Forced To Go, Forced To Leave – When the System Dumps and Defenders Deliver

Alright my A and G-ers, here we are. This is our first episode since the 100th episode of Another Not Guilty. Our first episode post our nation's election. How we doing out there? I know most of our spirits are down. It seems that the pendulum has swung back to being tough on crime. Society has given up on a kinder, more humane approach to solving our societal problems. We are going back to a tough on crime mentality, to a mass incarceration era, as if that method was working before.

Decisions and votes were made based on lies and misinformation. It makes me sad that we can be so easily manipulated by the dark powers that be. Our story as public defenders and criminal defense attorneys must be told. The tragedy, heroism, compassion of us must be known. Our light represents hope, and that's why we have this podcast. This podcast is your podcast. These stories we tell are your stories. I've been facilitating the telling of these stories for 100 hours.

episodes now, but I want to let you in on a little secret. You too can tell this story. You know this story. And the only way A and G is kept alive and going is by all of us coming together to make the truth known about what we do. What our system does to our fellow citizens. Our most vulnerable citizens. I can't do it alone.

So, with that said, with respect to this episode, I am excited to introduce to you Rachel McKay and Dallas Gutman from the Cincinnati Public Defender's Office. These two amazing PDs are joining the A and G team, and I want to thank them for taking the time to record and produce their own A and G episode. I hope this episode inspires more of you to do the same. Come on, let's do it.

In addition, I want to thank the members of our Patreon program for their donations and keeping this podcast going. It really does help pay the bills and equipment.

And, at this time, I'd like to give a special shout-out to Mira Williamson and Julia Murphy, our newest members to our Patreon program.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mira. Thank you, Julia.

I can't say it enough, but thank you.

If you, too, would like to donate to the pod, then please visit our website at anothernotguiltypod.com and click on the Patreon link.

And, with that said, without further ado, check out Rachel and Dallas' latest A and G episode.

So, she was having a hard time conceptualizing the fact, like, how did I get arrested, and why am I in court for getting help?

Because that's really what it is. She was just trying to get help.

His big thing was like, oh, we had all these witnesses testify. We had officers. We had nurses.

They all came up here, and we know she was discharged, and the officer testified that she was discharged and that she wouldn't leave.

So, then the prosecutor said, oh, so you heard the testimony of the doctor, the nurses, and the officers.

So, you're saying that they're lying? And she was like, yes.

Welcome to Another Not Guilty.

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

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

I prefer calling it the American criminal system.

These stories are about the not-guilties public defenders get on a daily basis.

In an unjust criminal system.

With a deck stacked against us.

Another not-guilty.

All right, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Another Not Guilty, bringing you the freshest not-guilties across this nation.

And we're doing something a little bit different today.

You're hearing it right. Don't adjust that dial.

This is not Davy D.

My name is Dallas Guttman.

I am a public defender in Cincinnati, Ohio, Hamilton County, for those who are keeping score.

And I'm here with my best friend, Rachel McKay.

I'm Rachel McKay.

I'm an attorney in Cincinnati, Ohio, in Hamilton County, in the felony division.

And I work with my best friend, my trial partner, Dallas Guttman.

McKay and I came up together.

We started at the Hamilton County Public Defender's Office a couple of years ago.

Since then, McKay has crushed it in the courtroom, spread her wings, is now doing felonies in our common pleas division, and is crushing it there.

Dallas is a legend.

She's a supervisor now.

She's probably in 14 different courtrooms every morning.

She's either helping with the jury, first chairing a jury, third chairing a jury, consulting a jury, almost always acquitting a jury.

We're coming at you not live from our neck of the woods.

We're coming at you highly produced and highly recorded.

We're on take four of the best way to talk because we're new to this.

We're not David.

It's growing pains, but we're excited to do it.

We're excited to be here.

And the bottom line is, it ended in not guilty.

And what really happened here, too, is David, who's a full-time practicing line attorney, has been running this podcast for years.

And that just takes a remarkable amount of labor to organize the interviews, to hear from all of you and your great stories, to get them recorded, to get them edited, to get those episodes out.

And we're grateful for the work he's done and the community he's built.

I think we all have benefited from the trial strategies shared, from the communities shared.

There's a lot of PDs doing this work in more isolated necks of the woods, on the front lines, almost alone in their jurisdiction.

So we're grateful for the community this has made for us and for all of the, I think, thousands of listeners to this podcast.

And so we heeded the call because we want to keep it going, and we were excited to get involved.

And we hope that others do, too, because this really is a grassroots, democratic platform of PDs just sharing information, sharing energy, sharing the struggle,

sharing the fight, sharing the evidence tips, all of it.

And, you know, I just want to take a minute to thank David on, I think, both our behalf for being so gracious

and for trusting his baby with us and with this episode.

And we've learned a lot from him in the short time that we've known him.

And we are just very honored to be here and to be serving up a hot and spicy, not guilty for you guys.

So without further ado, we are going to take just a short trip up Highway 71 to Dayton, Ohio,

to give you the freshest, not guilty out of Montgomery County.

Nicole and Elizabeth, take it away.

Sure, I guess I'll start off.

So I'm Nicole Vega.

I am a public defender, assistant public defender at the Montgomery County Public Defender's Office.

Currently, I am doing misdemeanor work, and I have been a licensed attorney for two years.

Coming up.

So I'm Elizabeth.

I am also an assistant public defender at the Montgomery County Public Defender's Office.

And like Dallas and Rachel said, we are just up 75, about 45 minutes away.

So I currently do felony work.

I did some misdemeanor work for a couple years, and I've been doing felony cases for about a year.

I was licensed in 2020, almost four years ago now.

I was a COVID bar examiner.

Shout out to that.

Super fun time.

But I've worked primarily here in Montgomery County.

I clerked in northern Kentucky with DPA, and I've done public defender work since law school.

All right.

Thank you.

And we're going to talk about one of your cases that you won, spoiler alert, at jury trials.

So let's get started with this corn-fed Ohio edition of Another Not Guilty.

Why don't you guys tell us what your client was charged with?

So Ms. Winters was charged with two counts of criminal trespass.

So they are both fourth-degree misdemeanor.

So the maximum penalty you could get if convicted or plea is 30 days in jail and a $250 fine.

So one of them, each of them was charged under a different subsection.

One of them required a recklessness element for the mens rea, and then the other one required a negligence component.

But that's what she was charged with.

And it involved her and essentially the allegation that she was trespassing at a hospital here in Dayton.

And when you say mens rea, you mean just the mental state, right?

Correct.

The mental state, yes.

That's required for a conviction, which is one of the things that the state has to prove.

