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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Relative Of Murdered Ohio Family Speaks Out; Manhunt For Ohio Family Killer Enters Fifth Day; 54 Unpledged Delegates At Stake In Pennsylvania; Primary Voting Underway In Five States; San Francisco Cop Accused Of Racist Texts; Prince Had No Known Will, According To His Sister. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired April 26, 2016 - 12:30   ET

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

[12:30:09] CHRIS GRAVES, COLUMNIST: They say there just -- to be talked to by the Pike county sheriffs about 3:00 in the morning, hey were rustled out of bed to be re-interviewed. And I think those sorts of things just don't sit well with them. I think they're just as perplexed. They say they're just as perplexed as anybody or at least Mr. Manley does.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: So, when Mr. Manley spoke with you, he was also -- he had his other daughter, Bobby Jo. Clearly, she is traumatized by this horrific loss of her family members. It's my understanding from your work that she discovered her sister. She was one of the first people on the scene. And yet, there ...

GRAVES: That's correct.

BANFIELD: That it seems the police were questioning her account of what time. They're drilling down on the time of her discovery. Can you help me understand what the details were of the discovery? How she happened upon this scene? What time it was and why that might be -- why there might be discrepancies?

GRAVES: Sure. So she said she's very -- Bobby Jo Manley is the younger daughter of Leonard and closest sister to Dana. She said to me she went there as she always does to feed the chickens and dogs up at the multiple properties at about 7:00 in the morning on Friday morning. And she discovered sort of this grizzly scene, called for help, called her father, who lives just down, maybe about a half a mile away, quarter to a half a mile away down on the same road.

I can only speculate what the time issue is. I would guess that the police are trying to sort of narrow who saw what, when and, how and who was the first discovery and I don't, truthfully, I don't know whether or not law enforcers have a different time. If there's some other time stamp on something. I don't know that. But I do know she shared that detail with me yesterday up at the family's home.

BANFIELD: Well, the story gets more mystifying as more details come to light. I think especially this detailed authorities (ph) large grow operations that were discovered at four or three or four scene.

I have to leave it there, Chris, but I do hope to check in with you to see if there's anything else that -- strange details to help solve this very unsettling story. Thank you for your time today.

GRAVES: Absolutely. Thank you Ashley.

BANFIELD: Thanks. Chris Graves joining us from Cincinnati Enquirer.

By far the biggest prize in today's primaries is the State of Pennsylvania. But for Republicans, there's a catch. And that catch is only 17 of the GOP delegates are bound to a candidate. Only 17. So what exactly happens with all those other 54 who just trickle out of tonight? If they're unbound, does that mean they can do anything they want at that convention? Short answer is yes. But the bigger story is how are these three guys going to try and stop them from doing that?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:37:28] BANFIELD: Happy Super Tuesday again. We all know that elections matter and every single vote count, but when it comes to choosing a presidential nominee, believe it or not, the real power lies with those delegates and no state voting today has more delegates with more power than Pennsylvania. Dozens of those delegates are being elected right now and they have free reign to vote any way they choose at the GOP convention this summer. Who are these people? How do we know what they think?

CNN's Randi Kaye as the same questions. So she went out to meet some of the not so familiar names on the ballots.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm running for delegate in the second congressional district.

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: If Audrey Giza (ph) gets elected as an unpledged Pennsylvania delegate to the Republican National Convention in July she says she will support Ted Cruz despite who the majority of GOP primary voters want. But other potential unpledged delegates won't say who they'll support.

CALVIN TUCKER, PENNSYLVANIA GOP DELIGATE CANDIDATE: I'm hoping, I'm uncommitted and will be until I have to cast my first vote.

CHRIS VOGLER, PENNSYLVANIA GOP DELEGATE CANDIDATE: Right now I am uncommitted.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE:: Hello.

VOGLER: Good. How are you doing? What's going on?

KAYE: That's what makes Pennsylvania unique. Of the states 71 delegates, 54 of them will remain unpledged more than any other state, meaning they can vote for whichever candidate they want at the convention. Just like Calvin Tucker and Chris Vogler.

VOGLER: I'm not totally sure. It might not be until the convention.

TUCKER: I'm going to make a decision based on my discussion with each of the candidates or surrogates if to determine their interests in urban policy.

KAYE: The campaigns are anxious to shore up support. Calvin said he's received at least 25 calls and e-mails from the campaigns. Just last week, he met with Ted Cruz surrogate Carly Fiorina and was invited to attend a delegate dinner with Cruz himself.

What does it feel like to be courted by the campaigns?

TUCKER: Well, I mean, it feels good, I mean, I haven't been courted in 40 years since i first met my wife.

KAYE: Chris is being wooed too. He met Cruz last week.

VOGLER: Just introduced himself, some small talk and then it really was a question and answer session for 45 minutes.

KAYE: And here's where things get really tricky. In choosing delegates, voters in Pennsylvania may have to guess which presidential candidate, a potential delegate will support.

This is a sample primary ballot for the voters to use here in Pennsylvania. And here on the Republican side are some of the delegates that we interviewed. And you can see all that's there is their name. You don't know anything about their allegiances and which presidential candidate they're supporting.

