Chronic Baby Mama Drama – When Weed, Love, and Justice Collide

What's up, my A&Gers?

Got a dope episode coming your way with two dope public defenders from Oregon defending a client charged with domestic violence for fighting with his wife over dope.

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Rachel Zawadzatsky.

She is.

Yep.

Want to give a shout out and huge thanks to Rachel for becoming our newest member of the A&G Patreon program.

Want to thank her and all our members for their contributions to the podcast and helping us with the cost to keep this boat of inspiration sailing over here.

You all are the wind beneath Lady Justice's wings.

Also want to say that we are looking for more submissions to be a guest.

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And with that said.

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

The judge was discussing releasing the witness and the jury was out of the room at this point.

I break out my trusty yellow legal pad that is always within two feet of radius of me.

I start handwriting a subpoena because we didn't have any blanks on us with a caption and all for tomorrow's date and the next day.

And I said, if you're going to leave, I'm going to give you this subpoena so that you can at least come back tomorrow so that we can at least ask a little bit about the drinking issue primarily.

And I said, and you can thank the DA for the fact that you have to come back for objecting to us asking these questions.

Welcome to Another Not Guilty.

I'm David Moore, here along with my fellow public defenders, presenting to you the untold stories of the criminal justice system.

Objection. That assumes there's justice in the system, which there ain't.

I prefer calling it the American criminal system.

These stories are about the not guilty as public defenders get on a daily basis in an unjust criminal system with a deck stacked against us.

And welcome back, everybody, to Another Not Guilty.

It's your boy, Davey D, here, bringing you to the freshest not guilties across these United States.

A lot of people have been wondering, what's the D stand for in Davey D?

It's defense, baby.

You guys like Davey Defense?

I'm here for it.

Anyways, Another Not Guilty.

You know, we heard the freshest not guilties across these United States.

You know, we're showing this podcast.

We're showing you the other side.

We're here bringing the stories you don't hear about in everyday media, from the cops, from the police, from the news, from stupid shows like Law and Order or whatever.

These are the real stories.

This is how it really goes down in the justice system.

Us public defenders here to tell you the real talk.

I'm excited about today's show.

We got some really awesome guests.

But also, we have a really awesome co-host.

First time co-hosting today, guys.

Let me introduce you to the – well, I should say she's no stranger to Another Not Guilty world.

She was a guest before in Season 1, Episode 11.

Psyched up and ready to fight, guys.

We have Lauren here co-hosting today.

Lauren, how are you doing today?

Good.

Thanks for having me, guys.

I'm excited.

Yeah.

Thanks for being on the show.

How have you been since we've last hung out?

Oh, you know, I've been great.

I've been doing post-conviction work, so I've been learning new stuff.

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Good, good, good, good.

And so today's guests are two awesome public defenders from Oregon, from Lane County.

We have Eileen, and we have Amy.

Eileen, say hi to everybody.

My name's Eileen.

I'm a public defender here in Oregon.

And go ahead and introduce yourself, Amy, and say you're a badass public defender in Oregon.

Hey, y'all.

I'm a badass public defender here in Lane County, Oregon, and I really love it.

I love the work, and I'm happy to be here.

Thanks for having us.

Eileen, how long have you been a public defender for?

So I graduated law school in 2018, took the bar, and then I started off in South Dakota

at the federal public defender for a year to a year and a half, and then moved out here

to Oregon, and I've been here ever since.

So it feels like a few years, but it's been like almost five years.

Time flies.

And Amy, what about you?

How long have you been a public defender for?

Yeah, it's actually, today's my anniversary.

I started working at this office two years ago today.

So I'm really proud of that.

All right.

And we have Eileen and Amy on the show today to share a recent Not Guilty that they achieved.

They were co-counsel in a case.

They contacted me.

They said they wanted to be on the show.

They have an awesome tell to share.

I said, sure, let's do it.

All right, Eileen.

So this was your case at the inception.

Tell us, what was your client charged with?

So, initially, he was charged with assault in the fourth degree, constituting domestic violence.

It was charged as intentional assault with injury.

And then he was also charged with menacing domestic violence.

And that's placing the person in fear by words or conduct, fear of imminent physical injury.

And they actually-

And they saw misdemeanors?

Yes, two misdemeanors.

And then he, they eventually amended the information to a reckless assault right before trial.

So it's two charges.

One, the first one was just assault?

Yes.

Okay, as a misdemeanor.

And the second one is menacing, which, which kind of, what is menacing?

Because we don't have that specific charge, crime.

At least we don't call it that.

We could have that specific charge here in California, maybe with a different word, though.

So I can actually just read you the language.

Unlawfully and intentionally attempting to place the person in fear of imminent serious physical injury by words or conduct.

It sounds like a 422.

Criminal threats.

Yep.

Just testing you, Lauren.

Glad I passed.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

So criminal threats.

That's what we call it here in California.

Used to be called terrorist threats, but then we had to change it after 9-11 to criminal threats.

So, okay.

So putting someone in fear of some type of physical harm through words or physical gestures, I guess?

Words or conduct.

So usually it's, they will charge an assault, maybe a harassment, and then also a menacing if they can't prove the injury.

Or there's not enough physical contact, but they still have some physical contact.

So it's like a catch-all.

So the assault is specifically a domestic assault, though, right?

This is, they have to be in a dating relationship?

So the two charges are standalone charges, and they add the domestic violence tag.

So because they were in a domestic relationship, there's the additional allegation of domestic violence attached to both charges.

Okay.

And that comes along with some other collateral consequences that exceed the punishment otherwise associated with misdemeanor charges, like a firearm prohibition.

That comes with a domestic violence tag in our state.

Usually there's like domestic violence counseling also attached to it.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

And what did your client allegedly do?

What's the state, the government claiming he did?

So the state claimed that the alleged victim in the case, it was a husband and wife.

So my client's wife called police and said that she was essentially assaulted by her husband,

that he had grabbed her wrist and broken a bong, and that he had said, drop the bong or I'll break your wrist.

And that he had shoved her into a wall, and that was kind of like the summary of the initial complaint.

Is that just like two sentences in the police report?

Is there any more descriptive that just drop the bong or I will, what do you say?

Drop the bong or I will what?

Break your wrist.

Break your wrist.

Break your wrist.

Right.

And so the injury was like a, it was described as like a burn, like a twisting kind of like injury to her wrist.

So that was like the injury portion of what we did.

It sounds like, I mean, I know as gray school kids, that's kind of like, we're not very PC.

We say inappropriate things, but remember like Indian burns?

Yeah, that's what it sounds like.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Before we said crisscross applesauce.

This case is quite a wild ride.

So, yeah.

Okay.

So that's it.

Just two words.

Drop the bong or I'll break your wrist.

And then there's an Indian, some type of burning, Indian burn type injury.

Okay.

So we got two counts here.

Okay.

So then you get the, you see the charges, you read the police report.

And then what do you do next?

Right.

So the client, luckily he was, he got out of jail pretty quickly because he doesn't have any criminal history and it was misdemeanor.

So he got out of jail for a little bit of background in Oregon, at least in Lane County, they automatically will put a no contact order in place in domestic cases and even non-domestic cases so that there's no contact between the alleged victim and the client.

Which obviously causes problems for marriages, people who are living together.

And so that kind of caused an issue in this case.

So he was, he was out of jail and essentially denied that he had intentionally injured her.

And so that's kind of where things were at the beginning.

And I was actually getting calls from the wife, um, the month after this was charged.

So she started calling, trying to get the case dismissed, like that type of voicemails happening.

So yeah, we're all, we're all familiar.

Yeah.

A little buyer's remorse.

Saying, I want to drop the charges now as if she has the power to do that.

So cute.

It's adorable.

In, in, in like the, the month after the, uh, actual police were called, she had actually gone to a orthopedic place in town and had gotten the wrist brace.

So there was some documentation that there was like a, an actual injury, not that severe, but she had to wear like a wrist brace.

Um, so it wasn't, you're saying she had an injury before the incident that no, they, it was the, the wrist of that was in question.

And that there was like a strained tendon that was involved.

So this, they're just saying this was due to the incident.

Yeah.

And she changes her story about how the injury happened, uh, when she talks to my investigator, but.

Oh.

Yeah.

Uh, all right.

So you, you meet the client then he was out of custody.

He, uh, and what did, what did he say?

So he is pretty distraught.

Um, he cares for his wife at the time.

Um, he has no criminal history, so he's unfamiliar with the system.

Um, he said that he did not, um, hit her, that she actually had gone.

So starting at the beginning of the evening, she went to a.

Wait, how old's everybody, by the way?

How old's everybody?

They're in her 20s.

20s?

These people.

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

At the beginning of the evening, she, this is on the night of the incident.

At the beginning of the evening, where did she go?

Go ahead.

Sorry.

She, she went with her daughter, her roommate slash caregiver.

Um, she has epilepsy.

So she has this like caregiver who is also in her 20s and like lives with her.

Um, so they go with, uh, the wife's parents as well to this beer garden, go do karaoke.