All right.

Now, what did the police say happened?

Long story short, she went to the hospital, they discharged her, and the state was trying to say that she was refusing to leave after being discharged.

And on the two charges with the different mens rea, are they alleging something different happened on those?

Or did they just charge it in two different ways?

So they charged it into two different subsection.

One of them, they were just saying that she was negligent in leaving.

And then the other one, that she was reckless in leaving.

Meaning that she doesn't necessarily have to intend to do it, but she should have known that that result was happening.

Meaning that if they asked her to leave and if she stayed, then she should have known that a criminal trespass charge was potentially coming.

And that's really popular for our prosecutors to do here.

They charge under every single subsection they think they can and hope something sticks in the end.

So that's a common thing that happens.

So it's an A charge and a B charge from the exact same conduct?

Essentially, yeah.

And they always, one thing that bothers me is that a lot of the times they'll overcharge.

So whenever they do make an offer, they love to make it seem like it's this golden platter when it's, in reality, it's like, you really can't prove the other one.

So is this really an offer?

Right, of course, like they're doing you a favor.

Right, which never.

All right, so tell us a little bit more about what the cops say.

Happened and why she refused to leave and how she even got there in the first place.

Okay, so the police report alleged that Miss Winters was transported to the hospital via ambulance.

She was actually pink slipped.

I'm not sure who is familiar with that term, but essentially police officers and or firefighters or medical or any other public servant.

If they believe that you are suffering from some sort of like mental crisis or physical crisis, they have the authority to just take you to the hospital involuntarily.

So that's what ended up happening to Miss Winters.

The police report didn't touch base on why she was pink slipped.

It just said she was brought to the hospital because she was pink slipped.

So she was brought to the emergency room.

She was checked in.

She was seen by a doctor, several nurses.

And according to the police report, once the staff there were done giving her care, the doctor officially discharged her.

So at this point, the hospital officers came into the room, told her, hey, you got to leave, you're discharged, you got to go.

And according to them, she threw a big scene, kept arguing with them, told them that she still had a lot of questions, that her care wasn't done.

They allege that she threw herself onto the ground one time.

So then they had to go get a wheelchair as they were trying to help her into the wheelchair.

They said that she threw herself onto the ground a second time.

Once they finally got into the wheelchair, they wheeled her out into the medical bay where the ambulances come in.

Apparently threw herself on the ground a third time, right?

And then at this point is when they decided to arrest her for criminal trespass.

According to them, they gave her warnings, they pleaded with her, you know, making themselves sound great and pleasant, as they always do.

But at this point, they told her that she is going to be transported to the jail for criminal trespass.

They take her to the jail.

The jail rejects her, and they drop her off at a bus stop and let her find her way home.

Why does the jail reject her, does it say?

Whenever a person is either suffering from some sort of medical issue, I think in her case, she had high blood pressure.

So she wasn't medically cleared to be taken into custody.

It's always crazy to me when people get charges from a hospital where they should know how to deal with people who are going through crises, and they just end up putting charges on them.

That just really makes me mad.

And that's exactly, like, a theme in our case.

It's like, you guys are just trying to deal with the problem by arresting people, and that's not the solution at all.

So after they took her, took Ms. Winters to the jail, and the jail essentially said, we can't take her because of her medical issues, take her back to the hospital, because that's what they're supposed to do.

They took her back, and then eventually they just dropped her off at a, like, a bus stop, because we have, like, public buses here, down the street from the hospital.

And she didn't have a phone.

She didn't have money.

She had nothing, because she was taken to the hospital involuntarily.

So she had to essentially try to get someone to stop, to call them, to get a ride back home.

So they just kind of were like, oh, the jail won't take her.

We'll just drop her off.

So first she's pink slipped for a medical emergency, and then she's taken to a hospital.

And then the hospital says that she is so cured that she can't be there, forces her to go to the jail.

The jail won't take her because of medical reasons.

And then she's taken the bus stop.

Cool.

Yeah, pretty much.

It's like, oh.

Justice.

And that's the episode.

Thank you guys for joining us.

But no, we're not sure who picked her up, though.

But she told us that she waited, I think, like, two or three hours for some.

Because this happened early, early morning at, like, five or six in the morning.

So people aren't just walking around willing to give people rides.

Yeah.

Wow.

All right.

So knowing that, or before you know that, when do you meet your client?

So I essentially, first time I met my client, well, we met at the first pretrial, but the first conversation that we had was over the phone.

And I called her a couple of days prior, just letting her know, hey, I'm your attorney.

This is what charges you have.

Let's go over the police report.

And then you can kind of tell me what happened from your perspective.

And from my initial conversation, she was fired up.

Fired up.

Because she was the type that she truly felt like she was wronged and that the situation was not handled how it should have.

So she was having a hard time conceptualizing the fact, like, how did I get arrested and why am I in court for getting help?

Because that's really what it is.

She was just trying to get help.

So the first pretrial we had in, waiting on some discovery issues, the only thing that we received as part of discovery was just the police report.

But because of HIPAA, there's not always video.

So usually the hospital police, they don't wear body-worn camera, and they usually don't have cruiser camera either, and they're cruisers.

So a lot of the times, we just have to rely on the reports to figure out what happened from their perspective.

What was your client's version of what happened?

So she told me that on that night, she called the police department because of an unrelated domestic dispute.

So the police go to her home.

They, I guess, tell the other person that's involved in this altercation to leave, and they leave with their kids, so she's left at home alone.

She had recent foot surgery, and her foot, she could not bear any sort of weight, okay?

And she was using crutches and was kind of crawling to get to different places in her house.

So once the officer saw this, they determined that she couldn't care for herself, and that's when they decided to pink slip her.

So the pink slip, by definition, was allegedly for a mental health emergency.

And the officers perceived her as having mental health needs because of the physical way in which she was moving because of a foot injury.

Yeah, I think they were scared to leave her alone at the house because she couldn't get to and from places, and because the other person that was in the home left, there was nobody to assist her.

She told them, hey, I don't have my phone.

I don't have my wallet.

I don't have anything.

She didn't even have shoes.

And they told her, oh, no, you should be able to get all that at the hospital.

They'll give you a phone call.

They should be able to give you a ride.

So she goes in the ambulance, gets taken to the emergency room by ambulance.

So she gets seen by the doctor.

The doctor doesn't even address the pink slip issue.

So don't talk about her inability to care for herself, whether there's any lingering, like, mental issues, mental health issues, nothing.

Does not address that.

He just assumes that she's there because of her foot.

So he looks at her foot, bandages it, cleans it, does whatever.

And then at that point, they're done.

