When A Felony Judge Meets A Misdemeanor TikTok Star

Well, you know, I'm just not really convinced that, you know, she was talking about this incident when she said strangle.

I think that she may have been talking about a different incident.

So I just want to make sure it's OK if I ask her if she's talking about a different incident.

And the judge is just, do you have any factual basis whatsoever to ask this question?

Like, are you telling me that in a DD case, the district attorney's office has had for months?

What, you've never asked her if there's been any other incident?

And you have no factual basis whatsoever to put that question forward.

You're just going to sit there fishing, hoping that something that's helpful to you comes out.

And then he just rips into him, you know, you have, you know, ethical obligations as a prosecutor.

You know, in this case, the defense attorney, they have obligations to their client, to represent their client.

You, sir, have a higher standard.

You know, like you have to come into this courtroom and represent, you know, the government.

And in this courtroom, you will be held to those ethical obligations.

Like, you will not be doing that in my courtroom.

Be like, if you want to go home, you know, and ask her outside of court, you know, oh, what's she talking about?

You know, that incidentally different.

You know, be my guest.

But if you come in tomorrow, just think about what that's going to look like to the jurors.

If you overnight, magically out of nowhere, come up with a brand new domestic violence incident that was never mentioned before, right after she was impeached, you know, about a prior under oath transcript.

Like, okay, you know, you go and do that.

Now who's having a bad day?

Yes.

And so I'm sitting there doing everything I can not to, you know, like stand up, you know, smile.

You're like a cloud nine right now, right?

Welcome to Another Not Guilty.

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

Objection!

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

I prefer calling it the American criminal system.

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

Another Not Guilty.

And welcome back, everybody, to Another Not Guilty.

It's your boy, David D, here presenting you with the freshest not-guilties across these United States.

I almost forgot the word fresh for a second there.

That was close.

Another Not Guilty presenting the freshest not-guilties across these United States.

One Not Guilty at a time.

That's how we do it here in another Not Guilty verse.

Of course, me, Davey Defense, here with my awesome co-host, Lauren Marie Manon.

Lauren, how are you doing there?

Hi, everyone.

I'm doing pretty good.

This is a short week, so I'm trying not to complain.

Right on.

And today's guest is a public defender from here in L.A. County.

He scorched some earth.

He was scorching earth down in the courtroom here at the Compton Courthouse, and I was like, who is this guy?

Who is this new kid in town that everyone's talking about?

I was like, we've got to get him on the show.

So here today to present, our guest is Peter Neal from the L.A. County Public Defender's Office, our fellow co-worker.

Peter Neal, how are you doing?

Go ahead and introduce yourself to the A&G-verse.

It's different doing the podcast, like, in this setting, by the way.

I'm just a little – I feel a little off, by the way.

Is that okay?

Yeah.

It's fine.

We got you.

Yeah.

You know what?

I'm just going to be me.

I'm just going to be me how I am today.

Yeah.

I mean, look, your blue eyes are popping today, so it's really – you're going to be fine.

Yeah.

We're going to do this.

And Peter, tell us who you are.

You look very young.

Yes.

Well, you know, I have a wife and a child, whatever that's worth.

Someone likes you.

Someone likes this guy, you know.

I don't know if it means much.

Maybe in California it does.

In, like, Kentucky you could be 18 or 16.

I don't know.

Well, my name, Peter Neal.

I just started as a public founder here in L.A. in October, and first branch assignment is here in Compton.

I did some prelims here before, but otherwise this is my first –

You're less than a year in?

I am.

You are a baby.

Okay.

Let's see.

I graduated in 2022, so I had a little break there.

I'm in the Army Reserves as a JAG.

So I was on active duty orders for a year and a half doing – not prosecution or defense, other stuff, but –

I enjoy how quick you rushed in with it.

Don't worry.

I didn't do prosecution.

Yeah.

I am one of you.

Yes.

Peter.

Well, anyways, welcome to the show.

Glad to have you.

Glad you could be here.

I was in the hallways talking to some lawyers, and some of our colleagues came by and said,

you've got to get Peter on the show.

He just did this trial.

It's like the best trial ever, and I was like, all right, let's get him on the show then.

And we've got to set the expectations a little lower, a little lower.

I think it was mostly that I feel very alone in that courtroom in my first few trials,

and so I'm telling everybody about every single thing that happens.

And so whether they like it or not, they're caring about it.

All right, Peter.

Well, go ahead and tell the A&G universe about this not guilty.

Tell us what your client was charged with.

Okay.

So in this case, it was a handoff to me, not my case at arraignment or pretrial.

But as it was delivered to me, it was two counts.

The first was a 243E1, a domestic battery, and a 273AB, child abuse.

Okay.

Misdemeanor charges, 243E1, domestic violence, but with no injury.

It's only misdemeanor.

And then it's misdemeanor child abuse.

Okay.

And those are both misdemeanors.

You could serve a year in county jail if convicted or if you're placed on probation.

You'd have to do some domestic violence counseling or parenting classes for 52 weeks each.

If they could be expensive, if you have a domestic violence conviction, it could affect your child custody since there's a child involved.

Anyway, so there's some serious issues here, some serious consequences to this case.

So what did your client allegedly do, Peter?

What was the child abuse code section?

It was Penal Code 273AB.

Okay.

I've only ever had that as a felony.

This may be one that is wobble.

I guess it does wobble.

I just say, as a felony, that's a very, that's a life case.

So I'm curious to see how it's charged as a misdemeanor.

So luckily, now facing life in this case, one of the big collateral consequences that was at issue here that will become more and more relevant as the story goes on is the potential consequences for custody.

And there was two kids involved, and there was parallel family court proceedings going on.

And the judge there basically said, you know, I'm going to make my decision based off of kind of what happens in that criminal case, and we'll go from there.

Okay.

So going into it, your client's got a two-year max in county jail and is looking at collateral consequences of losing his children.

Right.

Okay.

But let's start from the top so we know the charges, and what did your client allegedly do?

What's the government claiming he did?

Yep.

So the story here is that—

And introduce your client.

Who is your client?

Yeah.

We'll call him Mr. C.

Okay.

And Mr. C, the way the story goes, please show up for a call for service.

He shows up at his baby mama's house, and she says, you know, shows up unannounced, barges into the house.

His family's with him, and he goes up to the baby mama's, arguing with her about the kids.

And as the baby mama's holding the child, grabs her and throws her to the ground.

And that's the battery, and then the child abuse is based off of the fact that she says that, yeah, she was holding him.

And then they have a photo.

He has a bloody nose that they—

The baby does?

The child does, yeah.

So he's turned four during the trial.

It's not full baby, toddler.

What about the time of the offense?

Three.

Three, okay.

So your client, allegedly, with all his family, barges into the mother's house, and then he gets into an altercation with her, throws her to the ground, and then the child's in her arms, so he put him in danger, too.

They're not currently together when he barges into the house.

No, not together.

They were separated.

She had been withholding his kids from him.

The story, as alleged, kind of the theme they try and take on is that he showed up to the house to take the kids by force, and in the process of that, you know, threw her to the ground, ripped him out of her arms, and tried to run away.

So it was an attempted kidnapping that wasn't charged.

I guess you could say in the story that was provided, sure, which, as we all learn, turns out to not really necessarily track with the truth, but she's there, the kids are there, and then her brother is also there, as well as her parents.

So her family's there.

Yeah, so her whole family's there, and then Mr. C's mom, aunt, and then a family friend were there on his side.

That's a lot of witnesses.

Yes.

Did any of them intervene?

Nothing that's really relevant in the beginning.

No real intervention.

It's basically the brother who turns out to be a major, you know, TikTok star.

He was there, and he was the one who called the police.

The maternal brother.

The baby mama's brother.

Yeah, let's go maternal family, and then paternal.

Okay, yes.

But essentially, they all just watch this guy come in and assault her, and nobody stopped.

Like, they were fighting, and he grabs her while she's holding their child, and everyone just watches or films TikTok videos?

Essentially, yes.

They all watch, and, you know, there's a lot of yelling, I guess, back and forth.

But then, you know, as comes out in direct later with the star boy brother, he says that he, the way that the situation ends is he tells Mr. C, client, hey, do things the right way.

And, you know, and so then the entire situation stops.

He puts down the kids and walks away and gives up on the whole endeavor because he was so persuasive, I guess.

Wow.

Do the right thing.

I like that.

Does the police report go into what statements from everybody else?

Do they give witness statements, or is it just they interviewed the mother?

That's it.

Yes, so they show up, they interview the baby mother and her brother, who are waiting there outside for them.

They essentially give loose versions of the same story that, you know, he showed up with court papers, actually.

They get in a big argument, and he threw it to the ground, tried to grab the kid, pause the bloody nose, and ran away.

And then they don't really directly interview the parents, but they're kind of standing there during another.

They interviewed the baby mom and the brother several times at different points throughout the kind of night.

Is the client left then?

He wasn't there when the police arrived?

He was gone.

And the paternal family also was gone?

Yeah, full paternal family was gone at that point.

Everybody just took, okay.

Okay.

They all just rolled with him for this?

And then left with him?

Yes.

Okay.

Yeah.

His entourage.

How does he get arrested then?

So, amazingly, he's never contacted by the police.

Despite, you know, that night, they give the address that he's staying at, his phone number, the names and addresses of the family members who are there, their phone numbers.

I mean, these are well-known to each other people.

And police never contact him, contact his family, follow up.

And so, basically, a couple weeks later, April 29th, investigator gets it, calls the baby mama, reads the police report.

She says, yep, all sounds good.

And they file a felony warrant based on that.

And still, though, did they send a letter?

Did he show up to court?

Was he arrested on an arrest warrant that he didn't know about later?

So, a letter comes in the mail to him at some point later on.

He shows up to court.

It's actually been charged as a misdemeanor.

And the process kind of starts there.

I hate that.

When their whole way of letting someone know about a criminal case against them is just to send a letter.

Just a nice, with a nice, you know, letterhead with what says district attorney on it.

Hopefully, it's the right address.

You know, we just, they just go off whatever address is in the DMV or whatever.

Did he live in another city?

Yes, he was living in San Bernardino County.

Oh, okay.

And this is what, LA Sheriff's or LAPD?

This is Sheriff's.

LA Sheriff's, okay.

They couldn't be bothered.

That was too far.

San Bernardino's way too far, you know.

Too far.

I can see why there's custody issues.

So, I actually, I was not here when the arraignment happened or any of the pre-trial.

This was my second week here in Compton.

This is being branched, and this is another attorney's case.

They're in trial.

They're not looking to waive time on this.

So, I get the handoff on the 8 of 10.

And that's when I meet Client, kind of read the case.

Oh, I miss those days in misdemeanors where you're just minding your business and your

boss walks over and goes, go walk in with this file.

You're picking a jury.

What?

So, what were your initial impressions of the case?

You spoke to the lawyer that was their case, right?

They headed it off to you.

So, what did they tell you?

It was a pretty well-prepped case in terms of at least, like, the basics, which was nice.

Of course.

It's an L.A. County Public Defender case.

Yes.

Obviously.

And, you know, there was transcripts for anything that needed to be translated, and those were

certified.

There was investigative reports of witnesses from our side that had been turned over.

And basically, I get the brief.

We have Client and his family who say that this never happened, that the push never happened.

And we have baby mama and her family who say it did happen.

That's pretty much the state of the case.

You said there was witness statements from the paternal side.

So, who are the paternal witnesses?

Paternal witnesses, Client's mother, aunt, and family friend.

Okay.

And they say the push never happened.

Did they say why they went there?

So, they explained that what happened, the kids were being withheld from Client for over

a month.

He wanted to see them, and there was some issues where the baby mama had been taking the kids

to doctor's appointments.

And so, he finally wanted to take action and take this in the family court so that the judge

there could order joint custody and allow them to exchange the kids on neutral territory and

share custody and make sure the doctor's appointments were being gotten too.

And so, they all showed up with the court papers to initiate those proceedings.

And that's why he came to the family.

He came with other people to make sure that he had witnesses and people there to help kind

of manage the situation.

At the time that this incident happened, they were already fighting over custody in court?

No.

So, this was kind of the initiating event where the court papers were going to be delivered.

So, they hadn't been in court fighting, but they were arguing over custody.

Like, their arrangement wasn't copacetic between the two of them in regards to their co-parenting.

Correct.

Yes.

So, it was she didn't like him.

At this point, obviously, they're separated.

And she felt that, you know, she wanted to have the kids with her.

And so, she just wouldn't let him come and see the kids or take the kids.

And then, after the alleged incident happened, to when the case was filed, they had gone and

took to family court.

And the mother, had she tried to use this incident already in court to try and say she should keep

the kids?

Yes.

And so, this is something I learned about that day.

So, I go in and I get this general briefing.

You know, it's big.

He said, she said, statements are ready, but meet the client and go for everything with them.

