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Botched Execution; NBA Bans Sterling; Extreme Floods in Florida; Firm Says It Found Airliner

Aired April 30, 2014 - 14:00   ET

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

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Wolf, thank you so much, as always.

Great to be with you. I'm Brooke Baldwin here.

We began with an execution that went just horribly wrong, renewing all kinds of questions today about the death penalty in this country and about what has long been considered the most humane way of carry it out, that being lethal injection.

We are about to hear from the governor of Oklahoma, Mary Fallin. She is holding a news conference at the bottom of the hour. Of course, we will bring that to you live the second we see her step behind that podium.

But let me just back up here because it was last night that the state of Oklahoma tried to execute this man, 38-year-old Clayton Lockett, for the 1999 murder of a young woman who had just graduated high school. Lockett was convicted of shooting 19-year-old Stephanie Neiman twice after a home invasion. He tried to carjack her truck. When she refused to hand over the keys, he tied her up with duct tape and shot her. She was forced to watch, then, as Lockett and his accomplices dug a hole in the ground in which she was ultimately buried alive.

Now, Lockett's execution began last night, 6:23 Central Time in Oklahoma. He was given this three drug cocktail designed to knock him out, then stop his breathing and ultimately cease his heart. But witnesses say the whole thing went so wrong prison officials actually had to close the blinds at one point and halt it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COURTNEY FRANCISCO, WITNESS TO EXECUTION: He was struggling to talk, but those were the words he got out, "man, I'm not," and, "something's wrong."

LIS EXON, WITNESS TO EXECUTION: At 6:39, he's still lifting his shoulders and head off the gurney grimacing and appeared to be in distress.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So from start to finish, 6:23, the execution started, 6:39 is when they closed the curtains on us, a 16 minute process to watch.

FRANCISCO: And they just said we're going to stop the execution at this point and they lowered the blinds and we were sitting there for quite some time waiting on them to lift the blinds or tell us something. We didn't know what was happening on the other side of the blinds. We didn't know if he was still dying or if they were still pumping drugs in him. So at 6:39, when they lowered the blinds they said, we're going to stop.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: So those were some of the witness descriptions. We'll be hearing from some of them live on this show throughout the next two hours. But Lockett's attorney says for a minute there was chaos, their word. It turns out Lockett's vein had exploded. He ultimately died of a heart attack some 43 minutes after being given that first injection.

Oklahoma had planned to put a second inmate to death last night as well, but because of what happened, that execution has been stayed by the governor until officials figure out exactly what went wrong.

So here to talk about this is our chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta joining me here in studio, and legally speaking, got to get into that, CNN's senior legal analyst Jeff Toobin.

And so let's just be crystal clear here. You know, listen, a lot of people have zero sympathy for what happened last night. And, Jeff, we'll get into the ethics of this in a minute. But, Sanjay, what went so wrong?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, it appears that they tried to give the first drug to essentially render somebody senseless. You know, make them unconscious, unaware of their surroundings. The second drug is a paralytic. The important thing here is it paralyzes the diaphragm. With the diaphragm paralyzed, you can't breathe any more.

BALDWIN: It stops the breathing. OK.

GUPTA: It stops the breathing. And then the third drug is to stop the heart. It causes a chemical reaction that basically makes the heart go into cardiac arrest. The concern, as you point out, Brooke, is that if the first drug didn't work well enough, could someone have experienced the pain or even the -- just psychological terror of suddenly being unable to breathe or the pain of having essentially sort of a heart attack. That's the real concern here.

What happened is that the vein, because it blew, so to speak, the medication is no longer going into the blood but rather into the soft tissue. You still might get some of the medication in your body, but you just don't know how much.

BALDWIN: But isn't part of the issue here, and Toobin I'm coming to you in a minute, but part of the issue, I keep hearing the word experimenting, because there is a lack of certain drugs or drugs have expired or Italy is saying no way we're sending you these drugs -

GUPTA: Yes.

BALDWIN: Because we want nothing to do with executions in your country.

GUPTA: Yes.

BALDWIN: There was a dearth of drug therefore this is happening.

