1 Star Hotel, 5 Star Defense – When the Jury Checked In but Doubt Checked Out

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. Do you have a Not Guilty story you'd like to share with A&G listeners? Visit our website to submit your info to be a guest. Want to check out our updated new A&G merch? Another great reason to check out our website. That's anothernotguiltypod.com. Now, without further ado, here's this week's episode of Another Not Guilty.

The foreperson called me. We talked a little more about it, and I asked her, you know, were you bothered at all that the state wanted him to go to prison? Even though they never did any of this investigation, like, they kind of had a cavalier attitude about it. They didn't really try and find out what happened. You know, she said, "Well, you know, it's only a $250 tablet." Like, she got it back the next day. We're not going to make a massive case out of this for the police, which I understand why people would think

that way. But the problem is, the consequences for my client are going to be significant and massive and put him in prison for years. And I just, I don't know.

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 guilty as public defenders get on a daily basis in an unjust criminal system with the deck stacked against us.

OK, welcome back, everybody, to Another Not Guilty. Not going to lie, super excited about today's episode. We have a pretty awesome public defender from Solano County.

But before I introduce him, I want to introduce our co-host today. Guys, I'm switching it up a little bit for you. Another Not Guilty world.

We have a pretty cool co-host. Yeah, you guys may know I have a background in stand up comedy or comedy, maybe not by the quality of jokes I tell.

But still, I once upon a time and I thought I'd bring in another comedian to co-host today.

She's a good friend of mine. Her name is Ashley Ray. You may know her from her own podcast called TV. I say with Ashley Ray.

Ashley, how are you doing today? I'm doing great. I'm so excited to guest, to be here, to learn more about this, this entire system.

I obviously watch a lot of TV. I watch a lot of true crime TV, specifically, you know, your law and orders, your your evil lives here, your investigation discovery.

So I consider myself like an expert on the legal system.

Right. You are an expert. You are an expert. You know, if you want to send me in a few days, David, like I could I could probably cover for you with what I know from TV.

But, you know, I think like most people, I have this idea of how the system works.

That's very based on the media, not necessarily reality and my own experiences.

And actually, you know, last year I got in trouble on Twitter.

I had a little run in with the LAPD. Some people. Yeah, it was it was like during the beginning of covid restrictions in L.A., like locking things down.

And some of my coworkers were telling me like, oh, I had a family member get a ticket in this area and a family member get a ticket in this area.

And so me being someone who I don't trust the police, I'm a black woman.

I'm a poor like I grew up in a poor area. I don't trust the police.

So when I'm hearing this from my coworkers who were all people of color, I'm like, oh, people got to know that like the cops are fucking up like the cops do.

Wait, just stop for a second. What are you you're saying? You got in trouble on Twitter.

Yeah, the LAPD.

By the LAPD. Yes, they're policing Twitter now.

Yeah, I literally tweeted. I was like, hey, my coworkers said their friends like gave complete context to be like, I am not a public expert on this.

I was literally like a coworkers friend's sister said she got a ticket.

So just FYI, if you're a person of color, the cops are going to be doing cop shit over this covid stuff.

And I tweet that and it like blows up in the LAPD like sheriff Twitter account replies and is like, you're lying.

Like we're not giving tickets. And like all these pro cop people are like, yeah, you liar.

Like why support the men in blue? They would never do that and lie.

And then, of course, like two months later, it comes out that like people were giving ticket like cops because cops can do whatever they want.

Some cops were giving tickets and some cops weren't giving tickets and like some cops in Santa Monica were giving tickets and some were and it was just all over the place.

But I dealt with so much hate from that after that. I was like, you know what?

I want to know the reality of the system. And like you said, we knew we knew each other from comedy.

I knew that you were a public defender. You could you could tear down these walls and right and show me the truth about the fact that the cops lie all the time.

So, you know, maybe we should question these systems and the things that they tell us and police us on on Twitter.

So I'm so happy you let me come in and learn firsthand from the real experts instead of Benson and Stabler.

Well, Ashley, Ashley, we are happy to have you as a guest host today.

This is going to be awesome. We have a pretty dope public defender as a guest.

If anybody knows how to take down the police and expose them for their lives, it's our guest.

All the way from Salado County, California, A&G World, give it up for our boy, our public defender of the day, Evan Greenberg.

Evan, how are you doing today?

Doing so well. Thank you, David. I'm excited to be on your show.

Nice. We're excited to have you. And how long have you been a defense attorney for?

I've been doing defense related work for about 10 years, and I've been a public defender since 2017.

And then about a year ago, right at the start of the pandemic, I actually left and joined a private defense firm.

Oh, OK, OK, OK. But still a public defender at heart, though, right?

Still a public defender at heart. Still doing some appointed work.

So I still have some indigent defense work, and I'm excited to keep doing it.

And the trial you're going to share with us today was a trial that occurred while you're a public defender, right?

At Salado County Public Defender.

All right. OK, so tell us about this case, this trial that you won.

What were the facts of the case? The police report version.

So the police report says that the officers saw my client.

I'll just call him Douglas. Douglas is not his name, but I'll call him Douglas.

Saw him standing outside of a grocery store leaning up against the side of the building.

And that was suspicious enough to go speak with them.

So the officer decided to go talk to him, saw a bicycle sort of in the bushes, a little bit obscured by some bushes.

And the officer wanted to talk to him about the bicycle also.

So the officer approached, asked him what's the story with this bike.

He says, you know, basically, it's my bike.

The officer keeps talking to him.

Eventually, the officer decides to search him and the client says, yeah, go ahead.

In the course of the search, they find a bunch of things.

One of the things they find is a tablet, sort of like an iPad, but an off brand iPad.

Then a second officer shows up.

They end up turning on the tablet and write like the notification on the home screen is an email from another police officer to the tablet owner describing taking a report about this stolen tablet.

So when the officers see that email, they then figure out that maybe the tablet doesn't belong to him.

They ask him about it.

He gives a few different stories about where he got the tablet.

And then they eventually connect the dots and figure out that the tablet was stolen from a hotel the previous night.

And the owner had reported to the police officers.

And then the officer wrote an email just documenting that they took the report.

And that was the email that the police saw when they approached my client.

What does the report say from the was there an initial report taken when the when the owner of the tablet realized that it was stolen?

So once the police figure out that this tablet has already been reported stolen the previous night, they talked to the officer who took that report, they find out whose tablet it is, they call her.

And she, the tablet owner, I'll just call her Vicky instead of victim, I guess.

She describes what happened at the hotel the day before, which is that she she was in town for work on a work trip.

She left the hotel in the morning.

She saw my client in the hallway as she left her room.

She walked outside to smoke a cigarette.

