Hakuna Matata – No Worries, Just a Murder Trial (While 38 Weeks Pregnant)

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Yep, he was watching The Lion King, saw my client walk by him, saw the other guy run by him, heard some dishes fall in the kitchen, turned around and looked, saw the decedent's hands around my client's throat and the knife sticking out of the guy's side. Exactly, like I'm standing by him and you know, like I said, I'm around 5'7", 5'8", slightly tall, average-sized woman,

but when I'm, you know, almost nine months pregnant, like, he looks tiny. And so I think it was useful. I, you know, I've had clients where I say, don't say this thing, whatever happens, no matter what, don't say this thing.

The one question, they say the thing and I'm like, I don't even...

It's season three of 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.

Welcome to Another Not Guilty.

All right, we are back for another Not Guilty, everybody.

A little special episode during our little pandemic going on here in the United States of America.

Little pandemic.

But as much as tough times as we have, we do have a treat of a host.

My co-host today, guys, is my lovely wife, Allison.

How are you doing, Allison?

I'm doing great, thank you.

What's up, A&Gers?

Yeah.

I miss you guys.

Look, it took a self-isolation to get me back on the show.

What's up with that?

I know.

Well, I think because we're stuck at home right now, I'm forced to have you as my co-host.

You know what it is?

Yeah, that's the way it would seem.

We have a four-and-a-half-month-old baby, too, right?

Did we ever tell the A&G audience that we have a baby?

I don't know, but I guess that is another reason why I've been a little out of commission.

Yeah, you've been a little out of commission raising our daughter, Vivian.

She's napping right now, so we feel like we can squeeze in maybe a quick interview

with some of our fellow public defenders out there.

Maybe we can tell a story about a time when people used to have constitutional rights.

Back in the time where our clients used to have rights to a speedy trial,

and we could fight for them.

Yeah, crazy, right?

Is there a public defender out there?

Let's see if we can find one to talk to.

Let's check it out.

Let's see.

Whoa, it's loud.

Hi, this is Cassie.

Cassie, hi.

Hi.

You're on the air with David Moore from Another Not Guilty.

This is so exciting.

Yeah, you're our 100th caller.

I'm very excited.

Yeah.

Hey, Cassie, what's up?

Hi.

Cassie, this is Allison.

She's my wife, and she's also a public defender.

You might recognize her voice.

Go ahead and talk some more, Allison.

Oh, talk some more for that voice recognition.

Oh, I do.

Hi, Allison.

I do.

I feel like I know you guys.

Aw, that's sweet.

Well, we're very excited to talk to you.

I was going to say, we were just reminiscing about a time when our clients had constitutional

rights.

Oh, yes.

Back in the good old days, a month and a half ago.

Yeah, right?

I mean, kind of crazy.

Wait, how is, where are you, Cassie?

So I am in Snohomish County, Washington, which is the immediate county north of Seattle.

It's sort of an interesting place to practice because we have a bunch of Seattle suburbs and

then a lot of rural areas as well.

So we kind of have the whole gamut of, you know, crimes and personalities and stuff.

We have been really lucky.

We have, our county currently has the highest percentage of people we've gotten out of custody

since the coronavirus.

That's incredible.

Yeah, we've reduced our jail population by over a half.

So we are pretty proud of that.

Yeah, that's absolutely something to be proud of.

It sounds like your courts were pretty receptive up there.

I mean, we were saying that this is sort of the great, you know, experiment of getting

rid of the bail system, right?

You know, if everybody comes back to court, I mean, it's the best data we could ever get.

So hopefully, hopefully everyone will just show back up.

Yeah, fingers crossed.

Fingers crossed.

And not commit new offenses while they're waiting, they're open.

Exactly.

Open cases.

So I will say, though, you know, Allison says my voice sounds a little, what do you say

it sounds like right now?

Kind of.

What did I say?

Okay, so also, Cassie, this is our first interview conducted from our bed.

We're literally laying in bed right now.

I'm on my back.

Allison thinks I should sit up.

Well, he sounds like a, like, like, I forget the word, like congesty, like, you know.

Yeah.

I think he should.

I feel like if he sat up, he'd, you know, have a little more.

But, you know, it's, hey, listen, we're trying something new.

We'll see.

Yeah.

I also just feel like generally I've been talking so much less in my day-to-day life than

I normally talk that, you know, I feel like my voice sounds different.

I'm not as, like, fluid with my presentation as I, you know, you're talking for all the

time.

Wait, hold on.

You didn't sound like this during your jury trial, did you?

Oh, good.

I did not.

I did not.

You got to knock guilty with that voice?

No.

And I am not in my bed, but I do have my feet up and I'm wearing jeans and a t-shirt.

So I am also, you know, pretty relaxed here.

Good.

Good.

Well, I think you sound great, Cassie.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Cassie, you're a, you're a badass public defender from Tehama, Washington, right?

Tehomish, Tehomish, Tehomish, Tehamish, whatever you want to call it, you know?

Close, close.

And how long have you been a public defender for?

It'll be 14 years in September.

Oh, cool.

Awesome.

Congratulations.

Yeah.

And what kind of trial are you here to share with us today?

It is a murder trial, murder in the second degree, which here in Washington is murder,

not premeditated murder.

We have murder one, which is premeditated, murder two, which is not premeditated.

Oh, okay.

Tell us about the case.

What was the case?

What was the prosecution's case?

Tell us about the facts.

So it is a stabbing.

So brief kind of facts are my client lived in this house, essentially this sort of house

of people who were loosely connected and kind of transiently coming and going, but he'd

been staying there pretty regularly for six to eight months.

There was this woman named Sherry, who was the owner of the house, and then various numbers

of her family and her family's friends.

So at the time my client lived there, there were two of her sons, Charles and Cordell,

also a man named Bill Johnson, who was this older guy who was just sort of crashing there.

And then my client, whose name is Leo, they were all living in this house.

She was older, they were helping her out, not really paying rent, just sort of crashing there.

And then the victim moved into town from Atlanta.

He was a cousin to the homeowner, Sherry, and he and my client didn't really get along, but

didn't have any significant beef.

And then they got in an argument and my client stabbed him, was the prosecution's case.

So your client lives in this house, and what's his relationship to the owner of the house?

He had been friends, so the owner of the house's son, Charles, and my client had been friends,

he'd basically been friends with his family his whole life.

Just sort of family, friends, had known them.

He was in his, I think, early 30s at the time, maybe mid-30s, had just been friends with his family.

Okay, and then the decedent was just moved in or was staying there momentarily?

Is that what you said?

Yeah, he was a cousin.

He had just moved into town from Atlanta.

He had been staying with his girlfriend just around the corner for about six months.

But he and the girlfriend had just broken up, and he had just moved into the house.

All right, and then the two of them got into an argument, and your client pulls out a knife and stabs them.

Right?

