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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Philadelphia Amtrak Derailment; Tsarnaev Trial Update. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired May 13, 2015 - 12:30   ET

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


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[12:30:27] ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN HOST: Welcome back. We are doing Breaking News live in Philadelphia. The helicopters overhead and the investigation into this deadly train crash only just beginning. And now are learning this, that an Associated Press employee who is apparently a video software architect was apparently onboard that train.

CNN's Brian Stelter joining me live now at Penn Station in New York where the train was bound for. Do you know anything more about this employee, Brian?

BRIAN STELTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We know a little bit more, Ashleigh. The Associated Press just confirming in the past few minutes that Jim Gaines was one of the people on the train who was killed last night. His wife, Jacqueline, is confirming the news. He was in Washington for the day attending meetings, he was on the way home to Plainsboro, New Jersey. He was on that train late in the evening when it derailed. He is survived by two children, a 16-year old and an 11-year old.

And as you mentioned, he was a video software architect for the Associated Press. He had worked there for almost 20 years, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: Sorry, Brian. I couldn't hear you there but obviously we're just beginning to hear these details of those who lost their lives onboard that train. The Associated Press staffer apparently also one of the latest victims.

Our Brian Stelter for us live in New York City. Thank you for that.

We're continuing our Breaking News coverage, and coming up, we'll have an update on the investigation, also an update on the search for more possible victims. Could they still be at that derailment site?

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[12:35:47] BANFIELD: We're back here, live on location in Philadelphia, the scene of that deadly train crash. Six people dead, 200 plus treated in local hospitals. I want to bring in someone who's really critical to this effort. Renee Hughes Cardwell is the CEO of Easter Pennsylvania for Red Cross.

Judge Hughes if you could just maybe give me a feel for the, the center that you've been able to set up for those who need help, need to try to connect, need information and of course the coordination of the missing. We still don't have a full list of who might not have been on that train and who still might be at this time.

JUDGE RENEE CARDWELL HUGHES, CEO, AMERICAN RED CROSS of E. PENNSYLVANIA REGION: So you make a really important point, Ashleigh. This is a very fluid situation so last night we managed two command centers. People were coming in to 30th Street Station, the Amtrak headquarters and people were coming in to the community. So we staffed two locations.

Today, we're staffing one location and we are working with Amtrak and TSB in the city to pull together whose missing. And most importantly, to work with their families, to bring them comfort.

BANFIELD: Have you had a lot of there family members coming in and looking for names, manifest, information?

CARDWELL HUGHES: Yes. At this point, we've had about 75 people who have come directly to us. We anticipated that will continue to grow...

BANFIELD: Have they found there (inaudible), the ones that you've seen?

CARDWELL HUGHES: It would really not be appreciate for us to responds to questions like that. What the community should know is that the Red Cross is here, partnering with Amtrak and TSB to make sure that the families are taken cared of and that their comfort is addressed. We work with spiritual care and mental health care as well as physical care and we actually trained for this. We actually trained for derailment about three months ago.

BANFIELD: Just three months ago.

CARDWELL HUGHES: Just three months ago. We were just looking at the situation and decided this was something that could happen, and so we trained all of our volunteers for this type of eventuality. I regret that it has happened but I'm very grateful we had the foresight to train.

BANFIELD: Well -- and they're, you know, everyone is so lucky to have you on the job, having that training. So Judge, thank you very much. I don't want to take you away from your important work but I appreciate you coming to talk to us about this today. And the best of luck in trying to put together those manifest and those missing. It's a daunting task. Thank you again.

CARDWELL HUGHES: Thank you.

BANFIELD: You know, one of the things that's been a big issue and it's certainly been a big political issue is the safety and the funding and what kind of money goes towards real safety and traffic in particular. It has been a hot button issue on Capitol Hill, and that's why I want to take you our Athena Jones who's standing by live. And you have developments, believe it or not, unbelievably timely on exactly this issue today in the Capitol, Athena?

ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Ashleigh. That's right. The House Appropriations Committee is dealing with a transportation bill as we speak. They're marking it up, making amendments to this annual transportation bill. And just a short while ago, a congressman -- Democratic Congressman Chaka Fattah from Pennsylvania, offered an amendment that would restore -- it would boost funding for Amtrak, funding that had been cut by about $200 million, I should say, for capital improvement. So, infrastructure improvements.

