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Crime and Justice With Ashleigh Banfield

Newlywed Mom Vanishes From Honeymoon Yacht; Judge Drops F-bomb on Accused Rapist; Trial Begins; MMA Start "War Machine" Sentenced; Cosby on Trial; Amazing Save; Road Rescue; Shocking Video; Our Journeys Home. Aired 8-9p ET

Aired June 05, 2017 - 20:00   ET

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


(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

[20:00:01] ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, HLN HOST (voice-over): Washed overboard sailing to the islands.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There are some inconsistencies...

BANFIELD: Her husband says one minute she was on deck, the next she was gone.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They were arguing a lot.

BANFIELD: But is he telling the truth?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Everything changed after the baby was here.

BANFIELD: What happened to beautiful Isabella, and why is the FBI involved?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Maybe there`s a miracle that is going to happen.

VONDA EVANS, WAYNE COUNTY CIRCUIT JUDGE: Be quiet! Take him back. Take him out!

BANFIELD: It is never good when a judge gets this mad at you in court.

EVANS: Take him out now!

BANFIELD: That`s a sex offender who just told the judge "F you." While his behavior could cost him, will her behavior cost her?

EVANS: No, you (EXPLETIVE DELETED) take him out!

BANFIELD: She`s charged with manslaughter, though her boyfriend killed himself.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ms. Carter is alleged to have strongly influenced his decision.

BANFIELD: Text after text suggesting that he do it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: "You just have to do it. You said you were going to do it."

BANFIELD: But when are words considered deadly weapons?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: "And you can`t make a promise. You need to just do it. No more waiting."

BANFIELD: Will Michelle Carter (ph) go to prison for all the things she said?

It`s the body slam heard `round the block. Short skirt, high heels, a sorority girl goes down, with broken bones and bruises. What happened to

the cops? Not what you`d expect.

A car swerves through a red light, its driver wracked by seizures.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was praying that he wasn`t going to hit the gas.

BANFIELD: But a man`s leap of faith may have saved the day, and a whole lot of people.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I didn`t think about it. I just did it.

BANFIELD: And remarkable survival. An out-of-control car nearly kills a woman and child. How that woman`s heroic actions may have saved his life.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BANFIELD: Hello, everyone. I`m Ashleigh Banfield. This is PRIMETIME JUSTICE.

Have you ever dreamed of grabbing the one you love and setting sail for the islands? It`s like the perfect honeymoon. And that is exactly what

Isabella Hellman was thinking as she planned and packed and posted about her big adventure with her new husband, Lewis Bennett. They were off on a

37-foot catamaran, nothing but blue skies and a full sail and the ocean spray. Isabella could not contain herself, gushing on Facebook,

"Caribbean, here I come."

But somewhere between Cuba and the Florida Keys, the deep ocean blue became a dark night of terror. And it all started when Lewis put in a distress

call about 1:00 AM. He said the boat was taking on water. They`d hit something in the blackness of night. Isabella was nowhere to be found. So

Lewis jumped into the raft and escaped with his life.

For three days, they searched for Isabella, the U.S. Coast Guard finally calling it off after 7,000 square miles. But the grieving husband did not

get a comforting welcome from his in-laws. He was instead met by accusations that he killed her. Isabella`s sister recalls the last phone

call she had before Isabella disappeared at sea.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAYANA, ISABELLA`S SISTER: She called me and said, Oh, hi. We disconnected the phone. It`s been really hard for us to connect it because

his friend told me it`s hard. And then she said, I`m in the middle of the ocean right now. We left Cuba. She didn`t tell me what time, but she

said, We left Cuba. And that`s it and she said, I`ll see you tomorrow.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: While the Coast Guard called off the search for Isabella, the FBI is just getting started on its search for answers.

I want to start with Karen Curtis. She`s the news director for WFTL radio in West Palm Beach, Florida. Karen, where does this case stand? Where is

this husband right now?

KAREN CURTIS, WFTL RADIO (via telephone): Lewis Bennett is -- has not been declared an actual suspect. He`s a known person in an investigation. The

FBI is involved because this happened on the high seas. It`s an accident, but if there needs to be an arrest, the FBI would be the agency to do it.

So Lewis Bennett -- we didn`t even know the FBI was involved here in Florida until Lewis Bennett called the Bogota (ph) Police Department to go

to his in-laws` apartment to get some items that he felt were stolen, and he wanted a civil assist from the police department to go with him. And

when the police showed up, the sister started yelling that, you know, you killed my sister. So the...

[20:05:16]BANFIELD: So wait -- go back. Wait. Go back. Items that were stolen. He came back to his home, and as I understand it, he`s now missing

an iPad, clothing, handbags, an engagement ring, and he suspects that they are at Isabella`s sister`s place?

