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CNN NEWSROOM

President Obama Will Give Pardon to 46 Nonviolent Drug Offenders; Who May Have Helped Mexican Drug Kingpin El Chapo Break Out of Prison?; Kidnapping Case that Police First Called Hoax Now Being Called Real by the FBI. 3:30-4p ET

Aired July 14, 2015 - 15:30   ET

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


(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

[15:30:00] ANA CABRERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): And video of Holmes acting strangely following backwards from his bank a few months after the shooting, before being hospitalized for a psychotic episode, proof of his insanity, they say.

Each side pointed to a notebook Holmes sent hours before the shooting to a doctor (INAUDIBLE), a psychiatrist who treated Holmes at the University of Colorado when he was a grad student.

The defense highlighted ramblings that don't make any sense while prosecutors argue the notebook provides evidence of Holmes' detailed planning. Holmes write that he considered bombs, biological warfare and serial murder before settling on mass murder at the movies.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I just remember getting hit in my chest and then I remember falling and landing on top of her.

CABRERA: Dozens of victims told heart wrenching stories. Ashley Moser, left paralyzed after the shooting, lost a pregnancy and her 6- year-old daughter, Veronica.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did her hand reach back?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, I couldn't feel it. It slipped through my hand.

CABRERA: Sure to weigh heavily on the hearts and minds of jurors, will decide whether the man responsible for killing 12 and wounding 70 was sane when he did it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was told that she had -- that she didn't make it and that she had passed away.

CABRERA: Ana Cabrera, CNN, Denver.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: And the jury could get the case today and begin deliberations tomorrow.

And joining me now to discuss this, HLN legal analyst and criminal defense attorney, Joey Jackson. So Joey, we have experts on both sides. On the defense side, these

experts say that Holmes had a mental illness and he no idea what he was doing during the shooting, that he was delusional. On the other side, you have prosecution experts who say he was legally sane. So it seems to me which expert the jury chooses to believe could determine the fate of James Holmes here.

JOEY JACKSON, HLN LEGAL ANALYST: Absolutely. Goo afternoon and good to be with you.

Look, it's a battle of the experts in the case but it's going to come down to also commonsense. So let's crossed this out. The prosecution calls two experts. Witnesses, they were court appointed. They evaluated Mr. Holmes, their conclusion was he had mental illness, no doubt, it was a severe mental illness, no doubt, also schizophrenia.

However, under the law, as insanity is legally defined, those experts concluded that he was indeed sane. He knew the difference between right from wrong. Now, when the defense called their experts, when they ultimately got to the case, surprise, surprise. The experts who are hired by the defense concluded that, yes, he had severe mental illness. However, he was insane. He didn't know the difference between right from wrong.

So the question becomes who do you believe? There are two professors in that courtroom. They are educated, they are persuasive, they present well, and so, what are you left with? I think you are left with experts who potentially cancel each other out oftentimes in the battle of the experts we see. And then the jurors is allowed to conclude other things that are based upon their commonsense, which still be reminded, by the way, Pamela, not to leave at the door. And that will be from the prosecution's perspective.

Look at the plotting, the premeditation, the buying of weapons, the determining where am I going to target? What am I going to do? Am I going to wear body armor, which he did, helmet. But neck, I mean, he had a neck protector and he had leg protectors. So they are going to talk about the prosecution, all of the plotting and planning and premeditation. The defense, of course, will rely largely on those experts, talk about his family history. His aunt, you know what, she had an issue with mental illness. His grandfather institutionalized. Look what he did. He was in the grip of psychosis. You have to find them not guilty because he was insane. That's going to be the battle in the courtroom.

BROWN: Well, and something really interesting is that James Holmes is choosing not to testify. Big deal? What do you think?

JACKSON: Well, I don't think so and here's why, Pamela. I think ultimately he did testify. Now, not in the classic sense where generally speaking a defendant gets up on the stand and there's a riveting moment as they are walking forward. My goodness, what are they going to say? What are they going to do?

In that sense he did. And of course, the judge asked, will you testify? He said, no, your honor, I will not. But remember, Pamela, that jury heard 22 hours of tape from him and that including questions. It included hid answers. It included his demeanor. It included his comportment, how did he see? How did he feel? And so, the jury had a good sense to evaluate who he was and what he did here. And that's going to be significant in this case.

BROWN: All right, we have to wait and see what happens.

Joey Jackson, thank you so much.

JACKSON: My pleasure.

BROWN: Up next, right here in NEWSROOM, what it's like to hear your prison sentence being shortened and the prison and the person behind it is the president. I'm talking to a woman up next, who worked directly with the prisoners who heard that good news.

Plus, police called it a hoax. A woman kidnapped from her home. But now the FBI says it was real and they have arrested a suspect. That's coming up right after this break.

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[15:38:00] BROWN: In moments from now, President Obama will call for sweeping historic changes. I'm not talking about Iran. I'm talking about an issue within our borders, criminal justice reform. The president will propose major action in the next hour. And he's doing it one day after commuting the prison time for 46 nonviolent drug offenders, some of whom were serving life in prison. One is Doug Lindsey, who received life for his first conviction. According to families against mandatory minimums, Lindsey sold crack to fund his college education and that is what landed him behind bars for life.