In passing, at the end, he kind of just mentions, you know, it's ridiculous because in this family

court that he did two weeks ago, the judge was about to order joint custody and kind of give

them what they were looking for.

And the baby mom out of nowhere says, wait, you can't do that.

He strangled my son and has a completely new kind of version of what happened.

It's far more extreme and immediately in response to the order.

She's saying he strangled her on the same, during, as part of the same incident.

This was on a separate occasion.

Right.

And it's not, she doesn't make that context in that moment, but if you read the whole

transcript, it's clear that that's what she was talking about.

She claims that she's working with her attorney to extend the restraining order and, but there

is no attorney.

It's just the district attorney as the judge there figures out.

And so the judge there is kind of, there's something odd here.

So I'm just going to step back.

Let's wait to see what happens in the criminal proceedings and go from there.

How many, how many kids do they have or do they share?

Two kids, a son and a daughter.

So they go to family law court.

The mother makes an additional statement that she was strangled now.

No, the kid was strangled, right?

The kid was strangled.

Oh, the kid was strangled.

Does the paternal side explain the bloody nose?

Because did he really have a bloody nose?

Was there evidence of a bloody nose?

Yes.

So when Debbie show up, there is a little bit of blood in the son's nose, but it's not

really explained how that happened.

What actual action by Klein or anybody else caused that?

Because basically the way they describe him is coming in, pushing him to the ground.

And that's, that's the extent of the actual action that's required to charge us that kind

of meet the elements.

But the bloody nose doesn't, it's unclear what that is actually from.

Okay.

And the paternal, the paternal side doesn't have an explanation of it either.

When I asked them about it, I mean, it's really just.

He was like that when they got there?

Well, it wasn't like that when they got there.

It was really just like, there's a lot of movement of the kids, like between different

people.

The maternal family and the baby mama, them kind of grabbing at the kids, moving them

around.

And at some point, they'd run and jumped into his arms and she pulled them out of there.

And so there was definitely a lot of chaos.

And during, the question was like, if the bloody nose occurred then, how did it happen?

But don't really know.

So tell us about when you go to meet your client then.

Did you call him on the phone?

Did you let him know you would be doing the jury trial or did you just meet him in court

on the eight of, on the eight of 10?

Man in courts, he came in for, for trial eight of 10, went down, introduced myself, explain

what was going on.

In custody, out of custody?

Out of custody.

Okay.

So you let me know what was going on.

How, tell us about that.

How was that?

Yeah.

So I go over the facts that I understand them to be.

Wait, was he thrilled to have a last minute fourth quarter substitution in return?

He was like, great.

I love that you're brand new to this and we're about to pick a jury.

You know, I gotta say he was a really good sport about it.

He, he, he did not express any annoyance or frustration with it.

He was like, okay, like, this is, this is how we go.

You know, they're bringing in a closer for my hands.

Um, and so he was, he was really cool about me.

Great guy.

You know, I think on its face, the case isn't some, you know, oh, like this is a sure winner.

You know, it's a, he said, she said, and you know, a photo of a kid with bloody nose.

It's not some obvious, oh, we've got to take this one to trial.

But then as you talk to him and that is, I experienced this the same way the attorneys before me experienced it is he was just incredibly compelling.

I mean, when he talks about when you would sit there and tell you what, what happened and why she's lying and this and that, it all made a lot of sense.

And you sat to me and it was like, wait, this is, this is like a real injustice.

And, you know, I asked him, I said, is there an offer that you'd be willing to take on this?

And no, there's no offer.

This is ridiculous.

And then, so then what is the game plan for the defense then?

Cause I mean, some workups already been done.

There's transcripts of recordings.

Was there a 911 call?

Yep.

So there's a 911 call and it actually, the incident occurs while the baby mama is on the 911 call.

So she's speaking to the 911 operator.

Wait, I thought the brother called 911.

So, yes, the brother calls and he's saying, you know, they're arguing about court, blah, blah, blah.

And they say, can we please talk to her?

So he calls before the alleged push.

Yes.

Calls before the alleged push.

Oh, that's bad for you.

He's basically angry because I think that he was under a mistaken impression that there was a restraining order for some reason.

And as I learned later, the parents had essentially been yelling at her parents, had been yelling at her to take action in court so we can get the kids.

And she hadn't done any of that.

And it sounds like maybe she was telling them that she had been taking action.

Why would there be a restraining order if there was no prior DV?

No idea.

I think it's because they didn't have a great understanding of exactly what she had or kind of been doing before.

And I think that she just told them, like, yeah, I'm going to get custody of the kids.

She's not going to be allowed to come here.

They just didn't know.

They just weren't sophisticated about the legal system, it sounds like.

So he thought there was a restraining order, he calls 911, and then she's on the phone narrating what happened, which potentially blows your chance of getting this excluded.

I think, okay, how it went down was the brother calls 911, and then the operator says, we want to talk to the mother.

So he calls 911 before the alleged incident.

So on the 911 call, he hands the phone to the mother, right?

Yeah.

And then what happens next to the 911 call?

And she's on the phone and says, we told him not to come.

We want him gone.

We want him out of the house.

Come and take him out of the house.

And then there's a gap of maybe 15 seconds, and you just kind of hear, like, ambient yelling in the background.

And she goes, he just pushed me.

He just pushed me.

And then they kind of continue on.

And then at the end of the call, she says, now this will be a report, right?

Because I want to bring this to the court.

Oh, okay.

So maybe you don't want to exclude the 911 call.

Yeah.

So initially, I thought on the audio, you can't hear anything that sounds like a pushing or a fall or anybody who's up close to her.

Or any struggling, right?

A baby crying.

You don't hear the baby crying, you know, a couple inches from the phone or anything.

You said ambient yelling too, right?

Yeah.

So you can hear other noise.

You can hear arguing that sounds more distant.

But nothing that sounds like it's happening right there.

And then the way the call starts off is the brother says, there's a court case.

And they're arguing about the court case.

And then the way it ends is with her, you know, requesting, hey, can I get the report for this?

So is she then just, like, has the phone in one hand?

Is there any indication that she's holding the child in the other or at all?

This is one of the things that there's a lot of – you sit there and you kind of hear how she describes it.

You listen to the evidence and then you watch the body horn video in which she reenactments for police.

Of reenactments.

Oh, yeah.

And it's a physical reenactment.

It's on film.

And she's based in an L-shaped couch.

Couch is to – it's in front of her and then sticks out towards her to her left.

She reenacts while holding the kid.

She's holding him with both arms.

And she says, I was standing right here.

And then I got pushed – I got pushed to the ground on the left side.

Where the couch is?

Yeah.

So there's already an idea where she takes a bunch of photos of her left arm, you know, and say, like, look, it's red, it's red.

Not to mention she'd been reenacting things grabbing her arm.

And then she says that she's holding the kid with both hands.

But she's also on the front of the 911.

Right.

And I'm like, did she have the Bluetooth that the boomers love to wear around?

Five AirPods.

So that's something I noticed.

And I'm like, you know, there's some odd disabilities here in terms of exactly how it was said.

And, you know, look, like, people can forget and just remember certain things.

But in this case, it was, you know, how are you holding the phone and talking to the police on the phone?

How did somebody come up to you from the left and throw you down if the couch is to your left?

Can you tell us about any other pieces of evidence that you saw?

Any other videos or recordings that stood out to you?

The electrical possibility would have been, you know, there's a bunch of photos of the bloody nose.

And it's not explained how the bloody nose actually occurred.

It's included as this foregone conclusion.

A shove of her caused this bloody nose to him.

But just to be clear, the pictures are not of an actively bleeding nose.

It's just like a little crusty blood in the nostril.

Right.

Yeah.

It's red.

It's not even dripping down or anything.

It's a little shiny-ish red.

So I'd say it looks recent.

But it's not a shiny nose.

It's fresh.

It was fresh to the touch.

Okay.

Any other recordings that stood out to you?

Any other pieces of evidence?

Videos of the interviews in there.

It was her reenacting it.

But then, at one point, you actually do kind of ask, like, oh, what happened to the son?

And at the same time, several family members give different versions.

The mom swings her arm in a way that reenacts like a punching in the face.

Wait.

The complaining witness mother or her mother?

Sorry.

The grandmother.

Grandmother.

Maternal.

Yes.

The maternal grandmother.

Okay.

She gives a reenactment that your client was suddenly George Foreman.

And it's weird.

And the mother, like, doesn't really look at that.

And she kind of ignores that.

And it's like, oh, he pulled his arm.

And then the brother says, yeah, yeah.

And then the dad, like, I think he, like, swings his light or something.

It all happens at the same time.

And so you're like, this is weird.

Like, nobody really knows what happened.

All right, then.

So your case, then, is just really is, like, their word versus – I mean, it is the he said, she said thing I get.

But there is some physical evidence of a blood, a bloody nose.

We got the 911 call, which kind of contradicts the mother's side.

So it's not completely he said, she said.

So we have some evidence there.

So is that kind of it, though, for the case?

The way that it stands on the 8 to 10 is we have witness statements from Klein and his family saying it didn't happen.

You've got the maternal family saying it did happen.

And then you've got a photo of an arm that may be red, I guess.

You've got a photo of a bloody nose.

And then you've got the 911 call, which, like you said, there are aspects of it that I really like.

But then, you know, you also have a contemporaneous in the moment telling, saying, he just pushed me.

Yeah.

So you're getting past Crawford on that.

So your client doesn't want to take any deal?

Because it seems to me like if they wanted to, they could have had him on a trespass.

And so that's actually exactly what I proposed to him.

I said, you know, look, if you're interested in, you know, I can go and I can try and ask.

Who knows?

Maybe they'll give a trespass.

Like, we can look at him.

He's like, no, this is crazy.

He's like, you can't get away with this.

I'm not giving it on this one.

No, not on a custody issue case.

You're not taking a trespass on a custody dispute case.

Well, and he sits there.

And the way that he explains to me, when he sits there and goes through it all, you walk away really like, oh, my gosh, like there's something real here.

And then in this conversation with the client on the 8 to 10, he mentioned this family court hearing and where she said, oh, he actually strangled my son.

That's what happened.

Yeah, that's right.

And so I immediately kind of started thinking, oh, we got to try and like, I wonder if there's a trend.

Like, do they have a court reporter in those, you know, what's the situation there?

So I asked him, I'm like, was there somebody, you know, sitting there typing?

He's like, yeah, yeah.

Even she thought it would seem crazy.

And I was like, we got to get that.

Like, we got to get the transcript here.

I got to see this.

And, you know, part of it's just to, I want to probe and see if, you know, he's telling me the truth on that.

I'm giving an accurate explanation of what happened.

So I rushed back into the office, started making phone calls.

And after a few hurdles, I got in touch with the court reporters who were handling hearings that day.

And over the weekend, I get the transcripts from the hearings.

Oh, nice.

That's nice.

They're clear as day since right then, you know, judge is about to order, joint custody.

And she panics, you know, says, wait, no, you can't do that.

And the judge says, you know, why not?

Why?

Like, I have no reason not to here.

And she's like, he strangled them.

And there's no clarification, no, nothing like that.

And the rest of the transcripts, they don't paint them in great light.

Like, she sounds like somebody who's there, you know, like kind of, you know, whatever the judge kind of like reprimanded us at one point.

But I get the transcripts.

And that was the first big piece of evidence that I was like really trying to get to be able to impeach her on.

Nice, nice.

That's great.

So let's talk about the beginning of the trial then, right?

Because the trial kind of starts on the 8 of 10.

Yes.

So 8 of 10, the DA hands over a rap sheet for the brother because he's going to be a witness and turns over a Brady tip for the main deputy.

They love to do the Brady on the eve of trial.

So you are left with the decision of whether you need to continue or not.

So the Brady tip in this case, there's some sort of misconduct in the officer or deputy's past.

And this one actually comes with the, with transcripts and the exact description of what happened.

It was that this deputy in a 1538 hearing lied.

Okay.

In suppression motion hearing.

Okay.

You lied one time.

Just that once though.

You caught him once.

It was a one-off.

Just the one time.

He was fine all the other time.

Yeah, times.

Totally trustworthy on this case.

Yeah.

It's just once, you know, a blip.

Okay.

So then, but does the trial start down the 8 of 10 then?

Or what happens?

So then, so the DA also sees in the police reports the first time they mentioned something called a SCAR report.

I didn't know about it before.

They didn't know about it.

So they said, we're going to trial and trial and trial with this, you know, SCAR report.

A suspected child abuse report, SCAR acronym?

Okay.

Yeah.

A SCAR report involving this incident or a separate incident?

So that's the thing that I think that the DA misunderstand.

They think that this is going to be some great, you know, report from that media showing that there's like some horrible child abuse, you know, here in the past.

But I, I've come to learn that, oh no, this is just based off the incident.

