I Pity The Courtroom Cleaning Staff! – When Chaos Meets a Not Guilty

What's up to all my peeps in the A&G-verse?

Not going to lie or pretend or fake it.

I am sick today as I record this message.

So I'm going to keep it brief and say keep hope alive.

Don't give up. Keep fighting.

I do, however, want to give a special thanks and shout out to Rob Steinberg, Darby, Dejarnett, and Jason B, our newest members to the A&G Patreon program.

Thank you so much, Rob, Darby, and Jason.

Your donations are certainly appreciated and help pay the bills over here at the A&G Studios.

If you, too, would like to donate and join the A&G Patreon team, then please visit our outdated website at anothernotguiltypod.com and click on the Patreon link.

And with that said...

Without further ado, here's this week's episode of Another Not Guilty.

So the prosecution's case has barely begun and my client puked everywhere.

To his credit, my client tried to catch it in his little plastic water cup that they give you.

Which is like this big, you know, and obviously it was overflowing and it got everywhere.

It smelled horrible.

And the bailiff, like, grabbed my client and whisked him into the holding cell in the side of the courtroom.

Obviously my client's wearing a suit, right?

We're taking precautions to make sure the jury doesn't know he's in custody.

Except now.

And the bailiff just went and screwed all that up.

I don't know what he should have done.

I think he didn't know what to do.

So the cat's out of the bag.

The jury had seen that.

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.

Another not-guilty.

All right.

Welcome back, everybody, to Another Not Guilty.

It's your boy, Davey D, here, bringing you the freshest not-guilties that these fine United States can provide in the year of 2025.

This is the first recording that me and Lauren, or Lauren and I, have been doing.

Oh, I guess I just gave away who our co-host is today.

Lauren, how are you doing today?

I'm good.

It's good to be back.

We had a little hiatus.

Happy New Year.

Happy New Year.

I love your sport coat.

You're wearing a pink or fuchsia.

What are you rocking today?

This is a pink blazer.

Yeah.

Nice.

You know?

Did you bust out on court today?

I did.

And I'm wearing Doc Martens.

Some combat boots.

I know.

Oh, okay.

Oh, okay.

Wow.

Wow.

Wow.

Okay.

I like to go in extremes.

Keep them guessing, you know.

Combat boots and bright pink.

I can't put you in a box.

What are you?

I don't know what to do.

I'm a, you know, white man.

Hopefully they don't see me coming.

White men.

We like to categorize people and put them in.

Oh, I'm aware.

You know, like a.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm aware.

What are you?

I'm your worst nightmare.

Oh, shit.

Yeah.

Well, Lauren, I'm glad you're here.

Good to see you.

I'm excited about today's guest.

Excited about today's guest.

We have Sasha Mount from the San Joaquin Public Defender's Office.

San Joaquin up there making it happen in the, is it mid-Northern California sort of.

Central Valley.

Central Valley, Stockton area.

They got a lot going on.

There's a lot of badass public defenders up there.

Shout out to the San Joaquin Public Defender's Office.

Some of you guys may.

Actually, Sasha works with our homeboy, Zach Katynik, too, man.

That guy's dope.

The Zach Attack?

Yeah, the Zach Attack.

They produced Public Defender Hits as the Zach Attack.

And now, Sasha Mount.

What's up, Sasha?

How you doing?

Hey, guys.

Thanks for having me.

Yeah.

This is so cool for me to be on the pod because, like I was telling you before, I used to listen

to you way back in, like, 2018, 2019, when I was just a little baby intern in San Francisco.

Woo!

Now you're a grown MPD.

And I would get fired up.

Yeah.

Well, how long have you been a public defender, not an intern, an actual lawyer?

Five years.

Yeah.

So what's that like, you're interning, and then you hear, like, another not guilty?

Like, what is, like, you know, back then in 2018, that's when we first started.

It was kind of like a new thing.

The podcast was new.

We didn't know if it was going to be okay, if we were allowed to even put this story out

there or talk about cases like this or our clients in a certain way.

Like, what did you think of that?

It got me fired up.

You know, I was working for free, so I had to get fired up somehow.

And then I would go into the office and write semi-frivolous motions and other busy work.

I mean, you choose for the pitches.

Did you listen to the podcast with Sajid Khan and Avi Singh?

Remember those guys?

I probably did.

Yeah, the Aider and a Better podcast.

They did, actually.

Those guys are dope.

There weren't that many Public Defender podcasts back then, or really any, like, Public Defender

content available back then, so this was really cool for me.

Okay, cool.

Well, now you're a full-blown Public Defender.

You're all grown up, doing your thing.

Bringing the fire, apparently.

Well, it feels pretty grown up, like when you're doing a 261 prelim, which I did yesterday.

Yeah.

Always a good time, those prelims.

So, Sasha reached out to the podcast.

Yeah, he's here to share a not-guilty trial he did last year.

Sasha, thanks for coming on the show.

Let's jump right into it.

And then, you know, I was thinking, we've got to tell people what this podcast is about up front, right?

I think I'm always assuming that.

What if you're, like, a first-time listener, right?

Wouldn't you want to know what the podcast is about?

True.

Probably helpful.

Yeah, so this is another, I'll edit this in the front.

Yeah, another not-guilty, bringing the freshest not-guilties.

You know, us public defenders sharing tales of not-guilty triumphs, how we dismantled the state, took down the big government's lies, and showed the people, gave power back to the, whatever.

All right, we'll work on that one.

Something like that.

We get the idea.

We got it.

Yeah.

Fight the man.

Fight the man, you know, that kind of shit.

We're Doc Martens.

Let's go.

All right, let's do it.

Okay, Sasha.

So back to Sasha then.

So, Sasha, tell us about this jury trial you did.

What was your client charged with?

Well, first of all, this is probably not the freshest.

Not guilty.

This is from, like, 18 months ago.

No, it's fresh.

Okay, it's still fresh.

We haven't heard it, so.

Fresh to you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So this was back when I was on the mainline felony team, and I was actually supervised by Zach from season six, episode one.

Mm.

And my client.

Are you an MF-er?

I was one of the original MF-ers, yes.

Nice.

Made on felonies.

Very proud of that.

Yes.

No, it sounds way cooler when you say MF-er.

So my client was charged, count one, with 211, robbery, felony, obviously.

And then I looked at the file.

He was charged in count two, with 245A4, assault with force likely to create great cause, great bodily injury, with the great bodily injury enhancement.

And then in count three, which was charged in the alternative to count two, 243D, so battery causing serious bodily injury.

So three felony counts, all three of them strikes, if proven.

And so he's charged with robbery, 211, an assault with force that likely to cause great bodily injury.

With the GBI enhancement.

With the GBI enhancement, meaning great bodily injury actually happened.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Which just kind of sounds funny, right?

You're charged with using force that could have caused GBI, and you did cause GBI.

The California Penal Code is so stupid.

Not only did you try, but you did it.

You succeeded.

You succeeded, yeah.

You could have caused great bodily injury, and you did.

In the hypothetical, it's like hypothetical.

You could have, and then you actually did.

And indeed you did.

And indeed you did.

Did your client have strike priors already?

No.

Pretty good record.

Not too bad.

And then battery, you have serious bodily injury.

Yeah, again, stupid, redundant.

I don't even know why they charge things in the alternative like that.

And serious bodily injury and great bodily injury are the same thing, maybe.

Yeah, pretty much, I think.

Pretty much the same thing.

So just, you know, five different ways for the government to charge one act, it sounds like.

And by the way, everything is great bodily injury, too.

Right.

Yeah.

You know, a broken bone, if you lose consciousness even for like a split second.

I think it's a chipped tooth.

Oh, God, are you serious?

Yeah, I also heard him testify to bruising.

Like, I had a bruise.

That's a great bodily injury.

No, no, no.

Yeah.

I think stitches.

But it's like, how many stitches?

You know, two?

Is that enough for GBI?

You got to have a minimum to be GBI.

Okay, so you get that complaint, you see these charges, and what does the police report read?

Well, so this came to me post-prelim.

I inherited this case after the prelim.

Okay.

So what did your client allegedly do then?

