ad info




CNN.com
 MAIN PAGE
 WORLD
 U.S.
 LOCAL
 POLITICS
 WEATHER
 BUSINESS
 SPORTS
 TECHNOLOGY
 SPACE
 HEALTH
 ENTERTAINMENT
 BOOKS
 TRAVEL
 FOOD
 ARTS & STYLE
 NATURE
 IN-DEPTH
 ANALYSIS
 myCNN

 Headline News brief
 news quiz
 daily almanac

  MULTIMEDIA:
 video
 video archive
 audio
 multimedia showcase
 more services

  E-MAIL:
Subscribe to one of our news e-mail lists.
Enter your address:
Or:
Get a free e-mail account

 DISCUSSION:
 message boards
 chat
 feedback

  CNN WEB SITES:
CNN Websites
 AsiaNow
 En Español
 Em Português
 Svenska
 Norge
 Danmark
 Italian

 FASTER ACCESS:
 europe
 japan

 TIME INC. SITES:
 CNN NETWORKS:
Networks image
 more networks
 transcripts

 SITE INFO:
 help
 contents
 search
 ad info
 jobs

 WEB SERVICES:

  Transcripts

CNN/Time

Ivy Bias; They Called it Murder

Aired January 31, 2000 - 9:00 p.m. ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

ANNOUNCER: CNN & TIME.

Tonight, "Ivy Bias": She's a highly respected scientist who says she was treated like a second-class citizen by one of the most prestigious universities in America...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NANCY HOPKINS, MIT BIOLOGY PROFESSOR: This couldn't all have happened to any man in my department. It just couldn't.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: ... and Professor Nancy Hopkins' complaints led to an unlikely confession that some now say was prompted by anything but the cold, hard facts.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JUDITH KLEINFELD (ph), UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA PSYCHOLOGY PROFESSOR: It's junk science. In fact, it isn't science at all. It's a political manifesto masquerading as science.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: "They Called It Murder": A parent's nightmare. Two boys living on the same suburban street. Now one is dead, the other is in jail.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VICKI BELLUARDO, VICTIM'S MOTHER: How come this is going on and no one knew about it, least of all us?

ROBIN MILLER, MOTHER OF MURDERER: It was just a terrible accident. Can anybody predict a terrible accident in their life?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: CNN & TIME, with Jeff Greenfield and Bernard Shaw.

BERNARD SHAW, CO-HOST: Good evening, and welcome to CNN & TIME from Manchester, New Hampshire. JEFF GREENFIELD, CO-HOST: Yes, we are at ground zero for Tuesday's primaries and, yes, this is Super Bowl Sunday, but some of you may have had your fill of politics for the moment, not to mention football. So we begin tonight with a surprising debate over women and discrimination.

SHAW: The glass ceiling has long been associated with corporate America, but could our institutions of higher learning be just as guilty of serious, long-term, gender bias? Well, recently, a group of women professors at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology said there was no doubt. And believe it or not, MIT agreed. But that's where one controversy ended and another began.

Here's Kathy Slobogin.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KATHY SLOBOGIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Her name has become synonymous with gender discrimination, but Nancy Hopkins says that's the last thing she wanted.

HOPKINS: I was a person running from feminists, actually, because I didn't want to be associated with them. I was concerned about their anger. They didn't like men. I love men. And I love men and science, and I just wanted to be part of that culture.

SLOBOGIN: Hopkins is a biology professor at MIT where her work studying fish genes could shed light on human birth defects. Divorced, without children, she has devoted her life to science. Hopkins says she thought discrimination against women was a thing of the past, but, as the years went by, she says the culture she wanted to belong to seemed to exclude her. Her research was starved for money. Her lab space was cramped. She had only a handful of graduate students.

UNIDENTIFIED MIT GRADUATE STUDENT: We actually took the mutant embryos from some of these crosses and ran them out in the exact same analysis.

SLOBOGIN: Then, a course she helped develop was given to two male professors. She says that finally forced her to face what she'd been denying for years.

HOPKINS: The women were treated differently from the men, and -- but this couldn't all have happened to any man in my department. It just couldn't. It could not have. I've been there 20 years, and I knew it could not have happened to a man.

SLOBOGIN: Trying to convince university officials she deserved more space, Hopkins resorted to a tape measure to compare her lab with those of male colleagues. Finally, tired of losing battles, Hopkins wrote a letter to MIT's president.

HOPKINS: I sat down, and I wrote this very strong letter saying, "Dear President Voss (ph), you have a problem here."

SLOBOGIN: But Hopkins was afraid the letter was too strong. She gave it to a female colleague to read.

