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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield
Police Custody Death; Race for the White House. Aired 12-12:30p ET
Aired July 23, 2015 - 12:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[12:00:00] ELISE LABOTT, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Listen, if the United States rejects this deal, the rest of the international community will go along with this deal and the U.S. will be isolated. It will be Iran and the world on one side and the United States on the second side. So really, I mean, he's saying to the lawmakers, you have no choice but to accept this deal.
KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Right. Well, we'll see if he changes any minds on this today.
Elise, thank you so much.
And thank you all for joining us "AT THIS HOUR." LEGAL VIEW starts right now.
POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm Poppy Harlow, in today for Ashleigh Banfield. Welcome to LEGAL VIEW.
We begin this hour with new revelations in the case of Sandra Bland, the woman who died in police custody in Texas. First, her mental state as she describes herself when she was booked into that jail. And, secondly, the jail itself. How prepared were the staff there to handle someone like Sandra Bland, who was depressed and potentially suicidal? Still so many questions unanswered, namely, how did Sandra Bland die? The police say suicide. Her family does not believe that. And then the issue of whether she should have been in jail at all.
Take a look at this. This is the jail intake form that Sandra Bland filled out. She answered yes to the question, have you ever attempted suicide. She clarifies that she took pills after losing a baby last year. She also acknowledges feeling depressed that day. But elsewhere on those jail intake forms, it says "no" when she was asked if she had had thoughts of killing herself in the past year. After her death, Texas state officials inspected the jail in Waller County. They gave it low marks. Inspectors found that guards don't do face-to-face checks on inmates as often as they should and they couldn't prove that staffers were trained adequately to spot people in jail who might be suicidal.
I want to read you this line from the inspection report. Quote, "this training is to include the recognition, supervision, documentation and handling of inmates who are mentally disabled and/or potentially suicidal." CNN's Ed Lavandera, following the story, has more on the case.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): New details about Sandra Bland's condition have been revealed by local law enforcement.
ELTON MATHIS, WALLER COUNTY, TEXAS, DISTRICT ATTORNEY: We have an initial report that she did have quantity of marijuana in her system. However, we are waiting to make any kind of formal determination of that.
LAVANDERA: The Waller County district attorney also says the preliminary autopsy results show some scars on her arm.
MATHIS: The opinion of the medical examiner appears to be cutting scars on the arm. It looks like where someone has been cut over time. Some of those actually appear to be fresher and that they were scabbed.
LAVANDERA: On this police intake questionnaire, Bland notes a previous suicide attempt by way of pills after a miscarriage in 2014. But on another page the answer to the question of attempted suicide is "no." Conflicting information leaving her family with continued doubts.
SHARON COOPER, SANDRA BLAND'S SISTER: I have a hard time dealing with inconsistency and that seems to have been the theme over the last couple of days here. So I don't have a problem still asking questions.
LAVANDERA: Investigators are now analyzing DNA evidence on the trash bag allegedly used in Sandra Bland's hanging.
TROOPER: Step out of the car.
LAVANDERA: And on Wednesday, police released another version of the dash cam video of Bland's arrest, but this one three minutes shorter than the original.
TROOPER: Get out of the car!
SANDRA BLAND: And then you can (INAUDIBLE) me.
TROOPER: I will light you up. Get out!
BLAND: Wow.
TROOPER: Now!
LAVANDERA: Attempting to go clear up the visible anomalies in the footage where cars and people disappear and reappear, chalking up the glitches to an error in uploading. And for the first time we are hearing from Sandra Bland while in police custody. A haunting voice message to a friend the day after her arrest.
BLAND: I'm still just at a loss for words, honestly, about this whole process. How did switching lanes with no signal turn into all of this, I don't even know. But I'm still here, so just come back when you can.
(END VIDEOTAPE) HARLOW: Ed Lavandera joining us live now outside of the Waller County Jail there in Texas.
Ed, look, the family completely distraught. They have demanded this independent autopsy. I'm wondering, "a," have they gotten any results from that and, "b," what are they saying in terms of any potential that she was suicidal?
