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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

U.S. Creates ISIS Hit List; Defense Takes American Sniper Case; Police Turn off Dash Cam

Aired February 18, 2015 - 12:00   ET

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

RANDI KAYE, CNN ANCHOR: This is LEGAL VIEW. I'm Randi Kaye, in today for Ashleigh Banfield.

We begin this hour with a battle ISIS lost, in a war that is still very far from over. Kurdish forces in northern Iraq today fought off an all-out terrorist assault on the outskirts of the Kurdish capital Irbil. The area was peaceful just days ago when CNN crews were there. Overnight, however, the two sides were fighting so close together that coalition air strikes weren't even possible. Hours later, Kurdish forces pushed the invaders back -- far enough back that fighter jets could help save the day.

At this hour, the White House is hosting what it calls a summit on fighting violent extremism. President Obama is due to speak in the 4:00 hour Eastern Time. And you will see him live right here on CNN.

He says our campaign is ultimately for hearts and minds. In an op-ed for "The L.A. Times," the president writes this, "we know that military force alone cannot solve this problem, nor can we simply take out terrorists who kill innocent civil civilians." But taking out terrorists is a key part of the program and CNN's Barbara Starr joins me from the Pentagon with some new reporting on that. And we also have CNN's Ben Wedeman in Irbil and CNN's Richard Roth at the U.N. with some chilling new names from the Iraqi government. Matthew Weiss also joins me here in New York with the big-picture war against the extremists. Matthew is a fellow at the Institute of Modern Russia and co-author of "ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror."

Barbara, let me start with you first on this one. What do we know about this so-called hit list?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Randi, good morning.

You talk about taking out terrorists. That's what the Pentagon, the Obama administration is looking at. Why are we talking about this as a kill list? Look, the U.S. doesn't have troops on the ground inside Iraq or Syria that are capturing people. This is about killing top ISIS operatives with air strikes. Number one on that list, no surprise, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, the reclusive leader of ISIS. He is now the number one person that they want to get.

But once you go below that, we're told there are about two dozen names or so. They have probably killed about a dozen top operatives. People are killed off, they get replaced with other ISIS operatives. They go on the list. This is not about getting after everybody. This is about really trying

to develop the very fine-tuned intelligence that will tell them who the top leadership is. And it's very tough to understand ISIS' command structure, we're told, because Baghdadi is so reclusive, it's not clear who's around him. Getting to how that command structure works, who the people are and then determining their locations, getting the intelligence on where they may be. One U.S. official said it has been months now since they had any really solid intelligence at best on Baghdadi's whereabouts. That just gives you an idea of how hard all of this is.

Randi.

KAYE: Yes, certainly.

Ben, to you now, in Irbil. I mean is ISIS actually on the verge of seizing Irbil? And what are they trying to accomplish there in northern Iraq?

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: No, Randi, it's in no sense about to seize the city of Irbil, which is quite big. This battle took place 30 miles to the west of Irbil. It went on for about five and a half hours. It was intense. One of the most intense battles that's taken place in this area in several months. But it -- as you mentioned at the beginning of this broadcast, as a result of incoming coalition air strikes and the efforts of the Peshmerga, the Kurdish fighters themselves, they were able to repel the advancing ISIS forces. But it did underscore, once again, some of the weaknesses of the Kurdish force. They don't have any night vision. They don't have any air cover other than the coalition. They don't have any of their own aircraft. And, of course, they're working with very antiquated, in some cases, weaponry. So it's still quite a challenge. But, no, Irbil is in no sense under threat at this point from ISIS, Randi.

KAYE: All right, Ben Wedeman in Irbil, thank you.

To Richard Roth now. Richard, what are you hearing about new ISIS atrocities just in this morning?

RICHARD ROTH, CNN SENIOR UNITED NATIONS CORRESPONDENT: Well, the Iraqi ambassador at the United Nations says that ISIS he believes, and his country believes, is harvesting human organs from murdered civilians inside Iraq to help gain valuable financing for their sweep through the region. The ambassador told reporters on Tuesday that at least 10 to 12 doctors in the city of Mosul were executed after they refused to cut up the bodies for organs.

Now, the U.N.'s pointman in Iraq says, yes, he has heard reports but he was unable to confirm positively anything like this. The British Ambassador said he's heard about it but only through the press. But Iraq wants the Security Council to investigate a very serious matter already for the U.N. and the world regarding ISIS. The Iraqi ambassador says there are middlemen and buyers, the organs are being flown out on planes from airports that ISIS controls.

Randi. KAYE: Oh, Richard, so disturbing.

Michael Weiss here with me in New York. What -- you have something to add to that as well?

