Return to Transcripts main page

Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Lawsuit over Obamacare; Obamacare Subsidies; Police Track Online Presence of Justin Ross Harris; Palmdale Protest Pillowcase Rapist's Release; LeBron Heading Back to Cleveland

Aired July 11, 2014 - 12:00   ET

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

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: The top Republican in the House gearing up to sue the president of the United States, now laying out the stakes. The speaker says he'll go to court over Obama's signature health care law. Claims the president made key changes without consulting Congress. The White House calls it all a political stunt.

Also this hour on CNN, a 26-year-old model now charged in the death of a Google executive. But it was not the first time her companion allegedly overdosed on heroin and died. And now police in Georgia are taking a brand-new look at an old case.

And they burned his jersey in effigy when he abandoned Cleveland for Miami. Now LeBron James is considering going back to Ohio. Is home really where the heart is or just the next stop on LeBron's road to becoming a billionaire?

Hello, everyone, I'm Ashleigh Banfield. Glad you're with us. It's Friday, July 11th. Welcome to LEGAL VIEW.

And this morning, big, big legal stories. We're following two of them. And two of them involve Obamacare. First up, House Speaker John Boehner finally unveiling the crux of his plan to sue the president. Republicans say they're going to drag Obama into court for unilaterally changing a provision of Obamacare. It was the provision that delayed that mandate for businesses to provide coverage. Mr. Boehner says his lawsuit is not politically motivated.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JOHN BOEHNER (R), HOUSE SPEAKER: This is about the legislative branch that's being disadvantaged by the executive branch. And it's not about executive actions. You know, every president does executive orders. Most of them, though, do them within the law. What we're talking about here are places where the president is basically rewriting law to make it fit his own needs.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: The president is not taking too kindly to Boehner's legal threat. In a speech yesterday, he actually just laughed it off.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Sue him. Impeach him. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yeah!

OBAMA: Really? Really? For - for - for what? You're going to sue me to do -- for doing my job? OK. I mean, think about that. You're going to use taxpayer money to sue me for doing my job, while you don't do your job. Sometimes I feel like saying to these guys, I'm the guy doing my job, you must be the other guy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Well, joining me now to talk about all of this, the legal battle over Obamacare and another case as well that's brewing and it could be even bigger, CNN's legal analyst Paul Callan, in Washington, D.C., chief congressional correspondent Dana Bash, and then also joining us today, Simon Lazarus, an attorney with the Federal Rights Project. Mr. Lazarus worked on President Carter's domestic policy staff.

Dana, first to you, just to set the stage here. With regard to this I'm going to sue the president business, you can't just do that, you actually need to pass a resolution in Congress. So mechanically speaking, where are we?

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, unclear if they can do it or not. But the bottom line is that they don't -- when I say they, House Republicans, don't want to do this without the backing of the House. And the reason is because over and over Republican leaders insist this is about the legislative branch versus the executive branch, not John Boehner versus Barack Obama.

So to answer your question, next week there is going to be a hearing with constitutional experts in the House Rules Committee, which is going to shepherd this through, and then ultimately it will be -- there will be legislation passed through that committee. It will go to the full House floor and we expect it to pass on a very, very partisan vote.

BANFIELD: OK.

BASH: And then following that, which will probably be the end of the month, then they will formally file the suit in federal court.

BANFIELD: OK. So, Simon, if you could chime in and explain to viewers, this is all very complicated stuff, even for constitutional scholars. So imagine if I'm just sort of eating my oatmeal and watching CNN and wondering, what exactly is going on? What part of what Mr. Obama did is sitting so uncomfortably with Mr. Boehner and House Republicans?

SIMON LAZARUS, FMR. ASST. DIR., WHITE HOUSE DOMESTIC POLICY STAFF: Well, the lawsuit appears, appears to be targeted at the action the Obama administration took a year ago to delay, by one year, the implementation of the so-called employer mandate to provide insurance for their employees or -- or to pay a tax. And the problem here, the first problem, is that the administration is not refusing to enforce the law, the administration is phasing in the law and delaying the statutory deadline for doing that. That's happened a lot. So that is likely, I think, to pose a serious problem for this lawsuit, both on the merits of the case and whether or not the courts are willing to allow Speaker Boehner to get into court to bring his case at all.