The doctor leaves.

And how many hours is that, more or less?

She was there for five or six hours.

But the thing is that the pink slip issue was never addressed.

Wow.

But she's told by the officers that she's being held by the hospital.

The officers, the officers that were involved in the case, they knew that she was pink slipped.

However, they didn't address anything that had to do with the pink slip.

The doctors didn't address it.

The nurses didn't address it.

So she was confused as to what she was supposed to do and why she was allowed to leave.

Because in her head, from the limited information that she knew, she knew that she had to stay and at least get that resolved before going home.

She says that a nurse comes in to talk to her and she's just asking follow-up questions because she's confused about this pink slip process because this has never happened to her before.

And she's trying to get more information, more answers.

And she's trying to tell them, hey, I didn't come here for my foot.

I was pink slipped.

So what do I need to do?

I thought I was supposed to stay here.

I thought you guys were supposed to be holding me.

What do you mean you're discharging me?

So I guess at this point, the nurse leaves or the nurses leave, then the officers come in.

And she's trying to explain to them the same situation.

And I guess the officers weren't listening and they were just trying to be rough with her and kind of just get her out of there.

She told me that they, in lifting her into the wheelchair, because again, she couldn't walk, that they dropped her and were being rough with her.

Once they finally got her into the wheelchair and outside of the doors and into the medical bay, he was wheeling the wheelchair really fast.

And then again, that forced her to fall out.

They get her back in and she gets taken to the jail.

She tells me that the jail rejects her because of her medical issues.

And then she tells me that whenever they bring her back to the hospital, they ask her, hey, do you want to be seen again?

And of course, in her, she's like, I see how you guys treated me.

Why would I go back in there?

I'm refusing treatment.

So she refuses treatment.

And the officers end up dropping her off near the bus stop and she has to hop back.

And then she waits a couple of hours for somebody to let her use their phone so she can finally go back home.

Again, she didn't have shoes.

She didn't have money.

Nothing.

How old is your client?

She, I think, is in her early 30s.

I think maybe 31 or 32.

And as you're preparing the case, what kind of investigations are you guys doing on your end?

So we determined whether there was any video from the hospital.

Turns out there wasn't.

The only other thing that was included in the police report was a couple of witness statements from some hospital staff.

And that was pretty much it.

But there's not much else that we really did besides kind of talk to her and have her walk us through what happened.

What did those witness statements say?

So they were actually, like, doctors and nurses and just hospital staff that were there that were treating her at various points.

So, like, one was the charge nurse.

One or two were, like, just the regular nurses or techs that were there.

And then one was actually the treating doctor in the emergency room.

And so they just were statements about, you know, how she was, how they perceived her to be acting.

And they were all pretty short because they didn't see most of what happened.

So there wasn't a ton of information in them.

So we're in the pre-trial phase right now, right?

You had a couple of pre-trials.

You know from the jump that you're going to trial.

Did you ever try to reach a deal with the prosecutor or are you just going full steam ahead with a jury trial?

So how the negotiation was at the beginning.

So she was charged under two different subsections.

It turns out that the complaint for one of them was flawed.

So they couldn't move on with that charge.

Which mental state was that?

It was the negligence one.

Okay, so now we're under reckless.

Correct.

Yep.

Under reckless.

So essentially they try to make it seem like at the beginning for pre-trial negotiations, they're like, oh, if she pleads to one, we'll drop the other one.

But we knew that we had an argument for both.

So we didn't accept that.

So we ended up setting the case for trial.

So the next step was to decide whether we wanted to go forward with the venture jury.

What does the state have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt to prove that your client recklessly trespassed in this hospital?

You have to prove that our client, without privilege and unlawfully, recklessly either entered or remained on the premises of another.

I'm trying to see if I can remember it off the top of my head, which was the hospital when notice was given.

So this notice can either be verbal or it can be written.

So usually with these cases, they rely on verbal notice because written notice requires there to be a formal trespass form typed out.

And then you have to give it to the client and then they have to be given an opportunity to leave.

In her case, because she was discharged and because the officers were telling her that she had to leave the room, that was the notice that they were relying on.

Recklessness is a little harder to explain.

So like I mentioned earlier, you don't necessarily have to intend on acting a certain way.

However, you should know that the action that you're taking, you can't be surprised at the result.

So they were trying to say because she was discharged and they told her to leave, that staying there, you know, whether she meant to stay there or not, was enough.

Essentially, yeah.

Elizabeth, how did you get involved in the case or where did you come in?

So we each get assigned or we all get assigned our own cases, depending on what courtroom we're in.

So Nicole was assigned this case because it was assigned to her judge.

So when she set it for trial, when they decided they were going to have a trial on this, especially with jury trials, we always get co-counsel.

Because we, at least in our office, are always at the mindset of two sets of eyes are better than one.

So Nicole asked me, not long after she said it, to co-counsel with her.

And I was like, yeah, sure.

Why not?

I'll do a trial.

Elizabeth is really good about calming people and walking people through things.

So I needed a patient person who was going to take the time to explain things to our client.

I needed somebody who was going to help explain that, hey, we can talk about this.

We can't talk about this.

Things like that.

Because she wanted to talk about everything under the sun and things that really weren't relevant to the case.

So I kind of needed a person to, one, give me backup, and two, just to explain things nicely and also have a lot of patience.

So Elizabeth is the client whisperer?

Yes, the client whisperer.

I've been told that on occasion.

Our other friend says, I have a calming presence.

I'm calm right now.

Yeah, I usually need a co-counsel who can explain things nicely as well.

Sometimes it doesn't come along right for me.

And now you're deciding whether to do a bench or a jury.

So what kind of judge are you in front of?

How is this decision getting made?

So the judge that I'm in front of, she is very, I would say she's very fair for the most part.

However, she has been a judge for a long time.

With the amount of experience that she has, she tends to not believe clients more and their version of events.

So when considering that, we decided to opt for a jury trial.

Right.

You don't want the jaded judge.

You want a jury who's going to play to the emotions a little bit.

Exactly.

And that's honestly what it came down to because this was a story and something that she went through.

And we don't know if that was going to go be worthwhile with a judge.

That's all it is.

But versus a person who's from the community, who has gone to the hospital, they can relate more so from that.

And they don't know my client.

So they can look at this case with fresh eyes, fresh ears, and I think make the fairest decision based on that.

What did your client think about that?

Did she have a preference of jury versus bench?

Or did she trust you and leave it up to you?

She wanted to do a jury.

A hundred percent.

She was, but from the beginning, she was feisty and she wanted to fight this.

She was like, I'm not pleading to anything.

I am taking this all the way.