He was alleged, basically, to have beat up and robbed this guy in a park in Tracy, California.

Okay.

For no reason, apparently.

A stranger to him.

Yes, correct.

Well, the reason would be to obtain property.

Yeah, what did they say he took?

iPhone headphones.

Not even AirPods.

Corded headphones.

Well, tell us the story.

What did he allegedly do?

Totally not worth it.

Yeah, it's a chicken shit robbery.

So, CW, complaining witness, is out for a morning stroll.

He's listening to music or something on his phone.

And he's got his headphones connected.

His headphones are in.

This is a morning in June, so probably pretty nice, warm out, sunny day.

And this is a park in Tracy.

If you can imagine how a lot of new, like, suburban developments.

They'll have, like, a circular park.

And then there's houses all around.

Maybe there's a skate park in there.

There's, like, a playground.

And then there's a footpath that rings the park.

So you can run laps.

You can walk.

Push your stroller, whatever.

So, CW, that morning, is walking on the footpath.

And he's just taking a morning walk.

And I should mention, CW is an immigrant from Afghanistan.

I don't know how recent, but he doesn't speak English.

He was wearing traditional Afghan garb.

And he's doing his morning walk.

And there's only enough room on the footpath for one person to pass at a time, apparently.

It's not very wide.

So as he's going around, he sees someone coming at him from the other direction.

And another man is walking towards him.

And as they come up face to face, there's not enough room for them both to pass by.

So this is where accounts differ.

But here's what CW said in the police report.

Basically, my client pushed him and then punched him for no reason.

And he just kept punching him.

And when CW goes down, his headphones popped out.

And then my client picked up his headphones and took them.

CW claims that he got hit a bunch of times.

His head was spinning.

He lost consciousness for a second.

And his phone broke in falling down.

Because I guess he was holding it.

And when he fell, it smashed.

So CW goes back to his house, which is close by.

He lives right there in the area.

And he goes and gets his sons, who were, I think one was 20 and one was like 16.

So, you know, grown teenagers.

And the sons come back to the park to find my client, who is a homeless man who lives in that park.

They find him in his little area where he's got all his belongings.

And they kind of rough him up.

And they do sort of like a citizen's arrest.

And they call the cops.

So when the cops get there, the two boys, CW's sons, have my guy, my client, restrained.

They have him pinned to the ground.

They've managed to get him down.

And they've kind of got him in like some kind of a wrist lock or something.

So cops are like, what's going on?

What happened?

And the sons, I guess, speak better English.

They interpret for dad.

And dad gives that version of the story is that this guy basically pushed me and then punched me for no reason and took my shit.

And now I'm all fucked up and I have a broken nose and all this stuff.

Is that it?

Pretty much.

Because there was a language barrier at the initial incident.

So that's kind of all the cops were able to discern.

Then they did a supplemental report later when they went and they actually got a statement from this guy with a Pashto interpreter.

And that version differed a little tiny bit.

But go ahead.

No, you can finish.

Go ahead and finish.

So that version differed.

So when they brought this guy to the police station and actually had an interpreter there, the complaining witness said, yeah, me and this guy were walking different directions.

Pretty much everything I just told you except when we came up to each other, this guy was standing in my way.

And I wasn't able to get around him.

So I stuck my hand out and I made a gesture and I said, my friend, do you have a question for me or something like that?

And that's when my client then is alleged to have punched him and knocked him down and kept punching him and then took his headphones.

To summarize this, the complaining witness is out for his morning jog or physical activity.

He has his headphones in.

So when your client is walking on the path towards him, they kind of brush up against each other.

That's when your client punches him, pushes him, punches him and takes his headphones and leaves.

The complaining witness goes back home, gets his kids.

The kids go.

Instead of calling the police, he gets his teenage sons to go find the guy first.

To be fair, his phone was broken.

But you're right.

He could have called the cops when he got back to the house.

You're right.

And then, so the sons come back and they rough him up and that sounds like they also sort of like tie him up a little bit or restrain him.

So then who calls the police then?

Or were the police called then?

It was one of the sons.

They called the cops there at the scene, at the park.

After they beat him up.

Yeah, a little bit.

Did you hear the call?

The 911 call?

I'm assuming it's 911.

I probably did.

I don't remember.

Cut this out.

Okay.

Okay.

I know.

That'd be funny.

I'm sitting on top of a...

A vagrant.

Yeah.

I got him pinned right now.

I got him in a something lock or whatever.

I beat the shit out of him.

He's down on the ground.

Come get him.

Come take him to jail.

You said that you got this case post-prelim, meaning someone else from your office did the preliminary hearing.

Did they prop 115 it or did all of those guys come in and testify at the prelim?

And prop 115 means that at the preliminary hearing, instead of bringing in the actual witness to testify about the events,

the cops just come in to testify what the witness told them at the scene.

That's all it means.

Yeah, for non-California people, you should know that's thanks to our very Orwellian-sounding truth-in-evidence proposition, 115.

That allows hearsay to come in at the prelim.

So, yeah.

So, was it 115 at the prelim?

The answer is yes.

It was 115.

So, the prelim was useless.

The transcript didn't help me one bit.

It told me what I just told you, basically.

Just a regurgitation of the police reports.

Did you have them interviewed?

No.

Well, let's – before we get into like this, so then tell us about when you first met the client.

Or let me ask you this.

You read the – you see the complaint.

You read the prelim transcript, the police report.

You see this – what the prosecution is alleging.

What did you think of the case initially?

Right.

So, I come to get the information.

I look at the information.

I look at the prelim transcript and the police reports.

And I'm thinking, this is not a great case.

It sounds like my client just hit this guy for like no reason and stole his headphones.

That's what it sounds like at this point.

Yeah.

And it sounds like there is GBI.

You know, they'll be able to prove that up.

Luckily, the client has no strikes.

But I advise him, hey, you know, you're facing two strikes here.

And the offer at that stage was two years in state prison on either strike.

He could do the robbery or the assault with GBI.

DA didn't care, but he wanted two years in prison.

And the GBI was the broken nose?

I'm sorry.

Was that what?

So, they could have gone with the loss of consciousness.

I think that's tougher to prove, though.

Oh, okay.

Right.

But they went with, yeah, broken nose.

And that's what they proved up at trial.

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah.

So, you thought it seemed kind of bad up front?

It didn't seem like a good case to me.

Okay.

And client, in his intake interview, said he acknowledged hitting CW and taking his headphones.

He says CW mugged him and shoulder-checked him.

So, then client pushed CW, and CW swung first.

Client swung back and knocked him down.

And then client took the headphones because he was angry.

So, that was client's statement from his very first intake interview.

Okay.

I pulled the file, as you can see.

And the headphones were found on client, right?

They were found with his other belongings in his little area where he lived.

Yeah.

So, he had the property.

Had to get it somehow.

Okay.

Okay.

So, go ahead.

Tell us about when you first meet the client, then.

What was that like?

So, I go into the meeting room and just give my usual spiel.

Hey, I'm Sasha.

I was assigned to your case.

This is the process.

Here are kind of your options.

Here are your rights.

You have, like, a speedy trial.

Here's what the offer is.

Here's what your max exposure is.

If things go sideways at trial.

The usual spiel.

And client was very adamant.

Well, first, let me just describe my client.

So, first, he has a very cool name, which I'm not going to say I'm a pod.

Obviously, I want to keep him confidential.

But it started with a Z.

And so, I'll just, I'll call him Zed.

It wasn't Zed.

But I meet clients.

And he's got a very cool, unique look.

He's kind of a skinny black man with a shaved head and a mohawk.

So, kind of like a Mr. T style haircut.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then I, and then I talked to him.

And he's very soft-spoken.

He's got a very kind of detached affect.

Very sedate.

He's very chill.

And he was cool.

He wasn't confrontational with me.

He wasn't angry about anything.

He was cool.

He gets it.

But I explained to him the offer.

And I explained to him, here are the weaknesses in your case.

And here's what you could get after trial.

You know, if you go down the robbery, you're getting at least two.

If you go down the assault, you're getting at least two.

Plus, the GBI is three.

