Whose House? Rev's House – The Raid That Knocked on the Wrong Door

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

While the Reverend is working hard to lay the beats, this gentleman is not coming with proper lyrics. And so the Reverend gets upset, pulls out a gun, and he shoots him twice in the abdomen, but was really coming because he was a hitman sent by the vendors at MacArthur Park.

And the deputy's going to open the door for him. And out walks the Reverend, in all of his colorful glory, in a lilac purple suit, with a purple and yellow tie. And we sat down and began trial.

If you're wondering for one second whether this was legitimate, wait until you hear the four ladies who come to tell you just how violent this man was.

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.

We're not guilty.

Welcome, everybody, to Another Not Guilty.

I'm your host, David.

Flying solo today.

Sometimes the wheels of justice put us on our own, and that's okay.

We step up.

We move forward.

We keep going.

And that's how we roll as public defenders.

And that probably didn't sound as cool as I wanted it to.

But, uh, I'm really excited about, as I, you know, I feel like I'm always saying I'm really excited about our guest today.

And I am excited about our guest.

Uh, she, uh, works right down the hall from me.

She's a fellow public defender, and she just got an amazing not-guilty on, uh, attempted murder, was it?

It was an attempted murder, yes.

And, guys, our guest today is Sasha.

How are you doing, Sasha?

I'm doing really well.

I'm excited to be here.

Um, I love podcasts.

I love listening to people's interviews, and...

And you're also a public defender.

I am.

You're not just a consumer of podcasts.

You're a consumer of justice.

I am.

I'm an advocate for justice, or for what should be justice.

Okay.

And, uh, so tell us about this not-guilty-of-attempted murder.

Just one count?

Um, so it started as one count.

Attempted murder with an enhancement for a discharge of a gun.

Okay.

Um, which, as you know, um, but our listeners may not...

Don't assume I don't, don't assume I know.

Please.

Okay.

Um, when there's a discharge of a gun enhancement, it adds 25 to life.

So it becomes a life count.

Even if the attempted murder is a second degree and not a life count, the discharge of the

gun makes it that.

Then, when there, I think the DA started to question whether the intent to kill could be

proven, an assault was added as an alternative count so that they could at least find that,

but again, with a discharge of a gun.

And then at the very last minute, basically when we just got ready to do closing arguments

to the jury, the prosecutor asked to include a voluntary, um, manslaughter.

Okay.

Well, let's, let's start from the beginning then.

You get, you, uh, you get a case, right?

I did.

You get a police report with, uh, with a complaint which lists attempted murder, right?

Yes.

Okay.

And so, uh, what does the police report read?

So my client, I'll call him the Reverend because that's one of his many, um, his many trades,

was a electronics vendor, an electronics vendor down at MacArthur Park.

And, um, um, it all kind of comes back together.

But basically he meets a man down at MacArthur Park who is just milling about talking to people.

And, um, aside from being an electronics vendor, the Reverend also is a music producer and has

basically set up an entire music production operation in his apartment.

And, um, the other individual who he meets at the park hears about this, comes over to him and says,

you're a rapper and you produce music in your apartment?

That's amazing because I am a gospel rapper and I would love for you to produce my music.

So the Reverend says yes and they set up a time.

Did you know that the Reverend was also a reverend or is he a reverend or?

He would tell you he's a reverend.

So I will tell you he's a reverend.

I have not seen him preach, um, but apparently he's very good at it.

Um, he, he, he also told me that my closing argument was the best sermon he had ever heard,

which I took as a very big compliment from the reverend.

Um, so this gentleman who he meets down at MacArthur Park, they go back to his apartment and,

um, I'll, I'll edit for some expediency, but they go there once, they go there back a second time

and some kind of disagreement ensues.

And this is where the gentleman from the park's version differs from the reverends.

But basically what happens is some kind of argument ensues.

This gentleman from the park says that the reverend gets upset that he's not laying,

that, that while the reverend is working hard to lay the beats,

this gentleman is not coming with proper lyrics and he's clearly unprepared and he's wasting his time.

And he, and the reverend already gave him a discount to produce.

So he gets frustrated and he basically tells him to leave and, and, um,

This is the guy from the park's version?

The guy from the park's version is that the reverend gets upset.

Right.

Because he's not making the music like the reverend wants him to.

And so he pulls out a gun and he shoots him twice in the abdomen.

And this guy walks out the building and, uh, uh, the apartment manager or somebody sees him.

And the apartment manager hears him say, Ivan shot me.

And the ambulance comes and takes him to the hospital.

The detective makes a few attempts to interview him.

Um, but he's in surgery and all these things.

And when she does interview him, she doesn't document it anywhere in any police report.

At a later stage, we get a five minute video recorded interview of him where he basically describes his version.

All right.

So the police report says that the reverend gets upset because this guy isn't laying beats or tracks or to the,

or isn't flowing well to the music like he wants.

And the reverend just pulls out a gun and shoots him in the abdomen twice.

I mean, I was kind of worried about coming here in case I didn't lay, lay, lay, lay my story the way you guys were looking for.

That's right.

You better watch out.

Yeah.

All right.

Cause we'd be flowing on another not guilty.

Uh, uh, another not guilty.

Uh, uh, uh.

Um, so you read this.

And what do you think so far?

I mean, cause I, I'm thinking like, that sounds weird that the guy would just be that upset.

Right.

So I read that also in the police report is the reverend's version because he has talked about it when he got, when he was detained.

He spoke about it to the detective.

So did he wave Miranda?

Um, Miranda rights.

Yes, but he spoke about it in the pack of the patrol car long before Miranda rights were given.

