All In with Chris Hayes, Transcript 03/16/15

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST (voice-over): Tonight on ALL IN -- ROBERT DURST: There it is. You`re caught. Killed them all, of course. HAYES: The shocking finale to "The Jinx." ANDREW JARECKI, DIRECTOR, "THE JINX": He is very frank about the things that he`s frank about. HAYES: And the arrest of Robert Durst. DICK DEGUERIN, ROBERT DURST`S LAWYER: Bob Durst didn`t kill Susan Berman. HAYES: Tonight, as "The Jinx" filmmakers cancel all interviews, and as Durst waives extradition to L.A. on murder charges, the judge who presided over his last murder trial joins us. Then, criticisms of conservatives on Ferguson from conservatives. Plus, a new ad on the eve of the Israeli election. CHUCK NORRIS, ACTOR: I`ve done three movies in Israel. "Delta Force" being my favorite. A new theory of bracketology on the eve of March Madness. And a new look at celebration on the eve of St. Patrick`s Day. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Don`t you want to celebrate Ireland`s great accomplishments, like Michael Lohan and vomiting into a bag pipe? HAYES: ALL IN starts right now. (END VIDEOTAPE) HAYES: Good evening from New York. I`m Chris Hayes. Moments ago, the Los Angeles County district attorney announced that Robert Durst, heir to one of New York`s greatest real estate fortunes, a man who has been tied to three murders, three murder disappearances and acquitted of one, has been charged with one count of first degree murder with special circumstances of murder of a witness and lying in wait and gun use allegations. Durst is currently being held in Louisiana without bail, awaiting extradition to Los Angeles. The capital murder charge makes Durst eligible for the death penalty. Prosecutors say they have not decided whether or not they would pursue that option. Durst was arrested the day before the stunning finale to an HBO documentary series called "The Jinx." We were supposed to speak with the filmmakers tonight, but they canceled all media, citing concerns they would are called as witnesses in the case. More on that later. First, the new case against Robert Durst. Durst was arrested over the weekend in New Orleans. According to authorities, he was in possession of a .38 revolver and was checked into a French Quarter hotel under a fake name. Today, he appeared in court and agreed to be extradited to California to face murder charges in the 2000 death of his friend Susan Berman. She was found dead in her home on Christmas Eve, almost 15 years ago, a single gunshot wound to the head. Durst was a suspect in her killing, but never charged. But now, Los Angeles officials say they have new evidence linking him to her murder. Los Angeles County district attorney saying prosecutors have been working with the LAPD for the past two years on the cold case murder. Robert Durst extradition is currently delayed while New Orleans prosecutors decide on other charges. But his lawyers say they are eager to start a murder trial in California. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DICK DEGUERIN, ROBERT DURST`S LAWYER: Let me just say that we came here to waive jurisdiction, and go back to California and get it on. Bob Durst didn`t kill Susan Berman. And he`s to end all the rumor and speculation. We`re ready to go to California and have a trial. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: This extraordinary turn of events looks to have been catalyzed by Robert Durst`s own participation in the HBO documentary series "The Jinx." Director Andrew Jarecki told his impressions of Robert Durst last month before the series. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JARECKI: He is very frank about the things she very frank about. You know, people concerned themselves with things that he says that maybe turn out not to be true, but he is disarmingly honest about a lot of things that you or I would never consider to be things that we would give away if we could imagine being in his situation. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Last night, that series, which had been years in the making, "The Jinx", came to a stunning conclusion, the final episode, as a microphone appeared to pick up the sound of Robert Durst himself on a bathroom visit immediately after his final interview with Jarecki mumbling under his breath. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DURST: There it is. You`re caught. You`re right, of course. But you can`t imagine. I`m having difficulty with the questions. What the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Killed them all, of course. Over the last three decades, Robert Durst has been linked to two deaths and a disappearance. He only went on trial for one of them. That`s the 2000 death of his neighbor in Galveston, Texas. Durst admitted to shooting the 71-year-old, dismembering his body and dumping the pieces into the bay. At this 2003 trial, his legal team argued it was in self defense. The jury agreed and he was acquitted after five days of deliberations. But the reason he was in Galveston in the first place, according to his testimony, is because New York prosecutors reopened the case into the 1982 disappearance of his wife, Kathy, who has long been presumed dead. In connection with that case, investigators sought to speak to Durst`s close friend, Susan Berman. But before they could speak with her, she was found dead in her home, shot in the head. An anonymous letter, believed to have been mailed the day she was killed was sent to the Beverly Hills PD alerting them to a cadaver at her address. Police were never able to link that letter to anyone and the case went cold. But during the making of the documentary "The Jinx", filmmakers came into possession of another handwritten letter sent from Robert Durst to Susan Berman before her death. They noticed the writing on the envelope looked very similar to the letter alerts police to her body. Then, as shown in last night`s incredible finale of the documentary series, the filmmakers questioned Durst about the two letters. