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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Funeral Held for Slain Illinois Police Officer; Las Vegas Police Officers Targeted by Gunman; Detroit Mandatory Drug Sentence Reviewed. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired September 07, 2015 - 12:30   ET

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

[12:30:08] RYAN YOUNG, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I mean you can see the outpouring of people from all around who decided to come here to pay honor to this man who was also very involved in the community, especially with Police Explorers and young people.

And just to show you some of the line that's going on here, Ashleigh, look at the line of officers that are on this side. But we know more than a thousand officers are going to participate in this procession have been set throughout the community.

There's a route that's about 17 miles that they're going go to, this will going to take more than an hour to do this procession. But as we've seen throughout this community, the American flags that are just all over the place.

And when you look at the trees in this community, all tied with blue ribbons, we see the black lines, we see all this because people wanted to come out and show their support from this community for this man, a father of four, a husband, someone has been married for several 20 over years. But if you look back in this direction you can see the flag that's put up here.

So many people have been looking at that flag that the firefighters put up this morning talking about the idea that not only is all this going on but the idea they still want three suspects caught.

A $50,000 reward is out there. But Ashleigh as you can understand everyone's focused on what's happening on the inside of this funeral today because they want to pay respects to a man who's so beloved in this community.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: We saw his widow, Melody give such a touching tribute to, you know, a group of people who gathered to mourn alongside her several days ago and four sons as well. Have you seen them yet, are they at the high school yet, Ryan?

YOUNG: They could be here because the viewing start at 9:00, the shot that we have that we can watch from the backside as you can see people walking through, the family hasn't been there (ph) yet. But I can tell you we were there at the memorial, the candlelight vigil and got to see the family speak. I got to see the poor son, his best friend also spoke there and did a poem. And everyone started crying during that poem. They made an agreement between the two of them that if one of them were to fall in the line of duty that they would write a poem for the other and it really touched people to talk about how he was so into this community.

So it was kind of interesting to see how the outpouring of more than 1,200 people already showing up for that event. And now what's happening here because since about 8:30 this morning, you can see the line of cars, the line of people have been showing up. In fact, they have shuttle service now to bring people in who want to attend this funeral.

BANFIELD: I'm not surprised.

Ryan Young, thank you for that, I appreciate it.

You know Lieutenant Gliniewicz has got us very familiar with the police department you might have not heard it before, the Fox Lake Police Department.

And now you're about to get more familiar as well with the Las Vegas Metro Police Department because two officers were targeted last night.

Coming up, I'm going to speak with their PIO, their Public Information Officer and find out the condition and what happens in Las Vegas.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:36:25] BANFIELD: Have another sobering reminder of the dangers that police officers face everyday in every city, in every routine call.

This one comes to us courtesy of Las Vegas, it happened yesterday. Two officers ambushed, nothing short of ambushed, while they were stopped at a traffic light.

They were on their way to check out a disturbance at a business when a man with a semiautomatic handgun simply walked up to their cruiser and opened fire, hitting one of the officers in the hand. The officer was not hit and chased down that suspect on foot and arrested that suspect without firing a shot.

At last check, the wounded officer was in "Good condition."

I want to bring in Sergeant John Sheahan who's on the phone with us right now from the Las Vegas Metro Police Department.

Sergeant thanks so much for taking the time.

Can you tell me more details about what happened in this incident and who this person is that they brought in?

JOHN SHEAHAN, SGT. LAS VEGAS METRO POLICE: Well, I can tell you right now, Ashleigh, is that our officers were responding to a disturbance call at near by business the 99 Cent store on the northwest corner of that intersection where our officers were in their patrol car. As they sat in their vehicle and they're waiting if the light to change, they're in the left-hand turn waiting to go westbound, a person on foot came up to them tearing a Springfield XD .40 caliber semiautomatic handgun and opened fire on the vehicle.

And luckily, and I want to repeat luckily our officer was only hit in hand. It could have been much, much worse. And our suspect took off in an eastbound direction.

The officer that was not struck was able to get out of the car that being the driver of our patrol vehicle chased after this suspect and was able to apprehend him in a parking lot just east of the shooting.

