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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Prosecutors May Seek Death Penalty in Beheading; ISIS Takes Another Town; Walmart Blames Tracy Morgan for Accident

Aired September 30, 2014 - 12:30   ET

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


SERGEANT JEREMY LEWIS, SPOKESMAN, MOORE POLICE: As far as the specifics, unfortunately, I can't get into the investigation and of the interview. I can tell you kind of how the interview went. But as far as exactly what was stated and what comments he made, that part is still -- we're still trying to complete the investigation and make sure the district attorney has a good case.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Sergeant Lewis, I appreciate you taking the time. I'm just so sorry that we're speaking in a circumstance as grisly as this one. The best of luck to you and your forces as you continue to investigate this case. Thank you, sir.

LEWIS: Thank you.

BANFIELD: So the beheading suspect could face federal charges. Also the D.A. is, as he said, likely going to go to the death penalty.

We're going to dig deeper on the legal workings of this very bizarre case with my legal panel, straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: I want to update you again. We've been getting new details from the Cleveland County district attorney and also from an affidavit that we just got in our hands regarding that horrifying beheading that happened several days ago.

Some of the first details suggesting that the accused in this case, Alton Nolen, got a knife from his home and grabbed the first victim from behind and literally cut her neck and ultimately beheaded her before going on to the second victim -- the first victim, Colleen Hufford; the second victim, Traci Johnson.

He was ultimately shot by one of the colleagues at food processing plant. The Cleveland district attorney gave a news conference a short time ago to suggest without question where he is headed in this case of first-degree murder is for the death penalty, mostly because of the bizarre, horrifying circumstance in this kind of murder.

Have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GREG MASHBURN, CLEVELAND COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: Obviously there was some sort of infatuation with beheading, so the manner in which it was carried out seems to be related to his interest in killing someone in that way.

But other than that, it seems to be an isolated incident with him, with being triggered by his having been suspended earlier in the day.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Here with me is HLN legal analyst is Joey Jackson and back with us is criminal profiler Pat Brown.

Joey, first to you. There are so many things I could ask you about in this case, the possibility of it being terror-related, the possibility of a hate crime. He's yelling "I hate white people" --

JOEY JACKSON, HLN LEGAL ANALYST: All great question.

BANFIELD: What about a potential insanity case?

JACKSON: That's where he would go, but the problem is how viable it would be. That puts the onus on the Oklahoma prosecutors to show you were sane.

But there's a lot that goes against that. Like what? Like the issue of premeditation that speaks to murder, like the radicalization or if he learned these Islamic teachings when he was in jail, and the plotted and just premeditated nature of the attack.

Certainly his attorney is going to be arguing that he lost it at that particular moment, but, as you know, we've spoken about this many times, insanity defense is used but not used to great success.

BANFIELD: No, it's often very unsuccessful. And it's hard for a jury to say not guilty. That's ultimately what it means, not guilty by reason of insanity.

JACKSON: And when you look at an issue like this -- and certainly it meets the standards regarding death penalty, you look at the --

BANFIELD: Cruel and unusual.

JACKSON: It's right here. Especially heinous and cruel and atrocious and depraved. You try to tell the jury, my client didn't know what he was doing, it's a tough sell.

BANFIELD: Pat Brown, ultimately if we're talking about someone who may have been inspired by the is videos that he was espousing on his website, the Osama bin laden pictures, the hate mutterings that he apparently did, if you heard the d.a. talking during his news conference -- all I can ask is, what kind of person is this?

PAT BROWN, CRIMINAL PROFILER: We're going to need definitions here, but he's a psychopath. A psychopath has no empathy or remorse for anyone. We've seen that with him.

Psychopaths hate everybody because everybody is doing better than they are and that makes them angry. Sometimes, because they're angry about their lives, they will do things like serial homicides. Other times, they'll go to workplace violence or mass murder.

One thing I want to point out, what is the definition of terrorism? Terrorism is a political act meant to coerce people into a certain way of thinking or to a way of action, to coerce a government into doing certain things.

Too many people throw terrorism onto an act because someone does something like this. That doesn't mean they're a terrorist, part of any organization with any planned political idea.

What we have here is inspiration. Psychopaths are inspired by different things. One of the reasons I rarely talk about mass murder anymore is because mass murder is inspired by media attention, so I've cut back and haven't spoken on it.

This guy was inspired by beheading videos. They're on the Internet. I've seen them. There are links where you can watch one beheading video after another. And he could think, that's really cool.

So when he got ticked off at his job, he was inspired to do something that he already thought was cool. And he also can justify -- this is something else psychopaths do, justify their homicides, justify their mass murder.

Like a serial killer might say, that woman made me do that because she spit at me. We don't know if that's true because nobody was there, but him.

And this guy might say, it's because white people are bad or it's because I'm Muslim. But he's just making that stuff up because he wants to behead somebody and get back at society and get his thrill.

JACKSON: It's one thing to justify to yourself. It's another thing to have to justify it to members of a jury, and when you see an inhumane action like that --

BROWN: He's going to lose there.