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DURST: The writing looking similar and the spelling is the same so I can see the conclusion. The cops would draw. But whether the writing, whether you can conclude they are from the same person -- JARECKI: And I think, this is a comparison of the two, right? Which is -- DURST: Very similar. JARECKI: So I guess the question is, did you write the cadaver note? DURST: No, I didn`t write the cadaver note. JARECKI: So you wrote one of these but you didn`t write the other one? DURST: I wrote this note, but I didn`t write the cadaver note. JARECKI: So, can you tell me which one you didn`t write? DURST: No. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: In the documentary, it appears it was that line of questioning that led Durst to mumble to himself that he, quote, "killed them all." And now, late today, Los Angeles County district attorney has officially charged Robert Durst with one count of first degree murder, with special circumstances of murder of a witness, and lying in wait and gun use allegations for the death of Susan Berman. Joining me now, former public defender David Feige, professor at the National Criminal Defense College, author of "Indefensible", our go-to for legal guidance. All right. David, so -- DAVID FEIGE, NATIONAL CRIMINAL DEFENSE COLLEGE: Yes. HAYES: -- first of all, do you -- I mean, as an experienced criminal lawyer, what was going through your head when you saw that tape of him in the bathroom having this conversation with himself that sounds massively incriminating? FEIGE: It was shocking, I have to tell you. And oddly, my reaction when he was confronted with the letters was not, oh my God, this guy is clearly guilty. He was so calm. HAYES: Yes. FEIGE: He was so deliberate. I came out of that thinking wait, this is the revelation, this big confrontation? And I did not know the bathroom mumblings were coming, and I have to say, the very beginning just nailed it for me, "You`re caught." HAYES: What do we make of this legally? OK, we all heard this. I think it is easy given the context of this guy. If you look at it and you`re kind of taken Occam`s razor approach to this, as opposed to like, you know, sitting in a jury box talking about reasonable doubt. FEIGE: Right. HAYES: You have suspicions. You listen to this, those suspicions get strengthened. Is that going to make it into court? Is that an admissible piece of evidence in a Los Angeles criminal court? FEIGE: So, let me divide that into two questions. Will it come in? And should it come in? The answer to will it come in is, yes? The question of, should it come in, is probably yes. And what I`d say is, the difference between the probably and the definitely is the politics of this prosecution. HAYES: What do you mean by that? What is there a difference between will it come in and should it? Let`s talk about talk should it come in? Under the law, why is it not 100 percent solid that it should come in? FEIGE: Well, OK, because first of all, let`s be clear: it`s an out of court statement, right, by the declarant, offered for the truth of the matter. That makes it absolutely hearsay. The question is whether it falls under a hearsay exception. In California, it pretty clearly does under 1220, which is an admission by a party. This is pretty much an admission. It`s pretty clear. And there`s no question, Durst is a party. So, under the hearsay exemption, it`s almost certain to come in. Then, there are constitutional questions to the question of does it, come in, right? Three relevant amendments, the Fourth, the Fifth, and the Sixth. There is some a possible question about whether it was Fourth, search and seizure. Does he have a reasonable expectation of privacy? My suspension is, they will say it`s the bathroom, how could he have known? HAYES: And he`s miked. FEIGE: But he was miked and he knew he was miked, and he undoubtedly signed a bunch of consent forms. I mean, Andrew Jarecki is a terrific director. Believe me, he has that ironclad or I don`t -- I got to assume he does. So, that sort of out the window. It`s not really self- incrimination unless he argues that Jarecki was acting as an agent of the police, and that`s going to be a tough one, right? HAYES: This is a key point and this is something we`re going to talk about in a little bit, the timeline of when Jarecki started to talking to law enforcement, because whether this gets in, whether this is admissible is going to have to deal with whether there`s determination made that they were acting as an agent of law enforcement, which is going to get to a time line that we`re going to discuss in just a little bit. So, stay right there. David Feige, thank you very much. FEIGE: My pleasure. MADDOW: In 2001, Robert Durst was arrested in Galveston, Texas, and charged with the murder of his 71-year-old neighbor, Morris Black. Durst admitted to chopping up Black`s body, placing the pieces in trash bags and dumping them in the Galveston Bay. His $2 million defense team argued that it was all in self-defense, that Durst was, in fact, the victim of an angry neighbor who confronted him with his gun. But a struggle ensued and the gun went off. And in a panic, Durst chopped up his body and dumped the pieces in the city. The jury bought that defense and after five days of deliberations, Durst was acquitted of murder. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JUDGE: Foreman, I understand you have a verdict? FOREMAN: Yes, your honor. JUDGE: Will you hand it to the bailiff? Will the defendant please rise? For the verdict of the jury is such, the jury finds the defendant, Robert Durst, not guilty. DURST: Did they say "not"? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. DURST: Are you sure? (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Did they say not? Are you sure? Joining me now is the judge that read that verdict and president over Durst 2003 trial, retired Texas District Court Judge Susan Criss. Ms. Criss, your reaction to what has happened in the last 24 or 48 hours with the case of Robert Durst? SUSAN CRISS, FORMER TEXAS DISTRICT COURT JUDGE: Well, you always have to expect the unexpected with Robert Durst and the things going on in his life. Every time you think it is as shocking as it could be, something else happens that lets you know this case is so far from being over. HAYES: You sat in that courtroom, and that trial is taken by many as an object lesson in the ways that someone with ample resources can get something out of a justice system that someone without resources could. Is that fair conclusion when you watch a $2 million defense of a man with millions of dollars who admits to dismembering his neighbor, walk out a courtroom a free man? CRISS: Well, that`s the conclusion a lot of people had drawn. And he can certainly afford the best lawyers in the state, if not the country, and they did their job. There`s no question. But that`s not why he won his trial in my opinion. He won that trial because the state didn`t do their job. They came to court unprepared. They were -- they had not thought in advance of what questions they were going to ask. They challenged nothing that the defense did. The evidence they didn`t present. And in that situation the lawyer -- the guy with the prepared lawyers is going to win. But it wasn`t just having those -- that dream team of lawyers that got him out of this. HAYES: You have to make rulings on admissibility all of the time, or you did when you were a judge. Obviously, evidentiary laws are different in California than they are in the jurisdiction in Texas, but the constitutional issues are the same. What is your sense about the admissibility of that stunning piece of tape that we heard last night? CRISS: Well, I agree with some of the things that your expert had said already about the hearsay exceptions. But there is also another exception called excited utterance. Another reason would be to put it in that if he was so startled, by saying he thought he was caught, that that is another exception. Even if they were an agent of the police, and I don`t think they were, was he -- was this knowing (ph) voluntarily made? Well, yes. He contacted them. Knowing what the subject matter of the interview was. He came to them after many, many, many discussions. He voluntarily let himself be miked up. And it`s not the first time knowing that mic knowing that is still on when the interview stops. So, it`s going to be real hard for him to say he was tricked or coerced or that he had an expectation of privacy, or that this was taken from him in any way knowingly or voluntarily. Now, one of the odd things, one of many odd things about this is, there is not going to be any case law on whether the confession of someone who goes into a television interview voluntarily and admits to being a serial killer gets admitted. So, as usual, there is no precedent for anything that happens in this case. HAYES: Judge Susan Criss, thank you very much. The time line of events in Robert Durst life as shown in "The Jinx" is raising a lot of questions tonight. It`s prompting to ask whether the people behind the series intentionally misrepresented it to create suspense. More on that ahead. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: You are a documentarian, but this is an authorized biography? I mean, what is this? JARECKI: Well, I think it was clear that it was not going to be Bob`s story. HAYES: Right. JARECKI: It was not going to be an evening. It wasn`t dinner theater with Bob Durst, you know? It was going to be unique in that Bob Durst was going to talk to us for the first time ever. But at the same time he knows the kind of deep dive that we do. You know, the things that we have worked on. We are sort of obsessional about our research. So, if you wanted to do a pop piece about yourself, you`re not going to call me, you would call somebody else. So, I know that he was prepared for us to do the kind of work that we were going to do. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: That is part of my interview with the director of "The Jinx", Andrew Jarecki, a few days before the series premier last month. After participating in the series, Robert Durst was arrested for murder on Saturday, the day before the final episode of "The Jinx" aired. Is the timing of his arrest convenient? I`m supposed talk to Andrew Jarecki again tonight, along with his co-writer, Marc Smerling. But they`ve abruptly canceled their appearance. The reason they gave, next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: Breaking news at this hour: Robert Durst, the subject of the HBO documentary series "The Jinx" has been charged with first degree murder in connection with the shooting death of his friend Susan Berman in Los Angeles nearly 15 years ago. The filmmakers Andrew Jarecki and Marc Smerling were supposed to be here tonight, to discuss their series. I interviewed Jarecki before the show premiered last month, and we booked tonight`s interview last week. But this afternoon, Jarecki and Smerling abruptly canceled their appearance, not only on this program, but with other media outlets as well, including "The Tonight Show", offering this statement, "Given that we are likely to be called as witnesses in any case that law enforcement may decide to bring against Robert Durst, it is not appropriate for us to comment further on these pending matters." That decision followed an entire morning interviews in which Jarecki spoke to several different outlets about the case, and the timeline of events surrounding Robert Durst arrest in New Orleans on Saturday. A top official at the Los Angeles police department telling "The L.A. Times" the arrest was not tied to Sunday`s series finale of "The Jinx." "We based our actions on the investigation and the evidence. WE didn`t base anything we did on the HBO series." Jarecki told ABC News he`d been working with law enforcement for years. