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Zimmerman Says He Needs Money; Judge Rejects Holmes' Insanity Challenge; Stillbirth Case Causes Controversy; Teacher Sues Catholic Church; Severe Storms Threaten Midwest.

Aired May 30, 2013 - 11:30   ET

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

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: But these two are alleged to have stolen those boys back, jumped on a boat and headed to Cuba. They are pleading not guilty and will not be present at today's status hearing.

And update on George Zimmerman's case. His defense attorneys say they need at least $70,000 in addition -- in fact, they're not saying it. This is his website. The website saying that the attorneys actually aren't taking any money at this point but just to actually prosecute or at least to defend his case, do the tests, hire the experts, et cetera, they need $70,000 additional or they won't be able to pay for it. Zimmerman is going on trial on June 10th for the second-degree murder in the killing of Trayvon Martin. Yesterday, his defense -- well, his family wrote on the website that it had less than $5,000 in the trust account. Since then, they had received 14,000.

By the way, there is a hearing set tomorrow morning to determine whether the jurors may be photographed or videotaped once they are selected. George Zimmerman is not expected to be present for that particular hearing.

Casey Anthony, another big famous case. She has a hearing herself this afternoon in Tampa. It's about her bankruptcy hearing. She filed in January saying she was more than $790,000 in debt. Two of the people listed as creditors are Zaneida Gonzalez and the meter reader in the murder case, Roy Kronk. Both of those people are suing Casey Anthony for defamation. They were stopped in their tracks after Casey went ahead and filed for bankruptcy. Today, "The Orlando Sentinel" says the judge will hear arguments on how those two lawsuits should proceed. That's supposed to get started at about 3:00 eastern time.

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Almost a year after a gunman fired off a volley of bullets inside a crowded movie theatre in Colorado, the accused killer, who claims he was insane, now has a problem with the rules that govern how you are allowed to claim you are insane in that case. He does not like that he has to submit to court-appointed psychiatrists and answer their questions. He says that law interferes with his Fifth Amendment right against self incrimination. He wants to plead insanity but he doesn't want the government lawyers to question his mental health. Under Colorado law, the only way for those very same lawyers to get a conviction is to prove he is not insane. I know this is insane. Joining us to sort it out is Christine Grillo, who is deputy bureau chief of the domestic violence bureau in King's County, better known as Brooklyn in New York. Lisa Bloom is here as well, legal analyst for Avvo.com.

Let me start with you, Christine.

You are a prosecutor. The burden is on you to prove that man is, in fact, sane and not insane. Are you being told, I'm sorry, are you not allowed to question his sanity? Is that how this works?

CHRISTINE GRILLO, PROSECUTOR, BROOKLYN DISTRICT ATTORNEY'S OFFICE: As you put it, is insane. This is his defense. He is now saying that he did not know right from wrong. That is the insanity defense. He is so basically out of his mind, he did not know his actions, so depraved as they were, were right, didn't know whether they were right or wrong. I should add that Colorado adds something else to it, making it more difficult for the prosecution. Because the defense can also claim he could not control his impulses. He could now say I do know right from wrong. I know the act I was about to do was depraved, however, I could not control my impulse because of my mental illness.

BANFIELD: Isn't it just a factor within it of irresistible impulse but not an entire defense?

GRILLO: Yes. They add to the insanity defense, Colorado does, that the defendant can say -- let's say, A, he doesn't have to prove everything. Then he says, maybe, I wasn't that crazy, or maybe I was crazy, or maybe I didn't know about my actions, but I have this irresistible impulse also. It's making a prosecution's job more difficult because they have to prove -- they have to prove his sanity beyond a reasonable doubt with all three of these qualifications.

BANFIELD: They may be making it difficult, but, Lisa Bloom, I have seen you cover enough cases to know that it is very, very difficult for the defense to prevail. It is a percentage that is minuscule of people that actually mount an insanity case that actually win.