They wronged me.

Hell yeah.

I will not give in.

Yeah, no.

She, yeah, she was down for a jury from the beginning.

I love those clients.

Let's go.

Let's go.

Okay.

Yeah, we had to, very little convincing for her.

No, it was great.

Honestly, she was down for whatever.

So we know we're doing a jury.

We filed the jury demand.

We've set it for jury.

Elizabeth is on the case at this point, right?

Mm-hmm.

Okay, so let's talk about day of trial.

Any pre-trial motions, motions in lemonade, or are we just going in?

Whenever we get together, we have the final jury pre-trial for certain cases.

Because how we do things here is that whenever there's a jury, they only do them once a month.

So there's several cases lined up to go.

And depending on whether there's a time waiver, the age of the case, persons in custody, that

kind of determines which one goes.

But the judge, in our case, she was giving us a hard time about taking a criminal trespass

for a jury.

She's like, do we really need to have a jury trial on this petty charge?

And we got a lot of, like, really, you're wasting everyone's time, typos.

Right.

You're like, constitutional rights, babe.

We're going.

Sorry, your inconvenience doesn't trump that.

So is the judge just asking you guys to try to work it out?

Or is he or she, you know, also on the prosecutor's case about offering you something better than

a one-for-one that you're already going to get anyway?

So the prosecutor, he, the whole time, was making it seem like, oh, if she pleads to the criminal

trespass, nothing will happen.

She just has to stay away from the hospital, blah, blah, blah, making it seem like it'll

just be a slap on the race type of deal.

Whenever we were doing final negotiations, I offered or countered a attempt, attempted criminal

trespass, which would bring it down to a minor misdemeanor.

So jail time would be off the table and the max fine she'd be facing is $150.

And the prosecutor, I don't know why he took this case so personally.

I really don't.

But he was talking about how it was egregious and how she behaved and blah, blah, blah,

that we cannot allow this behavior.

And apparently because of how she acted, he would not come down.

And he, I don't, I really don't know why he was taking a person.

Like you would think that this was like his enemy of all time.

Like they went to grade school together and he had something against her because he was

taking it way too personally, but he would not.

And the judge did, I don't want to say yell at him, but did have a stern talk like, hey,

is there any way that we can get this worked out and kind of giving, putting pressure on

him to give a deal.

And she did acknowledge the fact that pleading as charged was not a deal and kind of try to,

you know, hit that to him.

And he was not budging.

He did not budge.

I like that.

I like that approach, judge.

We don't see that often enough.

Yeah.

And you would think like judges in these situations will put pressure on the prosecutor to amend

it to a minor to take the jury off the table.

So at least you can have your bench, but we can all save all this time if you just amend

it to a minor and then we can decide what happens.

Exactly.

So, but yeah, no, he was not coming down.

I don't, he, yeah, he was taking this case to heart.

Why?

I don't know.

And I still don't know to this day.

The only other thing that we addressed besides that was we did address, the state did file

a motion in Lamine to try to keep pictures of her foot out.

The only evidence that we gave us part in discovery was pictures of her foot that our client took

on the day that this happened.

So it showed the state of her foot, her foot injury.

So we could kind of show the jurors, hey, this is real.

This, she was hurt.

She couldn't walk.

So they did object to admitting those because they said that it was irrelevant and that it

was prejudicial to the state.

The judge did let pictures that were taken on the date of in, however, she excluded other

ones.

But we were good with having the two admitted because we really only needed one picture

so the jurors could see, oh yeah, her foot was really messed up.

Yeah.

And the foot injury was like a surgical incision.

It wasn't just like a broken toe.

Like it was a pretty, you know, severe injury that made her unable to walk.

It was gross.

Honestly.

And the state is filing a whole motion in Lamine having a whole hearing like no foot photos.

We're not doing foot photos and you guys are litigating all of that pre-trial in this M4

trust pass case.

You sure are.

Nope.

And the judge is up there like, I'm not doing this.

Is this a courtroom where you have to be nervous about trial tax?

I mean, sometimes in our courtrooms, even, you know, especially on an M4, if we put a

judge through a whole jury trial on an M4 and lose, then we'll have to worry about our

client getting maxed.

Is that something that you had to worry about with this judge or is this not really part

of the analysis?

On this case, we weren't, I, at least I wasn't very concerned about getting trial taxed.

You know, this judge obviously is all people kind of have their, their things that they

don't like, but hers are more like DV type cases.

The more like higher level misdemeanors.

Although she was trying to not push us, but do her best to get us to reach some sort of

resolution.

She's not the type to deny anybody the right to have a trial.

And she, from what I've seen, she doesn't treat her sentencing as a different if you choose

to have a jury versus not a jury.

So her sentencing will be very consistent.

So she, that's something great about her that she doesn't punish people for having a

jury trial.

Yeah, but she's just more consistent along, like the types of charges of how she sentences

different, like, you know, a DV and, or a theft or a trespass.

So we're on the eve of the M4 trespass jury trial.

So now you realize you're actually going, are you guys surprised that it's going?

Like where are your heads at?

Um, honestly, I don't think I was surprised, um, especially after meeting the client.

So I believe I met the client the first time, um, when Nicole brought her into the office

or we talked on the phone first.

I think you guys talked on the phone first and then we had a in-person meeting after then.

And I, and I got the, the feisty vibes, um, pretty quick.

So I was like, well, we're having a trial.

Um, and you know, just, I think in this too, like, obviously it's hard when you're at a

hospital and no one's listening to you.

And when you're advocating for yourself and that was kind of ended up being the theme of

the trial.

Um, but she, I think appreciated that she had people that were there advocating for her in

this case.

Um, so that's kind of how I met the client and she came in, we obviously met, we jury prepped,

um, went over, you know, her testimony cause she did ultimately testify.

Um, and that's kind of how we started prepping for the trial in the weeks leading up to it.

And how's she doing while you guys are prepping?

Is she nervous?

Is she?

Um, so she was fine and she had no problem telling her story.

We could tell that her heart was in it.

She was willing to take it all the way.

Like I said, I got, I knew that from the very beginning and that energy stayed consistent

all the way to the end.

She wanted to be really involved, which is great.

Um, the only thing is we had a little bit of difficulty in trying to explain to her, Hey,

we can't talk about this stuff that happened.

We can't talk about this.

So sticking to relevant things, um, was hard for her cause she really wanted to talk about

everything.

But what were some of the things you wanted to talk about?

Like what was important to her?

So I think some of it was some of the things about the foot injury, um, and like medical

records that we weren't able to get in time for trial.

