Miscarriage Of Justice – When Science Meets the Courtroom (and Wins)

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So when you compare it to the 20 weeks versus 30 weeks, you see a big drop off. That was very consistent with my theory that there had been a bleed in the placenta that had been going on for weeks. This was something that wasn't diagnosed. You don't see this just by doing like a normal heart rate. This is something that can only be determined through ultrasound. And there weren't any ultrasounds done in that 10 week period in between. So no one caught the issue. And so everyone just presumed

that everything that everything was going well. Her heart rate's fine. Everything's fine. There was a problem

underneath the surface that no one could see. 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 the deck stacked against us.

Welcome to Another Not Guilty.

Welcome back to Another Not Guilty, everybody. Special edition today. We have a very exciting show. I know I say that every show, but this time I really mean it. I'm here with two of our audience's favorites. We got Michael and we got Steve.

That's Steve. Yes. Also known as the Mooch. The Mooch. Steve, the Mooch. Now, guys, Michael's been a guest with Two Not Guilty. He's been on the guest twice already.

That's right. Each of you have co-hosted this show a number of times. Been a co-host as well.

Always an honor. I don't even know who's who today. Who are we here for today? Who's the guest and who's the co-host?

Well, I am the guest. Oh, okay. It was a big win for me, so I'm actually very excited to be here.

Oh, you're the guest this time. This will be your third time. Third time. The hat trick. Listen, you know, Mike, our audience already knows about that. It's not what's going on the outside. It's going on the inside.

I actually changed it up this time. We've already heard this one before. You got something different for us?

This one was a little bit different. Okay, so you just won a trial then, right?

Just won a trial, a murder trial.

Whew. Bringing the heat on third time's the charm with another Not Guilty.

That's right. Okay, so it was murder. First degree, second degree, right?

Second degree. Only second. Correct.

They didn't charge first. No, it's a little bit tough to do first on this type of case.

Ooh, good tease. Good tease.

We've seen the prosecution, though. They tend to go first regardless how tough it is.

Yeah, this one's a little bit different.

Okay, all right. So then what type of murder is it?

It is murder of a fetus. So, yeah. So when I got the case originally, it was just a domestic violence case.

Domestic violence, residential burglary, violation of a restraining order.

And on my first appearance, the prosecution came with an amended complaint, count four, charging murder.

And so that changed – no, that changed – you know, at first I'm like, oh, wow, this is kind of a serious, you know, domestic violence.

But okay. And right away, it was a murder.

The allegation is my client, he's at this property.

It's like a – it's like an apartment style.

It's kind of a home with an upstairs.

The bottom is one tenant, the upstairs is another tenant.

And my client had resided in the upstairs portion.

There was a restraining order in September of the previous year.

Now we're in February.

And client is going, trying to – well, the report says he's there and he goes upstairs and he knocks.

And he knocks on the door and there's no answer.

And so client gets his key, opens up the door, and he makes his way through the living room to the left into a bedroom.

Once he's in the bedroom, he sees his estranged wife laying in bed with another man.

And she is, what we learn, seven months pregnant.

She gets up once he enters the room.

And there was an argument.

He kicks her in the upper leg.

Then he kicks her in the stomach area.

The boyfriend then intervenes, separates the two.

And they make – after the separation, the boyfriend walks my client to the front door.

My client leaves and that's it.

The report – that's the first report.

The next – there's an additional report.

The next day, she's feeling ill.

And so she goes to the clinic.

At the clinic, she is given an ultrasound and they don't hear her.

They don't have a heartbeat.

And so they send her to the hospital.

At the hospital, they, again, confirm there's no heartbeat.

They induce labor and a stillbirth takes place.

In addition to that, whenever a pregnant woman is involved in some kind of trauma, most likely a car accident, they administer what's called a Kleihauer-Betke test or some form of that test.

And what that test does is it tests the maternal blood to see if there's any fetal blood cells in the mother's bloodstream.

If there is not, then that's indicative that everything's okay.

You dodged a bullet.

But if there is, then that is suggestive of a problem with the placenta and the blood from the fetus going into the mother's stream, which it shouldn't happen.

And so that might be something that they might take more seriously.

In this case, they kind of did it the opposite.

There was the allegation of trauma and they did the blood test and it came back positive that there was fetal blood cells in the mother's bloodstream.

The one big thing that happened pretty early on strategically is I did not interview the boyfriend.

And you purposely did not interview the boyfriend.

Correct.

Okay.

Why is that?

The alleged victim in the case had reached out to me after I got the case back.

She had provided a letter to the prosecution and also provided a letter to me.

And she was essentially saying she didn't want this case to continue.

She wanted the case to end.

She didn't want to prosecute.

And so she kind of had talked to me along those lines.

I don't remember how long into it, but at some point she did tell me that he never kicked her.

And she just tells you this or in the letter she says this?

No, it doesn't say it in a letter.

She tells it to me.

Oh, okay.

Like in court one day?

Right, after court at one of the appearances.

And this is before the preliminary hearing?

This is before the preliminary hearing.

And one of the things she mentions is that she's the one that, and I didn't know how to read this,

but she seemed very adamant that I not speak to the boyfriend and suggested that the boyfriend isn't going to be good for my case, that he's not going to help me out.

Okay, that makes sense.

So, yeah, see, you know, I don't know what to do with it.

You know, obviously there's different ways to read it.

There's the boyfriend's telling the truth and it really did happen.

So, you know, so you have that in the back of your head.

You know, you also think maybe the boyfriend, maybe he's the one that abused her.

Maybe he's aggressive with her.

She just seemed very adamant that that not happen.

And at that point, you know, she was telling me that this didn't happen, that there was no kick.

My client didn't have anything to do with this.

And so I did not want to add any external pressure from her to her that might get her to change that, change her story.

Okay.

So I said, as long as I'm, you know, as long as she's okay, then I'm, you know, what she's telling me, if that's what she testifies to, then that's great.

Right.

You don't want to like, yeah, it's good right now.

You don't want to do anything to affect it.

Right.

Are we going straight to prelim now or is there any sort of back work we're doing?

Did you do like anything with like medical experts and stuff like that?

Right.

Yeah.

I mean, of course you, so, so again, one of the biggest dominoes is an autopsy because a lot

of your experts are going to be based off of some of those medical records, especially this

type of case.

Um, I should note that the, the alleged victim in this case is seven months pregnant, but she's

also 44 years old with a history of gestational diabetes.

And so this is a high risk pregnancy.

And so you're wondering, you know, what is this autopsy going to show?

Are they going to be able to show the cause of death?

And so I made the decision rather than to go forward with the preliminary hearing without

the autopsy, which if I had done that, I would not have had the opportunity to cross examine

the coroner.

I, you know, my client and I decide that it's best to wait for the autopsy before we do the

preliminary hearing.

And is your client, is he okay with continuing to waive time and delay the case?

Or is that, and is that something that at some point becomes an issue?

It becomes an issue later down the line.

Uh, he, he agrees that it's important to wait for the autopsy.

And at that point, you know, by the time I get the case back, we're talking, it's been

months.

And, you know, we start maybe reading into it.

Maybe the fact that there is no autopsy means that they're having a trouble determining cause

of death.

They usually come back a little bit more quickly.

And so, you know.

It's a lot easier.

It's a bullet to the, to the head.

Right, right, right.

And so, you know, the, the cause of death had been deferred for a while.

So, you know, we're thinking maybe if we wait, we might get a good cause of death.

It might come back indeterminate or maybe something else.

And so we, we decide to wait.

The problem is it essentially took a year from, I believe the, the death was pronounced on February

2nd and the autopsy was finalized mid-January of the following year.

So over 11 months.

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So we get the autopsy and it comes back as a cause of death, intrauterine demise as a

consequence of a history of maternal trauma.

Essentially, they linked the death to the account, her statements of a kick and said that it was

consistent.

And so they ruled that the manner of death was a, a homicide.

Some type of blunt force trauma or to the stomach or abdomen or whatever.

Right.

All right.

So it did not come back the way we were hoping it would come back.

All right.

You share this information with your client and what's his response?

Don't remember the response.

Obviously, you know, it's unfortunately for him, it's just, you know, disappointment after

disappointment after disappointment.

You know, he, he was very depressed during the duration of, of this case.

Right.

Well, he's in, he's in custody.

Right.

He's in custody for something he didn't do.

Is that what the defense is?

He didn't do it?

That's the defense.

He didn't do it.

He's adamant that her entire story is false.

So what he says, and this is all in a recorded interview with the police, that he goes over

to the house, um, trying to do some arrangements with the manager, uh, of the unit because his

name was on the lease, but he's no longer living there because of the restraining order.

And so he wants to, you know, fix that.

Um, and he goes over there, he sees a car he doesn't recognize in the parking spot.

That is usually was his spot that the other neighbors aren't supposed to park in.

It's, it's just two spots for her, for him and the wife.

And so he gets curious.

Um, I think he suspected that there was some infidelity going on.

So he goes up to the apartment.

He knocks on the door, no answer.

He knocks on the door again.

Finally, there's an answer and he has an argument with the wife through the door.

There's two doors.

There's a metal security door and there's a wooden door that opens to the inside.

And so what he said was they opened that wooden door, but the entire time they were talking,

there was that metal door in between them, uh, and that they were arguing.

Uh, he, he essentially says to her, this is why you wanted me out of the house.

This is why you, you made up that restraining order.

Uh, then the boyfriend's also there, they start arguing as well.

Uh, and she says to him, if you don't leave, I'm going to call the police and say, you hit me.

And so he leaves, um, and when was he arrested?

He was arrested.

So the, the incident allegation happens.

Incident is February 1st.

February 2nd is when she goes to the clinic, gives birth at February 3rd, right after midnight.

They arrest him on February 3rd.

So the, the, the, the, pretty much after the delivery.

So she didn't call the police right away.

She did call the police right away.

That's right.

And she called the police.

And that's, again, that's, that's, uh, that was one of the big, I felt one of the big pieces of evidence in my favor early on was when she, we, she called the police.

When we got the 911 call, she's reporting a violation of a restraining order.

She doesn't mention anything about being kicked, doesn't mention anything about being pregnant or being worried about, uh, her baby.

Uh, nothing of that nature, not even really saying anything about him going inside.

Um, I think he said, she said he left already, which, you know, I think the prosecution was trying to suggest that that meant he was inside.

We were obviously, no, that meant he, he left because he was at the door and left.

Um, so that was one thing.

Uh, also the police report indicated that when they arrived, they arrived, you know, this incident allegedly happened around noon.

They arrive within the hour and they offer her medical.