Under Miranda versus Arizona, a police officer must inform a suspect of the right to remain silent and the right to an attorney when they're about to ask them questions that might elicit an incriminating response.

This protects a person's right against self-incrimination.

However, this only applies to situations where the police initiate the questioning.

Not when someone voluntarily starts talking.

It wasn't even elicited.

The police didn't have to elicit, ask a question, elicit a statement, right?

Which is why I lost my Miranda hearing.

Because there was less than coercion.

There was a deep desire to speak, apparently.

But, um.

You also have a right to talk all you want, I guess.

He did.

And, um, this is a really fascinating case because the reverend's relationships with everyone involved, all of the prosecutor's witnesses, were so amicable.

Like, he spoke in the back of the patrol car and at the station and he described, basically, that what happened was, was he did say, you're wasting my time, you didn't bring anything prepared.

But that this gentleman from the park stepped up on him, grabbed him by the shoulders, attacked him, he demonstrated his weapon to say, get out of my home, you're in my home.

And that the man, instead of backing off and leaving, went to grab the gun and he shot.

And the man continued to struggle over the gun and he shot again.

And only then, um, and the struggle, I'm sorry, continued.

And then the guy actually got the firearm, pointed it at him.

He managed to wrestle it back out of his hands.

Um, and so it was really a big wrestle match and the firearm was first demonstrated.

And he said all of this explicitly to explain his defense.

Now, then he left, but he was the one that contacted the police department because he had a relationship with an officer who always came around MacArthur Park, the reverend.

The reverend contacted the police after the incident.

Yes.

So he was the first to call the police.

So the first person to call the ambulance is this apartment manager who sees this man stumble out having been shot.

And he goes, obviously there's a police incident report taken for that.

But the reverend himself, the next day, contacts this officer who he has a working relationship with from MacArthur Park.

He's one of those officers that patrols the area and says, this is what happened.

And...

The officer says, actually he's a sergeant.

He says, okay, come down and meet me at one of the train stations.

And the reverend does.

And then the reverend takes him to where he has left the firearm.

And he proceeds to explain everything to the detective at the station, which was he had to first go to a hospital because this guy from the park who had jumped up on him and so badly injured his arm that he was in pain.

Then he had to go to another hospital because they were waiting too long to treat him at the first one.

And then when he was treated, he called the sergeant and said, Sarge, as he called him, this is what happened.

Yeah, I'll come meet you.

And the reason that I left the firearm somewhere was because I don't take firearms into places of proper business.

That's for my home to protect myself.

But I wouldn't take that into a hospital or somewhere to get it, you know, to get a new shirt when...

Because mine is ruined.

Because the detective asked him, why don't you have your firearm with you or...

Well, no.

Basically, they said, why did you leave?

He took him to where the firearm was.

And this is all in his statement.

Why did you take the firearm to this place?

And he says, I don't carry firearms into proper establishments in the recorded statement.

The reason that the DA added the attempted voluntary manslaughter was because he was going to argue that the self-defense was unreasonable.

In California, you have the right to act in self-defense and use deadly force when you have a reasonable belief that you are in danger.

However, if your belief that you are in danger is unreasonable when using deadly force,

then you can be guilty of voluntary manslaughter, a heat of passion killing, or attempted voluntary manslaughter.

Part of that came from the fact that the reverend claimed to the detectives over and over again

that this man was really not coming to lay beets at his house or to lay tracks at his house,

but was really coming because he was a hitman sent by the vendors at MacArthur Park who want to take the reverend's spot there.

Because he had previously been threatened and aggressed at MacArthur Park because, as the reverend would tell you,

he is like, he's not just an electronics vendor.

He is the best electronics vendor.

Just like he is an amazing rap producer, as he told the detectives in his hour-long interview.

He's a talented, he's a jack-of-all-trades.

He's a renaissance man.

So that was the back story that made him appear, I guess, to the prosecutor less than reasonable in his use of self-defense.

Because of the, like, he thinks he was a hit by someone at MacArthur Park.

Right.

So the DA is sitting there saying, this is not a hitman.

You just had a quarrel with him.

Does the reverend live by himself?

The reverend live by himself.

Okay.

And does he have an apartment, like a one-bedroom apartment?

It's almost like a studio.

Studio.

And after the quarrel, was there, like, evidence of a quarrel inside?

Well, there was, well, his apartment was less than tidy to begin with.

Okay.

And there was clear evidence of the shooting.

There was a casing.

There was blood.

All right.

So then what happens next then?

How does this case get going?

So it takes a long time to get going.

I had actually inherited it from a colleague.

Oh, wait.

And the reverend was arrested right when he called the police.

That, right away.

Or that same day, right?

So he's detained first.

He's taken in the car.

He takes them to where the firearm ends.

He's arrested.

He's mirandized.

And he makes a statement.

And from that point until the point when his trial occurs, which is almost two years later,

because the case took a lot of twists and turns, he was in custody.

Okay.

So then what happens next then?

So what happens is, at a far too late of a stage for my liking, I had been asking for

this person's, this alleged victim's, this complaining witness's rap sheet history,

because it's indicated in the medical records that he actually lives in Ohio.

And so I don't know if he has a record there.

But something strikes me as strange that someone comes from Ohio and finds themselves at MacArthur

Park hanging with people.

That's just, it's not like one of the places in a tourist book that people, that people land.

It has a pretty extensive history of, and current experience of violence and drug use and gang

life.

It also just has people who live near MacArthur Park who go there for innocuous and innocent

reasons.

But in terms of being a tourist and finding oneself there, I had an inkling.

I got the rap information and it indicated that he had a rap sheet from Ohio, which included

domestic violence, among other things.