HOPKINS: And she got to the bottom of the letter, and she looked up, and she said, "I'd like to sign this letter, and I think we should go and see the president. I agree with what you said."

SLOBOGIN: Hopkins, stunned that another professor felt the same way she did, decided to poll the other women at MIT's School of Science.

HOPKINS: These women are so successful, and from the outside -- since I didn't know them well, I only knew about reading -- I'd read about them in the newspaper. They'd won another prize. They'd been inducted at the Academy. What did I know? I went tiptoeing into the office, "Excuse me." You know, "Have you ever noticed anything like the following?" "Where do I sign?"

SLOBOGIN (on camera): You agreed with it?

MARY-LOU PARDUE, MIT BIOLOGY PROFESSOR: I agreed with it.

SLOBOGIN (voice-over): In the end, 16 out of 17 tenured women faculty signed the letter.

PARDUE: I thought she was putting into words things that I really believed.

SLOBOGIN: These women, all professors at MIT, say they were amazed and relieved to find the other women shared their experiences.

LEIGH ROYDEN, MIT GEOPHYSICS PROFESSOR: But it's around the time that you get tenure, and then you realize that, well, all your male colleagues are moving into these positions of power, and you're not, and what's sort of going on, and it sort of gradually dawns on you.

SLOBOGIN: The women took their letter to the dean of science, Bob Birgeneau.

BOB BIRGENEAU, MIT DEAN OF SCIENCE: It was not one woman or two women or three women, but it was 15 women, and then when I looked around the room, I realized that these -- you know, there was -- distributed among these were, you know, some of the nation's best scientists.

SLOBOGIN: Convinced MIT had a problem, in 1995, Dean Birgeneau appointed a committee of male and female faculty to investigate, with Hopkins at the head. Over the next few years, the committee put together a report that found that MIT's women in science proved to be underpaid, to have unequal access to the resources of MIT, to be excluded from any substantive power within the university. What's more, there were 17 tenured women compared to 197 men, a ratio that hadn't budged in 20 years.

BIRGENEAU: They were effectively on average second-class citizens of the department in that they were marginalized.

SLOBOGIN: The MIT report didn't dwell on obvious disparities like salaries. Instead, it focused on subtle discrimination that made women invisible and excluded them from plum assignments.

BIRGENEAU: The exclusion means that you put the woman faculty member on the affirmative action committee, but when you have a strategic planning committee that's going to determine the future of the department, magically, that turns out, you know, to be all male. It's really the cumulative effect of, you know, a thousand pinpricks causing you to bleed to death, basically.

SLOBOGIN: MIT's candid admission of discrimination reverberated around the country.

HOPKINS: And then the reaction of women across the country was just astounding and, suddenly, they were hearing from people all across the country, saying "Same here," "Same here." I was amazed.

SADIE LEBOY (ph), UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA SCIENCE PROFESSOR: The MIT report was a great breakthrough.

SLOBOGIN: Sadie Leboy and Helen Davis (ph) are both tenured scientists at the University of Pennsylvania. Davis remembers the time when some faculty notices were only posted in the men's bathrooms. Both have pushed for decades to get more women on the faculty. They say the MIT report has given them ammunition to push harder.

LEBOY: These are women who of all the women in science that I know are among the most visible, among the most lauded, among the most honored.

HELEN DAVIS, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA SCIENCE PROFESSOR: To hear it again from women at the level of the MIT group of women who were talking about being -- having the feeling of being marginalized and realizing how universal it is -- it was overpowering.

SLOBOGIN: In the wake of the MIT report, prestigious schools like Cal Tech, UCLA, and Harvard Medical School launched their own gender equity reviews.

But there was also a flurry of criticism, even from other women in academia.

KLEINFELD: It's junk science. In fact, it isn't science at all. It's a political manifesto masquerading as science, draped in the robes of MIT's international prestige. It's really a sorry piece of work.

SLOBOGIN: Judith Kleinfeld is a psychology professor at the University of Alaska who writes on gender issues. She wrote a scathing critique of the MIT report that sparked a national controversy. Kleinfeld calls the MIT report "subjective complaints of a few unhappy women who seized on discrimination as a convenient excuse."

KLEINFELD: There's a lot of unfairness in life, and there's a lot of injustice, and women have an explanation, and that's gender discrimination, and when they offer that, they're given social applause, they're given approval, they often get more pay, more lab space.

SLOBOGIN: Kleinfeld, a Harvard Ph.D., admits she's not impartial about MIT. Her own father and a nephew graduated there. Her main criticism of the report is that MIT won't release the data, details about salaries and resources, leading her to question whether there was any real discrimination.

