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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Baylor Football Player Convicted; Stocks Plunge; St. Louis Shooting; Jury Deadlocked in N.C. Case. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired August 21, 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] ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm Ashleigh Banfield. And welcome to LEGAL VIEW.

We're going to begin with a stunning story of a university rape scandal. And if you think you've heard this before, stay patient. This involves a star football player and accusations that the university grossly mishandled the entire situation. If you want to call it a situation. Baylor University defensive end Sam Ukwuachu is facing up to 20 years in prison for sexually assaulting a former Baylor soccer player in 2013. His sentencing is scheduled for today. Just yesterday, a Texas jury found him guilty after deliberating for about five and a half hours.

And now the university itself is under fire for how it handled this situation. And there are questions about why the school gave Ukwuachu a second chance after he'd been dismissed from another school's football program for reasons that aren't entirely clear.

Joining me now, CNN's sports anchor Rachel Nichols and CNN correspondent Sara Ganim.

Sara, if I can start with you, to just sort of get me up to speed on what happened and what the school's involvement was with this now guilty verdict on a definitive rape.

SARA GANIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right. You know, "Texas Monthly" just did a deep dive on this. They're a publication in Texas. Really disturbing details about how these two people, they knew each other, but before the night in which she says that she was raped, she was telling him no, you know, don't - don't think that anything is going to happen on this date. Clearly from her testimony, according to "Texas Monthly," she tells him "no" several times. He even told her, according to her testimony in court, "this is not rape," as he was raping her. So very disturbing details.

Now, let's back up a little bit because that night she told her friends what happened. She went to the police immediately. She went to the university immediately, but the university, their investigation, which is supposed to be a much lower standard than the court's -

RACHEL NICHOLS, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: She had a rape kit done that showed bruising and showed signs of struggle.

GANIM: Right. So the university found nothing wrong, even though the court found that he was guilty. And their standard is much higher. And, in fact, the judge even said -

BANFIELD: And the university - the university didn't do a very deep dive, as I understand it, on their investigation.

GANIM: Yes.

BANFIELD: I mean it was not exhaustive by any means by the characterization.

GANIM: So poor that the judge, Ashleigh, said in court that the defense was not allowed to use that investigation as part of their defense because it was so bad. The "Texas Monthly" said this, they said that, Baylor took no action - of course Baylor took no action. And the associate dean, when she took the stand even said that by the preponderance of evidence, she found there was not enough to move forward. Now, that's really important because "preponderance of evidence" -

BANFIELD: That's just a scale.

GANIM: Is well - well, it's what the - it's what the government, what the U.S. Department of Education says that schools have to try to meet in order to move forward and discipline someone for rape.

NICHOLS: To keep their money.

GANIM: So that they can keep their funding. It's a - it's a level that schools either meet or do not meet and the only reason that they're talking about preponderance of evidence is because they're worried about their funding.

BANFIELD: So let's move now to this player. I don't know a lot about football, but this guy's a big deal and he was -

NICHOLS: I do, so I can help you out.

BANFIELD: So this is why you're key to the story because it's not just about a big player at Baylor, it's about a big player who came to Baylor from Boise and didn't do so well at Boise. And why? What happened?

NICHOLS: Well, at Boise State there were issues. There was an issue with violence with a female student that he was living with. A window was broken. He also had some team rules issues. He was dismissed from that team. That team did not give him an endorsement going on to their next team.

Now, Art Briles the coach here at Baylor said he knew nothing about this. He came out this morning in a press conference and said, I didn't know about any violent past. He said, in fact, I went and talked to the football coach at Boise State. He told me nothing. He just said that this guy wanted to come home and just needed a second chance.

But here's the deal. Art Briles has a responsibility to learn more. You can't just make one phone call. You can't just depend on other people. You are the head coach. If you didn't know what was going on at Boise State, it is your responsibility to find out before you put that student on campus with a bunch of other students. And the reason this keeps happening, Ashleigh, is because of the money involved. Sara hit on it earlier about funding. Do you want to know what the highest- rated television program in cable television history is?

BANFIELD: Let me guess.

NICHOLS: It's the college football championship.

BANFIELD: College football.

NICHOLS: Not the highest-rated sports program ever, the highest-rated show in cable TV history ever is the college football championship game that happened earlier this year. When you have that kind of money going in, this is a big business and we know in so many different areas, big business doesn't care about morality. They care about the least they can do to get by.

BANFIELD: So this - OK, this makes sense if we're looking for some kind of motive if the university is culpable anywhere and we're not saying that's the case, we're just waiting for a sentencing at this point. But what about the local press? What about the sports press? This kid - if I can call him kid - this guy, this player, was a huge star. And when he transferred to Baylor, he was not allowed to play for a year because of the rules of transfer. So you would think they would be chomping at the bit to have him play for that first game and he didn't play for a whole second year and nobody found out why?