Um, and so if there's anybody who knows what someone's character is like, someone who they

know intimately, so it started, it sort of broke it open and started a lead.

And what happened was, is the person listed in the police report, um, clued me into who a

previous partner had been, who clued me into who another partner had been.

And all of them had experiences of domestic violence that were extreme, really extreme.

Um, but one sort of cracked open the other one and they all lived in Ohio, but didn't

know each other.

Maybe some had overlapped at some points, but it started, um, many, many years ago with the

first who he really violently abused.

Um, one woman he lit on fire, um, really poured alcohol on her fingers and lit her on fire.

One woman he had, um, thrown a knife across a room and slashed her.

He, he clearly had issues.

And are these stories you're getting from actual interviews with the victims in Ohio or the

domestic violence victims in Ohio, or are you getting police reports from Ohio?

I started with police reports that took a long time because they all have different counties

and they don't keep police reports the same way we do.

Well, did you just, did you just ask your assistant to get the reports for you?

No, I did not.

What would you ask your assistant to do?

Um, I didn't ask my assistant to do anything.

I don't have an assistant.

What?

On your own, you have to call Ohio, right?

Isn't that the tough part about this job is we have to actually call Ohio, call the police

station, find out who to reach out and get these documents from.

Getting, getting witnesses from Ohio is a phenomenal experience.

And for any public defenders out there in at least Los Angeles, if you need to know how

to do it, um, let me know because it took me about 10 hours a day for many, many days

to figure it out.

But we, I first contacted, they were from different counties.

So every county has a county clerk.

I've got DV victims in different areas.

Exactly.

All right.

Um, so I called them, I sang them, I sang them a little ditty just like that.

Actually what I did is I begged and pleaded and I, um, asked them questions about Ohio and

their lives because I didn't know what formal process or how, you know, talk to them about

the weather and what Ohio's like and, um, slowly I started to get police reports faxed over

to me.

Um, it took some finagling, but it happened.

And then slowly I started to get investigators locating these people who had since moved,

um, often changed numbers, but we found databases.

We did a lot of investigation and we ended up finding four women, three who were victims

themselves, um, two really severely.

One was the most current partner and she was even listed in some of the doc, in some of

the discovery I got from the prosecutor, um, not as being a victim, but just as a contact

person.

Okay.

And then one of their mothers who also experienced some stuff and, and who observed the stuff

with her daughter and experienced it herself.

Wow.

So he was, the mother was even a victim.

Yes.

Not as, not nearly as severely, but part of what it showed is, um, he tends to, um, act

perpetuate his violence when he is, um, one-on-one, right?

Domestic violence is very often a crime that occurs in a home.

And so that's his style, which was the situation with the reverend, right?

It was in his home one-on-one.

So I could kind of draw a parallel.

Okay.

But what, what ended up happening was, um, I figured out how to get them here, which, um,

also requires a crazy process.

To get them here in terms of what?

Securing, uh, airline tickets?

Well, first you have to get them subpoenaed and our subpoenas don't extend to Ohio.

So you have to get.

Because the state of California cannot force someone from another state to do something.

Right.

What we have is an interstate compact with many states that's in our penal code and in

their legal code.

And, um, basically you get Ohio County clerks.

So for every different area they lived in, a different jurisdiction had to do it, issue,

have their sheriff's department issue them a subpoena and they produce a case number there.

Because then if the person says, I'm not coming, a judge there will determine whether they're

coming voluntarily or whether the court will elect to, um, help them get here with, with,

with some sheriff's assistance.

Is there a liaison over there that's helping you serve people or how, how'd you get them

served then?

Um, in some places it was the county clerk that issued it to the sheriffs.

And in one place, the local sheriffs over there.

Yes.

Um, one place, which was the largest jurisdiction had a public defender's office and they were

actually prepared to help me and use their resources.

And in the end they didn't have to because the county clerk had given it to the sheriff

and sort of cut that.

But I had a backup plan.

If they didn't, the public defender had agreed.

So anyway, they were served, I had an amazing investigator, actually two investigators, but

for this portion investigator, um, who deserves major recognition for helping me to coordinate.

And then he got all the plane tickets, hotels, everything.

Wow.

And we got all four of these women out for the trial and, um, hello, this is David from

another not guilty.

If you like this podcast, go ahead and follow and or subscribe and don't forget to leave

a comment in the link and check us out on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Thanks.

You asked me about, um, pre-trial investigation and I'll note one more thing besides these

Ohio witnesses in MacArthur Park, um, because we did end up finding one witness from MacArthur

Park who testified.

We found her, it was by her first name.

Um, and she came, which was phenomenal.

Like give kudos to the investigators.

But the one other piece was interviewing this, the Sarge, because I found it so curious that

he has this very amicable relationship with the Reverend, right?

That the Reverend calls him, that he calls him back on his cell phone, that, that the

entire exchange and also this apartment manager.

And so I had those people interviewed and, and, um, they all had lovely things to say about

the Reverend.

So yes, while the Reverend was at MacArthur Park and part of this kind of scene of selling

goods out at the tables, um, he had never caused any issues at this park.

He was never appeared intoxicated.

He was never arrested.

He was never, um, you know, acting belligerently.

He was never fighting.

And as we previously mentioned, this is a park where that happens a lot.

So if there's a space where somebody who is violent is gonna let that out or who's having

that tendency, that's going to be a space where it can happen.

You're going to have a lot of conflicting personalities there with a lot of issues.

And then the apartment manager who saw this happen, um, just said the Reverend, he had known

him for seven years.

He'd been the apartment manager there for one.

