Half Nelson, Full Acquittal – When Wrestling Moves Don't Equal Felonies

What's up, my A and G-ers? We got another stellar episode lined up for you this week. This episode is a tad bit longer than the typical episode, but that's only because there was just so much great content in this episode, the editor and I couldn't cut any of it out. The public defenders on this episode are outstanding, and I am simply, simply glad to be a part of it. I am honored to present their heroic tale of advocacy they did for their client, for believing in their information, and their

leaving in their innocent client when the rest of society was ready to lock him up and throw away the key. Also, I want to say this will be the last episode of the summer, and we'll be on a little break for the next month or so, coming back in about four weeks. I have a big trial coming up and need to prioritize my time, energy, inspiration, passion, and everything else I got in the tank for my client and his well-being. I hope you understand Another Not Guilty World. With that said, we'll still be up and running over here.

If you want to be a guest on the podcast, you got a story you want to share, then hit me up. Go to the website at anothernotguiltypod.com and click on the submission link. And please, please, please, please, please follow us on social media. Like, share, comment on anything and everything we put out there. Oh, and subscribe to us on whatever podcast platform you find us and leave a rating and review. Pick up your phone right now. Subscribe, like, comment.

It could be Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, whatever. Doesn't matter. Just do it. Also, at this time, I'd like to take a minute and thank the members of our Patreon program for the donations and contributions to the podcast and helping keeping the lights on and paying a few bills.

It really helps.

Which leads me right now to giving a special thanks and shout-out to Andrew Max, our newest member to the Patreon program.

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

Lastly, I can't say it enough.

This season of Another Not Guilty would not be happening if it wasn't for my awesome team helping me out along the way.

This particular episode was edited by Matt Swyontek.

So thank you very much, Matt.

And with that said...

Without further ado, here's this week's episode of Another Not Guilty.

I knew it was important because I knew the defense was different.

I knew it was something that, obviously, people hadn't seen done before.

I hadn't.

And my client was facing a lot of time.

The police found this woman tied up.

He was looking at life in prison.

And he could have easily gotten 20 to 50 years.

So I gave my closing and started off with how many times he tried to tell people what had happened.

And no one listened to him.

Just like no one has ever listened to him his entire life.

And you, you can listen to him.

The jury can listen to him and hear him and believe what he's saying for the first time in his life.

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.

Your boy here.

Everybody's favorite.

Did I hear a woof?

That was...

That was me.

Woof woof.

That was woof woof.

All right.

I like that.

My daughter always asks me if I can do a woof woof.

Mom, do a woof woof.

That's our guest, Aaron.

Aaron, stay on script.

I gotta introduce George first.

Oh, sorry.

No apologies, isn't it?

That's Aaron.

He's just excited to be here.

I'm excited, too, because I got two public defenders from Kentucky.

But before we get there, I want to introduce my co-host.

His name is George.

He's a badass public defender from Los Angeles that I work with.

He's pretty dope.

George, how you doing?

I'm doing well, man.

Here in the beautiful city of Compton.

Ready to find out some things about how they do it in Kentucky.

Because it's going to be totally different, right?

Listen, all of our stories are so fascinating.

You know, like, Compton is different than Long Beach.

Jesus.

So I know Compton is different than Kentucky.

Let me go ahead and introduce our two guests today.

We have two public defenders from Kentucky.

We have Aaron and Christy.

Aaron, how are you doing today?

I'm doing well.

How are you?

Good.

Aaron, what part of Kentucky do you public defender at?

I'm in Hardin County, Kentucky, which the seat is Elizabethtown.

How long have you been public defender for?

I was a public defender at the Louisville Metro branch for four and a half years.

And I've been here in Elizabethtown for four and a half years.

So nine years public defender.

Who was your co-counsel during this trial?

My co-counsel is Christy Hyentz.

And she's a badass.

Christy, hello.

How are you doing?

Say hi.

Doing well.

Thank you for having us.

Actually, and Christy's the one that reached out to the podcast, right?

Submitted an email, reached out on the website, said she wanted to be a guest.

And the client we'll be talking about is very excited about this because I think he brought

up the idea initially, wow, this should be on a podcast or something.

So he's pretty stoked.

And you're like, I know of a podcast that talks about not-guilties that expose the corruption

or the shadiness or the injustices of the system, which is what another not-guilty is about.

Just for people to know the other side of things.

So it's not like how it is on television.

Okay, so Erin, you're the lead counsel in this case.

Why don't you tell us, tell the A&G world what your client was charged with.

So our client was charged with kidnapping, burglary in the first degree, assault for strangulation

in the first degree, criminal, trespass, and what am I missing, Christy?

Intimidating a participant in the legal process and attempted auto theft.

Did you get the terroristic threatening and assault for?

And terroristic threatening, I forgot that one.

So everything, basically everything they could find in the book.

He's charged with a lot.

Everything they could find in the book.

Yeah, you know, it's like a law school course.

It's like a racehorse.

It's like, okay, so he also jaywalked.

While he was littering.

I like how it was strangulation in the first degree.

Like it's like some serious, like, this just isn't any strangulation.

This is like the worst type of strangulation, which what makes it in the first degree?

So strangulation first is a new, the strangulation statute in Kentucky is a new thing by the legislature.

It's supposed to curb domestic violence.

The jury's out on if that's working.

But strangulation first is when you intentionally impede the breathing of another person without

their consent.

Strangulation in the second degree is when you do that wantonly.

What's the potential consequences of those charges?

Are any of them life charges?

Are they 20, 25 years?

What's your client looking at here?

So he's also charged with being a persistent felony offender in the second degree, which means

that in the last five years, he has another felony conviction, which he did.

So that ups his penalty for each of his charges.

So the kidnapping, which would originally be a 10 to 20 year penalty, becomes a 20 to life

penalty for him.

The same with the burglary.

And then the strangulation is 10 to 20.

But those are the big ones.

He's looking at life in prison.

And it's just is it just any felony within the last five years?

Or is there a certain class of felonies or types of felonies?

Any felony.

Even some I mean, Kentucky has what's known as baby felonies, like possession of methamphetamine.

And even that could then qualify you to have this extreme enhancement down the line.

So it can go from it can jump from 10 to 20 to to life based off maybe you had a meth conviction

from five years ago.

Yep.

Right.

Possession for just personal usage.

Right.

So two meth convictions in five years can get you life?

No, but they use it to enhance the penalties of the other of your new felonies.

Yeah, like the prerequisite felony can be anything.

And I think Kentucky's felony enhancement law might be the most draconian in the country,

probably up there with the three strikes enhancement.

It sounds like L.A. in the 90s where, you know, you get a robbery because you take someone's

pizza and then and then you get a I'm sorry, you do that two times.

And then you then you get caught with one rock of cocaine and off the prison, you go for the

rest of your life.

And so what did your client allegedly do?

What is the prosecution saying he did to get all those different charges?

So a 911 caller reports that this guy is breaking down a door and enters a residence and an officer

arrives to the house, announces himself, and he can hear this woman screaming for help from

outside the residence.

And she's screaming, he's going to kill me as soon as he announces he's a police officer.

So the officer pulls out his gun just as someone calls 911 saying they they see somebody breaking

down a door and going inside.

Right.

Is that what?

Yes.

She's she's on the phone with 911 as she's watching someone kick in a door.

And so then the police arrive to that residence and then they go inside.

Right.

Yes.

As they go inside, they hear a woman screaming that he's he's going to kill me.

And the officer enters the residence and he sees this woman with her hands tied behind

her back with a dog leash.

There's a knife on the ground.

And our client is standing there with his hands up.

So he immediately arrests our client.

And as he does that, her car keys fall out of his pocket.

How long was it between the time that the police were called?

I mean, the 911 call and the time the police arrived.

Four minutes.

So basically there it was undisputed from the Commonwealth's perspective that our client,

Jason, and this woman were in a relationship.

Mind you, she's 43 and he's 23.

And her version was that she broke up with him that morning.

Then he gets angry.

He's throwing things around the bedroom, punching walls.

He crushes her phone so she can't call the police.

And then he starts choking her.

So she says that everything went black.

She urinated herself and loses consciousness, regains consciousness.

And then he tied her wrists and ankles with a phone cord or two separate phone cords and then ties her wrists and ankles together.

So she's hog tied in the face down in her bedroom.

In four minutes.

Well, earlier that morning.

So apparently she, he had just been terrorizing her throughout the course of the morning.

So she says that he ties her up the first time.

He grabs a knife from the bedroom and threatens her some more saying stuff like, do you feel weak?

That's how I felt when you broke up with me.

And she says, what do you want?

And he says, well, I want you to give me $600 and I want you to drive me back to Louisville.

So she agrees.

She says that he then cut the phone cords loose from her ankles and wrists.

He stabs the knife with the knife, stabs it into a dresser.

And then as they're walking out the front door, that's when she slams it.

She deadbolts it.

And then she says he busted it down while she's screaming with her back to the door.

He enters.

He threatens to kill her again, punches her, stabs her.

The car key that she had into her neck makes her walk back into the condo up the stairs.

And at that point in time, he takes a dog leash and ties her hands together and was about

to tie her hands to her feet again.

And that's when the police arrived.

So there were kind of two separate alleged tying up incidents throughout the course of

this morning.

But the second one apparently allegedly happened.

Well, we know it happened in the course of four minutes.

And what was the her reason for why he was doing this again?

Because she broke up with him that morning.

So she she breaks up with him.

He's upset.

He ties her up, but then says, I need you to drive me to some destination.

To Louisville.

To Louisville and need $600.

So then she he unties her or cuts her loose.

Then they're they're exiting.

And then she shuts the door.

Then he breaks it down and ties her up again.

And then the police arrive.

Right.

It's framed as like a morning of terror for this woman.

She's been terrorized all morning.

Yeah.

And then the police show up and there she is tied up the knife.

There's holes in the wall.

Her phone's crushed.

There's a phone cord in the bedroom that's been cut.

So it looks pretty bad.

And she's 43 and he's how old is he again?

22?

He was 23 at the time.

Were there drugs involved?

No.

No drugs at all.

Oh, this is good.

Nope.

All right.

Well, there are prescription pills involved, but we'll get into that.

Sure.

Okay.

No one is selling.

No one's selling anything illegal or using anything illegal.

Oh, no, no, no.

At all.

I mean, like, this sounds like somebody's high.

No one's high.

Okay.

Is the defense, just say yes or no, don't tell me what it is, but it's not like some freaky

sex defense, is it?

No.

No.

Okay.

Okay.

No drugs.

No freaky sex.