Close it out.

They did their own investigation and found it to be nothing.

Yeah, significant.

So it sounds like, it sounds like on the 8 of 10 then the DA shows up and looks at the case for the first time and says, oh my gosh, here's the Brady tip.

Here's a child abuse report.

Here's all these things I should have given you.

Here's a rap sheet that should have come at arraignment.

This is why there's been no meaningful negotiations up until trial because I don't even look at the case.

Yep, exactly.

And it doesn't come with an offer or anything like that.

Nothing new.

And so, so they trail to the 9 of 10, the next day.

And, you know, come back tomorrow.

So you come back tomorrow then?

Yep.

So, so come back the next day, 9 to 10.

We go in the morning.

We're ready to go.

You know, we, we, we make a little bit of a stink, but this last minute, you know, discovery that was hemmed it over doesn't really make a huge difference.

DA actually in the morning says, I'm still not ready.

I'm still not ready, but in the afternoon I can be ready.

And so we go into the afternoon and then finally at like 3 o'clock in the afternoon, DA says we're ready and we get sent out.

Okay.

You get sent to the master trial court or to a different trial court?

How's it?

Originally we were in one of the misdemeanor departments here in the morning on the 9 of 10, but then because they aren't going to be ready, we got sent out to one of the felony departments.

And then they sent us out for trial actually to CCV, to the courthouse downtown.

Oh, you went to downtown?

That's where this trial happened?

To a felony, to a felony judge downtown.

Oh man.

Okay.

You went to a felony.

That's us.

The felony judges were super excited to see a misdemeanor case like this all the way from Compton.

Yes.

I'm sure they were welcoming and excited.

He was thrilled.

Why'd they send you out?

Did they not have like the courtrooms available or something?

Yeah, I guess the courthouse was just slant with trials that day.

And you guys didn't want to waive time to come back on a separate day?

Because commuting to downtown LA sucks.

For the people who don't live here, anytime you get sent downtown when you don't live down there, it's a thing.

It's like an hour and a half commute from where I live.

Minimum, yeah.

No matter where you're coming from.

So then, okay, so you go downtown, you go in front of the judge and tell us.

Where'd you get sent?

We don't want to use any names.

No names.

No names.

I want to know.

It was a felony judge.

You know, they've been around for a while.

One of the court reporters in there says, oh, it'll probably settle beforehand.

Everyone kind of warned me.

They'll probably be a lot of pressure.

We don't have time for this nonsense.

Yeah.

They warned me there'd be a lot of pressure, you know, to try and settle.

Like, I let client know, you know, hey, look, you know, they might try, you know, really, really scary.

You know, like you sit in the court room and you're watching people kind of doing a pre-trial during before trial starts.

And people, you know, they're getting sentenced, you know, a decade-day person.

Like, yeah.

And, you know, client's kind of nudging me like, oh, my gosh.

Poor guy.

But in the end, the judge asked us, you know, hey, is there a current offer?

DA's like, oh, there is no current offer.

I say, I would convey a trespass.

And the judge's like, okay, well, I won't make you go and ask your boss.

So he decides to start.

Okay.

Was there – did the judge have a certain attitude about the case in the beginning?

Was he nice – was he just cordial to both sides?

Professional?

Yeah, he was professional, cordial.

I think he was annoyed to have the case, certainly, at the beginning.

Okay.

I think he was not eager to have this, you know, clogging up his courtroom.

And he definitely – at first, I'd say maybe he was a little bit more sketchful of the defense.

You know, I think he goes for the case and thought, this is, you know, waste of time.

It's a trial.

Defense, you know, is just trying to waste my time here.

It's always us, right?

Why isn't this settled?

Obviously, he's guilty.

What's up, my A&Gers?

If you are a fan of the show, then like and follow us on social media.

And leave a rating and review wherever you get this podcast, especially Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Just leave a rating and review.

Write something nice.

Perhaps even get wild and hit the subscribe button.

That's right.

Subscribe.

All right.

Back to the show.

Yeah.

So we do 402s, the motions in Lemonade.

And it's a foregone conclusion, I think, both to the DA and I that, okay, that obviously the custody situation is going to be a big deal here.

And the DA brings up something related to that.

And the judge goes, you know, custody battle.

I don't care about that.

And that's not going to be here.

We're not going to talk about that at all.

Really?

And I was like, whoa, wait a second, Your Honor.

You're like, this is critical, you know, motive to lie, credibility, potential impeachment.

I mean, this is so deeply intertwined with the case.

I don't believe that the DA or I are going to possibly be able to keep it out.

And the DA is just, you know, so excited at the idea that it's going to be kept out that he goes, oh, no, no, no, we can definitely keep it out.

We won't talk about it at all.

And, you know, the judge kind of looks at me and goes, like, oh, like, what?

Like, what?

Your whole case is going to be that this is nonsense because of the custody battle?

Yeah.

I was kind of like, yeah, sort of, yeah.

How could an experienced trial judge not know that criminal cases come from custody battles all the time?

It's, I mean, it could be real domestic violence or it could be lied upon domestic violence.

But everybody in the system knows that false allegations arise from custody battles all the time.

I mean, it's ridiculous.

I mean, it should be in the jury's instructions as a factor in terms of determining credibility.

I mean, it's one of the most passionate, like, emotional drivers that somebody could possibly have.

I sat there and basically I kind of kept arguing back and forth, like, no, this has to be a part of it.

And he tells us, if you want to litigate custody, go to a different course.

That's not what I'm trying to do.

So he eventually settles with, okay, you can basically ask one question about it.

And you can say, for example, isn't it true that, you know, he showed up that night to deliver court papers?

And that's it.

And he said, nothing beyond that.

That's all.

So I walk away.

It's settled.

And I'm feeling really horrible about the situation.

I mean.

Devastating blow to your defense.

Yes.

It's the entire defense just got excluded.

I'm sitting there looking at client.

And so client, his whole family comes to court every day.

Every one of these days, they're all there watching.

And they're asking me, like, oh, is this important?

And I'm like, oh, geez.

Yeah, so I go upstairs to the PD's office downtown.

And, you know, I'm telling people, they're like, I don't know what to do.

I feel, like, terrible.

Like, should I be telling them that you should, like, lead on this?

Because this is, I don't know what I'm going to say.

I have no idea.

I'm wondering, you know, if they kick me in the butt, they're like, no, it'll be good.

It'll be good.

You'll find a way.

It'll work out.

You still have a great client that will probably testify.

So you have that.

And I've got these transcripts, too.

Yeah.

I don't have them yet.

You're excluded as part of the 402, though.

You could still talk about how she had made different statements.

Because this is impeachment.

Well, in such a sense, I did not bring up the transcripts yet.

I didn't have them yet.

They were in the works.

And I was going to get them over the weekend.

This is on a Friday.

But, yes, in my mind, I'm like, look, this can still be impeachment.

Like, this is, he's going to hate it.

The judge might, in a moment, go crazy, you know, and say no if I try and sidebar to bring him in.

But this is still good impeachment evidence that I should be able to find a way to get around, if I can get the questions, to get there.

So we do 402s.

But we also, because it's the 10 of 10 at this point, bring in the jury to start.

On Friday.

On Friday.

Which they were all so excited.

Yes.

Wow.

Exactly.

Super dejected people who thought they almost made it through the week without getting selected on a jury.

Also, all the rejects from the other juries, right, that couldn't make it.

Let's talk about poor Peter, though.

It's a Friday.

He has been sent from his misdemeanor court in Compton to a felony court all the way downtown to a felony judge who is thrilled to be picking up that slack.

And his defense has just been excluded.

And now here comes a panel of all these people who are like, fuck you.

We thought we were out of jury duty.

And now we have to walk in on a Friday and come back next week.

So can we all just take a moment to recognize, because we've all been there.

We've all been in that spot on a Friday afternoon.

And like, everybody hates me and this is the worst.

And I don't know what I'm going to say.

Yeah.

So I wasn't feeling great.

Yeah.

And I think the jury's feelings were pretty well reflected in some of their answers.

Nothing crazy interesting about this voir dire, but I basically, you know, decide that I just want people who don't immediately trust that the system did its job and that the guy sitting there in front of them is, you know, oh, you know, well, he must have done something.

Otherwise, why would he be there?

Did the judge start doing voir dire on Friday then, or just a little bit of pre-instructions?

So, so he did hardships and he asked questions.

I didn't get to that.

Is there something about your voir dire that like, can you tell us about your approach to voir dire?

Cause I mean, I imagine, so you come back on Monday, right?

And you start your voir dire.

Is that right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so, so my voir dire on it, I think the big ones for me in this case would be just because you think that somebody probably did something.

Are you, are you going to be able to say not guilty if they didn't prove it beyond a reasonable doubt?

And are you going to have some internal conflict there?

If you walk away and for whatever reason, you think the evidence showed that, you know, I probably did it, but it's not beyond a reasonable doubt.

Are you going to be able to say not guilty?

And the judge actually hated the way I did it on this one.

So I need to rework maybe some wording there.

And in response, he banned me from asking the question again.

And then also from referring at any point in the trial, including close-in, from referring to any other legal standard other than beyond a reasonable doubt.

What?

And so that meant that in my close-in, I would also not be allowed to compare reasonable doubt to other legal standards.

So you couldn't do the, the walk them through the standards and how this is the highest legal standard.

Like they can take your children away from you at the lower standard.

Which, which I was really excited about that particular one in this case, because, you know, I thought that was going to be a big theme was the custody.

And then I was going to get to my, you know, great PowerPoint that, you know, walks through the standards.

And one of those was going to be, you know, taking the children away, which had it happened.

I cannot wait to hear which judge this is.

I think I am.

This judge is annoying.

This guy is so annoying.

So I'll say, it started off rocky.

I was not happy with maybe some of his decisions.

And he was, you know, clearly like a little annoyed with me, but the DA proved to be more annoying.

Any interesting interactions with jurors you had during voir dire?

Yeah.

So I, one of the things I did is when they read the witness, names of all the witnesses to the jurors or potential jurors to see if anybody knows them.

I asked the judge to include the brother's TikTok handle to see if anybody recognized that.

And first of all, like six people raised their hand.

He's got six and a half million followers on TikTok.

He's like huge.

Hold on.

We haven't, we, you talked about it in the beginning, but I didn't want to talk about it then because it was kind of early.

So when did you realize he was the TikTok star?

Client kind of mentioned it to me in passing.

Like, yeah, you know, like he's, he's on my TikTok always doing, you know, dumb videos.

And so I kind of went home and looked it up at one point and I realized, oh my gosh, he's, he actually, like, this is a job.

I mean, six and a half million followers on TikTok, like millions on Instagram.

Like he's, he's got, he's got a significant following.

And, you know, what do you know when, uh, when the judge read the TikTok name, like five or six people raised their hands.

Can you tell us what he does on TikTok?

What's his, which is his stick, his shtick?

Yes, sir.

When I first looked it up, I thought, oh, I'll take a quick look to see if it's like, there's any, like, you know, gold here for me to try and, you know, use.

And I, I didn't see anything because it was just, it was definitely like dumb, like POV videos where it's like, oh, POV, you know, your teacher is, I don't know, giving you a quiz or something.

And he acts out.

How old is he?

Um, early thirties, maybe.

Early thirties.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And he just does silly videos.

Point of view videos that are just dumb.

Like little skits.

He does a lot of skits.

Okay.

Okay.

And there were things that I, you know, didn't seem relevant, but, you know, enough followers.

I was like, oh, I'll ask the judge if I laughed.

You know, the judge went for it.

That was smart.

And did you have to get rid of those jurors?

Were they like, yes, we love him?

So I did eventually getting rid of all of them because a lot of them, you know, his hands started laughing.

Like, oh, I love him.

Like, he's hilarious.

And as it turns out, the bailiff actually knew him.

The bailiff was like, oh my gosh, I can't believe that.

Oh, come on.

The bailiff was starstruck.

Yeah.

So I ribbed him on that, you know.

How ridiculous.

Yeah.

So we kind of get through.

And in my point here, you know, I basically, another one of the questions, I hand it on the investigation piece a lot.

You know, like, oh, like, you know, somebody calls the police, police show up.

They ask the person what happened.

Like, what do they do next?

You know, what do you expect to happen in a police investigation?

And yeah, anything else you think was to happen.

And so I get a lot of good answers.

They'd want to interview the other person.

They'd want to, you know, collect, see if there's any security cameras or any videos and things like that.

And then the other one is, you know, I just ask, I think, how about it's kind of been a, doesn't usually reap such strong rewards for me.

But in this one, I do.

Does anybody here just assume that he's guilty sitting right there right now before hearing any evidence like who he wrote about guilty?

Several people raised their hand, like five people raised their hand.

And I call him one of them.

And I'm like, tell us why.

Like, thank you for sharing.

You know, explain that.