Um, so kind of trying to limit it more to just, you know, her knowledge of the foot injury,

what happened that she had surgery and not really kind of delving into all the specifics

of that.

And the aftercare of that was one thing.

And I guess later on, she did learn this, that her testimony is evidence, but she thought

at the beginning that you needed videos, that you needed paperwork to prove or corroborate

what she was saying.

And I tried to tell her like, Hey, you don't necessarily need a paper that says this, this,

this, just as long as you get up on the stand and the jurors determine that you're credible,

that's good enough.

What you have to say is evidence.

You don't need something to corroborate.

And she was having a hard time with that because she thought that she needed evidence for everything

that she was saying or something to corroborate.

And it's hard too, because even for jurors, we have to explain that testimony is evidence.

Like that can be a hard concept for anyone, including the jurors we interact with.

So yeah, I get her.

I was just going to say when you're prepping her, were you worried about her on cross?

Yes.

Yep.

Yep.

Yeah.

I think I may have been a little more worried than Nicole.

But yeah, I think we, we were, I think we were worried she would try to go off kind of

on tangents about these things.

And we weren't sure how that would play with the jury.

So we really tried to, we talked a lot about evidence rules.

We really tried to kind of hone it in on what was relevant and what happened.

Simple or less is good.

Is that the phrase?

Less is more?

Yes.

Thank you.

All the phrases, less is good.

That's the new phrase.

You heard it here first, people.

So yes, less is more.

And we try to, so it's like, you don't need to say everything just as long as we get parts

out there.

That's really all we need.

So are you feeling, you're feeling ready, right?

You're all prepped.

Let's talk about the first day of trial in Boisdier.

Who are you looking for?

So I did Boisdier in this case.

Leading into trial, I think we were both a little nervous just in general.

We were working until like the late the night before because I had done a jury trial the

day before.

So I was ready to go.

So I did Boisdier.

I think we were looking, at first we, we thought we didn't want healthcare workers just

because, you know, they see things at the hospital and they might've had their opinions

formed already.

Um, however, we actually found a couple and one for sure, um, we kept on the jury, um, who

was like, yeah, people, doctors suck sometimes, nurses suck sometimes, you know, like they don't

always listen.

They don't always do what they're supposed to.

Um, and that was kind of a surprise to us, um, because that kind of went against what we

thought, like who we thought we didn't want on the jury.

Um, so that was, I think probably our biggest thing that stuck out.

Yeah.

What we were looking for.

Yeah, no, I would, yeah, we were trying to stay away from healthcare workers, but yeah.

So I think that specific jury, I think was a nurse practitioner.

I think so.

And she, yeah, she completely surprised us because she's like, nope, don't always trust

doctors.

They make bad decisions.

And then one of her, no, we, they couldn't because she kept saying, no, I could be fair

and impartial.

No peremptories, just like, no, no, yeah, no.

She seemed like she was very level-headed and seemed like she could listen to both sides,

which I was very surprised at.

Cause I thought like, oh yeah, they work at a hospital.

They're going to believe doctors and nurses more than they are our girl.

Um, but so besides that, another thing that Elizabeth focused on was, um, self-advocacy

for healthcare.

Um, cause that was one of the things that we focused on.

And then if you're going to believe five witnesses versus one, I think those were kind of our

biggest hurdles.

Um, Elizabeth, would you agree or?

Yeah, I think so.

I think the, the self-advocacy did resonate with a lot of people, um, just kind of across

the entire veneer just because like, you know, everyone's or most people have had that experience

of like going to a doctor and like, you have to advocate for yourself and things you want

to advocate for a family member.

So I feel like that, you know, people kind of took that in and agreed with that.

Now the five against one or however many officers, witnesses against our client, that was a little

different.

And people did have mixed opinions on that.

Um, and the reason we kind of focused on that is because as Nicole said earlier, the

prosecutor was being extra.

Um, and he had like seven witnesses for this trial, um, like four or eight, like four cops

and four lay witnesses of doctors and nurses.

So, you know, we kind of had to get that out there up front, like, Hey, they're going to

do all this stuff, but you can still find her not guilty.

What are your jurors like in Dayton?

Love them.

Love them.

We love them.

So the city of Dayton is definitely a mixed diversity, um, just across the board, um, for

pretty much everything.

Now the County as a whole is different.

So like in common police court, when we have County juries, it is not as diverse.

It is definitely a more middle to older aged jury.

So we like having juries in the city of Dayton cases.

You just pull from the city of Dayton when you're doing muni cases.

Yes.

For city of Dayton muni cases.

Okay.

That's different than how we do it in Hamilton County.

Yeah.

And then we have other like outlying courts for like other jurisdictions, other cities in

the area, and they pull from their groups.

Okay.

So you got a good bunch of people here who are willing to believe your client over cops.

That's good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Any interesting interactions with jurors during voir dire?

The healthcare worker was surprising.

Like I said, just because they really, especially nurses, they do not like doctors.

They're like doctors.

They think they know everything.

Blah, blah, blah.

They do not like doctors.

So that, that's the vibe that I got, but there's, um, tension.

You're like, ma'am, do you want to talk about that?

Everyone was pretty talkative.

Like it wasn't, it wasn't a quiet jury.

Everyone like had something to say.

All right.

Well, any other hijinks with the jury selection or?

I don't think so.

It went pretty smooth.

Um, the judge we were in front of, um, likes to do time limits.

I do remember that on jury selection.

So she kind of limits like how long you have to question the jurors.

Um, so I do remember she gave me like a two minute warning at one point and I was like,

Oh, I have one more question to ask.

Yeah.

I remember Dallas sometimes being like, judge, do I have like, do I have more time?

You're like, Nope.

Okay.

I just talked really fast.

All right.

Great.

So opening statement.

So I did the opening and my goal was just to tell the story.

Um, essentially how she, and I think, what was our theme?

Think she was forced to go and she was forced to leave.

She was forced to go and she was forced to leave.

Ooh, that's a good one.

So we painted the picture that she didn't even go to the hospital on her own.

They forced her to go there.

She didn't have anything with her.

Didn't have a way to get home.

Um, and the reason why she got taken there was because of.

Mental health issues and, or the officers thought she couldn't care for herself.

So when she got to the hospital, they addressed her foot injury and address nothing else.

And that's all she was trying to do was just make sure that she could go and make sure that

she was treated properly and make sure that the pink slip issue was addressed, but nobody

was listening.

Essentially.

We painted the picture that she wanted to leave.

She didn't want to be there to begin with because she didn't go.

Um, also, well, I also emphasize the fact that she did have recent foot surgery and because

of the recent foot surgery, she couldn't bear any weight on her foot.

