2002: Crime: Crimes & Misdemeanors
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Now moving on to some of the year's most outrageous and memorable legal cases. In the second part of my conversation on the crime year in review, I sat down with Jeffrey Toobin and famed attorney Johnnie Cochran to give us their legal perspective as we look at crimes and misdemeanors from the year 2002 in review.</s>ZAHN: Now is there any single outrage of the year we've missed her when we review all these court cases and what you were shocked by that went to trial...?</s>JOHNNIE COCHRAN, DEFENSE ATTY.: I'll tell you, I was outraged early on by the prosecutors in the kid -- the King case. And so it turned out, and I thought the judge kind of pulled that out.</s>JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: The judges pulled that out. I was -- I'm a little outraged that McDonald's got sued because the kids are fat.</s>ZAHN: Is that the criminal case of the year?</s>TOOBIN: I don't know, but it's interesting. It just shows how everything winds up in court. It's everybody wants to blame everybody for something else. But, you know -- oh, I'll tell you an outrage, a big outrage. The Central Park jogger case. We -- we all assumed that a confession meant you were guilty, and the New York district attorney's office, belatedly but to its credit, filed a paper in December. Didn't just say these people, you know, we can't prove it any more. It said these five kids were not guilty; they were innocent. And that was the shocking thing to me. I mean, it just shows -- you know, we hear...</s>ZAHN: What does it show?</s>TOOBIN: Well, it shows that we can't always know what we think we know. That even confessions, even the legal system, even good journalism something produces the wrong result.</s>COCHRAN: It really does. When you go back and look at "The New York Times" and papers around that time, some prominent citizens around there took out full-page ads, calling for, like, these kids to be put to death.</s>TOOBIN: Right.</s>COCHRAN: It was horrible.</s>TOOBIN: It was.</s>COCHRAN: And these kids are basically innocent of those offenses. And you know, I think that we should give some credit to some really fine lawyers who fought that and believed in their clients. And it's pretty tough. And even when these kids confessed, the confession didn't make any sense, really. But nobody, you know -- sometimes there's this strong desire to win that overwhelms everything, especially in an environment where you're having horrible crimes.</s>ZAHN: What do you say to cops who say the D.A. has blown it? You know?</s>TOOBIN: I can understand why they think that, but I think they're wrong. I mean, I followed this case very closely. I've looked at the evidence. This person who confessed in prison, Matias Reyes, it's his DNA that was found on the jogger. The evidence does not stack up against these kids any more. And -- or they're no longer kids. And this was a real outrage. I mean, these kids spent years and years in prison for a crime they didn't commit. And that's something all of us who care about justice, you know, should know...</s>COCHRAN: It's an outrage. And it makes us think. It should make all citizens think twice that you can't go along with just the popular view.</s>ZAHN: I know Michael Jackson has come into your life from time to time. Is he nuts?</s>COCHRAN: I don't think he's nuts. I think he's unique and he's eclectic and those kinds of things. But no, and I think I've talked enough with this incident (ph) -- I mean, he apologized. I mean, it was a spur of the moment thing. He loves those kids.</s>ZAHN: Come on. You're a dad. Who in their right mind would dangle an infant over the balcony of a high hotel?</s>COCHRAN: Well, it certainly wouldn't be recommended procedure, and I think he understands that.</s>ZAHN: Does he deserve to keep those kids?</s>COCHRAN: I think so, because I think he's a good parent. I think you'd find that he is a good parent. He cares about kids.</s>TOOBIN: I'm so glad that Johnny has moved onto this subject, so now we can disagree completely again. It made me sick to watch that video. I thought it was appalling. I -- I don't know...</s>ZAHN: Should he lose custody of the kids?</s>TOOBIN: I don't know enough about the situation, about his relationship with those kids. I mean, the last time I saw them they all had napkins over their heads when he took them to the zoo. I mean, it's -- he is a bizarre fellow and the less seen and heard of him, the better.</s>ZAHN: Great to see you. Continued good luck to you. Jeffrey, thank you.