They offer an EMT and she declines medical that day, which again, it kind of just, you know, I think as defense attorneys, we're trained to be a little suspicious of things.

Things like that.

What's the next development in the case?

Um, I guess at this point it's the preliminary hearing and, you know, I, we, the preliminary hearing gets delayed a little bit because she's not showing up.

Um, and then she shows up and, you know, I'm expecting, all right, here's the great reveal.

She's going to, you know, tell everyone that this never happened.

It was all, it was all a lie.

You're sitting there comfy at council.

Right.

Right.

You know, getting, you didn't even write any questions.

Just saying, all right, you see, it's crystal clear.

But, uh, she goes, she testifies and she, there's a lot of inconsistencies, but for the most part, she confirms what was said in the original report.

So she double crosses you.

Sure.

You can call it that.

Did you go back to your client and be like, gosh, you're right.

She is a two time.

She is a backstabber.

Um, and did you, I think he was, he was disappointed, but not surprised by that development.

But after the prelim, that's when, you know, I'm going gung ho.

I'm going to find out, talk to this, this boyfriend, kind of see what he has to say.

Um, and that's the plan.

But two or three days after the preliminary hearing, she walks in on her own to my office.

Um, I get an interpreter there and make sure that there's no, nothing lost in translation, no issues there.

And she, again, she, she says, this didn't happen.

You know, the reason that she went to the preliminary hearing and said that, she said one of the detectives, uh, she gave like a name.

She wasn't clear about the name, but gave kind of the gist of the name and said that he told her that if she didn't come to court

and say what she had told them before, that she could be arrested.

And so that's why she went to court and gave that.

And that, so she was adamant that that's not what happened, that this, this, my client never kicked her.

And so, again, I'm back to the same, okay, we're on the same team again here.

We're, we're, you know, we're on the side of truth here.

And so now at the prelim, do they also have the, uh, medical examiner testify about cause of death?

They do.

Um, and he, he is very confident in his opinion.

He thinks, you know, he's, he states that, yeah, cause of death is, you know, cause of death is this kick, you know, and that, you know,

you don't see this kind of these extensive injuries to the placenta without trauma.

So he's confident in his opinion.

How confident are you in your ability to cross examine him at this stage of the case?

Not that great.

Um, it's, it's a little bit rough.

Um, I'm mispronouncing scientific words left and right.

Um, you know, I'm still trying to get a grasp of science.

But you know what I mean.

You know what I'm saying, right?

Science was never my strongest subject in school.

The thingy that's attached to the thingy.

Right.

Yeah.

Petechia was a word I just did not, did not have down and was corrected.

So, so yeah.

How many times did you have to apologize during that cross examination?

I plead the fifth.

Now, one development I should note to, um, the restraining order, you know, client was

adamant, you know, cause I'm, you know, preparing this case.

You're like, all right, well, we're going to lose the restraining order charge, you know,

just be prepared for that.

It's just, it's just a misdemeanor.

It's not that big of a deal.

And he's like, well, no, I, I didn't violate a restraining order.

And so I'm like, I'm looking at it here.

It's seems like, you know, it tells you to be certain number of yards.

Your version says that you were there.

You know, that, that's a violation.

And so he, he, he's adamant.

No, no, no.

We went back to court and the court got rid of the restraining order.

And I'm like, that, that just doesn't sound like that's, that doesn't happen.

And so, you know, I go to the courthouse, the civil court, you know, wait in line with

the public, go through the archives.

They have to, you know, they, they, they give me the file and I look at it and I'm, I'm just

shocked.

I'm like, I think there was a typo, but essentially the original report says it is valid for two

years, from September to September, two years later.

Um, September, this case, it was September, 2016 to September, 2018.

But then the court sets a two month date for client to bring proof of his residence where

he's living for the purposes of visitation with the daughter.

And so client goes back in two months, um, the mother, the alleged victim in the case does

not go back to court that day.

And it seems like the judge orders visit, allows for visitation with the daughter, with my client

at, you know, his, his new residence.

The issue was on the first page of the restraining order, it tells the date that it expires.

And so this amended order that allows for visitation, it says that the restraining order expires,

not September, 2018, but September, 2016.

So on its face, this restraining order is no longer valid.

It's expired because of a typo that I'm assuming it's a typo.

Um, you know, but you know, what was clear is this document was given to my client.

My client was in court and again, just as in, you know, he was not, he was representing

himself and unsophisticated person goes to court.

The other party's not there is given a paper that says it's no longer expired.

So yeah, that it makes sense that he would believe that this restraining order was expired.

Based on the fact that not only does it say that, but the fact that she didn't show up,

it's almost like, well, if you're not even here, then why are we going to continue this

restraining order?

Right.

And that's, that's civilian lawyer 101.

If someone doesn't show up for a restraining order, it's not valid.

They lose.

Right.

So, so yeah, that's what he's thinking.

So I'm like, wow, I have traction on every single count.

I have something to argue for every charge of this case.

So what happens next in the case?

So the only other thing development prior to this case, finally going to trial is my pathologist.

She, I don't know why it waited so long, but she, she finally tells me, you know, I think

your best bet is to get an expert in placental pathology.

You know, I'm a general pathologist, but this case deals with the placenta.

That's where all, like I said, that's where all the injuries were.

And so you'd be best served having a placental pathologist.

And just real quick for our audience.

What's, what is a pathologist?

A pathologist basically studies the cause of disease or death, something of that nature.

Within the human body, right?

Within the human body, yes.

Okay.

And so, you know, but when you're dealing with a fetus and you're dealing with a placenta,

you know, that's something that's a little bit more of a niche type of field.

And where do you go to get a placental pathologist?

This is their placental pathologist R.U.S. that you can just go ahead and throw that in the

Google machine and you just, you just pick from a list on Yelp, right?

You got your Yelp right there, four and a half stars.

I got, I went through the yellow pages, didn't see anything there.

No, it's, it's all word of mouth.

So, you know, you got to ask people and they didn't know right away, you know, this is something.

And so what's funny is, so the, the expert, original expert who would refer, who said I

should, she started doing some research, uh, someone internally in my office who kind of

deals with these issues.

She was independently looking for someone and they just so happened to find the same person,

um, which, uh, is a doctor who lives in the state, but about, uh, you know, six hour drive

from, from here.

It's like up North.

Correct.

Interesting.

Um, so what'd you, what'd you do then?

So I contacted her, told her about the case.

She seemed interested, um, sent her the, the, you know, all the medical records, you know,

there's 300 pages of medical records.

There's, you know, these autopsy, there's the, you know, so she reviews everything and

she, she agrees to take on the case.

I come to find out there's only been 500 certified placental pathologists in the history of North

America.

Uh, and so she's one of those 500 that's dead or alive.

So she's, you know, she's doing conferences.

She's, you know, she's working in different states.

So she's flying all over the place and she's a necessary witness for us.

And, uh, just real quick, any pre-trial, are your client looking to take something, offers

made?

So at the original trial, they, they offer 11 years.

So for a voluntary manslaughter, which technically is an illegal plea because you cannot in the state

of California manslaughter, a fetus, you can only murder a fetus.

The California penal code has included in section 187 that murder is the unlawful killing of a human

being or fetus with malice aforethought.

However, the manslaughter statute, penal code 192, defines manslaughter as the unlawful killing of

a human being.

It does not include in its definition, a fetus.

Also manslaughter by its very nature is something that is done by being provoked, either a coral

or acting in the heat of passion, which is something that doesn't really involve a fetus.

So there's that little wrinkle, uh, but they offer 11 years on a manslaughter.

Um, it was suggested to me, that's high term on the manslaughter.

It was suggested to me that there was a possibility to go for midterm, um, at six years.

Midterm on the manslaughter.

On the manslaughter.

Let me ask you this.

Do you, if, so is there a theory that when he kicked her in the stomach, he intended to

kill the baby?

Is that how you would get for murder?

That's, that's, that's, no.

So that would be a first degree.

That'd be first degree.

Um, if that would essentially be first degree.

If he intended and premeditated and deliberately kicked her in the stomach for the purpose to

kill the fetus.

Um, the second degree murder is when you essentially do an act with, you know, the disregard for

human life.

So you kick someone knowing they're pregnant, knowing they're pregnant.

Even though technically that is not the statute in the, the, the jury instructions state that

knowledge of the pregnancy is not required.

Um, really?

So you can kick someone in the stomach, not know they're pregnant and still be on the hook

for murder.

I don't believe so, but the way it was interpreted in this case, yes, you can convict someone for

secondary murder, even if they didn't know about the pregnancy and they committed an act that

is so dangerous that it could, you know, that it, that they have an indifference for human

life.

Okay.

So it's disregard for human life.

So they wrote the laws a little sloppy in this area.

So, you know, one of the things I argued in my closing argument is traditionally the, the

reason why the reason there's a fetal murder statute or the reason fetus is included in the

murder statute.

It's the same statute as it's a one 87 is if I shoot a gun into a crowd, um, and the

only, only one that dies of the fetus, I can, you can convict them of murdering of, of murder.

Um, you know, because they did an act shooting a gun into a crowd that's so dangerous that

you're putting human life at stake.

So, um, let's talk about jury selection then.

What was, what was your focus going in?

And let me just say this guys, uh, for all you A&G listeners out there actually sitting

right next to Michael on the couch at the A&G studio is an actual juror from the case.

Let's go ahead and introduce them now.

Juror number four, I believe.

That's correct.

Whoa.

Juror number four.

How are you doing, buddy?

Good.

Pretty good.

Thank you.

Uh, are we just, you want to be called juror number four?

Do you want to go by a name?

Uh, either is fine.

Okay.

Uh, juror number four sounds cool.

It's like mambo number five or, you know, right?

Juror number four, the four person, right?

Uh, yeah.

Yes.

I, I did not know that at the time that he was selected.

It may have changed my strategy, but yes, uh, he, he did end up being the four person.

Well, thank you for your service, juror number four.

How, uh, how was it going into, uh, going into the good little criminal

criminal courts building of downtown Los Angeles for jury service?

What were you thinking?

Uh, well, to be honest, I've always wanted to, to be a juror, but not at that time.

I was really busy at work, so I really didn't want to be selected.

Oh, red flags, by the way, guys, right?

Someone comes in wanting to be a juror.

I'm like, get this guy out of here.

No.

Get this guy off my jury.

So that was me.

I, I always had, cause I had just graduated from law school the year before.

Um, but I, at that time I'm like, no, work is really crazy.

So I really hope this doesn't work out.

My, my firm said, basically you have nothing to worry about your lawyer.

So just, you'll be there one day.