Um, and she gets, by all accounts, she's very intoxicated at trial.

They tried to deny that she was intoxicated, but her, her, her mom, everybody said she was

intoxicated and the client's boss was, happened to be there.

And so he saw her like drunk, potentially flirting with people or acting not great.

Um, and had texted the client.

Um, and so then the client got upset, just decided to not answer his phone anymore.

He was finishing up at work.

So he just like kind of ghosted the situation.

He was supposed to meet them there, but then didn't.

So that made the wife really mad.

Well, what does your client do?

He's in construction.

So.

Okay.

He would work and she was disabled and at home and she would.

Smoking his weed.

Smoking.

Well, she would smoke her own weed.

This became an issue at trial whose weed was at stake here.

So, um, which is interesting.

Um, so, yeah, so the judge loved that.

Um, she, so she's upset.

She's also intoxicated.

And, um, so they, they go home.

Uh, the parents actually bring, uh, her, the child and the roommate back to the house, drop

them off.

And the client was supposed to like pick them up from the bar.

So she's already pissed off when she gets home because he didn't show up and he's not

answering her calls.

So the loser husband who's been working isn't picking up the wife who's a drunk at the bar.

Trying to pick up other dudes.

Dudes with the caregiver slash friend doing karaoke with the parents.

So the parents have to drop off the daughter because the loser son-in-law won't give her

a ride home with their, with their kid.

The kid's there too, right?

A baby in a bar?

Yep.

It's at the brewery.

It's like a brewery, so I guess technically, yeah, they're, it's a family friendly environment.

She characterizes it as a family friendly place at trial.

Yeah.

They, those exist now.

They have those.

Maybe that, maybe that you're in LA, Lauren, they don't quite have them.

There's not a lot of space, but in these open spaces, they have these big places where

you can bring kids, they got live music.

And just get drunk while they're eating peanuts off the floor.

You know, if there's no peanut allergy, then it should be fine.

Okay.

All right.

So, um, he gets home, as you can imagine, she's yelling, she's pissed off.

They're like in a verbal argument.

And so this, the weed comes into it because she's got epilepsy and she's got like, and

so she spends a lot of money on her dispensary grade marijuana.

Like she smokes.

It's her medicine.

Yeah.

She smokes very high grade marijuana.

He doesn't smoke that often, but he has like a mason jar of like homegrown weed in a closet.

That's like, not great weed.

Um, and so that's like his, whatever his marijuana.

And then she has her like fancy marijuana that they keep.

She buys.

He, he smokes the pure shit.

He's smoking the pure, you know, like keep the government, keep, keep the pesticides out.

Yeah.

No oversight.

No MSG.

Nothing, you know?

Yeah.

So, um, she goes to the closet and gets that jar of weed.

And then the bong comes back out to the living room and she starts putting her hand in the

jar and start, yes, his jar starts crushing it up, like throwing it on the floor.

Like she's destroying his weed essentially.

Um, and so he, that's where the grabbing the wrist comes into play, um, is that he's trying

to pull her hand out of the jar to get her hand out of it.

And she's pushing it back into the jar.

So he's like, let go of it, whether he said, I'll break your wrist.

I don't know.

I, that was kind of up in the air, but that was the context of why that kind of contact

happened.

So this is his version of events that she was reaching into his jar of non-fancy marijuana

when she had her own stuff.

Yeah.

She confirmed that at trial.

She kind of said, well, it's ours because we're married, but like the jar thing was ultimately

that was what happened was that her hand was in the jar.

It wasn't a bond.

She wasn't holding the bond.

It was the jar.

Um, I'm a little disappointed.

There was no fight over a bong.

He did break the bong.

There is a broken bong in the story.

Yeah.

Okay.

He ultimately gets mad.

She destroys a lot of the weed.

And then, uh, he and anger smashes the bong on the floor on a table.

Um, and he admits that he admitted that on the day you met him.

Okay.

That's correct.

So he says, yes, he wasn't proud of that.

She and the roommate ended up after that, went to their bed, respective bedrooms.

He's cleaning up the glass, um, off the floor, taking the couch cushions outside.

Cause he doesn't want, they have a child.

So he's like, I don't want there to be glass on the floor.

So he's cleaning it all up.

Very responsible.

She, uh, comes back out and hits him or like re-engages in the, this argument, gets in his

face.

And then, um, it comes out at trial that, uh, she punched him in the face and then, um,

she goes and calls her mom.

Um, and then her mom tells her to call the cops.

So that's how the cops get called.

Wait a minute.

What, what happened to the, the roommate slash caregiver?

Was she present while, uh, the complaining witness was sticking her hand in the jar of

Bammer marijuana or?

He was present.

And when, when the cops showed up to the scene, she confirmed the wife's story.

They were kind of together during their statement.

So she just said, yeah, that's what happened.

And then rookie cop didn't separate his witnesses to Marshall's statements.

He keeps them both in the same room and asks what happened.

I think it's like his first day on the job or, I mean, probably his first week or something

like that.

Yeah.

So she kind of confirms the wife's story says, yeah, I saw everything.

And he was at fault.

That's when the cops get called after the wife calls her mom and says something to the

effect of like, he, he did this to me or something, uh, he hit me or an alluding to some previous

incidents.

So, um, that was how the cops came on the scene.

Okay.

Okay.

Her caregiver was initially standing by her and the initial police reports, she corroborates

what the wife says.

Um, yeah, that's important.

Yeah.

And just as a side note, is marijuana good for people with epilepsy?

Is that a real thing?

Um, I'm not sure whether marijuana, I know alcohol probably is not.

She was on, she was on, she was on some pretty heavy duty medications, which there were some

medical witnesses.

So, uh, Amy did get to ask them a few questions about that.

And I don't know if you guys have said marijuana is legal in Oregon.

It is legal.

Recreationally, medically, it is legal.

Okay.

So that wasn't an issue.

If it's not legal in Oregon, then where is it?

You know, where is it legal?

Yep.

As you know, I was new to Oregon and this was one of my first jury trials.

So I was like, perfect.

Like, welcome to Oregon.

We're fighting about who to bash it in.

And like, how we broke and bawling is like involved.

And seeing the judge's eyes kind of like, look at us as we're making these arguments.

Uh, it was, it was a lot of fun.

How much weed was in the jar?

How much weed?

Yeah.

Weed, marijuana, what are we calling it?

Cannabis?

What's the word, judge?

Okay.

So you meet your client.

He tells you this story.

Notice how you have like all these details, right?

You know, police report very just thin, like not too much context.

Got all this whole story.

So, uh, where do you go from there?

How does the investigation unravel for you or take off for you?

Yeah.

So there weren't any body cams, uh, for this particular agency.

Um, so we really were just had the report.

Um, and like Amy said, this officer was, was new.

And so the report was not the best.

Um, my investigator, he contacted the wife because she was calling me being like, I want

to make a statement.

She told my investigator that the, uh, tendon injury to the wrist was actually caused by a

seizure that she had, um, in like the days after this incident.

And so like, yes, he caused this red mark, but the actual like injury, injury was caused

by a seizure.

Uh, my investigator also talked to her mom who confirmed her daughter was intoxicated.

Um, she said, she's not innocent.

She knows how to press buttons.

And then the mom also said she had described this incident from the year earlier where the,

uh, wife had jumped on the client's car during an argument when he tried to leave the house.

So like she was, she provided some good information.

Um, but you know, it's still her daughter.

So she's saying, yeah, she was drunk.

She's a button pusher, but she wasn't like, you know, super on the client's side, but was

acknowledging those things about, um, her daughter.

And then we also talked to the roommate caretaker.

And by the time we talked to her, um, her and the, uh, wife had already had a falling

out.

So they were living together after the client was removed from the situation, they were living

together, um, just the root, the roommate caretaker, and then the, um, wife and then

the child.

So, um, there had already been a falling out between them.

So by the time we talked to her, she said that, uh, she kind of just confirmed what, uh, our

client had said, which was that the wife became angry.

Uh, she was drunk.

She got mad that he wasn't keeping in touch with her.

She went to the bedroom, got the bong and, and the client's weed.

There was some pushing and a broken bong.

And then she told the wife to go to the, uh, her room to sleep it off.

And she said that the wife and her were together during the statement to the cops.

The wife apologized to her the next day and said, you lied to the cops because I lied to

the cops.

And then she described the falling out between her and the wife.

Um, apparently the wife had like punched her after they went to a bar.

Um, the caregiver.

Yes.

So after the incident with the husband.

Yeah.

And so she's delightful.

Yeah.

So she doesn't seem like alcohol mixes well with her medication slash personnel.

Like she's an, she gets angry when she's drinking.

Nice.

Okay.

So you got two, you got two statements.

You got the, uh, the mother of the complaining witness, the, the wife saying that her daughter's

kind of crazy and gets jumps on hoods and gets violent.

You got the roommate slash caregiver saying, I'm not friends with her anymore because she got

drunk and punched me in the face.

Do you have medical records?

