Return to Transcripts main page

Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Ray Rice Domestic Violence Controversy; Fox News Hosts Joke About Taking the Stairs; Janay Rice Stands by Her Husband

Aired September 09, 2014 - 12:00   ET

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

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

Today, for the first time since TMZ released elevator video of former Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice punching his soon-to-be wife and then dragging her out of the door unconscious, she herself is now coming forward and having her say.

Janay Rice posted this statement today on Instagram and it reads, and I'll quote, "I woke up this morning feeling like I had a horrible nightmare, feeling like I'm mourning the death of my closest friend. But to have to accept the fact that it's reality is a nightmare in itself. No one knows the pain that the media and unwanted options from the public has caused my family. To make us relive a moment in our lives that we regret every day is a horrible thing. To take something away from the man that I love, that he has worked his (EXPLETIVE DELETED) off for all his life just to gain ratings is horrific. This is our life. What don't you all get?"

She goes on to say, "if your intentions were to hurt us, embarrass us, make us feel alone, take away all happiness, you've succeeded on so many levels. Just know we will continue to grow and show the world what real love is. Ravensnation, we love you."

Make no mistake, Janay Rice is the victim of this horrific abuse. But domestic violence is a crime against the community. It is not just their family issue. That's the law. It's what we've decided as a nation. ESPN host Keith Olbermann put it so well on his show last night when he called out every single decision-maker involved.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KEITH OLBERMANN, ESPN HOST: That intentionally or by neglect, the Atlantic County New Jersey District Attorney's Office, the Baltimore Ravens, the National Football League and Commissioner Roger Goodell have conducted a cover-up of Ray Rice's brutal assault on his then fiancee on February 15th. There is no other conclusion possible.

Each body, each leading individual involved came to a judicial conclusion about what had happened to Janay Palmer and what should happen to Ray Rice. And each, through deception or incompetence, misled the public, damaged the efforts of every man and every woman in this country seeking to merely slow down the murderous epidemic of domestic violence and made a mockery of the process by which those who batter those they claim to love are to be brought to justice. And not one of them, not Commissioner Goodell, not NFL Senior Vice

President Adolpho Birch, not NFL Chief Counsel Jeff Pash, not Baltimore Team President Richard Cass, not Baltimore General Manager Ozzie Newsome, not Assistant Prosecutor Diane Ruberton in Atlantic County, New Jersey, not Prosecutor Jim McClain, not Superior Court Judge Michael Doino, not Ray Rice himself. No matter what actions were taken today against Rice, nor what might be taken in the future, none of them have any remaining credibility and each must leave or be expelled from their current positions.

And despite the obsession of the moment, it does not truly matter whether they had seen this video before today. The league, the team, the prosecutors either whitewashed Ray Rice's brutal assault without ever having seen this video, or they saw the video and whitewashed Rice's brutal assault anyway.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Another big development in this story, the Associated Press is reporting there is a longer version of this elevator video with sound and with a cleaner image. A law enforcement official showed the Associated Press the video and on it you can apparently hear Ray Rice and Janay Palmer shouting obscenities at each other. The AP goes on to say that she appears to spit in his face before that punch that knocked her out. After the TMZ video surfaced, the Ravens released Ray Rice and the NFL suspended him indefinitely. But he likely will still get to keep the $25 million that he has already been paid out of a $35 million contract.

Want to bring in Rachel Nichols, host of CNN's "Unguarded," Lisa Bloom, legal analyst for avvo.com, she's a civil rights attorney and has represented a number of domestic violence victims for almost 30 years of practicing law, and CNN legal analyst Sunny Hostin, a former federal prosecutor. Sunny worked in the domestic violence unit at the D.C. U.S. attorney's office and she's also prosecuted a number of these cases as well.

All right, so let's start, Lisa, with the notion of what Janay Rice, now Mrs. Rice, has released. This appeal to the public and to the media that they have wronged her now a second time. That her life has been destroyed by all of this. This is not unfamiliar to you.

LISA BLOOM, LEGAL ANALYST, AVVO.COM: Right.

BANFIELD: You see this thing played over and over again where the victims themselves actually play a part in trying to mitigate what happens in the legal process.

BLOOM: Right. This is extremely common, which is why almost every court system in the country has in place a procedure for dealing with victims who recant in domestic violence cases because we understand the psychology now of how that happens. None of us should judge Janay Rice. I think we should have compassion for her. And, frankly, the focus should not be on her. The focus should be on Ray Rice and all of the decision-makers who wronged -- and I would add to Keith Olbermann's list the police officer who initially arrested her, as well as him, in the incident where she became unconscious and he was unscathed.