You'll be, you'll be right back the next.

And did they tell you upfront how, like what the trial estimate was, how many days and so

forth?

Yeah, they did.

They said it'd be seven to, uh, 11 or 12 days.

Yeah, I think 12 days is what we were, we were gunning for.

And I'm sure they hit it right there in the, in the sweet spot in the middle as you know.

No, I was, I mean, it wasn't every day, there's holidays and whatnot, but it was a month of.

Right.

We, we started on the 19th.

We closed on the 21st of the next month.

So it was a month and a couple of days and then another week of deliberations.

So again, there were.

Whoa.

Okay.

So this, this, this seven to 12 days ended up being a month and a month and change.

Wow.

Was that kind of stressful for the new, the new lawyer at the firm trying to make a good

impression with the partners?

Trying to get them hours.

It was, it was, uh, it was challenging, but they were very, very understanding because a

partner had just gotten out of a jury trial as well for, he was on the, he was a juror

in another criminal case.

So he was very, Oh, I understand.

It's okay.

And so it was all right.

I just went in after work.

I went in after, after court every day to work since it's pretty close.

And you probably wanted to get that jury trial experience one way or another, right?

As a new lawyer.

It was a good experience.

I mean, I'll say this.

I can, I, I, I can probably speak for the three public defenders here.

It's a dream to be picked for a jury duty.

We will very likely never have that chance, especially in criminal court.

So, um, and, and criminal cases tend to be more interesting than civil cases.

So, um, I think any lawyer would want to be and see that process from the inside.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's a, it's a dream to be on your jury, Michael.

Yes.

Thank you.

That's what, let's save that.

Let's save that for juror for here.

Let him say that.

Okay.

And do you remember like, do you remember talking to him or why you may have selected him or,

or not have deselected him?

Sometimes jury selection is really just deselecting people.

Right.

So, you know, you do a little bit of research, uh, on Google.

Um, and so the information I had was from the California state bar website.

I knew he went to a law school that tends to be more liberal minded than others.

So, you know, that was a fact that I had, okay, this is someone who, you know, is more

likely to be, you know, more open to a, uh, you know, a pro defendant position.

Uh, he also works at a firm that tends, or at least they advertise that they specialized

in intellectual property.

So I thought there was maybe a higher chance of him having a scientific background.

This was a case where science was going to be important.

And, and so, I've learned since that, uh, juror four is one of the exceptions that does not

deal with IP as much as the other lawyers in his firm.

That's correct.

And so, so yeah, so those were kind of the two, the two big factors in, in his favor.

Um, I wanted people with some scientific background.

Uh, there was actually juror number five ended up, she was a nurse who actually worked in,

worked with OBGYN.

So I thought that that could be useful.

Uh, I, I wanted someone on the jury who had had a miscarriage.

Um, not too recently, but someone who might understand that sometimes these types of deaths

do happen that, that, and, and sometimes they're just unexpected.

And so, you know, I'm talking to, you know, I talked to everyone I could in preparing for

this.

And that was something by talking to people, that was something that came about people who

had had a miscarriage seem to understand that, yeah, this, unfortunately this happens

all the time.

Okay, cool.

So now it's time for opening statements.

And so there are a couple before that, there's a couple of, Oh, 402s, 402 issues, a couple

of issues we need to deal with.

So, um, my client was interrogated by the police when he was arrested two days after the alleged

incident.

And I made an objection to it.

Um, I objected on Miranda grounds that it, you know, my client, it was a custodial interrogation.

He wasn't fully advised, didn't quite understand.

Um, I knew this wasn't going to come in.

I thought it actually had a merit.

There were merit behind it because when they Mirandized him, they said, Hey, these allegations

that your daughter is making, they're very serious because of that, we're going to have

to read you your rights.

And then they read the rights, but they didn't say anything about him being a suspect in a,

in a domestic violence case or an possible murder case.

They didn't hint at that.

Um, and what statement did he say?

What was it that he said?

Um, so basically they tried every trick in the book to get him to confess.

They, you know, they put words in his mouth, you know, talking about, uh, why'd you go

in the bedroom or what happened when you saw her with another man inside, you know, in bed

and trying to trick him into saying, you saw the bed.

That must've been upsetting.

Yeah.

You probably, you probably kicked him.

I get it.

Right.

So they did first, they, they tried to do that.

Then they did the, the, Hey, if you, if you ask any guy in there, they would have done

the same thing.

They would have kicked her.

You know, if, if, if, you know, if this piece of trash was talking to my wife, I would have

done this.

You know, he was, he was going heavy, uh, with that strategy.

Uh, and my client unfortunately took the bait to some extent was like, yeah, like I could,

I was really mad and I could have really, I could have really hurt her and talking about

his prior domestic violence, how, you know, things could have gotten worse.

If his son wasn't there, you know, it worked for some extent, but he, he was adamant, he

didn't kick her.

Then they try the next strategy, which is what they call a ruse, uh, which is essentially a

lie, uh, where they said that there was video recording, that they had a video inside the

apartment that it showed the entire incident.

Um, and the way they get you is not just by that, but they said, so are you telling us

the video's lying?

And you know, how do you answer that?

You, yes, the video's lying.

Well, that doesn't make sense because the video would show the truth, but you know, so they,

they, they plant that trying to get him to confess.

And then they asked that misleading question, but he's, you know, he even suggests to them,

well, if the video's there, you should watch the video.

Um, so he's, again, he's not taking the bait.

He's acting like, Oh, the video.

Great.

And that exonerates me.

I'll show you that it didn't happen.

Right, right.

And he kind of suggests that.

He's excited that there might be a video.

Right.

So then they get mad.

They get, all right, we're going to, we're going to take a break, sit here and think about

what, you know, what's going on.

Um, then they come back with the supervisor and they, the supervisor is like, all right,

you know, you gotta, gotta stop lying.

This is going to help you.

You know, we're here to help kind of thing.

And then basically says, we have a six pack.

So, you know, six pictures of potential suspects with my client's picture circled.

And they say, a neighbor from across the way saw you leaving, coming outside the apartment

and they circled you.

They identified who is that?

And he's like, that's me.

We had your wife.

We asked your wife, which of these six people is your ex-husband circling?

And she said, she said it was you.

But, but yeah, this was all made up.

And, and, and then they make a witness statement where they, they, they, again, they lie about

this witness saying, you know, you were, you know, we saw, we heard screaming and we saw

him leaving the place.

And again, clients like, I didn't do, I didn't do it.

And then at that point kind of realizes, you know, this not working.

So he asked for a lawyer and things stopped there.

But this is an hour and 45 minutes where they're trying to get him to confess and he doesn't

confess.

And in fact, he, he's adamant.

He didn't go inside.

He didn't, didn't kick her.

All right, good.

And so the judge did not exclude the statement.

The judge did not exclude it.

But you didn't want to, you want him to.

Right.

I just, it was, I did not fight very hard for that.

Was that a little ruse on your part?

It was a little bit.

A defense ruse?

I'm very hypocritical, yes.

Reverse psychology.

What's up, A and Jeers?

At this time, I'd like to make a special shout out to David Munoz, Sirat Anahi, Michelle

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Peace.

All right, so let's go on to the evidence then.

Yeah, so first witness was, was the, the alleged victim in the case.

Uh, she came in, testified, I'm, got my fingers crossed that she's gonna, you know, not repeat

the preliminary hearing.

Um, and so, she, she testifies and I was, you know, hoping going in to say, you know,

don't believe her back then, believe her now, what she's telling us now is the truth.

Um, and it quickly became apparent that I couldn't do that because I think she was minimizing

more than she needed to, you know, she was, she was still lying.

Did she, did she testify about the, that she was kicked or what'd she say?

No, she, she, she ultimately said that it didn't happen.

She was never kicked.

They argued at the door, you know, she said that instead of arguing and, you know, through

that metal door, that both doors were closed.

And I'm like, okay, that, that seems one, not as logical that that's what could happen.

But I'm worried that that goes against, you know, my, my theory of the case.

She was lying about little things and I just, I couldn't, I didn't have confidence in her.

I was shocked to hear her, her testimony, to be honest.

Why is that?

I think because, um, the prosecutor called her.

So I was expecting this is her star witness.

This is going to be, um, good for them.

I set up the story.

Let's see.

And it was, cause the prosecutor came in with their opening statement, their, their theory

of the case and it was just completely shot down.

Like, and I was just, I was, I was in shock.

And so was the prosecutor's face.

It was, it was when, uh, she was first starting to say, um, though the prosecution did say,

we don't know what the victim's going to say today.

They still were a bit taken back.

Did it, did it surprise you that they were openly, that they were basically openly saying

that we are proceeding forward on a murder case and we're, are, we're going to call our

star witness, our first witness up.

And by the way, we have no idea what they're going to say.

Like, what was your reaction to that?

I mean, what would, like, did you have any, any, any sort of, yeah, emotional reaction or.

When they first said that they weren't, they don't know what she was going to say.

I didn't think too much of it.

Um, I was like, oh, maybe they just haven't had a chance to talk to her yet.

I don't know.

But when she spoke and I was like, okay, well, I want to hear what the boyfriend has to say

then that was there.

I hadn't known yet that he wasn't going to be testifying.

And so one thing I thought, which I don't know if it was a miscue, it maybe just was just

the reaction on their part, but I felt the prosecution was frustrated with her.

Um, and they were very, I thought outwardly frustrated with her.

And, you know, my whole point was I want emotion out of this, right?

This is, I just want this to be very logical, very, just kind of looking at it in a non-emotional

way.

And I think because they went hard at her and they were, they were, I thought they were

very hard on her that they right off the bat, they already lost the emotional argument.

Um, I felt it, I, at least for me, it felt like I was more sympathetic to the fact that

she, you know, whether or not this incident happened, she still lost a baby at seven months.

And I felt that they didn't really embrace that.

Um, and, and I don't know what you think, Jera, for.

Yeah.

I mean, I agree with that.

I guess I wasn't as surprised at why, I mean, why they were going a bit hard on her.

I mean, it makes sense.

You gotta, uh, she's just now throwing your whole case out.

Um, but yeah, it, it, it didn't make me feel like bad for, I guess her or the, the child.

Now you think, oh, she's a liar.

That's trying to put her estranged husband in jail.

And you're just like, you just end up not trusting her and you don't feel like there's

a victim now that you need to be at that moment.

I mean, later we get to see the autopsy photos and very sad things.

But at that moment, you're just very like, I'm wasting my time.

Did you believe, cause there's, there's two ways around, you know, the, there's sometimes

you might think, you know, they're lying to protect, you know, my client.

