Que Happens – When Lying Witnesses and Bad Policing Collide

What's up my A and G-ers? I know. I know what you're thinking. Please stop calling us A and G-ers. I can't help myself. I'll try. Anyway, it's your boy Davey D here. I know what you're thinking. Did he just give himself the nickname Davey D? Maybe I did. Maybe I did. It's none of your business. It's your boy Davey D here though. And I got another solid Not Guilty tale for you this week.

Told to you by some pretty awesome public defenders. Before we get started here, I have a few A and G favors to ask. Follow us on social media, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, whatever. Subscribe to us on whatever podcast platform you listen. And most importantly, if you could leave a rating and review on Apple podcasts, that would really help. Leave a rating and review. I know you're probably driving. You're driving right now.

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And with that said, I present to you this week's episode of Another Not Guilty.

Oh, and big thanks to my A and G editing team, especially Matt Swiontek for this episode. With that said, let's get this A and G party rolling.

So I subpoenaed them, but ultimately I wanted her to call them. So just throughout 402s and voir dire, I just kept sprinkling to her like, oh, I have to subpoena these officers now.

If they don't show up, I have to do a body attachment.

She opened and her opening was pretty, um, she overpromised.

It was clear. I don't know if she hadn't washed the body worn or was expecting they wouldn't come in.

But then I get up and I was like, you know, if she doesn't call the cops, I will call the cops.

You're going to hear from these officers because something was wrong here.

That was one thing that she ended up thankfully calling the officers, I think.

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.

Rejection. 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.

Welcome back, everybody, to Another Not Guilty.

Your boy, Davey D, here, bringing you the freshest not-guilties across America.

The freshest stories of the criminal legal system.

We bring you the stories, us public defenders of the, which you don't hear about on television and in the news,

but the real day-to-day stories of public defenders snapping, I want to say snapping defeat from the jaws of victory.

Does that sound good?

Let's talk to my co-host.

Co-host Mike, how you doing?

Hey, Dave, it's been a while.

Victory from the jaws of defeat.

Victory from the jaws of defeat?

Yeah, they think we're going to lose, and we win.

Waleed there, that's our guest, guys, today.

One of our guests.

But back to our co-host, Michael, guys.

Were you, what were you, Michael?

What were you called?

It's been such a long time you've been on the show.

I've always been Michael.

Have you always been Michael?

I have.

Thanks for having me back.

It's been a while.

I thought after you hit it big, you'd never call again.

Right.

But apparently you did.

I'm trying, well, I hit it big.

I said goodbye to everybody, hit rock bottom, and now I'm crawling back.

Asking for favors again, so.

We have Michael here, though, another Not Guilty three-time, three-time Not Guilty guest, five

or six times of hosting.

That's right.

Not quite at Nikhil levels, though.

Not quite.

Not quite, but.

But, you know, who is at Nikhil level?

So, we have a couple of guests today.

I'm going to introduce our next guest.

We have Waleed with us.

Waleed, how are you doing today?

What's up, guys?

Waleed's my boy.

We started in the Public Defender's Office together.

What, what?

Yeah.

And, you know, I'm happy that he's on the podcast, finally.

I mean, it took him a while to finally have a good result in court and get on the podcast.

I don't win, Dave.

Yeah.

And then we also have Adela here.

Adela, how are you doing today?

Hi, David.

I'm good.

Thank you for having me.

Yeah.

You're the big, big time fan of the show, by the way.

Really?

I am.

I'm a huge, I'm a huge fan.

Hold on.

I wrote down what you wanted me to say on this.

No, I'm a huge, I'm a huge fan.

I listen, I listen usually on my car rides to work.

How long have you been with the office for?

Three years in January.

We're here today because Waleed did get a case.

He's a felony lawyer signed to downtown Los Angeles.

And, Waleed, tell us about this case.

What were the charges?

Charges were two counts of 245A1, which is assault.

With a deadly weapon involving a knife between neighbors.

Two wit, a knife?

Two wit.

Two wit.

All right, just, you know, little neighbors.

A knife gets involved.

Someone wasn't mowing their lawn or trimming the hedges.

Didn't bring the trash cans in.

Allegation is our client who's a neighbor.

So, you know, it's two houses, duplexes that are on one lot.

Okay.

So it's a shared yard.

So our client is an older lady who was taking out the trash, maybe even pruning some of her roses when she encounters the children that live in the adjacent house.

Right?

And they make up a story.

She threatened them with a knife and came at them with a knife and lunged at them with a knife.

And how old are these children?

I want to say, like, 14, maybe 10, 6, 4.

I mean, there was a lot of little girls.

And they're saying she's just walking outside, taking out the trash, and then lunges at them.

I mean, there's a history between these neighbors.

So they tell the police that after she takes out the trash, she comes and says some obscenities at them, points a knife at them.

And then one of the girls says that, you know, she assaulted her with a knife.

Was the term assault with, or was there a description of, like, the exact actual conduct?

Because police reports don't actually say that all the time.

I'm just wondering if.

She says what, you know, what she thinks, what she perceived happens in her own words, right?

And then there's what the cop writes down, right?

And those two things don't always match up.

They didn't really match up in this case.

So then you get the case.

You read the police report.

You see the charges that to assault the deadly weapon.

And, you know, let's talk about this.

This is a strike offense.

Two strikes.

Two strikes because of two kids.

And how old is your client?

42-ish.

Wait, I thought you were talking about an old lady.

I'm 42.

She's, like, 52.

52?

Yes.

The young lawyer here, Adela, could say she's old because she's pretty young.

Did you, was she out of custody or in custody when you met her?

I was out of custody.

But this was, like, a COVID case.

So by the time I got it, the case was already old.

And I didn't have, other than the police report, I didn't have any of the other discovery, right?

So I didn't have any of the 911 calls.

I didn't have any of the body warrants.

And the case had been kicked around already for at least six months when I got it.

And I saw that I didn't have them.

So my first order of business was trying to get those body warrants.

What was it like when you met your client?

What was kind of her version of events?

Like most clients, she just said, I didn't do this, right?

And I was a little skeptical.

A lot of people say that, right?

That they didn't do it.

You've been burned.

You've been burned.

So, like everybody, I'm like, you know, well, I'm going to review the discovery.

And we'll figure out where to go from here.

Wait, so what was going on during this entire, you said, six months or so before you even got the case.

So what's been going on in court?

So it was a specially assigned district attorney who had been telechiped.

Wait, this case has a specially assigned T.A.?

Oh, yeah.

He was real special.

Like what unit, like the neighborhood, the neighbor task force, you know, like the safe neighbors task force?

It was a CT case, but because of the nature of the charges.

And I think the youth of the children, they assigned it to a prosecutor that would have it from the beginning to the end.

Except for he was telechilling, right?

That's why I never got discovery.

So every time we'd appear in court, he'd be on WebEx.

I'd be in court with my client.

I'd be demanding discovery.

And he says, I'll get it to you.

And he never got it to me.

Discovery for people at home as in evidence, really.

The body warns.

Yeah, the body warn videos, the 9-1-1 calls.

9-1-1 calls.

Okay.

Right.

So, all right.

So then what happens next in the case for you, Wally?

I file a motion to compel, which is a legal motion that has a judge rule.

When the DA is not turning over discovery like they should in a timely manner after you've asked for it several times, you can then file a formal motion with the court to have the judge compel the DA to turn over that evidence.

Wait, and so that's the only reason you got it?

Did the judge actually rule on that motion or did he just finally turn it over once you filed it?

Well, yeah.

So, it was, I'm going to get it to you, I'm going to get it to you, I'm going to get it to you.

Then I filed the motion.

DA was still tele-chilling.

So, his colleague actually, rather than having to face the judge and explain why they haven't given this to me in six months, he ends up calling the IO, getting the discovery, and getting it to me, I think, later that day.

So, you just needed two minutes of work that took six months to do.

Yes.

So, at this point, though, when you did meet the client, did she, she said she didn't do it, but did she give like a backstory about the relationship or why this case may have come about?

Or she was just like, I didn't do it, fuck those guys.

Yeah, I mean.

Or fuck those kids, excuse me.

No, those weren't her words.

Those later became my words.

But those were never her words.

But she was just like adamant that she didn't do this and that she wanted her day in court to prove her innocence.

Well, you said that in the beginning, you're skeptical, you know, everyone says I didn't do it.

At what point do you kind of start to turn the corner and start to think, you know what, maybe she actually didn't do this?

After I get those body warns, because, you know, as you know, the police report is the district attorney's best version of the case.

So when you read the police report, you often think, oh, man, we're kind of toast here, right?

If this is true, we are toast, right?

So it's not until you get the body warn and you review the body warn that you see, well, that's not how it went down.

That's not what witnesses said.

That's not how you do an investigation, right?

And then you learn this isn't nothing like that police report.

They wish it was like this police report.

So what did it show?

I mean, it was egregious from the beginning.

So it shows, first of all, the police report makes it seem like the sisters all witnessed the acts that occurred to each other.

And therefore, they're confirming those things, right?

So it's like, I tell officer this, sister's like, I saw that too, right?

So it makes that first witness seem like they're credible, right?

But then when you see the body warn, it's clear that they weren't in the same vicinity.