CURTIS: Yes, he did, and he says that he has videotape to prove it. But the police said, Look, you need to leave, and that`s when they called the

Coast Guard and the FBI, and the FBI said, Yes, we`re looking into this...

BANFIELD: Well, why all the suspicion?

CURTIS: ... disappearance.

BANFIELD: Why on earth would they not think right away, My God, our sister has had this terrible accident with her newlywed husband? Why all of a

sudden the suspicion that he did it, in their mind?

CURTIS: Well, this happened, ironically enough, on Mother`s Day. And she really didn`t want to leave the 9-month-old. She had the baby. They got

married in February in Atlanta, and then they went on this honeymoon a couple mounts later.

And she was telling her sisters that -- and her friends that they weren`t really getting along, that Lewis was, you know, not letting her pierce the

baby`s ears, and you know, she didn`t -- wasn`t able to spell the baby`s name in the Colombian way. And there were just all kinds of arguments on

how to feed the baby. And he wanted to take the baby to Australia, she did not want to leave Dell Ray Beach (ph). So there was that.

But we don`t even know where he is right now, quite honestly, Ashleigh, because he did tell someone that his passport went down with the boat, but

it`s possible that he`s either in England or he is either in Australia. And he did say that...

BANFIELD: So he`s left the country? He`s not in the U.S. right now?

CURTIS: He may not be, but he did say he lost his passport, but he said he went to Cuba last week to look for her. So it`s very strange.

BANFIELD: OK. So listen, I`ve been the mother of a 9-month-old, and I can tell you firsthand that first year, there`s a lot of nasty words exchanged.

You`re lacking sleep. You`re exhausted. So if there was some consternation between the two of them over the baby, it could be explained

away by first year of parenting.

And I look at Isabella`s Facebook, and on May 2nd from Culebo (ph), Puerto Rico, she posted "Another day in paradise" and had this photograph where it

looked as though they were really having the time of their lives. And none of her posts suggested anything was wrong. Instead, that this vacation was

fabulous.

CURTIS: Yes, he went down -- they had just left Cuba, and he went down about 8:00 PM to go to sleep and left her up on deck with a lifevest. But

she was piloting the boat. Then at 1:00 AM, he says that the boat hit something. He went up top and she wasn`t up there. He was able to get a

beacon and the lifeboat, and that`s when the Coast Guard found him at 4:00 AM somewhere about 40 miles west of the Bahamas.

BANFIELD: Is there something weird about that, Karen? I mean, he`s a sailor. I don`t know how much Isabella was a sailor, but to go down below

at around 8:30 at night, I`m tired, and to be sleeping until 1:00 AM while your wife is on the helm and then mysteriously, they hit something in the

darkness. The hull is damaged. She`s presumably, if you believe his story, swept off the boat. Was she a sailor who could man the helm by

herself at night?

CURTIS: They had met on line four years ago, and she would meet up with him. He was really never on Florida. She would meet up with him on the

boat here and there around the world. And so there -- I guess she did sail with him a little bit, but it`s not been established that she was actually

a mariner, you know, could sail a boat at night, which is not easy.

BANFIELD: No. I don`t want to suggest for a minute that a woman can`t do that. I sailed around (INAUDIBLE) for six days as a captain of a 30-foot

sailboat. So I know that she could do it. But I think that might be the first question that police would suggest. Why is the husband, the dad,

heading down below for a nap at 8:00 o`clock at night?

Here`s my next question. They were leaving Cuba and they headed, Karen, for the Keys. It is only about 100 miles and it is not a long sail. And

yet they left at 5:00 o`clock or so in the evening, which would put them in -- sailing in the darkness. Is that curious? Is that typical for them?

Has anyone asked that question?

CURTIS: You`re right. The timeframe is a little bit long because it is only 90 miles through the Florida Straits. So they were just off of the

Bahamas, about 40 miles off of one of the keys there. So it`s not clear what happened and why it took them so long.

BANFIELD: OK, one other question, the damage to the hull. There is a suggestion that the authorities say an unknown submerged object came in

contact with that hull. Have they forensically looked at that hull to see about the damage, whether it actually was consistent with that story or

whether it was, say, perhaps man-made damage?

CURTIS: Well, they were able to find the boat. It`s a 37-foot catamaran, and they do have it in their possession, the FBI does, in a warehouse. So

they are examining it forensically to see, you know, exactly what happened, if things match up with his story. You know, it`s odd to hit something in

the middle of the ocean, what it would be. It`s very odd.