That's maybe why she's lying or you could think she's lying because it didn't happen.

Did you get a feeling one way or the other when she was testifying, why she was lying?

Not particularly because I think, I think at first I, I, uh, I was more like, oh, well,

maybe it's to protect him, but it became clear that they're not together anymore.

So I was like, um, uh, I mean, could still be the case, uh, perhaps to protect the daughter

that they still have joint custody over, but I was, I was not as convinced that that was.

And there was, and to that note, there was that funny moment.

I was just, I was going to bring that up.

There was actually a moment that I actually had, the mooch had, uh, poked his head in.

Um, and I believe it was the prosecution that was asking, uh, her about, uh, whether she

was still with the boyfriend, the boyfriend at that time, three years later, are you still

with him?

And I know I remember the answer or the, the initial answer.

I was wondering if journal before remembers what she said.

I feel like she said yes.

And then, but it was complicated.

Well, the first answer I believe she said was quote, can I dodge that?

Oh, right.

Yes.

She did not want to answer these questions.

Right.

And actually that was one of the moments I remember making eye contact with Jura for when, when

she said that he laughed and I'm like, all right, this guy's good.

This guy's good.

She would often say like, do I really have to answer this?

Like, and then the translator person would say it back and it would just always be so

funny.

I don't know.

But, but to that end.

But she finally then said, yes, I am still with this other guy.

Right.

And it showed that she's sincere in that.

I think the sincerity, she was with another man.

She really wasn't trying to get back with my client.

And I think the way she answered that actually probably did help me in the way that that was

perceived.

They brought another officer who they did a crime scene reenactment.

So about a couple of weeks after the incident, or maybe a week after they went back to the

scene and they took pictures of the incident, you know, kind of like a step by step.

And the problem, you know, and part of this to the defense's benefit was this has been two

years, so they don't really remember anything.

But I mean, he really didn't remember anything other than what was in a, in his pictures.

He didn't write a report.

Nothing really was memorialized in any report.

The reenactor did not.

Right.

Right.

And so.

Was he, was he, was he for the union or the confederacy?

Yeah.

So.

They did a crime scene reenactment.

Yes.

Describe what that is.

It's just because it's kind of a vague, it's kind of vague actually.

So they have pictures.

So they, like what they talked about, they go from, they go from the, the macro to the

micro.

So it starts as like a picture of the street.

Then you get to the picture of the house and you get to the stair.

So it gets one step closer every time.

And then it gets to the, you know, then they go inside, take pictures of the, the, the apartment.

And then they, they go step by step with the officer acting as my client and then the, the boyfriend

and the alleged victim as themselves.

And so, you know, you see the officer, you know, coming through the door in a picture and

the, the alleged victim standing up.

And then you see the officer, you know, with his hands around her neck.

Cause there, there was an alleg, the first report says she, she was grabbed in, she was

grabbed around the neck kind of on, on her shoulders and that while she was grabbed, that's

when he kicked her, which doesn't quite make sense how someone can grab someone with their

hands and at the same time kick them with their foot hitting the stomach.

Unless you, when they're seven months pregnant, right?

Unless your client's legs are just as long as his arms.

No, shorter, I mean shorter, shorter, shorter than his arms.

Right.

It will stub your legs.

Right.

So, yeah.

So, but then these reenactment photos show, so they showed the officer with his hands on

her shoulders.

They showed the officer with his, with his foot, his foot was extended towards her leg.

They have a picture of, of the two, you know, the, the, the ledge victim and, and the boyfriend

innocently sitting on the bed as they were doing before client entered the room allegedly.

So other than these officers, who else did they call to show these prior statements that

the complaining witness was, was speaking to and, and providing her account?

And so one was a medical assistant.

This was actually kind of a funny moment in the trial.

Uh, I don't know if it had an impact to the jurors, but during the, the, we'll call it

the victim's testimony.

She said at one point that she hurt herself, that maybe the reason she lost the baby was

she, she was moving a chair when, when my client was knocking on the doors, she didn't want

him to come in.

So she moved the chair to kind of prop against the, brace, brace it against the door.

Right.

Uh, to keep him from coming in.

Uh, and that maybe while she was moving the chair, she bumped her, bumped her stomach.

Um, and so.

Mooch is shaking his head down here.

So.

That is not a good.

During the trial, I learned that, so they, they said one of the nurses spoke to the police

and right before that nurse was supposed to testify, we learn, oh no, that nurse actually

didn't talk to the police, even though that was what was in the report.

It was this medical assistant who spoke to the police.

So the prosecution during the trial, just subpoena her in without ever speaking to her.

And so they're questioning.

So another, another witness that they didn't know what the person was going to say.

Right.

Seems like a theme.

Now that sounds like a pattern.

Right.

And so they start asking questions and it became very clear that like this witness has no idea

why she's there.

She's like, no, nothing really happened.

The prosecutor asked for a timeout.

She goes outside to talk to the nurse that had told her that this medical assistant was

the one who spoke to the police.

This timeout is while the jurors, the jurors are sitting there, didn't realize that there

are timeouts in, in, in criminal jury trials, but I guess she doesn't, yeah, I guess, you

know, before the two minute warning.

Right.

So she, she, and so this is like the fourth witness and every witness that comes in, the

prosecution's asking, you know, kind of incredulously, did she ever mention to you at any point that

she ever hit herself with a chair?

And all the officers were like, no, no, no.

One of the nurses at the hospital who delivered, who was there for the delivery, she said, no,

she never mentioned anything about a chair.

So, you know, she's kind of, she's kind of panicked during the direct exam of this medical assistant

because she's not giving her what she thinks she wants.

Finally, she finally says, yes, she did tell the police in my presence, she told the doctor

in my presence that she was kicked by my client.

And so the prosecution gets the answer she wants, she sits down, doesn't ask any more

questions.

So I go on cross-examination, you know, lay out a couple things, nothing major.

And then I think now that she kind of has her bearings down, the prosecution comes back

up on redirect examination.

And she's like, all right, she, she forgets that she's been asking that question to her.

And she's like, at any point, did she ever tell you that she hurt herself with the chair?

And right away, the first response, she's like, the medical assistant says, yeah, actually,

the very first thing she did when she came to the clinic was saying, I think I hurt myself,

I hurt myself with the chair.

And it was only afterwards that I believe after she, she had learned about, uh, no heartbeat

with the baby that she then said that she had been hit by, by my client.

And so again, this was kind of like the, the classic, don't ask a question you don't know

the answer to.

And she, she very quickly just kind of ended that, that redirect examination.

I didn't think my, I thought it was kind of a, a, a good win, you know, when you're in

trial and things come out and you know, it kind of stuns the, the opponent, you kind of,

you kind of marked that up as like a little win.

I didn't know what the jury thought of it.

Um, I thought it was a good thing.

I may have tried to make eye contact with juror for the jury.

Yeah, it was, it was funny cause it, yeah, you could tell the prosecutor was like very,

very shocked, um, for us.

I mean, I just noted it down on my little notepad that they gave us there, but it, it,

it should come up later in deliberations as a question.

Oh yeah.

And they say that jurors really do pay attention to the reactions of the attorneys and that

nothing really gets by.

And we're, did you notice the attorney reactions, whether it be for, for positive or for negative

when something's unexpected or something good or something bad happened?

I'd always look over to see, I mean, yeah.

I mean, I, I feel like I could get a good sense of when something good or something bad

happened, but you know, we don't know your exact strategy.

So I'm sure there's, there's other times I could have looked over and, and, uh, Mike would

have been smiling or something, but I, I didn't.

And I didn't know what, I would, I would, I would smile.

Yeah.

But, uh, yeah.

Um, but at least the more blatant ones, definitely I'd look over to see what's happening over there

and well guys, hope you enjoyed the first half of this two part episode and make sure you

catch the second half next week.

I promise you with all of my A and G heart, you won't be disappointed.

The lawyering done in this trial by Michael is pretty bad-ass along with his many humorous

anecdotes and antics.

You're going to love it.

See you next week.

We'll see you next week.

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Now, without further ado, we bring to you part two of a two-part episode,

Miscarriage of Justice. Enjoy.

So then the coroner testified, and he was actually a lot better for me this time

than he was at the preliminary hearing.

At the preliminary hearing, he seemed pretty gung-ho about his opinion.

He's like, it must be trauma, it has to be trauma.

And then this time, he started to kind of waver a little bit.

He essentially said that the only reason he reached his conclusion

was because he got these medical records,

or he's got these police reports that indicated there was domestic violence.

And so, you know, I asked him, I'm like, well, let's say there was no,

you heard no evidence of domestic violence.

Would that have changed your conclusion?

And he's like, yeah, we would have reached a determination

that it was an inconclusive cause of death.

So that right there helped.

He basically, he relied on her, the alleged victim's statements, to form his conclusion.

And if we're calling her a liar, and the jury believes that,

then they're not going to take his conclusion, you know, at heart.

Now, I did bring two experts, and I should note that my first expert,

the one I told you, the pathologist, she's traveling, and she's got this busy schedule.

So we don't know when she's going to, this case is going on longer than expected.

So the prosecution agrees, and the judge allows my expert to testify out of order.

So they actually hear from my pathologist before they hear from the coroner.

So I put her up, and they kind of agree to do that.

And, I mean, I think it probably is a little advantageous to them.

They get to kind of see their evidence first, and then kind of use their coroner to rebut it.

And so, during my case, which this was, again, during their case, my placental pathologist comes in.

And so, you know, we lay out the fact that this is a high-risk pregnancy.

She's 44.

That increases the likelihood of stillbirth.

She's got gestational diabetes in her record.

That increases the likelihood of stillbirth.

And we go into kind of two big parts of my direct, which are based on, one, the blood work I mentioned, that KB, Klyauer-Betke test.

And then there's something that I found kind of on my own through some of the science that I was looking up that I found something.

And that was also a big part of my direct.

So the first part is the blood work.

So that Klyauer-Betke, I told you, it came out positive for fetal blood in the mother's bloodstream.

Well, they have a formula to kind of figure out what percentage it is.

And when you kind of extrapolate from that formula, there was 4.8% fetal blood.

That means for every, roughly for every 20 blood cells of the mom, there was one blood cell of the fetus.

And when you kind of stretch that out, it came out to, and this is getting technical, in the mother's bloodstream, there was 240 milliliters of fetal blood.

If you, you know, stretch it out.

So the reason that's important is a fetus of that size should only have in their body 110 milliliters of blood.

So if a fetus that size only has 110, and in the mother's bloodstream alone, there was 240.

She had twins.

Oh my God.