A few minutes later, my client came outside, joined her.

They shared, you know, they each, they each smoked a cigarette, made some small talk for a few minutes.

And then she left for her work conference.

That was in the morning.

Okay.

She came back in the evening and noticed that her tablet was missing the tablet she had left on her nightstand in her hotel room.

So then she reported it stolen.

They took a report that night.

And that's the tablet that the police found the next day.

And then they, the officers go retrieve this woman after they find the tablet the next morning.

They go get her.

They bring her to the grocery store where my client was.

And she says, yes, that's the guy that I saw at the hotel.

That's the guy who smoked a cigarette with me.

And yes, that's my tablet.

What did your client ended up being charged with?

They charged him with a receipt of stolen property.

No, not receiving stolen property.

They charged him with a felony residential burglary.

The residence being this woman's hotel room.

Wow.

Okay.

For the hotel room is, but she doesn't live there, right?

She doesn't live there, but she was living there for a night or two.

And the law says that's enough.

So he based, based on this, the theft of this tablet that cost about $250 and was returned to her the very next morning.

They charged my client with a strike felony, a residential burglary, and he was looking at years in prison if he had been convicted.

This seems totally unfair.

You see these charges.

When are you sort of brought in after he's arrested?

I get assigned the case after the arraignment.

He is still held in custody.

I go visit him.

I talk to him.

Eventually, I talk with the DA and learn that they're not coming off of a strike.

They want me to plead to the strike.

That was their negotiating position was basically plead to it.

And so it became apparent pretty quickly that we were going to have to fight the cases along every avenue that we could.

When you looked at the case and you spoke to your client, what were some of your strategy in terms of building a defense?

What did you notice?

There were a bunch of possible legal issues related to the detention of Doug and the search of Doug and the search of the tablet.

So I definitely planned on litigating those when I could.

And then as far as like investigating the facts, I realized that really they didn't they didn't have an answer to how someone gets into a hotel room.

And if anyone has ever been in a hotel, you know, the doors, they close and lock automatically.

If you leave your key in the room, you have to go get a new one from the front desk.

He didn't he wasn't found with a key.

He never said he went in.

The police reports didn't have any indication of how anyone would have got in.

So that was a big factor for me was, OK, this defense at least is going to be based on.

They have no idea how anyone got in the room, let alone how my client did.

So the so the proof residential burglary, they have to prove that your client entered the actual hotel room, right?

Yeah.

And what and what were the statements he may have said to the police regarding that?

He didn't he he denied going in the room entirely.

He made several statements.

They asked him about the tablet.

And first, he said that he found it at the hotel on a bench.

Then he said a few minutes later that he found it at the hotel at a table.

He said he was going back to the hotel that morning to return the tablet and turn it in basically the lost and found or something like that.

But that he had kept it because he wanted to communicate with someone, use it for email or something like that.

And then after he gets arrested and put in the back of a patrol car, he says to the officer, OK, fine.

Do you want to know what really happened?

The officer says, yes, I do.

And he says, OK, I'll tell you.

But I want none of this on the record.

This business stays just between you and me.

The truth is I bought it from somebody.

I bought it from someone at the hotel.

I assume it was stolen, but I don't really know.

I don't know where the other person got it, but I bought it from someone.

Is that something a lot of defendants think think works saying to the cops say this just stays between us?

I have no idea of a lot of people think it works.

I don't think I've ever had another client who tried going off the record with a confession, but it did not work and it did not stay off the record.

Very. Yeah. You got it like that wild card on his part on Douglas, this part there, you know, that's that's that's interesting.

So at this point, they do have this confession.

And looking at the police report, like I said, I think a lot of civilians put a lot of trust in a police report.

And I want to get into this one because this I think is an area where where the cops kind of failed on the police report.

So what what did they say in it? Did they interview anyone who worked at the hotel?

Did they look at any footage for staff rooms? Did they what was that process like?

Yeah. So the police investigation was that they went to the hotel and spoke with the manager.

The manager showed them the hotel video system video. There were cameras downstairs on the first floor in the lobby and in the hallways.

The hotel room where the woman was staying was on the second floor and there are no cameras anywhere on the second floor.

So the officer watched the video that showed my client sort of milling around the hotel.

He went to the he went to lobby bistro and had breakfast and some coffee for a while.

And the video shows him sort of milling around and walking up and down stairwells.

And he's there for, I think, two or three hours.

And then he and then he leaves. So they watched the video and then they talked to the manager to see whether whether he was registered guest at the hotel.

And she said, no, we don't have anybody by that name.

Which he had also admitted, right? He told them he never pretended to be a guest.

No, he never said he was a guest. He said he was there to buy stolen property.

And he told them that he was living in two different places in town to two different friends houses.

What's your next step in this case, then?

Like, are you just kind of hoping that are you prepping for the suppression motion?

Are you doing investigation? Where do you go?

Because you said that you tried to get to see if the prosecution would just come off of the strike.

Well, I mean, he admitted that he committed the crime receiving stolen property.

That's what he told the officer he did in that off the record confession that he tried to make.

And I thought that would seem like a fair outcome if they wanted to let him plead guilty to a misdemeanor receiving stolen property.

This tablet was only worth $250 and it was returned to this woman the next morning.

So there wasn't really any financial loss.

She just didn't have her tablet for one evening.

But the DA said no.

And I think they said no, at least in part because they wanted him to be convicted of a felony.

And the tablet was not worth a high enough value to make this crime a felony.

So they weren't going to offer that.

Should have been an iPad.

Should have been an iPad.

Yeah, a nice iPad would have done it.

Yeah, that would have put him right over the edge.

Could have got some good time on that one.

So you start kind of working through the sort of holes in these stories.

You start to notice, well, they can't explain how he even got into the room.

What kind of happens with your journey with this footage?

Did you try to get more footage?

What happens there?

So the video ended up being a very important part of the case because at the preliminary hearing,

the prosecution gave me a CD that had 34 different video files from, I think, just two cameras.

And they're pretty short videos, you know, maybe a minute or two each.

But the officer had written in his report that he had seen on video my client doing particular things in the hotel.

And I watched all the videos and they didn't show my client doing any of those things.

So I sort of figured that I didn't have everything.

And I wrote the DA and said, hey, the video, the disc you gave me only has 34 files.

Maybe I don't have everything.

Can you check?

And they wrote back and said, that's everything we have.

And that didn't throw up any red flags like, oh, this police report isn't really aligning with the video I'm seeing.

It threw up a lot of red flags for me, but apparently none in the DA's office.

Hey, ANG fans, thanks for listening.

Got Facebook, Twitter or Instagram?

Like us and follow us.

