May The Centrifugal Force Be With You – PD vs. the Kitchen Sink of Charges

Here at Another Not Guilty, we appreciate your support. Don't forget to subscribe or follow us. And please visit our website at anothernotguiltypod.com. Without further ado, here's this week's episode of Another Not Guilty.

She assaults him with a baseball bat. I mean, to the head. If anyone is guilty of attempted murder, this is the only time I can say that my client's felony conviction actually helped explain the whole situation of what had happened.

The metal part of the pen cap tapped on my wedding ring, so it made like a clink noise. She responded with, "Are you snatching that from me?" So we went from tears to this insta-bitch. Every single juror whipped their head, looked at her, and did not believe a thing that came out of her mouth.

Welcome to Another Not Guilty. I'm David Moore. Here, along with my fellow public defenders, presenting to you,

The Untold Stories of the Criminal Justice System. Objection! That assumes there's justice in the system, which there ain't. I prefer calling it, the American Criminal System.

These stories are about the not-guilties public defenders get on a daily basis. In an unjust criminal system. With a deck stacked against us.

The Not Guilty.

All right, welcome everybody to Another Not Guilty. Your co-host today is just me, David. I'll be bringing to you the delicious, soothing sounds. I'm trying to sound like a radio host, TJ.

I like it. I don't know where you're going with this, but I like it.

Soothing sounds of our public defender of the week is Anya, and...

Hello.

Anya, some of you guys remember her from season one and the thrilling season finale.

Yes.

Where her client was framed with murder.

That's right.

And I know you guys thought that was a big case and a big deal, but you know what?

In Anya's world, it's just...

Another Not Guilty.

Not Guilty.

That's all it is.

That's all it is.

That's all it is.

All right.

So what's this trial we're going to talk about today?

So this time I wanted to bring another trial that I thought was really interesting.

And this one was a little bit more interesting because of nothing having to do with police, nothing with DAs.

This time it's "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned," as the old saying goes.

Oh, okay.

So then is this a domestic violence charge or a rape charge or...

Well, more like attempted murder.

Oh.

Attempted murder.

Actually, that's just one of the many, many charges.

There was assault with a deadly weapon, making criminal threats, carjacking, witness intimidation.

Oh.

You know, you name it, it was there.

Charged against this poor kid.

So it was a really, really serious case.

I mean, the guy was facing life in prison.

So what happened?

What was this woman who was scorned, what was her story?

So what had happened was my client and the alleged victim, I won't call her a victim because she wasn't in this case.

They had known each other for years.

They knew each other throughout college.

They were friends.

At some point back in the day, they dated.

But at the time that this case came about, they were just friends.

And he came over to her house.

She had picked him up.

He didn't live too far away, but she picked him up, took him back to her place.

Um, they were hanging out and he spent the night.

Uh, the next morning, she says that he kind of, he kind of just lost it.

You know, he, he got very physical with her.

Um, he started punching her.

The way she described it is like she was a punching bag, just over and over, just punching her in the face.

Um, she was so scared of him that she took a baseball bat because she was scared.

She wanted to protect herself and he chose to grab her keys to her car and she didn't want him to steal her car.

So even though she was beat up and in so much pain and had this baseball bat that she was protecting herself with, she went to go stop him from taking her car.

And, um, he turned around in the, in the front lawn area and you know, she was so scared that she, she had to hit him in the head with the baseball bat because she was so scared.

So she follows him out.

She did because she was very scared.

So she, they, I'm sorry.

I think I missed the beginning.

They, they met at college.

Did you say college or something?

They had known each other.

Yeah.

Since college.

Yeah.

Maybe even throughout high school, I'm not sure, but certainly in college, they knew each other.

And, uh, and they just continue to be friends.

They dated for a while, but then we're just friends after that.

Then one night he stays the night.

Yeah.

He stayed the night and you know, she was that.

And he just lost it.

How old, how old was he at the time?

I believe he was in his late twenties.

They were both in their mid to late twenties.

Okay.

And according to her, you know, he just kind of lost it.

They, they, I guess had an argument and he lost it and for no reason started punching

her.

So she was so scared that she had to arm herself with the baseball bat.

And then when she confronted him about taking her car keys, uh, she swung the baseball bat

and hit him in the head because she was so scared.

This is in the front yard.

This is in the front yard.

This is in the front yard.

And it caused him to pass out, uh, momentarily.

And when he came to, she said she was still very scared of him as, as she would be.

And, uh, he grabbed her keys and jumped in her car.

He still grabbed the key.

Okay.

He did.

And she was still so scared.

So she jumped into the car with him.

She made sure she had the baseball bat though, because of the fear, all of the scaredness.

So, uh, he starts, according to her, driving the car down the street, swerving into parked

cars, screaming, you're about to die, bitch.

You're about to die.

And trying, as she says, to hit parked cars.

And does she say what's preventing him from hitting parked cars?

So it's pretty easy to hit a parked car.

Yes.

So she says that he's just driving so crazy that he's swerving in and out and she's scared

for her life.

And so she, uh, opened the car door as it was going pretty fast.

She said, I think she said that he was going like over 40 miles an hour down the street.

Okay.