There's two homicides?

Oh, dude.

The case just got worse.

Two life sentences.

Wow.

Oh, fuck, dude.

I guess that's one interpretation.

The other interpretation is that a fetus can't lose two times its own blood in one day.

So that means that this bleed must have been taking place through time.

And because when the fetus loses blood, it'll kind of regenerate blood to kind of stay up.

And so the only way to get to 240, when the fetus only has 110, is that this has been going on for weeks.

That the fetus has been losing blood, and then regenerating, losing, regenerating, and the blood stays in the mother's bloodstream for some time.

So the fetus was bleeding for weeks prior to the date of the alleged kick.

Right, because they're trying to say this all happened with two days, in a one-day period.

A kick happened one day, the next day, and there's no heartbeat.

And so I'm trying to stretch it out that if the injury happened earlier, then that shows that the cause wasn't the kick.

It was something else.

And so even though my argument was there was a problem with the pregnancy, unfortunately for me, all the prenatal records came back pretty normal.

Everything, they were concerned because of her age and maybe her blood sugar levels.

But for the most part, things were going great.

About a month before the trial, the prosecution, they had re-subpoenaed all her medical records from her clinic visits, from the delivery,

and learned that there were 10 pages that we didn't previously have.

And so during one of the weekends after we started jury trial, I'm, you know, preparing for my cross-examination of some of the medical professionals, most likely the nurses.

And I look at some of these 10 new pages, either the ones I'm not as familiar with.

I had sent them on to my expert, but never gotten anything back saying, oh, yeah, this is a key point.

And as you mentioned, there's ultrasounds.

There was a full report of one of the ultrasound that was taken the day the fetus was found to not have a heartbeat.

And it showed that there seems to have been a problem with the growth of the fetus.

And David, you probably know this.

When you do an ultrasound, they do measurements.

So they do like a head circumference, abdomen circumference, the femur length.

They do all these measurements from the ultrasound, and they're all in one big bank, and they do percentiles.

Like, oh, you know, your baby's in the 50th percentile for abdomen circumference or for a head circumference.

And that way you can kind of know if there's any problems with the development.

And so 10 weeks before the incident, everything was normal.

Everything was in that 40 to 60 percentile, the head, you know, everything was good, even something in the 72nd percentile.

So everything looked good.

And then what I noticed on this new ultrasound report on the day of the incident, the head circumference, which was in that 40 to 60 range before, was now in the less than 5 percentile.

The abdomen, same, less than 5 percentile.

Across the board, all the numbers were significantly smaller.

Nothing was above 30.

And so and then it also said in the kind of conclusion section that it said fetal demise is present.

So that means no heartbeat.

And then it says IUGR is present as well.

So I play Internet doctor.

I go online.

I start figuring out what is this IUGR.

And it comes back.

It stands for intrauterine growth restriction.

Oh, OK.

And so what that means is there's the fetus isn't growing that it's it's in the bottom 10 percentile and overall, you know, weight.

And that seems I mean, it sounds like so it's something this baby's condition was deteriorating over time and which resulted in a stillbirth.

I mean, that's what I mean.

But and towards the end, it was at the fact it was in the 5 percentile.

It had been losing blood the whole time.

And that's more what you're saying is more likely that was the cause of it.

Hey, A&G fans, thanks for listening.

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Right.

And so when you compare it to the 20, you know, 20 weeks versus 30 weeks, you see a big drop off.

And that was very consistent with my theory that there had been a bleed in the placenta that had been going on for weeks.

You know, so this was something that wasn't diagnosed.

You don't see this just by doing like a normal heart rate.

This is something that can only be determined through ultrasound.

And there weren't any ultrasounds done in that 10 week period in between.

So no one caught the issue.

And so everyone just presumed that the baby was everything was going well.

Her heart rate's fine.

Everything's fine.

There was a problem underneath the surface that no one could see.

Very, very interesting.

It's kind of cool when you do a trial and you kind of learn something new like that.

It's like kind of a fun part of the job.

Yeah.

So during, you know, it was like 11 o'clock at night.

I emailed both my experts.

I'm like, hey, I just found this.

This seems important.

Is it?

You know, and I wake up the next morning watching football and I see their emails and they're like, yeah, this is a good find.

Like, good job.

Like, this is very important.

Is it in the middle of trial that you emailed them?

In the middle of the trial on a Sunday, on a Saturday night at 11 o'clock.

I even send a message to the mooch over here saying, hey, look, this is how I found something.

Crack the case.

No, I mean, it felt that way.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I mean, it all added up.

It made sense.

And I mean, the fact that it then became a central feature in the expert testimony was was pretty remarkable.

So that was my witness taken out of order.

So the interesting subplot came in a little bit later during.

So before we got sent out for trial, the prosecutor tells me, just so you know, we might have a rebuttal witness, which I'm like, all right, that sounds a little bit weird that, you know,

before the case starts that there's a rebuttal witness.

You haven't even heard the evidence yet, right?

Do they describe the nature of this rebuttal witness?

No, though there was a discovery issue beforehand where they wanted all of our reports, which is why I turned over, you know, and the abundance of caution, every report that was written.

So I knew, you know, they said they wanted the reports because they might have additional witnesses.

And so I didn't make an issue of it because I'm like, well, if they're not mentioning it, I don't want to judge to allow them to testify and say, well, you knew about it all this time.

You knew who they were, what they were going to do, what they were going to say.

And so you're ready for it.

So I'm like, if I don't say a word, then I can definitely claim later that this is unfair.

It's an unfair surprise.

We don't have this information.

We don't know who they are.

So I leave it, I leave it alone.

During their case, they're spending so much time with all these witnesses talking about all these other statements that they come up and they present a problem.

They said, our rebuttal witness has a flight to out of the country to Australia and he has to testify by a certain date.

And they're like, are you willing to call your other expert out of order as well?

So before we rest our case in chief, you call both experts.

That way we have time to call our rebuttal witness beforehand.

And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait.

Like you want me to call a witness sooner so that you can present evidence against my client to beat the client?

I'm like, this doesn't make sense at all.

But they let you bring your expert in sooner also.

Well, right.

That's what they argued.

They're like, well, we did you a favor by letting you bring in your witness.

So can you do us this favor?

And I'm like, well, this is different, you know, mine was just, you know, a scheduling.

And it may have been different if they I had asked them at this point now repeatedly, who's your expert going to be?

Do you have a report?

They did not give me the name of their expert until one or two days before he testified.

They didn't give me a report for this witness.

Well, he never wrote a report.

They didn't give me any documentation of this person until the day before he testified.

So I'm like, why am I doing you a favor when you consistently fail to provide something for me?

Like this was them.

I saw this as them clearly trying to circumvent the discovery rules by presenting an expert witness without giving me the opportunity to prepare for them.

And what is the name?

And what was the nature of this expert?

What kind of an expert was it?

So I come to learn that this is an expert in an OBGYN.

So he's he's possibly a direct, you know, rebuttal to my OBGYN.

But he's also refuting things that my placental pathologist said as well.

So one of the things I argued, I'm like, well, my pathologist testified, you know, days, maybe even a couple like a week or two before they rested because it was called out of order.

I'm like, so you knew you're going to call this witness back then.

So you should have given me a report then.

And they're like, well, we shouldn't be punished by doing you a favor by letting you call that witness early.

And before this, what is sort of the what's the relationship between you and the prosecutors?

How are you getting along?

Is it a is it a tense relationship?

What's it?

What's it like?

So things were really good through, you know, part of the testimony and then early on through the first witness.

So there was an affidavit to her restraining order.

And in the restraining order, she had mentioned, again, past TV, also mentioned things where he was kind of pressuring her to have sex.

And so I didn't want that in.

So I made a motion before the trial to exclude it.

They, you know, they fought it.

But after we finished with the judge, they came up to me and said, hey, can we get a copy of this affidavit you referenced?

We don't have it.

And so I'm like, oh.

And then, you know, I look at my copy and my copy was underlined.

And I'm like, I don't ever underline original copies.

So I'm like, at this point, I'm thinking he went to a private attorney at one point.

Maybe we didn't get this from the prosecution.

I thought we got it from the prosecution.

Maybe the prior attorney got this information, underlined it, gave it to me.

And now I'm possibly disclosing, you know, confidential attorney-client communications.

So when she's asking me for a copy that she doesn't have, I'm like, I don't think I can do that.

I can't just give this to you.

So you did a motion to exclude evidence that they didn't have.

They didn't have.

Only you had.

But you thought they had.

Correct.

So she says, hey, can I have that evidence that you're trying not to give me or let the jury know about?

Right.

And so, you know, I think she mentions there's a discovery obligation.

I'm like, only for things I want to use.

I'm not wanting to use this.

So at that point, that's when the relationship starts to sour.

They don't like that.

And then, you know, it gets pretty, pretty cold throughout the trial.

This is standard, Michael, jury stories, by the way.

I have great relationships.

And it's just, you know, like the prosecutor, you know.

They actually, they call him the DA whisperer.

He prides himself on.

And he gets, he has very, very positive relationships with all parties, court staff.

So I don't turn it over.

We go to lunch.

And after lunch, the DA comes back with a copy of that affidavit.

Because they probably went to the courthouse and got it, right?

They figured out a way.

So it became a mood issue, but it did definitely sour our relationship.

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And then with the late witness there...

So, yeah, so with the late witness, I'm like, no, you guys are playing games with me.

I'm not doing something to help you out, especially to the detriment of my client.

So, I refuse.

The judge doesn't force me to call my witness out of order.

And so now they're faced with kind of a looming deadline.

And they have all these witnesses that they want to call.

And they have to finish their case, have me present my case,

and then me rest for them to have the ability to call a witness for rebuttal.

So, I don't know if they're using their time to the best, you know, use.

But at some point, I kind of do the math and I'm like,

they're only going to have time to call one of two witnesses.

Either their rebuttal witness or their investigating officer.

The officer who everyone said is the one that was responsible for doing everything.

So, I'm spending my time, I'm like, all right, you're in delay mode now.

You're trying to, you know...

This is during your case, right?

During their case, I'm like, during their case.

You're Jimmy Stewart.

Well, both.

You're Jimmy Stewart and Mr. Smith.

It's a filibuster all the way.

So, I'm trying.

I'm asking all these questions of their officer.

I'm trying to go into their background and everything.

And, you know, they keep objecting to relevance.

Tell me about every single professional organization that you've ever been a member of.

Like, I go through the interrogation and I cut out like little snippets.

I'm like, all right, you said this here.

What did you mean by that?

You know, I'm going through everything.

