judy: good evening. i'm judy woodruff. on the "newsur" tonight, the date is set. the u.s. house of representatives announces the first open hearings in the impeachment inquiry, as damning testimony from the t u.s. diplomat in ukraine is released to the public. then, what the returns reveal. after results pour in from yesterday's state and local elections, state houses are realigned, and clues for 2020 begin to emerge. and, a conversation with democratic presidential hopeful mayor pete buttigieg, with less than three months go before the first votes are cast in the plus, the trace of a killer. as at-ho dna testing explodes in popularity, law enforcement discovers a powerful new tool, one that puts genealogists at the leading ed of investigation.

>> it was a very odd moment toe be looking at me of the person i believed to be a killer, and know that i was th only person in the world whoab pr knew what he had done, other than himself. judy: all that and more on tonight's "pbs newshour." ♪ >> major funwsng for the pbs hour has been provided by -- ♪ >> moving our economy for 160 years.

bnsf. the engine that connects us. su>> conmer cellular. supporting social entrepreneurs and their solution to the world's most pressing problems. skoll foundation.org. committed to improving lives through invention in the u.s. and developing countries. on the web at little some.org. supported by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur untion. committed just, verdant and peaceful world. more information at macfound.o trg. anwi ongoing support of these institutions. this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcastiri and by cotions to your pbs station from viewers like you.

thank you. judy: the impeachment inquiry into president trump's actions isbout to go public. democrats in the u.s. house of representatives announced today that open hearings will begin next wednesday. house intelligence commiee chair adam schiff touted the >> those open hearings will be an opportunity for the american people to evaluate the witnesses for themselves, make their own determinations about the credibility of the witnesses, but also to learn firsthand about the facts of the president's misconduct. judy: meanwhile, house investigators released another transcript, this one from william taylor, the top u.s. diplomat in ukraine. in it, he spoke ofquote, "a clear understanding" that presiden trump linked military aid for ukraine to his own alitical interests. we'll discu of this, right after the news summary. the day's other major story, t elections of 2019. democrats are mostly smiling over tuesday's returns, including the kentucky

govern's race. but the republican in that race is asking officials to check the math. amna nawaz bins our coverage. >> i want to say thank you to our union families that helped make this election h amna: democratic attorney general andy bashir -- beshear finished 5300 votes, less than half of 1%, ahead of the incumbent publican matt bevin. e governor asked election officials check voting machines for possible errors. >> we want to ensure there in integrity ie process. we oldest of the people of kentucky. amna: bevin is an ally of nresident trump, who carried kentucky i 2016 and held a rally in the state monday night. mr. trump's campaign manager said, quote, "the president just about dragged governor bevin

across the finish line." beshear took up his action plan for education and other issues in louisville. >> weng will start bg kentucky together. no more us versus them. no more this side or the outse. this is about c focusing e issues, public education, health care and jobs that are good for every single kentucky family. amna: despite the defeat, kentucky republicanswept the other races, including david cameron, the state's first black attorney general. democrats in virginia won majorities in the house of delegates and senate for the first time in 25 years. the first muslim elected to the virginiae sens elected after flipping her district. >> this victory belongs to all of you who believed that we need to make progressive change in

virginia. am: democrats said they wi use their capacity on pass gun control laws, especially universal amendments.checks and to approve >> this victory along's to you. amna: republicans managed to hold the mississippi governor's mansion in a state president trump carried by 17 points. thresident congratulated the gop winners in a series of tweets. tonight, mr. trump is holding a rally for the republican running for governor in louisiana. judy: now, to take ase clook at yesterday's election results, i'm joined by kyle kondik. he is the managing editor of larry sabato's crystal basi at the univ of virginia center for politics. welcome back to the newshour. s the elections were acr countr we highlighted three of them. let's talk about what lessons we

can maybe learn from these results. well andd each party d why?kyle: this was a confirmatif since 2016 and before that ing that you have a lot of affluent, highly educated suburban areas that are moving towards the democrats and we saw that in virginia, a lot of the key districts the democratslied fit that characteristic, places like northern virginia, greater richmond, hampton roads. republicans'strength is enduring in rural areas and small citous across thery. kentucky is an exception to the trend in that matt bevin, the republican, was very unpopular. he triede to national the race, bringing in the president, but wasn't able to get trump i think that is more of an ever racial. mississippite is a b confirmation that we have a republican state, a strhag democraticenger, yet the republicans still won handily. judy: maybe this is a mirror