LISA BLOOM, LEGAL ANALYST, AVVO.COM: That's right, Ashleigh. A lot of people raise the insanity defense, especially in high-profile case, it seems, but it never almost works. Because juries don't want to come back and say, yes, you killed 12 people in this case, but we will let you go, we will let you walk free, we will let you go to an institution that deals with the mentally ill and you can maybe get out later. Juries don't want to do that. A lot of this is just legal technicalities.

By the way, we all have a Fifth Amendment right against self- incrimination. Ordinarily, we cannot be forced questions that law enforcement poses to us. I don't think his position is crazy. But I do think it is unlikely it would prevail in court.

BANFIELD: What I couldn't understand is, if a doctor shows up at your doorstep, you didn't prevail in court, you didn't get the right to say I don't think I should submit to persecutor's medical experts, Christine Grillo, what's to say he could keep his mouth shut? Nobody can compel you to open your mouth and make sound.

GRILLO: Yes, but this becomes the battle of the experts. Prosecution has the right because they have the burden to put on proof. The only way to get to the proof is to examine the defendant. If you tell them they can't examine the defendant, it's like telling them they're in a boxing match but you can't raise your hands. That's not very fair and just. If this is the pursuit of justice and we actually have a fair trial, it has to be fair to the prosecution as well.

BANFIELD: I always find the insanity defense fascinating, but in this case, particularly so.

Stay where you are, ladies, if you would. We have another case coming up.

This one will surprise a lot of people. You see people having wine in a restaurant. Some people get very offended at that. How about a case where how you behave as a pregnant woman can land you in prison? Believe it or not. I will talk about that in a moment.

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BANFIELD: If you smoke or drink or get a little too fast while you are pregnant, should you be held responsible if your baby is born with something wrong? How about this? Should you go to jail because of it? There really is a case brewing in Mississippi right now that could very well set the stage for pregnant mothers to be held criminally responsible for how they carry their babies. It involves a woman named Nina Buckhalter, 33-years-old. Prosecutors say she used illegal drugs while she was pregnant and caused the stillbirth of her baby. Now they are trying to figure out how she could be charged with manslaughter for this. Does that mean there could be others that suffer a miscarriage or a stillbirth?

Joining me now, Lisa Bloom, analyst for Avvo.com, and back with me also, Prosecutor Christine Grillo from the Brooklyn D.A.

Lisa, let me start with you.

Yikes. Wow! First of all, the facts in her case. The autopsy apparently revealed there were methamphetamines found in the fetuses system. The M.E. ruled the death as a homicide, which is unusual in itself. Don't you need a cause and a manner of death, and just finding the presence of methamphetamines in a fetus, that happens all the time? How do you know that led to the stillbirth?

BLOOM: You put your finger on an important aspect of this case, that causation. And the American Medical Association has filed briefs saying exactly that, you can't prove cause and effect. So clearly, we all know drug use is a very bad idea for a pregnant woman. It isn't necessarily the reason for this death.

Taking a step back, Ashleigh, I would like to see the money spent on these prosecutions to go towards prenatal care, towards educating and counseling young pregnant women. I think this is a dangerous expansion of fetal rights. This is a fetus, not a baby legally. Call it what it is, it's a fetus. And we have reproductive rights in this country. This is a dangerous expansion of fetal rights to the detriment of mostly poor, pregnant woman.

BANFIELD: Christine, no one is arguing here that it is wrong with a capital "W" to do this kind of thing when you are pregnant. But the precedent. I'm concerned about the legal precedent that's set here. Can't you then extend the behavior of this mother, whether it's drugs or drink or having a glass of wine, going into early labor, running marathons, that kind of behavior, isn't that all the kind of thing, an exposure or an recklessness?

GRILLO: That's a very good point. There's exercise. What about those mothers who are pregnant who run marathons. What if that causes you to go into early labor and that wasn't healthy for your baby. This is a very dangerous slippery slope they have gone down. They are exposing issues they haven't chipped away at the danger they are exposing women to by prosecuting this woman.

Do I agree with it? Absolutely not. Is it appalling? Absolutely. It comes down to the question of intent, that you must be able, as a prosecutor, to approve the intent of a crime, especially when you are charging them with an intentional crime. Here, there is nothing to prove this woman intended to kill her unborn child by doing such stupid things when she was pregnant.

