jeff brown, look, i get it. defense attorneys have to preserve the record at every movement in a case. that's their job. or you find yourself down the road in a case of ineffective assistance of counsel. in this particular case, though, these are not only defense attorneys who are trying to protect the record for any kind of potential appeal, but they're trying to quit the case. they had it. this is the second round of trying to quit the case in days. >> yeah. you know, what we're looking at here, under the supreme court of strickland v. washington, you get to an ineffectiveness of assistance of counsel, the question is whether or not this is deficient lawyering, and whether or not there is prejudice here. the fact that these witnesses or a witness chooses not to testify happens in trials all the time. i've had that happen in countless trials. i've tried over 125 trials. death cases as a prosecutor, and defense counsel as well. the question, though, that the court would want to know is was this witness under sub

. >> my pleasure, jeff. brown: on-line you can follow >> brown: online, follow our coverage of pending cases on our supreme court page. there, you also can watch my conversation with marcia about her new book on key moments in the roberts court. >> woddruff: next, to pakistan, where votes are still being counted after saturday's election, but one man is already claiming victory. margaret warner reports. follow. >> warner: election night saw supporters of the pakistan muslim league party or p.m.l.n. pour into the streets in triumph. by today they appeared on course to win a majority in the new pakistani parliament. that virtually guarantees that their leader will be prime minister. he served twice before during the990s. >> for the sake of the nation, for your sake, for the sake of pakistan's 180 million people and in order to end this wretched unemployment, poverty and inflation, i want to ask my opponents to come and sit with us. >> warner: chief among those opponents was a former cricket player turned founder of

jeff? >> brown: and that's the "newshour" for tonight. jeffrey brown. >> wooduff: and i'm judy woodruff. we'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening with mark shields and michael gerson, among others. thank you and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> more than two years ago, the people of b.p. made a commitment to the gulf. and everyday since, we've worked hard to keep it. today, the beaches and gulf are open for everyone to enjoy. we shared what we've learned so that we can all produce energy more safely. b.p. is also committed to america. we support nearly 250,000 jobs and invest more here than anywhere else. we're working to fuel america for generations to come. our commitment has never been stronger. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions captioned b

jeff. >> brown: the drama surrounding the internal revenue service shifted to a new scene today. senate finance committee heard from the man who ran the agency until last fall, and his successor. judy woodruff has our report. >> do you swear the testimony you're about to give is the truth? >> woodruff: the hearing marked the first chance for lawmakers to question former i.r.s. commissioner doug shulman since news broke that the agency had targeted conservative groups. >> i'm deeply, deeply saddened by this whole set of events. i've read the i.g.'s report, and i very much regret that it happened and that it happened on my watch. >> woodruff: shulman's five-year term expired last november. this month, a treasury department inspector general disclosed that i.r.s. agents had singled out groups seeking tax- exempt status with "tea party," "patriot" or "9/12" in their names. the report also revealed that shulman learned of the practice in may of 2012. utah republican senator orrin hatch noted that, two months before that date, shulman told congress there was "absolutely no targeting."

jeff. >> brown: first, what were you trying to do here that you don't do normally with us and for the --your daily job? >> i saw the book as an opportunity to really explore the court in-depth. i think i and many journalists today feel that we have fewer opportunities to write in-depth about just about any subject because of the internet. we're writing for our newspapers we're writing for the web, we're writing for blogs and a book was an opportunity to really do that and also to just add to what i do on the newshour and that's try to shed some light, more light, on what the court does. >> brown: well, when you look at the big picture, the big issue of the last year, one we've talked about and one you focus on here is the conservative shift in the makeup of the court and how that affects many of the decisions here. >> that's right. the court had a conservative majority for some time. but with the roberts court in particular we saw the court become a little more conservative than its predecessor court mainly because of the addition of justice samuel alito who replaced justice sandra day o

jeff? >> brown: and that's the "newshour" for tonight. y robert macneil and jim lehrer look back 40 years to the story that brought them together in our special report, "covering watergate." i'm jeffrey brown. >> woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff. we'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening with mark shields and david brooks, among others. thank you and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us. >> support also comes from carnegie corporation of new york, a foundation created to do what andrew carnegie called "real and permanent good." celebrating 100 years of philanthropy at carnegie.org. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

jeff. >> brown: we return to the bloody civil war in syria. today u.s. senator john mccain became the highest-ranking american official to enter syria since the start of fighting the. he crossed the turkish bder, accompanied by a free syrian army general. meanwhile a fierce battle continues in the strategically critical town of qusair with hezbollah sending fighters from its home base in lebanon to support the regime of syrian president assad. yesterday two rockets exploded in an area of beirut controlled by hezbollah. that raised new concerns about the spread of the syrian conflict into the larger region. margaret warner is in beirut and we spoke earlier today. margaret, let's begin with those rocket atcks in southn beirut. ow mh known abo who might be behind them and why now in these hezbollah-controlled areas? >> well, since this is lebanon, jeff. the land of many conspiracy theories, there are a lot of conspiracy theories about this. from the forces allied with the sunni rebels in syria who are upset about what the hezbollah leader vowed on saturday