Well, then if it's not drugs and it's not freaky sex, sounds like your guy is guilty.

Okay.

I mean, the cops walk in and he's, she's tied up and there's a knife.

The keys are, I mean, right?

Kind of like something happened.

It's just a scorned lover and she's tied up.

I mean, this is an intricate woven job that the police officer has trouble getting off

of him.

In four minutes.

He has to use an exacto knife to try and cut the dog leash off her wrist.

In four minutes.

He did all that in four minutes.

That's amazing.

Or four minutes is the course of time between the 911 call and the officer showing up to

the house.

Okay.

So your client's looking at, at life in prison, the residential burglary, uh, entering with

the intent to commit some type of felony.

So Aaron, you get this case, you see the charges.

What do you think?

So I see the charges.

I go, I'm getting constant calls from the, from our jailer, um, who we refer to as big

Josh.

He's that's how we refer to him in the community.

And he's texting me and saying, you know, you got to come see this guy right away.

You know, he's just, he's, he's acting crazy.

He's just high maintenance.

You got to get down here.

You got to get down here.

So I go down and introduce myself and meet with him.

And he is, he's very needy, begging for someone to listen to him.

And he gives me his, his version.

And what is, and can you tell us what his version was?

Did he testify at trial?

Yes.

So Jason, Jason gives the same version to me that he gives, that he gave to the police.

Um, he actually gave it to the police multiple times.

He gave it to them in the car on the way to the jail.

He gave it to them at the jail.

Um, he gave it to them on body cam and then, you know, again to me.

And he says that, you know, he's in this relationship with this woman and she was trying to kill

herself and he had to prevent it.

So we talked through the morning about, you know, the dog leash and the knife.

And he's very adamant that he was the one that was breaking up with her, that he was packing a bag.

Uh, he admits to punching the wall and breaking her phone because he found some text messages from

another man on them, which was kind of a red flag because he was clearly angry about something.

Uh, but he says he packed his bag and he was getting ready to, to go back.

And she said, if you leave, I'm taking all these pills.

And she grabbed a bottle of pills.

They wrestled for him.

She wouldn't calm down.

So we tied her up until she did.

Uh, and then he said that, you know, when he calmed her down and she, you know, was not

making these threats anymore, he said, okay, I'm headed out.

I just wanted to make sure you were okay, but I'm still leaving.

Um, and then when he left and she locked the door, she said, I'm going to do it now.

And you can't do anything to stop me.

So that's when he broke the door down and he got into her apartment apartment and she

was standing there by the kitchen counter, holding a knife to her wrist, grinning at him.

He was very adamant about that last detail that she was grinning at him as she was getting

ready to, to cut herself.

Um, so he told me that he half Nelson'd her to get the knife out of her hand.

He was a state wrestling champion.

So he knows how to disarm people without hurting them and specifically impeding their breathing.

So he half Nelson's her, uh, he takes a key, the car key, and he pressure points it right

behind her ear until she drops the knife.

And then he tied her up again and the police show up.

You learned that much from wrestling?

He's very, he knows a lot of wrestling moves.

Sounds like he's a wrestler and a boy scout.

So naturally I had a lot of questions.

Um, my first one was, why didn't you just call the police?

If this woman is having a psychiatric episode, uh, why don't we get law enforcement involved

or someone to help her?

And he says that she is very, was very adamant that she didn't want the police called because

she had already been to a psych ward.

She's a registered nurse.

And she said, if I go back to the psych ward, I will lose my nursing license.

And he knew how much she loved nursing and he, she didn't want to call the police.

So he said when she would have these episodes, when they would argue that he would just defuse

them.

And this particular day, it wasn't working.

And just to make sure.

So she, she walks, he walks in, she has a knife.

He gets there in a, in a half Nelson and then like does some pressure point behind her

ear, which causes her to drop the knife.

Right.

And then did he tie her up again after that point?

Yes.

Or, okay.

Did she resist being tied up?

Yes.

Were you, were you able to verify that, uh, she had in fact been to the psych ward?

Yes, we did.

That's where they met.

Yes.

And she was, she was also out on bond technically while all of this was happening.

So that was another reason why she didn't want him to call 9-1-1.

It was like 9-1-1.

So she had, she had an open case, some other criminal charge.

Yes.

So tell me the story about them meeting at the, uh, psych ward.

This is what I want to know.

So they were only together for, you know, a few weeks before this happened.

Uh, but they met at a psych ward.

He was there for, it was like a, it's like a rehab place.

He met, he calls it the loony bin.

So I started calling it that, which I don't like that term.

I shouldn't have just said it just now.

But anyway, they meet there and he's there for some alcohol issues and she's there, um,

for suicidal tendencies, for depression.

Um, and that's where they meet and they, they both leave there and they stay in communication.

Uh, she's married, but separated.

Uh, so he's living in Louisville.

He works building houses and he, she invites him to, to hang out with her.

Sounds like love to me.

And there we are.

Sounds like love.

Yeah.

They had an interesting dynamic in their relationship because he, she invites him to move in with

her.

So they were living together when this happened and really she's kind of just, he's a younger

guy.

She's kind of just using him for sex.

Uh, and she, you know, they would go whenever they went out together, she never wanted them

to be seen in public because of the age difference.

So like, oh, I need to run into Kroger and grab something.

Why don't you stay in the car kind of thing.

So she was more so the, the control, the controlling person in their relationship.

So the cougar and the boys guys is what you're saying.

Yep.

That's exactly it.

Okay.

So then what, what kind of, you meet your client, you, he tells you the same story you

told law enforcement already.

Did he go into such detail with law enforcement as he did with you?

Some of the things about, you know, how they met or, you know, the details about the relationship

he didn't.

Because quite frankly, the police didn't really care about anything he was saying because

they didn't believe him.

So it was kind of just, they gave him an opportunity to speak and then they shut it down.

So tell us about the preparation of the defense then.

What'd you start doing to start getting ready for potentially going to trial in this case?

So the way things work in Hardin County, you're arraigned in circuit court and then you get

one pre-trial conference, which is about 45 to 60 days later.

And that's your opportunity to accept a guilty plea.

Opportunity.

Your chance.

That one shining moment.

Well, that is so nice of your county.

It is.

Presenting such an opportunity.

I hope your client didn't squander it.

So his opportunity was 10 years in prison and he would have to serve 85%.

It would be a violent offense.

85% until he was eligible for parole was his offer.

Until he's eligible for parole, he wouldn't even get out of 85.

He had to go before parole board in 85?

Yes.

Wow.

And he does not get any good time credit for anything while in prison because it's a violent

offense.

So no credit for good behavior, no credit for work or anything like that.

The only credit would be educational that he could get.

So he's serving the whole thing.

So you go visit your client in jail then, right?

In custody?

Again, yes.

And go over the case with him.

Right.

Like the first time I'm meeting him, there's a couple other visits, maybe, maybe not.

And then we go over this discovery together and that's where Christy came in.

Okay.

Why is Christy there?

Or she comes in like in what way?

Like did you bring her?

Did you guys go together or?

We were visiting another client together and I said, you know, like I said, he was high

maintenance, he was needy, he was animated, he's really intense and I just said, you know,

sit in with me.

I want you to hear, I want you to hear what he has to say.

And at this time, I'll be honest, I didn't necessarily know if I believed him or not.

What's the dynamic between you and Christy at this point?

You guys are a co-worker, you guys work together.

Christy, how, how, Aaron's been a public defender for about 10 years or something like

that almost almost and Christy, like how long you've been a public defender for at this point,

I've been a public defender with DPA for almost two years and I'm part of this program DPA

has where I split my time between a normal, the, a normal trial office and then third chairing

capital cases with our capital branch as a research writing specialist.

So basically I was just placed in this trial office to get some more experience.

So the first time that I sat down with Aaron and Jason, I hadn't been assigned to the case

yet, not until it was closer to trial did Aaron bring me on as a second chair.

So you just, when Aaron asked you to come check out this client, like you weren't really in

a position to say no then.

You don't tell Aaron no.

It's a new lawyer like you.

Oh, no, no, no, it's okay.

I'm going to sit there and observe Aaron's interviewing style, like as an educational experience.

Aaron's giving you an opportunity.

It's your opportunity.

It's her opportunity.

Absolutely.

To learn.

Do you see?

Do you see?

Okay.

So tell us about this meeting with, uh, with Jason then.

How did it go?

Well, yeah, I mean, well, I'm just there to observe.

So I'm sitting there and I think this was a meeting when Aaron, it, this wasn't a meeting

where Jason was really saying, giving his, what actually happened to Aaron.

Um, it was more so reviewing the photos of the discovery.

And so I just remember I'm sitting there kind of detached from this situation.

Aaron's flipping through these photos of this woman looking distraught, crying with this

dog leash binding her wrists and the knife and the phone cords and the crushed phone and

holes in the wall and I'm just kind of internally, my, my eyes are widening.

And Aaron finishes flipping through all those photos and is just like, okay, Jason, I can

work with this.

I like that.

Yeah.

Aaron, did you get, getting any additional insight from that, from that meeting with Jason?

Do you feel like that's kind of like where the, the defense started sinking in a little

bit better?

Jason, Jason had trouble fleshing out details.

He felt like I'm telling you this, what happened, this is what happened.

And then he wants to talk about these other things that he's concerned about, which mainly

were the conditions of the jail, which in fairness to him, were not good.

He was in solitary confinement.

Um, and at the pendency of this, throughout the pendency of this case, it turned out to

be 492 days in solitary confinement.

So he was having a really rough time.

Um, which was what he wanted to discuss, which unfortunately there wasn't much I could do

about it.

Um, cause he had had some problems in the jail, like interacting with people.

So try to get him to stay on track.

I wanted him to see the discovery.

Um, I knew I needed to look into this woman he was dating.

So I got additional details about that.

Um, and that's kind of where we left it for a few weeks while I, you know, searched around

and see what I could, what I could find.

And, and what did you find?

So the victim wasn't interested in talking with us.

Her, uh, estranged husband wasn't interested in talking to us.

Um, Jason, what I did learn about Jason is that he, um, at the age of three was placed

up for adoption, um, to a family, uh, that had other children that they had adopted.

So he grew up from the age of three till about 14 in this home with other adoptive children

and his parents or his adoptive parents.

When he was about 14, his parents did a thing where they kind of sorted through their children

they had adopted and decided that there were some that they didn't want anymore.

And he was one of them.

So he kind of bounced around foster homes and stuff until he was about when he, until he

was 18 and then went out on his own.

He got his first job at a Taco Bell and just started working and figuring out, you know,

how to live by himself, which is really all what he's ever known.

