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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Kentucky Same-Sex Couple Receives Marriage License; Texas Deputy Laid to Rest; Refugee Crisis Worsens. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired September 04, 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. Welcome to LEGAL VIEW.

Right now, in Houston, Texas, thousands of people are gathered at the Second Baptist Church. They are there for the funeral service of Deputy Darren Goforth. The Harris County, Texas, deputy was killed by a gunman who came up behind him at a gas station and fired 15 shots. We are going to bring you some of that service live during this hour.

We're also covering another story that's been breaking. You're about to see a completely different routine transaction that takes place every day in every state in every county across America. But not like this.

(VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: So that is William Smith, Jr., and James Yates picking up their marriage license in Rowan County, Kentucky. They succeed this morning on their sixth attempt because the county clerk there had refused them five times before but today she was not at work. That's because that clerk, Kim Davis, had a mug shot taken and she's sitting in jail. She's sitting there for putting her religious objections above the Supreme Court's recognition of same-sex marriage as a constitutional right.

Of Davis' six deputies that work for her, five of them told a federal judge yesterday that they are not going to go the route of Kim, they're going to obey the law and they're going to do their job. But there is one holdout. That holdout is named Nathan Davis. Yes, that is a familiar name because it's Kim Davis' son.

Now I want you to meet the happy couple you saw in those first few shots. The first same-sex couple to receive a marriage license in Rowan County, James Yates and Will Smith, Jr.

Thank you to the both of your for joining me. I know this is a - a very auspicious day for you. At the same time, you're in the center of a maelstrom. I'm sure you probably had to walk through some protests in order to actually exercise your legal right. And at the same time there's a woman who's sitting in a jail cell because of it. As best you can, can you qualify what you're feeling right now?

WILL SMITH JR., LICENSED TO WED IN ROWAN CO., KY: We are very happy. We are elated, actually, that we got our license this time. I mean -

JAMES YATES, LICENSED TO WED IN ROWAN CO., KY: It was a long time coming, I think, is what it feels like.

SMITH: It was an emotional roller coaster to get to this point. And our sixth time was the charm, I guess.

BANFIELD: Sixth time the charm. And at the same time, there are other couples who are in your predicament, particularly the plaintiff in the case that landed Kim in a jail cell, and she has said that she never wanted that to happen. She didn't want Kim to go to jail. She just wanted her right. Do you feel the same way?

SMITH: Yes.

YATES: Oh, yes. We didn't - all we wanted was the marriage license. I mean we wanted to apply - it was very important for us. If she would have resigned or just let someone else do it for her, anything, we would have been just as happy. And the jail wasn't a part of it. We didn't want that. We just wanted the license. We wanted this happy day.

BANFIELD: So the end - and I know that there are people behind you. I'm looking at the shot of you. Sort of between the two of you I can see a big crowd. You can certainly look back if you want to refamiliarize yourselves with what's going on. I wanted to ask you what it was like going in to get that license today because there had to be a lot of naysayers on your way in.

SMITH: There were.

YATES: Yes. Yes.

SMITH: But this time we had - there were police here. There were federal marshals here. People to protect us while we went in. We - we were kind of directed around the hate.

YATES: Right.

SMITH: The last time we came was a lot harder because there wasn't a police presence.

YATES: We had a lot of supporters this time, too.

SMITH: Yes. A lot of people came out to support the couples coming in to get their marriage licenses (INAUDIBLE).

YATES: I know he heard the, you know, the naysayers but we - I didn't hear them. All I heard was the supporters over there cheering for us and you could feel it. You could feel they were just as happy as we were.

SMITH: Yes.

YATES: And it felt good. It felt good to have that support.

BANFIELD: So - and notwithstanding your delay, there is, of course, that other family, the Davis family, and they're definitely not supporters. In fact, Kim Davis' husband had this comment to make after Kim was remanded into custody in contempt of court. I want to play it for you and I want you to listen really carefully to his words and the possibility that there is a double meaning here looking at it from his perspective and looking at these same words from your perspective. Have a listen.

[12:05:08] (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE DAVIS, KIM DAVIS' HUSBAND: If our government can bully you, then they're going to make everybody bow down to what they want to do. If we don't take our country back, we're the one that puts them this there. They work for us. And if we don't take our country back, we're going to be in worse shape than this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: So I'm just going to repeat those words again. I can understand his perspective. He thinks the government trampled on his wife's rights. And yet when he says, "if our government can bully you, then they're going to make everyone bow down to what they want to do. We're the ones that put them in there. They work for us." I can only assume that you could utter those exact same words feeling that the government, Kim, was trying to bully you into her will.