image of what you just said but where did each party not do well and why? are these things that can change? kyle: another state that held elections tuesday night, southern new jsey, jeff van drew, u.s. house member, used to be a member of the senate in new jersey, one of the two democrats not to back impeachment last week. we got a sense of the reason s why. republiccked up the two state assembly seats that cover the area he is from an state senate heat he -- ctu still hold and that is a white working class area of southern new jersey, the kind of place where donald trump performed well in 2016. we see those results, those places may be trending away from democrs. judy: you mentioned the suburbs. philadelphia suburbs, democrats did well. is there something about the kind of suburbs where democrats are getting stronger and whet?

they aren' kyle: if you look at census numbers and whether a place has higher than average four-year college attendance, the national number is 30% but if a county ha35%, 40% for your college democrats., that will go towards various places are in stages of transion but that number tells the story. if you look at a place that is overly white, doesn't have high four-year college attainment, a white working class area like southern new jersey am a trending towards the republicans. there are lots of varieties and fferences in the outcomes, but those big picture t trends, nationalization of the split in the white electorate among those who have a college degree and thosinwho don't, it is bec prevalent. go back 40, 50 years, elections used to be more interesting in that you had more regional variation in h places voted. a lot of that is falling off and

being replacedat bynal political feelings. judy: whether you are a democrat or republican and you are looking closely at what happened yesterday, are you, and you are running per -- for president, do you take something away from what happened you gokyle: i think people who are partisan should make sure they recogheze where the side is doing well. we mention in some of these cal races in pennsylvania, the democrats did as well as they adelphia iurban ph terms of county level government but at the same time, there are lots of democratic i places western pennsylvania outside pittsburgh where democrats used to be strong and republicans did well in a lot of those county level races. there are shifts in key states in places like pennsylvania, a state that could effectively decide the presidential rates -r the presidentie. judy: what about turnout?

i hadn't thoughtbo asking you this but as i listen to what you talk, who turns out? can we tell anything from an off the national atten doesn't get kyl: turnout has been good in turnou50% last year, aterm moderate record. in virginia, turnout was higher than you would expect for an off year election. no governor's race on the ballot, just state legve stuff and local races. turnout was good in virginia a not so good in mississippi, which might be a bitgnf a that african-american turnout was not great. that is a state that is polarized by raceed democrats ne dynamite african-american turnout and that didn't materialize in that state. broadly speaking, turnout has been high in these elections

since trump got elected and it is indicative of an engaged electorate. we could look at aecd presidential turnout. you usually look at 60% but we could be looki at 65%, people coming out of the woodwork. the assumption is, that is good for democrats, however there are lots of potential trump voters that didn't show up in 2016 that maybe would show upn 20, particularly in these key states. don't assume for sure that high turnout is good for democrats everywhere. judy: thank you very much, kyle. ♪ stephanie: good evening. i'm stephaniey. fedal prosecutors accused president trump's long-time confidant, to congress. wf repeated lying th the first day of his trial. the defense said stone did not willfully mislead lawmakers. the opening statements came in a

case stemming from tller investigation of the russian government meddling in the 2016 election. stone is accused of lying to congress, obstructing justice, and tampering with witnesses. authorities in northern mexico cartel gunmen who 9r the drug americans, including 6 children. evidence of the sla ing can be seburned out suv and two others riddled by bullets. investigators say the killers may have mistaken for the families -- may have mistaken the families for a rival gang. mexico's president insisted today, they will not go un-punished. >> we will take charge of the investigatio and for justice to be done. we don't have any limitations on us for informing the media how it is going. th the u.s. wants to participate, the can. stephanie: five children who survived the massacre have bee flown to arizona for treatment. the justice department charged to employees at twitter for

spying on -- for saudi arabia. a complaint filed in san francisco today says the saudis onid the pair to dig up pe data on the kingdom's critics. it says thousands of accounts were compromised. li rnia announced today, it is investigating facebook over alleged privacy violations. the probe began last year after disclosures that a data miningan firm, cambridgytica, gained access to data on 87 million users. the state's attorney general, xavier becerra, said he went public today after asking a court to make facebo answer subpoenas. >> we have, since spring of 2018, been looking into allegations th facebook violated california law by among other things, deceiving users and misrepresenting its privacy practices. those are serious allegations when you consider the personal information that we all supply to facebook every sile day. stephanie: a number of other states are also investigating

