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Judge Removes Juror For Having "Improper Conversation" About Case; Man Accused Of Planning To Kill Jewish Elected Officials In Michigan; Lufthansa Flight Forced To Land, Seven People Taken To Hospital. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired March 02, 2023 - 15:00   ET

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

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[15:01:35]

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: Top of the hour now on CNN NEWSROOM. Good to have you. I'm Victor Blackwell.

BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN SENIOR GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: And I'm Bianna Golodryga.

Any minute now, the jury and the Alex Murdaugh double murder trial will return from lunch and receive instructions from the Judge.

BLACKWELL: Just before the defense was getting ready to begin this morning, the Judge dismissed a juror for discussing the case with people outside the jury.

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JUDGE CLIFTON NEWMAN, SOUTH CAROLINA CIRCUIT COURT: You've had some discussions with some folks not on the jury and - which is going to require me to remove you from the jury. I'm not suggesting that you intentionally did anything wrong, but that to in order to preserve the integrity of the process and in fairness to all the parties involved, we're going to replace you with one or the other jurors.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: CNN National Correspondent Dianne Gallagher is outside the courthouse there in Walterboro for us.

Walk us through this final day of the closing arguments.

DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Victor, right now we are waiting for court to return essentially so the judge can charge the jury. This is the moment that for the past nearly six weeks, everybody in that courtroom has been waiting for perhaps not the least Alex Murdaugh.

His defense attorney giving a closing argument that focused on what they can characterize as a miserable law enforcement investigation as well as trying to poke holes in the state's narrative and harnessing emotion. But both sides and the reply from the state and the defense harnessed that emotion in their last words to the jury.

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JIM GRIFFIN, MURDAUGH DEFENSE ATTORNEY: There are two words that justice demands in this case and those two words are 'not guilty'. The oath you've taken, in this case, are to follow the law, to follow the Constitution and hold the government to the burden of proof. It requires a verdict of not guilty. On behalf of Alex, behalf of Buster, on behalf of Maggie, on behalf of my friend, Paul, I respectfully request that you do not compound a family tragedy with another, thank you.

JOHN MEADOWS, PROSECUTOR: And what he did when he took the stand was corroborated that he's a liar. He corroborated the fact he doesn't tell the truth. Now they're trying to put us on trial for doing our job, think about that, blame everybody else.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GALLAGHER: Now we are now back in session in the court. The Judge has asked the jury to come back in what we anticipate to happen as the judge is basically going to charge the jury. He is going to give them instructions each of these attorneys, again, trying to spend time today defining reasonable doubt as it most suits their case.

We have the state essentially telling them look, we can have reasonable doubt, that doesn't mean no doubt. Circumstantial evidence is still evidence because remember, there's no direct evidence in this case linking Alex Murdaugh, no smoking gun, no video, no eyewitnesses per se.

There is though the defense pointing out again, if you have reasonable doubt, you can't just convict somebody of murder because you're suspicious of them.

BLACKWELL: Dianne Gallagher for us there. Thanks so much.

Let's take that last sentence from Dianne and handle it right to Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, former mayor of Baltimore, also former defense attorney.

[15:05:13]

And the question of reasonable doubt, as you said, both sides playing it. Let's start with the defense in your assessment. Stephanie Rawlings Blake, former mayor of Baltimore, also former defense attorney and the question of reasonable doubt, as you said, both sides playing it. Let's start with the defense in your assessment of their closing.

STEPHANIE RAWLINGS-BLAKE, FORMER MAYOR OF BALTIMORE: I thought the closing was, as was stated, very emotional, mostly charging. It was the defense attorney's attempt to humanize Murdaugh. It was his attempt to make them understand that as horrible as double homicide is, if you convict someone when there's no physical evidence, when there's no eyewitness that you are really exacerbating a horrible situation. And I think that's why Murdaugh took the stand to give - to humanize himself, to give himself a chance to create that reasonable doubt.

GOLODRYGA: We saw his defense attorney get emotional and nearly moved to tears, is that something that's common place that you've seen before?

RAWLINGS-BLAKE: Not at all. And in Maryland, we're under the Mason- Dixon Line, so we're in the south too, but that level of emotion and that really that folksy way that both attorneys have taken in this case, it is uncommon to what I'm used to.

