[Collins:] Death row inmates ask for kinder and gentler execution. The Supreme Court is listening. We'll have that story for you just ahead. Good morning, everybody. 9:30 eastern time. Now, you're in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Heidi Collins. Tony Harris is off today. Roger Clemens: on the record and filing suit. The star pitcher is suing his former trainer for defamation. Brian McNamee says he injected Clemens with steroids. Speaking with CBS'"60 Minutes", Clemens says he was shocked to hear that. He denies ever getting steroid shots.
[Roger Clemens, Major League Pitcher:] If he's putting that stuff up in my body, if what he's saying which is totally false, if he's doing that to me, I should have a third ear coming out of my forehead. I should be pulling tractors with my teeth.
[Mike Wallace, 60 Minutes:] Why didn't you speak to George Mitchell's investigators?
[Clemens:] I listened to my counsel. I was advised not to. A lot of the players didn't go down and talk to him.
[Wallace:] I know.
[Clemens:] But if I would've known what this man, Brian McNamee, had said in this report, I would have been down there in a heartbeat to take care of it. But I understand that as a public person, you're gonna take some shots. The higher you get up on the flagpole, the more your butt shows. I understand all that. But I'm tired of answering to them. That's probably why I will not ever play again.
[Heidi Collins, Cnn Anchor:] We expect to hear more from Clemens later today. He's schedule a news conference for this afternoon. Both Clemens and McNamee had been invited to testify at a congressional hearing. That will be coming your way next week. Meanwhile, we want to take a moment to listen to the opening bell today. This Monday morning, boy, we sure hope things go better today than they went on Friday. Down, the Dow Jones Industrial average's 256 points, postings up at 12,800. We will continue to watch all of these numbers today along with Susan Lisovicz and talk more about a possibly recovery from that big sell-off last week. We'll have that for you shortly. Meanwhile, disturbing developments in the case of that missing hiker in Georgia. Teams are out again this morning searching for any signs of Meredith Emerson or for her body. Her bloody clothes, identification and a blood-stained seat belt were found in a trash bin about 50 miles from where she'd been hiking New Year's Day. Suspect Gary Hilton heads to court today charged with kidnapping. Police say he was seen with Emerson the day she disappear and then he later tried to use her credit card. Right now, authorities in two states are looking into the possibility Hilton could be linked to other unsolved cases. A baseball as a murder weapon? But that's not the shocker. It's a 12-year-old boy who is accused of using a baseball bat to beat a toddler to death. The boy is in custody in Broward County, Florida. Authorities say the boy beat the 17-month-old girl because she was making noise while he was trying to watch TV. The boy had been baby sitting. You may recall the case of Lionel Tate, also a 12-year-old Florida boy. He was sentenced to life for beating and stomping to death a 6-year-old child in 1999. His conviction was later thrown out and Tate pleaded guilty to a lesser charge. The national debate over the death penalty moves into the Supreme Court this morning. The issue? Lethal injection. Here's CNN's Gary Nurenberg.
[Gary Nurenberg, Cnn Correspondent:] Clay City, Kentucky, 1992, Sheriff Steve Bennett and his deputy, Arthur Briscoe, were ambushed and killed by Ralph Baze, who was sentenced to death through lethal injection by a state court. Like 34 other American states, Kentucky uses a three-drug protocol to execute prisoners. Sodium Thiopental is injected first, an anesthetic. It is supposed to make a person unconscious, unable to feel pain. Pancuronium Bromide follows to paralyze muscles and stop breathing. Finally, potassium chloride to stop the heart. In at least one case in Florida, the first drug, the pain-killing anesthetic, was not properly injected and opponents of this method of lethal injection worry that happens too often.
[Elisabeth Semel, University Of California Law School:] If anesthesia is not properly administered and maintained throughout the execution, that the second two drugs, the paralytic and the potassium, which stops the heart, will cause suffocation and excruciating pain.
[Nurenberg:] Baze and another Kentucky inmate argue the three-drug protocol carries an unnecessary risk of pain and suffering violating the constitution.
[Roy Englert, Attorney Representing Kentucky:] Kentucky is saying that this is not painful. Period. Period.
[Edward Lazarus, Supreme Court Legal Analyst:] The question before the court is, how much risk of unnecessary pain is too much risk of unnecessary pain under the constitution?
[Nurenberg:] The court will examine what standard the state applies in answering that question.
[Englert:] If the court really does make a definitive statement, it will make an impossible to litigate a lot of the issues that are being currently litigated in the lower courts, and it will lessen litigation and perhaps speed some executions.
[Nurenberg:] Welcome news to Sheriff Bennett's widow.
[Rose Bennett, Kentucky Sheriff's Widow:] It's just never over. I mean, they just keep looking for other loopholes, you know, to get them out of their punishment.
[Nurenberg:] The court is taking several death penalty cases this year putting crime and punishment law and order in the headlines at time when American voters will be looking for candidates at both the local and national levels who mirror their views on those issues. Gary Nurenberg, CNN, Washington.
[Collins:] John McCain's New Hampshire prediction.
[John Mccain,  Presidential Candidate:] We'll win it. We'll win.
[Collins:] Fresh poll numbers at campaign revive, in the NEWSROOM.