So, you're good for like five years right there.

So, they're offering two.

You have the right to trial.

But if you take the two at 85 now, I don't think it's getting any better after trial.

And he was adamant.

No, I'm not taking anything for, you know, for something I didn't do.

Basically, he's like, I acted in self-defense.

This guy, he touched me first.

He put his hands on me first.

And I didn't rob him.

I just took the headphones because I was angry.

Which I get what he's saying.

It's obviously not a defense.

But I get what he means.

And that turned into a defense later.

So, he admitted to punching him.

Did he say, wait, did he say that the guy punched him first?

In his statement to us, he said the guy punched him first.

Okay.

So, he says he punched him back.

But your client said he pushed the guy first.

And then, and then the complaining witness hit him?

Is that right?

He did say that, yes.

So, your client was the initial aggressor based on his own statement.

Well, he says that CW mugged him and shoulder checked him.

And I think by mug, he meant mean mugged him.

Mean mugged?

Yeah.

Dirty look.

That's how I took it, yeah.

Gave him a dirty look.

And then, he shoulder checked him.

Right.

So, in that version, that's self-defense.

You can't just go around shoulder checking people you don't know.

Okay.

So, then your client pushes him.

Which would be a reasonable and appropriate response to being shoulder checked.

Totally.

And then, the complaining witness swings on him and escalates it.

Correct.

And the complaining witness actually hit him?

That's not clear from his statement.

But then, your client punches him.

And then, just one time?

According to client or according to CW?

According to client.

Client.

Client says he swung back and knocked him down.

So, it sounds like one punch.

And then, takes his shit just to teach him a lesson.

Right.

And, to his credit, he's like, he's done.

He's done.

One punch and that's it.

You know?

Okay.

And then, he goes and just hangs out in the park.

The same park, right?

Yes.

He goes back.

That's where I was.

Well, I don't know if he makes it back to his belongings.

But, he must have because that's where the cops found the headphones.

Okay.

All right.

So, then.

All right.

So, then now, what are you thinking about your client's statement at this point?

I don't know.

I don't know if I'm buying it.

This guy just shoulder checks you for no reason.

Like, wasn't there a way they could both pass?

Yeah.

Based on the police report, I would walk into that interview being concerned about mental

health issues.

You have someone who's homeless.

And, if the police report is to be believed, at least in part, that would not be rational

behavior.

But, it sounds like when you met him, he was calm and seemed okay and wasn't behaving at

all like somebody who would, unprovoked, just walk up to a random person and start assaulting

them.

100%.

Yeah.

I mean, I think I probably did walk in there thinking, oh, is this going to be 1368?

But, then talking to him, no.

He was totally with it.

He got it.

He understood what was going on and what his options were.

And, he knew his defense.

And, he knew he didn't want to take an offer.

So, I'm not very good at getting people to take their offers if they don't want it.

So, it just sounds like a little bit of a street justice, right?

It's like, well, the guy punched me.

He punched me and he punched me.

Or, he punched me.

You know, like, I took his shit.

You know, that's, why is the government involved in this?

You know, like...

And, he didn't even take his phone, by the way.

Just a headphone.

Just a headphone.

He could have taken an iPhone.

Like, corded headphones.

Right.

Which are worth, what?

A dollar fifty?

Yeah.

Did your client have an iPhone he could use those with?

I doubt it.

You never know.

Okay.

But, so then, what's your defense, then?

That he took the property without...

I mean, at this point, right?

Yeah.

You're just not sure at this point.

At this stage, I didn't really have a defense in mind.

I was like, if he wants his trial, we'll do this trial.

And, I'm going down with this ship.

That's the defense at this point.

He wants his trial.

Correct.

Notate the file.

Yeah.

Okay.

And, beg for probation after trial, basically.

It's a defense.

Okay.

So, how do you start working on the case, then, from there?

What do you do?

Well, I think we continued it once or twice, and I don't remember why.

But, I worked on the DA, and I got him down to what we call a local 12 offer.

So, probation and local time.

And, it was a year and a half.

He does the bullet.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's what you guys call it.

Mm-hmm.

The year is the bullet.

So, one year.

And, it was one of the...

Okay.

One year in probation.

Right.

And, it was one of those where DA, like, didn't want to, but was like, all right,

I'll keep this open until next court date, like, you know, if you can make that happen.

So, I begged for that, and we came back, and I couldn't get Klein to take it.

I still thought, this is a loser, and I thought that local 12 was a good offer.

I didn't hate that.

You know, yeah, he'd have to eat a strike, but he already had some time in, so, you know,

he'd get out in a couple months.

And, why did Klein not want to take it?

Because he didn't want to take anything.

He, I mean, he wasn't taking shit.

Okay.

All right.

Because he said he was innocent, remember?

Yeah.

Yeah, right.

This was self-defense.

You gotta be...

Correct.

Hey, you gotta be...

Why take a strike in some time when you were just defending yourself?

That's pretty much what he said to me, like, verbatim.

Yeah.

We've heard it before, Sasha.

Yeah.

Not your first rodeo.

Yeah, we've all been there, and then been like, yeah, but what about the fact that you

took his shit?

What about the fact that he found it on you, or with your other shit?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Is your relationship with your client okay?

Because it sounds like, you know, you're trying to get him to take...

I'm not sure how hard you're going at him.

Like, is he, like...

Like, sometimes when you tell a client, like, oh, yeah, I got this offer for you, you should

take it, and they're like, hey, man, you're not fighting for me.

I want to go to trial.

I need a fighter, you know?

It wasn't one of those.

You're a public pretender.

No, it wasn't one of those.

I wasn't accused of being a dump truck or a public pretender on that occasion.

He was cool.

Okay.

But he, yeah, he wanted his trial, and, you know, I got him to continue at one time.

I don't know how I did.

I probably should have just said it at that point, to be honest, but we came back one time,

and at that point, I was like, well, time not waived, because there's no other investigation

you need me to do, probably, and you're right, maybe I should have got statements from the

CW, but...

No other witnesses then?

Yeah, pretty much.

No medical records?

There were.

What are those show?

Broken Nose?

Broken Nose, yeah.

And mention of the loss of consciousness or anything like that?

It probably said that he told the doctors he lost consciousness, right?

How do you prove that?

Yeah.

Okay.

Any other prep work on the case?

How about the evidence?

What's the evidence?

You got a police report?

Is there a body cam?

Yeah, so there's body camera of when the cops first show up, and then there's body camera

of the cops taking the CW statement at the police station.

Okay.

And that's pretty much it.

Then there's, yeah, like you said, the medical records, photos.

Anything good?

Anything in there that's bad or good that you like or don't like?

Oh, bad.

Okay.

What's bad?

When they arrested my client, he had a whole bunch of, like, kind of sharp pointy rings

on.

Okay.

Oh, and he was punching the guy, so.

With those rings?

Yeah.

Not exactly brass knuckles, but also.

But worse than just a normal old fist.

Yeah.

Was there, like, special marks on the guy's face?

He had lacerations, yes.

Okay.

Fuck around and find out.

Yeah.

Pretty much.

Okay.

All right, so that's bad, but your client is homeless, you know, which is, I mean, he's

more hypervigilant, right?

You know, okay, so with that said, then, any other evidence that was bad or good that you

saw in the discovery?

No, that was it.

But as far as prep, I had to do a lot of transcripts.

I don't know how it is in you guys' court, but if you want to bring evidence, if you want

to play video with sound, you've got to bring transcripts.

And you have to make those yourself?

I do.

Yeah, I guess I could probably make someone else do it.

How many of these interviews were in English, though, that you could transcribe?

Correct.

So it was through an interpreter, but I just had to, I guess, type it out, you know, in

Pashto, and then type out the English.

We just, we have people we can just send that to, and they just make the transcript for

us.

Sometimes if it's a real, like, two or three minutes, you know, I'll just make the transcript

myself, but, like, do you have that service in San Joaquin?

If we do, no one's ever told me about it.

You guys are a much bigger office than us.

But plus, I just like to do my own stuff.

Yeah.

You know, if I hear something a certain way, and I want the transcript to say it one way

versus another, I want to be able to make that call.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

I love sending those out to the transcribers.