YATES: Right. We just - we just wanted a license. This was their choice to do it. This was not our choice. We didn't want to go through all this, you know.

SMITH: We were treated like second class citizens and it just - today it felt good to finally have our rights recognized and -

YATES: That's the most important thing.

SMITH: Yes.

YATES: They - it's just - they can have their opinions on what they think the civil rights and the governments to be and it's just - this - we know this was our right. We know this is our right. The Supreme Court ruled on it and -

BANFIELD: Yes. Well, you do definitely have that legal right to -

YATES: Today we just want to focus (INAUDIBLE) we're happy.

BANFIELD: That law is settled. Without question, that law is settled. But I think you still have an upward hill to climb with people who are in that community and elsewhere across the country who still have - they feel very abrasive towards this issue and I don't think it's going away necessarily any time soon. But thanks for being with us. I appreciate you taking the time and I'd love to get the update when you ultimately decide to go through with the ceremony and tie the knot. Thank you, Will. Thank you, James.

YATES: All right, thank you.

SMITH: Thank you.

BANFIELD: Appreciate them taking the time for this.

I want to take you now to live pictures of the funeral for Texas Sheriff's Deputy Darren Goforth. You'll remember he was shot and killed just a week ago while filling up his patrol car at a gas station outside of Houston. We are going to take you to that Houston ceremony. This is the final farewell. And it is literally a sea of blue uniforms as far as you can see.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:10:55] BANFIELD: You are looking at live pictures right now in Houston of a very heavy-weighted sadness hanging in an otherwise beautiful Texas morning because this is the day that the city is burying a sheriff's deputy who was senselessly shot to death last week. His name, Darren Goforth, 47 years old, father and a husband. He was in his uniform, as you see here, last night. He was just filling his patrol - or last Friday, rather. He was just filling his patrol car with gas when someone with a gun sneaked up behind him and shot him, dead, ending his life, emptying an entire magazine, 15 shots.

But today is not about that heartless killer, it's about Deputy Goforth, Darren Goforth. And this is the Second Baptist Church in Houston. That policeman's family and friends and so many fellow officers are in there right now, and many other officers who never, ever knew him. They have come from all across the country. Just look at the parking areas surrounding that church in Houston.

This is a church that has a 6,500 person capacity and there is another 1,500 who can be accommodated in an overflow auditorium to be able to watch what you're seeing on a screen. A pretty remarkable scene. This is Lieutenant Don Savell, who's with the Harris County Sheriff's Office.

I want to bring in our Ed Lavandera, who is there live, to give us sort of a sense of how this morning has played out because this may be the memorial service right now, but there's been a lot leading up to the actual service.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, this is one of those days, Ashleigh, where the pictures will speak volumes and much more powerfully than anything we can say about what will unfold here over the course of the next hour or so. But you have seen thousands of law enforcement officers from around the country, from New York to California, turning out for this memorial service here this morning in Houston, Texas. As you mentioned, some 8,000 people expected to be attending this memorial service.

Outside there's still a great deal of activity because after the memorial service there will be a wall of honor along this stretch that you see here beside me and a procession to the burial ground where Darren Goforth will be laid to rest. We saw Darren Goforth and his wife and family arrive here this moment - this morning. There was a large crowd of law enforcement there greeting her and saluting her and her family as she walked inside the sanctuary here in Houston and she gave a brief salute to all those officers, walking very slowly, a very emotional moment. It was incredibly quite. You could hear a pin drop as she was making her - her and her family were making their way inside the sanctuary.

But as the memorial service gets underway here, we will hear from the sheriff of Harris County, but also two other officers that, we're told - that I'm told are good friends of Darren Goforth. So a great deal, an emotional outpouring of support. Many people from not only across the state of Texas, law enforcement agencies being represented here, but from across the country.

Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: Important to remember as we look at those pictures, Ed, it's Kathleen, but also those two kids. They're young. They're young kids who probably are just overwhelmed with what they're seeing, especially in the circumstance.

Ed, there's a lot that's going to happen as well after this funeral service gets underway or has ended. I'm thinking about this flag ceremony they have planned. A 21-gun salute. The playing of "Taps." There's going to be a helicopter flyover. It's just - it's really remarkable that they were able to get so many people from across the country and get something so intricately organized, done in a fairly short period of time.

LAVANDERA: Well, it speaks volume. We've spoken to officers here this morning and given the nature and the climate of police issues that have been debated so intensely over the last year, there's no question that that plays a significant role in the emotion and the outpouring of support that you have here. There's a lot going on when you talk to a lot of these officers and that's why you have seen from many of the people here attending, saying that they hope that this is kind of a sign and a show of support for law enforcement communities across the country. So there's no question that that is obviously playing a big part in all of this considering the tragic and senseless way that Deputy Goforth was shot and killed last Friday night here in Harris County.

