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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Knife Discovered on Former Property of O.J. Simpson. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired March 04, 2016 - 12:30   ET

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

[12:30:05] ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: ... jury riggin evidence -- some time. I think it still splits factions of the country. And it was hard on the L.A.P.D. as well.

You took a hammering in the courtroom, the officers accused of jury rigging evidence, planting evidence. The officers accused of racism as well involved in the investigation of O.J. Simpson. If this knife proves to be something it will not lead to anything regarding of criminal prosecution of O.J. Simpson, as Yale Galanter said, that ship has sailed, double jeopardy has attached. He can not be charged again for murder. He said acquitted. But what would it do in terms of vindication for the L.A.P.D. and the officers involved?

VOICE OF TOM LANGE, FORMER LEAD DETECTIVE IN O.J. SIMPSON CASE: Well, as far as vindication I honestly don't see where there needs to be a vindication under most of those circumstances that you described. The evidence was planted -- there would be evidence of that. We have even recent accusations by people like Alan Dershowitz that my partner, my late partner in this case had planted evidence although there's no evidence that that ever occurred. There's nonsense about racism. This was not a case about racism. This was a case about two young people being brutally slaughtered and the media running off with this thing and trying to say that, oh, it's the racist L.A.P.D. and this that and the other. This is all nonsense. If any of this stuff could be proven we would have seen that evidence at the court. All you had was nonsense thrown out by the defense during this trial about the cops this, the cops that. There was never any evidence at all that anything was planted.

BANFIELD: Do you take any solace at all that O.J. Simpson currently cooled his heels in a lockup based on the kidnapping and robbery conviction in Nevada? Maybe watching us right now from the common room that sometimes has the T.V. on CNN?

LANGE: Well, I don't think solace in any of this. I don't get personally involved in this. But when I am attacked and falsely accused of something and my partner is attacked and falsely accused of something I will defend it. To this case it was all nonsense to begin with so you can't live with these things, these things will happen all the time. I honestly believe the media wants to keep it out there. There are no unanswered questions in this case. There's nothing exculpatory of any substance in this case and there never has been.

BANFIELD: You know, you just heard the captain who took the microphone, Captain Andrew Neiman say he's not lawyer but he knows full well there can't be any further prosecution of O.J. Simpson. But would it be enough if there was some kind of proof just for posterity's sake?

LANGE: Well, I don't know. You can't worry about posterity's sake if you're running a criminal investigation. There was so much evidence put on inculpatory evidence. I mean, have never heard of any case in some 300 murder investigations I've been involved with. Nothing ever comes close to the amount of evidence in this case. And again, with any investigator is going to look for to the something exculpatory. Once you know that, you can only strengthen your investigation. This was one of the very, very rare cases that had nothing of a substantive nature.

BANFIELD: Detective Lange, have I lost you? Can you still hear me? I know we had a --

LANGE: No, I'm still here.

BANFIELD: ... troublesome connections.

LANGE: Still here.

BANFIELD: Still there?

LANGE: Yes.

BANFIELD: OK sorry, continue, I lost your last sentence.

LANGE: OK, now I'm just saying that this was one of the very rare cases that there was nothing of a substantive nature that was exculpatory. Everything points run in points in one direction. So lack of evidence was never a problem in this case.

BANFIELD: And I just want to ask you about that statement, lack of evidence. I'm sure that there was a lot of hand wringing among your team, you being the lead investigator, the lead detective of the L.A.P.D. in the O.J. case. I'm sure that it frustrated you to no end that you had to deliver your evidence and all of those -- all of those pieces of evidence that went by this jury without the murder weapon. I just wanted to ask you, did you turn that state upside down? Did you -- do you think there's a chance that it could have been missed if it were buried out in a yard? What kind of investigation did go on to determine whether there was a murder weapon anywhere at that Rockingham state?

LANGE: There were several investigations. We did everything possible we could at that Rockingham location, again, where the glove was found the very narrow area behind the bungalows as it goes back to an area where there was a lot of junk that had been discarded.