Yes, is what the police report comes in as.

Okay, that's what the police report says.

So where'd you go from there, then?

So the first thing I did, of course, was kind of talk to my client.

And he was, number one, he was really scared.

He didn't have a lot of criminal history, but he'd been through the criminal justice system enough

to know that being in jail for a murder is not a good place to be.

Right.

He picked that up from television.

Yeah, exactly.

His sentence that he was looking at was in the range of 25 to 30 years.

So pretty quickly, my client indicated to me that this was self-defense, that this guy was coming after him,

that the guy had put his hands on his throat and was choking him,

and that he did the only thing he could do to get this guy off of him, which was grab a knife.

And it was just a one-stab wound.

So just grab a knife, stab him, and then it happened to be through his lung into his heart that killed him.

So that was, I mean, as soon as I talked to my client, that was his story,

and it became clear from looking at the reports that that was likely what had happened.

Did your client or did the police report indicate, like, where in the house this happened?

Yeah, the house was a pretty small house.

There was a kitchen kind of with, like, a dining room, eat-in kitchen, and then a living room.

And the body was, the feet were in the kitchen, and the rest of the body was kind of in the dining room area.

And were any of the other people who lived in the house or family members home at the time that the incident happened?

Yes, several people were.

So the woman who lived in the house, who owned the house, was in her bedroom.

She was sleeping.

She didn't have anything to say.

Her younger son, who I think at the time was in his early 20s, was in his bedroom.

He heard them arguing outside but didn't actually see anything.

The older son, the one who was friends with my client, was the one who had the most to say.

He had heard the argument outside.

He had saw them come inside.

He didn't see the actual stabbing, but he saw the lead-up to it, as did the older gentleman, Bill.

He was sitting in the living room, and he had saw them come from the outside to the inside

and didn't actually see the stabbing but saw the lead-up to it and immediately after.

So you said that the fight or the argument started outside.

What were they arguing about?

So that's the first thing that kind of jumped out.

They weren't arguing about anything really that substantial.

My client and his friend were growing marijuana in the backyard, and the decedent thought that they shouldn't be doing that.

So they were arguing about that, but the friend said that the argument was not particularly heated.

He said he was concerned they were being a little loud, and so he told them to quiet down.

But he did not feel like the argument was one that he thought was going to turn physical or that seemed that they were really particularly upset with each other in any way.

So you meet with your client.

He tells you it happened in self-defense.

Where did he grab the knife from?

In the kitchen.

So he came into the kitchen after arguing outside to cook some food, and he said the other gentleman followed him from the outside to the inside

and then backed him up against the sink and put his hands around his neck.

My client said he just reached behind him for whatever he could find, which happened to be a pretty large kitchen knife,

and just reached kind of around in a roundhouse style and stabbed the guy under his armpit.

All right.

So where do you go from there then after you talk to your client?

Where do you go next?

What happens next?

So the next thing I did was kind of look at the autopsy photos and talk to the medical examiner.

And the first thing that jumped out at me was kind of the size differential between my client and the decedent.

My client is about, let's see, I'm about 5'7", and he was at least 2, if not 3 inches.

He's shorter than I am, and probably weighed, I don't know, 120, 130.

I mean, he was a really small guy.

Oh, wow.

And the minute I look at the autopsy photos, the decedent is 6'3", probably 250, 260.

He's a very big guy.

So immediately I sort of think, like, you know what, this self-defense makes some sense when you look at this huge guy coming after this little guy.

Yeah.

And then we talked to the medical examiner about the stab wound, and what was interesting about that is it was really tucked up pretty far in his – up under his armpit.

The knife went through his rib cage, through his lungs, and just barely pierced his heart, which kind of, again, fit with the fact that my client said he – the guy had his hands around his neck when my client just grabbed the knife and stabbed.

Like his elbows are – the decedent's elbows are up because he's choking him.

Exactly, exactly, exactly.

So he did say, you know, that, yeah, this guy's arm had to be up.

There's no way he could have done this if his arm wasn't up or out to the side.

And it would not have required a lot of pressure to get the knife in.

He's like, it's a very, you know, easy tissue to get through.

It would not have had to be particularly hard to stab someone in this manner, which was useful.

And so was it, like, the entry wound was essentially just, like, the perfect or, like, the unlucky spot?

Kind of one of those situations?

Yep.

He said, you know, had it been, like, a little bit up or down, it probably would have hit one of his ribs, which would then make the knife harder to go in, which probably would have not resulted in his death.

Wow.

And it was just kind of a perfect one-shot, clean in, clean out, that blood loss and that it tipped to the heart was enough to—

After the stabbing happened, or the one stabbing, I should say, what happened next?

Did your client leave?

Did he run?

Did he call the police?

Like, how did—

Well, so that's the interesting part.

That's where the prosecution's big evidence that this wasn't self-defense came in, because they characterized it as he ran away.

So the police showed up.

He wasn't on scene.

And that was kind of the thing.

I was initially, like, oh, this is bad.

I mean, I think jurors usually think if you stab someone in self-defense, like, why would you run away?

But then once we, like, started looking at the witness statements and talking to my client, all the people that were in the house were related to the decedent.

They all, you know, came out of their bedrooms once this happened.

And my client was, like, I was a little bit afraid to stay there.

They were really angry.

This was a really hostile scene.

And I was afraid to stick around.

So he left.

But his method of transport at that time was that—I don't know if in L.A. this happens, but here in Washington, a lot of our clients who don't have cars and don't have access to cars ride bikes, but frequently, like, little kid bikes.

So he was riding a bike that was, like, made for a 10-year-old probably.

And he just sort of rode around the block.

He didn't go away.

Well, that sounds like a hardened criminal to me.

Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

I mean, so he didn't—the prosecutor was trying to characterize it as easy, but he fled, but he didn't go anywhere.

The cops were, quote-unquote, looking for him, but within three minutes, he rode back by the house.

And they were like, oh, yeah, there he is.

And then they arrested him.

Yeah.

Yeah, they always return to the scene.

They always do.

Those criminals.

Yeah, exactly.

Those serial killers always return to the scene to see what had happened.

So, all right, so Leo gets arrested.

Yep.

Did Leo make a statement?

He didn't know statements about the incident, but the good thing he did say was he told the arresting officer, and he also said at the jail, that his neck and jaw were hurting and that he wanted to see medical.

And that aligns with the fact that he was being choked by this really large man.

All right, so what happens next in the case then?

So then, you know, this case was really fast.

From the time the stabbing happened until the trial was done was just over seven months, which is a really quick turnaround for a homicide case.

I actually got this case assigned to me when I was just coming off an eight-week murder trial.

I came back in the office and just was waiting in my pile of new cases, and I had just found out I was pregnant.

And so I was like, oh, am I going to be able to get this done before I have to go on maternity leave?

