supreme court.ofa court that had never before had a come on its panel of judges, and that was a very special event for the court, and i think it's made a difference. when i visit the court today, as i do today, and look up at that bench, i see three women sitting there. [applause] >> there are also six men, but the overall assessment is a lot better. [laughter] >> okay. >> they gave me my on mic here. any traditions or rituals that go on behind the seans at the court, and that you are fond of? >> oh, yes! well, i'll start with the first. [laughter] it is the practice of the court when you meet each day to go on the bench or to sit and discuss cases. for each justice to shake hands with every other justice. now, that is really special. i don't know how you feel about it, imu to shake hands with someone. now, come on over here. [laughter] to shake hands with someone is meaningful. it is. you touch their hand, shake it, and it's much more effective then to work together as a court and decide the cases,

this is "murder at the supreme court" at is how the supreme court used murder in the punishment that is appropriate for it. but i think it is a good time and it does capture what the book is all about. these are all legal crimes and what the court said about him, or just landmark decisions. >> host: i think what's neat about the time and the way the book is done, the barcode and where the stories are told is that i think you can opens it up the books are not necessarily nonfiction readers. i was just curious if that was done intentionally. did you know that was going to be out? >> guest: i think from the get go, my thought was, i was always kind of difficulty at abc news were have a terrific story. they never said no to me, go out into the people who brought the case of which was an amazing liberty and treat for me. i would come back and say i have two stories we. i have a decision from the supreme court that you want but i have the tigers human interest story behind the decision that you really want, too. they said we will give you another five seconds. it was so frustrating to have

but the supreme court is soft. most of the people who support the death penalty also feel that it does not deter crimes. so it's -- things are changing at the state level. >> guest: one of the worst crimes in the book, it was in one of the victim impact cases i was referring to earlier in maryland involved one of the worst crimes, a truly cold-blooded killer in 3-d. it was just horrible. most of people on death row die of old age like the rest of us. and it doesn't -- >> guest: and there's the matter of closure. if a relative gets murdered and the person gets a death sentence, you can be sure there will be 15-25 years of reviews and agony before there is closure. booth has a parole, has a hearing -- >> guest: about once a year. and one of those we're told by the victim's daughter, he looked at her and winked and said see you next year. now, how bad is that? where if you want closure, maybe -- they feel, the family feels the only closure that would mean anything to them would be for booth to be put to death. but rea

this supreme court.n't think this supreme court would have stopped it. >> i don't think that five-justice majority would have stopped... >> charlie: by definition you're saying that they made this decision based on politics. >> i think it was influenced. i think you can't take a judicial decision like that outside of the context in which it's rendered. do i think they genuinely believed that what they were doing was the right thing for the country? i do. i believe that... >> charlie: because they didn't want to see this prolonged? >> i think... charlie: is that the rationale? >> that's the rationale that judge posner gives. >> charlie: from chicago. from chicago. and judge posner says that the rationale given by the majority doesn't make any sense. i think he's right about that. >> charlie: what was the rationale one more time? >> the rationale was that it violed equal protection because certain canvassing boards were deciding certain votes differently than other canvassing boards in other counties might

that became a settlement in the supreme court case. it was a double jeopardy to put a man in the electric chair again. the court eventually decided it was only accidental that you could put willie francis in the chair again. just as franklin voted for that execution because he fell constitutionally mandated to do it. he was so disturbed he went behind his fellow justices backs quite literally and powerful in the louisiana state bar and urged them to do whatever he could to stop what would be a travesty. the attorney did attempt to stop the execution. he could not. willie francis died a year later in the same -- the same hearse waiting for him a year before took his body away. >> guest: the justices were split 5-4. often even those who vote in favor of elect -- the death penalty have great misgivings with the wisdom of going to the death penalty and throughout its history the united states supreme court from the 60s on that we have found justices would vote to uphold a death sentence even though they personally felt it was wrong. they f