So the older sister was in the front of the house and she tells the officer immediately, this is where I was standing when this happened.

So she didn't see what happened in the back and the sisters in the back didn't see what happened to the older sister in the front.

And even on the body warn later on, she confirms that an officer asked, well, did you see what happened to your sister?

And she's like, no.

And they bet the cop rights say that they corroborate each other's story.

Correct.

So what do you do with this information?

Well, it's even worse than that.

Then you see that there's a whole nother victim or a whole nother witness, right, who completely says a different version of events than the two sisters who's there, right, who they completely leave out of the report.

Who is this witness?

A sister.

A middle sister.

A middle age sister.

Another sister who was there but saw something different than her two other sisters.

Wait, so the older sister and the younger sister are the victims and then the middle sister is contradicting?

Both of them.

Middle child syndrome.

It's always a fucking middle child syndrome.

And then on top of that, it's a horrendous police investigation, right, that obviously the police never write in their report, I totally fucked up this investigation, right?

They rarely ever do that.

I've never seen it once.

But when you get to watch how they did this investigation on the body cam, you can draw your own conclusion.

And then so it turned out that this main officer is fairly new.

Seems like he has a field training officer watching over him and correcting him constantly.

And despite constantly being corrected, he doesn't learn.

And he repeatedly commits the same errors over and over that you can see on the body warrant.

These are all things that you wouldn't glean from the arrest report.

But clearly, once you get them, you see that this is a whole different case.

So then what do you do with that information?

Is that for prelim?

Yeah.

Okay.

So I set it for prelim.

And then when we get to court and we're thinking, you know, it's going to go forward today, the DA says, not ready to do the prelim.

And through WebEx again?

No, no.

He showed up to say this.

He showed up, okay.

But apparently, because he was tele-chilling, I don't think he ever subpoenaed any witnesses.

So nobody shows up for him on the day of the prelim.

So he wants to just simply trail it to last day.

But at this point, my client had been coming to court for months.

She expressed to me how that was difficult for her and expensive for her.

So I was rather upset that the DA wasn't ready to go.

So I was trying to put an end to the case as soon as possible.

So I asked the court if we could just approach.

And I explained to him, this is an egregious case.

That I will impeach any witness that the DA puts on the stand.

That the case is not what it purports to be.

That this is an outrage.

And I also pointed to my client who was sitting in court.

That she had no record.

Never been in trouble with the law before.

Other than driving without a valid license.

And that's only because of her status in the country.

Otherwise, she was an absolutely law-abiding citizen that's never been in trouble before.

More than that, she was a domestic violence survivor.

There was a horrific incident where she was burned with very severe burns all over her body.

Including her face.

You could see the trauma.

So I had the judge look at her.

And I explained her situation.

I explained why these kids made it up.

And I explained how bad this investigation is.

And that after the prelim's done.

That the court will have no faith in the truth of these charges.

At best, the court will reduce them to a misdemeanor.

Because of my client's record.

So how about we just save everyone a great deal of time.

And reduce it before a prelim.

I fucking love that.

I fucking love that.

That's great.

I will destroy anybody that comes in my way.

It was the truth.

It was the truth.

This case did not survive.

And so the judge then looks at the DA and says, DA, is this true?

And the DA says, how should I know?

And the judge says, well, haven't you viewed the videos?

Is what Mr. Kandil's saying is true?

He says, well, shit, I never looked at the video.

I need to see the body cam, judge.

I barely sent it to him.

No one found a motion for me to compel the look at the evidence.

So then the judge looks at me and is like, yeah, Mr. Kandil,

I'm going to give the DA an opportunity to look at the videos.

The case is like two years old from COVID.

He's been sitting around doing nothing.

He's had the opportunity.

Well, that's what I said.

I said, judge, I'm not sandbagging the guy here.

These aren't my videos that I'm just turning over now.

These are his videos.

If he chose not to look at them, how is that my fault?

So when the judge saw how stupid that is, he was like, all right,

I'm going to just reduce it.

And that's when he reduces the case to a misdemeanor.

Which means that now the case goes out of your hands?

How's that?

Because of the jurisdiction, the case goes back to East Hill.

Transferred to East L.A.?

Transferred to East L.A.

There's misdemeanor DAs.

So then what'd you do then?

Just so happens that I know the person who's in charge of the public defender's office at that branch.

Oh, who's that?

My good friend, Mr. Michael Kelly.

Michael, I have since, after my last trial, I now supervise misdemeanor lawyers.

Wow.

Okay.

And so, yeah.

Dude, so many people have been able to catapult from this podcast.

It's true.

That was the number one thing that was told to me.

Supervising positions.

We heard you on the pod, and we think you're ready for this assignment.

So you contacted Mike, or did you see him in person?

No, it was at a happy hour.

It was a holiday party.

I was in line to get my spiked egg nog, and I get tapped on the shoulder, and Waleed basically

has my ear for the rest of the night complaining about the law enforcement and the DA and how

this case, you know, needs to get dismissed as soon as possible.

With an apology.

With an apology, yeah.

Standard Waleed conversation.

Well, you know.

Any time, any day, that's the Waleed conversation.

And I told them, you know, in East LA, a lot of times we get what's called an informal

diversion where the DA just basically continues the case for a few months.

If client stays out of trouble, maybe does some community service, they'll dismiss the

case.

You know, I tell Waleed, you know, that sounds like the kind of thing that might happen here.

And Waleed was very forthright in his response, which was no informal diversion.

We want a dismissal and an apology.

And that's the only way that this case should get resolved.

Nice.

So, Mike, you're a supervisor, though.

So what does that mean?

What do you do with the case, then?

Try to give it to someone else as soon as possible.

Which brings us to Adela today, right?

That is correct.

Adela is one of our star attorneys in East LA.

I see that the case is coming up for trial pretty soon.

I know Adela will be ready on it very soon.

And so I assign it to Adela and tell her, hey, look, I usually don't meddle in your cases,

but someone who I respect who's going to call me and complain if it's not done the right

way is going to be hovering.

So, you know, I need you to make sure that this thing is going to get dismissed or, you

know, done away with as quickly as possible.

With an apology.

Does that sound accurate, Adela?

Yeah.

One morning I just got called into Michael's office and he's like, this case is coming down

the pipeline, you know, it has to go to trial.

And I said, great, I'll take it.

And then like when you get called into Michael's office, do you like drop everything you're

doing and just get be there within like a minute?

Like how does that work around here?

Yeah, he's, he's insufferable.

No.

I told her to pack her boxes before she came to see me.

Every day I get called.

No, he just was like, hey, you know, this is a case that diversion could be a possibility,

but ideally she doesn't take that, you know, just it has to go to trial.

So then I guess at some point the case does make its way to you, right?

Yeah, I had.

So I got the case, the digital discovery and all that stuff a few days before I met the

client.

So I looked through and Waleed, I mean, he had done so much more work.

He had appointed an investigator.

An investigator had gone out and talked to the witnesses in this case.

He had written up like sample crosses and questions and a transfer memo with a to-do list.

So I had gotten it with pretty much all of his notes and his impressions, which was really

helpful.

Okay.

And so one of the things that he had suggested I do was appoint an expert, a child suggestibility

expert.

So it's one of the first things I did before I even met the client is I try to find an

expert that could talk about why these kids would lie to begin with.

Why did you guys believe that a child suggestibility expert was needed in this case?

Well, initially I thought that that would be helpful because when you watch the body warrant,

okay, they don't say that our client lunges at them with a knife, okay?

They explain what they happened, but these kids don't know the law, right?

So they're just explaining in real simple language, like what happened, right?

But what they explained to the officer didn't amount to a crime.

So then the officer starts suggesting, well, did it happen like this?

And starts demonstrating how the client may have brandished the knife at them or assaulted

them with the knife and the kids quickly adopt the officer's version on body warrant of what

the officer is telling them happened, right?

So I was afraid that by the come trial date, they're no longer going to relay what they

actually told the officer.

Instead, they're going to relay what the officer told them.

On the body warrant video, what do the kids say happened?

So there are multiple versions of this because the officer interviewed these kids.

And together, and then separately, and then together, it was messy.

But pretty much what the older sister says is that she's in the front, and our client comes

out, walks by her with this knife, and then the officers at that point are like, okay, did

she point the knife to you?

And she's like, yes.

Did she?

And they're doing the motion of like lunging towards her with it, with a pointy thing.

And every single leading question, she's like, yes, yes, yes.

But when she's asked generally what happened, it pretty much is just our client walked by

her with a knife.

She had a knife in one hand, a trash bag in the other hand, and she just happened to walk

by this kid who's standing in the middle of the courtyard, goes to the pack, throws out

her trash bag, and allegedly there are kids in the back as well.

And then at that point, she just for no reason whatsoever is lunging and pointing the knife

with the kids in the back, comes back, calls the older sister at Buta.

The older sister calls her at Buta right back, and our client goes into her house.

That was kind of the story.

But the officers, again, the main investigating officer just kept asking all these leading questions.

And one other thing he did, which turned out to make it a lot more confusing, was the older

sister was asked, what does a knife look like?

And the older sister, initially, the first time she's asked, cannot describe it.

So she says, oh, my younger sister saw it.

Like, ask her.

And the younger sister says, it was a knife that's used to cut boxes.