BANFIELD: I'm going to get to that suspect in a minute. But take me back to the moment they were trying to turn left at the stoplight. Did the suspect come up an the driver's side or the passenger side and how close to the vehicle did that suspect get before starting to fire?

SHEAHAN: It would appear that the suspect was close enough where he was out in traffic when he made the shot.

We're going to do another press conference tomorrow where we get into distances and everything else. And, again, that's going to speak towards the prosecution of the case as well. But suffice it to say that the intent was there to take the officers' lives and that basically is what happened.

He became very close to him...

BANFIELD: How many shots did the suspect fire off?

SHEAHAN: He fired off more than a couple. And our CSI people were able to fire rounds and were able to figure out exactly where he shot from at the scene.

BANFIELD: Have those ballistic tests already been completed. Have you connected them the gun and was the gun found on the suspect when they caught him?

SHEAHAN: Well ballistic tests you got to remember on this case Ashleigh going to be a moot point. Our officer -- our victim officers were witnesses to the crime itself.

So the suspect was never out of our officers' sight. And yes there will be ballistic tests but that is very secondary as far as evidentiary value goes in something like this where our officers were actually be witnesses.

BANFIELD: Sergeant Sheahan, that's very important. You said that that suspect was never out of the sight of the officers who were shot at. They kept a beat on him from the moment he shot to the moment they apprehended him?

[12:40:05] SHEAHAN: That's correct.

BANFIELD: Well that's huge evidence. Is there any other witness in the case?

SHEAHAN: There were witnesses that witnessed the subject running from our officers and witnessed the subject throw the weapon up against the curb as he ran into the parking lot of a nearby 7-11 and was taken into the custody by the officer.

And again, I want to stress what type of restraint our officers used in not opening fire on this subject. He's running away and yes, he's got a gun and yes, he had just fired into their vehicle but at the moment that he threw the gun down, the threat was over and there was no reason to fire on this suspect. And our job then reversed to just taking this person into custody.

BANFIELD: And Sergeant Sheahan, that person -- I'm sorry to interrupt to that and I have to cut this short but I got to ask you, do we have a name or an age or any information on the suspect yet?

SHEAHAN: The suspect has given us a couple of different residences and has been not very forthcoming as far as identity, as far as where he lives. That's been pinned down. and now and Clark county district attorney as well as the Clark county sheriff, that being the headed of Las Vegas metropolitan police department, we'll be speaking to that in a press conference tomorrow afternoon.

BANFIELD: I so appreciate your taking the time to speak with us. I am sorry you're in the circumstance you are in. Sergeant Sheahan, thank you.

Sergeant John Sheahan, joining us from the Las Vegas Metro police Department.

Jonathan Gilliam joins us now. He's a former police officer, former FBI special agent, former navy seal, all around bad ass.

I mean, listen you heard that interview, you heard what he said. They're proud the officers exercised restraint, yet this guy allegedly unloaded several bullets towards those officers. Why exercise restraint at that point?

JONATHAN GILLIAM, FORMER POLICE OFFICER, FBI SPECIAL AGENT: That, you know, was an -- I know Officer Sheahan is a public affairs officers so he's speaking in a very politically correct way but I just think that this speech that we're getting towards now is so generated by attorneys and executives and it's dangerous to the officers because, look, this is the fact.

That guy intended to kill an officer when he shot at them therefore he is somebody that is now an imminent threat whether he's running away with a weapon or whether he's standing there facing them.

I think that going out and trying to make the public realize that they offered restraint.

What they should make the public realize is that this guy is lucky that at the end of this, he threw the gun down because he could have been and probably should have been shot in the back as he ran away from this scene.

BANFIELD: Well and legally you can shoot someone, a fleeing felon, in the back if they have a weapon that could injure other people, many different jurisdictions might be different, I have to check that but we don't know that as a fact.

GILLIAM: Well, case law for supreme court says that "You can."

BANFIELD: Jonathan Gilliam, thanks again for joining us. Appreciate having your insight on this.

We do not have a holiday today for a county clerk who refused to give those marriages licenses out in Kentucky. And nope, she's actually doing her job in prison right now. She's in jail. Her lawyers are having to work overtime to get her out of jail.