[20:10:15]BANFIELD: Well, that brings me to Steve Moore, who`s a former FBI agent and a CNN law enforcement contributor. Steve, you just heard

those facts and the pattern. I can see this both ways. How do you see it?

STEVE MOORE, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CONTRIBUTOR: Yes, I can see it both ways, but one way is really concerning me. There are some things in here that

are just -- it would -- each -- each one of these individual things could possibly have happened, but they would be unlikely. To have five or six

unlikely things happen in a row -- plus, you have some information that`s hard to explain -- it makes me very suspicious. It turns on the FBI

investigator switch in me.

BANFIELD: So would you be thinking right away, OK, they`re kind of newlyweds. They have a 9-month-old baby together. Let`s look for life

insurance, or would you be going the other route, and that`s the forensic route? I want to see where the damage to that hull came and whether it

looks like it was man-made or it was, say, maybe a container that was floating in the deep blue sea at night that no one could ever see if they

were sailing at night?

MOORE: Well, Ashleigh, as an FBI agent, I wouldn`t be called in on this unless somebody already had suspicions. The FBI doesn`t sit out at the

yacht harbor. What happened here is almost undoubtedly the Coast Guard called the FBI and said, From our professional opinion, something`s not

matching up here.

And then when you read the story -- I, as an FBI agent, I`ll read his statement and he said that, We hit some submerged object. If you were

down. Well, if you were down in the cabin asleep and came up and she was gone, how do you know what you hit? How do you know it was submerged? How

do you know you didn`t hit something -- something that was...

BANFIELD: I`ll answer that question. I`ll answer that question. If you`re in real deep water and you hit something, it`s a submerged object

because it ain`t a coral reef, and maybe that`s why.

I feel like I have an answer to every one of his statements, but I feel like I can actually back up every one of his statements, as well.

I do have this question. And I know that you wouldn`t be out there, you know, ticking (ph) away with the forensic tools on the hull of the yacht,

but would you be curious as to whether there was anything in the liferaft, meaning if this was all a plot that he actually orchestrated, would he get

into a liferaft in the middle of the night between Cuba and Florida and risk his life with no water, no food, nothing?

MOORE: If he -- hypothetically, if the boat was the scene of a murder and he wanted to get the boat under salt water, that`s his main option. And he

had an eperb (ph). He had the tracker, so it wasn`t a low probability that he was going to be found. The other thing...

BANFIELD: (INAUDIBLE) the non-mariners. Let`s let the audience know those awesome eperbs are -- they can often exist on your watch. And you

literally just, like, Let them go, and it`s a beacon. It says, I`m here, help me, I`m in distress. And it`s for this exact scenario. You`re out in

the middle of the ocean. It is real hard to find you. You might be alone at some point, and you need to be rescued. That`s what the eperb is. So

it is not suspicious. It is not suspicious that he would have an eperb.

MOORE: No, but it -- no, you better have an eperb. But the fact that he knew he had an eperb would -- especially in good weather, would kind of

ease any concern you might have about whether you are found if you had to abandon your boat. The other thing was, how hard did he hit it that she

was thrown off? And if she was wearing a lifevest, why isn`t she floating?

BANFIELD: It is so mysterious! Real quickly, Karen Curtis, if you`re with me, do we know thinking about a life insurance policy? Do we know whether

there was one, whether it`s been accessed or is that all silence?

CURTIS: No, we don`t know anything in terms of any life insurance policy that he may or may not have had on her. They had only been married since

February, so -- but he does have the baby, and the family said, Please don`t take the baby out of the country because that`s the last vestige that

we have of our sister, you know, is this baby, and he`s somewhere with the baby.

BANFIELD: Well, the plot thickens, and clearly, with the FBI involved, this story is not over. We`ll keep track of the clues as they come in and

we`ll update our audience. Karen Curtis, Steve Moore, thank you both. Do appreciate it.

An outburst -- I think it`s Fair to call it an outburst -- in a courtroom and a judge`s response to it, and it is unlike anything you have ever heard

in a courtroom before!

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANTHONY THORNTON, CONVICTED OF RAPE: I`m innocent.

EVANS: Be quiet! Take him back! Take him out! Take him out now! (EXPLETIVE DELETED). No! (EXPLETIVE DELETED)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[20:15:00]BANFIELD: Those are "F" bombs. Not just from him, from her, too. What caused this shout-down between these two? And could it possibly

cost this convicted rapist at sentencing, or could it cost the judge an appeal? We`re going to look into that in a moment.