We do have the medical records about the tendon strain.

Um, and so those were in our records.

Um, but then with her.

And did she tell the, the doctor this was from an epileptic event or did you have statements

or what she said to the doctor?

Her statement evolved her statement at first described a jar, um, and having her hand stuck

in a jar.

And then she made a statement actually to the police, um, around the same time that she made

the recant, like the recantation to my investigator.

She made a statement to the police saying that the seizure was what caused the tendon injury.

So her story evolved over that month.

Yeah.

Right.

But specifically in the medical records, sometimes they'll say what the patient reported.

Right.

Did they have a section where she reported how she injured her wrist when she went to

the doctor?

And yes, in the, in the, uh, records, um, it said, uh, I think it's a domestic violence

incident and it wasn't clear whether that was something she said or something the officers

had told the hospital.

Um, and then she described this argument.

I can't remember if the medical records referred to the bong or the jar, but something about her

husband and yeah.

So initially, yeah, her statements were all consistent with that.

So you got a statement from the complaining witness.

So wait, did she, when you interviewed the complaining witness, did she then recant or did she affirm

what she said?

She recanted, she recanted in a lot of ways.

She kind of, she took accountability for her role in this argument.

She doesn't admit to assaulting him, but she says, I'm a button pusher.

I was intoxicated.

I was angry.

We get in these arguments.

Um, and the injury wasn't caused by him.

It was caused by the seizure.

Um, and so yes, we had this argument, but it was really partially my fault and it wasn't

all him.

So she recants that part of her statement that he basically just assaulted her for no reason.

And that, that he was the cause of this tendon injury, which is what she initially had indicated.

Okay.

But she didn't say anything about like, he did not make this, he did not make a menacing

statement to me.

He did not threaten to break my wrist.

Right.

So that part, that type of recantation didn't happen.

Okay.

She didn't say that.

Okay.

Uh, any other defense investigation going on at this point?

Also, we did get, so the client provided us a video that was from the month before this

incident.

And it was a secret recording.

The roommate, we learned that the roommate recorded this.

And so the roommate had recorded the wife standing over the client.

He was sitting on a couch eating like potato chips.

And she's wearing some very short shorts.

And, um, it's like from sitting behind what, when this is happening and she's screaming at

him, calling him an effing douche bag and like screaming in his face.

And then she, uh, spits gum on his face and he's just sitting there like eating these chips

like in a very calm way.

And she's like screaming in his face and like being extremely intense.

So yeah, that we had, so you have this video, we had the video and we sent it to the DA.

We did send it.

Did she have a record?

No.

Who recorded this video?

The roommate.

The roommate.

The friend.

The roommate.

The caregiver.

Yes.

Yes.

So she, I think once she decided, I can't remember if we got the video before or after their falling

out with the wife, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was after, um, that, that, that, that happened.

She kind of changed camps.

And actually by the time of trial, the client was dating the roommate.

So that was another.

Oh, I didn't want to spoil it.

That's really good.

Oh no.

Wait.

When does that, when does that development happen?

Right now?

Or.

Um, it was, I, so by the time of trial, it comes out that the client and the wife had rekindled

their, their relationship until maybe July-ish.

Um, so from May to July, so that's how the state kind of said, okay, well she made these

statements, but they were like having this relationship again.

Um, and so that's, that was their explanation for why she recanted or made those statements.

Um, and then they had a falling out, um, broke up again, and then she was back on board

with prosecution and then he was dating the roommate.

Oh, not smart on his part.

Okay.

So wait, this incident happened in November of 21.

No, March.

March of 21.

Okay.

And then after that incident happened, client and wife get back together or still maintain

a relationship.

And I don't know about that, obviously.

I didn't know about that post September.

So.

Okay.

Maybe they did.

Maybe they didn't.

Well, it's forbidden love at that point because the court had the order.

So they, they were seeing each other in the pen.

Very sexy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's hot.

That's.

Have a love.

Okay.

And then at some point they break up or have a fallen out or she gets drunk and hits

him, whatever it is.

And then.

Spits her gum out.

Yeah.

And then he starts dating the roommate slash caregiver.

Yeah.

And I don't think it was like the next day.

I think that they, they kind of bonded.

I think it was going on the whole time.

And I think they bonded over this mutual like experience with her.

I don't know.

Yeah.

And then they ended up dating.

How long did they date for?

They were still dating after, during the trial.

Oh, okay.

Okay.

Yeah.

They were going strong at trial.

Wow.

Yeah.

Whoa.

And at this time, I believe our investigation, we were also contacting other former caregivers

of the wife.

Yeah.

And it started to come out that there was a pattern of the lack of truth and the pattern

for violence.

And so perhaps the roommate was just like kind of documenting her case because I don't think

she remained the caregiver after her altercation with the wife.

And how many of the caregivers had also dated the husband?

None.

No.

But.

Are we sure?

They lived.

The two that we had, the two that we had at trial were actually lived in California.

So.

Okay.

Did the caregiver like, hold it.

The caregiver had a thing for the husband.

So she, that's why she recorded the incident a month prior.

Knows the hot button issues that get her ticked off.

Presses the buttons for her to get mad at the husband.

Then presses the buttons again for her to get mad at her.

And then have, so she can hit her.

Her and the husband can then bond over it.

That's a pretty complex.

I'm with it.

The only thing that makes that even more believable is if the wife also tried to take the caregiver's

weed, then there's even more of a motive there.

Interesting.

It's funny.

So there's a, so the video, it's funny.

I almost think, I just see the husband like sitting there eating the chips, thinking like,

you know, you're thinking like, God, my friends and my family told me not to marry her.

They said I was too young.

I said I was too young.

I said not to marry her.

I'm like, I'm like 22, 21.

I'm in my prime.

I should be not, I shouldn't have to be dealing with this right now.

Maybe if I'm 40, you know, but I'm not in my 20s.

You know, like.

Yeah.

It does seem pretty young to have given up on life already.

Yeah.

Just to be taking that.

Oh, man.

Yeah.

And I also imagine him sitting in a recliner for this.

I don't know if he said he was in a recliner, but like, it's got to be an old kind of dirty

recliner that this is happening in, right?

Yeah.

It's like an old love seat.

And he's kind of has that like, that look on his face of like, he's not goading her,

but he's like, kind of has that like, look of like, I'm not reacting to you.

And so it's making her like more mad that he's like another Tuesday.

Yeah.

But yeah.

And then actually, so in August, um, we had the trial set for September.

Um, in August, the client was getting kind of like worn down.

He didn't want the case to be pending anymore.

Um, and so he, he, he actually wanted to plead.

Um, and so we made it through like half and, you know, I told him like, I'm not going to

stand in your way of pleading guilty to one of these counts.

But like, if you wait a little longer, we can go to trial, you know, but he was kind

of like, I don't know if I want to do a trial.

Um, and so when it came to like the colloquy portion of the plea, he, he couldn't bring himself

to say that like, he did, he did what was alleged.

So he ultimately backed out mid plea.

And he was just going to do like plea to a standard, like domestic violence charge with

domestic violence conditions and stay away and all that stuff.

Right.

Counseling and.

Right.

And then I think that the DA actually, one of the charges, the menacing charge, she agreed

not to do the firearm prohibition on that count, but then he ultimately didn't, he didn't end

up going through with the plea.

So then we just were, um, pretty gung ho on trial at that point.

So what was his concern?

At that point, was he just like, I have to keep taking off work or why was he suddenly

talking about entering a plea?

I think that he didn't think about the long-term consequences of pleading.

So this would have had consequences for his custody of his child.

Um, I think that he also was worn down by the emotional relationship between him and her

and kind of just wanted to be done with the situation.

Um, and just kind of stop reliving this and going through all of this.

And I tell all my clients that trials are not always, they're not fun, right?

They're pretty, they take a toll.

Um, but I did tell him that this is a good case for trial, but I think he was kind of

wary of having to have her on the stand and have this whole thing become like a public spectacle

as well.

And was he at, was with, was he with the wife at this time or with the roommate?

That is unclear to me.

Um, because that was also part of my thought.

Yeah.

Part of my thought was like, maybe they, he was just like, let's just plead, get it over

with and we can be together.

Like that is also something that, but I didn't find out until way later that they were even

seeing each other.

So I, I don't know if that was something that was going into it or not.

I mean, if it wasn't for like them having a kid to me, it just sounds like college

kids and roommates, you know, like you date one girl and then you date and roommate and

then you're getting drunk and there's karaoke and there's a fight.

I don't know.

Like just kind of my weed, the bong broke when I was drunk.

I had to clean up the glass, you know, it's now it's stuck in the couch.

The couch is probably something makes me think it's like some old brown couch or something

like that.

It was, it was an old brown couch.

Yeah, exactly.

It just sounds like typical young people drama.

It's a lot of young people drama.

And like the, what was bringing them all together was this like incident.

So I don't know if that had something to do with him wanting to plead, but then he

ended up, I think getting a family law attorney after the like plea situation who then told

him also like, don't plead to this.