That's what she says.

That's what she told the officer.

And the officer, instead of being like, okay, how big is it?

What does it look like?

Goes, oh, you mean a box cutter?

And the kid's like, sure, yes, a box cutter.

And how old is this one?

This, she was 10 at, I believe, 9 or 10 at that time, 11 by that point, by the time of

the trial.

Kids grow fast.

And what was interesting and why it was, why I knew this kid did not, that was the first

time this kid had heard the word box cutter was because on the stand, she couldn't even

call it a knife.

She kept saying a pointy thing.

So the girl's mother ended up being more of an important figure than I had anticipated

initially.

But she also made a lot of comments in Spanish in the background referring to our client, like,

oh, she's the woman with the scars all over her face.

She kept injecting into this interview.

And she, for the record, she was not actually present during any of these?

She didn't see any of it.

It was clear from the body warrant, and I ended up interviewing her as well.

She just disliked our client, had been calling the landlord and our client the entire kind

of five, six years that our client had been living there.

And it was clear she just wanted our client out.

And again, after this case, our client, there was a restraining order.

She had to be on an ankle monitor.

She had to leave.

So they had kind of gotten what they wanted, and our client was kicked out.

And how did you find out this backstory?

The kids had, when they were speaking to the officer, had mentioned some little things.

Like, our client had yelled at them a few years back about laundry.

Like, they were running around our client's laundry.

Well, they said the day before this happened, right?

So the day before the police get called.

There had been a backstory of, oh, she doesn't like kids.

She's always mean to the kids.

Says bad, disrespectful things to the kids.

But the day before the police get called, the 10-year-old says that she's in, the client

had just finished doing laundry in the common laundry area at the back of the house, okay?

Client uses what's the kid's basically play area to hang up her clothes after she just washed

them.

Kids playing in the backyard, knock down all the clothes our client just washed, right?

So obviously, our client was upset and asked the kids, hey, that costs $5.

You're going to have to pay me $5 so I could rewash the clothes.

Kids are, you know, asking a 10-year-old for $5, right?

Like, they're thinking, like, she's asking them for, like, a million dollars, right?

Shake down.

Right.

So they're upset about this.

They obviously, you know, tell their mom.

And I think that is what causes them to want to, you know, get back at the client the next

day with this story about the knife.

And what was funny is on the stand, so that came out, and I'm getting it, but that came

out, and the kid, the DA asked, were you scared when she said this?

And the kid was like, yeah, I didn't have $5.

And the jury just burst out laughing because it was so stupid compared to the charges.

But, yeah, on the stand, they testified that happened years before, which was, again, inconsistent.

But, yeah, they had all these interactions with her, and our client visibly looked different.

Right.

And so these kids would, they were young.

Some of them were four, six.

They would look at her.

They were curious.

And when you're a kid and you're not taught better, you don't know better, different is

bad.

And so they would, they were already kind of.

Because she had the burn scars on her face.

Yes.

And she looked.

She looked different.

And she, again, also was.

Makes sense.

Had complained to their mother previously, or had told the kids specifically, like, hey,

can you play anywhere else other than around my laundry?

These little things.

But they've had, they've had this neighborly disputes.

Like, someone had washed out something on the, on the, on the sidewalk and hadn't dried

it up.

All of these little things that had escalated to this, this incident.

And so the expert was helpful in not only grounding what was wrong with the investigation, but also

why these kids, when they saw this woman walk out with a knife and nothing happened, why

these kids, why it blew out of proportion.

It was important because of the history with the mom.

Is your client interviewed in the body worn videos?

Yeah, she, she is.

So she, um, what happened was the timeline is they got to the scene.

They spoke with the older sister and immediately 10 to 12 officers go into our client's home.

She's home.

She has, she knew something had happened because the mom had already confronted her about this

knife situation, but they pull her out barefoot, walk her through this entire courtyard by all

the neighbors.

And there are like multiple complexes or multiple houses in this complex, put her in the back

of the car and interview her.

Our client only speaks Spanish and the officer who did the main investigation does not speak

a word of Spanish, but he reads it in Spanish and like the worst broken Spanish ever off

of the, off of the Miranda card.

And then they ask her questions and this becomes relevant later on.

I don't want to get ahead of myself, but she pretty much tells them like, yeah, I had a

knife.

I can tell you exactly where the knife is.

It's, you know, on the specific piece of furniture in my house, go get it.

I just walked out of my house to throw the trash out and I was gonna, um, cut up.

It was a, they would not let her fully explain, but there is a piece of a tool that she uses

to cut up oranges.

And she was going to go cut that tool up.

She was pretty much doing just gardening in the, in the backyard and did that for a couple

of minutes and went back into her home.

The kids just happened to be playing outside.

Nothing else happened.

That's all she told the officers pretty clear in the body worn video while she's in the back

of a police car barefoot.

And she's saying that in Spanish to a Spanish speaking officer or.

Yeah.

So speaking of Spanish speaking officer.

And what's funny is that the office, so the officer who was speaking to her in Spanish

was the training officer.

He ended up not testifying.

I subpoenaed him.

He didn't show up to court.

Um, but the other officer who did the investigation, who does not speak a word of Spanish said that

she was being evasive.

And that was one of the, one of the ways that he lied on the stand was because she had,

he had not said a single.

He had asked her and I'm quoting, get happened, which is what happened.

And she had responded.

Oh, come on.

Oh, come on.

She's on the body.

That's advanced.

That's advanced.

This is your East L.A.

You're an East L.A. officer, dude.

East L.A.

Come on.

And it was funny because he, I was, when I was crossing him, he was like, I took one year

of Spanish.

It was hilarious.

That's how he got the gate point.

But our client was confused.

She was like, with, like, she was like, get, like, she was confused.

And then the officer who actually speaks Spanish chimes in and he's like, ma'am, let's talk

about what happened in Spanish.

And at that point she answers.

Everything she said was corroborated.

They found the knife exactly where she said it was.

They found the orange tree exactly where she said it would be.

But yeah, she was being evasive with a cop who did not speak her language.

So one of the main reasons the D.A. tried to fight back this entire notion of suggestibility

was the officer actually brought out the knife that they ended up finding that our client

had, had identified.

And again, the older sister had no idea what the knife looked like, but the officer showed

her the knife in, in the envelope, doesn't take it out of the envelope, shows her the knife

while it's like, well, it's in this evidence envelope.

Yes.

Okay.

Just the, just the handle, like the top, maybe like an inch of the handle.

And the girl, the older sister said, that's not the knife that I saw.

The younger sister on the body worn video says, once she's finally separated after the officer

is asked multiple times to separate the witnesses.

At that point, she's like, well, the blade looks similar, but I don't know about the handle.

Because again, when someone's holding a knife, you hold it from the handle.

So the younger sister is like, it looks the same.

And then there were multiple witnesses in the back who said that was a knife that the

lady had.

So why it was important for me to make sure that kind of the knife that our client identified

ended up being the knife she actually had was they were arguing, how could this investigation

be tainted?

How could there be suggestibility if those kids were adamant that that was not the knife

they saw?

Like if they wanted to kind of lie and roll with it, they would just say, yeah, that's

the knife that we saw.

But the problem is that that's not what happened on the body worn.

The officer wrote in his report that they all adamantly and confidently said that was not

the knife, but that's not what happened.

The kids said that was the knife that they saw, at least some of them.

So that was why I wanted some of the other witnesses there to show that our client had

that knife, never pointed it to anyone, just happened to walk by it, walk by the kids with

it.

And this knife did not go click, click, click?

It did not go click.

It was arguably a worse knife.

And that was one of my arguments.

If she was going to lie, she was like, it's a, it's a pretty, it's a kitchen knife that

she admitted that she had.

It was a knife that said child stabber on it.

It was a great, like child killer.

For some reason, today I walk out and try to stab some kids with this knife for no reason.

All right.

So then you got you ready.

You're ready for trial.

You got your child's adjustability expert.

Let's talk about any pretrial motions at this time.

They were objecting to my expert.

So I had sent out a report from my expert to, to the DA and they were objecting to the,

to the expert testifying.

And it was funny because she, that's when I first found out that she was not anticipating

calling the cops because she said, oh, I only have two witnesses.

And if you call the expert, I'm going to bring my officer to rebut.

And I said, please, please call your officer.

I would love that.

But that was the kind of the main 402.

What was the, the object?

What, why, what was the basis for the objection to your expert?

She was arguing 352, which is, you know, it's, it's more, it's more prejudicial than it

is relevant, but she had no idea again.

And my judge thankfully was good enough to be like, A, I don't know what evidence you were

going to put on yet.

And B, it's a child, it's a child witness case, the trial's adjustability expert.

Like it's pretty relevant.

It's in play anytime child testifies.

Yeah, it's pretty relevant.

The DA just threw out a legal theory because some, that's, that's what they do.

They don't need to like have a basis in law to say they don't want something.

They just, they just fucking say it.

Your honor, I don't like it.

I don't like it.

And it usually works.

And it works, you know?

It usually works.

They're like, yes, it's, it's not helpful to you.

So we're going to keep it out.

But another thing that she did that we fought over a little bit, and I wish I'd done honestly

more fighting.

