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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

American Sniper Jury Rejects Insanity Claim; The Impact of Chris Kyle's Notoriety; Three Arrested in NY for Suspected ISIS Plot

Aired February 25, 2015 - 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: Hello, everyone. I'm Ashleigh Banfield. And welcome to LEGAL VIEW.

A bestselling book, a blockbuster movie and a murder trial watched by millions. The story of Chris Kyle, the so-called American sniper, with the most confirmed kills in U.S. military history, is truly extraordinary. And as far as the public is concerned, the final chapter has been written. Just last night, in fact.

But for all involved, the story is far from over. This man, mentally deranged ex-Marine Eddie Ray Routh was found guilty and sentenced to life without any possibility of ever getting out -- no parole ever -- for the murder of Kyle and his close friend Chad Littlefield. Routh's defense was simple. He claimed he was legally insane at the time he shot those men at a gun range in 2013. But it took this jury just two and a half hours and that included their dinner to make a decision on his final fate.

I want you to listen to the following statements that Routh made to police after he was arrested. And you can decide for yourself if Routh may have been insane at that time. We had CNN's Ed Lavandera read these statements so you can hear them clearly.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): "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. You can't just keep letting people eat your soul up for free, you know? It's not what it's about. It's about having a soul that you have in you for yourself and there are tons of people that are eating on my soul right now.

I keep talking to Chris, there's a few dozen Chrises in my world. And it's like every time I talk to another man named Chris or get sent to another man named Chris, it was like talking to the wolf, you know? The ones in the sky are the ones that fly, you know what I mean, the pigs."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: I want to bring in our legal experts to talk about the insanity defense and why these jurors said, no way. CNN legal analyst Paul Callan and HLN legal analyst Joey Jackson is joined with Fred Teece here, who is a former federal prosecutor. Paul, to you in the middle. First, a lot of people are saying they're

not surprised, but that man, with his own words, help himself and hurt himself. Why did it not work out in his favor by a long shot?

PAUL CALLAN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, I think it didn't because in watching the juror interviews, they thought the defense was contrived. They thought that, here's a guy who, after the killing, stole the truck that belonged to Chris Kyle, drove 100 miles to Dallas, stopped and had a meal, told somebody that he was sorry for what he did and then engages in this sort of bizarre rambling thing that obviously sounds deranged but he refers to flying pigs in it, which a psychiatrist testified for the prosecution was something that he probably picked up from a "Seinfeld" episode. So, in the end, I think they thought he was making up the insanity.

BANFIELD: Since you just referred to the jurors and what they said, it is so infrequent that we get the opportunity, ladies and gentlemen, to hear from jurors after they render these verdicts.

JOEY JACKSON, HLN LEGAL ANALYST: That's right.

BANFIELD: So, what ABC got was precious. The ABC "Good Morning America" interviews with six of the jurors. And I want to play for you a little bit of what they talked about regarding the pattern of this man's explanations. Have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When I say there's a pattern that we saw, it was, you know, he would be -- he would get intoxicated, get in trouble and then the police would show up and he would say, I'm a veteran, I have PTSD, I'm insane.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: So, listen, those are amazing words and very insightful. But why is it perhaps jurors can't see, Joey Jackson, the pattern of the remarkable deranged behavior sort of right after the incident itself that did speak to his insanity?

JACKSON: Well, here's the issue. The first issue is, is that the insanity defense is looked about and looked upon with great skepticism. Why? Because, Ashleigh, I can't look into your mind. A juror cannot look into your mind. So in the event that you're ill, I could see you and I could notice signs that you're ill. That's something that's demonstrable. It's tangible. You can prove it. In the event I can't do that, I have to rely upon what you tell me. And a jury needs a reason to find someone accountable. And I think the prosecution gave them ample reason, not only because of the issues that Paul laid out in terms of the premeditation, the deliberation, but everything else that pointed to a person who was rational.

Just yesterday there was an expert who testified that, you know what, this was a sneak attack. What happened? Routh waited until Littlefield and Kyle represented no danger, then he attacked. What does that tell you? A person is sane and can clearly distinguish between right and wrong.

BANFIELD: Fred Teece, the former prosecutor in you --

FRED TEECE, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: Yes.