facebook. overseas, iran began injecting uranium gas into centrifuges tonight at an underground nuclear site. it is tehran'st latreach of the 2015 nuclear accord the u.s. renounced last year. the centrifuges at the forno facility will enrich the uranium, but you're a -- iran says it will be below weapons grade. emmanuel macron warned, theove is a mistake. >> for the first time, iran has decided in an explicit and blunt manner tleave the agreement, which marks a profound shift, compared to their approach overt these ew weeks. i will have discussions in the coming days with the iranis but we must all collectively face the consequences. stephanie: iran argued its actions are reversible if ropean nations help compensate for losses due to u.s. sanctions. in iraq, a violent crackdown on anti-government protests left

more dead and wounded today. demonstrors in baghdad fled from security forces firing tear gas and live ammunition, injuring at least 27 people. a medic was killed at a second location. to the south, at least 2 people were killed overnight in demonstrations in karbala. any, new protests erupted bolivia overnight, demanding that president evo moralesgn refter a disputed election. for new elections, claiming that officials rigged last month's resuths to give morales a four term. riot police used tear gas on the crowd.ra a fejudge today blocked the trump administration's onso-called conscience rul abortions. it would let health care workers refuse to perform abortions and other servic on moral and religious grounds. but the judge in new york found it is unconstitutional, in part because it denies funding to hospitals and others that do nou observe th. the administration is considering an appeal.

in more election results from ituesdasan francisco, a measure to overturn a ban on vaping products was defeated. in kansas city, voters scrapped a moved to rename and historic boulevard -- a historicr boulevard af. martin luther king, jr. voters in- arizona in tucson, arizona, have rejected a plan to become the state's first sanctuary city for migrants. the proposal lost overwhelmingly on tuesday. tucson elected its first first latina mayor. still to come, the house announces the dates for the first public hearings in the inquiry.en a conversation with democratic presidential hopeful, mayor pete buttigieg. genetics, genealogy andju sdiction. a powerful new tool for solving cold cases is unveiled. and much more. ♪ >> this is the pbs newshour from

weta studios in washington and cronkite school of journalism at arizona state university. judy: as the impeachment inquiry into president trump will go public. comes as they relennouncement transcript of a closed door deposition that sheds new light on the hearte impeachment inquiry, why u.s. military aid to ukraine was withheld. here's nick schifrin. nick: judy, house democrats today released the testimony of bill taylor. he is the acting ambassador in ukraine, appointed by secretaryo of state mikeo. he was already ambassador to ukraine back in 2006-2009, appointed by president george w. bush. he's's served under both part administrations since the mid 1980's, and he is also a west point grad and vietnam vet. his testimony has been one of the most important for democrats, who say it providesre the cl explanation for what president trump and his allies were demanding, before ukraine could receive nearly

$400 million of military assistance. and i turn now to the dynamic duo of lisa sjardins and yamiche alcindor. welcome. lisa, let's start with you. what have we learned? lisa: let's break down hundreds of pages. i democrats say important becauss he was in meeting where he said it was clear president trump was ordering this quid pro quo. that firs at he testified he was told trump eight money frozen. he was told that secondhand but he is testifying. he testifies [indiscernible] rudy giuliani, the president's attorney,in andscernible]

[indiscernible] the u.s. goals in ukraine. ehe said of the key pillars of u.s. policy was being threatened. nick: suggesting se writy assistan life or death for ukraine. lisa: this diplooft spent a lot ime thinking about this. this is his personal view. this is a dramatic situation. nick: what is the order to freeze military assistance to ukraine, what does that look like? according to taylor how specific was it?ch ya a careful reading of the transcript of william taylor, acting ambassador to ukraine, shows why democrats think of himgu as a central and why he wilbe one of the in open hearings as part of the impeachment inquiry. we have clear quotes i wantlk to eople through. my clear understanding, security assistance money wouldn't come untilhe president of ukraine

committed to pursue the investigation of the bidens." he goes on to say, "orton somnolent said president trump -- gordon sondland said president tnemp wanted ukrn a box." you have taylor laying out in clear termsli what he ed president trump was trying to do. ambassador taylor had some pause when it came to taking the post in ukraine and goes on toay, and i will read from the ritran, "i was concerned that there was a snake pit in kiev and a snake pit here and i was not sure i could serve in that context." he iseferring to the president's personal lawyer rudy giuliani making trips to ukraine, and he says he was meeting with people he dididn't think were ce and launching a shadow campaign, shadow foreign policy. he was concerned he wouldn't be