And he hadn't, I asked him on the stands and I know I'm getting into trial, but you know,

was he, he was a good tenant because that's what he had said in our interview.

And his response was a great tenant.

And so I could juxtapose all this description of the Reverend and lay, lay it out that, yeah,

he's colorful, right?

His clothing, his statement, his, all these things.

He's quirky, but he's amicable and he's well-respected and liked and compare that to what these women

displayed was a, was a, was, you know, acted like a violent monster.

I think without those women, it would have, I would have had nothing to compare it to.

And so he might've just seemed off and not reasonable.

Here's the Reverend, here's his life, this is where he lives, this is where he frequents

and hangs out at, and he's not violent at all.

And the only time you see any violence from him is when he gets involved with this violent

person, this person with the past, this person who like beats on women and their mothers,

lights them on fire.

Then you see violence and it would only be for self-defense because that's what the Reverend

is like.

Right.

There was one, the woman from MacArthur Park said that they had, that he, she had seen

some of the beef between the Reverend and this guy at MacArthur Park.

But that it was when this man was trying to steal stuff off the Reverend's table and the

Reverend said, give me that back.

And they got into a tussle, um, because he was trying to take stuff off his table.

And so the question arose, well, if this guy is going to come and take stuff off your table,

why would you invite him into your home?

Right.

To record.

And my position was because getting off the street, he had, he had said in his statement

that he had been homeless and now had this apartment, getting off the street and being

entrepreneurial and being professional and a businessman, like somebody who doesn't take

guns into places of business.

Um, that was of utmost importance to him.

And so he was willing to take the chance.

I mean, man, with what he's seen at MacArthur Park, some little tussle over, am I allowed

to curse?

Yeah.

Over some piece of bullshit on his table is not going to be the thing that keeps him from

saying, I could make some money recording you at my studio.

So he takes his chances because you know, what's more important is getting his business

rolling.

There's a whole long backstory to his music production too that I don't know if you're interested

in, but he was at Tupac and Biggie.

There was a whole narrative, um, I got lots of information on the whole backstory.

Oh, okay.

So do you know who shot Tupac?

I don't, but I know I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm aware that, that Tupac might've, might've bit

some of the reverend's beats, but there's, that's a long story.

That was many, many, many.

Tupac always be doing that.

Back in the day.

Yeah.

Um, and how was it?

Was the, uh, victim, did he show up for the preliminary hearing?

He did not.

Okay.

Uh, and so as, um, some of our listeners might not know, if somebody doesn't come for preliminary

hearing, there's no transcript of their testimony.

An officer can testify to what they said happened, but for trial that can't be used.

You'd need the actual witness.

And they did not find him for the trial either, which I found interesting because I found four

people from Ohio from different places to come.

And yet this man either does not want to be found or is off who knows where, sort of not

findable.

And how many hearings were you, I mean, like, I feel like you would go to the court during

the pretrial phase of this case and you just tell the judge, your honor, we're still working

on securing witnesses from out of state.

We're still working on getting reports from out of state.

We're requesting a continuance.

Did the judge and or the prosecutor try to push the case to trial sooner than you wanted

it to go?

Actually, both were, were pretty fair in, in letting me flush out the case.

I think the prosecutor really wanted to resolve it.

They, they gave the reverend, um, an offer that, that considering that there was a discharge

firearm into somebody's admin, abdomen twice, um, the offer, I wouldn't say sort of in an

objective sense was unreasonable.

I think they, the prosecutor, I had two DAs on it that sort of changed hands and both are

DAs I would consider to be very reasonable and, and, um, very mindful of what potential defenses

are and actually were very mindful of the fact that whether it was actual, whether this man

was a hit man or not, the reverend's firm belief in that should be considered in their

offer and they, they made him such a reasonable offer that I had to spend some time talking

to the reverend about taking it because he faced life.

Right.

What was their, what was their offer?

Five.

Five years?

Yes.

And I guess, uh, to a strike?

Yes.

To assault the deadly weapon?

So it was an assault, but with great bodily injury, which would make it a strike at 85.

Right.

So while he had been in for two years and he would have taken four at half for time served,

um, I think, you know, right.

So some things that would have landed him out, uh, he was not willing to spend another, he

won another day there.

He wanted his trial.

He wanted his story told.

Okay.

And, um, I.

Did he, did he quote the gospel at all in terms of, uh, wanting to tell his story or anything

like that?

The, the, the, the reverend's a very colorful man.

I will say that.

Yeah.

So he's, he's, he's a Renaissance man and I know we haven't gotten to trial, but just

so you can picture this person.

Um, so when, when we have clients in custody going to trial, we bring them clothing so that

they can dress out as we say for the jury and look put together and look like somebody

should and I brought him clothing from, we have a, you know, a means of doing that.

And it was very court appropriate.

I brought him black pants and a gray shirt and a nice tie and we were ready to go.

And I come into court and I noticed that the clothing that I've brought for him is sitting

behind the deputy's desk.

And I'm a little bit confused because I know the jurors are about to come in and the deputy

is going to open the door for him and out walks the reverend in all of his colorful glory in

a lilac purple suit with a purple and yellow tie.

Um, and, and I should back up and say the reverend's father came to every court date, every pretrial

date.

That means over two years, this man was probably approaching mid eighties, um, without fail,

his father came.

So immediately I looked over at his father and smiled and he smiled at me, confirming that

yes, he had brought the reverend, his lilac purple suit and looking very much like a reverend.

And we sat down and began trial.

And the next day I saw that he was not wearing the lilac purple suit when he emerged out in

a canary yellow suit with another colorful tie.

And I realized, you know, at first I thought, Oh Lord, I'm here trying to refute, you know,

that, that you're being, that you were unreasonable, right?