BANFIELD: And the fact is you say it's happened a lot. I'm sure that would probably be, you know, sort of ripe for the defense in this case to actually be able to mine.

But, Paul Callan, jump in here and tell me one thing. Typically when one wants to sue, one has to establish that one has been injured. There has to be some essence of this directly affecting Mr. Boehner and House Republicans. When ultimately wouldn't it be those somewhat dealing with the delay that would have to be injured and bring the suit?

PAUL CALLAN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, absolutely. And this is called the doctrine of standing because the courts don't just want to allow anybody to walk into a courtroom and say, well, I'm kind of interested in this issue, let me start a lawsuit. So there's a rule, you have to be directly affected. So in a case, say, that was involving the employer mandate that, you know, will be affected in 34 states, you'd have to be from one of those 34 states and have a direct interest.

However, Boehner is talking about, you know, amending the law to grandstanding to Congress to bring this lawsuit as part of the process. The courts traditionally don't like these lawsuits. Congress is elected. The president is elected. So why are we going to let unelected judges decide whether a law that has been passed should be enforced or not?

BANFIELD: So this -- this is making big headline, this particular threat of action, the legal suit, the "so sue me" headlines that we've been watching from the president. But something is brewing a little further away, just down the road, that actually could be so much bigger and so much more detrimental to Obamacare, could rip it to shreds effectively. So something that's pending right now is a key ruling that could come down very soon that could essentially desecrate Obamacare.

And it's at the D.C. Court of Appeals. The court, that circuit, the D.C. circuit, is about to decide a big question, whether tax credits and subsidies, you know those things that you were going to get when you went on the exchange, the state exchanges, and bought health care and you maybe didn't have enough money, you were going to get a subsidy so you could use them for your health insurance? That was coming from the federal government.

The lawsuit is saying, here's the problem, you can only use those credits on the state-run exchanges. Because the way Obamacare is written, it doesn't apply to the federal exchanges. And there's a big problem. There are 36 of those federal exchanges. Thirty-six states that use the federal system. Fourteen states created their own. So what about those subsidies? Do they still apply? This is about to be decided.

Paul, I want to bring you in on this first because just the mechanics again. This went already through the district court. And a district court judge said, you know what, the interpretation here is that all's fair in love and war. The meaning of this mandate, the meaning of it all was that it should apply to everyone. But there are lawmakers who say the law is the law. It was written this way. In fact, it was written this way to try to incentivize the states to do the exchanges the way the government wanted them to.

CALLAN: Yes, that's why it's a very, very close question. And, literally, this is a decision, if it goes against the Obama administration, it could blow up Obamacare completely because -- it's so important. There are a huge number of states affected by it, a huge number of employers that are affected by it.

And what it comes down to is this. Article II, Section III of the Constitution says the president has the obligation to take care that the laws of the country be faithfully executed. That's what the founding fathers put in the Constitution. Now, through the years, that has meant the president has discretion to work around the edges of laws. If you can't implement it right away, if there's something that's unclear, the courts have given the president deference. But, say the opponents here, this is so crystal clear that you have to have a state exchange involved before you can give this tax credit that he's really making up the law as he's going along. And that's a big worry for proponents of Obamacare.

BANFIELD: If the circuit court sides with - and I'm going to call it the Halbig (ph) case. Halbig brought the suit but it's, you know, a collection of a fair number of people inside that case, effectively all those people on the federal exchanges wouldn't be getting the subsidy anymore and ultimately would then say, well, then you can't penalize us with that tax anymore and those 34 states filled with a lot of people would now no longer be a part of that big exchange.

Simon, come in here and tell me -

LAZARUS: OK.

BANFIELD: Why we need to pay a lot of attention to the recent decision of the Supreme Court of the United States with regard to these very issues that Paul just outlined to give us guidance as to where the circuit court might actually go here.