Wow.

And we're talking about a 400 days in solitary too.

Oh, yeah.

All right.

So I had been in communication with the jailer, uh, about what, what was going on with him

and due to his behavior, there just wasn't much safety wise they could do.

Um, so that's that it was, he was a very frustrated client because of his circumstances, the jail.

Wow.

So I find all this out and the Commonwealth attorney sends me an offer for him.

So eventually we go back and talk about that.

That's the 10 year offer, right?

That's the 10 year offer.

Um, and Christie's with me when we discuss that.

And what does he think of the 10 year offer?

So he, he tells me he's willing to accept something.

He's willing to accept time, but he wants it to be time.

That's not the 85% violent offender time.

He wants our, he wants it all lowered to a 20% parole eligibility.

And he said he will take 10 years, 20%, which was not on the table after we counter offered

with that.

So he, he's down to do two years and then be eligible for parole after two years.

Right.

Sounds reasonable.

Yeah.

Where's the, what happens next in the case then?

Now we're headed to trial.

As we get closer to trials, when Christie actually comes on board, not just observing, but actually

going to work the case and be co-counsel on this case.

So her and I go see him to introduce her.

We're getting, we're about a month away from trial and Jason's just not in a good place.

And he tells me that he's wants to take the 10 years at 85%, which gave me pause because

in my experience, guys that are innocent and don't want time at all, you know, they don't

want to, they're not going to plea to something that they didn't do.

So it gave me pause of why he would be so willing to accept so much time when he was adamant

that he had what I believe to be a suicide justification defense.

And throughout our conversation, you know, without getting in the details, it became clear to

me that Jason did not trust me and that I had a client that was probably going to accept

time in prison because he just didn't trust me to try his case, which broke my heart,

quite frankly.

Why did you think that?

Why do you think he didn't trust you?

Because he told me.

Okay, that's why he wanted to take the 10 years because he just didn't trust, didn't

trust that you would do, you would come through for him.

He didn't trust that I believed him.

He didn't trust that I believed that he didn't do it.

And we ended the conversation with him not accepting that.

Like he did change his mind, but it really was just a very intense, you know, impactful

moment for me as a public defender, because the reason he didn't trust me was my fault.

What, what did you do?

What did you do?

I think it's more of what I didn't do.

I didn't, you know, I didn't give him the attention that, that he deserved.

I didn't probably see him as much as I should have.

Yeah.

I came down to see him with specific purposes and I didn't really give him time to really

inform me about his life, about his situation.

And I, I didn't really include him in, in this work that I was doing on his case outside of

it.

So he, and I think it's important because it happens to everybody as public defenders.

It happens to all of us where we have those clients and it gets closer to trial and we

haven't spent that time with them.

And there's things that we haven't done.

And it occurred to me that there, that this client was going to take time for something

he didn't do because he didn't trust his lawyer.

And I, I, it, Christy was with me.

I was, we left the jail, was in tears.

Um, I called the prosecutor and I said, I, I really hope my client's lying to me because

if this lady made all this up, this is not good.

This is, this is not good.

This is insightful, man.

It was, it was a really, it was a really hard moment.

And I, I mean, I'll let Christy share her take on it.

Yeah.

And I mean, and I'm a newer public defender, so it was, it was also poignant and resonated

with me as well.

And I think after that conversation with Jason and the prosecutor, Aaron, I mean, Aaron's

devotion shifted come completely in terms of this.

Cause I mean, it's a theme that applies to, I think every public defender, cause the system

is set up in a way where you can't get, sometimes it's just impossible to give 100% to every single

client and represent every single client.

You know, when you have a caseload of 200, 300 plus the, what they deserve under the Sixth

Amendment.

But after this happened, I mean, Aaron would, Aaron would go and visit Jason, even if she

didn't have a case update, just so that he'd have an hour or two outside of that dehumanizing

environment in isolation, just so that he could interact with her or us on a human to human

level.

And I think putting in that time and also just side note, the case ended up getting continued

because the lead detective had prostate cancer.

So that gave us even more time to build that relationship with Jason.

And I think when you, when you have an opportunity to get to know a client like that, you have

those conversations outside of just the case, like the fact that he was a state wrestling

champion.

So of course he, you know, a half Nelson is something that he knows about that came up

and, you know, he wouldn't have otherwise brought that up as really being relevant to

the case.

But it's a thing that we integrated into his direct exam as well.

So I was going to say, I mean, cause it's like, we talk about his upbringing, right?

Which he grew up in the system, foster care bouncing around, uh, was let down by his adopt,

adoptive parents, maybe given up like, so, I mean, there's no reason for him to trust humanity

because humanity has failed him every step of the way.

And then now he's coming to the criminal system with a, with a, with a lawyer who's supposed

to be on his side because the system said so, but he's not going to necessarily just trust

you.

So, um, that's great that you took the time to like really build that relationship with

him.

Cause Jason didn't want us to just defend him and be his lawyers.

Jason wanted us to believe him.

He wanted to be believed.

And I did, I did believe, I believe him a 100%.

You know, it's, it's interesting because it really, this really speaks to like what our

job actually is.

And it's beyond like the, the, the case file and the facts of the case, you have to establish

a relationship with your clients, you know, the, you have to humanize your clients, but

then, you know, there's that danger in that because it's like, you know, you, they're with

you forever then no matter what.

Right.

And if you get, you got 200 cases, you know, that's, you got 200 people plus every year

that are with you forever.

That's something that, that's our job.

And that's something that they don't really, they don't really speak too much about.

And it's interesting because, you know, I often hear clients say, I want you to, to believe

me and I'm like, well, it doesn't matter if I believe you, you know, I'm, I believe you

anyway.

I believe you when you don't believe you, but we're not trying to convince me.

If I was the juror, you would be not guilty, but are we going to be able to convince these

12 folks?

I don't believe anything anymore.

So yeah.

Oh, you know, nothing.

Exactly.

You want to know how you can convince me beyond, it's, it's impossible to convince me beyond

me beyond a reasonable doubt.

There's always doubt.

So then, so what, what happens next in the case then you've, you've worked on this rapport.

I know you mentioned earlier that you're, you're digging into the, the complaining witnesses

background, finding out about, you know, uh, about her, uh, psychiatric, uh, conditions

and how they met, but what else are you doing to get ready for the, for trial?

So we're building our, you know, suicide justification defense, which in Kentucky says that, you know,

you can use physical force, um, and you can even, you know, and if you harm someone, that's

okay.

If you were trying to prevent them from hurting themselves to, to end their life.

And the instruction is called the suicide prevention justification.

Wow.

Oh, that's awesome.

That's very specific.

It is.

In all fairness, I didn't know it existed.

So, uh, but I had, we called in our DPA trial God, Tom, who of course had had it.

Is that appellate?

No.

Is that appellate?

No.

Who's DPA?

He's capital.

DPA is our whole organization, the Department of Public Advocacy.

Okay.

Okay.

So we always, every time I have a trial.

Oh, Tom!

Tom!

Tom!

Oh, oh, oh.

Got to call Tom.

Every time you have a trial, you got to call Tom.

The wizard.

Yeah.

So meet the wizard.

We call Tom.

And of course, Tom has tried a case with a suicide justification defense, because he

always has examples, um, and sends his jury instructions and says, here you go.

This is the law.

This is how you argue it.

And I'm like, okay, I can do that.

Because I feel like, I mean, I would be thinking like, this is very specific, but it's just

like, is it necessity that would be the defense in California to, or it's not, or is it duress?

The justification is written.

It's conceptually the same as, uh, I guess, self-defense.

Really?

So if I.

Defense of others.

Oh, defense for third person.

Right.

So in Kentucky, the pro, it kind of becomes an element of the offenses where the prosecutor

has the burden of proving that it was not justified by preventing a suicide.

Oh, wow.

Okay.

Yeah.

Cause you're normally assault in some type of assault or battery.

It's like the prosecution has to, in theory, prove it was not in the application of force

was not in self-defense.

Okay.

Okay.

So, so I got a question now, because now we're talking about now I'm going to really

bore legal stuff.

Okay.

So then because that's an element of the crime now that makes it extremely relevant, does that

then mean that they have to turn over like her medical history or can you subpoena her

medical history?

Well, we start doing, we start doing a dive on, on this lady.

And I, you know, I know that she's out on, on bond for something.

So I look it up, you know, we have our statewide.

Criminal record I can access.

And I see that she's out on bond for a charge out in Meade County, which is a county that

we cover also for a fleeing and evading.

So I, I'm like, that's just, and it's the only charge she's got.

And it's, it's a felony fleeing and evading.

So I look it up and our prosecutors in Meade County put all their discovery on this statewide

system.

So her discovery from that case is on there.

So I access it.

And in reading the citation, I learned that about five months prior to this, she got in

an argument with her separated ex-husband and the sheriffs were called and she was asked

to leave the house for the entire day.

Um, she returned in about 45 minutes to which her husband called 9-1-1 again and said, she's

back.

She has a knife.

She's going to kill herself.

I need the police to get here.

So the police show up and she's standing there getting in her car with a knife in her hand.

She does not listen to their commands to stop and she gets in her car and they follow her

and she refuses to yield for the police officers.

So they charge her with fleeing and evading.

She has cut marks on her wrist.

She's got the knife.

Um, and this is all in this police report.

And I, I literally read it out loud in real time to Christy just so I could see the reaction

that she would have when she heard it.

I was on the floor.

She was like crawling and like her body was like distorted and she like fell on the floor.

That's what we call a good fact.

That's a good fact, but now I got to get it in.

Yeah.

So, we're all right.

Yeah.

So, we file a motion in Kentucky.

It's called a Barroso motion to get a witness's psychiatric records and other issues.

We file that.

That's denied.

Um, he says, I can talk about, you know, depression, but we're not ordering psychiatric records

on every witness that's depressed.

So, then we file a motion, uh, under rule 404B.

I called it a reverse 404B motion because I wasn't using it on my client and his prior

bad acts.

It was their witness and her prior acts.

404B is, go ahead for our audience.

Basically, if you've done something bad in the past and you have a present situation, you

can't use that bad thing in the past against them now because of how prejudicial it was.

So, I can't say, well, you're guilty now because you were guilty then.

And so, for us to say, well, she was threatening to kill herself and cut her wrists now because

she was threatening to cut her wrists then, which is, which is in reality what we're trying

to say, but we have to find an exception, um, to get it in.

Yeah.

Now, is this, this is pre-trial.

We're not talking about trial.

We're talking about pre-trial.

Right.

Right.

This is all pre-trial.

