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CNN Live Today

Interview With William Portanova

Aired April 19, 2002 - 14:36   ET

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

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: When prosecutors lay out their case against Blake, how strong will it be? Here to examine that, criminal defense attorney and former California prosecutor, William Portanova. He joins us from Sacramento. Thanks for joining us.

WILLIAM PORTANOVA, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Thanks for having me.

WHITFIELD: Prosecutors say they have a gun among the physical evidence and they've got a whole lot of circumstantial evidence. What will be the challenges up ahead if the majority of their case is based on circumstantial evidence?

PORTANOVA: You know, sometimes circumstantial evidence is actually better than direct evidence. A fingerprint is circumstantial evidence. If the gun in this case has Blake's fingerprint on it, obviously that's going to be a compelling piece of evidence that it was his gun.

If the gun turns out to have been owned by Blake, and/or if any ammunition from the gun matches anything in his house, that's going to be very compelling circumstantial evidence. But at the same time, the defense attorney will be able to argue that both ways. Many people will have access to those guns. Many people will have access to things inside the Blake household, from what I understand.

WHITFIELD: And not only that, apparently prosecutors are looking at whether it will be feasible for them to pursue the death penalty in this case. If it turns out that the majority of the evidence is that which you described, how successfully would they be able to argue a death penalty case, or would there be any real pertinence on pursuing the death penalty when having mostly that kind of evidence?

PORTANOVA: California law allows the death penalty when you have a murder conviction and the murder is based on facts which show that he was lying in wait, planning this thing, and then killing her in cold blood.

There must be some evidence that he solicited somebody to commit this murder for him. Whether that evidence is credible or not, we don't know. But apparently there have been charges made that there was a solicitation to commit this murder.

If that's the case, this is going to be especially difficult for the defense attorney. Because you're going to have live testimony that this man, Blake, asked me to kill his wife. Then the wife is shot under bizarre circumstances. Blake's behavior is very unusual that night. It's not entirely consistent with innocent behavior. But it doesn't exactly point completely to his guilt either.

One thing that's very strange is that the gun was dumped within a block and half of the murder, which is pretty good evidence that whoever committed the murder probably ran to this spot and dumped the gun. If someone had left in a car, you would expect the gun to be miles away.

But the question has arisen as to how this will be tried in Los Angeles. How the prosecutors are going to deal with this. Is it going to be like O.J. Simpson's trial? And the answer to that is no.

O.J. Simpson trial really was a once-in-a-lifetime case. It was really -- from a televised court trial perspective, it was really the Woodstock of televised courtroom drama.

WHITFIELD: OK. William Portanova, I'm sorry, I have to interrupt you.

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