I figured, no, I actually figured that, like, because I just, you know, come in and see a new murder tube file sitting on my desk, I actually figured, like, I'll work this up now, and it's going to take so long that when I get back from maternity leave, I can then try it.

Because, you know, maternity cases usually take a year, a year, a year, year and a half to get resolved.

But as I get into it, I realize, like, you know, like I said, only 40 pages of discovery.

Like, this is not that complicated.

Let's just, like, bang this thing out.

Well, the facts, I mean, the facts aren't too much in dispute, really.

It's either, you know, your client did it.

Everyone's, all that says your client stabbed him.

It's just, why did he stab him, you know?

It's not the what, but it's the why.

Exactly.

So this case sort of grew.

So the next thing we wanted to.

Wait, hold on, let me see my little funny joke.

So this case.

So this case, this case grew as your little baby was growing.

Exactly, exactly, exactly.

Cassie, don't, don't, don't encourage him.

What do you, what do you do?

Exactly.

Yeah, when did you start realizing you're going to have a viable defense when the.

This case had a chance of, this defense had a chance of survival, you know?

That's great.

Exactly.

Hey, A&G fans, thanks for listening.

Got Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram?

Like us and follow us.

And please leave a comment if you like this episode.

Okay, so what kind of, how did you prep this case then?

Like, what were your initial impressions?

What are you thinking?

How are you feeling?

And where do you go from there?

So the first thing we realized is we have to talk to all the people that were in the house at the time.

They gave statements to the police that they were really, like, bare bones.

None of them wrote written statements.

None of them did recorded statements.

They were just, like, the barest statements in the police report.

So we went out to the house, my investigator and I, a couple of times before we found anybody home.

We went in and looked at the house, looked at where it happened.

The woman still lived there.

Talked to her.

She was in the back bedroom asleep.

She didn't really know much.

Talked to the guy who was in the living room.

And he did say, you know, he saw my client come in from the backyard.

He saw the other guy kind of chasing him.

He saw the other guy's hands around my client's neck.

So everything from him was good.

When he said that he saw the guy's hands around your client's neck, was he just sitting down in the living room the whole time?

Yep, he was watching The Lion King.

Okay.

He was pretty riveted by The Lion King.

Hakuna Matata.

Exactly.

He was sitting in a chair that was, like, facing the TV that had its back to the kitchen.

Yeah.

So he sort of saw them, saw my client walk by him, saw the other guy run by him, heard some dishes fall in the kitchen, turned around and looked, saw the decedent's hands around my client's throat and the knife sticking out of the guy's side.

Oh, okay.

And then turned back around to finish his movie?

Yeah, he didn't want to miss anything important.

Just another day in the house.

Yeah.

No big thing.

Yeah.

Exactly.

Okay.

Exactly.

So then we wanted to talk to the two brothers.

So one brother who was outside, who had heard the argument, and who had also been inside and at least saw part of what happened in the kitchen, probably a little bit less than the guy in the chair because of his location was, like, behind us.

And the other brother who was in the back bedroom who had kind of heard the argument a little bit through a window.

So we, these are the next guys we need to talk to.

They're pretty important witnesses, but we cannot get them to call us back.

At this point, we have pretty good contact with the mom, the woman who owns the house.

She's the mom of these two guys.

She is trying to get a hold of them.

They won't call us back.

So in Washington, if we can't get a witness interview, the next thing we do is have the judge order a deposition.

Oh, interesting.

And so then the judge orders the deposition.

We, to get them served for the deposition, you either have to personally serve them or serve them at their last known address.

We obviously can't personally serve them.

We don't know where they are.

But good news, their last known address is this house where we've already talked to the mom, where this thing happened, where everybody lives.

So we're able to leave the subpoenas for these two brothers with the mom at the house for the depositions.

Brother in the back bedroom shows up for his deposition.

He says kind of what he's been saying all along.

He heard an argument.

It didn't seem like a particularly heated argument.

Couldn't hear what they were saying.

Next thing he knows, somebody's coming in his bedroom saying that, you know, this guy's been stabbed.

So that's fine.

The other brother did not show up for his deposition.

Yes.

Ooh, okay.

Yeah.

So we're getting pretty close to trial.

At that point, I think we're like three weeks out from trial.

You issued a warrant then, right?

Or the judge issued a warrant then for not showing up?

Yeah.

So then we asked the judge to issue a warrant for the guy not showing up for the deposition.

He has picked up on that warrant within a week.

It's not long.

He gets appointed an attorney because if you get arrested as a material witness warrant, you get an attorney.

His attorney says, yep, he's going to come to the deposition.

He gets out of custody.

He comes to the deposition.

We depose him.

And he says things that the prosecutor likes and he says things that I like.

And what's the good stuff and the bad stuff?

So the good stuff is he also says that they were arguing, that it wasn't particularly heated, that he told them to quiet down, but he wasn't concerned that they were going to fight.

He wasn't concerned.

He just thought they were being a little loud and they were in the yard.

He also says my client came in the house first and that the other guy, he used the word chasing, chased him in the house.

And he says that he saw the other guy's hands around my client's throat and the knife sticking out just like the guy in the living room did.

That's all the good stuff.

The bad stuff is he says that he heard the decedent say when they were in the kitchen, what are you going to do, stab me?

Which is not particularly helpful to us because it would indicate that our client had the knife in his hands a little bit longer than he indicated.

I mean, he sort of said he reached behind him, grabbed the knife, and then it was just kind of all one motion.

Right.

So that statement is not particularly useful for us.

I still thought, you know, with all the other facts, with the other guy chasing him, the other guy being so much bigger than him, two people seeing his hands around his throat, I wasn't that concerned about it.

But I would have rather that statement not.

Have we talked about your client?

Did you say how old he was and where he's from?

Yeah, she did.

Yeah.

It's okay.

He's a very interesting guy.

He's in his early 30s.

He's been around the block a little bit.

That's right.

The interesting part is he and I did not have the best relationship early on in the representation.

Okay.

He was very scared.

I think that was really the issue is he was very scared.

I was the person in front of him for him to, you know, put his fears on.

Right.

He actually made a motion at some point in the case, maybe within the first, like, three or four months, to fire me because I was pregnant.

He said he couldn't be represented by somebody who was pregnant.

Oh, so.

Because, you know, all pregnant women are crazy.

So how could you possibly do your job?

Exactly.

Exactly.

Exactly.

And the judge did not allow him to fire me.

He said, you know, you're stuck with her.

She's a good attorney, even though she's pregnant.

So we came up with this.

I was going to say, I mean, when you're pregnant in trial, you actually have the advantage there.

The jurors like you.

They help you out.

They ask Allison, you know, like, people were opening up doors for her all the time when she was pregnant.

No one's ever been nicer to me in my entire life than when I was pregnant.

I mean, it was like strangers are, like, running ahead of me to get doors for me.

