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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield
Baltimore Suspect's Death Raises Questions; Tulsa Sheriff Speaks; Six American Terror Suspects Arrested; Husband Charged with Abuse. Aired 12-12:30p ET
Aired April 20, 2015 - 12:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[12:00:20] ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm Ashleigh Banfield. And welcome to LEGAL VIEW.
Baltimore Police say it is a mystery, but they vow to solve it. The dead man's family says it's a tragedy but hardly a whodunit. They say police are to blame for whatever happened to Freddie Gray a week ago yesterday when officers decided to stop him for reasons they still will not disclose. My CNN colleague, Suzanne Malveaux, is on the case.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ah.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (EXPLETIVE DELETED), Freddie. His leg look broke. Look at his (EXPLETIVE DELETED) leg.
SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): That is Freddie Gray.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Look at his (EXPLETIVE DELETED) leg. That boy's leg look broke.
MALVEAUX: Being detained a week ago by Baltimore Police. The question now, how did the 25-year-old go from this to this, lapsing into a coma less than an hour later and dying yesterday.
MAYOR STEPHANIE RAWLINGS-BLAKE (D) BALTIMORE: The questions that many of you have are the same questions that we're asking.
MALVEAUX: The attorney for Gray's family alleges the police are covering up what really happened. Baltimore Police say they spot Gray and begin to approach him at 8:39 in the morning on April 12th for reasons not yet disclosed. They say Gray immediately runs away. Just a minute later, police take Gray into custody. And then, 14 minutes later, at 8:54 in the morning, this is the first video we see of the event.
Officers load Gray into the police van. Police say video evidence indicates Gray's conscious and speaking at the time. A half hour later, police request paramedics bring Gray to a hospital. Gray's family attorney says he lapsed into a coma and underwent extensive surgery. His spinal cord was severely injured. And a week later, he died at 7:00 in the morning. So two looming questions, why did police pursue Gray and what happened
to him while he was in their custody that resulted in his death?
DEP. COMM. JERRY RODRIGUEZ, BALTIMORE POLICE: The officers believed that Mr. Gray was either immediately involved or had been recently involved in criminal activity and they decided to make contact with Mr. Gray. Now that is still a bit vague.
MALVEAUX: This most recent mystery into a deadly police encounter sparking more outrage.
CROWD: No justice, no peace.
MALVEAUX: In a nation already embroiled in debate over police tactics and use of force. Though in this most recent encounter, Baltimore's mayor promises answers.
RAWLINGS-BLAKE: I want citizens to know exactly how it happened and, if necessary, we will -- I will ensure that we will hold the right people accountable.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BANFIELD: And Suzanne Malveaux joins us live now. She's in Baltimore.
There seems to be so many questions and yet they're talking about accountability, we still don't know exactly what the suspected criminal activity was for Mr. Gray to be stopped and then we also don't know what it was that led to him dying. Are we getting any closer to some of these very critical answers?
MALVEAUX: You know, Ashleigh, we certainly hope so. There's going to be a press conference that is happening at 3:30 this afternoon with the police commissioner, some other police officials and also the family is going to be speaking out at 4:00 following that so we are going to be asking those questions. But I have to say that the mayor, earlier today, expressed some frustration. She said that the law -- the law enforcement bill of rights on a statewide level prevented them from asking some of the police officers who they believe involved really some of the details that are required and the public is dying to know. She says so far there is some officers who have been put on administrative leave. There are at least 10 officers who have been interviewed, but there are still more to go. So those are the kinds of things that we expect we're going to learn this afternoon.
Also, we should note, that you saw that cell phone video. There are some who suspect, including the attorney for Freddie Gray, that there is additional video that's out there, whether it's cell phone or whether it's camera surveillance video that would have been close by to when he was first initially arrested. That would be key in finding out what happened in the first 14 minutes since the time that the police first came into contact with Gray and then the time you see that cell phone video where he's being dragged to the police van. So those are just a couple of things that we're looking at.