BANFIELD: I know, in this law, they go after other people who do things to pregnant women with that intent. It's never applied to a woman herself.

Great questions. We will have interesting answers.

Lisa Bloom, thank you so much, with AVVO.com, and Christine Grillo.

Stay with me because when we come back, a teacher who became a mother and got fired by it. Fired by her Catholic Church school. And all of it because she got pregnant and wasn't married. Get this. There was no premarital sex involved. Yeah, those answers coming up next.

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BANFIELD: An Illinois high school teacher is in hot water today for reminding his students that they have constitutional rights. You heard right. John Dryden told his students that they could plead the Fifth instead of taking a potentially incriminating survey, which included questions about drug and alcohol use. So last night, the community came together. It turns out they're showing support for that social studies teacher. The school officials say the questions were intended to identify teens who may need counseling or other help, and for no other reason. They say that Dryden mischaracterized the intention of the teachers and the administrators. Dryden was given a written warning and undisclosed corrective action. A fascinating question in that school district.

Let's go to another school district, shall we? It's in Ohio. It's a Catholic school teacher. She was fired because she got pregnant through artificial insemination. Now that teacher is fighting back. Her name is Krista Diaz. She is suing the school and the Roman Catholic Diocese, or archdiocese, rather, in Cincinnati. Diaz is gay. She told jurors in her case this week that she did not know artificial insemination violated church doctrine. A lot of issues are at play here.

I want to turn to Christine Grillo, who is with the Brooklyn D.A.

For starters, she did not have premarital sex. That's one of the tenets that this plaintiff or rather this defendant had to sign away when she signed a contract to work with the school. She didn't do that. She got artificially inseminated, which apparently is in the contract. Is this cut and dry?

GRILLO: It's contractual. This is a contractual law issue. When you think about it, there are so many other issues at play. There is your sexuality, premarital sex, artificial insemination. People full of opinions about all of this. When you simply cut to the point, she went to work for a Catholic school. The Catholic school has rules. In order to work at that school, they have you sign a contract to follow our rules. You can't say ignorance. It's no defense. It's just no defense, not even --

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BANFIELD: It's funny that the school had to answer the question. Let's say there was a male teacher, with his wife, they were unable to conceive, so they went through artificial insemination and had their baby. He would also be breaking the doctrine and should be fired?

GRILLO: According to their doctrine, at this point, if he had signed it at the time, then, yes, contractually, and the law would state they broke the contract. They say they've never been presented with that issue, so they've never had to decide it for that --

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BANFIELD: The men don't usually show up with big tummies.

GRILLO: Yes. That is the point for you.

(LAUGHTER)

That is a point well taken. They may not know. Once again, it isn't going to be something against women because we are the ones that carry the babies.

BANFIELD: It's church doctrine. We have federal law that protects us from being fired for getting pregnant, even if we intend --

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GRILLO: Search and seizure.

BANFIELD: I knew you were going there.

GRILLO: I am because this is a Catholic school. You are deciding to work for a Catholic school. It's just like deciding to attend a Catholic school. If you're there, you must abide by the rules and regulations or they are free at will to kick you out.

BANFIELD: At what point, though, do their rules and regulations stomp all over your rights as an American? For instance, I can go there and sign up as a teacher, and they can't tell me I can't drink from a water fountain because I'm white.

GRILLO: Right. However, they cannot say within the Bible and practices of this religion that you can't drink out of a water fountain because you are white. These are long, known standards and beliefs of the Catholic faith. If you want to go and work for a school that is teaching the Catholic faith --

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BANFIELD: If they decide to go to Sharia Law and they decide to stone me, they can't do that either.

GRILLO: Don't sign up to be a teacher --

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BANFIELD: Even if you sign up and sign that contract, federal law protects you. You would think it would protect against these kinds of tenets.

GRILLO: But protecting you from stoning you to death and protecting you from your ways to conceive or -- actually, no one even mentioned the sexuality. That I'm surprised, that they didn't even go back to her about the sexuality, if that's within the contract, I don't know. But just what you're saying, let's say that Islamic school does not allow you to show your face, that you need to wear the appropriate garb required for Islamic religion. And you decide that, no, I'm not going to do this anymore, you can lose your job. You must abide by the contract that you've signed up to work for.