[12:15:25] And as you mentioned, there will be that outpouring here just outside of the church sanctuary. We'll have that wall of honor with all of the officers that are here saluting, but there will also be a long procession. Members of the public turning out along the roadways to follow the family as they head to the - to the cemetery.

Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: All right, Ed, I want to just break from you for a moment, if I can, so we can listen in to Lieutenant Don Savell, who is at the podium talking about our fallen Sheriff's Deputy Darren Goforth.

LT. DON SAVELL, HARRIS COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE: And I'd just ask God's ministering spirit of peace that surpasses understanding to be with each and every one of you.

BANFIELD: And as we mentioned, there is - there is quite a series of remembrances that are planned for Sheriff Goforth coming up and we're going to continue on CNN to tap in so that you can be a part of it as well and you can see just how much that community and indeed the communities right across the country, officers from all over the country traveling to Houston for that funeral service.

We also want to turn our attention to something that is critical. It is a refugee crisis like nothing else. When all else has failed, thousands of refugees of the war in Syria and Iraq and even further have now decided they're just going to walk. If they can't get a train, if they can't get help, they're just going to walk from Hungary maybe all the way to Germany. Seriously. Our Arwa Damon is walking alongside of them and we're going to update you when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:20:33] BANFIELD: All they wanted was a better life, a safer life. But the Syrian family that we told you about yesterday, little two- year-old Aylan Kurdi and his four-year-old brother Gailib Kurdi, and their mother, Reyhana, they have now all been buried in graves side by side in their hometown in northern Syria. They died when their boat capsized. A boat that was supposed to take them in a crossing from Turkey to Greece, but it was not an ideal crossing.

The picture we're about to show you is the result of it. And if you haven't seen the picture, it is very upsetting. It's little Aylan who is lying face down on the beach after his body washed ashore. This picture, as awful as it is, has been a wakeup call for the world and a spotlight on this refugee catastrophe. We showed you Aylan and Gailib with their father in happier times.

Their dad, Gailib was - their dad, Abdullah, was the only survivor in that terrifying boat trip. Whereas days ago he was filled with hope they might actually make it somewhere safer, he likely never imagined that he would instead be here today in these pictures. He had accompanied the bodies of his entire family back home to his hometown. And he told us that his thought was he would sit beside the graves of his children and his wife until the day he dies.

Stories like this are unfortunately all too common as the refugee crisis worsens day by day. I want to take you to a case in point, Budapest, Hungary. A beautiful place. A lovely country. A lovely city. And thousands have decided to take to the street there in a last-ditch effort to escape the war in Iraq and Syria and try to escape the Hungarian refugee camps and get out of that country and hopefully get to a safer and more welcoming place, somewhere in Europe.

The trains all stopped. They've been trapped. And now our Arwa Damon is walking with them as they try to walk to a new location. She joins us live now.

So give me a feeling for what's transpired in the last 24 hours.

ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, basically, Ashleigh, these were all people that were fed up with waiting around for the politicians and the European leaders to make a decision and end the miserable conditions, the life in the streets and basically decided a few hours ago to start walking. And there are just floods of them. It extends as far back as the eye can see. People of all ages, parents carrying their children, some people handicapped, elderly being pushed in wheelchairs. You were talking earlier about the little boys who were killed on the

beach along with their mother and, you know, a lot of people ask why it is that parents choose to put their children at such risk, put them through all of this, and they will tell you that the only reason why they do it is because they believe - and they do know the risks - but they believed that if they stayed in their homelands, mostly of Iraq and Syria, that they would end up dead anyway. So why not take the risk? Why not take that chance and give your child the life, the future that no longer exists for them back home.

People are determined at this stage to try to make it all the way to Austria. And from there, if they have to, they say, they will go all the way to Germany. They don't want to go into the Hungarian camps. They are refusing every single call by the Hungarian authorities to do so because many of them have been through the camp along the Hungarian/Serbian border. They say conditions there were inhumane. That they were treated like animals. And having come so far, they are not going to put their children or themselves through that again, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: So, Arwa, what I'm confused about is I see a police cruiser, what appears to be a police escort beside you. They're walking presumably to another border. And it just doesn't seem clear whether they can cross any borders with the laws that are effectively in place right now. as outdated as the laws are, what's going to happen to these thousands of people once they reach the first border they get to?

DAMON: We don't know and neither do they. But at this point, they don't really care. They just need to keep going.

