Ellen Alderman, coauthor of the book "In Our Defense," you write about the Ninth Amendment, that it's become something of a joke. Why?

Caroline Kennedy, co-author of the same book, the Third Amendment, what does it mean? "No soldier shall in time of peace be quartered in any house"...

There have been amendments further on beyond the Bill of Rights that have been repealed. How come no one's ever repealed the Third Amendment?

This book is already a best seller on some lists. You've been making the tour. What have you been hearing out there about peoples' interest in this...

Where did you get this idea?

Talk about stories. Can we go to the Fourth Amendment? And you have a story about McSurely v. McClellan. Who are those two?

You paint a picture in this chapter that's fairly vivid. You start off by saying, "On a hot summer night, Aug. 11, 1967, in Pike County . . ." How did...

Did you go to Pike County, Kentucky?

Okay, the Fourth Amendment, "The right of the people to be secure in their persons houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures...

Back to the McSurely's. One of the things that just jumps out at me was Drew Pearson's name in this chapter, formerly of Jack Anderson and column fame....

But Drew Pearson and Margaret McSurely were lovers?

Go back to that night in August of 1967. They were in their home in Pike County, Kentucky, and how many people came in that night to take their papers...

Why?

Did they arrest both of them that night?

Then what happened?

Seventeen years. Where were the two of them during those 17 years? You say they're not together in the book.

How much time did you spend with the McSurelys?

Go back to the Fourth Amendment to the Bill of Rights of the Constitution.

Did it work? I mean, did it protect the McSurelys in this case?

Meanwhile, though, you write that all the material that was taken was photocopied, sent here to Washington to the McClellan committee, and they all...

Illegally?

Wait a minute. What's the speech-and-debate clause?

Then you write about that when you see Alan sitting there, going through each one of these documents and finding out about all these affairs that his...

Senator John McClellan, a Democrat of Arkansas, chaired the hearings. Is that right about Arkansas?

Were there ever hearings around this issue?

How do you like the Fourth Amendment? Is it a good one? Is it well done? Is it well written and what's the court history of this amendment?

What is that?

What's your favorite amendment?

You start this book out in your authors' note by saying, "In 1987, a newspaper poll showed that 59 percent of Americans could not identify the Bill...

In the front of the book, let me hold it up here so our cameraman can get all these names. I don't know if he can get close enough or not.

This is the dedication. Who are all these people?

Where did you both grow up? Ellen?

What's the name of the town in Indiana?

Where did you go to school?

And then Columbia Law School?

And you grew up?

Went to school?

Can you both remember when you first got interested in the law? What's the first moment that you can think back there where you said this is something...

What kind of documentary films did you work on?

When did you go to law school?

Are you practicing now?

Can you remember when you first got interested in the law?

Did you two know each other doing documentary films?

Was this your idea to do a book put out by Morrow or was it Morrow's idea? In other words, did you take this to them or did they take it to you?

How did you divide up the writing?

Did you write it on a computer and pass back the disks or longhand?

I wish we were that advanced. We do. We used a legal pad and pencil.

No, we're trying to think of an idea that we would want to do as much as this. We've got a couple, but nothing really we're sure about.

Well, it's usually brought up under the context of the death penalty. Cruel and unusual punishment can include excessive fines and bails and prison...

They're two brothers who grew up in Arizona, and their father was in jail most of their childhood. Finally they decided, along with their mother, it...

The trial transcript and the coroner's report.

Oh, yes. In fact, we left some things out because we thought that the picture was fairly clear, but, yes, at their murder trial, at their capital case,...

Gary Tison and Randy Greenawalt.

Gary Tison died of dehydration in the desert after their capture, and Randy is in prison. He is appealing, I believe, on an insanity defense.

They are in prison. They are on their first round of appeals now because this case that went to the Supreme Court was actually their original capital...

Yes, it is.

Right.

It's sort of a hobby. We really thought it was important to have pictures of the people in the book, and certainly in the prisons, we were the only...

The 13th, 14th and 15th amendments are the so-called Civil War amendments. They were passed after the Civil War. The 14th Amendment is the way that...

Yes, perhaps.

You put the dates, as you can see here, under each one of the amendments. Amendment 15, right to vote cannot be denied on account of race.

First right to tax came in 1913.

Another one in 1913 -- six year terms for senators. 1919. This is Prohibition.

Women's right to vote.

The 20th amendment, 1933. That's when they changed the term of the president from March 3 to January 20.

Repeal. It's the only time they've ever repealed an amendment, right?

Presidential term limitations?

Gave the vote to the District of Columbia in the presidential election. Poll tax repealed. Presidential succession -- a more deliberate way to go from...