And the funny thing is, I think towards the end, one of them left their notepad out on the podium.

One of the DAs.

One of the DAs.

And I can see the note that says, you know, Mike is trying to delay.

They knew what was going on.

So, but it worked to the point of they had to make that decision.

Do they call the rebuttal witness or do they call the investigating officer?

They rest their case and I call my OBGYN.

Okay.

So, this is your first witness.

Right.

Yeah.

And it's a train wreck.

Yeah.

How was your OBGYN testified to?

So, you know, he was going to just talk about the, you know, he's going to talk about the IUGR, the growth restriction.

He's going to talk about the high risk pregnancy.

Again, a lot of the stuff was kind of similar to what we'd already gotten out.

Right.

I just kind of wired it from more of a clinical setting.

Yeah.

But, you know, he was, you know, he was worried about, he was worried about the fact that he hasn't done OB for a while.

He's been focusing on the GYN part of the job.

And so, you know, maybe he's not going to be, you know.

Wait, what does OBGYN stand for then?

So, OB is obstetrics.

GYN is gynecology.

Okay.

And so, obstetrics, you're delivering babies.

When was the last time that he was OB-ing?

OB-ing, it's been about maybe 20 years.

And so, he doesn't want you to mention that.

Well, he's concerned that if that comes out, that they're going to use it against him and say he's not credible.

So, I found out a perfect way, you know, to not have it in, you know, have him, you know, he's going to say that he's, you know, he said he's retired now.

I'm like, oh, well, before you retired, did you work in OB-GYN?

And, you know, something to that, I can kind of forget it.

So, I ask him, you know, and I think, you know, he knows, you know, he knows how to kind of give the answer.

He's not going to have to divulge the negative information.

And I ask him, like, oh, what did you do before you retired?

And he basically tells me, right away, his first answer is, well, for the last 20 years, I've only been doing gynecology.

I stopped doing obstetrics.

I'm like, dude, you just told me that you're worried about that.

And so, the first, like, the first part of his testimony, he's answering things that I want to talk about at the end.

He's grouping it all into one question.

And so, luckily, we're kind of interrupted by the lunch break.

And I go up to him, I'm like, you need to calm down.

I'm like, listen to my question and answer only my question.

Don't go and try to, like, give everything.

And so, I think he did better the second time.

But my goal at that point was just get him in and out as quickly as possible.

So, I rested and they bring in this.

And I think, again, I'm trying to stretch out everything.

I thought, apparently, he had more time than I thought before he has to get on the plane.

And so, he comes in.

And this guy, his credentials are great.

You know, he went to a top five undergraduate school.

Went to a, he went to Harvard Medical School.

He's a professor here in a top, you know, medical school out here in California.

He's got all the credentials.

And, you know, I've got my, I've got my, you know, my OBGYN who, you know, hasn't been practicing really for 20 years.

Doesn't really know how to answer a question.

And so, I'm like, all right, well, I've already lost this battle of the experts.

And he comes up and he, he basically sits on my entire case.

Is it, and it, and does he do it confidently?

I mean, is it very?

This is the most smug person I've ever come across.

You know, you know, yeah, everything.

You know, he disagrees that she's, she doesn't have gestational diabetes.

Even though the medical records say she has gestational diabetes, the nurse testified that she has it.

He's like, no, technically the test is this and she passed that test.

So, there's no, there's no issue there.

And then with the growth restriction, the IUGR, his testimony is there is no IUGR.

There was, uh, my ultrasound that I focused on, but there was another ultrasound that had differing results.

And the birth weight, when they, the autopsy did the weight and there was a birth weight, it came out higher than the estimated weight on the ultrasounds.

So, he's like, well, if you look not at the estimated weight, but if you look at the actual weight, it's higher.

And every, basically every question I ask, he's, he's shooting it down.

Um, and he's, he's basically saying all of the evidence I've presented is meaningless.

So, then what, did you, were you able to put a dent in that or you just let it sit and be how it is?

One, one good thing I got is, you know, he, he, he made one miscue.

You know, he was talking about how he was relying on the reports in this case, the police reports.

And I'm like, well, if, if the police reports are wrong, then, you know, your opinion might be different.

He's like, well, you know, as far as I'm concerned, no one's disputing the, the facts in this case.

And I'm like, is it your testimony that no one's disputing the facts in this case?

You know, has the prosecution given you more reports and more?

And he's like, no, no.

So, that, that kind of makes a little bit of a dent.

What about the lateness?

Like, he kind of came in late and again.

Did you bring that up at all?

Or like when he was appointed in a case and how long?

So, I find out he was initially approached about two months before the trial.

You know, talk about the fact that he never wrote a report in this case.

How he doesn't, you know, he didn't, he just wrote some notes and, you know, talk a little bit about that.

This is like, this is late discovery, right?

I mean, so the prosecutor has this guy from two months ago that never writes a report, doesn't give you anything, and it just kind of comes in and says whatever on the last day, essentially.

Under established statutes and case law, a prosecutor has a duty to provide to the defense evidence it intends to use at trial, and in California, at least 30 days before trial begins.

And when a prosecutor fails to meet their statutory obligations, there are a number of remedies a court can provide, such as exclusion of the evidence, dismissal of the entire case,

or a jury instruction provided to the jurors telling them that the prosecutor failed to meet their discovery obligations to the defense in a timely manner.

Right. And I think, so the judge, I was trying to keep it out, obviously.

I was arguing this shouldn't come in. It's late discovery. We don't have a report.

There's a 30-day window. They knew about his possible testimony.

I mean, they told me about it before the trial started.

They were so confident that they were going to use him that they wanted my witness to be called out of order just to have him testify.

So they knew that they were going to use him.

They also, you know, one of the reasons why they wanted my detailed reports was to possibly look into a rebuttal witness.

So they knew then that this was an issue.

Were you trying to hint to the jurors that this was unfair during your questioning or anything like that?

Oh, yeah, definitely.

What were you doing?

I mean, I was trying to say, you know, so his curriculum vitae, you know, kind of his resume was literally 140 pages.

So, you know, so I question, when I question, I'm like, you know, sorry, doctor, I've only had one day to review this.

But, you know, it says that you have 140, you know, maybe more.

He has like 700 articles that are cited to him.

And I'm like, you know, I haven't had a chance to read all 700 articles since I just got this report yesterday.

But, you know, when I Googled it, I didn't when I did a search on the PDF, the word trauma was nowhere in any of the article titles.

And, you know, you didn't mention certain words here and there.

And, you know, he fought me a little bit there.

But I definitely try to give clues that I hadn't received anything that I didn't really know, you know, that he was going to be testifying or who he was.

What was the judge's ruling that let this in then?

If you're trying to argue to keep that, keep it out.

What was what's the judge saying?

I think the judge was saying technically by the way, you know, that they they do believe that this is rebuttal.

But the interesting thing was after the testimony, the judge said, now that I'm hearing it, I do believe that this, you know, she didn't go too far in saying that this was improper.

But she she did enough that if I had lost the case, I think there could have been an appealable issue here.

And then she and the issue was, is that they should have called they should have been forced to call this witness during their case in chief rather than waiting for rebuttal because.

Well, both if they should have been called in their case in chief and because it should have been called in their case in chief, it needed we needed to get 30 days at least of notice of what they were going to say.

Right.

Instead of one day.

And so what the judge essentially said was after hearing this, I do believe you guys were planning on calling him.

And if you weren't planning on calling him, she didn't say this, but essentially he's your best witness.

So, you know, if you weren't going to call him, then you don't have a lot of good judgment because he's the best thing you've got.

And so she kind of suggested that.

And so when I asked for a late jury instruction saying that the prosecution provided discovery in an untimely manner and that you can consider what effect that had on the defense, the judge very clearly said, yes, that she's going to give that instruction.

All right.

Um, well, good job, Mike.

Uh, it was on the closing arguments then, right?

On the closing arguments.

Uh, this is, I'm, I'm ashamed to say this is the first time I've used a PowerPoint in my closing arguments or in any of my trials.

Uh, I, I'm a little old school and I'm, you know, the idea that.

Well, you didn't have the, uh, it's not what's going on the outside.

Right.

You didn't have that.

I didn't have that crutch.

Yeah.

That theme is time.

So.

Right.

So, uh, I had a 92 page.

I'm just trying to get people to go back and listen to the other episodes.

Like available in the archives.

Yeah.

You know, that's Mike's, that's Mike's theme in, uh, in his previous, uh, podcast episode.

Are you talking about season one, episode seven, David?

Season one, episode seven and season two, episode nine.

I don't remember.

Episode nine.

Available for download immediately.

Check it out.

Mike, that's Mike's theme in those other, uh, uh, uh, uh, podcasts.

Is it on Stitcher as well?

And Podbean?

Stitcher, Spotify, uh, Podbean, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts.

Anyways, check it out, guys.

It's Mike's theme.

He didn't have that crutch this time, so he goes with the PowerPoint.

All right.

Yeah, 90, 90 some slides.

Uh, but I have all the animation for, for pretty much everything.

You know, there's no fingerprints.

There's no DNA.

There's no key.

They said he, he entered the house with the key, but there's, no one ever found the key

to the house.

And anytime they, you know, they were at his house and they arrested him, um, you know,

he's not confessing.

He's in fact saying he's innocent.

Um, I go into all the inconsistent statements, but mostly the blood evidence was the key.

Um, everything is, um, everything is, is focused on the blood, you know, cause that's the one

piece of evidence that they did not contradict.

Right.

They didn't ask a single question of their, their surprise rebuttal witness about any of

the blood loss that, you know, that blood evidence.

And so that was the one thing I knew that I could argue was uncontested and it was the

most powerful, um, you know, and I had, you know, in my PowerPoint, I kind of showed exactly

the process of how it goes, how it works, you know, how blood work, how the blood loss

works and, and, and how you can get such a high amount of fetal blood cells in the mother's

bloodstream.

I mean, do you want to comment on a closing argument real quick?

Sure.

Either way.

Um, I mean, they did both great jobs again, like both sides.

I thought, uh, and it was, um, I liked the slides.

We were even like hoping we could get them, but we're like, that's not evidence.

So no, we can't get that.

But, um, what the attorneys say is not evidence.

Right.

Yeah.

But it was very, cause it laid out specific statements and whatnot.

It was, it was helpful.

Um, and it was a good recap, but yeah, it was the first time for most of us that we

remember there was like this, uh, protective order in place.

We're all like, wait, oh yeah, there's that order thing.

What, what, it was the first time they made their arguments about, I thought, or it must

have been made at the very beginning then.

Cause I don't recall.