KLEINFELD: It was just really irresponsible for the dean to tarnish MIT with the brush of sexism if it weren't true, and they did no serious scientific investigation.

BIRGENEAU: We don't view it as our responsibility to prove to anybody else that we discriminated against women.

SLOBOGIN: Birgeneau says MIT never claimed the report was a scientific investigation but rather an internal response to a problem.

BIRGENEAU: There obviously were discrepancies in -- in salaries. There also were discrepancies in who got to serve on which committee. And one of the grossest discrepancies was that there were no women in leadership positions of any sort whatsoever.

SLOBOGIN: Members of the investigating committee, which included prominent professors like Jerome Friedman (ph), a Nobel laureate, say they can't release the data to back up their report.

JEROME FRIEDMAN, MIT PROFESSOR: We promised confidentiality upon getting this data, and we have to observe our promise.

ROBERT SILBEY, MIT CHEMISTRY PROFESSOR: In general, though, of course, it's lab space, resource money for unrestricted funds for research, salaries, you know, things that you can actually measure, common numbers.

SLOBOGIN (on camera): And you all to a person have no doubt that the data support the conclusion that there's discrimination in MIT against women.

FRIEDMAN: Absolutely.

ROYDEN: Some of the discrimination was sufficiently obvious and sufficiently well documented that one could have sued MIT. Absolutely.

FRIEDMAN: These are all respected scientists. When you have 16 of 17 saying there is discrimination that's occurring within the institution, the -- those are statistics right there.

SLOBOGIN (voice-over): But Judith Kleinfeld insists the whole process was tainted.

KLEINFELD: Six of nine people on that committee were women. They were the judge and jury of their own complaints, and they stood to benefit.

SLOBOGIN: In fact, the women of MIT did benefit from the report, but the committee says that was exactly the point, to eliminate disparities.

Nancy Hopkins finally got a bigger lab and now has 26 graduate students. The number of tenured women at MIT School of Science went up 40 percent last year. But women faculty say there's still a long way to go.

(on camera): Are there more women on the faculty now?

ROYDEN: Yes.

SLOBOGIN: Any department heads who are women?

SILBEY: Not yet.

ROYDEN: Not yet.

MOLLY POTTER, MIT COGNITIVE SCIENCES PROFESSOR: Not yet, but there will be.

SLOBOGIN (voice-over): Still, there are beginning to be cracks in the glass ceiling.

POTTER: We're more savvy about the process now, and I think that that -- that's a great morale builder. I think we've begun to feel that we've almost put our hands on the lever of power now, and that -- that's a great morale booster.

SLOBOGIN: As for Nancy Hopkins, she's been invited to more than 50 campuses to tell her story.

UNIDENTIFIED AUDIENCE MEMBER: I'm wondering if you have any advice.

SLOBOGIN: She says the stories she hears echo her own.

HOPKINS: They say that they see that when they go to meetings, the voice of a woman scientist is not equal to the voice of a male scientist, the discoveries of a woman scientist are not equal to the discoveries of a male scientist, and they come, and they tell you their story, and now I can finish every story. There's no new story.

SLOBOGIN: Hopkins says now all she gnats to do is get back to her research. No longer fighting her battles with a tape measure, she has the support of a major biotech firm and $2-1/2 million a year in outside funding. She recently was elected to the elite Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.

(on camera): Was it easier for you to get to where you are now as a result of this awareness at MIT?

HOPKINS: It would have been impossible, I believe, without it, and now I would say I'm probably one of the happiest people you'll find at MIT.

(END VIDEOTAPE) GREENFIELD: When we come back, Iowa is history. Now it's New Hampshire's turn. Will the nation's first primaries echo its first caucus, or will the Granite State go its own way?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: Coming up on CNN & TIME, his death transformed this young man from a known bully to convicted killer.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JONATHAN MILLER, CONVICTED MURDERER: I'm not a murderer. I don't see myself as a murderer.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: A suburban tragedy as CNN & TIME continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GREENFIELD: On Tuesday, as you perhaps have heard, New Hampshire will host the first presidential primaries of the season. As residents here like to say, Iowa grows corn. New Hampshire grows presidents. Well, maybe, although history shows that winners here often fall by the wayside.

What about this year? A look ahead at the New Hampshire primaries in tonight's "Dispatches."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: New Hampshire's tradition is to generally shake things up. This is a state that likes to stick it to front runners, that likes to tell the party establishment that they don't listen to anybody.

The passion contest clearly goes to John McCain. That's where the crowds are the most responsive. McCain has a very winning way about him. He jokes around with the crowd.