Also, a jury found a former MMA fighter guilty of brutally beating and sexual assaulting his porn star ex-girlfriend. Tonight, War Machine finds

out how long that`s going to cost him behind bars.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: There is probably not a person among us who wouldn`t want to scream at a convicted rapist, so you might be inclined to forgive Judge

Vonda Evans of the Wayne County circuit court in Michigan. She had just handed down a guilty verdict to a serial rapist named Anthony Thornton, and

as she began to lecture him about his lying, Mr. Thornton did a very dumb thing. He talked back to a judge. And let`s just say that the "F bombs"

started flying both ways.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[20:20:22]EVANS: See, when you tell one lie, you got to remember the 100 lies that you told to cover that lie up.

THORNTON: That wasn`t no lie.

EVANS: Be quiet! And don`t talk in my courtroom!

THORNTON: I`m innocent.

EVANS: Be quiet! Take him back! Take him out! Take him out now!

THORNTON: (EXPLETIVE DELETED) you.

EVANS: No, (EXPLETIVE DELETED) you! Take him out!

THORNTON: I`m innocent!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Whoa, you`re not innocent of what you just done in that courtroom! After Mr. Thornton was led out of the courtroom, the judge read

his conviction charges of criminal sexual conduct and unlawful imprisonment, and then Thornton was brought back into that same courtroom

before that very same judge. And she had at him again.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EVANS: Mr. Thornton, I`m going to address the comment that you made. It was disrespectful.

THORNTON: I`m sorry.

EVANS: To say (EXPLETIVE DELETED) me!

THORNTON: I`m sorry. Really sorry.

EVANS: You were out of line!

THORNTON: Yes, I was, and I`m sorry. All I`ve been saying...

EVANS: I`m saying what you said to this court!

THORNTON: And I apologize deeply, but you didn`t treat me fair.

EVANS: I have never been anything but respectful to you! And for you to say (EXPLETIVE DELETED) me in my courtroom was unacceptable!

THORNTON: Yes. I`m deeply sorry. I`m just upset because I didn`t do it. I`m deeply sorry.

EVANS: Take him back!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: I want to bring in Chris Renwick, a reporter for WJR radio. He joins me from Detroit. Chris, was this a shock to the good folks of

Detroit?

CHRIS RENWICK, WJR RADIO (via telephone): Yes, it wasn`t a complete shock. Certainly,, Judge Vonda Evans has a history of being a little more loose in

her courtroom. She`s not really necessarily the stereotypical judge that you would kind of maybe think a judge would act in a courtroom.

BANFIELD: So this guy -- I mean, look, I think it`s fair to say he`s a convicted rapist. He`s done it more than once. He was convicted of

holding down a woman with two other men, and they took turns raping her. That was victim number one. Victim number two was also overpowered by this

man and raped. So clearly, there`s no love lost for this guy. But you said she`s got a history -- does she have a history of this kind of

outburst, or is she just one of those very character-driven judges?

RENWICK: No, I think this was even a little bit out of character for Judge Vonda Evans, but I think as you see in the video, as you hear in that

audio, it seems like things really escalated very quickly.

BANFIELD: Boy, I`ll say. I want to actually take my audience back to February of 2016. There was a sentencing in this judge`s courtroom of a

police officer who had beaten a black man. And he was a white officer and there were other white officers allegedly involved, as well. And there was

some evidence that showed communication between those officers using the "N" word about this man.

And so, you know, Judge Vonda Evans was very upset about the racist nature surrounding this crime, and she -- listen, she wasn`t using the "F bomb" on

this one, but she kind of let it rip on this one, too. Have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EVANS: But the one image that struck out to the court was looking at Mr. Dent (ph) in his cell, shaking his head in disbelief of what had occurred

to him, being a black man in a Cadillac stopped for a minor traffic offense by a group of racist police officers. How humiliating and degrading that

must have been. He was left in a cell for a number of hours before getting medical treatment.

But after hearing the defendant and his fellow officers joke about his injuries as they were wiping blood off their uniforms with disinfectant --

2015. Please be quiet in my courtroom. How does this happen?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Like I said, Chris Renwick, that wasn`t the "F bomb" angry outburst, but you can tell she has a passion for what she`s doing. There`s

nothing perfunctory about this stuff. She`s the same judge that`s going to be showing up at sentencing, though, right, for Anthony Thornton on June

16th?

[20:25:00]RENWICK: Yes. Yes, she`ll be there for Anthony Thornton. And she tends to wear her emotions on her sleeve a little bit. And that piece

of audio from the William Melendez (ph) trial, I mean, that was a 20-minute speech that she gave. So again, a lot of similar tones and messages

throughout that speech.

BANFIELD: I want to bring in a good friend of the show, the honorable Fanon Rucker. Judge Rucker is a Hamilton County municipal court judge in

Cincinnati, Ohio. Judge, thanks so much for being with me. You`re one of the first people I thought of when I saw this clip, and I wanted to get

your reaction to it.