LAZARUS: All right, first of all, it should be pointed out that the only courts that have ruled on this challenge to the tax credits and subsidies on federal exchanges in the D.C. District Court, in the 4th Circuit District Court in Richmond, both of them have thrown these cases out and said that the ACA unambiguously means that tax credits are available nationwide, which is, I think, obviously what Congress actually intended. So I think it's unlikely that the decision of those courts ultimately is going to be reversed. Congress clearly intended to provide insurance across the country, and I'm quite confident that that's the way the statute's going to be read.

BANFIELD: Well, it's thick and chewy stuff. And we're certainly not going to get to the bottom of it in this segment right here, but I think we want to watch very carefully what happens at the circuit level and ultimately what the fallout from it is. And we'll all be meeting again to decide that. Thank you so much, Simon Lazarus, Dana Bash, Paul Callan. Thank you to all three of you. And, Paul, I'm going to ask you to stick around if you would be so kind.

New detail in the case of that Georgia father accused of leaving his toddler in a hot SUV to die. As prosecutors build their case, could the net be widening to include his wife? Our panel weighs in next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: The father accused of leaving his 22-month-old son to die in a hot car in Georgia has now been fired from his job in Home Depot. Investigators have testified that Justin Ross Harris was sexting with six different women while he was at work and while little Cooper was trapped in the SUV.

We don't know if his wife, Leanna, knew about his extensive online activities, but the investigators have certainly been questioning her demeanor, her behavior, her actions and an odd statement that she allegedly made when she went to pick up her son at the day care. Upon hearing that Ross had not dropped the child off that day and before asking any questions or immediately calling him, Leanna Harris, according to police, simply blurted out, Ross must have left him in the car. Leanna Harris has now left the state and on Thursday she arrived to visit her mom near Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

She also recently hired herself her own defense attorney. Probably a wise idea for anyone in a circumstance like this. Keep in mind, Leanna has not been charged. She has not been named a suspect. She's not even under investigation. She's just part of an investigation. But the police have repeatedly mentioned her name in warrants and in court.

The prosecutors in Georgia are vigorously building a case against her husband, narrowing in on many of the comments that he's been making online, things we haven't even heard until now.

And for that, we turn to the information from our Victor Blackwell.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: What are believed to be the words of Justin Ross Harris written one year ago today online are now taking on new relevance.

"Killing a person in the sense of abortion is selfish and malicious with the intent of only satisfying your own personal agenda."

They're on the social media site Reddit, where Cobb County detectives say Harris read suspicious topic pages. also known as subReddits.

DETECTIVE PHIL STODDARD, COBB COUNTY, GEORGIA, POLICE: He visited various several sites and these subReddits. It was people who die. He was to a subReddit. It was called "child free. He also did a search, how to survive in prison.

BLACKWELL: Hundreds of comments under the screen name "RoscoeUA," the most recent posted just hours before Harris' arrest. "RoscoeUA" offered a Reddit user advice on how to avoid arrest in the context of DUI.

The post marked three months ago read, "Refuse to answer any questions and ask if you're being detained. If not, leave."

He goes on. "Everything a police officer does during a possible DUI traffic stop means he is trying to build evidence against you. You should do everything in your power to prevent this."

There are posts about gratitude. One year ago, about a new life in Georgia. "I am now in my dream job, have a beautiful 6-month-old son, and love going to work every day. I couldn't be happier."

Also, posts about difficulties, like the surprising challenge suggested during Harris's probable cause hearing and defense attorney Maddox Kilgore will almost always revisit it during any trial.

MADDOX KILGORE, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Would you be surprised to know that Ross is completely deaf in his right hear? Did you know that?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I did not know that.

BLACKWELL: "RoscoeUA" explains, "I had a bottle rocket explode in my ear that was shot by a friend. It caused me to have vertigo, terrible balance, and facial paralysis for a long time. Thankfully, after two surgeries, I have no outward issues. I'm just deaf in my right ear," potential evidence investigators are scouring to better understand this father charged with killing his only child.

Victor Blackwell, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BANFIELD: So much of it so curious, but probably helpful to both sides.