So then by then he was like, okay, like, I'm not, I'm not going to plead anymore.

Like, let's go.

Okay.

So you get this video and what happens next in the case?

So I'm obviously talking to the DA and telling her, look, this is not the best case.

I gave her the video.

I gave her the.

You did that as if that was going to be effective for the DA, right?

Like the DA is just going to be like, oh, wow.

Thanks for pointing out the weaknesses.

Let me go dismiss this case right now.

You know, I do think that if she, if the wife had stayed, you know, opposed to the prosecution

until trial, it probably would have gotten dismissed.

But because she came back into the fold, then the DA was like, all right, we're just going

to have to like argue the videos irrelevant or that it shouldn't come in.

So that did become pretty contentious at trial.

I did show that video to people in my house to be like, what do you mean?

Yeah.

You always got to show a good video to your colleagues when you come across it in discovery,

right?

Good video, good photos.

I come in and see this portion of the body worn video, guys.

It's kind of crazy, you know?

Oh, I've got another question for you.

You said you showed the video to the prosecutor.

Did you turn over any of your witness statements before trial?

I turned over the wife's statement, the roommate's statement.

I did not turn over the mom's statement because I wanted her to call her as a witness.

Okay.

And I knew that she might not if I told her what the mom had told us.

So I didn't give her the mom's statement.

So the prosecutor had all of this and was still thinking this is a great trial.

The only possible reason she could be recanting is that she loved him.

So let's go forward.

Yes, and yeah, and so September was the first trial date and she actually charged him with

contempt and revoked his release right before trial because they had this interview with

the wife and said, why did you recant?

Like, what's going on here?

And she said, well, we were seeing each other and we were back together.

Here's like 55 screenshots of text messages between us.

Like that all came out.

They broke the no contact order and that's why they held him in contempt.

When did the DA revoke the out on bail or whatever it was he did?

The day before the first trial date.

So that's sort of like a trial tax, right?

Kind of like, oh, you want to go to trial?

Okay, well, I mean, because I'm sure the DA has been holding on to that for a while and

then was what, given like a last chance to plead?

You're not going to plead?

All right, you're going in custody for your trial?

Is that what happened, right?

Actually, it was more of a, the DA didn't actually talk to her until the day before trial or like

two days before trial.

I'm not sure that that's that much better.

Yeah, I mean, it's equally degregious, but it wasn't like he was holding it in her pocket.

I think that she just like found out about it and then like last minute decided to do that

because she found, because it was part of her.

It was negligence rather than malice.

Exactly, yeah.

Don't you like how it's like, we spend all this time with all this work, investigation

witnesses, we go in to negotiate, let me show you a video, we want this, this, this, and

the DAs don't even look at their case and they're saying no, no, no, no, no, without

even ever even looking at the evidence or knowing the strengths of their case or the players

involved.

Or in this case, the lack of strength.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think she might have thought, well, he tried to plead once, maybe he'll come back

around.

So I think she kind of thought maybe he'll just, maybe we want to end up in trial, you know,

he'll decide he doesn't want to do it.

Okay, so then now, so that means your client now is doing his jury trial while in custody.

He would have been, but the officer got COVID.

So that also happened the day before trial.

The DA called me like 5 p.m. to say that the main officer was quarantined for COVID.

So she had to postpone the trial.

So it was a lot going on.

But then luckily the client was able to get out of jail before the next trial date in November.

Did he have to post bail at this point?

Or did they just say you can't?

No, he just got like a couple days punishment in the jail and then they let him back out.

No big deal.

And is Amy on the case at this point?

Yeah, yeah.

I think it must have been around September or so that I would have gotten involved in.

All right.

Tell us about that.

How'd that go down?

Amy's new to the office.

She's earning for some trials.

She's looking to...

I'm pregnant at this time, too.

So I was telling Lauren that, you know, I'm taking less serious cases at the time, but I was anxious to get back into the courtroom because of COVID.

So I had been hearing, I had seen this video about spitting and the chip eating.

And I'm like, how can I get involved?

How can I help?

And so, yeah, I started working with that.

How can I help this poor man who's eating a bowl of cereal on the couch while his wife's just screaming at him?

This is why I became a public defender, right here, for these moments.

And I will say Amy is a very calm, cool, collected trial attorney.

So this was a very chaotic case, so it was great to have her.

The PD from New York is the calm and collective one.

All right.

Checks out.

All right.

So let's tell us about the jury trial then, right?

Anything about the judge we're in front of?

He's one of the more senior judges.

So none of the judges, I would say, are extremely defense-friendly, but he's one who will.

Shocking.

Yeah.

He will rule on evidentiary motions and stuff.

He's okay.

So if you make a good argument, he'll go with you.

If there's not a good argument on the other side, which is not always the case.

When he has to is what you're saying.

He'll rule in your favor when he has to.

He kind of...

He sounds great.

He does get creative sometimes in his rulings.

So you'll expect he's going to deny something, and then he'll grant it.

And you're like, oh, okay.

So yeah, he's kind of a mixed bag.

If you give him a place to hang his hat, he'll go there.

And I'd say during pretrial, he started to see the video, and I think his interest was

peaked through the roof.

So it was contentious between us and the DA about the admissibility of this video, right?

And I think the judge was curious to see what the response would be to if we play this video

in front of the jury.

And so I think in the initial ruling, it was not going to be admitted.

But then we were able to get it in because she denied having any prior bias against the

client.

So it came in as an impeachment.

And he was ready.

We gave him that reason, and he hung his hat.

Like, all right, let's play it.

Let's do it.

The pretrial work with the judge behind the scenes really laid the groundwork for that.

Well, let's talk about that.

So is that a motion in liminey we had prior to trial?

Yeah.

So we had quite a few motions in liminey, yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

Let's talk about the good ones.

So we had a motion to keep out the fact that there was a violation of the no contact

order.

Like, we said, look, you can say they had rekindled romance.

You can say that's the reason for her to, like, change her story.

But, like, the fact that it was violating a no contact order is prejudicial and it's not

relevant.

We also filed a motion to keep out the text message screenshots.

Those were not helpful.

Were they threatening?

They weren't threatening.

They were just, like, mean.

They weren't.

They were, like, breakups.

Yeah, they were breakup texts.

They were not flattering to the client or really her.

But she only provided screenshots of part of the conversation.

So that was my argument was, I don't know what she said.

I only know these, like, bad things that he said.

So I can't cross-examine her on this conversation because I only have his bad words.

So, yeah.

Don't you have your client?

Does your client have the phone, too, though?

I think that he had deleted it.

Stop making so much sense.

Yeah, I think, because I asked him how many messages.

Yeah, he's like, I deleted everything.

I'm like, okay.

I mean, probably because there was a no contact order.

Like, you know what I'm saying?

All right, so did the judge keep him out or let him in?

Kept him out.

Kept him out.

And then there was a motion for us to keep out the, like, the uncharged allegations of

domestic violence by the client.

She kind of said, well, he's done kind of vague statements of he's done this before.

He's been.

He did it again.

Kind of like that.

Like, right.

He did it again.

Acting like this is enough.

This is the last straw or something like that.

It's like, yeah, let's talk about what happened that night.

If you remember.

Judge said yes.

Keep it out.

Kept it out.

Yep.

Yeah.

Wow.

All right.

The state filed a motion to keep out the spitting video saying that it's a prior bad

act of the alleged victim.

And at the time she filed the motion, we hadn't filed self-defense yet, but we ended

up filing self-defense and defensive property regarding the marijuana.

Yeah.

We ended up arguing about that at trial.

He reserved ruling on the spitting video, I think, initially, and was like, I'll see what

happens.

And he was, I didn't want to commit to the client testifying.

And I wasn't sure how the self-defense was going to come out necessarily.

So I kind of said, well, it could be for self-defense, but also for bias.

So I was trying to really, like, try to get it in through the bias, depending on if the

client was going to testify or not.

Okay.

Time for, oh, jury selection now, right?

Got to pick a fair and impartial jury.

So who's doing jury selection here?

I took on jury selection.

I really enjoy voir dire.

It's something I like.

I was an adjunct professor in a past life, and I like trying to facilitate conversations.

I weaned some space with the client to, like, look at everybody, size everyone up, see who's

good, who's a good fit, or who might not be.

I think we got some four-cause challenges just talking about domestic violence and how

it affected certain people.

And a couple of women started crying.

And I think we tried to earn rapport with the prospective juror panel, like, you know, like,

let's do you a solid and let's get you guys out of here.

I hope you don't mind if I, you know, move or make a motion to remove you from this jury

because it doesn't sound like it's a good fit.

How pregnant are you at this time?

I'm super duper pregnant.

I am eight months pregnant, so I'm largely in charge.

I was, to the most part, pretty healthy throughout my pregnancy, but my daughter, she's got a lot

of hair.

And so I had very bad heartburn at the time.

And during this trial, it was hard for me to, like, even stand up at this point.

I mean, not to be too drunk.

I had no idea.