And she said he pushed her out and, uh, she almost died.

Now she did have a lot of nasty road rash.

Uh, she was injured.

The, and there was physical evidence of that?

Oh, there was a lot of physical evidence of road rash.

Okay.

We'll get to the fact that there was not a single mark on her face from all of the punching

that she endured.

Uh, again, her face as though he were punching a punching bag was the description given on the,

on the stand.

But, um.

And road rash would be just scrapes on the elbows and knees and torn tattered clothes or.

She literally like had patches of skin, like rubbed off because she fell out of this car,

uh, or, you know, as she puts it, she was pushed out of a moving vehicle, um, and took a tumble.

She landed, took a tumble and it literally ate up on her legs, all of the skin on her back

and on her arm from where she impacted the, the, uh, the asphalt.

So, uh, he then, according to her, took off in her car after he pushed her out and left

the car parked somewhere in a parking lot a day or two later and apparently called and

threatened her and people she knew.

Oh, afterwards he called.

Yeah.

That's, that's what she told the police.

So the attempted murder is a pushing, I'm sorry.

Is that it for the story?

That's it for the story.

So the attempted murder is pushing the person out the car.

Yep.

While trying to aim at parked cars going 45 miles an hour, pushing her out.

Now, I mean, I told you the basic facts, according to her, do you, do you see any problems at

this point with the story or are we on board with this alleged victim?

Well, if, if I were a prosecutor or a police officer, I'd be like, well, she said it.

So it must be true.

Unfortunately, how often is that the case, right?

You know, a girl says something and it's an, I mean, granted she did have these injuries

on her side and on her legs.

So it must be true.

So her story just didn't add up to me.

Why?

Why is that?

Well, you know, a lot of reasons.

What caused this initial fight?

You know, this is people that are, are friends out of nowhere.

Out of nowhere, there's this massive fight where she is punched, you know, like a, like a punching

bag.

There's no evidence of any injuries to her face.

She's scared of him, but yet she follows him around.

She assaults him with a baseball bat.

I mean, to the head.

I mean, to the head, if anyone is guilty of attempted murder, I'd say taking a baseball

bat to somebody's head probably would qualify.

Right?

So it just didn't add up.

You know, if, if somebody really did beat you up and you're scared of them and they're

jumping in your car to leave, why would you get in the car with them?

I mean, that makes no sense whatsoever.

Yes.

Doesn't make sense.

And so none of this was making sense until I talked to my client and asked him, you know,

what's going on.

And what was interesting is, you know, I, let me back up a little bit.

When I go to trial, I'm one of the, I'd say I'm in the minority of criminal defense attorneys

because I always want to put my clients up.

I love when my clients testify.

Me too.

Oh, wonderful.

Yeah.

I think it's great.

I think the juries want to hear from the client.

I think the, um, they want to hear his side of the story or her side or whoever it is.

Right.

And they're willing to cut a lot of slack.

Even if your client has a criminal record, they're willing to look past it if they get

to hear from your client.

And that was kind of the case in, in this situation.

My client had virtually no criminal history, right?

I say that because he did have one felony conviction.

Okay.

And when I looked at it, I, it was such a weird charge.

I didn't even like, it's not something I came across in my job.

I never represented a client with this particular felony conviction.

It was, um, forging a government seal or something like that.

So I thought that was kind of weird.

And I asked him, I'm like, Hey, what's, what's this all about?

Cause you know, if we go to trial and you testify, this will come out.

And it turns out when he was in college, he had a little side business where he would change

people's grades and he would forge, you know, the, um, your transcripts and report cards and whatnot.

And eventually got caught.

So this was relevant because this is the only time I can say that my client's felony conviction

actually helped explain the whole situation of what had happened.

So what happened was that back in the day when they knew each other in college, he had, she

had asked him to fake some transcripts.

She was transferring from, I think like a junior college, maybe to a four year, uh, university

and was short on some credits or something like some classes, some requisite classes, prerequisites.

And, um, basically paid him and he created this fake transcript.

She was able to then go into her four year university.

She graduated.

But the whole reason this is even relevant is because the day that this incident had happened,

she needed a copy of her complete college transcripts for some job that she wanted to get.

Of course, if she requested the transcripts from the school she graduated from, it wouldn't

be a complete record.

Obviously, if she requested the transcripts from the college that she attended for the first

two years, it would also not be a complete record because there was a small portion of transcripts

that were forged.

So she had asked him if he could do it again.

And he said, no, that was what the whole argument was about.

But when did the argument happen?

In the morning?

I believe so.

After he spent the night?

Yeah.

They, they...

And did they have, did they fornicate?

Well, according to him, she wanted to, and he said, no, listen, I wasn't there.

I'm not going to pass judgment on what happened.

But he slept in her bed.

I'm not.

I, to be honest with you, I don't remember, but there, there was some sort of an attempt

to maybe...

Because our, listen, our viewers want to know.

I didn't think it was that kind of a show, David.

They need to know these things.

They need to know these details.

Right.

You know, honestly, it, it's not relevant to the argument.

So I don't really remember.

And I don't want to mislead our listeners.