able to work in those conditions. he went on to take the post. nick: we saw some republicans pushing back today and we saw that in two ways. outside the deposition room, we heard from lawmakers. inside the deposition room, we got to rd what republican lawyers were asking. what were those defenses? yamiche: the president has continuously said republicans need to show fierce loyalty to him and he wants them to defend him on tv, on social med. senator lindsey graham really defended theresident in clear terms. about ti can tell you trumpolicy towards ukraine, it was incoherent. it dependsto on who you tal they seem to be incapable warming a quid pro quo. -- forming a quid pro quo. yamiche: this is a remarkable statement. it is saying president trump and u.s. officials carrying out foreign poly or ukraine

weren't organized enough to have a quid p quo. that is a new type of defense we haven't seen. republicans have had to change theimessaging and their defense of the president, but what republicans said today is that ambassador taylor, the top diplomat, wasn't a witness when he had several conversations with people about the president 's intent to have ukraine investigate the bidens. saying in the deposition that there were ukrainian officials targeting president trump when he was a candidate for president inquiry 16, asking questions ecifically about officials working for the former president in ukraine. that is important because the president told officials in his government that he believed ukrainians were trying to take him down. he said o thatr and over. you have republican lawyers, as they were interviewing william taylor. nick: what's next? open hearings? lisa: the hearings will have two

days next weekend as you can see, there was a pop up right there, congress is only supposed to be in session for a fewr ore weeks afat through december, so coming back, there are so many lawmakers, i want to tell you who would like to finish this up by that and date and habitat -- have it in a house boat. more.e a feeling we will hear we have lots to go. thanks very much. voting states show in early buttigieg's popularity surging among democratic voters, putng the mayor of south bend, indiana, in the top tier ofat cand vying for their party's nomination to challenge presidentrump a year from now. butith that rising support comes increased scrutiny. and mayor pete buttigieg joins

us now. welcome back to the newshour. stit is alxactly a year away , that voters will be decing who to support in the general electi i want to ask you what happened yesterday, the so-called off yearl elections in seve states . do those tell us anything about 20? mayor buttigieg: i have alws s said there such thing as a permanently red state. whhi you see the governoof kentucky go to a democratic candidate, when we see the chambe flipping in virginia and a lot of other encouraging results, it tells you that a lot of people, including people in the habit of voting for republicans, are fed up with what the party is, doi particular its embrace of a president who goes against every value progressive and conservative, but we used to count on -- that we used to countei on ier party. i think it shows us that if we do a good job of making sure we

reach out to energize our base and recruit as many americans as possible, including people who may be have thought of themselves as republicanshe in past come a message and vision of the future where they see they can belong, as we look to uesolve iaround climate, health care and the economy, we can win not just the white house in 2020 t crucially, congress and across the states. judy: let's talk about the issues. you mentioned health care. in the last democratic cbate, you wetical of senator warren's medicare for all proposal. you said, "no plan has been laid out ht to explain that multitrillion dollar hole is supposed to be filled in." she has given details about how she says her plan wi be paid for. my question to you is, do we kn how her multitrillion dollar hole is filled in?

mayor buttigieg: there is aggressive map about cutting the military, assuming immigration reform happens, some of -- some other areas that are controversial. the point i am making is, we don't need to spend tens of trillions of dollars in order to address this problem. my proposal, medicare fraud scheme want it, is that we take a version of medicaree and m it available to anyone who wants in on it without commanding people to adopt it. it has the advantage of trusting ericans to make their own decisions, but it h the major advantage of costing $1.5 trillion, which is still a lot of money, but it is fully paid for, fundable without having to go into the more challenging and coroversial math used to explain a plan that is 20 or $30 trillion or more. judy:cs crin the left say it sounds all well and good, but what it doesn't do is, it doesn't provide coverage for everybiey. mayor butt it is setup to

make sure everybody has coverage. it is designed to -- so nobody falls through the crack's. we retroactively add people onto the plan. not everybody is on the public plan. i think the medicare-like pub cc plan we wiate is going to be the best option for most americans. aif right, most americans will choose it until eventually, it is the single-payer, it will be the path to medicare for all. crucially, if it is the case that for some americans, the private plans they have a better come a we will be glad we didn't force them off those private plans. in particular, i have been talking to a lot of union members wh -- you are happy with the privatehtlans they foor, gave wage concessions to gain. why kick them off thosela when we can let people choose? judy: you said you would return the corporate5% tax rate to president trump put it near 20%. you said you would consider