I just didn't expect my judge to give me as much hard time about it was there's this evidence

code that says our clients, quote unquote, self-serving statements cannot come in.

If they're out of court statements, me as a defense attorney or our client themselves,

they, you cannot just put that evidence in front of the jury.

So for example, if your client has given an hour, an hour long interview or any sort of

interview to the officer explaining what happened, you can't just play that for the jury as

the defendant or as a defense attorney.

Right.

Why?

Because then your client is not, it's a way for them to force your client to take the stand

and testify.

Because your client's not, it doesn't, the DA doesn't have an opportunity to cross-examine

the client.

I'm assuming that's, but they, so, but if the, apparently there's a right to confrontation.

Right.

But a lot of our clients also have prior records where that's a one way for them to bring in

their prior records, where if you just play the video for the jury that, you know, it wouldn't

come in.

But so she kept, she kept saying, your honor, I just want to make sure Ms. Gorgon knows

that she cannot.

And I said, I'm familiar with the evidence code.

There are other exceptions.

And if you, I've had this fight with DAs before where it's like most of the time they

bring in a piece of that, of that interview.

They want to just use kind of the, the unhelpful parts.

And then I get to play the rest of it, but I didn't have this fight in front of the judge

because I said, it's, we'll follow the evidence code.

We'll see how it plays out.

All right.

So then it's time for jury selection, right?

Oh, before, before we do that.

So then it was initially two counts of 245A1 and we were getting sent out.

We were in the master calendar court and the DA, her supervisor was kind of talking to her

about the case.

And at this point, the witnesses had been in court, had been subpoenaed.

She had talked to them in the morning.

She had sent me the statements.

And at this point, the statements were, again, neither, neither girl saw what happened to

the other one.

And the younger, the younger one, again, at best saw a knife from like multiple feet away,

just shown to her.

And so I could overhear this conversation and her supervisor, the DA supervisor was telling

her, well, where is the assault?

Because assault requires lunging, pointing, it requires an act, something you do with the

knife.

And so he said, just, we'll just add the brandishing, I guess.

And so we-

And what's the difference between the two?

So brandishing is you just kind of show a knife.

You still have to, you're in possession of a knife and you show a knife to someone else

in a rude, angry, or threatening manner.

There still has to be something you do with the knife.

Like you hold, yeah, you hold the knife and kind of like wiggle it and be like, ah, I'm

going to get you.

Right, right, right.

Or you say something threatening with a knife.

It's not just possession of a, of, of a knife to cut oranges.

That's not a crime.

Well, not, not that one that was charged, but, um, I could, I overheard this and I just

was like, well, they're going to dismiss the assaults.

So you're, wait, you're saying you overheard the, the trial DA and that there's that trial

DA supervisor, the supervisor saying, Hey, where's the assault?

I don't see it.

So add a brandishing.

Right.

And I assumed they were going to dismiss the assaults, but they didn't.

It just ended up, they came, we came in before we got sent out at a two additional accounts

of four 17, one per kid.

And now it became four counts instead of two counts.

Um, I even went and like try to talk to the supervisor just to be like, Hey, you know,

you don't have enough.

So why are you wasting time?

And he just was like, well, let's put it in front of the jury.

So now you're going to, now they've added two counts of exhibiting or a four 17 and it's

time to pick a jury, right?

Yeah.

It's time to pick a jury.

Here's my favorite question, David.

Adela, what kind of juror are you looking for?

So in this case, I was looking for jurors who, you know, would be smart, um, jurors would

be skeptical of officers or critical of officers.

And then my main worry was we had at the end of the day, no matter all the problems with

the investigation, we had kids.

Um, and I was worried about jurors who would shut down the second they saw a kid witness,

a little kid in the witness box.

And so I, my main question from them was just, you know, anyone here who believes, you know,

kids are just honest, would never lie.

And so I was able to get a lot of, a lot of people who just shut down the second they

saw a kid.

But I had a really, really good panel.

I mean, I had a really good panel.

Uh, as now, uh, being the father of a three-year-old, let me tell you something.

That little girl lies all the time.

They just, they just say things.

They just say it, you know, apparently I wasn't sharing the blocks yesterday.

You weren't sharing, you know, like, um, yeah.

So I think, I think parents, everybody knows kids lie and they are suggestible because it's

like, you can just get them to agree to anything.

Right.

So I had two, it's funny.

I had two middle school teachers on, ended up, they both ended up being on my jury, but

I was asking them, like, if you got two kids who, one of them says X happened and the one

says Y happened, how do you decide?

And one of them said, well, I know who the liars are in my, like, she was like, there

are some kids who lie and I know who the liars are.

And that was really helpful.

I mean, again, on my panel, I also had a couple of jurors who, and she ended up kicking them,

which was so funny, who were like, I believe cops, you know, I will give officers a leg up.

And I said, okay, is there any time that you think an officer would maybe lie or make a

mistake?

And they said, yeah, if they don't follow protocol, that's a problem.

And I was like, great.

This was a case where even if you were cop friendly, it was still helpful.

And it's funny because she ended up kicking that person.

The DA ended up kicking that person because she knew what the problems with her case were.

How was this judge's vaudeer?

He was pretty, I mean, his own vaudeer was not helpful.

It just was kind of the standard questions of, you know, who's been a witness to a crime,

victim to a crime.

But it was funny because I had a fair number of people who thankfully were like, oh,

you know, yeah, I had one juror who in response to the question of who's been a victim to a crime.

So it was like, I've just been shot at a couple of times.

No big deal.

And those were a lot of the people on my panel, people who did not think, you know, getting

mugged was a crime.

Like one girl raised her and was like, people are talking about getting mugged.

I got mugged all the time growing up in Detroit.

I don't think that's a crime.

Those were, that was helpful.

But he died.

Yeah.

But it was, no, it was, he was, he was pretty, he let me do whatever I wanted to do.

He was pretty hands off.

So then time for opening statements then, right?

Yeah.

So in opening, so I, at that point I knew that she was, she had told me she was not calling

the cop.

Just calling the two kids and I had actually called Waleed and initially my first instinct

was less witnesses are better.

And I hate subpoenaing cops myself and putting them up myself because they will always find

a way to fuck your case.

And I just didn't want to have to call them myself, but I called Waleed and he was like,

no, you need the cops.

So if she doesn't call the cops, you want, you want these officers to testify with everything

that went wrong with the investigation.

So I subpoenaed them, but ultimately I wanted her to call them.

So just throughout 402s and Waleed, I just kept sprinkling to her like, oh, I have to

subpoena these officers now.

If they don't show up, I have to do a body attachment.

And then, so in my opening, she opened and her opening was pretty, um, she overpromised.

It was clear.

I don't know if she hadn't washed the body worn or was expecting they wouldn't come in.

But then I get up and I was like, you know, if she doesn't call the cops, I will call

the cops.

You're going to hear from these officers because something was wrong here.

That was one thing that she ended up thankfully calling the officers.

I think hopefully by me bullying her.

It's a difference between the case being about your client versus the case being about the

officer's investigation.

Right.

Right.

And I wanted the case to be about the officer's investigation more than what our client may

have done.

Right.

And so you can't impeach somebody who's not here.

Right.

So in order to show how shitty of an investigation is, uh, and, and how it was suggestible, how

it was leading, how it was improper.

Right.

How they coach these witnesses.

Right.

Uh, you need the officer to be there.

Right.

You need, and it gives you a villain, right?

Someone that you can hate in the case.

And sure enough, when you see an officer, right.

Who's supposed to be trained to do X, Y, and Z come in and not follow any of that training

and basically go rogue and then completely mess up the investigation.

And in the meantime, hook up an innocent person on a crime.

Right.

It becomes, well, this is the villain.

This is the person you hate jury.

Right.

Uh, and for that, you're going to quit client.

Right.

And it's funny you mentioned that Wally, because in her closing, the DA said, you know, Ms.

Gorgon is trying to make this about the officer.

The officer's not on trial here.

You know, the defendant is on trial.

And I got up and I was like, the officer's investigation is absolutely on trial here.

It's a criminal case.

That's what you're basing your entire charge on.

So in your opening statement, you're trying to egg her on, trying to get her to call the

cop.

And then she gives her opening statement.

It was pretty vanilla.

Hers was, yeah, it was just kind of like, you know, these poor kids.

She's home is supposed to be somewhere where you feel safe.

And these kids did not feel safe.

And I was like, I agree.

Home is where you feel safe.

You know who else didn't feel safe?

Our client from the cops.

But then once another thing is I, they were on, I think on fair notice from everything that

happened during the kind of the conversation between Waleed, the court and the DA, pre-prelim,

as well as my conversations with the prior DA that our client visibly had these scars.

And they all knew what the backstory of these scars were.

And no one had tried to exclude this.

So I, in my opening was like, I'm going to talk about the scars because I think it's relevant

as to why the kids were treating her the way they were treating her.

I also didn't want the jury to think that our client had these scars for any sort of nefarious,

unrelated reasons.

So in my opening, I said, you know, you're going to, you can look at my client.

She has these, she has these scars.

And I told, told the jury that the fact that she was the victim of domestic violence and

that's how she, um, she got these scars.

Objection.

It was, like, it was just, she was, she lost.

Too late, man.

She just lost it.