I'm only, like, five foot four, so I was, like, more wide than tall, I felt, in the moment.

And I was just doing my best.

I had a lot of fun, man.

It's, you know.

Did you do a lot of the rubbing of your belly in front of the jury?

I was, and I thought maybe this will look sympathetic to my client if I, like, kind of play up, like,

I'm this large pregnant woman, and I'm close with this person.

You know what I mean?

And we're good, and I'm standing by him, and I'm just a new mom, like, hanging out.

So, you know, I almost feel like that's kind of funny, though, that, like, you're up there

being, like, you know, I want to provide a safe environment for people who can't handle

domestic violence charge.

I mean, I'm eight months pregnant, and no problem for me, but you can't handle a domestic

violence case.

I mean, I'm right up here eight months.

Boom, let's go.

Kind of the idea.

I mean, like, I'm comfortable to be here.

I'm sitting next to this guy.

I'm here ready to defend him, and if you don't want to be here, that's cool, too.

But, like, let's talk about it, and let's, I'll give you the gift of leaving if that's

the gift that you want, you know?

So then, like, is there a certain way that you approach domestic, like, the topics?

Sort of how you question things?

Can you give us a little bit of flavor?

Sure.

Like I said, I like to facilitate conversation, which can be tough amongst a panel, you know?

So asking those open-ended questions, I usually start by asking for shows of hands to just

get people moving and get their minds working.

I'm not afraid to pick on folks.

In fact, I try to talk to every single person in the panel.

I think it's my job.

Any memorable moments with Jers?

Oh, yeah, I did.

I asked about, we talked about the prospect of, if a male can be the victim of domestic

violence, is it just one-sided?

We talked about the issue of reporting and lack of reporting in the nature of domestic

violence.

We tried to just kind of parse out different issues and give a little preview without, of

course, trying any of the facts in advance.

Yeah, we asked a lot about drinking.

I remember there being quite a few people who abstained from drinking.

So kind of sowing the seed, laying the foundation for, you know, to any of you-

Painting her like a drunken whore.

Totally.

Yeah.

I remember things after a night of drinking.

Or have you ever seen somebody, you know, do something when they were drunk, they might

have acted differently and then didn't remember the following day.

Or, you know, we're just, we're peppering these type of questions intermittently.

And I think it was fun and kind of powerful.

And I'm mostly just trying to give space for Eileen, who knows the client the best at this

point, to just like make those informed decisions, you know?

And so I had a blast.

It was a lot of fun.

And yeah.

And I like getting some four-cause removals, which seem to be kind of rare in our jurisdiction.

All right.

So Vaudeer went pretty well.

Good.

Okay.

Time for opening statements.

Who did opening statements?

I did the opening statement.

This was one where I just kind of told the jury, look, there's a lot of changing stories,

changing narratives.

Frankly, I'm not sure what some of these witnesses will say on the stand because they've

made different statements throughout this case.

And so I just asked them to pay attention to what all the witnesses said and then what

their prior statements were just because it was such a chaotic case.

And the witnesses that we had changed their story so much that I was just kind of asking

them to pay attention to that and the motives for various witnesses to change their story.

Was your opening statement kind of like the prosecutor's?

I have no clue what anybody's going to say.

I just met the victim yesterday.

I don't know either.

But please find them guilty after you listen to everybody.

I think she kind of potentially over, not over promised, but she kind of presented this

like very linear situation and like this is what happened.

And so I don't think that that actually benefited her in the long run because this case was one

where the stories were all over the place.

So kind of tying yourself to one narrative didn't really work, I don't think.

Okay.

All right.

So then let's let's time for roll up, roll up the evidence for the for the people who

they put up first.

They put up, yep, they put up the wife.

All right.

Let's get right to it.

How did that go?

She was very emotional in the stand.

She came off as very like demure, mousy even.

Yeah.

Quiet and weepy to the point where she would be regularly asking the judge for a break to

get it together and like some time and space to like stop crying.

And I think we mentioned before that this isn't this is a compassionate judge.

Okay.

He sees people for who they are at the very least in the courtroom.

Okay.

He's asking this person for a break and even he is not having it at a certain point.

That's not a minor shit.

Like just just take a sip of water.

Take a breath.

And we're not going to we're not going to remove the jury from the room anymore.

Like you've had enough time and space here.

We need to get down to business.

Yeah.

So we'll have to cut a tighter tighter leash on her.

Did she at least ask for like a tissue or something like that?

She had.

Was she?

She had.

Yeah, she had tissues.

The DA was kind of trying to play up this like, oh, she doesn't get a break.

She might have like a medical situation with her epilepsy.

Like that's kind of the underlying like tone of it.

Like she might need a break or she might have it's like she might have an episode or something.

And that it was helpful for the judge to see the video, I think, because I think then knew like I think if I don't know, I'm speculating.

But I'm like, he had just seen the video of her like being very aggressive and like not being like that at all.

She looks virile in the video.

She's like hopping up above him.

She's finger wagging in his face in the video.

She's got her little booty shorts on.

I mean, it's just it's just a different presentation than how she came in.

You know what I'm saying?

Like and it was great that he saw it pretrial because then he knew that this can't be how it always is.

And so, sure, it was convenient for her in the moment.

But what did she testify to then on the stand?

On the stand, she kind of went back to her initial story.

She did.

So part of the questioning was the DA started off with like the weed, like whose weed was this?

Like and the marital property, which was kind of a strange like beginning.

In anticipation of our defensive property, she was focusing a lot on the on whose marijuana was whose.

And I just it just I just dawned on me that the wife was actually talking about the jar for the first time while on the stand and how she was putting her hand in the jar.

And she even on direct admitted to like leaving her hand inside the jar when she knew that our client wanted her to take the hand outside of the jar.

And it's like that's kind of a tough position to like maintain when it's the risk that is injured.

And you're saying, no, despite the fact that somebody wants me and is asking me to move my hand from the jar, I'm just going to leave it in the jar.

And I'm actually trying to keep it further in the jar to mess up the weed, the pot in there.

I mean, it's just a weird.

That's how the case is rolling out for the DA is their victim is on the stand talking about the weed jar and her hands being in the weed jar so she can mess it up.

And then she and he didn't want my hand in his weed, but I kept it in there anyways.

That's how our case is starting off.

Much to the judge's.

I don't think the judge was pleased with like the salacious nature of what was going on.

Like he was just like, I can't believe this is happening.

And whose weed is it?

Whose weed is it?

Yeah.

So, you know, I think that she kind of took the bait on some of those and tried.

She tried to like anticipate what we would argue more than was necessary because she was wrong sometimes.

And then it would get into this weird, like, what are you asking?

Like, I'm not sure where you're going with this.

Yes.

So, yeah.

So the DA is not being proactive in her examination or her direct examination.

She's not laying down what happened.

She's just anticipating your response.

So the jurors are just lost because there's no clear story of what's going on.

It's just anticipation or reaction.

Okay.

Right.

Which if that was her strategy, you would think perhaps she might have considered that she did not have a great case if she couldn't tell her own story.

But, you know.

Yeah.

I think it was like, okay, I have these problems with this complaining witness.

Like I'm trying to get in front of it, but it made it look, it just wasn't very linear.

But, you know, ultimately the story was he told me it was going to break my wrist all over this weed argument.

And then she said that he pushed her.

And then she denied like doing anything physical to him and then kind of just said that he initiated this and that he was upset with her and she minimized her own role in the argument overall.

Was there any like, at least with the prosecutor, was there any sort of like context of the night?

Did she talk about going out earlier, having drinks, karaoke, bar, parents, baby, anything like that?

She did mention that they were at this beer garden.

I think she did characterize it as like a family friendly environment.

Like she was trying to minimize the drinking for sure.

She said I think she had two to three beers or like very minimal amount of alcohol.

So there was definitely a big minimization of her intoxication.

And that was significant.

All right.

So who did cross-examination?

I crossed her.

Time to get nasty, right, Eileen?

Yeah.

That's right.

You know, my –

Take a seat, pregnant honey.

I'm being good cop today.

I'll sit more on.

Sit your sweet pregnant ass down.

Time to get nasty.

I did.

I told you right up to our client.

Here we go.

Let's listen.

Go to the popcorn.

My main goal for the cross was to kind of get her to – there was definitely a shift in her demeanor after the judge wouldn't let her get off the stand.

But she later was like, I can't show that kind of preferential treatment for a witness.

Like, you know, like I can't do that.

She kind of just stopped with the waterworks and was very matter of fact.

I was questioning her just kind of about like the holes in her story.

You know, I asked her about the dispensary versus the jar weed.

I didn't get as much into that because I, you know, it was kind of not the main crux of our case.

But she was like, yeah.

It was just the fun part.

And then my main – actually, another main goal was to have her – I kind of buried the lead a little bit with this question.

I was questioning her about her bias towards the client.

But I didn't want to tip her off because she – in Oregon, alleged victims are allowed to view all of the proceedings, including other witnesses and like pretrial rulings.

It's a – yeah, it's a constitutional right.