Or, you know, I drop something, four people go to pick it up.

It's crazy.

Exactly.

And I think it was really helpful in this trial because, you know, I kept hammering on the size differential and how small my client was.

And it helped that I was so gigantic at that point.

He would even need a knife to defend himself against you.

Exactly.

Like, I'm standing by him.

And, you know, like I said, I'm around 5'7", 5'8", like an average, slightly tall, average-sized woman.

But when I'm, you know, almost nine months pregnant, like, he looks tiny.

And so I think it was useful for that perspective.

But he was very scared and kind of just a jittery, hyped-up kind of guy, like, generally speaking, I would say.

Is that why you didn't get off on the right foot?

I mean, you said, like, you guys didn't get off on the right foot.

Is it because you were pregnant, you think?

Or did something happen?

Or you saw the case one way and he saw it differently?

Or?

You know, I think it was just that he was scared.

Okay.

I think he's been through the system enough that he was used to having attorneys, like, try to convince him to take an offer.

So he kept – he was charged with murder, too.

And they offered him manslaughter, one, kind of right out of the gate.

And what does that carry there?

About 15 to 20 years instead of 25 to 30.

Okay.

So I, of course, have an obligation to tell him what the offer is, which I did.

And he was immediately, like, I'm not taking that offer.

And as if I was trying to convince him to do it.

And I was very much, like, I'm not telling you you should do it.

I'm not saying that.

I'm just telling you what it is.

So we set up a system where every time we had a meeting, we would leave 10 minutes at the end of the meeting where he could list all the complaints he had about me at any given time.

But for the rest of the meeting, there was no complaining about me.

It actually worked out really well.

It was really effective.

That is a good idea.

Yeah.

And then at the end, I'd be like, all right, now tell me all your complaints.

And he was like, you know, you didn't come see me last week.

I sent you a letter, you, you know, whatever he had on his mind to complain about me about.

And it worked really well.

And we started getting along a lot better.

I think he was just scared.

And I think he was just scared.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, they're in this situation.

And the only person they can talk to is you.

So they're the only person they can vent their frustration with.

They can attach.

Exactly.

That's it.

There's no one else they can be like that with.

Exactly.

Exactly.

Maybe we have like a little educational moment on like different, like what is, so what is

murder two defined as?

Just killing by another with malice?

That's what it would be here in California.

Like, is that what it is?

Murder two is having the intent to kill someone and doing an action that results in their death.

Okay.

And then what would manslaughter one be then?

Manslaughter one is recklessly causing someone's death.

And what's manslaughter two?

Negligently causing someone's death.

So for either degree of manslaughter, you don't have to have the intent to kill them.

For murder two, you have to have the intent to kill them.

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah.

And the time differences are between manslaughter one and manslaughter two are significant.

Between manslaughter one and murder two are not that big a difference.

Right.

But you're going to complete self-defense then, right?

So then for self-defense in Washington, what's the law then on that?

So self-defense, there is no, I mean, I don't know the term stand your ground.

You have no duty to retreat in Washington.

Okay.

So you don't have to exhaust your other options before using self-defense.

The only thing is if you're using self-defense for murder, it has to be to defend yourself against something that would potentially kill you.

So you can't, you know, if somebody's going to punch you, you can't shoot them.

You have to actually have been afraid that you were going to die.

Right.

Right.

So he was deadly self-defense.

All right.

So then I think we left off.

We were talking about the witness situation, right?

Yeah.

The deposition.

So were you able to serve him right there for the trial?

Yes.

So the prosecutor served him right there for the trial.

So we come on Friday.

This witness is supposed to be there.

He's not there.

So they get another material witness warrant for him that Friday.

And we are signed out to start trial the following Monday.

And I have a very important question here because as you said, you're 38 weeks pregnant when this is happening.

What's your trial wardrobe looking like at this point?

Oh, you know, that's a good question.

I thought it was a very good question.

Up until this point, I had had one suit.

I got one maternity suit and was sort of limping along with it.

But this trial was scheduled to last a week and a half.

And so, you know, I'm not going to wear the same suit every day for a week and a half.

But also, like, I'm at the tail end of this thing.

And so I don't want to get a whole new wardrobe.

Right.

This is, like, this is a real problem.

Yeah.

No, it definitely was.

I got some maternity dresses and cardigans and jackets from people in my office, luckily, and was able to cobble together.

It was definitely not my best dress trial.

I did make sure to wear really nice high-heeled shoes because, again, I wanted to be a lot taller than my client.

And I felt like if at least I had on good shoes, I was doing okay.

Oh, man.

Oh, jeez.

And let me tell you, that's extremely impressive because I know I had a major foot swelling issue when I was pregnant.

And I mean...

One foot more than the other.

I was like, what...

Yeah, yeah.

I was wearing, like, full-on, like, heels every day of this thing.

Oh, my gosh.

You're amazing.

Well, that alone deserves the not guilty.

Yeah.

Totally.

Totally.

Totally.

Okay.

Well, good.

All right.

So...

And did you have to do any repeats?

Did you have a different outfit for every day?

I decided into the second week I could repeat.

So the first week I had something different, and then the second week I recycled.

We only went two days into the second week, so it was okay.

Okay.

Awesome.

Well, I am extremely, extremely impressed.

I was impressed with myself.

I was very...

And during the trial, we're skipping ahead a little bit, but the judge who was doing the

trial was super cognizant of the fact that, like, there's this huge pregnant woman in his

courtroom trying this murder case.

So every day he would be like, oh, I think we have a break between witnesses.

It would be, like, three o'clock in the afternoon.

He'd be like, we're going to cut out early today.

We're just going to stop.

So we were doing a lot of really short days.

And you probably just won it over.

Or did you like having the short days?

No, I sort of wanted it over.

I was like, buddy, you know, the longer this goes, the more we're getting into it.

This is one more morning.

I have to wear these shoes.

Exactly.

But I found out afterwards, I talked to this judge at our office holiday party.

He has four kids, two of which he delivered himself because his wife would not go to the

hospital quick enough.

So I just think he had some degree of, like, PTSD of, like, you know.

Like, I'm not delivering this baby.

Exactly.

Like, whatever happens, like, I'm not doing this.

So he was really, like, bending over backwards, like, whatever I needed and, like, however many

breaks I needed.

And so it was, it was funny.

Oh, man.

That's hilarious.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What it is, my A&Gers, I want to personally thank you all for your continued support during

these difficult times, especially to my fellow public defenders for sacrificing their own

personal health to ensure our clients receive the much-deserved, humane treatment they deserve.

At this time, I also would like to thank our newest members to the A&G Patreon team, Phil

Studenberg and Cammie Hines.

Okay, so we digress.

All right, so it doesn't show up, you get sent out anyways for trial, and so you start, what,

picking a jury on Monday, then?

Yep, on Monday we start picking a jury.