And we do a, it's so funny because she, like, sidebar.

And it's worse because now the juries look, and then everybody looks at her like, my client

also, I had warned her that I was going to talk about it.

And our, and our client, she, her main thing was, these kids were treating me differently.

I could tell it was for my scars.

I don't want pity.

I don't want to be treated differently.

But I had told her like, Hey, we have to talk about this.

And she was on board.

But the second I mentioned it, she just started loudly sobbing.

So it's objection.

My client's crying.

The deputies in the courtroom are handing her tissues.

And then we're at sidebar.

The jury's just looking at her, like, full of pity.

And she's trying to, you know, um, dry her face.

And the judges whisper yelling at me at sidebar, you know, Miss Corgan, why didn't you tell?

And I was like, they knew, they knew about this.

And so they had to admit, yes, we know, but we don't want to, it should be, it should not

come in.

And judge was like, well, I'm going to reserve, write a brief about why it's more prejudicial

than it is relevant.

Um, but for now, I guess it's sustained.

So we come back and he's like, sustained.

You cannot extract that from your memory.

Ladies and gentlemen, forget about the scars.

I think the scars, well, the scars are, are there.

You can see that as to why they happen probably is not admissible.

She testifies, you know, Adela believed they were.

Mike and I thought about this so much.

You brought it up, Dave.

That's what 402s are for.

Right, the 402s are for.

Why did the DA 402 that out if she didn't want her to go there?

They knew that that was a possibility.

Yeah, Adela kept coming in saying, I think it's admissible because of this.

I'm like, no.

Like, it's never coming in.

So then, yeah, the judge ultimately was like, you can talk about the scars, but not the

reason for the scars, like why the scars happened.

But at that point, the bell had been rung.

Okay.

Opening statements.

And now it's time for the evidence.

So talk about the DA's case.

Yeah.

So we came in.

Her first witness was the older sister.

So on direct, she testified.

It was pretty minimal.

She just was like, I was standing in the middle of the courtyard in the front.

Our client came out of her home, walked past her, had this box cutter.

Now everyone knows that now it's a green and black box cutter.

She's for sure now certain what it looks like.

Walked by her, went to the back, spent like several minutes in the back, came to the front,

walked past her, called her a puta.

She said, y'all are putas or y'all.

And she, she, she translated as I, she took it as y'all are bitches.

But then we had an interpreter.

Well, the judge, I think, called a special interpreter to come to court just to interpret

this one word.

And it was so funny.

We had to wait like five minutes for this, another interpreter to come in.

So wait, okay.

So the, you had an interpreter there translating for the.

For my client.

Yes.

Oh, so you need a different interpreter to say puta.

What that means.

Yes.

Because the one for your client can't interpret for the witness.

She's interpreting for your client.

And then.

So we had to pause the hearing just so we can, so we can get the puta on the record.

The system working, doing its thing.

And.

By the way, how old is the oldest sister?

She was 15.

15 at the time.

At the time of the trial.

Okay, go ahead.

The DA asked her, what did you think, what did you think she meant?

Like, do you speak Spanish?

Yes.

What did you think she meant by that?

She's like, I think it means bitch.

So when I, and then she said, I called her a puta back.

So I meant to call her a bitch.

Now we wait five minutes.

This new interpreter comes in and she, she goes up next to the, next to the girl in the

witness box.

And the judge is like, okay, repeat what you just said.

And the girl's like, she, you know, she called me a puta.

And then the interpreter, she was, it was so serious.

She was just like nodding along, wrote something in her notebook.

I don't know if she wrote puta.

And then she said, she called me a whore.

So she, she translated it as a whore.

It didn't matter ultimately, but the girl, that's not what the girl thought it meant.

Right.

But we had two different interpretations.

And there's probably, there's Spanish, this is East LA.

So there's probably some Spanish speakers on the jury.

Yes.

Yeah.

She pretty much testified that on direct testified that our client simply just walked by her

and had this knife, maybe pointed the knife in her direction, but that was pretty

much it.

They didn't call, didn't say anything when she walked by her, came back and then called

her a puta.

So I got up on cross and I, my cross was pretty minimal initially.

Cause I didn't want to, I didn't think it was that bad.

So I asked her, okay, where were you standing?

She walked by you.

She didn't say anything to you initially.

And then when she came back, did she look at you?

No.

And your sister was there the entire time?

Yes.

So there was a sister there the entire time who didn't see any of this.

And that's the middle child.

That's the middle child.

Also left out of the police report.

Completely left out of the police report.

So then we broke for lunch.

We come back on redirect and now the DA just re-asks the same questions except leading.

So I kept objecting, asked and answered, leading.

But she was like, okay, did, cause at this point I think they kind of knew I was going

to go with, well, she had to pass by you if you're standing in the middle of the, of

the courtyard to go to the back to throw her trash out.

And so the questions became, okay, well, did she have to pass by you?

And it's like objection, speculation.

Did she, did she point the knife at you?

Did she lunge at you with a knife?

Did she come near you?

Did she stop by you?

And then it was like, yes, yes, yes, yes.

Wow.

So they're like, this suggestibility thing really worked great for the cops.

It literally was.

Let me try it on myself.

Real, like live, you could see the suggestibility happening.

And so the story became on redirect.

My client came up to her, stopped next to her.

And they did this like cute little demonstration in front of the jury where the, the DA went

up to the, to the, to the girl.

And how close was she?

Let's, let me circle you.

The story became, our client went really close to her, almost within an inch, opened the box

cutter right when she got near her.

So she got near her, click, click, click.

The box cutter opens, circles around her with a box cutter open, and then goes to the

back.

This is on the redirect.

This is on the redirect.

Wow.

Okay.

So then it became, it became a lot more assaultive.

It just became a lot more threatening.

And then, uh, so what's the next piece of evidence for the, for the DA?

Then it's the younger girl, the younger sister, the younger sister.

And she's like what, 10?

She was 10.

Oh, another thing.

So I forgot.

So usually when you have child witnesses, you can try to, um, ask the judge to do some

sort of competency, um, hearing, which is, are they even competent to testify if

they're really young?

I wanted the middle sister to testify ultimately.

So, and the older sister was 15.

I didn't really make a big deal of that competency with these kids, but the judge was like, I'll

do my own competency inquiry in front of the jury.

I kept objecting like, your honor, you can't ask these kids in front of the jury if they

know the difference between truth and a lie.

It's very prejudicial because you do it outside the presence of the jury.

But thankfully, so with the older sister, she takes a stand and the judge goes, okay, young

lady, you know, this is a mic.

This is a court.

Do you know the difference between the truth and a lie?

And I had objected already before.

And I was so worried.

And this girl, this 15 year old girl looks at the judge and goes, kind of, I kind of, kind

of.

And the judge was like, okay.

He also was taken aback.

He's like, well, if I say that my hair is black, would you disagree?

And she said, yeah, it's got gray in it, which I thought was also, it was so good.

So, and he did that with the younger sister too.

Before the younger sister takes a stand, he was like, do you know the difference between

truth and a lie?

And she was like, no, I don't.

So it was great.

It happened in front of the jury.

Neither of them knew what the truth and a lie was.

And I'm thankful for the judge.

You know, what's the law on that?

So they, do they still get to testify if they don't know what the difference is?

Like, I think they did.

Some would say no, Dave.

Right?

Some would say no.

My judge kept saying that they cannot take the adult oath.

There's a kiddie oath?

So he was like, I have to do this.

And I said, it would have been just easier for everyone if they just took, but yeah, I don't

know.

Okay.

So the adult oath is swear to tell the truth and nothing but the truth.

Nothing but the truth.

Right.

But apparently for a kiddie oath, there's only half the truth.

Yeah.

It's half the truth.

Some of the truth.

If you kind of know what the truth is, just say kind of what you think of the truth.

You only got to tell some of the truth.

And you get a cookie.

Okay.

So then how's the youngest sister go?

So she, again, she testified, um, she, she didn't even know the word knife.

She said it was a pointy thing.

Um, and she said she was in the back and our client came to the back, stood, it was several

feet, like at least 10 to 12 feet away from her, um, by the orange tree, threw her trash

out, spent several minutes by the orange tree and they were playing.

Just plotting her, her, her vicious attack from several feet away and then just went to

the front.

That's all.

She didn't see anything else.

Um, and I had, I had asked her, there was a shopping cart there you were playing.

And she said, yes.

And I remember I had asked her, was it like a, like a, like an actual grocery store shopping

cart.

And she said, yes, that someone had taken it.

Um, and this shopping cart was still between her and our client.

And that's all that happened.

She didn't see anything else, saw the knife that was kind of pointed in her direction,

but our client wasn't looking at her, didn't say anything to her.

And that was it.

What does the DA do with this kind of lack of, you know, anything incriminating here?

So she tried to, she, again on redirect, kept asking all these leading questions, um, kept

re asking questions and I kept objecting to ask and answered.

And thankfully the judge was better.

And again, judges, it's so funny cause it was near the, nearing the end of the day and

he was just like, I need, I'm done.

So the, the, the objections were getting sustained a lot more, um, on redirect with her.

Well, I think probably at this point though, it seems like maybe the judge is

seeing like this case is garbage.

So now he's, so he's giving the DA less leeway to try to establish the crime here.