GUPTA: You know, since I was a first year medical student, this has been one of the most ethically challenging things. You might imagine that, first of all, doctors and nurses, they're not - they're not anxiously a part of this process. Drug manufacturers that create drugs for promoting health and prolonging life don't want their drugs being used for this. So it's always really sticky. And what you're describe is right. So these people say, look, we don't want our drugs used that way anymore. They've got to find different drugs. The drugs that they're using are well-known medications that are used in hospitals every day, but obviously not for this purpose.

BALDWIN: OK. I want to come back to that because I'm curious about the companies here in the U.S. who maybe could produce these.

But, Jeff Toobin, I come back to you. We come back to the Constitution, Eighth Amendment, you know, prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment. And I can't imagine, as I said a moment ago, you know, family members of 19-year-old Stephanie, who perhaps say, who cares about cruel and unusual. This man did this to my child. I don't care how he goes. But is this not a quandary because thus far, you know, the Supreme Court says, legal. It's a quandary for the states, isn't it?

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: This is one of the great paradoxes in American law, which is that executions are clearly legal under the Eighth Amendment, but it has to be done in a way that is not cruel and unusual. Well, that is easier said than done. And, you know, all through American history there have been various attempts to conduct executions in ways that are somewhat more humane than the last technique. Hanging gave way to electrocution, which gave way to the gas chamber, which has now given way to lethal injection. But, you know, as you were saying earlier, as of last year, all the suppliers who came from Europe have said, we want no part of this anymore, we forbid the use and export of our drugs for this purpose. So now you have all these states trying to improvise using compound pharmacies which are not as tightly regulated as other pharmacies, trying to figure out how to do this. And, obviously, last night at least, they blew it and had a disaster on their hands.

BALDWIN: So then maybe this is the obvious question, why can't non- compound pharmacies but pharmacies who would initially produce the drug just produce more of it?

GUPTA: Yes, I mean, you know, they could.

BALDWIN: Or do they not want to, actually (ph)?

GUPTA: Well, they don't want to, I don't think.

BALDWIN: OK.

GUPTA: I mean they don't want their drugs, I think, to be used for this particular purpose.

I should point out again though that, you know, had everything gone the way that it was supposed to go, and as someone who's seen these drugs at work, you probably -- we probably wouldn't be having this discussion.

BALDWIN: No, we wouldn't.

GUPTA: The vein blew. He didn't get the medication he was supposed to get. And it's obviously led to this discussion.

BALDWIN: But this happened before in Ohio.

GUPTA: It's happened before.

BALDWIN: Yes.

GUPTA: It's not the first time its - it's not a perfect system by any means. But if it had worked the way that it was supposed to, then he would have not experienced any of the suffering that that, you know, people are talking about.

BALDWIN: Uh-huh. This is just the beginning, I think, of some changes that we will be seeing. We will be reporting on.

Thank you so much, Sanjay and Jeff Toobin.

As I mentioned, we'll be talking later in the show to two different witnesses who were there before those blinds were closed.

And as I mentioned, the Oklahoma governor, remember she has placed a halt on executions for at least two weeks, stayed that second execution last night, she will be talking live from Oklahoma City. So stay tuned because we want to hear what she will say at the bottom of the hour.

Meantime, let's switch gears and talk about the city of Los Angeles feeling maybe renewed today. The NBA is hailing its new commissioner, Adam Silver, for a job well done after he kicked L.A. Clippers owner Donald Sterling out of the league. Remember his words, banned him for life, for his racist remarks. But Silver also wants Sterling to lose his ball club for life. Can the Clippers survive as a franchise if he does not? TNT Sports' Shaquille O'Neal weighed in after yesterday's huge decision.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHAQUILLE O'NEAL, TNT SPORTS ANALYST: Realistically, the players and the fans, we own the game. The owners are just custodians. Most players don't play for the owners. I had one of the greatest owners in Dr. Jerry Buss (ph), but, you know, as a youngster growing up, I always wanted to make a name for myself, do certain things for my family and win for myself. This is the first time that, you know, the Clippers have been mentioned and a legitimate chance of winning a title. And, you know, this has definitely put a black eye on their season, but, you know, you just have to go out and play. You know, it would be a great story if they go, despite everything that goes on, they fought through all the adversity and they won the title. That would be - that would be a hell of a story.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's go on three. One, two, three!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Well, last night, game five, there they go, the Clippers inch one step closer to that reality amid an arena full of supportive fans. They triumphed over the Golden State Warriors and are one game away from advancing to the second round of the NBA playoffs.