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Was there any kinds of deals over the timing of the arrest? JARECKI: No, of course. I mean, we -- (a), we don`t have that kind of power, we`re not in charge of the arrest timing, and we have no idea of the arrest timing. In fact, I was very nervous about it. I was on the phone with our main contact in law enforcement about 4:00 in the morning, two nights before, and I was saying, I`m uncomfortable. And I have security. I`ve never had security in my life. My family is uncomfortable. And I feel that this arrest should be made, but I understand you need to do what you need to do. But tell me where we are and I didn`t get any color on it. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: As to the time line behind making "The Jinx", that too was discussed at length, particularly the question of when the filmmakers` found apparent bathroom confession caught on tape after Robert Durst`s second and final interview with Andrew Jarecki. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JARECKI: And he got up and say goodbye and we thought that was the end. But his microphone kept recording, we always leave it on him, he knows that, and he went to the bathroom while it was recording. And it wasn`t until months later that we had an editor listening to material that we had just sort of left behind, thinking, well, now, we`ve got to listen to everything we got, go back and finish the series. And we discovered a shocking piece of audio. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "The New York Times" said two years, you said it was months later when you found this. JARECKI: Many months. I mean, it was obviously for us a shock, because it was many months since we sat down with him, and then, after sitting down with him, we though, well, we`ve got this sort of revelation, which is, he was unable to determine which of the two handwritings that we were showing was his own, and in fact, he we think both of them were his own. And then after that, he got off. And it was not until many months later that we actually, you know, realized that the more interesting revelation may have been the secret revelation. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: And in extensive interview today with Bruce Fretts in "The New York Times", Jarecki gave a date when that audio was discovered, June 12th, 2014. Joining me now is "New York Times" contributor, Bruce Fretts, who managed to talk with Andrew Jarecki and Marc Smerling before the media blackout began. Welcome. BRUCE FRETTS, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Thank you. HAYES: So, the timeline here is difficult to pin down. FRETTS: Yes. HAYES: And they seemed a little squirrely, frankly, when you tried to pin them down. Was that your sense? FRETTS: Yes. Well, that`s what I started the interview with. My editors were interested in sort out some of the discrepancies and the timeline. So, I start out by asking about this one particular, the second interview, the one that we see where they confront him with the letter seemed to happen as you watch the film, after he had been arrested on his brother`s door stoop for a violation of order of protection. This sort of made it seemed like that led to the interview. But when you actually look at the debate, it seems like the interview happened before the arrest. And maybe they had played around with the timing a bit. So that raised some questions and they didn`t really have a direct answer for me. HAYES: Yes. So, it seems like there`s a chronological issue, which is that in the way things appeared basically were in 2012. We jump ahead to 2013. We jump back to 2012 without any time slates telling us -- FRETTS: Right. HAYES: -- that what we seen has been rearranged chronologically. FRETTS: Exactly, yes. HAYES: The deeper more profound issue here, right, which has to do with the duty of the documentarian, and what the role they are inhabiting - - FRETTS: Yes. HAYES: -- is when they discover -- you know, they`re investigating this open case, and we`re getting these dates, 2012, 2013, this is two or three years ago, right? The evidence is floating around. You have this person who is expected of doing horrible violent things. FRETTS: Yes. HAYES: And now, he`s being arrested. And just like, I can`t cash out -- like when do they talk to who? FRETTS: Well, I mean, their explanation is that the interview happened two or three years ago, almost three years ago, and they didn`t discover the audio until a few months when they hired new editors who came in and were listening to the end of the tape that haven`t been loaded into the editing machine. So, that`s their explanation. But in any case, they definitely held on to the evidence for some period of time before the arrest was made. Now, if they turned it over right away we don`t know, but there is some lack of clarity here on exactly when they started working with law enforcement. HAYES: I think there is also sort of an ethical issue here, right, about like if you -- like what role are you inhabiting when you discover some important bit of evidence. FRETTS: Right. HAYES: I don`t think a journalist has any requirement to turn evidence over to authorities. I mean, if you are a journalist and your fidelity is to the story and reporting it out. FRETTS: Right. HAYES: But there is a timeline issue, it`s not usually the case that you`re -- you know, waiting three years to publish. FRETTS: Right. Well, I mean, the thing about "The Jinx" is that it`s kind of amalgam of drama and journalism. I mean, there`s reenactments within the film. They made a dramatic film about this case, that spurred this whole documentary. So, you know, it seems like they manipulated some of the evidence for dramatic effect. That spurred the whole documentary. So, it seems like they manipulated the elements for dramatic effect. But they are a combination of journalists and filmmakers to begin with. So, perhaps that is to be expected. HAYES: Yes, I feel like we`re sort of standing on really interesting ground right now. Of course, the pod cast, the serial life of someone who has been convicted, who is doing time for murder that he said he did not commit. This story as well, in which you sort of sit in that kind of interesting place between journalism and something that feels more