Like, why do you think that?

And he tells this whole story about how, like, you know, my mom, you know, is an addict.

And, you know, she stays with us sometimes.

We have to kick her out sometimes.

And I've been watching his body language this whole time.

And his body language is exactly what she does when she's using and she's lying.

Like, he's clearly guilty.

It's so obvious to me.

So I'm like, oh, gosh.

Like, I mean, I'm like, do I need to get an entirely new panel?

Because then another juror raises his hand.

I'm like, okay, yeah, you.

Let's hear it.

Bring it on.

He's like, you know, I didn't think so before, but that makes a lot of sense.

I totally am convinced by that.

Oh, my God.

Oh, no, Peter.

Is anybody cleaning it up or saying, but can you put that aside and be fair?

Or are you still feel that way regardless of it?

Like, you know, are you trying to get him kicked for cause in this moment?

Or what do you?

Yeah, so at this point, I mean, I'm debating asking for, like, you know,

a completely new panel.

Nobody in this room can be on the jury.

Clean in the pool.

Yeah, but then a little cleanup his efforts are done, you know.

Like, oh, but you would.

And in the end, actually, the guy who said that, I did not get kicked for cause.

I had used a port of the jury on, which I was pretty frustrated by.

How?

Someone had to have cleaned that up.

How did he not get kicked for cause?

The judge or the DA had to have said something to him.

They didn't ask anything specific to that point.

Like, judge goes, if I tell you, you have to, like, keep an open mind in this case,

are you going to be, you know, fair?

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Okay, so you're not kicked for cause.

Totally.

Then, like, the DA, he asked some silly questions, like, his very first question, and this is when the judge, I think, started to, you know, slowly warm up to me.

You know, I was making eyes at him when the DA, he starts his questions with, like, you know, who here thinks that they have, who here would have to see the police report in order to vote guilty?

And he goes one by one, and he starts calling on every single juror and having them confirm that they don't need to see the police report in order to vote guilty.

And the jurors start going crazy.

They're like, wait, why don't I get to see the police report?

Yeah.

Obviously.

The judge goes, like, counsel, like, drop this point.

Like, this has nothing to do with that idea.

I don't know why you're possibly saying this.

And we're going to look at each other, like, why is he asking this?

But the jurors won't move on.

So there's, again, like, a group of three or four jurors who raise their hand after, and they're asking the judge.

They're like, why can't we see the police report?

Why are you starting evidence now?

Yes.

I feel like I need to see it now.

This seems really weird.

I hadn't thought about it until that guy mentioned.

I mentioned it, but now I really want, I need to see it.

Yeah.

And the judge goes, it doesn't matter.

Like, this is the law.

This is the law.

I'm telling you what the law is.

Like, you can't consider it.

I bet you was so pissed.

The juror literally gets in the argument and says, I don't, that doesn't seem fair at all.

You know, like, I feel like that's going to be where the honest stuff is.

Like, that's going to be the best piece of evidence.

Should have been like, nope, that's not where the honest stuff is.

Exact opposite.

I feel like the judge is, like, seeing these two younger lawyers, like, you're, you're, like, you ask a question.

The jurors are all, like, he looks guilty for all these reasons.

Then the prosecutor's, like, you can't see the police report.

What?

It's just, no one's volunteer is just, just spiraling down.

The judge was there, like, this is exactly why we don't want these misdemeanor charges.

The judge was, like, exactly.

He was, you know, extra frustrated.

In the end, though, I mean, it was, you know, there's the normal, like, kind of, like, TV, you know, people have personal experiences, you know, they do sidebars, you know, have tough conversations, tell stories.

And there's so much badness that exists.

I made 12 forecast challenges when it came time for it.

And 10 of them were ranted in the end.

Oh, wow.

Okay.

It was, like, a pretty significant reset of that first panel.

So you almost did get an entirely new panel.

Almost did.

I realized that the, I really want the detective, who didn't do anything, to testify.

And he's on the witness list for the prosecution.

But I realized that I really want him.

And you didn't have him under subpoena?

No.

So I send out a subpoena that Friday in hopes that maybe the trial will go on for longer.

The soonest I can get him subpoenaed for is the next Friday.

And the judge was really eager for this trial to be done.

I'll bet.

Yeah.

He was super committed to, you know, this trial is going to be done on Thursday.

And so I got a subpoena for Friday.

And I was like, ah, it's probably, you know, a move point.

But I'll try and see what happens.

All right.

Well, let's talk about opening statements then.

How'd that go?

A real fun start.

We get to Monday.

Have the weekend thinking about it.

And that morning, but before we get to the opening statements, the DA turns over some, you know,

transcripts for some of his exhibits that he's going to enter.

And he mentions to him, yeah, you're going to bring in anything that has to do with like the social media for the brother, right?

And I was like, ah, probably not.

I don't have the time to hear through all that.

And he says, okay, well, I was sitting there and I happened to see one of his videos pop up from like a month ago.

And it made me think, oh, shoot, should I be going through all these videos?

And he like flattens that there's like, he apparently saw some like concerning content.

So that right there, I'm putting a pin on that.

Tonight, I'm going to watch every single video that this person has ever made.

It just sounds suspicious.

And then he also tells me like there's a new witness statement that apparently they're now saying that client broke the mailbox.

Oh, federal offense.

Okay.

It's an uncharged federal crime.

That's why it's not in this case.

You know, the feds are going to pick this up afterwards.

He opened up all the mail.

How is this opening, the prosecutor?

Yeah, so opening, it was a bit straightforward.

You know, he tells some version of the story where, you know, client shows up, you know, decides to take the kids by force, you know,

rolls her to the ground, ridges the kids away and tries to run out with them.

Very dramatic sounding.

Yes, very.

And then you came in.

And what did you say?

I mean, your defense has been excluded.

So what was your opening?

So in my opening, I decided to take a more aggressive approach on explaining like what was going on here.

And I was afraid at first, I overpromised, you know, I went into this, you know, whole spiel about, you know, this case is about a lot of things.

But, you know, at the end, it's about, you know, justice and, you know, making sure that somebody can't weaponize the criminal system, you know, to meet their own ends, come in and abuse the process for their own personal behavior.

All right.

You didn't say the words child custody, but you got the gist of it in there.

Right.

I pushed the theme pretty hard without, you know, getting.

But you can bring up the papers that he went there to serve her custody papers, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so I explained to you, this is our response, you know, when he came in and he tried to, he tried to letter court papers and everything grew up.

And then I also go in on the investigation.

This is, this is not a case that's tested and found out.

This is a case in which one person's statements have just been passed from person to person and ended up right here in front of you.

And you, as the jury, are going to be the first people ever in this case to actually sit down and decide what happened here and judge the evidence and hear all sides of the story.

The police didn't.

And hear every piece of evidence.

Nobody else up until this moment has actually done that.

There's been no due diligence.

So you are the due diligence like in this case.

Nice.

I like that.

Okay, great.

So let's talk about the evidence.

How did it roll out for the prosecution?

He gets in the 911 calls, posts a body worn from the police, the deputy's interview with her that night.

Gets in the photos, the kid with the nose.

As she's kind of going through, she starts saying a bunch of stuff.

The mother, the mother does.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Sorry.

So this is the first witness.

Yeah.

And it's the mother of the child, you know, the alleged victim here and saying things that are completely contradict kind of what the situation was before.

The first of those being like, okay, so what happened?

And in her testimony in court, she says he just barged into the house.

He showed up with no notice and no permission and just barged into the house uninvited.

But then within the direct, in the body worn video that the DA plays, she then tells deputies, oh, yeah, I knocked on the door.

My parents answered it.

Like, they let him in.

So she's impeaching herself.

We didn't even wait till cross before she started falling apart.

Exactly.

I'm sitting there.

I'm like, wait a second.

This doesn't make any sense.

And you're looking at the jury like, are you guys catching this?

Yeah.

Wait, but the prosecutor didn't play the video.

You just know in the video she's saying something different.

No, the prosecutor played the video.

Played the video?

So she says he came in and barged in, and then the prosecutor then plays the video of her saying that he knocked on the door and the grandma let him in.

He was focused on some, like, other, I guess, aspect of it and didn't realize that she says that.

All right.

Another one is he has to confirm how she's holding the son, and he locks her in really strong.

He's like, you're grabbing your son as tightly as you possibly can.

And you've got your arms wrapped around him, both arms wrapped around, holding him as tight as you possibly can.

And she's like, yes, yes.

And, you know, he confirms that the couch, that she's up against the couch, and he tries to include a little bit of flourish, you know, that.

And you're up against the couch, you know, trying to get as far away as possible from, you know, the defendant.

And she's like, yes, yes, I was as far away as I could get.

And then he goes in on the left arm.

And he's like, the left arm, the left arm, the left arm, over and over.

And then he brings up the photo.

And he says, this is your left arm, right?

Yeah.

And you can see injury here, right?

And she's like, yeah.

And he's like, it's so red.

It's so red.

Like, he grabbed you by the left arm and threw you to the ground.

Yes, yes, yes.

Wait, you're letting all these leading questions happen, by the way?

I was making a lot of objections here.

Not a lot we're being sustained here.

Okay.

I thought it was just that he was telling the story.

I mean, yeah.

How's this going?

There's a lot of hearsay and a lot of leading happening in this direct.

Basically testifying for her.

And there's also a number of things that I was, like, pretty excited to be hearing coming

out of their mouths on direct.

So there were some things that I was kind of letting go.

He confirms with her that she was on the phone with 911 when it happened, and that she was

talking to 911 the whole way through.

And then she also adds in some, like, new injury that there was to the chin and lip, which...

To her chin and lip.

Oh, no, sorry.

To the son's chin.

Okay.

In addition to the bloody nose.

Okay.

Yeah.

And so I guess it's, like, the first time he was showing the photos, and there's redness

on the lip and the chin, too, right?

She's like, yeah.

Pretty straightforward, direct, kind of goes through the whole situation.

But there's a number of points that I'm going crazy about, like, oh, this is incredible.

And so first thing, you know, I started off with, you know, you said that, you know, he

barged it.

Yeah.

And she wasn't invited at all.

No.

But isn't it true that your mom actually let him in?

Yes.

And I say, oh, but you...

Really?

And she says, well, he let his mom in.

And I'm like, okay, so she let the mom in, but not him.

Okay, whatever.

And didn't he text you 30 minutes before he arrived?

Yeah.

So it wasn't unannounced.

And she goes, well, totally not to come.

And I said, oh, but he was coming.

Yeah, yeah, okay.

And then I talked to her about the phone.

And first, I talked to her about the couch.

So you said that you were so scared, and you were trying to hide, like, get as far away

as possible from him, right?

Yeah.

And you were facing the couch, yeah.

And it's an L-shaped couch, yes.

And that left arm of the couch is jutting out to your left.

And she says, yeah.

So you're up against that couch, as far away as you can get from him, yes.

And so there's no space whatsoever between you and the couch.

No.

So then how did he come and grab you from the left side and throw you to the ground?

And she goes, oh, well, I don't know if it was the left side or not.

It could have been the right side.

I don't really remember.

And I'm like, but didn't you just point to your left arm in the photo saying, like, that's

the marks from him throwing you from the left?

And she says, I don't know.

I don't know.

Like, I don't really remember that well.

And so I'm like, okay.

No, no.

And you had your arms wrapped around him, you know, as tight as you possibly could.

You know, you're trying to, you know, keep him from being gripped away from you.

Yes, yes.

And, you know, you're gripping really hard.

Yeah.

And you're on the phone 9-1-1.

She says, yeah.

Which hand are you using to talk to 9-1-1 with?

And she goes, she stops for a second.

She's like, oh, I'm holding, I was holding it, you know, between my shoulder and my head.

I'm like, oh, okay.

The prosecutor, he just played the 9-1-1 call for us.

Right?

Yeah.

And you tell, you know, dispatchers, oh, he just pushed me.

Yeah.

Did you hear anywhere in that phone call any sounds of, you know, you hitting the ground?

She says, oh, well, no, I don't know.

I don't know.

Okay.

And so he threw you to the ground, right?

Yeah.

And it was pretty hard.

Yeah.

And hard enough that it seemed to have been your son.

Yeah.

But the phone stayed in between your ear and your shoulder that whole time.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it never fell.

No.

Like, never hit the ground.

And there's no sound whatsoever from, you know, the push or the fall.

And she's like, no, no, I don't know.

I don't know.

Are you having fun at this point?

I mean, at one point even, I repeat for some other point.

So you don't know which side he grabs you.

This states testimony.

And so I looked at her and I said, ma'am, do you know which side he grabbed you on?

She goes, no.

So then I asked her about the injury too.

I'm like, okay, so the bloody nose.

You say, Mr. C, he did this to your son, right?

Yes.

And it was when he threw you to the ground.

Yes.