They're actually appealing the situation that got her in jail. But how? How are they appealing it? It seems so cut and dry. But is it?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:47:00] BANFIELD: Kim Davis would not have been in the office today anyway, being that it's Labor Day ,but she's working hard. Her hopes for getting back to that office any time soon now rest with a federal court of appeals.

As you may know, this woman in the mug shot is the elected clerk of Rowan County, Kentucky, Rowan to some, Rowan to others. She's spending a fifth day locked up because she defied a federal judge's order to go ahead and issue marriage licenses, gay or straight.

But she stopped doing that because she cited religious objections when the supreme court of the U.S. recognized same-sex marriage as a constitutional right and said it's now her job to give out those licenses.

She says that does not work well with my religion and I have that right.

Enter my lawyer, CNN Legal Analyst Danny Cevallos, and trial attorney Heather Hansen.

So here's the question I have. While she sits there and I call this the self-imposed jail sentence because you can end it at any time if you just stop, you know, contempting (ph) the court.

She's actually had her lawyers appeal and it's a very strange technical appeal. Can you sort outline for me what it is they're say went wrong?

HEATHER HANSEN, TRIAL ATTORNEY: Well, they don't have a very good substantive appeal so they're appealing on procedure. They're saying that this judges already made the decision before they were given the opportunity to argue their points.

And the reason that they're say that is the case is because the staff was there and ready to take her to jail. And they're trying to say that, that would not have happened but for the fact that the judge had already made a decision. It is a weak, week...

BANFIELD: And Danny, didn't they also suggest in this appeal that Kim Davis didn't have any notice that she might be headed off to the pokey?

But, isn't what happens when you go before a judge and that's a possibility of to contempt?

DANNY CEVALLOS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, first of all, this is not a criminal trial; this is a civil contempt hearing.

Civil contempt hearings are very different constitutionally and procedurally from a criminal trial. And the most marked difference is that the condemner is entitled to much less procedural protections because as it said, she holds the keys to her own jail cell in her pocket.

She can do whatever it is she's not doing and get out at any time. And for that reason you see lower standards, lower burdens of proof in civil contempt cases. And in this case, ostensibly if she complies with the court order, she will be out of jail tomorrow.

BANFIELD: Well, we will have to see what the sixth circuit appellate judges have to say about this very weird appeal. I don't think I've seen something like this before but it's fascinating, certainly interesting sob, it's just never gets old does it?

HANSEN: No, this case is going to keep on going.

BANFIELD: Thank you Heather, thank you Danny. Appreciate it.

At age 14, this young kid gets wrapped up in the Detroit drug scene. And by 17 he was legendary, a drug dealer even with a fancy street name, White Boy Rick, take a look at Rick Wershe. He ended up in prison.

The sentence in life no parole and guess what?

[12:50:00] Next week he may walk free. So what's the big deal about this anyway? Turns out a lot.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: A Detroit man who became famous as a teenaged drug dealer who kind of looked a little like Opie, so much so he got a nickname, "White Boy Rick." Well, that man could soon be released from prison after cooling his heels there for 27 years. His name is Richard Wershe, Jr., goes by Rick, Rick, Jr.

Now he is 46-years-old. Obviously that's a long time ago he got that mug shot. He was convicted in '88 on Michigan's so called 650 lifer law, fancy way of saying if you had 650 grams of cocaine or more in your possession, automatic life in prison, no parole, don't ask questions. It was one of the harshest drug statutes ever in the United States. And Wershe just so happened to have eight kilos on him -- kind of on him, you know, he have them. And that was worth about $5 million.

At the time of this crime he was 17. By the time he was sentenced he was 18.

But five years ago in 2010 the Supreme Court had something to say about kids like this.

They ruled that sentencing juvenile offenders to life with no chance of parole ever for anything other than a murder was just unconstitutional. Can't do it. We can't put kids away forever.

[12:55:10] And so Wershe got parole eligible all of a sudden as did everybody else who swept up along the way.