But you know, maybe, maybe if she, if she were to have, had sex with him, and then he

says no to the transcripts, she'd be like, well, what was all that about then?

You know, like...

I don't know what the payment for the transcripts would have been if it would have been in the

form of sex, money, drugs, rock and roll.

Right.

I don't know.

Yeah.

Okay.

The bottom line is she asked him to do her this favor.

And he said, no, I got busted for it.

Okay.

I have a felony on my record for the rest of my life.

I'm not forging another set of...

Those days are over.

That, that was the old me.

That was the old me.

I've moved on.

Exactly.

So that was what the argument was over.

He says that she starts acting like a crazy woman and starts throwing crap at him, throwing

trash cans, throw like a little waste basket, you know, in the bathroom.

And just throwing shit at him.

And at this point he says, I'm ready to leave.

This is, I do not need this.

This woman is crazy.

So he realized that because she had dropped him off the night before, she, she picked him

up and took him to her place.

Um, a lot of his personal belongings were still in her car.

So he grabbed the keys to her car and walked towards her car because he just wanted to get

his stuff out.

He was just going to walk home.

She then starts chasing after him.

Like a crazy lady grabs a baseball bat and is like, you know, basically you're not going

anywhere, you know, or where do you think you're going?

He says, I'm just trying to get my stuff.

He goes to his, to her car.

And as he's trying to go to her car, just to get his stuff out, he turns around.

And next thing you know, she is cracking that baseball bat to his head and drops him cold

in the front yard.

Yeah.

So he doesn't know how long he's out, but when he comes to, he sees a dude hovering over

him.

Turns out that was the neighbor sees her.

She's still got the baseball bat.

He is no idea what's going on at this point.

Now it's like, I got to get out of here before this bitch kills me.

So he sees that the keys to her car had dropped out of his hand and they were on the ground.

He picks them up and runs like now he wants to just get away from her.

And crazy still has a baseball bat.

So, and he's not running too well.

Cause he's woozy from being kidding the head.

So he jumps in the car.

Crazy jumps in the car with him with the baseball bat.

So now he's, he starts the car, he starts to drive, but he's telling her, get out of the

car, get out of the car.

She's saying, I'm not, I'm not going anywhere.

He started driving the car though.

He started driving the car.

So he's like, I just need to get away from her.

Like literally just go a few blocks away and just get away from this crazy dude.

And this chick, she jumps in the car with him.

And he says as, as he's trying to drive away, mind you, he doesn't live very far.

So he was probably just trying to get to his own house.

Um, crazy keeps grabbing the steering wheel and jerking it as he's driving.

So he's then jerking it back the other way.

So yes, the car is going towards and away from parked cars, but it's because crazy next to

him is jerking the wheel, screaming at him, calling him every name in the book.

So he ends up, he's driving and he's like, just wants to get away from the whole situation.

At one point she opens the door.

Now that's consistent.

She said that she had to open the car door and he agrees.

She opens the car door.

Now he's driving.

She's, she had unlocked the door.

She pulled the steering wheel towards her.

So she keeps pulling it as though he's going to crash into parked cars.

And who knows why she's doing that?

I mean, maybe she just wants him to pull over and she keeps grabbing the wheel.

But when she does that, that last time, and the door is now open, when he over corrects

and goes the other way, she fell out of the car.

Of course, she's claims that he pushed her with one hand, single push out of the car.

The problem is, and I'm going to try to be delicate because we do have, you know, lady viewers

that may be self-conscious about their weight, but she was a rather large lady.

There's no way he's pushing her with one hand because you got, you know, a couple hundred pounds

sitting next to you.

That's dead weight when it's just sitting there.

Right.

It's not pushing a couple hundred pounds with a single, you know, push out the car.

It's insane.

And wait, why did she say she opened the door?

How did, what was the first?

She said that she was scared for her life while sitting as a passenger in this car.

He's threatening to kill them by smashing the car into these parked cars.

She's so scared that she opens the door, which is not exactly a smart thing to do when the

car's going 45 miles an hour.

But she opens the car door, but then he's the one that still had to push her.

She claims he pushed.

According to her, he pushes her.

Yeah.

Single handed push.

He was helping her out.

Sure.

Yeah.

She was a little scared.

She, you know, she claimed to be scared the entire time.

Yeah.

Which we know is nonsense.

So.

So she's heavy and he pushes her out the.

She's a heavy gal.

And how big is the client then?

Smaller than her.

Okay.

Like normal size guy?

Just average size guy.

Yeah.

Okay.

He wasn't like particularly lean or anything, but he was just an average, average build guy.

And, you know, her larger frame basically fell out with the centrifugal force when he pulled

his steering wheel away.

In the meantime, here's a guy who just got assaulted with a baseball bat to the head.

This crazy chick who doesn't respect when no means no, you know?

Right.

And the last thing he was expecting is to get arrested and charged with attempted murder.

Hey, this is David.

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Thanks.

But what about investigation?

Did you like interview, find out who this, this neighbor was that he saw?

Like, did you find out who that person was?

Right.

So in this, this case was, uh, it was important to have the investigator on board and do a lot

of investigative work.

But really what was the most important for the defense was the experts that we used.

So we did have an investigator who talked to the neighbors.

