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Whitey Bulger Trial Starts Today; Ex Cop on Trial for Wife's Murder; Does Jill Kelley Have a Case?

Aired June 4, 2013 - 11:30   ET

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


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: There are fugitives from justice, and then there's Whitey Bulger. And if his name sounds familiar, it darn well should because this guy has a rap sheet longer than the Erie Canal. And his notorious crimes stretch back to the days of Alcatraz. He served a four-year stint there during a nine-year prison sentence. But perhaps not content to start fresh, he was accused of a new string of crimes, and then he vanished. After that, witnesses came out against him and the list of charges grew. 19 murders, extortion, money laundering, racketeering, and that is just the tip of the iceberg. And it took the feds a decade and a half to find him. In a rent-controlled apartment in Santa Monica where police say, stashed within the walls, was nearly a million dollars in cash, 30 different weapons, one apparently a hand grenade. Quite a tale.

His trial will start today in Boston, and they may need almost every single one of the 675 potential jurors who showed up for duty today. Bulger has pleaded not guilty, but the big question is, can a notorious criminal like Whitey get a fair trial?

Let's bring in our legal panel, defense attorney, Danny Cevallos, and former prosecutor, Monica Lindstrom, joining me.

Hello, to both of you.

Danny, let me start with you.

This judge says that say jury selection process for Whitey should only take a week. Excuse me?

(LAUGHTER)

How on earth are they going to get a jury in a week in it this it case?

DANNY CEVALLOS, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, the judge must have some reason for thinking that. Remember, in a high-profile case, the inquiry during jury selection shifts. It's unrealistic to find jurors who have never heard of the defendant or what he's been involved in. Instead, you assume that almost all of them will have some knowledge about it in a high-profile case, so you ask, knowing what you know, do you believe that you can still be fair and impartial? And then, of course, depending upon the answer, the different attorneys are going to use their read or whatever they already know and either challenge that juror or accept that juror. But while harder, the judicial system is founded on the idea that any jury potentially could be a fair one.

BANFIELD: Any jury could be a fair one. You know, I always say it. I repeat it a lot. If you can find a jury for O.J. Simpson, you can find a jury for Whitey Bulger.

Monica, maybe this is the bigger question, then -- 17 years he's been on the lam and some of these crimes span back decades. So you're talking about evidence that is, you know, kind of atrophied. You're talking about witnesses whose memories have atrophied and you're probably talking about a lot of witnesses who are dead, long gone. So isn't it really tough to get convictions when you're talking about what might have been at one time cold cases?

MONICA LINDSTROM, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY & FORMER PROSECUTOR: Yeah. Prosecutors hate having cases this old because exactly what you said, Ashleigh, it is hard to prove those cases when evidence gets old. Witnesses forget things. Their memories get clouded. Evidence can be lost. There can be chain of custody issues. There's all kinds of problems when you're dealing with cold cases or old cases.

And the fact about the jury selection coming together with an old case makes it even more important. I don't think there's any way possible you're going to really get a fair trial here. And what I mean by that is, like Danny said, the jurors have probably all heard about him at one point or another. Common sense kicks in here, Ashleigh. They're going to have that in the back of their mind. And even if some of this evidence is old or may be a little questionable, their subconscious already knows this guy's history. And do you really think they're going to sit there and look at it as if they didn't know anything about his history?

(CROSSTALK)

BANFIELD: You know, I don't normally call people an ex-con before trial except that he's an ex-con.

(LAUGHTER)

He's already served for more than one crime. We're going to watch this case. We'll have you both back to talk about how it progresses. It should be a couple of months' worth of testimony.

Danny and Monica, thank you so much.

Our next case involves a former cop on trial for killing his wife and setting his house on fire with the kids still inside that inferno. Look at that. He says she did it. She did it all in a suicide attempt. The trouble is, some of the evidence, that pesky forensic stuff, is just not adding up. We are seeking "day-time justice" on this one. Coming back after the break.

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BANFIELD: I'm not sure it could look much worse for an ex-cop in Kansas today. Brett Seacat is charged with first-degree murder in his wife's death. On day nine of his trial, it looks bad. It actually looks really bad. There are mounds of forensic evidence against this man, and damning testimony from co-workers and friends. He's been accused of shooting his wife, Vashti, in her sleep on April 30, 2011, also accused of setting fire to their house to cover it up. He claims she did all that herself in a suicide attempt.

We're digging deeper into this investigation, and we found this eye- opening exchange from his police interrogation tape.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRETT SEACAT, ACCUSED OF KILLING WIFE: I'm smart enough that if I wanted to kill my wife it would have been a lot -- I could have come up with something better than that. This is (EXPLETIVE DELETED) insane. This is what a crazy person does.