You can be there through the whole thing.

Yeah, a constitutional right that they have to be present.

So that leads to issues with them tailoring their testimony.

So she was kind of doing a little bit of that with like there was a, you know, some pretrial rulings about the medical witnesses not being able to allude to the domestic violence incident.

But she would like put that in her testimony so that, you know, like she was kind of being – yeah, she was trying to play a little bit of a game with those types of things.

And so I asked her like, oh, you know, do you have any negative feelings towards our client at all?

And like she had this like tearful answer about like how like she loves being a parent and how she would never had any negative feelings about him before or after the incident, which that was what I wanted her to say.

He made me a mom.

Yeah, he made me a mom is what she said, I think.

Oh, touch her.

Which, you know, she has no idea that what I'm going to do after she gets off the stand is be like she opened the door to the spitting video.

She clearly had animosity towards the client.

I kind of knew at that point that she wasn't going to necessarily give us many factual, you know, answers that were good for us or that didn't come out on direct.

So it was mainly just for the jury to see that her demeanor was not the same.

And it was very – it was very stark contrast to her on direct and this tearful like reciting the facts.

And then with me, it was very like matter of fact, had no problem, was not emotional and just like answered the questions.

Nice.

Okay, okay.

So then what happens next?

I think we did get to the mother because, remember, she had to come back.

Yeah, the mom testified, I think, like right before lunch on day two.

She was like – she had a walker, I remember.

She had some health issues.

And so the wife's mother testified and the DA kept it very, very, very narrow because I handed her the investigator report when she took the stand.

And so she read it and then she kept the direct, super narrow, asked her like, were you with her?

Did she call you like very – a couple questions?

Five questions or so.

Yeah.

Trying to avoid the issue of was your daughter drunk as a skunk?

Why – wait, why would you give the DA your own report prior to the witness testifying?

Your own investigative report of what the witness said prior to the witness, the mom testifying.

I handed it to her last – I think right when she took the stand because I was going to use it for impeachment.

I was going to use her statement when –

Is that the rule in Oregon?

Yeah.

You have to turn it over.

You have to turn over the evidence you're going to use for impeachment, but it just has to be like –

Reasonable.

Like before the actual impeachment portion.

Because you're going to impeach the – you're going to use the mom to impeach the daughter, what the daughter said.

I'm going to use the mom's prior statement to my investigator about her daughter being drunk, like –

Right.

To impeach the daughter.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Okay, okay, okay, all right, okay.

And so – but I knew that if I gave it to the DA too early before she called her to the stand that she probably wouldn't call her at all because she wasn't that important to the case.

True.

And so that was just like a tactic.

Oh, so the DA reads the report, and now you think the DA just said, oops, I'm not going to ask about that, that, and that, so I'll just kind of really just ask about the phone call?

Yeah.

And so then on cross, I tried to ask her – you know, I only had like three or four questions for her, but they were about this prior statement or about how much her daughter drank.

And the DA objected for beyond the scope of direct, then the judge let the jury basically leave for lunch while we discussed this objection.

Actually, so I'll let Amy explain this part, actually.

Well, I think this is the part where the judge was discussing releasing the witness, and the jury was out of the room at this point.

I break out my trusty yellow legal pad that is always within two feet of radius of me.

I start handwriting a subpoena because we didn't have any blanks on us with a caption and all for tomorrow's date and the next day and said, you know, if you're going to leave, I'm going to give you this subpoena so that you can at least come back tomorrow so that we can at least ask a little bit about the drinking issue primarily.

And I said, and you can thank the DA for the fact that you have to come back for objecting to us asking these questions today.

I mean, come on.

Like, we could get there still.

And I think it was just – she didn't want to be inconvenienced to come back, and she was playing, like, you know, I have this walker.

This is inconvenient.

And I'm fully, like, sensitive to that and compassionate.

My mom uses a walker, too.

I don't – it's not something that I take delight in asking you to come back.

But, hey, it's just part of the job in protecting this person's rights.

So I will do what I need to do.

I'll handwrite a subpoena and serve it to you right here.

But you were willing to bully an old lady in a walker to help your client.

I did it with a smile.

I promise.

Your mom was watching.

She saw that.

She saw you bully another fellow walker, you know.

I hope she was – I did her proud.

That's all I can hope.

So just to make sure we're clear, so the mom testified and right before – up until the lunch period, and then the judge was going to excuse her.

But since you weren't able – allowed to ask the mom the questions you wanted to ask because the DA was objecting as technically outside of the scope, which it technically is outside of the scope.

But a lot of times in trials, we just let the questions be asked.

That way we don't have to bring the witness back on another day and so the defense can call that day just to save time for everybody.

Judicial economy.

Yeah, judicial economy.

Everyone's cool about it.

It's not a big deal.

And then – and the mom is saying, I have health issues.

I don't want to come back.

I don't want to come back.

And the DA say, nope, nope, nope, nope.

So then you, Amy, start writing a subpoena, a handwritten subpoena.

Oh, yeah.

To give to the mom for her to come back the next day.

To ensure her attendance, basically.

Yeah, yeah.

We didn't want to just ask her nicely.

Yeah, we didn't want to ask nicely and I –

could you just have asked the judge to order her back or did you just want the dramatic effect of handing her a legal pad, yellow line, handwritten subpoena?

Because that would be fun.

I think I started doing it.

I think I might have not even consulted Eileen.

Like, she might have been, like, talking or doing something else in this moment.

And in this moment, I'm just doing it as a kind of a just-in-case situation of, like, hey, I need to make sure this woman comes back tomorrow.

I really would like her to talk about a couple of these answers to the questions.

And so, yeah, just an ace and a whole.

Have you – was that something – have you done that before?

Yeah.

Have you ever written a hand – I don't even know if I'm – I don't think I'm smart enough to, like, think that my hand – I can write out as handwritten subpoena.

And that's something I could argue to a judge because it technically meets these requirements, these legal requirements.

Legally, this is what a subpoena is supposed – like, how do you even know that?

We had a subpoena that we had served on a different witness, so she just, like, copied word for word what it said.

I would have never thought of it.

I'm okay.

I like to write and draw.

I still write letters, like, old school.

So, yeah, I don't know.

I just – I thought of it.

I don't think I'd ever done it before.

One time comes to mind where I was back in New York and I saw a witness just randomly in a justice court and I needed to get something quick to that person when I noticed it was them.

But this was the first time in dramatic effect I'm, like, scribbling ferociously, writing the subpoena, handing it to her, like, hey, I'm so sorry.

I didn't want to do this, but we totally need your testimony, you know.

Sorry, not sorry.

Sorry, not sorry.

You can blame the DA for her little game.

Yeah, totally.

And that was the day that the legend of Amy, the public defender, was born.

Her handwritten subpoena like a magic talisman.

She's there to show that she can handle – Eileen, you went back in the office and said, this girl is down.

Let me tell you.

She just pulled it.

Yeah, like, at lunch, yeah, I was like, oh, my God, you guys.

Amy just hand-wrote a subpoena.

Everybody's like, what?

Like, what?

What?

I was still relatively new on scene here, so it was good to, like, you know.

Not anymore.

Get back after.

Not after that.

Not everyone knew who you were after that.

Thanks.

Okay, so you hand the mom a subpoena.

Great.

Yeah, I can see the mom.

We'll try to make it convenient for you.

Like I said, I did it with her mom.

You just got served.

All right.

And then what happens – have you played the video at this point or no?

No, that comes in on defense.

Yeah, still in the video.

So the roommate hasn't testified yet?

No.

They don't call her.

Oh, the DA wasn't calling the roommate at all.

So funnily enough, during one of the breaks, the DA comes up to me and she's, like, basically, like, can you tell her to talk to me?

The roommate.

Like, the new girlfriend.

Like, she's like, she won't talk to me or, like, something like that.

And I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about.

Yeah, I'm just like, okay.

Like, I don't – like, she was kind of, like, I guess not dodging the subpoena because she was there on our subpoena.

Like, so she was in the hallway.

She was hanging out.

But she, like, had – she had some notes in her phone, I think.

And, like, the DA was, like, really, like, worked up about, well, she – I'm like, I don't – I just, like – I'm like, I – she's not, like, under my control.

Like, I don't –

I can't force her to talk.

DA's getting caught up in the drama now, right?

Getting caught up in the 20-year-old drama.

Yes.

Yeah.

Tell her to talk to me.

Yeah, I'm like, it's your job to help the DA, too.

I was like, uh, whatever.

It was – it was strange.

All right, so what happens next?

And I think the only other witness on the state was the officer.

So the main officer was the one who wrote the report.

There were two officers on scene, a more senior officer, but he didn't write a report.

He was just, like, supervising the other one.

And so another thing in Oregon, they can designate a case officer that can sit at council table.

So he was sitting up at council table with the DA.

Also not sequestered, so also tailoring testimony.

And so he was there the whole time.

So I crossed him.

On direct, he just kind of, like, said, I showed up to the scene.

This is what I saw.

