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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Murder Trial of Eddie Ray Routh in Second Day; The Complexity of the Insanity Defense; Remembering the Victims of the Chapel Hill Shooting

Aired February 12, 2015 - 12:00   ET

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

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ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): The tragic sequel to Chris Kyle's best selling book and the blockbuster movie. Fireworks heading into day two of testimony in the American Sniper murder trial.

And speaking of fireworks --

RAY MOORE, CHIEF JUSTICE OF ALABAMA: I think that gay marriage is an alteration of the definition of marriage and the United States Supreme Court does not have the authority -- or the federal courts do not have the authority to interpret a word that disputes the constitution.

BANFIELD: Well, OK. Alabama's chief justice mounting a states rights versus gay rights fight. Wait till you hear what else he has to say.

And the atheist accused of killing three Muslim college students in North Carolina. Whether it was a hate crime or not, it is shocking, it is senseless, and you're going to hear from grieving family members.

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BANFIELD (on camera): Hello everyone. I'm Ashleigh Banfield. Thanks so much for joining us. This is LEGAL VIEW.

The so-called American Sniper trial is focused on the darkest chapter in the Chris Kyle story. The murder trial of Marine veteran Eddie Ray Routh is only in its second day and there's been no shortage of emotionally charged moments.

This is Kyle's widow, Taya Kyle. She was the prosecution's first witness on the stand yesterday. She tearfully recounted the last conversation she had on the phone with her husband just before he was allegedly shot and killed by Routh at a gun range. Taya said, quote, "It was very short and it wasn't short like, hey, you're interrupting a good time. It was short like I wish I could say more but I'm not going to because there were people around."

CNN's Ed Lavandera was in the court for this morning's testimony. So anything new this morning? ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: What we've heard from today,

Ashleigh, is a lot of talk kind of describing the crime scene and the weapons that investigators found out there. Remember, Chris Kyle and his friend Chad Littlefield had brought Eddie Ray Routh out to a countryside gun range to bond and to speak with him. That was something Chris Kyle had often done. They found that, according to Chris Kyle's wife, Taya Kyle, they would go out to these gun ranges, that being around in that atmosphere, bonding, doing guy things, if you will, was something that Chris Kyle had found was helpful to do with other veterans that were struggling.

So the testimony we've heard is all of the different weapons that were being used that afternoon; in those pictures you can see piles of ammunition out there as well. But one interesting piece, Ashleigh, is that one of the Texas ranger investigators said that each man, Chad Littlefield and Chris Kyle, each had a fully loaded handgun tucked away in waistbands inside their clothing, that the safety was on. So this is interesting because the prosecutor asked Taya Kyle yesterday how quick of a draw Chris Kyle was. And she said he was an extremely fast draw. And obviously you get the sense here the prosecutor's trying to plant that scene, that this was an act that took place very quickly, that Chad Littlefield and Chris Kyle had very little time to react before they were shot multiple times.

BANFIELD: And they ostensibly are the best at their trade, which is why this is such a remarkable case and a remarkable story. Ed, stand by for a moment if you will.

Yes, this case is a little unusual. It's not a whodunit as so many of these murder cases are. Routh's attorneys are not disputing that he killed Kyle, or that close friend of his, Chad Littlefield. No, not at all. Instead, they are arguing that Routh was, quote, "under psychosis" at the time that he shot those two men many times, and that he did not know what he was doing was wrong.

Here's CNN legal analyst Danny Cevallos explaining the surprisingly complex insanity defense.

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DANNY CEVALLOS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Insanity plea, a defendant says, I did the deed, but at the time I did, I didn't know right from wrong. Insanity is part of a group of defenses called excuse defenses. In most jurisdictions, if a jury finds that a defendant was insane, they must find that defendant not guilty. Historically, the dominant test for insanity is a test that dates all the way back to 1843 in England. The test basically asks, at the time of the deed, did the defendant know the difference between right and wrong.

Now, wait a minute. That doesn't mean whether the defendant personally believed what he was doing was right or wrong. It's whether a defendant is aware that the rest of society considers it wrong. So if you hide a body or conceal a knife, then you are aware that everyone around you thinks what you are doing would be wrong. Defendants usually have the burden of proving that insanity defense. In some jurisdictions, it's by a preponderance of the evidence and in other jurisdictions it's by clear and convincing evidence.

An insanity defense usually relies on expert testimony. So you have to find an expert or a doctor or medical professional who will testify that you suffered from that medical condition. And as medicine has evolved, more and more creative conditions apparently exist. Ultimately, just because you have a creative insanity defense, doesn't mean it's actually going to work. Because at the end of the day, you have to convince a jury of your peers.

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BANFIELD: Maybe one of the toughest things to do, jury of your peers. The smart guy way over there on the side of the screen giving that lesson and Joey Jackson.

JOEY JACKSON, HLN LEGAL ANALYST: Nice job. I agree with half of what that guy said.