I don't have time for this, but cheers to you.

We should probably use AI.

You could probably use AI at this point, right?

I don't trust that shit, though.

Okay.

So then not too much prep work on the case, then.

The evidence is the evidence.

It even sounds like there's not much of a factual dispute other than what's your client's state

of mind when he takes the property, right?

Bingo.

Okay.

Is that what your defense is?

Is it a state-of-mind defense?

When did it...

Tell us about that.

Yeah.

As I was working up the case, and I was kind of thinking through it, I settled on what the

defense was going to be to the robbery, which was just a very elements-based technical defense,

which was that at the time that he used the force or fear to permanently deprive this guy of his stuff, he had not formed that intent.

So at the time of the punching and whatever else he did to get the headphones, he was not intending to take them.

He formed that intent after the guy already went to the ground, and clients pissed off, and he's like, yeah, I'm taking these.

It's really a question of sequencing, because for it to be a robbery, there has to be...

It's a theft accomplished through the use of force or fear, but there has to be an intent.

You have to be using the force or fear to take the property.

And you're saying the force happened before any of the taking, not as part of a plan to accomplish the taking of the property.

Exactly.

That was pretty much my closing argument.

It was an afterthought.

It's just a theft, right?

He's just a grand theft person.

He did a misdemeanor battery and then a grand theft.

It hit him in charge of that.

Hey, what could I say?

That's what it is.

Maybe.

Yeah, maybe.

With GBI.

Right.

Okay.

Misdemeanor battery with a broken nose.

That's a nice argument there, Sasha.

Yeah, I know.

I know.

Did you run that defense by the client?

I don't think so.

I think I knew what he wanted, and he wanted self-defense.

And we went through that.

I explained what that was, and he was on the same page.

We were talking about that.

Okay.

I mean, because it is self-defense.

I mean, there is a self-defense element to it.

You know, the guy, he's saying the client, the guy pushed him and mean mugged him.

So he out, you know, out of his own self-preservation, he punched him back.

Totally.

It doesn't mean you get to take his stuff, but totally.

Right.

So you're going into trial with the evidence that you have are the police reports and the

medical records, and you have the statements via the police reports of the complaining witness

and his sons later, and there's no other witnesses.

No, but there's also the complaining witness's statement on body camera through the interpreter.

Right.

Okay.

And is there anything on there that's useful?

Yes.

He explained that he made a gesture to my guy when they came face to face.

Yeah.

He held his hand out and said something to him, something to the effect of, my friend, do you

have any questions for me?

Which, when I hear that, okay, that's one way of putting it, but maybe that's like the

Pashto equivalent of being like, you got a problem?

Oh, yeah.

Like, buddy, you got a problem?

Did you visit the scene or get pictures of the scene?

I mean, how small is this walking path?

Why couldn't they just walk around each other?

What are we doing here, boy?

Totally.

Like, yeah, what do other people do?

What are we doing here, boy?

Yeah, I know.

Yeah, why does that have to turn into like a pissing contest?

Yeah.

I mean, clearly, they were stopped.

In either version of events, they're stopped sort of facing each other on this path, right?

Right.

Is there more to this?

Like, did they know each other, you know?

Had they had prior encounters?

Was your client feeling territorial?

Was he walking too close to his home space?

No, but client, I think, was a little defensive that he's like, why do I got to step out of

your way?

You step out of my way.

Like, what, just because I'm a homeless person, I have to like, you know, defer to you?

No, I get that.

As a woman, we're always expected to move.

Yeah, that's rude.

Plant your feet.

You go around me.

So that's where the shoulder checking happened, I guess.

All right, then.

Well, then let's just jump into the trial then.

Getting sent out to the trial, did you know what judge you're going to be in, or do you

find out the day of?

We find out the day of, and I liked where I ended up.

It was a good judge, good place to be.

Okay.

And your client wasn't interested in any offers, right?

No deals?

No, that ship has sailed.

Okay, yeah.

At this point, we're going to the box.

Great.

Rack them up.

Let's go.

Yeah, so any motions and eliminates?

Do you guys call them 402s up there?

Yeah.

Yeah, it's California.

We have the same penal code as you.

Okay, okay.

So what are your motions and limiting up there on this case?

Did you have any?

Very boilerplate.

Just very basic.

Client's record?

Right.

Keep that stuff out.

Did the complaining witness have a prior record?

No.

I don't remember if there was...

Not from here, anyway.

Yeah, right.

No, but he had nothing that they had to turn over.

Okay.

Do you know at this point if your client's going to testify?

Client very much wanted to testify.

From the get-go.

Yeah, from the jump.

So was his prior record excluded?

So I'm looking at the DA's in limbs.

Oh, yeah.

Okay, so he wanted to bring in...

It looks like 21-3-10 is at Brass Knuckles or something.

Okay, see.

Okay.

Concealment of weapon.

Because of the rings?

Yeah.

Well, because it's Moral Terp, I guess.

Oh, sorry.

We're talking about his record.

You're not saying he wants to show it.

So he had a prior conviction, a misdemeanor conviction for possession of Brass Knuckles.

Yeah, from 2018.

Okay.

And that's Moral Terp, I guess.

No, it's a felony.

21-3-10.

I don't know what that is.

Do you?

It's like, yeah, it's like a knife or a jerk or dagger.

Right.

Something like that.

Yeah.

But it was a felony from 2018.

So DA wanted to be able to use that.

And DA wanted to be able to use a prior A4 from 2022, from the year.

Ah, there it is.

But it was a misdemeanor.

But the same charge.

Yeah.

So, how did the judge rule?

So, judge was going to let them in, but sanitized them and wanted them to be referred to as crimes involving moral turpitude.

So, they wouldn't know the charges or the facts.

The jury, that's what it means to sanitize it.

They would just know when your client took the stand, he could be asked, it's true that you have had two prior convictions for crimes involving moral turpitude.

Right, which I always wonder, does that cut both ways?

Because, like, if the jury doesn't hear what it actually is, are they going to speculate that it's something way worse?

Yeah.

I mean, what does moral turpitude, crimes with moral turpitude, mean to the jury?

They don't know.

When they hear that, how are they going to judge your client?

They might think it meant that he was touching kids.

Yeah.

The danger that you run with that.

Yeah.

All right, so the judge says that he could be impeached with that if your client testifies, that DA can bring in his, could just mention that you have convictions of crimes of moral turpitude.

Any other motions of limity?

DA wanted to bring in client statements, which he didn't really make many statements.

I don't even know.

Oh, no, he actually, the DA withdrew that limb, it looks like.

Okay.

So, that's pretty much it.

It's pretty, this is a pretty, like, simple, you know, one-day trial.

Yeah, not a lot of issues.

Exactly.

We're just going.

Then, I mean, it sounds pretty straightforward, not a lot of stress on your part.

Your client's down to, just wants this trial, you're going to give them this trial, the facts are where they are, and let's just do it.

So, tell us about jury selection.

What was that like?

So, there was a couple things I knew I had to have worked dear on.

One was homelessness, because that's just a contentious issue in California.

People have strong feelings.

You know, and no one's going to come out and say, yeah, I hate homeless people and I cannot be fair.

But I just wanted to kind of get a sense of what people's feelings were, kind of what their vibe was.

You know, and even if someone came out and said, yeah, I want all homeless people to be rounded up in camps and exterminated, like, but I can be fair.

There's still going to get on the jury.

I've heard people say they should all be sent to a camp.

Yeah.

Right, right.

Yeah.

As long as they say, I can be fair, they're going to get on.

But I just want to know, at least, what their feelings are.

Yeah.

So, yeah, so I talked to them about homelessness.

And if people said things like, oh, it's really sad, you know, people are down on their look, people have mental health issues, then it's like, great, you're with me.

That's my kind of person.

Or I would find out that I have to kick someone.

Or if people said, why can't they just get a job?

I don't want them in my neighborhood.

Yeah.

Or if, like, someone said, like, you know, society has failed them.

Great.

Jury number two, welcome to the jury.

So your client is black.

Does he still have his mohawk?