Joining me now to discuss all of this, the founder and president of families against mandatory minimums, Julie Stewart.

Julie, thanks for coming on.

JULIE STEWART, FOUNDER/PRESIDENT, FAMILIES AGAINST MANDATORY MINIMUMS: Thank you for having me.

BROWN: So you've been hearing from families of offenders whose sentences were just commuted. What are they saying to you?

STEWART: Well, obviously they are overjoyed. I mean, these are people who were looking at dying in prison, many of them, and now they will be out by basically November 10th, I think. So they are excited to have freedom again.

[15:40:04] BROWN: And tell us some of the stories, Julie, because it's incredible to hear about. Doug Lindsey, he was put behind bars for life for selling crack cocaine, his first conviction. What are some of the other stories you're hearing of offenders before they were sentenced?

STEWART: Well, I will just also add about his case, he was one of 14 in conspiracy and the only one who went to trial. And at his trial, his attorney did such a bad job that he was later convicted of a separate crime. So it wasn't like this man had great representation. But anyway, he was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. The rest of the people who pled guilty did not get that much time.

But there are a lot of people who are receiving clemencies that have been serving at least 20 years, many of them. One other one that we have been talking a lot about for the last few years is Talicia Watkins (ph). And she basically introduced her neighbor who wanted to buy drugs to a friend of hers who was selling drugs and that sale was recorded by one of the informants that was involved in it and she was then subjected to a 20-year sentence.

So a lot of people get sentenced to prison for a very long time for what we would normally consider minor crimes, which is not to say that drug dealing or drug use is good but just proportionally to someone who has sold drugs, need to spend 20 years in prison. When I was a kid, you know, murderers went to prison for 20 years. Now, we put street dealers who are selling crack cocaine on the street corner to sending them to prison.

BROWN: And there is that difference. They were sentenced longer in prison for crack cocaine versus cocaine.

STEWART: That's right. Yes --

BROWN: Go ahead.

STEWART: No, crack cocaine laws were changed in 2010. Congress basically admitted that they had erred when they created such incredibly harsh penalties for crack cocaine in 1986. And so, they changed those laws in 2010, but they didn't make them retroactive. So they didn't apply to anyone who was already in prison serving penalty for crack cocaine.

And so what the president did yesterday and in some of the other commutations he's granted so far, at lot of those people, at least 35 of the people granted commutations were in for crack cocaine offenses because he's trying to kind of address what Congress didn't do, which was to say, if you're in prison serving a sentence for crack cocaine, you should no longer be serving this much time because we've acknowledged that it's not fair.

BROWN: Do you know, Julie, how the White House elected these 46 offenders in particular?

STEWART: No, I don't. And I think it's a little bit of a misunderstanding the thing that White House made the selection completely on its own. Because the process are very complicated. A person in prison will submit a petition for a clemency to the pardon attorney's office. The pardon attorney will decide whether or not that person's petition is legitimate and should go forward and then they send it, let's say they send it forward with a favorable recommendation. It goes to the deputy attorney general's office, they look at it, decide if it should go forward and, if so, then they send it to the White House. So there are several steps before it even gets to the president. But

of course, ultimately, the president does have the decision to say yes. And I suppose he perhaps has even said yes to some that the lower, you know, people have said "no" to, that the department of justice has said "no" to.

BROWN: And according to the "Washington Post," 35,000 inmates have already applied for early release since that. So we're going to hear from the president, again, shortly about this, about this criminal justice reform.

And Julie Stewart, really great to have you on and hear your perspective, thank you.

STEWART: Happy to be here. Thank you.

BROWN: Up next, a kidnapping case that police first called a hoax is now being called real by the FBI. It has made an arrest and the victim's family is now reacting.

Plus, who may have helped Mexican drug kingpin El Chapo break out of prison? New details just coming into CNN. We are going to take you live in Mexico right after this break.

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[15:46:20] BROWN: A fixture on the Latin music charts for decades, legendary Mexican singer Joan Sebastian, has died.

(VIDEO CLIP PLAYING)

BROWN: Sebastian's singing career began in 1977. He was inducted into the Latin music hall of fame in 2006. He had won seven Latin Grammys and five Grammy awards, the most of any Mexican performer ever. Sebastian had been battling bone cancer since 1999. He was 64 years old.

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[15:49:04] BROWN: -- when drugged them, forced Huskins to tie up her boyfriend and then demanded financial account numbers. Then after all of that took the couple's car to kidnap her. Local police questioned the story calling it a, quote, "wild goose chase," until now.

Let's get right to CNN's Paul Vercammen.

Paul, again, what a bizarre story here. What changed that convinced authorities that this was no hoax?

PAUL VERCAMMEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, as you well know, Pam, detectives look for patterns and they found one in Dublin, California, an extremely similar home invasion involving a couple who were tied up, but the male victim in this case fought off the attacker and a cell phone was left behind and traced that cell phone to Muller, then, they went to Muller's car and they started looking for evidence. And what did they find, swim goggles covered in duct tape. The kidnapping victim, as you may know, Denise Huskins, had long said that goggles with duct tape on them were used in her kidnapping. And so, they had been that link, the FBI did.