But you testified that what happened is he threw him to the ground and then he grabbed him by the arm.

Now, that's how he got injured was him pulling on his arm to pull him off the ground.

And she goes, yeah.

I'm like, so then how did him pulling on the arm give your son a bloody nose?

And she goes, oh, I don't actually know how he got the bloody nose.

Wait, that's huge.

How do you know, how do you know, did you see that?

And she goes, oh, well, I don't.

I cannot really see anything.

And so I go, wait a second.

So you can't tell me how's it going to be.

Can you tell me who at all did this?

And I said, you're just assuming that it was him?

She goes, yes.

And I'm like, why?

And I'm like, what assumption are you making here?

And she just says, well, he didn't have a bloody nose before and he had it after.

At this time, I'd like to give a huge thanks and shout out to Ryan Sullivan, our newest member to the A&G Patreon program.

Ryan, thank you so much for your donation to A&G and supporting the cause.

It really helps with keeping the lights running over here at the A&G Studios.

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

Did the custody thing come up at all in the cross-examination?

So that's what I kind of – I'm getting to – we're getting to the end of the day and, you know, I've kind of hit around all, like, the main inconsistencies.

And I decide, like, okay, this is the time I'm going to try and lock her in to see if I can get this transcript in there.

I sit there and I said, you've told us everything there is to know about what happened that night, right?

Yeah.

You've told us everything that, you know, Mr. C. did to your son, right?

Yeah.

And there's nothing more you want to say.

No.

You spoke to police, you know, four times that night.

You spoke to an investigator two weeks later.

You spoke to the prosecutor yesterday.

You testified on direct this morning.

And you just answered my questions on cross.

And you've told us everything, right?

Yes.

I like the setup.

So then I go, okay, Your Honor, sidebar.

Like, I'd like a sidebar.

So I go over.

I grab the transcripts.

I walk over to the judge.

I'm doing the sidebar right there.

Your Honor, I have transcripts from a family court proceeding from two weeks ago,

in which she claims that he actually strangled the son in this incident.

And the judge is like, oh, my gosh, are you kidding me?

The judge is like, I just want to go home.

I want you out of my courtroom.

I think he sees the writing on the wall here.

He knows he has to come in.

But he's like, okay, we're going to recess for 10 minutes.

And, you know, I'll review the transcripts.

The prosecutor will review the transcripts.

We'll come back.

So we take a recess.

They both review the transcripts.

We come back.

So the one concern that basically the judge brings up and the DA brings up is,

oh, how do we know that she's talking about this incident?

How do we know, you know, she's not talking about some other different time?

Fair question.

Yeah.

And, you know, it just kind of looks at me and is like, look, Your Honor,

I think that in the context of the transcript, it's pretty clear.

I think if you read the whole thing, there's not much question.

I think that we all read this and we probably came to the same conclusion.

Even though if in that, you know, one statement, it doesn't say.

That night, you know, he did that.

And the judge is like, okay, well, you're kind of taking a risk there.

Because what if, you know, you ask this question and she says.

That was a whole separate incident, yeah.

Yeah.

He's struggling with my son on a different day.

And it's super fair.

And so I kind of sit there and the judge kind of looks at me and I kind of look at the client

and I tell him, you know, look, this, I tell him, I was like, look, the process is going

really well.

Like, we've actually done basically like 90% of what we possibly wanted to do in this situation

anyways.

Like, if there is any chance whatsoever that, you know, the answer is not going to be what

we wanted to be here.

Like, we got to not do this.

We got to not do it.

Like, no.

Like, this 100%, 100%, there's 0% chance there's, it's about anything else.

Well, not that.

Listen, because if she's going to say, oh, that was a different time.

Okay.

A different time that you only brought up in the criminal, in the family law court.

You didn't call the police.

You never reported to anybody beforehand.

So you're saying it happened, but just not.

All right.

Okay.

And that's a whole host of other questions of, you know, if there's a different incident

and we're just hearing about it.

So I go back to her and in the transcript, she also talks about how she was talking to

her attorney about it.

But then also in the transcript, she says that the only attorney she has is the district

attorney.

So I'm also like, okay, so what, the district attorney has witness statements from you claiming

a whole different incident that they didn't turn out?

Or like, but so she's clearly lying about that too.

Yeah.

Or the DA is.

And so I asked her, I say, man, like you, you talked to this, you talked about what happened

this night at a family court hearing two weeks ago, didn't you?

Yes.

And in that hearing, you know, you talked about your attorney.

You only have, you don't have an attorney, I mean, a district attorney, right?

No.

The only attorney that you have is a district attorney.

Yes.

And when you talked about this incident in the family court hearing, isn't it true that

you've actually claimed there that Mr. C strangled your son?

And she goes, yeah, yeah.

And the judge looks at her and goes, ma'am, was this under oath?

And she just goes, yeah, yeah.

And so I'm like, and then, is there, is there a reason why you use such inflammatory language

and claims there that said nothing about that ever anywhere else?

And she goes, I don't know.

I don't know.

I don't know.

Wait, was that your question or the judge's question?

That was my question.

Oh, why are you such inflammatory questions in the context of the family law court?

She says, I don't know.

Yeah.

And she's like, I don't know, I don't know.

And basically, you know, it blows up, like, this whole thing she said, and then she's

really embarrassed about it.

And you meant strangled, right?

Yeah.

And so we stopped there.

And I can't think of anything else to ask you because I'm like, this was.

There's no need.

There's no need.

I mean, listen, to recap, she's just admitted that she made this other statement while

she was under oath after telling you that she had said everything that happened.

She has admitted she's, in fact, not sure where she was grabbed or how she was grabbed

or where the injuries might be.

And that she doesn't even think or know that your client's the one that claws the bloody

nose on the baby.

Right?

Like, I mean.

Yeah.

Yeah.

She admits she doesn't remember what happened to her.

She admits that she doesn't know what happened to the son.

And she admits that she's lying under oath in the family court.

So it's not just that she lied under oath, but she lied under oath about this incident

after which is which was which happened at the end of her testimony after she was caught

on direct lying about him barging in.

And after you walked her through all of the other stuff, like, well, obviously, she's not

telling the truth about anything that happened here either.

What?

I mean, this couldn't have gone any better.

And I didn't want to push file off with the judge, but I didn't get into the broader context

of the transcript, you know, and talk about how it was immediately in response to the order

by the judge.

But so I kind of ended direct with asking her, you know, like, you know, you live with your

family.

You're all very close.

Work together.

And you would do you do anything for them.

Right.

Yeah.

And they would do anything for you.

Yeah.

Including come in here and lie.

Yeah.

And so end off on that.

And so it's like the end of it.

It's close to the end of the day.

Not quite there.

But so the DA stands up, you know, for for redirect.

And he just goes, your honor, can we have a sidebar?

And this is his like 15th sidebar of the trial.

He just kept asking for sidebars, right?

And the judge like, oh, my God, where is it possibly going to be?

And so he says, OK, well, recess for the day, sends the jury out.

And, you know, it's just us in there.

And he's like, what?

Like, what do you want to ask about?

And he goes, well, you know, I'm just not really convinced that, you know, she was talking

about this incident when she said strangle.

I think that she may have been talking about a different incident.

So I just want to make sure it's OK if I ask her if she's talking about a different

incident.

And he looks at him and the judge is just like, do you have any factual basis whatsoever

to ask this question?

Like, are you telling me that in a DD case, the district attorney's office has had for

months?

What?

You've never asked her if there's been any other incident and you have no factual basis

whatsoever to put that question forward.

You're just going to sit there fishing, hoping that something that's helpful to you comes

out.

And then he just rips into him.

You have, you know, ethical obligations as a prosecutor.

You know, in this case, the defense attorney, they have obligations to their client, to represent

their client.

You, sir, have a higher standard.

You know, like you have to come into this courtroom and represent, you know, the government.

And in this courtroom, you will be held to those ethical applications.

Like, you will not be doing that in my courtroom.

If you want to go home, you know, and ask her outside of court, you know, oh, what's she

talking about?

You know, that incidentally different.

You know, be my guest.

But if you come in tomorrow, just think about what that's going to look like to the jurors.

If you overnight, magically out of nowhere, have the brand new domestic violence event that

was never mentioned before, right after she was impeached, you know, about a prior underworld's

transcript.

Like, okay, you know, you go and do that.

Now who's having a bad day?

Yes.

And so I'm sitting there, you know, doing everything I cannot, you know, like, stand up, you know,

smile.

You're like on cloud nine right now, right?

Oh, yeah.

I skipped out of the courtroom up to the 19th floor, you know, telling everybody, that's

what just happened.

This is on Tuesday or was this on Tuesday or Wednesday?

This is still Monday.

Still Monday.

Okay.

Wow.

Okay.

So how this prosecutor thinks he can clean this up.

So just real quick.

So Peter, on the first day, you go up to the 19th floor public defender's office and

you're like, fuck, my whole defense has just been fucking canned.

What the hell am I going to do?

And then the next day, you go up there skipping along the hallways.

You didn't even need an elevator.

You just went straight up.

Just levitating.

The ups and downs of this job, dude, like.

One of the trends at CCD, one of the other trends at CCD, he's like, you have no idea

how live you are.

And that's, you know, over the weekend, I kept telling myself, like, oh, yeah, I can't

see the light yet, but I'm sure.

I'm sure it's going to turn around.

Okay.

So what happens the next day then?

Yeah.

So end that day, you know, feeling great.

You know, I'm like, oh, this is going really well.

But okay.

Another challenge is ahead of us.

A cooperating witness, the brother.

Our TikTok star.

Yes.

And have you ever cross-examined a celebrity before?

Or is this something new?

Are you nervous?

This is my first.

This is my first thing.

I mean, millions of followers.

Is he live streaming this, you know, point of view from a witness?

You know, like.

I did take the, I made sure every day I have to watch his stories, see if he was posting

anything about the chase.

But so that, that night though, I'm sitting there and I'm pretty happy with how things

are growing.

I'm like, okay, how?

I'm like, to this cross, I just need to avoid like landmines.

I'm going to sit down and watch all of those videos.

I'm going to see what he's got on there.

See if there's anything good.

Cause the DA literally flagged to me.

I feel a little weird about it.

So I go through and I watch every single video he's ever posted.

Like how many videos?

How many?

I mean, hundreds and hundreds.

Okay.

That's a great night.

And look, there might be other people who are like, it is not my cup of tea.

After a whole day in trial too.

Did you just feel stupid afterwards?

Just felt dumb, right?

Just dumber.

I was feeling pretty dumb, but then, you know, I started getting to the end.

And I started coming across this series of videos that the theme is

corporal punishment, basically.

It's like POV, you just got home late from curfew.

Your parents are waiting for you after curfew.

And he's holding a belt.

And I'm like, hi, that's kind of, I don't really know what I'm going to do here,

but I'm going to take a screenshot of that one.

And then there's like three other.

So I find these four different videos that are all like, you know, POV,

your report card just came back.

It's like him holding a belt, pretending to be the parent.

And I'm like, okay, I'm going to screenshot those,

you know, keep them for later.

I'll come back.

And then I get to the very end, like third video from the end,

is a video in which the complaining witness, the mother of the son,

the alleged victim here, is acting.

And she's acting out a fake 911 call where she's screaming crime.

911, it's in Spanish, but it's pretty obvious what's happening.

And then it pans to a skit about, you know, the kid being hurt.

And then it pans at the end to a video of the son, in this case, screaming crime,

looking legitimately very upset.

And it's all part of this skit.

And I'm like, oh my gosh, this sounds exactly like what the 911 call was.

Really?

It's not the same vibe and tones?

Yeah.

I mean, like the screaming, the crying, you know, the brand of.

How long ago was it posted?

It was old.

It was 2022.

So, it was a little old.

And it's not directly on the front, but I'm like, oh, this is like, there's something here.

Like, there's like.

It was practice, is what it was.

Yeah, like she's acted out in one call before.

They show some disregard, I think, for probably like the health and safety of the son there

by like subjecting him to like, apparently like making him upset for the videos.

Certainly the seriousness of that kind of situation.

There's a disregard for that.

Yes.

The whole approach to it all just made it feel very like Cavalier.

And so, I screen record the video, but it's in Spanish, but I had to get it transcribed

to use it.

In the screen recording, you know, you can see it's like 1030 at night, you know, from

the whole left corner.

I send it to a couple of different transcribers and I'm like, hey, is there any chance, like,

you know, obviously I don't have an appointment order or anything at that point.

Like one minute video, is there any chance that you could like help me out and try and

do this?

I'm going to be crossing the witness tomorrow morning.

So, what do you know?

What do you know?

The shout out in between the lines, David Perez comes through at like-

As always.

This morning.

As always.

And he says like, look, it's, you know, it's one minute.

I'll take care of you.

He's like, I can get it to you by 11.

And I'm like, okay, you know, maybe 11 will work.