I think they just, they, we both, they entered the documents and we referred to them, but that

was it.

And it wasn't nothing argued, nothing kind of major that was discussed about the

orders at the, at the end of the arguments.

Then you were, they did applaud.

They stood up and applauded for me, David.

We did.

Is that your question?

I wanted to know about, you know, did a, so you were, were you not guilty in the beginning

right away or were you guilty after the closing arguments?

What were you thinking to yourself?

Uh, not guilty on, on murder, right?

Yeah.

And domestic violence, murder, protective order violation.

Residential burglary.

All, all, all across the board?

Well, except for the protective order.

I, cause I, again, like I, I didn't know enough yet and I want to read it.

Sure.

So I wasn't sure about that, but, uh, the rest I was, yeah, not guilty.

And, uh, all right.

So tell us about, uh, going back into the jury room, having, you know, seen the closing arguments,

you know, I mean, you took, you put the popcorn down, you took off the 3d glasses, you went

back into the room.

What happened?

Did you start it?

Was it in the afternoon or was it like first thing in the morning when you guys started?

Pretty sure it was first thing in the morning.

I think we just snuck in closings right before the end of the day.

Oh yeah.

That, so, cause, so we started off the morning.

The first thing we wanted to decide is who's going to be the four person.

I didn't want to be, I was, I was trying to make this like an experiment as a lawyer.

I'm going to see how these jurors work and I'm just going to like see what they do.

And I didn't really want to influence that.

And so I didn't want to do it.

And, um, but no one wanted to do it.

And they started talking about like, Oh, we could do rock, paper, scissors.

Or like, and I was just like, no, no, what is this?

This is how justice is.

Yeah.

It's scary to know that, but they're like murder trial.

Yeah.

Paper, scissors.

Yep.

That's they're like, or do we draw lots?

I'm like, what?

Where are we going to get?

Yeah.

So I'm just like, well, get some straws.

Yeah.

Musical chairs.

Who's ever standing left?

Yeah.

So I was just like, I was not about to like waste time with that.

So I was just like, well, I'm, I am a lawyer if you guys want me to do it.

And they're like, Oh yes, please do it.

They all just didn't want to do it.

And so I was like, Oh, okay.

All right.

So, um, that was done pretty quick.

So that was, that was great at least.

Um, and what's the first thing you guys do after?

So after that, we did go around and just introduce ourselves, just like our names and whatnot.

Um, and then.

You guys really did follow all the rules too.

It seems like, you know, sometimes you can tell that there's some chatter and there's some discussing,

but, but you guys seem like you followed everything.

Thank you.

I'm going to take credit for that.

Uh, we tried, we definitely tried to do that.

Um, and so, yeah, so we started off and the first, uh, the first thing we decided to do is just taking like a preliminary vote.

Cause I was thinking like, well, let's see, maybe we're honestly, by then I was like, this is so obviously not guilty.

Maybe we all just agree this.

We were all on the same page.

Let's just get out of here today.

Let's sound like how preliminarily without reading any of the charges yet we'll go through formally, but your position on the case, are you leaning guilty or not guilty for all the charges?

And so we just took a handful and right away three said guilty, but the rest said not guilty.

Um, and there weren't any undecided actually.

So, okay.

Yeah.

Um, and so I'm like, okay, well then we need to start at the B let's start from the beginning.

And why were the three in the guilty camp?

I mean, did they have the same reasons where there are different reasons?

Yeah.

So I, I, I thought after that, I'm like, let's go around and each person tell, give one piece of evidence that they found most persuasive to why they're voting guilty or not guilty.

And I was going to write, I wrote them all down.

Um, and so each person went and, uh, the three, they all had different reasons.

Uh, one was very scientific.

What's from, I think he was a, he's a rocket scientist.

He's a rocket scientist.

He was all about the scientific, uh, testimony, uh, and that convinced him for guilty.

Another was more emotional and she thought, um, she felt very bad for the fetus and understood that, um, victim of domestic violence do tend to go back on their initial statement.

And so she was very, she, she believed that that had occurred here.

And the other person, he just, he just thought, he's like, oh, it just, he, he thought, uh, it made sense that like he, he trusted the officers and it was more based on that.

Um, so we had, I guess, different views.

Each of them had different reasons.

And what about the, uh, the not guilties?

What were they throwing out there?

Like, like everything, like the interrogation video.

They thought he was, how can you trust the police when this and this and this was there?

What was your answer for that?

I, well, by then I, I was last.

I had them all.

So I was just like, smart, smart guy.

I was like, I, I, I, a mix of these things.

Uh, but I think the most common ones were like the interrogation video, um, the hurt that they don't trust her testimony.

Did the 911 call register?

That was, yeah, that definitely came up once.

Like someone did mention that, uh, uh, injuries.

What about the, what about the injuries?

Was that discussed much?

That was definitely mentioned.

Did you guys, cause some people looked at the pictures and said, oh yeah, there's injuries right there.

Did, did people believe that?

I mean, that happens all the time, especially in like misdemeanor kind of cases.

With poor quality pictures.

Where they're like, oh yeah, the, the, the injuries there if you look close enough and you look and you're like, I, I don't see an injury.

Did you guys, what, where did you fall on that when you saw the pictures right in front of your face?

Yeah, no, no one, no.

Everyone had an issue with, uh, no bruising, um, on the phone.

Everyone got to look at the photos.

We shared them, but that was troubling.

Mike wants to know, did you guys listen to me?

You know, did you guys repeat the points?

I told you to repeat, you know?

So, so their introduction of the interrogation, it sounds like really kind of backfired and was actually a pretty strong reason why.

And I'm guessing it was because he was so adamant and consistent in denying it, despite all the different ruses and tricks that they used.

Yeah, it was definitely not in their favor to bring it in.

I don't think it alone was the reason for a lot of people voting not guilty.

I also have to say that a good chunk, maybe even the majority of the not guilty, thought that the defendant is a bad person and is, and probably did do something wrong.

We're going to edit that out, right, David?

Of course.

They were, they did not think he was innocent.

So, but just that the prosecutor hadn't proven the case.

Exactly.

I would say there was, there was a good batch that were like, they hadn't met their burden.

There was another batch of us that were more like, yeah, he didn't do this.

Who was, who was spearheading the, the persuasion of, to Trent, to get him to go not guilty?

Who, who was like the main person in the jury room, like getting the, pulling him into the not guilty way?

Like, who was that?

Maybe juror number two.

I think, uh, it was pretty.

I think he was one who would.

He got in trouble.

No, no.

Oh, well, maybe.

But, uh, he was a juror, I believe, that had previously been selected on two previous murder cases.

Right.

And I actually liked that because I'm like, say what you say about our case and, you know, how serious or not.

It doesn't sound like a murder case, you know?

Yeah.

And so I'm like, if someone's out there who's seen potentially the worst of the worst shootings, gangs.

Drive-by.

Right.

And they're going to see this and like, oh, whoa, this is, this pales in comparison to what we saw.

It's a case that is going to make you think a little bit more than just, okay, car driving by, bang, bang, someone dead.

Right.

Um, was that the one, do you know, or?

Yeah, that, that was, I, I, if I recall correctly, yeah.

So what was he doing that might convince the others?

He was just reiterating the fact, you know, the standard of, it has to be beyond a reasonable doubt.

And we, uh, we would bring up pieces of evidence that were raising, that was raising doubt.

And some would be like, yeah, that does give me doubt, but I still think he's guilty.

And we're like, uh, or we, we would present all contradictory.

Yeah.

We present alternative like explanations and they'd be like, oh yeah, that could totally have been what happened.

And I'm like, so is that, and he would be getting really frustrated.

Cause he's like, well, then that's reasonable doubt.

And it's like, but no, but I know he did it.

It's like, yeah.

So for, uh, the juror that was, um, um, felt bullied because by, so by that point I should clarify,

it really was just her and, um, the juror that was more into the science, but he was already saying

he's on the fence now and he's maybe would vote not guilty now.

Um, do you know what turned him?

I, I think, well, so we went through a few exercises.

Like we went through writing out all her, all of, of the victims.

And we saw the picture of that afterwards.

I heard.

It was very thorough.

We went through all the, on the chalkboard.

It was a, uh, a large matrix of all the statements that were made that, um, the next public defender

who did a trial thereafter, um, was in there and, uh, the chalkboard had not been erased.

So the remnants of the hard work the jury had done, he sent me a picture and said, at least

you got, you, you must've gotten your jury talking cause they, they wrote everything

up there.

Right.

So we went, we went through all her, all of her statements to see how consistent they were.

And then we were writing down all, all of the, um, the physical evidence, like evidence who

said that they saw bruising on her, um, and then the photo, when the photos were taken and

before, before, after that, I'm not, I don't recall, but we also had put out all the medical

evidence and what, what, like, um, if it pointed more to like, uh, or the point pointed to trauma

or was, we weren't sure.

Um, and at the end of the day, I think for that juror, um, the former alternate juror,

I forgot his number, but, um, he, I think he, there was that, the, the tests were the blood

maternal and paternal blood.

Right, that, that, that Klyauer-Bettke variation of that, yes.

Yeah, that, he didn't like that it was never explained by.

And that was the, that was the one thing that their doctor, their, their very credentialed

doctor didn't really dispute or didn't even, they didn't even address that with him.

Everything else was negated.

No, no diabetes, no growth restriction.

Um, I was ready for him to say that my, that she wasn't even 44 years old.

Um, and just say just everything was wrong with what we said, but, um, they never questioned

him about that blood evidence.

Right.

So that was ultimately, that's what I, I went hard on during my closing because that was the

one thing that was not really in dispute.

Yeah.

And that for him over time, he realized that raised reasonable doubt for him that perhaps

that there was this issue already.

Um, and we just, so the scientific evidence, at least, and what wasn't completely clear

for him anymore.

And then he was starting to look back at the statements and he was just like, ah, no, I,

I'm having, I'm having doubts now about this.

Um, and so anyway, the woman, the woman that felt bullied by then, she really was the only

one adamantly for guilty.

And that's, that's, I think what the statement about her not being fair to, uh, the defendant

arose by then because she really thought, um, like she knew she's the only one basically

holding us back.

And, uh, so wait, was she excused then?

No, no.

So she was going to talk to us the next day.

Yeah.

Um, but then the next day we had one of the jurors was sick.

He had the stomach flu and he, so they couldn't deliberate anymore.

And so we were just waiting for, you know, we were trying to locate the clerk for read

back that they wanted again.

They wanted the coroner's statements again.

Um, and so at that point, while we were waiting to track down the court reporter, the clerk

got noticed that they no longer, that this juror that felt bullied no longer wanted, needed

to talk to us.