Yesterday, Denise Huskins and her boyfriend sat there quietly as their lawyer said, this is a fabulous day for them. As you pointed out, Vallejo police called this a hoax. So far, they have not apologized. But the victim's father is speaking.

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[15:50:21] MARK HUSKINS, DENISE HUSKINS' FATHER: Yes, yes, I thought, you know, when she was found, I thought they would be more open arms about it and, you know, greet her and instead they were very hostile. And they continue to be -- or they did continue for several days. Even when they were interviewing her, so it's just a big relief right now.

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VERCAMMEN: And so who is this suspect, Muller? Well, he is Harvard- educated. He was working at a law firm. He is an ex-U.S. marine and even his own attorney says he suffers from various mental disorders, including bipolar disorder. The affidavit says this as well. And he possibly has some sort of psychosis.

Among some of the maniacal things that he allegedly perpetrated on the couple, threatening and shock them and also threatening to cut their face. And in the affidavit you can also see the victim, Denise, was sexually assaulted twice, Pam.

BROWN: Well, this is certainly vindication for those victims.

Paul Vercammen, thank you.

Up next, right here in NEWSROOM, breaking word on who may have helped Mexican kingpin El Chapo, the world's most notorious drug lord escape from prison.

Plus, after more than nine years and three billion miles traveled, NASA today celebrating one spacecraft's historic journey and what is now revealing about the dwarf planet, Pluto up next.

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[15:56:00] BROWN: Well, right now, as we speak, NASA and the United States are making history.

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CROWD: Four, three, two, one!

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BROWN: And the folks at Cape Canaveral are celebrating as the spacecraft "New Horizon" zooms past Pluto for the first time ever taking pictures that it will then send back to earth tonight. This is history because in flying by Pluto, new horizons completes the first reconnaissance of our solar system. And revealing the dwarf planet is actually some are larger than first thought. Here is some background on this mission.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The new horizon spacecraft traveled for more than nine years, covering over three billion miles to give us our closest view yet of Pluto. Launched January 19th, 2006, from Cape Canaveral, the piano-sized spacecraft is the first to visit the icy world discovered more than 80 years ago. But an astronomer (INAUDIBLE) first saw Pluto on February 18th, 1930, he only saw a pinpoint of light. (INAUDIBLE) was using the best technology he had, a telescope at (INAUDIBLE) in Flagstaff, Arizona.

Fast-forward to 1994, the Hubble space telescope floating above earth's atmosphere snapped this image of Pluto and its hardest moon sharing. Then in 1996, Hubble gave us this. A mosaic of images snapped between 2002 and 2003 was assembled in 2010 to give us the most detailed view of Pluto at that time. Pluto isn't the final destination for the new horizon spacecraft. The probe will keep flying, deeper into space, to explore regions scientists think is filled with hundreds of small icy objects.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: A new development in the frantic hunt across Mexico for an escaped dangerous drug kingpin. So far, no nice of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman. But we are learning in that following his capture in 2014, U.S. drug enforcement officials warned Mexico that relative and associates of the billionaire drug trafficker were looking for ways to break him out. Mexico's interior secretary, however, denies that information was ever passed on to them.

I want to bring in CNN's Nick Valencia who is not far from the prison where El Chapo break free - Nick.

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey there, Pamela.

More than 30 people inside that prison have been brought in for questioning as part of this investigation. We just ran into the general of the federal police force asking about what the latest is. But they're being very tight-lipped, whether it's out of embarrassment or because of their ongoing investigation.

Earlier we spoke to some locals that said that construction on that rural home where he escaped started back in December. That home was finished but it drew some suspicion because individuals stuck around in that area continuing their construction, working throughout the weekend. And they believe that this plan was well-orchestrated and planned out for months. It is by all accounts as it seems, this escape planned not only in plain view of prison officials but also federal police and the military that has a headquarters nearby here.

Right now, a $3.8 million reward being offered for the world's most notorious drug trafficker who is living life as a free man. Authorities are expecting hopefully some leads in this investigation. They've been heavy police presence around this area. We've seen a lot of patrols and convoys. But some people that we've spoken to here in this community believe that El Chapo is long gone and at this point could be anywhere -- Pamela.

BROWN: And quickly, nick, what do we know about the people being questioned in regard to this escape?

VALENCIA: We know some of them are prison guards. We don't know how high up they are within the prison system. But it really is sort of embarrassing if you understand that this is a maximum security prison. El Chapo was not the only big cartel kingpin that is inside. There is also a handful of others including an American name "La Barbie" who was arrested just a handful of years ago and others that our viewers maybe familiar with. So this is a place where, you know, the bad guys come to stay. And it's right now they don't understand exactly how El Chapo was able to get out without somebody inside helping him -- Pamela.

BROWN: Absolutely, Nick Valencia. Thank you very much.

And that does it for me. John Berman is in for Jake Tapper. "The LEAD" starts right now.