Is that the last one? Now, roughly 19, 20 years since the last amendment to the Constitution. How come it's taken so long to change it again?

There's a seven-year period in which amendments can pass, and the ERA didn't pass the required number of state legislatures within that time period,...

Do you think it's too hard to amend the Constitution or too easy?

You've got the story on the Sixth Amendment. I'm going to hold up this one and see if you can tell us this story.

I want you to explain it. I've read it all. I'm still trying to figure it out.

Smith and Machetti were married by this time. They had two trials for murder. They were both convicted and sentenced to death. Machetti's lawyers raised...

Yes.

Yes. Women have a right to counsel as well as men if they're accused of a crime where they face imprisonment.

Well, that's one of the biggest problems. That is by far one of the biggest problems that Caroline and I both found, and it's particularly in the areas...

No, this was the Harrison Cronic and the check-kiting scheme out of Oklahoma and his business that he set up.

Oh, right that was the one that, in fact, you're on.

The Sixth Amendment basically gives you the right to a fair trial and to present a defense. This is a case involving a man who was accused of molesting...

Well, the Supreme Court has approved the use of closed circuit television. It's another example of sort of the system has to catch up with itself. Now...

The Bill of Rights came four years after the Constitution, which is something that not everyone knows because the Constitution set up our form of government,...

Principally James Madison was the man who drafted it. Originally there were 12 amendments in the Bill of Rights but only 10 passed the states.

One dealing with raises for members of Congress and another dealing with the apportionment of Representatives. So it's interesting.

Well, there was a debate about it. It was hard enough to get the Constitution itself written and to get everybody to agree on that. Some people thought...

Well, I think he realized that this public outcry would not go away and that the Constitution might not even pass. There were some states that were...

Well, in fact, he was on the other side in this debate at the time, but he was one of the people who spoke up for our individual rights at the time...

Thomas Jefferson was a big supporter of the Bill of Rights, although he was not a member of the First Congress.

Well, George Mason actually drafted the Virginia Bill of Rights which James Madison used in drafting the United States Bill of Rights.

I think that was what we thought we could really add to this. There are many scholars out there who discuss the fine points of the law, but we thought...

Well, her name is Jackie Bouknight. She's a young mother in Baltimore who had been in the foster care system herself all her childhood, who had been...

Yes, we went down to the Baltimore City jail and spoke with Jackie, and her lawyer was there and also the nun who's working with her there in the jail.

To this day, Jackie is still in jail and Maurice, her son, is still missing.

No, we didn't really talk about that because at the time her case was still pending, so we didn't ask her directly about that. Also she was sort of...

She's now in her early 20s. She was 18, I think, when this all began.

Well, now because they lost the Fifth Amendment argument in the Supreme Court, her attorneys are not arguing for her release on other grounds including...

Right. I think we found that was perhaps one of the more unpopular amendments. Even though it's perhaps the best known, people do feel that anyone who...

That's Rudy and Tammy Linares. That's a particularly poignant story that we followed outside of Chicago. Their little boy, Sammy, when he was six months...

Yes, we did. They're in the book because Rudy was charged with murder, and in Illinois it's defined as intentional killing and there's no doubt that...

They're still living in Chicago. They have other children.

The Second Amendment contains the phrase "the right of the people to keep and bear arms." That's used to argue for a right to have a gun. Actually it...

That below her is Don Bennett. The people who object to a gun ban say that they need guns for self defense, and they object to it because they say it's...

Almost not at all. That's the amazing thing. Probably the law is clearest under the Second Amendment as far as the courts are concerned. It refers to...

I think to the individual, the man in the street kind of person, it's probably the most important. As Caroline said at the beginning, it's when you...

I think people have a pretty good understanding of the First Amendment. There are certainly some tough questions that come up. We have the case in our...

The top is the Klansman who was going to host the show and underneath is the new mayor of Kansas City, Reverend Emanuel Cleaver, who led the opposition....

We thought that it was perfect for our book because it raised not only the question of offensive speech that Caroline raised but also the intersection...

Well, we did. We wanted to talk to people whose recollection of their case would be fresh, and so we went around and tried to find interesting tough...

Right. There wasn't a lot of choice.

When have you gotten the maddest reading the reviews around the country from other lawyers about this book? Has anybody said anything that made you...

What's been the most rewarding moment that you've had possibly as you've traveled where you've said to each other, "That's what this is all about."

Any particular moment that you'll remember?

Ellen Alderman, Caroline Kennedy. This is what the book looks like. It's called In Our Defense. Thank you both for joining us.

Thank you.