We know that the Department of Justice, the state's attorney's office, many different layers of folks who are going to be involved in the investigation, including an independent investigation the mayor announced. So we certainly hope to get some of that information, those details, later because I'm going to tell you, Ashleigh, this is a community that is extremely frustrated by what they have seen so far. They talk about a relationship that has strained with the police department and they want to get to the bottom of this.
[12:05:10] Ashleigh.
BANFIELD: The screams on that video were just harrowing. Suzanne Malveaux reporting live for us in Baltimore. Thank you.
I want to move on to Oklahoma this morning where the Tulsa County sheriff gave his first full-on news conference concerning the killing of Eric Harris. Eric Harris is the man who was shot by a 73-year-old reserved deputy who thought that he was firing his Taser but fired his gun. Now that man, Robert Bates, is charged now with second degree manslaughter. And though he admits to killing Harris, he denies that he lacked the training or the qualifications to hold his job. Our Ed Lavandera has much more on that. Ed joins us live.
So where does this case stand right now and what is the official line from the authorities?
ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, really where things stand now is this -- the question surrounding the training of Mr. Bates. You know, the sheriff, as you mentioned, this was the first time he had really answered many of the questions surrounding this case that has -- that happened earlier this month and at times the sheriff was emotional, at times defensive, and oftentimes very elusive in trying to pin down the exact details of these training records. The bottom line is, the sheriff here in Tulsa, Ashleigh, says that he does not believe that his training records have been falsified. But at the same time, the sheriff acknowledges that there are some records -- and we don't know the extent to which how many of these records are missing -- but the sheriff does acknowledge that some of this training records are missing and they say they will begin looking into that.
So still lots of questions and at times the sheriff very defensive. It was very difficult to get straight answers on some of these training issues from the sheriff, as you can see from this clip.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SHERIFF STANLEY GLANZ, TULSA COUNTY, OKLAHOMA: What I'm telling you is, that the undersheriff that was in place at that time did do an investigation. I don't -- I don't know if it was an internal affairs --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) about Mr. Bates' training records.
GLANZ: And that's what it was about.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE).
GLANZ: Well, the -- the last six or seven years he's qualified every year with a gun at the range if you -- that's been your concern.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LAVANDERA: So, Ashleigh, what he's talking about there is that he acknowledged that six or seven years ago it wasn't a formal internal affairs investigation. We're told it was a -- it was an inquiry that they were looking into these allegations of the training records being falsified. But, again, we asked the sheriff, there was -- we were told that there was never a formal report or any kind of conclusive findings, that it was just a simple inquiry and it didn't seem to go much beyond that.
You know, a lot of questions around this swirling as well, Ashleigh, is because Mr. Bates and the sheriff here in Tulsa County had a long history. It was Mr. Bates that started selling insurance to the sheriff several decades ago and that's how they became friends. They have taken vacations together and that sort of thing. So there are a lot of questions surrounding just how close their relationship is. The sheriff denies that that relationship and that close friendship had anything to do with the way Mr. Bates was -- with what he was allowed to do as a reserve deputy here with the Tulsa County Sheriff's Department.
Ashleigh.
BANFIELD: All right, Ed Lavandera reporting live for us. Thank you for that.
Before we move on, I want to give you now the case of a police officer who held his fire, even when the suspect begged him not to. Jesse Kidder is an officer in the Cincinnati suburb of New Richmond, Ohio. And last Thursday, he came face to face with a man suspected of killing two people. A man who may have been armed. A man who clearly was uncooperative, to say the very least. I want to get you to watch something. It's Kidder going out of his way, even to the point of actually falling down as he's backing away from this suspect, all to avoid pulling the trigger.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OFFICER: Get your hands up. Get your hands up. Get your hands up right now.
SUSPECT: (EXPLETIVE DELETED) shoot me. Shoot me.