And please leave a comment if you like this episode.

You've requested more discovery for the video.

What other like pretrial investigation are you doing?

I spoke.

I went to the hotel and looked around.

You physically went to the hotel?

I physically went to the hotel and looked around.

By yourself?

Yeah.

I drove over there.

Is that something you try to do?

Or was that something you tried to do for a lot of your cases?

Any time I have a trial, I try to go visit the scene and look around.

Wow.

That sounds hardcore.

That sounds real like true detective-y.

Yeah.

Did you have a gun with you?

Yeah.

Or a badge?

I mean, just in your civilian clothes?

I was in civilian clothes.

This is in not a dangerous part of town.

It's across the street from an outlet mall.

Okay.

So we're talking about like a Marriott, not like the seedy underbelly of a hotel.

Yeah.

It's a courtyard Marriott.

It's a lower level Marriott.

You're coming out of the H&M from across the street.

You're like, hey, that's the motel in my case.

I might as well just do some crime scene investigation, right?

Yeah.

And this manager was really fantastic with me because I show up and she knows that I'm representing

the man who is accused of milling around her hotel and stealing from her hotel guests

and breaking into her hotel guest rooms.

And I had no idea what kind of reception I would get, but she was completely understanding

that I was there doing my job for my client and just investigating and she could not have been

more helpful and more gracious to me.

Oh, okay.

So like what type of stuff did she do?

Did she like lead you around, give you a tour, show you the camera system?

I did not need to see the camera system.

So I didn't ask to see the camera system, but she did let me look around and she talked

to me about a lot about the hotel room doors.

Yeah.

Because I really wanted to know, do these doors lock automatically when you close them?

Is there any way to prevent them from locking?

Uh, was the door on this particular room?

Was there anything wrong with it?

Did they go look at it after and learn that actually this door wasn't locking properly

and all you had to do was, you know, push it open?

Because I would think, okay, if the prosecution's telling the truth here, this manager should be

really concerned about the security system at her hotel.

How, how are people getting just breaking into rooms?

I would think, yeah, she wants to get to the bottom of this too.

Right.

You went to the actual room then?

I did.

I looked at the door.

Yeah.

Did you, did you touch it?

No.

You didn't touch the handle?

No.

You didn't put like a glove on?

Just to see.

What if you, what if you had gone for it and it had just opened?

Luckily I didn't, I didn't go for it.

It didn't open.

So.

Did you like touch the door handle, then stare off into like this, the sky and kind

of like shut your chin a little bit, graze it?

I just, I just looked around and tried to see, tried to see what, what I could learn.

I did see that there were multiple tables in the hotel because I could tell part of the

DA's theory was that when he said he bought the tablet from someone at a table, they assumed

he meant the table that was on the first floor covered by a video camera.

And because the video did not show that transaction happening, he must've been lying.

And I wanted to see, are there other tables in the hotel where there's no video where this

could have happened?

And one thing I really wanted to know was who else had access to the room.

And the hotel manager was very forthcoming that, you know, basically any employee could

have made a, could have made a key at the front desk, that the housekeepers all have keys,

that the maintenance all have keys, that all the managers have keys.

And then another really helpful bit of information she gave me was that they have a device that

you can plug into the door of any hotel room.

And it will tell you all the recent times anyone has used a key to open the door.

And it will even tell you which key, like every key that's made is coded as like a housekeeping key,

a maintenance key, and it's even coded to the particular housekeeper or maintenance worker.

And she said that they have that capability of just finding out which keys open the room.

So if the officer had bothered to ask, can we find out who entered the room?

She would have plugged in the machine and learned exactly who opened that room the day that this happened.

But the officer never bothered to ask.

And by the time I asked whether anything like this existed, the memory had already been wiped.

Wow.

I just I'm trying to understand this because I would think cops do their job.

They investigate.

They're supposed to investigate.

Someone's hotel room gets broken into.

I am not a brilliant detective, but I would think my first step would be,

let's see what key cards were used on the door.

You would think so.

But did your guy even have a key on him?

Was he found with anything like that?

No, he did not have a key on him.

They searched him when they arrested them and he did not have a key.

And this was another example where the police did not really do anything.

I mean, what you're talking about is that the basic part of investigation is who had the opportunity to do this.

And everyone with the key had the opportunity.

And the officer never once bothered to find out who who even has a key, let alone ask this question.

Is there a computer that will tell me?

Yeah. At this point, Evan, you, I think, have done more investigating than the police officer.

It sounds like you asked more questions.

You almost knocked on more doors.

It sounds like.

Yes, I did.

And then the other issue we want to talk about is, you know, like, I mean, you know, the police officer just kind of walked up to your client,

asked him a question, was not satisfied with the answer, decided that he was a suspect in something.

We don't know yet, but he shouldn't have a bike because his answer was inconsistent with whatever the cop thought should have been the answer and decided to detain him.

And then based off that decided to pick up a tab and then decided to hit the tablet.

That's right.

That's right.

I thought everything that they did was illegal.

And I filed a motion after the preliminary hearing and we had the officer come in again.

And I questioned him again about the fact he had no reasonable basis to be stopping my client in the first place or talking to him or detaining him or searching him or any of that.

And he said the reason he decided to stop or to question him was because there was a bicycle in the bushes outside of this grocery store and my client was standing nearby.

And the officer said he appeared he appeared to be sleeping while standing up leaning against a pillar because his eyes were closed.

He looked like he was sleeping.

Also, it doesn't really seem like a valid reason to stop someone just because they're standing outside of a grocery store at eight in the morning.

Suspective.

Can we back up just a little bit?

So when they caught him with the bike, they asked him, you know, whose bike is it?

Apparently, but but he did have a body cam and there was no audio at the start.

So it was a little also confusing as to what the officer said when he initially approached your client, right?

Yeah, so that came out during the hearing on this motion to suppress the officers body cams.

I think most of the time there's a period of about 30 seconds where there's video but no audio and you have to wait 30 seconds before the audio kicks in.

And so what the officer said was he approached my client and asked whose bike is that?

And he said, it's my bike. And that that statement was during the part of the video where there's no audio.

Okay. I mean, so when you say there's 30 seconds before the audio kicks in, like, like, you mean the video starts 30 seconds, you see the officer doing something, and then audio kicks in all of a sudden?

Right.

What? Why is that? Why is it like that?

I have no idea. It's like that almost.

It's because motherfuckers can turn it on and off when they want to.

Yeah, probably. Yeah, so they can turn it off.

What?

And so then he can say, I asked him if it was his bike, and he said it was his bike, and then he changed his story.

And now I have probable cause.

It's by design.

When it's possible, he was like, hey, was it your bike? And he was like, oh, it's my friend's bike.