BANFIELD: You hear that opposing counsel is going to mount an insanity defense and do you celebrate because it's a cakewalk or do you perhaps think, wow, I'm so lucking the jury forum doesn't have guilty but insane because that would be hard to get a jury to overlook?

TEECE: You know what, I don't -- I don't rejoice, but I don't get nervous either. I've actually prosecuted cases -- I've tried at a hijacking case where the guy thought he was Bobby Darin and he wanted to sing "Mack the Knife" in front of the jury. The problem with the insanity defense is, and Joey touched on it, the issue is whether or not you know right from wrong. So quite frankly, I don't care if you talk to Elvis and he talks back to you, if you understand that your actions are wrong -- and as Paul picked up on, there was a lot of evidence from which this jury could determine that this guy knew what he did was wrong and had -- and had engaged in premeditation, as Joey talked about. So, at the end of the day, the fact of the matter is, is that he -- his insanity defense wasn't going to fly and the jury saw right through it.

CALLAN: Look, beyond -- "Beyond the Sea," I think, is the best Bobby Darin song, though. That's what (INAUDIBLE).

TEECE: I don't know. Yes, I kind of like "Mack the Knife." I'm a "Mack the Knife" guy.

BANFIELD: But is it so -- is it so much for American jurists to swallow that somebody just truly could be mentally ill to the point of not knowing right from wrong but act in a way that they do? I mean, honestly --

JACKSON: Right.

BANFIELD: Why is this such a difficult defense to mount in a day and age when mental illness has bled through every aspect of our society, brutal mental illness, not just a little bit of it, a horrible (INAUDIBLE)?

TEECE: But there are cases that called out for that, Ashleigh. This was not one of them. That's the point, OK? Too often --

BANFIELD: Why not?

TEECE: Well -- well, because the guy knew right from wrong and in Texas --

BANFIELD: You're so sure?

TEECE: Yes, I am sure. I'm actually convinced of it, quite frankly. And so was the jury.

JACKSON: Ashleigh, but I like your pushback on this because I think if -- if there was a case where you could establish insanity, perhaps this would be the case. Mix into that the standard that was applied. The defense merely needed to show, is it more likely than not. And when you talk about flying pigs and everything else, you know what -- and pigs eating your soul, that's a case where someone's troubled, mixing in his past history makes it even worse. The jury didn't buy it.

CALLAN: Unless he's making it up, Joey. Unless he's contrived, yes.

JACKSON: Unless he's making it up.

BANFIELD: So, do you all remember, and I know you do because this has probably been a part of your practice, or at least in the back of your legal psyche for 30-plus years, the most famous words we heard in a courtroom, not guilty by reason of insanity. The guy who tried to kill President Reagan. John Hinckley changed everything in this country, everything, when it comes to these defenses. After the break, we're going to go back to that incident. What it did to the insanity defense in America and why on earth we haven't had a second, third or fourth look at this since we know so much more about mental illness. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: The star witness for the prosecution in the American sniper trial was Chris Kyle's widow, Taya Kyle. Her testimony was riveting and at times was emotional, so much so, she was choking back her tears. One of the most dramatic moments of the trial was when Taya was asked to look at photos of Chris with the couple's two kids.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you know where that's taken?

TAYA KYLE, CHRIS KYLE'S WIDOW: I do. It was in Scottsdale, Arizona.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He had a really impressive record, though, as a sniper that got him to that place.

KYLE: Yes. Yes, he did. He had -- he was the most lethal sniper in United States military history is what the publisher wanted to put on the book.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And how many -- what does that mean, how many confirmed kills was he credited with?

KYLE: I know that sometimes the numbers will vary from what the Navy wants to say and I think it was between -- I think it was 160 for the book or 155.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And when they say confirmed kills, what does that mean?

KYLE: A confirmed kill is when you are -- do -- on overwatch, you take the shot and there's another witness to it and they confirm the death and then they write up the paperwork for it afterwards. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Was he so good at his job that he actually became

recognized for his skill as a sniper?

KYLE: He did. And the --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did that lead to the book that he wrote?

KYLE: It did.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. Tell us about -- what's the name of the book, if somebody hasn't heard about it? What's that called?