[12:40:05] But here on the Democratic side, they do show that. For example, this delegate is committed to Hillary Clinton. Over here, committed to Bernie Sanders. But back on the Republican side, what could happen is a voter could conceivably end up voting in a delegate who supports a different presidential candidate than that voter.

That means the candidate who wins the popular vote in this state may or may not win the most delegates. It all depends on how these unpledged delegates eventually decide to vote at the convention.

Even though it looks like Donald Trump will win the popular vote here, what would you like to see happen?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I would like to see Cruz carry a lot of delegates.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hello.

KAYE: Despite the many questions from voters, there are no immediate plans to change the rules or the ballot.

JOE DEFELICE, CHAIRMAN PHILADELPHIA REPUBLICAN PARTY: People are calling us now. And when are you going to switch it? You're going to switch in March? You're going to switch it in April? We're not going to change it now and April, you know, week out from the election.

KAYE: The Philadelphia Republican Party says, it's doing all it can to make sure voters are informed and educated about the delegates come primary day.

Randi Kaye, CNN, Philadelphia.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Fascinating stuff. So how well Pennsylvania's unconventional rules play at the convention? Who the unbound delegates end up supporting could make all the difference in this race.

Find out what the map is saying about those unbounds and what they have said to their friends and other politicians, because that could also make the difference next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:45:26] BANFIELD: Millions of voters in five states casting their ballots as we speak. And one of the most important and very, very complicated primaries is happening in Pennsylvania right now. As we saw before, the GOP voters there not only are deciding which candidate could win 17 of those pledged delegates, but they'll going to pick 54 unbound ones. Those are the delegates that represent them at the party's convention.

You know, what does that mean exactly? Here now with discussing CNN Politics Executive Editor is Mark Preston. Here's what's so fascinating about the breakdown. 17, I think we can fairly say Trump is polling so incredibly well in Pennsylvania. He'll probably pick those ones up. Fair?

MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICS EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Very fair. Yeah, no doubt.

BANFIELD: The next part is kind of weird. You have all of these districts, 18 different districts with three delegates a piece and they all have pledged to somebody to themselves, you know, they're running like candidates. But CNN did little bit of the map about how they operate. And it's kind of fascinating.

Let me just read for you. It's going to be tricky so follow along. This is what CNN found out when they interviewed these people out there the delegates.

Of more than 125 of them who spoke with CNN, about 20 percent of them said they will back Trump. While another 33 percent said they're going to back their congressional district's winner. That's popular winner. Whoever gets the popular vote there and that's really good news for Trump because he's poised to win the popular vote by a heavy margin.

Sixteen percent only said that they would support Cruz, 10 percent said don't ask me. I'm not ready yet. I won't talk until the convention, but none of the candidates told CNN that they plan to support Kasich. By that math, that looks like Donald Trump's got about 53 percent support out on those congressional districts which is huge.

PRESTON: Which would be north of the 40, of the 54 delegates that are on the table. You know what's interesting just about this whole process that really being known to the American public because this really has been very smoke-filled room about how you pick a presidential candidate, which quite frankly we haven't been in this situation before. But there's so much talk about reforming the IRS and the confusion of doing your taxes. Trying to pick a president is even more confusing.

BANFIELD: Right, just have ...

PRESTON: But to your point in our reporting, nearly 33 percent, these are folks that are running to be a delegate to the convention if their district, their congressional district decides to go for Donald Trump and they were not to support Donald Trump at the convention, can you imagine them coming back home?

BANFIELD: They'd be run out of town.

PRESTON: They would be running right out of the neighborhood.

BANFIELD: Is that why they put their hands up I don't how style and said, I state your name, promise to do what you want in this district as suppose to who I like.

PRESTON: I would suspect that is the case. No doubt.

BANFIELD: Extremely incredible. There's some cherry picking that Cruz and Kasich can do though in these five fellows (ph) states, right. And as I see the map, it looks like Cruz is really doing his best in Maryland. He thinks he might be able to pick a couple there.

PRESTON: Right, but by and large, I think that the Cruz campaign has just given up here on the Mid-Atlantic, you know, up to the East Coast. That's why we saw this deal cut late Sunday night. The deal didn't quite develop as they had hoped probably yesterday but why Cruz is going all-in in Indiana.

They basically see that John Kasich and Ted Cruz have basically seeded this area to Donald Trump. And we always knew that this area was going to be good from Maryland up to Rhold islad was going to be good for Donald Trump because of his politics match up with the New York politics.

BANFIELD: But that Rhode Island, let just be clear that's the open primary and Kasich has a shot there and people would think they're going to pick anything off.

PRESTON: We'll see.

BANFIELD: He'll be able to or maybe pick it off there. I can't wait for tonight. I've been saying that every Tuesday. This is great T.V. Thank you, Mark Preston.

PRESTON: Thanks.

BANFIELD: Always good to have you. I appreciate it.

Coming up, next a San Francisco policeman accused who is accused as sending what can only be said as the most racist and homophobic text you might ever see on T.V. Not the first time the department has been in trouble for this either.