court" that is a novel about a murder at the supreme court or in the supreme court, and we were concern about that. well, you know, we were not going to let that get in our way. this is murder at the supreme court, and it's how the supreme court views murder in the punishment that's appropriate for it. i -- i think it has a good title capturing what the book is about. these are all lethal crimes and what the court said about them produced landmark decisions. >> host: well, you know, i have to say that i think what's neat about both the title and the way the book is done, you know, with the qr codes and the way the stories are told is that i think it's opening it up to folks who are not necessarily nonfiction readers. >> guest: yeah. >> host: i was curious if that was done intentionally? did you know that was going to be the outcome, or -- >> guest: i think from the get-go, my thought was, always having a difficulty at abc news where i had a terrific story, never said no to interview the people who brought the case which was an amazing liberty and treat for me. i would come back, and i s

the supreme court chamber. it probably doesn't matter much as a practical matter because by nighttime, every day that cases are heard of the court, you can get a full transscript of everything that was said that day in the courtroom. by the lawyers and the judges, the justices. it's all transcribed, available, and in writing. it is completely available almost immediately, and i don't think that the absence of seeing that on a television screen opposed to reading it in whatever form it comes out is that significant people are accustomed in this country to seeing everything on the television so it's a little frustrating, i guess, for some to think it's not fair, but i don't think that it's a cause for major concern because of the fact that, in fact, it is there in writing. you can see what was said. >> advice do you gie a young female tarn interested in becoming a judge? >> well, if you want to be a judge, first of all, you have to be a good law student. you really need to prove that in law school and elsewhere,

he was nominated for the supreme court and i was already a judge. i could not have anything to do with politics. his main managers in this process where ready randolph, his -- one of his deputy solicitor general's, close friend and later to be a judge of the d.c. circuit. one of his former law clerks. they helped shepherd bob through this process i think that day and he made a terrible switch -- strategic mistake. well, too. first, they made a strategic mistake in believing that these hearings head in the intellectual content. so when senators and to questions they took them seriously and try to answer, but they were not, had no intellectual content. the senators knew what they thought. there were political theater. the correct way to proceed was as political theater. this was something that his hearings, everybody cents. no hearing could handle anything like this. and the second error that he committed is related to the first. since he took this as an intellectual exchange, as if the senators really were interested in this substance, he responded w

>> outside the united states supreme court. it was taken on the day that a challenge to the pledge of allegiance, not the requirement to say it that the insertion of the words under guide that have been in 1950's with the cold war pushed back against communism and this is a bishop of the small the nomination from poughkeepsie new york. they are praying for their protection or public acknowledgement of god outside the supreme court on the day the case was argued and behind her uc to guard standing, looking far less dramatic than she does. she is actually weeping. is a very dynamic picture i was thrilled to see it on the cover. >>host: professor court in some cases today include nativity scenes, a 10 commandments, is there a national standard on those and where they can be displayed? [laughter] >> there are many national standards that disagree. the basic rule seems to be if it is just the ten commandments that violates the establishment clause but with the nativity scene or the ten commandments or the menorah combined with other

he wrote to the supreme court of the united states. >> the supreme court they have cases brought to the court by people who are too poor who are able to pay for their fees. gideon's was a hand written document online prison stationery. you couldn't imagine a simpler more elementary way to get to the highest court in the land. >> why would the supreme court decide to hear the case of a poor man already in prison. because the constitution allows even a poor man to be heard. lightning strikes from the ground up. it may have been sparked by gideon but they were on the court's justice ready to catch it. >> he was the most influential person in the courtroom system of all time. people should not be disadvantaged in getting justice because they are poor. the judge was viable for the constitution. it had the best constitution in the world and if we were tolerant it would be all right. on the morning of march 18th, the decision was announced from the supreme court. they said justice black said i have an announcement the decision and opinion of the court gideon against -- vindication for 20 years