He did.

And then the complaining witness is from Afghanistan.

What does your panel look like?

Our panels are pretty diverse in this county.

We're pretty lucky.

But I did wonder, like, what the dynamics were there.

How was that going to play out?

Any memorable moments with jurors that you remember?

Well, juror number one just came right out and said, I'm already judging the defendant just because he's here.

All right.

So how did you handle that?

I appreciate the honesty.

Totally.

So having a little bit of difficulty with the presumption of innocence, obviously.

Yeah.

Did you have a response or you just kind of moved on?

Because sometimes it's like, just move on.

Or you say, like, does anybody else feel the same as number one?

But sometimes when you start combating with the jurors, it just never ends well.

Yeah, it just blows up.

Yeah.

You have to be really good, you know.

Sometimes you go for it anyway.

Well, sometimes you get mad.

Yeah.

That's what I mean.

Sometimes you just go for it.

Yeah.

I think I just write verbatim what he said so I can go to judge and be like, this is what he said.

He's toast.

Right, right, right.

I mean, you had to watch your own self-defense, right?

Well, that too.

But I also kind of knew what my defense was going to be.

So I started prepping the jury for that.

So I fordeered them on a question I ask a lot, which is, does anyone think that there are loopholes in the law?

Or does anyone think that people get off on technicalities?

Because I knew what I was going to be asking the jury to do was going to kind of sound like me asking them to, you know, let them off the hook on a technicality.

To them.

To us, obviously, it's like that's an essential element of the crime.

Obviously, that's not guilty.

But I know to a juror, that might sound like a quote-unquote loophole.

Yeah, because he took the stuff.

Right.

That's what you're worried about.

You're going to be arguing, yeah, but the order is wrong.

And they're going to say, who cares?

He beat somebody up and took their stuff.

Correct.

And that might, to a layperson, might sound like a technicality.

Right.

I mean, you have to make sure that they're going to find that he did something wrong, but they've got to make sure that they find him wrong, that he did wrong for the right charges.

And if the charges the prosecution presents are the wrong charges, you can't find him guilty just because he did something you don't like.

Right.

Maybe the DA is overcharging this.

Yeah.

Okay.

So do you remember anything about, did we ask about the prosecution's broad here?

Do you remember anything about theirs?

I don't.

Okay.

They're pretty vanilla.

It's pretty forgettable, usually.

Exactly.

Okay.

All right.

And then how was your client, by the way, at this point, when the trial started?

Is he excited?

So far, he was cool.

Like I said, he had a very flat affect.

I don't think he was on meds.

I don't think he was 1368.

But he was just super cool, not very talkative.

Yeah, pretty much.

Okay.

All right.

Then let's move on to opening statements.

How did that go?

So I never promise too much in my opening.

I always do a fake opening.

I always just kind of, hey, keep an open mind.

Witnesses, they'll say anything these days, you know.

Standard.

Yeah.

The one we all keep in our back pockets.

Pretty much.

Yeah.

I am very hesitant to actually advance the theory of the case in my opening.

Right.

Because you never know what's going to happen despite all your best plans.

It's one advantage we really have, though.

Yeah.

Because DA has to lock themselves in and box themselves into something.

All right.

Well, then let's talk about the prosecution's case.

How did the evidence roll out for them?

Who did they put up first?

So the very first day of evidence, this is where things start to get interesting.

This is why Zach suggested I tell you guys this story.

Okay.

Very first day of evidence, client tells me, he leans over and whispers to me, hey, I don't

feel so good.

And complaining witness gets on the stand with his interpreter and starts testifying.

And he doesn't get very far because my client puked all over a council table.

Nope.

Nope.

While the complaining witness is testifying.

I don't do bodily fluids.

No.

No.

Uh-uh.

So the prosecution's case has barely begun and my client puked everywhere.

To his credit, my client tried to catch it in his little plastic water cup that they

give you.

Oh, no.

Which is like this big, you know, and obviously it was overflowing and it got everywhere.

It smelled horrible.

Ugh.

And the bailiff grabbed my client and whisked him into the holding cell in the side of the

courtroom.

Obviously, my client's wearing a suit, right?

We're taking precautions to make sure the jury doesn't know he's in custody.

Except now.

And the bailiff just went and screwed all that up.

I don't know what he should have done.

I think he didn't know what to do.

Yeah.

But so the cat's out of the bag.

Man, the garbage can.

So are you sitting at council table when this happens?

Oh, did it slatter on you?

It probably did.

Oh, no.

How'd you get it?

I think it got on my shoes.

I didn't know what to do.

I just kind of stood there like an idiot.

Nope.

I would go home.

No.

I don't do bodily fluids from other people at work.

No, thank you.

So client just threw up in full view of the jury at the very beginning of evidence in this

case.

It was awesome.

So we're off to a great start.

I feel like you got to hook that back into your closing argument.

You know, the people's evidence just make you want to puke.

It's just so bad.

Well, it was so bad because it started out really bad for us.

So I was worried that the jury was going to think, oh, client is sitting there thinking

he's fucked.

So nervous.

Yeah.

And he's so nervous that he puked.

So I was like, how is the jury going to look at this?

Anyway, judge was like, send him back to jail.

We're going to come back tomorrow.

Send the jury home.

We're going to come back tomorrow and try again.

So we barely got into evidence and adjourned for the day.

I didn't know what was going on.

I did not feel good about how things had started.

Yeah.

Well.

So then what happens next then?

Did you go see him or talk to him that night?

Is he sick?

He told me he had salmonella that he got from the food at jail.

I mean, totally possible.

But like, isn't that, couldn't that be contagious?

Oh.

Right?

No?

I don't know.

It doesn't matter.

I'm just, the very next day, I'd have been like, you're in her, we need a couple days.

We need to make sure I'm not sitting next to this, this fool again with just, no.

But we did come back the next day and I went and talked to a client.

Did he puke again?

So I was like, hey, how are we doing?

He's like, I'm not feeling great, but let's go.

He's like, let's, let's, let's get it on.

I was like, all right, if you're good to go, I'm good to go.

So I told the judge, the judge's like, are you sure?

Because we're not doing that again.

I was like, yeah, we're good, judge.

We're good.

The courtroom smell, by the way, because that lingers too, right?

Oh, the poor cleaning staff.

I know, right?

They did a good job.

But I was like, today, let me keep that garbage can right here at council table, just in case.

So we plowed ahead and complaining witness got back up there with his interpreter and this is where the evidence starts to get interesting.

So complaining witness says he had done one lap around that footpath around the park and he saw my client standing there in front of him and complaining witness couldn't pass.

So he put his hand on my client's shoulder and said, my friend, do you have any question for me?

Well, that's different.

In Pashto.

So obviously a language barrier, but he's now putting his hand on my guy's shoulder.

So at this point, he's still on direct, right?

So DA asks the complaining witness to get down into the well and he says, okay, you be you and I'm going to be the defendant and we're going to act this out and you show me exactly what happened.

So love a reenactment.

Right.

This is where things get really interesting.

So they walk towards each other and as they pass each other, the complaining witness kind of uses his hand to brush the DA aside.

He like touches on the shoulder and kind of pushes him to the side.

And then when DA looks at him, he makes this gesture and sticks both of his hands out with his palms up and make kind of an angry face.

And he says something in Pashto and he does this gesture like it's kind of aggressive.

It really is kind of like a, hey, what's your problem, dude?

Kind of kind of a gesture.

And I don't know how it exactly translates into English, but that's what the jury saw.

That's what I saw.

I know it's the DA saw.

I was like, this is starting to look like self-defense.

Like you can't just touch people and then make threatening faces and gestures and talk to them like that without expecting that they might react.

And just to make sure, you know, so he gets off the stand and does a reenactment with the DA where he actually pushes, kind of pushes the DA and extends his arms out towards the DA in a rude, threatening manner.

Totally.

How's the DA reacting in this moment?

Did the DA realize this was not good for him?

Did he have an oh shit?

Yes, he did.

He knew and I knew at that point.

Okay, this is like a self-defense case and I'm going to probably get the instruction.

Not going how I had planned.

Totally.

