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CNN Sunday Morning

Legal Roundtable

Aired September 15, 2002 - 08:13   ET

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

CATHERINE CALLAWAY, CNN ANCHOR: It's time to check the legal issues of the week and we have a lot of them topped off by Friday's terrorist scare in Florida. And joining us now from our Miami bureau is criminal defense attorney, Jayne Weintraub, and ...
JAYNE WEINTRAUB, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Good morning.

CALLAWAY: Good morning. And from Philadelphia, trial attorney and talk show host, Michael Smerconish. Thank you for being with us this morning.

MICHAEL SMERCONISH, TRIAL ATTORNEY: Hi, Catherine.

CALLAWAY: So good to see you both again. It's been a good week. We've had several good weeks of legal issues. But this situation that developed in Florida has raised so many questions. Of course, we have the three men that were held and questioned for a long period of time over possibly carrying explosives.

Reportedly they made some comments in a Shooney's restaurant. What now? Should charges -- any type of charge be filed against these three Muslim-American medical students?

And let's start with you, Michael.

SMERCONISH: I think that the answer is yes. I watched that Georgia woman on television and I found her account to be entirely credible. I suspect what happened here, Catherine, is that they were sitting in Shooney's and maybe she was giving them what we call the hairy eyeball and they thought they would have some fun with her by talking about September 11 and September 13.

What bad judgment. And they want to be doctors. Are you kidding me?

Absolutely -- file charges against them.

CALLAWAY: Hey, Jayne, isn't this a she said they said situation? If any charges are going to be filed there's got to be a little more evidence, right?

WEINTRAUB: I would hope there would be real evidence. What I just heard was file charges because they had bad judgment and made a joke.

There is no conspiracy law for having bad judgment and there's no crime that I've heard of yet. In fact, what I've heard is that it's not determined yet whether or not the woman was telling the truth and that is very frightening.

What scares me more is that people like Michael just said, he listened to their -- to the account of the woman, Eunice Stone, and he's decided that she is telling the truth.

Well, that's very nice.

SMERCONISH: No -- that's what we have juries for.

WEINTRAUB: But maybe she's not telling the truth.

SMERCONISH: No -- that's what we have juries for. And I'm saying let a jury hear from both sides in this case because I think there's enough to put this ...

WEINTRAUB: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) in a criminal trial -- Michael, you know that.

SMERCONISH: Because I think there is enough to put it in front of a jury and let them sort it out.

WEINTRAUB: For what charge, though, Michael? Why would you ...

SMERCONISH: Hey -- look at the law enforcement reaction that this thing necessitated. They had to close Alligator Alley. Seven hundred law enforcement personnel were involved in this whole process. In the aftermath of 9/11 we can't tolerate this. This is worse than crying ...

WEINTRAUB: Michael, doesn't that tell you how wonderful ...

SMERCONISH: ... fire in a movie theater.

WEINTRAUB: But somebody did not cry, "Fire." And the fact of the matter is is that the lesson learned and that was so great here is that all different agencies of law enforcement in the state of Florida mobilized quickly, responsibly and went to the scene and investigated.

They didn't just slam an arrest, they investigated. It worked together well.

SMERCONISH: And apparently ...

WEINTRAUB: And I hope that the lesson is not that citizens should not be quick to grab a telephone. We have to be quick but we have to be alert (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

CALLAWAY: Jayne, in this environment right now -- Jayne, in this environment that we have -- in this situation we are under an orange alert we are supposed to be alert. We're supposed to be listening for these ...

SMERCONISH: Absolutely.

CALLAWAY: ... type of things. You're suggesting that shouldn't be done?

WEINTRAUB: No, I'm suggesting that was -- that's the lesson that's great. We did learn and because of their investigation and because they quickly mobilized we were very fortunate that false charges have not yet been brought.

You can't just work and pick up somebody and arrest them. What if it was a bad joke? I'm not saying it was good judgment -- it was horrible. Why don't we ...

SMERCONISH: Hey -- why don't we pin a medal ...

WEINTRAUB: ... and I think their parents ought to smack them.

SMERCONISH: Why don't we pin a medal on each of their chests? You cannot tolerate this kind of behavior.

WEINTRAUB: But we don't put people in jail because they don't meet your moral standards, do we?

SMERCONISH: I think it's far worse than not meeting moral standards. I think they imperil lives when they bring out this kind of a reaction from law enforcement, which was the proper response from the cops. I can't believe your tolerance level. I don't want to live in a neighborhood where the call doesn't get made and they don't get investigated and that's what you're asking for.

WEINTRAUB: What if she's lying, Michael? What if she made this up?

SMERCONISH: What if they're lying?

WEINTRAUB: All I'm saying is her own statement is that she interpreted it to mean. Maybe she was giving them dirty looks. Maybe she didn't serve them nicely. Maybe she was rude because they were Arab-looking.