So, we made a strategic decision to address this pre-trial with the judge.

Okay.

So, we're arguing, you know, absence of mistake is an exception.

We're arguing pattern of conduct.

I actually framed the motion as she's an alternate perpetrator in the case because the Commonwealth

is alleging that our client harmed her, but in fact, she harmed herself.

And the rules about 404B evidence when it comes to alternate perpetrators is very broad.

They let a lot of things in.

So, I wanted to kind of frame her as that, since she was, in fact, the actor that was inflicting

the harm, that these alternate perpetrator broader rules applied to her.

Judge disagreed.

I mean, that sounds like a really, well, first of all, it sounds like it's a really good argument,

not only on those grounds, but also because they have the burden of proof for proving that

it was not this, and there is now significant evidence to suggest that it might have been.

And you say both of those didn't work?

So, judge issues a specific order, and in the order are listed two, three questions that

I'm allowed to ask her in regards to the issues.

I'm allowed to ask her if she's had suicidal inclinations.

I'm allowed to ask her, or I'm allowed to bring up that she met him in the psych ward,

which, mind you, she denies.

She tells the police that they're mutual friends.

She leaves that part out.

I'm allowed to say, on this day, did you get in a fight with your ex-husband and threaten

to kill yourself?

And then she says yes, or no, or whatever, and then I move on.

So, I'm only really allowed one question about all this information I found.

I'm allowed to ask her that one question.

But if she says no, you can impeach her, right?

Right.

Beautiful.

Beautiful.

So, if she lies, we're ready to go.

And I have the sheriffs in Meade County subpoenaed.

Beautiful.

So, the judge is allowing you to bring in this prior incident, then?

She can either admit it, happen, and if not, then, so then, did the judge rule in your favor

or not in your favor?

What more would you have liked from the judge?

Well, obviously, I wanted to just ask her a million questions about it.

Like, you know, that you were mad at him, and you guys were breaking up your marriage, and

you threatened suicide, just like you did on this day.

When a man leaves you, you threaten to kill yourself, which seemed to be her pattern of

behavior.

But you were sitting on the wrong side of the table in order to get that motion granted,

right?

Well, our judge, I've tried him, you know, most of the trials that I've had in the last

five years have been in front of him, I would say with the exception of two, so a lot.

And, you know, he's a, I know him, and I know how he's going to rule, for the most part.

Sometimes he surprises me.

Any other pretrial work?

So, you have that pretrial motion on the prior act of suicide threatening?

Any other pretrial work?

We have a couple, you know, we're always following bond motions every time something

changes.

But other than that, we're just waiting for that trial date.

Okay.

And then, so, you're waiting for any trial date, and just before we move on to the trial

part, is there any other, like, side stories we may have missed?

Well, we got, we, you know, hearing the story of the entire morning is, it gets a little

confusing.

And so, we really needed Jason to, you know, kind of clarify and condense, you know, exactly

what went on.

And he kept, you know, using these wrestling terms.

And, like, we just could not figure out, like, what did you actually do to her?

Like, we know what they're saying you did to her, but what did you actually do?

And so, we figured out that it would be easier for him to just show us by doing it on me.

Wow.

So, we had him, finally got them to take his handcuffs off during an attorney visit, which

they did, and he demonstrated what he had done to her on me while we were doing a jail visit.

So, he half chicken winged me, half Nelson me, pressure pointed my ear, and then took his

knee and knocked him in the back of my knees, and I fell to the floor.

But could still breathe the entire time and was unharmed.

CWF, huh?

Right.

Did that work?

Did that work?

The pressure point?

Oh, my gosh.

It hurts.

Yes.

It hurt.

Wow.

And we would go down to the jail just to, I mean, we walked through his direct again and

again and again, and he would practice doing that on us, and sometimes the CO would walk

by and see one of us go to the ground and kind of, you know, do a double take, but we would

just wave and be like, we're fine.

We're role-playing.

Okay, so let's talk about the trial then.

Chrissy's on board.

We're, I mean, you know, for out here in Los Angeles, you know, when we go out to trial,

the first thing we do, we do pre-trial motions then usually.

It looks like you've done some pre-trial motions already.

Did you have any other motions or issues to bring up the judge before the jurors came in

for jury selection?

I don't believe so.

Our, we had, you know, our main issues were that he had no, well, we had to get him some

clothes to wear.

So that was kind of, he was picky about what he wanted to wear for his jury trial, which

is fine.

He wanted to be fly for his jury trial.

He, he really wanted to be fly.

And, you know, he's younger.

So I think when he showed up the first day for jury selection, um, Gen Z, they'll do these

eyebrow slits where they'll shave off a little bit of their eyebrows.

And so he shows up out of nowhere with all these eyebrow slits and we're like, what?

And he's like, yeah, I thought I'd look cool.

And okay, yeah, it, it, it does look cool, but we've got mostly older conservative white

jurors who might not appreciate it stylistically, but so he didn't really have an issue with

me, um, using my eyebrow pencil to just fill in the slits a little bit.

So that was part of our, our, our morning ritual every day before trial.

Christy would fill in it, fill in his eyebrows.

Yeah.

Doctor.

So, and Christy makes an important point.

You know, Elizabethtown is in Hardin County is home to Fort Knox.

So our, our, a lot of our jurors are military, uh, retired military.

So that just is another element that we always have to consider when we, you know, are forming

a defense theory of, of who, who we're going to be arguing to, um, cause it's most likely

going to include, you know, older white retired military people.

Yeah.

We got to get granny to believe that you're trying to prevent a suicide.

Yes.

And, and, and the Big Daddy Kane, uh, eyebrow slits probably isn't going to work.

There were, I mean, he, he didn't like the clothes Christy picked out.

She wanted him to wear a sweater vest.

He said, absolutely not.

He preferred to wear button downs that were slightly tight so that the buttons were like

popping open a little bit.

So he looked really muscular.

So we just let him do it.

Jason does better when you let him be Jason.

Did you have tight shirts for him then?

Did you have like a plethora of clothing for him to look at?

Yeah.

One of the ones we sent over was like a different size and he picked that one.

So, so, okay.

So tell us about jury selection.

Uh, who's in charge of jury selection here?

Me.

I love voir dire.

Okay.

You love voir dire.

Now I'm listening.

I do.

Okay.

Vour dire is where you make friends and then you ask your friends for a favor.

Um, and the favor was going to be, you know, believe this guy.

So I wanted to definitely get our theory out there.

Um, and I also wanted to talk about crisis time situations where, you know, someone may choose

to react in a different way than you would.

Right.

So I start off voir dire saying, you know, who knows about this big trial that's going on

right now?

Like, what's the big trial going on?

Everyone's like Johnny Depp, Amber Heard.

All right.

So we start talking about it, what they know about it.

And, you know, obviously most of the juror members are team Johnny.

Some of them don't like both of them.

Somebody finally raised their hand and said, that woman must be crazy.

She's shit in his bed.

And I was like, yes, someone said it.

Indeed.

And the person that said it was our commonwealth attorney's name.

Yes.

Wow.

He was in the jury pool.

Yeah.

So he got struck.

By the commonwealth, I'm guessing.

Yes.

That's amazing.

So we're getting this narrative across that women make up lies to hurt men.

All right.

And they're following this.

So then I start giving them hypotheticals.

And I say, I want you to think about, you know, I had just gone on a hike for Mother's

Day with my family.

And that's what I want to do on Mother's Day.

I want to go to, you know, down to the gorge and go hiking.

So I talked to them about that and said, you know, I want you to imagine that you're out

hiking with your friend.

You've got your dogs with you and you guys are on this beautiful hike.

And you look over and there's your friend.

She's getting ready to jump off a cliff.

What are you going to do?

So the people start giving me responses.

Tackle her.

Grab her.

Throw her to the ground.

I'm like, well, what if she keeps trying?

Like, she keeps trying.

Like, what am I going to do?

Somebody's like, tie her up with that dog leash.

Get your dog leash.

Tie her up.

Yes.

So we talk about, you know, how people would handle that.

And I said, well, what if you tackled her to the ground and you broke her arm?

Should you go to jail for assault?

No, I shouldn't go to jail.

It's ridiculous.

I'm trying to save her life.

So we got a lot of people that are really on board with this.

And we talk about, you know, handling crisis situations.

And, you know, Jason had his picks that he wanted.

Jason thought that it's always confusing, I think, for clients because they think they're

picking people when actually we're just eliminating them.

But wait a minute.

How long was voir dire?

Because this sounds like amazing, amazing stuff.

But how long was it?

Mine was about an hour.

The prosecutor's was about six.

Wait a minute.

Yeah.

Six hours?

Yeah.

Well, her, the prosecutor's took a long time because she has to go through all of the domestic

violence questions.

So who here has a friend, who has or has a friend who has experienced a domestic violence

situation?

And everyone's hands shoot up.

And so they have to come up one at a time.

And so yeah, it took forever.

But Erin is brilliant when it comes to voir dire because you've got, because the prosecutors

are usually pretty sterile.

And then Erin comes in and it is like she's at a lake house just talking to her pals.

Like speed dating.

And people will start talking.

Yeah, it is like speed dating.

And I always mention that I go to church and I have a child and I have two dogs and I make

sure that they know me, that I'm not just this person trying to get somebody off on a

technicality.

Like I'm here because I believe him.

So if you believe you like me, then you should believe him.

I mean, I'll take whatever I can get.

Anything.

Anything.

So we got one juror that Jason demanded that was on his jury.

And we said, you know, I can't control who's going to be on there.

And it was a younger guy that had two braided pigtails.

He looks kind of like a hippie.

And he said some good stuff for us, but he said some not good stuff for us either.

And he seemed like, I don't know, I was unsure about him.

So it gave me pause.

And Jason was like, no, do not strike him.

I want him on my jury.

I thought, all right, well, we'll see.

And he was similar in age to Jason.

He was similar in age.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But he made it.

Go ahead, Aaron.

Sorry.

He made it.

He made it on our jury.

And we had a good jury.

And then Chrissy took over.

And after we sat our jury, Jason wrote a note to me that said, I'm going home.

And I was like, oh, no pressure.

No pressure or anything.

I kind of like that, though.

That's sort of like, you got to be positive.

Once you're in trial, you know, you got to believe.

You got to believe all the way to the end.

You know, don't give up.

Keep up.

Don't let your foot off the gas.

Go all the way to the end.

So you get this note from Jason.

He says, I'm going home.

And now it's time for Chrissy to take over.

So what does this mean?

You did opening statements?

Yes.

So we picked a jury that Monday.

Had normal court on Tuesday, blacking out on red line.