And isn't that just like, that's day one shit.

Like, don't ask questions you don't know the answer to.

And that's why.

Because witnesses will run wild.

He had to do the reenactment.

He didn't even just ask him to explain it.

He was like, come show everybody.

He like showed the jury why it was self-defense.

Did you, were you putting it on the record?

In your honor, may the record reflect that.

Of course, yeah.

With arms extended.

Were you characterizing it?

Being like sort of in a rude or threatening act manner.

And his facial expression is super mean.

Menacing.

Yeah.

So, so reflected, counsel.

Record so reflected.

Yeah, definitely.

So at that point, I know.

Okay, great.

So we got a shot at the assault, right?

We got a shot.

We can beat the assault.

But we still have to deal with the robbery, right?

So CW finishes his testimony.

You know, he says, yeah, I had headaches for months after.

I still can't sleep.

You know, my nose is broken.

It hurts so bad.

I had to take meds, all this stuff.

And they proved up the GBI.

They brought in the medical records.

They brought in one of the sons.

They brought in the cops.

And that was pretty much the whole prosecution case.

What was the son's testimony like?

I mean, the son's testimony, they didn't actually witness the interaction between the two.

Right.

And that was my cross.

I was like, you got here after this happened anyway, right?

Yeah.

You don't know how this started.

Well, I mean, but I feel like, though, there's an element of him being like, yeah, my dad came home.

He was bleeding.

And he wanted me to go to the park and beat somebody up.

As opposed to call the police right then and there.

Right?

So I went to the park and I beat him up.

I mean, it doesn't really sound like.

My dad.

Shit, he couldn't finish.

So he called in backup.

I'm only 16 years old.

He wants me to fight this homeless person in the park that just attacked him.

Like, why couldn't it have ended there?

Like, maybe they could have just ended it with that.

Like, fair is fair.

You know, no need to call the cops.

You got your shots in.

He got his shots in.

That's it.

Yeah.

You got your headphones back.

We're good.

Yeah.

Okay.

So, and then what about the cops?

They testified to what?

To finding the headphones in the encampment.

And they were, like, bloody when they found them.

Wait.

The headphones were bloody?

Apparently, yeah.

Because my guy allegedly beat him with the, not brass knuckles, but with hard rings and

it caused bleeding.

Yeah.

I guess that makes sense that it would kind of leak into the ear.

I don't know.

How did he take the headphones?

If each headphone was in each ear, do you, like, go to each ear and pluck them out?

They're corded, remember?

Oh, they had a cord on it?

Okay.

Yeah.

So, when they, they popped out when my guy punched him.

Okay.

And they were on the ground, actually.

Your client packed a powerful punch.

He knocks him on the ground, breaks his nose, and has the headphones come flying out.

Right.

He gave him a fair one.

Don't underestimate the Mr. T haircut.

Is there anything about your cross that you remember that you want to highlight about

with any witness?

Probably CW, but I don't remember.

You know, my cross wasn't that important because on direct, he gave me everything I needed.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's probably better not to ask too many questions at that point.

Totally.

I don't like the DA be able to come back with redirect to fix it.

Totally.

In fact, I had all this impeachment ready to go.

I had all these transcripts that I had typed up, and I was like, no, you know what?

Yeah.

Leave it alone.

Yeah.

That's, that's really hard to do, by the way.

I know.

I mean, it sounds like you said you're a newer felony lawyer.

It's so hard.

Like, when evidence comes out on direct, and it's actually better for you, like, sometimes

you want to go in there and just really emphasize it.

Like, oh, you said this, which was good for me.

And you said that, which is good for me.

And it just gives them an opportunity to clean it up a little bit.

Save it for closing.

I make that mistake all the fucking time.

And I saw props to you for shutting the fuck up, you know?

Or if you smell blood in the water and, like, you know they're lying about something, but

it doesn't really matter.

It's hard to lay off sometimes.

Is that it for the people's case, then?

That was pretty much it.

I think it was, like, a day or two of evidence.

And I was looking at my notes, and I had a handwritten note that I, I guess, showed to

client at council table saying, hey, you do not have to testify if you don't want to.

Are you sure?

And he wanted to.

He wanted to say his peace.

Yeah, I was going to get the instruction for self-defense.

Yeah.

Oh, here we go.

Do you still want to testify?

You don't have to.

A very sophisticated system there.

Did he write, did he write back, like, yeah, motherfucker, I want to testify?

A big yes.

Yes.

Yes, dumbass.

Will you go out with me in, like, second grade?

Check the box for yes and the box for no.

Very romantic.

Do you want to testify?

David's got the cootie catcher.

Let's talk about the defense case.

Your client testifies?

So my client wanted to testify.

I did not want him to, but the last thing I wanted was him to go down, and then he comes

back like, you wouldn't let me get up there.

I wanted to testify, and you wouldn't let me.

That's fine.

Hey, your client wants to testify.

They want to testify.

That's totally fine.

It's so terrifying, though.

I hate it so much.

Especially once you realize you don't need them to, and they could fuck up everything that

you have lined up to be able to argue.

The good news is, though, in my experience, the DAs are not very good at cross-examining

our clients.

True.

They think that a good cross-examination is just getting up there and, like, getting really

angry and yelling at our client.

Yep.

That's true.

They don't have a lot of experience cross-examining, to be fair.

I mean, we don't normally have a lot of witnesses in our cases.

Right.

So how often do they get to do it, really?

Like, once or twice a year?

Yeah.

Well, let's talk about your client, then.

Tell us about his testimony.

How'd that go?

So we walked through his testimony beforehand, obviously, and he told me what he was going

to say was that they came face-to-face, and the CW wouldn't let him pass, so my client was

going to say that I, client, stuck my hand in his face disrespectfully.

That was his word.

I don't know why he wanted to say that, but that's what he wanted to say.

Because he wanted to show the CW that he didn't like what he was doing, and that then CW pushed

him and punched him, so client swung back one time, knocking the headphones out, and then

client took the headphones out of anger.

Again, client's words.

So that's what he really wanted to say, and it was consistent with the other evidence, and

it made sense, so I was okay with that.

So you just took the headphones after you punched him to show him a lesson.

Okay, all right, all right.

And then, I mean, so he says it, right?

He said, I took the headphones just to teach him a lesson.

Did you ask about when the thought to take the headphones happened?

Like, specifically, like, did you have the thought before the punch, or was the thought

after the punch?

Like, how did you set that up?

Right, so I was like, so did you want the headphones in the first place?

No.

He can't even use those things.

Let's just be real.

Totally, totally.

Did you do any, like, mock interview, practice testimony with your client?

I didn't do any mock cross-examination, but we did go through his testimony beforehand.

Okay.

All right, so then how does the DA get up and cross him?

Just get up and get flustered and yell at him, and client did pretty well.

Can you give us any detail about the people's cross, or are you just kind of giving us a

generalization?

Is there, like, anything specific you can remember?

I don't remember.

I'm sorry it took me a while to do this interview with you.

That's okay.

No, it's okay.

I don't remember, and I didn't take any notes.

I looked, because at that point, I'm just kind of just holding onto my desk, like, don't

say anything stupid.

You know what I mean?

Like, we're almost done.

Yeah.

I'm not writing down anything.

You're just doing the thing we all do, where you're holding your breath, going, get him

off, get him off, get him off.

I got to get him off the stand.

Let's be done, let's be done.

Yeah.

No, no more redirect.

Thank you so much.

And I'm sure DA brought in, you know, those sanitized priors that he wanted to bring in.

Yeah.

Do you ever just do it for them?

And you've been...

Yes.

Like, oh, you have a felony conviction, don't you?

All right, let's move on.

Let's hear your story, then.

The jurors don't even give a fuck.

Yeah, that's a great idea.

I did not, but that's a great idea.

Yeah, I start my...

I do, too.

When I direct my own clients, all right, you have a felony conviction for this room, and you

have a felony conviction for that.

We have nothing to hide.

All right, so tell us about this day.

What was going on?

Okay, so then any other evidence from you on the defense case?

We rested.

Okay.

Time for closing arguments, then.