[12:35:14] We felt that Simpson at that time was trying to get back to that area there to perhaps discard evidence and that's where the glove was found. I don't believe that he went beyond that location because he ran into an air conditioner. There were cobwebs beyond that indicating that no one had been back in that area for a while. Then you switch to the airport where you had a witness that actually

observe Simpson get out of a limousine and deposit items in one of the trash containers right there at American Airlines from a small half- moon shape travel bag that he had on top of the trash container. He was taking items out and putting them into that container, picked the back up and walked inside and that's the last we saw of that little travel bag. It's certainly a probability in my mind that there was evidence he deposited in that container.

BANFIELD: Detective Lange, I appreciate the time that you took to speak with us. I'm sure this came as a surprise to you, as it did to us, but we appreciate your insight and we'll continue to follow this and hopefully speak with you again if and when we have some resolution, sir.

LANGE: Sure.

BANFIELD: Detective Tom Lange retired but the lead detective in the O.J. Simpson murder investigation on behalf of the L.A.P.D., that same police department taking to the microphones just moments ago to say it is true. The stories that have been told over the years are true, at least part, anyway, that the L.A.P.D. has a knife in its possession. It was turned over to them in the last month and they are testing it. They are doing the forensics to try to determine if the knife that came from the Rockingham state of O.J. Simpson, 22 years ago a murder was committed. Was it the murder weapon? More after this.

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[12:41:59] BANFIELD: Welcome back, everyone, I'm Ashleigh Banfield. If you're just breaking -- if you're joining us, the news that is breaking is that there was a knife that was discovered on the former property of O.J. Simpson. Why is this significant? The Los Angeles police department has just given a news conference to say they've had this knife for about a month, but someone else has had this knife for even longer. The only information they will give to us is that the knife was turned over to them after a citizen turn this offer to an officer, a motor officer who may or may not have been on the force at the time. That officer is now retired and that investigation is continuing, but perhaps the more important investigation is testing that knife and that is exactly what the L.A.P.D. is doing right now, forensic testing, serology, blood testing, DNA testing to find out if it is indeed the missing murder weapon. That case went to trial without the murder weapon and that case led to a double acquittal for O.J. Simpson.

Paul Vercammen is live in Los Angeles and CNN legal analyst Danny Cevallos joins me live as well from New York. First to you, Paul Vercammen. Never thought I'd see the day that I would be asking you about a potential murder weapon in the O.J. Simpson criminal case.

PAUL VERCAMMEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And, of course, that is the holy grail of this whole case, the knife, where was the knife? The question that hung the air that nobody answered and therefore here in Los Angeles just for a moment it was almost as if you could say, strike up the calliope, the media circus is back. Let's look over here about 12 to 15 member of the press were involved when they came out and tried to reveal more about this knife. And something that I should sort of stress here and that is Captain Neiman said that the retired officer said that this person recovered the knife from Rockingham.

So right now, we are dealing with, as you would call in the law, some hearsay. I mean, we don't yet know independently where and if it was found in Rockingham. Also you look down over here you can see the rest of the media gathering for this. So that's something that remains to be seen and right after coverage, press conference I pressed Captain Neiman-off camera when I said, are you going to reveal anything else today? Will there be any more pressers? He said only if something big happens and he feels like there's a need to. They, of course, are trying to digest all of this only in Los Angeles. Would you have a story about a motor officer who's on a movie shoot, etc. etc. and allegedly comes into possession of all of these.

Sometimes it seems like Ashleigh you just can't make this stuff up when it comes to O.J. Simpson. And I also said to Captain Neiman off camera, what about this in light of all the publicity now that the television show is getting? And he just smiled and laughed and said, the timing is interesting. The timing is interesting. Back to you.

BANFIELD: Yeah, I mean the circus reference you made. We've all lived through it and it was -- it was an awful story for two families in that area who lost their loved ones, Nicole's family and Ron's family they're still waiting for their civil payout. I don't know if they'll ever get it, but they've certainly did get one thing they considered a gift and that was the lockup of O.J. Simpson in neighboring Nevada on an entirely different charge, and entirely different case. Paul, stand by for a moment, Danny Cevallos, I want to bring you in on what we heard from Captain Neiman.

