let me ask this. Trying to understand this when we talk about the law reading article after article. I read a quote from the medical ethicist and he said the law doesn't hold up because the woman is considered dead, Jane?

MITCHELL: Yes. She is being used as a mere vessel, as an incubator. This opens a Pandora's Box. What's next? I mean, I'm not being alarmist when I say there forces who would like to see parts of the world where women can't drive. What's next? Are we going to say when a woman gets to a certain trimester she shouldn't be allowed to drive because if she has an accident, it's going to harm the fetus --

HOSTIN: Jane, I love you, but that's so intellectually dishonest and ridiculous.

MITCHELL: It's not. This is law. Not a question of --

HOSTIN: This is not a question of women's rights. If anything it's a question of her right to keep her baby alive. I suspect with a wanted pregnancy those were her wishes.

BALDWIN: I imagine that this conversation is a microcosm.

MITCHELL: She was an emergency medical technician.

BALDWIN: Ladies, it is a microcosm of conversations going around and around. And again, we have with the hospital and we have what the family said. We have to wait and see what happens next. I appreciate the passion coming from both of you. Sunny Hostin, Jane Velez- Mitchell, appreciate you both. Thank you.

Coming up next, more breaking news here from the Chris Christie documents, the 907 pages of documents specifically from the investigation that the State Legislative Committee, this is all dropped. We have been parsing through these. We will see what they say, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Just a quick reminder here of breaking news, as we have been waiting and now we know the 907 or so pages of documents have now been posted online. This is the initial investigation on behalf of the New Jersey State Legislature. There was a committee. This all pertains to the debacle. Governor Chris Christie, the lane closures, the traffic study of George Washington Bridge back in September.

So we are hoping to get new information here parsing through and reading through these documents to see if there was a possible motive for these texts and e-mail exchanges, et cetera. So we have some folks in Washington doing that as soon as we get that up and get them in the front of the camera, we will pass it along to you here on CNN.

So if that is going on, let me tell you about this letter. This letter was meant for just one person, but it is touching many, many more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: What I would like to be when I grow up. I would like to sail the oceans of India and climb mountains and shout out with joy.

BALDWIN (voice-over): A little girl with big hopes and dreams. Taylor Scout Smith of Tennessee thought a lot about her future. She thought about it so much that just a few months ago she wrote a letter to herself, words of wisdom and advice to be opened when Taylor turned 22.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To be opened by Taylor Smith on April 13th, 2023 only unless said otherwise.

BALDWIN: Taylor will never get to open that letter. This week she suddenly passed away of complications from pneumonia. But her parents discovered her special letter tucked away in a box of journals and poems, and letters she had written to encourage others. Listen to her father read the young girl's message to her future self.

TIM SMITH, TAYLOR'S FATHER: Dear Taylor, how's life? Life is pretty simple right now 10 years in your past. Congratulations on graduating high school. If you didn't, go back and keep trying. Get that degree. If we are in college, what are we majoring in? Right now, I want to be a lawyer, but remember it has been 10 years since I wrote this. Stuff has happened, good and bad. That's how life works and you have to go with it.

BALDWIN: Taylor went on to ask about her baby niece, doctor who, and adult Taylor's relationship with God. Heart breaking as it is, her father finds comfort in this letter Taylor wrote about a future that will never be.

SMITH: Initially it's shock and waves of depression. Hoping that it's not real, if it's God's time, it's God's time. He loved her more than we could ever love her. So much that he said come on. A lot of people are probably wondering why it's so easy for a father who just lost his daughter to say something like that, to not curse God, and to not hate God. The only thing I can say is that right now it's easy for me to trust God because I know my baby girl trusted him.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Happening today, a meeting to discuss the future of the "Fast and Furious" film series. That's what actor, Vin Diesel, told his fans on his Facebook page. He said he, the studio and others are all talking about the completion of "Fast and Furious 7." The franchise has sold more than $2 billion and tickets worldwide since 2001.

Diesel has kept fans in the loop ever since his former co-star, Paul Walker, died in that car crash six weeks ago now. And look at this. This is what he just posted on his Facebook page. He says this is the final scene he and Walker shot together.

