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LEGAL VIEW WITH ASHLEIGH BANFIELD
Robert Durst Case Overview; Passenger Shouting "Jihad" Disrupts Flight to Denver; Boston Marathon Bombing Trial Update; Art Theft Special Previewed. Aired 12:30-1p ET
Aired March 17, 2015 - 12:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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<12:32:47> ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: The lawyer who got Robert Durst acquitted of murdering his neighbor in Texas back in '01, and who is now once again at his side wearing a very nice ten-gallon hat right there in the center, tan suit. He says he doesn't believe its coincidence. The authorities in Los Angeles are choosing now to charge Robert Durst with a 15-year-old murder, unsolved yet, of his friend, Susan Berman.
But the question then becomes, what exactly do the authorities have on Durst? What aren't they telling us? What do they have that they might not have before but suddenly now?
Cue the lawyers, CNN legal analyst Danny Cevallos and HLN legal analyst Joey Jackson.
Before I even get to that because that was what was burning a hole in my show before I got to air, and then Dick DeGuerin went on the TV in a live news conference moments ago and said the words that he's going to contest the arrest warrant. While he's cooling his heels in the jail in Louisiana, Dick DeGuerin, Robert Durst's lawyer is going to contest the arrest warrant in Los Angeles saying it's based on TV ratings, it's not based on fact.
Where does he get off saying this?
JOEY JACKSON, HLN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, look, the reality is that it's a defense attorney's job to contest everything and warrants have to be predicated upon probable cause. You go to a judge, you give that judge sufficient information to swear out a warrant.
What is the information? It'd better be, according to their lawyers, something other than a letter which experts can agree or disagree is in fact Durst. And it'd better be better than some ramblings of a confession. What else do they have that would motivate a judge to legally issue a warrant.
BANFIELD: The last I checked that having your taillight out is probable cause.
JACKSON: No, its different kind.
BANFIELD: Saying I killed someone or at least killed them all, you don't call that the most probablest of causes.
DANNY CEVALLOS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: No. And here's why, when we talk about probable cause in the context of making a car stop, that's a different concept than probable cause to have made an arrest.
JACKSON: For murder.
CEVALLOS: And that usually goes back to what we call the corpus delicti rule. It usually is understood as the body of the crime and people mistakenly think that means an actual human body. But corpus delicti is about the idea that I cannot stand here and confess to a crime unless there's some other evidence beyond that confession.
JACKSON: That corroborates.
CEVALLOS: Right. So if I stood here and confess to the Kennedy assassination, that alone could not...
<12:35:01> BANDFIELD: Sure, you need something else.
CEVALLOS: You need something else and not just a body but some corroborating evidence.
BANFIELD: I hear both of you and I appreciate both of you like you'll never believe. But I'm looking...
JACKSON: So you're not convinced?
BANFIELD: I am so not convinced at all. I'm looking at a letter that is unbearably uncanny and which experts will come in and say, "That's the same man." We just had Bart Baggett on who testified to the trial as an expert and he said it's the same man who wrote those letters. Couple that with evidence piece number two, and that is "kill them all," of course.
JACKSON: Which may not admissible, two things...
BANFIELD: But we don't know that yet. They're not for probable cause to bring in the warrant.
JACKSON: We don't know that yet and that's up to the attorneys to contest, but I would certainly hope for the sake of a prosecution, remember this, the police had difficulty tying Durst to Los Angeles. In fact, they had some indication that he was in California. But whether he was in Los Angeles was far from determined. So now you step back one moment and you look at letter, reasonable experts can disagree as to whether the lettering is comparable, as to whether the wording is comparable.
BANFIELD: And it's up for the jury to make that point.
JACKSON: It's up to the jury to make that determination.
BANFIELD: Yeah.
JACKSON: And so you have that and then you pivot into what is it. If it's a confession or is it rambling?
BANFIELD: Last bit and this is critical. In those filings in Los Angeles, the authorities in Los Angeles say lying in wait. They got evidence that's been lying in wait. I don't know that we'd ever heard that before and that's big because lying in wait, that can mean first degree. That can mean death penalty.
CEVALLOS: So what that does is lying in wait bumps it up from just your run in the mill garden variety murder, and of course on being glim, because there's really is no such thing. But that's really statutorily one of those aggravating factors.
BANFIELD: You got something there.
CEVALLOS: If you lying in wait by poison, torture or something else, those are usually factors.
BANFIELD: Danny, you don't throw out your charging document unless you got some good.
JACKSON: Or unless it meets the statutory definition of murder which that does, lying in wait leads to statutory definition. What do they have that justifies that?
CEVALLOS: And it has to be more than just those statements because of the corpus delicti rule.
BANFIELD: Well, I can not wait.
JACKSON: Body of the crime.
CEVALLOS: Body of the crime. A little Latin for you.
BANFIELD: You know, there's, you know, what our attorneys are sitting outside that court house right now itching for every singles scrap of filing that comes out on this case to find out what they've got and whether they can nail down a conviction this time but they couldn't do in Galveston.
Danny, Joey, thank you. Thank you both.