And strangely enough a lot of those people who were swept up along the way, they all eventually got out. But 27 years later, Wershe is still in there, last man standing. Murderers have been out in this amount of time, drug dealers who did way bigger deals, out. But in every parole hearing for Rick Wershe, he has been denied.

So last week a judge made a decision that something stinks in Detroit and she is allowing this kid now grown up to be resentenced next week. And she was harsh in the way she addressed the court about this.

I want to bring in Evan Hughes, the author of a piece called, "The Trial of Rick -- of White Boy Rick." It's in the Atavist magazine and if yourself have five hours, it is some really good reading.

Evan, this reporting is exhaustive.

EVAN HUGHES, AUTHOR OF "THE TRIAL OF WHITE BOY RICK": Thank you.

BANFIELD: I need you to do what you can to me to break down an extraordinarily intricate series of events that landed that little Opie-faced kid in prison for as long as he's been. And still he can't get out. Effectively what happened?

HUGHES: Well, so it's quite a story. When he was around 14-years-old he went from 14 to 17, he went from being sort of the hanger on with some tough -- a tough crowd to a real dealer. And he became a celebrity in Detroit.

He was -- he never had a driver's license. But he had fancy cars, he had mink coat, he had Rolex watches. And the big thing was this novelty of this baby-faced white kid. He was operating in a world that was largely black and he was a big deal.

BANFIELD: So it turns out that the weird thing that people would haven't known back then, as you report, is that he was an informant. You allege that he was an informant for the FBI trying to get all these drug dealers he was cavorting with behind bars?

HUGHES: That's right. He was -- that's the part -- the piece of these whole legend that the public didn't know is that all of that that time he had been cultivated as an informant from the age of 14. And this was an allegation that was out there. It was not something I really believed at first before I looked into it.

BANFIELD: ... I mean you dug up a lot of documents. You've talked to a lot of those former agents who are now probably in their 60s and 70s. And they're telling you that you're on to something. This did really happened.

HUGHES: This is really true.

BANFIELD: But what gets complicated is that he eventually ends up in the hockey because -- or the pokey because of the eight kilos of cocaine. And then he turns his sights once again, as you alleged, for the feds on corrupt cops. Is this where his trouble has really begun?

HUGHES: That's right. He was -- he informed really not only well he was in prison but beforehand he informed on some powerful people in law enforcement and in then the leadership of the city of Detroit.

And there is very suggestive evidence that that has worked against him. That there are a lot of people who have fought to keep him behind bars.

BANFIELD: So is there any definitive proof that that white boy Rick, Rick Wershe's exhaustive work behind bars led to the incarceration of numerous police officers for corruption? And the in turn for that police officers have sought year after year after year to make sure he never gets out in retribution? Is that what you're alleging?

HUGHES: Definitive proof is a high bar, but I think the evidence is very clear that cops turned out in force when he had a parole hearing and spoke against him. They weren't even familiar with him on a personal level and there are people who -- they wield a lot of power. And I mean the strongest element of proof is people who were convicted of violent crimes, who are much older and seasoned criminals, they've all been released.

BANFIELD: They've all been released.

HUGHES: And not just last year but tens...

BANFIELD: Isn't it there's something in your piece about one of those police officers who apparently testified at a parole hearing, himself ended up in prison.

HUGHES: That's right.

BANFIELD: And spilled the beans. Now granted a person who is behind bars by police who put behind bars would not like the police, so I'm sure the police would say he's lying but he according to Rick says he's said that's exactly what happened?

HUGHES: That's right. He said, he confirmed that there was an organized effort to keep him back. BANFIELD: Well it's -- I mean its great reading honestly "The Trials of White Boy Rick" by Evan Hughes in the Atavist magazine. It's spectacular.

We did reached out to the normally the Detroit police I have to say but also the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office. It is Labor Day. It's hard to get comments.

The Detroit police's, unfortunately, their voice mailbox is full. So we've left messages for them. And Wayne County prosecutors say that they're not issuing any further statements before -- beyond what their briefs, you know, in court have shown.

[13:00:09] So, we're going to continue to follow this story. But the hearing, to see whether white boy Rick gets a new sentence, which could be time served, is next week. So, we'll keep you posted.

Thanks for watching, everybody. "WOLF" starts right now.