like true crime entertainment. FRETTS: Yes, it`s entertainment, I mean, it`s HBO, it`s prime time. It`s on right before "Girls", you know? I mean, this isn`t hardcore network journalism. It`s something different. HAYES: Yes. And yet at the same time, the fascinating irony is that everything they did is now going to be in legal proceedings. FRETTS: Yes. HAYES: And so, if there is things edited, there are things left out - - there`s not a chain of evidence, that`s now going to become a legal issue precisely because the power of what they did was so immense that you now have pulled it right back into the real world of a legal proceeding. FRETTS: And that`s why I think they stopped talking. They realized that they were starting to reveal things that might come up later in a trial, that they might not want to have to answer for. HAYES: Bruce Fretts of "The New York Times", thank you very much. FRETTS: Thank you. HAYES: All right. I`m going to talk to someone who says the way the conservatives have reacted to the DOJ`s Ferguson report is bad for America. And here`s the kicker: he himself is a conservative himself. That`s next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: Police have arrested a suspect in the hooting of two police officers in Ferguson, Missouri. 20-year-old Jeffrey Williams was arrested Saturday and was charged the next day with assault in the first degree in relation to last Thursday`s shooting of two police officers during a protest outside the Ferguson police department. Both officers survived their wounds. The suspect, according to law enforcement authorities, acknowledged firing the shots, but maintains the police officers were not his target. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BOB MCCULLOUCH, ST. LOUIS COUNTY PROSOCUTING ATTORNEY: He may have had a dispute with some other individuals, or felt some dispute. We`re not sure we completely buy that part, but in any event, it is possible he was firing at some at some other people and the officers, of course, were in the path. However, it`s still an assault in the first degree. It`s a class A felony. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Prosecutors also said Mr. Williams had, according to the New York Times, quote, "attended the demonstration the evening of the shooting as well as previous rallies. Several protest leaders, however, quickly took to Twitter to deny that Mr. Williams was one of them or that they had even seen him among the crowd the night of the shooting." And today in an interview with NBC News, Mr. Williams lawyer stressed the following in this order. It was client`s intent to shoot police. He was not a demonstrator, and he later added his client did not take the shots in question. JERRYL CHRISTMAS ATTY. FOR JEFFREY WILLIAMS: I think I can be clear on the fact that this was not an ambush shooting, that there was -- there was not any goal to target the police and that he is not part of the protest community. I don`t think my client was involved in this shooting is what I`m saying. I think we have the right person in custody. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: The question of whether the alleged shooter was a demonstrator like just about everything in Ferguson has polarization people in very intense ways. That polarization was notably apparent in the days following the Justice Department`s harsh report on the Ferguson Police Department. Civil rights proponents and progressives embraced it for the most part, many saying anything less than the complete dismantling of the Ferguson police department would not be enough. While those who tend to side with law enforcement in these matters, including many, many conservatives accuse the Justice Department report of being predictably biased against the police. But our next writing on the conservative blog Red State makes the case that conservatives should care very much about many of the findings in that Justice Department report. Joining me now Leon Wolf, contributing editor at RedState.com, author of the piece. Many conservatives are blowing it on the Ferguson DOJ. Leon, it`s a really fantastic piece. It`s something I`ve been banging on about, so thank you for writing it. What`s your basic case here? LEON WOLF, REDSTATE.COM: Well, I think that a lot of people on both sides of the ideological spectrum are really kind of missing the boat when it comes to Ferguson, and it`s unfortunate in the way that it`s shaping our national dialogue. As I`m sure you`re aware, Chris, there were actually two department of justice reports issued concerning Ferguson. The first one dealt with the actual shooting of Michael Brown, and the second one dealt with the Ferguson P.D. at large. Liberals, for the most part I think, are ignoring the first of those, which tends to kind of decimate the hands up, don`t shoot, narrative. While conservatives have, in large part, ignored the second part of that, which shows that not withstanding what you feel about to Michael Brown, there was some serious problems with Ferguson P.D. that ought to be addressed. HAYES: Yeah, let me about that in quick succession. So, the first report on the shooting, right, finds that essentially there`s no cause for federal civil rights charges. And there`s sort of two standards there. One is that they don`t have, they can`t make a federal civil rights case, which is actually a harder case than just say, manslaughter case in the actual jurisdiction, but the second essentially reiterates some of the things that Machulla found about the credibility of various witnesses vis- a-vis, hands up, vis-a-vis, the encounter that happens, and the physical ballistic evidence, whether it corroborates some of those witnesses versus others. In terms of the Ferguson part of that, and you`re right that it basically, I think, backs up largely the determination of the grand jury and Bob McCulloch. In terms of the Ferguson part of it, what about it do you think is something that sort of, Conservatives should be especially attentive to? WOLF: Well, I think that conservatives, as much as liberals, or