KYLE: Right. The book is "American Sniper." And, just to be clear, he did not want to write a book. He actively did not want to write it and put it off for years. But because of the record, because of his success, people were going to write it about him and he wanted to make sure that he could give other people the credit for the service that they did. And the only way to do that was to write it himself.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: So that was very powerful to this jury about the looming elephant in this courtroom, which was this massive personality, this fame that her late husband had. But I just mentioned earlier, there was such emotion that came from Taya Kyle. A very, very stalwart woman, most of the time, until it came to the subject of those kids. Have a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you know where that's taken?

KYLE: I do. It was in Scottsdale, Arizona.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: State's Exhibit 123. Take a minute if you need to.

KYLE: I'm sorry.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Where is this?

KYLE: That was outside our house on Easter morning, Chris hiding Easter eggs for the kids.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Make no mistake, that stuff is not lost on the people sitting in the jury box.

I want to bring back in our legal experts to discuss the impact of Chris Kyle's notoriety, but also just the bigger issue of this insanity defense in America.

All right, guys, things changed after Hinckley. After he took those shots at President Reagan and the jury said, it's OK, you were insane, we're not going to call you guilty, the backlash was feverish. What happened? What changed? What made it so much more restrictive in courtrooms to actually prevail in these defenses?

TEECE: What happened after Hinckley was basically acquitted because he was insane, is Congress passed a law that said, in order for you to prevail on the insanity defense, we're going to turn to the defense and we're going to say, it's your burden. You know, when people go into a courtroom, they're wrapped in the veil of innocence and the government has to prove them guilty. But in this instance, to prove that you're insane, they shifted the burden to the defense and they have to prove it by a preponderance or by clear and convincing evidence. That's the sea change.

BANFIELD: But why, then, haven't we been able to get over that in three-plus decades and revisit it to say, we're learning so much more about mental health?

CALLAN: There was this -- there was a second thing that was going on at that time. As a result of a more enlightened attitude about mental health treatments, a lot of people were being released from mental hospitals in America. It used to be if somebody was found insane, they were thrown into some black hole where they remained forevermore. But then a series of court decisions started to require release. The American public started to see a lot of mentally deranged people in their communities and a distrust in the reliability of the assessment of mental health started to occur. And that's why the states all got tougher on the insanity defense because they said, hey, we don't want to risk these guys going out onto the streets. And now we are where we are. It's almost impossible to prove insanity in American courtrooms.

JACKSON: Which segues into this point, those being very good ones, there are states, Ashleigh, that don't even recognize insanity as an affirmative defense to excuse your conduct.

BANFIELD: By the way, is that (INAUDIBLE) Hinckley?

JACKSON: Absolutely.

BANFIELD: Since Hinckley they just wiped them off the books completely.

JACKSON: They wiped them out. We have them. Kansas, Montana, Idaho, Utah. And there are additional states that say you can be found guilty but mentally ill and so therefore you're still accountable.

BANFIELD: Got it.

JACKSON: Georgia is one of them. Alaska is one of them. And the beat goes on.

BANFIELD: Let me ask you honestly what you think. If you were actually having to litigate in the courtroom in one of these cases today and you looked at those jurors in the box and said, you have two options on your form, guilty or not guilty, we all kind of know what's going on nowadays. But what if the option was guilty but insane and that was an option they could actually check instead of not guilty, just guilty but insane?

TEECE: But the question is, what is the ramification of when they check guilty but insane?

BANFIELD: They go to the institution, not to incarceration with little help, until they die and come out in a pine box.

TEECE: OK. Well, and that's fine. Believe it or not, there are -- they can get mental health help in prison. I mean that -- that -- that does exists. But the problem is, you're going to ask these jurors to take a guy who admitted shooting and gunning down two people and basically give him a pass. And I'm not sure if the different --

BANFIELD: It's not a pass. It -- Hinckley is still there. Sure, he's had some visits with his parents 30 some odd years later, but why can't we get over the fact that they don't walk out the back door? Quickly, last comment.

CALLAN: Well, because -- well, I think we -- we're asking jurors to diagnose psychiatric illness. And I wonder if that's a good idea to begin with. But if you're going to do that --

BANFIELD: Are you saying professional juries?