OFFICER: Stop. Stop right there. I don't want to shoot you, man. I don't want to shoot you.
SUSPECT: (INAUDIBLE).
OFFICER: (INAUDIBLE). That's enough. (INAUDIBLE). Don't do it, man. I'll (EXPLETIVE DELETED) shoot you. I'll shoot you.
SUSPECT: Do what you want. No you won't.
OFFICER: Get back. Get back. SUSPECT: Shoot me.
OFFICER: Get your hands out of your pocket.
SUSPECT: Shoot me.
OFFICER: Get your hands out of your pocket, now.
SUSPECT Shoot me.
OFFICER: No, man. Not going to do it.
SUSPECT: Shoot me. Shoot me. Shoot me.
OFFICER: (INAUDIBLE). Stop it right now. (EXPLETIVE DELETED) back up. Back the (EXPLETIVE DELETED) up. Get down on the ground.
DISPATCH: (INAUDIBLE). All cars be advised suspect is running. Suspect is running.
OFFICER: Keep your hands out. Keep your hands out or you're going to get shot, you understand that?
SUSPECT: Yes, sir.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: Just unbelievable video. That's the kind of thing people call suicide by cop or at least an effort at it.
[12:10:02] And that run-in occurred on Officer Kidder's first anniversary with the New Richmond Police. We never would have seen that but for that body cam. It was not issued by the city. It was paid for by Kidder's family. We're going to talk a lot more about this a little later on in this program as well.
In the meantime, there's some big news coming from the FBI. It says it's made another big ISIS bust. This time in Minnesota. Not one, not two, not even three, six, six people. What is behind these rising numbers? We're going to talk about that next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BALDWIN: The Feds have made another takedown of Americans here in the United States who say they had plans to go to Syria and yet again fight with ISIS. CNN's Ryan Young is in Minneapolis where the U.S. attorney and FBI were giving some details about this plot.
The biggest detail, Ryan, off the top, I mean the real headline is there are six in this affidavit. There are six people listed, which seems to like a pretty heavy number. What are the details? What are they suspected of doing?
RYAN YOUNG, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It does seem like a large number. I can also tell you this unfolds like a movie plot. The (ph) six people working together. In fact, there was a larger group involved in this, all of them trying to get to Syria. They wanted to fight with ISIS. This is something they wanted to do. Not only did they plan this whole coordination, they tried to get on busses, they tried to get on planes, they tried to do whatever they could to get to certain airports to get overseas.
[12:15:2] Now, we know just yesterday four were arrested here in Minneapolis and two were arrested in San Diego. But what we do know is somebody inside the group decided to start giving information to the government. They actually started recording some of the conversations and over the last 11 months they were able to see how these men were doing test runs all across the country to try to see if they could get over to Syria. One of the things they would do is they would book flights to Greece or other countries hoping to get to Istanbul, but that never did happen.
But there's a bigger focus now on this city to try to stop people from joining this (ph).
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANDREW M. LUGER, U.S. ATTORNEY, DISTRICT OF MINNESOTA: To be clear, we have a terror recruiting problem in Minnesota. And this case demonstrates how difficult it is to put an end to recruiting here. Parents and loved ones should know that there is not one master recruiter organizing in the Somali community locally. What this case shows is that the person radicalizing your son, your brother, your friend, may not be a stranger. It may be their best friend right here in town.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
YOUNG: A lot of these men were trying to fly to cities but they had no plans once they arrived in those cities so the government was able to figure out that more than likely they were trying to get to Syria and they were able to put a stop to it.
Ashleigh.
BANFIELD: So, Ryan, the weird question is, what he was just saying was that this may not be the stranger on the Internet. That's sort of the story we're used to hearing. People self-radicalizing by websites and, you know, crazy videos. But now they're saying this is someone they were familiar with, someone they knew, someone who went specifically to Syria and then targeted back to them as a pal. That's -- that's -- that's different.