even more so in many cases, are attuned to civil rights issues. They feel very strongly about them and they oppose violations of civil rights by the police. I think where the disconnect comes in a lot of time is that conservatives are less likely to belief that they occur, or that they are as wide spread as they might be. And so, what I think is important for people to focus on is what this report shows is that in Ferguson, and I don`t think that Ferguson is especially unique in this regard -- HAYES: No. WOLF: Is that these civil rights violations are relatively common place. They come from essentially a top down pressure in many municipalities. It comes from city hall, it comes from city managers, that basically exerts pressure on police to write more tickets for the purpose of bolstering the city`s revenue. HAYES: This is why, this is why I was expecting sort of widespread conservative outrage in the report. Because in some ways, it`s the worst vision of big, bad government. I mean, here you have like, you have -- essentially turning armed agents of the state into revenue collectors first and fore most. Like, this whole thing is about extracting money from people for a public till. Which, when I think about like, when we talk about taxes as confiscation or all these other things, that just seems like a nightmare scenario. WOLF: It absolutely is. And not only in this case, but also if you look at the Eric Garner case. I mean, look at the offense that brought him to the attention to the police. Selling looseys on the street. It`s absurd. I mean, you know, people focus on the police, and I think there are issues with the police that need to be addressed, but also, we need to address these municipal ordinances. The increasing reach of the state. And one the things that I covered in my post that was most infuriating to me is the facial overbreadth (ph) of a lot of these statutes that allows the police, in many cases, to stop people for no other reason than committing what you could call contempt of cop. HAYES: That`s a really, really good point. Leon Wolf, thank you, and thank you for writing it, and thank you for appearing. I really appreciate it. WOLF: Thanks for having me on, Chris. HAYES: Alright, Chuck Norris fact, it`s not only desperate American politicians who turn to the actor for last minute campaign add. Now, Benjamin Netanyahu has, as well. I am not making that up, and you`re going to get to see it, next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CHUCK NORRIS, ACTOR: I`m Chuck Norris, and I would like to say hello to all of my friends in Israel. JON VOIGHT, ACTOR: Hi. I`m Jon Voight. I love Israel. NORRIS: I watched Prime Minister Netanyahu`s speech before congress. VOIGHT: President Obama does not love Israel. NORRIS: I have done three movies in Israel, Delta Force being my favorite. VOIGHT: He doesn`t want Bibi Netanyahu to win this upcoming election. NORRIS: So I ask you to vote for Prime Minister Netanyahu on election day. VOIGHT: I pray to God to keep Israel safe, and America as well. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: In America, you know a campaign is going badly when it has to bring in right-wing celebrities to make cheaply produced, last minute pitches. Desperate times call for desperate measures. For Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose Likud party has fallen behind in the home stretch going into tomorrow`s parliamentary elections. Multiple polls have shown Likud trailing four seats behind the center-left Zionist union. And, in what appears to be a last ditch attempt to sure up his base and draw support away from smaller, right wing parties, Netanyahu celebrities to make is stepping up the nationalist rhetoric. In a rambling Facebook post that read like some kind of info wars conspiracy theory, he blamed his faltering campaign on an illegitimate coalition of leftist politicians, media outlets and NGOs, funded by shadowy tycoons and foreign governments. Quote, "Those foreign organizations understand that if the Zionist Union is in charge, they will give up everything. They`ll withdraw to the 1967 boundaries and they will divide Jerusalem..." Yesterday, Netanyahu warmed a right wing rally in Tel Aviv of the danger posed by a potential left wing government. Reassuring the crowd that as long as Likud is in power, there will be no concessions or withdrawals from the occupied territories. Thanks, in large part, to his hardline on settlements, critics have long questioned the Prime Minister`s commitment to a two-state solution, but the separate Palestinian state alongside Israel. Something he publicly endorsed back in 2009. His administration has consistently rejected those questions, as did his spokesman Mark Regev when I asked him about it last summer, during the Gaza War and after the collapse of U.S. led peace talks. MARK REGEV, NETANYAHU SPOKESPERSON: When you want to see a situation of two states for two peoples, where you have an independent Jewish state living side by side and an independent Palestinian state in peace and in cooperation. HAYES: Today, however, almost six years after committing to establish a Palestinian state, Netanyahu gave the lie to his spokesman and proved his critics right. In an interview published on the N.R.G website, he said, quote, "I think anyone who is going to establish a Palestinian state today and evacuate lands, is giving attack grounds to radical Islam against the state of Israel..." Asked if that meant there would be no Palestinian state if he were to continue as Prime Minister, Netanyahu responded correct. I spoke with Daniel Levy of the European Council on Foreign Relations who worked on peace talks under two Israel Prime Ministers and asked for his reaction to Netanyahu`s apparent reversal. DANIEL LEVY, EUROPEAN COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: Well, I think beyond Israel`s shores, Prime Minister Netanyahu policies and actions all suggested he was never serious. He`s been dishonest on the Palestinian issue, just as I imagine he`s being dishonest today on the Iran issue. This