(LAUGHTER)

BANFIELD: You`re laughing! However, I think you have something else to say.

HON. FANON RUCKER, HAMILTON COUNTY MUNICIPAL COURT JUDGE: Well, good evening. You know, the first thing I thought of when I saw that video was,

boy, the judge life can be a tough life. You know, there`s an expectation that as judges, we`re supposed to put away our life experiences or the

things that we`ve seen and understand and maybe have seen others do, to be stoic and revered and quiet and docile when we`re issuing justice.

But we`re people. We`re human. And we also have an obligation to maintain a courtroom that is free of disrespect and anger and hatred from others.

And so Judge Evans looked like she was maintaining the respect in her courtroom that was necessary to keep everything moving right.

BANFIELD: I just never thought you`d say that, just considering the fact that there was this pause in between the "F bombs," you know? Actually,

more "F bombs" from the judge came after he`d been back cooling his heels for a while. When he came back into the courtroom, that was when she sort

of unleashed. You come in my courtroom and you tell me "F" me? And she said it twice.

I wondered if there`s any consequence from sort of judicial review. Is there anything that might happen to the judge and her position on the bench

because of it?

RUCKER: Well, I wouldn`t speculate as to what the supreme court of Michigan may do or what the grievance committee may do. I will say that,

certainly, our ethical rules and disciplinary considerations encourage us to maintain a judicial demeanor at all times. And you know, minds can

disagree as to whether that was at that particular moment the best judicial demeanor that needed to be maintained in order to maintain respect in the

courtroom.

There was one of my colleagues here in Cincinnati, oh, about five or six years ago, had that same exact situation, where a defendant that he was

sentencing didn`t like what he was saying and dropped the "F bomb" on him. And he in turn dropped the "F bomb" right back to him. And it got quite a

bit of attention, and the supreme court shook their finger and said, That`s not how we are supposed to do things in Ohio, but it didn`t cause a great

deal of consequences for him.

And I can say, in may courtroom, there have been times when people have not been happy with how I`ve ruled or a decision I`m making or maybe a lecture

that I`m giving, and I`ve heard some disrespectful comments. And I ask them back the same words to make sure I heard them correctly, is the best

way I can say it.

BANFIELD: Well, I`m going to be completely honest with you, Judge Fanon. I -- we met you because of April 26th and what happened in your courtroom,

and I particularly loved what you did and what you said to a drug offender who had a kid present while abusing drugs, and you said some things from

the bench putting yourself in his shoes and thinking about that child.

I want to play for our audience that moment. Have a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUCKER: I can`t handle the idea that my child is going to look at me in 10 years, in 15 years or 20 years, if I`m still around, and say, What happened

to the father that I was supposed to have?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

So no "F bombs" there, Judge, but it seemed to me that you really got through to that guy. You had any follow-up with him? I mean, I watched

his face, and he looked dashed by what you -- you really put it to him in stark terms.

RUCKER: I`m not sure that my lecture that day got through to him. I hope it did. You know, when I was a prosecutor, I came across judges who had

the reputation for helping to enlighten the individuals who were in front of them. And I think I`ve tried to take on that role somewhat in character

as a judge, that if given the opportunity, I don`t mind giving the person who`s standing in front of me that I`m supposed to be having mercy and

judgment for, listening to some enlightenment, listen to some life lessons because I know at that point, they are a captive audience, and maybe, just

maybe something that I say can help them to curb (ph) their path that will not lead them back in front of me in chains or in a jail suit again.

BANFIELD: I do not have the composure that you did, that you do, both you and Judge Evans and all the folks who sit on the bench and have to be so

stoic.

[20:30:04] But man, are you ever treated to a parade of ugly on a regular basis. And I don`t know how you keep your cool. I do have this one

question for you though about the sentencing.

Will Judge Vonda Evans be the sentencing judge might that change? Can you not switch out a judgment trial until sentencing is done? Could that be an

appellate issue? There are a lot of questions all rolled into one but you get the idea.

RUCKER: Sure. I`m not familiar with the laws of Michigan or appellate laws in Michigan. I can`t say in Ohio. The judge who presides over the trial is

generally the same judge that does the sentencing.

And is there an opportunity to ask for the judge to recuse herself or in this case in Ohio for a judge to step down from the case because passions

may be so inflamed that the judge cannot be fair?

Requests can be made. But we as judges are presumed to be able to put aside our passions. You see the person was even found not guilty of an offense.

BANFIELD: Yeah.

RUCKER: . after this outburst.