But now the cop is sort of given the upper hand and leverage in this situation, because he can make up what happens in that 30 seconds.

Yeah, that's, I mean, it does allow them to make up things and it becomes really hard to challenge.

So yeah, so you're, you're defendant. He answered the question. That's probably a mistake.

I'd imagine. I feel like I watch, I watch Law and Order and I've learned you keep your mouth shut.

So tell us about this, the suppression hearing then, like how did, how did testimony go?

Yeah, so the officer says that he came up, he asked him about the bike. He thought the bike might be stolen because of the way it was thrown up into the bushes.

He asked him about the bike. My client said, it's my bike. And then a little later, they said, can we go look at it? And that's when my client says, well, it's not really my bike. A friend is loaning it to me.

And he names the person and says, do you know her? She's lent me this bike. And the officer says, no, I don't know her. And then they start talking about the bike. The officer calls in the serial number to the dispatch.

My client's explaining far too much about where he is and what he's doing. And it turns out there's nothing wrong with the bike. The bike's not reported stolen and it's fine.

But did they, I mean, cause you know, the cops can, I are allowed to just walk up to citizens and ask questions. Did, was your client detained? Was he free to leave? Like what did the circumstances show?

I mean, if they're, if they're, if they're like getting the serial number off a bike, that means they're physically grabbing the bike and looking at it, preventing your client from taking his bike and riding away.

So, I mean, you may even, I mean, not only was he, that sounds like a detention, but even could be a prolonged detention.

I thought it was a detention. They did not handcuff him. They did not ever tell him that he had to stay, but he also never asked if he could leave or tried to leave.

So we don't really know for sure what they would have said.

And how many cops were there? Two, three?

No, just the one.

Just the one.

Just the one. Okay.

Just the one he had parked in the, he parked illegally, like in, in the, the part of the grocery store parking lot where you're not supposed to stop.

And he parked the car and got up and walked up, walked up. So I thought it was a detention.

I don't think he would have let my client leave if my client had tried to, but that's not what, that's not how it happened.

What else is going on during the hearing on the testimony of this cop? Like, uh, he, he runs a serial number, right?

To see if it's stolen, correct?

Right. And it comes back. There's nothing, there's nothing wrong with the bike. It's not stolen. And my client does not say no to anything. He says yes to everything.

The officer asks, can I, you know, can I search you? Can we go look at the bike? You know, can I, my client says yes to everything, which made the, which made the, the motion to suppress a little more challenging.

Cause as soon as you say yes, you can search me. You're basically giving up your rights and giving up your right to fight it in court.

We lose this one. We lose this round. All right. You lost the battle, but not the fight or the, not the war yet, or the lost the fire or not. So say something clever like that, you know, but you know,

We lost the battle, but not the war and we were going to keep fighting.

That's right. That's right. As a public defender, we take our hits, but we get right back up. Isn't that right, Evan?

Yes, always.

Okay. So you get sent out to trial. Tell us about the judge you're in front of.

We're in front of a judge that I had never practiced in front of before. He was a long time prosecutor in the county. He rose very high in DA's office and got onto the bench.

My colleagues in the public defender's office told me that he was a reasonable and good judge who understood the law and would make good rulings.

So I felt pretty good about it, but I had never, I'd never been in front of him before.

So, okay. So tell us about, uh, any, any pre-trial motions, motion to limit me.

Uh, so one of the motions I make is I don't want the officer to be able to come in and say, I watched the video and I can tell you based on my review that I didn't see any transaction like the client described where someone told him, uh, where someone sold him the tablet.

I say, you know, if the DA has the video, they can show the video to the jury and the jury, the jurors can decide whether that transactions on the video or not, but it's not, it's not admissible to have the officer just give his characterization of what he's watched on the video.

And the judge basically agrees with me.

Especially since he's not the custodian of records either when it comes to the video.

Right. So, um, okay, quick question. Uh, what is a custodian of records? It sounds like a really boring superhero.

Yeah, it's the person who testifies that these videos are properly maintained at the time and date stamps on them are reflect the true time and date of the video. So, you know, it's, that it's all legit that we're not using doctored, you know, cop footage.

Right. Right. And in very, a very important role in the trial. So I feel like I was right in saying a very boring superhero.

Yeah, pretty much. But nonetheless, the superhero, nonetheless, nonetheless.

So I also moved to exclude any evidence that hadn't been turned over on time. And the DA said, well, we don't have any, it's all been turned over. And the judge basically agreed and said, okay, we're not going to let in any late evidence then.

Yeah, that's a, that's an interesting, uh, motion and lemony. Is it, did you, is that something you do in all your trials or is that just, did you feel like there was something coming down the pipe work in this case?

Yeah. Do you just have like a tingly feeling?

Well, I think it's pretty standard, but I always wondered why I didn't have video showing what the officer claimed he saw on the video.

And that's why, and that's why you sent the email to the prosecutor, right? Saying, Hey, do I have all the video here?

Yes.

Yeah. And they say, yes. Okay. So because of that, you, you waved that flag. We, you threw that red flag up.

Right. And so then the same day that we're having this discussion about the eliminate motions and the, we're talking about how there is no late disclosed evidence around 430 that afternoon, I get a call from the DA and he says, Hey, bottom line, there is more video.

I'm going to bring it up to you. And he comes up to my office and hands me a USB drive. Uh, so if you remember the disc I got at the start of the case had 34 video files on it. This USB drive has 165 video files on it. And this is at 430 or 440 PM the day before we're going to pick a jury.

Wow.

And there's hours and hours of video. Now, uh, there, the files are between two and maybe 10 minutes long, depending there's multiple cameras. There's new cameras that I had never seen before. Uh, so it's a real problem.

Yeah. What, what, what are you going to do? What are you going to do? What do you do? What did you do?

So I found a motion to exclude all that evidence and to impose any sanction that the judge thought was appropriate for the late discovery.

Did you think there was anything in there that could have helped your client?

I mean, you don't know until you look at it and I didn't have time to look at it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And the other, the other part is if the video does not show my client doing anything criminal, then it's exonerating evidence and I should have received it immediately.

So that's how the, so that's how the judge rules and he excludes it all.

Uh, after the judge continued it for a day for me to look at it and decide what I wanted to ask for and continue it another time.

I think the DA would say he was sick one time and then we came back to following weekend or after the weekend.

And that's when the judge finally said, okay, all of the video is excluded except the 34 files you turned over initially.

And at that point, the DA just decided to dismiss the case and start the entire process over again.

And what did the prosecution have a good reason for their oversight or they, were they crying a little bit or no, they, they came in with a detailed explanation that said, look, the problem was the officer only gave us 34 files.