CALLAN: Well -- no, I'm not saying that. But what I'm saying is, I think if we're going to do this, we need a better system. Maybe a one to 10 system where 10 is the worst, 10 is totally delusional. And if your level of insanity is, you know, eight to 10, maybe then you get the benefit of the insanity defense. Sort of this right and wrong test.

BANFIELD: Quick, last comment, Joey Jackson.

JACKSON: Jurors want accountability for the actions that people take. And unless and until you can establish that someone is really insane, not knowing right from wrong, they're going to find you guilty.

BANFIELD: I'm so tired every day on this show of covering mass shootings and incidents like this where there is such thick, thick mental health issues on the table and we just can't seem to use them to fix more issues.

Joey, Paul, Fred, thank you for all of that.

JACKSON: Thank you, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: Great discussion on this incredibly important topic. Stick around. More to come.

That deadly superbug, you heard about it, it's made a lot of people sick, and worse in some cases, after just going in for some routine medical procedure. The doctors have tracked down where this superbug actually lives and they say there's no way the FDA didn't know about it and they want answers as to why changes weren't made. Details, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: Some breaking news in here to our CNN offices. And I just want to bring this to you as it's coming to my attention. There have been three arrests made in Brooklyn, New York. And when you hear what they're about, it will give you some serious pause about terrorism in America alive and well potentially.

The FBI has now arrested three men who had plans and were attempting to fly from New York's JFK Airport to Turkey, but not stop there. The FBI saying that the ultimate destination and the intent of these three was in fact Syria and that the friends they were about to meet up with were not friendly to America. They were, in fact, ISIS militants. And the suggestion is, is that these three in Brooklyn were about to join their ranks.

This is according to a complaint that was unsealed today in Brooklyn. It comes to us via our justice correspondent Evan Perez and producer Shimon Prokupecz who have been working the phones on this one. CNN has been working to find out, they're now facing charges by the U.S. attorney's office in Brooklyn, probably not a surprise because this is the one you hear the most often when it comes to this kind of thing, providing material support for terrorists.

I want to give you the names and you're going to have to bear with me. They're a little tricky. I'm seeing them for the first time. Abdurasul Hasanovich Jeraboev, 24 years old, Akhror Saidakhmetov, 19, and Abror Habibov, 30 years old. Those are the three now facing material support for terrorist charges. Those are federal charges. Presumably they are being held in a federal facility right now in Brooklyn.

I want to bring in Tom Fuentes to get some reaction to this.

You know, we've heard a few reports of this, Tom. And as a CNN law enforcement analyst, I want to get your thoughts to how long they may have actually been trying to track these guys or watching their actions or listening in on their actions or reading their texts, tweets or e-mails before they actually closed in and took them in.

TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST (via telephone): Well, that could be, Ashleigh, from a few days to a few months. You just don't know. And I think what happens is, is that the FBI, you know, is looking at currently over 1,000 current counterterrorism investigations. And many of them start with somebody looking at social media, calls the FBI or calls the police and says, hey, take a look at this guy, we're seeing suspicious. They informed the authorities and it kind of starts from there.

And when they see people communicating with each other, especially if there's a small group and they start e-mailing or calling on the phones, then they start the investigation to see if it's just all talk or whether they start to get serious about it. And once they start booking travel and talking to other known jihadists and start communicating overseas, then the FBI is going to get very, very alarmed by it and work very closely to determine how long they can let this go before they have to let them -- you know, to prevent them, I should say, from going to Syria or going to somewhere to join jihad. But it could potentially get out of track and come back and we wouldn't know it. So that's part of the problem they have in this is when to really make the decision to take the arrest -- make the arrest, take them off the streets.

BANFIELD: Let me ask you this, and I'm just -- I'm just receiving in my hands a response from the D.O.J., a statement, it's very lengthy, and I'm trying to just do some quick culling before I read it to you. But safe to say that the initial appearances of these three are scheduled for later today. It will be before a U.S. magistrate in Brooklyn. And the initial appearance for one of them, Mr. Habibov, will be held later today in Jacksonville -- Jacksonville, Florida.

In the meantime, just quickly, if you could, Tom, what sort of material would they need to reach the bar of probable cause, let alone actually set those charges in motion and the time begins, your ticking clock begins that you've got to get these guys to trial? What do they have to have? How much goods do they have to have before they can actually close in and go for it and charge them?