You want to tell us about your voir dire on, or jury selection when it comes to self-defense

on a murder case?

Yeah, I mean, definitely I wanted jurors who would buy the fact that there is some circumstance

in which you can use deadly force.

I mean, I think there's some people who don't think that that's ever appropriate.

Right.

Right.

Or even have a hard time imagining that scenario.

Exactly, exactly, exactly.

So my, I do a kind of a deselection voir dire, I try to get rid of the people I don't want

instead of find the people I do want.

And so I was trying to get rid of people who just did not buy the idea of deadly self-defense.

Oh, okay, okay.

And then did you use hypotheticals, or how did you find those people?

I would sort of just kind of ask who thinks, who here thinks that it's never okay to use

deadly self-defense?

And if somebody raised their hand, I would kind of prod them a little bit about that, about

like, you know, why do you think that?

And then maybe ask that person some hypotheticals, like, what about this?

And what about this?

And if they're pretty set on their, like, you know, no, I don't think it's okay, I would

try to get them stricken for cause.

And overall, based on the group of jurors that you started with, did you find that there

were a lot of jurors who you wanted to get rid of?

Were you surprised?

Or, you know, did it seem like a lot of jurors did understand the concept and could picture

it?

I think, I think generally speaking, a lot of the jurors were on board with the idea that

you might at some point have to use deadly self-defense.

There were definitely several who were more like, oh, I would exhaust every other option.

If you have other options, you shouldn't do this.

But there were a lot of, you know, kind of rough and tumble men who had been in fights

on the jury.

So I felt pretty lucky in that regard.

What about the issue with a knife?

Your client used a weapon.

Did you try to bring that up in self-defense or in your voir dire that it, you know, sometimes

you may need to use a weapon or if the other person doesn't have a weapon, like the decedent

didn't have a weapon, but your client used one.

Is that, some people may think that's not fair.

Did you like address that at all?

Or are you just...

Yeah, I did.

And, you know, the big idea of like, can you use a weapon against somebody who doesn't

have a weapon?

And I got really lucky because as soon as I started asking that question, one juror jumped

in and was like, yeah, if the person's a lot bigger than you, which was...

You're like, we'll take him.

No more questions.

You know, like angels singing in the courtroom above my head.

I was like, oh, interesting you'd say that, you know, juror number, whatever you were.

That was great.

Did the prosecutor kick that juror?

Yeah, yeah.

He did.

He did.

But there were enough other jurors that were nodding along that it was, you know, it was

a good moment.

And I even referred back to it in my closing that like, you know, remember when we were

here a week and a half ago, we heard juror number, whatever, say that.

And so it was good.

Oh, okay.

So, I mean, obviously jury selection went pretty well then for you.

And so just go ahead.

Let's talk about the jury trial then.

How did it roll out?

So, you know, pretty standard opening statement about self-defense and, you know, what my client's

story was going to be.

Because we knew from the beginning he was going to testify.

He had to testify.

So it's nice to be able to say in opening, like, you know, you're going to hear from him

and he's going to say this.

The facts were very agreed in a lot of ways.

It was just sort of how we wanted the jury to interpret the facts that was different.

Has the DA given or talked about, like, his sort of spin on the case at this point with

the jurors and voir dire or in his opening statement?

Like, why did your client maliciously or kill this person unlawfully?

Like, because he had an ax to grind?

Or, like, what was sort of the story he was going with?

You know, it's funny.

He didn't so much have one.

I mean, there was no information about what the fight was about other than what was going

to come from my client, so he can't, you know, he can't say they were fighting about this

or they were fighting about that because nobody knows that except my client.

So he can't say, like, you know, he wanted to protect his aunt from this weed-growing

maniac over here.

You know, so he just said they were in an argument.

People heard them in an argument.

And now this guy's dead with a knife sticking out of his side.

That's murder.

I mean, he really didn't have, like, sort of a cohesive story of, like, why my client

would kill this guy.

Did he, in his opening statement, did he say, next thing you know, he has a knife on his

side, right?

You know how that goes.

Basically, yes.

Yeah.

You know, one thing leads to another, and then now we have a pool of blood.

So that's opening statements, then.

So who does the DA put up in terms of evidence, like?

So all the people in the house, the brother who was in the back bedroom, the guy who was

watching Lion King, they did not call the mom who was sleeping in her bedroom, the owner

of the house, the medical examiner, and then the cops who, you know, looked for him when

he was on the run on his kid bike for five minutes.

Anything particular to Bill and how he testified or what he said?

Anything kind of little funny little moments or anything quirky happened?

You know, the only thing that kind of quirky or interesting was how, like, unaffected his

testimony was kind of about this whole thing.

He, his demeanor was sort of like any other day he was just sitting in his chair watching

the Lion King as if he had been describing, like, you know, any day that it happened in

his life.

It wasn't like, oh, yes, and then someone stabbed someone.

And there was, you know, in the autopsy photos, there was just a massive amount of blood.

I mean, it was, you could not tell that if you would only watch Bill testify.

I mean, he was like, oh, yeah.

And then I heard a noise.

Then I turned around and he had a knife out of, sticking out of his side.

Then he was on the ground and there was blood everywhere.

Was it kind of consistent with the prosecution's theory of the case?

And next thing you know.

Yeah, yeah.

There was a knife in his neck.

Exactly, yes, yes.

It was very much like, this is what happened.

It was crazy.

Did the Lion King actually come up in the trial?

Like the...

It was, yeah.

He did testify.

He was watching the Lion King.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

And then who, wait, who else, who testified next then for the prosecution?

So the brother who was in the back bedroom who heard the arguing.

Yeah.

He was also pretty calm about the whole thing.

Just like, and then I came out of the bedroom and he was laying on the ground in a pool of blood.

Also weirdly calm about the whole thing.

Those were the two witnesses from the house.

There was an interesting racial component.

All the witnesses and the decedent were African American and my client was white.

The decedent, as I indicated, was a really big guy.

He was, I think, 6'2", 260.

Right.

And his nickname was actually Big Black.

And everybody referred to him as Black.

That's what everyone called him.

That's what Bill did and the brother did.

Yep, yep.

And we'll talk about it a little more when we get to my client's testimony.

I was very hesitant to have my white client testifying about stabbing someone and just referring to him as Black.

Yeah, that kind of.

Yeah, but that's what everybody called him.

And that's what, when those two guys testified about him, that's how they referred to him.

So that was sort of an odd piece that we were kind of deciding how to deal with.

I definitely didn't want to call him that when I was crossing them and, you know, referring to him.

Right.

I called him by his given name.

But it was sort of interesting to have them constantly referring to him just as Black, Black, Black.

And then you said the medical examiner testified, right?

Yes.

And our medical examiner at this time, like I said, he was really straight up.

He was really straightforward.