We turned over everything we had to the defense at the preliminary hearing.

And we never knew that the officer had an extra hundred and 30 files until the night before trial.

And as soon as we learned about it, that's when we gave it to them.

And what the officer just happened to be going through his computer.

Somebody just happened to, none of it really matters because the law says if the police have it, then that that's the equivalent of the prosecutor having it.

So they were required to turn it over anyway.

And then also there was the fact that I had emailed them two weeks earlier, three weeks earlier saying, hey, there seems to be maybe some missing video.

Can you let me know if we have everything?

And that didn't seem to raise any flags for the DA.

And there was also the fact that if they had watched the video at any time preparing for trial before the night before, they would have seen that it was a bunch of worthless video that didn't show what they wanted it to show.

And they would have immediately known that they were missing it, too.

But they didn't do that until the night before trial.

I just it's just amazing that, you know, there's at the center of this, this man, your client, Douglas, and he's already been sitting in prison.

He's now facing four years.

He has this this DA who wants him to to plead and just take a strike.

And the DA can't even be bothered.

These people can't even be bothered to look at the evidence when when the consequences are so severe.

It just it's that's.

Yeah.

Yeah.

How do you how do you how do you get them back?

Evan, tell us how you got them.

Tell us how you got them, Evan.

So they they restarted the case.

They filed it again.

Which they can only do once on a felony, at least of a low grade felony.

They can they can start over once.

That's it.

They get one.

The only thing is when I first when you first said they dismiss, you know, my court TV mind.

Well, we're good then.

Dismissed.

That's that's what you hear that you're good in law and order.

They say dismissed.

OK.

At this time, I would like to thank and acknowledge our newest member to the A&G Patreon program, Emma Johnson, for her contribution to the podcast.

If you, too, would like to donate to the podcast and receive a shout out on an episode and or the unedited version of this season, then please visit our website at another not guilty pod dot com and click on the Patreon link.

Thank you.

So, Evan, the dairy files and what happens next?

You just go through the process again.

Anything of significance?

The prelim?

The emotion?

The suppress again?

We did the same path again.

So we did the prelim.

Lost that.

Ran the same suppression motion again.

Lost that.

One benefit was now the officer has testified four times in the case.

And anytime you tell the same story four times, you're going to have inconsistencies rise.

And one of the good ones was the officer.

He kept saying my client gave three different stories for how he got the tablet.

But when the officer would describe the sequence of those three stories, the sequence would switch depending on when the officer was describing it.

So I was able to get the officer to sort of contradict himself as he kept telling the same stories.

Yeah.

Did you prep for that with like a good like line to get him?

Like, he's telling three stories, sir.

Is that part of your prep notes?

Oh, yeah.

So I had a whole thing prepped about how the officer couldn't keep the story straight.

But it just ended up one of those things that you spend a lot of time preparing that during trial doesn't get used.

Right.

I know how that goes.

I write a lot of bits that just get thrown out.

Yeah.

So, Evan, let's talk about jury selection then.

Right.

Tell us about Wadir and that whole process.

So my big concern in the case is that my defense is basically admitting that my client committed a crime.

He just committed not the crime they're accusing him of and not the crime that they're trying him for.

But we're admitting that he committed receipt of stolen property because that's what was obvious and it's what he told the police that he did.

So I was very concerned about trying to get jurors who would be willing to take their sort of displeasure at my client's behavior and set it aside and say I'm not judging whether what he did was right or wrong or I'm not judging whether I like him or not.

I'm judging whether the prosecutor proved the specific thing that they're charging him with.

And so one woman I had on the jury on the jury who was highly educated, but she raised her hand during one of my questions.

And I said it was something about the presumption of innocence, I think.

And she said, you know, I just think it sounds like what you're saying is your guy did it.

As I was explaining that he that they might come to the end of the trial thinking he did something wrong, but not this, not this crime, even though he did something else wrong.

And she said, it sounds like you're saying that he did it.

And I talked to her more and more and she she kind of stuck with it and said, no, I think maybe like it sounds like that's what you're saying.

But she something about her made me want to keep her.

And she was one of those highly educated jurors that I thought would be a very good job.

And I as soon as we swore the jury, I felt terrible about that decision and was kicking myself wondering why she was still on the jury.

She ended up being the foreperson, which was just a disaster.

Any other memorable moments with jurors or anything else you talked about the jury?

Yeah, so the D.A. had this routine where he would just go down the list, go down the jurors one through 12 or one to 15 and ask them the exact same question, each one.

And one of the things he asked them was, as you sit here right now, do you feel any sympathy or empathy for the defendant?

And he got no, no, no.

And then one woman, when he asked that, she said, well, I know he's handsome.

Oh, you didn't mention that about Douglas.

Yeah.

It kind of changes the whole story now.

Yeah.

So she said she thought he was handsome and I decided not to ask her any questions at all and just leave her where she was.

Just for civilians.

Is that a very quick way to get out of jury duty?

Just just say that you find the defendant to be so attractive.

Didn't work for this juror.

She sat on the jury.

I mean, I'll give it a shot at some point.

Let you know.

So let's talk about opening statements.

My my sort of theory for the opening statement and close argument was that the D.A. and the police had tunnel vision.

And once they came to the simplest explanation, they had tunnel vision and they stopped looking at any other possibilities.

And they were just headed toward the only destination they had in front of them, which is that he he did it.

And there's no other possibility that we even need to look at.

Mm hmm.

That's why they tried to take out OJ, too.

Yeah.

All right.

That's a joke.

That's a whole other episode right there.

But but you're right.

They they have this tunnel vision in your opening.

Did you kind of lay out their failures?

Yes.

That was the big part of it is they had tunnel vision, which meant they didn't think they had to look at anything else because they're only looking at the one destination.

So they didn't look at the hotel room door.

They didn't go investigate the room.

They didn't look for fingerprints.

They didn't look for DNA.

They didn't ask any witnesses, any questions.

They didn't talk to the housekeepers.

They didn't talk to maintenance.

They didn't knock on the hotel rooms next to this woman's and ask, did you see anybody?

Did you hear anything that they didn't do anything to find out how anyone would enter a locked hotel room?

I think it's great when you could like do a list of the they didn't.

Yeah.

You know, like you just like do a list.

They didn't list.

OK, so then now it's time for the evidence to roll out.

Right.

So who do the people put up?

They called the tablet owner.

She is their first witness.

She drove up from Southern California for the trial.

What motel did you stay in?

I don't know, but they did.

But they did.

The D.A. did put her up in a hotel.

And I mean, it's, you know, it's it's a good six hour drive from Southern California to Solana County.