For the LEGAL VIEW, I want to bring back CNN legal analyst Paul Callan, and we're joined by Danny Cevallos, and also to shed light on some of the online footprint information is CNN technology analyst Brett Larson.

And, Brett, I'm going to go to you on this, because clearly, they're mining for everything that they can get. They're using every piece of equipment that Leanna and Justin and then friends of theirs would have used.

But there's a limitation. When you're texting someone, you can't always get the information within the text, can you?

BRETT LARSON, CNN TECHNOLOGY ANALYST: That's correct. You can get it -- these cell phone companies have offered up, you can usually get it within 48 to 72 hours. That's about how long they'll keep it around, but then beyond that, it goes away.

If you're using a text message service that's not from your cell phone, if you're using a Google Voice or some other kind of service that you're messaging, a WhatsApp or something, that, there may be an archive that they can go back and get.

But beyond that, they're really only keeping track of who you're sending the text to and the time and date it went through.

BANFIELD: And tat you can pretty much always get. You can get the time that the text was sent and who the text was sent to but not always the editorial information contained in the actual writings.

Danny Cevallos, as a defense attorney, I'm sure that this is something you've had to come up against a lot. You can look at the words of someone and twist them any which way you want.

Making comments about abortion a year ago and how that pertains to a murder trial, I mean, it's sort of ripe for both sides, isn't it?

DANNY CEVALLOS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yeah, I have to suggest, at this point, the prosecution's going to have to come up with a little more than the fact that maybe he's a cad, maybe he's a philanderer. They're going to need more than just the fact that he's sexting, maybe he's looking at odd Web sites.

And that goes for the mother too. To date everything we know about the mother sp far is maybe some eccentric odd things she says at a funeral and some things she says to her husband.

But that does not -- it's an interesting phenomenon. More and more in these high-profile cases, not regular murder cases but the ones that are high profile, you see a lot of character about usually a male defendant coming into play.

You saw it first in the Scott Peterson trial, and it's really interesting that younger generations with these selfies and posting their thoughts about -- opinions about abortion, things like that, and they must be aware, on some level, it can come back to haunt them. And I guess that's just the price of being social in a modern world.

BANFIELD: No one ever assumes I'm going to be involved in a murder defense one day.

Paul Callan, when you read the "if you're ever arrested" -- granted, this is a DUI -- "refuse to answer questions, and ask if you're detained, and if they say no, leave."

Who among us hasn't had that conversation at some point about whether you're stopped for a speeding ticket or whatever else it is and you've all shared your advice?

PAUL CALLAN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, of course, and that's why I think it's a mistake to place a lot of emphasis on these older text messages, older e-mails. That stuff's never going to be admitted in court. And, if he's giving, you know, armchair legal advice, who cares?

I want to know, was he visiting the child-free site, was he visiting the site about how long it takes a baby to die in a hot car, close in time to when this happened. Then it has relevance to motive, premeditation --

BANFIELD: It's a huge difference. A year ago, he's said he's got a 1- year-old baby and he's looking up how long would it take if I made a horrible mistake to destroy my life accidentally and kill my child as opposed to three weeks before this happened.

CALLAN: Yeah. You really have to have proximity to the time of the crime for it to be relative and probative as lawyers would say in trying the case.

BANFIELD: I still have to say, as a mom, and I don't think there's a person among us, if we were on a jury, we could really get our heads around a mom or a dad deciding I think I'm going to get rid of my child by baking him slowly to death without any anesthetic, without any sedative in this child's system.

And the tox have come back. The toxicology reports have come back. The child is clean. There's nothing in his system. And that's going to be a big, big hurdle, I think, for the prosecution.

But we are just at the beginning of this case. Brett, as always, Brett Larson, Danny Cevallos, Paul Callan, stick around if you would.

A California judge has ordered a serial rapist to go on and move into a neighborhood, a neighborhood where there are plenty of objections from the community and even from the district attorney, even rape victims who are saying, Really? Really? In my backyard?

The jaw-dropping story coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BAMFOE:D: People who live in a community near Los Angeles want their newest neighbor to go away and to go far away. and never, ever come back.