You know, do you, what do you remember seeing this and that?

But what was really critical was we had a, uh, accident crime scene, like reconstructionist.

Exactly.

Accident reconstructionist.

And we also had a biomechanics kind of engineer type of a person.

To, to, to testify to what?

The centrifugal force that when he was in the car driving at, you know, a rate of, let's

say 45 miles an hour and, or was it a biomechanics?

I, I don't remember the exact name of it because it was kind of, you know, it's, it's a fancy

PhD expert, as you know, the kinds you use, but his, his expertise was important to explain

to the jury how she fell out of the car.

And, and we've all experienced it.

You're in a car and somebody turns and your body kind of.

Shifts the other way.

Shifts the other way.

Right.

But you can't just say that to a jury.

You know, we have to explain it.

Right.

Through an expert.

So that was what his role was.

And then the, the accident reconstruction person was to explain what?

So he was really useful.

He got a car that was the same make, model and everything as what the victim's car, the

alleged victim's car was.

Um, because the neighbors and there were witnesses who testified and stated that they could see through

the back window after the car had gone past them, they could see fighting happening inside the car.

And that just didn't sound credible to me.

Um, it just, when a car is going, you know, 45 miles an hour away from you, and there is a tent to the windows and you are observing through the back of the car, you know, supposedly through and to the end of the car.

And to the inside and you're testifying as to what is happening in the front and passenger seats of this, you know, Toyota Camry.

That just didn't seem.

Were they like random witnesses or.

Uh, neighbors.

Yeah.

And they saw fighting.

They said that they saw fighting inside the car.

And that it, that just didn't make sense.

So this accident reconstructionist, he gets this same kind of car.

And, you know, we do these, uh, test runs, so to speak, where.

Did you guys rent a car?

Yeah.

Oh yeah.

We rented a car.

We went to the same exact location of where this happened.

Okay.

Followed the exact same path.

Did you get like a stunt driver from Hollywood?

We didn't, you know.

That would have been like.

It would have been, but remember we're public defenders.

We're on a limited budget.

Ah.

Stunt drivers are not, are not in, in, in the budget.

It was barely in the budget to get the people we did, but we were, we would drive the car.

We'd watch him as he was driving it.

So, so I could see what these witnesses supposedly were seeing.

And we took photos from behind.

I mean, it, it, it was very, very informative.

And, you know, I recommend that all people do as much as they can in terms of their own investigation and participate in it.

If you can personally.

What crime scene.

What kind of car was it?

I believe it was a Toyota Camry.

Okay.

Yeah.

I'm pretty sure it was a, it was something like that.

It was nothing.

It was nothing crazy.

Right.

Just a regular sedan.

Just a regular sedan.

Yeah.

Okay.

So, um, I knew that.

I'm sorry.

I'm just visualizing you like just standing there on your, were the witnesses like in

the, in the yard or looking through the window?

They were like on the corner.

Cause at one point the car turned a corner.

Right.

So they were standing on the corner, looking down the street as the car is supposedly swerving

around and there's this fighting big fight happening inside.

I wonder if you, where you're like, huh, don't see that every day.

Yeah.

Well, you know, it's one of those things that you realize that there's a lot of embellishment

that happens when witnesses testify.

And sometimes it's on purpose and sometimes it's just, you know, everyone needs some excitement.

They, they're just trying to juice it up a little bit.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We, we, we did a lot of hands on, uh, you know, crime scene investigation type stuff with

this.

So the accident reconstruction was just to drive the car by you and you can look.

Cause the car is going to the right and then to the left and then to the right and

to the left.

Right.

So we're trying to look inside through the windows.

Can we see it now?

These witnesses.

Was that, was the accident reconstruction guy?

Like, you know, I normally don't do this or is that something like, who thought of this

idea?

This is.

Come on now.

Is that.

That's your idea.

I just, well, yeah, you know, you, you, you have to start.

You have, when you have these kinds of cases, it's really important to think outside the

box as you can, you know, don't be limited to, well, she says that this is how it happened.

So it must've happened this way.

You know, a lot of times the jury wants to not only hear, no, it didn't happen that way,

but they want the full explanation of, of how it did happen and why, or how do you know

it didn't happen this way?

So that's kind of what, what we were going for.

Um, and I wanted, I wanted to see what these people claim they saw from, you know, half

a block away or a full block away.

So did you find the car?

I had tons of questions about this whole car.

Oh no, no, that's all right.

Did you find the car then?

You had to like go to the rental places and find like a used car that, you know, like

make and model type situation.

Exactly.

Uh, the, the, uh, accident reconstruction expert was really great about that.

He, uh, he found one, I think it was one year off, but he checked and made sure that it was

the same exact car.

So everything was the same.

Everything was still, you know, standard and they had, there were no changes from that particular

car model year to the next.

So I think that we did our best.

I don't recall if the color, the outside color of the car was the same.

Right.

That may have been a little bit different.

But he testified it didn't make a difference.

That does not make a difference.

Okay.

Exactly.

Okay.

I'll release you from, to move on to the next thing.

That's okay.

That's all right.

So you got the accident reconstruction.

Yeah.

The guy testifies about the, the force needed.

