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CNN Saturday Morning News
Interview with Kendall Coffey, Lida Rodriguez-Taseff
Aired June 28, 2003 - 08:19 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Time now to open our Legal Briefs and chat about the court cases in the headlines.
On the docket this morning, the latest in the Laci Peterson case. Plus, a Cuban custody battle that's a reversal of the Elian Gonzalez battle a few years ago.
In our legal roundtable this morning, civil liberties attorney Lida Rodriguez-Taseff. She's joining us from New York this morning.
LIDA RODRIGUEZ-TASEFF, CIVIL LIBERTIES ATTORNEY: Good morning.
COLLINS: And former U.S. Attorney Kendall Coffey is in Miami.
Good morning to you, Bill.
KENDALL COFFEY, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY: Thank you.
COLLINS: Thanks again for being here, guys.
COFFEY: Good morning, Heidi.
COLLINS: Kendall, I'd like to start with you with the Peterson case. You know, there was a delay in that preliminary hearing on the evidence until September. It was going to be in July. Who is this a win for? Which side?
COFFEY: It's a win for the defense because anything that puts more time between the horrific initial publicity in the case and the ultimate trial is good for the defense. And when it comes to public perception, the defense team seems to keep winning and winning, planting seeds of message that they hope to harvest some day, when the actual case is tried before the actual jury.
COLLINS: Lida, is that your opinion, that the longer the delay, the more the public will forget and the more of a chance Scott Peterson might have to get off in this case?
RODRIGUEZ-TASEFF: Well, I think that's true in most criminal defense cases where the defense is trying to delay, delay, delay in order to win. However, in high profile cases such as this one, this gives the prosecution an opportunity to regroup itself because this prosecution is scattered right now. This will give it an opportunity to regroup itself, to come up with evidence to present at this preliminary hearing and to continue leaking and undoing and violating gag orders in order to win at the end of the day.
So I think this benefits the prosecution.
COLLINS: And speaking of that gag order, it looks like it will stand, at least for now, in that case. But it doesn't apply to Gloria Allred, Amber Frey's attorney in this matter. Should that apply to her?
Lida, I'd like to start with you. You think this gag order is just a disaster.
RODRIGUEZ-TASEFF: This is a -- gag orders are bad news and this gag order ought to be called the Gloria Allred defense committee budget. What it has done, it has basically permitted defense lawyers in California to become employed because now, if I'm Mark Geragos, I go out and I hire lawyers for all the possible witnesses who may be favorable to Scott Peterson. And I send out those lawyers and I say guess what? You're going on Fox, CNN, MSNBC. You're going to go do the talk shows and you're going to do them early and often, just as Gloria has done.
COLLINS: Kendall, what do you think about this, basically a media trial before the actual court trial?
COFFEY: Well, there's no avoiding it because what both sides recognize is that in a case of this magnitude, in terms of public interest, that jury is going to have heard something about the case and from the prosecution's standpoint, you think it's going to be mostly good. Everybody's seen the footage of the parents of Laci Peterson. They know the bodies were discovered in the very area where Scott Peterson was fishing.
But what the defense is doing is raising questions. They are putting it out one way or another, whether it's something as strange as satanic cult theory -- which obviously they're not going to seriously argue at trial -- or even some of the lesser points, attacking the wiretaps, subpoenaing a judge. They're raising questions so that what they think they are doing -- and I think they're having some success with this -- is at least telling the future jurors that have an open mind. This isn't the slam dunk that the state attorney general said it was at the beginning.
COLLINS: All right, I want to move on, if we could, to the case in Havana now. I just want to set it up quickly. There's a Massachusetts woman who was reunited Wednesday night with her two children after nearly two years of being apart. They were left in Cuba because Cornelia Streeter's husband had apparently kidnapped the two children. Now, one of them 10 years old, another 8-year-old, the daughter eight years old and the son 10. Twenty-two months ago those children were kidnapped by her husband, Anwar Wissa.
Now, she actually, Cornelia Streeter, appealed directly to Fidel Castro with a letter in trying to get help here.
Any surprises with this that you see, Lida?
RODRIGUEZ-TASEFF: Absolutely not. This is, this case is a legal slam dunk. Fidel Castro saw it as an opportunity to propagandize the world. Obviously, these kids have to be returned to their mother. She had custody of them. The father kidnapped them. The father demanded a million dollar ransom to return them. He wasn't paid so he took them to Cuba.
There is no question that this case should have come out exactly the way it did.
Now, why is Fidel doing what he's doing? Simple, publicity. If he would have treated the three young men whom he executed a couple of months ago in the same way and with the same kindness in the eyes of the world, we wouldn't have three young men who were executed nine days after being arrested.
So this is purely propaganda. This is not a legal case.
COLLINS: Kendall Coffey, I'm going to give you the last word on this. This is a problem that is ongoing.
COFFEY: Well, we're glad, obviously, that the children are returned to the mother. But I agree with Lida, it's a propaganda stunt. And the larger problem is not this kind of rather isolated situation of a pure criminal kidnapping, but what about all the cases where children of U.S. parents are in foreign lands where they're in the lands where the fathers are citizens of those countries and what is the U.S. really doing to get all those children back to this country?
It's a broad issue, a difficult issue with international implications.
COLLINS: All right, civil liberties attorney Lida Rodriguez- Taseff from New York this morning and former U.S. Attorney Kendall Coffey in Miami.
Thanks to the both of you.
We appreciate it.
RODRIGUEZ-TASEFF: Thank you.