And I apologize for mispronouncing his name. Neiman, its Captain Neiman. With that this knife is headed to the lab if it's not already there given the high profile nature of this find and of the interest from the media in this case. It's headed to the lab for the serology

[12:45:04] ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Was this knife is headed to the lab if it's not already there given the high-profile nature of this find and of the interest there -- from the media in this case. It's headed to the lab for the serology, for the DNA and for what you said, hair sample testing. Walk me through that as an attorney and also let me know -- look, there's a backup, there's a backlog of cases that go to labs because they don't have enough lab technicians to process the criminal evidence they have in their possession but I think this one's going get high priority.

DANNY CEVALLOS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: I think RHD is going to get the high priority tag on this one but it does beg the question, I mean, what is the likelihood that there will be any quality forensic evidence on a knife that apparently may have been buried in soil for decades? As we all know, this kind of evidence can degrade, but interestingly enough, this case at the trial, if you are -- something of a historian of this case, this case actually featured blood evidence that had been left out in the California atmosphere for weeks and was in decent quality. Now, that simply won't be the case with evidence that's been buried in the soil for decades. The odds of finding anything interesting on that are very, very slim.

BANFIELD: They may be but, you know, things have happened before that have been rather surprising. DNA and, especially mitochondrial DNA has a habit of surprising us at the forensic level in criminal trials when we don't expect it.

Talk about the potential here and that is if we can get past any identifiers on this piece of evidence that there may be something else afoot. Maybe that it could lead to accessory charges. What if the DNA isn't O.J's DNA's but a friend of his or god forbid an attorney of his or. It means these are things I assume investigators are playing over as potential scenarios. Would there be a potential for charges for others, conspiracy-style charges or even lesser charges that O.J. Simpson did not face and were not adjudicated in that criminal trial?

CEVALLOS: You can be assured that the police will look at any other person who has potential criminal liability. Whether it be for assisting or otherwise. As they said the case is still open but there's a more interesting thing you mentioned here.

We've been talking about double jeopardy, it's true that double jeopardy bars any re prosecution for the same offense arising out of the same transaction. But under the black border (ph) test there might be light here. That may not be an absolute bar.

For example, if the crime is not the same or similar to the prior crime, if it contains elements that are different to the prior crime, then it may be able to be prosecuted again, although, as a general rule while the black border test doesn't accurately predict every single situation.

At the same time, this test of sameness would probably be satisfied by this prior acquittal. However it's not an absolute rule. If a prosecutor feels there's sufficient difference between the crimes of say, just to give an example, murder and burglary which contains many different elements from murder then it's a possibility that the block burger test may not bar re prosecution- for what would be a different crime.

This is just sort of spit balling at this stage. But it certainly prosecutors will consider it. Any way they can get around that double jeopardy clause if they believe they have a crime and a criminal.

BANFIELD; Danny Cevallos joining us from New York and Paul Vercammen joining us live from Los Angeles with more on this story.

I want to go back to Yale Galanter if I can.

Yale Galanter was O.J.'s Simpsons' attorney for years and years and the most significant case he worked for him was that robbery case in Las Vegas. O.J. was convicted and sentenced to 33 years, that was on October 3 of 2000 -- December 5 of 2008. He's eligible for parole after nine years which takes us I think until 2017, Yale:

The question I wanted you to mull over is whatever happens with this find, with this knife, if they are able to tie it to O.J., we get it, no prosecution really potentially for O.J. Simpson with regard to the knife. But could it affect his parole opportunities in Nevada.

YALE GALANTER, FORMER ATTORNEY FOR O.J. SIMPSON: Well, "could" is a very open question. Generally speaking it should not, and I don't think it will in this case. Parole in most state, including Nevada is set up to ensure the prisoner while in custody behaves and follows the rules. And by all accounts, O.J. Simpson has been a model prisoner in the Nevada state prison system.

[12:50:01] He's come up a couple of times already in all indications are that he will be released on his first parole date not 2017. I don't think this is going to have any effect at all.

BANFIELD: Did you just say that all indications are that he will or that he will not?

GALANTER: He will. Absolutely will. He's been a model prisoner. All the reports that we've had that he's been a model prisoner, we fully expect him to be released at the end of 2017.

