U.S. Marshals Join Manhunt For Escaped Prisoner in Alabama
ANA CABRERA, CNN ANCHOR: Right now inside the Ferguson grand jury. Witnesses lied, changed their stories. What happened behind closed doors that may have led to no indictment of Officer Darren Wilson in the Michael Brown shooting case? And manhunt: two inmates still on the loose at this hour after they broke out of jail with another inmate. And you won't believe how they did it. The latest on the raid to catch these very dangerous men coming up. Plus --</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We pick pieces of the puzzle that are missing. We don't know if it's an only Oscar knows. He is not here anymore.</s>CABRERA: The mother of Reeva Steenkamp breaking her silence to CNN's Christiane Amanpour. She opens up about her daughter and whether she thinks justice was served against Oscar Pistorius. You are in the CNN NEWSROOM. Hello on this Sunday. I'm Ana Cabrera in for Fredrick Whitfield. Thanks for being here. Some of the people who say they saw what happened in Ferguson, Missouri, were not telling the truth, and they admitted it. Others so-called witnesses to Michael Brown's death changed their stories in front of the grand jury. And bad untrustworthy came from witnesses on both sides. We know all of this because of the thousands of documents that are now available for anyone to read. CNN Josh Levs is here. Also with us, CNN analyst Danny Cevallos. Josh, let's start with you. I know you have gone through really thousands of pages of documents. Witnesses lying, one admitting she got some details from TV news reporters, what else?</s>JOSH LEVS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So</s>CABRERA: Which could have clouded really the whole picture of what happened in front of the grand jurors.</s>LEVS: Yes.</s>CABRERA: Danny, I want to ask you, are you surprised to hear these discrepancies and specifically the witnesses may have lied?</s>DANNY CEVALLOS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Not at all, at least the discrepancies. I mean, this is demonstrating to the citizens what people in the justice system have known for a long time, that eyewitness testimony, that data is increasingly showing, I inherently, at best, unreliable. At worse, is completely unreliable. Because our brains do not work like videotapes. And while the concept of lying and truth is sort of an elusive concept, what happens more often is that witnesses receive after acquired information or depending on the way the interview is conducted, they take their snippets of memory and then piece it together to form a narrative. So when we talk about lying not lying, I mean, many people are doing this without their memory, does not even aware that they're lying. Of course, some people may be flat out fabricating to become famous or to support the side that they prefer. But I think most defense attorneys and prosecutors would say that it's more towards the middle. It is more of the result of our evil frail memories and are unconscious ability to piece together pieces of that memory into a cohesive narrative.</s>CABRERA: Josh, I know one of these witnesses in your reporting really goes on to say that she -- that what she said because she just wanted to be part of the story and she was reiterating what a boyfriend or friend told to her. Do you think there are a number of people who really intentionally misled the jury?</s>LEVS: Yes. It does seem. So what we have is the whole collection of everything. We have what Danny is talking about, which is that there are certainly people who have faulty memories, and that's always a difficulty. And it's quite possible that the majority of the witnesses, that most witnesses, were just trying to say what they remembered, but, sure. When you take a look really closely at this testimony, you find some people who came from a very specific point of view who wanted to support one specific side, who went ahead and said what it was that they said even though it was quickly proven to not be credible. There are other examples. There was actually somewhat a 10-minute interview with police whose played for this grand jury and asked to that 10-minute interview with this alleged witness was played, right after that, they played a phone call with this guy where he admitted OK, actually, I didn't see anything. So sometimes have you people with a narrative, people who are taking one side. But I do point out, it's a good example, sometimes you just have people who want to feel like they're part of it.</s>CABRERA: And Danny, I want to take one more question to you. You know, if you look at this issue that we're seeing with the witnesses, some might say this is greater proof that the process wasn't done right, that the prosecutors should have screened the witnesses and then only presented those who they deemed credible. What do you think?</s>CEVALLOS: Well, that assumes first that the ultimate objective for a prosecutor is to always secure an indictment? If you take a step back, that's want the prosecution's role. The prosecution's role is to sit through the evidence, form an opinion about the guilt or innocence of a defendant and then perceive from there. Yes, the prosecutors may have had a preformed idea that influenced the way they presented this information, but that's what we pay prosecutors to do. And looking at it from another perspective, if the prosecutor knew all this information was out there, it's what we call Brady information. The defense was going to have it at trial. It raises a bigger question, should a prosecutor seek an indictment when he knows that there's so much exculpatory evidence that there is no way that can ever get a guilty verdict, should they still proceed and try to secure an indictment when they know legally speaking, a supposed defendant is ultimately going to be not guilty?