is actually a rare moment of truth telling by the Israeli Prime Minister. Unfortunately, for an Israeli leader to be dissembling his intentions towards the Palestinians is not so new. In the domestic contents, this seems to be Prime Minister Netanyahu desperate. Doubling down on a strategy where he`s fighting with other right wing parties for the vote of the home base, rather than trying to reach out to for the center. That does not bode well for him. HAYES: Yeah, there`s a sense in which he seems to be now pivoting to right. Trying to ward of challenges from ----, among other, who are fighting for that same block of votes. Is this a smart electorial tactic that we`re seeing from Netanyahu down the stretch? LEVY: Well, I don`t think so. I think that this is more likely to turn away further, more centerist, soft right voters, who are more interested in cost of living issues, and the cost of housing in the squeezed middle class, in the working poor, and they may well go to other parties, as they seem to be doing if the polling is to be believed and if the momentum is with the opposition. Doubling down on a strategy where you`re fighting for the hard right vote is unlikely to reclaim the lost ground if the poles are to be believed. HAYES: How much do American politics, American endorsements, Jon Voigt, Chuck Norris, a string of American Republican conservatives, how much -- is that theater? Is that for our consumption weirdly here? Does that matter to Israeli voters? LEVY: Zero. It is purely for your consumption, Chris. You know this is a prime minister who has, you know, become a card carrying measure of the GOP. I don`t know who is using who, whether it`s the Republicans using him to fight against the president or he is using them to try and sabotage a potentially very good Iran nuclear deal and drag people to war. But no, this nonsense does not play out in any meaningful way with the Israeli electorate. HAYES: The Israeli center-left, the Labor Party, which has now formed into a coalition called The Zionist Union with Tzipi Livni who people may have heard of. If they have a lead of four or five plus seats, and Israeli politics involves 10, 11 parties, half a dozen perhaps in a coalition. But if that lead is real, if it is extended, if it bears out, Herzog could form a coalition not together with Netanyahu and the speech at a settler rally and the comment on no Palestinian State make that even more difficult, but he could form a coalition with centrists, with Likud breakaway faction, with the ultra-orthodox, this is a kind of crown heights (ph) crew, not the settlers, the people who are religiously fundamentalist, but are not the kind of chauvinist nationalist settler right that have been in the current government. HAYES: Fascinating. Daniel Levy, thank you very much. LEVY: Thank you. HAYES: Every year, I love this time of year, spring is around the corner. And during this particular week there are three big things that go together: massive drinking, St. Patrick`s Day, and NCAA brackets, not necessarily in that order, but we will be talking about them in that order ahead. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TINA FEY, ACTRESS: Well 911 is still busy. What can be causing so many medical emergencies today. Oh, right, an Irish religious festival. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Yes, tomorrow is St. Patrick`s Day and the city of Chicago celebrated this weekend with a parade on Saturday under sunny skies and as you can see in this time lapsed video of the annual dying green of the Chicago river. The vast majority of revelers were, well, I`m just sort of assuming here, well behaved, just out for a good time, certainly those folks in that shot. But in the neighborhood of Wrigleyville near Wrigley Field, things got a little ugly, but the website Crime in Wrigleyville and Boydtown, documenting the mayhem. Among the lowlifes, an intoxicated woman banging her head on the concrete, a group of 20 men fighting inside a McDonalds -- wonder if that tape will show up on Fox News on an endless loop -- a man lying unconscious on the sidewalk as passersby took selfies with him, someone passed out in the bathroom at Walgreens, and a 20-year-old, quote, wearing a green vest with blood all over his face. I used to live in Chicago and it did not take long to learn not to go anywhere near Wrigleyville on Saint Paddie`s weekend, or really any other time when there`s not a Cubs game. But since many Americans aren`t celebrating until tomorrow, we wanted to take this opportunity for a public service announcement. And it`s just this: guys, hold it together. Seriously. Well right, when we come back, some much happier St. Patrick`s News. Stay with us. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Top of the morning to ye on this gray, drizzly afternoon. Kent O. Brockman (ph) live on Main Street where today everyone is a little Irish, except of course for the gays and the Italians. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: The city of Boston where more than 15 percent of the population is of Irish ancestry, held its St. Patrick`s Day parade today, and it was a historic one. For the first time in the parade`s 114 year history, two LBGT groups were permitted to march in the parade under their banner. Out Vets, which represents gay military veterans, and the gay rights group Boston Pride. The reversal prompted the Boston mayor Martin Walsh to break his boycott and become the first mayor to march in the parade in 20 years. Now, New York City holds its parade tomorrow. And there is some progress there, too, to report on. For the first time, an openly gay group will be allowed to march under it`s own banner, that group is out Out@NBCUniversal, our very own, an LGBT rights and support group at NBC Universal, which includes MSNBC. Now, this is a battle that goes back decades, when a small group of openly gay New Yorkers marched as guests of another group in 1991 after a compromise brokered by then Mayor David Dinkins. The gay marchers were booed and mocked throughout the parade with spectators yelling anti-gay epitaphs and some just screaming the word AIDS. Out@NBCUiversal is the only LGBT group allowed to march under its banner this year. In a statement New York group Irish Queers said that while it welcomes this cracking of the veneer of hate, so far Irish LGBT groups are still not able to march in our community`s parades. The fight continues. New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio agrees. He`s vowed not to march until the parade`s organizers become more inclusive of gay groups. The inclusion of one LGBT group in this year`s parade is important progress. But until gay groups are fully welcomed in New York City and everywhere else, we will not yet have finally put the ugly scenes of the past behind us. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: So I don`t know if you know this about me, but I love basketball, obsessively love basketball. And every year for years I would fill out a bracket -- one or two or three brackets sometimes. And today is the day when you get the emails inviting you to join your friends from high school bracket, and your office bracket. And I`ve stopped filling out brackets and I`m going to tell you why I stopped filling out brackets, I`ve stopped doing it, because it makes the tournament sad for me. And the reason is, is that you fill out a bracket and you pick some team you care nothing about to go to the Final Four, and they are a one or two seed, and then some amazing Cinderella team comes along and all of a sudden they`re up against that team. And your entire heart wants to root for George Mason or Virginia Commonwealth University, but you can`t because your stupid bracket has, you know, Duke beating them in the Sweet 16. I don`t care about Duke. I want to root for the team that`s awesome. So I stopped filling out brackets so I can root for the team that is awesome. Other thing about brackets is their engineered so that the safest thing to do is just give the best seeded teams all of the way through. Well, there is a new bracket on the market this year that tries to get rid of that wrinkle. Joining me now Neil Irwin, senior economics correspondent at The New York Times where he writes for the Upshot. So, Neil, the idea here is the problem you`re best to just have the number ones go through, the twos beat the 15s, and all of the way through. But that is no fun. How have you guys engineered your point system to reward picking upsets? NEIL IRWIN, THE NEW YORK TIEMS: So, the idea this is kind of like the stock market or like horse racing or like all kinds of markets out there where it doesn`t matter, it`s not just about picking the winner, it`s about picking a winner that nobody else picked. So, you get more points based on how many people picked a selection. So, for example, Kentucky is the overwhelming favorite. They`re a fantastic team. So you should get more points if you pick a upset against Kentucky than if you go with a leader, that`s the idea. HAYES: And that`s not the way most brackets work, right. Most brackets just score by round, so, you know, games in the first round are a certain point, games in the second round are another set of points and it doesn`t matter whether you`re getting the 1/16 game right or you`re getting the 5/12 game right. IRWIN: Yeah, sometimes there a bonus for an upset. But this is really a market based approach. The people pick a team, the more you get rewarded by going the other direction. So it really rewards you if you want to pick a bunch of upsets. HAYES: Wait a second, it`s dynamic so as people fill out the brackets it`s actually in real-time, like say Vegas odds, changing the points based on how favorited a team is? IRWIN: Exactly. So you can come back on Thursday right before tipoff and make some final selections based on where the odds are settling. The idea is that this is a market mechanism. And wherever people place their bets. You know, not all of the eight teams are favored over all the nine teams, the nine seeds. It`s not a perfect -- you know, based on the selection committee, they don`t get it exactly right if you believe the open market. And that`s how this works. HAYES: Well, that`s interesting, too, right, because what ultimately what your bracket will do will show the kind of real odds, right, the revealed preference independent of the actual seeding numbers? IRWIN: Right. So for example, Georgetown is a four seed. They`re playing, though, all over on the west coast in Oregon against Eastern Washington, which is a spunky team basically playing a home game. So, that`s -- they have less odds. They have less favorable odds than most four seeds do because they`re in not a terribly favorable situation. This is the kind of dynamic pricing we have that affects what the payoff is if you pick the right upset or pick the right favorite. HAYES: According to the USA Today, the odds of picking a perfect bracket are 1 in 9.2 quintillion, a number that I was unfamiliar with until I read that number off the screen -- you know, I didn`t read it just there -- you know, in the script earlier. But it`s basically impossible to get the whole bracket correct, right? IRWIN: That`s right. You know, that`s why you see sometimes somebody will do a you win a billion dollars if you get it entirely correct. They never have to pay that out. HAYES: Buffet did that, yes, right exactly. I will promise -- I will promise you a billion dollars if you get this correct. Buffett and Quicken Loans, but of course they know that no one will get it correct. IRWIN: Exactly. The odds are overwhelming not only that you won`t get it correct, but that no one on Earth will get it correct. HAYES: All right, Neil Irwin from the Upshot, you can check that out at the Upshot website over at The New York Times. If you are going to do a bracket, if I were going to do a bracket, that`s the one I would do because I can sort of vote with my heart a little bit rather than my head. Thank you very much. That is All In for this evening. The Rachel Maddow Show starts now. THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. END