raising the marginal tax rate for high earners. you set a wealth tax makes sense. do you have numbers you can give us, percentages? other democrats running for president he put numbers on is. mayor buttigieg: more numbers will be forthcinglong with the numbers we are proposing to invest. we are not doingfo taxatio its own sake. i'm proposing changes to the tax code to make sure my policies are paid for. as i put out more policies, you will see more adjustments on the tax side. in terms of what we put out already,he $1.5 trillion i was decade of the health care plan, it is explained in terms of two things. the math breaksow like so. $100 billion will come from allowing medicare to neg piate drugces. the other 1.4 will come from the rollback of a corporate rate portioof the trump corporate tax cuts. tax cuts that mostly went to

line the pockets of those who didn't need help. in the long run h, the done nothing to make our sources of domestic business competitiveness any better. judy: iran, you have said you would not have pulled the united states out of the iran clear deal, as president trump did. that happened many months ago. we have a current reality. iran is talking about uranium enrichment and firing up centrifuges. it is a different situation. what would you do if elected? mayor buttigieg:tu unftely, things have moved in the directioof iran building out more nuclear plants. the exact thing tlear deal was preventing, which shows what a foolish move it was of the trump administration to wreck the deal. that also means there is no going back to the situation that the obama administration was in when they negotiated the first deal.

i still thi keeping iran from developing nuclear weapons capability has to be a major u.s. security priority. we will have to structure another deal that wiav the same effect, and we may only be able to get to it incrementally because unfortunately, the deal that was doing the j, as the trump certified,juas destroyed. : your critics are the left -- on the left are saying you are moving to the center from where you started. outhey say moved to the center onlimate change, decriminalizing border crossings, raising middle-class taxes and so on. how do you answer that? mayor buttigieg: my positions are the same. i think there are, there is more and more pressure especially in the pdit-sphere to align all of us on a left-rate spectrum. i don't think that is helpful when we are starting to s some of those ideological categories get more and more scrambled. i have led the field in proposalsbo o actions for

democratic reform, my positions haven't changed. there ike other areas health care where if yous top priority find the ideologically, the solution, you candidate.to a different but the proposals i am putting forward, wou make me the most progressive candidate, the mostr progressivident in my lifetime. judy: the house of representatives announced when they will start public hearings, and that will be next week. we will hear from the peopleho will be testifying about what happened with the president in ukraine. how much do voters on the campaign trail bring up impeachment with you? mayor buttigieg: some, not a lot. most questions are about things like health care and whether we will be able to growopportunitil inequaty, serving rural america, prescription drug costs. but it is on people's minds. this is a process of utmost

gravity, a constitut hnal process d the president accountable for misconduct that he has already confessed to in public. there is no escaping it or ignoring it. as much as possible, we have to keep that process sarate from the process of partisan politics. the part i have role in as a candidate for the democratic nomination for president is to try to make sure this president defeated, if he is the president in november next yea or regardless, we get a president that country forward and deliver on big problems that need solutions. judy: you said if he is the president. mitch mcconnell says if the house votes tompch, there aren't the votes in thectenate to con were removed from , whyresident would you be the best democrat to go against mike pence, who would be the president? mayor buttigieg: i know what thing or two about the vice

president, a fellow hoosiere is rm we prefer here in indiana. his far right extreme social ideology does not reflect this country d doesn't even reflect this state. when he tried to push the ideologyn our state, it wasn't republicans of conscience whoof cameogether, stepped up and pushed back on that and as mebody who has come on board with the presidency that is an affront not only to our values, but to his own professed values, i'm prepared for that debate and i would look forward to the lay out ty to contrast central americans a different kind of solution coming out of indian judy: mayor pete buttigieg, thank you very much. mayor buigieg: good to be with you. judy: stay with us. comi up on the "newshour," broken justice. a preview of the newshour's new

podcast. and the attorney who represented the family of trayvon martin on his new book, "opeseason." so far this year, law enforcement has entified over 70 suspects using a new technique called genetic genealogy. this is the same tool that last year to identify theused so-called golden state killer. william brangham es howries, this tool works, and why it's raised serious privacy ccerns. it begins with the murder of a young couple in washington state, a case that became the first ever genetic genealogy case to go to trial. this is part of our leading edgc series on scand technology. >> in 1987, under the high bridge in rural washington state, a young man named jay cooke was found murdered. his girlfriend, tonya, was found