this became a major supreme court case.would it be cruel and unusual punishment to sit him on the chair again? the court ruled that it wasn't. but felix frankfurter, who had voted for the execution because he felt he had no choice constitutionally, behind the backs of his fellow justices, went to a friend in the louisiana bar and said, "fight this locally. this would be an embarrassment if it happened and i'd feel really ashamed if it happened." >> it says something, also, about the court, how sometimes they will vote one way when their personal feelings go another way. sometimes supreme court justices, more than anybody else in public life, have to hold their nose when they do their job. they have to be faithful to the law. and you'll see justices saying, "i personally oppose the death penalty" they'll confide that in friends, maybe write about it after they leave the court, "but we have to uphold it because we feel the state has the right to do it, even though we disagree with it." >> you begin with a decision the court m

supreme court. and their grant of jurisdiction is discretionary with the court and not too many cases are granted. so that is how the system works today. and i volunteer periodically to sit on one of the federal courts of appeal and hear a number of cases for two or three days. and today i went to the supreme court at myself. i was here. i heard a case argued, and it just happens to be a case which i had heard as a volunteer judge when i sat on the ninth circuit some months back and heard that case and we rendered a decision and the losers did not like the result and filed a petition with the u.s. supreme court which took the case, and it was argued today. so i had the pleasure of sitting in the court room and listening to the lawyers argue about the case that i have participated in deciding some months before at the court of appeals level, so that was kind of fun to do, have to say. and i think what we have done tonight is to see if you did not have various questions that you thought you might like

on the morning of march 18th, the decision was announced from the supreme court. they said justice black said i have an announcement the decision and opinion of the court gideon against -- vindication for 20 years of dissent from -- against brady. they said we were wrong when we designed it and now we are making it right. >> it was complete. not only did this belief in the 14th amendment, the court decide d in gideon's favor. this system which he fought for so long in the justice. the decision was law of the land. equal justice under law. >> when a supreme court decided the gideon case, they really brought light to that phrase. it doesn't matter if you are rich, it doesn't matter if you are poor, you get the same equal chance. >> just look at what happened to gideon. the supreme court didn't set gideon free but it gave him a fair trial with a competent attorney. >> not guilty. >> clarence earl gideon was a free man. the man who won a landmark supreme court case went to live a normal living with a job pumping gas. >> when i read where it says equal justice under la

the supreme court agreed to take your case. mind, and send it back, is that still a victory to you because it does overturn prop 8 on a state level? >> yes. it is a victory because the reason we set out to do this to begin with was twofold. one was to strike down prop 8 which, if they send it back as pete williams described, we will have accomplished that. the other reason we did it and the big reason was to educate the country, was to put this on a national platform, to have this national discussion which we've had and we've seen the polls move dramatically. so we were at somewhere in the 40s when we started four years ago and now as you cited we're at 58% with 80% of people under 30 accepting the idea of same-sex marriage. so this conversation that we've had, this education process, has been very, very effective and i believe there's an inevitability now. the snowball is rolling down the hill, and it's inevitable. >> brian, i want to get you to react to something is. it was an exchange between justice kagan and charles cooper

. >> when a supreme court decided the gideon case, they really brought light to that phrase. it doesn't matter if you are rich, it doesn't matter if you are poor, you get the same equal chance. >> just look at what happened to gideon. the supreme court didn't set gideon free but it gave him a fair trial with a competent attorney. >> not guilty. >> clarence earl gideon was a free man. the man who won a landmark supreme court case went to live a normal living with a job pumping gas. >> when i read where it says equal justice under law, i'm very inspired by that. i'm very comforted by that. but i know a lot of people are treated unfairly. i see it as something encouraging but i don't see it yet. >> it's written into constitution and established into the goal for society to reach for and live up to. people will fall short, rights can be ignored or even trampled. with nothing more than a pencil and knowledge. >> if you know your rights you can protect your rights. if you don't know your rights you can't. they will always be there. you can fight for them. that was gideon's story. h