RACHEL NICHOLS, HOST, CNN'S "UNGUARDED": And put her in a holding cell, if you read that report, instead of a hospital after seeing her --

SUNNY HOSTIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: And charged her with simple assault.

NICHOLS: After seeing her on the ground like that. It's unbelievable.

BLOOM: But so why did they -- why did she release a statement today and Ray Rice didn't? I mean was that planned? Is that something she did on her own? I don't like the fact that she did it frankly because it keeps the focus on her today and that's not where the focus should be.

BANFIELD: And she also apologized, you know, not long after this vent for her role in that evening. It's interesting what we've seen though, and we can talk a little bit more about the incidents that led up to it and whether spitting in his face is a simple assault and these sorts of things.

First, though, to the other developing issue that Janay released. This Instagram material sort of took us all by shock today. But there's also the notion that the NFL is taking it on the chin and they're releasing their own statements about their actions in all of this. Speak to that, Rachel, if you would.

NICHOLS: Well, TMZ came out with another report this morning talking about the fact that casino officials that they were quoting, and they were anonymous quotes but they were multiple casino sources told them that the NFL never came and asked them for the video. That they had copies of the video. They would have been happy to give the video to the NFL but the NFL never asked them for them. The NFL then released a statement that was a response to this report.

That statement from Brian McCarthy reads that, "security for Atlantic City casinos is handled by the New Jersey State Police. Any videos related to an ongoing criminal investigation are held in the custody of the state police. As we said yesterday, we requested from law enforcement any and all information about the incident, including the video from inside the elevator. That video was not made available to us."

Now, there's been questions after this statement, are the New Jersey State Police even the correct body to go to? There's the Atlantic City Police who also have some jurisdiction in the casinos. Obviously the casino had copies of the video. The prosecutor had copies of the video and the defense team had copies of this video.

BANFIELD: We're not sure about that. We're going to get into that later on in the program.

NICHOLS: So - yes.

BANFIELD: In fact, this has been sort of this -- this bandied-about idea that perhaps discovery wasn't turned over because they went after this other process.

NICHOLS: Because they went to the diversion (ph).

BANFIELD: We'll talk about that later.

NICHOLS: But there were multiple copies of the video and -

BANFIELD: No, it can be said. We asked law enforcement.

BLOOM: The NFL could have gotten it if they really wanted it.

HOSTIN: Of course.

BANFIELD: (INAUDIBLE). I want to point out their response says, we went after law enforcement. They have not responded to many CNN requests, did you ask the hotel, did you ask TMZ? They have not responded to us and they have not included that in their statement.

BLOOM: I mean they clearly did it (ph).

HOSTIN: (INAUDIBLE) this is investigation 101.

BLOOM: Right.

HOSTIN: When you have a domestic violence incident, which clearly this was, and you're investigating it, the NFL has plenty of investigators on staff. I know some people that have worked for the NFL as investigators. You always look for 911, you always look for video, you always look for the victim's statement. You take statements from everyone. So the suggestion somehow that they just couldn't get it I think is really suspect. I think really the underlying theme here is perhaps they didn't want to. Perhaps they dropped the ball.

(CROSS TALK)

NICHOLS: Yes, and -- but I don't think it's that they were - they were negligent in the way of someone sat in a room with a conspired and said, let's make sure that we really don't --

BANFIELD: No.

(CROSS TALK)

NICHOLS: I think - I think -

(CROSS TALK)

NICHOLS: I think that it's an important distinction only because that negligence by omission, not caring, that is - is something (ph) that needs to be addressed.

HOSTIN: Exactly.

BANFIELD: So, Lisa, something I want you to weigh in on. We saw video number one. It may not have been as clear and as concise and it may not have - BLOOM: Him dragging her out.

BANFIELD: Shown the knockout blow. But we saw some pretty awful video in video number one.

BLOOM: Yes.

BANFIELD: And my question to you is, as a domestic violence expert, because you've just dealt with so many of these cases, why - and so many people are asking, why wasn't video number one enough for all these actions we're now seeing?

BLOOM: Right. Right. Because the facts haven't changed in the last seventh months.

BANFIELD: Right.