Came back on Wednesday and started.

Okay, wait, hold on, hold on.

Okay, so yeah.

You picked a jury on Monday.

Then Tuesday, there's no trial.

It's just like a court day for calendar and stuff like that.

Yeah, we got to do all our regular clients.

Right.

In the middle of trial.

Yeah, so we got like 20 other people on the Tuesday in between.

Did anything in particular happen on this day that was relevant then?

So Jason, we always bring, I was bringing drinks to Jason for court.

Like if he wanted a Coke or whatever.

And he kept saying he wanted this energy drink called red line.

And I'd never heard of it.

And he said, oh no, it's so powerful.

It's more powerful than Red Bull.

You can only drink half.

You'll be flying, you know.

And I'm like, I'm not buying you that for trial.

But I will go check it out for myself.

So on the way to court the next day, I got two of them at this, you know, five star in

my county and I gave, I brought it to Christy to court.

So I didn't drink mine, but Christy, I didn't drink mine at first.

And then Christy drank, did not listen to the directions and drink the whole thing.

Almost the whole thing.

What did the, what did the directions say?

Drink half.

It had, there's a measuring thing on the side of the bottle to let you know, like stop drinking.

And Christy, Christy was like, I don't believe any of that.

You've got to have to show me, take it to the face.

I mean, I normally operate on five shots of espresso daily and so did not think that would

be a big deal.

But Yao's unwell.

Seeing black spots during court, entire body is trembling, but recovered before we started

back up again.

Something like that.

It was bad.

And I didn't see it because I, I wasn't, I, I left and she texted me and she's like, I'm,

I'm really unwell.

And I'm like, why?

And she's like, this drink, I drank it all.

Now I had just, now I had just drank mine in the car.

Cause it was, I saved, I saved it till the afternoon and to get like a boost for like,

cause remember I got a 50 minute commute back, you know, and I gotta be mom at home.

So I need to be ready.

So I drank it and then I threw up in a cup in my car.

So that was lovely.

Wait, it would be red, red line should sponsor this episode.

Did Christy text you, I'm not feeling well.

And then you drank yours or had you already drank yours when Christy texts you?

I think it was like simultaneous.

I was like, I'm drinking it now.

And she was like, I'm unwell.

I'm just like, she's like, ah, she's a lightweight.

All right.

So were you able to fall asleep that night?

Yeah.

So we, we show up back to court and I'm like, those drinks are the devil.

And he's like, drink half.

You only drink half.

So we show up to court.

We fix his, fix his eyebrows, check his, check his shirt.

Um, we caught him with the sheriff flexing his pecs during a break.

He was flexing them doing this little dance.

Female sheriff or male sheriff?

No, for himself.

He was just doing it for himself.

Oh, okay.

Oh, we said with the sheriff.

Like they were-

Oh no, she saw it.

No, she saw it.

But he was just doing it for himself.

He just wanted to watch his pecs and his shirt.

He's young guys.

This is, yeah, it's just him.

The Harlem Shake, huh?

Is that what we doing?

He's doing the Harlem Shake.

I mean, he's been, I mean, 400 days in solitary confinement, you know, he's got to get out

there and, you know, stretch his wings and strut himself a little bit.

He was, he was.

So we got to court Monday, or Wednesday, started opening statements, which the prosecutor went

first, laid out pretty much, you know, what we've had, what we've said.

Talked about suicide, though, which I thought was interesting that from the, from jump, she's

already, she's already, she's already, our defense is already becoming central to her prosecution,

which is what we wanted, which was the purpose of the voir dire also.

So now she's defending against this suicide claim while trying to prove her case, which

makes, I believe it makes her job more difficult.

It makes it impossible.

Is she saying the witness was, in fact, trying to commit suicide?

No, but she went into the reasons why you know that she wasn't.

Oh.

So suicide wouldn't, I mean, that's not anywhere in the police report.

It's not anywhere in anyone, you know, well, it's in Jason's statement.

But yeah, she came out of the gate defending against it.

So that, I liked that.

Yes.

All right.

So let's talk about Christy's opening statement then.

How did that go?

Opening statement, we, I mean, just imbuing the jury with our counter narrative and, you

know, what do you do when the woman you just broke up with tries to commit suicide in front

of you?

You stop her.

And I just kind of basically acted out a dramatization in first person of this key moment where Nakina

slams the door behind Jason and screamed that she was going to kill herself.

And during opening, you know, when Jason was talking to the police, he kept telling them

she was trying to take these pills.

I had to grab the pill bottle out of her hand and dump it out in the trash can.

I left the pill bottle in the bathroom and the basic pictures of the scene that they took.

If you zoomed in closely, you would see, you know, seven pill bottles sitting on her nightstand.

The picture of the phone cord, if you zoomed in, you saw a stray pill there on the carpet.

And so I, I put up these photos during opening statement, anticipating that, you know, we are

going to introduce them just to, to give a visual to what we were saying as well and made a big

deal about the fact that he, he was honest about everything, the good things and the bad

things that happened during that, over the course of that morning.

And I just wanted the jurors to know that he gave multiple full statements to the police

about what happened and they're consistent.

And what's what were his statements recorded by the police?

Was there any audio of it?

Yes, there were, I mean, basically two times on body camera because the officer put hit,

arrest him, puts him in the police car.

And as he's being arrested and while he's in the police car, he's trying to explain what

happened.

Officer basically slams the door on him.

Officer goes back to transport him to the police department.

Jason gives a full recorded statement as he's being driven.

And the officer is just like, whatever, dude.

And then he gives another recorded full, like an hour and a half recorded statement to the

main detective on the case.

Wow.

Okay.

Okay.

So that's opening statements.

Sounds pretty good.

So then let's bring in the prosecution case in.

What evidence did they put up first?

So first they put up the 911 caller, who is this, this person who, who doesn't know the

complaining witness, doesn't know Jason.

She just saw him, um, breaking the door down.

Yes.

And we, I established through her that she called, um, she called 911 immediately after seeing

him break the door down and immediately after entering the residence.

And that, that was key because like we said, between the 911 call and the officer arriving,

that was a four minute period of time.

And Nakina reported to the officer that Jason had been in there terrorizing her for 30 minutes

after the door was kicked down.

So that was just an objective inconsistency number one.

Right.

Correct.

And then she identify your client in court.

Like that's the man I saw.

She did.

Yeah.

So then, yeah, but you're not really contesting much with her.

She, she's just, I mean, that's what she saw and that's what really happened.

So, right.

And she doesn't hear him screaming, yelling threats or anything like that.

She just kicked the door in.

And that four minutes is, that four minutes stuff is key.

That's key.

So who was the prosecution, prosecution put up next?

Nakina.

Nakina.

All right.

And, uh, and how does that go, Erin?

So Nakina goes, Nakina goes through her story pretty much, you know, as she told it to

the police.

Now, remember this whole thing, this whole, from the moment that first officer arrives, everything

is on body cam, everything.

Her behavior, any interaction with her, there's two main, uh, officers, one detective and one

officer.

So they both have on body cams and they're both recording everything.

So after the alleged crime, we obviously know what happened because it's recorded.

So that helps us every, cause that any interaction with her was helpful.

So she goes through, you know, her, her story and how scared she was, how she urinated on

herself, that she couldn't breathe, that she blacked out.

She also went to the hospital and they did a special exam on her that they now do for people

that claim to have been strangled.

And they have special paperwork they fill out and special questions they ask and documentation

they do for these strangulations.

So she had all that paperwork done and she went through all her injuries and she had

petechia.

You know, when you're, when you're choked or you lose that, when you have that pressure,

it causes the tiny blood vessels to, to burst.

So she was very adamant on direct that she had this petechia all over her chest and, and

face and neck and under her eyes.

And she wanted to talk about all her injuries, but in reality, she did not have any injuries,

which is what I brought up on cross.

What about the, the, the urination?

So she, she peed on herself.

Was there like any like clothing, like wet clothing or something?

I mean, that would have been on, would it have been?

Well, what's interesting is, is that when the police arrive and find her, she's wearing,

you know, when she's tied up, she's wearing a pair of black yoga pants and she wears those

black yoga pants the entire time at the body cam.

And when she gets to the hospital, she's photographed in the black yoga pants.

So Christie and I are like, damn, you peed your pants.

And now you're just going to wear these pee pants everywhere.

Like change your, change your pants.

That didn't happen.

You didn't pee in those pants.

So then on direct, on direct, she starts, she starts adding some things.

And one of the things she added was that she changed pants.

So we got, we got a couple of things out on cross.

I wanted it to be clear that she was in the house after the officers came solo, twice unassisted

in a crime scene.

Um, I wanted the hospital stuff to come out that, you know, what she, I wanted her to

claim what her injuries were because I knew the nurse couldn't get up there and say what,

what she's, what Nikina was claiming because I had the facts.

The survey says that's a lie.

What about, um, the, the prior, uh, incident of, um, of her attempting to kill herself or

threatening to kill herself?

What about that?

You brought that up, right?

Right.

So I asked her the question that, well, I was saving that question actually towards, towards

the end, but at one point her and I got into kind of a banter.

Chrissy, I don't remember what it was about.

I think it was about the phone breaking or calling police or something.

And I said, that's right, ma'am.

You didn't want the police called because you were out on bond and objection.

And the judge looked at me and said, get up here.

Why?

And said, that is not a, not an approved question, not an approved on the, on the order.

We are not getting into that.

I told you, you can't ask about it.

And you asked about it intentionally, which I didn't do it intentionally.

Sometimes my thoughts like go in out my mouth before I can really think about it.

And in that moment, I was so mad at her for lying.

I just was like, you are out on bond.

Wait, I'm sorry.

I think, did we, did we miss this?

The, the, this pre, this little emotion in lemony, was this brought up beforehand?

Did I miss that?

Right.

It was, it was part of the, it was part of the whole prior suicide.

So the judge completely limited her ability to cross.

Oh, okay.

So you even argued to the judge that you wanted to bring up the fact that she was on bond,

which would be the reason why she, a reason for her to lie about the situation because

she would be violating, violating the terms of the bond.

And the judge still didn't, would only give you that.

Well, I approached, I asked the judge to revisit it after he told me, I think you did this

intentionally.

And I swore up and down that I didn't.

And I explained, like, I'm sorry, but, but I'm sorry, but she opened the door.

Hear me out.

Hear me out.

This is why I want to talk about it.

And he agreed with me, changed his mind.

So I went back and asked her, he, he, he said to me, if you want to make this about,

about that case, I think that's a bad idea, but go ahead.

And I said, okay, I will, let's go.