it has not been validated by the supreme court decision. -- it has now been validated by the supreme court decision. patent.fficult to get a it is difficult to get in many other countries. it is a strategy to extend the rights of an expired drug which is not encouraged in any country. 2005 isan laws after not deviating from this. i think this judgment valid is the thinking of the government and is a step in the right direction. >> a girl injured in a grenade attack on saturday has died. she was one of six children hurt when a man threw a grenade into her school and then opened fire. the school's principal was also killed. the school was attacked as the children gathered to receive exam results. stay with pakistan, 10,000 candidates have filed papers to run in next month's election. it is nearly 5000 fewer candidate than in 2008. the election commission has increased scrutiny. applications will be checked this week. the taliban in afghanistan is losing ground in an area considered to be its birthplace. afghan and coalition forces killed a high-ranking taliban in kandahar on sunday. be

whenet with putin in 1997 he went to the supreme leader, he was received by the supreme leader. was there. putin could not convince the supreme leader. i cannot imagine other leaders that could have a good relationship with the supreme leader with the exception of muslim countries. turkey continues to been the most and hand. turkey is against the regime in syria. it is difficult to find the utor.ct interlocal t it's. been a long it's difficult to negotiate without bilateral talks. reallyannot psychoanalyze the supreme leader. dignity is less important in my view than he wants to have a nuclear weapons capacity. second, here and looks at the nuclear issue as part of a much broader struggle with the united states. he believes the united states is trying to destroy the islamic republic. we are using the nuclear issue in order to try to achieve that the political and economic pressure, he thinks. the supreme leader has obstructed the negotiations. created a self- fulfillment processing, in my view. we are seeking economic sanctions which could potentially pose a threat to the surviv

lou. >> shannon bream, fox news supreme court correspondent. our first guest here tonight to further ajude indicate the proposition 8 -- ajudjudicate t case, the political ram fagsz are digit politics editor chris stirewalt and, juan williams, columnist for the hill and, lis weihl, here with me in the new york studios. great to have you he. i've got to ask you. i listened to shannon's report as chief justice roberts is talking about the definition of friend and creating the analog with the supporters of proposition 8 and i never said it before about the chief justice but that was nonsensical. >> it didn't make any sense from a legal perspective and he tried to draw the analogy, lals mean everything, you know, the labels change and you are in the a fren-- not a friend. i'm trying to explain it, lou and i'll give up. >> let me tu, this is of course an incendry wedge issue and proposition 8 was decided by ref ref referendum. shouldn't the justices be weary indeed of messing with it? >> look, not only is it the law in california, but the law in 29

i have cancer because of it. >> the supreme court's ruling is expected in june.t the supreme court, danielle nottingham. >> critics say myriad charges $3,000 to test for the gene when it should cost less than $200. >>> the results are in but the loser is already calling for a recount after the presidential election in venezuela. nicholas madero who was hand picked by chavez has defeated the challenger. madero was chavez's vice president and has been running the country since the late president's death. he won with slightly more than 50% of the vote. madero said he's okay with the recount. >>> funeral preparations are underway in london for former prime minister margaret thatcher. police officers and soldiers rehearsed for the public funeral. some 700 armed service personnel were in place for the drill. it will rival that of princess diana in terms of the scope and number of people expected to attend. >>> in bally, an investigation continues into what caused a plane to miss the runway and careen into the ocean. 108 passengers and crew on board survived but at leas

but now it seems to meet supreme court doesn't want to overturn that vote.hat's what it seems to me. >> i don't think so. if you listen to the argument that they're going to overturn the vote. >> i don't think they want to overturn the vote. because they know this time they are in really deep water. >> they can still do it. >> here is how. listen to the justices last week. they were asking about standing. should we have even take this case. should this case have a right to be here. it would go back to the state court which have already upheld or said that proposition 8 is out. >> bill: take it back to the state court. >> exactly. >> bill: state courts will overturn the will of the people. >> goes back -- california supreme court said justice von walker it should be upheld. they have a constitutional right to marriage. so that's where this is going to come down. >> only apply to california though if that happens. >> bill: it's nullifying the will of the people in california that's what it is. >> if they wanted to overturn it they could use that roamer equal p