Possibly.

So then what's the next piece of evidence for the, for the prosecutor?

They call the cop.

And so this is the one that was the training cop or the one that, the one doing the training

or getting trained?

The one, well, the one getting trained or no, he wasn't even getting trained.

The one that was supposed to be getting training.

Um, he, so I had subpoenaed both him and the training officer.

The training officer never showed up.

So I saw him in the more, I saw the officer in the morning, walk into court as I was running

calendar and go into the DA's office and, you know, spent two hours.

So I knew they were talking.

So when they, when she walked in, um, a few minutes before we started that morning with

the trial, I asked her like, Hey, do you have any statements for me?

And she was like, Oh yeah.

And just took out this, this notebook, just full of handwritten notes.

And, um, she said that the officer was going to testify that the reason he didn't separate

the witnesses was because he didn't know who was who when he first got to the scene.

So that was why.

And that he's going to testify that my client was evasive, that she was refusing to answer

questions.

It was really difficult to get a story out of her.

And, um, that was it.

So, um, so he, he testified, um, and again, on direct, he testified that, um, he got to

the scene.

The children were sobbing uncontrollably.

They were shaking.

They were terrified.

And our client, um, you know, was evasive.

She was, you know, not pretty much not telling the truth.

And then he testified that he kept saying, when you respond to 911 calls, it's a very dynamic

situation.

And so I didn't know who was who, but when I found out who was who, then I did my job

correctly.

He also testified that he Googled box cutter, shown them photos of box cutters, and they

had identified what it, the type.

So how could it be suggested?

But that was pretty much what he testified to on direct.

I initially kept objecting to foundation.

There's a lot of things he was testifying to that he had no foundation for, but he was

lying to such an extent that I just let, I, at some point I just let him go on direct.

Right.

And he testified on cross that he had only been allowed on the streets as a field officer

for two months when this incident happened, that he had a training officer.

And so I impeached him with this whole notion that he didn't know who was who when he first

got to the scene.

Because if you look at the body worn video, multiple times he's asked, separate these

witnesses.

Like at that point, he knows who these people are and he didn't separate them.

So that was the first thing that he lied about.

And then I impeached him with the evasiveness.

So I asked, okay, you're saying my client was evasive.

What are you basing that on?

And he goes, she wouldn't answer my questions.

And I said, well, you didn't ask her any questions.

You asked her one question and he said, no, I asked her questions.

So I was like, great.

I'm going to play my, I'm going to play the, I'm going to play the video.

And there was objection.

Your Honor, we talked about this.

She cannot self-serving.

And we had to have this entire sidebar multiple times where I said, your Honor, they cannot

put up a witness who lies and then say, I am not allowed to play the video because it's

a self-serving statement.

Right.

So you're, you, you want to impeach the officer with, we're not trying to introduce a self-serving

statement.

We're impeaching the credibility of the officer at this point.

Right.

Exactly.

And he had also testified that my client had said, um, that she was, he, like, she wouldn't

really say what she was doing with a knife.

And that was a lie.

She had said exactly what she was doing with the knife.

So we had this fight and I think it was good because the jury at that point is curious.

Like, why, why am I not getting this video?

I want it.

I want to see the body worn video.

I'm not getting a body worn video.

So when they, he finally let it in and the jury saw it, they, I mean, I could tell from

their faces.

They were, they were done with the officer at that point.

Um, and that's when I was like, okay, officer.

So you said you asked her questions.

You asked one question, which is gay happened.

By the way, that's how it came out.

Kay happened.

It was on the, it was on the video.

It was on the video.

And he, at that point was being fighty with me, except he wasn't smart.

So he was like, he said, and I quote, well, I don't know if you know, but it's hard to

literally translate from one language to another.

Meanwhile, there are interpreters in the courtroom translating.

So I said, officer, it's hard if you don't speak the language.

Right.

And he said, oh, I, I, I, I took one year of Spanish.

I speak Spanish.

And it was clear that that was not what happened.

Um, so we had a lot of back and forth with that.

He was like saying all these, all these things about linguistics.

So I asked him, officer, you don't have a linguistics degree.

Do you?

And he said, you want me to list off all the degrees I have?

And I said, please, please do that.

And then the judge was like, Ms.

Gorgon.

High school.

The judge, the judge was like, Ms.

Gorgon, let's all calm down, which I hate.

It's just like, I'm fine.

I'm calm.

He's the one who's lying.

Um, I impeached him with the whole notion that these kids were sobbing.

Bullshit that the judge said, let's calm down.

Like what?

Cause you were like getting, I mean, it's a show, it's drama that it's a trial.

So just because like, if you're getting, if you're going up to a level, that's the level

you want to be at, you know, are you, are you at some level or no?

Cause the cop's lying.

So then you gotta, you gotta confront him and it's adversarial.

It's confrontation.

It's going to get passionate, you know?

Right.

Absolutely.

And I think it wasn't that I was kind of going off for no reason.

I, it was legitimate.

He was lying.

And here's the thing too, this cop is testifying to what your client said and you're just trying

to bring in the video to impeach of what the client said.

You're not introducing the client's statement.

They've introduced the client's statement.

They've introduced the client's statement.

So you're just bringing out the truth of it.

I mean, the DA's objecting and trying to hide from the truth and saying, no, the law doesn't

say you can bring in the video.

The law says I could just put up a cop to testify to what your client says.

So that's fucking bullshit.

It was bullshit.

And the problem was I tried to get the officer, like I wasn't going to play the video if he

was up front and said, yeah, actually nevermind.

I, I never asked her a single question.

He kept lying.

And that was the problem.

Um, and she also, the DA also said, well, if Ms.

Gorgon was going to object to the Spanish issue, she should have done it already.

Like she's now waived the objection.

The Spanish issue.

What's the Spanish issue?

That like this officer doesn't speak Spanish.

So how could he even testify to her statements?

And I was like, I want her statements in.

You brought her statements in.

I wanted her statements in, but you get, you don't get to lie about the statements.

Um, so that was frustrating, but it ultimately came in.

And I also frustrated the judge.

Cause you think the judge, did he rule in your favor on this issue right away?

No, no.

He had been hot, almost pretending like, you know, like, uh, listen to the DA's arguments.

But to me, it's clear cut that the statement comes in.

So why is this judge acting like he's, it's not going to come?

And that was a problem.

And I, I, I've never, I've had this issue before and I've had judges for the most part be

like, it's, it's impeachment, it's impeachment, it's coming in.

And this was a little difficult, but it helped me ultimately.

Cause in my closing, I was able to say like, you saw, I was trying to show you the truth

and it was objection after objection.

And it was like pulling teeth trying to show you that video.

So it ended up being helpful.

Um, it just, I was worried that he wasn't going to let it in at all, but he did.

It just took, it just took some fighting.

Now was this cop, was he the one that wrote the report?

Yes.

And so did you ask him about this missing middle child?

Yes.

And it was great because, um, he, his report read, it was so funny.

It was like, she violently lunged at, at them while calling them names.

And again, even on the body we're in video, that's not what happened.

So I was able to impeach him with all of that.

And then I said, Hey, there are at least two witnesses that were present.

One, the middle sister and one in the back, but the middle sister, you spoke with her.

She didn't see this knife.

She didn't see the circling.

She didn't see, she didn't hear the name calling and she's nowhere in the report.

Initially he tried to be like, well, it's a summary.

And I said, well, you, you wouldn't put exculpatory evidence into the summary.

And he was trying to fight a little bit, but near the end, he just was like, yeah, it's not in the report.

But through him, I was able to get all of the helpful statements out.

So I didn't have the call, the middle sister, I didn't have the call, the neighbor, because he pretty much admitted to all of it.

But this was after the, all the impeachment.

So he was thankfully a lot better.

Primed him.

Yeah.

He knows if he starts lying, you're going to play more video, more video that looks real bad for him.

So when he said that the kids were kind of shaking and crying, was able to pull one video of the, of the younger sister who was not crying at all.

So I was like, let's look at the, the, the sobbing and the shaking.

And he said on redirect, and I'm quoting the body worn video did not capture what my eyes captured.

It did not capture her tears.

And one of my jurors straight up laughed like out loud laugh because it was ridiculous.

He was just, he went on and on about the technology.

It doesn't capture voices always.

It was, and then he got up at some point to show exactly where it was on his chest.

Um, it was, it was a whole thing, but he was just lying left and right.

And I just let it go.

Cause I could tell from my jury that they were done with him.

Uh, all right.

So then any other evidence from the, from the DA?

No, they arrested.

So what, what did you do after they rested their case?

Yeah.

So after they rested their case, um, I, we usually do what's called an 11, 18.1 motion, which

is a motion to dismiss.

Um, and you're pretty much saying, your honor, even if you look at the, like at the facts

in the best case scenario for the, for the prosecution, there isn't enough to go to the

jury.

Just it, it doesn't meet the requirement.

The elements haven't been met.

And I thought it was true for all of the, all of the charges, but the problem with the older

sister was when we came back on redirect, when she exaggerated, that became an issue.

Um, the judge, um, took it under submission.

Initially just straight up denied, denied it against the older sister.

We came back the next day and he granted it against the younger sister.

So both of the counts against the younger sister, assault and brandishing were thrown out.