YOUNG: And it's difficult because actually a young man from this community was able to make it over to Syria and now they believe he's helping to recruit these people from far away and now all these men want to get there because they believe he's a hero and it's something they want to stop here in this community, especially for people who lived here a long time and do not associate themselves with ISIS.
BANFIELD: All right, Ryan Young reporting live for us. Thank you for that. Coming up next, an elderly couple, a husband and a wife, she, in a
nursing home with dementia, and now he is on trial. And the accusation is that he was sexually abusing her. That she could not consent to the kind of relationship he thought she could. So where does this go?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[12:21:02] BANFIELD: This is just a heartbreaking and extraordinary criminal case that is difficult to sort of put into what makes sense. It involves sex, a 78-year-old husband and a wife with severe dementia and it could set some very important precedence. The closing arguments are going to begin today in the trial of a former Iowa legislature who was charged with third degree sexual abuse. And here's why, for allegedly having sex with his own wife in a nursing home after he was told she was not mentally capable of consenting to doing that kind of thing. Henry and Donna Rayhons were married for only seven years and they met while singing in a church choir. It was the second marriage for both of them, but the relationship took a sad turn when Donna was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. She has since died, but now her husband Henry is being accused of taking advantage of her. But he is insisting in court that he cared deeply for his wife.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You loved her.
HENRY RAYHONS, CHARGED WITH SEXUALLY ABUSING WIFE: I loved her very much.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're still smitten with her?
RAYHONS: I'm still.
RAYHONS: She just loved everybody. She loved to talk to everybody and everybody loved her.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: The prosecution, on the other hand, is painting a very different picture of an elderly man who wanted sex with his wife so badly that he was willing to ignore even the doctors' orders.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BANFIELD (voice-over): In court, jurors have been shown surveillance video of Henry Rayhons guiding his wife Donna into her room. Thirty minutes later, he's seen leaving and throwing something in the laundry bin.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are you aware of what was found in that cart?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was Donna's underwear. BANFIELD: Physicians and nurses testified about Donna's mental state.
SHARI DAKIN, HEAD CHARGE NURSE: She was just in her pleasant little world, her own little world.
PATRICIA BARRICK, NURSE: She was holding a sandwich like this and looking down and just shaking her head, what do I do? What, you know, not saying that but just looking blankly at the food.
DR. JOHN BRADY, DONNA RAYHON'S PRIMARY PHYSICIAN: Her behavior was declining at that time. There was more evidence of confusion.
BANFIELD: Dr. John Brady was Donna's primary care physician at the Concord Care Center. During a meeting with Donna's daughters, Care Center staff and Mr. Rayhons, Dr. Brady signed a document saying that given Donna's cognitive state she would not be able to consent to sex.
BRADY: She had showed severe cognitive impairment. So along with my clinical visits and nurses statements and this all in -- combined, that's how I made my determination that I would -- did not feel she would have the mental capacity to consent for sex.
BANFIELD: Dr. Brady says Henry Rayhons was informed that there would be no sexual activity. Just over a week later, Donna's roommate alerted staff to the incident in question. When confronted with the evidence, Henry Rayhons eventually told investigators that whatever may have taken place was for his wife's sake.
RAYHONS: I would guess that if -- if I -- if I did indeed have sex that night, that she asked for it.
INVESTIGATOR: OK. And how did she ask for it? What did she say?
RAYHONS: She says, shall we play a little game?
BANFIELD: However, in court on Friday, Rayhons denied anything sexual ever happened.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you have any sexual intimacy at all the evening of May 23rd in the new room with Donna?
RAYHONS: No. She was not in any mood to have anything at all.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BANFIELD: OK. Now that is a keys piece of testimony. According to "The New York Times," there's very little contention that the Rayhons were in a loving relationship. But here's what's interesting. There was a rape kit that was performed after this incident and it was inconclusive as to when any sexual contact had actually occurred. Remember that.