I have to establish that you were, you're, you're a reasonable person.

And then I realized he is just in his statements coming in the way he professes himself is coming

in.

His presence is there.

You can take the reverend out of, you know, out of the church, but you can't take the church

out of the reverend.

And he was, he came in all his colorful glory.

Hey, it's your buddy Dave from Another Not Guilty.

Would you like to be a guest on our podcast?

Have you experienced a not guilty before?

Either as a defendant, a defense attorney, a judge, a prosecutor, a bailiff, a co-reporter,

a paralegal?

I don't know.

A clerk?

Who knows?

You tell us.

Go ahead and visit our website at anothernotguiltypod.com and fill out the submission form.

And while you're there, go ahead and check out some of that cool A&G merchandise.

Thank you.

What was jury selection like?

Jury selection was interesting because this is an era of being, of heightened sensitivity

around guns.

There was definitely a lot of discussion about guns and whether that would just preclude

someone from even listening to the evidence, the presence of a gun.

And I got to question a bit about self-defense and use of a gun and self-defense, which I think

was helpful because people got to start kind of wrapping their mind around that idea.

And I could figure out who really couldn't get there, who really couldn't get there.

But this was interesting.

So typically, right, I'm picking a jury that would be very sympathetic to a person who is

accused of doing wrong.

But in this trial, I know I'm putting on four witnesses to come and try to decimate this

alleged victim who did so much wrong.

So on the one hand, I want someone to be sympathetic to the reverend.

And on the other one, I want someone who has no sympathy for this complaining witness.

So say I have a female that just, I can tell, has zero stomach intolerance for the notion

of domestic violence.

And I shouldn't just say female.

Male can have the same.

But often when it's happened to a female, there's something very visibly visceral that I've seen

in potential jurors that I see in fewer males.

Okay.

But I maybe wanted to keep that person, where normally I would say, oh, no, if that person's

having a visceral reaction to violence, they're not a fair juror.

But in this case, I was going to present so much testimony about violence.

And in fact, I didn't even know how much testimony I was going to present against about violence

until these four witnesses from Ohio just kind of opened the floodgates and let it go.

Okay.

So you picked the jury.

Did you like your jury?

I did.

You know, we have such little time to actually get to know our jurors that I thought I had

a few that would really, really despise what they were going to hear about the complaining

witness.

And I had a few that I thought would appreciate the charm and character of the reverend.

And that's when I was picking the jury.

Those were the two things I had in mind.

Right.

Like, who is going to find him, while frustrating at times, maybe, because even the detectives

are like, stay on track, stay on track as he's meandering.

But who was going to have some kind of, like, softened heart to him?

And then who was going to have to just see what the reverend must have seen in his apartment

that day?

Like, the picture I needed to paint was, this isn't a man stepping up and grabbing his

shoulders.

That's what the reverend described.

But I want you to picture the look in that man's eyes now that you've heard what he looks

like when he stands up and grabs somebody.

Now you know what he looks like, what his face looks like, the rage, the ire, all of those

kinds of things.

So when did you realize that the victim was not coming to the trial to show up?

When we started trial.

Okay.

And how did you find that out?

The prosecutor told me that he did not yet have him, because he was going to need to

wadier on that, or at least open on that possibility.

So the prosecutor's trying to put on a case of attempted murder, and the guy who is the

alleged victim isn't in court, isn't coming to court, isn't responding to subpoenas, and

they don't dismiss.

Why do you think they didn't dismiss the case?

Because I think they thought they had enough with the reverend's whole statement seeming

seeming so irrational in the sense of his firm belief that this was a hit man sent to get

him versus...

Because at the time that the reverend was making that statement, he didn't know about the Ohio

situation.

First off, the prosecutor, did he lay out his theory as to why the reverend shot him?

No, he said exactly what the complaining witness...

So he had no motive.

The motive was, you come to my house unprepared.

You're taking my time and my money, and I'm pissed, and so I shoot you.

So he's all, the reverend is hardcore.

He's a hardcore gangster rap guy.

He used to roll with Biggie and Tupac.

And if you're going to come into his home, and he lays on tracks, and you're not going

to be prepared to lay down tracks, he's going to shoot you, because that's how serious he

takes the rap, the hip-hop game.

Right.

So let me ask you this, then.

What was your opening statement like, then?

My opening statement was that you were going to hear that the reverend hasn't changed his

beat this entire time, that the second, you know, you're going to hear that he's the one

who called the sergeant, that he's the one who took four police officers down to find this

firearm, that he's the one who said, please let me tell you what happened, that he's the

one who had an injured arm, which indicates a struggle.

That he is the one who said, you know, I, he came at me, and that if you're, if you're

wondering for one second whether this was legitimate, wait until you hear the four ladies who come

to tell you just how violent this man was.

Boom.

And I, and that, you know.

How'd you feel after that?

Was that like a mic drop moment, or what?

I don't know if I ever recognized mic drop moments in the moment, which is probably why

I'm not a stand-up comedian, like some, like some people.

But I at least sat down, you know, normally I do a little more sparse opening statements,

because the truth is, I'm not exactly sure what's going to happen at trial, because the

prosecutor puts on a majority of the witnesses.

In this case, it was a little bit different, and I did know, but not only that, the reverend

needed to see that I was telling a story, because that's what he wanted.

So I could do it in this case for him, and still keep my strategy, and he needed to, to feel

that way going in.

We need to start off on the note where he said, yeah, right after opening statement.

So he felt good that we were starting off on that note.

He was happy, and that worked well for us.

And was he wearing the yellow, the canary yellow during the opening statement?