BANFIELD: You`re right.

RUCKER: Some people may be surprised about.

BANFIELD: You are right. She found him guilty of two and not guilty of one.

RUCKER: So I think that when it comes back to the sentencing.

BANFIELD: Yeah.

RUCKER: Yeah. So she will be able to be the sentencing judge when it comes back I presume and make a decision that`s fair and just based on the facts

and the law that was presented at the time.

BANFIELD: You know, I hope you come back and visit us again, Judge Rucker. You are awesome. Do appreciate it.

RUCKER: Thank you so much. I would be happy to.

BANFIELD: Fantastic because we don`t often get judges, so it`s a real treat. I just want to really quickly bring in Emily Campagno and Danny

Cevallos. Look, as defense attorneys, what do you think his attorney was telling him back behind the bench as he got led out of the courtroom?

EMILY CAMPAGNO, ATTORNEY, LEGAL AND SPORSTS BUSINESS ANALYST: (inaudible) your mouth and unfortunately, it didn`t seem to take because he kept

interrupting her even though he was apologizing. Honestly, I`m surprised that she didn`t put him in criminal contempt right there.

Because criminal contempt goes further than underlying charge. Even though she was reading the verdict right then, he could have been jailed for that

criminal contempt for six months before due process trial.

BANFIELD: Real quickly, Danny, you just can`t shut some of your clients up, can you?

DANNY CEVALLOS, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Oh, it`s the most painful thing in the world when a client starts taking matters into

their own hands. I got to tell you, Ash, this is not that uncommon in criminal courtrooms. I`m sorry to tell you. This happens a lot more than

you think. We just don`t have cameras everywhere.

BANFIELD: I`m sorry to say but I love what Judge Evans did. I just feel like sometimes these guys need to hear it. And they need to hear it in

stark terms. The kind of stark terms they live by. Maybe I`m wrong and there is a judicial comfort that I`m missing there. But I -- Judge Evans, I

love you. I love you, man.

(LAUGHTER)

BANFIELD: Okay. I`m going to move on. There is this young girl who has been charged with causing her teenage boyfriend`s death. In fact, manslaughter.

And if you look at some of the text messages, prosecutors say they are at the heart of a case against Michelle Carter. This sort of like a suicide by

text manslaughter trial but it is also a free speech trial and it is kind of scary. The issues at hand. Especially for her.

[20:35:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: Say what you will about what is wrong in America but there is one thing that is very, very right. And that`s your right to talk smack about

anything. That`s called free speech. It`s part of what makes this the land of the free.

So why in Massachusetts could a young woman be locked up for 20 years because of something she said? Her boyfriend killed himself. That is not in

question. But she told him to do it. So does that make her a killer?

(START VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You`re finally going to be happy in heaven.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Can a suicide also be a homicide?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tragedy, it`s sad.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Every day you wake up and I think, you know, why?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He decided to kill himself and he had a whole plan.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It`s inconceivable.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But prosecutors say it was 17-year-old Michelle Carter who pushed her boyfriend over the edge.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The time is right and you`re ready. You just need to do it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Conrad Roy was 18 years old when he died in this K- Mart parking lot.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He left suicide note to people.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But Roy may not have been alone in choosing to take his life. According to authorities, he had help.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Let me know when you`re going to do it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Carter text messaged Roy up until his death writing things like.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Just go in a quiet parking lot or something.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He killed himself alone in his pickup truck. It was carbon monoxide poisoning.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If she really loved him as she said she did, why didn`t she try to persuade him not to?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They say she used a series of texts and phone calls to help him plan his suicide.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And you can`t break a promise.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They say she ordered him to go ahead when it appeared he had second thoughts.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You just have to do it. You said you were going to do it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was his decision and his alone.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But Carter has denied any responsibility for her boyfriend`s death.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She stays on the phone with him to ensure that he`s dead.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Now, Michelle Carter is going on trial for involuntarily manslaughter. If convicted, she could face up to 20 years in

prison.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You need to just do it. No more waiting.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Danny and Emily are back with me right now. Big news today. She chose a judge and a judge only to hear this case. No jury. No people like

you and me whose hearts are broken when he hear things like that. Who get sick to our stomach when we hear about texts like that. Is this perhaps,

Danny, the smartest thing she ever could have done?

CEVALLOS: Yes, because her defenses really rest on issues of law and a judge is not going to get bound up in emotion and things like

[20:40:00] this is a very sad event and the text messages really don`t make her look good. The law is on her side and when that`s the case, sometimes,

rarely a bench trial, a judge only trial might be the better gambit.

BANFIELD: So let me read a couple of these. That was just a small portion, by the way. There are hundreds of texts.