[12:25:09] Now, for the legal view, I want to bring in Arthur Caplan, who's the director of the division of medical ethics at NYU's Langone Medical Center, and also with me defensive attorney Danny Cevallos, who teaches health care law at Drexel University. He's an adjunct professor there.
You two are perfect for this case for two different reasons. First of all, I don't think this case is going to go anywhere. I'm just going to lay that on the line right off the bat. Ethically speaking, if you get an expert up there, a doctor who said that she could not consent, could you not find many other doctors who would also say the science of the elderly and what they like and what they don't like, what their physical urges and what their physical urges aren't, and what their facial expressions say is consent as opposed to their words differ vastly.
ARTHUR CAPLAN, MEDICAL ETHICIST: A parade.
BANFIELD: A parade.
CAPLAN: I mean an endless parade. So we don't really understand the capacities of people with Alzheimer's. It's not clear how far down the Alzheimer's road she was. How demented was she. Alzheimer's patients like to watch television. They like their meals. They like to be touched. Some of them clearly do enjoy sex. So I think it's going to be difficult to say she didn't consent. Was she injured? Was she harmed? No. It's not -- no one's making that claim so --
BANFIELD: And isn't this just such an imperfect and early science at this stage where elderly patients may have lost a lot of capacities but their physicality is still robust.
CAPLAN: Correct, is still present. So they've got drives.
BANFIELD: Yes.
CAPLAN: They've got wants. They've got needs. They like to be talked to, even if they don't know who's talking to them.
BANFIELD: And the consent can be the flicker of eyelashes. The consent can be that smile. It can be something that only two people would understand.
CAPLAN: Absolutely true. So I'm with you, I don't think this guy's going to jail.
BANFIELD: So I -- councilor, I see that being part of the litigation, but then I see something as simple as there's inconclusive evidence as to whether any sex occurred on the date that's being named in this case because it's either before or after he was told he couldn't do that.
DANNY CEVALLOS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: In any rape case there are really two elements, there's sex and the absence of consent. So from a defense perspective, there are really two defenses, it didn't happen or, if it did, it was consensual. And that's exactly what this defense is doing. They're taking it back to the beginning and saying there is no proof beyond a reasonable doubt that sex occurred as charged in this instrument in this indictment, whatever it is. But secondly, if there was sex, it was consensual. And just as Dr. Caplan said, some of these tests that they give to gauge this intent are not designed to gauge intent to consent to sex but rather things like memory, the BIMS test or some of these other tests that are used really only tell you if someone has lost short-term memory --
BANFIELD: Yes.
CEVALLOS: Or they have dementia. When it comes to a primal urge like sex, the issue of consent becomes much foggier.
BANFIELD: So we're going to continue this conversation at another time, but I know that one of the things you think, Art, is critical for people who may be watching right now is put this in your living will.
CAPLAN: Absolutely.
BANFIELD: Do you want to allow --
CAPLAN: Absolutely.
BANFIELD: Consent to sex even when you can't? It's something you can actually be proactive about now before you lose the capacity to write those documents to make those choices.
CAPLAN: Absolutely right. Tough to address, but do it.
BANFIELD: Such a fascinating case and critical now as the aging population is healthier. Dr. Caplan, thank you.
CAPLAN: More and more people living longer, going to get into the situation.
BANFIELD: Critical.
CEVALLOS: Yes.
CAPLAN: Got to anticipate it.
BANFIELD: Thank you both. A very smart conversation and do appreciate it from both of you. And like I said, this case isn't over yet. So stick with us. We're going to follow it.
Up next, though, a stunning admission by the FBI telling "The Washington Post" that its forensic experts going up there and swearing under oath gave flawed and misleading testimony. The kind of thing that could raise questions about guilty verdicts in not just a few, not even dozens, not even hundred, thousands of criminal trials. And guess what? Some people have already been executed.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