So she physically could not walk and she needed wheelchair assistance.

Um, and whenever she was at home, she would use crutches, um, to get to and from places.

Um, but yeah, so essentially just painted that picture and emphasize the fact that the prosecution

was going to try to make these case seem simple.

They were going to try to argue that she was discharged.

And because she was discharged, that's it.

It's like, no, you guys have to, you're going to be given a list of elements that you have

to think about and you have to apply each one of these things.

It's not just as simple as her being discharged and refusing as they're trying to argue.

What was the prosecutor's opening like?

Not good.

Too boring to remember.

Um, it was real.

Like he just kept harping on the, oh, she was discharged.

So that's it.

That was kind of like his, I guess, theme you want to say.

Yeah.

She was discharged.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's, that's really all he kind of kept saying.

Yeah.

That theme is way worse than yours.

We're going to drop our theme a lot.

Yeah.

No, the only other thing too, is just, he said, oh, you're going to hear from doctors.

You're going to hear from nurses kind of trying to hype up the credibility of his people.

Any objections to, uh, any objections to you guys bringing up the foot?

Are they like going hard on this foot or letting you guys kind of talk about it?

So I mentioned that briefly in my opening.

Um, but again, at that point, we already had discussions that that picture was going to

be allowed.

So Dave's case, who did they start with?

They started out with the doctor, the emergency room doctor.

It was honestly a very short testimony because he didn't really know much or remember much.

Um, he was pretty much like, yeah, she was there.

I saw her.

I said she could go.

Um, he didn't like, he did.

I don't think he even remembered about the pink slip.

He didn't know about the pink slip.

He didn't even know she was pink slip.

He was the witness that was testifying to the fact that she was discharged.

I think that's really all they wanted.

Which is why his testimony was so short, but he really didn't know anything.

Like I was surprised that he didn't know about the pink slip.

It's like, sir, you're the treating physician for this whole emergency department.

And you didn't know she was pink slip.

It's kind of suspicious.

Well, did you guys cross him at all?

I did.

Yeah.

And I just asked him if he knew about the pink slip, that she got any treatment.

He said, no, I didn't even know she was pink slip.

No, I didn't address any treatment.

The only treatment that I addressed was her foot.

And then that was pretty much it.

And I asked him whether he had any personal knowledge of them asking her to leave or her

refusing to leave.

He's like, oh no, she was fine.

She was acting cooperative.

I didn't really see what happened.

Cool.

Love it.

Yeah.

Great witness.

All right.

Cool.

Next.

I think it was one of the nurses.

Next.

Which one?

I don't remember.

Because there were two or three of them.

Did any of them have testimony that helped the state at all?

The nurses?

I don't think so.

It was kind of the same as the doctor.

Just that they went and talked to her and that they answered her questions.

I remember there was a big focus with one of them on like where they put her discharge

paperwork.

So they're trying to use the nurses to make notice.

I think it's more so to prove the element of remained and the fact to prove that she didn't

have privilege to be there any longer.

And what were your crosses of those nurses like?

Yeah.

It was more just about like the discharge and that she got into the wheelchair.

Like they got her into the wheelchair and they took her out.

Like, you know, she didn't throw her.

Like none of the nurses said she threw herself on the floor.

Like the officer said, they said she was polite and did what they said.

Oh, so at this point, no one has testified that she's thrown herself on the floor or has

acted out of pocket in any way.

No.

Yeah.

At least the doctors and the nurses had no knowledge.

They really had no idea.

Okay.

So the state's on their like fourth witness and they've made barely any elements.

Essentially, yeah.

Yes.

All right.

So now it's the officers?

Yes.

He was being dramatic.

Very dramatic.

He just made himself seem like he was trying to be so helpful and he was being so patient

and try to give her the benefit.

And then she just, he just made it seem like our client was just acting a fool and not listening.

He testified that they were trying to help her leave the room and help her onto a wheelchair,

which is when she threw herself on the ground because she didn't do it properly.

He said that she was yelling.

From what he was saying, it sounded like he was willing to help her, but because she was

acting disorderly, quote unquote, that he no longer wanted to help or give her the benefit

of the doubt.

So she throws herself onto the medical bay, talks about how they decided to arrest her

at that point for criminal trespass.

The funny thing is, is that he said that once they dropped her off at the bus stop, that

he saw her walking to the bus stop, basically saying that she was faking like the entire

injury.

Classic.

Classic cop behavior.

Yeah.

All right.

So then now let's talk about your cross because I want to hear how you, you know, skewered

this cop.

Basically establishing the fact that he knew she was pink slipped, that with those, there's

usually some sort of hold that's between 48 and 72 hours.

The fact that he was aware that she had a foot injury, the fact that he never saw her walking,

that they had to get a wheelchair to help her out, that they ended up wheeling her out and

kind of just harping on the fact that physically there was something that prevented her from leaving.

So it wasn't her choice.

She literally could not help herself and they had to help her.

And can you read the jury at this point?

Are you getting any energy of what they think about the case?

No, I wasn't seeing other juries that I've had.

Yes.

You've seen like drama and tea, but no, not this one.

They were pretty just like just listening and looking at everyone.

Just typical, but nothing shocking that we could read from their faces or their body language.

Okay.

And so that's officer one.

And then officer two testified?

Yes.

I think officer two just assisted off her because officer one was the main one.

Did you ask why they didn't just drive her home and why they dropped her off at a bus stop after they had her in a wheelchair?

So I know we kind of explored that a little bit.

And I think their answer was, oh, we just didn't do that or don't do that anymore.

It was a pretty like, I don't want to talk about that answer.

So I think that's something they could have done.

They just chose not to.

I think they were just annoyed with her.

That's just, that's the inference I'm making that they were just annoyed with her and they don't want to deal with her any longer.

So they're like, let's just get this lady out of our hair.

And that's why I think she ultimately got arrested because jail is the fastest way for them to solve their problems.

All right.

Any other pertinent witnesses after officer two?

There was one officer that I crossed at the very end and she was not involved with what happened inside the hospital.

The only thing that she was involved with was trying to transport her to the jail.

She took her to the jail, testified that they rejected her.

So she came back and dropped her off at the bus stop.

And allegedly she rejected their assistant and then walked over to the bus stop.

But the interesting thing is, is that they saw her walking, and I have air quotes, from a window that was, I don't even know how far away.

So it's, she wasn't even in front of them.

It was, they were in the hospital building and they saw her like a few blocks away, if that makes any sense.

So, and that's something that came out that we don't really know about prior to her taking the stand.

Right.

That's way different.

Because when you said it at first, I imagined that they were, they dropped her off and that's where.