MICHAEL WEISS, CO-AUTHOR, "ISIS: INSIDE THE ARMY OF TERROR": Well, there is a report a few months ago by my friend Mike Gigli (ph) of Buzzfeed that ISIS was attempting to auction off the remains of the American journalist James Foley for like $1 million. They're doing anything they can to make money at this point. It is true that their revenue stream has been somewhat circumscribed by the U.S. air strikes. I've heard reports that they went from making about $3 million a month to making $1 million a month. And it's not just about oil smuggling and arms trafficking. All manner of things, contraband, weapons, you know, cars, things like that. So organ harvesting, look, there's no evidence and I hasten to say that this has happened, but it wouldn't surprise me. I mean they're crucifying people, they're beheading people, they're setting people alight in cages, so what more can they do.

KAYE: Right. Let me ask you about the White House because the White House says that the ultimate solution for conquering terror is economic opportunity in a free and open society. We're not there yet. So what do we do in the meantime?

WEISS: No. Well, look, there's a -- that seemed a rather fatuous statement but there is a kernel of truth in it because it is true that one of the reasons that ISIS has managed to cultivate such a wide constituency, the people at the top of this organization, I mean you've had that chart on, al Ambari (ph), al Tarkmani (ph), these guys were in the Saddam Hussein regime, they were former Baathists. Either working for the security services or the Iraqi military, which, in our infinite wisdom we disbanded as soon as we invaded. These guys went from living high on the hog, I mean, not just their salaries, we're talking all the money they made from extortion and black-market economics. They had wives and mistresses to keep in clover. They went from that to being unemployed and being told, why don't you go drive a cab.

So one of the reasons they sort of have reasserted themselves in this way. I mean ISIS is not just a terror organization or a terror army, it's a mafia. It's a totalitarian political movement. And, yes, there is a -- there is a materialist component to this. They want to make a lot of money and they're buying off a lot of influence this way.

KAYE: So are they stoppable or unstoppable?

WEISS: They're stoppable, but I have to be honest with you, given what we call the strategy here, I do not see them being stopped. The momentum of ISIS -- I mean I think they actually surprised and impressed themselves with how much territory they were able to conquer in that summer/fall period. But the places they've been booted out of, these are not their sort of wheelhouses. They're not -- they're geostrategic communities. They thrive in Sunni exclusive or Sunni majority areas. Not mixed communities. You're not going to see a major offensive against them in -- especially western Mosul for probably another year or so and who's going to lead that?

KAYE: Yes.

WEISS: The Kurdish Peshmerga are not going to go into Sunni enclaves and do house-by-house urban combat operations. The Shia militias, which are acting like death squads against the Sunnis, good luck to them if they think they're going street by street in Mosul, Fallujah.

KAYE: Yes. All right, Michael Weiss, appreciate your weighing in on that. Thank you very much.

WEISS: You're welcome.

KAYE: And thanks to everybody as well.

To now the tragic sequel to the "American Sniper" story playing out in a Texas courtroom. Did the V.A. let down the ex-Marine who killed Chris Kyle when the let him leave the mental ward? And should he still be receiving a government paycheck while he's on trial for murder?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: Welcome back.

The prosecution has rested and now it is the defense's turn. I'm talking about the trial of the man who shot dead Chris Kyle, the real- life American sniper. Notice I didn't say suspected of killing Chris Kyle. Nobody denies that Eddie Ray Routh shot Kyle and another man, Chad Littlefield, at a gun range in Texas two years ago. Routh's defense team says one word, insanity. Testimony has begun already in Stephenville, Texas. And yesterday, before wrapping up their case, prosecutors played a video showing Routh in a police car shortly after the shooting. An officer asks Routh if he's OK and his answer is this -- "I don't know what's been happening, I've been so paranoid schizophrenic all day. I don't know what to even think of the world right now. I don't know if I'm insane or sane."

Ed Lavandera is outside the courthouse in Stephenville, Texas. And also here is criminal defense attorney Midwin Charles and CNN legal analyst Paul Callan.

Eddie, let me start with you. What is happening in court today?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Routh's mother testified yesterday. The defense attorneys continue with family members of Eddie Ray Routh. And significantly this morning is the sister of Eddie Ray Routh. Remember, she's a significant person in this situation because after the murders of Chris Kyle and Chad Littlefield, Routh drove to his sister's house and she talked about how he was -- say that he had just traded his life -- his soul for a pick-up truck and that he had to take two souls before they could take his. And then she also went on to say, "the man who was my brother was not at my house. The person who came to my house is not the man who I knew as my brother." And then she went on to say, she told him, "I love you but I hate your demons." And then at that point Eddie Ray Routh shut down and then he would

leave the scene there. His sister would call 911. And that would begin the chase and the pursuit of Eddie Ray Routh, which would end up at his house and a high-speed chase before he could be taken into custody. So we've heard a lot from those family members that were near the scene and were the first to discover that Eddie Ray Routh had committed these killings.