LAVANDERA: Well, they continue to insist that they didn't have any indication that she was suicidal in any way. They have been saying that she was - had never been clinically diagnosed as depressed or was taking any - nor taking any kind of medication for that. They did order an independent autopsy several days ago. That should be done. The sister of Sandra Bland was asked about it yesterday. She didn't give much information or offer any - any clarity until when and if any information from that second autopsy would be released.
HARLOW: All right, Ed Lavandera on this story for us. Thank you very much, Ed, for the reporting.
[12:05:03] Let's talk more with our experts about it. Larry Kobilinsky is a forensic scientist, a criminal justice professor as well. Joey Jackson, an attorney and a CNN legal analyst.
Guys, thank you very much for being here.
Larry, I want you to take a look at this first, OK? This is the mug shot of Sandra Bland. And there are some people out there, some even close to the family, that are saying that it looks like potentially she was dead when it was taken. There's a lot of chatter about this on social media. So I want you to look at this with your expert eye, her eyes, her hair frame, how her shoulders are sitting. What does this tell you?
LARRY KOBILINSKY, FORENSIC SCIENTIST: I have absolutely no reason to believe that she is deceased in this photo. It looks to me like a mug shot. The background is uniform. The lighting is uniform. I see no telltale marks around her neck, which would probably be present -
HARLOW: Right.
KOBILINSKY: If, in fact, it was death due to hanging. So I have no reason to suspect this is some kind of planted or staged photograph.
HARLOW: Joey, from a legal perspective, can a jail be held liable for a suicide? Because, keep in mind, as you look at these jail intake forms, right, one of the things that she checks here is that, yes, indeed, she had attempted suicide.
JOEY JACKSON, HLN LEGAL ANALYST: Absolutely, that's the simple answer to the question. One of the reasons, Poppy, that you go through these forms is to classify a particular person who's being detained by you, that is to see, what is their state of mind? Are they OK? If not, what precautions, if any, should we take?
These questions are not just asked, Poppy, for idle curiosity. They're asked to put the people who are working at that jail on notice. And that notice requires supervision. Are you going to check on the person 15 minutes, every half an hour on the hour? Should they be put in suicide prevention if that is the case? Obviously there are major questions surrounding whether she was suicidal and what was her state of mind, but absolutely from a prison perspective or a jail perspective you want to know what's going on in someone's mind so you can protect them adequately while they're in your custody.
HARLOW: Larry, what about the fact that she did have marijuana in her system? And I just think it's very important to note here, we have no idea how much. These are just preliminary findings of the government autopsy.
KOBILINSKY: Yes, absolutely. Some people say there's a lot of marijuana in her system. What does that even mean? Normally we determine how much THC is present in the blood or the urine to tell us, to give us some idea of the metabolic rate, you know, when she ingested, when she smoked the marijuana. But the bottom line is, it's all a red herring -
HARLOW: Yes.
KOBILINSKY: Because marijuana is not going to make her more aggressive and explain her response to the police officer. If anything, it would mellow her out. So I think spending too much time on the marijuana issue is not going to be productive.
HARLOW: I want you both to listen to this voicemail. It is a voicemail from Sandra Bland while she was in jail to a friend. Let's listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BLAND: I'm still just at a loss of words, honestly, about this whole process. How did switching lanes with no signal turn into all of this, I don't even know. But I'm still here, so I guess come back when you can.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: And she talked about, in the full voicemail, Joey, the $5,000 bond that she was still waiting on. When you look at that, there's a lot of ways to read that. When you're talking about any potential case here for the family against the jail, how would that play out?
JACKSON: I think it plays in the following way, Poppy. You look and it goes to the state of mind. And you want to analyze, what was her state of mind? Did she appear suicidal at all in that particular message? Would you, if you're thinking about taking your life, have left a message like that in the first instance? You match up that particular voicemail with what the reality is in addition to that. She's taking a job. She's moving from Chicago into Texas, right? She just went grocery shopping apparently to fill her apartment. And so what would be the basis for what she would take her own life? And I think that adds to the question, is there something else amiss here? Was it really a suicide? Should a trash bag have even been in that particular facility? So many questions. The partition - HARLOW: An industrial sized strong trash bag.