</s>CABRERA: So I'm hearing you say you believe the prosecution in this case may have done the right thing.</s>CEVALLOS: Well, it depends on -- look, there is no question that we take a -- prosecutors take a different attack when it comes to potential police officer defendant. Maybe that system needs to look at. But it is very difficult to say that a procedure was completely unfair win more information rather than the usually tailored information before a grand jury was presented. Maybe the real question is, is the process of letting the prosecutors select only his favorite information to be presented to a grand jury is that inherently unfair? And if we seek the challenge that, then we might have to start rewriting the constitution because that's how firmly entrenched the grand jury process is in our system.</s>CABRERA: OK. Certainly, it opened a lot of eyes for the process. Josh Levs and Danny Cevallos, thanks to both of you for your insights. And for more details, if you want to read it for yourself straight from the grand jury documents, you can check out Josh's full report right now on CNN.com. Now, the Ferguson case ignited a nationwide conversation about race. Tens of thousands of people marched in several cities yesterday protesting what they see as rampant racial injustice. But for the most part these protests were peaceful. But in New York, two police officers are still recovering after officials say they were knocked down and beaten on the Brooklyn Bridge. Also in Boston, police arrested 23 people for disorderly conduct as they marched from the state capitol. In Oakland, California, police say there were several incidents of vandalism and at least 45 people were arrested. In the nation's capital, a done deal that is right up another government shutdown is off the table, at least for awhile.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The yes are 56. The nays are 40. The motion to concur is passed.</s>CABRERA: Last night the Senate passing that $1.1 trillion spending bill. This bill is now headed to the president's desk. CNN's Erin McPike is joining us live in Washington. Erin, this bill did not pass all that easily. How did it all go down?</s>ERIN MCPIKE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Ana, it did pass with broad bipartisan support, but there was also pretty substantial bipartisan opposition. Twenty-one Democrats, 18 Republicans, and one independent voted against it. And how they got it done was essentially appeasing Ted Cruz to some degree. You may remember that Mike Lee and Ted Cruz with a pair of junior Republican senators who are holding up final passage of this bill on Friday night, and they had to go into a long series of procedural votes on Saturday. Well, finally at the end of the day, they let Ted Cruz have a vote on essentially this point of order vote which may allow him to make the point that President Obama's executive order on immigration is unconstitutional Listen here to Ted Cruz on the floor last night making that point.</s>SEN. TED CRUZ (R), TEXAS: Tonight both Democrats and Republicans will have the opportunity to show America whether she they instant with a president who has defined the will of the voters or with the millions of Americans who want a safe and legal immigration system. This point of order is targeted. It is not to the entire omnibus, but specifically to the DA just funding that the president has announced will be spent unconstitutionally. If you believe President Obama's amnesty is unconstitutional, vote yes. If you believe President Obama's amnesty is consistent with the constitution, then vote no.</s>MCPIKE: Now, that particular vote failed even 20 Republicans voted against it. But we should point out that this $1.1 trillion spending bill, while it funds the government through September 30th, it only funds the department of homeland security and what it does for immigration until the end of February. So what that does is set up a big flash in the next couple of months for immigration on Capitol Hill. The other saying is we know that in both caucus, the Democrats and the Republicans, they are going to be some problems going into the next year. We know that Mike Lee and Ted Cruz will go to great lengths to get what they want. And yesterday, we heard from a number of Republicans from the moderate Republican Senator Susan Collins in Maine all the way to the conservative Republican senator just like in Arizona. They're not very happy with Ted Cruz. So we should see some interesting fireworks next year, Ana.</s>CABRERA: Well, busy -- interesting to find out what happen to their fallout in the coming days. Erin McPike in Washington, thanks so much. Right now the U.S. Marshalls are joining a manhunt for an escaped prisoner in Alabama. The authorities there captured two out of the three inmates who broke out of jail after they apparently over powered a security guard yesterday. The man you see on the right side of your screen is Gamayel Culbert. He is now in police custody. Also Justin Terrell Gordon was captured yesterday. He was being held on robbery charges there. Now, the county sheriff says it all started when a jailer opened the cell door because he thought one of the inmates was very sick, but once that cell was opened, the men attacked the guard and were able to flee. The state remains on high alert. The Alabama state bureau of investigations is helping with the search there. Dick Cheney weighing in once again on the Senate's torture report.</s>DICK CHENEY, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's a very, very poor piece of work. It should not be used to judge the agency or the program.</s>CABRERA: We asked a former U.S. Navy survival trainer who has been waterboarded himself to join this conversation.