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LEGAL VIEW WITH ASHLEIGH BANFIELD

Ted Cruz and Mike Huckabee To Meet Jailed Kentucky Clerk; Davis' Lawyers Seek Release and Injunction; TV Shooting Victim Released From Hospital; Italian Court Reveals Why It Freed Amanda Knox, Claims There Were "Glaring Errors" In Prosecution's Case; Vets Discharged For Being Gay Fight Back. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired September 8, 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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[12:32:04] ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Back now to our lead story the jail of Kentucky clerk, the candidates for president and the principles and politics and legal points that are now on full display and really charging into one another.

GOP Presidential Hopeful Ted Cruz and Mike Huckabee are each due to meet with in the next two hours, with the woman at the center of your screen in the mug shot Kim Davis.

She's been cooling her heels in a jail cell since Thursday for refusing to issue those marriage licenses citing her religious objection to same sex marriage.

All the while, if federal appeals court in Cincinnati is molding a whole series of appeals that have been filed by Davis's legal team.

And one of those key team members joins me live now from the formerly quite Kentucky town Grayson, Mat Staver is the founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel.

Mr. Staver, thanks so much for being with us. I really appreciate your time. For starters I don't understand the series of appeals. I know the first one had to do with your contention that the judge might have been just too pre-prepared going into the hearing to jail your client.

What are the bases of the other appeals? What do you think went wrong at the trial or at the hearing?

MATTHEW STAVER, CHAIRMAN, LIBERTY COUNCIL: There's two primary areas of the appeals the first and foremost is the contempt order that was issued Thursday, this is now day six of Kim Davis's incarceration.

Today we still don't have a written order. We just have the verbal opinion from the judge announce on the bench. We think that that particular process where someone is incarcerated without notice, without the proper process violates our constitutional right. So that's first and for most....

BANFIELD: What's the other one? STAVER: If we are successful on that. And the other one is the adjunction, a request against the governor which we filed, which the court refuse to hear. That's before the Court of Appeals now because we're asking the governor to accommodate her religious convictions and beliefs she could do that with an executive order.

BANFIELD: So, I don't understand if the accommodation wasn't already made. It appears to me that the judge in the case said to your client, you can go back to your office and five deputies will find these documents, as long as you don't swarth them. And she would not agree to that that seems like a pretty nice accommodation. Why did she not think that that was an accommodation?

STAVER: Because it's still issued on the certificate under her authority. And so whether it's the president of United States that you're talking about or President Barack Obama is the same person.

BANFIELD: OK.

STAVER: Whether it's Kim Davis or whether it's the clerk of the court is the same person.

She want her name and her authority moved away from that certificate, it could come from the common wealth of the Kentucky. But she can't put her name or title associated with something acquired with her convictions.

BANFIELD: But Mr. Staver, the judge himself said it does to mean she endorses something because she signed the APIs of legal paper, it's not an endorsement because she is theoretically given marriage licenses to divorces too and that's not great in scripture either.

STAVER: Well, it's not for the course to determine whether a particular belief is sincere or they have other options or they disagree with it.

[12:35:03] In fact everyone in this case agrees that she has a sincere religious convictions. Everyone agrees that it collides with her conviction. The real question now is how can it be accommodated if it can't, we're done with the story. But if it can and there's many options to do so, then those options need to be pursued by the...

BANFIELD: Sir, I just have to ask you, I heard her say she is doing this under the authority of God that you just can't make a legal argument for that.

STAVER: Well, the fact to the matter is she said she's doing it under the authority of God, that's part of her conviction. And you can make a legal argument for that if a Muslim for example or someone else asked for a reasonable accommodation whether they have for example, a particular day of the week off because it collides with their conviction. You may or may not be able to accommodate that. The question is, are there reasonable alternatives to do so. And in this case there's lots of reasonable alternatives.

The governor already altered the marriage certificates about two months ago on his own. He could do so again. And certainly the legislature could in the court, could direct the governor and the legislature to address these issues and accommodate her religious convictions. And this would be done, she would not have to be on day six of incarceration.

BANFIELD: Mat Staver, I really appreciate you taking time to speak with me today, I hope we get a chance to speak again there's still too many questions I have for you sir, thank you.

STAVER: Thank you.

BANFIELD: I want to bring in trial attorney and all around very smart former federal -- former prosecutor CNN Legal Analyst Paul Callan.

He makes a great point there is the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, it is that odd with now, what is constitutional. And the governor as he said has changed licenses before. And yet there is this sticky, sticky point where people say the governor and the authorities can't just rewrite certification and rewrite laws, we have to wait for the legislature. Who is wrong?

PAUL CALLAN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, Mr. Staver is very creative on behalf of his client. But I think Mr. Staver is absolutely wrong on this reasonable accommodation argument.