He was also like, if you could think in your mind of a stereotypical person who would choose a career as a doctor, but with dead people, he was that person.

He was pretty pale, like a little odd.

Yeah.

So do you speak like from the Addams family?

Like, yes.

Yes.

Yes.

And actually his name is Dr. Addams.

Oh, my God.

Dr. Addams.

Yes.

Yes.

So he is just an odd man at the best of times.

And was also much in line with the prosecution's whole thing of like, oh, yeah, this guy got stabbed.

It was, you know, unlucky placement.

Right.

Straight in, straight out.

Then he died.

Did the photographs of the scene come in the evidence then?

The blood all over the kitchen and the decedent's body?

So we had some arguments pre-trial about what photos would come in and what wouldn't come in.

Okay.

I wanted no autopsy photos to come in because there was really no debate about what had happened.

The prosecutor, of course, wanted many of them to come in just to, you know.

Wait, I'm shocked.

Exactly.

Exactly.

Exactly.

Like, the facts aren't that shocking, but I have some very shocking photos that I can use to shore that up.

So the judge, again, not wanting to fully decide anything, came to the decision that one photo from the scene and one photo from the autopsy could come in of the full body.

One full body photo from the autopsy, one photo from the scene.

That's actually a pretty defense-friendly ruling.

I don't, I never get any play with the photos.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I was, I mean, I was happy with it.

I, I did not think that, like, naked body on the autopsy table should, was really necessary.

No one needs to see that.

There's also a couple of close-up photos of the stab wound and, like, a, you know, a diagram of where the knife went through, which I didn't have any problem with.

But I, I, but then again, like, the photo of the autopsy, he looks gigantic.

I mean, the man looks huge.

So, you know, it was sort of helpful to me to be like, look at this guy.

Like, this is a big, big guy.

Yeah, absolutely.

All right.

So, tell us about your client testifying then.

Is that the only evidence you put up?

Yep.

That was it.

And the preparation that you went with your client?

Yeah.

Or go ahead.

Yeah.

There was a lot of preparation.

I mean, as I mentioned, my client is a pretty tightly wound guy, kind of talks a mile a minute.

And he had a lot of theories that he had come up with about why this guy possibly wanted to kill him that I thought were not going to be particularly useful for him to spin into on the stand.

You know, I, and so that was, we spent a lot of time in pretrial meetings kind of being like, it doesn't matter.

And you don't know.

You know, maybe it was one of the five things that you've come up with.

Maybe it was not.

But speculating into these things is not going to help you in any way.

It's like, just stick to the facts.

What happened?

Yes.

Yes.

Exactly.

Exactly.

And I think he really kind of struggled with that.

I think he felt very guilty.

I don't think he ever wanted to kill this person.

And I think he really wanted to know, like, why would he attack me like this?

Why did this happen?

You know, he's in custody all pretrial, so he has a lot of time to sit around and think.

Well, it's a very traumatic experience, and he needs to process that.

So he has to, he needs answers for just for himself, his own soul.

Exactly.

Exactly.

But, you know, your jury, your testimony in front of the jury is not a therapy session, buddy.

So let's not, you're not going to, let's not talk it out here.

Let's stick to the facts.

So I had an attorney in my office who is, you know, known to be pretty good at cross

examination, sit down with me, with him several times and kind of go through what it was going

to be like and what he could expect.

But I was really very nervous when he got up there.

Oh, yeah.

Anytime I have a client testify, it could go so badly.

And it has gone so, I mean, I've had it go so badly.

Yeah, I think we can all relate to that.

You know, I've had clients where I say, don't say this thing, whatever happens, no matter

what, don't say this thing.

And within one question, they say the thing.

And I'm like, I don't even, you just sit in your chair and like, watch it go down.

So I was very nervous.

He was very nervous.

He kept saying like, I don't want to do this.

And he didn't have a choice at all.

He had to do it.

So it was stressful for both of us.

But he did great.

He did so great.

He did fantastic.

Any particular moments or things he said where you're like, yes, yes.

Yeah, I mean, I think that he got, I think the thing that was the best was he did get

emotional.

I mean, he said, I didn't want to, I didn't have any beef with this guy.

I didn't want to harm him.

I never would have wanted to kill him or him to be dead.

And, you know, teared up a little bit, which I was shocked by and was really genuine, which

I think really was impactful to the jury.

I saw a couple of jurors wiping their eyes.

It was a really emotional moment that I did not expect.

Yeah, he did fantastic.

And he sort of leaned into the like, I don't know why this happened.

And like, I was shocked that he came at me like this.

And he, his, he was like, I just reached behind me and grabbed something.

He was like, I thought I grabbed a fork.

He was like, I didn't know it was a knife.

Like, I never would have intentionally grabbed a knife.

And he was just really kind of human and believable in a way that I was surprised and also really happy about.

And felt like, you know, like, like you're saying, the present, the preparation really did what we had hoped it would do, that it allowed him to be truthful and be honest and, you know, stick to the facts and tell the jury what he was feeling at that time without kind of muddying it up with anything else.

So, so, so I mean, so this is like the, you know, your client testifying about this is probably one of the biggest moments in the trial and it's towards the end of the trial.

So like, which, which outfit were you wearing that day?

I was just going to ask that.

So I was wearing, you know, my highest shoes, my three inch black heels.

Oh man.

And I did have on the one like full suit that I had.

Everything else was sort of like a dress and a cardigan or like a jacket for the full on like black, real, legit suit.

By the way, after we hung up yesterday, um, David was like, oh my God.

He's like, I was just imagining you trying to squeeze that big old swollen foot into a high heel.

And it just kind of like oozing out of the top of it.

And I was like, thanks, babe.

Thanks.

Yeah, it was, it was definitely, yeah, it was a little, and I was, you know, walking to and from my office with, you know, my heels in my bag.

And the minute the jury would get ready to come out, I'd put them on, but not a second sooner.

And the minute they were done, I'd take them off.

Um, all right, so where are we at?

We done, so your client's done.

That means you've rested, right?

You're done?

Yep, yep.

It's all done, except for the closing.

Okay.

Yeah.

Tell us about closing arguments then.

But, oh, oh, so, oh, jury instructions were a little bit of an issue.

Oh, yeah.

Yes.

So, um, I, I assume you guys have lesser included in California.

Right.

Um, so he was charged with murder in the second degree, um, which a lesser would be manslaughter in the first degree or manslaughter in the second degree.

Okay.

And generally, the way our judges work is if the defense proposes any lesser included, we usually get them.

Um, almost all the time.

Okay.

Um, sometimes they'll give us a little bit of heartache, but generally we always end up getting them.

So my client and I talked a lot about if we wanted to request lesser included, um, or not.

So, so, so the way, the way it was charged then was just, was just murder to them.

That was the only charge.

Yep.

And you're trying to have a discussion with your, with your client on whether or not we should ask for the manslaughter one and manslaughter two instructions or charges.

Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

Um, and I, you know, what I told him and my general belief is that if a jury can split the baby and go with a lesser, frequently they will.

Um, that if they have trouble deciding, they'll just go to a lesser to, to make it easier on themselves.

Um, and I thought we had a really good self-defense case.

I said, I, you know, I think that they won't find you guilty of murder in the second grade.

I just don't think they will, but you never know.

Um, and so we debated that a lot.

We hadn't really fully made a decision.

And when it was time to do the jury instructions, the prosecutor proposed a lesser of manslaughter one, um, which the judge accepted.

And then we said, if he is proposing manslaughter one, we definitely want manslaughter two.

Cause if they're going to split the baby, we don't want them to end up at manslaughter one.

Cause manslaughter one is still 15 to 20 years.

So yeah, yeah.

You definitely don't want to.

Yeah.

And I don't, you know, and I don't think jurors, I mean, jurors have no idea what the sentencing ranges are on these charges.

Like they may think they're doing you a favor by giving your client manslaughter one, you know, exactly, exactly.

So, you know, we really, I, my client, I had not decided what we wanted to do.

We were really back and forth on it and it was sort of taken out of our hands and the prosecutor proposed the manslaughter one.

And then we knew we wanted the manslaughter two in that situation.

And then, so in the prosecutor's closing argument, did he argue for the manslaughter one or did he just focus on the murder?

You know, he focused on the murder.

But again, his whole thing was sort of like, you know, two guys got to fight, one guy's dead.

It's a crime.

You pick which one.

I mean, he, he was arguing that it was murder, but not, not super, not super aggressively because he didn't have like a very cohesive story to support the, the fact in murder that my client intended to kill him.

I mean, other than that he stabbed him.

So he was arguing for murder too, but not super hard aggressively.

And what about you then?

You're, you're going straight, not guilty on self-defense, right?

Yeah.

Straight self-defense.

Yep.

Are you sort of, are, you know, you're passionately arguing self-defense.

Can you imagine being in this guy's, you know, like, and then are you sort of saying, but if you don't think it's quite self-defense, like how are you sort of finessing in, are you arguing for murder or manslaughter two then at all?

Are you even addressing manslaughter two?

I just went straight.

I basically ignored the lessers.

Yeah.

I was arguing straight self-defense.

We haven't gotten to the verdict yet, but I mean, realistically, I, I didn't see how they could think it was, I, I was of the belief they're either going to think it's self-defense, which is going to be, you know, a full acquittal, or they're going to think it's not self-defense.

And then they're going to convict him of, I thought probably the most serious charge of murder in the second degree.

I mean, I thought either they're going to believe it or they're not going to believe it.

And it's going to be one of those two.

So that's what I was arguing from a place of, this is self-defense.

He shouldn't be held culpable at all, you know, et cetera.

So you're, so the jurors are deliberating for a day and a half, right?

How, what's that, what's that like?

Uh, it was really stressful.

Um, I really, I mean, for me personally, cause I really wanted to be there for the verdict.

And so every day closer it gets to, I'm going to go into labor.

The chances are somebody is going to have to cover the verdict for me.

So for me, I was just like, hurry up, make a decision.

Uh, my client was really stressed cause you know, that's, it's his life.

And he's also just a little bit of a stressed out type of guy.

Um, so, you know, I checked in with him a couple of times and he was hanging in there.

Now what about like this talk, this talk where if you're having your client about like splitting

the baby and stuff, does that sort of like a sensitive topic for you at this moment?

Cause you are having a baby.

Are you, what's that like?

And I try to like come up with another way to say it.

I'm like, this is what it is.

This is the only way.

This is the way you say it.

Oh man.

Oh David.

That's why she married me.

That's why.

No, I thought that, I mean, I, you know, as you're sitting there like visibly with a

baby in your stomach, um, you're like, I don't know what else to say about this.

This is, this is the only way.

This is what it is.

What?

So, uh, all right, cool.

So then that, so tell us about the, the, the, the, the verdicts.

What happened?

Uh, so the verdict comes back, um, and you know, they hand it up to the clerk to be read

and my client and I are just very nervous, uh, comes back, not guilty on the murder.

And then they did convict him on the manslaughter too.

Um, which is very exciting.

Um, and I can hear my client like audibly, like sigh and relief.

Um, and then the verdict form on the manslaughter one is blank, uh, which means they've hung essentially

on that charge.

Uh, at this point, my client starts crying.

Uh, so I'm tearing up a little bit.

Uh, and then they did convict him on the manslaughter too.

Um, which at that point, my client did not care.

I mean, he would have pledged to that the first day he ended up in jail.

Right.

And then he wanted that all along.

That's what he was trying to give the prosecutor to give him.

He was, he was thrilled.

Yeah.

Um, and.

So he negligently killed this person, did an act like.

Because he negligently, and I'm not sure what, what mental gymnastics the jury went through

to get to that.

Cause I don't, uh, I don't see how that makes sense.

But again, I think they did probably slit the baby.

It's frustrating.

I'm going to switch it up.

It is.

It's frustrating that jurors can't, jurors have a tough time voting, not guilty on self-defense

murder cases.

It really is.

It really is.

It's like, I don't know what else they expect your client.

Like, I don't think the people just have a difficult time understanding that, that people's

lives are at risk sometimes because of violence of other citizens.

And I don't know why they can't just accept the fact that sometimes you're in a situation

where you have to protect yourself.

Like this guy was choking him.

It seems like nobody's disputing that.

What else is your client supposed to do?

And he, and it was just one shot to the ribs.

It's not like your client stabbed him once, then the guy falls to the ground and your client

keeps on stabbing him.

That didn't happen.

And I think they at least believed him somewhat.

I mean, I think they did believe him or they would not have acquitted on the, on the most

serious charge and hung on the, the next most serious charge.

Yeah.

There's some degree of believing him.

So why not fully believe him?

What's the problem here?

I don't, it's just, I don't.

I, it's, it's, it's sad that it's just that, that we asked society to make this decision

and they can't, they can't emphasize with someone being in that situation.

That's Vivian.

That's our baby back there.

And she's, I hear her.

She's upset that daddy's getting upset.

That's why.

You know what I always wonder about though, is, but you know, I, I wonder if there's this

maybe like a public misconception that self-defense cases get, don't get filed or, you know, like

do they think the fact that like, just the fact that it's even may come this far in the

process that, that it really isn't self-defense, you know, cause maybe on television.

You know, they're like all these other self-defense murders that didn't even get charged.

Right, exactly.

Like if it was real self-defense, this person wouldn't have even been filed on or something

like that.

Because, you know, it does somehow seem like a hard sell when, when it really shouldn't

be.

But, you know, I, I don't know.

I don't see our district attorney's office reject filings for self-defense.

How much time did your client get then?

