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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Indiana Vote Looms Large; Trump Attacks System Probate Hearing in Prince's Death; Missionaries Found Dead in Jamaica. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired May 02, 2016 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00] BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The some 3,000 people who he had killed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Join CNN tonight for "We Got Him: President Obama, bin Laden and the Future of the War on Terror." That's tonight, 8:00 Eastern, right here on CNN.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Thank you so much for joining us AT THIS HOUR.

BERMAN: "LEGAL VIEW" with Ashleigh Banfield starts now.

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

And welcome to the merry month of May. Presidential primary season finally winding down, but not before a contest of primary importance. Tomorrow, millions of people in Indiana are going to make the party frontrunners that much harder to stop from sewing up their nominations in June, or Hoosiers may give the trailing candidates at least a rational to fight on. At stake tomorrow, 83 Democratic delegates and 57 Republican delegates. Not enough to put anybody over the proverbial top, but Bernie Sanders and especially Ted Cruz really need to show their brutal defeats in the northeast over the past two weeks are a thing of the past.

It's a troubling sign for the Sanders campaign coming in the April fundraising reports. For the first time this year, Hillary Clinton has outraised her opponent, $26.4 million to $25.8 million. Now, that's not a big blowout by any means, but for Sanders, this is a big drop. He easily topped $40 million in each of the previous two months.

I want to bring in my CNN colleague, Phil Mattingly, who's standing by right here to talk a little bit more about numbers that don't have to do with dollar signs but they do have to do with polling --

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right.

BANFIELD: Which, when you talk about Indiana, it's not easy to do, but they've done it, another round.

MATTINGLY: They have done another round. And if you look specifically at the Republican race, what this really underscores is Ted Cruz has a big problem. Now, this most recent poll coming out of "The Wall Street Journal"/NBC News/Marist has Ted Cruz trialing Donald Trump by 15 points. Now, there's been a series of polls over the last couple of weeks that have consistently show Donald Trump up. But the bigger issue here is not necessarily the margin the Cruz campaign is pushing back, saying their internal polling shows it to be much closer, but it's what hasn't resonated with Indiana voters polled.

Look over the last week, Ashleigh. You have the deal between John Kasich and Ted Cruz. John Kasich pulling out of Indiana entirely, giving Ted Cruz a clean shot. All polling showing that that has had a very negative impact on Indiana voters. Then you had the announcement that Carly Fiorina would be Ted Cruz's running mate. Throwing something else against the wall. That hasn't resonated in a big way.

Now you have Ted Cruz looking at this last 24 hours. A big blitz in the state. But the polls starting to move away from him. And, Ashleigh, there's no question about it, if Ted Cruz loses in Indiana, Donald Trump has a much easier path to that 1,237 before the convention.

BANFIELD: I always hear in politics, when the polls don't go your way, all of a sudden campaigns talk about how the polls can be wrong and I wouldn't trust a polls.

MATTINGLY: (INAUDIBLE).

BANFIELD: And, by the way, if we trusted the polls in Michigan, we'd all be idiots.

MATTINGLY: That's right.

BANFIELD: Well -- now, I'd hate to say we'd all be idiots because we've been idiots all the way along since the day that Donald Trump announced. But I do want to say this. This morning Ted Cruz did his level best to try to mitigate some of these reports that are coming up, mitigate the effect of the polls and try to, you know, do a big old group hug to the folks in Indiana. Have a listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TED CRUZ (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I am in for the distance as long as we have a viable path to victory. I am competing to the end. And the reason is simple. Listen, this isn't about me. It isn't about Donald Trump. It isn't about any of the candidates. This is about our country and our future.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: OK, but this whole viable path business.

MATTINGLY: Right.

BANFIELD: I'm in it, you know, for the viable path to the nomination. What is a viable path at this point? MATTINGLY: Viable path in this situation -- first off, it's a shift.

Everything has been about Indiana for the Cruz campaign up to this point. Now they're willing to consider the possibility of losing Indiana and what that means going forward.

Now, there's one key opponent here. Ted Cruz's campaign has always said viable path means getting to a contested convention. And there are nine primaries after Indiana. There are opportunities where Ted Cruz can strike and do well.

