Medicare Measure Set to Pass Senate; Jury Recommends Death Penalty for John Allen Muhammad
MARTIN SAVIDGE, GUEST HOST: Happening now, the Senate moves on Medicare, we'll have the latest developments from Capitol Hill. Also, a national exclusive, the John Muhammad jury foreman gives his only one-on-one television interview to CNN. Stand by for hard news. What else would you expect on WOLF BLITZER REPORTS.</s>SAVIDGE (voice-over): Sniper sentence.</s>PAUL EBERT, VA COMMONWEALTH'S ATTORNEY: The death penalty is reserved for the worst of the worst.</s>SAVIDGE: The jury weighs in. Overhauling Medicare a boom for seniors or a boondoggle? Showdown in the Senate. Troops targeted, is the Iraq insurgency spreading? Going public, Michael Jackson speaks out on the web.</s>ANNOUNCER: This is WOLF BLITZER REPORTS for Monday, November 24, 2003.</s>SAVIDGE: Thanks very much for joining us, great to be with you. I'm Martin Savidge in for Wolf. Well, you may be one of the 40 million Americans affected by impending Senate action. Senators are moving toward passage of the most sweeping changes in Medicare, well since the program began 38 years ago, the latest now from CNN Congressional Correspondent Jonathan Karl.</s>JONATHAN KARL, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Marty, the Democrats had a chance to put up two big procedural hurdles to prevent the Republicans from passing this prescription drug bill and they have now failed on the second effort. It now looks like it's all over but the talking and there is some more talking to be done. Democrats are vowing to go down fighting but what we saw today is that Republicans have more than enough votes to prevail.</s>SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY (D), MASSACHUSETTS: We are strongly committed to make sure that our Republican friends are not going to hijack the prescription drug bill when they are really attempting to undermine the Medicare system. We're going to continue to fight this tonight. We'll fight it tomorrow. We're going to fight it in every opportunity that's available to us in the days and the weeks ahead and we're going to fight it next year and we're going to fight it in the congressional elections and we're going to fight it in the presidential elections as well.</s>KARL: But Republicans have shown they have the votes and they got a handful of those votes, more than a dozen from Democrats who are supporting them on this effort to pass this prescription drug bill. Here's a look at what the bill actually does in terms of that prescription drug benefit. First of all the benefit doesn't kick in until the year 2006. When it does, seniors may elect to have the coverage by paying a $35 a month deductible - a $35 a month premium with a $250 deductible for their prescription drugs. Then it would cover 75 percent of drug costs from the $275 up to $2,250. Above $3,600 it would pay 95 percent of the drug costs but there is a coverage gap there for the costs that are in between, for drug costs between $2,250 and $3,600 there would be no coverage although low income seniors would be able to get some assistance for those costs but for most seniors there would be no coverage during that gap. That's a look at what the benefit does. What Democrats have been objecting to, Marty is that although it has that benefit it also changes Medicare in some ways including for the first time putting Medicare up in direct competition with private insurance companies in a pilot program that would operate in six regions around the country - Marty.</s>SAVIDGE: Jonathan what happens next does this have to be rectified with the House version or does it go straight to the president's desk now?</s>KARL: No, the House has already passed this so once they get a final vote on this and that vote could come late tonight, it could come tomorrow morning but once that vote is done it goes right down to the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue where the president will eagerly sign it into law.</s>SAVIDGE: I'm sure he will. Jonathan Karl, Capitol Hill, thanks very much. Convicted sniper John Allen Muhammad is now one step closer to being put to death for his crimes. CNN's Jeanne Meserve is out side the Virginia Beach courthouse where today jurors recommended the death penalty for Muhammad - Jeanne.</s>JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Martin, it took jurors five and a half hours of deliberations to reach a verdict but when they did it was unanimous.</s>MESERVE (voice-over): Death the recommended penalty for a season of murder and terror.</s>JOHN ALLEN MUHAMMAD, DEFENDANT: Until then just follow the body bags.</s>MESERVE: Death for the ten lives lost and numerous others forever changed.</s>WILLIAM FRANKLIN: My wife's been shot.</s>EBERT: The death penalty is reserved for the worst of the worst and we think Mr. Muhammad fell into that category and the jury agreed.</s>MESERVE: Though video of John Muhammad playing with his children and questions about the death penalty itself made the decision a tough one for some jurors, the accumulation of evidence eventually led them all to the same conclusion. Muhammad should die for his crimes.</s>JERRY HAGGERTY, JUROR: I think it's the collective nature of the crimes, the vileness. The violence was there across the board and the lack of remorse.</s>MESERVE: Muhammad portrayed no reaction in the courtroom but his attorneys said they were bitterly disappointed.