[12:05:28] NICHOLS: But here's the deal, Sara's quoting "Texas Monthly," which is not -

GANIM: It's hard, Ashleigh. It is very hard.

NICHOLS: It's not an organization that covers the football program regularly. The way the dynamic is set up is that if you are a publication, a blog, a newspaper, that regularly covers Baylor football - and, by the way, you have to if you are in that state to just stay viable as a business - you have to get permission from Baylor to cover Baylor football.

GANIM: Yes.

NICHOLS: You've got to get credentials. You've got to get access to players. And the people who cover, there are many cases of people being banned as reporters because they didn't ask the right question.

(CROSS TALK)

BANFIELD: You can get a Pulitzer Prize for going out on your own and actually digging up Jerry - Jerry Sanduskys (ph).

GANIM: But, Ashleigh, (INAUDIBLE) sports reporter - (INAUDIBLE) sports reporter -

NICHOLS: That's why "Texas Monthly," right? Exactly like you (ph). GANIM: Exactly. There's, you know, there's also the universities hide behind, again, federal law and they can say, I don't have to say a thing about any student at this university because federal privacy laws prevent me from doing so. Ashleigh, I also have to say, the university has responded -

BANFIELD: OK.

GANIM: To these allegations -

BANFIELD: What did they say?

GANIM: About their lax internal investigation and here's what they said. They said, "in 2013, complaints involving students were handled under the student conduct code. Evidence was considered by a student life professional trained in the adjudication of student conduct code and Title IX. In that process, after consideration of the preponderance of evidence, a decision was rendered to move forward or not move forward in a disciplinary hearing." We know they decided not to move forward.

BANFIELD: Not to.

GANIM: But the interesting thing is they made that decision after doing very few things. All they did was interview the accuser, interview the player, interview one of each of their friends and they never looked at that rape kit.

BANFIELD: At the rape kit.

GANIM: Or any of the medical evidence.

NICHOLS: It's beyond -

GANIM: And this is something that I've heard personally from attorneys across the country who say, when men are accused, when women make accusations, the universities often just kind of make up their own rules.

BANFIELD: All right, so we have one more big thing that's about to develop and that could be any time now and it's Ukwuachu's actual sentencing. We're going to find out today, presumably, how many years he's going to spend behind bars. So I hope you'll both come back and help us navigate through what the next step is for Baylor.

GANIM: Absolutely.

NICHOLS: Be glad to.

BANFIELD: Sara, Rachel, thank you for that. Appreciate it.

Another big breaking story that we're covering for you today. Just look at your screen, minus 251. That is a brutal day officially on Wall Street with the Dow plunged over 250 points earlier this morning after the worst day of year actually just happened yesterday. And this is the fourth straight day of losses if you're counting at home. CNN Money's Cristina Alesci is counting actually every single moment

of this and I think a lot of people want to know, what is happening, because this has been a downward trend for a while but it sort of really hit in the skids this week.

CRISTINA ALESCI, CNN MONEY CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Ashleigh. Yesterday was a major selloff and it didn't help that overnight we got the manufacturing data out of China that showed a major slowdown there and actually the data was the worst since the financial crisis.

This is really a global story. We've seen the selloff happen in the emerging markets. The U.S. was shielded for it from a - for a long time. Now people are trying to get their heads around what a global slowdown will look like for the U.S. Just to put this into context, once you have an emerging market slowdown, the dollar is stronger. Oil goes lower. That means it's harder for American companies to sell their goods overseas. That's got investors questioning, OK, what are these companies worth now because we've got to re-evaluate long-term growth perspectives for them. We saw, you know, a selloff in certain industries yesterday. It may spread more broadly today. So that's something that we're keeping an eye on.

Also the investors are trying to figure out what the Feds going to do, right? They were expecting a rate hike. But now, given all of the market jitters, you have to think some of these committees members are re-evaluating whether or not they should raise rates because that could cause even more nervousness around these markets. So there's a lot of question marks, not many answers at this point. You know, oil is definitely a big player here as well, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: Makes me pine for the day that Alan Greenspan had a briefcase that gave us some kind of calmness in these predictions of interest rates.

Cristina Alesci, thank you. Keep an eye on things for us, if you will. Do appreciate it.

Coming up, autopsy results, they are in on that black teenager who was killed in a police shooting in St. Louis this week. And at first glance, things do not a look good for the police. But what might a second glance tell us? You're going to hear, next.