correspondent lizzie wall is at the supreme court with more. well the big question at the supreme court today as whether or not you can pass a human genome sounds like a simple question but it has been done and quite complicated the plaintiffs in this case are medical societies and patient advocacy groups the cases against the biotech company called a myriad genetics now this company has patents on two g. and called b.r.c.a. one and b.r.c.a. two testing for these two genes the mutation of these two genes can determine if a patient is at risk for developing breast cancer myriad says they spent billions of dollars over the span of decades on research in tests and identifying these gene in the but opponents of these genes in say that no one person no company has the right has the power to the human body and they are saying that doing so is preventing and blocking other companies from moving forward with their own research with their own development and possibly creating treatments to breast cancer we haven't had breast cancer patients coming forwa

supreme court. my right to an attorney has been violated. i deserve an attorney if i am charged with a crime in this country. the supreme court had kind of been waiting for a case like this to come along it seems like. the timing was right. they kind of stacked the deck in his favor by appointing him this attorney who was this very, very high-powered d.c. lawyer at the time, and that was really to his benefit and it was a subtle signal from the supreme court that they were really interested in this case and were going to help him out in some way by giving him this very powerful attorney. >> host: it was ironic the first and almost last time the indigent defendant had an advantage over the state of florida because as you write in the book he was bruce jacob lew who was a young and inexperienced, never argued a case in the supreme court and wasn't even looking at the state attorney general's office for the latter part of the case which i gather he was doing on the nights and weekends. he was flying by the seat of his pants and had to argue bef

supreme court saying my right to an attorney has been violated. the supreme court had kind have been waiting for a case like this to come along. the timing was right. there had been several other cases that had come along that they had rejected and they accepted his case. in some ways it was interesting because they kind of stacked the deck in his favor by giving him an attorney who is this high-powered d.c. lawyer at the time. that was really to gideon's and at that and it was a sort of subtle thing from the u.s. supreme court to say we are really interested in this case and we argue now going to help gideon out in some ways by giving him this very powerful attorney. >> host: i thought it was ironic almost the last time that the indigent defendant has really an advantage over the state of florida. as you know in the book the lawyer representing the state of florida was it bruce jacob? very young and inexperienced and had never argued a case and wasn't even working at the state attorney general's office for the latter part of preparing for the cas

supreme court is faced with a special patent case today what's the patent for human genes you know that kind that make up your d.n.a. will investigate whether or not corporations can truly take ownership of the building blocks of life. and the people of venezuela elected a new president over the weekend. handpicked successor a nicolas maduro won in a razor thin victory war on the election results coming up. it is monday april fifteenth five pm in washington d.c. i make a locus and you are watching our t.v. well we begin this hour with breaking news out of boston two explosions went off this afternoon near the finish line of the boston marathon and we are just getting word from the police commissioner in a press conference that just ended moments ago saying that there was another explosion outside of the j.f.k. library in boston as well here's some new video that we got into the r t newsroom the boston globe is reporting that two people are dead and more than sixty four people are injured those numbers are expected to change now news of the blast started appearing on twitter just before

board of education supreme court decision. this is about 45 minutes. >> i'm happy to have come here. i spent a lot of years in washington and was here, as a matter of fact, when some of these events described in the book "remember" took place. i was here as an undergraduate and later as a teacher. instructor at howard university. every nation, of course, has noble times, times that it wants to remember, times that they want to its population to remember as a kind of ideal of itself. >> move the microphone down, pleasesome. >> -- please. >> it doesn't stay down -- [laughter] >> that's a little better, huh? [laughter] >> these times, these noble times that most nations identify are usually wars, conquests for land, conquests for resources. they may be wars for the deposing of a king or a czar or a dictator. they may be wars defending one's self against an oppressor or an invader. but they are generally honorable and bloody. the best ones are honorable, the worst ones are like the honorable ones only in the fact that they usually

the supreme court demanded two years ago that the system be fixed. but the previous government failed to get to the root of the problem. take, for example, the election held last december. the value of the vote in the least populous district was two and a half times that. and people across the country filed lawsuits after the election. judges across the country ruled last month that some results were either unconstitutional or in a state of unconstitutionality. two courts said the results of the votes were invalid. now prime minister abe is trying to push through legislation to reduce the maximum disparity to just below two, a difference the supreme court said is reasonable. opposition critics say this is still not fair. they say members of the ruling coalition are putting off needed changes. the supreme court justices will decide on the matter by the end of the year. if they declare the results are invalid, prime minister abe would have to hold another election. >>> a senior official from the international olympic committee says there's no clear lea