BLACKWELL: So there's one section of the hours of the defense, their closing arguments, there's one section that I want to play for you that gets to the motive that the state says that Alex Murdaugh had to kill his wife and son, here it is.

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GRIFFIN: The clouds are arising and that his financial house of cards is about to collapse and he's about to be exposed. And because of that, he does what every rational person would do, go kill your wife and son. That is their theory of motive.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: What do you make of that moment? He's saying that well, of course, if the financial problems are here, the next thing anyone would do is kill their wife and son, your thoughts?

RAWLINGS-BLAKE: I think the state kind of missed the mark when they tried to create a rational motive for an irrational person. If you've been with anyone known anyone that's in the throes of addiction, they do irrational things. And by trying to ascribe a rational motive to that, I think they missed the mark, because it really does not make sense, the motive that they're trying to hang this on.

So yes, I thought the defense attorney made a good point there.

GOLODRYGA: Did Alex ultimately do himself any favors or more harm, in your opinion by just testifying?

RAWLINGS-BLAKE: I think it was a very bold move. I think, again, he doesn't need to convince everyone, he just needs to convince one person that he was in fact telling the truth about the lies. So he took he took a big shot. I think he did it because of the big upside and I think he did pretty well as far as I'm concerned as far as connecting with people and that's what he needed to do.

BLACKWELL: The defense attorney also ticked through some either missteps or oversights by sled and investigators there on the scene also, specifically the lack of evidence collection, the handling of evidence. In your experience, did jurors prioritize those types of mistakes or is it more about the narratives?

RAWLINGS-BLAKE: They weigh all of the things. But when you have a big case like this, and you have the defendant actually get on the stand, I think that'll be weighed a lot more than the missteps that were made in this case. Again, we know that there's no real physical evidence. This is all certainly - for the most part circumstantial, so what is going to fill in those gaps and that's where Murdaugh took the chance to tell his story and let that fill the gaps.

GOLODRYGA: All right. Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, thank you.

The FBI has thwarted an alleged plot to kill Jewish officials in Michigan and arrested the man, agent say, is behind it. Today, Michigan's Attorney General, Dana Nessel, confirmed that she was one of those targets.

BLACKWELL: A court filing quoted a tweet from the suspect, Jack Carpenter III, while he was in Texas: "I'm heading back to Michigan now threatening to carry out the punishment of death to anyone that is Jewish and the Michigan government if they don't leave or confess."

CNN Security Correspondent Josh Campbell is with us now. He's also a senior fellow researching extremism with the Center for New American Security.

Josh, you're learning more about what the suspect told investigators tell us about that.

[15:10:02]

JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, guys. Law enforcement source tells me that this didn't just come down to that tweet that you mentioned, which is how authorities were initially onto the suspect. But I'm told from this source that the suspect was interviewed by authorities after he was arrested and admitted to wanting to target Jewish officials in the State of Michigan.

He listed four investigators names that included the State's Attorney General, Dana Nessel. I'll now read you the tweet that she put up this morning. She said that the FBI has confirmed I was the target of the heavily armed defendant in this matter. It is my sincere hope that the federal authorities take this offense just as seriously as my hate crimes and domestic terrorism unit takes plots to murder elected officials.

Now, we're also learning what was happening behind the scenes, a source tells me that the FBI doesn't have a database of the religions of politicians. And so after seeing this tweet, they reached out to the Jewish community leaders in Michigan to identify potential targets. That's called - what's called a duty to warn.

When I was working counterterrorism investigations, if you came across evidence that pointed to someone potentially being in danger, it was incumbent upon the FBI to reach out to those people. So that was what was happening.

Now, just to walk you through the timeline here because this shows a lot of investigative work in a very short amount of time. On February the 18th, court records tell us that the FBI's national threat Operations Center. This is the central nervous system for FBI tips.

They see that tweet that you mentioned talking about the suspect wanting to target Jewish officials in Michigan, they reached out to the FBI's Detroit division. They were able to glean an address based on looking at the identifiers of this account. They get onto the suspect, as you mentioned, Jake Carpenter III.