BLOOM: They knew that she was dragged out unconscious by him. He admitted what he did. The only thing that changed with the new video yesterday was, now we have a visual depiction of him actually punching her in the face and her going down. But that doesn't change the facts of what happened. Why didn't the NFL act before? The answer is obvious because yesterday they were publicly shamed by that video. That's the only thing that changed.

HOSTIN: But, you know, I think - I think there's another issue going on here. I think when this narrative first came out, yes, they knew he punched her. But his attorneys, I think, muddied - you know, poisoned the well and basically said, hypothetically, what if she hit him first? And so many people came out publicly, Steven A. Smith, others came out and said, well, she hit him and sort of acting as if that was a mitigating circumstance.

BLOOM: But that's what bothers -

HOSTIN: Now you look at the video and it's like, oh, oh, oh, actually she didn't hit him first, first of all, but it doesn't matter.

NICHOLS: But it doesn't matter.

HOSTIN: And I think that's - that's (INAUDIBLE) issue.

NICHOLS: And that's what bothers me about the spitting report that you read at the top of this segment. It doesn't matter if she hit him first.

HOSTIN: Of course it doesn't.

NICHOLS: It doesn't matter if she spit at him.

HOSTIN: But people felt that it mattered.

NICHOLS: The appropriate response to a smaller woman who's facing a big NFL player spitting at you, let's say she slapped -- swatted at him.

HOSTIN: Right.

NICHOLS: Let's say she spit at him, is to walk away.

HOSTIN: Yes.

BANFIELD: Yes.

NICHOLS: It is not to knock her unconscious.

BANFIELD: A knockout punch.

HOSTIN: (INAUDIBLE) knock her out.

(CROSS TALK)

NICHOLS: We talked about Michael Brown so much --

BANFIELD: And then I'm going to repeat this, like I said it yesterday, and then not even render care afterwards.

NICHOLS: Yes.

BANFIELD: That woman was dropped on her face, her leg was kicked. She was dragged twice by the man who was about to marry her. She was left in this awful position --

BLOOM: And -- he doesn't even act surprised at what he did -

HOSTIN: No, he doesn't.

BLOOM: As though perhaps this was not even the first time.

HOSTIN: I mean -

BLOOM: I mean he's not in shock that she's unconscious, perhaps dead. He does know. Does he check her vital signs? No.

BANFIELD: None of it. None of that. And then she's dropped again with her head, you know, between the elevator doors. All of it was so disturbing.

If I can get you to stick around. It's really, I think, a critical conversation, especially in light of what's become this public shaming, what's become so public. The NFL and the Baltimore Ravens aren't the only ones that are taking heat for how much they knew and if they should have handled things differently a lot earlier. What about the police? What about the prosecutors in the case? And the judge? The legal view on how they handled there case and whether there should be a review of what they did, coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: So we've already talked about the NFL's responsibility in the Ray Rice domestic violence scandal, but what about the casino, the Ravens, the police and the prosecutors? What does the law require any of those entities to do? And beyond the law, what do basic morals and ethics require us all to do? Joining me to talk about the other parties to this scandal, CNN legal analysts Danny Cevallos, in Philadelphia, and Paul Callan, here with me.

Paul, you practice in New Jersey and I know that you know this part of the law, you know how these programs works. This pre-trial intervention program. Is there any chance that there's going to be a review of what went on in this case with a violent offense like that, that rarely qualifies for something that he got?

PAUL CALLAN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: No, there isn't because there's really no appeal there's available at this point. The prosecutor accepted and the judge accepted pretrial intervention, which means basically, although he was charged with aggravated assault punishable by three to five years in prison, in the end, after he goes through this program, he will have no record of a conviction of a crime.

Now I think it's rare that you get pretrial intervention in a domestic violence case. Most parts of New Jersey you wouldn't get it.

But Atlantic City, high homicide rate, high burglary rate, they've got a lot of violent crime, and I think they don't treat it as seriously as it's treated in less busy counties.

BANFIELD: Are you saying in the relative scale of Atlantic City's crime, this one was a sort of a --

CALLAN: This was a ground ball, I hate to say it --

BANFIELD: Wow.

BANFIELD: -- by Atlantic City standards.

I was looking at their homicide rate. They have a homicide rate that's 10 to 20 times higher than the national homicide rate, so prosecutors there have their hands full with very, very serious crimes where people are hospitalized or dead --

BANFIELD: Not to suggest this isn't.

CALLAN: No, this is very, very serious.

BANFIELD: This could have been lethal. That kind of a punch could have been lethal.