Interestingly, George Bush is -- can also be very funny, but his crowds tend to be more establishment Republicans who write checks but don't tend to get up and, you know, stand on the table and cheer.

You can sense between the lines both on the record and off the record that the Bush campaign is well aware that what once seemed improbable is now possible, and that is that John McCain might win New Hampshire.

JAMES CARNEY, "TIME" CORRESPONDENT: A decision was made early on in this week leading up to the New Hampshire primary that no dramatic change should be made by the Bush campaign. The Bush people believe that they are running a national campaign. They are convinced that their man will be the nominee no matter what happens in New Hampshire, and they do not want to take any drastic step in this New Hampsahire primary that will hurt them later on. ALBERT A. GORE JR., VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I want to fight for you. I want you to fight for me. Let's fight together.

CARNEY: The Democrats coming out of Iowa were a different story from the Republicans. Al Gore actually exceeded expectations with the size of his victory over Bill Bradley.

BILL BRADLEY (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think they deserve -- people deserve more respect.

GORE: Look, since that's a negative personal attack, can I have a rebuttal?

CARNEY: The level of acrimony between Bill Bradley and Al Gore was very high. It was really bitter. You could sense how much dislike there is between these two candidates, each man believing that the other is something of a phony, and it really comes through on -- in the debates.

BRADLEY: And last night, I decided I'd had it. I'm going to call my opponent on what he's been doing.

CROWLEY: On Thursday in New Hampshire, Bradley was very tough on Al Gore. He came out really battling for the first time in his campaign. There is a change in tactics of the Bradley campaign.

One of the things I think we learned from these debates, particularly the Republican debate, is they all need a nap. George Bush has been in New Hampshire since early Tuesday morning. There was a moment Thursday when he was visiting children in a school in Nashua, and the word of the week was "perseverance," and they told a little story about animals, and Bush kind of looked up at the sign and -- at -- of the word and wanted to go on with it, and he started to talk about preservation. He had clearly missed that it was perseverance and not preservation. He caught himself later on.

But it's that kind of thing where you notice he -- he loses his -- track of his thoughts sort of midway through a speech, you know, that's he's kind of on -- as most candidates get -- eventually, they get on sort of robot control, and then they kind of forget what they're saying. There's been some of that. A lot of that evident in the past couple of days.

CARNEY: What's different about this week is, I think, the sheer intensity of it. You have this eight-day period between Iowa and New Hampshire where all the candidates are in one place, in one state campaigning their hearts out, blowing their budgets wide open with as much advertising as they can throw up on the air, basically doing everything they can because New Hampshire really is make or break for a number of these candidates.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: Next, these parents lost a son, and a neighbor is to blame...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

V. BELLUARDO: We think he planned it before he got off the bus, exactly what he was going to do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: ... when CNN & TIME continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GREENFIELD: Welcome back to CNN & TIME, in Manchester, New Hampshire.

SHAW: It's human nature that we often are impressed by those who exude a sense of power. And for evidence of this, we may need only to look at our children. A new study finds that among kids power often equals popularity. And just like in the adult world, that power can come in some nasty packages. Researches say a full third of the boys studied use aggression to achieve and maintain their popularity.

GREENFIELD: Intimidation and domination are problems facing more and more children, the seriousness of which we first brought to light some months ago with the story of Jonathan Miller and Josh Belluardo. One was known as a bully, the other became a victim.

Here's Art Harris.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ART HARRIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): John and Vicki Belluardo are packing up to move far away from the Atlanta suburb where they've lived for the last 13 years. The Belluardos say they're moving because there are just too many memories of their 13-year-old son Josh. Their home on Shallow Cove is just across the street from the house where Allen and Robin Miller once lived. They moved away months ago.

V. BELLUARDO: I guess, at first, after it happened, we kind of felt sorry for them not knowing anything and then we got mad, very mad, very upset, you know, wait a minute, you know. How come this is going and no one knew about it, least of all us?

HARRIS: The Belluardos say they knew too little about their neighbor's son, 15-year-old Jonathan Miller, until it was too late.

JOHN BELLUARDO, VICTIM'S FATHER: It seems odd that you would live next to somebody for so long and not know him.

HARRIS: On November 2 last year, John Belluardo, a home builder, was on a job site. His wife, Vicki, was driving her usual afternoon school bus route. On another school bus, their son, Josh, was on his way home from E.T. Booth Middle School. He was in the eighth grade.

V. BELLUARDO: The day that it happened was to be his first day of wrestling, and he was all excited. In fact, I had left him a note on the refrigerator to tell him to eat early, you know, so his food could settle, and to be ready when I got home to go to practice.