And they watched her walk.

Yeah.

No.

Yeah.

That changes everything.

Yeah.

Also, plus that they wouldn't use the resources to follow up on anything in a real way, but they're just going to like lurk and stare at her to see how this goes down.

Unreal.

Unreal.

All right.

So now they're on officer number 20.

How many total states witnesses?

Literally.

The judge is like losing her a damn mind.

There were seven.

I was losing my mind.

There were seven or eight, I think.

Yeah.

Seven or eight witnesses all saying the same thing on an M4 that no one, or that the judge at least thought would not actually be a jury.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right.

Have they made any elements at this point?

I think the venue.

Yep.

Venue.

They did get that.

They proved it was her.

Okay, cool.

Yeah.

And then we, at that point, moved on to our case.

All right.

Let's talk about it.

Defense case.

So your client does testify.

She was born to testify.

That's what she was looking forward to.

That's honestly her biggest thing.

She just wanted to tell her story as to what happened.

So I don't think there's anything that we could have done to stop her.

But they needed.

Sometimes our clients just want their day in court.

You know, you got to give it to them.

You can sit there and hold your breath while they testify and then are subjected to cross and see what happens.

Right.

But we really needed her, though, to talk because we needed to lay foundation for the foot pictures.

So she testified, oh, this is a picture that I took on this date.

This is what kind of surgery I had.

I wasn't allowed to bear any weight on it.

And, like, the foot, I wish I would have brought the foot picture.

But it's essentially, it's on top of her foot.

And she had, like, a big bulge with, like, stitches and it just was leaking.

Stuff.

And oozing.

And it was gross.

And then her foot was swollen.

So it wasn't a broken, it was bad.

It looked really gross.

Good.

The grosser, the better.

That's what we want.

Exactly.

And that's exactly what the state was trying to keep it out because they knew that her foot was messed up.

The cross.

Yeah, let's talk about the scary part.

I want to hear about the scary part, the cross.

No, she was just being really sassy with the prosecutor and a little combative.

So she was saying that she never received any discharge paperwork.

So then the prosecutor said, oh, so you heard the testimony of the doctor, the nurses, and the officers.

So you're saying that they're lying?

And she was like, yes.

Yes, I'm Kevin.

Yeah.

Straight up.

I like that.

Yeah.

Okay, yeah.

So let's talk about the closing arguments.

Did you have any other witnesses before we move on to close?

No, she was our only witness.

Yeah.

Okay, yeah.

So let's talk about close.

I guess we'll start with the prosecutor's close.

What were they arguing?

Again, it was the same thing of she was discharged.

His was really short, I remember.

I think he had a PowerPoint with the elements.

Yeah.

Gross.

I don't know if prosecutors down in Cincy do that or anywhere else, but ours love to have PowerPoints during closing of the elements.

They dabble in every trial.

My favorite is the venue slide.

Hamilton County, Ohio.

Cool.

Do they do the little check mark too?

Yeah.

But yeah, his big thing was like, oh, we had all these witnesses testify.

We had offices.

We had nurses.

And they all came up here and we know she was discharged.

And the officer testified that she was discharged and that she wouldn't leave.

And that's really it.

Okay.

So do we finish with the prosecutor's lame ass closing?

Yes, I think so.

So let's wake her.

Let's wake the jury up now and talk about you guys.

Who closed?

Who closed?

Well, I did the closing.

Okay, Elizabeth.

Let's do it.

I know.

So I think the biggest thing I hit on was just our theme.

She was forced to go and she was forced to leave.

Nice.

Yeah, I kind of just went through everything and was like, look, this is, you know, she came.

She was pink slipped.

They forced her to go to the hospital.

She didn't go.

She had no shoes, no phone, nothing.

And that, you know, they didn't tell her what was going on.

And then they just said, okay, you got to go.

Bye.

It wasn't her being discharged and just not going.

It was her not knowing what was going on and why she was there and why she was being told she had to leave.

And do you have the crowd?

Can you read the jurors?

Are they with you at this point?

They were nodding.

They're like listening and they were looking at her.

I love that.

I love them feeling you.

You can tell you have them locked in.

Yeah, you have like one in the corner and you're like, let's go.

All I need is you.

All I need is you.

And so in the rebuttal close, did the prosecutor drop any bomb?

Did he all of a sudden get interesting?

Anything like that or same deal?

That was the spiciest he had been the whole time.

I don't know what Elizabeth did.

She lived.

I was kidding.

He really was.

I was surprised.

I was like, where did this sound come from?

Who are you anymore?

And he was being, he actually, I think he did a good job on his second closing because he

was more animated and just being more, I think, relatable rather than trying to be luxury.

And he's like, defense.

Yeah, he was just more animated.

So I think he did a better job.

So then how do you guys feel?

I mean, the jury has it now.

What's the vibe like with the client?

Were you guys?

I think she was a little bit nervous.

Would you agree, Elizabeth?

I think.

I would.

And I think once, like, the jury went back to deliberate, I think it kind of hit her.

Like, oh, like, my fate is in their hands now.

Like, that's kind of the vibe I got, too.

Is that, you know, the gravity of, like, you know, having a trial and not knowing what the

outcome is going to be kind of hit her at that point a little bit.

And how long was the jury out?

Um, they were out for, like, an hour, hour and a half.

Hour, hour and a half, yeah.

Yeah.

So what do you guys do?

Go back to the office?

Hang with your client?

Go get some food?

I think we just hung out at the courthouse.

Yeah.

We were just both de-stressing.

Especially Elizabeth.

She was tired, though.

I was.

I was exhausted.

Okay.

So I wanted to talk about that a little bit.

So you, how, do you guys do a jury in a day, then?

So it depends.

Um, so, like, a lot of misdemeanor cases, you can get them done in a day.

Um, some of the, like, felony cases take a couple days.

Some misdemeanors take a couple days.

Um, but I managed to get on to two misdemeanor cases that each took a day.

Um.

So this is, like, Monday and Tuesday, you did a jury Monday, finished it Monday, got the verdict, and then Tuesday started this one?

So it was Wednesday and Thursday, but yes.

I think we didn't get our verdict till, like, 6.30 or 7 that night.

And then I came back to the office, worked with Nicole, and then got up Thursday morning and did this whole jury trial.

And I think we got our verdict about 6.30, too.

And then you called in sick Friday, right?

And Monday.

I didn't.

I can't work.

Elizabeth, what are you thinking?

I know.

I know.

It's like, never again.

She learned her lesson.

I did.

Never again.

Um, okay.

So an hour and a half goes by.

You guys are de-stressing.