CALLAN: We know statistically that, if you let somebody get away with this, it may be lethal in the future, so I'm not defending what was done.

I'm just saying that from a statistical standpoint they will say, and they have said, by the way, that this is normal handling of a PTI situation in Atlantic City, no special treatment.

BANFIELD: So, Danny Cevallos, I know you know that Ray Rice's attorney and this case, that you've watched him at work, that he's very, very good at his job. Effectively, he was able to secure this pretrial intervention. Something else I want you to make sure our viewers are very clear on, because the NFL has been excoriated for how it's investigated this case. And there's been a claim that they should have at least asked Ray Rice and his attorneys for the discovery, the video itself, instead of waiting for the police who didn't give it to them.

They should have asked Ray Rice or compelled him to turn over what they might thought he'd have in discovery. That might not have been possible?

DANNY CEVALLOS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: A couple of things. First, you can't assume that the attorney necessarily had the video. The time to ask for pretrial intervention, it's important to understand that the moment a defendant decides he wants to apply for pretrial intervention, the approach has to become -- it shifts from defense to deference.

Why? Because it's entirely within the discretion of the prosecutor in most jurisdictions whether or not you get admitted into that program. So, if you start filing a bunch of motions and demanding discovery, unfortunately, a prosecutor can just say, oh, you know what? You're too irritating. I'm not going to give you pretrial intervention.

I'm not going to say that's what happened in this case, but it's entirely possible that, at the time they decided to apply for PTI, they may not have had, the defendant may not have had access or discovery of that video.

But let's suppose, "arguendo," that he did have it, the attorney did have it. I'm just conjecturing here. But at this point, maybe you make a decision. You make a decision that this is the NFL. It's a private party. It's not the FBI. You're under no obligation to turn anything over to them legally, although contractually you may put your client at risk.

Then you do a simple balancing test. Do you run the risk of making this tape public and not only devastating your client but maybe the prosecutor rethinks PTI during the process?

Or if you withhold it from the NFL, or don't mention it to them, the worst that will happen is your client deals with a contract issue later on but possibly avoids a conviction.

And, again, this is just conjecture. I have no idea what he had.

BANFIELD: And we don't know. Again, I think it's really --

CEVALLOS: In a way, he served his client.

BANFIELD: Absolutely. And we again have to say that we don't know based on what you've said if they have that video, if they ever got it in any kind of discovery process, or if they tried to appease the prosecutors to get this pretrial intervention and nobody ask for the discovery.

CALLAN: Yeah, but you know what we do know? It's a casino. There are cameras in the elevator. Anybody would know that there was video. The cops knew it. The lawyers knew it, and the NFL knew it.

BANFIELD: The NFL is not answering our question if they ever reached out to the Revel Casino to get the video. They're only stating they reached out to law enforcement and law enforcement didn't --

CALLAN: They didn't follow up because they didn't want to know.

BANFIELD: I can't say that, but I think a lot of people are pretty upset about what's happened.

Danny Cevallos, Paul Callan, thank you for that.

This case, as you can clearly see, it has touched a nerve and rightly so for the whole sports community and beyond the sports communities.

Fans are so upset, they're ditching their jerseys, and there is no appetite for any kind of joke on this one. And we're going to tell you how one insensitive comment from broadcasters is creating a firestorm.

That's coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: We just received another statement in to CNN from the NFL. Clearly they have been fielding a lot of information inquiries but also a lot of criticism over the handling of the Ray Rice incident.

I'm just going to read you specifically what they've sent us all within the last hour. "We requested from law enforcement any and all information about the incident, including any video that may exist.

"We spoke to members of the New Jersey state police and reached out multiple times to the Atlantic City police department and the Atlantic county prosecutor's office. That video was not made available to us, and no one in our office saw it until yesterday."

The statement from the NFL goes on to say, "We do not interfere with law enforcement investigations. We cooperate with law enforcement and seek any information that can be appropriately provided."

If you're watching, we had asked you in the NFL offices, CNN has made multiple requests, a simple question, did you ever reach out to the hotel or the casino? Did you ever reach out to TMZ?

You've answered twice now with two different statements that you reached out to the police who were conducting an investigation who rarely release these types of pieces of evidence in the middle of an investigation. Makes sense to me. But there were other places you could get that evidence.

I'm asking it publicly now. We've called your offices. We've made the overture. We want you to answer that question. Did you just go to the source? It was an easy investigation. TMZ did it and they got it.