Now, many have said that now the healing can begin, but the fallout is far from over. The NBA may want all traces of Sterling gone, but will the league owners, all 30 of those owners, vote to make the disgraced business man sell his team or not? Let's bring in CNN sports Rachel Nichols, host of CNN's "Unguarded."

And the big question, Rachel, we heard Commissioner Silver urge for that vote immediately. Do we know when - when that could happen?

RACHEL NICHOLS, HOST, CNN'S "UNGUARDED": Yes, it's just a process. They're going to have a conference call tomorrow. They're going to decide supposedly on that conference call to officially notify Donald Sterling. We certainly expect that part to happen. They'll have three days to do that. Then he has five days to respond. Then within 10 days after that, we can do all that math, they're going to have to meet as the board of governors, that's an owner or one of their representatives from each team, he is going to have a chance to speak at that meeting. They're going to have a chance to bring in witnesses or any other testimony and they're going to decide his fate.

Now, Adam Silver said in the press conference yesterday he feels good about his chances, but I asked him in that presser, I said, did you poll the owners before coming out and making this announcement? Basically, do you have the votes? And he was very special about saying, no. And I think that that's fascinating because he didn't go behind closed doors and gather consensus, which is what we would expect in this situation. Instead, he very purposefully pulled a bit of a power move, frankly, Brooke, and he laid it at the owners' feet in public. And by doing that, these owners can't hide behind any of their other concerns. They now have to answer to their own constituencies, their own sponsors, their own players, their own fan base. And that puts a lot more pressure on them to vote for the ouster of Donald Sterling because who wants to side with the side of racism?

BALDWIN: Right.

RACHEL NICHOLS: It's an interesting question because, you know, Mark Cuban, just the day before said, I don't know about this. It seems like a slippery slope, right?

BALDWIN: Slippery slope. Slippery slope. Right.

NICHOLS: And yet now -- now that Adam Silver has called everyone out, do you really think Mark Cuban is going to publically vote with Donald Sterling?

BALDWIN: He did call them out yesterday, did he not? He made it very clear, it was very personal, the words he chose at that news conference that you attended.

But back to the vote. So just so I heard you clearly, so Donald Sterling himself will be there to present his case and have representatives to present his case in front of these owners, before these owners even vote, yes?

NICHOLS: He's supposed to have the opportunity to. And it's - you know, look, don't think that Donald Sterling hasn't been making phone calls the past few days. We don't know. We don't know what Donald Sterling's been doing. But it would certainly follow his character to, you know, be trying to lobby a little bit.

He's been an owner for 30 years. He has known a lot of these other owners for decades. They have worked together. They've been in meeting after meeting, retreat after retreat All sorts of situations together. So you would imagine that he would now be trying to, you know -

BALDWIN: Make some phone calls.

NICHOLS: Elbow a few guys, make a few calls, you know, try to -- call in a few favors. Maybe even sort of, you know, one of his tactics could be to say, hey, I maybe could sue you guys, and that's a lawsuit that, by the way, legal experts don't think that he could win because of the agreement that he signed with his NBA team and a contract with the league, but he could sue and threaten to put a bunch of stuff into public record that maybe some of these owners don't want in public record or at least tie them up in court for a while.

We've had Doc Rivers say, I don't know if I feel comfortable coaching this team once the summer comes if Donald Sterling is still the owner. Well, if they're tied up in court, Donald Sterling will still be the owner. The players suddenly aren't going to want to play. So there's a lot of different ways he could try to subvert this. The smart course, of course, public relations wise, would be to just kind of go gently into the good night. He's clearly lost this one in the court of public opinion.

BALDWIN: Yes.

NICHOLS: You would hope that he would be able to just follow through with that and say, hey, I'm going to walk away. But we just haven't seen Donald Sterling walk away that often.

