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CNN Saturday Morning News
Legal Briefs
Aired December 06, 2003 - 08:16 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.
JIM MORET, CNN ANCHOR: In our Legal Briefs this week, some of the other big cases we've been following. Our legal eagles are joining us with their thoughts on the case of missing college student Dru Sjodin and singer Michael Jackson.
Lida Rodriguez-Taseff is a civil liberties attorney and president of the Miami chapter of the ACLU and Nelda Blair is a former Texas prosecutor.
Thank you very much, both of you, for joining us.
NELDA BLAIR, FORMER PROSECUTOR: Thank you.
LIDA RODRIGUEZ-TASEFF, CIVIL RIGHTS ATTORNEY: Good morning.
MORET: First to Lida.
Let's focus on Alfonso Rodriguez, Jr., the 50-year-old who is accused in this kidnapping case.
First of all, talk about the growing outrage over the fact that this person spent 23 years in prison and was effectively left unsupervised at this point.
RODRIGUEZ-TASEFF: Yes, he was left unsupervised under a community notification policy, notification law that the state has, where offenders -- where communities are notified that offenders are going to be released into those communities and are basically left to fend for themselves.
These community notification programs don't work and they turn communities into police officers and they force communities to deal with sex offenders that are released into those communities. This man is a sex -- is a level three sex offender and all that happened was there was a meeting in the community and they said, by the way, we're releasing a sex offender. We wash our hands of it. Here you are. You deal with the mess.
What this will do, I think, is it will outrage these communities around the country and people will have to find a better solution when these sex offenders are released from jail.
MORET: Well, Nelda, at this point, people are basically in a situation where they have to do research on their own because...
BLAIR: Absolutely.
MORET: So talk about this issue.
BLAIR: Well, what we need is stronger laws in this situation. You know, authorities did basically what they could. They did what they were able to do under the law. The man had spent years in jail for a previous rape, maybe not enough years, clearly, but he had spent a long time in jail. Once a person pays that debt to society and is released, it's not like we can keep them chained or keep them overlooked all the time. No one would really want that.
But in this case, this man obviously still has problems, still has that violent mentality and we need stronger laws in order to allow our authorities to do more things to protect people from people against him.
MORET: And he's still the only suspect in this particular case.
BLAIR: Absolutely. He is the only suspect.
RODRIGUEZ-TASEFF: Yes, and, you know, I hate to agree with Nelda, because she's a prosecutor and I try not to agree with prosecutors too often, but, you know, Nelda is absolutely right. We habitualize, meaning we permanently incarcerate people for stealing cars. We send them to prison for life. And here we have a rapist, a rapist who committed at least three rapes that we know of, who used weapons, who, in this case, if he is found guilty, will be found to have used a weapon in this case yet again. And we release him after 23 years.
If you can send a kid to jail, to prison for life for stealing car, why is it we're not properly focusing on violent crimes and imprisoning people for violent crimes and emptying out the jails of these ridiculous drug offenses and non-violent crimes that are not really the problem in our country?
MORET: Let's shift gears quickly. We have another high profile case, the Michael Jackson investigation.
There have been allegations this week that the prosecution is racially motivated. There's also rumblings of filing an amicus curae brief, friends of the court brief.
First to Nelda.
Talk about the allegations, if you will, that this is racially motivated, this prosecution.
BLAIR: Is that surprising that that would come up? No. It's not surprising. The defense is going to use every possible tactic that they can, every possible angle that they can to get the public on the side of the defendant, no matter who that defendant is. And to use the racially motivated claim, I'm surprised it hasn't come out sooner. No, I do not think it's racially motivated on the part of the prosecution. This is a seasoned prosecutor. He prosecutes people that he has evidence have committed a crime. We do not know what his evidence is yet. I suspect it will be a lot stronger than we've heard so far, because he's chosen to keep it to himself so far. He does not have to inform the public and he's not.
But he's getting his ducks in a row, he's going to go forward with his prosecution black, white, purple or green.
MORET: Lida, what do you make of it?
RODRIGUEZ-TASEFF: You know, I hate to agree with Nelda again. I don't think this is racially motivated. I do think he is -- he's out to get Michael Jackson. It's probably a vendetta. But, you know, what's interesting is that in these high profile cases, these lawyers pull out the race card left and right without really focusing on what the issues are. And, you know, Michael Jackson is wealthy enough to afford the best legal defense in this country, which is unlike most black people and Hispanic people in this country who are prosecuted for crimes who are overwhelmingly poor.
So the fact that this is being played now and it's getting national play is disturbing because it makes America think that this is the majority of the cases and it's not. And that's what's troubling about this. The defense lawyers ought to be ashamed of themselves because that's not a way to defend this case.
MORET: And that's the final word for now.
Lida Rodriguez-Taseff and Nelda Blair, thank you both for joining us.
BLAIR: Thank you.