Chaka Fattah, the congressman from Pennsylvania, offered an amendment that would restore that cut. It would add that back in. So -- and essentially increasing funding. That amendment was defeated, 31 to 20, it was party line vote. You have republicans arguing that because of sequester or those automatic across the board spending cutes, any increase in funding has to be offset by cuts elsewhere. Of course democrats were arguing this about priorities.

Listen to Congressman Steve Israel from New York argue passionately about the need to increase funding. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. STEVE ISRAEL, (D) NEW YORK. We are divesting from America in this subcommittee, in this committee. And it doesn't make sense and defies the interest of the American people.

The budget of this majority continues to present consistently subsidize more and more special interests. What we should have been doing is subsidizing the safety of those passengers on that Amtrak train yesterday.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JONES: And of course, Ashleigh, we don't know yet what caused that derailment. We don't know if it was a specific problem with infrastructure but you have democrats like Steve Israel and others saying, "Look, we got to make sure that we invest in American railways. We're far behind other countries." And it's very, very interesting though to see that -- see that debate playing out today and to see that attempt to respond in a way.

I mean the event was filed ahead of time but -- and in terms of responding to this, to see that fails. So very, very interesting. The markup is still going on and so we'll see what else happen, Ashleigh.

[12:40:13] BANFIELD: All right. Stay on it for us if you would Athena live on Capitol hill, thank you so much.

I've got some breaking news. I want to bring from you live here in Baltimore. Rather in that Philadelphia as well because of those six who died on that train last night when it crashed just behind me. We're starting to get the identifications of those who perished.

And you probably heard in the morning's reporting that there was a navy midshipman who was onboard. We know who it was and coming up after the break we're going to update you.

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BANFIELD: There is very little information that is coming to us the press and the public regarding the cause of the crash of this Amtrak train, the derailment that so far has killed six people injured 200, 200 being treated. But as information does triple in its information to least want to hear, the identity of those who died.

And I can now tell you that that naval academy midshipman who died was 20 years old, he was a sophomore at the academy, his name Justin Zemser. And I can tell you a little bit about Justin Zemser who's from Rockaway Beach, New York. He was a first year member of the Sprint Football team at -- in 2014.

[12:45:02] And in high school, he was a two-year letter winner on the high school football team as a wide receiver. He was also elected the student government president and he was also team captain in 2011 and 2012. So such a young soul lost Justin Zemser 20 years old from the naval academy in midshipman. Very tragic news.

I want to take you now to Washington D.C. where my colleague Tom Foreman is standing by.

Tom, I know you've got the ability to sort of in a virtual way walk me through the anatomy of this incident with the information we know this early.

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And you know Ashleigh, we've had a lot of people talking about the question of the infrastructure here. And that's good reason, this is a very heavily traveled route in the country. There have been infrastructure questions for a long time there.

But if you go in and look at this you can see more wider concern. Yes, you've been looking at the train cars, they have to look is whether of not they are actually working properly whether there are some thing wrong with them along the way. But just as important, I mean you have to look at the geography of where this happened.

This turn right in here is going to be something that they will scrutinize because often when we have train track problem it is a problem with the tracks. But sometimes it's also a combination of the geography of the tracks and the speed of the train.

A lot of people have been talking about speed. And I most specifically talk about that here because we've been looking very closely at this. That surveillance video we've been showing throughout the day here.

Watch right up in this corner, you see the train going by and you can see individual cars, if you look very closely it's grainy, it's difficult to study. But if you know the general link of the engine and the cars and you measure it against the fix point here. And we have done this, you can come up with a calculation of the general speed of this train. The speed limit in this area is supposed to be about 50 miles per hour. We have done a lot of calculation on this morning. And base on these images not as good as what investigators have. It looks like this train was at this point traveling considerably faster than that. Perhaps 20 miles per hour or more faster than this.

This is not conclusive, it's not -- it is scientific in the sense that we're doing the math. But we don't have all the evidence they have. But this is the reason they're looking so much at this question of speed because if you think about a train traveling that much faster of course it brings up memories of this track -- crash the one that happened in Spain where it suppose to be doing 50 miles an hour. This train was doing a 100 miles an hour and produce this horrific crash which killed dozens and dozens of people Ashleigh.

So that's why speed is such an issue right now and being looked at so closely.

BANFIELD: Right, of course in those black boxes and the information that should be yielded from those event recorders just coming in. We were told earlier Tom that we should have that information by this afternoon and processing and downloading very, very quickly.