UNIDENTIFIED DETECTIVE: No, not necessarily.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Love that detective, "no, not necessarily." Now, look at this. This is being called the so-called suicide note. It says, "Brett, I can't do this. I can't figure this out. Take care of our boys." The prosecution says this is a fake, that it was forged by Brett himself. And then there's this eerie testimony from a co-worker saying that Vashti even predicted her own demise, right down to the exact way the prosecution says she was murdered.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOY TROTNIC, WITNESS: Do you think Brett would burn the House down with me in it? And I looked at her and I said, what? And she said, do you think Brett would burn the house down with me in it? And I was taken aback by that. I said, not with the kids at home.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Yikes. With witnesses like that, it begs the question, does Brett Seacat stand a chance?

Ted Rowlands is live in Kingman, Kansas. Also with me, defense attorney, Danny Cevallos, and criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor, Monica Lindstrom. Monica has worked as a divorce mediator, helping couples resolve their differences and make a fresh start. I say that because that's what the victim in this case was trying to do, divorce Brett and make a fresh start.

Ted, I want to start with you.

You're on this case and, apparently, a handwriting expert got on the stand to talk about that note that we just showed. What did the expert say about it?

TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, basically, it's a forgery. That's according to the state's expert. He said that likely somebody traced this, forged suicide note. The prosecution maintains that Seacat used her diary to do just that, used an overhead projector, which he had some co-workers unearth at his job as a law enforcement training official. And they say that he practiced it and that's how he did it. Now, the defense who will start their case later today, they will have their own expert on the stand to refute this one, but this was pretty compelling testimony. In this expert's estimation, it was an absolute forgery.

BANFIELD: Danny, let me ask you something. We just heard that co- worker talking about what the victim in this case said to her about her fear of potentially dying in a fire. Remind me why that's not hearsay.

CEVALLOS: Well, in a case like this. Hearsay is an out-of-court statement offered to prove the truth of the matter asserted in that statement. So the statement has to be offered for its truth. It's not offered for its truth that that's what happened. It can be used to show an awareness on the part of the hearer or the state of mind of that person when they made that statement. There are a number of different -- there are so many exceptions to the hearsay rule that some observers say that the exceptions swallow the rule itself. Even in the definition of what hearsay is, it must be an assertion of truth. For whatever reason, the court determined that that was, evidentiarily speaking, admissible.

BANFIELD: You don't always get to hear that kind of thing, what victims say about -- suggestions that they're going to be killed by someone. And sometimes you do.

Quickly, Monica, let me ask you this. There was a psychotherapist who testified and also co-workers who testified that Vashti was no depressed sole. This is the whole notion of the defense. She was depressed, she committed suicide, there was that note. They all say she was working out, she was happy, she was in great spirits. And she herself told her counselor, I would never commit suicide because I'm very religious and I could not leave my boys behind. How powerful are those kinds of statements when it comes behind the defense's statement, you never know what goes on inside someone's marriage.

LINDSTROM: That's right, Ashleigh. You don't know what happens between two people when you're not there, but this kind of evidence is evidence that the jurors can understand. They might get lost sometimes in the difficulty of the forensic evidence, and the gunshot was where, and how the fire started and all of that, but when you look at what co-workers are testifying to, what a psychotherapist is testifying to, that's easy for them to understand. They can grasp that. They can basically internalize that and see that happening in their own lives. It's easy to understand. So that makes that evidence so powerful. So when they go back into the room and deliberate, they may look at the forensics stuff and go, hmm, that's kind of confusing, I'm not really sure about that, but this, this is what she was doing before she died. I don't think it was depression. I don't think it was suicide. So it's extremely powerful, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: Kind of narrative that can stick for sure.

Monica, Danny, thank you.

Ted Rowlands, thanks for your work as well following that case for us. We're going to continue to follow it, too.

Do you remember David Petraeus? Of course, you do. Front-page news for months because he had a mistress. Not this woman. She was the third woman in that saga, Jill Kelley. She says her privacy was invaded and their affair ruined her life, and now she's suing. But it's amazing who she's suing. The question is, does she have a case? Coming up next.

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BANFIELD: Jill Kelley, the woman who got caught up in the David Petraeus sex scandal, is taking some action and suing federal officials. She says they violated her privacy, wrongfully searched her personal e-mails, and then leaked false information about her to the press. This story is a big web of people and e-mails, so follow with me. It starts with the former CIA director, David Petraeus. He admitted to having an affair with Paula Broadwell, his biographer. That was after Broadwell anonymously e-mailed Petraeus' friend, Jill Kelley, and said, stay away from Petraeus, he is my man. Kelley did not like those e-mails. She called the FBI. She was worried. Kelley then landed in the spotlight herself because the FBI said it potentially found some inappropriate e-mails with another famous general, General John Allen. And now Kelley is suing but not specific people, just generally people. He here's the big question, does Kelley have a case?

Defense attorney, Danny Cevallos, is back with me, and former prosecutor, Monica Lindstrom, is joining me again.

So this is a tough one. Clearly, this woman feels she was very wronged by a lot of the information leaked out to the press. She herself hadn't done anything wrong.