in the woods 60 miles away. she had been raped and murdered. the only piece of evidence was semen from an unknown man found on tanya's clothes but it didn't match anyone, even after dna databases developed in the following years. eventually,he case went cold. 18 years later, a detective, james, picked up the case. he turned to the public for new leads. >> there is a green backpack thn ight have had, a black jacket, and a minolta camera. >> still, nothing. >> the were -- they were innocentrs kids, 20 and 18 y old. this is a case i really want to solve. >> the pson who would eventually help crack the case wasn't in law enforcement at all. they are known as what -- as a genetic genealogist who helps people trace family ancestry. >> it was bubbling to the

surface by 2012 with a few of us that we could have law enforcement applications. it wasn't time yet. the databases were t too small. t was about to change when commercial dna tting went mainstream. >> don't just give a gift, give them ancestry dna. >> dna testing service like ancestry.com and 23 and me have exploded in popularity. it is estimated more than 26 million people have used companies likehis. simple.cess of testing dna is order the kit online, each costs about $100 each. you spit some saliva into a tube this, malic in and in a few weeks, you get your dna reports. as millions of people got dna sresu, many copied their data into public websites to better find distant family members. realized this wealth of information could be used to

solve cold cases. >> we have two matches at the top of the list that are sharing 3% oheir dna with the unknown suspect. >> she demonstrated how she did it in this case. she took the unknown suspect's dna from the semen and compared she found two partial matches, people who were likely the killers second cou mns. >> you at likely second cousins, which means you share great-grandparents. i will build these trees back to great-grandparents. >> she went backn time, up the family tree, up to the great-grandparents those cousins. >> we should find the common ancestor at this level somewhere . >> from there, moving down the family tree, she searched public documents and obituaries to find where these families converged. this family would likely be the parents and siblings.amily, his

>> from the dna, we know it is a man. thesere daughters. >> this is how she identifiedit the likely cul >> this allows me to zero in on as thhis one male potential suspect. it was an odd moment to be looking at the name of the person i believed to be the killer and to know that i was the only person in the world who probably knew what he had done otr than himself. but this was a very hap discovery -- very heavy discovery and i wanted to get the name to the detective and get that off my shoulders. >> for the detective, this was a huge lead, but not enough to make an aouest. he w need actual dna from the suspect to know for sure. so a coffee cup dcarded by the suspect was collected by police and tested. when the results came back, it was a match. >> i got tears in my eyes. then i screamed that, yes, we

finally got the case solved. it was such a wonderful feeling. >> we took into custody a 55-year-old man who was suspected of a 1987 murde of jay cooke and tanya. >> 56-year-old william earl tell but the second went on trial for the murders. he pled not guilty and never took the stand. crime sceen at thethe presence could have been consensual sex. >> it is consistent with intercourse but not injuries consistent with assault. there wasn't evidence of sexual assault. >> the only definitive thing linking talbot to the crime was the dna match. after two days of deliberation, first-degree murder for both murders.

he was sentenced to life in prison. this was the first-eve trial and conviction on a case cracked open by genetic genealogy. >> witho genetic genealogy, this case never would have been solved. moore did in two hours what 20 or 30 cops couldn't do in 30 years of worasng on the that is how powerful genetic >> in our next story we willes. explore the deeper privacy plications of this technique and why some are so concerned about this new crime-fighting tool. i'm william brangham. judy: let's look at a different part of the criminal justice' system, one t's the subject of a new podcast we launched today. it's called "brustice,"

and it focuses on the enormous gaps and problems with the public defender system in the united states. our five-part series zeroes in on how this has been playingut for decades in missouri, and what it tells us about justice in america. carlson reported fssourifrank for this series, and they join me now. hello to both of you. w did you get into this project? what made you want to look at this particular subject? amna: the story began right here on the newshour over a year ago. there was a story repeated i our coe john yang and produced by frank, focusingpu on how ic defenders were saying we fuse to take more cases becauseov we are so erwhelmed. over the course of the next year, frank continued t dig alongside our colleague, and i tagged along and they pulled an incredible number of details