Now, the FBI goes and interviews his mom who says that my son is in Texas. This is interesting. The FBI according to court records, gets a phone number of the suspect from the mom calls AT&T. The FBI requests an urgent emergency disclosure letter to AT&T to ping the cell phone of that suspect. They need to immediately know where he is located. That information from AT&T leads them to North Texas, where later that day he is arrested.

And again, he stands accused, charged with interstate threats. CNN is attempting to reach out to the public defender that is representing the suspect. But this is just the latest in the series of anti-Semitic threats that we've been reporting on.

It's interesting, the Government Accountability Office just issued a new report saying that threats against from extremists between 2013 and 2021 increased over 350 percent. And I'll show you here, this is a report from the Anti-Defamation League that was just released that indicated all of the extremist-related killings in the United States last year in 2022 were perpetrated by right wing extremists.

So it shows you just the nature of the threat. And, of course, where I'm standing here in Los Angeles, there's a suspect who continues to be investigated for recently allegedly opening fire on two men here in L.A. because of their Jewish clothing.

So again, we see these incidents time and time again. This incident in Michigan, just the latest that certainly has the Jewish community unsettled across the country and obviously law enforcement on alert for these types of incidents, which aren't just academic, we're seeing these in real time case after case, guys.

BLACKWELL: Yes, Josh, I'll never forget that mom that you brought us who said she didn't want her kids to look too Jewish when she sent them out because of the threats.

Josh Campbell with the reporting, thank you so much.

Joining us now Steve Moore, CNN Law Enforcement Contributor and retired Supervisory Special Agent.

Steve, I always wonder and I'm glad they do, because this is how they're captured, why people tweet out these threats before they go about carrying them out. This man was heavily armed, had several weapons. Without that tweet, would it have been likely possible to capture this man before he approached Nessel?

STEVE MOORE, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CONTRIBUTOR: Well, it depends on what they had, but generally, no. It's not going to be possible. And what you find with white supremacists if - are that they want credit for what they're going to do.

In one case that I worked where there was a mass shooting, the suspect or the perpetrator actually made several calls beforehand to friends saying watch the news. So this is - they're wanting some credit. Sometimes, though, there are people we used to say barking dogs don't fight, who felt powerless to do anything about it, so they spouted this garbage online, in letters, things like that and it made them feel powerful when they weren't. But if somebody's actually armed and ready to do it, it boggles the mind that they would warn people.

GOLODRYGA: Thank goodness this was thwarted, but oftentimes when we see cases like this, unfortunately, it's followed by copycats or people wanting to follow suit. I mean, I can't believe I'm about to ask us, but are Jewish politicians right now at a heightened threat of these types of attacks? Should politicians that are Jewish across the country be more alarmed today?

[15:15:00]

MOORE: I would love to tell you they weren't. But I can't - I'm - I wouldn't say that what we're looking at is a 10, 20, 30-fold increase. I would love to tell you they weren't, but I can't. I'm - I wouldn't say that what we're looking at is a 10, 20, 30-fold increase in danger to them.

It is, however, going to - this case is going to appeal to some people. They're buried in a cabin or in their mom's basement or wherever they are, who have these ideologies swimming around in their head. And when they see somebody else do that or when they see somebody else begin to do it and get taken down. They say, "If he can do it, I can do it." So that's your fear, much like school shootings. They breed each other.

BLACKWELL: Yes. So we talked about this tweet being the catalyst for the arrest, Twitter announced a new zero tolerance policy for wishing harm speech, as they call it: Prohibits users from expressing hopes that others may suffer death or illness, tragic incidents or other physically harmful consequences, also new ban on threats to damage civilian homes and shelters infrastructure.

Is this going far enough? I mean, on one side, of course, you don't want this online. On the other side of it, this is how they found this man, so what do you think about this new policy?

MOORE: Well, I think if you keep people from saying things, expressing this desire to kill people, you kind of knocked down your chances of catching these people. I mean, think about this, if Twitter had instituted that policy with this person had been able to say this, would the FBI had been able to get to it.

And then you have the question of the First Amendment. When you move your meter to the point where just wishing somebody harm is now something that you can be taken down for. I think what happens is, you've just taken a huge chunk, unfortunately of society, and you've made it harder to enforce that. The other thing is when you let them speak, sometimes they speak themselves right into the FBI's custody. GOLODRYGA: It's just an unfortunate moment in our current environment that we even have to have these conversations.