So then we went back and I, you know, we talked about being on bond and she wasn't allowed

to drink alcohol.

She wasn't allowed to be around weapons.

She wasn't allowed to be driving.

So we got into all those things that she was in fact doing when she wasn't supposed to.

And before the ruling, the judge demanded to see her bond paperwork from Meade County.

And he said he wanted to see it.

And I said, sure.

And I had it.

And he agreed.

Changed his mind.

Oh, wow.

So I'll give him credit for that.

Good judges, when they, when, when something comes up and they hear a different perspective,

maybe, you know, he changed his mind.

Plus it's like the realization that she's lying.

Like when she got up there and said, oh, I had all of these scars on my neck.

And then the nurse gets up there and says, that isn't true.

Yeah.

So there wasn't much, I mean, besides pointing out her lies and some of the things like, you

know, her line about where she met him and things like that.

And I wanted to get out a lot of the, you know, how much she controlled him in the relationship,

which she denied, but the jury still heard it.

So it didn't matter.

Yeah.

Like, what were you saying?

Like, what were you asking about the relationship?

Like in terms of controlling, like, what were you saying for questions?

I'll be like, so now you told the police that you met Jason through a mutual friend.

And she said, yes.

And I said, that's not true.

That is, you met him at a psych ward, ma'am.

And she was like, well, that was after I already knew him, you know, stuff like that, which

the jurors know is not, you know, not accurate.

And were you mamming her throughout the testimony because of her age?

With the ma'am.

Ma'am.

You weren't missed.

You didn't say miss, did you?

I don't know.

You'll have to ask Christy.

I know.

I probably said ma'am.

You, you threw in a few ma'ams for sure.

Absolutely.

Christy, what'd you think of the cross by Aaron?

Like, what'd you think?

What were the highlights for you?

What would you notice?

It was great because Nikina, I mean, when you're, when you're lying, you say too much and you

try and over-explain yourself.

And there were so many times where she would over-explain and add details.

And later on when the officers are testifying, you know, that's never a detail that she reported

to them.

She also made a big point on the body cam to walk around her bedroom and point out all

these things that, you know, he had done.

Like, look at my mirror.

He did this to my mirror.

Here's where he punched the wall.

Here's this on the floor.

And I went through that with her again because obviously if she had changed pants and there

was a pair of pants with urine on them that had urine on them because someone had strangled

her, I think that we would see that she would have pointed that out to the police.

Here's my pants I was wearing.

So I, there were a lot of points that were made with Nikina that probably fell flat on

the jurors, but I was saving them, saving them for later for closing.

And you did ask her eventually the last question being about the prior threat of.

I think it was the last thing I asked her.

She said yes.

And then it was over.

The cross was over.

Wow.

Right.

Right on.

Okay.

Love it when a plan comes together.

Love it when a plan comes together.

Yeah.

So, okay.

So what happened next in trial?

Who testified next?

The police?

Yeah.

So then the detective testified and he was involved in collecting evidence from the scene.

He was the one who took a full statement from Jason.

He testifies on direct, pretty much the same thing in the discovery.

The prosecutor plays 10 seconds of Jason's interview with the detective and that's it.

And the interview is an hour and a half long.

Wait, what part of the 10 seconds or 10 minutes did he elicit of the interview?

So during the detective's interview with Jason, I think maybe about an hour in, Jason is trying

to explain to this man what he did to get the knife out of Nikina's hand.

And he's saying, you know, I, a chicken wing or half Nelson.

And he's going like this kind of, Jason is demonstrating what he did to get the knife.

And at the same time, the detective is saying, so you strangled her.

And he's like, yes, but they're not on the same page about what's going on.

Right.

So that, I mean, that was basically the Clinton, is Jason.

Just a snapshot of him saying, yes, I strangled her.

So they're losing credibility.

Right.

And he also, he also admits to saying, I'm going to burn your effing house down with you

in it.

And is that true?

That's a bad fact.

Did he say that?

Mm-hmm.

Did he really say that?

She, she claimed he did.

And he told the police that he had, in fact, said that.

Okay.

Yes.

Okay.

Yes.

Yeah.

During the breakup, they were both saying nasty things to each other.

So he was like, yeah.

Christy, are you doing the cross-examination of the detective then?

Yes.

Okay.

And what's your, what's your plan of attack for the detective?

So a part of it was crossing him on Jason's statements that, or the multiple statements that

he gave to law enforcement.

And it's something that I talked about.

It was one of my three points on opening as well.

And I attempted to admit the entirety of Jason's statements.

And every time I tried to do that, objection, objection, objection from the Commonwealth.

So I think we ended up using that to our advantage in closing because it, it looked like the

prosecutor was trying to hide something.

And the jury knew he'd given an hour and a half long statement about everything that had

occurred.

Well, couldn't, couldn't you get, you couldn't get his whole statement in?

No.

Why?

I mean, I know we have like the rule of completeness out here.

Like if you, if you admit any portion of a statement, then the others like admit the

whole thing if they want.

Yeah.

That was part of the argument, argued hearsay exceptions, especially in terms of not, not

only is this going to notice really like just what, what was law enforcement on notice of

and the effect of what they were on notice of in terms of their investigation, but also

state of mind.

I mean, it's not for the truth of the matter or that was part of my argument.

It's just, this goes to what Jason believed.

We're talking about Jason's belief, not so, but all that was, all the prosecutor's objections

were sustained.

And I would walk over to the prosecutor's table with my laptop open, you know, kind of glancing

over at the jurors.

And then none of it came in, you know, strategically, that's just like a bad idea for the prosecutors

though.

Right.

I mean, it's like, because now your statement that you made in closing, I mean, an opening

is the only thing that they know.

Right.

So now their imagination is this man told the exact same story and these people are badgering

him and they're trying to hide the good stuff because they literally play, they played the

worst thing that they could play.

And if that's the worst thing they could play to think about all the good stuff that he

said, like this is strategically bad for them because it makes them speculate in defense's

favor.

So the judge, we argue the rule of completeness and our judge views that to mean that if Jason

were to testify and they were to confront him about previous statements that he had made

that were inconsistent with what he testified to, then you could bring in the rule of completeness

that our client had to testify for that rule of completeness to come in.

And she had to confront him and ask about these prior statements.

Then we could get them in as prior consistent statements or prior inconsistent statements.

So it, I disagreed with him because he has a fifth amendment right to not testify.

So I didn't agree with that, but we were getting our point across.

I knew the judge wasn't going to let that in ever.

Those statements were not coming in by us.

They were only coming in by her.

I knew that.

And, you know, but we wanted the jurors to know.

And I think judge was okay with that because I think judge disagreed with the strategy and

he wasn't going to change his ruling based off it, but he was allowing Christie to do these

little tactics of with the computer and stuff like that.

So he may not rule in our favor, but there's definitely some grace.

It's the game within the game.

Right, right.

And I think, you know, had things gone poorly, we are preserving this issue of, okay, when you

do this, there's this tension between our sixth amendment right to present a defense and his

fifth amendment right not to testify because basically forcing him into testifying.

And I mean, when you give them Miranda warnings, you should, you should probably include what

you say will cannon will be used against you and anything good you say, you're not going

to be able to get in to trial.

So it will be used against you.

No statements that you make will be used for you.

Right.

Exactly.

Exactly.

And Christie, how, how are you prefacing each time you tried to get a part, a portion of

the statement in, like, how would you set it up for the prosecutor then to say objection?

Like, we'd be like, okay, uh, detective, did he, during this interview, did he say this

or how are you saying it?

Jason, all right.

And Jason gave a third statement.

The third statement was you sat with him for an hour and a half.

All right.

And then I'd pull my laptop, let the record reflect.

I'm showing the prosecutor, Jason Shamblin's fool, one and a half hour statement that he

gave to the detective and then objection.

Yeah.

So I don't want to just throw out that, you know, Christie's doing, you know, we've got

these body cams and she's cross-examining these officers and she's impeaching them with

their own body cams.

So she's got her laptop with it appropriately keyed up.

She's got headphones for them.

She approaches, she lets them refresh their recollection or, or she just straight up impeaches

them.

Um, and that, this is Christie's first felony trial doing this and it was done seamlessly.

And it's a very hard thing to learn how to do, especially when you're dealing with video,

you know, not like a written statement and everything was, was cued up to a T.

Um, and that's all, that's all Christie preparation and just thoroughness.

Christie, you cross-examine the detective and you cross-examine other officers as well.

Yes.

So, and the responding officer.

Tell us about that.

So with both officers got in that Jason put them on notice of the fact that he'd taken this

pill bottle.

He put the pill bottle in the bathroom, the pills were dumped out in the trash can in the

bathroom, all this.

Nobody goes into the bathroom.

That's right there adjacent to the bedroom at any point.

At one point she tells an officer that her hands were tied behind her back as they left

the condo.

So somehow with her hands tied behind her back, she slammed the door shut and threw his items

outside and locked the deadbolt.

So that didn't make a whole lot of sense.

And then the lack of injuries.

I mean, she reported that she was punched in the head, no knots to her forehead.

She reported to them that she was stabbed in the shoulder.

I think there was a clip of Nikina's demeanor right after this had happened and you see

her pull out a cigarette and she goes to light the cigarette and, you know, her hands aren't

shaking at all.

And if I'd been terrorized and almost killed over the course of a few hours that morning,

I'd probably be a little shaken up.

So her demeanor was kind of inconsistent with what she was saying.

This is the body worn video.

Right.

Yes.

Right.

Like, and that was really big to us because when you are nervous or anxious or trembling,

you know, terrified, you should have seen this woman light a cigarette.

It was perfect.

Right to the mouth.

Hand is completely still.

Flame goes up.

Lights it.

Beautiful inhale.

Exhale.

Let me tell you about my morning.

It was moving.

It was a movie.

So it, yes.

Yes.

And I was like, I was very alarmed by that.

Um, yeah.

This ain't her, this ain't her first rodeo.

No, no.

The idea that someone would say I was stabbed in my shoulder and there's no evidence of a

puncture wound or a knife entering your skin.

That's like golden.

It's like, I had a, I had somebody say, oh, my client hit her in the head with a, with a

mallet.

And I brought the mallet in and was like, this is a weapon of death.

If you hit someone in the head with this thing, they're going to die.

She didn't even have a scratch or a bump or anything.

No way hit her.

Same thing.

Like if I stab you in the shoulder, it's going to break some skin at least.

And there's no broken skin.

Like clearly this woman is willing to lie about everything.

But it becomes clear that at some point she catches wind of this, of that he's spilling

his guts to the police about what she had done.