This is what they told me.

I took these photographs of her arm, and then I arrested the client.

And so on cross, we asked about the sequestering of the witnesses.

And then in his report, he made some mistakes.

And so, like, he said it was the left arm versus the right arm that was injured.

And so I was asking him the typical, like, you're trained in how to write reports and all that.

Like, you know, it's very important you put all your details in your reports.

And he actually said, well, actually, in the beginning, I wasn't actually that good at writing reports.

Like, and so it came, he came off as, like, very honest.

So I wasn't, like, beating him up.

I was just like, oh, you made some mistakes.

Like, that's okay.

But we just, like, can't rely on you.

You know, like, that's kind of the mode of crossing him.

He was friendly and honest and, like, a touchstone of what an officer would want to be at trial in terms of truthfulness, honesty.

I mean, he really did a good job.

I know we joked about maybe he's a little green, right?

But I think he'd readily admit that.

I think he did readily admit that.

And it wasn't helpful to interrupt at all.

So that was really cool.

Yeah.

And he was, I think that, like, you know, some officers are, they like to deny mistakes or, like, make it seem like, oh, you know.

But I don't think that serves them very well.

He just came off as, like, he just was honest about his shortcomings.

And I was like, but you can write supplemental reports.

So, like, that's okay if you're not that good at it.

You can go back and, like, fix your mistakes, you know.

Well, it's nice, though, because then if you're arguing in front of the jury, you don't have to attack the officer, right?

You can say he was nice and he wasn't harmful.

We just can't trust him because he made some mistakes.

And you don't have to call him a liar and potentially alienate some of the jurors, right?

Right.

And, yeah, once the trial, like, once the jury was out, he even said, like, I was, like, this is my first trial because it's COVID.

And he's, like, yeah, he's, like, I was really afraid of you.

Like, when you were going to question me, like, on cross.

I love when people say they're afraid of me.

Yeah.

And I was, like, you know, if my opinion matters, I think you did a great job.

Like, I think you came off as, like, you know, an honest officer.

You care about my dumbbag defense attorney opinion.

Like, you know.

You really – no, you came off as honest.

Yeah.

You came off as honest.

It was believable.

He's honestly an idiot.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So that, you know, it was what it was with him.

So, yeah.

It was fun.

Don't count on him, to be honest, five years from now when he gets – he's in there for a while.

He's jaded.

Now.

I wouldn't count on it now.

Yeah, I know.

I don't –

I feel like jurors don't even like the – some jurors don't like it when you even say that a cop lies.

Even when the cop's blatantly lying, you still have to say the cop made a mistake or misremembered.

You know, you have to couch it in certain phrases for the jury.

They misspoke.

They're human.

They're human.

Yeah.

Mistakes, right.

Okay, good, good.

So was that it for the state's case then?

Any other witnesses?

I think that was it.

I think they rested after that.

Yeah.

Okay.

So a defense motion to dismiss for insufficiency of the evidence, standard motion in between the prosecution and defense case.

Usually it's denied.

What happened in this case?

This judge, he – so we just made the standard motion to dismiss for insufficient evidence and expected – you know, I didn't really prepare any case law or anything because, you know, it's just the standard motion.

And the judge said, well, last night I was reading some cases about, like, this menacing charge and, like, I'm not sure if this statement of, like, drop it or I'll break your wrist is, like, imminent.

And, like, he was just kind of, like –

It's conditional.

Exactly.

So he's, like, spitballing and we're just, like, yeah, like, that's – you know, that's – we totally agree.

And then the DA is kind of, like, caught off guard.

Ultimately, he denied the motion, but it was, like, an interesting – like, you know, he had his own thoughts about it, which, you know, he's granted those motions before.

And so, like, I just – you know, he's known to kind of – like, that's one of his things that sometimes he'll, like, do that.

I wasn't expecting it, but, yeah.

And Booty Shorts is in the courtroom for all of this, right?

Yes.

Yeah.

Okay.

She's hanging to watch.

Yeah.

At some point, I think she might have started viewing it on video as opposed to, like, being actually physically in the courtroom, but I don't remember.

So time for the defense case.

First up was the mother of the wife.

Yep.

With her handwritten subpoena.

Right.

With her handwritten subpoena.

She showed up.

It worked.

It worked.

It worked.

Well, she made it, yeah.

And she just, like, confirmed that she – she kind of minimized it a little.

She was not adamantly saying, like, yes, my daughter was very drunk, like, but she acknowledged that she made that statement.

Who did the questioning?

I think that I questioned her, and I actually – I think that she might have said she didn't remember exactly what she said, so I handed her the statement, like, the defense report, to refresh her recollection.

And she just said, yes, I remember, you know, yes, I said that, and then we kind of got her off pretty quickly.

So she didn't want to admit that she said that her daughter was drinking that night?

Yes, and that she was a button pusher.

And a terrible mother.

Yeah, that was – you know, she was – by this time, you know, that whole camp was not gung-ho about their statements that they had made previously.

It was a great disappointment.

Yeah.

I think we actually did have the wife read her own statement to our investigators.

She was – she was the most difficult in terms of, like, acknowledging her prior statement, so I think I did have her read verbatim because my investigator put quotes around some of her statements.

So when does the roommate show up?

Wait, hold on, hold on.

Sorry.

I really want to get to this video.

I'm excited.

All right.

Well, so who – and then who testifies next for the defense, if anybody?

Then we call a couple of her prior caregivers.

These are the folks who live in California, so they appeared by Zoom.

They were relatively short, and we had actually some technical difficulties with the second one.

So we kind of abandoned ship, I think, kind of midway through the questioning.

But we were able to get through the first prior caregiver that she had a reputation for both violence and lack of truthfulness.

We did keep the questions very short.

There was not much cross at all.

And they were good witnesses because they had been friends with the wife since high school.

So it didn't make a ton of sense about, like, why now are they coming with this?

There wasn't a situation like the most recent caregiver where they got punched in the face, like, recently or anything like that.

Or dating the husband.

So all former caregivers, whether or not they've been punched in the face by her or not, have the same opinion.

Or by the husband.

Yeah, exactly.

They live in California.

They've got no dog.

They've got no dog in the fight other than to, like, pay the tucks.

All right.

Okay.

So who testifies next for the defense?

The roommate, caregiver, girlfriend.

Yes.

All right.

Let's go.

So, yeah.

She comes in.

Hopefully not also in booty shorts.

No, she was not in booty shorts.

Okay.

Um, so she told what, what she said happened, which was that the wife was mad.

The wife was intoxicated because, and then she was upset that the husband didn't come pick them up from the bar.

Um, and so she was like already pissed off when he got home.

Um, she described the grabbing his weed and the bong and like that incident.

She, she said that, um, they, he was trying to pull her hand out of the jar and like she was, the wife was crushing up the weed and destroying it.

Um, and then the breaking of the bong and then everybody went there kind of like separated into their own respective corners.

Um, and she said that maybe 10 to 20 minutes later, um, she described the wife as coming back out to re-engage in an argument and that the husband, like the client was moving the cushions outside.

So he was kind of like sweeping up in this area by the sliding glass door and that the wife actually just socked him in the face and like punched him in the face that that was like kind of the end of the physical altercation.

Um, and then she also described that she made her initial statement to the police, uh, essentially corroborating the wife's statement, um, because, you know, she lived with her, she was friends with her.

Um, and that she really didn't make a full statement.

She just kind of said like, yeah, what she said, like, you know, she just kind of like said what she said is accurate.

She didn't make her own like linking statement to the cops.

Did it come out?

Sorry, David, go ahead.

I was going to say, did she say like, that's what she said?

I wouldn't be surprised in this case if that's true.

Okay, Lauren, Lauren, ask your question.

Go ahead.

Did it come out while she was on the stand that she was currently in a relationship with your client?

Yeah.

I think we wanted to get ahead of it so that there wasn't some aha moment where the prosecution was able to be like, you're now dating him, right?

In this epic, like, moment.

We wanted to avoid that at all costs.

So I think we got ahead of it.

Yeah, we did ask her to like, you had a falling out with, with her and like, I can't remember exactly what we asked her about, like the punching incident.

But I think we just said like, there was an incident, like, and, you know, this reputation for violence stuff, you know, it was just, it was annoying that we couldn't ask her directly about the incident.

But by then, there was so much about, like, you know, kind of alluding to her own violence that like, yeah, the implication was strong.

And then through her, we also got in the video, the spitting video, because the judge ruled that the wife had opened the door.

So we got, we laid the foundation through the roommate, girlfriend, and then we played it.

And I actually played it, it was only like a 10 second video.

And so I didn't make a big scene of it at that point.

Because I think it was like close to the end of the day, too.

So like, we just kind of moved through her testimony.

But then during closing, we played it again.

So the video was played when?

During the new girlfriend, like the roommate's testimony.

I just like, is this an accurate depiction of this incident on February, whatever?

And she said, yes.

And then I played it.

And then I think at the time, I thought the jury could see it better.