. >> brown: but let me -- >> here is the thing, jeff, if i can make an analogy. this isn't a question of access. for example, we could have 20 more restaurants in america, we could have all the restaurants that you want, if you didn't have the department of public health to oversee and to come in and do inspections. but then would you have a lot more food poisoning. and that is what you see in the abortion industry today. yes, we have back alley a, bos and they are run by big a kbortion in this country. >> brown: is the focus in the states precisely because of the dissatisfaction on your side with what is happening in the courts? >> well, this, what is happening out there in our culture today is a grass roots uprising. where you are seeing a response to a completely out of control abortion industry. just in the last six months we've seen two women die in clinics that were legal abortion clinics. and yet there is no oversight being taken care of. and so as a result you have them, you know, what other industry do you see that completely has oversight. for example i

jeff. >> brown: and we turn to a major cyber-theft global in scope... raising new questions about our vulnerabilities in the digital age. the thefts took place in broad dayght at a.t.m. machines, and the thieves wore no disguises. >> this was a 21st century bank heist that reached through the internet to span the globe. >> brown: u.s. authorities say the reach of the international cyber-gang was wide: 27 countries from russia, japan, egypt, colombia, canada and beyond. the criminals hacked into companies that process pre-paid debit cards for two banks in the middle east, stole the data and then copied it onto doctored cards with magnetic strips. yesterday in new york, u.s. attorney loretta lynch explained what happened next. >> they become a virtual criminal flash mob, going from machine to machine drawing as much money as they can before these accounts are shut down. >> brown: on december 21, thieves hit 4,500 a.t.m.'s in some 20 countries, stealing $5 million. then on february 19, they upped their game. in ten hours, they stole $40 million in 36,000 t

jeff? >> brown: before we go tonight: we want to tell you about our upcoming report on the anniversary of the'd like your input. >> good evening from washington. in a few moments, we're going to bring you the entire proceedings in the first day of the senate watergate hearings. >> we are doing this as an experiment, temporarily abandoning our ability to edit, to give you the whole story, however many hours it may take. it's been 40 years since robert macneil and jim lehrefirst teamed up to co-anchor public televisions gavel-to-gavel coverage of the senate watergate hearings-- all 250 hours worth-- in the summer of 1973. from that partnership came a news program that has gone through a variety of forms and lives on in what you're watching today. jim and robin share their look back in a special report we'll air later this month, covering watergate. but we also want to hear from you, our viewers, about the watergate scandal. how did it impact your life, or change the way you viewed government or the media? 40 years later, how has it impacted our nation? you can leave comments on our homepage or

jeff. >> brown: and we return to the situation on the korean peninsula, as the threat of further escalation loomed over a white house summit today. the day began with a new warning on north korean state television aimed at joint u.s./south korean naval drills in the yellow sea. >> ( translated ): first korean people are meeting in the southwestern sector of the front will take immediate counteraction inn case a single shell dropped over the territorial waters on our side. second, in case the enemies recklessly encounter our counterstrike all forces will turn the five islands in the west sea of korea into a sea of flames. is. >> brown: the new threat of from the north and its young leader kim jong-un follows several months of talk and actions. while the u.s. and south korea conducted joint military exercises that we seen in turn as provocations by the north. in december, north korea test launched a long-range rocket in february it carried out another underground nuclear test, its third to date. and when the u.n. security council imposed new sanctions as a result the north renounced the armis

jeff. >> brown: the issue of sexual assault in the military was back the spotlight tod a margaret warner repts >> warner: defense secretarychu hagel and joint chiefs chairman martin dempsey offered no new solutions to the military's sexual assault crisis at today's much anticipated pentagon briefing. hagel did vow once again to do everything necessary to address the problem. >> we've in many ways failed. the problem will be solved here in this institution and we will fix it and we will do everything we need to do to fix it. there's not a military lear who was in that room who's not completely committed to that. >> warner: the press conference comes on the heels of a recent pentagon survey estimating that 26,000 military members were sexually assaulted last year-- a significant jump from 2011. yet only 3,400 of those assaults were actually reported by the victims. >> there is no silver bullet to solving this problem. >> warner: president obama had some stern words yesterday after summoning hagel, dempsey and other senior military leaders to the white house. >> they care about this. and th