Steve Moore, thank you so much. We appreciate it.

BLACKWELL: There were two mid flight emergencies yesterday alone: One involved the fire on board of Spirit Airline flight, the other severe turbulence on a Lufthansa flight which sent multiple people to the hospital. We've got those moments next.

GOLODRYGA: Plus, right now more than 20 million people are under flood alerts as a powerful storm barrels across towards the southern part of the country. We'll bring you the forecasts of next.

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[15:21:52]

GOLODRYGA: Well, this is horrifying: Two mid-flight emergencies in the air yesterday. First a battery fire broke out in an overhead band aboard a Spirit Airlines flight. The pilots were forced to make an emergency landing in Jacksonville because of smoke in the cabin. The fire was extinguished while in the air but several people were taken to the hospital

BLACKWELL: And look at all this mess on the floor of this flight. Several people had to go to hospitals, this Germany-bound Lufthansa flight extreme turbulence forced an emergency landing near Dulles Airport near Washington, D.C.

CNN's Pete Muntean has details for us.

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Bianna, Victor, the FAA is investigating this right now. German airline Lufthansa flight 469 on its way from Austin, Texas to Frankfurt in Germany, not long into the flight the FAA says the plane was at 37,000 feet near Memphis, Tennessee when the crew reported severe turbulence. It came on suddenly and without warning.

Look at the images from onboard the plane taken by a passenger. The plane just thrashed. You can see all the debris in the aisle there. That twin aisle airliner, an Airbus A330, a 200-ton airplane, just gives you an idea of how bad this toss around was by the turbulence.

Passengers say the food service was going on at the time, glassware was thrown up to the ceiling. One passenger badly hurt. This plane had to divert to Washington Dulles International Airport, outside of Washington, D.C. where first responders met the plane at the gate seven people, according to airport officials, taken to local hospitals.

This is not all that unlike another incident with turbulence that happened on a Hawaiian Airlines flight, 25 people hurt as that flight was descending in Honolulu back in December. The NTSB says turbulence is the top type of incident on board commercial airliners. It is trying to get to the bottom of this not exactly clear yet if the NTSB will investigate this. Although the FAA is on it. Lufthansa, the airline involved here, says this happened in clear air, meaning its pilots could not see and avoid this, Victor, Bianna.

GOLODRYGA: We've both experienced severe turbulence ...

BLACKWELL: My goodness.

GOLODRYGA: It is terrifying.

BLACKWELL: Oh, it is.

GOLODRYGA: Thanks to Pete Muntean.

Well severe weather with a mix of tornadoes and damaging thunderstorms are threatening parts of the South.

BLACKWELL: Jennifer Gray is tracking the storm system. She joins us with the latest.

Jen, what's going on?

JENNIFER GRAY, CNN WEATHER CORRESPONDENT: Guys we're already starting to see these storms firing up, especially west of Dallas. That's going to be the area of concern over the next couple of hours. But look at this, we have the showers streaming all the way to the east. But they are only going to intensify as we get into the evening hours.

We have a thunderstorm watch box just west of Dallas right now for these storms that are firing up, already seeing severe thunderstorms with small hail. Hail is going to be a huge concern going into the evening, possibly even more so than tornadoes.

We will see possible tornadoes and some of those will be strong, especially in those areas shaded in orange and red. But the hail threat possibly baseball-sized hail will be possible. Ten percent chance of a tornado threat in that area with the black dash marks and then this is the greatest chance of that two inch or more hail in diameter.

[15:25:08]

That's baseball-sized hail we could see across this area as well, so incredibly dangerous scenario shaping up especially across East Texas and Central Texas and then on into the Mississippi River Valley.

Huge flooding threat as well. We could see three to six inches of rain widespread flooding through the Mississippi River Valley and the Ohio valleys where we could see four to six inches right there, that bull's eye shaded in red. So this is guys is going to be an ongoing threat not only this evening, but through the overnight hours tonight and into tomorrow.

BLACKWELL: We know you will watch it. Jen Gray, thanks so much.

GOLODRYGA: Two dueling high profile Republican events this week likely to expose the growing divide within the party as we head into the 2024 White House race. We'll discuss, that's next.

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