HARRIS: Vicki was about to drop off the last child on her route when she heard an emergency call on the bus radio. A child was hurt on Shallow Cove, the street where she lived.

V. BELLUARDO: I turned down to our subdivision and I stopped by the stop sign, and saw Josh laying on the ground. The first time I came up to him he was like gagging, trying to breath. And the second time, his head -- eyes were just rolling. He couldn't talk. He just laid there.

HARRIS: Witnesses at the scene told police Josh had been attacked by his neighbor, Jonathan Miller, as they got off the bus. Jonathan was arrested and taken to the Cherokee County sheriff's department for questioning.

UNIDENTIFIED POLICE OFFICER: Can you give me your full name, please?

JONATHAN MILLER, BULLY: Jonathan Allen Miller.

HARRIS: CNN & TIME obtained this video of the police interrogation. On it, Jonathan gave detectives his version of what happened. He said there had been tension between him and Josh for a long time.

J. MILLER: I don't know, we've always, like, never really liked each other.

UNIDENTIFIED POLICE OFFICER: You know, that's kind of what I want to find out. You know, how long is this been going on, this conflict between you and Josh?

J. MILLER: Long time.

HARRIS: Jonathan said that trouble started that day when someone on the bus threw gum at Josh. Josh thought it was him and challenged him to fight when they got off.

J. MILLER: Then we got off the bus and I hit him. And he fell on the ground, and I kicked him in, like, the leg and I hit him in the eye.

UNIDENTIFIED POLICE OFFICER: Did you hit him with your right hand?

J. MILLER: Yes. Kind of like right there, I think.

HARRIS: That blow to the back of the head ripped a tiny hole in an artery at the base of Josh Belluardo's brain, and put him in a coma. Detectives wanted to know why Jonathan hit Josh from behind.

UNIDENTIFIED POLICE OFFICER: Why did you sucker punch him like that? Do you know? You just didn't want to take a chance of him getting the best of you, or what?

J. MILLER: No, it was just -- I don't know.

HARRIS: Jonathan Miller was charged with aggravated assault. When John and Vicki Belluardo got to the hospital, they learned their son already was brain dead.

V. BELLUARDO: We prayed nonstop. Yes, almost our whole church was up there praying with us.

HARRIS (on camera): And no response when you spoke to him?

J. BELLUARDO: He never responded.

V. BELLUARDO: He never -- no response.

HARRIS (voice-over): Two days later, on advice of several doctors, the Belluardos took their son off life support. The charge against Jonathan Miller changed from aggravated assault to felony murder.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I pray for the Belluardo family, Father.

HARRIS: The Belluardos buried their son.

UNIDENTIFIED PRIEST: And we thank you for this time, and for seeds that continue to grow.

HARRIS: Soon, they say, they began hearing stories about the boy across the street, now accused of killing Josh.

J. BELLUARDO: Later we find out, you know, this wasn't really an accident. This was on purpose.

V. BELLUARDO: From all areas we started hearing all these things about a kid we had never had a clue had been in so much trouble.

HARRIS: Two weeks after Josh died, Vicki Belluardo stopped by E.T. Booth Middle School to pick up his books. That's when Principal Phil Gramling (ph) told her all about Jonathan Miller. A student there before moving on to high school.

(on camera): What did the principal tell you?

V. BELLUARDO: Basically, he just said he had a really thick file on Jonathan and he had tried over and over again to talk to the parent and get them to, you know, realize he needed help.

UNIDENTIFIED ATTORNEY: How would you characterize his behavior in your class?

HARRIS (voice-over): Jonathan Miller's behavior problems at school became public at his bond hearing. The principal testified that during Jonathan's two years at middle school he had been written up 34 times, including 11 suspensions.

PRINCIPAL PHIL GRAMLING, E.T. BOOTH MIDDLE SCHOOL: He had quite a bit of problems with disrespect to teachers, disruption of classrooms, and 14 incidents that were related to other children.

HARRIS: Teachers testified Jonathan had cursed at them. Students testified, too. One girl said he spit in her face and later tripped her. Another girl said he threatened to kill her and her family after she broke up with his friend.

UNIDENTIFIED ATTORNEY: And what did he say he would do after he killed you all?

UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT: He said he would burn our house down.

HARRIS: Brandon Holland (ph) testified Jonathan had bullied him on the bus.

BRANDON HOLLAND, STUDENT: He had gotten me out of my seat and he had flicked my ears a lot, almost every day. Like, he called me a fag, just anything really that was negative he would pretty much say.

HARRIS: Months before Josh was killed, Brandon's mother says she decided the school system could not protect her son from Jonathan.