Every single country, Hungary included, has been talking about how all it's doing is applying the Dublin agreement that was drafted back in 1990 and is ill equipped to deal with the vast numbers of refugees flooding across Europe. It dictates that an individual most register at their first point of entry. Well, you can't just apply that. It's unconscionable, some people will say, to try to apply the Dublin agreement because in the application of it you are effectively violating the Geneva Convention and international law.

[12:25:27] What you're seeing happening here is that it seems as if this whole massive march took the police by surprise. They have been unable to stop it. They haven't really been trying to stop it. And, yes, they are providing them with something of a security escort. They are all along either walking alongside the refugees or their vehicles are parked at certain points, trying to make sure that traffic - because this is the main highway. This is the main highway between Budapest and Vienna - trying to make sure that traffic stays well away from them. In some instances, when they're crossing the highway or having to move back and forth across it, the police are stopping traffic for them.

Here's the other problem is that there are refugee camps. The very same camps that these people do not want to go into further down the road. We don't know what is going to be happening. We don't know how far they're going to be able to go. They don't know where they're going to spend the night, on the road somewhere presumably. A lot of uncertainty at this stage, yes, but there is one thing that is so clear to them, they do not want to stay in Hungary. They will not stay in Hungary. They will keep walking and they will not go into Hungarian camps. If they have to park themselves at the Hungarian/Austrian border, then they all say that that is what they are going to do. That they just need to keep going. They can't keep living like this.

BANFIELD: Arwa, I'm going to ask that your photographer and you stay with me. I want to keep your pictures up. I want to keep an eye on you and the people you're walking with, as I also bring in our other guests, Michael Weiss, who's a senior editor of "The Daily Beast" and a CNN contributor.

Michael, I want to ask you about a quote that I heard, as we continue to watch Arwa and those people marching, the quote that I - I had read from Viktor Orban, who's the prime minister of Hungary, and I don't - I just - I can't fathom this. He said, "we think all countries have a right to decide whether they want to have a large number of Muslims in their countries." And he continued to say, "we don't want to and I think we have the right to decide that we do not want a large number of Muslim people in our country. We do not like the consequences of having a large number of Muslim communities that we see in other counts." The quote went on.

But effectively, is this part of the problem, Michael, that Hungary is just not willing to deal with these people on the road in a humane way? They just - they want them to walk into other countries?

MICHAEL WEISS, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, I think the problem is Viktor Orban, who is a right wing populist leader of a NATO ally who's actually very close to Vladimir Putin and I think is capitalizing on this crisis to try and drum up, frankly, a demagogic and, you know, bigoted, you know, political base for himself. He has aligned himself with very far right elements in Europe, flirted with anti-Semitism. Actually more than flirted with anti-Semitism. And what he said is, you know, Europe is a Christian civilization. Well, excuse me, there are plenty of Muslims and Jews who live on that continent.

I think it's very cruel and very inhumane what he is doing. I mean let's put this in perspective, shall we? This is the 21st century. These people are fleeing from a mass murdering tyrant, Bashar al Assad, who has dropped everything on them except nuclear weapons and biological weapons and we're talking about camps in Europe in the 21st century.

BANFIELD: Yes.

WEISS: I think this is an appalling situation.

BANFIELD: I think we can add ISIS to that as well. Many of them fearing -

WEISS: You can add ISIS to that as well, indeed.

BANFIELD: Right.

WEISS: But ISIS' outgrowth of policies and a brutal form of repression first inaugurated by the Assad regime in 2011.

BANFIELD: Oh, let me ask you this, Michael. I just - I'm just looking at these - these pictures, by the way, let me remind our - let me remind our viewers, these pictures that you're seeing on the right are coming to us via Arwa Damon, our correspondent. It's live. She and her photographer are walking this trail of - just trail of sadness as these refugees have left Budapest and they are making every effort to just walk with a leader who has a megaphone but there are thousands of them. Many of them having to obviously stop because they are simply exhausted. Many of them putting their feet up because they are in pain.

Arwa, I'm going to just swing it back to you for a moment, if you can still hear me. I saw pictures earlier today on the program at this hour when you were speaking live and I saw people handing out water bottles and people helping these refugees. So not withstanding what Michael Weiss just said about the prime minister and perhaps how he feels about them. It seems to me that at least there were some locals who were very, very sympathetic and trying to help these hordes and hordes of desperate people.

[12:30:02] DAMON: There are. And, you know, it was quite heartening to see because, you know, we've been here for about the last 10 days or so and one has to say that this government is very hostile towards the plight of these people. The security forces are