Um, and I, and Christine, I believed that when she did realize that she started to, she wanted

to fix it.

She wanted to change it.

She wanted, she wanted to hide things.

Like she didn't want anyone to know any evidence of any suicide attempts.

Oh, okay.

So she was covering up some records or making it difficult for you to find out information

or?

Well, you know, she talks to the police a couple of times on the body cam, well, more than

a couple of times and gives a full statement on the body cam.

It doesn't say anything about pills.

It doesn't say anything about swallowing a lot of pills.

And then she gets to the hospital and she starts adding some little things in her statement

to the nurses about that Jason wanted to swallow a bunch of pills and she wanted to prevent

Jason from doing that.

And that kind of doesn't appear until later on.

Back to Christy then.

So Christy, when you, during your cross-examination of the police though, what, what, what other

things in the body worn video did you see and use during your cross-examination with the

police?

So the responding officer who was first on scene and the responding officer is,

the Commonwealth's party representative, and he's hanging out with Nikina the entire time

before the detective arrives.

And in his body camera footage, at one point, Nikina walks him through the bedroom.

And then as he's walking out, his body cam captures the entrance to the bathroom.

And when you slowed down the body cam and went through it frame by frame,

initially you see the silhouette of an orange bottle that looks like a pill bottle right

next to the sink.

And so admit that screenshot, don't really, don't say anything about the pill bottle because

you can't really tell until it's zoomed in.

And then he's hanging outside.

We're waiting for the detective.

He lets Nikina walk in and out of what's really an active crime scene several times.

And so admitting these clips of her just alone in the house for five minutes on end.

Not changing her pants.

Right.

At one point, she comes back out with the car keys that I guess she removed from the table

where the officer put them.

You know, so these clips of her going in and out unsupervised, doing whatever she wants.

And then you see, and he walks through again once the detective gets there.

And his body cam at that point captures that same angle of the entrance to the bathroom.

And when you slow it down and you look at it at that point, that orange silhouette is missing.

So that screenshot is admitted as well.

And again, I'm not, I'm just admitting it when I go to admit the photos, um, the prosecutor

is just giving me weird looks.

What are you doing?

Yeah.

Like, I mean, I think, and Jason is like, what's going on?

And yeah, because he, Jason, we couldn't, we couldn't really get into this little thing

with Jason because we didn't want him to start talking about it on direct.

So some of these little trial strategies we had, Jason was just as surprised as everybody

else because we didn't want him to get too excited.

So, so Christie, you're just taking snapshots from the body woman video and telling the

cops, this is what the scene looked like.

And you're not pointing out specific details and you're saving that for your, I mean, yeah.

I mean, some things I'm, I'm pointing out like the number of pill bottles and the stray

pill and things like that.

Um, and the, the responding officer, he was, he's a newer officer.

And I think this is probably his first major felony trial.

So it was apparent that he was personally invested in getting this conviction.

I mean, the entire time he's sitting there frantically taking notes.

He's constantly whispering to the prosecutor.

And so he's sitting there while Nikina is testifying on direct and on direct Nikina says,

Oh yeah, Jason also stole my husband's wedding ring and took it with him outside when he left.

And the officer verifies that on direct.

And I mean, there's a photo of all the items that Jason had right outside of the door.

There's no wedding ring.

There's no wedding ring mentioned in his report.

There's no wedding ring log.

Like he, he was just going along with it.

I think it was obvious.

He was just saying that to try and boost Nikina, but he ended up being impeached on that point.

Losing his credibility.

Oh, it's nothing.

It's nothing like getting Captain America caught up right on the, yes.

Like, Oh, you're just this objective officer, you know, based on training and experience and

you know, doing your job, right.

Other than that, the wedding ring thing that you didn't put in any report, isn't in any photo.

And clearly she just made that up five minutes ago and now you're supporting it.

Oh, so now we got line officers and line witnesses.

And this is how they plan to prove this case beyond a reasonable doubt.

Oh, I'm, I'm excited about what happens on direct examination.

And I'm also excited to see how this closing goes.

Okay.

Okay.

Here we go.

What happens next in trial?

Dom, those are the main points with the police officer.

There, um, there was the same, then they had the sane nurse who testified and that was

their last witness, which Erin cross-examined.

All right.

And Erin, was that what you're about to get to right now or?

Yeah.

So the sane, so, so the sane nurse gets up there and they, you know, they're trained to testify

in court and stuff.

So I basically just went through these worksheets she did.

What, wait, what does sane stand for?

Cause it's sane, just insane, sane, but it's not, she's not a sane.

Is she saying?

Sexual assault.

Nurse.

Sexual assault nurse examiner.

Okay.

All right.

We'll call it SART Miller.

Okay.

So the sane nurse.

So the sexual assault, right.

The sexual assault nurses, the one that are trained to do rape kits and stuff like that.

They also are trained in this strangulation, uh, business now that we have this new law.

Okay.

So they, they do an exam on her and, you know, the way that the nurse testifies, it's, you

know, she had 24, 24 noted injuries.

She had petechia in her lips.

She had it in her eyes.

Her neck was red.

Um, she had bruising along her back, which they're claiming is from her leaning against

that door when he was kicking it.

And then she had obviously marks around her wrists.

And then they said she had marks around her ankles.

I could never see anything.

So the first thing that I noted, and I want to say that I discovered this on Twitter following

the Amber Heard, Amber Heard Johnny Depp trial, is that some of the Twitter followers were

accusing the Amber Heard's attorneys of saturating her photos, uh, to make injuries look worse.

And when I noticed the pictures that the prosecutor was introducing and I looked at my own, I realized

that I had encountered the same issue.

Um, so I, I like introducing my own evidence anyway.

I like to have my own pictures in, in the format that I want them.

And I have that all planned to introduce whether they introduce it or not.

So I introduced my own pictures and some of them were duplicates, but the color was so vastly

different than these saturated pictures.

So of course her neck looked red when you, you know, mess with the pixels of the picture.

So I pointed that out, um, with her and she just said, mine looked darker.

And I wanted to be like, no, yours look lighter, but I digress.

So we went through some of the pictures and went through, you know, half of the injuries that

she documented.

If you, if you pay close attention to the notes that are by it and the little codes they use,

Nikina was reporting point tenderness, which means she was, she or a nurse was touching an

area of her body and saying, oh, that's sore.

That hurts me.

And then they mark it down as an injury.

So if someone comes up and puts their hands on her neck and goes, how does this feel?

Oh, that hurts.

Oh, injury.

So half of them were self-reported.

So we went through that.

We went through the petechia.

I argued with her about the petechia.

You know, they try to make a big deal about these blood vessels.

And quite frankly, Nikina wasn't the healthiest individual.

She drank, you know, on occasion, she had red skin.

I mean, call it what it is.

She did have a mark behind her ear where the key was for the pressure point, but they did

advise her to get a CT scan of her neck.

And they said that even though, you know, you're fine now, you could have had internal injuries

from this severe strangulation that made you black out and urinate yourself.

So you probably should get checked.

And Nikina decided to leave the hospital without getting that scan.

So I wanted that point to be pretty clear that this woman who's a nurse, who knows the dangers,

who knows to listen to your health care providers, decided that she didn't need that scan.

She wasn't worried about internal injuries to her neck.

And had access to it and had access at her job.

She had access to all of these things at her job and still didn't do anything.

She's gaming the system.

She knows how to game.

Oh, this is good.

This is good.

Okay.

So we just got through that basically she's making a big deal about non-existent injuries.

There aren't any injuries.

She didn't get punched in the head.

And the same nurse, they get combative.

You know, they're there for the victims.

And I appreciate and respect the job they do for sure.

But the strangulation stuff is next level.

It's just way, it's...

Sound like junk science.

Sound like hair follicle or bite mark evidence.

Like all of this stuff that has been demonstrated to be like completely junk.

Yeah.

It's a very convincing way to get a conviction on one of these cases.

Especially with this petechia.

People don't realize that you can have red skin sometimes.

I had a case once where the woman was like, oh, he strangled me.

Or it was her girlfriend at the time.

My girlfriend strangled me.

And then she came in after they had made up and said, actually, watch this.

See how red my neck is right now?

That's what I did that night.

I just needed to get a lot of these points out.

We weren't going to...

She thought she had been assaulted.

I obviously thought that she hadn't been assaulted.

So we were on differing sides.

But I got out what I needed to get out.

And I introduced my pictures.

So then, all right.

So that's the end of the people's case?

That's the end of the people's case.

All right.

So it's time for the defense.

And do you guys put on a defense?

Well, we do.

We have Jason.

All right.

You put on your client.

All right.

So, I mean, clearly, you prepped your client for testimony.

You guys practiced the reenactment while in custody.

And so Jason's ready to go then, right?

He is.

Who does the direct?

Me.

Okay.

I have a question.

Yes, sir.

Okay.

So, strategically, right?

And this is something I even struggle with.

After what I think is a great, a bunch of good wins during the prosecutor's side, was there

ever any consideration like, we have enough right now to nail these folks and we don't

want to risk Jason saying something that throws off the case or we don't want him to not be

popular amongst the jury.

And so maybe he shouldn't testify.

Anything like that go through your head?

Because that's something that I sometimes struggle with.

I'm a big fan.

You have to convince me to have someone not testify.

I'm a big fan of clients testifying.

I got to be protecting something really important if you don't testify.

I oftentimes, though, you do think down that trail of, all right, I'm getting an A.

Am I risking this for an A plus when I could end up with a D?

But I believed in Jason.

I really did.

And Jason had never, with me or by the police, been caught in a lie.

Not one.

Not one.

And not with Christy, not with me.

And I thought, no, I want him to share his truth.

And I was really proud of him.

Right.

So how'd it go?

So Jason talked about his childhood and, you know, he says it all in a way that he makes

it just, like, that he doesn't realize how traumatic it is.

You know, sometimes they say that you don't realize that you've been through trauma until

you're explaining it to someone else.

And they give you that look like, oh, my God.

Yeah.

It's just his life.

It's just his life.

And he just told it and talked about meeting her and that, you know, he had this great job

in Louisville, but, you know, he had a connection with her.

And he thought, for sure, I'll get a job down in E-Town.

And this job will always be here.

If I come back, I'll take me for a ride.

Like, I'll try it out.

So he talks about their relationship and, you know, that she kind of was controlling of where

he went and stuff like that.

And he basically said that morning, you know, he saw these texts from another guy.

His name is Vincent, who lived down the street.

And Jason was like, I'm 23.

Like, I'm not in love with you.

If you're going to see other men, great.

But you're not going to be doing it with me.