Not quite, because there's another twist.

Oh, okay.

So, judge got sick.

If you say more puke, I'm done.

There might have been.

I didn't see it, but there might have been, because judge got sick that day.

So, the next day...

Was it contagious?

Was he vomiting?

Oh, man.

Maybe, because allegedly, a clerk got sick in a different courtroom on that same floor

in the courthouse that day.

So, maybe.

I was fine.

I have a young kid.

My immune system is pretty good.

It gets beat up already.

So, judge calls in the next day for closing arguments, and they're trying to find a different

judge to come sit in and hear closing arguments.

Obviously, this is after jury instructions.

I forget when we did jury instructions, but that's done.

We're here for closing.

And judge is not.

So, the clerks are trying to find a judge who's free, and they can only find one judge who's

free.

And I'm already objecting.

I'm asking for a mistrial.

Oh, I should mention, I forgot to say.

I asked for a mistrial after my client puked, because jury saw that, you know, you can't

put the cat back in the bag.

It's super prejudicial.

So, now I'm asking for a mistrial for the second time in the trial, because I'm like, I don't

want to have another judge come in here and hear this closing.

They don't know how the evidence came in.

They didn't see that great act out, most importantly.

So, they do manage to find this judge from a civil department, who I didn't know, I had

never appeared in front of, but I had only heard awful things about.

Every public defender hates this judge.

And they're like, yeah, I'm going to bring this judge down.

He's going to hear closings.

I'm like, nope.

I print out a .6, and I .6 him.

Luckily, I had not used that already.

I don't think I've ever heard of somebody having to do that mid-trial.

I didn't know if you could or not, but I tried.

Yeah, I just went for it.

So, you papered this judge, 170.6, meaning that you said that this judge can't be fair

to your client, so then it automatically goes to another judge.

Right.

And I was also thinking, I didn't know how this was going to turn out.

I was also thinking, if there are no other free judges, maybe I'll get a mistrial granted.

Maybe I can leverage that for a better deal.

Maybe we can do this again, and I can do things differently.

But the case came out as good as it's going to get, right?

Yeah, you're never going to get that reenactment again.

The D is not dumb enough to make that mistake again.

That's true, but trial is such a roller coaster, and I was so in my head.

I didn't know what to think.

My client had puked.

They saw that.

Client took the stand.

There were things I would have done differently, like I would have tried to talk client out

of getting on the stand, even though you can't really do that.

And especially with this guy, he was going to get up there anyway.

But I didn't know what to think, right?

I was like, let me get a mistrial.

Let me get a second shot at this.

You know, things went well.

I can get the trial transcripts.

I can use those.

I can lock in that prior testimony at the next trial.

So I asked for a mistrial again.

I point six to the judge.

They did find a judge to drag down there and hear the closing arguments.

And she's a judge.

She's not my favorite, but she is pretty fair.

And I couldn't stop it.

So we were doing closing.

So here we go.

So DA got up and did his closing.

It wasn't amazing.

It wasn't horrible.

It was decent.

It was competent.

But at the end of his closing, DA said, this is not a tough one.

He told the jury, this is not complicated.

Don't overthink this.

Find him guilty.

And I was like, oh, I am going to throw that right back in your face.

And that was the very end of his closing, right before I got back up.

I was like, oh, I'm rewriting this.

That's the first thing I'm saying when I get back up, right?

And so I have my closing here.

I could show you, but I had handwritten it in and scratched out the beginning of my closing.

This is what I'm going to say.

So I got back up, and I go, DA doesn't want you to think too hard about this.

All right, I'm going to ask you to think a little bit.

It's just hard.

It's hard for people to do these days.

It can be hard.

So then I said, we saw what happened.

We know what happened.

Because CW got up and showed you exactly what happened.

Yeah, we saw it right here in court.

Yeah.

He put his hands on my guy.

He put his hands on my client.

And you can't put your hands on a stranger because you don't know how they're going to interpret it.

And you don't know how they're going to react.

And so I did my usual shtick.

I knew this was kind of an elements-based defense on the robbery, so I had to talk about elements.

So I talked about it the way I always do.

Our county has a lot of, like, truck drivers and, like, diesel mechanics and farmers.

So the way I explain elements to people is, you know, if you have a regular car, not a Tesla, but, like, a regular gas car, your car needs four elements to start.

Your car needs fuel, compression, air, and spark.

And if you're missing any one of those things, your car's not starting.

I was like, DA needs to prove all the elements of the charge beyond a reasonable doubt.

If he doesn't prove even one of those beyond a reasonable doubt, his car's not starting, and that means not guilty.

So the court staff and the DAs and judges are sick of hearing that, because I have said that in, you know, 30-plus jury trials now.

It's effective.

But I think it's good.

I think it makes sense to my jurors.

It makes sense to me.

And I knew I had to get them to understand that you can't just miss an element.

You need all the elements.

And there's a big one here.

There's so many bad ways to describe the elements, you know.

You do the car one.

That's great.

Some people do, like, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Whatever it is, there's no pretty way to do it.

You just got to do it, right?

You need peanut butter, you need bread, peanut butter, and jam, you know, like, so, you know, however you want to do it.

So it's okay.

And I knew I was going to have to hammer home the intent element here, so I had to talk about that.

And then I talked about self-defense, but I was really worried about the 211 and how I was going to explain that.

So probably the most interesting part of my closing, which apparently was effective, was I got up, like, right in front of the jury, right in front of their face, and I go, okay, what's a robbery?

What's the gold standard robbery?

What do we all think about when we hear the word robbery?

It's nice watch.

Give me your watch, right?

Let me get that.

And I said before DA objects, yeah, I know there's other ways you can commit a robbery, but that's what we all have in our head when we hear the word robbery.

And for the record, when Sasha said, nice watch, give me your watch, he was mimicking holding up a gun.

I made a finger gun.

Yeah.

I pointed a finger gun at the jury, yeah.

Bang, bang, bang, bang.

For the record.

Stick them up.

Yeah.

Pew, pew.

And I explained, well, that's because what a robbery is, is you're using force or fear, and in my example, I'm using fear of a gun, to permanently deprive you of your shit.

And I'm intending to permanently deprive you.

I'm not giving your watch back.

I'm forming the intent to permanently deprive you of the watch at or before I use the force or fear.

So when I'm sticking a gun in your face, I'm already thinking, I'm taking your watch, and I'm keeping it.

Here, that's not what we have.

Here we have my client was acting in self-defense.

He punched the alleged victim.

Headphones popped out.

After the force was already done, client saw the headphones on the ground and took them.

So I had to really hold the jury's hand and show them, this is why it's not a robbery, which was count one.

Do you believe in your defense, by the way?

I was skeptical that a jury would go along with me.

Right.

Well, you had the guy reenact in open court with the DA that he put his hands on the guy, and then even if he didn't mean whatever he said aggressively, if a stranger puts their hands on you and starts hollering at you in another language, that's going to feel intimidating.

Like, what the hell is going on?

Right?

So you have that.

You have a right to react and defend yourself.

Right.

And then the fact that he took the stuff, he's not saying he didn't take it.

He's just saying, I didn't set out to beat this guy up to take his stuff, which is obvious by the fact that the guy put his hands on him first.

I believe in your defense.

I don't think it's just because I'm a public defender.

It just feels like one of those defenses, like voluntary intoxication, that yes, you can get the instruction and you can argue it, but a jury's not going to want to let your guy off the hook for that.

So did you ask the jurors to find him just – was plain theft a charge there?

Lesser.

No.

There's no lesser to you, right?

No, although that would have been fine.

I argued.

I said, you're not helping – you're not doing my client any favors by splitting the baby and finding him guilty of the lessers.

Find him not guilty of everything.

And the lessers were –

What were the lessers?

Yeah, 44 or something, or maybe grand theft person.

So there was lessers.

But he did do that, so that was bold.

He totally did.

Yeah, he totally did.

Right, a little bit.

Grand theft person is what he's guilty of.

But send a message to the DA.

But you know what?

Is it grand theft person for headphones that aren't worth much?

No, there's no dollar requirement for grand theft person, I think.