Coming up next, a scare in the air, a man charging at the cockpit taken down by other passengers. It was a plane leaving Washington, D.C. and this was not your average unruly passenger. He was saying certain things while charging the cockpit that would make everyone stood up and take notice right away.
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<12:40:30>BANFIELD: A big scare high in the sky last night, when a passenger reportedly screaming the word, "Jihad," rushed to the cockpit on Denver-bound flight from Washington D.C. Passengers immediately jumped in and then they tackled this out of control man.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tell me...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... and sign.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's on this (inaudible) on that west (inaudible).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm Sorry. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Don't move damn it, you're OK. We're going to get you off this plane, buddy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: It was a United Airlines flight number 1074 that took off around 10:15 p.m. from Dallas International. But it did not get to Denver because the pilot had to make a U-turn. They had to return back to D.C.
CNN Aviation Analyst Mary Schiavo joins me live to talk about this.
First of all, I'm seeing and feeling two different things about this story. Number one, a man charging the cockpit yelling, "Jihad, Jihad," immediately that seems terrifying, but then you see the video of the man crying and saying, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry." Does that make any difference in any of this?
MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, what will eventually happen to the man, it will make a difference. It will make difference. They will obviously have him evaluated for his mental condition, physical condition to see what was going on. But know, he endangered the flight and of course the passengers did what passengers do since September 11, 2001.
They know that the cockpit door is locked and secured, that the pilots aren't coming out. And they know they have to defend themselves, and maybe defend hundred or thousands of people on the ground, and that's what passengers do since 9/11, 2001. And that's the good part.
BANFIELD: So, my assumption Mary is that when you have this kind of a scenario and these kinds of words being yelled, there is a very deep dive of investigators going to his background right away to find out find out if he has any online behavior or any activity, any alliances or that kind of thing. And if they don't turn up any of that, what happens then?
SCHIAVO: Well, then, he is going to be charged of with endangering of flight. He probably will not be charge as a terrorist, but he will be charge as endangering flight, which has a very, very serious penalties. It can be a fine. It can be several years in prison. If anyone was killed in the process, it could actually carry the death penalty. So, it's a very serious charge.
If he's mentally unstable, then he will be send for evaluation and, of course, then the chargers -- he would probably or his lawyers would probably enter a plea of not guilty by reason of lack of mental competence. But what people don't see is what goes on behind the scenes, it's not just that this passenger will be evaluated, that everyone else on the plane will have to be interviewed and evaluated to make sure that this was just a lone actor. That there weren't other people on the plane that were going to also be part of a plot and that greatly inconvenient as everyone else on the plane. And of course law enforcement, there's hundreds of hours that will go into making sure that this is just one man.
BANFIELD: Which is why the penalties are so incredibly steep. Great point that you brought up about everyone else now having to undergo these interrogations. Mary Schiavo, thank you so much from Charleston. We appreciate it.
SCHIAVO: Thank you.
BANFIELD: And coming up next, the manhunt for the Boston Marathon bomber ended in a backyard. And the man who actually saw him first took the stand to tell the story of just how harrowing it was when he saw Dzhokhar's bleeding body inside his boat. That's next.
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<12:47:42> BANFIELD: He was hailed as a hero in the days after the Boston Bombing, David Henneberry. He's the man who found Dzhokhar Tsarnaev hiding in his boat that was parked dry dock in his backyard in Watertown, Massachusetts, and he was the first witness to testify today in Tsarnaev's trial.
Four days after the attack, he noticed something odd, the cover on his boat was loose. And he told the affiliate WCBB what he did next.
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DAVID HENNEBERRY, BOAT OWNER: I got, I think three steps up the ladder and I was, I rolled it up and I can see through now the shrink wrap. I didn't expect to see anything. And I look in the boat over here on the floor and I see blood. And...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A lot of blood.
HENNEBERRY: Good amount of blood.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah.
HENNEBERRY: Then my eyes went to the other side of the engine box. The engine box is in the middle of the boat. There was a body.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And at that moment, what did you do? What were you thinking at the moment?
HENNEBERRY: Oh, my God.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People are calling you a national hero.
HENNEBERRY: If the people who were killed can get something from... (END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: Yeah. Well, if the people who were killed can get something from what you found and what you testified today. It may take a huge load off.
Rosa Flores was live at the trial. She's outside of the courthouse now in Boston. Such a dramatic moment. Really just laying the foundation for all of these and how it played out and then he was followed by Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's friend on the stand. What on earth did the friend have to add to the story?
ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, this was a real surprise, Ashleigh. Everybody was kind of wondering where is the prosecution going with this individual. His name is Stephen Silva, and he has plead guilty to possession charges of an arm.
And so, they're going into the history that they met when they were in 8th Grade, that they were smoking pot together, and then they talk about a gun and about Dzhokhar Tsarnaev asking him for the gun and then keeping that gun and not returning the gun, Ashleigh. And so that's the cliffhanger. We know that the gun is in the courtroom.