JACKSON: Right. That's --

BANFIELD: This one, there's just so much evidence, obviously, and witnesses. I hate to say it's one of those open-and-shut cases, but Alton Alexander Nolen is going to have his day in court without question.

JACKSON: Oh, he will.

BANFIELD: Thank you so much, Joey Jackson, Pat Brown, both of you. I appreciate your insight on this.

We have this bit of news in to us as well, very busy news day. Michael Phelps, the most decorated Olympian of all time, has been arrested again for DUI. This time, it happened last night in Maryland.

Police say Phelps was going 84 in a 45 zone, crossing the double lane -- crossing the double-lane lines in Baltimore's Fort McHenry Tunnel, if you know that area.

As I mentioned, it's not his first time. He was arrested for DUI back in 2004. At that time, he was just 19 years old, and he struck a deal with prosecutors for 18 months probation. But clearly that 18 months probation is over.

But round two for Olympic star Michael Phelps. Sorry to report that.

Turning now to another top story, the battle against ISIS, the terror group takes over yet another town in Iraq. What is going on? The air strikes have begun. They were supposed to be on the run. They're on the offense.

Just ahead, the state of the war, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: Yet another Iraqi town, complete with a military base, has fallen to the ISIS onslaught.

A top official in Anbar Province, west of Baghdad, says the town and the base first came under attack nearly 48 hours ago. Of the roughly 180 soldiers that were stationed there, the official says most retreated. Some who remained were killed.

Needless to say, ISIS also took the spoils, all of the weapons that were located there.

In northern Iraq, Kurdish forces known as the Peshmerga, they've reported that two new anti-ISIS offenses are under way, one near the oil town of Kirkuk, the other on the Iraqi-Syrian border.

A Kurdish general tells CNN that both campaigns began with coalition air strikes. The Pentagon says there were 19 new strikes overnight, some aimed at breaking the ISIS siege of the - of Kobani. That's on the Syrian-Turkish border. But for now, sadly that siege continues.

In Britain today, the anguished wife of ISIS hostage Alan Henning made an on-camera plea for his release. Henning is that taxi driver who went to Syria to help the victims of war. But he was kidnapped last December and then, as you can see, displayed as potentially the next beheading video.

Want to talk more about this state of war with former U.S. Army Delta Force Commander James Reese and with Bobby Ghosh, who's formerly of "Time" magazine and now managing editor of the business news website (INAUDIBLE).

OK, lieutenant colonel, first to you. Air strike after air strike and yet town after town after military base continues to fall to ISIS. This cannot just be because ground troops aren't calling in the air strikes?

JAMES REESE, FORMER U.S. ARMY DELTA FORCE CMDR.: Well, it's not. The bottom line is, the air strikes are doing some damage and they're doing some degradation to the ISIS. But the problem is, is when ISIS rolls up on these military bases and the Iraqi army doesn't have the ammunition, doesn't have the weapons to go against ISIS, they're running.

BANFIELD: Why don't they have all that? We were supposed to have supplied them, well I don't know, for the last decade.

REESE: Well, the problem is, is out west in al Anbar, you're looking at Sunni -- the Sunni military out there. The Shia side of the Iraqi military are the ones that have all the support.

BANFIELD: They're fat with the good stuff?

REESE: Absolutely. And -

BANFIELD: And the Sunnis are dealing with small arms?

REESE: Absolutely.

BANFIELD: And they haven't changed that knowing what, you know, is at stake at this point? There hasn't been a reallocation, a shifting?

REESE: The problem right now is, everyone's trying to figure this out. You know, where's this, where's that? And, you know, when you have young soldiers out there, they don't know who they're fighting for and their families are somewhere else, they're going to drop their weapons and run.

BANFIELD: Bobby, what about this notion that there's some talk that ISIS may be allying with other forces like al Nusra, which just flies in the face of common sense or any kind of wisdom. Is it possible?

BOBBY GHOSH, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Yes, it's absolutely possible. It is actually happening (INAUDIBLE) the reports are a little sketchy. But keep in mind that ISIS grew out of the same fount that was - that al Nusra comes from. So, at one point, ISIS was al Qaeda in Iraq. That might have been six or seven years ago, but that's where they come from.

At different points, ISIS or groups that eventually became ISIS broke away from al Qaeda, came back in. Most recently they've broken away. But what you see happening in places like Aleppo, where we're getting these latest reports from, is that the fighting is taking place street to street on the ground. Different groups are capable of collaborating with each other, even if folks up in the high command don't see eye to eye. And I think that's what we're seeing here.

Just yesterday the leader of al Nusra, the al Qaeda group in Syria, issued a statement attacking ISIS. But I think on the ground, some of his local commanders, local fighters have decided -

BANFIELD: They know what's good when they see it in front of them.

GHOSH: They've decided that, well, for this moment, for this fight, in this street, we're going to side with ISIS.