UNIDENTIFIED PARENT: Ultimately, we took him out and put him in a private school.

HARRIS: With so many new questions raised about Jonathan Miller's problems in school, Josh Belluardo's parents wanted some answers from the Cherokee County school board.

(on camera): What do you need to know from the county, the school board?

J. BELLUARDO: Why wasn't something done with this boy?

V. BELLUARDO: And how many times does it take before you do something about a situation with a child who is constantly in trouble? And when do you override the parents?

HARRIS (voice-over): In this letter they wrote to the school superintendent, the Belluardos asked, why was Jonathan Miller still at E.T. Booth after 34 incidents and so many suspensions? They also wanted to know at what point do the school authorities remove kids like Jonathan from a regular class setting.

(on camera): You asked a lot of questions. Have you gotten any answers?

V. BELLUARDO: No, none.

HARRIS: Why?

J. BELLUARDO: I think they're afraid. I think they realized they dropped the ball, and they were afraid to admit it.

HARRIS (voice-over): The Belluardos did get a letter from the Cherokee County board of education. Although it said in certain cases the removal of a student from the school system may be warranted, it couldn't answer any questions about Jonathan Miller because of federal privacy laws. The superintendent added he was not in office when their son was killed.

The school board denied CNN & TIME's request fro an interview, citing concerns about a possible lawsuit from the Belluardos.

Last April, 15-year-old Jonathan Miller was tried as an adult for felony murder. The trial began just days after the shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado. The defense attorney said such a charged atmosphere made it impossible for their client to get a fair trial. The judge ordered the trial to proceed.

Neither side disputed that Jonathan Miller's punch had fatally wounded Josh as they got off the bus.

RACHELLE CARNESALE, CHEROKEE COUNTY PROSECUTOR: What he did was hit him two more times. He hit him in the face and then he kicked him. And he kicked him hard.

HARRIS: Cherokee County Prosecutor Rachelle Carnesale argued it was felony murder.

CARNASELLE: The evidence at trial was that after Joshua was laying on the ground and in the process of dying, Jonathan threw his arms up in celebration. And that tells me a lot about what Jonathan Miller thought about the damage he did to Joshua Belluardo.

HARRIS: The defense argued it was an accident -- two boys, a freak punch, that Jonathan didn't mean to kill Josh.

UNIDENTIFIED ATTORNEY: The hands were not a deadly weapon, and you don't have to make that decision.

HARRIS: Prosecutors argued it did not matter whether Jonathan intended to kill Josh. It was his punch that led to Josh's death, and under Georgia law that's all they had to show to make their case, that a felony like aggravated assault resulted in a death.

UNIDENTIFIED JURY FOREMAN: We, the jury, find the defendant on count one, felony murder, guilty.

HARRIS: The jury found Jonathan Miller guilty of felony murder, despite his lawyer's pleas.

MICHAEL B. SYROP, MILLER'S ATTORNEY: The question is does the punishment fit the crime here.

HARRIS: Under Georgia law, the judge had no choice. He had to sentence the 15-year-old to life in prison.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GREENFIELD: Coming up, was it murder or just a mistake? The Millers' side of the story when we return.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) ANNOUNCER: Next on CNN & TIME:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS (on camera): People have been asking, why did you hit him from behind?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: When CNN & TIME continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SHAW: John and Vicki Belluardo say their son Josh was murdered and a court agreed. But what do Jonathan Miller and his parents have to say?

Here again is Art Harris.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HARRIS (voice-over): Jonathan Miller is behind bars, a 15-year- old serving a life sentence for murder, a 15-year-old who misses his dog, his cats and his big brother.

J. MILLER: I miss him a lot because he's not allowed to come see me here.

HARRIS: Most of all, he misses his parents. They get to see him once a week.

J. MILLER: I love them, and I'm sorry I've had to put them through this because they're going through it just as much as I am.

C. MICHAEL ROACH, SUPERIOR COURT JUDGE: Mandatory sentence of life in prison.

HARRIS: John and Vicki Belluardo say justice was done. But they're still angry -- not just at Jonathan, who killed their son, they want Jonathan's parents punished, too.

V. BELLUARDO: If we could put them in jail, we would. We would.

HARRIS (on camera): The parents?

J. BELLUARDO: The parents.

V. BELLUARDO: We'd like all three of them in jail.

HARRIS (voice-over): For three years, the Belluardos lived across the street from Jonathan Miller and his family. When the Millers first moved in, Jonathan and the Belluardo's son played together.

J. BELLUARDO: Vicki would make them cookies, and they'd get these water grenades, and they were little green balloons they'd fill up and go around and they'd throw them at each other and have a water balloon fight.