You know, hopefully it won't be too late.

And again, I'm still not totally sure.

I'm like trying to figure out what it is.

So, I draft out some questions and kind of have them ready.

I'm like, okay, maybe I'll be able to get that stuff.

And I print it all out.

I save the screen recording.

And whatever.

So, the next day, morning starts and we're still on the first witness.

So, there's the redirect of the first witness and I'm sitting there and I'm like, okay, so how is he going to save this?

How is he going to explain the strength line?

The alleged strength line.

What's he going to say?

So, I was kind of prepared for him to come in, you know, trying to light a new incident or something like that.

Instead, he goes in and first, he reconfirms for some reason that it was in fact her left arm.

Wait, I'm sorry.

Are we, we're talking about the redirect?

Redirect.

The DA's redirect, yeah.

Redirect of the mother-like victim.

All right.

And he goes in and first, he reconfirms that it was her left arm for some reason, even though she admitted to the physical impossibility of the left arm and then said that she didn't actually know which arm.

So, that I thought was odd on his part, you know, rather than trying to pick it from the head.

Then, instead, he, instead of trying to let you know a new incident, he instead tries to say that she actually issued a clarification later in the transcript.

And so, I see him and her, they're sitting down, you know, on the benches, and they walk through the entire transcript together.

And, you know, he reads it with her and talks to her.

And so, she goes up on the stand and he says like, oh, you know, like, when you said strangle, you didn't mean strangle, right?

No.

And you actually clarified later in the transcript that that's not what you meant, right?

And she's like, yeah.

And he says, you said he put hands on him.

And that's what you meant.

That was a clarification, right?

And she goes like, yeah, yeah.

And he says, how did you feel when you were making the statement?

And so, I object to relevance.

And, you know, finally, an opportune moment, you know, it's sustained.

And he says, okay, he's trying to understand that she was like scared or nervous, I think, to explain why she said something different.

He uses a terrible choice of words.

And he says, what was the context in which you said this?

And opens up, she starts talking about how there's like, you know, this court case.

A custody battle.

Do this or that and starts talking about it.

And he kind of cuts her off.

Thank you, Mr. DA.

Yep.

So, she's like, he's like, stop, stop, stop.

You know, like, okay, that's enough.

And so, for recross, I'm like, oh, let's go.

This is great.

Well, you can't sit out now.

He opened the door.

Exactly.

And so, first, you know, I hammered the physical impossibility, again, of like, he just reconfirmed it with the left arm.

But didn't you say it was impossible that it was left arm?

Like, how could it have possibly been?

You said that you were all the way up against the couch on the left side.

And she's like, yes, yes.

So, I'm like, again, he just reconfirmed something that you are saying is wrong.

I sit down with the transcript.

I'm like, man, you just sat down to prosecutor right over there just earlier today, right?

Yeah.

And you read through the entire transcript of that fourth family court hearing.

Yes.

And you went line by line and discussed what you said.

Yes.

Could you, if I give you a copy of that transcript right now, could you point to where you clarify that Mr. C actually didn't strangle your son?

And she goes, well, no, no.

Like, it's not that it was a clarification.

I go, oh, so it wasn't a clarification.

No.

I was like, what was it then?

She says, I was just like saying more stuff.

Oh, you're just saying more.

So, you're just adding on to the strangling, not clarifying.

Yes.

Yes.

Oh, okay.

So, then I say, and you mentioned the context.

The prosecutor asked you about the context in this case.

The context, isn't it true that the context was that immediately before you said that, the judge was against your desires, going to order you to share a joint custody of the kids?

But she goes, yeah, yeah.

And she was going to make you exchange the kids on neutral territory, right?

Yeah.

And you said this in response to try and stop her from doing that.

Yeah, yeah.

Wow, she admitted to that.

Yeah, so, amidst that, amidst that, like, there's this whole other context, you know, where she's trying to, like, bring this in for the custody at all.

And I'm looking at the judge, like, you know, I got you there.

Is the judge looking, is he looking back at you?

Yeah, he's, like, shaking his head.

Because he originally was like, if you think, you know, you're going to open the door to something.

I hope you know that, like, opening the door happens maybe 1% of the time.

That's not a thing.

That's not a thing opening.

Yes, it is.

Well, this entire case is coming in through the open door.

Then I finished the recross of her.

It's the next morning.

And I say, okay, so, you know, you and your brother live together.

Yeah.

And so, after you testified yesterday, I'm guessing you went home and you stayed at the same house as your brother, right?

And she goes, oh, well, no, we're not staying together right now.

I'm like, oh, you're not?

Okay.

So, you didn't sleep there last night?

No.

But you talked to your brother, didn't you?

And because it turns out, you know, they posted a story on Instagram where they were together at a Dodgers game.

That night?

So, the night before.

But you talked to your brother last night at some point, right?

Yeah.

And I'm going to guess you probably talked to him about your experience in court, right?

Yeah.

And I'm going to guess that you talked to him about the questions I asked you, right?

Yeah.

And so, she admits to then talking to the other witness about all the questions I asked her.

I'm like, okay.

Nice setup.

That's a great setup for the next witness.

So, I'm looking at the judge.

I'm like, well, already it's inappropriate, but whatever.

I'll withhold.

So, we finished with her.

The brother, the TikTok star, he goes off for direct and walks through it all.

It's pretty straightforward.

He claims that the kids were set down at the end and weren't kidnapped just because he said, do things the right way.

Do things the right way.

Don't do them the wrong way.

And he just immediately, you know, says, oh, you're so right.

You know, and says on the kids, whoops on.

So, I thought that was a little ridiculous.

But it gets to cross.

Very first question's on cross.

Did your sister stay at your house last night?

Yes.

And did she tell you about the questions I asked her?

No.

Totally.

So, I'm looking at the jury.

I'm like, wow, interesting.

Interesting.

Okay.

Good to know.

And so, then I sit there and I ask him, how many times, you know, has the kid picked up and put down by different people?

Because I'm trying to explain to you.

It's a chaotic environment.

You know, what he knows or whatever could come from any number of people or actions or things.

And he says, oh, the only person that ever picked him up was Fended.

I'm like, really?

Didn't you just explain that, like, at one point, the sister picked him up?

He says, oh, well, yeah, she picked him up one time.

And then didn't she say that you picked up the kids at one point?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But I didn't, like, pick him up aggressively.

Oh, okay.

Okay.

You picked him up.

And then at one point, didn't the mother grab the kids out of her arms?

Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I said, oh, she said it was just one time, but isn't it more like five or six?

And he says, okay, sure, yeah, yeah, yeah, I guess.

And so, so he was passed around a lot.

Well, no, no, no, it was just the, it was just him.

I said, you just said that it was more than him.

So, I mean, at this point, you have the complaining witness saying she doesn't know that the injury came from your client.

She just assumed, and now you have the brother explaining that this kid was, in fact, being sort of yanked and passed between a bunch of different people.

Yeah.

And he then, at the end of that line, admits that he doesn't actually know how the bloody nose happened either.

Excellent.

And he's not sure how the kid got hurt.

So if they're going to find him guilty on the child abuse, it's because they're going to make up something, pull something from the rest of it.

I mean, at some point, did you just look at the judge like, can we just go straight to the 1118?

Like, this is ridiculous.

They have nothing.

We don't know how he got the injury.

Okay, what are we doing here then?

I was getting advice, like, get that 1118 ready.

This might actually be a good case.

Like, he sat there and, you know, he asked, the judge was like, you were under oath when you said the strangling?

And she was like, yes, yes.

And, but so then, but then with the brother, I also, I asked him at one point, like, oh, you're really close to your nephew, right?

Like, you know, try and, you know, you don't want to lose custody either because you guys all live together.

And he says like, oh, well, no, I don't really, I don't really, you know, I'm that well.

I'm like, what?

Like, why?

And he tries to downplay, like, how much, how close he is with them.

And I'm like, what?

Like, don't you all live together?

And he says, oh, well, like, I work a lot.

I work a lot.

I'm like, you're an influencer though, right?

And he's like, yeah.

And so you work from home?

He says, yeah.

So what do you mean you work too much to be close with them?

It was just like, there's a bunch of weird stuff like that that like, he was like fighting me on and being really annoying about.

So did you end up playing the video though of them faking an incident?

Yeah.

So, I mean, we go through it and I decided, yeah, I'm going to go for the social media stuff.

Let's see what happens.

You said that your sister is just behind the scenes on the social media stuff, right?

Yeah.

She just helps like brand deals, things like that.

Yeah.

So she would never act in one of your videos, right?

And in your videos, you would never make light of the physical abuse of children, right?

No, no.

And you would never intentionally upset your nephew just to get views, right?

No, no.

And you and your sister certainly never made a video where you pretend to call 911 and your nephew was upset there in the background, right?

No, no, no.

Okay, well, your honor, I'd like to introduce it, you know, as defense.

Turn the lights down.

Cue it up.

Yeah.

So first I bring in the screenshots of the belt videos.

This is you, right?

Yeah.

And this is one of your videos.

Yep.

And it says here, yeah, POV, your parents are waiting for you and you're late for curfew.

Yeah?

Yeah.

And you're holding the belt.

Yep.

And the implication is that you're hitting the kid with the belt, right?

Yeah, yeah.

So he says yes on the first two.

We get to the third one.

Implication is that you're hitting the belt, right?

He says, no, no, that's not the implication.

Oh, it's not the implication.

What's the implication then?

He said, there is no implication.

It's just a problem.

It has no meaning.

He says, yes, exactly.

It's locked up to the viewer.

Oh, okay.

So he could think that, you know, the belt's for holding up your pants or they could think

that you're hitting the kid with the belt, right?

But no, it's like, that's not what it is.

That's not what it is.

And he's like, looking at me, the judge is having to like tell him like, sir, like, stop.

He's like going crazy about the whole thing.

I'm like, okay, okay, whatever.

Let me move on to the video.

And so in the DA, the second I start to like go for a video, DA is like sidebar.

Yeah, no, I got to see this video first.

I sit there, I put up the computer, I played a video.

When was the judges, when the DA and judge watched the video and the sidebar, what was their reaction?

So the DA before the video was even played was going, it's overly prejudicial.

There's no property value here.

And then he goes on this whole thing.

So basically with the transcript, it was literally five minutes before I started my bronze.

David Perez sends the transcripts and I get them.

And so I have to ask the judge, like, can we recess for five minutes before cross?

I just need to run upstairs.

I printed something.

I need to grab it right now.

So I sprint upstairs, you know, get the, you know, 20 copies of it or whatever, come sprinting back down.

And the DA goes, you know, he clearly prepared this.

Like, you know, this is what he went up to go and get from the printer.

He was ready for this.

This is a suddenly impeachment.

You know, if you look at this frame recording, one, it says 1030 at night.

And two, if I just printed the transcripts, I wasn't very prepared.

Not to mention the fact that I wouldn't be able to bring this in if the client or if the witness

had lied on the stand.

Also, that's my job.

Yes.

I am prepared for my case.

Guilty.

So I play the video and the witness just, he sees what it is.

And he looks at the jury and he just like starts laughing.

Oh, see, see, it's funny.

And then I'm just staring at him like stone face.

And halfway through the video, he just starts yelling at me.

Why are you allowed to show this?

You shouldn't be shown this.

Like judge stopped him and the judge tells him, sir, stop.

You are not asking the questions in this hearing.

You are being asked questions.

Like, and we keep going.

The video's playing.

The jury's watching if, but they're listening to us.

And the witness goes, you know, it's a joke.

It's a joke.

It's funny.

It's not real.

It's funny.

And I said, oh, this is funny, sir.

And I said, oh, so do you think it's funny to make fake 911 calls?

No, no, no.

Do you think the physical abuse of children is funny?

No, no, it's not what it is.

He said, it's not funny.

It's just a skit.

And I said, didn't you say that your skits are funny?

He's like so angry.

He's like, oh, stop, stop.

Like he's yelling at me, going crazy to the judge.

Jurors must have just been riveted by the craziness of what's happening in this courtroom.

This sounds like something out of a bad TV show.

You know, we all watch those legal TV shows where there's courtroom drama.

And we're like, this doesn't happen in real life.

It's happening in your case.

The famous influencer having a meltdown.

Yes.

So we come back after lunch.

And I look over and I see on this computer he's working on his closing PowerPoint.

And we were not supposed to be closing that day.

That was not the call here.

He was like, get me out of here.

And I'm like, oh, my gosh.

And so what he does, he calls in two deputies and neither one of the primary who had the brain he hit.

So he got so spooked against the brain he hit that he didn't want to bring the primary in.

So I sit there and I'm asking him questions.

Like, how many follow-up questions did you ask?

When she reenacted it, did you try and understand how exactly it happened?

Or did you just dictate exactly everything?

And they both were like, oh, I don't really know.