COFFEY: Thank you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired June 28, 2003 - 08:19 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Time now to open our Legal Briefs and chat about the court cases in the headlines.
On the docket this morning, the latest in the Laci Peterson case. Plus, a Cuban custody battle that's a reversal of the Elian Gonzalez battle a few years ago.
In our legal roundtable this morning, civil liberties attorney Lida Rodriguez-Taseff. She's joining us from New York this morning.
LIDA RODRIGUEZ-TASEFF, CIVIL LIBERTIES ATTORNEY: Good morning.
COLLINS: And former U.S. Attorney Kendall Coffey is in Miami.
Good morning to you, Bill.
KENDALL COFFEY, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY: Thank you.
COLLINS: Thanks again for being here, guys.
COFFEY: Good morning, Heidi.
COLLINS: Kendall, I'd like to start with you with the Peterson case. You know, there was a delay in that preliminary hearing on the evidence until September. It was going to be in July. Who is this a win for? Which side?
COFFEY: It's a win for the defense because anything that puts more time between the horrific initial publicity in the case and the ultimate trial is good for the defense. And when it comes to public perception, the defense team seems to keep winning and winning, planting seeds of message that they hope to harvest some day, when the actual case is tried before the actual jury.
COLLINS: Lida, is that your opinion, that the longer the delay, the more the public will forget and the more of a chance Scott Peterson might have to get off in this case?
RODRIGUEZ-TASEFF: Well, I think that's true in most criminal defense cases where the defense is trying to delay, delay, delay in order to win. However, in high profile cases such as this one, this gives the prosecution an opportunity to regroup itself because this prosecution is scattered right now. This will give it an opportunity to regroup itself, to come up with evidence to present at this preliminary hearing and to continue leaking and undoing and violating gag orders in order to win at the end of the day.
So I think this benefits the prosecution.
COLLINS: And speaking of that gag order, it looks like it will stand, at least for now, in that case. But it doesn't apply to Gloria Allred, Amber Frey's attorney in this matter. Should that apply to her?
Lida, I'd like to start with you. You think this gag order is just a disaster.
RODRIGUEZ-TASEFF: This is a -- gag orders are bad news and this gag order ought to be called the Gloria Allred defense committee budget. What it has done, it has basically permitted defense lawyers in California to become employed because now, if I'm Mark Geragos, I go out and I hire lawyers for all the possible witnesses who may be favorable to Scott Peterson. And I send out those lawyers and I say guess what? You're going on Fox, CNN, MSNBC. You're going to go do the talk shows and you're going to do them early and often, just as Gloria has done.
COLLINS: Kendall, what do you think about this, basically a media trial before the actual court trial?
COFFEY: Well, there's no avoiding it because what both sides recognize is that in a case of this magnitude, in terms of public interest, that jury is going to have heard something about the case and from the prosecution's standpoint, you think it's going to be mostly good. Everybody's seen the footage of the parents of Laci Peterson. They know the bodies were discovered in the very area where Scott Peterson was fishing.
But what the defense is doing is raising questions. They are putting it out one way or another, whether it's something as strange as satanic cult theory -- which obviously they're not going to seriously argue at trial -- or even some of the lesser points, attacking the wiretaps, subpoenaing a judge. They're raising questions so that what they think they are doing -- and I think they're having some success with this -- is at least telling the future jurors that have an open mind. This isn't the slam dunk that the state attorney general said it was at the beginning.
COLLINS: All right, I want to move on, if we could, to the case in Havana now. I just want to set it up quickly. There's a Massachusetts woman who was reunited Wednesday night with her two children after nearly two years of being apart. They were left in Cuba because Cornelia Streeter's husband had apparently kidnapped the two children. Now, one of them 10 years old, another 8-year-old, the daughter eight years old and the son 10. Twenty-two months ago those children were kidnapped by her husband, Anwar Wissa.
Now, she actually, Cornelia Streeter, appealed directly to Fidel Castro with a letter in trying to get help here.
Any surprises with this that you see, Lida?
RODRIGUEZ-TASEFF: Absolutely not. This is, this case is a legal slam dunk. Fidel Castro saw it as an opportunity to propagandize the world. Obviously, these kids have to be returned to their mother. She had custody of them. The father kidnapped them. The father demanded a million dollar ransom to return them. He wasn't paid so he took them to Cuba.
There is no question that this case should have come out exactly the way it did.
Now, why is Fidel doing what he's doing? Simple, publicity. If he would have treated the three young men whom he executed a couple of months ago in the same way and with the same kindness in the eyes of the world, we wouldn't have three young men who were executed nine days after being arrested.
So this is purely propaganda. This is not a legal case.
COLLINS: Kendall Coffey, I'm going to give you the last word on this. This is a problem that is ongoing.
COFFEY: Well, we're glad, obviously, that the children are returned to the mother. But I agree with Lida, it's a propaganda stunt. And the larger problem is not this kind of rather isolated situation of a pure criminal kidnapping, but what about all the cases where children of U.S. parents are in foreign lands where they're in the lands where the fathers are citizens of those countries and what is the U.S. really doing to get all those children back to this country?
It's a broad issue, a difficult issue with international implications.
COLLINS: All right, civil liberties attorney Lida Rodriguez- Taseff from New York this morning and former U.S. Attorney Kendall Coffey in Miami.
Thanks to the both of you.
We appreciate it.
RODRIGUEZ-TASEFF: Thank you.
COFFEY: Thank you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