They say.

Centrifugal force.

And yeah, the, the, you can't just.

Push someone.

Push 200 pounds.

Oh, you're gonna call her out now?

200 pounds?

Oh, she was a little bit over 200 pounds, I think.

Okay.

Um, and, and again, I'm not trying to put her down or be rude or anything, but this is a

heavy gal.

And there is no way that a dude who's trying to control a car that everybody agrees is swerving

down the road and he is leaning over and pushing out 200 pounds.

Right.

One hand.

Cause you'd have to get your own force behind it.

Exactly.

And he's sitting down too.

So he doesn't have much to push off of.

Exactly.

And see, this is why the biomechanics expert is so important.

You're raising all the right questions too.

Not only is he sitting down, but he is not sitting exactly right next to her.

He's, you know, a couple feet away cause she's in the passenger seat.

So he's already an arm's length away from her.

And then to have to generate the extra force to then push her out.

I mean, it just, no, it didn't happen.

She's a liar, you know?

And she was just pissed.

This is what happens when this angry, pissed off chick, you know, goes to the cops, tells

them a story.

But you know, when you started this episode off saying hell have no fury like a woman scorn,

I thought this dude cheated on his girlfriend or his wife.

This is just like, no, I'm not going to do that illegal thing you want me to do for you.

This is why it's so scary.

It's not just, I mean, it's already scary for guys in relationships oftentimes because when

the police show up, as you know, nine times out of 10, it's the guy that gets arrested.

Now that may be because the guy's the aggressor, but it also might be just because he's the guy,

a girl says something.

And, you know, we've all had these cases where the girl can say whatever and, and the guy gets

screwed and that's really unfortunate.

But that again, those are dating relationships.

Here you've got a scenario where it's really friends and she still can say whatever she

wants.

This guy, he had a promising career, a football career.

You know, he, he had a lot of things going on in his life.

And then next thing you know, he's locked up for almost a year in the L.A.

County jail.

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Okay.

So you have the two experts.

Got the two experts.

You have these witness statements from the people, right?

Do you have your own witnesses?

No, we just had character witnesses, but we didn't have a, there were really no, it

was just my client there.

There were no percipient witnesses to the fight that had happened.

And the only percipient witnesses were the neighbors who saw the driving outside.

And there's no, there's no offer from the D.A. at this time.

At some point they made an offer that he was never really interested in one.

The judge had applied pressure on the D.A.

And at right before trial, the D.A. offered five years of state prison on the assault with

a deadly weapon, which is the car, plus great bodily injury for five years.

But he turned it down.

I think we may have countered with like a misdemeanor joyriding or something like that.

And so you get sent out for trial then, right?

We do.

We did.

And so I think that's the thing that I made sure I prepared before trial, which was I tried

to subpoena her school records from both of the colleges, because I knew that this was going

to come up when my client testified.

And I was going to impeach her with, with this is what the fight was all about, right?

That he forged your school records.

So she had no idea that I had her school records.

And it was really, really interesting that there were records of like fake classes that

never existed at a school she never attended.

So the DA calls the first witness, which is the-

The alleged victim.

The alleged victim.

Right.

And how does she do?

Oh boy.

There's a performance.

There-

On her part.

Oh yes.

There is a performance and a half on her part.

She put it all out there.

She put, she had fake tears.

She talked about how brutalized she was by him in the morning.

How he just repeatedly beat her like a punching bag.

I mean, she was going on and on.

And then she falls to the ground.

And then he's wailing on her on the ground.

And this is a DA asking her for no reason.

And she's like, for no reason.

No.

For no reason.

She, I don't remember what BS reason she came up with, but it, it, it made no sense.

I then showed her pictures of her face.

And I asked her to point out where exactly are the punches that she received, like all

the blows that she received to the face.

Can you show me a single injury on the photo of your face?

Which she couldn't.

She, what she did was she pointed to her chin and said, see, it's a little bit swollen on

this side.

Wow.

Which it wasn't.

There was not a single mark.

I think it was, it was like a shadow or something.

There was nothing.

You know, I, I pointed out to the, I was pointing out to the jury.

You know, she was being very dramatic as I've said, but I went ahead and did my own acting

as well.

Okay.

Because I'm not about to be upstaged by this liar.

This is your show.

This is my show.

Okay.

Exactly.

So, um, but the, the, the.

He didn't forge a drama grade on her, under a transcript, did he?

Uh, no, no, that was all her.

She had all that experience.

So the, the fun part of that cross-examination though, came when I confronted her about what

the argument was really about.

That you wanted him to forge another set of transcripts for you.

And she adamantly denied it.

And then I said, but he already did that before, right?

He forged transcripts for you so you could get into college.

And of course she denies it.

Right.

And her exhibit A, you pull out the transcripts that were forged, show them to her.

So how did it go down then when you confronted her?

Oh, she was, um, she was a little sassy.

She was a little sassy.

Okay.

She, uh, adamantly denied it.

And then all of a sudden.

I noticed when you said adamantly denied it, the, you kind of shifted your head to the

right and left a little bit.

I did because she, that's when she started to also have, um, some body movements if you will.