BALDWIN: We haven't. What a story. Yesterday triumph. It just begins.

Rachel Nichols, thank you so much. Awesome job. All over this one for us. We will have much more on the L.A. Clippers throughout the hour. You know, the NBA wants Sterling to sell the team, but that could be months, as Rachel was talking about, maybe years away. How will the players themselves handle the situation? Could it hurt the team's long-term prospects? We'll talk about that.

Plus, oh, Florida, Alabama, hit with incredible amounts of rain. Look at this muddy water. This isn't a river, folks. It should be streets. At least two military bases sending high -- chest high water and it's in people's homes. We will take you there.

And a company says it knows where missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 is. Hmmm. Is this credible or another false positive in an already frustrating search. Stay here.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Welcome back. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

You know, people are hiding in their attics as floodwaters are rising inside their own homes. You have crews trying to reach these stranded folks in Pensacola, Florida, where streets, as you can see here, turned into raging muddy rivers. At least one person was killed. Storms and possible tornados today are threatening 37 million people. Just wrap your head around that for a minute, 37 million people, all the way from Florida up to Virginia. In fact, part of Pensacola's scenic highway collapsed, sending two cars plummeting nearly 40 feet. Florida's governor warns more rain is on the way.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. RICK SCOTT, FLORIDA: We've had up to 22 inches of rain in the panhandle and we've had flash flooding, we've had about 300 requests for evacuations. I declared a state of emergency earlier this morning for 26 counties.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: The governor says the National Guard is on the way. Tens of thousands of people don't have power. So let's get the latest from Pensacola, Florida. Joining me on the phone, Bill Pearson, spokesman for Escambia County.

Bill, you with me?

BILL PEARSON, ESCAMBIA COUNTY SPOKESMAN (via telephone): I sure am. How you doing this afternoon?

BALDWIN: I am doing better than you all are, it sounds like. I mean from what I understand, Bill, this storm you're experiencing is unlike anything else you have seen? How so?

PEARSON: It really is. We've been - you know, we've got a lot of folks here, locals, who have really known the area and they've been through a lot of weather events and this really is unlike anything almost anyone here has ever seen. We've seen - you've shown some of the pictures of the damage here, especially along Scenic Highway. We've seen chunks of road wash away, vehicles included. It's just - it's breathtaking for those of us who have called Pensacola and Escambia County home.

BALDWIN: What's the biggest challenge right now for rescue crews?

PEARSON: Well, we're still dealing with water. There's still flooding in the area. We're still having to deal with the water as it recedes, and that kind of becomes a problem because that does kind of increases some of the speed of the water as it flows to the lowest point. So we're trying to still rescue and recover. We're still going to be in that mode of operation, we believe, through the end of the early afternoon. And then once we kind of transition from that and wrap up our rescue and recovering mode, we're going to start going to the recovery phase where we're starting to put our plan together which will really be kicked off in earnest tomorrow morning to assess the damage, whether it be roads, building, infrastructure, to see what is broken, what's been damaged, what can be saved and what needs to be repaired immediately.

BALDWIN: So assessment time. Can you estimate for me, Bill, how many people are stranded right now in Pensacola?

PEARSON: I couldn't estimate that right now. I know we still have a lot of crews working feverishly trying to get to certain folks. You did talk about the National Guard sending some equipment over here. And we're very grateful for the help that the state of Florida has sent in manpower and equipment, trying to be able to get to folks. But this is really an event that, you know, it's kind of hard to plan for something that's really never happened quite like this before in northwest Florida.

So, for instance, right now, we've got 10 major thoroughfares that are closed at some point along the way because of flooding or potholes or sink holes or just a fear of the roads collapsing still. So it's unlike anything we've seen here and we've seen our fair share of bad weather.

BALDWIN: I know you have in Florida. Bill Pearson, thank you so much for picking up the phone. Busy for you. Stay safe to you, your county crews and National Guard rolling in that equipment. Thank you so much.

Malaysia - Malaysia has been desperate for a lead, of course, to find this missing plane and now there's this company that says it knows where the plane is. Some authorities have been pretty quick to dismiss that claim. Is it time for search teams to take a second look at the northern arc? We'll explore that.