BANFIELD: So, I get it, it's complicated. But, colonel, ultimately, it can't be that complicated when back in July of 2013, October of 2013 and February of 2014, we had people like the director of the defense intelligence agency warning that these guys are a problem. This didn't just come out of nowhere. They weren't just a JV team back then. So why is it that we're now sort of seeing President Obama saying, you know, we underestimated things?

REESE: Well, again, they did underestimate. And they could be a JV team, but they're playing the Boy Scouts, you know. So there is a little difference here. But, you know, the problem is, is people were telling the president, I think the president made a mistake yesterday. If he would have just said, hey, I made a mistake, this would be no story. But because he pushed it back, now everyone wants to talk about it. And, you know, we have to look at things like, what are the priorities for us? Is that a priority? Last year, the year before, it wasn't. So we (INAUDIBLE).

BANFIELD: Thank you to both of you, Bobby Ghosh and James Reese. It's good to have your perspective. Do appreciate it.

REESE: Thanks, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: I wish we didn't have this conversation every day, but we do. And we continue.

Got a new development in the case of comedian Tracy Morgan versus Walmart as well. That company says that Tracy Morgan and the others in the limo that was slammed into by a Walmart delivery truck might have been at fault for their injuries. Might have been at fault for their injuries. But they have a very good reasoning behind it. We'll tell you in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: This debate has already begun. I can't even -- this is amazing. Walmart now fighting back, if you can believe it, against Tracy Morgan's lawsuit, that deadly car crash. They're saying that the comedian and the other passengers, one of whom died, actually might be partly to blame here. That they should have been wearing their seat belts. The former "SNL" star was seriously injured back in June. Do you remember that? The Walmart semi tractor-trailer slammed into the limo bus that Morgan was riding in, that accident killing his longtime friend James McNair.

Morgan's lawsuit against Walmart says that Walmart was careless and negligent in the operation of a vehicle and that the company should have known that the driver, Kevin Roper, had been awake for more than 24 hours at the time he was driving in that accident. But Walmart says the injuries were caused in whole or part by plaintiff's failure to properly wear an available seat belt.

And joining me now to talk this through - and I'll tell you what, talk has already begun, Joey Jackson and Mel Robbins.

Listen, school buses don't have seat belts.

MEL ROBBINS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes. BANFIELD: I don't know about limo buses. But does the fact that this is a limo bus make any difference in this equation?

ROBBINS: Yes.

JACKSON: Well, Mel and I are arguing that point as we began to argue and looking at the statute. And in looking at that, it says on January 18, 2010, legislation was signed requiring all occupants to buckle up regardless of their seated position in a vehicle.

ROBBINS: I know, but it's only talking about vans. And this was a big limo bus.

JACKSON: It says all vehicle. That's our argument.

ROBBINS: And we don't even -

JACKSON: Right.

ROBBINS: But we don't even know that there were seat belts in this. I mean I've been in large buses and vans that didn't even have seat belts. So this could be an attempt by Walmart to basically say, hey, wait a minute, either the passengers contributed to this accident, to their injuries because they weren't buckled up, or they might even be going after an insurance company, Ashleigh, saying that because there weren't seat belts in this particular vehicle, it violated these statutes and therefore --

JACKSON: Right.

BANFIELD: Yes.

JACKSON: But what they're talking about -

BANFIELD: But, you know, at Walmart, they're no dummies, right -

ROBBINS: (INAUDIBLE).

BANFIELD: And they would have looked at the forensics in this crash. They talked about available seat belts.

JACKSON: Yes.

BANFIELD: They wouldn't have guessed at that.

ROBBINS: Correct.

JACKSON: No, of course not. Although, what we were arguing about was a concept called contributory negligence.

BANFIELD: Yes.

JACKSON: It's a fancy term. And what it says is, if you contribute to your particular injury, then the liability of the person who caused it is lowered.

ROBBINS: Is lower.

BANFIELD: Goes down.

ROBBINS: Lowered.

JACKSON: Exactly. And so New Jersey happens to be a comparative, negligence state. They compare Ashleigh's negligence to mine.

ROBBINS: Right.

JACKSON: And depending upon who's more negligent, ultimately it reduces the award.

BANFIELD: Walmart's not looking to escape here necessarily -

JACKSON: Right.

ROBBINS: No, no, no, not at all.

BANFIELD: But, ultimately, that could be the factor --

JACKSON: Yes, but it's a reduction in the liability.

ROBBINS: Yes, like when Joey slipped at my house and tried to sue me, I argued that because he was wearing high heels --

BANFIELD: You guys see each other outside of work.

JACKSON: Of course. All the time. All the time.

ROBBINS: He shouldn't have been wearing high heels was the problem (ph).

BANFIELD: Mel Robbins, Joey Jackson, always good to have you.

JACKSON: A pleasure and a privilege.

BANFIELD: I knew you'd come up with something that was unique and hasn't been said before on this case, but there you go, fascinating stuff. Thanks to both of you. We'll see you back here. Thank you to you as well for watching the program. It's always good to have you -- they're adorable, aren't they? Please stay tuned because my colleague, Wolf, is going to take over after this short break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, I'm Wolf Blitzer.