Like, it was really the primary who was doing it.

And I was like, oh, really?

So that's who would actually know about this, right?

Yeah, they know much better than you, like, what happened and the steps that were taken.

So you're irrelevant and shouldn't be here.

Do you know where she is today?

No, we don't.

And then one of them, the first one, I found in the body worn, in the background, there was a little, like, baby monitor-looking camera.

It was sitting at the TV pointed directly at the couch in the living room where the incident allegedly occurred.

And you can just see it sitting there.

You know, it's a baby monitor.

I have a baby monitor.

I'm like, it records things.

So I green-shotted it, and I showed it to one of the deputies.

This is the living room, right, where, you know, you were.

And he goes, oh, I don't know.

Oh, you don't know if this is the living room?

He says, no, my back was facing that area.

I'm like, oh, so you know your back was facing this area?

And he's like, well, I don't know.

I don't know if that's it or not.

The judge and the DA, they're like, yeah, move on, counsel.

He doesn't remember.

I'm like, oh, come on.

But then I remember that the only reason that that was the screenshot I used was because that one was more zoomed in, closer to the camera.

Because I thought they would fight on whether or not it was a camera.

So I actually have a second screenshot sitting on a council table that actually has this deputy in the frame standing right next to the camera.

And so, okay, I walk over, walk back, and I say, no, that's you in this screenshot, right?

He says, yeah.

Do you recognize it now?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.

And do you know what that is right there?

He says, oh, it's a video camera.

Did you ever try and get the footage on that?

No.

Did you ever even try and watch it?

No.

Wouldn't that have been really helpful enough?

Yeah, yeah.

It's beautiful.

DA just races through these.

Yeah.

Because it turns out that he wants to end these witnesses because he just wants to put me in a bind of not being ready.

Because I'm not prepped with client on him testifying yet.

The two witnesses that we were going to call aren't there that day.

And obviously, I don't have a closing ring.

And he's living in a dumpster fire right now.

He's trying to pull the red cord.

Get me out of here.

He's doing whatever he can just to, like, end this as fast as possible.

Yeah.

And hopefully he catches me off guard.

People rest.

And as it turns out, go back to the office, and I have an email waiting for me from the detective who I tried to subpoena.

And the detective is saying, hey, can you please call me about the subpoena?

And he's talking to you about it.

I'm like, okay, that's interesting.

So I give him a call.

And he says, hey, man, I have plans on Friday.

Is there any way I can come back?

I can come on any other day.

Come in early.

So I'm like, how about tomorrow morning?

Did you come here tomorrow morning?

And he goes, oh, yeah.

That'd be huge.

Like, thank you so much.

I'm like, no, thank you.

Thank you very much.

Kyle God smiled on you.

Yes.

And decided not having the family members testify.

People tell stories.

Who knows, like, what kind of, like, random memory holes.

I don't want to distract from anybody else.

And we decided to kind of testify because he wants to testify.

He wants his story out.

And I think it's worthwhile to explain more context, like, the environment, the fact that

he was, like, looking for a neutral, safe transition of the kids, et cetera.

So have the distraction come in.

And he's like, you didn't do anything on this case, though, right?

I'm like, exactly.

So I promise him.

I'm like, sir, this will be less than three minutes.

I swear.

If you say that, then it's just one question, okay?

And you'll be out, okay?

And he was super cool about it.

He shows up.

I asked him, you know, you've got to sign this case on April 29th, right?

Yep.

And what you did is you called the complaining witness.

You walked through the police report and she confirmed the details, right?

Right.

And then you closed the case on April 29th also, right?

Yeah.

And you filed a warrant for his arrest.

He says, yep.

And you did nothing else to investigate on this case, right?

He says, yep.

I'm like, okay, thank you.

No problem.

It was like 60 seconds.

And then the DA on, you know, or I guess on his cross, you know, asks, like, all these

questions, like, oh, like, you know, how many cases do you have any given?

And he's like, oh, like 70.

And so you don't have time to actually, like, you know, view everybody in all these, right?

That doesn't make it better.

It doesn't.

It's not the fix he thinks it is.

There's not going to be an argument.

We would have more evidence if the detective had the time, Jerry.

So please look guilty.

He's like, so this is standard in your practice.

I was like, yeah.

It's not the better that he thinks it is.

Yeah.

Not at all.

So then your client testifies?

Did you try and talk your client out of it?

I solicited a lot of advice and I got a lot of mixed opinions.

Some people told me I had to have all of them testify.

Some people told me I'm nobody testifying.

And so I kind of just sat there, like, alone at night.

That night was like, I kind of figured out what.

What should I do?

They say yes and they say no.

He did, but he went home that night and listened to a lot of A&G podcasts to learn from other people.

Well, listen to the entire, you know, catalog.

The catalog, yeah.

And I just, at the end of the day, you know, he wanted to test spots.

It's his right.

There were aspects that I thought, you know, he could offer an explanation for.

And at the end of the day, like, the reason we ended up in this trial was because he was, like, so compelling.

And he believed in, and he had been right about everything at every step.

You know, every place where there's, like, risk or some explanation of things, he had been 100% right.

And he said, if me testifying is wrong, then I don't want to be right.

In different words.

Okay, okay.

All right.

So tell us about his testimony.

How'd it go?

Get him up there.

So get him up there.

Long story short, he does a really great job.

We focus a lot on the emotional pieces of it.

At one point, he walked into the door.

What happened?

He's like, kids, you run towards him, and you jump into his arms, and he's holding the kids.

And what was going through your mind at that point?

I was just so happy to be with him.

I was good about, you know, the fact that she was withholding the kids from him and wouldn't let him see them.

Does he acknowledge that they had an argument?

Because you can hear people arguing on the 911 call.

Oh, yeah.

He walked in.

He said, hey, I want to, like, the courting ball.

I want them to make these decisions.

And he says, like, parents started screaming at her.

She started screaming at him.

The brothers, yeah.

Like, this is, it was chaos.

And that's what made me realize, like, oh, my gosh, I got to set the kids down and let it out of here.

Because this is not going the way that I thought it would.

He also has spies that on prior incidents, like, maybe he brought families because they've gotten crazy at him on prior incidents.

And that's part of the reason why he wants a court order where the kids have to be handed over in a neutral space.

Because he doesn't, he feels, like, unsafe going to their house and being there for the transfer of the children every day, every time.

And it's inconsistent.

And they won't let him see them.

He talks about, like, he's crying.

He's making me tear up at one point.

Like, well, I'm doing drugs really.

And then he just ended off with, like, who are you most excited to see when this trial is over?

My kids, my kids.

He does a great job.

Got away with one.

I'm surprised the prosecutor didn't inject, right?

You got away with one.

There was a few of those kind of sprinkled throughout.

How did he do on cross?

On cross, it's not even so much about how he did.

It was about the lack of emotional intelligence of the DA in this case.

How bad the DA did.

Okay.

Because the DA goes up and the first thing he says is, oh, so on direct, you testified that, you know,

when you first walked in that house and you picked up your kids, there was nothing going through your mind, right?

He's like, yeah, yeah, nothing.

And he was like, you said you were just, like, you weren't thinking about anything.

No.

But then suddenly, you have a clear memory of the rest of the incident?

Yeah.

What do you mean?

Yeah.

Obviously.

And he does a few things like that.

It's, like, so intensive.

And, like, he goes after them.

And this part is great because I didn't think that I could ever get this.

Like, this seems totally appropriate for me to bring up.

And I hope the judge would kill me for it.

But he says, isn't it true that the outcome of the custody case is going to be determined by the outcome of this case?

And it's like, yeah.

And he's like, I bet you're thinking about that right now, aren't you?

Yeah.

Yeah, I am.

And I'm like, I said, then I cannot believe that he just put in front of the jury this horrible consequence.

Because even if they thought he was guilty of this, you just made it clear that this is going to have some, like, horrible outcome.

It's really emotional.

And, like, you're deciding something way beyond the guilt or innocence in this case.

You're deciding, like, the custody of this kid.

Close defense rests.

And the judge says, okay.

And, you know, like, people, any rebuttal?

And the DA sits there for 90 seconds just staring at the ceiling.

And the judge goes, uh, having heard nothing.

And the DA goes, yes, having heard nothing.

Nothing for now.

For now?

No, you're not getting another chance?

I'm sitting there like, uh, this is it.

So, uh, so the judge starts giving the jury instructions.

Yeah, he's getting them ready, giving them the jury instructions.

And, uh, 15 minutes into it, the DA just goes,

Your Honor, can we have a sidebar?

And the judge is like, what is going on here?

And so the DA goes up and he says,

Yes, uh, so, Your Honor, I think that, uh,

on cross, the defendant opened himself up to a potential rebuttal witness

to impeach him.

And the judge is like, what are you talking about?

I think that I could get a rebuttal witness probably back here to,

I think they would impeach what he said there at the end

about what the argument was about.

And the judge is like, are you serious?

Like, you don't even know if you can get him back.

You don't know what they're going to testify to.

No, not to mention the fact that it's over.

It's way too late.

No.

You've lost.

You've lost, bro.

I mean, I couldn't believe it.

Like, he's sitting there trying to reopen the case.

Let it go.

Useless thing ever.

Like, so he tells him off, move on.

We get to close him.

And the DA decides to make his entire closing.

He starts off with his theme.

And his theme is beautiful.

It's so good.

He says, whenever I get a case, I sit down and I wonder,

why did we end up here?

Why did we end up in this trial?

What did somebody do or not do to end up in this case,

to bring us all here, all these resources?

In this case, it's about doing things the right way.

And the fact that the defendant didn't do things the right way.

He goes in and takes his entire closing theme about doing things the right way.

Custy dials, nothing to do with anything.

It's not only one call.

A bunch.

Puts up the photos of the left arm six times for whatever reason,

even though we have no indication that it was actually the left arm anymore.

I'm sitting there editing my PowerPoint as it's going along.

And I changed my entire theme to doing things the right way.

This is perfect.

In my PowerPoint, I use a lot of animations.

And so I have people being named.

And I have to cross out people and just put her name.

This case isn't about the people.

That implies you're like an investigation, blah, blah, blah, whatever.

But with this case, the only thing we're going to agree on this entire time

is what he just said.

And that this case is all about doing things the right way

and who did things the right way.

Who here did things the right way?

Was it the person who lied on their oath about what happened?

Was it the person who was illegally withholding kids from their partner?

Was it the person who was trying to reject a formal process?

Or was it the person who showed up with witnesses to the house

to initiate a court custody case

so they could request that the judge order

that the kids are taking the doctor's appointments,

that the kids are exchanged on neutral territory,

that they're, you know, shared evenly?

And I just go off on him about the concept,

like the audacity of him to possibly suggest

that this case is about doing things the right way

and that somehow that hurts us.

And I can't go through the other legal standards

because I was banned from that, which was frustrating.

So I had to delete, you know, about a dozen slides on that.

But I keep in one slide that attaches the feelings

that you feel to whether that's guilty or not guilty.

Even if you have a strong belief that he did it,

but you don't think it was beyond a reasonable doubt,

not guilty.

And I go through what that emotional feeling is

and explain that that is still not guilty.

I ended with, in the voir dire,

somebody had given me a beyond a reasonable doubt,

you know, analogy to do,

which is like the pole vaulting.

And, you know, in pole vaulting,

you know, you can get 30 feet up in the air.

You're right about there.

But even if you just hit it just barely

and tap that pole,

the whole thing doesn't count.

It's not worth anything.

And how that's the same is beyond a reasonable doubt.

And so in this case, I put up a GIF that, you know,

in this case, they tried to do it.

And I think this is app.

And it's a pole vault.

They're running with the pole vault.

He goes up and then it just runs him

backwards in the opposite direction.

So I was like, not only did they not...

Oh man, you're talking shit.

They deserved it.

The jurors are like laughing about it.

I always want to know, like,

how long were the jurors out for then?

Like on this, like how long did they deliberate for?

So right before we get to that,

because it's related,

we finished closing, you know,

the judge is giving them the final instructions

to go back and deliberate.

And out of nowhere, he just says this thing.

I'm like, wait, what?

He goes, now I'm going to make one comment

on the evidence in this case.

And I'm like, excuse me?

Like, what?

So I'm kind of perking off.

The judge?

Yes, the judge.

And he says,

I'm not going to tell you how to weigh it.

Oh, sorry, because in the rebuttal,

the DA spends the entire rebuttal

after, you know,

explaining why he has it.

He says,

you don't consider all that other stuff.

The TikTok, you know,

the family court,

the custody,

that's not evidence in this case.

That's like, that's separate.

You're here to just know what happened

on this night.

And so the judge says,

in response to the rebuttal,

I'm not going to tell you

how to weigh the evidence,

but I'll tell you what is evidence.

And in this case,

it is evidence

that Ms.

So-and-so said under oath

in the family court proceedings

that her son was strangled.