The man who just moved in actually just got out of a mental hospital. That's not so much the problem, it's before that, because before that, he had been in prison serving time, actually serving times in prison, several times in prison, for multiple violent rapes, so bad he became branded as the "Pillowcase Rapist."

CNN's Stephanie Elam reports from the town not rolling out any welcome mat.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You shouldn't have been let loose. You can't live here, and we haven't forgotten.

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Pillowcases now line the fence outside of this unremarkable house on a lonely stretch of dirt road.

CHERYL HOLBROOK, RESIDENT: It's our money. It's your money. It's all of our taxpayer money. I mean, that is just absurd. It's bad enough that this sicko is here. ELAM: The focus of this community's attention is the newest resident, Christopher Evans Hubbard.

DEBRA HILL, RESIDENT: Our goal is to finish what we started and that's to keep him out. They delivered him, but it doesn't mean we have to keep him here.

ELAM: But Christopher Evans Hubbard isn't the only name for this man. The other? The "Pillowcase Rapist," the moniker for his penchant for covering his victims' heads with a pillowcase and raping them.

He admitted sexually assaulting up to 40 women through the 1970s and '80s -- 40 women. Hubbard served six years in jail and was released in 1979. Prosecutors say he then raped another 23 women.

After serving two more prison sentences for rape and burglary, Hubbard was paroled in 1993. Part of that parole included a psychological evaluation, which led to his parole being revoked.

Instead he was sent to a state mental hospital. Psychiatrists testified that due to a mental disorder, Hubbard had a high risk of reoffending.

This man is now in his 60s. Do you think, at all, that he has the same appetite to commit these crimes as he did before?

HOLBROOK: Oh, yes, he's non-curable.

ELAM: Last year, Hubbard petitioned for his unconditional release.

Los Angeles County officials were stunned when a judge in Northern California, the place of Hubbard's last known rape, ruled that the sex offender be placed where he grew up, L.A. County.

MIKE ANTONOVITCH, L.A. COUNTY SUPERVISOR: He's not living in a cage. He's going to be roaming around, and that's the problem. And that's how rapist's attack. That's how he attacked in the past.

ELAM: Under state release rules, Hubbard is wearing an electronic monitor, has a curfew, and for now, around-the-clock security keeping an eye on him in the house. They also take him to his weekly psychologist visits.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't want to say he's euphoric, but he's optimistic and hopes he can reintegrate back into society and live a normal life.

ELAM: Hubbard could not be reached for comment, but the people in this rural community are aiming to make him as uncomfortable as possible so that the serial rapist will leave.

SHARON DUVERNAY (PH), RESIDENT: We're the unwelcoming, welcome committee.

ELAM: Sharon Duvernay (ph), who says she was raped as a child. lives in the next house over. DUVERNAY: Having this man next to me is a terrible trigger for all that ugly stuff that happened to me. I won't be able to come out of my house now. Every noise that I hear, I'm going to be on high alert.

That's not living. I feel like we're basically the prisoners.

ELAM: These women vow to keep vigil outside of the house until Hubbard leaves.

HILL: Hubbard fears strong women. He goes after the weak. He fears us.

ELAM: Stephanie Elam, CNN, Palmdale, California.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BANFIELD: Our breaking news comes courtesy of the sports department right now. If you've been waiting to kind out what LeBron James is going to do, turns out the Ohio guy is going home.

Turns out LeBron James, according to "Sports Illustrated," has decided to go back to Cleveland, going home to the place where they burned him in effigy after he left for Miami.

I guess two of those championships may be wasn't enough. Maybe being with Chris Bosh and Dwayne Wade wasn't fun enough. Whatever it is, forgiveness is the name of the game today, it turns out.

People in Cleveland, probably all over Ohio, probably going bananas right now, and maybe forgiveness really is big for them, because having "King James" coming back to their community, hopefully helping them to bring them a championship.

I want to bring in Martin Savidge who was dispatched to Cleveland for this very purpose, knowing full well this could be a leading story.

So, Martin, take it from there.

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): I knew this all along, Ashleigh, I just had to keep it to myself, but I think as a Clevelander, there was never any doubt; let's face it.