He was wearing his lilac purple.

Ooh, okay.

All right.

It was pretty remarkable, and a very mischievous smile on his face for coming out in the suit.

That's nice.

Yeah, he had a good smile on, for appropriate moments.

He was also, like I told you, he's smart, so he was appropriately engaged in the trial,

and also had, knew where the moments of levity could take place even in that serious and sad

and difficult of a situation.

So what was the, how did the prosecutor play his case then, roll out the case?

He put on the apartment manager.

Right.

Who said what he saw.

Heard gunshots.

He did.

Consistent.

He heard two.

Didn't ask about how far apart, which I thought was interesting, because I think further

apart lends itself to the struggle.

But then I got up there, and I just, I basically said, you've known the reverend for a long time,

and asked him about him.

He actually got out that he knew him to be a preacher and an electronic salesman, which

I thought I needed to do, because he was sitting there in a purple suit, and I thought I just

tied the whole picture together.

And said he never had any issues with him, and that he knew he took people up there to

record music, and he was a great guy, and then this happened, and then he hasn't seen

him since.

Then they put on the detective to say what she observed.

I'm trying to think if, I don't even think they put on, oh no, I'm sorry, they put on

one of the responding officers, of course, to say, I responded to the scene, and this is

what I observed, and we got him to the ambulance, and this is what he looked like, the man,

when he was taken in the ambulance.

So police did respond to the apartment?

Yes, with the ambulance, because it was a gunshot wound call.

Okay.

And, but they were very brief.

I mean, it was just, this is where they came.

I mean, they were all things I was conceding.

You're not really contesting facts with these witnesses.

You're bringing out more facts with the apartment manager, and then you kind of just probably

didn't ask any questions to the police officer, right?

It was interesting, because I think that the DA asked so many questions of these witnesses,

that it, like a lot, that I found it really refreshing that in closing arguments, I could

take that much time's worth of evidence and encapsulate it in two sentences, which was,

he gave you a lot of evidence about these things.

I concede them.

Right.

So let's move on to the things that matter, that are really at issue in this case.

So what was next in the prosecution's case?

After the responding officer, the detective, and then the playing of the statement, because

she took the statement at the station.

So that was the longest witness.

And that's kind of unusual, I feel, for a prosecutor to play the defendant's statement, because

in playing the defendant's statement, the video of his statement, he's giving the jury his

defense without cross-examination.

Yes, but if they didn't, they had nothing.

So they had to.

They had nothing.

They had one witness saying that this guy said, the reverend shot me, but they had nothing

about how it went down, because they didn't have the guy to say anything about how it

went down.

So in that type of case, they had no choice.

Although the whole, from the outside of the case, they were playing his statement, because

their point was, he concedes that this guy stood up, at the very most, this guy stood

up and grabbed him by the shoulders, and his response was to shoot him twice.

And that exceeds what is permissible for self-defense.

Our position, obviously, was more than that happened, and he was in his home, and he was scared

for his life, and that fear was reasonable.

Whether you think he was a hitman or not, that fear was reasonable because of who that man

was.

And the reason that the reverend thought he was a hitman was because in that moment, he

had to make sense of why someone would be coming at him so violently in the way that

we know this man could come at people violently.

He had to make sense of why that was happening, and that's the only way he could make sense of

it.

It was only the benefit of hindsight to know, oh my god, this guy is doing this all

over the place.

Now it makes sense.

He might not be a hitman, but he's super violent.

All right.

So what happened next, then?

So after the detective, there was the Sarge.

Okay.

The Sarge came to testify how he was brought into custody and what happened, which I thought

was fantastic.

Because again, I got out everything about just how violent MacArthur Park is and just

how not violent the reverend is and their amicable relationship and how the reverend

called him to say, this is what happened.

What should I do?

And then the last one was just an officer who I thought was wholly unnecessary to say where

the firearm was located and that it was operable and it was the same kind as the casings found

at the apartment, considering that the reverend told him that was the gun that he used and the

statement had come out.

And the Sarge was there for the recovery.

He was one of the people there, but he brought that out.

I didn't have many questions for him either.

It makes it sound like the police are doing some scientific investigation, being thorough and

making sure they want to get it right.

They want to get it right so bad that the reverend says, this is the gun.

These are the bullets, but we want to scientifically show.

We are capable.

We don't need the reverend's statement.

We have science on our side.

Right.

They definitely had science.

The two bullets in the man's abdomen were super scientific.

The pictures of him at the hospital.

Oh, the medical records.

Those were fun too.

So we stipulated to a good chunk of the medical records, a lot of them.

Of the victim's injuries?

Yes.

Versus having a custodian of records to come in and do it.

But the reason that I did was because there was no contesting that he had great bodily

injury when he was shot in the abdomen twice.

But hidden in the depths of these thousands of pages of medical records were the way that this

complaining witness was freaking out on the nursing staff and the medical staff and cursing

at them and yelling at them and demanding medications that they did not think were appropriate for

him.

But they were hidden in the depths.

So I just let them be stipulated to and then I could just argue it in closing.

So that was their case.

And my case was the four ladies from Ohio.

Okay.

Well, let me ask you this.

Let's just start from the beginning.

Who's the first witness you put up?

The female from MacArthur Park, she described an incident she had seen, some incidents she

had seen in the park between the two of them before basically initiated by this complaining

witness.

It was a little bit of a double-edged sword, right?

Because on the one hand, then there's background that I don't like in terms of inviting him over.

Right.

And then this happening.

It's premeditated.

Like the reverend's inviting him over.

He's taking out his competition.

Right.

So I didn't like that.