And we expect to hear a lot more, Randi, here in the -- either it starts today at some point or in the coming days of more of the medical treatment that Eddie Ray Routh received. Remember, his mother had testified yesterday that at one point about a week before the killings he would have been admitted into the V.A. hospital in Dallas but released. His mother says that she had begged the hospital to keep him and that at one point he was prescribed nine different psychological medications. So we'll continue to hear a lot more about that, as you can imagine.

Randi.

KAYE: All right, Ed, we'll ask you a little bit more just coming up here in just a second, but let me turn to Midwin now.

I mean talk about proving a defendant insane, I mean, because certainly that's the -- that's the defense's job right now. That's what they're looking to do. What are the challenges there?

MIDWIN CHARLES, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: It is. The challenges are high. You know, not guilty by reason of insanity plea is a very, very difficult thing to do from a defense perspective. One of the things that I think the defense team is going to have to do here is basically painstakingly show that not only does he have a history of mental illness, but that it was a very, very specific -- in other words, he's had mental illness and he sort of is not aware of his, you know, presence, state of mind. But they have to make sure that it's done close to the time of the crime, because that really is the key, that he didn't know the difference between right or wrong at the time of the crime. So if they can painstakingly, with a lot of evidence, show that, yes, he has a storied diagnosis of mental illness but it also is approximate to the time of the crime.

KAYE: And, Paul, I mean, obviously, all three of these men served in war overseas. Does that play a role? Is there room for that in the courtroom somewhere?

PAUL CALLAN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, yes, I think it plays a big role because, as Midwin says, it's very hard to prove an insanity defense. Insanity defenses are asserted in fewer than 1 percent of criminal cases and they succeed, even then, they lose 75 percent of the time when they're asserted. So it's a tough hill to climb.

Texas has a very strict insanity law. If you know the difference between right and wrong, it doesn't matter how much mental illness you suffer from, you are not insane under Texas law. So what do they have left? Sympathy. They want to show that as sympathetic as Kyle was, American sniper, he was a man who understood those coming back from Iraq had PTSD and problems and he tried to help them. And I think what they're going to try to do with Routh is to almost have Kyle reach up from the grave to help him by saying, you know, even Kyle felt that someone like Routh needed help. That's why he was there for Routh. And I think that's what they're going to try to prove.

KAYE: So they're going to use his own victim, you're saying, to really come to his defense in a way?

CALLAN: Yes. Yes, I think that's really the underlying defense in this case.

KAYE: Wow, that would be pretty spectacular.

Ed, let me ask you about these V.A. benefits for Eddie Ray Routh. From what we understand now, he's receiving money from the V.A. while he's on trial. And then what happens if he's convicted?

LAVANDERA: Well, that was something that came up yesterday at the end of court. This was outside the presence of the jury. But Eddie Ray Routh's mother had talked about how he has been receiving disability payments from the V.A. to the amount of about $30,000 since these killings happened in February of 2013. What's going to happen with this money hasn't really been decided yet. And it's an issue because Eddie Ray Routh has three attorneys, court-appointed attorneys that are working on his behalf. So, you know, we still haven't heard or don't know exactly what the judge is going to decide to do with this money. Is he going to be -- force it to be used to pay for the attorneys, or what exactly is going to happen? The judge hasn't ruled or hasn't made any more declarations on what exactly is going to happen with this issue.

KAYE: All right, thank you, Ed Lavandera, Paul Callan, Midwin Charles, very much for all of that.

And do stick around because tonight CNN will take a closer look at the American sniper. That's at 9:00 p.m. Eastern right here on CNN.

Up next, allegations of police brutality in St. Louis. The big question here, what happened after an officer turned off the dash cam?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: You're about to see dash cam video of yet another alleged case of excessive police force during a traffic stop. But this one has a twist. Right in the middle of the arrest, a police officer in St. Louis tells her fellow officers to turn off the dash cam. Alina Machado walks us through that video.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALINA MACHADO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is St. Louis Police dash cam video from April 10, 2014. An officer says the driver made an illegal u-turn in the middle of the street and pulled him over. According to the report, police say they smelled marijuana and saw a handgun. They ordered the passenger out of the car and handcuffed him. And after about four minutes of the driver's refusal to get out -- officers finally pulled the man out.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get down! Get down!

MACHADO: Joel Schwartz is suing the St. Louis City Police on behalf of his client, Cortez Bufford. Schwartz claims cops used excessive force, including kicking Bufford, and using a Taser. Also on the video, Officer Kelly Swinten (ph), who was named the 2013 St. Louis Officer of the Year. She stands watching, then walks away towards the dash cam. Listen to what she says.

OFFICER KELLY SWINTEN, ST. LOUIS POLICE: Hold up. Hold up, y'all, hold up. Hold up. Everybody hold up! We're in it right now, so if you guys are worried about cameras, just wait.

MACHADO: The officers look up, pause, the audio dies, then the camera shuts down.