that painted a very alarming picture of just how bad the backlogs are and how bad the overloaded with caseloads public defenders find themselves in these situations. we focused on missouri because it is one of the worst funded systems in the country and because e public defenders there are among the most overwh, med. we met o guy named jeff who told uss in ffice just how bad the system is right now. >> i'm at 150% of my maximum possible ethical case lo, basically meaning that if i worked a 60-hour week, which would be a fairlmodest week, for the next year and a half and didn't get a single new case, then i could do the bare minimum to ethically represent the clients i curreny serve. frank: these public defenders going to this line ofca work e they want to represent people with the least amount of voice, people who are poor and criminally what an's up happening is, they

end up with so many cases that they can't do the job theynt wat for cl they're in a position where they have toti essly raised the alarm on their own profession on their own failin i, so th one of the first things that struck me about this was how willing public d wenderse to say i am failing these clients and i can't do the job under the circumstances. judy: what happens to the people you highlight in your reporting? what does the criminal justice system do with them? amna: the ripple effects of the public defenders being overwhelmed are far and wide. one of the most immediate impact, one of the harshest impacts, is longer jail times for the defendants and that is before they haveco been tried or icted. would you imagine if you were aarrested charged, held in jail, if you can't afford a lawyer, you can't afford bail. because public defenders are overwhelmed, some of the defendants weight in jail for weeks oronths before the public defender has the time to

turn to their case. we met someone as part of the podcast, a man named kevin w was in that situation. arrested and charged with a crime, his public defender wasn't able to turn to his case for 118 days. he spent 118 days in jail, he was already sick when he went in d he got sicker in the overcrowded conditions and although his public defender got him out, before he could have his day in court, kevin ended up passing away. that is one way it impacts people. frank:his is the acute crisis. the people spending day after day and week after week in jail, not convicted of anything. that is a problem because these peoplere missing their lives, their work, not paying rent. that is the acute crisis. this plays out in a lot of different ways. one other way is the investigation. what public defenders can do for clients in terms of

investigating their cases. when we first reported the story, i learned about a man who is the worst-case scenario of how that can play out. o ricky: ilieve i'm in prison today because of the missouri state public defender system. i think if these things would have been flushed out years ago, 23 years ago, that we wod not be having this conversatio today. this notion that somebody is going to get represented properly, that is a false notion. frank: i 1997, ricky was convicted of a double homicide and he has always maintained he had nothing to do with the crime. it has he had and public of in the overworked system and didn't have time to investigate his case, -- because he had a public defender in the overworked i systecouldn't be proved wrong. amna: it is a deep dive into a t oftof the system t

gets overlooked. these are the folks on the front lines, the public denders. episode one is out now and episodes will drop every wednesday for the next month. judy: o o many cases, one of many states that have itmilar issues the public defender system. thank you both very much. looking forward to hearing more of the series. if you want to listen to the podcast, there are several ways you can download it. go to thee" "broken justink that's on our website. you can also find episodes on apple podcasts, stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts. civil rights attorney benjamin crump has been called the african-american family's emergency plan.he as represented the families of black men and women killed by le police, including cases that inspired the blaes matter movement and legislation on use

of policbody cameras. yamiche alcindor is back, and sat down down with crump to talk "bookshelf". work for our yamiche: trayvon martin. michael brown. boham jean. all unarmed, young black men, killed in high-profile, racially-charged incidents. each one of their families turn to the same civil right attorney to call out what they believed was a deadly pattern of injustice.s his namen crump. in 2012, crump gained national prominence when he took on the case of trayvon martin.17 thear-old was killed in after his death and the 2014 protests in ferguson, missouri, the black lives matter movement was born. now, crump has written a new book, "open season: leganozed de of colored people." he argues that the killings of many are part of a racistti criminal j system. thanks so much for joining me. y be use the word genocide to describe what's happening to african-american men and women across this country. why use that word? mr. crump:au b it is very intentional that we bring attention to the way black and

brown peoplere being killed, not just by the bullets in these high-profile police shootings, but more poignantly, how they are killing our people,al espe our young people, every day in every city, ine, every stn every courtroom in america with these trumped-up feny convictions. in many ways, what i endeavored to do with this book, "open season," is hold a mirror up to america's ce so they would have to acknowledge the hypocrisies, that they would acknowledge that racism and discrimination is part of the governance of all the institutions that exist in america. yamiche: you came to prominence whhe you represented family in trayvon martin. that is when i met you. you say in the book that when you were first speaking to the father of trayvon martin, you said he wasn't gonna need you. you thought that that george zimmerman would be immediately arrested, but he wasn't. explain what hpened there.