You know, the law was drafted, so that if a law is in place not so much of a law is in place if an employer has certain ways that he does business and they can easily be changed to accommodate a particular employees religious beliefs, the court has said please accommodate, that's what is required.

This is very different, she run for -- I mean she's essentially an elected...

BANFIELD: It's her job.

CALLAN: ... official, it's her job.

BANFIELD: It's like saying you can't be a news anchor if he can't say the words breaking news.

CALLAN: OK, and goes beyond that. Where does her authority come from? It comes from the legislature of Kentucky, democracy they past a law saying that the clerk has to do certain things.

So in order to accommodate her you would have to go against the existing law in Kentucky and let anybody in the office sign this certificate.

BANFIELD: It is not a simple story.

CALLAN: No, it's not.

BANFIELD: Not at all.

CALLAN: So, it's not a reasonable accommodation issue. BANFIELD: Thanks for making that clear, thanks for helping us out on this one, still a lot to understand though and again the Presidential Candidate, Governor Mike Huckabee and Senator Ted Cruz visiting Kim Davis in jail. And you're going to hear from Senator Cruz right here like at 1:00 P.M. eastern time on CNN.

And coming up next what were the so called Stunning Flaws" in the prosecutions case against Amanda Knox. That finally got her murder case tossed out of court.

The Italians are finally making it known from a highest level, how bad they were to her. Wait until you hear what they said.

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[12:41:56] BANFIELD: We have an update for you on a condition of one the victims of the awful Virginia T.V. shooting last month.

Vicki Gardner returned home from the hospital on Monday. She's the executive director of the Smith Mountain Lake Regional Chamber of Commerce and she is the only surviving victim of that August 26 shooting, when a former WDBJ employee killed Reporter Alison Parker and Photographer Adam Ward while they were doing a live television interview.

Parker was interviewing Gardner about an upcoming local events.

The high court in Italy has just done something big. They just issued their final report on the Amanda Knox murder case.

I know you know the case. The judges sustained that they freed her and let her go and said this was not a right ruling, simply because the prosecutors had a poor case. They said the word.

In '09 Knox and her boyfriend were convicted in stabbing death of her British roommate, while college student in Perugia, Italy.

That was Meredith Kercher, she was the victim. And after a series of appeals and acquittals and re-convictions, the highest court in Italy overturned that last conviction for the last time.

A third defendant who's tried separately didn't have a such a lucky way. He's serving 16 years sentenced. But Knox and her boyfriend had served almost four years of their 28 year sentence.

Amanda Knox responded on her website and quote, "I am deeply grateful that the Italian Supreme Court has filed its opinion and forcefully declared my innocence. This has been a long struggle for me, my family, my friends, and my supporters."

I want to bring in Forensic Scientist, Lawrence Kobilinski here because some of the things Dr. Kobilinski that this high court said, we're so outstanding. I don't know how this didn't come out at trial more forcefully than it did.

But effectively that there was a piece of evidence left on the scene for 46 days passed around workers with dirty latex gloves and it was one of the key pieces of evidence that bra clip Meredith Kercher that had DNA on it. How on earth could that have passed any master in any courtroom?

LAWRENCE KOBILKINSKI, FORENSIC SCIENTIST: It should not have happened. I mean once a crime scene is established. And the evidence collection team goes in to collect the evidence, they are not supposed to live behind any significant evidence.

Somehow, this little clasp from the back of the bra of the victim Meredith Kercher which is lying there in this area.

BANFIELD: Forty-six days.

KOBILKINSKI: Forty-six days is too long. And of course, it had some DNA from Raffaele Sollecito. So it was a key piece of evidence but it was tinted.

And we have to be very careful about contaminated tinted evidence because ultimately, we have to reconstruct the events. And if it's tinted and has somebody's DNA because maybe somebody can't accidentally...

BANFIELD: Do a very dirty latex gloves in passing the piece of evidence between of them. It's not just classic case of transfer evidence is what the defense attorneys all the time sees upon. How (inaudible) are you when you do the work?

[12:45:08] KOBILKINSKI: It's a classic case. We learned that from the O.J. case. You must change your gloves whenever you touch an item of evidence, you have to put new gloves on, some people will double glove.

BANFIELD: You can't set it down beside something or another piece of evidence was that had DNA on it.

KOBILKINSKI: You should not take a chance of contaminating those gloves.

I saw the original video of the evidence collection team collecting all the evidence and they did change gloves. But to this item, they clearly did not, they could've contaminated it and it's very difficult to reconstruct and interpret the results.

BANFIELD: Yeah well, you know what? It give us thoughts here in America where defense attorneys will see on these things, people will criticize them for trying to find loopholes. But it happens, if a bad collection and handling and change of custody can cause the destruction of someone's life.

KOBILKINSKI: Indeed, indeed.

BANFIELD: Lawrence Kobilinski, thank you as always...