And Forbes says the Los Angeles Clippers are worth $575 million, although that could be hundreds of millions off the mark. Ahead, we'll look at the price tag of Donald Sterling's team if and when he sells it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: An Australian marine exploration company may have done what no one else has been able to do thus far for 55 days, that being find this missing plane. Find MH-370. This Bangladesh navy here has entered the search, sending in ships, after a team of scientists spotted this. You see this here. This is what they believe could be the wreckage of a commercial airliner. And not just any airliner but possibly the Boeing 777. Appearing on their scans right after the Flight 370 vanished.

But here's the problem. This is one of several here. This is thousands of miles from the current search area in the southern arc. Where we were led, thanks to those Inmarsat analysis of so-called satellite handshakes. But could they have been misread? Head of the search, Angus Houston is doubtful.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANGUS HOUSTON, CHIEF COORDINATOR OF THE JOINT AGENCY COORDINATION CENTRE: It's certainly something that needs to be looked at. And I believe it probably has been looked at. But, you know, I'm not aware of any of that detail. I'm focused on the search in our area of responsibility and I'm focused on that arc.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Well, CNN's Anna Coren was one of the very few members of the media who made it to the company's headquarters in Adelaide, Australia, to learn more about this discovery and why they're urging official searchers to take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANNA COREN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As the search continues for MH-370, on the desolate waters of the southern Indian Ocean, more than seven weeks after the plane's disappearance, a team of scientists from an Australian mining exploration company believe they may have found its location over 5,000 kilometers away.

PAVEL KARSA, MANAGING DIRECTOR, GEORESONANCE: We are not into making theories. It is a scientific, proven fact that we guarantee that at that point, at that location, there are chemical elements that are part of a plane.

COREN: GeoResonance is convinced that through its high-tech spectral imaging gathered from satellites and planes, it has found the remains of an aircraft in the Bay of Bengal 190 kilometers off the coast of Bangladesh.

DAVID POPE, DIRECTOR, GEORESONANCE: Amazement isn't quite the word. It was totally incredible when we saw the results that we believe to be the wreckage of an aircraft. It was, yes, incredible.

COREN: Their search began four days after the plane's disappearance, testing for elements such as aluminum, titanium and copper found in a Boeing 777. Working off the plane's last radar detection, they search the northern corridor, covering over two million square kilometers until they found the match. Some analysts are skeptical of the technology - UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think the most fundamental reason for the skepticism is they talk about multispectral imaging and there is no multispectral imager that anyone I've talked to or that I'm aware of is going to penetrate 1,000 meters under the ocean.

COREN: Director David Pope says he stands by their findings, but it not prepared to divulge their methodology.

POPE: There's a lot of valuable (INAUDIBLE) brought (ph) up over the last 30 years. It's our intellectual property and we plan on keeping it private.

COREN: No one at GeoResonance is claiming that this, in fact, MH-370, but the imaging of the same area conducted three days before the plane disappeared turned up none of the elements. Their final report was sent two weeks ago to Malaysian Airlines and all countries involved in the search. But despite repeated efforts to make contact, no one responded.

COREN (on camera): GeoResonance, based here in Adelaide, denies this is a publicity seeking exercise, saying it never wanted to go public with its report. But when the Malaysian, Chinese and Australian governments failed to respond, that's when they went to the media, believing that it's their moral obligation to the families of the victims of MH-370.

POPE: If our lead is going to prove correct, then that's fantastic for the families to bring closure. If not, let us discount it and they can move on.

COREN (voice-over): Something the families and relatives of the 239 people on board are so desperate to do.

Anna Coren, CNN, Adelaide, Australia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: Anna Coren, thank you.

Coming up here, would you be willing to work for a racist? Clippers players have been pretty clear with how they're feeling about this after comments by Donald Sterling went public. But if he isn't soon forced to sell the team, the players may have to decide for themselves in the off season what to do.

And ahead, this woman - this woman right here led to yesterday's historic decision by the NBA commissioner. She goes by the name V and she thinks she can go from courtside at the Clippers all the way to the Oval Office. I'm not making this stuff up. Stay here.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)