BANFIELD: You know, I get it, model prisoner aside, there is also the moral indignation of society that comes up often times, there is that sort of intangible aspect when parole boards meet and make those decisions. I can just say John Lennon's killer has come up over and over again with all sorts of model prisoner attributes yet that board continues to say it's too heinous for society to handle and he stays in prison. I'm just wondering if that kind of factor could affect O.J.?

GALANTER: Yeah, I just don't see that, Ashleigh, I mean, first of all, I don't think this, knife is going to be attached to the Nicole Brown -- I mean the Simpson-Brown homicide to begin with. I just don't think that's going to occur. I think this is going to be another one of those "hokey" things that Detective Lange was talking about. As you know, there have been other knives, other pieces of evidence that have come up over the years and been turned over and this really does seem to be far removed. A construction worker gives it to a cop in the late '90s and the cop doesn't turn it over? I mean that just makes no sense to me at all.

And why would he turn it over now? What's going on now? The only thing it's occurring now is this new FX TV program and I don't mean to give them a plug but it's been in the news lately and these types of things pop up when it's in the news and I just don't see this being a connection or it having any adverse affect on O.J.'s continued incarceration. I just don't think that's going to happen.

BANFIELD: And Yale, I don't know what your current relationship is with O.J. Simpson. It's not unusual for someone who's convicted to fill that Hail Mary pass and go after his attorney and suggest it was ineffective assistant of council. I need some kind of other hearing. It happens all time . And not something O.J. did regarding you as well. Do you still talk to him? Do you have any relationship with O.J.?

GALANTER: I have not. The last time I saw O.J. Simpson or spoke with O.J. Simpson was when I testified in Nevada and as you said -- and has been widely reported, these are very common motions that get filed wherever there's a conviction and like 99.99 percent of the cases and I was very fortunate enough to be able to testify, the trial judge there found there was no ineffective assistance counsel but even more importantly what wasn't highly publicized was there were a number of appeals and the Nevada Supreme court in their last order came out with an order that really put a feather in my cap and they said not only was it not ineffective assistance of council in a very a complicated complex trial, there were no errors at all. None.

And you know its As a practicing lawyer for over 35 years, it gave me great solace to have that order and to have such an esteemed body as the Nevada Supreme Court to look at this, hear all the arguments and say that there were no errors at all. But I -- you know I don't hold any animosity or ill will because it's part of what I do for a living. I've done it to other lawyers in other cases. You know, the whole key you -- is you don't want somebody to be incarcerated and I certainly have no animosity for them filing the motion.

BANFIELD I can only imagine you have some animosity for Judge Glass. I covered the case, I watched you. I watched her. There was a lot of criticism for how she slapped you down frequently for your objections, how she spoke to you in court.

A lot of court watchers said your client, O.J. Simpson, was absolutely, without question, getting punished for what happened in Los Angeles and I'm curious to get your feel now that it's all said and done in Nevada, did he? Did he get punished for what happened in L.A. Or for what didn't happen in L.A.?

GALANTER: A 100 percent, he got punished. I mean, this the Nevada case became a case of we're going to get you. And Nevada is one of the only states in the country where it is illegal to recover your own property. I mean, let's talk about what occurred here, you know.

[12:55:01] O.J.through the years had made it known that. you know, his parents' memorabilia were stolen and personal things were stolen of his and he was trying to get it back. And there's a law in Nevada, singularly, know other, state is these, where it's illegal for someone to recover their own property. Yes. Was it pay back? A 100 percent. It was the jury ...

BANFIELD: Find, we can't

GALANTER: Yeah, I mean I was worried (ph) and I certainly can't.

BANFIELD: I can't until we litigate the case. And I have to chop there only because I'm at the end of my program but I do want to say that we're continuing to follow this. Yale, I couldn't thank you enough for being available today ...

GALANTER: My pleasure.

BANFIELD: to walk through this brand new development. And I hope to speak with you further when we know more about these. Yale Galanter joining us live on this development. Thank you, everyone, for watching, we're going to continue to follow:

this case and we are going to continue following the politics across America right now because there is a big debate coming here in just a few days, the Democratic debate here in Flint Michigan.

I'm going to turn things over to Wolf Blitzer who gets going right after this quick break.

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