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[12:13:12] BANFIELD: Autopsy results are in for the St. Louis teenager who was shot to death by police on Wednesday. Mansur Ball-Bey allegedly pointed a handgun at the officers who were raiding what they considered a drug den owned by the victim's cousin. Coming near the one year anniversary of the death of Michael Brown in nearby Ferguson, the killing set off immediate protests. The family claims that Ball- Bey was unarmed and now comes word from the medical examiner that the 18-year-old died of a single gunshot wound to the back. Doesn't mean there was only one shot, though. There were more than one shot. It was the shot to the back that was the lethal one.

Joining me now with more on what this means and what's happening in that community, CNN correspondent Ryan Young, who's in St. Louis, and here with me live in New York is CNN contributor and forensic scientist at John Jay College, Larry Kobilinsky.

Ryan, if I can begin with you. Set out what the police response has been so far to this development.

RYAN YOUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, there are a lot of layers to this case and we did just get a quote from the chief of police about the fact that this young man was shot in the back. I will read part of this quote to you. It says that, "just because he was shot in the back doesn't mean she was running away. It could be, I'm not saying that it doesn't mean that. I just don't know yet."

So, obviously, these are the early part of this investigation. But you know so many people are going to be focused on the fact that he was shot in the back. You also have to realize, there are people in the neighborhood who are contending this young man did not have a gun. He was not associated with the house. He was there to visit a friend. He doesn't have a record. So all these details are coming out and people are obviously showing some of their frustration about some of the facts that are now being unveiled to us.

BANFIELD: Yes, so, Ryan, the family has said that he was unarmed, but are they - are they going any further and giving any more insight to this incident?

YOUNG: Well, you know, this is something that - we talked to the family lawyer just this morning. He was talking to us about the fact the young man never made it all the way to the house. That he was walking toward the house and he saw two men who were dressed in plainclothes with weapons. And then him and another friend decided to take off and started running because they saw the men with guns and they're also contending that the police didn't say, "hey, stop, this is police," and then shots were fired. In fact, the lawyer gave us a demonstration just this morning.

[12:15:26] (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

YOUNG: The autopsy shows what in terms of where he was shot? Show - show me.

JERMAINE WOOTEN, ATTORNEY FOR VICTIM'S FAMILY: The autopsy shows that the bullet would have entered the right side of his back traveling in a left motion, which would have been going in this direction. And ultimately the bullet would have hit his artery and it would have killed him almost instantly. And based on police accounts, they're saying that he was shot two properties - at the property where the search warrant was execute and then he ran to the - to where his body ultimately laid, which would have been two properties south. It's medically impossible to happen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

YOUNG: So you have an entire region that's trying to heal with what happened with Mike Brown. And then now, just next door, you have this young man get shot. A lot of people are saying what the police are talking about doesn't add up. And, of course, the investigation is still ongoing.

Why was she shot in the back? Officers shot four shots toward him. The lawyer is saying once he was hit by that bullet, he died instantly. So he could not have run and then thrown the gun. That's what the lawyer is saying. So all this evidence is coming forward and people want answers.

BANFIELD: Ryan, stand by, because there are a few things that you just showed us that I think bear a little bit further investigation. If I can bring in Dr. Kobilinsky on this.

With all of your background in forensic science, I've seen you analyze those courtroom moments where autopsy are brought in, bullet wounds are shown, trajectories are shown, usually with rods and a dummy.

Right.

BANFIELD: Can you help me understand why the police chief might have said something like - just because he was shot in the back doesn't mean he was running away. Is there something else that could have happened here?

LAWRENCE KOBILINSKY, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, the key is not just the entrance wound in the back on the right upper side of the back, but the trajectory because that will tell us something about the position that Mr. Ball-Bey was in as he was fleeing. In other words, he wasn't shot squarely where the wound is clearly from back to front. It was actually at an angle. So he may have been turning. He may have been in the process of turning.

Now, if he was in possession of a weapon, then the shooting could very well be justified because if the police think there is an existential threat that lives - that his life or his partner's life could be in jeopardy, then the shooting could very well be justified, even though the shot was to the back. And a lot depends upon whether Mr. Ball-Bey had a gun at the time that that shot was fired.

BANFIELD: Can this be conclusive, by the way? Can the forensics give the definitive answer to people who are understandably very, very upset? No one wants to hear that a teenager was shot in the back by the police.

KOBILINSKY: I think that's true. But the trajectory is the trajectory. That's a fact. Now, what position he was in, where exactly was he when the shot was fired, what was going through the mind of the police officer, we don't know.

BANFIELD: Yes.

KOBILINSKY: I mean these are things we can only speculate about. But it's crucial in deciding whether this was a case of too much force or it was justifiable.

BANFIELD: OK. Larry Kobilinsky, always good to have you. Thank you, doctor.

KOBILINSKY: Sure.

BANFIELD: And also thank you, Ryan Young, for your reporting in the field as well.