That is evidence

that you may consider.

Now,

I want to tell you how to vote.

Oh, he hated the DA.

Yeah.

Wow.

It was a floored.

I couldn't believe it.

I was like,

this is the greatest.

And so I sat there

and hanging around.

They're like,

okay, I'll call.

I'll leave the building.

I didn't just now leave the building.

I didn't leave the courtroom

for like 15 minutes

because I was like,

oh, they're going to come back.

Yeah.

This is going to be fast.

Not guilty.

This is going to be like,

you know,

five minutes.

Beautiful.

That was not what happened.

Unfortunately.

So they go back.

They waste the rest of the afternoon.

Hour and a half.

I'm like,

oh man,

like that's annoying.

Like,

dang.

I guess it's still open.

Question.

So go home that night,

come back in the morning

and they start deliberating

at like 10 in the morning

and around like 1130.

I,

there was a buzz.

Come in

and there's a question.

And I'm like,

oh geez,

like why are they still

even thinking about this?

And why do they have a question?

What is it possibly about?

Is it like,

can we charge her with perjury?

Because if it's anything but that,

I don't like this.

The question as it turns out

is signed by the foreperson

and the foreperson

is the person

who wants to go to law school

and be a lawyer.

She was the one

making that shit take forever.

Yep.

And the question is

what does willfully mean?

So they want to know

about willfully

for both counts

because both it's willful touching.

And I sit there like,

holy crap.

I blew the entire case somehow.

I'm like,

we're about to lose.

Why are you asking that question?

Yeah.

Our entire defense

is that there was never

any contact need.

So if you're wondering

whether the contact

was intentional or not,

then you are automatically

by default rejecting

our entire defense here

and accepting the facts

as presented by the prosecution.

And so I'm like seeing people

and they're all,

they're like,

this is the best way

for me to handle the question.

They're like,

nope,

you're feeling just screwed.

That's a horrible question.

They're like,

that's literally

the worst question

you could possibly get.

And the judge,

he looks at me

and he's like shaking his head.

How did you blow this?

Yeah.

And the court staff

is looking at me.

I'm sick to my son.

His whole family is there.

They're asking me

what does it mean?

And I was like,

it's not great.

It's not what I wanted.

Because it's okay.

I mean,

I feel the same way

because really like

if you listen to all the evidence,

the way you've told the story,

it should just be like,

everyone went back to me like,

this is fucking bullshit.

We're not getting involved in this.

Fuck them.

Not guilty.

But now they're talking about

what they think factually happened

and they even think

that maybe your client

did touch someone

and so now it's like,

did he willfully touch him

or accidentally touch him?

And that's what we're thinking.

That's the analysis

in our heads at this moment.

They always say,

you never know

what the fuck the jurors are thinking.

Don't give too much weight

into their questions as well.

But you can't help it, right?

Yeah.

Definitely can not help it there.

I was feeling pretty horrible

and I started preparing.

a motion

to set aside the verdict

for a new trial

and I was going to say,

this verdict is contrary

to the evidence

and this can't possibly stand.

So I was trying to get

something to put together for that

because I'm like,

this is ridiculous

and we know

this verdict is definitely

my fault,

not the facts.

Hulk.

And then,

so we answer willfully,

we answer the question,

we read the jury instructions

and it's not even like

it's helpful instruction stuff.

They go back,

they come back

10 minutes later

to the verdict.

Okay.

And I'm like,

no,

this is so,

so bad.

I gave them the answer.

The answer is not

a good answer for us.

Not standing,

the context of it.

This is so horrible.

I'm like,

I'm quitting this job.

This is the job.

I'm just like,

I hate this so much.

The family's there.

The deputy's come out,

you know,

they're surrounding him,

ready to take him

into custody.

I tell him,

I'm like,

start taking off your watch.

Hand your keys

to someone else.

Yeah.

Because he's like,

oh,

what do you think

is going to happen?

I'm like,

see,

man,

I'm being really honest.

I don't feel like this right now.

So what happens?

Come on.

They come out,

you know,

the J8 is actually

a J8 training that day.

So they let her read the verdict.

And so she's kind of like

going really slowly through it.

And they get,

first count,

not guilty.

And I'm like,

can't breathe.

That's the DV count.

Yep.

First count was the DV count.

Not guilty.

And I was like,

oh my gosh.

I was like,

oh,

I put like,

there's still bloody nose.

Like,

it could still be anything.

So I'm just like,

hold my breath.

Little count to,

not guilty.

And I just,

client starts bawling,

crying next to me.

I start crying.

I'm like,

so excited.

So happy.

I'm looking at the jury like,

and I'm like,

the client and I stand up

and we just like sit down

and like hug.

And he's like crying

to my shoulder for five minutes.

Just like absolutely dying.

Was the DA crying too?

Crying because he couldn't

get out of it fast enough.

And I mean,

it was just like electric.

I mean,

I was so happy.

The family's so happy.

I mean,

he's really good.

He's like,

come down.

I'm going crazy.

It's so good.

I'm really excited

to talk to the jury now.

I'm like,

I gotta know

what's going on here.

And he tells the jury,

you know,

if you want,

you can wait outside

for the,

you know,

the attorney's last

few questions.

And then he says,

but counsel,

please come up

to the bench.

And so the DA

and I get called up

to the bench

and judge goes,

I just want you to know

that,

you know,

my 30 years,

you know,

practice,

not once have I ever

felt compelled

to make an instruction

like the one I did

as they went in.

And because,

and he looks at the day

and is that because

what you did

in your rebuttal

was so incredibly

inappropriate,

not only did it,

walked the line,

it crossed the line

because you told them

that they could not

consider this,

which even though

it is evidence

and you told them

not to consider

and that they

couldn't consider it.

And I felt compelled

like I had to explain

to them that they could.

And you know what?

If they'd come back

with a guilty verdict,

I would have invited

emotion to set that aside

and have a new trial

because of that.

And he looks like,

oh,

you look surprised.

Are you surprised?

And he's like,

yes,

yes.

Maybe he looks at me

and goes,

Mr. Neal,

are you surprised?

I go,

oh no,

your honor,

I had the motion

ready to go.

What an awesome judge,

dude.

Shout out to a bench

officer on this show.

By the end,

I was like,

love him.

He's amazing.

Because the thing is,

in the end,

he appreciated the competency

and the reality of it,

which was...

I feel like,

though,

okay,

judges on misdemeanor cases

do beat up

on prosecutors more,

but would he beat up

on a prosecutor like that

on a real serious felony case?

Like when the prosecutor

is crossing the line

or saying things,

would he do that

like on a murder case

or a rape case

or anything like a kidnap?

I don't know.

I have a guess

as to who this judge is.

I think he might.

So...

I can't wait for us

to stop recording

so I can hear the name

of the judge.

I have a guess.

I'm walking away.

I'm like,

I love that guy.

I'm going to check

into his courtroom

every time I'm there.

So did you talk

to the jurors afterwards?

Yeah,

so talked to the jurors

afterwards

and they had some

good thoughts

and I asked them,

what happened

when you first went back there?

And they said

they went back

right when they finished

and they took a vote

and the vote was 11 to 1,

not guilty.

And so it was so close.

Except for your wannabe lawyer.

But then the one person,

they were like,

but one person

who won't say who,

you know,

wanted to go through

all the evidence

and blah, blah, blah.

She was like,

I asked them

and I was like,

so like,

did you feel like

when you voted not guilty,

were you voting not guilty

because you actually felt

like you didn't do it?

And she was like,

no,

I know you didn't.

They asked me

how many trials

they'd done

and how long I was working.

I was like,

oh,

I just started,

blah, blah, blah.

And they were looking at her

like,

oh,

look,

you could do this.

And I'm like,

oh yeah,

you could like,

you know,

intern in the PD's office

and she just goes,

no.

But she actually said

that what got her

in the end

was the feelings.

The slide that she said

really helped her

was like attaching

the feelings

to whether it was guilty

or not guilty.

And so she was able

to like sit there

and say like,

look,

I may have a strong belief

that he's guilty

but I still would say

not guilty.

So I guess that got her around.

And I think asking the question,

she was just like,

hell marrying,

trying to get anything else

I think on her side.

Yeah.

So the person

who's going to law school

or wants to go to law school

was the hold up then.

Yes,

exactly.

I have never had someone

come in for jury selection

saying that they would like

to be a lawyer

and say they wanted

to come in on our side.

They always come in like,

I watch Law and Order,

I want to be a prosecutor.

Thank you so much.

I would like to thank

and excuse you right now.

She was like,

oh,

I was like,

oh,

you still want to be a lawyer though?

She goes,

yeah,

but never a juror again.

I'm like,

oh man.

I asked them about

their social media

and they all start cracking up

the right time.

I'm like,

okay,

so clearly entertaining

but was it like relevant at all?

And they go,

no.

That's what I'm saying.

It's not relevant.

But then they did say,

they were like,

oh,

this stuff itself

didn't really matter

but the way he responded,

they said the way he responded

mattered so much to them

and they thought he was

totally unreliable.

So,

so that was nice at least.

Did he have,

did he have five less fans

after the jury trial

on his,

five less people following him?

I cut all of them.

I'm going to let them stay on there.

So they,

they have no idea,

you know,

who their,

who their idol is.

Okay,

great.

Great.

This is a great trial,

dude,

Peter.

Thanks for coming on the afternoon,

spending your lunch break with us,

sharing your story

about your great,

your great victory.

It's so great having the young lawyers too.

They're so excited about everything.

It's fun.

It's so much fun.

It's fun.

It's in the,

in the DAs are always the biggest babies

and misdemeanors too.

So we love,

we love hearing about that.

I tried to get in the elevator

within the other day.

I got,

I got in,

he waited for the next ones.

Oh,

nice.

Oh,

good.

Some love lost.

All right,

Peter.

So despite how well you performed

in this case,

you've only been a public defender

for less than a year.

Less than a year.

So that's pretty cool.

Pretty dope.

You sound like you're pretty competent.

You seem pretty comfortable

in front of people.

You went to law school.

Maybe you could have had practice

anywhere else

or had a job anywhere else,

but you chose the public defender's office

and we want to know why.

Why did you become a public defender?

I did.

I,

you went to law school

knowing I wanted to do public service,

you know,

as,

you know,

some concept of a thing.

I think over time,

I realized,

you know,

it wasn't necessarily

the prosecutor side

and I just,

I realized,

you know,

like public defense

is just the coolest,

like most baddest,

like most direct way

you could possibly impact somebody.

I mean,

that is like,

there's no abstract concept of,

you know,

I'm going to push this paper around,

you know,

and they'll do this or that

and then maybe somebody

will be helped.

It's like,

no,

you are like every day

in the trenches

like helping people

actually have like a real impact.

I like love that

and I'm obsessed with the fact

that all the education

and privilege

and life

that I got to have.

Some people have like,

you know,

great stories

like I want to,

you know,

represent,

you know,

my friend,

whatever

and I'm like,

I,

you know,

my brother is a federal prosecutor

and like he's,

this is not necessarily

like where,

you know,

he would have said

I would end up

but I think it's like

the greatest thing

I'm like lending out

and like gifting basically

all that like,

you know,

education,

everything to somebody

that people on a daily basis

to like use

and people were like

nobody else is standing up for them.

Nobody else is,

you know,

sitting there looking dumb.

Everyone's assuming

now they're guilty,

you know,

want to move on,

whatever.

And it's like loan them

for whatever,

how long I represent them,

you know,

all of that

and like they can have it

and the benefit of it

is like the greatest thing ever.

So I,

that's what I love about it

and why not.

Was your brother,

your federal prosecutor brother

excited about you're not guilty?

He was not.

You know,

your parents were,

are you the black sheep

because they're a public defender?

You know,

my brother hates it

because he's older than me

and you know,

our family group chat

used to just be

my parents cheering on him

like,

yay,

congrats.

Like,

you know,

that person,

you know,

that murderer is in jail now.

But now he hates it

because the group chat's like,

yay,

like,

you know,

that guy was getting railroaded.

The prosecutors stack charges

as they always do.

We undid it.

My brother's like,

you know,

I was lying today.

I'm like,

what are you talking about?

Well,

thanks for being on the show,

Peter.

It was great having you

and Lauren,

as always,

awesome to see you again.

So it was fun.

Thank you for having me.

Hopefully the surprises

were,

you know,

well taken.

You're going to make

everyone sell out the phone

for sure now.

Oh,

all right.

It's all good.

It was fun.

All right,

guys.

Bye.

Bye.

Thanks for tuning in

to this week's episode

of Another Not Guilty.

Shout out to Daniel Mark,

original A&G theme music composer,

and Mike Grimm for the remix.

And guess what?

We'll be back in two weeks

with Another Not Guilty

straight from the trenches.

We'll be back in two weeks

straight from the trenches.