Danny, can you just blanket sue the government, people in the government, or do you have to name someone and show exactly what that person did?

CEVALLOS: Well, the way the government works is that it operates under sovereignty, which means you cannot sue the crown, you cannot sue the king or the queen, unless the government gives permission. And in this case, the Privacy Act does provide a civil remedy when the government, through law enforcement, obtains information electronically or otherwise and then fails to either store it or does not safeguard it. Those are all independent causes of action. So as a general rule, you cannot sue the government unless it has given prior permission. And usually that's through a federal or a state statute allowing for that liability. But that's the only way to do it. Otherwise, the government is immune.

BANFIELD: So, Monica, help me out here, because I recall, as this case began to break down, they were fast and loose with some of the facts that came out. I think at one point suggesting that she had shared tens of thousands of e-mails with General John Allen. I think maybe the statistic was, at one point, there were tens of thousands of e-mails in an account that had to be sifted through to see which were to John Allen. But this snowballed and that woman was surrounded by the press at this point. Need I remind everybody, she was effectively a victim in all of this, right?

LINDSTROM: Well, she says she was a victim of this. Let's look at e- mails.

(CROSSTALK)

BANFIELD: Monica, whoa, whoa, whoa. Look, she was a victim. She had threatening e-mails. That's a fact. She got threatening e-mails from Paula Broadwell saying stay away from my -- you know.

LINDSTROM: Yeah. So you had one girlfriend telling the other girlfriend, stay away from my boyfriend. I mean, are those really considered threatening? If we look deeper and deeper into e-mails perhaps there were some legitimate physical threats or more blackmailing, et cetera, et cetera.

But let's look at e-mails that were between her and the gentlemen, the government officials here. Were they sent from personal e-mails to another personal e-mail? To government addresses? Were there text messages or e-mails going to phones that government was paying for? When you're doing something like that, I don't think you can really claim that you have an expectation of privacy in those, because you are literally sending them to the government. They not only have to sift through the wording of the e-mails but where were the e-mails? Were they government, personal, what was going on? There's a lot of issues there. Overall, if you're cheating or flirting, you'll have bad karma here. When doing it with the government, you're going to have bad karma.

(CROSSTALK)

BANFIELD: I don't know that anyone suggested she was cheating. Maybe flirtatious. In the end, it was determined it was all in innocuous fun about and no one ended up getting further in trouble. I'm interested to see if this gets tossed out or litigated.

Danny Cevallos and Monica Lindstrom, thank you both. It's good to see you.

We are back after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: As we near the noon hour on the east coast, want to check in on the movement on the New York Stock Exchange. Market is up slightly, just five. But before I came on the air live to tell you that, it was up six. Bit of fluctuation.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: There are a few things that Erika will never forget. She was the last bombing victim from Boston to leave the hospital. She'll never forget what happened to her or the long road back that she faces or the image of the woman she says saved her life.

Here's Randi Kaye.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ERIKA BRANNOCK, BOSTON BOMBING SURVIVOR: Every once in a while --

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's almost time for Erika to leave the hospital, she's getting one last pedicure from her nurses. Above the bed, a dragonfly hangs.

BRANNOCK: It had the saying that does way symbol of strength and courage and getting through hard times. So kind of been like my mascot.

KAYE: "Hard times" is an understatement. On marathon day, Erika, her sister and brother-in-law had gone to see her mother run. They were standing near the finish line when the bomb went off.

BRANNOCK: I fell backwards. I could hear the sirens and people crying and screaming.

KAYE: Erika was almost screaming -- for help. The lower part of her left leg had been blown off and her right leg was broken.

BRANNOCK: This woman crawled over to me and she grabbed my hand and she heard me screaming for help and she said, my name is Joan from California, I'm not going to let you go. And she stayed with me the whole time.

KAYE: Joan used her belt as a tourniquet on Erika's leg. Erika never got Joan's last name or contact, but swears the woman in the yellow jacket with brown hair saved her life. She desperately wants to find her and thank her.

(on camera): In all, Erika had 11 surgeries, and each time, she'd be wheeled down the hallway through the doors, where she'd pick up the elevator. She learned the wing of the hospital back there had been shut down because that's where the surviving bombing suspect, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, was being held. She started to have nightmares about him, nightmares that he was going to blow up the hospital, so she met with the FBI who assured her that he was going to do nothing of the sort, that he would never hurt her again.

(voice-over): Erika had brighter moments, too. Like a visit from Kevin Spacey. But what's kept Erika going is the preschool class she teaches in Maryland. This girl made her a video on YouTube with help from mom.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What did you want to tell her?

UNIDENTIFIED GIRL: I love you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What else did you tell me? You missed her very --

UNIDENTIFIED GIRL: Very much. Bye.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: In Maryland, Erika will start physical therapy and learn to walk with a prosthetic leg. Her motto is, "She's one tough cookie." She knows it will be one long road ahead but with a send off this big --

(APPLAUSE)