BANFIELD: Yes, but there's not a lot of friendly territory, is there?

MATTINGLY: No. Nebraska's a win or take all state where they feel confident. California's a place, particularly as it's broken down in its congressional district allocation, 53 congressional districts, where they feel like they can pick up a number of delegates. But there's something here that happens if he loses Indiana. So many of these stop Trump entities have put their money, have put their resources into the state of Indiana, millions of dollars in ads, staff, groundwork, all of that type of -- all of types of things. If he loses Indiana, it looks like all of that effort is for not. And while Ted Cruz has plenty of money in the bank, those outside groups will not be willing to invest any more and even Ted Cruz's donors might start to look at the reality of what's happening here. That's the biggest issue than anything else. Perception very quickly hardens into reality in politics and if Ted Cruz loses a state he's been saying he has to win, that perception will harden a lot quicker than he wants.

BANFIELD: OK, Phil Mattingly, doing a great job. And it's nice to see you actually at home for a moment, for a nanosecond.

MATTINGLY: Thank you. I know, in New York, on set.

BANFIELD: Get a quick change of your luggage and off you go. Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

[12:05:05] I want to turn now to the brain trust, CNN Politics executive editor Mark Preston, and CNN's political analyst and editor in chief of "The Daily Beast" -- I always have to look at your satellite shot to see where you two are because I never know where you're going to pop up, it's been so busy.

Let me start with this, that whole viable path business. Mark, this morning, Donald Trump did an interview with Chris Cuomo on "New Day" and he brought up the off repeated refrain about the election being rigged, about the primary process of the Republicans being rigged. I want you to hear what he said, and then I want to ask -- ask you a specific question as it pertains to Indiana. Have a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE (voice-over): The bosses are trying to run it. You know it's a rigged party. It's a whole rigged situation. The bosses, like in Arizona, the bosses. I win Arizona in a landslide. I beat Cruz so badly, it's almost ridiculous. And then the bosses have delegates. They have a delegate -- a crooked delegate system where they go in and they try and get delegates so they can play games.

But I tell you what the voters wouldn't stand for. You know, when you win by millions of votes. And that's what I've been saying, it's a rigged system. The bosses want to pick whoever they want to pick.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR, "NEW DAY": So --

TRUMP: What's the purpose of going through the primaries?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Mark Preston, the marketing genius that is Donald Trump has been hammering that message home. And if you read "The New York Times" today, there's a report that that whole rigged system that he alleges isn't working anymore. Actually, that there's a real softening of all those delegates that Ted Cruz had sort of swept up into his basket for a second vote. Apparently a lot of those delegates are listening, saying, oh dear, I guess I'd better vote, you know, the democratic majority now.

MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICS EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Well, I certainly think that -- that those who have been against Donald Trump, maybe not those who have been so vocal against him, are starting to -- to realize that Donald Trump really is on a path to win this nomination.

Now, just to put it in perspective, he only needs to win 235 of the 502 remaining delegates in order to clinch the nomination as he heads into Cleveland. If he does, though, then we don't have to have any more talk about a contested convention and what have you. When Donald Trump talks about this being a rigged process, he's actually not right that it's a rigged process. Perhaps it is a flawed process. But it's a process that he probably should have known heading into the election because he would not be running into this wall right now --

BANFIELD: Yes. It's been around forever.

PRESTON: Where Ted Cruz is stealing his delegates, of course. But again, it all doesn't matter if he gets those 1,237 there, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: So what -- exactly. And what's fascinating about this, John Avalon, is that I did not expect to see a page out of Donald Trump's playbook being played out in the Bernie Sanders campaign, but it looks like Bernie Sanders is trying to shame a few super delegates into voting the conscience of the voters in the states where perhaps Bernie got more voters, tying to get those super delegates who effectively promised Hillary Clinton the moon to unpromise the moon and instead go with what their voters in those states said.