CEVALLOS: Not flattering.

BANFIELD: Not flattering. Emily, in the hundreds of texts, many of them actually are like this. Let me just read a couple. You can`t think about

it. You just have to do it. You said you are going to do it. Like I don`t get why you aren`t. The more you push it off, the more it will eat at you.

You`re ready and prepared, all you have to do is turn the generator on, and you`ll be free and happy.

The time is right and you`re ready. You just need to do it. You can`t keep living this way, just do it, babe. And then there is this. I think your

parents know you`re in a really bad place. I`m not saying they want you to do it, but I honestly feel like they can accept it. Everyone will be sad

for awhile but they will get over it and move on. If I`m in that jury box, I want her hanged. Is that so wrong?

CAMPAGNO: Well, I do think that as Danny said, the emotions come out of it when you have the bench trial. And importantly here, you know, the higher

court ruled the fact that she can be tried a step up from being a juvenile is because she had a relationship with the defendant. But her words

mattered in that context. So it`s not about free speech in that regard where she can say what she wants.

It had an effect and note the most important text message in my opinion is the one where he was mid commission of the attempt and he hadn`t yet died,

he hadn`t succeeded, and she told him to get back in the car. That fits squarely within the definition of what she is charged with which is an

omission of a known obligation with reckless disregard for the outcome. She knew right then.

BANFIELD: That`s (inaudible). This is the causation. This is the that proximity to the event. I`m going to read that exact message that you`re

referring to because I agree with you. I think that`s where this whole case comes down to with a lot of foundation of the other ugly and here it is.

She texted her friend. His death is my fault. I was on the phone with him when he got out of the car because it was working. And he got scared. And I

told him to get back in. That`s it. Isn`t it?

CEVALLOS: Again, that is emotionally bad for her, but if it`s not legally your fault, it really doesn`t matter if she thinks it`s her fault.

BANFIELD: No, it`s not emotional. He was in a delicate state. He was actually having second thoughts. Let to his own devices he would be alive

because he got out of the car but she forced him with her words and her convincing efforts to get back in and finish the job.

CEVALLOS: That`s a great opening statement for this prosecutor but I will tell you that suicide is traditionally the ultimate intervening cause. It

is the ultimate, most personal decision that you can make, so you have an uphill battle to convince a judge whose aware of concepts of causation

where she was neither the actual cause nor the foreseeable cause of this death.

BANFIELD: Let me ask. Everybody always quotes the same thing when we talk about free speech in America. Yes. We have free speech. To the point where

you don`t get people hurt like yelling fire in a movie theater that`s crowded because people could get trampled and hurt.

So that speech is dangerous and you can get in trouble for yelling fire and causing someone to get hurt. Doesn`t that extrapolate to kill yourself and

someone gets hurt and just as damaging as yelling fire?

CAMPAGNO: Yes, it does because again, it goes back to that reckless disregard that you know what is going to happen or you should know what is

going to happen if you yell fire in a crowded movie theater. You should know that if you`re someone`s girlfriend and he`s in mid suicide attempt

and you tell him to get back in the car and you are encouraging him to do so, that it will have that effect.

And I think this is an example as (inaudible) conduct continues and applies itself to new and evolving technology and social media and apps and what

not, sometimes the courts don`t have a specific law that applies to a text message or children in the scenario.

BANFIELD: We need them. We need them. This case is so critical for the rest of the country and for teenagers and young people alike to realize how

damaging texting can be. It can be lethal. It often is lethal. I want to ask you, Danny, the defense has said, she was on Celexa.

That she at 17 years old had a teenage brain that was still forming and she was on this medication dealing with depression and this antidepressant may

have actually caused her teenage brain to behave this way. Is that going to old any water with a smart judge?

CEVALLOS: It`s a compelling argument if you want to get the case back into juvenile court. But she got stronger arguments in the form of causation and

the fact that she didn`t owe this person any duty necessarily and potentially free speech arguments although the judge did not throw the case

out based on their emotions to dismiss on those grounds. But there are a number of defenses here

[20:45:00] and they made a tactically really good choice in going with the bench only judge trial who is going to see those legal issues and ignore

the emotion.

BANFIELD: You are right about that because every mother out there who thinks about this young man and what he was going through and how delicate

he was and Michelle knew that because he had tried to commit suicide before and that`s part of the defense, as well. Every mother would look at that

young woman and want to tear her throat out with her own hands.

So any woman who would be on that jury might feel the same way I do. I look at that young woman who I think at 17, you`re plenty old enough to know

that language is sick, and it turned out to be, you know, deadly.