JOEL SCHWARTZ, ATTORNEY FOR CORTEZ BUFFORD: They're worried about cameras and they don't want anyone to see what they're doing, so they turn the tape off.

MACHADO: Schwartz also alleges officers did not have the right to order the driver out of the car.

SCHWARTZ: Our client wasn't speeding. He didn't make an illegal u-turn and he didn't abruptly pull to the curb. Those were all figments of the officer's imagination.

MACHADO: And according to the police report, officers did find marijuana and a fully loaded gun in Bufford's pocket and only used a Taser and a foot strike to keep him from reaching for the weapon. A police union lawyer, who represents one of the officers on the video, calls the police response justified.

BRIAN MILLKEN, POLICE UNION LAWYER: The use of force that was necessary in this case was a direct result of the defendant's actions -- or the suspect's actions.

MACHADO: An internal affairs investigation did clear the officers of using excessive force and disciplined the officer who turned off the dash camera.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MACHADO: Now, that officer is appealing her punishment and because the camera was turned off, again, all of the charges that were filed against Bufford have been thrown out. The St. Louis city attorney, Winston Calvert, has issued a statement saying in part, "there were two police cars at the site of this incident and the camera was shut off in one of the police cars. The other car dash cam was still rolling. The second dash cam shows the officers did their job, took the suspect into custody. The suspect was found with a 9-millimeter semiautomatic pistol." The statement goes on to say, "the officers did what had to be done to protect themselves."

Randi KAYE: Thanks very much, Alina.

I want to bring in CNN law enforcement analyst Tom Fuentes to talk more about this.

Hello, Tom. So what do you see on that tape? Do you see excessive force here?

TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Hi, Randi.

No, from what I saw on that tape, I don't see excessive force. And I think what people don't realize is that when the subject refuses to comply with a lawful police order, that starts the acceleration of the confrontation and the potential for violence to occur. If you have a moving violation, the illegal turn, the police officer makes the traffic stop, walks up and normal procedure would be the person would roll their window down, the officer would ask for driver's license, registration, telling the person why the stop was made.

Now, I've been in that situation about 1,000 times. And on many of those occasions, the smell of marijuana comes pouring out of the car when the window comes down. Now the officer knows that he has a little more of a difficult situation. He's probably going to want to search that vehicle for the marijuana. And the person possibly might be impaired and driving under the influence of the marijuana. So he's going to ask the individual to step out of the car.

This is where it's not supposed to be a Harvard debate for four minutes for the individual to say, I'm not getting out of the car, I'm not complying with your order. They have to get out of the car. Now you notice, normally a traffic stop is one officer, maybe a second rolls up to make sure he's OK. By the time you see the confrontation, you see three, four, five officers, which indicates that the original traffic stop, that officer called for back-up. He knew he was having a difficult situation.

KAYE: Right.

FUENTES: He knew he had a subject not complying with his first request and then probably an order, get out of the car, and the individual refuses. And I think that we've gotten this narrative lately that a traffic stop, if an individual or a sidewalk confrontation, a person doesn't want to comply with the police officer, it can turn into the officer has to be a master Harvard debater and an Olympic wrestler because now at some point --

KAYE: Yes, but --

FUENTES: He's going to take the person into custody. So what we see in this tape, I don't believe is excessive. And, secondly, where's the second dash cam? If the second camera shows the incident and wasn't turned off, why don't we see that also?

KAYE: Right. But as far as this dash cam, the one that was turned off, I mean the officer who turned off that dash camera we know is appealing her punishment. FUENTES: Right.

KAYE: I mean was she out of line? Is there any chance that she'll win this appeal?

FUENTES: Well, I don't know. She probably won't because if that's a department regulation that you leave the dash cam on through the duration of an incident like this, then she violated department rules. That doesn't mean she violated the law of the state of Missouri and it doesn't negate that they made a lawful arrest and used lawful procedure, which is why we'd want to see that second dash cam. And, you know, the fact that the officer smelled marijuana is borne out by the individual was in possession of the marijuana.

KAYE: Yes.

FUENTES: The fact that other officers are trying to use force to keep his hands from getting into a pocket is also held up because they find a loaded 9-millimeter pistol. So -- and you continue, even in this dash cam before it's shut off, the person is still on the ground with four or five police officers trying to each grab a limb and trying to hold him under control. He's still wrestling around and moving. That's not acceptable. You're not allowed to get into a wrestling match with the police officers on the street because you don't feel like doing what you're told by those officers.

KAYE: All right, we'll leave it there. Tom Fuentes, thank you very much. Appreciate it.

FUENTES: Thank you, Randi.

KAYE: Meanwhile, a mother of four shot and killed on Valentine's Day, an apparent victim of road rage. But it turns out the suspected killer wasn't the only one with a gun. Details on that, next.

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