BANFIELD: I could argue about this all day because if they force me to go get my driver's license and wear that veil, I'd say no. No, because the law won't let me.

But you have to come back and we'll have to talk about this once they figure out where they go with this case.

Christine Grillo from the Brooklyn D.A. She is tough.

(CROSSTALK)

BANFIELD: Thank you.

OK. So, listen, there is a part of America that has had it. Rain and hail and wind, and it just will not let up. These people, they need a break. Our Chad Myers has decided to go there and experience a little bit of storm chasing to figure out how bad it's getting for people in Oklahoma. He's going to be live with us next.

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BANFIELD: Video you just have to see. Strong storms whipping through Arlington, Texas. Watch this. As the workers on the field struggle to cover up the field, rain, wind, lightning tearing through there. Look at them scrambling just to keep that thing down. It's like a massive sail.

This was last night's game between the Texas Rangers and Arizona Diamondbacks. Oh, man. Clearly postponed. Apparently, the Rangers ground crew was sent out to do this before they realized how strong this was going to be. No idea whether they were ever able to actually get anything down on that field and how long it's going to take to play that game, but probably better they weren't out there for the rest of it.

So there's another round of very severe weather that's expected today all the way from Minnesota and Wisconsin right down to north Texas where those Rangers played. Take a peek at this. Yeah, unmistakable sound of hail.

The meteorologist that we love when it comes to this situation is Chad Myers. He and our CNN crew out in Oklahoma where the worst weather's expected.

It doesn't look bad behind you right now, but is it always sort of the calm before the storm there?

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: You know what, Ashleigh, it looks very bad to a weather man behind me, because you don't want the sun out. You don't want that blue sky. You don't want it to be six degrees warmer where I'm standing today than it was right here yesterday. And you certainly don't want blue skies for the rest of this afternoon, because that makes a lot worse weather than we had yesterday. I know we had our share of tornadoes, most of them up in Nebraska. But today, because we're not going to see the cloud cover we saw yesterday, the severe weather will be right back here in Oklahoma City, back here into Guthrie, maybe on up toward El Reno, into Piedmont. It's that right there. It's that sunshine that's really going to make a severe weather day for us here in Oklahoma.

We'll be out with storm chasers today. We'll be out with professionals. Now, I don't have that vehicle that can go in the middle of it, and I'm glad of that because it keeps me away from the storm. But we got hit with hail yesterday. I'm surprised, Ashleigh, that there are any windows left in our car. We were in a 20-minute hailstorm. And the hail would not stop. And it was hard. Sometimes hail's not very hard. It kind of hits and smashes. This stuff was just whack, whack. You could hear it on the video. I couldn't talk to my photographer who was sitting right next to me in the driver's seat. It was that loud in our car yesterday. And I expect it to be worse than that today.

BANFIELD: You are a braver man than I. When I saw you out there and heard you talking to Wolf Blitzer, I thought, Chad Myers, come on, you know better than that. Stay away from those storms.

Keep us posted on today.

MYERS: We'll stay away.

BANFIELD: Stay where you are. Exactly.

Thank you.

And where Chad is, Oklahoma City, wow, they have really been tested. And they continue to be tested by the weather. But one bit of relief, a big concert, a huge concert last night that goes to people like this who are trying to dig out. Some of the biggest music stars coming out to bring relief, raise money, and help their fellow man in that state.

More on that in a moment.

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BANFIELD: The stars came out last night in Oklahoma City to raise money for the survivors of last week's deadly tornado in nearby Moore. The Healing in the Heartland Telethon was hosted by country singer, Blake Shelton. He was born in Oklahoma. And he took to the stage with Grammy-winning R&B star, Usher.

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BANFIELD: Good stuff. The event's organizers said it went off without a hitch, but have not yet said how much money they were able to raise with the concert.

Thanks so much for watching, everyone. Please stay tuned for AROUND THE WORLD, coming up next.