And not only did her tone change from being this sad, weepy girl, you know, all of a sudden

the tone changed.

She's becoming much more defensive.

She has a hostile tone in her voice.

Her head starts, you know, working a little bit.

Her body starts shifting towards me.

Like doing the snake kind of thing.

A little bit.

Okay.

And the jury was just watching every single minute of it.

They were watching every move she made.

And at one point, I don't remember what it was, but she, I asked her to mark something,

you know, can you circle something on this photo or whatever.

And when I went to take the pen back after she was done, the pen cap, the metal, you know,

part of the pen cap, uh, tapped on my wedding ring.

So it made like a clink noise.

Mm-hmm.

And she responded with this, out of the nowhere, this comment where, are you snatching that from me?

So we went from tears to this insta-bitch comment.

And let me just tell you that every single juror whipped their head, looked at her, and did not believe a thing that came out of her mouth after that.

So that was just fun.

It was fun confronting her with lies.

It's one thing to just have the photo and kind of-

Say, where's, where's the bruises?

Show me the bruises, this and that.

Right.

But, but when I knew something about her, you know, dark past, she didn't know I know, that was fun confronting her.

Did you go into details about the, the driving and being pushed out the door?

I did.

And I was, again, you know, when you have a jury, you don't want to alienate them.

You may think the witness is a horrible person.

You may want to do terrible things to that witness.

Right.

But the jury may be sympathetic.

You don't know that.

You don't want to alienate the jury.

So I did need to bring up her weight.

And she, you know, I have to say, as a lot of women do, I myself, I'm not excluded from this.

And, you know, women aren't always a hundred percent honest about their weight, especially if they may be carrying a couple extras.

Um, but, you know, when I confronted her about her weight, she took off a lot of extras, like a lot, you know?

And so the jury knew that, uh, she was not as slender as she claimed she was.

Um, and again, you know, you can't be bitchy to them, but at the same time, you have to bring this stuff out because it's important.

It's important.

So did you ask her what her weight was?

Yeah.

And she gave you a number.

Oh yeah.

And did you say, are you sure?

Yeah.

Or did you just say, oh, okay.

No, no.

There was a, it was more along the lines of, really?

Are you sure?

Okay.

I'm not, I'm not trying to be mean.

I'm not, I'm not trying to be, be mean girls on you at all.

Right.

This isn't, we're not making a burn book here, but.

Is this after the transcript impeachment?

Did you do that at the end of your cross or towards the beginning?

No, it definitely wasn't at the beginning.

Cause you know, at the beginning, my goal was to get her to say as much detail about what happened.

Just throw it all out there.

So, you know, in the beginning I'm just drawing it out.

Like, oh, you poor thing.

And how many times did he beat you?

Oh my God.

That's terrible.

Over and over and over and over, you know, and doing that routine.

And then you, and then you switch it up.

You know, once she has dug herself this hole, that's when you start, you know, impeaching

with, with all the things that you have.

Because if you impeach her right away, then she's not going to be open with you afterwards.

Exactly.

And when she thinks that you might be sympathetic or maybe you're not necessarily out to get

her because the tone of your voice is, is a little bit nicer, you know, she's going to

keep embellishing.

And that's what I wanted her to do.

I wanted her to, to describe, you know, the, the heavyweight championship knockdown fight,

you know, that, that she claimed it was.

How did she describe smacking your client with the baseball bat?

Like she just repeatedly was saying how scared she was.

And I'm like, so you were scared even though he was walking away from you and you chase after

him.

Yes.

I was so scared.

I didn't know what he was going to do.

So it just pointed out to the jury, you know, how stupid this woman is.

Like she's clearly lying.

Nobody who's scared of someone, if the, if that person is turned around and left, you,

if you're scared, you lock the door behind them, call the police and say, Hey, this guy

just, you know, stole the keys to my car and he hit me and I'm so scared, but I'm safe.

Now I locked the door.

You don't chase after him, hit him in the head with a baseball bat and then jump in the car.

Jump in the car as he's trying to get away from your crazy ass, you know?

So it, it was one of these stories where unfortunately this woman's horrible, horrible lies really affected

this, this, this poor guy, you know, who in my opinion was the real victim in all of this.

Okay.

So then after she testifies to the, the prosecutor put up another witness that the detective or

the officers.

Yeah.

They put up the detective, the police officers, they put up, uh, the witnesses and stuff.

And again, when the witnesses were describing what they see in the car, that again is why

our accident reconstruction expert was so important to come in and say, okay, well, it's impossible.

They couldn't have seen that.

And here is a photograph of the exact same car at exactly the distance where they claim the

car was because the witnesses were saying, oh yeah, I saw it.

It was about, you know, halfway down the block.

So that's something that's really easy to reconstruct.

You go and you measure roughly halfway down the block.

And we also did photos from different points, not just halfway down the block.

Cause who knows if the witness changes their story at the time of trial.

Right.

Now it's at the end of the block or it was, you know, right after he turned the corner.

So we were prepared with what the vantage point and what the view would have been like for these people observing all the way down the street.

You know, I mean, you get this accident reconstruction guy with, with all of their degrees and all their science.

But I mean, I feel like I could have done this for you.

I could have.

You probably could.