Fans of former Baltimore Ravens' player Ray Rice who are miffed at seeing the video of him punching his wife can now trade in their jerseys with his number on it. The Ravens organization says that fans can exchange their Rice jerseys at stadium stores. And they've also been pulled from sporting goods stores, and they've been stripped from the online retailers, too.

In the meantime, cable TV network is in hot water over this story. Fox News is getting a whole lot of blowback after a comment from its morning show hosts about the video.

Here's what has drawn so much outrage at Fox News. Even as this terrible story continues to unfold ...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: After that video and now you know what happened in there, she still married him. They're currently married.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Rihanna went back to --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Chris Brown.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah, Chris Brown right after. A lot of people thought that was a terrible message.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And then there's Jay-Z and Beyonce and Solange. That was also in an elevator.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But you notice Jay-Z didn't hit back.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There was some craziness there.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think the message is, take the stairs.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The message is, when you're in an elevator, there's a camera.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Really? Really? That's the message? Take the stairs or just beware of the video?

So today feeling the heat, the Fox hosts acknowledged what they said, but they certainly did fall short of apologizing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Comments that we made during this story yesterday made some feel like we were taking the situation too lightly. We are not. We were not. Domestic abuse is a very serious issue to us, I can assure you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Yeah, it is. Back in the '70s, I remember hearing, she shouldn't have worn such a short skirt. Not many people say that anymore, because of the outrage over it.

Brian Stelter, who's the host of "RELIABLE SOURCES," covers the media for us. And legal analyst Lisa Bloom is back with me.

So your take on this? Fox News rarely comes forward and acknowledges anything when they're taking heat for stuff. But they did at least acknowledge it.

BRIAN STELTER, CNN HOST, "RELIABLE SOURCES": They were sort of saying, sorry if you misunderstood us, which is a weird way to pretend to apologize.

But dare I suggest they might have been doing us a service. They're coming out and sharing unfortunately what some people may still think about domestic abuse. They are showing a line of thinking, a point of view that's unfortunately still out there.

I think you and I have probably both seen it on Twitter and on Facebook this week as well from people who say it's, A, not that big a deal, or they say that the women are somehow at fault.

I wish that these people hadn't said this on national television, but it does get people talking about --

BLOOM: After the video yesterday of her being punched in the face going down unconscious, I think a lot fewer people are saying she was at fault.

And for people who have a national platform to laugh about a situation where a woman could have been killed, I think it's reprehensible.

BANFIELD: So let me ask you this --

STELTER: It shows the tone deafness among some media figures, and that's useful to see because it lets us --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Media or prosecutors? Because I have to be honest, Lisa. I could not for the life of me put myself in the room with the prosecutors and ultimately the judge who signed off on this deal, the pretrial intervention deal that he got, which means no record, no jail time, no nothing, ultimately.

Is this the prevailing wisdom? Is it so infused that it also makes its way into the prosecutor's office or is there something else to what happened in the criminal process?

BLOOM: The something else is that Ray Rice is an NFL professional athlete, and he clearly got preferential treatment. I have to assume the state police had this video, although that's not even clear to me at this point.

They had this video. They could have prosecuted even over the objections, even over the silence of Janay Rice, because they had concrete proof of what happened.

They had also the statements, I assume, of the witnesses who talked to Ray Rice after he's dragging her unconscious body out of the elevator and making statements to them. That would be sufficient.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's one thing for media hosts and television personalities to mitigate the seriousness of this.

But it's another thing when Janay herself mitigates it to the prosecutor saying, please don't do this. Does this happen a lot?

BLOOM: It happens all the time. That's why there are procedures in place in every prosecutor's office in the country in domestic violence because we understand that this happens. It happens in child sexual abuse. It happens in the domestic violence cases. And the policy is generally, if there is strong corroborative evidence, you go forward even if the victim recanted and doesn't want to testify.

STELTER: Think about who was motivated in this case? It wasn't the prosecutor. It wasn't either of the Rices. It wasn't anybody except TMZ. It definitely wasn't the NFL. It was TMZ that was motivated to go and get this video.

BLOOM: It's a crime against all of us.

BANFIELD: There you go. It's a crime against the community.

BLOOM: The people.

BANFIELD: It is. Both of you, thank you. Lisa Bloom, it's always great to have your perspective. Brian Stelter, as always, thank you as well.

This incident has a lot of people asking this very simple question. And it sounds simple. Why Ray Rice's wife stay with him? Why'd she actually marry him after being punched unconscious?