I have a couple of updates for you. In fact, former mixed martial arts fighter known as War Machine was back in a courtroom today and it was

because he needed to find out his fate. The judge sentenced Jonathan Koppenhaver, that`s his real name, to life behind bars for that brutal 2014

assault, all out attack on his porn star ex-girlfriend after finding her in bed with another man.

He was found guilty of 29 charges back in March ranging from domestic violence to sexual assault that the jury was hung on two attempted murder

charges against him. War Machine does have the possibility of parole, but he`s going to have to sit pretty behind bars for 36 years before anybody is

going to listen to his begging and pleading to get out.

Today was day one in the trial of Bill Cosby who is accused of drugging and assaulting a young woman at his Pennsylvania home back in 2004. He was

spotted walking into the courthouse arm and arm with Keshia Knight Pulliam. Do you remember her? She was like the 6-year-old Rudy, Rudy Huxtable on The

Cosby Show. Seriously. He just dug back into The Cosby Show.

In the opening statement today, the prosecutors told the jury that the now 79-year-old comedian knew exactly what he was doing when he allegedly

drugged and assaulted this woman, Andrea Constand. For their part, the defense went after Constand`s credibility saying that she had been

untruthful. The jury also heard from another of Cosby`s alleged victims who testified that he drugged and sexually assaulted her as well.

That time was a hotel in 1996, but that`s it. No others will be testifying, even on the news you have heard upwards of 50 with the same story. Trial

expected to last two weeks and Cosby has said he does not plan at this point to testify. A CNN special report. "The Case Against Cosby" hosted by

Jean Casarez airs Wednesday night at 9:00 p.m. eastern right here on HLN. We`ll be right back.

[20:50:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: Police say a Connecticut woman who jumped in front of a car a split second before it smashed into a building saved a little boy`s life.

As the out of control car was heading into that boy, whose in black and blue, Shanta Jordan tried to push him out of the way and when she couldn`t,

she jumped in front of the car and took the blunt of the impact. Look closely.

See if you can drop the banner so you can see it there. Look closely. They were both hurt. The boy and Jordan. This could have been so much worse,

though, the state and local leaders say they plan to present accommodation to Shanta Jordan this week. It`s just incredible that they are even alive

after that, that they both are.

And on the road about 100 miles west of Chicago, a good Samaritan did something really incredible. After a car ran a red light into a busy

intersection, another driver named Randy Tompkins dashed out of his truck realizing the driver was having seizures and dove right through the

passenger window of the car as it was rolling. Somehow, he was able to put it into park and certainly understandably became an instant hero.

A police officer in Colorado is back on the job after being caught on video body slamming a college woman. Police were called to a local bar to break

up an altercation that involved the college student`s boyfriend. The police say while they were interviewing witnesses, Michaella Surat was trying to

get to her boyfriend. Michaella allegedly shoulder checked a bouncer and struck one of the officers. That`s not good and that`s also when the camera

started rolling. Take a peek.

The officer seen here went back and forth with Michaella and suddenly, he slammed her face-first. Initially, Officer Randy Klamser was placed on

suspension for what you`re watching. It really is quite violent and she was badly injured. Police say they have additional video though from a body cam

and bar surveillance that shows what led up to the incident.

And Officer Klamser should be exonerated of any policy violations during the incident they said. Michaella Surat was charged with third degree

assault and obstructing a peace officer. She is due back in court later this month. Michaella, by the way, multiple fractures and bruises on her

face before the mug shot was actually taken.

When you first meet someone, the opening line is often where you from and it usually means a whole lot more than just what city. But if you`ve ever

asked yourself that question, there is actually a pretty good chance you might find out something awesome or freaky or sad or amazing. And I found

out all of those things when I recently took a journey home to Winnipeg, Canada where my family has very, very deep roots and it turns out an

unbelievable story of sacrifice.

(START VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: I was born on my sister`s birthday, December 29th, 1967.

[20:55:00] The last of four kids in Winnipeg, Canada where it was not unusual for the temperature to dip below minus 30. I couldn`t imagine my

mom bundling up four kids to play outside and we spent a lot of time outside. We grew up not far from downtown and I remember countless times

passing by the old war memorial.

All the while, I had absolutely no idea that it was closely tied to my family. That it`s raising and dedication were a defining moment in our

history.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: And it`s not just a defining moment, there is something extraordinary that I found, an actual physical artifact from a long time

ago from one of my great uncles. I`ll wait for tomorrow because it really is an amazing story. I want you to join me and other HLN hosts as we embark

our journeys to discover the secret hidden stories in our family trees. "OUR JOURNEYS HOME" airs tomorrow night right here 9:00 p.m. Back here

after this.

[21:00:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

END