Oh, okay.

Cause the DA was unable to, on recross, ask leading questions to establish the elements

for the younger sister.

Exactly.

But only could establish the guilt for the, the elements with the older sister.

I still don't get an assault for the, for the older sister.

And that's what I was trying to argue.

I mean, it was hard because she said that our client came close to her and I guess arguably

opening up the box cutter near her and walked around her, walked around her, no movement

towards her, no movement towards her.

If he's, if she's holding the knife out and technically would keep walking straight, the

knife would have contact, have had contact with her.

Look at the prosecutor over here.

Uh, okay.

So now, so at least, I mean, there you go.

Half the case is gone.

Half the charges are gone.

Yes.

Um, that's still fine.

So then now it's, uh, time for the defense.

Yes.

To put on a case.

Yes.

If they want to.

Yes.

And it's funny cause this judge was kind of new.

So he kept in front of the jury saying, Ms. Gogan has promised we have witnesses.

And I just was so frustrated cause I have no burden and there are times where you reevaluate

and you are like, I'm not going to call anyone.

I don't have to.

Um, who, so who beginning of the trial, who did you think you would have testified?

So I was, I had a lot, like the cops, obviously, if she wasn't going to call them, I was going

to put up my expert, um, my client's daughter who I ended up talking to as a character witness.

How old's your client's daughter?

She was 31 at that time.

And so that was another thing.

My client also, I, I, I know people have different theories.

I love putting up clients and Mike and I usually argue about this cause I, I like it.

My jurors, no, it's, it's, it first off, like in the misdemeanor case, it's easier for clients

to testify and clients should testify if they can.

Right.

Yeah.

It's the jurors want to hear from them.

They want to hear from them.

And in this case, our client had no record.

Um, but I get it cause I think you just talk to me next time.

Don't talk to Mike, I'm here for you.

But I understand it because I've had, I've been burned by this before where you, case

is going really, really great and you put up your client and then it becomes about your

client, whether they believe your client or not.

And sometimes they, they say stuff that's not corroborated by the body wearing.

And the client can't say, well, the body wearing video doesn't show everything like the cop

can.

You can't.

Yes.

When it comes to the client, the body wearing video works perfectly.

Yeah.

In this case, I had thought she was going to testify, but the more I talked to her about it

and I think the more she saw cross, she was worried.

She said that she was worried about, you know, being cross examined, saying the wrong thing.

She was also always very emotional.

Every time I spoke with her, she would break down and just a little bit of context.

So she had, because she had to move out, she was living in a trailer and she had to manually

heat water in the morning.

She had no running hot water.

She had to heat water in the mornings to shower.

And because of the condition of her skin, she was either always very cold or all of a sudden

very hot.

So she would wear like multiple layers and just, it was a lot for her every morning to

come to, to come to court and then hear these lies.

And she just was always very emotional and she was worried.

She was worried about getting on the stand and saying the wrong thing.

And when we talked, I talked to her and I, and I thought we had enough.

And so I just, it was her decision.

If she didn't want to testify, she didn't have to.

So she chose not to.

You mentioned the daughter.

So what exactly did you bring her to testify about?

Yeah.

So I put up the daughter last and I just kind of wanted to have the daughter talk a little

bit about her mom, you know, what kind of mom she was growing up, kind of just a character

witness.

And then a little bit about the neighborhood, the issues, the kids, how the kids would treat

their mom and how, you know, if, if anything, she had seen any issues with the regards to

the neighbors.

And that was really helpful.

Okay.

Oh, what was the prosecutor's cross of the daughter?

Oh, it was so funny.

She said, she asked, well, you know, you, you're, you love your mom.

Right.

And obvi.

And then the, the, she said, you, you, you don't want to see her get in trouble.

And it was so good.

I hadn't even prepped her for this, but we had very little time.

And I just was like, I'm going to put you up.

And the daughter was like, she's innocent.

She's innocent.

She said it twice.

Yeah.

The DA was like, objection.

And the DA kept doing this thing where she objected, but there was no basis.

And the judge.

Well, no, the DA just doesn't know the basis.

Right.

That's the basis.

I don't like that.

Your honor.

I need you to stop this right now.

I've gone wrong.

I did the wrong thing right now.

And don't.

Shouldn't have that.

Shouldn't have that either.

Oh.

And the judge was just like overruled on all the grounds.

But yeah, it was.

And then one other thing the DA asked was, well, were these kids ever mean to you?

And the daughter said, well, no, they didn't call me the names they called my mom because

I don't have the scars my mom has.

So that was helpful.

All right.

So is it anything else about the trial?

Any side stories?

Little things?

I did have a juror.

Okay.

I had a juror.

This was a juror who I thought liked me.

This was a juror who said, no big deal.

I was just shot at a couple of times.

In the middle of my cross of the officer, he allegedly was asleep.

I wasn't paying attention.

And the judge in front of the entire jury was like, juror number, blah, blah, blah.

Wake up.

Miss Corgan, you know, is doing some effective cross-examination right now.

And he woke up and he apologized.

And I was like, I'm sorry.

I'll try to keep it entertaining.

We moved on.

And the judge would just would not let this go.

So he asked me if I wanted to be heard.

And I said, no, I like the juror.

I didn't want to be heard.

The DA asked for the juror to be kicked for sleeping during my cross.

And their basis was, it's so prejudicial to Miss Corgan and her clients.

They care.

They really care.

And I was like, I appreciate everyone caring so much.

I am waiving any prejudice that's caused by that.

The judge kept coming back to this.

And he was, he brought the juror in and he said, I'm going to go and get the transcripts.

So we have no court reporter now.

We had a recording, a recorder device thing.

And he said, I'm going to order the transcripts of the 15 seconds that you missed.

And I'm going to, we're going to read it to you.

So come early.

And we did this a couple of times.

And we just didn't have the transcripts ready because it's a fucking shit show.

And he kept coming back.

And on the last day, the judge is like, well, I don't have the transcripts and we're about

to go into closing.

So I'm going to excuse this juror.

And I just, I was livid.

I objected strenuously.

And he, again, what was pissing me off the most was them pretending like this was about

me and my client and being cared to my client.

Or like they care so much about the process.

Like they care so much.

They can never look at the evidence.

They care so much that they don't want the video coming in of your client's statement.

So they know the truth.

They just care so much about this process and it being fair.

They're the most utmost respectful, such integrity in the system that we have to make sure we

get it right.

Right, right.

And so they excused the juror over my objection.

We seated an alternate.

Ended up not mattering.

I just, the juror himself was also clearly, he's sitting through, he's been sitting through

the entire evidence.

You've asked him to come early multiple days in a row.

You don't, you don't have the transcript.

And how many days had the juror been there at this point?

At that point, it was like eight days.

Eight days without hearing a crime being committed.

Right.

I'd be asleep too.

Yeah.

Exactly.

I was like, I think the sleeping was a good, was a good sign.

Kids being knifed and you're bored.

It's, it's fine.

All right.

So time for closing arguments.

How did that go?

Yeah.

Closing.

She, she, she closed first.

It was pretty blah.

And it was one of those situations again, where I hear her recite the facts and I have to look

around to, to be like, were we in the same trial?

That's not what happened.

Um, but that was when she said, you know, Ms. Gorgon's trying to make this about the officer.

The officer is not on trial.

His investigation is not on trial, which I thought was a great line.

It's like, absolutely is.

So I got up.

And one thing is, so since the judge had dismissed.

By the way, I think it's good, like if during the prosecutor's first argument, they're already

attacking you and rebutting you, you know, like you're, you're the arguments they think

are going to come, you know, like they, they're not, they can't just put their own argument

forward as to why your client's guilty.

They have to already kind of like shift it towards you.

That's a good sign.

100%.

And in her, in her a argument, her first argument, she kept saying Ms. Gorgon wants it both

ways.

And it was funny cause I had not said anything at that point.

So I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about, but she kept saying like,

Oh, Ms. Gorgon wants it, wants it that these kids are afraid of her client.

And yet if they were afraid, um, you know, why did they stay outside?

It was just asinine arguments.

Um, so I got up on, on my B and I was able to, um, I kind of did the whole, if, even if

you believe the older daughter, there is no crime here, but let's talk about what you

cannot absolutely believe the older daughter.

Um, but one of my favorite moments was the judge had struck two of the counts and he had

read the jury instructions.

He had started reading the jury instructions on Friday afternoon.

We'd gone over the weekend.

We came back and he read the remainder of the instructions and the jury's already checked

out during the instructions.

So with the two day break, I got up and I said, just everyone's on the same page.

Two of the counts are no longer before you to consider.

They're no longer before you ladies and gentlemen.

And you can't say why, but they were like, all the notebooks went up and they were just writing

two accounts gone.

And I thought it was great.

I, I mean, we came out and they were just both like, were they thrown out?

And I said, yes, they were both thrown out.

Um, but I kind of went through it with all the inconsistencies and this notion that this,

this older girl allegedly had, had a knife pointed in her direction.

She was circled like she's pray stays exactly where she is, doesn't move, doesn't call for

help.

And not only that, but when our client comes back, she calls her a like, she's not, she's

so unafraid of our client.

She gives it right back to her.