Your client's nervous.

You get the call that there's a verdict.

There's no questions?

Jury questions?

Nope.

There's no questions, no.

Okay.

They get a verdict.

When you get that text or that call, what are you thinking?

What are you feeling?

It's my least favorite part.

Yeah, that'll take 20 years of your life.

Yeah, yeah.

We were nervous.

We go in the courtroom, kind of just waiting around.

And then they get the jurors.

Well, the bailiff gets the jurors.

They come in.

How are they when they walk in?

Are they, do they look at you?

Do they look at the client?

I avoid eye contact because I'm there because I'm dying at this point.

So I have no idea.

I don't look at them.

I don't either.

Because at this point, they've already made the decision.

So me looking at what's that going to change.

I'll look if it's someone else's trial, but not if it's mine.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

I don't know.

I think it's hard to read the tea leaves.

Like, I think that, I mean, sometimes I've had jurors where they walk in and smile at your client.

And you're like, okay, I don't think I won, but you don't want to get too excited.

Okay, so let's talk about the verdict.

Yeah, so the bailiff read the verdict.

They gave her the verdict form.

And that's my most, like, stomach drop moment.

And she read it.

And she said the magic words of not guilty.

I don't even, like, listen for the guilty.

I just want to hear the not first.

As soon as I hear the not, I'm like.

So, and I think we all just kind of, like, exhaled at that point.

Not the prosecutor.

He was pissed.

He was pissed.

He was pissed.

He was pissed.

Living.

Just because I think he really thought that he had it in the bag.

Because he's like, I have doctors.

I have nurses.

I have 10 witnesses.

Like, I have, and it's just a criminal trespass.

Because in his head, he really thought, like, oh, I proved she was discharged and she didn't leave.

So, boom.

And how was your client?

She was stoked.

She was so happy.

She started crying.

And then she thanked the jurors.

I'm like, you can't do that.

She said, thank you.

I was waving at them.

And then I think that pissed the prosecutor off even more.

Which I was living for that moment.

But, yeah.

No, she was very happy.

Very, very happy.

She just definitely felt vindicated and heard.

Definitely a good day.

And I think the judge realized, like, oh, okay, this is why they had a jury on this case.

Because there was a legit issue.

And then once we got the outcome we wanted, I think she was more sympathetic.

She did say, though, that she didn't believe our client when she took the stand, which solidified our decision to have a jury.

I'm like, I'm glad we had a jury because if we would have had a bench, she wouldn't have believed anything she said.

She was telling us that she didn't believe her testimony because she was being too evasive.

You asked her afterwards?

Yeah, after the trial, she told me.

Yeah, after the trial, yeah.

Oh, that's always so validating.

I love that.

Yeah, that's awesome to get an NG and also be like, judge, could I have tried this to you?

And then be like, no.

No.

Exactly.

So, yeah.

So, that confirmed that we made the right decision.

Did you talk to the jury?

We did talk to the jury.

So, they had issues with the recklessness component, which is exactly what we wanted.

They said that based off everything they heard and because she couldn't leave and because of the pink slip issue, they didn't think she was reckless.

So, that's why they decided to find her not guilty.

I think they enjoyed it, though, for the most part.

Like I said, for a jury to deliberate for an hour and a half on a criminal trespass, and especially when there's no video, nothing else that you have to review, it's just you talking about the testimony.

I mean, we took that as a good sign because I think the prosecutor thought that they were going to be gone for maybe 10, 15 minutes.

Did they talk about their process of deliberating?

So, the fourth person, we were surprised.

It was actually the nurse practitioner.

Oh, yeah, it was.

So, the person who we thought, yeah, the person who we thought we didn't want was actually, she took the lead.

She was like, well, these are my thoughts.

And then she started talking.

I couldn't remember that we talked to the jury at that point.

Oh, I don't know.

You blacked out.

I did.

I'm done.

Let me go home.

My job is done.

We actually went to the Cheesecake Factory afterwards is where we went.

Perfect.

That's what you remember that.

I do.

I do.

No, it worked out.

And like I said, it's one of those things that I think she is very glad that she got her day in court.

And it was worth it.

Love that.

That's why we're here.

There it is.

Another not guilty on an M4 trespass.

It didn't have to be that way.

It sure didn't.

It sure didn't.

They made it like that.

And you shut it down.

Do you want to ask the ultimate question?

Wait, which ultimate question, Deej?

Why did you become a third responder?

Okay.

I'm just making sure we have the same ultimate question.

What's your ultimate question?

I don't know.

No, it's not.

It's not.

What's all your childhood trauma?

Oh, that's not it?

Oh, sorry.

Wrong podcast.

All right.

Ultimate question.

Why did you become public defenders?

Nicole, let's start with you.

So I do not want to deal with billable hours, first thing.

And I like the fact that I get to help people.

And really my only motivation in doing this job is to make sure that my clients' rights are protected

and to make sure that they get the best outcome possible.

And again, I kind of like the fact that everybody thinks that I'm a public pretender just because

I can show them, ha, ha, not guilty.

Ha, not guilty.

So I kind of like proving people wrong and I like being considered the underdog and then

surprising people when I actually have a lot of heart and passion in what I do.

And I really generally do care.

Great.

Elizabeth?

So obviously, I, along with Nicole billable hours.

I started wanting to do criminal defense work, one, because I just love being in a courtroom.

For some people, they don't like the public speaking or being in front of a judge.

And I thrive on that.

That's the only place I don't feel awkward about myself.

Nicole knows this.

It makes no sense.

It doesn't.

But I feel like a fish in water when I'm in a courtroom.

I love being up there talking to people, talking to the jurors.

But the other reason, specifically why public defense, is I have such a strong belief in the

everyone deserves the right to a fair trial.

And everyone deserves to have their constitutional rights upheld.

And I've always thought, you know, I want to give someone the best defense possible or the

best, you know, outcome possible for their situation, because that's what I would want

if I had a friend or a family member or myself in that, in a, you know, criminal case.

I would, I try to do everything I can for my clients that I would want done for a loved

one.

And, you know, getting the occasional not guilty.

And we get a good amount of those here.

I can tell.

I think.

You know, that always helps, too.

But just being able to be there for our clients and do what we can for them is the best.

Excellent.

Well, it was nice seeing you guys.

Thank you so much for, again, telling us your story.

And you're awesome not guilty.

And keep fighting the good fight out there.

Thank you, guys.

Yeah.

Bye.

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

Shout out to Daniel Mark, original A&G theme music composer, and Mike Grimm for the

remix.

And guess what?

We'll be back in two weeks with another Not Guilty Straight from the Trenches.