So two hundred and fifty dollar tablet.

She went out of her way.

So and then how did her testimony go?

Her testimony was, I thought, pretty good.

She didn't testify at all before.

So it was sort of a surprise how it was going to go.

And she testified that she did see my client, that he was just sitting at this table on the second floor when she opened her room.

There's a little sitting area and that's where he was sitting.

And importantly for me, she testified that when she left, she heard the door close and hit the frame all the way.

And that she thought it did close behind her, because I thought that was going to be the big thing is they say the prosecution is going to say maybe the door didn't shut.

But she basically testified.

Yeah, I heard it shut.

She shut the door on that theory.

Sure.

Hey, I thought I was doing the dad jokes.

Let's go.

I had to go for it.

Okay.

And then what happened next in trial?

What's the next piece of evidence?

Pertinent evidence.

I, it was either one of the two officers.

The second officer to arrive when they arrested my client didn't have much to offer just that she's the one who searched the tablet and saw the email from the dispatcher about it being stolen.

But she didn't have much to offer.

The main witness was the officer who searched and spoke with my client and investigated him.

And they played the officer's body camera video of most of my client's interaction, including the part that my client said was going to be off the record and just between him and the officer.

Oh, was it was your was your client like, Oh, man, you promised.

Come on.

Yeah.

Dude.

Come on.

They didn't honor the agreement to go off record.

Do you pinky swore?

Come on.

I think that that's good.

I think that's good evidence, though.

Like for him to like just be in the backseat of the patrol car being like, Okay, you want to know what really happened was, you know, I, you know, I bought it off somebody.

Because it's not like your client sophisticated and knows, Oh, my God, I could be a resberg and for me to prove that wasn't I have to show that I didn't enter.

And then if I say if I make up this person that said that they sold it, then at least I only go down for receipt of stolen property.

You know, that's, that's how a defense attorney would think.

But, you know, as a common citizen, they don't think like that.

So he's just, I mean, it seems like a very genuine experience or a very genuine thing to say in that moment.

That's what I argued that the fact he said it was off the record and just between us meant, you know, he was telling what really happened.

He was finally bearing his soul.

Real heart to heart.

Yeah.

So they, so they, so that cop, so they play that cop, they play the video through that cop, anything that you listed on cross examination.

I go into all the things he did not do.

You did not go look at the scene of the crime.

No.

No.

And then I play that out with as many questions as I could.

You did not go look at the doorway to her room.

You did not go look at the door to her room.

You didn't look at the doorknob.

You didn't look at the electronic lock system.

You didn't go inside.

You didn't see where the Sabbath was plugged in.

You didn't look at the dresser at the nightstand, anything.

You didn't look for fingerprints.

Your department has the capability of looking for fingerprints if you ask them to.

And he said, yes.

And I thought he was going to say that, you know, maybe that there are no good surfaces to get fingerprints off of, but he, he gave it to me and said, no, a doorknob is a good surface to get fingerprints off of.

What?

And he said, finger fingerprints will last longer than 24 hours.

Um, and it was within 24 hours.

Yeah.

Because all of this happened within 14 hours or whatever.

So.

And at some point, uh, there was a question about why he didn't, why he didn't search for fingerprints.

And the answer was something like, he didn't know whose prints they would find, which just goes to show you the ridiculousness.

You know, we didn't know what we would find.

So we didn't bother to look.

Okay.

So, so it's, so, so just maybe a common misconception I have as a civilian that it would be the job of a cop to figure out who, whose fingerprints it was that that that would be their job is something I would think.

Yeah.

Because if he went in the room and unplugged the tablet from the wall, you think he might've touched the outlet cover or the plug.

Uh, well, he had the plug with him when they arrested him.

That was the other thing.

Um, but he might take the plug if you're going to steal a tablet.

It's hard to find the right one.

Yeah.

The door, the nightstand or the doorknob or any of those things.

The one thing that did happen was I asked him, uh, you never asked if there was any way to find out which keys had opened the door recently.

And I knew he hadn't asked that because the hotel manager told me he didn't ask that.

Um, but he, he said, yes, I think I did ask that.

And manager told me there's no way to know that information.

And he had now testified, uh, four times already had never mentioned this once before.

I had never mentioned it in the police report.

Um, had never, you know, it was, it just seemed obvious to me that he was just making, he just thought like, oh yeah, I must've asked that question because who wouldn't.

No.

Cause he just made that up.

He's like, all right.

I've been saying, I've been giving him yeses to everything he said.

So let me just throw this up there.

There's no way he's going to prove this.

Yeah.

We throw a nice lie there.

So he says that he asked.

He's like, there's no way Evan went to the hotel himself and did his own investigation.

He wasn't ready, Evan.

He wasn't ready for you.

So then, uh, what happens, uh, what's the next piece of evidence then by the prosecution?

Uh, I think then they called the hotel manager to come in and admit the video and the records showing the client was not a guest.

And then as soon as I got the chance to question her, the first thing I asked was, you know, what's the, what's the key log reader that your hotel has?

And I think I, maybe I made up that name because she said, I have no idea what you're talking about or something like that.

And I, and I had to sort of walk her through it and say, don't you have a device you can plug into the door to tell you which key opened it last.

And then she understood what I was getting at.

And then she walked through that and she, you know, she said, yeah, we, we have that.

And I said, did you have it on the day that the officer came and asked you about this?

And she said, yes.

And I said, did the officer ever ask you about that?

No.

And if he had asked you, you would have shown it to him, right?

Yes.

And you were trying to be helpful.

Yes.

And you would have given him anything you could have.

Yes.

All right.

So time for the defense.

There wasn't, there's nothing.

Wait, don't you, don't you have to present a defense?

No, I didn't think we had to present anything in the defense.

I thought the prosecution.

Why don't you have to present a defense, Evan?

Why?

Because we're presumed innocent, David.

Okay.

We start having already won.

Yeah.

And the prosecution has to catch up and beat us.

Also, you mostly did their job for them.

You know, the witnesses they brought in, you, they, they ended up kind of working on your

side.

You have the victim saying she closed the door.

You have the hotel manager, uh, basically helping you out all the way.

Right.

And then you have this cop whose story is changing multiple times.

So yeah.

What, what more do you have left to do?

No, I thought nothing.

So then, uh, tell us about closing arguments then.

Well, before we did closing arguments, we did the jury instructions.

Oh, okay.

Touché.

Touché.

Touché.

We're very important.

So the instruction discussion was when I asked the judge to instruct on the lesser charge

of misdemeanor shoplifting.

And my argument was that.

Love it.

Love it.

Uh, shoplifting is when you enter a business establishment during business hours intending

to steal.