Uh, he got just under five years.

He had like four years and six months, I think.

Um, and with good time and he had credit for time served, he was out in just over three years.

Um, which is, you know, between looking at 25, it was a much, much better outcome for

him.

Right.

Absolutely.

And you're still in contact with your client today?

Cause I know you, you call them about this, right?

Or yeah, yeah.

I, I talked to him to see if he would give permission to talk about it.

And he said, yeah, he said, you saved my life to do whatever you want.

Um, which was nice to hear.

Aw, that is nice to hear.

And how's he doing now?

Um, he's doing pretty well.

Um, he is on probation for this, you know, he got in Washington, it's called community

custody.

Um, it's like probation if you get a sentence to the department of correction.

So he's on community custody.

Um, he's, yeah, some good times, some bad times, but he's doing pretty well.

He had a daughter at the time of this offense that was eight.

So she is now, you know, eight times five, 13.

Uh, so he's spending time with her.

He's doing pretty well.

Oh, that's wonderful.

Cause I mean, I feel like that must've just been such a traumatic experience for, for really

for everybody involved, you know, I mean, nobody, nobody wants to be in that position.

Yeah.

The whole family, I mean, the, the brother that had the witness, the material witness weren't

out for his arrest during this trial that they never found, never testified, not, it was

less than two months later, he shows up on a charge of possession of drugs.

I'm like, obviously you could find him pretty quickly if he had a little bit of meth and

now here he is in our jail.

Um, so, you know, I think it really upset him.

I actually got another case like two years after it was a shooting in the same house.

And so, I mean, yeah, it was, it was on video and I looked at the video.

I was like, wait a minute.

I know this place.

Was the, the house, was the lion King still on?

Yeah.

Was Bill, was Bill in the chair again?

No, the only person still around was the younger brother who was in the back bedroom.

He was still living in the house at the time.

You're like, how many, how many, how many incidences are you going to be back there for

buddy?

It really was just another Sunday.

I told you it was the brother.

I told you it was the brother all along.

It was just another day.

It really was.

Yeah.

Exactly.

Exactly.

Well, it sounds like you did a really excellent job with the case, Cassie.

I mean, I think especially with like your preparation of your client and the way that his testimony

sounds like you definitely deserve a lot of credit for that great result.

Good job.

Thank you.

Thank you.

It was great to talk to you guys.

This was really fun.

No, I know.

Thank you for, you know, I really have, you know, this season when I'm really trying to

really push the out of state, the public defenders across the United States.

And so, um, I really want to, you know, want to highlight public defenders outside of our

little bubble here in Los Angeles.

So I appreciate it.

And you have to listen to it when it's from other places because you're like, their court

system does what?

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's like, it's different and it's the same and it's different and it's the same.

Um, yeah.

What, how'd you find out about, about the podcast anyways?

I, you know, so I, our office is very close socially.

My best friends are from work.

We hang out and talk about our cases all the time.

I was, as I'm sure you guys do, but, uh, my friend Gabe is a huge podcast nerd in general

and he discovered the podcast.

And so we all kind of passed it around.

I got a text from one of my friends when we just first all started listening to it.

She was like, I have a new religion.

It's another not guilty.

And I was like, yeah, yeah, so we are all kind of, you know, big nerd, fan nerds of

your show.

Cool.

Thank you.

Well, I, I appreciate that and tell all your, tell all your colleagues and friends and brothers

and sisters and public defender arms that I appreciate the support.

So yeah.

Um, last question is, uh, Cassie, you've been a public defender for 14 years, right?

Yep.

Yep.

And why, why did you want to become a public defender?

Oh, you know, I, mostly for the trial work, I always love doing trials.

Um, and I always feel like our clients, a lot of times their whole lives haven't had

anybody on their side and don't understand what it's like to have somebody who's going

to fight for them.

And I really like being that person and, and, you know, kind of standing in the way of the

train of the criminal justice system that's going to knock them down.

And it might still knock them down even if we're there, but at least have somebody to

hold their hand.

So, you know, I just like standing up to the man and, and doing trials and, and being

there for our clients.

Thank you.

Well, thank you for being there for our clients.

No problem.

It was great to talk to you guys.

Wait, hold on.

Are we not?

I've been, wait, wait, wait, do we leave something out?

Well, I, I, I feel like we kind of didn't finish up.

So then when did you actually end up going into labor?

So it was funny.

So I, during the trial I had, you know, at that point you're having an appointment every

week or every two weeks, I think maybe every week.

I went to my doctor and she's like, your blood pressure is really high.

I'm going to make you, you know, stop working.

And I was like, lady, I'm in the middle of a murder trial.

Like my blood pressure is not high because of this pregnancy is high because the stressful

time and you cannot make me stop working.

I got to finish this out.

You're like, I'm about to win this big case, doc.

Sit down and wait your turn.

I was going during the, uh, the two weeks of the trial.

I went to the doctor both weeks twice, like after court and, you know, had to do all these

blood pressure tests.

And so when it was done, my doctor was like, no more work.

You got to stop working.

Like this is over.

So I took off work.

There was a week in between the trial and then I went to labor after that.

So just one week after.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I didn't do the sentencing.

I wasn't even there when he got sentenced.

I, my boss had to do that for me.

Wait, your husband didn't even stand in for you.

Oh no, I should have.

I should have.

I should have made him do that.

That's true.

That's true.

I can't remember why my boss ended up doing it.

I don't know.

I don't know how she ended up doing it, but she did it.

Oh, that's awesome.

Yeah.

And so he like, it's so funny because the like age of my daughter, like I knew his sentence

and I was like, oh, when Francis is going to be, you know, almost four, that's when Leo

will be getting out.

Like I kind of like had his, like his case and his sentence and like his trajectory, like

going along with the age of my daughter.

And yeah.

Cause you had mentioned you had just found out you're pregnant when you'd gotten the case.

So, I mean, it really is like this entire case followed your whole pregnancy.

I, we did not find out the gender of the baby before she was born.

And I had a minute where I was like, if it's a boy, maybe I should name him Leo.

And I was like, oh, that is insane.

It's just crazy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, I did have like, cause it was just such a thing that just consumed like preparing

for the trial and then doing the trial, like the whole case kind of consumed the whole

time.

Yeah.

Wow.

Yeah.

Well, I'm glad that everything, I'm glad that everything worked out perfectly.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It worked out really well.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right.

Well, thanks.

Well, thanks for being on the show, Cassie.

Yes.

It was so great talking to you, Cassie.

Keep fighting.

Yeah.

It was great to meet you guys via phone.

Let me know if you have any further questions.

Sure.

And let's, you know, you know, let's know next time you get another, another, another not

guilty.

Okay.

Yeah.

Awesome.

Talk to you guys later.

Okay.

Bye-bye.

All right.

Bye.

Bye.

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

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

And guess what?

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