JOHN AVLON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Look, there are ironic echoes between these two populist campaigns, particularly when it comes to these super delegate and the rigged system, as Donald Trump calls it. But in both cases the core question is this, if a candidate has gotten more votes in a specific state, why wouldn't they walk away with more delegates? And the super delegate phenomenon aside, I think you can see how basic fairness starts to -- starts to irritate some folks, and that does resonate down to the mainstream voters who aren't part of the party process. It seems like that should be 1-1.

Now, Sanders has changed his tune on super delegates dramatically and Donald Trump arguing for ethics and fairness is always a little ironic, but they're both in the hard delegate math cycle right now and every little bit counts to gain inches.

BANFIELD: It's great to have both of you and thank you so much. I think we're all going to be pretty fascinated. I say this every time, but every single time we hit a Super Tuesday, it becomes awesome Tuesday. So, tomorrow will be nothing less. Thanks, Mark. Thanks, John.

PRESTON: Thanks. Thanks, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: Nice to have you.

AVLON: Thanks.

BANFIELD: Speaking of awesome Tuesday, tomorrow, CNN's going to cover the Indiana primary all day as we do best. As the people there vote and as results come in, please tune in, do not miss our special coverage and those awesome moments where Wolf Blitzer makes big announcements.

Coming up next, the battle over Prince's estate has begun in earnest, but it's not only about the money. Believe it or not, it's also about that mysterious vault. Really, a vault with a lock supposedly filled with countless unheard recordings that could be worth billions.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:13:26] BANFIELD: The battle over Prince's estimated $300 million estate has officially started. Today, the first hearing of what is sure to be a lengthy and let's just call it nasty legal fight was held. And Prince's sister, Tika Nelson, is claiming that Prince did not have a will. She appeared in court -- in probe court this morning, along with some of her half-siblings. All of them possible to Prince's enormous estate after his untimely death.

Stephanie Elam joining me live now from Chaska, Minnesota.

So, walk me through what happened in the hearing today.

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, first of all, Ashleigh, it was very quick. It was only about 12 minute long. But the main points to come out of there -- I can tell you, first of all, there were 11 lawyers, some representing the trust, that is the special administrator for Prince's estate, and then lawyers that are representing the siblings. Interesting to note that Tika sat on one side by herself with her two lawyers here. But you did see that there were -- what we believed to be were four of their siblings, half- siblings, in the courtroom there. The big thing to come out of here though is that they said that they are still searching for a will. They have not given up hope that there may not be one out there. They want to see if they can track that down and that's a big part of this.

The other part of the -- the reason for this hearing today was so that anyone who believes that they are an heir, and they do believe now at this point all of those heirs have been contacted, that they had time to make it here and to add their name to this petition that Tika Nelson first initiated last week, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: OK. Well, I -- I'm hoping for a longer hearing the next time so we get a few more -- a few more facts out of that. Thank you for that, Stephanie Elam, live for us.

[12:15:06] The family dynamics in Prince's family, they were already tense before today. And with his death, now they're even more complicate. Prince had a half-brother. His name's Albert Jackson. He says that he was not even invited to the private memorial to say good- bye to his younger brother. He spoke to Sara Sidner about his brother and he confirmed what has been legend, that there is this secret vault.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALBERT JACKSON, PRINCE'S HALF-BROTHER: We've seen the vault door, but we never entered.

SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I heard that if there is music, that the public would love to hear, that you'd be open to letting that happen. Letting Prince's music the public hasn't heard be released.

JACKSON: I would release it.

SIDNER: You would release it?

JACKSON: Yes.

SIDNER: How did your siblings receive your idea that the music should be released so the public can hear?

JACKSON: That's something I haven't talked about with my family yet, but it will come true that we will start talking about it.

SIDNER: Why do you think it should be released?

JACKSON: Let people know how great he really is.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: How great he really is. How great he was.

For the legal view, now with me, CNN legal analyst and defense attorney Danny Cevallos, and CNN legal analyst Paul Callan, a criminal defense attorney and a former prosecutor.

So there is still this discussion, Paul, that there may be a will out there that the family's still searching for it so that they don't have to be party to the just Minnesota law, but at what point, if a will turns up somewhere, is say a napkin with, I leave my worldly possessions to Ashleigh, not going to fly? Like what -- how --

PAUL CALLAN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Is that -- is that why you're wearing purple today? Is that --

BANFIELD: Just curious. And I'm just curious.

CALLAN: Yes, I -- just curious.

BANFIELD: But I just want to know how serious does a document need to be? What does it need to be in order for it to count?

CALLAN: Well, the general rule in most states is that it has to be a document that is witnessed by at least two people. So you napkin could be a will if two people witnessed it. In some states it's a -- it's a three person requirement.

This came up, actually, in the Michael Jackson case, where five months after his death, the will was finally discovered. So it's not unusual for wills to appear later in the game. But it better be found before this judge closes out this estate because after that then it's going to get distributed by court order.

BANFIELD: Then all bets are off.

DANNY CEVALLOS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Good luck getting stuff back from people.

BANFIELD: Right. And speaking of getting stuff back from people, by my count, there's Tika, who's the only full sister. Then there's Alfred Jackson, a half-brother, Lorna and Duane Nelson are both diseased. Those were half-siblings. And then there's Norrine, John, Sharon and -- and Omar Baker, also half-siblings. And effectively the law looks at them all the same. Tika may be full blood, Prince may have spent no time with any of these half-siblings, but each of them is equal?

CEVALLOS: Under Minnesota law it's very clear, half-siblings are to be treated exactly as full-blood siblings. And the other rule too in Minnesota is that when you determine those siblings as to how they inherit, there's always the issue of deceased siblings, which may not be the case here. But different states have different rules about how the descendants of the diseased siblings inherit. Do you bunch it all up together? Do you count someone who's dead or do you just give it to the remaining, living heirs and divide it up equally? So there are very complicating rules for intestacy, which is a great reason why people should have wills because you leave it up to whatever framework your state has -- has set out.

BANFIELD: Of your -- your state government.

CEVALLOS: Yes.

BANFIELD: OK. So speaking of that framework, it's fascinating when you read how Minnesota has decided these intestate issues. And, number one, to our knowledge, Prince doesn't have children. What if a child comes out of the woodwork in say a week's time? Does that one child trump all of these siblings and half-siblings? CEVALLOS: Under the rules of intestacy, the short answer yes, because

you follow a hierarchy. First -- and most states follow generally this rule. I starts with your spouse. Everything goes to your spouse. If no spouse, then to children. If no children, then up to parents. If no parents, then across over to the siblings, half or whole, in Minnesota.

BANFIELD: So a child means 100 percent of everything that man had and could have in the future. All to the child and the siblings are out of luck.

Which brings me to the future. Paul Callan, there is so much that could happen with that vault. Regardless if a child comes forward or whether these siblings can agree, but what -- what are the potentials that go forward with the vaulted material and then there's just the licensing of his image and his name and everything else?

CALLAN: You know, I'm really surprised and I'm working to do some kind of a television special on opening the vault. Boy, the estate could make an awful lot of money on that, as we will remember the Al Capone/Geraldo Rivera vault a long time ago, which there was nothing in.

So what's in this vault? One, the will could be in the vault. So maybe --

[12:20:01] BANFIELD: Good point.

CALLAN: That seems to me would be a logical place to leave it, but, of course, the talk is that all of the information regarding music that has -- is unreleased may be in the vault. And the other thing that's very, very important is -- is called the right to publicity. And that's the right to his use or of the use of his name or image in the future. Now, that became a huge issue in the Michael Jackson trust litigation because in many states there's no descendible right to publicity and -- but in California, there is. So there's going to be a big fight about that.

BANFIELD: So let's just say for now that the siblings may not agree on what to do with all of this material. You've got to go to the evidence, right? You've got to go to what's already out there. What would Prince have wanted. And I found some stuff that is pretty fascinating. Prince's former manager told "The Guardian" newspaper last year, so I don't know that there was a dog in the fight. We didn't know Prince was going to die so soon, but this is what he said. "He said that one day he'd just burn everything." That's the former manager, Alen Leeds, telling "The Guardian" a year ago. But then Prince himself appeared on "The View" in 2012 and regarding, you know, future works that may or may not be released, this is what he said to the ladies of "The View."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRINCE: One day someone will release them. I don't know that I'll get to release them all.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why are you holding on to them?