FUENTES: Well, the most, you know, definite case would be to let them go and let them engage in terrorism and then, you know, hopefully they come back and say, OK, you're a terrorist, you did terrorist acts and now we can arrest you. But they can't allow that. So in the conspiracy, you know, they -- when they start hearing the plans, the discussions, oh, we want to go do jihad, that's one thing. But when they start to take positive steps in furtherance of the act, in furtherance of the conspiracy, which could be booking the ticket, you know, arranging for the flight, talking to somebody who's going to make logistical arrangements for them when they land in Istanbul or whichever country they're flying into in order to complete the travel to Syria and Iraq, really that's a major step in the direction of it, when they actually have either the tickets in hand or have just booked the flights and they're becoming very definite. There's no doubt about it that they're going to go and join jihad.

BANFIELD: Stand by, if you would, Tom Fuentes, for a moment. I want to bring in Pamela Brown, who's our justice correspondent, based in Washington, D.C.

I'm still reading feverishly through the response from the D.O.J., Pam, but I know that you've got some information at least on these three now -- well, they're soon-to-be defendants, but they certainly are suspects. What more do we know about them and what they might have been up to?

PAMELA BROWN, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: I'm reading through the complaint just as you are, Ashleigh, but what I just read really that caught my attention. It basically said that two of these suspects, two of these men from Brooklyn, who allegedly wanted to provide material support to ISIL by traveling over there, according to officials, if they did not get to go over and join ISIS, the complaint says that two of them intended to commit acts of terrorism on American soil. In an August 2014 posting which we know is part of why these men came to the attention of law enforcement from their social media posting, it said that, according to ISIL's ideology, one of the men offered to kill the president of the United States if ordered to do so by ISIS. And then it said more recently one of the men expressed that he wanted to buy a machine gun and shoot police officers and FBI agents if thwarted in his plan to join ISIS in Syria. This is according to this criminal complaint that we are looking through right now.

Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: And I'm just seeing here that some of the material, at least that August 2014 -- and it might be the same one you were just referring to, Pamela, was on an Uzbek language website. And I'm just looking at the last names of all three of them and they certainly might concur that they may be of Uzbek origin. But do we know that for certain, Pamela?

BROWN: We don't know. And, of course, this is all happening right now as we speak. But, of course, that's a big question we're going to want to ask, Ashleigh. But it's interesting to note in the larger context, this is not the first American or first Americans, I should say, arrested for allegedly wanting to provide material support. We've seen other cases like this, several other cases where people here in the U.S. have been prevented from traveling overseas to join ISIS allegedly. And I should correct myself, again, we don't know if they were U.S. citizens and that's something that we're still trying to find out.

Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: Just looking at this, and the suggestion is that Jeraboev, I'm sorry if I'm mispronouncing it, offered to kill the president of the United States if ordered to do so by ISIL. This coming, again, from the Department of Justice.

I want to bring in Evan Perez, our justice correspondent, who broke this news with Shimon Prokupecz.

Just give me some foundation on this.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well -- well, Ashleigh, you know what's really fascinating about this case is that, you know, in talking to FBI and intelligence officials in the last couple of years, as we've seen this phenomenon grow of Americans and people from the United States being recruited to join ISIS and other terrorist groups, this is a really interesting case because we're seeing here the allegation from the government is that there was a network that was supporting these three. That one of them was -- was --

BANFIELD: And they're making specific allegations about the networking that already exists here, right?

PEREZ: They're making -- right. Exactly. And this is something that the FBI has been looking for and looking for. And what we've seen really in these cases is typically someone getting radicalized in their basement and then one-off, you know, deciding to go fly to Turkey or somewhere in Europe and then make their way to Syria. In this case, they're talking about these three being in some kind of conspiracy and some kind of network. And that is something that's new. That's something that the FBI's been looking for and hasn't been able to find and this case has it.

BANFIELD: Look, it's a needle in a haystack, but there's some awesome strategy that could be at play.

PEREZ: Right.

BANFIELD: I'm not going to suggest for a minute that we, the media, are privy to it. But do you suspect it all that some of the arrests may be the lower level fellas who, when squeezed and told what's going to happen to them for material support for terrorists, will open the floodgates to above them who are far bigger players?