They are the first ladies of comedy and this Sunday night, they will be in full display as hosts of the Golden Globes. Tonight, a CNN special premier with entertainment correspondent, Nischelle Turner, who gives us this pretty awesome look at why these two ladies are the ones to watch.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NISCHELLE TURNER, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Admired by their comedy peers and respected by their comedy icons.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They're very witty and they bring brains. They are very smart and they know how to deliver a line.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Meryl Streep is not here tonight. She has the flu and I hear she's amazing in it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They're like a single being. They made me laugh.

TURNER: Two wildly accomplished writers, producers and actresses. For Tina, her career has become more than she ever imagined.

TINA FEY, HOST, GOLDEN GLOBES: I feel like I've exceeded my wildest dreams.

TURNER (on camera): When you think about what you're doing now and your life now, do you pinch yourself and say, wow?

FEY: I really always wanted my life to be filled with doing good work with my friends, so I feel like I'm getting to do that now, which is awesome. It's been a very slow and steady race for me. I like the long game or the long con is maybe better to say.

TURNER: You're the tortoise, not the hare.

FEY: Maybe I am the tortoise and will eventually win the race, I don't know.

TURNER (voice-over): Amy and Tina, indisputably, the reigning first ladies of comedy.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: Tina Fey and Amy Poehler from their humble beginnings to their Golden Globe domination. CNN presents a special half hour, "Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, First ladies of Comedy," tonight, 10:00 right here on CNN. Next, the documents have been released in the New Jersey bridge scandal involving Chris Christie's administration. What will they reveal, a motive possibly? We are going through them as I speak.

Plus, a teenager shot and killed by a police officer. Family members are absolutely outraged. They say the teen at the time only had a screwdriver. Next, we're asking the officers lawyer to explain what happened.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did that officer yell for help or ask for someone to shoot this man?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, sir, did not.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Then why did the detective feel like he needed to use deadly force at that moment?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: A police union is backing a North Carolina officer under fire for shooting and killing an 18-year-old mentally ill man. His family says Keith Vidal, who weigh all of 100 pounds, was not a threat to officers. CNN's David Mattingly has the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Shortly after he shot and killed 18-year-old Keith Vidal, we could hear South Port Police Detective Byron Vassey on the radio saying he was defending himself.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know if you've been advised or not but shots fired. I've had to defend myself against the subject.

MATTINGLY: Apparently suffering through a schizophrenic episode and holding only a screwdriver, Keith Vidal had been hit with stun guns and was on the floor of his home restrained by two officers when Detective Vassey shot him in the chest. Vassey's attorney now tells me why.

(on camera): You're telling me this young man was not subdued and that he was fighting back?

JAMES PAYNE, BYRON VASSEY'S ATTORNEY: He was, yes, sir.

MATTINLY: He was actually taking that screwdriver and stabbing one of the officers multiple times?

PAYNE: In the abdomen area, yes, sir.

MATTINGLY: But not causing any injury?

PAYNE: Apparently he had not. Again, apparently the officer had a bulletproof vest on.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): Just 5'3" and maybe 100 pounds, the smiling teen in these pictures, according to Vassey's attorney, had become such a threat to the safety of the one officer that Vassey had no choice but to use deadly force.

(on camera): Did that officer yell for help or ask for someone to shoot this man?

PAYNE: No, sir, did not.

MATTINGLY: Then why did the detective feel like he needed to use deadly force at that moment?

PAYNE: Because the stabbing motions travelled to an exposed part of the down officer and he was not being subdued.

MATTINGLY: The North Carolina Police Benevolent Association agrees. The legal support group calls the situation dangerous, call Keith Vidal's screwdriver a deadly weapon. And says Detective Vassey used authorized law enforcement action. The aggressive and threatening picture described is in sharp contrast to the family's belief that Keith Vidal should not have died.

MARK WILSEY, SHOOTING VICTIM'S BROTHER: Why would somebody shoot a 90-pound kid with two full-grown officers on top of him with two tasers deployed inside him? There's no reason.

MATTINGLY (on camera): Was that the only option here, to pull a firearm and pull the trigger?

PAYNE: At the instant that it occurred, again, having to step up into the shoes of the officer to make that judgment call, he had to make it in a split instant.

MATTINGLY: Was it the right decision?

PAYNE: Yes, sir.

MATTINGLY: David Mattingly, CNN, Southport, North Carolina.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: Near the top of the hour. I'm Brooke Baldwin. We begin with breaking news in the unfolding political scandal surrounding the governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie.