Return to Transcripts main page

Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Ahmad Khan Rahami Facing Five Attempted Murder and Two Weapons Charges. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired September 20, 2016 - 12:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:31:30] ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: For now, Ahmad Khan Rahami is facing five attempted murder and two weapons charges with arraignment tentatively set for Wednesday of next week whether in a hospital bed or not. That just the way it goes.

Bomb-related charges, however, well, that's not being talked about right now. But you can bet your bottom dollar that they're coming at some point. And that they will more than likely come in the civilian court system. Rahami is an American, after all, a citizen.

He was arrested and charged on U.S. soil right here. And the offenses are alleged to have occurred on U.S. soil not a foreign battlefield somewhere. Yet, some people believe that he does not deserve the legal protections supported to criminal defendants here in America.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LINDSEY GRAHAM, (R) ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE: This idea of criminalizing the war has got to stop. This guy should be dealt with, with the FBI and the CIA and DNI and all the other experts to find out, you know, what he's up to. He's presumed innocent in the court of criminal law. I'm not worried about criminal disposition. I'm worried about intelligence gathering.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But isn't he a U.S. citizen, he deserves, read his Miranda Rights?

GRAHAM: No. I mean he's enemy -- he's a suspected enemy combatant. One, he's not guilty of a crime but there's enough evidence suggest he may have been involved in international terrorism.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: So I'm joined now by CNN Senior Legal Correspondent, Jeffrey Toobin.

I think there's no question that if he did what he's accused of doing he is definitely combative and he is definitely an enemy of our ideals. But Jeffrey Toobin is he an enemy combatant?

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR LEGAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, certainly according to the Obama administration, he will not be seen that way. I mean I think that the important thing to remember about this whole situation is that our legal system has done a very effective job of processing terrorists through our criminal courts. Those cases have proceeded with dispatch. These people have been tried, sentenced, convicted.

The enemy combatants at Guantanamo are tied up in a hopeless legal maze that is completely unresolved at this point. And that has proven to be disastrous from both a legal, political and moral standpoint. So the Obama administration has quite clearly said, we are handling people like him through the criminal justice system.

BANFIELD: So if we're going to end up in the criminal justice system, which I wholly presume we are, he's already charged with state-level offenses, the attempted murder of a police officer, five counts of that. That has nothing to do with those planted bombs, though. Can I ask you if I should look to the Tsarnaev case yet again where we had those pressure cooker bombs, we had gun offenses, there was, there were myriad locations where offenses happened and things like this, a federal charge like using a weapon of mass destruction, malicious destruction of property using explosives, personal injury to at least one person. Again, using mass destruction for injury, carrying a firearm, using or carrying a firearm during a crime of violence, these are all extraordinary federal charges that carry with them pretty significant prison time. Is that what we should expect will happen to this guy?

TOOBIN: I think that's precisely what we should expect with one important distinction. Fortunately, no one died in the course of this attack. And so, at least as we understand the Supreme Court precedent, the Supreme Court has never said this precisely, but most people think it's true, that you cannot be sentenced to death in this country unless you actually kill someone.

[12:35:08] And so it is extremely unlikely that he will even be charged, Rahami that is, with a crime carrying the death penalty. He will certainly be charged with a crime carrying life in prison without the possibility of parole.

BANFIELD: OK.

TOOBIN: But I believe the death penalty will be off the table in this case.

BANFIELD: So I'm with you on that one, but the length of prison sentences that come along with some of these other charges that Tsarnaev was convicted of that but did not lead to death. They may be lengthy and they may be made more lengthy if you look at the different instances, two different states, different locations, these could be, and you'll have to explain to me whether federal will follow state here. But these could be consecutive sentences. So let's say one of these charges gives you a 25-year sentence, and you're convicted of two of them, one in New Jersey, one of them in New York, would that be 50 years consecutively because they're two separate crimes in separate states at separate times?

TOOBIN: Well, to a great extent that will be up to the sentencing judge. That the -- there are what's known as federal sentencing guidelines which are suggested sentencing ranges for each crime. But they are not binding on the judge. So a judge could impose consecutive sentences.

Plus also as you point out, there is also the possibility that there would be a New Jersey case here, involving the attempted murder of the police officer. That, too, could about separate sentence that could be consecutive for, you know, at the same, you know, what's the word I'm ...

BANFIELD: Concurrent. But, you know, what I'm thinking is sometimes they hold crimes, right?

TOOBIN: Concurrent, yes. I'm sorry. I just -- that word flew out of my head. Right. That, again it would be up to the judge about whether that would -- those sentences would be concurrent or consecutive.

But certainly, if you look at the range of crimes available here, if he's convicted of all or even most of them, he is virtually certain to spend the rest of his life in prison.

BANFIELD: Sort of sounds like it to me, too, but I need a guy like you to, you know, check the box and let me know I'm not losing it.

Thank you, Jeffrey Toobin. Good to have you, always, thank you.

Coming up next, another deadly police shooting of another unarmed man, this time also captured on video. And this time it was in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the circumstances, sadly familiar.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:42:21] BANFIELD: New video just released of a deadly police shooting in Tulsa, Oklahoma. And it is upsetting to watch, to say the least. So I'm going to give you the warning right now that if you have children who are in the room and in the vicinity of the television, they should not be.

With that pause, and this moment to change that dynamic, here's the story. Terence Crutcher, 40-years-old, his family says that his SUV broke down on Friday. Police received two 911 calls about a vehicle blocking a road. There were other pieces of information in the 911 calls, still investigating to find out what information transpired to the 911 operators. I want you to see what happened next for yourself. And there's another warning, again, this is very, very upsetting. Have a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Which way are they facing?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They're facing westbound. I think he may have just been tasered.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Shots fired.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Adam 321, we have shots fired. We have one suspect down. We need EMSA here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: So we should tell you that before they responded the 911 operator heard information from a female caller saying a man was running from his vehicle after saying it was going to blow up. There is also some police helicopter video of the shooting. And on it you can hear the officers commenting on what was transpiring.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This guy's still walking. They have been following commands.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Time for a tazer, I think.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's -- I got a feeling that's about to happen.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That looks like a bad dude, too.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: The officers later learned that Crutcher was unarmed. He did not have a gun on him and there wasn't one in his SUV either.

Ana Cabrera joins me live now from Tulsa. So where does the investigation stand at this time, Ana?

ANA CABRERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right now, Ashleigh, there are two separate investigations that are ongoing. One a local investigation by the Tulsa Police Homicide Unit and as well as a federal civil rights probe conducted by the Department of Justice, which opened its own investigation after seeing that video that we just played.

[12:45:07] Now, the police chief has vowed to this community and to the nation to get to the bottom of what happened, and says justice will prevail. We do know the officer who fired the fatal shot, Officer Betty Shelby, who's been on the police force since 2011 is now on paid administrative leave. We also have learned that another officer who was among those you saw on the scene fired a taser almost simultaneously at the same time that Officer Shelby fired her gun.

The family saw that video before it was released to the public. And we heard from the sister of Terence Crutcher, his twin sister. She says they both celebrated their birthday just a month ago and she said what they've seen in the video shows no justification for the officer to open fire. And she says, that her brother was not the bad dude that we heard a helicopter officer say he was. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TIFFANY CRUTCHER, TERENCE CRUTCHER'S SISTER: You all want to know who that big, bad dude was? That big, bad dude was my twin brother. That big, bad dude was a father. That big, bad dude was a son. That big, bad dude was enrolled at Tulsa Community College, just wanting to make us proud. (END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Now, the medical examiner still has the body of Terence Crutcher. We understand has not released any kind coroner report. There will be toxicology tests to be conducted.

I just spoke a few minutes ago to the attorney for Officer Shelby, who tells us her side of the story, perhaps was not shown in the video. That when she came upon the vehicle and came upon Crutcher while responding to a different call, she was unaware of the 911 that had taken place and she simply pulled up and was gathering information when she encountered Crutcher, her attorney says he repeatedly refused to respond to questions, and did not obey numerous commands to keep his hands out of his pockets. That all happened prior to what you see in the video when he has his hands raised walking back to his vehicle.

As he walked back to the vehicle, Shelby's attorney says, she asked him multiple times to stop and he continued to ignore those commands. And what you can't see in the vehicle is the very moments before she opened fire. According to Shelby's attorney, at that very moment is when Crutcher was reaching his left hand into the driver's side of the vehicle. And at that moment is when he says, Officer Shelby feared for her life, perhaps thinking he was going to grab a gun, that's why she opened fire.

Back to you, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: Ana Cabrera, thank you. Sure to become more of a national conversation as the investigation continues.

Coming up next, what did he know and when did he know it? That is a question we've heard in politics a lot. And now it pertains to Chris Christie.

As the Bridgegate trial gets going in New Jersey, even though the governor isn't on trial, his name sure is front and center.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:52:15] BANFIELD: You have heard of Bridgegate, right? The whole George Washington Bridge traffic building, well, this sounds like it's politically motivated. There's a whole trial based on it and it got started this week.

And along with the prosecution's opening statement came a bit of a jaw-dropper to say the least. Federal prosecutors say this man, recognize him? Of course you do. It's the New Jersey governor, Chris Christie, he was running for president. Apparently they say he knew about the September 2013 lane closures on the bridge as they were happening.

He has never been named a conspirator or co-conspirator in this case, has never been charged in this case. Instead, others have. His former chief of staff, Bridget Anne Kelly, she's on trial. And the guy on the left, former port authority deputy executive director, Bill Baroni, he's on trial, too. And Phil Mattingly is watching the trial and I think your jaw dropped, too, when all of a sudden prosecutors invoked -- we never expected for a minute the prosecutors were going to say the governor knew. We always expected the defense attorneys would say the governor knew all along. Our clients, boy, you're pinpointing them. But the -- what does this mean for what the prosecutors might do after this trial regarding Chris Christie?

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I think, you know, the most interesting point. We knew this is going to be a core core of the defense, right. They're going to invoke Chris Christie. They're going to invoke Trenton over and over and over again. But the fact that the prosecutor's are pointing out that Chris Christie knew about this, he was told specifically while this was going on by his aides was a surprise.

Now, you know publicly, Chris Christie has never been named as a conspirator. He has never had charges brought against him. And the prosecutor yesterday made the point that they're not going to focus on that in this trial. But they are going to continue to invoke his name. What the prosecution's office has said is they reserve the right to bring charges or name him as a conspirator in the future.

Now, Chris Christie has said repeatedly, he did not know about this, he learned about it from the newspapers. He said it over and over again. And he's pointed to multiple investigations including an internal probe that said he did not know about this, prosecutors now telling a different story, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: Oh, man. I mean I wish I could go on. I'm out of time.$, but there should be ...

MATTINGLY: It's going to be a good trial.

BANFIELD: ... there's a lot. Well, you're going to have to come back. Book you tomorrow. Thank you, Phil Mattingly, appreciate it.

[12:54:23] We'll be back right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: They were such a unit they were almost a parallel economy. A celebrity institution so much so we called them by one name, Brangelina.

And now, a shocking as this might sound, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are going their separate ways. They've only been married for two years. But they've been together for 12, and have six children. And she's now filed for divorce. So jaws are dropped, and tongues are wagging.

Stephanie Elam joins me now from Los Angeles. We don't typically do these stories but they were a massive deal to your industry there that you cover.

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's true. I'm sitting here in Hollywood right now. That's very true, Ashleigh. People care a lot about what the Jolie/Pitt couple does. And it's surprising to so many that they've just got married two years ago, and now they're getting divorced even though they've been together as you said for over a decade.

But what we do know, now that I have the court documents here in front of me is that, the date of separation, September 15th. So this is a recent development here that we are seeing here. We also know that Angelina Jolie is asking for sole physical custody of the children but she wants visitation rights for Brad Pitt, that's interesting to note.

And it's also interesting to note as well that she's not putting in any requests for spousal support, which as you imagine these two have a lot of money. That's not the issue here but interesting to note what's in there about the children. We don't know why, Ashleigh.

[13:00:00] BANFIELD: Hard to know who makes more. You know, they could either, one of them, file for that kind of support.

Stephanie Elam, thank you. We'll continue to follow that story. And thank you everyone for watching.

Wolf, starts now.