What I did like was that in the Jury Instruction for Self-Defense, it explicitly states that if

this alleged victim has perpetrated violence on the defendant in the past, the defendant is

entitled to use greater force to respond and act more quickly.

And I thought those were very helpful to me.

So the MacArthur Park lady testifies.

What was the DA's crossover?

Basically, I think that he just pulled out that they had had more of a history than the

reverend led on in his statement.

That's not bad.

And then who testified next?

Next, I went in order of the relationships, so for chronology.

So first was the woman that this complaining witness had been together with years ago, who

they had one child together.

But when that child was, I think, six months old, she managed to escape him, as I think

she described.

He had been incredibly violent with her.

And did she talk about specific instances then?

She did.

He threw a knife across a room and it slashed her in the face.

When she got her hair done and he didn't like it, he didn't like that she was, I guess,

dolling up.

He effectively waterboarded her in a bathtub, stuck her head under the water.

They regularly kicked and hit and punched her.

She did not report.

She was terrified.

And also, he prevented her from using, from communicating with people.

So he would, you know, like take her to work, pick her up.

If he saw her speaking with anyone, she would get hit.

So she just, she managed to, to leave.

And shortly thereafter, it was the second woman who was together with him for the longest.

And, um, she, she was the one who he basically imprisoned her in her home for like several

days one time.

And that's when he beat her, but also poured alcohol on her hands and lit her on fire.

Um, she, he threw her down.

Did she have the burn marks on her hands?

So she actually showed that those had healed, which I, which I appreciate she was honest about

that, that the burn marks over time had healed on the top of her hands, but the scarring all

over her face from different things had not.

Um, and I believe it was the first wife also, he had thrown down the stairs and she had split

her head, um, on the back of a piece of glass and he'd thrown her down the stairs.

So that was the only time she went to the hospital, um, because she needed stitches in her head.

Um, but yes.

And then the third was that second wife's mom, because in hunting all of them down, she,

appeared as a potential witness and could describe the ways that he was just verbally aggressive

and violent when they were together, but never like he was more verbal and threatening, but

never actually executed it in front of her, which sort of went to my point that he waits

until you're, you're separated.

Right.

And at your home and that this pattern with the reverend was basically the same, just not

a domestic partner, you know, going to his home, waiting until he's there.

So, and then the fourth witness after the mother was.

His current wife who is not separated from him yet, who I thought I would have the hardest

time with because she, um, as she said to my investigator and was disclosed, she, um,

she doesn't believe in divorce basically.

Right.

So she was the one who he was married to when this incident happened.

And the reason I called her was because she had a restraining order against him, which I

discovered.

And I, if it, but said that he had never been physically violent with him.

So I was, I asked her what it was based on.

And it was basically the beginnings of what started with these other women, which was holding

her in her home, not letting her go.

Then she described being held down on the floor.

So in her mind, that's still not physical violence, but she was held down on the floor,

not allowed to leave.

Um, and then she started describing, and this was in what the witness statement that was turned

over that he basically was incredibly delusional.

She came home, he was writing, like etching things into the wall.

She thought he would, he thought she was sleeping with family members and was like basically,

you know, writing things on the wall related to it.

And so I called her because I wanted to establish that the last time she saw him before he came

to California, that was the state he was in.

And he was not going to MacArthur park to get proper psych medication.

That's for sure.

So when she left, when he left Ohio, I got to argue in closing, he either added more

to that chemistry mix that was already happening for him or left it status quo.

And either way, that's who the Reverend met.

That's who the Reverend was dealing with.

Right.

Oh, okay.

And then, and what's the prosecutor doing in his cross of these, uh, domestic violence

victims?

I mean, I have to give it to him.

He, he didn't, he didn't undermine what they said had happened.

Or minimize it.

He did not.

The only thing he tried to minimize was one of the women where he said, because she made

some statement in her investigation, um, about the son, the son having, uh, joint custody for

some period.

So he said, and after all that, your son, you know, went and stayed with him trying to

show like, he might have this tendency towards women and his domestic partners, but that doesn't

mean he's like that with everybody.

So I stood up and honestly, without knowing what the answer was, I said, so why did he

stop visiting his dad?

And the answer was, well, because one time he, um, hit or beat or did something to the son's

girlfriend and the, my, and he, and my son said, like said never again and wouldn't go

back.

And I was like, on that note, I'll sit down.

And you could see the DA was like, oh, cause he opened that door.

And how was your closing argument?

Anything of note?

Any highlights?

I think the highlight was when I got to say that, um, the Reverend, um, in taking his statement

and the fact that he thinks he's the, you know, this complaining witness was a hit man

in, in getting to say that, um, we've, we've gotten to know him through his, who there's

audio recorded statement and through him sitting in court and he is a colorful man and he was

wearing one of his bright suits.

I can't remember what that day.

And I got some audible laughter and I could see that they had, had bought into sort of the

the charm of the Reverend.

Um, and I think what were other highlights?

I think actually when I figured out how to make clear the prosecutor's burden of proving

beyond a reasonable doubt that it's not self-defense, um, that was a, that was a successful moment

for me because I find that language to be really confusing.

Right.

And I got a visual down and it worked.

What did you say or what did you do?

So in jury selection, I use a visual of tug of war when trying to explain that the marker

doesn't start in the middle.

It starts all the way over with our client so that if you drop the rope right now, if

you had to vote right now, it's not guilty.

That's what the presumption of innocence means.

There's not a question.

Right.

You don't get to pick.

It's not, oh, I don't have enough information yet.

You are voting not guilty today and you are voting not guilty every day, unless and until

at the end of the trial.