No, it's just you snatched it off someone's body.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay, wait a second.

So you did – you argued not guilty on robbery, not guilty on assault with GBI, not guilty on battery with serious bodily injury because at least the battery and the assault, that's in self-defense.

Correct.

For the robbery, he's not guilty because he didn't form the intent to take the headphones until after the altercation.

But then there's also these lesser included of just grand theft person, and you said not guilty of that?

I asked them to walk him on everything, and –

What was the argument for the theft?

I don't know.

I don't remember.

I don't know.

Just fuck the DA.

That's what it was.

It's like he put him through all this with these unnecessary charges, so, you know.

Okay.

All right.

So, hey.

Sasha went big.

Yeah.

He said, go big or go home.

You know what it might have been now that I'm thinking about it?

I think client might not have led me to concede the lessers.

Okay.

Because otherwise, why wouldn't I?

I don't know.

Because you have to get that waiver.

I hate the change in that law.

Did he get his – did the CW get his headphones back?

Yeah, he did.

He got his headphones back.

All right.

With a little blood on them, you know, lightly used.

It was his own blood.

It wasn't puke, at least.

So, wait.

So, then how long did the jurors deliberate for?

So, they went out that day, and they came back the next morning.

They came back the next morning.

Okay.

And pretty soon, they had a question.

And the question was – so, remember, count one is 211.

Count two and three are the assault and battery charges.

And they asked, if we find that the defendant acted in self-defense, does that mean he's not guilty of counts two and three?

And I got that question.

I'm like, holy shit.

Holy shit.

They've already gotten past the robbery.

Well, yeah, no shit.

But I was like, this is the best question of all time.

Because the answer is yes.

And I remember I showed my supervisor, and I was like, what does this mean?

And she's like, that means they've already gotten past the robbery.

Now they're deliberating on the assault and battery.

And obviously, the answer is yes.

But I didn't know if they had found him guilty on the robbery or not at this point, right?

Because they'd gotten past it, assuming they deliberated in order of one, two, three.

Yeah.

So, I didn't really know what to think about that.

But I remember walking back to the courtroom for the question, and me and the DA rode the elevator up.

And the DA said to me, oh, Sasha, you can't read too much into these questions.

You never know, it's a jury.

Which, I mean, is usually true.

But this question, they're telling you what they're about to do.

So, then what happens next?

So, we go into the court, and we talk to the judge.

And the judge says, well, yeah, I'm going to answer.

The answer is yes.

And he sends them back.

And then probably like 10 minutes later, they come back.

I was like, they're not going to deliberate long now, right?

And they come back pretty soon after that.

And I was like, all right, well, great.

I know what they did there.

What's up with the robbery, though?

Tell us about it.

So, they come back.

So, they come back, and they find him not guilty on all counts.

Everything.

They walk them on everything.

And the lessers.

And the thefts.

Yes.

That's the impressive part, really.

That's something.

Right.

What was your client's reaction?

Just monotone, sedate.

Actually, he didn't say anything to me.

I mean, in his mind, he's like, yeah, I knew I was innocent.

No surprise there.

He was confident the whole time.

Yeah, exactly.

This is what was supposed to happen.

There was no like, hey, thank you.

Hey, good job.

Thanks for getting out of jail tonight.

He was just like, yeah, good.

What's everyone making such a big deal about?

Duh.

Right, right.

Did the DA have a reaction or the judge to the...

DA took it on the chin pretty well.

He's like a pretty decent DA.

In fact, DA had to sit there because client had trailing misdemeanors.

So we had to deal with those.

DA said, yeah, CTS, I'm out, you know.

So we had to deal with that and I had to plead him to some misdemeanors.

So I didn't ever get to go back and talk to the...

Yes, credit for time served.

I said CTS.

So I never got to talk to the jury because I was in there pleading my guy to misdemeanors

to make sure he would get out that night and the jury all escaped.

Yeah.

What do you think the juries would have said?

Man, that's Sasha.

You love that guy.

Not guilty, you know.

I think they would have said, yeah, we get self-defense.

Self-defense can be very subjective, you know, and we're willing to go pretty far on self-defense

in this county.

Oh, one thing I forgot that...

I don't know if you can go back in time and put it in the right sequence.

Yeah.

But when the jury was coming back with the verdict, the DA had brought his very pregnant

wife into the courtroom to sit there and hear the verdict.

And I texted my wife, who had just given birth not too long ago.

Bring the newborn.

Exactly.

She was like, I'll come down there right now.

Hold it up in front of your face.

Yeah.

She has actually been kicked out of the courtroom for bringing my daughter into the courtroom in

view of the jury because the judge said that my daughter was too cute, which was a very

backhanded compliment, but we'll take it.

Yeah.

Bring the babies with the little shirt that says Free Zed on it.

Yeah.

Cool.

And then, so that's pretty much it then.

Oh, by the way, you said you talked to your supervisor about the juror question.

Was that Zach?

That was actually the assistant public defender, Judy Ann, who is now the public defender.

Oh, wow.

Okay.

Wow.

You go all the way to the top with your supervisor.

Well, when I have something good to tell them.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

Well, that's great.

So that's it.

That's kind of it for your trial then, right?

Are we done?

Pretty much.

Yeah, pretty much.

Not much more to it.

Yeah.

This was a, I mean, you know, Zach, sorry, I was calling you Zach.

You know, Sasha, what was, what was cool about this trial is just kind of like your basic

straightforward trial.

It's a, I mean, I don't, I mean, there's not like much to it other than just, it's a

straight elements defense.

You just got to go with, you just got to go with trial and you got to roll with it.

Sometimes you got to get in there, put your case on, do your thing.

You never know what's going to happen a lot because people fear trial so much and they

don't realize how trial can actually be better.

Things can sometimes go a lot better.

You just got to, you just got to take that leap of faith.

Things can fall apart for the other side, right in front of your face.

Sometimes the ball just kind of bounces your way, but you don't know until you go to

trial.

Yeah.

You just got to be ready for it.

You got to be willing to get on the court.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

And it shows the DA, you know, even like an experienced DA, you can't let witnesses

just run wild and do whatever they want.

You know, we know that you got to lead them.

You got to tell them what they think and say.

Yeah.

Well, this is fun, Sasha.

Thanks for coming on the show today.

Yeah.

Thanks for having me guys.

Yeah.

So before we, let's close it out with the question that we asked all our guests.

Sasha, so you've been a PD for, I think you said four or five years now.

Five years.

And you're law clerking over in San Francisco, PDs.

Tell the A&G universe why you became a public defender.

Because in my first summer of law school, I interned at the San Francisco Public Defender's

office and I was hooked immediately.

I knew right away I can't go back to staring at PDFs and all that boring shit in law school.

I need the adrenaline rush of like running up and down the courthouse stairs, getting in front of a jury,

picking a jury, arguing my client's case, talking to clients, beating up witnesses.

I knew that's what I need to be doing.

Yeah.

Plus, we were the coolest people you'd ever met.

Yeah, and I love hanging out with other public defenders who I can say, shit, piss, fuck, cunt, whatever with.

Yeah, why not?

Well, why did you law clerk with the PD's office?

Just giving it a shot.

I wanted to go back.

So that's my hometown, San Francisco.

So I wanted to go back to my hometown.

I was like, oh, that would be kind of a fun, cool thing to do for summer.

I wanted to get confused to go back to San Francisco, live there for a summer.

And then right away, I was like, no, this is awesome.

I'm coming back next summer.

And next summer, and as long as I have to until they hire me, they didn't.

But that's okay.

Someone did.

Yeah.

Right on, Sasha.

Well, thanks for coming on the podcast today.

Yeah, thank you.

Yeah.

Yeah, thanks for having me, guys.

And Lauren, as always, great to see you again.

You too.

All right, guys.

Oh, before I go, before I go, let me give a shout out to my wife, Emron, and my daughter, Nahal.

I love you guys.

I'll see you tonight.

Okay.

Great.

Okay.

All right.

Bye, guys.

Bye.

Bye.

Thanks for tuning in to this week's episode of Another Not Guilty.

Shout out to Daniel Mark, original A&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.