PRINCE: There's -- there's just so many. And I like writing new stuff. We do new stuff all the time. I meet a lot of new musicians who inspire different sounds.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: So the rumor is that there's enough material to release an album a year for the rest of the century. What -- which one of those two pieces of evidence might trump the other, or does it not matter of wit what Prince said, what the manager said. Does it all depend on what the siblings want?

CEVALLOS: When it comes to wills, you can leave -- and trusts, you can leave rules about how your property is to be used, or your money. But in the rules under the laws of intestacy, because you left no direction about what should be done with your stuff, there's a pretty strong case for the basis tenant of property law, which is, once a particular person owns something outright, they can alienate it, they can do whatever they want with it. So it is possible legally that these individuals could end up with rights to Prince's estate, or rights to his music, and be bound by nothing at all other than goodwill and honesty and friendship.

CALLAN: Bottom line, it doesn't matter what he said to the ladies on "The View." If it ain't in the will, it's not going to go that way. So that doesn't -- that's not even (INAUDIBLE) as far as I'm concerned.

BANFIELD: Which makes it even more shocking that, you know, upwards of about 50 percent of people across the country don't have wills, no matter how wealthy or not they are. It's an astounding statistic.

CEVALLOS: It's amazing.

BANFIELD: Amazing.

CEVALLOS: It's astounding.

BANFIELD: Do it, folks. You can do it online for almost nothing, but you can save so much trauma and mental angst for so many people.

Danny, Paul, thank you both. I appreciate it.

And we'll continue to follow that story. But up next, we're following this.

There is a murder mystery that's unfolding in Jamaica. Two American men who were there to build homes for the poorest of the poor, but they were found dead, brutally so. And there are so few clues. That doesn't mean there are none. We'll tell you, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:27:40] BANFIELD: Two American men murdered in Jamaica while working to build homes for the poor. Their bodies found discarded in the bushes. Randy Hentzel and Harold Nichols were missionaries for a Christian organization based in Pennsylvania. They were on their way to check on a home that was under construction when they were killed in broad daylight. CNN's Nick Valencia joining me live now from Atlanta.

Do we know what's the story behind these killings?

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: There's a lot of mystery here and the local police in Jamaica, Ashleigh, have not returned our repeated calls for comment. The details that we are getting are coming to us from the mission director of that Pennsylvania based mission called Teams for Medical Missions. And what we're told is that one of the men, Harold Nichols, had a 14 year relationship with Jamaica. That he had been traveling there on and off for the last 14 years so connected to that island that they would call him a J-American (ph) according to this mission director. The other had been doing mission trips for the last six years. That's Randy Hentzel. I mentioned that we spoke to that mission director, Ray Shive, and he tells me that they had never said anything about being scared for their safety. Take a listen to what he had to tell me.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAY SHIVE, DIRECTOR, TEAMS FOR MEDICAL MISSIONS (voice-over): But never felt themselves to be at -- in a dangerous situation. In fact, because of the high regard and respect that Harold had, often when there were violent situations beginning to develop even right outside the gates of the mission house there, he would walk out into the crowd and would be able to diffuse the situations.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VALENCIA: That mission director also said something very interesting to me, Ashleigh. He said he believes that whoever was responsible for these murders may have known Harold Nichols because he was such a fixture there in the community.

Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: Well, I mean, it's astounding. I think a lot of people think of Jamaica as a paradise, but it is an extraordinarily violent country with a remarkable murder rate.

VALENCIA: It is (ph).

BANFIELD: Yes. So the question I have for you is that there are these reports that they -- they lived there. They also lived in America. That they traveled back and forth. But that their families, without question, lived in America. That's my assumption. Do we know what the story is behind their families now?

VALENCIA: We know Randy Hentzel had just taken a trip back to visit his family living in the states. We don't know exactly where they're at. But he is survived by a wife, five children. Three of those children are school age.

[12:29:57] He had just gotten back to Jamaica to meet up with Harold Nichols and they were going to go check on that home that they were building for a local family in a very impoverished area. They rented those motorcycles, partly to get to this place, this very remote place where they were traveling to.