And I think the jury, again, logically realized they could not trust, um, the older, the older

daughter.

Um, and then I, you know, that my argument, I sat down, the, the DA got up and she, you

know, rebutted and in her rebuttal, she, the first thing that came out of her mouth in

her rebuttal was, ladies and gentlemen, Ms. Gorgon is correct in that my job is to prove

this case beyond a reasonable doubt.

Let's talk about what her job is.

Ms. Gorgon's job is to confuse you.

Oh God.

Objection?

Objection.

Sustained?

Overruled.

Initially overruled.

What?

This judge.

And then it got better.

She said.

It is on her resume though.

So my duties are confusing the jury.

Um, and then she, it got worse.

She said, she does this.

It's her job.

She does this all the time.

And I objected again.

And judge, and judge said, sidebar, we go up.

And at this point I'm, I'm livid.

Yeah.

So I'm walking with all my might, um, over to the sidebar and the judge turned to the

DA and said, you can say she's confusing them now.

You cannot say it's her job.

Her job is to defend people.

And I said, I want to make a record about misconduct because I think that's misconduct.

And the judge said, Ms. Gorgon, you won already.

And I said, no, I don't think I would not.

Calm down, Ms. Gorgon, calm down.

And again, the number of times that's all Ms. Gorgon lets all of us calm down.

Making a record because it's misconduct, like what's, what are you trying to do or what

does that mean?

I think if there's a finding of misconduct, it's...

It's reportable to the state bar.

You might want sanctions.

Mm-hmm.

Monetary sanctions could be, you know...

Because I know this judge...

Punishment.

This judge wants to get it right.

He made that jerk come back.

He was ordering the transcript because he slept for 15 seconds.

The judge was so concerned about the integrity of this process that he even kicked the good

juror for the defense off just to make sure that everything was done fairly.

But he wouldn't let you make that in this...

Okay.

No.

Okay.

Well, I won already.

He's like, you won already.

I'm going to sustain it right now.

And then so he sustained it and we come back and the DA goes, never mind, ladies and gentlemen,

I misspoke.

It's not her job.

But Miss Gorgon is like an octopus.

At that point, I had heard this before, so I knew where it was going and I objected again

and it was overruled.

And she said, apparently when octopus are trying to run away from predators or trying to kind

of get away from whatever, they release ink to confuse or like lose trace.

And that's what she was trying to argue that she said, octopuses, which was another thing

that just made me so angry.

They release ink to confuse and that's what she's doing.

She's releasing ink to confuse you all.

And I objected because I thought it was inappropriate.

But what I loved is a couple of my jurors, when they heard that, just looked so confused.

They were looking around like, is this happening to us right now?

Is that what she's arguing?

But the entire B was about me, which I loved.

All right then.

So time for jury deliberations then, right?

Yes.

All right.

And how long did that last for?

About 30 minutes, a little under 30 minutes.

They had brought a lot of muffins and donuts and bagels and stuff to eat while they were

deliberating.

And I talked to them after and they had said that they had spent some time kind of figuring

out who was getting what before they even deliberated, which I just was like, great.

My client and I were stressed out and y'all were trying to figure out who gets a blueberry

muffin or not.

All right.

Juror five had focused on the blueberry muffin.

All right.

So let's talk about the reading of the verdict.

They came back.

It was funny.

My foreperson ended up being this younger white woman.

I had a lawyer on my jury, a male lawyer.

I had a male doctor on my jury.

And she just took over and it was great.

And when I spoke to her after, she said there wasn't a single moment that this was going

to be a guilty for her.

And I was really, really thankful for that.

But yeah, they came back.

The verdict was read, which is one of the worst waiting.

And we had a judicial assistant who, before the verdict was read, kept asking me how to

pronounce the older daughter's first name.

And she kept arguing with me because it was spelled differently than the pronunciation.

And I was just like, I don't, I don't care how you pronounce it.

As long as you say not guilty, you can say whatever you want after that.

But yeah, the verdict came out and a lot of jurors waited outside, at least five or six

of them, including my alternates, to talk to us and also pass out muffins and stuff that

they had left.

Oh, nice.

That's, I mean, that's always nice when the jurors want to talk to you because it's very

awkward when they don't want to talk to you.

I know, and I usually don't talk to them because honestly, unless it's a hang, they're never

helpful.

But they were, they all wanted to talk to my client and they all gave her, you know,

a hug and they all apologized to her for what she had to go through.

Yeah.

And so what did they say about the case?

Yeah.

They were just were like, why was this filed?

And I told them, believe it or not, it was two strikes initially.

It was a felony and they were scandalized.

And the DA on my case did not walk out to talk to them.

But as I was talking to them outside, the supervisor happened to be walking by.

And again, my jurors, the first thing they said was, fuck that cop.

We want to talk to the judge about that cop.

Like, what's going to happen with that cop?

And I said, nothing.

Promotion.

Don't be a detective next week.

But I said, oh, you know, here's, here's the, the DA supervisor walking by.

I'm sure he'll love to hear your opinions.

And he happens to be potentially likely running for LADA soon.

And over, all over the media doing his appearances everywhere.

Yeah.

He's on conservative media outlets.

Yes.

You know, trashing the current DA.

Yes.

And I'm sure he'd love to hear feedback.

And he, him and I don't have the worst relationship.

So I do, I tend to mock him for some of the things that he does.

So I was like, hey, you, you want to hear from the jury?

They have feedback for you.

And he stood there and he listened and was arguing with them about the facts of the case

on a case that he did not know anything about.

And the jurors, I think, were disappointed and taken aback by the reception that they got

because he just was not receptive at all.

He didn't care.

He didn't care.

And he, you know, he was arguing that, oh, we were, we're understaffed.

So, you know, we, we don't have a lot of time to evaluate these cases.

We're tele-chilling.

We're tele-chilling.

And the, the, the, the jury was just, they, they were, yeah, they were disappointed in

him.

Well, great job, Adela.

Thanks for coming on the show.

Thanks for sharing this story.

Thank you for having me.

Yeah.

Wally, thanks for coming on the show too.

Thanks, Dave.

Mike, it's great to see you again, buddy.

Great to be back again.

And Adela, we're going to close the show off with a question we ask all our guests.

You've been a public defender for a few years now, and we want to know, why did you want

to become a public defender?

I knew you were going to ask that question.

So, for me, the entire notion of, you know, what is criminal law or what, who gets punished

for what, that was a concept that I learned when I was quite young.

So, I grew up in Iran, and my father was not around growing up, and I had heard from my

grandma, my mom, that he was in and out of custody, and what he was doing pretty much

was forging visas and travel documents for people, for people to get out of the country.

And my grandma, a lot of times, would just be like, you know, he deserves to be in jail.

He's doing things against the law.

And I was pretty young, but I remember thinking, like, we're all trying to get out of here,

and why is that a bad thing?

Why is he doing something bad if he's helping people get out of the country?

And so, I always didn't know the language, but as I grew older, grew up in Iran, this

entire notion that a group of people decide what is wrong, which is what is right, was taught

to me at an early age, and as I grew up, left the country, went to law school eventually.

Criminal law was always something I wanted to do.

I was interested in it in a more of a philosophical sense of why do we criminalize specific things?

And then when I clerked for our office my first year, it became so clear to me that everything

that I was learning in law school, which is these crimes require a mens rea, a mental state,

an act as race, all of these things, and a lot of times, it's just poverty and a lack

of resources that causes our clients to do what they do, and structural racism and colorism

and sexism.

And yeah, it was no brainer that I was going to be a public defender once I clerked for

our office.

It's also, I remember in law school too, they talk about the theory behind punishment.

Like it serves some sort of public like retribution or deterrence so people don't commit crimes

knowing that this could have all this kind of stuff that make it kind of justify like

this theory of philosophy behind it, and it's just bullshit.

It's bullshit.

And especially in misdemeanors of the volume that we practice, most people don't sit there

and think, I am going to commit this crime for X, Y, and Z reasons.

Like it's not a logical choice.

It's a lot of times, the whole notion of retribution or deterrence, it's just, it's

bullshit.

Right.

Or making the victims whole.

No one gets whole.

No one gets whole or it's made better because of the whole system.

So that's bullshit too.

It's all bullshit.

Well, thanks for coming on the podcast today.

Wally, thanks for coming on the show today.

Glad.

What led to this whole episode was because, you know, Michael is the supervisor for Adela.

She wins the trial.

Michael sends out a blast email to the whole office.

I saw the facts, saw that there was a lying cop, and saw that my boy Waleed was involved

in the case somehow, and I knew I wanted to get you on the show because I've always wanted

you on the show as my buddy since we started in the office together.

So I'm glad we got to hang out, talk the shit, record it.

It was good.

And it's good to see you again too, Michael.

Great to see you.

And Adela.

Congrats.

You're a rising star in the office.

You've got a huge career in front of you, and I look forward to wanting to see you.

Thank you, David.

Monitoring it from far away.

Thank you, and thanks, Waleed, for working up that case.

Thank you.

All right, guys.

Thanks for coming on the show.

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 guess what?

We'll be back in two weeks with Another Not Guilty straight from the trenches.

We'll be back in two weeks with Another Not Guilty straight from the trenches.

We'll be back in two weeks with Another Not Guilty straight from the trenches.