JACKSON: It just - it begs the question. The partition upon which she allegedly hung herself from, is it five feet? She's six feet. There's just so many issues here as to whether or not this really was a suicide or was it something that was more untoward and sinister than that.
HARLOW: Stay with us because that, Larry and Joey, is exactly what we're going to talk about next, particularly this huge, strong trash bag. Why was that in her cell? Thank you both.
Up next we're also going to talk about politics and the only other thing that Republicans might worry about a little bit more than Donald Trump is Donald Trump running as a third party candidate. Why is that? Remember Ross Perot? Remember '92? We'll talk about it.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[12:13:26] HARLOW: Not happy with him, not exactly happy without him. The GOP has had its issues with Donald Trump, but a lot of Republican candidates cringe at the thought of an independent Trump running against a Republican candidate for president. In an interview this week with "The Hill" Trump says, let me quote here, "I'll have to see how I'm being treated by the Republicans. Absolutely, if they're not fair, that would be a factor." Talking about if he would indeed make a third-party bid.
Trump is spotlighting one of his favorite issues today, one that makes party leaders especially nervous, that is in the border town of Laredo, Texas. Late this morning, the union representing border patrol agents down there pulled out of the event talking about the controversy over trump's repeated claims that many Mexican immigrants are criminals or violent rapists. Trump, true to form, wasting no time responding, claiming the union was, quote, "totally silenced from Washington and vowing to visit the border anyway, quote, "despite the danger."
Here is what could be a larger danger, which ever banner Trump runs under. A brand-new Quinnipiac poll shows solid majorities in the key states of Colorado, Iowa and Virginia have unfavorable opinions of him, about two to one unfavorable. On the other hand, a national poll gave Trump a double-digit lead among his nearest Republican competitor. The poll that Trump wanted to talk about last night with CNN's Anderson Cooper, listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I don't know. You keep bringing up negative. You only want to talk about negative. Why don't you bring up the positive polls in this?
[12:15:00] ANDERSON COOPER, ANCHOR, CNN'S "AC 360": I - I did. The Washington - I did.
TRUMP: I mean you started off - excuse me, you started off with the interview -
COOPER: I started off with "The Washington Post" poll. No, I started off with "The Washington Post" poll.
TRUMP: I don't - I don't - you start off the interview with a poll that I didn't even know existed.
COOPER: I started off with "The Washington Post" poll intentionally because I knew you would - you would accuse me of that.
TRUMP: Sure. Sure. Sure. Sure. All I know is, every poll I'm leading in, and you give me these two polls where it's different states.
COOPER: All right.
TRUMP: They're not even a national poll.
COOPER: We'll go check the record. I started off with "The Washington Post" poll where you are way out in front.
TRUMP: Oh, I'm sure the record's fine. Just - I think it's very unfair, you're talking to me about a poll I never even saw. Your - it's not even a poll.
COOPER: No, it's today. It's - it's a -
TRUMP: It's not even a poll.
COOPER: OK.
TRUMP: It's on three different states and you're hitting me with this.
COOPER: OK.
TRUMP: And I think it's a very - frankly, I think it's a very fair un (ph) question.
COOPER: OK.
TRUMP: I think it's an extremely - you start off the interview with that. You don't say, I led in the Fox poll. I'm leading in the ABC/"Washington Post" poll.
COOPER: You're leading - you're leading across the board.
TRUMP: Well, you didn't - I am leading across the board.
COOPER: Right.
TRUMP: And then you hit me with this poll that I didn't even see before where, oh, gee - it's not even that kind of a poll. All I know is I have a very big group of support. And I think one of the reasons is that -
COOPER: I mean (INAUDIBLE) you're way out of line (ph).
TRUMP: Let me tell you, the people don't trust you and the people don't trust the media.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: Let's talk about it with CNN senior political correspondent Nia-Malika Henderson.
I - so, all right, where do we begin? Quinnipiac is a widely respected poll that is often cited. But let's talk about a potential run as an independent for Trump. Does it make other Republicans shake in their boots, 1992, or is this a good thing to have him out of the party?
NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: It scares the bejesus out of Republicans, any Republicans who are looking at history. You talked about Ross Perot there. Ralph Nader also comes to mind in 2000. If you look at what Ross Perot was able to do in 1992, he got 20 percent of the vote on 19 million votes altogether and he did particularly well among white working class voters under the age of 50. And those are the very kinds of voters that the Republican Party needs -
HARLOW: Right.
HENDERSON: To stave off a challenge from a Democrat who's going to do well most likely among those Obama coalition voters. So surely I think Republicans are certainly frightened of that and they've got to figure how, do they treat Donald Trump going forward? You've seen the Republican National Committee come out and criticize him at times -
HARLOW: Right.
HENDERSON: And that's something you saw Trump talk about and say, oh, I've got to see how they're going to treat me going forward.
HARLOW: Right. And he said - look, he said in that interview with Anderson that, look, the RNC isn't treating him well. I want you to listen to what he told Anderson, though, about a week and a half ago in their first sit down. Let's roll that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Have you ruled out the idea of running as an independent party candidate, or third party candidate, if for some reason you don't get the GOP nomination?
TRUMP: Everybody asks me to do it. I have had so many people say, would you run as an independent? Would you run as the third-party candidate? And I think, you know, they see the kind of votes - I'd get a lot of votes. The best way of defeating the Democrats and probably Hillary, I think it's going to be Hillary, is to run as a Republican. If I do the third-party thing, it would be, I think, very bad for the Republicans. I think it would be very bad in terms of beating the Democrats, and we have to win.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: But here's the thing, Nia, if he stays in the party, they are going to continually have to be responding to what Trump says rather than focusing on the issues that voters care about.
HENDERSON: That's right. And you've seen this happen for the last three weeks. Every candidate is asked to respond to Donald Trump. You've seen some candidates like Rick Perry, who are in, you know, sort of the bottom of the barrel here, 2 percent, 3 percent, 4 percent in the polls or so, he's trying to attack Donald Trump to elevate his own status. But then you have people like Ted Cruz who says, listen, why attack the guy? That's what the media wants him to do. And, instead, he's sort of treated Donald Trump with kid gloves.
Whatever happens, I mean, they've got to figure this out. You did play that clip where Donald Trump says, listen, he didn't think he would run a third-party candidacy, but who knows? I think this guy is very unpredictable. He writes his own rules. He certainly doesn't go by that old Reagan rule, which is don't attack other Republicans. This is like a sport to him. He talked about releasing Lindsey Graham's phone number and he said he did it for fun. So if he wants to keep this thing going, I think Republicans are going to be very nervous. You've heard them say, oh, they don't think he'll continue. This is going to flame out at some point. He wouldn't release, for instance, all of his financial data, and he's proved them wrong so far. So they - they really have a problem (ph).
HARLOW: Right, he certainly has. He's put it all out there. And you know what, it's only up to one person, one person, Donald Trump.
HENDERSON: That's right.
HARLOW: We'll be watching. Nia-Malika Henderson, thank you, as always.
HENDERSON: Thank you, Poppy.
HARLOW: Also, this important headline for you, the head of the FBI, James Comey, saying his biggest fear these days is ISIS. He spoke one- on-one with our Wolf Blitzer at the Aspin Security Forum. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WOLF BLITZER, ANCHOR, CNN'S "THE SITUATION ROOM": What keeps you up at night?