KOBILKINSKI: Sure

BANFIELD: We appreciate it.

Coming up now, now that openly gay military members can serve without reprisal. What if all the veterans who were kicked out in years passed because of their sexual orientation?

Next you are going to meet an 82-year-old veteran who is fighting to get his honor back.

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[12:50:01] BANFIELD: The American dream is one part freedom, one part success, all wrapped up in sense of pride.

Into people who serve in the military take some special satisfaction, unless of course you are discharged, dishonorably or undesirably there is such a thing. And shame and depravation pretty much takeover and vanish that dream.

You might think you got to do something pretty gut awful to get that kind of a discharge like commit a crime or some kind of really awful misconduct. And you'd be right and it does get you a dishonorable discharge.

But for centuries the United States military also drummed out its service members just for being gay. They lost jobs, they lost benefit, they lost housing and they pretty much were a modern day scarlet letter.

It is estimated about a 100,000 people went through this since World War II. And now many of them are seeking to take back their honor. Some more than a half century later and that brings me Private Donald Hallman, who in 1955 was discharge for being labeled "A class two homosexual."

He wants his record restored. And all that comes along with that.

And he joins me today live. I'm also joined by Lori Gum with Stonewall Columbus an organization that helping servicemen like Private Hallman navigate the tricky government channels.

Private Hallman, if I can begin with you, I'd like to be able to call you Donald, I am so astounded at your story. I was reading a New York Times account that that has said that you were rated excellent in your reviews when you were in Frankfort back in 1955. You were recommended for a good conduct medal. What happened?

DONALD HALLMAN, ASKING DEPT. OF DEFENSE FOR HONORABLE DISCHARGE: Well I was, when I was in Frankfort, I met a male on the street and we started talking. And through a joint communication, I guess we agreed to do something together. But we never did.

And after -- shortly after the communication, I don't know who it was but I was somebody with the government called my attention, what I was doing.

And I'm 82-years-old, I want to see this resolved. I can't keep a secret for all these years. But then very successful in my life and three children and three grandchildren and 12 great grandchildren, I've been very successful I was president of drinking (ph) company.

Company -- human resource company and with roughly 2,200 employees from Indiana, Ohio and West Virginia. And I'm just very happy with my success. But they did sent us...

BANFIELD: I'm having trouble hearing your signal Donald I'm sorry I'm making utmost of what you're saying and that I just want to make sure our viewers know that back in 1955, you were caught up in a sting on the streets and that's how the military effectively got you and then toss you out very unceremoniously.

If I could just bring in Lori Gum for a moment. Lori, I was looking at these statistics again from the New York Times that approximately 500 requests like Donald Hallman has been submitted since the law allowed it basically the Obama Administration made the change in 2011.

But it's not easy like these upgrades and these changes in your designation. Why is it difficult, why is it taking so much time and why isn't everybody automatic?

LORI GUM, LGBT VETERANS DISCHARGE REVIEW PROGRAM: Well and that's what we're asking this isn't automatic. I mean just to get the military records themselves in order to make the application.

You get the military records are often incomplete, even some of the information it's been adapted if you can believe that.

And in Mr. Hallman's case there was a fire in 93 that the story many of his documents.

So when you're making the application and you're making the case, you know, the burden is on the veteran and very often they don't have the documents and the evidence to make that case for themselves to even really know what happened.

BANFIELD: Donald Hallman if I can ask you, I'm not sure how our signal is now. But it's important for me to know your feelings and what you might accomplish by all of these, apart from what so many of your colleagues have said that they want the authenticity of their life and their service acknowledged.

Are there a lot of benefits that going forward you can still get and that you like to seek or this truly a principle effort on your behalf?

HALLMAN: This is a, I just might clear it out of my life. Live with it personally for all these years, my children nobody knew about it. And if they had, I probably would not have been a success in my life.

[12:54:59] And I brought it up to my daughter and I discuss it because she wanted to know about my life in the military, and (inaudible) and told her. And it just broke my heart but I'm glad I did. And I want so much to see justice given to people like myself.

I committed no crime. I joined the military to defend my country. And that's what I wanted to do and I plan to retire in the military. And this is what happened to me.

At 82-years-old, I want my records cleared and I'm very happy about the life and the success that I've had in my life.

BANFIELD: Well Private Hallman, I appreciate you taking the time to speak with us today, I would like to thank you for service 60 years ago. I'd like to be on record for thanking you publically for your service. I hope things work out for you, I love an update if you can. And Lori Gum maybe you can help get us that information so we can update our viewers as well. Thank you to you both, I appreciate it.

HALLMAN: Thank you.

BANFIELD: Thank you everyone for watching as well, it's been nice to have you with us for this hour. I'm going to turnover to helm to my colleague Wolf. He starts right after this quick break.

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