supreme court.said his own white house lawyer, harriet miers, was the most qualified choice, but many of his fellow republicans weren't having it. the votes weren't there in the u.s. senate, and so tonight, the miers nomination has been withdrawn. >> president george w. bush vanquished the democrats in his reelection effort in 2004. maybe it was that that made limit take his hold over his own side for granted in his second term as president, but he did take his side for granted in his second term as president, and it cost him repeatedly. today, president obama released his proposed budget in washington, as a pragmatic, tough-minded compromise. predictably, republicans hate it anyway, but this time so does a portion of the president's liberal base. liberals are calling it a betrayal, most particularly because it includes significant cuts to social security benefits. senator bernie sanders of vermont is calling the president's budget a bitter disappointment. literal groups are threatening to primary a

. >> woodruff: and we talk with the supreme court's first female justice, sandra day o'connor about the court's storied history as told in her new book: "out of order." >> i think people know very little, really, about the court: how it works, and its history. and both of those things are important in our country. >> brown: and we remember roger ebert. the pulitzer-prize winning film critic known for giving movies a simple thumbs up or down, who died today. >> brown: that's all ahead on tonight's "newshour." >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connts us. >> and by the alfred p. sloan foundation. supporting science, technology, and improved economic performance and financial literacy in the 21st century. >> 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 viewe like you. thank you. >> brown: there were new rumblings from north korea today, as it tried to bol

patents on human genes to stay roughly double can you really own the human body a new case before the supreme court may shatter thirty years of intellectual property law and save millions of lives in the process also in two thousand and eight wall street crash the economy and ruin the lives of people all over the world five years later the big banks are booming while the rest of us are struggling to recover from the worst downturn since the great depression isn't it time they made us back a small tax on financial transactions would be a start and right wing attacks on big government aren't just wrong they're dangerous i'll tell you why incised we take. the best of the rest of the news on monday the supreme court heard arguments in the case of the association of molecular elect killer papyrology versus myriad genetics incorporated the central question in that case revolved around whether or not marriage and medics american biotech firm has the right to hold a patent to human gene sequences it can be used to predict whether or not an individual is at risk for breast cancer or myriad argues that

but the supreme court has said it's so.e same institution that once said that the indigenous were not human beings, codifying slavery did not violate the constitutions of liberty. the supreme court once said that women were not persons. thethe point i'm make something this the core and the power structure has been wrong before. they are profoundly wrong about this, and it will take a mass movement of organizing ordinary people. there is no quick fix. we're looking to corroborate with wolf pack and others to build this movement out. we're on a ten-year trajectory. there are going to be a lot of victories along the way and at the end of the day we'll transform the society we live in. >> cenk: i also asked dave how could we win. is it realistic? >> how do you mobilize people to influence the power structure enough which we have such trouble reaching to be able to make a difference to say no, we should go with the obvious idea that they're not human beings. >> it will take a mass movement in this country to make this power stru

plus a critical patent case before the supreme court today. next. melissa: dig into china's slowing growth. it a factor, we will drill down on it. we have a chinese expert on it could be worse than beijing wants you to believe. our special guest ahead. but first, take a look at metals. gold the lead story. i percentage basis, look at silver. doing better than 10%. copper by comparison only 2%. we will be right back. she's still the one for you - you know it even after all these years. but your erectile dysfunction - you know,that could be a question of blood flow. cialis tadalafil for daily use helps you be ready anytime the moment's right. you can be more confident in your ability to be ready. and the same cialis is the only daily ed tablet approved to treat ed and symptoms of bph, like needingo go frequently or urgently. tell your doctor about all your medical conditions and medications, and ask if your heart is healthy enough for sexual activity. do not take cialis if you take nitrates for chest pain, as this may cause an unsafe drop in blood pre