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CNN Live At Daybreak

Interview with Kendall Coffey

Aired June 17, 2002 - 06:35   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.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: With some high-profile court cases in the news this week, we have invited former U.S. Attorney Kendall Coffey to share his insights this morning. He joins us live from Miami -- good morning.

KENDALL COFFEY, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY: Good morning. How are you?

COSTELLO: I am fine. Thanks for waking up with us.

COFFEY: My pleasure.

COSTELLO: Hey, let's start with the John Walker Lindh case, expected to go to court this morning, and John Walker Lindh's attorneys want all of the charges dismissed against him, because they are claiming combat immunity. What is that?

COFFEY: Well, combat immunity, they say, is a doctrine of international law, which means if someone is fighting as a soldier and doesn't commit a specific war crime, they can't be prosecuted. They have got other issues as well, First Amendment freedom of association. But bottom line, those issues aren't going far at all.

The real issues were reflected in some filings Friday when they addressed in great detail. Their argument is to ask the judge to throw out what amounts to the confession of John Walker Lindh. That's going to be heard a number of weeks from now, because that confession is going to be absolutely pivotal in whether he has got a shot at successfully defending these charges.

COSTELLO: Well, let's talk about that confession. The defense claims that their client was not read his Miranda Rights, and that's why the confession should be thrown out. Do they have a leg to stand on in this instance?

COFFEY: It's uphill. It's uphill for a lot of reasons in the sense that he did sign a waiver. He is obviously a very bright guy, and confessions are routinely admitted against people, some of whom are near mental retardation, some of whom are not even literate, and so in a sense, it's going to be tough.

But what the defense is really emphasizing here is the physical conditions of confinement, that he had untreated wounds in his leg, near freezing conditions, hungry, dehydrated. And they are saying in a sense that he was virtually being tortured in order to get him to waive his rights.

COSTELLO: Well, I know...

COFFEY: It's still uphill, but it's going to be one of the more important legal fights in all of the various terrorism issues that are going to court.

COSTELLO: I know the prosecution will argue when John Walker Lindh made that confession, they were just gathering intelligence information, not necessarily information to be used in a court of law.

COFFEY: There is an important distinction just as you described it. There is a right, of course, in order for national security purposes to have military inquiries, interrogations focusing on military information. That's not supposed to be used in a way to develop a criminal case against the detainee in the event there is ultimately a prosecution.

What the defense is arguing is the military investigation and interrogation essentially got merged with the criminal, and in the military phase, there were no Miranda Rights. Another interesting dynamic is the defense's promise to be filing another motion to suppress some of the statements John Walker Lindh made to CNN. And they seem to be suggesting that -- you may recall the initial interview that he gave with CNN...

COSTELLO: I do.

COFFEY: ... very important information in there. So CNN itself could be, in at least a small way, part of the various defense motions that are coming up between now and July.

COSTELLO: OK. We want to talk about another case now -- Andersen. Over the weekend, a jury came to a conclusion, and they said the whole company is guilty of obstruction of justice in shredding those Enron documents. How unusual is this verdict?

COFFEY: Well, this is an extraordinary case. I don't think anyone can recall this kind of company being brought before a jury accused as being a felon. And the trial itself was extraordinary leading to a marathon jury deliberation, which was a real cliffhanger, finally being decided by a couple of late-hour jury instructions, including some unprecedented legal points.

Everything about the case is remarkable, but bottom line, they were found guilty. And whether the deliberation was ten days or ten minutes, the consequences for Arthur Andersen are tantamount to a death sentence.

COSTELLO: Yes, but this was a criminal case. The whole company is found guilty, so no one is going to go to jail. So why go through with this? Because the company was in trouble anyway civilly and just in a business sense.

COFFEY: This is going to remain a controversial charging decision. Obviously having obtained a guilty verdict, the Justice Department feels vindicated. But at the end of the day, 28,000 employees were, in effect, told that they were being part of a criminal organization, a great financial institution has been destroyed all because, according to the jury, the acts of one or two people, and even that was subdivided down to one or two memoranda that the jury thought justified convictions.

So the question of whether this is too much punishment, too much devastation for what a couple of individual actors did is a question that is going to linger, and it's going to be a haunting legacy of this Arthur Andersen prosecution in the minds of many for years to come.

COSTELLO: I think you're right about that. Thank you, Kendall Coffey, for sharing your thoughts with us this morning.

COFFEY: Thanks for inviting me, Carol.

COSTELLO: Sure.

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