BANFIELD: Tell you what, that's a great lesson. So many people think, sure, crazy, why is it so hard to prove he's crazy. He looked crazy. Look at the words from Chris Kyle himself that he was texting to his friend in the car. He didn't want to say it out loud. He said, this dude is straight-up nuts. That's what he told the other deceased. And the deceased said, yes, he's right behind me, watch my 6:00. It's a military term for watch my back. Here's the thing. Can you explain -- Joe I'm going to get you to weigh in on this. Can you explain how you can be crazy but not insane.

JACKSON: Here's the point. The jury in and of itself has an inherent distrust. Why? people are going to feign that they are actually crazy. If you have a cold, I can look and you're sniffling and sneezing and I can relate to that because I can see it. How do you get inside someone's mind? right? it's a very difficult thing to do. You have to go into the mind. I think the text messages give you some sense. Does it mean you don't know the difference between right and wrong?

BANFIELD: Yes, it can be argued you have post-traumatic stress disorder. Yes, it can mean people visually think something's amiss with you. I think in this case what they're going to do -- and that's the legal standard in Texas, do you know what you're doing is wrong. But I think what they're going to do is use that text message as corroboration for everything else like what? like the fact that he was in and out of mental institutions. Like the fact that just before the killing, he was released and his family wanted him to stay there. Like the fact that when he showed up at his sister's house, he said, yes he did something that was wrong, but at the same time, the sister was even saying, this guy is nuts. So I think the experts will bring all that to bear to suggest this guy is legally insane.

JACKSON: So Danny nailed it and taught our audience how the principle was adopted from England and we use it here, but Texas went further. They made it tougher.

BANFIELD: It's very confusing. The original test required either/or. Either you didn't understand what you were doing was wrong, you were unaware society deemed what you were doing was wrong. The other is the nature and consequences test. I might be thinking I'm wringing out a dish rag when I'm really wringing out Joey Jackson's neck. Texas has chosen to only apply a very strict right and wrong test which essentially says at the time of were you lay boring under a mental defect that you couldn't appreciate the wrongfulness of your actions.

JACKSON: So he's got one shot at it. Here's what's fascinating. You mentioned the issues of what he did after the killings. Does that show he knew right from wrong? he fled the scene. He went to his sister's. He got a food. Is it possible he was crazy or insane for an instant. There is something called temporary insanity.

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BANFIELD: Just before the break, we asked the question: can you be temporarily insane, commit a crime, and then snap out of it and go into court sober as a ghost? So this is a big question. There was a huge case involving the killing of Harvey Milk and the person who said that he'd eaten a lot of Twinkies and it was a temporary buy for the jury. There was also Lorena Bobbitt. I think we all remember without me having to be too descriptive, cut off a member of her husband, and ultimately prevailed with a temporary insanity. Could this man, Eddie Ray Routh, say at the moment he was temporarily insane and then ultimately, later started doing things that he appreciated right from wrong, but only appreciated the right from wrong later?

JACKSON: Absolutely. The reality is, it's going to focus on what did you do and what did you know at the time that you committed the offense? What's going to be telling to that is whether or not he certainly is mentally ill and insane. Jurors, again, are very skeptical of this defense. And we know --

BANFIELD: They hate it.

JACKSON: They do hate it.

CEVALLOS: They hate regular insanity; forget temporary insanity.

JACKSON: And that's why it's used in 1 percent of the cases and it prevails 25 percent of those times. But the reality is -- Danny and I ask jurors all the time, use your common sense and good judgment. Evaluate the collective things that you notice that the jury was doing, and that the defendant was doing. And in evaluating that, that's going to focus you in on the critical question.

BANFIELD: Danny, the timeline is that this man, after killing these two war heroes, left the gun range, visited his uncle to show him his brand new truck and guns that he had taken from them, went and got a burrito -- All sort of evidence that he may not have known that any of this was wrong -- Then went to his sister's and said, "I murdered two people." Then suggested he needed to get out of town. Which might, if you're a really good defense lawyer, give you the story that he was insane and then snapped out of it.

CEVALLOS: It's a bit of a paradox in that the worse a defendant is at covering up a crime, the more that evidence of, say, his stupidity in hiding the crime, can be used possibly as evidence of his insanity, that he wasn't aware that society deemed his actions to be wrong. There are certainly some erratic and odd behavior that the defendant can cite in this case. But again, that hill to climb to establish to a jury that this person was completely unaware, cognitively, that his actions were deemed wrong by society is just such a steep hill to climb, then to additionally establish that temporary insanity may be even more difficult.

BANFIELD: Might be because the world is actually "not guilty by reason of insanity," which is really tough for jurors to get over.

JACKSON: Doesn't mean he goes home, though.

BANFIELD: -- never does if you don't know that.

JACKSON: Just means he goes to a mental institutions.

BANFIELD: The jurors don't know that.

JACKSON: They don't.

BANFIELD: And they're not allowed to be told that.

JACKSON: If ever there was a case, though, where he's got a shot, I think based on the medical history, in and out of V.A. Hospitals, based upon the nature of his actions, based upon Chris Kyle's own statements, this could be the case.