mr. crump: because as an officer of the court, that's what all attorneys and judges are. we have to believe in the system and that it will treat each citize equally. and, youw, kou knew about, when trayvon hapu ned because vered it so diligently, that they never intended on arresting the self-confessed killer of an unarmed teenager who had the proverbial smokingn guin his hand at the time. but when i had that call from his father, i just absolutely believ that you have to arrest him, because in our community, people would get arrested with no evidence at all, on ando innur a hunch. and, think about all these black men who ha. been wrongfully convict so i just thought they had to arrest him, at least. and so i told his father, "you know, you

don't ed me. give it a couple of days." but then, a couple of days went by, and they called me back. and he said, do you see? i told you. they told me they were not going to arrest him because this thing yamiche: after the death of michael brown, thousands gathered in ferguson. erafrican-ans are still being killed by police in racially charged incidents. what do you make of that? how much has changed? mr. crump: well, i think it'eysa long jouo justice. and i think we get progress slowly. but i do see progress. i think about, as tragic as the killing of michael brown was, there was some positive that came out of it. president legislation where $50 mlion were allocated to equip local police agencies with body camera video. that has made a cerld of differor print -- for transparency.

yamiche: you have a chapterll "police don't shoot white men in the back." tell me about that. in the situation that you've seen where white people get treated one way and african-americans get treated in another.mr crump: you know, i go around the country speaking at a lot of universities and civics. organizatind one of the things i day, can you tell me a black or brown person who brutality or shot in the back by police while they are running away? andpe immediatelyle just start spouting off names that we have come familiar withgh thr hashtags. and then i say, now tell me the name of a white person who's being killed by the -- who has been killed in the and it's silence.in the back. because the police just don't do it, or it is so rare that we don't know any of their names. yamiche: you are talking about

hypocrisy in america. you witnessed a lot of trauma of families that have persod lly experienese. how does that affected you and how does that affect these families? mr. crump: i still talk to many of them daily. i was just in st. -- st. louis doing a book signing, and michael brown' mother, lesley mcspadden, introduced me and we talk abou' how it'been five years and every day, we continue to try to define the legacy of her firstborn son, chael brown. trayvon's parents, sabrina, is seeking litical office, trying to transform the pain into power because there is a hole in their heart that would never be filled. and in many ways, even thoug we win the civil rights lawsuits in federal court, the cost of prosecutors when they are trying to prosecute the killers of unarmed people of color,

especially the police, is like fish out of water experience. they are so used to prosecuting and putting black and brown people in jail that when they have to try to ignore five them k about them as honorab american citizens, they have a difficult time doing it. yamiche: and you write that america is both a racist nation, but also the greatest nation. how can both of those things be true? and what do you think ison the soluo all of this? mr. crump: i think about, we have to make these words on paper, no matter how glorious they areana reality. the only people who can do that is us. and america is still the greatest countrye world where disenfranchised people and marginalized people can change their destiny and life. it's just that we have too make eve have an opportunity to the americanm, drot just a few.

that means black and brown people, too. yamichha tnk you so much for being here. mr. crump:ou thankor having me. judy: thank you. that isheewshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. join us online and here tomorrow evening. for all of us, thank yo yand we will s soon area >> madeun -- majording has been provided by -- >> when it comes to wireless, consumer cellular gives customers the choice. our no contract plans give you as much or as little data as you want and our customer service team is on hand to help. go to consumer cellular.tv. >> bnsf railway. and with the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions. ♪

this program w made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting, and by contributions to your pbs stion from viewers like you. thank you. [captioning performed by the letional captioning institute, which is responsor its caption content and accuracy.] >> this is pbs newshour west from weta studios in washington and our bureau at the walter cronkite studio of journalism at the arizona state univsity. ♪

lidia: buon giorno. i'm lidia bastianich,

and teaching you about italian food has always been my passion. i want to taste it. assaggiare. it's all about cookg together... hello. ...as i re-create childhood memories... good to the last drop. ...restaurant classics, and new family favorites. isn't that everybody's favorite part? whatevere baking, lick the spoon. tutti a tavola a mangiare. venite! announcer: funding provid by... e the culinary heritag of authentic italian foods by offering over 100 specialty italian products for the american kitchen. cento trust your family with our family. rich ipotradition yet contemrary.