RODRIGUEZ-TASEFF: 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 December 6, 2003 - 08:16 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JIM MORET, CNN ANCHOR: In our Legal Briefs this week, some of the other big cases we've been following. Our legal eagles are joining us with their thoughts on the case of missing college student Dru Sjodin and singer Michael Jackson.
Lida Rodriguez-Taseff is a civil liberties attorney and president of the Miami chapter of the ACLU and Nelda Blair is a former Texas prosecutor.
Thank you very much, both of you, for joining us.
NELDA BLAIR, FORMER PROSECUTOR: Thank you.
LIDA RODRIGUEZ-TASEFF, CIVIL RIGHTS ATTORNEY: Good morning.
MORET: First to Lida.
Let's focus on Alfonso Rodriguez, Jr., the 50-year-old who is accused in this kidnapping case.
First of all, talk about the growing outrage over the fact that this person spent 23 years in prison and was effectively left unsupervised at this point.
RODRIGUEZ-TASEFF: Yes, he was left unsupervised under a community notification policy, notification law that the state has, where offenders -- where communities are notified that offenders are going to be released into those communities and are basically left to fend for themselves.
These community notification programs don't work and they turn communities into police officers and they force communities to deal with sex offenders that are released into those communities. This man is a sex -- is a level three sex offender and all that happened was there was a meeting in the community and they said, by the way, we're releasing a sex offender. We wash our hands of it. Here you are. You deal with the mess.
What this will do, I think, is it will outrage these communities around the country and people will have to find a better solution when these sex offenders are released from jail.
MORET: Well, Nelda, at this point, people are basically in a situation where they have to do research on their own because...
BLAIR: Absolutely.
MORET: So talk about this issue.
BLAIR: Well, what we need is stronger laws in this situation. You know, authorities did basically what they could. They did what they were able to do under the law. The man had spent years in jail for a previous rape, maybe not enough years, clearly, but he had spent a long time in jail. Once a person pays that debt to society and is released, it's not like we can keep them chained or keep them overlooked all the time. No one would really want that.
But in this case, this man obviously still has problems, still has that violent mentality and we need stronger laws in order to allow our authorities to do more things to protect people from people against him.
MORET: And he's still the only suspect in this particular case.
BLAIR: Absolutely. He is the only suspect.
RODRIGUEZ-TASEFF: Yes, and, you know, I hate to agree with Nelda, because she's a prosecutor and I try not to agree with prosecutors too often, but, you know, Nelda is absolutely right. We habitualize, meaning we permanently incarcerate people for stealing cars. We send them to prison for life. And here we have a rapist, a rapist who committed at least three rapes that we know of, who used weapons, who, in this case, if he is found guilty, will be found to have used a weapon in this case yet again. And we release him after 23 years.
If you can send a kid to jail, to prison for life for stealing car, why is it we're not properly focusing on violent crimes and imprisoning people for violent crimes and emptying out the jails of these ridiculous drug offenses and non-violent crimes that are not really the problem in our country?
MORET: Let's shift gears quickly. We have another high profile case, the Michael Jackson investigation.
There have been allegations this week that the prosecution is racially motivated. There's also rumblings of filing an amicus curae brief, friends of the court brief.
First to Nelda.
Talk about the allegations, if you will, that this is racially motivated, this prosecution.
BLAIR: Is that surprising that that would come up? No. It's not surprising. The defense is going to use every possible tactic that they can, every possible angle that they can to get the public on the side of the defendant, no matter who that defendant is. And to use the racially motivated claim, I'm surprised it hasn't come out sooner. No, I do not think it's racially motivated on the part of the prosecution. This is a seasoned prosecutor. He prosecutes people that he has evidence have committed a crime. We do not know what his evidence is yet. I suspect it will be a lot stronger than we've heard so far, because he's chosen to keep it to himself so far. He does not have to inform the public and he's not.
But he's getting his ducks in a row, he's going to go forward with his prosecution black, white, purple or green.
MORET: Lida, what do you make of it?
RODRIGUEZ-TASEFF: You know, I hate to agree with Nelda again. I don't think this is racially motivated. I do think he is -- he's out to get Michael Jackson. It's probably a vendetta. But, you know, what's interesting is that in these high profile cases, these lawyers pull out the race card left and right without really focusing on what the issues are. And, you know, Michael Jackson is wealthy enough to afford the best legal defense in this country, which is unlike most black people and Hispanic people in this country who are prosecuted for crimes who are overwhelmingly poor.
So the fact that this is being played now and it's getting national play is disturbing because it makes America think that this is the majority of the cases and it's not. And that's what's troubling about this. The defense lawyers ought to be ashamed of themselves because that's not a way to defend this case.
MORET: And that's the final word for now.
Lida Rodriguez-Taseff and Nelda Blair, thank you both for joining us.
BLAIR: Thank you.
RODRIGUEZ-TASEFF: 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