BANFIELD: By the way, not to bring up an entirely different story that CNN broke, but the hideous behavior of V.A. Hospitals could very well play into his defense. He tried to get treatment, they turned him away. Not because they thought he was OK, but maybe because the hospitals were lousy.

CEVALLOS: It's interesting that -- If that's true, if he wasn't able to get treatment, then that may lead to a lack of evidence of any prior diagnoses. It remains to be seen. That's a possibility.

JACKSON: They let him out only days before he committed these murders on medication when the family said he has a problem, keep him in. That's going to be big in this case.

BANFIELD: Seeing this kind of a case before with almost the same situation, it didn't work. Person was convicted anyway. All right, guys. Hold on for that because we're going to talk about this case a lot more as the testimony continues.

We also have another big case. The shootings in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. The autopsies of the three victims are complete and the reports are still works in progress. As the family comes to grips with the notion that no matter what the motive, their loved ones are not coming back.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DR. SUZANNE BARAKAT, SISTER OF VICTIM: It's basically incomprehensible to me that you can murder three people over a parking spot.

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BANFIELD: A tearful tribute from the sister of one of the victims just ahead.

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BANFIELD: Whether it was a hate crime or irrational dispute over a parking space, it's an act that no one can truly understand. The execution-style killing of three Muslim students in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Today, as the mourning continues with prayers and a candle light vigil, Craig Hicks is sitting in the Raleigh's Central Prison and he's charged with murder. Police are searching for any clues they can find, particularly in his computer, as they try to nail down what the motive possibly could have been. Hicks' wife, who's been in the process of divorcing him, says maybe not necessarily a hate crime.

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KAREN HICKS, WIFE OF CHRIS HICKS: I can't say with my absolute belief that this incident had nothing to do with religion or victims' faith, whether in fact was related to the long-standing parking disputes that my husband had with the neighbors.

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BANFIELD: The family says there had been multiple issues of disrespect and harassment.

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DR. MOHAMMAD ABU-SALHA, FATHER OF TWO VICTIMS: My daughter, Yusor, honest to God, told us on more than two occasions that this man came knocking at their door and fighting about everything with a gun on his belt more than twice. She told us, daddy, I think he hates us for who we are and how we look.

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BANFIELD: One of the victims was this young man, Deah Barakat. His sister, Suzanne, spoke with Anderson Cooper last night to talk about what she thinks was behind this shooting.

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ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, "AC360": There are reports that the suspect and your brother, that they had interactions prior to this. Is that, to your knowledge, true? Were you aware of that?

DR. SUZANNE BARAKAT, SISTER OF VICTIM: To my knowledge, yes. There had been issues of some disrespect and harassment from the neighbor's standpoint. It's basically incomprehensible to me that you can murder three people by shooting a bullet into their head and killing them over a parking spot.

COOPER: You said you known there had been some interactions. Do you think that they had anything to do with your brother's religion? With how he was perceived by this person?

BARAKAT: Having heard secondhand from one of very close friend of Yusor had said, that basically he had said because of the way you look and not comfortable with, a, the way you look and, I'm really sorry.

COOPER: It's OK.

BARAKAT: This is really hard.

COOPER: I know.

BARAKAT: I go from being in denial to being really numb to being really angry. I came here today in hopes of shining light on Deah's -- their legacy, and Yusor and Razan's. And for the three of them, that has been dedication to service. And I want to make sure that they are recognized for that and that the world realizes what we have lost and the loss of these three incredibly brilliant, bright, beautiful, accomplished, successful, respectful, loved three young people.

If you were within our community, Anderson, you would see just the outpouring of love and support we are receiving from everyone around us and it's been immensely touching. And I want the world to see that and I want them to see the true essence of what Deah, Yusor and Razan was. And it was optimism, it was hope, it was love. It was wanting to help anyone and everyone in their local communities and communities abroad. Just based on their actions with the work that they have done with homeless communities here, with work that they are doing in Turkey to aid Syrian refugees.

Deah was running a campaign with the dental school and with some NGOs to fund raise money for a mission trip later this summer. And yesterday, he was at, I believe, 16,000 and today, it's over 120,000 and that is amazing.

And we want to continue that and we want them to be remembered for that.

And selfishly, as the older sister who felt like a second mom to him, I will miss him adoring me and the way he loved me and the way he looked up to me and the many phone calls where we would talk and we would give each other advice and he's like, OK, I see your point. He was the best friend kind of brother.

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BANFIELD: In the meantime, the suspect in this case, Craig Hicks, has been charged with three counts of murder. He has now been moved to the Central Prison in Raleigh, which is common for high-profile inmates and those who are in need of mental or medical attention. We should also note that he has no prior criminal record. We'll continue to follow this case.

And also coming up next --

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MOORE: It's not about feeling. It's about law.

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BANFIELD: Alabama's chief justice of that state's Supreme Court says he is upholding the law by defying the Supreme Court of the United States. Going to explain what this is all about, and specifically what it means for same-sex couples who are trying to get married in his state.

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