CALLAWAY: But, you know what, though, Jayne? Michael's made a point that ...

WEINTRAUB: Maybe they overreacted.

CALLAWAY: ... maybe this is something a jury should hear though.

SMERCONISH: That is a misstatement of what she has said. She claims that they were saying things -- and I'm paraphrasing -- that if Americans thought September 11 were something, just wait until they saw the effects of September 13.

I can't believe your level of tolerance for that sort of comment in the aftermath of September 11.

WEINTRAUB: I'm not sure that comment was made, Michael. Don't misunderstand what I am saying.

SMERCONISH: No -- you seem awfully -- but you seem awfully sure it wasn't made.

CALLAWAY: OK -- at this point I think we are starting to repeat ourselves here so let's move on.

WEINTRAUB: Well, the men say that they didn't say that so why not take their word for it? Is that because of your prejudice?

CALLAWAY: All right.

WEINTRAUB: Let's not talk about tolerance, let's talk about evidence -- we're lawyers. Please -- let's be objective and examine the evidence.

SMERCONISH: Can I have one final word on this, Catherine?

CALLAWAY: You know what? Michael, I'm going to interrupt here because we need to move on.

SMERCONISH: Go ahead.

CALLAWAY: And we are starting to repeat ourselves.

SMERCONISH: Go ahead.

CALLAWAY: Let's do the Miss America controversy. You two both have weighed in on that.

WEINTRAUB: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)

CALLAWAY: Yeah -- we got an outcome on that -- my goodness, Jayne -- that refused to force the pageant to allow Rebecca Revels (ph) to participate in this as Miss North Carolina. This all because of apparent photographs that Rebecca's old boyfriend took -- topless photographs.

We've got a ruling now by the judge saying it's up to the pageant. Now she's not in it -- she's just allowed to stay there as a VIP guest.

Jayne, what do you think of this? Is this the outcome you wanted?

WEINTRAUB: I -- no, it isn't. And I think we haven't learned very much from Vanessa -- since the time of Vanessa Williams when we visited this a long time ago.

And what upsets me here is the greedy ex-boyfriend who obviously tried to exploit her. And she would not give in to him. So I think that shows her very good moral character.

Unfortunately the pageant is a private pageant.

CALLAWAY: Yeah.

WEINTRAUB: If you don't like what they do -- and they do supposedly hold the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) moral ground ... CALLAWAY: Well, they have a moral clause in their contract.

WEINTRAUB: ... then you don't apply.

CALLAWAY: That's right. And what about you, Michael?

SMERCONISH: I think that the pageant did not stand up for an exploited woman and Rebecca was exploited by that loser of an ex- boyfriend who frighteningly now works in law enforcement. It's a bad outcome and I wish that they had had more backbone.

CALLAWAY: I want to squeeze one more in but you can only make one quick comment on this. But it's -- we've got to talk about this because there are so many legal issues around it and that's the free marijuana we may be seeing in Santa Cruz, California coming up on Tuesday. The Vice Mayor there saying that they're going to be giving out free marijuana for medical reasons there.

This has upset the Drug Enforcement Administration. Richard Myers is saying it is illegal and shocking. What do you think? What's going to happen, Jayne, when -- if these people congregate to city hall on Tuesday and start handing out marijuana?

WEINTRAUB: I think they're going to be arrested.

CALLAWAY: You do?

WEINTRAUB: I think that the federal agents are going to come in and they're going to have the law behind them because that's where the (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

CALLAWAY: Federal law -- right. OK.

WEINTRAUB: I think what we need to do is demonstrate the need for these people that are suffering ...

CALLAWAY: Right.

WEINTRAUB: ... in a very, very limited scale because of the trauma of watching someone you love suffer with this pain is horrible. If the marijuana can give them a little relief medically, which is documented and researched properly, I think that's where ...

CALLAWAY: OK.

WEINTRAUB: ... their money should go.

CALLAWAY: All right.

WEINTRAUB: I also think that they need to revisit it in Congress. That's where ...

CALLAWAY: Michael, do you agree?

WEINTRAUB: ... you're going to pass the law. SMERCONISH: A mayor handing out pot -- I knew it was California. I knew it was close to San Francisco because that's the only place in the country where this sort of craziness would go on. It's ridiculous.

CALLAWAY: All right -- thank you both for being with us. I wish we had more time. So much going on in the past couple of weeks. We just can't seem to get all of the legal issues in there. Thank you both for weighing in ...

SMERCONISH: Thank you.

CALLAWAY: ... on them all this morning.

WEINTRAUB: Thank you, Catherine.

CALLAWAY: Michael Smerconish, trial attorney, and Jayne Weintraub. Thank you very much for being with us -- defense attorney.

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