And my argument was that in order to enter the hotel room intending to steal, he first

had to enter the hotel.

And that the video showed that we know the hotel was open during business hours when he

was in there.

And therefore in this case, misdemeanor shoplifting was a lesser included offense to residential burglary.

And so I wanted the judge to tell the jurors that they could convict him of either one of

those offenses.

Right.

And that's, that's really important for them to know that difference.

Yes.

And I also really wanted that because again, that the defense was admitting that he committed

a different crime.

And I wanted, I sort of hope that the jurors, I worried that some of the jurors might want

him to convict him of something.

Even if they thought maybe the D.A. didn't really prove their case that, you know, he's

there to, to get stolen property anyway.

So.

All right.

So now tell us about closing arguments then.

Uh, the D.A.'s closing, at least the, the first part of the D.A.'s closing was.

Kind of straightforward.

It's just the argument of like, who else, who else could have done this?

Who else knew she was going to be gone?

She told him she was going to be gone the whole time.

He saw her leave the room.

So he knew which room was going to be empty the whole time.

Uh, he had the tablet.

He lied about where he got the tablet.

He lied multiple times to the officer about where he got the tablet.

Story wasn't believable.

Um, and I kind of feel like they just didn't address what I thought was the most important

thing was they still had no idea how anyone got in the room and certainly no idea how the

guy on trial got in the room and they just kind of blew past that.

Uh, all right.

So tell us about your closing argument.

Uh, I hit the same theme of tunnel vision, which is once they decided what they thought

happened, they decided the outcome and just went straight to it and they didn't bother

to look at any of these things.

And I just, I, I did David, you said earlier, it's useful.

You can make a list of all the things they didn't do.

And I made a list and put it up on the screen and said, here's, there are two columns.

You know, I said, here's what they did investigate.

And they got the video and they talked to client and they talked to the woman.

And then here are all the things they didn't do.

And that list was, you know, 25 things long or 30 things long, however many I could come

up with.

Uh, and I just pointed out that the most logical explanation was that he did buy it from someone

else.

Because the most logical explanation is someone with a key is the one who entered the room.

And you haven't heard any evidence that he had a key.

And you did hear evidence that lots of other people had a key.

And probably it was one of those other people.

And if one of those other people went in the room and got the tablet and gave it to

them, then that's receipt of stolen property, but it's not residential burglary.

All right.

So tell us about jury deliberations then.

So then during deliberations, several hours go by.

I'm back at the office and I get a call that there's a jury note and they go out there.

And, uh, the note says essentially we're deadlocked.

We can't, we can't reach a decision.

And does that make you happy?

Are you like, okay.

It's, it's always a little, you know, I think anytime you try a case, you think that you've

easily convinced everybody that you should get a not guilty verdict.

So it's a little bit distressing to realize that at least some of those people have rejected

the argument and want to convict them.

And that's upsetting.

Um, but some of them are on my side, which is really satisfying.

And I just need those people to not change their mind.

What happens when the jury says they're deadlocked?

The judge says, I asked for a mistrial.

The judge says, no, I'm going to send them back to keep, keep talking about it.

And it's at some point the, the judge asked them, what's the split here?

Like, are we talking, is it, you know, 11 to one?

Is it six to six?

Is it seven to five?

And the judge tells them, don't tell me which way you're split.

I don't want to know what the, you know, which way you're leaning.

Just tell me the numbers.

And somehow the jurors reveal that it's split 10 to two in favor of conviction, in favor of

guilty.

Did you just like heart drop?

Yeah.

And that's also when I learned that this woman who told me at the very beginning that she

thought my client was guilty, that she's the four person.

So that didn't feel very good either.

The judge sends them back.

We get called out another time.

They're still split 10 to two.

So we get, they come out a second time.

They're still split 10 to two.

I ask again for a mistrial.

The judge sends them back in a third time.

Then they send out a third note that says we're still deadlocked.

It's 10 to two.

And so the third time I asked for mistrial and the judge, I think,

says, all right, I'm going to send them home.

I'm going to dismiss them.

This is over.

I'm going to grant them this trial.

If they can't reach agreement, we're just going to be done.

And the judge calls them out and asked the four person.

So I understand that you're at a, you're at a deadlock.

And she says, well, to tell you the truth, right.

When you called us out, we are in the middle of a rich discussion.

Were you just like, ah, this, ah, this woman.

Yeah.

And they said, you know, I, I think maybe we can reach a verdict if you send us back.

And at that point there's, the judge is never going to grant a mistrial then.

So he sends them back.

I didn't know like a jury foreman has this power, I guess, where they can be like, just

give me a moment.

Just give me a second to keep working on them.

We were having a great discussion.

I got this and go back.

I mean, to get, to get a mistrial granted, the four person has to say, basically that continuing

to talk about, it's not going to be helpful.

It's not going to make any difference.

Okay.

And so when she comes out and says, oh no, we're, we're talking it through.

And I think that we may be in this rich discussion are going to come to a conclusion.

And he sends them back and pretty quickly, they have a verdict.

They come out, uh, at this point, I know it's been 10 to two for guilty for hours.

I know that finally somebody cracked and I feel terrible because if, if there's a crack,

it's probably the two and not the 10.

So I, I feel terrible and there's just, I feel very nervous, but then they read the verdict

and it's not guilty on the residential burglary and guilty on the misdemeanor shoplifting.

Well, you will take it.

Hey, it, you know, it was a giant relief.

It was a giant relief for my client.

He was very, you know, just so happy at the end of, you know, six months in jail for this

$250 tablet to not be, not be facing the prospect of being convicted of a strike and going to prison

for multiple years.

Um, and I think feeling kind of vindicated that he, he didn't ever accept the prosecution's

offer and he fought it all the way to the end, even when he had to wait for a second,

you know, a second turn.

And that was great.

And then when I left the courthouse, I saw the foreperson walking out of the courthouse

and I went up to her and said, Hey, can I, do you mind talking to me?

And she, she saw the prosecutor down the sidewalk a little bit and said, I want to talk to both

of you together.

I'm not going to talk to you and then him and have to do it twice.

Yeah.

I like that.

I like that.

Efficient.

Yeah, it's fair.

So we walk over and it ended up being, I want to say like six jurors or seven jurors

sitting in a circle talking to us.

And they tell us that what, what happened was that the 10 jurors were sure that he did

it.

And the two jurors were never going to vote guilty.

They just, they said that the one woman, I guess that I would need to see video from the

second floor to convict him of going into that room.

I would need to see something that persuasive.

They didn't prove it.

And then the other one, the other one who voted not guilty was, was the juror who called

my client handsome during jury selection.

Nice.

That one, I think her vote makes sense.