You know, like I would have done it.

Aya, why didn't you come?

I would have done it for free.

You know?

Where were you?

I would have driven the car.

Well, you know, sometimes that's, that, that's what you need to do anyways.

You know, if you don't have an expert, grab a friend.

Right.

You know, cause it really, this particular bit of it didn't take a lot of science.

This was just human observations, measurements.

Right.

And some photography skills.

So it was, but it was fun.

It was definitely fun.

After the civilian witnesses and it was next for the people.

It was a very simple case.

Okay.

So they put their, their witnesses.

And then our case, we put on the two experts.

We put on some character witnesses because I knew that my client wanted to testify.

And once he did that, his character for honesty is going to be put in question because he has

that felony conviction that the jury's going to hear about.

So what I wanted the jury to hear is, look, he may have had this blip on his record.

Uh, and it is a crime of moral turpitude, as you said.

So involving honesty, but this isn't a violent guy.

He has no crimes of violence.

He's not this dude who beats up chicks and throws them out of moving cars and tries to

kill them and threatens them.

And, you know, every horrible thing.

That's why the character witnesses testified that he was a very nonviolent guy.

Were they just like friends and family, a co, an employer or?

Family and friends.

Yeah.

Okay.

And of course the DA always tries to make a big deal of that.

Oh, of course your family's going to say this and that.

But, you know, in this case, there's something to back it up.

He doesn't have any crimes of violence on his record.

So, you know, it is one thing to have your friends or family say things like that.

But the other side of that coin is they're also the ones that know you best, that would

know if you were a violent person.

And his record speaks for itself.

There were no crimes of violence.

But, um, yeah, we put on the character witnesses.

And then after that, my client testified.

And how, how do you do?

I thought he did great.

I thought he did great.

You know, I like, uh, like you said, you like putting your clients up.

I do as well.

Um, I knew the jury would connect with him as soon as he started to testify.

He's very, very nice, very charismatic.

Um, and just, he, he sounds like a nice guy, you know, when he, when he speaks.

Did he start crying?

I testified he got hit with a baseball bat.

Oh, I mean, he described that and, and he described how scared he was of her, you know,

being knocked out cold, opening your eyes after an unknown period of time, seeing two people

hovering over you, one with a baseball bat still.

And that was the, the, the woman and some unknown guy who wasn't there before.

He has no idea of this guy's here to finish the job that she started or what's going to happen.

You know?

So he was, he was definitely scared.

Did the DA try to cross him on anything or?

Oh, sure.

And of course they always try to cross on, as you know, on their criminal past and, and, and dwell on that.

I have to say, I did take, talk to the jurors afterwards and they didn't like his felony conviction.

They did not.

It was bothersome to them, but the way they looked at it is, okay, that was then you learned your lesson.

You did something really stupid as a, as a kid.

I say kid.

I mean, he was probably 18 years old.

Um, but you know, he's young.

Usually the jurors that I've spoken to are able to let go.

Oh, well, you know, they did have this pass.

It was in the past.

A lot of them were troubled by it more so than I would have been had I been on the jury.

Cause to me, I'm looking at it like, Oh, some kid in college, you know, change some grades.

Right.

That's so different than 10 years later.

He's trying to carjack murder and assault a woman he's been friends with for over a decade.

I mean, is he like, what's that little DiCaprio movie where he forges the checks?

Oh, catch me if you can.

Catch me if you can.

Yeah.

That's exactly what it was.

I mean, he's just like the college transcript version of that.

Exactly.

I mean, nobody could picture Mr. DiCaprio in that movie, you know, trying to mow people

over with cars and kill them and all this stuff.

Exactly.

What was really interesting.

Uh, well, so I don't want to get ahead of, uh, of the game here.

I don't want to jump the gun, but this is another not guilty.

So I think we know how it ended.

Oh, all right.

Well, geez, there goes that question.

Sorry.

Yeah.

No, he, uh, we, we got a total of six not guilties.

Six for six.

We got, we are six for six.

We, uh, had the attempted murder, uh, not guilty.

They, of course, added weapons enhancements and great bodily injury enhancements.

Those were found to be not true.

What was the weapons enhancement?

The car?

The car.

Okay.

The car was the weapon.

The, uh, assault with deadly weapon, the 245, that was a not guilty.

Also, the weapon and great bodily injury enhancements were untrue.

Um, the making criminal threats, supposedly in the car, he's threatening to kill her.

Right.

That was a not guilty.

The carjacking, uh, which again, this blows my mind that a DA would charge him with carjacking

when she admitted to jumping in the car with her baseball bat that she just used on his head.

Like, how is this a carjacking, you know?

Well, you need to use, uh, force or fear to take the car.

Right.

And they have to be in the car.

Well, she claims she was so scared and that she was trying to get, she jumped in the car

and then he wouldn't get out of the car and she was so scared.

And yeah, I mean, it's ridiculous, but luckily that count was, uh, not guilty.

The weapon and great bodily enhancement in, uh, great bodily injury enhancements were also

found untrue.

Intimidating witnesses was found not guilty.

Um, and they even tried to sprinkle in a misdemeanor, simple assault, which fortunately

was also a not guilty.