HARRIS: Now that Josh is dead, the Belluardos also blame Jonathan's parents for raising a bully, who, they say, became a killer.

(on camera): If you had a chance to ask the Millers some questions, what would you ask them?

J. BELLUARDO: What were you thinking all these years when you were raising him? What were -- not giving the boy any consequences for his actions, what did you think you were going to end up with?

ALLEN MILLER, JONATHAN'S FATHER: I thought we did pretty good. I thought we tried very hard.

HARRIS (voice-over): Allen and Robin Miller insist they were good, loving parents who raised their children the right way.

A. MILLER: It was rare that they would get off the bus and not have anybody home, very rare, throughout their entire lives.

HARRIS: The Millers, like the Belluardos, are speaking publicly for the first time. They say the tragedy destroyed two families.

(on camera): Why are you here today?

R. MILLER: I just want to tell the Belluardos...

A. MILLER: I think that's probably it.

R. MILLER: ... I'm sorry.

My God, they lost their child.

HARRIS (voice-over): The Millers say there's a side to their son no one ever saw in court: a Boy Scout, not a bully.

(on camera): You heard people testify at the bond hearing about your son. Was that the Jonathan you knew?

A. MILLER: No, no.

HARRIS: How did it make you feel to hear what some of the people had to say?

A. MILLER: It made you feel like you were very alone in the world and that a piece of that world had amassed to bring themselves collectively against you and your son.

HARRIS (voice-over): The Millers moved to Atlanta from New York in 1995 to be closer to relatives in Tennessee. They say their family was close and caring.

Robin was a stay-at-home mom. Allen was an IBM computer expert who worked from an office at home. He says he spent a lot of time with Jonathan and his older brother. A. MILLER: They went Boy Scout camping, I was there -- for years and years and years. We did family camping. We did family vacations. We had talks routinely with them. We ate dinner together on a regular basis. I mean, middle America. This is the way you're supposed to raise your kids.

I'm not aware of any absolute manual or something that I'm supposed to compare yourself against. We tried very hard.

R. MILLER: We just -- our whole life was the boys. I don't know what we could have done differently. I -- it was just a terrible accident. Can anybody predict a terrible accident in their life?

HARRIS: Now, with an appeal for a new trial pending, the Millers and their attorneys are reluctant to discuss Jonathan's behavior problems at school.

(on camera): So the 34 incidents of discipline that they talked about...

A. MILLER: Were years before.

This is a whole piece of the thing that the media took and ran with and used. In the bond hearing, it came out -- the principal himself had to state that none of this stuff was violent.

HARRIS: The time that he spit in the girl's face and then tripped her.

A. MILLER: That -- that -- the girl said that. I -- I don't how you answer that. I mean, she said it. He said that would have been stupid on his part. Why would he have done that?

HARRIS: The time he called the teacher -- I think you remember this. You don't want to talk...

A. MILLER: None of these things do we want to talk about it...

HARRIS: We don't want to talk about it at all.

A. MILLER: What you can say, though, is that every time there was something that came about from the schools or from whatever, there was a punishment associated with Jonathan.

HARRIS: You punished him?

A. MILLER: Every time.

HARRIS (voice-over): The Millers say they regarded their son as more of a class clown than a problem child and that few of the incidents at school were that serious.

(on camera): The principal and some of the teachers have said that when they told you that there might be some problems with Jonathan, that you couldn't believe that Jonathan had done that. You just didn't want to believe it, and it had to be somebody else's fault.

A. MILLER: Let me step in just a little bit here. We're not naive enough to think that Jonathan couldn't have done some of the things they said that he had done. If the school said such and such had happened, and it didn't seem to make sense -- and I don't want to get into details of a particular incident -- I would challenge the incident.

We were as cooperative as we can be. If we disagree with their opinion, does that make us uncooperative?

HARRIS (voice-over): Allen and Robin Miller say their son should be held responsible for Josh Belluardo's death, but they insist it was not murder, that he should not have been tried as an adult, and that in the aftermath of the Colorado shootings, Jonathan was judged too harshly.

A. MILLER: There's never been a question in our minds or Jonathan's mind that he is responsible for the ultimate outcome of this, and that is that Josh has died.

We've never -- never argued that point. We've only argued that it's not murder.

HARRIS (on camera): The Millers say that this sentence was much too harsh, that this was not justice.

J. BELLUARDO: I have a son at the cemetery. They now can at least put on a calendar on the day they have their son back. I don't have a calendar. Josh is in heaven. Until I go there, I don't get to see him.