<12:50:01>They're not explaining exactly where this gun was recovered, how it was recovered. And so, we're still learning some of those details, but I've got to tell you something else. So, they showed a picture of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's room. And in the room, everybody is holding back to see what does exactly means, but there is a flag and we've been using the resources here at CNN to try to figure out exactly what this flag is. But what our sources are telling us is that this appears to be a flag that has been adopted by Jihadi groups. And so, it's a black flag. You've probably seen it, with Arabic writings.
And so, that's the other big cliffhanger, and of course the cross examination they're trying to poke holes into this guy, who, you know, has pleaded guilty to possession of a weapon, who has a plea agreement. I mean, I can go on and on. But that just ...
BANFIELD: Incredible.
FLORES: ... kind of gives you an idea, Ashleigh, hat's going on. And then, the...
BANFIELD: Go ahead. Rosa, go ahead.
FLORES: The other tidbit of information that I wanted to tell you about is something that we have not seen before. You've heard about the manifesto, right? Ashleigh, where there was actually carvings on that boat. And I wanted to read it to you because it's very telling. So the carvings say, "Stop killing our innocent people and we will stop." So that's completely new. We knew about carvings, but we didn't know what those carvings actually said. So there you have it. That's what those carvings reveal.
BANFIELD: Rosa Flores is live for us. Thank you for that. It's been just so revealing the stories that have come from the stand. Material we've never heard from before, including the officers having a gun thrown at them hitting them in the biceps while they were in a gun battle with Tamerlan Tsarnaev before he was killed by his own brother.
Coming up next, a half billion dollars worth of art stolen. Biggest art heist in U.S. history, and one of the biggest mysteries of all time.
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<12:55:46>BANFIELD: Well, many Americans happily celebrate St. Patrick's Day today. The holiday holds pretty bitter memories for the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, because on this date, 25- years ago, thieves pulled off the biggest art heist in U.S. history.
Empty frames now occupy the places where 13 extraordinary works by Rembrandt and other masters once were prominently displayed. To this day, this thing is unsolved. No one, not one piece of artwork has been recovered. No one has come forward, nothing. Our Randi Kaye has a preview of tonight's CNN special on this enduring mystery.
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RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Inside these walls priceless works of art, but also a mystery that has lasted for 25 years.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I like to say it is Boston's last best secret.
KAYE: On March 18th, 1990, $500 million worth of art stolen from a Boston Museum, the biggest archive in history.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the creme dela creme of art recovery.
KAYE: How did the thieves get inside? How did they get away with 13 priceless pieces? And a quarter century later, where are the paintings?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Once they leave, we never heard from again.
KAYE: In his only television interview, hear from the security guard who let the thieves in, was this an inside job?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, I'm the guy who opened up the door. They're obviously going to be looking at me.
KAYE: Who else our investigators looking at? And will the artworks by masters, like Rembrandt, Monet and Degas, ever be recovered?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Whoever has them just -- is waiting for the right time.
KAYE: It's the $500 million question. Who pulled off the greatest art heist in history?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: Who did it?
KAYE: I can't tell you. I wish I could tell you.
BANFIELD: Such a cliffhanger. What's the deal? Is there something new that the cops have that 25 years later they're going to make a break here?
KAYE: Well, the FBI says that they actually know who did it. They believe that whoever did this was a part of a criminal organization, they're not naming them publically, I should just say that upfront. Part of a criminal organization based in either New England or the mid-Atlantic Region. And the FBI did tell us just this week that they did have a credible sighting of the Monet painting in the home of one of the man who very much resembles one of the sketches of the thieves back from 25 years ago. Now, that Monet has never been found, neither have the other 12 works of art.
BANFIELD: They had the sighting. They didn't...
KAYE: They have incredible sighting.
BANFIELD: ... get probable cause and go in?
KAYE: No, no. We don't know what these circumstances were of that credible sighting. We believe it was with a family member. But we haven't been told exactly why that wasn't recovered. But also, I should point out, Ashleigh, that they're offering immunity to anyone who brings these paintings forward, full immunity. And there's also the statute of limitations. I mean it's been 25 years now. So, the statute of limitations is expired. So whoever...
BANFIELD: On everything from the theft to tieing up that poor security guy?
KAYE: ... on the theft for sure. But you could still be charged with possession of stolen property.
BANFIELD: Sure.
KAYE: ... possession of stolen art.
BANFIELD: By the way, who can buy this stuff? It's famous.
KAYE: Yeah, that's a good question. You really can't because anybody's who's trying to unload it, they know that this is the stolen art.
BANFIELD: Oh, man. I can't wait. I saw your original documentary and it was as much of cliffhanger then. Tune in tonight, CNN Special Report at 9:00 p.m. as Randi asks the $500 million question. Who pulled off the greatest art heist in history?
Randi, Thank you. Thanks everyone for watching. Wolf starts right now.
WOLF BLITZER: Hello. I'm Wolf Blitzer. It's 1:00 p.m. here in Washington, 5:00 p.m. in London, 7:00 p.m. in Jerusalem, 8:00 p.m. in Moscow, wherever you're watching from around the world, thanks very much for joining us.
Right now, Israelis are voting on the future of their country in a critical election that has global implications. The prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, potentially his job is on the line right now.
<12:59:43> We'll go to Jerusalem in a few moments for the very latest.