So we got a six for six on that one.

They deliberated for four and a half hours though.

Interestingly, when I spoke with the jurors afterwards, they told me they found her to be

100% completely not believable.

Did the jurors say the, how, how could this case make it this far?

Like they're shocked that a case can get this far without any sort of oversight or.

There was a little bit of that.

And again, it, you know, ultimately they just, they didn't believe a word she said.

And when you have 12 people from the community that unanimously agree that this woman is 100%

completely not credible in the least, you know, that's a problem that the DAs are filing these

charges because they had access to her the whole time.

They had access to all this information with the exception, obviously of the transcripts.

Cause that was something that, that we got through our investigation and, and, and our work product.

Um, as far as her side of the story, come on now.

At what point did they start doubting this story?

To me, they should have doubted it from the first words out of her mouth, but I'm not the DA.

Okay.

So, you know, it is what it is.

And unfortunately there are people that are charged with crimes and have to spend months

and years in jail, sometimes fighting charges, which, you know, any rational person hearing

what the story is would just not buy it.

No, but alas, that's, that's what it is.

But fortunately for Mr. Smith, he had good outcome.

Um, and what was really kind of neat is after this trial was over a few months later,

I was contacted by an, a guy who's an author who somehow came across my client's story.

And I don't really even know how that happened, how their relationship, um, came about.

But, uh, he ended up writing a book about this case.

So that was really kind of cool.

Can we get the title?

Sure.

Yeah.

It was, uh, it's called stop and think she could send you to prison.

Truer words have never been spoken.

Right.

And it's a, an autobiography of Justin Smith.

That's my client written by John Greenberg and Jock Armour.

And, uh, the front cover of the book actually has a photo of my client.

So this, this actually is a-

Can we get a picture of you?

How about a picture of the book?

The book?

Um, the photo is of my client.

The woman in the shadows is not the real alleged victim, but, um, that is, uh, that is my client right there.

So it was, it was kind of really, really fabulous to have something tangible like this that really goes into more of the background of what his story was before this case happened.

And, uh, there's really nice dedication to me too.

So I'm just really proud of it.

To my public defender, and you are my wonder woman who came to my rescue.

Your belief in my innocence, your intelligence, your organizational skills, your knowledge of the law, your creativity, and your refuse to lose attitude saved a former college football player from a football number decades in prison.

Organizational, organizational skills, huh?

That's what popped out at you, huh?

It's, uh, I have to say I'm quite organized.

Yeah.

But yeah, that was-

That's great.

It was really, really, um, it was really special to have this book be written and, you know, kind of document what we went through, what he went through, how he felt.

Cause it, you know, talks about how he felt when he was in jail, all the stuff he was dealing with in jail while this case was pending.

So it was just, it was, it was very nice.

Well, great job, of course.

Thank you.

I guess doing this interview just made me think about my, some of my cases, like, like what's the next level I could do other than just like going over everyone's stories, like, you know, just the creativity with the expert, uh, getting him to do the accident reconstruction, like in that sort of manner or the, uh, biomechanic.

Biomechanic, was that what it was called?

Yeah, biomechanic engineer.

The centrifugal force or whatever.

Exactly.

Like, that's some next level, next level stuff there.

It, it's, uh, it was fun.

I mean-

Not bad for a public defender.

Not too shabby.

Yeah.

Not too shabby.

Yeah.

It's, it's always fun to go to the location of the crime scene and see it for yourself because it, it's definitely eyeopening.

You will see your case in a whole new way when you're there and you're seeing it in person.

Well, I know last time we asked you why you wanted to be a public defender.

So I don't know if we really have a closing question this time.

You can ask me what my favorite color is.

I know.

Do you still like being a public defender?

I love it.

Do you want to change jobs?

Never.

Never.

Never.

I love this job.

I love the, I love the creativity that you get to have, the freedom that our office gives us to try these cases, the, um, level of sophistication.

Sometimes some of these cases take, you know, you learn so much with each case.

These experts, I, I had never used these types of experts and, uh, I, I, I was no science major.

So, you know, all of that is a great learning experience.

All right.

Well, thanks for being on the show, Anya.

Thank you so much for having me.

And, uh, you know, I know, uh, you're actually moving to a different branch soon within the county and we won't be working with each other on a daily basis.

It will be sad.

And you'll be in a different courthouse.

I will.

I will.

But I know you'll still be, uh, putting up the fight in that, that new courthouse.

Hey, new courthouse, new, not guilty.

New, not guilty.

And just so you know, the, the A and G team will be willing to travel.

Oh, you'll travel to my new courthouse.

To, uh, to get that new story.

Cause.

I love it.

Cause we know the fans love you.

And, uh.

Well, I love the fans.

You do it for the fans.

I do do it for the fans.

I think it's a lot of fun to share these stories and I hope that people really get something out of it.

All right.

Well, thanks for coming on the show.

Thank you so much for having me.

Thanks for tuning in to this week's episode of another not guilty.

Shout out to Daniel Mark, creator of A and G's original theme music and our audio engineer, Chris Adams.

And guess what?

We have another not guilty story coming your way next week because we public defenders fight injustice every single day in the American criminal system.