JAMES COMEY, FBI DIRECTOR: What keeps me up at night is probably these days the ISIL threat in the homeland, and I worry very much about what I can't see. If you imagine a nationwide haystack, we're trying to find needles in that haystack. And a lot of those needles are invisible to us either because of the way in which they're communicating or just because they haven't communicated or touched a place where we could see them. And knowing that there are needles out there that you can't see is very worrisome.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[12:20:20] HARLOW: Comey also talking about how ISIS is crowdsourcing terrorism. It is a fascinating interview. You can hear much more of it next hour on Wolf's show, 1:00 Eastern, right here on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARLOW: Secretary of State John Kerry in salesman mode right now, in the place where he spent nearly 30 years of his former political life, the chamber of the U.S. Senate. He is before the Senate trying to sell the merits of the Iran nuclear deal struck, of course, between Iran and several world powers. He says the deal was not about who gets what. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN KERRY, SECRETARY OF STATE: We will coordinate in every possible way with Israel with respect to Israel's concern -
SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R), FLORIDA: So if Israel conducts a cyberattack against the Iranian nuclear program -
KERRY: Well, that's -
RUBIO: Are we obligated to help them defend themselves against the Israeli cyberattack?
KERRY: No. I assure you - no, I assure you that we will be coordinating very, very closely with Israel, as we do on every aspect of Israel's security, and -
RUBIO: Well, that's not how I read this.
KERRY: Well, I don't see any way -
RUBIO: I don't see -
KERRY: I don't see any way possible that we will be in conflict with Israel with respect to what we might want to do there, and I think we just have to wait until we get to that point. But I do think, senator, you know, I listened to a long list of your objections here about it, but there's no alternative that you or anybody else has proposed as to what you -
[12:25:03] RUBIO: I sure have, Secretary Kerry. I have.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: Secretary Kerry sparring back and forth there with Senator Marco Rubio.
Elise Labott following all of it in Washington.
You know, Elise, he went on to say there is no unicorn, no fantasy alternative if the Congress rejects this deal. He's got a very hard sell to - to a presidential hopeful, right? And, you know, there is, you know, the question of, will they have Congress onboard for this. Talk to me more about that back and forth with Marco Rubio.
LABOTT: Well, Poppy, I think a lot of this for the American public in the open session is a lot of grandstanding. In fact, Secretary Kerry had said at one point when all the senators were making their statements, is there even time for questions? And Marco Rubio was really kind of, you know, making his presidential ambitions very clear when he said, listen, this deal is your deal. This is the Obama administration's deal.
HARLOW: Right.
LABOTT: The next president, i.e. me, is not bound by this deal. I mean I think that, you know, this is a lot of grandstanding. Secretary Kerry out there trying to answer questions. I think the real kind of ferocious selling job is behind the scenes and there's where the secretary keeps saying there is no alternative. And that's when he said the whole thing about, you know, this is a fantasy. Iran was never going to give up its entire nuclear program. And then he went on to say, even if it did, the knowledge is there. The expertise is there. The technology is there. You can't bomb that away and you can't sanction it away.
What they can do is hold the Iranian nuclear program at bay and you can either do it for 25 years or however long some of these provisions in the agreement go, or you can do it for the two months that Iran has right now before the deal is implemented, Poppy.
HARLOW: Right, I think it's interesting the president, when he gave that first interview with "The New York Times" after the deal was struck said, look, it was never in the cards, right? That was never in the cards that we would completely destroy the Iranian infrastructure, right? But when it comes to the American people, Elise, right, you know, looking at potential candidates for 2016, do you think that they accept that?
LABOTT: No. I don't think Secretary Kerry is changing any minds even in closed session yesterday. I think that a lot of these minds are made up. You know, I think what the Republicans are trying to do and certainly the Israelis, the Jewish groups are trying to do is pick off a few Democrats so the - Congress would have a veto-proof majority if the president were to, you know, veto this approval.
But I don't think they're changing any minds. These - particularly the Republican candidates are, you know, very vociferous in their idea that this is a bad deal. But, you know, I think even if you talk to privately administration officials or nuclear experts that support this deal, is this everything you wanted in the deal? No, this is the best deal they could get. And the secretary pointed question to Republican lawmakers is, what was the point of all these sanctions? What was the point of all these years of putting Iran in isolation? It was to get to negotiations and that's to stop them from getting a nuclear weapon and that's what they feel they did with this deal.
HARLOW: All right, Elise Labott for us in Washington. Elise, thank you very much.
Coming up next, taking Bill Cosby to court potentially for allegedly molesting a 15-year-old girl. Coming up next, Gloria Allred, the lawyer who is ready to question Cosby face-to-face.
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