So what do they want justice? If Josh was the victim, why does he have to pay a higher price?

HARRIS (voice-over): At the Paulding County Juvenile Detention Center outside Atlanta, Jonathan Miller says he spends every day thinking about the price he's paying. Tried as an adult at 15, he's serving life in prison for murder. He'll be eligible for parole in 14 years.

Jonathan Miller never testified at his own trial. Now, he's speaking publicly for the first time.

J. MILLER: What I wish would happen? I wish that the sentence would be lowered. I wish that the charge would change.

HARRIS (on camera): Because?

J. MILLER: I'm not a murderer -- I shouldn't -- I don't see myself as a murderer.

HARRIS: How do you see yourself?

J. MILLER: I'm a good kid, but I just made a few mistakes in my life. HARRIS (voice-over): Jonathan admits it's his own fault that life has taken such a terrible turn.

(on camera): Did your parents make mistakes raising you?

J. MILLER: What I did was me. It didn't have nothing to do with my parents. I got in with the wrong crowd, and I guess, became not like what my parents wanted me to be.

HARRIS (voice-over): Jonathan told police that he and Josh were constantly at odds.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, NOVEMBER 11, 1998)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When was the last time you argued with him?

J. MILLER: Like everyday.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS: That's not what he told us.

J. MILLER: We had an understanding.

HARRIS (on camera): An understanding to...

J. MILLER: Yes, we were fine with each other.

HARRIS: Just keep your distance?

J. MILLER: Yes, yes.

HARRIS (voice-over): Witnesses said on the bus that November afternoon Jonathan called Josh names.

(on camera): Your friend's on the bus with you. He says that you called Josh a bitch and that you threatened to -- quote -- "beat his ass."

J. MILLER: I can't -- I can't talk about that.

HARRIS: So this bus ride had to be -- I mean, what's it like on the bus? What's going on? Can you tell us about that?

J. MILLER: Sorry. I can't talk about anything on the bus.

HARRIS: Everybody's yelling at each other and...

J. MILLER: I can't talk about nothing on the bus, nothing -- other than we had an argument and he challenged me to fight. That's it.

V. BELLUARDO: We think he planned it before he got off the bus exactly what he was going to do.

HARRIS: Premeditated? V. BELLUARDO: There's no doubt in our mind.

HARRIS: Is Jonathan Miller a bully?

V. BELLUARDO: Yes, he was a bully. But he was a coward in our son's case. He couldn't face our son and fight fair.

HARRIS: People have been asking, why did you hit him from behind?

J. MILLER: I just -- I just don't know. Just a split-second thing. Just out of my mind, I guess. I wasn't thinking about it really. I wasn't thinking about the consequences.

HARRIS: The bus driver says that you raised your hands, you were kind of exited and...

J. MILLER: I don't remember that. I didn't know I knocked him out. I just -- I mean, I just left. I didn't look back or nothing. I didn't know if he was hurt or anything like that.

HARRIS (voice-over): Jonathan says that even after he was arrested, he didn't realize how seriously Josh was injured.

(on camera): What were you thinking about his getting better or worse?

J. MILLER: They told me that he may die and I just stayed in my room and prayed that he live.

HARRIS: You prayed for him?

J. MILLER: Yes.

HARRIS (voice-over): Jonathan Miller says he never expected someone could die from one punch. He wishes he could tell that to the parents of Josh Belluardo.

(on camera): Is there something you would like to say to them if you could?

J. MILLER: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and still I just want to apologize.

(SOBBING)

HARRIS: Can you apologize for something like that? What would you say if you were...

(SOBBING)

J. MILLER: I don't know. I don't even know what I'd say, because I don't know how you can apologize for something that serious, but...

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SHAW: Jonathan Miller remains in the Paulding County Juvenile Detention Center. His appeal is pending before the Georgia courts.

GREENFIELD: And as for the Belluardos, in November they settled a wrongful death lawsuit against the Millers for an undisclosed amount. They're also still considering whether to pursue civil action against the Cherokee County Board of education.

That's this edition of CNN & TIME from Manchester, New Hampshire. I'm Jeff Greenfield.

SHAW: And I'm Bernard Shaw. Please stay with CNN for extensive coverage of the New Hampshire primary.

Thanks for joining us.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com

  ArrowCLICK HERE FOR TODAY'S TOPICS AND GUESTS
ArrowCLICK HERE FOR CNN PROGRAM SCHEDULES
SEARCH CNN.com
Enter keyword(s)   go    help

Back to the top   © 2001 Cable News Network. All Rights Reserved.
Terms under which this service is provided to you.
Read our privacy guidelines.