</s>PETER GREENSPUN, MUHAMMAD'S ATTORNEY: There's been much pain and devastation. The sanction of yet another death by the government is not likely to come of any benefit to anyone.</s>MESERVE: Dean Meyers was by all accounts a generous man. His shooting at a Manassas, Virginia gas station was the centerpiece of this trial and for his family there is with this verdict some measure of closure.</s>BOB MEYERS, BROTHER OF DEAN MEYERS: This isn't a revenge thing not in any way, just feel like what was done was right.</s>MESERVE: There will be appeals and other trials for other murders but this jury has spoken. Final sentencing is set for February 12 -- Marty, back to you.</s>SAVIDGE: Jeanne Meserve in Virginia Beach thanks very much. Now a CNN exclusive joining us from the same Virginia Beach courthouse the jury foreman in Muhammad's trial Jerry Haggerty, Mr. Haggerty thank you very much for being us this evening.</s>HAGGERTY: You're welcome.</s>SAVIDGE: Let me ask you this which was more difficult to come up with a conviction and finding of guilty or coming up with a recommendation of a death sentence?</s>HAGGERTY: I think they were both very difficult decisions. It's hard to say one is more difficult than the other. Certainly the first verdict guilty we had to go through a number of discussions and the same as we did for sentencing but I don't think you can say one is more difficult than the other.</s>SAVIDGE: Did the emotions change at all when you'd gone from deciding guilt to now trying to determine whether or not to recommend death? Does that change the whole dynamic?</s>HAGGERTY: Yes, very much so. I think the discussions on whether to vote for the death penalty or life imprisonment definitely brought out much more emotion. One of the things that I tried to do as the foreman when we first talked about the guilty verdict was to make sure that people separated the two so that we didn't think about the death sentence while we were trying to determine guilt or not guilt.</s>SAVIDGE: And what made you decide as a group that the death penalty was appropriate?</s>HAGGERTY: Well, I think we first had to look at everything that had gone on. We had already determined that he was guilty. He was a principal participant. It was a joint effort on both of their parts and looking at a number of issues but I think probably the one thing we looked at was the probability that he could commit additional violence. None of us were willing to live with the thought that if we said life sentence and he did cause bodily harm to another individual that would have been difficult for each of us to live with and we knew we had a chance to stop that.</s>SAVIDGE: The signs or no signs of remorse coming from the defendant did that weigh in too in your decision to make that recommendation?</s>HAGGERTY: Oh, absolutely. Each of us had been watching around the courtroom as the -- over the preceding six weeks and depending on which witness was up there, there were times when some of his friends were up and he would smile. There were times when discussing his children and then there were times when his ex-wife was up there and you could almost see the hatred on his face. So, certainly the lack of emotion, his failure to even acknowledge what he had done played into it.</s>SAVIDGE: Do you feel like a weight has been lifted from you?</s>HAGGERTY: In some sense, yes. In another sense I think that it will always stay with me. I mean because we reached a verdict in a sentencing does not mean that we will not have to live with that. That's something that we talked about and we wanted to make sure before we turned in our sentence that we were all comfortable with being able to live with this and that's something we'll all carry around with us. That's why in many respects we're also victims of this whole affair.</s>SAVIDGE: Do you think you'll mentally revisit that when and if the sentence is carried out?</s>HAGGERTY: Oh, I'm sure we will. I'm sure that we will all be very much aware of what goes on between now and February when the sentencing and I understand listening to some of the news that the state of Virginia averages a little over seven years in the appeal process which is actually less than some states so, yes, it's going to be a long time.</s>SAVIDGE: I'm sure it will. Mr. Haggerty, thank you very much for taking the time to talk to us today.</s>HAGGERTY: My pleasure. Jerry Haggerty the jury foreman in the John Muhammad case. Here's your turn to weigh in on this very difficult story. Our web question of the day on this important one, "Was the jury correct to recommend the death penalty for John Allen Muhammad"? You can vote right now at cnn.com/wolf. We'll have the results later in this broadcast. And while you're there we'd like to hear directly from you, our viewers. Send us your comments anytime and we might read some of them at the end of the program. Is the insurgency spreading; new fears in Iraq after a deadly attack in the north and a new warning to journalists covering the conflict. We're live from Baghdad. Sending a message, Michael Jackson speaking out to his fans, find out what the pop star is saying about the case against him. Making the switch but keeping your current digits, flexibility at last for millions of cell phone users but is there a catch? We'll have a live report. But first, today's News Quiz.</s>SAVIDGE (voice-over): When will areas outside the largest metropolitan cities adopt the new cell phone rule change, this week, January, May, next November," the answer coming up.