And I want to carry on. We've got some other big stories that are making headlines today. This one, two women, U.S. Army soldiers, not only cross a major military barrier, they kick it down, they stomp all over it. And can probably do more pushups than pretty much everybody who's been on CNN today combined. The Rangers is not just exclusively a boys club anymore.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:22:25] ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BANFIELD: And I've got this breaking news out of a courtroom in North Carolina. you've probably been following on CNN the story of an officer who was on trial for the killing of an unarmed black man who had been in a car accident, had been seeking help, and when the police arrived, they claimed that he rushed them, they opened fire, the man died and now the news is on your screen, the jury has deadlocked. They went into deliberations on Tuesday on this case. The officer, Randall Kerrick, facing extraordinarily serious charges in this case. But some of the evidence was very pro-defense, some of the evidence very pro- prosecution. This was a very difficult deliberation for this jury.

In fact, I can tell you this, that the autopsy really did point towards the officer's story, but the police in this case did not back the officer as one might think, specifically with that kind of evidence. This is the dash cam video. You can see as the victim, Jonathan Farrell, comes into the dash cam. I'm going to stop. Ultimately, that is the sound of those shots being fired over and over again.

This is a voluntary manslaughter trial. I want to bring in Danny Cevallos, one of our CNN legal commentators and contributors.

So, look, a deadlocked jury is not a failure of the system by any means, but take me forward in the process, what the options are now.

DANNY CEVALLOS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, there are a number of different charges depending on the judge. And you want to try and get the jury back in to deliberate. They might even deliver down the road what's called an Allen (ph) charge, which most defense attorneys, we don't like these so much because the idea is, if you force a jury to make a decision, they may make a decision that is bad for your client. If they end up deadlocking, if it's a hung jury, then your client gets another day in court. So if you like the idea of a tie as a defense attorney, you don't necessarily want that Allen charge. You don't want them to be forced to deliberate.

But this is not uncommon. North Carolina has not prosecuted a police officer for a shooting in some 30 years. So the jurors are dealing with the typical self-defense laws and applying it to a police officer who's different than you and I because police officers are privileged to initiate force in a way that you and I are not. BANFIELD: Right.

CEVALLOS: These are very difficult -

BANFIELD: Different charges (ph).

CEVALLOS: Factual issues to grapple with.

[12:24:54] BANFIELD: So, look, this was a five-week trial, which is not terribly long, not terribly short for this kind of a charge. However, if they've only been deliberating for a couple of days - and as you mentioned, I love when you say "Allen charge." It's a nice way of saying what they used to call the "dynamite charge," -

CEVALLOS: Dynamite charge, yes.

BANFIELD: Where they used to try to dynamite those jurors back into action. It works. Weirdly enough, it works very often and then it doesn't at times as well.

CEVALLOS: And then it doesn't. And, of course, the fear is, when you force a jury back into a room to make a decision, they may change their mind, they may go with a guilty verdict. They may just get fatigued and say, I think the judge just wants us to find him - find something, guilty, not guilty, when that's not really where their heart is. So it's, you know, again, this is often astrology when defense attorneys and prosecutors argue over whether or not to give that kind of charge, but some may argue for a defendant, a hung jury is always better than a guilty verdict.

BANFIELD: So just quickly, to give you an update here, the jury is going off for lunch, which is a really great idea midday when you sent out a note to a judge that says, "we've not come to a collusion from the defendant that he's guilty or not guilty. Our positions remain deadlocked." The superior court judge in this case took, you know, a motion from the defense saying - a motion for a mistrial, not unusual at all.

But just help me get through the process of, in fact, if they get dynamited, if they get the Allen charge, if they go back in for an hour or 20 hours and the position remains deadlocked as well, that's when the prosecution has to do some serious soul searching because this has been all over the news and any kind of jury pool for a retrial knows a whole lot about this case presumably.

CEVALLOS: Very difficult decision and often, unfortunately, a very political decision to make. But if this ultimately ends in a hung jury, the prosecutor - the prosecutor's office has to make a decision, do we bring these charges again? And what you often see from there is a new negotiation begin. And basically the prosecutor says, we can either bring this case again or you can consider pleading guilty to a much lesser charge. And in that sense, it becomes less about a trial, more about politics and negotiation, but it really depends on each individual prosecutor's office and each individual case.

BANFIELD: All right, Danny, keep me appointed on this if you hear any more details on it. We're going to continue to watch our reporters down in that area as well to see if there's any resolution in this, but that's a disturbing development. It is not necessarily the end of the story, though, so stay tuned.

By the way, if you have not heard these two names -- Captain Kristin Griest and First Lieutenant Shaye Haver, get ready to hear their names a lot. Those two ladies are more of a lady than I'll ever be, I'll tell you. They have just done what no lady before them has ever done and a whole lot more men have also failed at as well. They are Army Rangers. True dat. Find out more, next.

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