So hopefully we'll have more answers, thank you for that deep look at the anatomy of this incident.

We're also seeing very close to a fast developing story in Wisconsin. We're going to update you here. But we're also going to send you a -- to Wisconsin via this live pictures, a large protest this a backlashed to the states decision not to prosecute a police officer, an officer who killed an unarmed man. It is a familiar story with different details and yet the pictures seem so similar.

We'll take you there next.

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[12:52:01] FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN HOST: Hello everyone. I'm Fredricka Whitfield live in Atlanta. Here are some of the other top stories we're tracking for you. These are live pictures right here of a march in Madison, Wisconsin.

This is a demonstration in opposition to a prosecutor's decision not to charge the officer who shot and killed 19-year old, Tony Robinson. The unarmed biracial teenager was fatally shot by Officer Matt Kenny, who is white, on March 6th, setting off days of protest in that city. Robinson's family says they support peaceful, nonviolent protest over their son's case.

And we also want to take you now to Boston, and a huge day in the sentencing trial for Marathon Bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. The jury is hearing closing arguments today before making what is likely to be the biggest decision of their lives, deciding whether someone lives or dies, that someone, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. And deliberations won't be a cakewalk. Jurors have 24 pages of complicated instruction to sort through. So many issues to consider and a decision on death must be unanimous.

Deborah Feyerick joins me now from outside the courthouse in Boston.

So, Deb, the prosecution's closing arguments have been very emotional. Take us inside the courtroom, who was there, and what was said.

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, it was really very emotional. Remember, the victim's families were there, the father of Officer Sean Collier, the parents of 8-year old Martin Richards is also there. And the prosecutor really made the point that giving Dzhokhar Tsarnaev the death sentence is not giving him what he wants, which technically with be martyrdom. It is giving him what he deserves, said the prosecutor.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of the two people who actually able to read the extremist literature and then carry out such an act of terrorism. The prosecutor was very forceful saying, "Don't be fooled by cute pictures of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev as a child." He said, "All murderers starts as cute children." And he countered the defense argument that it was Tamerlan who was the driving force, the older brother, saying that when Dzhokhar Tsarnaev wrote the manifesto in the boat, nowhere did he say, "My brother made me do it."

And he said as for those mitigating factors that the jury is going to have to consider, he said none of the mitigating factors outweigh the death and destruction suffered by the victims in this case. Three dead, many others becoming amputees.

And as you say, Fredricka, the jury will be getting this case likely by the end of the day. The defense will have an opportunity to give their closing arguments after lunch, and then the prosecutors will actually have the last word, but this is going to be long. They have to decide life or death on the 17 eligible death counts and then the remainder, which would -- well, they have to decide would be life in prison.

So, it is going to be lengthy, and a lot is at stake. There is no sort of -- this is not mechanical, this is not mathematical as the judge pointed out. This is something that is going to be highly personal to each and everyone of those jurors as they decide whether, in fact, death is the appropriate sentence, Fredricka.

[12:55:00] WHITFIELD: And so, Deb, so many things that these jurors have to consider, is there a feeling how heavily the words from Helen Prejean, this death penalty opponent? How might her words impact that she says she heard Dzhokhar Tsarnaev say to her that no one deserves to suffer?

FEYERICK: Well, that was critical for the defense. They were able to show the jury that in, you know, in a view of this nun, that he genuinely feel sorry, that he genuinely feels remorseful, but the prosecutor really hitting hard saying, "There was no remorse then. There's no remorse now."

So even though he may have appeared to be sorry, those words also never came out of his mouth, Fredricka. WHITFIELD: All right. And Deb, is there a feeling as to what this day might look like for those jurors?

FEYERICK: No. But I was watching the jurors very, very closely in that courtroom. This is serious, and the judge was making sure that they understood the implications of what they choose saying that nobody has to decide that death is the right answer.

So, you can have all of the aggravating factors you want. But if one mitigating factor, which is, you know, maybe he was persuaded by his brother, if that's the one that really resonates with the juror, then they don't have to decide death. So, again, no real checklist.

WHITFIELD: All right, unanimous on death, however. All right. Deborah Feyerick, thanks so much in Boston, keep us posted. I appreciate it.

All right. Thank you so much from watching. I'm Fredricka Whitfield. Wolf Blitzer starts right after a quick break.

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