And then I kind of explained pulling the marker all the way over to proof beyond a reasonable

doubt, um, and doing a little bit of like movement in front of them.

And I find that to be for visual people helpful.

So I used it for, for, um, self-defense and saying you're over here believing he defended

himself and that it was legitimate full self-defense.

And he would have to pull that marker and say it was not self-defense.

It was not self-defense all the way over to proof beyond a reasonable doubt of that in

order to say that he's guilty.

And there's no way he can do that.

And I found, I don't know if it's the cleanest or the best, but it was at least something that

they could watch me and not just audibly get, you know, listen to the tongue.

Cause you can get visual on the burden of proof, but you don't have to really like bring

in anything or do anything.

It's just a nice visual thing that you just skirt yourself across the jurors.

And you start over right over next to your client.

I get to put my arm on him and say, this guy, this guy who's innocent or, or this woman right

here next to me, this one right here is innocent.

You're dropping that rope.

The markers over here.

Do you really believe that?

If you don't believe that you can't be on this jury.

If you're not looking at this person right here who my arm is on top of and saying, that's

an innocent person sitting right there that you, you can't be sitting here.

And I think that's a nice kind of way to do that.

And then when you talk about the burden, you're pointing at the prosecutor cause you're moving

that marker to them.

But I don't know that it's, you know, I don't know how great it is, but it just felt like

the smoothest way I've ever described self-defense in my several self-defense trials.

Like reverend smooth or?

No, nothing.

I'm, nothing can be reverend smooth.

I mean, I leave that to the preachers.

And what about the prosecutor?

How was, how was his closing argument?

He gets to go twice, right?

Cause he has the burden.

You know, he, he did well for what he had.

He did well.

He basically said, nobody has to like this guy to think that he's, to find him to be

a victim.

That at that moment that it happened, the reverend is thinking that he's a hit man and that's

totally unreasonable because everybody knows he's not a hit man.

The fact that he's perpetrated violence in the past doesn't mean that he did that to

the reverend because as we know, he didn't throw a knife at him.

He didn't, you know, burn him.

He didn't do all these things.

He stood up and grabbed him by the shoulders.

And that is not enough to bring a gun to.

And if you think it was enough because he thought he was a hit man, you've got a voluntary,

you know, attempt to murder.

But he did, he did the best with what he had, which was you don't get to shoot a man twice.

And I had to parse down that one split second in the incident when he showed him that he

had a weapon.

He said, get out of my place.

It was grabbed, you know, the complaining witness grabbed it and then it was discharged because

he didn't just pull it and shoot it if you believe a statement.

And we have nothing besides that.

So I thought, I thought he did an okay job and his rebuttal was, was not, you know, it

wasn't an hour, which I appreciated.

Um, it was a real rebuttal.

He really responded to the things I said.

He didn't come up with a whole new closing argument.

And how long did the jurors deliver it for?

One hour.

Just one hour, huh?

One hour.

Did you know it was good for you after an hour?

Probably, right?

You had an inkling?

I had an inkling, but I was a little nervous that they were going to split the baby and

go for the voluntary, that they were going to say, we don't have to really deliberate

on what, who it was, whether he shot him with the question is just if, if it was legit

to, to respond that quickly when he thinks he was a hit man.

Um, and I wasn't sure, but the Reverend, he was sure.

He was sure.

Um, and.

Did you talk to any jurors afterwards or?

I didn't, you know, the, the Reverend, guess what he wanted to do when, when the jurors

left?

What's that?

To talk.

So he wanted to talk to me.

He asked the judge while they were leaving, if he could thank each of them as they passed

individually.

So he was thanking each juror as they left.

Um, he was very animated.

He was crying a lot.

Um, it was a lot of relief and yeah, just a lot of anticipation and relief.

And he wanted to talk in the back, um, about his property return because they took all this

property from his apartment.

He needed it back.

And was his, was his dad there too?

His dad was there.

Okay.

Yeah.

Um, yeah.

I'll never forget the Reverend.

He was, he's a, he's a character.

Um, and I, and I think he's out in the world, you know, really doing his best and hopefully

we'll maybe be a little more scrutinizing of who he lets into his space.

Right.

All right.

Well, Sasha, thanks for being on the show.

Thank you for having you.

Thanks for making time to be on this show.

I know you're a busy person and you're also a mom too, a mother, a mother and a public defender,

right?

I am.

How many kids do you have?

I have two little girls.

Oh, and our last question is why'd you become a public defender?

Well, I think that many, many people see our clients as disposable, um, as valueless, whether,

whether they're, um, innocent or guilty, they're accused, whether they've done something or the

actual thing they're accused of.

And I think many people would be happy to forget them and discard them.

And I think that's what we do in our jail system.

And I just having met so many amazing people accused of crime, some who have committed things,

um, just know how complicated we are and that we're so many things.

We cannot be reduced to the worst thing we've ever done.

Um, I would, I would hate that for that to happen to me or anyone I know and love and that

people have are much more complicated than that.

And, um, I'm, I'm honored to be able to sit with them and get to know them and they trust,

you know, have to, have to trust me for a moment and they have no reason to.

And that relationship is amazing.

And then on the nerdier side, I like the academics of writing motions and litigating and doing that.

But, you know, there are a lot of jobs where I could do that, but, but this, um, I don't

think there are a lot of people who, who like, this is, this is where they feel, feel the

best.

And so since I do, I know, I know that it's my calling.

All right.

Well, thanks for being on the show.

Thank you so much for having me.

You guys have been, um, more than gracious.

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

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

Chris Adams.

And guess what?

We have another not guilty story coming your way next week because we public defense,

fight injustice every single day in the American criminal system.