I'm going to explain that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:53:27] BANFIELD: We are following some pretty surprising breaking news. CNN has just learned from the sister of the deceased musician Prince that he in fact did not have a will at the time of his death. Again, did not have a will. This is the man who, by some estimates, could have been reportedly worth over $300 million.

That's not even talking about the future possibilities of his assets. The licensing of his name and likeness going forward. The remarkable rights to his music catalog. The vault of what is said to be hundreds and hundreds of songs yet to be released.

Michael Jackson alone since '09 making a billion dollars off of those very kinds of assets. So this is just an incredible discovery that Prince, according to his sister, telling CNN, did not have a will. That means that Minnesota state law will prevail over how to deal with probate issues in this case. He has several half siblings and he has some of them deceased and one full sibling. No children. And twice divorced.

This will be a remarkable story as this goes forward. But just a complete surprise for a musician who was so meticulous about his business arrangements throughout his entire decades long career.

I want to move on now to this other story. The San Francisco Police Department at the center of yet another racially charged controversy. This one involving an officer who allegedly sent dozens of racist and homophobic text messages about the very the same people that he was sworn to serve and protect.

CNN's Dan Simon has the story and we want to warn you it takes some language that viewers may find offensive.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[12:55:14] DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: San Francisco's police department is once again embroiled in controversy over some highly disturbing racist text messages.

At the center of the scandal is Officer Jason Lai. Now Lai resigned a few weeks ago but wore the uniform for six years. He allegedly uses disparaging language not only towards black people but toward Mexicans and Indians as well.

San Francisco public defender Jeff Adachi provided the text to CNN at the request of reporters. It came to light during a separate investigation of the officer. Lai's attorney told us that the text are not reflective of who he is and there's no evidence that he carried out any of those sentiments as an officer.

But the scandal is far wider than one officer and his racist texts. You see the SFPD went through the same thing a year ago when more than a dozen officers were found to have sent highly offensive racist texts. In both cases, the discoveries were accidental. The officer for being investigated for various crimes when officers basically stumbled upon the messages while looking for it's own records.

Then you have the controversial shooting last December of 26-year-old Mario Woods a knife wielding suspect infamously captured on cell phone video shot more than 20 times. Critics say it was an unnecessary use of force. The department is still investigating. But in light of the community backlash, the department said it wants to change how officers can have suspects with knives.

As you can imagine Chief Greg Suhr is under enormous pressure to show that these are isolated issues and that there's not some deep cultural problem within the department. He says he has no tolerance for this behavior. At stake is not just the chief and his department but perhaps the image of the city itself.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Joined now by Dan Simon and CNN justice reporter Scott Glover. Both of them work to put the story together. Gentlemen, thank you so much for doing this. Dan, first to you, this is -- as you mentioned, in your story it's just the latest embarrassment for the San Francisco P.D. But explain why it's a bigger issue than just this one officer's text messages.

SIMON: Well, Ashley, first of all, thank you for having us on. I think the thing that stands out for me and I think for Scott is that this happened in San Francisco. You're talking about the most liberal, progressive city on the planet. It's welcoming of everybody and the fact that it happened here and that you had three separate incidents. You have the first texting episode. Then you had Mario Woods who was shot by all of these officers and then a second texting episode. And then you look at it through the prism of Ferguson and Baltimore and that's going to make this, of course, a bigger story.

BANFIELD: So the San Francisco police chief has been under a lot of stress and how is he responding at this point?

SIMON: Well, what the chief is saying is that he's not going to tolerate this kind of behavior. You know, Greg Suhr has spent his entire career at the San Francisco Police Department and he says he wants to, you know, put some steps in place where there's sensitivity training and procedural things of that nature. And we'll see what happens.

Ultimately, it's going to be his actions more than his words to count.

BANFIELD: And When I say stress, I mean stress and pressure. A lot of people out there not happy with his actions. Scott, you're not new at this. You've been at this rodeo for a while. You cover the LAPD for a long time and now looking into the San Francisco Police Department, can you sort of put into context just how significant this story is in the context of overall policing?

SCOTT GLOVER, CNN JUSTICE REPORTER: You know, I think that remains to be seen. One question you're going to have is, is this an isolated incident, is it just a handful of officers who are involved or is it something indicative of a broader cultural problem?

And, you know, that remains under investigation. You know, in San Francisco, there have back-to-back incidents with these racist text messages a year apart. And in both cases, they were discovered accidentally, you know, incidental to criminal investigations that we're going on and both the public defender and district attorney in the story we did today pointed that out.

You know, well, if we look under another rock, what are we going to find? And so I think that's a question that remains to be answered.

BANFIELD: Well, it's great work and I thank the both of you for doing this and looking at this and I hope we can continue to follow it too. Dan Simon, Scott Glover. Thanks, guys.

GLOVER: Thank you.

SIMON: Thank you.

BANFIELD: Good to have both of them on. Thank you everyone, for watching "Legal View" and you want to continue watching CNN, you can do that. You can stay right here, you can go online to watch us too at cnn.com. In the meantime, Wolf starts right now.

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