We not much to really ask about there.

It was funny.

And the four person asked me why I kept her on the jury.

And I said, I don't know.

I've been regretting it the whole time.

And, and somebody, somebody asked the DA why he kept the woman who said my client was

handsome on the jury.

And he said, I thought she was joking.

So it ended up the 10 people, they realized there was going to be a mistrial and they were

wondering what was going to happen with that.

And they sort of didn't, they were starting to speculate that maybe he was not going to be

convicted of anything.

And they decided, you know, okay, let's just acquit him of this.

You guys, you two aren't going to vote guilty.

Fine.

You'll vote guilty on the lower one.

Fine.

All 10 of us will join you.

We'll vote guilty on the lower one.

And we'll just, something is better than nothing was what the 10 people eventually decided.

Good job, Evan.

Yeah.

Great job.

It was, it was great.

And then we came back the next day for sentencing and he had already done the maximum time for

shoplifting, which is either 90 days or 180 days.

And he had already done it.

So the judge just sentenced him and let him out.

Okay.

And that was it.

And then, you know, I ended up talking to the foreperson called me sometime shortly after

that.

We talked a little more about it and I asked her, you know, were you bothered at all that

the state wanted him to go to prison, even though they never did any of this investigation?

Like they kind of had a cavalier attitude about it.

They didn't really try and find out what happened.

And she, you know, she said, well, you know, it's only a $250 tablet.

Like she got it back the next day.

You know what?

Like, we're not going to make a massive case out of this for the police, which I understand

why people would think that way.

But the problem is the consequences for my client are going to be significant and massive

and put them in prison for years.

And I just, I don't know.

I hate that attitude of, I mean, I'll excuse some sort of sloppy police work, which she admitted

she and other jurors thought that the police didn't do a great job, but I think they just

sort of excused it because it wasn't such a big deal.

Yeah.

I think most of us, you know, we're, we're kind of trained to think, give the cops the

benefit of the doubt.

Give the, give the prosecutors the benefit of the doubt.

They're just trying to get the bad guys do the right thing.

So if they, if they have holes in their story, it's, you know, it, it, they probably have

a reason and it makes sense.

Uh, and it's, it's scary to think so many people still think that way.

You know, for me as like a black woman, I, to me, that's crazy.

I would never want to give the cops that benefit of the doubt to me.

It makes me so angry that they didn't do any of the basic investigation or work they should

have done to, to protect this guy, to not send him to jail for four years.

I have a, I did a trial once where we lost and you know, the, the, the, the whole cross

examination of the cop and the, I don't know, and you didn't do this and they still convicted.

And then we talked to the jurors afterwards and the four, I don't know if he was a poor

person, but he told the prosecution, don't you worry.

We, we, we knew that had that cop done their job, then there would have been the evidence.

So we convicted anyways, you know, like, yeah, it's like for, for cops, they're willing to,

to fill in these blanks of like, oh, if the cops had done this or like, oh, I'm sure the cop

wanted to find footage on the second floor or, you know, they wanted to look at the key card reader,

but they didn't, they didn't know they had it.

It was their gut.

Um, so thank you.

Thank you for people like you, Evan, who, yes, we're making people.

You have to fight.

One of the other jurors told me he did not think the prosecutor had proven the case beyond

a reasonable doubt, but he voted guilty because he thought my guy probably did it, which is

not how the law is supposed to work, but that's, you, you, you have people like that on the jury.

You have to try and convince them to come your way.

Cause we don't get two shots at it.

Like the prosecution does.

We don't get to dismiss and refile or go again.

So it's, it's once.

So, uh, Evan, how long, how long, uh, have you been, you're not a public defender.

You're not a public defender now, but you were a public defender when this, uh, like how

long you've been a defense attorney for.

I've been doing some type of criminal law for about 10 years.

I started doing a lot of appellate and post-conviction work.

Uh, and then I was a public defender for three years in different counties in California.

Okay.

And then just recently I joined a firm, but it's still doing criminal defense and, uh, criminal

appeals.

Okay, Evan.

Evan.

And now I'm going to ask you a question that I ask all our guests.

What brought you to this work?

What brought you to indigent defense and wanting to be a public defender?

I really enjoy getting to know my clients and feeling like I get to help people who are

in a very difficult time in their lives.

And also, uh, I like that the role is to just help everybody, help your clients, no matter

what position they find themselves in, or no matter what the evidence is, just help them

just try and understand how they got to the, where they are and do everything you can to

improve their situation.

And I think there's a clarity in that.

And I enjoy that role.

And then also, you know, doing indigent defense work and being a public defender, there's a

lot of opportunity to get into court and fight out issues and raise legal issues and just

litigate things and try cases.

And that's all, it's all enjoyable and it's exciting.

And I like to do it.

Yeah.

So you're, you're a fan of the podcast, right?

Big fan of the podcast.

I heard about it, uh, about two years ago at a criminal defense lawyer seminar, where one

of the attorneys from your office, David, uh, during the seminar suggested to everybody

in the room that they should be listening to this podcast.

And I listened to one and that was all I needed.

I've just been hooked ever since.

Great, great.

So, uh, anything else you want to ask Ashley?

Yeah.

So I just wanted to do a quick sort of, um, so we, we learned a lot, I think from this

story of, of how we can be better if we're kind of in these situations.

If, if a cop comes up to you, don't say anything, just, you can't get caught telling a flip floppy

story if you're not telling a story in the first place.

Uh, you know, if, if you're selected for a jury, maybe say the guy's hot, maybe don't,

don't know how that one will work out.

Uh, but it, it could work, but, but I think mostly what we've learned here is, is don't

always trust these, these, you know, these police reports, these, these very things that

seem like facts.

Uh, cause a lot of times they're, they're not really doing the investigation that you think

they are, even though it is their job.

Well said, Ashley.

And thank you for that.

And I just want to say thanks for coming on the show today, Ashley.

It was so much fun.

You brought a nice, fresh perspective and your, your humor was great as well.

So thanks for being here.

Thank you so much.

I am so glad I got to be here.

Thank you for letting me hear this story.

Again, what you, what you actually do is so important.

We, you learn a lot.

Uh, I really appreciate it.

Thanks for having me.

And Evan, thanks for being on the show today.

Thanks for coming on and sharing the amazing work you do for our clients on a daily basis.

Great job.

And our clients are lucky to have you.

Thanks for being here.

I am so pleased to be on the show.

I'm a big fan.

I keep listening and best of luck.

Thanks for tuning in to this week's episode of another not guilty shout out to Daniel Mark,

original A and G theme music composer and Mike Grimm for the remix.

And guess what?

We'll be back in two weeks with another not guilty straight from the trenches.