And then they also said that they felt like they were close to a verdict and that they

wanted to know if they could essentially Skype in the sick juror.

I think that means that they, they knew that they were pretty much close.

And so they were told, no, you can't do that.

We have to come in.

I think we said FaceTime.

Just to clarify.

We're sponsored by, no.

Wait, so I, why did you guys want the coroner read back?

I think that was for the juror that was more interested in the scientific evidence.

By then he had already said, I have enough guilt or I'm sorry, enough doubt to, to not

find guilt.

Um, and, uh, yeah, so that was for him.

Uh, the other juror, she said that would have been helpful for her, but by the next morning

she was like, it's not going to be helpful for me.

And I thought about it enough.

I'm ready to, to vote not guilty.

So she just had to like go home, realize that she's being, um, you know, maybe her passions

are getting the best of her.

And then, you know, just come back with a level head, which is what Mike, when you were

picking out jurors, you were hoping for jurors that wouldn't be moved by their passions.

Right.

And she, I mean, she eventually came to her senses.

And I was also hoping that jurors weren't going to be swayed by 11 people thinking the

opposite way, but she was.

For her, it was more, she just, she did have a problem, um, understanding the standard of

beyond a reasonable doubt.

Like for the reason I gave you those examples that we were trying to show her and she said,

oh no, that doesn't give me reasonable doubt.

Uh, when she would agree that, oh yeah, alternative things could cause this and whatnot.

And so it was the final, that day when the juror was, the other jurors out sick, she said,

um, I've been thinking like every day, every night, all I dream now about is reasonable doubt.

She's like, I, all I think about is that she's like, and I, I feel like, I mean, she's

like, I feel like I understand it now.

And that there, there is like, does she like come in like singing and dancing?

I get it now, I get it.

It's reasonable doubt.

And she's, you know, like a song and dance happen or all you guys cheered and like we're

happy for her or what, is that how it happened?

No, I wish that wouldn't have been cool, but it's for the film.

Yeah.

It's for a JV, right?

No, she just, she was like, I, I respected her for, you know, for that long holding onto

your view, regardless if it, you know, you weren't, you didn't fully understand the standard.

Like, you know, it took her some time, but she got there.

And like, I appreciated that she, even though like I wanted to go back to work, I appreciated

that she, you know, she stuck by it.

She, I don't think she, she was very independent.

She was ready to vote.

She's like, let's, we can vote.

It's going to be mistrial.

I'm not going to change it.

And I actually, she was one I was least excited about on the jury.

I was worried about her.

She had some family that was law enforcement.

But sometimes you're like, I have all these good jurors I'll just accept, even though

there's one juror I'm kind of unsure about.

Yeah, I was, I didn't like the next group that was coming up and she gave a couple good

answers for like, I'll evaluate all the evidence.

And she, she had a couple good answers.

So the jury's come back, right?

And what, tell us about that.

No, it was, it was great.

How'd your client react?

What was it like with your client right there?

You know, part of it is, you know, this is your last chance.

You, you, the jury gets to see you.

They might change their minds if they pull.

So I'm like, I gotta, you know, one, my client's there.

I'm trying to console him, trying to put my hand on him, but I want the jury to see like

I'm invested.

He's invested, you know, this is, this is important.

And so, you know, I have my hand on his back.

He's kind of looking down.

He's a very religious man.

So he, I think he might be praying.

We actually prayed in the lockup.

I prayed with him before the jury came out.

Once we found out there was a verdict.

Um, and so we just bracing, he's looking down and you know, we hear the, the not guilty

and another not guilty and then another not guilty.

Nice.

All right.

And so, no, he started to cry.

Um, I started to cry and then I told him, listen, man, I'm going to make it to another episode

of another not guilty.

We've got to win this thing.

The fans want it.

Yes.

The people need it.

Give the people what they want.

So, I'm not ashamed to admit that, uh, during the verdict, there may have been tears, uh,

from not just my client, but myself.

Uh, and there was some, right.

I mean, some, some back caressing perhaps.

Who was crying?

Who was caressing the back of who?

I was, I was comforting my client as the verdict was coming in.

Okay.

I've done that.

Right.

Right.

Right.

Right.

Like life cases.

You're kind of just like trying to see, but, but yeah, it was heavy duty caressing going

on, um, but what, I mean, what were your thoughts, I guess, I mean, you know, seeing it from the

outside, like, did it feel good to see, like, did it feel like justice was, was done?

Yeah, definitely.

No, I, uh, it was a very emotional moment for, for, uh, for him, uh, the defendant and just

seeing him so relieved.

Uh, I didn't even notice that I guess you were crying.

I don't, I didn't notice that at all.

I guess I was more focused on the defendant.

Um, so it's, so it's about the defendant then and not Mike so much.

Is that what you're saying?

Yeah.

I did take a look cause by then I, um, every day, basically his mother was sitting in the

back row.

I didn't know who this person was till later.

I mean, you eventually, cause someone, someone was like, they asked the daughter, was that

the person that went with you to the police station?

Yeah.

So by then we knew we like, we had an idea.

She must be related somehow.

But, um, and so I did look back there also, but I didn't see a response.

I, I, uh, I don't think she, she didn't have an interpreter with her.

So she didn't, I don't think she understood.

Right.

I think she saw tears and she's like, is my son going for life or what's happening?

But so those are the two people I looked at.

I, uh, I also looked at the prosecutors to say how they're taking it.

How, how did they take it?

They seem very, they, they didn't seem upset and I was, they didn't seem surprised either.

It seemed to me, I think, well, I think we knew because of the questions and we knew it

was coming.

Um, I think both parties were dreading a retrial, um, because it wouldn't have been good for

us because they probably wouldn't, they would have fixed some of their mistakes.

So then I guess now you've, you've gone through this trial, you've, you feel good about your

decision, right?

Yes.

Okay.

And like, just seeing like being back there and seeing how people think and react to the

criminal justice system.

Do you, do you have more faith in the criminal justice system or is it more scary now?

Or do you see how innocent people can be locked up forever based off like how normal citizens

think?

Like, what do you think?

Like, what's this whole experience taught you?

Yeah, I mean, when I heard that he was already, he was already been in jail for two and a half

years until this trial had taken place and, uh, and we all were saying like, a lot of us

were like, oh, if she had just kept with her story, we probably would have, a lot of them

would have switched to guilty or we would have had a mistrial.

So, um, it is, that part's scary, but I also had some hope because I thought the jurors

did a really good job.

Uh, they, they were, a lot of the times different jurors were jumping in and being like, oh,

um, we can't talk about that.

We're not allowed to consider that.

We were read that instruction.

You can't talk about this or that.

And so I was very impressed, um, with them.

So it's like, I have hope.

And then at the same time, it, um, there is some, there's definitely pessimism.

Uh, but I thought that was a good day at least for justice.

I was going to ask you what, if you have any criticisms of the process or things that from

your experience that you thought are sort of the downsides or the, the, the criticisms

that you have, essentially.

Uh, there should be a limit to witnesses.

I'm just kidding.

Number of witnesses.

No, uh, I honestly, no, I, I don't know.

I understood why, you know, both sides were doing their, their thing.

And there really were litigating this passionately, I thought, uh, trying their best.

So, um, nothing really stands out.

Let me, let me see.

Uh, some jurors didn't like him.

Uh, Mike.

Yeah.

They didn't like that.

He kept, he would correct like little things.

Um, but no, but, uh, but like, I forgot the protective order thing.

Like you mentioned, like it was a restraining order, protective.

I forgot.

There was like, so she kept calling it a protective

order and I kept correcting and saying it was a restraining order.

Um, I can see why that can be in my, my, my hope was that the jury would believe I knew

the information better than my opponent.

Um, but it, it did come off probably a little bit of a know-it-all.

Yeah.

For some, I, I didn't, I mean, I'm, I'm, I know lawyers have to object to everything,

you know, being a lawyer, but, uh, yeah, no, I thought,

I don't know.

I wish I could, uh, answer that question better, but I, I was pleasantly surprised,

surprised by, I like, I like the judge personally.

I liked both sides.

Uh, and I thought it was, it ended up good.

Well, thank you.

Well, thank you for being, for your service.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

No problem.

And thanks for coming on the podcast.

You know, thank you.

Why'd you want to come on the podcast?

Oh, he asked me.

He seems to really want me to come.

No, no, but I was like, okay, that sounds cool.

Like when do you ever, well, one, I'm probably never going to be on a jury again, maybe, or

maybe I will.

I'm not sure, but unlikely.

If you tell them you reached a verdict, they'll probably assume it was a guilty verdict.

Yeah.

That's true.

You always assume it's a guilty.

We always do.

Yeah.

So, uh, there's that.

And, uh, I just, you know, it's a cool opportunity.

I'm happy to shed some light on this process.

Well, jury number four.

Thanks for coming, buddy.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh, well, Mike, dude.

Yeah.

Awesome job.

Great.

I mean, that, that case was very difficult.

The medical records, the, the, the, the experts, the, the blood, the, I don't know.

I just, uh, can take all the information and can, and make it understandable and digestible

by some jurors, 12 people, or at least 12 people who, or find 12 people who didn't give

a shit about it.

I don't know.

Either way, uh, great job of layering as always, as always, I must say.

Um, so what's up?

We got on our, your third podcast as a guest, what's going on with the, being a public defender

these days?

Um, it's great.

I'm actually in the training program, uh, teaching the, the new lawyers, uh, what to

do and what not to do.

Oh, nice.

So this definitely helped my credibility.

Right.

And they're like, oh, wow, our, our, our mentors winning murder trials.

So.

Hey, listen, new lawyers, uh, listen to what Michael says.

You do what he tells you.

That's right.

David from another, not guilty says so.

Yeah.

And they, they love the podcast.

They're, they're using, they're using what other lawyers have used to win.

And then they're using them in their own trial.

So no, this is a great, great resource for, for young lawyers, for, for older lawyers.

It's, it's, it's, it's a great tool to have is to hear how other people win cases and everyone

has their own strategies.

Um, but it's great to kind of pick and choose.

I'm, I'm glad that I am able to help other lawyers by letting them know to listen to what

other lawyers have done.

Not what I'm doing, but what other lawyers are doing.

Just want you to know, David, you're a part of every win here.

So it's like your win.

I appreciate that.

Mooch.

Thanks for coming on the show, buddy.

Oh, fantastic episode.

One, one for the history books.

And thank you.

Juror number four.

I mean, couldn't be here without him.

Unbelievable.

Juror number four.

Terrific.

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.