And then Amy indicated that like, it was kind of hard to see because the jury was like in the way back of the courtroom.

And so that's why we played it again during closing.

It was like a video captured on a cell phone.

And so I think it was like, when you tilt your phone, and then it's only like a third of the screen that shows up with the video.

And then the other two thirds on the outside are black.

So the video is already a little bit smaller on the television screen.

Plus, it's COVID.

So you've got jurors all the way out back.

So it was played once.

Okay, okay.

I mean, you didn't have stills of her bending over him just blown up in the courtroom with her little outfit.

And I imagine it with a cigarette, too.

I don't, you didn't say that.

But I sort of just imagine her leaned over with the cigarette and the little shorts.

And it was funny because the way that the DA characterized that video and the motion was like, she may have spit on him.

Or, and then she was like, he didn't even react.

So like, he wasn't even scared of her.

Like, it was like a, but you could clearly see a piece of gum like leave her mouth when she spit at him, which was very helpful, actually.

So, yeah, it was interesting.

And, I mean, at this point, you guys feel like you're winning your trial, right?

Things are going well.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But you never know, you know.

Okay, time for our closing statements, then.

Who does closing?

Me.

I'm doing a couple of times playing the video.

I'm like, you know what?

Hello, guys.

Thanks for listening.

Let's sit down and watch this, you know, video a couple of times.

I'd like you to pause it.

I think I played it at least two, perhaps three times in a row.

Boop, boop, boop.

I will take up all the space going into this because it, you know, it differs greatly from what you saw.

And then I just kind of took them through all the evidence.

And I don't think I did.

I don't think I closed for that long.

I think I was up there for 20 minutes or a half hour at most.

Did you argue that there was no menacing statement because the statement was never said or it was conditional or what was that?

That's why it's not guilty.

I think the statement did not occur from our point of view.

And so the menacing just simply didn't happen.

And then as far as the assault, we argued that her injury was actually caused by her seizure, as she reported to our investigator, and that that made perfect sense for all sorts of reasons.

And, you know, commenting on the fact that it also made sense that her story was different today than it was on the date in question based on where she'd been since the date of incident.

Right.

So all of that just kind of laid out, making that request for a not guilty finding.

Did you consider putting your client on the stand?

That was actually one of the decisions that was more difficult because, you know, I think that going into it, we thought that that he might have to testify for the self-defense.

But given the roommate statement, given the roommate statement, I think we had enough.

So he decided not to.

How long did the jurors deliberate for?

Two hours.

I was going to guess a couple of hours is my recollection as well.

A couple of hours.

And how was your client during the trial, during jury deliberations?

Can you talk about that?

He was a gamer.

He showed up.

He was well-dressed early.

He was proactive and trying to help us marshal witnesses.

Yeah, he was great.

He's a gamer.

So that's really helpful when they show up, you know, tight, ready to roll early.

He's helpful and rare.

It is rare.

It's so wonderful.

We're grateful for him.

So he was easy to work with and kind of a standout client in that respect, for sure.

And I remember we got a call from the court staff, like right at the beginning of deliberations.

They were like, the jury wants to know if they can watch the video on your TV.

And so that was a good sign because, like, that meant that they really wanted to see that video.

And it's one of those videos, like, you watch it, like, five, ten times.

And you're like, okay.

Like, because it's a short clip.

But, like, the more you watch it, the more you get the gist of, like, what happened.

You know the jurors were probably not guilty at that moment, but just wanted to see the video anyways.

Don't get your hopes up.

Don't get your hopes up.

Don't read too much into it.

Don't read too much into it, but love to see the question.

Yeah.

Let's talk about the reading of the verdict.

How'd that go?

Client was very nervous.

I was nervous because, I mean, at this point, like, you're invested.

You want to believe that you did a good job.

And so he started crying after they read the not guilty verdict, like, very hard.

Shouldn't we talk about the presiding juror?

Isn't he the one that you thought was grilling our client this whole time?

So Eileen was concerned about the one male that sat on the jury.

Because he seemed to be looking rather discerningly at our client for the duration of the trial.

And, like, the way that the juror was set up, like, the jury was behind us.

So, like, I was kind of, like, tilted towards the side.

And you can see in those pictures.

And so, like, I could see this juror behind the client.

And he's, like, watching him intently the whole time.

And he's, like, ex-military.

And I was nervous about him being on the jury, like, when we were doing Vaudeer.

But the client was like, I like him.

So I was like, okay, like, that's cool.

That's cool.

And so he was, like, watching the client so closely.

And so I, when we went back to the office during deliberations, I was like, I don't know.

That juror, like, I don't know.

Like, he'd go either way.

And then he ended up being the four person for the inoculant.

He volunteered.

He signed that verdict sheet.

It was read.

And I think you're right.

Yeah, the client broke down.

Tears of joy.

Tears of relief.

And then the girlfriend, the big hug afterwards.

Oh, it was so cute.

Yeah, she just, like, kind of ran up to him.

It seemed like she was super happy.

Yeah, I felt like I'm in a movie.

I should have a video camera or something for this moment.

And it's, like, end of the day, right?

Like, late afternoon.

And we're outside the front of the courthouse.

And he, like, held her up.

Like, she, like, ran up to him.

Jumped on.

Jumped on him and hugged him.

And, like, was, like, garaged him like this.

And, like, they do, like, a twirl.

And he, like, continues to hold her.

I guess they were just so happy.

Um, you're, like, his romance is dead.

Yeah, exactly.

Like, was the wife pregnant?

Not pregnant.

Present during the reading of the verdict?

Or was she watching remotely at that point?

I think remote.

I want to say.

So she missed the movie star hug.

She did.

She was not present for that.

She might have, like, came up and spit on him or something.

So I'm glad she missed it.

It was, like, too much.

This was very fun.

This was a great story.

I had a good time today.

Thanks for coming on the show.

Thanks for having me.

Good job, Eileen.

Good job, Amy.

You guys rock.

That was a good not guilty.

I can't wait to share this with our audience.

And, Lauren, thanks for being an amazing co-host.

Not bad for your first time.

Thank you.

Not too shabby.

Thank you so much for having us and doing what you do.

This is so important.

We love the podcast.

Yeah, it's our pleasure to share our experience.

We're grateful for that opportunity.

All right.

Well, one more question.

One question I ask each of our guests every time we have a guest.

We always have a guest.

One question.

One last question is we'll start with Eileen.

Eileen, why did you become a public defender?

So when I went to law school,

I was kind of drawn to criminal law.

And actually, initially, I thought there were, like, a couple of YouTube videos and, like, speakers talking about, like, progressive prosecution.

Like, that's kind of a new wave idea.

So I kind of thought maybe that would be the way to go.

And I actually did an internship with the AG's office in Denver and then kind of saw you're a cog in a wheel.

There's not much independent thought going on there.

Like, it's not really you're not able to make that big of a change from within that I kind of thought would be cool.

And then I actually did a defense clinic in my last year of law school with an amazing federal public defender at Iowa College of Law.

Her name is Allison Guernsey.

And she kind of took a bunch of us under her wing.

We practiced in federal court in Iowa, which is not the most defense-friendly, you know, environment.

And she was very inspirational.

And so ever since then, kind of defending my clients against the system, you know, my favorite part of the job probably is both the relationships with clients.

And also, I love crossing police officers.

I find it very enjoyable.

And, like, finding the little – we're the only ones to really find the lies and, like, confront them in a really meaningful way because the state's never going to do it.

So, you know, I work for a great office.

Our office is amazing.

And so it's been a blessing.

Nice, nice.

And, Amy, what about you?

Why did you become a public defender?

I became a public defender because I want to help people.

I've always been kind of service-minded throughout my life.

And I regard our work as, like, very true Brahmin work, right?

In law school, I ended up working under a judge that – she was a former public defender back in the 80s.

And, like, as a woman, I had a lot of respect for, you know, that and her experience there.

After law school, I opened up a business and handled a lot of criminal defense work.

And so I initially had taken some private pay cases.

And it's a very, like, particular type, right?

Like, you're handling a lot of DUI, traffic-related matters, things like that.

And I always found a lot of meaning in the work that I was able to do for indigent clients.

So I started out by taking some court appointments, kind of based on my relationship with working with the courts before.

I had a lot of fun.

And so when I moved west, I wanted to settle roots here.

And I thought to myself, like, what better of a way than to practice law in a meaningful way than to join the public defender's office?

When I moved to Eugene, that's why I reached out.

I wasn't even looking for the job.

In fact, I was still working in private practice on a remote basis due to the pandemic.

And this office really presented a reason for me to close that chapter and open up a new chapter in my career.

And it's, again, I feel lucky to be here.

It's like a little family.

And I, too, enjoy talking about and to our clients and hearing their stories and just being a champion for them as people and seeing them and bearing witness to some of the silly stuff and some of the harder stuff and just being a person.

It means a lot to me.

Like, I really enjoy it.

I don't know what else I would be doing other than this.

All right.

All right.

Well, thanks for being on the show, everybody.

It was fun today.

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.