Like, Jason explained to the jury that, like, ending the relationship was sad for him, but

it wasn't like a codependent situation where he was going to be devastated.

Like, if you want to see someone else, I'm leaving.

And then he said the story the way that he's always said it and that she was going to kill

herself.

And he couldn't let that happen.

And he explained what he had done.

And then as he started getting into his, you know, language about wrestling, I took my

jacket off and I asked him to come down.

And I said, let's do it.

And I said, I want you to show this jury how you restrained her from preventing a suicide.

Show me how you did that.

I got a question.

I'm interrupting you.

I'm sorry.

But now I'm really interested, right?

Were there objections from the DA or the judge?

No.

I got in big trouble by the sheriff's department because I didn't alert courtroom personnel that

my client who's in custody was going to come down and do a wrestling move on me in the middle

of the courtroom.

So, and their, and their anger was justified.

Like, that was a screw up on my part.

And the judge was irritated too, but.

Too late now.

So when he came down to do it, though, he did it a lot quicker than when he had practiced.

So, like, I kind of let out this little shriek because it kind of surprised me.

And then I was on the ground so fast and, like, my ear hurts clearly.

And then I heard one of the jurors laughing and I'm like, oh, no, this, but it, you know,

and I was like, I'm still breathing.

So let the record reflect.

Yeah.

Let the record reflect.

I still can talk, your honor.

So, so reflected.

So you say the jury is laughing at him, choking you and knocking you to the ground.

I think someone laughed.

Unless it was Christy that laughed.

That's awesome.

I don't, someone let out a little, oh, noise.

That is awesome.

That's awesome.

But the number one thing about Jason's testimony was, you know, when he explained why he didn't

want to call the police, when he explained about getting in a relationship with Nikina,

I said, what attracted you to her?

You know, obviously there's this age difference, but what attracted you?

And he said, you know, she's just such a good nurse, like her heart's in it.

She's so dedicated to her job.

She just seemed like an incredible woman that has spent her life helping people in her job.

And I just so admire that.

He goes, even to this day in all that she's done, I will never say to anyone that she's

not a good nurse because she's amazing.

And he continued that when he talked about not wanting to call the police and how, even

though he was going to leave this woman and their relationship was over, he wouldn't, didn't

want to do something that was going to affect the thing that she loved the most, which was

her job.

And the prosecutor never talked about Nikina at all, not about her life, about if she had

children, if she, which she did for a living.

The only person in that whole trial that personified Nikina was Jason.

And it just was, and it just was so, yes.

And that's not something we practiced.

That's something that just, you know, that's the truth.

The truth.

Oh yeah, this is great stuff.

This is a lot of ammunition for a closing argument.

This is exciting.

So he had some explaining to do.

I mean, he, why didn't you call the police and why was the phone broken and, and you're

tying her up?

Like Jason, you really tied her up.

Like this is an intense knot, you know?

And he just explained that he did it, how he was taught how to tie people up.

I mean, that's just, you know, he's a boy scout.

Not tie people up.

Sorry.

He wasn't taught to tie people up, taught at a tie knot.

It's just how he did it.

But he admitted to everything.

And he said, you know, I did it twice.

And I knew when those police came in and she was screaming and crying what she was going

to do to save herself.

So like, we're getting, so with Jason, like it's authentic.

I mean, he's telling his story.

He's not thinking twice.

He's telling the truth.

You know, we're all, he's just a human being in the situation.

And Nikina is also a human being.

And, you know, we all have flaws and this is what happened.

And this is how things went down.

So then how does the prosecution's cross-examination go when she's trying to float some bogus theory

that's not supported by the evidence, but she has to act like it's the truth.

How does that go?

The prosecutor badgers Jason about some of the bad things that he said in terms of the

admission to strangulation and the, you know, saying that he was going to burn her house down.

And I think one of those clips, he, he said something slightly inconsistent.

So she goes to impeach him and she pulls out her laptop and is, you know, it's an hour

and a half long and she's trying to find this, um, or maybe it wasn't one of the statements

that she'd admitted, but something else that he said and she can't find it.

And she leaves the courtroom and goes into a conference room outside of the courtroom and

takes like 20 minutes trying to find this timestamp.

So any, she maybe accelerated a little bit and then left for half an hour trying to find

this clip to impeach him.

But Jason is unfazed.

We had another attorney come in to do a mock cross-examination of him prior to his testimony.

So Jason did really well and Aaron did really well.

I mean, Aaron, you could tell that Jason and Aaron had a great relationship, not just attorney

client, but as friends during his direct examination.

And his testimony was important to try and explain some of the evidence that was found at the scene.

And he did fantastic on cross.

I don't think the, the prosecutor didn't really gain any points through her cross.

Sounds like so much cross-examination from the prosecution.

It was unremarkable.

It was unremarkable, George.

I think I'll agree with you.

Yes.

He just did so well.

I mean, he just did, he just did amazing.

And yes, he was prepped, but he was not prepped, you know, but he had a script.

Right.

He was himself and it was authentic.

And you, you can't, you can't really effectively cross-examine someone who is telling the truth

and.

And has been telling the truth for the last two years.

And it's been recorded three times.

And I want to add that, you know, all everyone knew about the case in our, in our county was

what was on the news, which is what the police report said.

So as his trial approached, I mean, people would say, oh, that's going to trial.

Like, that's a terrible case.

Like everyone thought it was a for sure conviction.

And I always ask my judge what he thinks, like, you know, about things that I do in trial

or witnesses or, you know, you have those little conversations in the back afterward.

And, you know, I asked him about that testimony because I, judge was one of those people, you

know, that we talk, that we, you know, you talk and he became uncertain after Jason.

And I thought that was super powerful.

So then, so that's Jason's testimony.

You guys, you guys, that's, you guys rest.

The defense rests and it's time for closing argument, right?

And who does closing argument?

Me.

So, well, actually I wrote it the night before and, um, I, Christina, I had kind of like

an, an, you know, real time edit going on.

So she would look at it and then make changes and send it back to me.

And always, I always have a trial song.

This might be cheesy, but there's always a song, you know, I drive a lot.

I got to drive.

I got a hundred miles in the car on trial days to just think.

And this song came up by the Bee Gees called I Started a Joke.

And it became this mantra because it's about, I don't know, a person that thinks he's doing

something for other people.

And then it turns out the whole world's laughing at him.

Um, and then he dies and they're still laughing.

And I felt like this connection to it because of Jason's background.

And it just kind of stuck with me.

And I texted Christy about it and it would like fueled my thoughts for this closing, um,

and fueled this theme that I had.

And I use music to do that sometimes.

So I'm sure there's other people that have tricks of the trade, but that put me in the

mood.

And I go in a room and lock the door and I have my headphones on and, you know, just put

my heart out and all of our notes on this closing.

And you got your, you got your Dre Beats headphones on, you know, these are my kids' headphones.

This is so funny.

These are Dre Beats.

So we got music, you're jamming out, you know, you're like getting ready, getting ready.

Put on your Rocky, put on your Rocky.

Like, I mean, I was, I knew it was important because I knew the defense was different.

I knew it was something that obviously people hadn't seen done before.

I hadn't.

And my client was facing a lot of time.

The police found this woman tied up and he was looking at life in prison and he could have

easily gotten 20 to 50 years.

So I gave my closing and talked about, started off with how many times he tried to tell people

what had happened.

How many times and no one listened to him, just like no one has ever listened to him his

entire life.

And you, you, you can listen to him.

The jury can listen to him and hear him and believe what he's saying for the first time

in his life.

And then I just went through, you know, the discrepancies and, you know, put up these pictures

of Nikina that I thought, you know, clearly looks saturated with, you know, made her neck

look red, you know.

And then there's just no injuries to this person.

And we brought up the pants and, and, and just all, all these different things that we

had just waited and waited to, to bring up.

And then I put the two pictures up of the pill bottle.

And as I did that, and as I compared them side by side to where the jury saw that that

pill bottle was missing, our one juror that Jason loves so much with the two braided pigtails

was leaning on the edge of his pew in the jury, in the gallery, holding on to the seat, reaching

as far as he could.

And then looking at his fellow jurors with his mouth, just a gape, like what in the world

is this?

And when I was giving, when I was giving my closing, I knew, I knew that there was no way

that man was convicting him and that maybe they'd hang or maybe there, but there's no way.

You got one.

You got one.

I got a one.

And he was just floored.

Like, oh my God, this moment.

You hit him with the aha moment.

He had a real live, real time aha moment.

I did.

And he did.

And I had tried cases where it's a heavy burden to represent somebody because you carry this

weight.

And most of the time people think that representing someone that you know is guilty of a crime

in trial, they, you know, newer lawyers think that's so stressful.

But in fact, it's the opposite.

When you're representing someone that didn't do anything wrong and has spent 492 days in

the hole and is looking at life in prison, it becomes scary.

And I told the jurors, I said, I've been, I've been carrying this for a long time of him

being innocent.

And I'm the one.

Christy and I are the ones that are responsible for you knowing, because clearly no one's listening

to him for you knowing what happened.

And I can't do that anymore because my job ends today here.

And that job is now yours.

And I want you to fight for Jason.

Go back there and fight for him.

And, you know, of course I cried because, you know, anytime I feel like I'm going to cry

when I'm speaking in a trial, I let myself cry.

I don't get hysterical, but if I need a minute or my voice cracks, then so be it.

And when I sat down when it was over, Jason was sobbing because it's the first time any

adult in his life has ever stood up for him in front of other people and said to the world,

like, I have your back and he lost it.

He, he, it was so powerful for him.

So that was it.

Yeah.

It was a good, it was a good closing.

It was, it was one of my, it was, it was a good one because I believed wholeheartedly

everything I was saying.

It wasn't a good closing.

It was a great closing because you were able to convey to the jury that you gave a damn

about him.

Like this wasn't just a job.

Like he wasn't just a client, but he was somebody who you actually cared about.

Right.

Right.

And if, and if nobody else do, if nobody, if everybody else thinks it's bullshit, right.

If the DA is just doing their job and the process and the, the, the, the investigators is just

doing their job and the judges is just doing their job.

I'm more than just doing my job.

I give a shit about Jason.

I actually, I actually give a shit.

Right.

Right.

And I wanted the jurors, I wanted the jurors to feel like patriots.

I wanted them to feel like they were a part of something monumental and something

powerful that they had been selected to be a juror in a case where someone was an innocent

man was in jail for a crime.

He did not commit.

And I wanted them to realize that they were part, you know, if they found him not guilty,

not only were they just saying he's not guilty, they were, they were saying, no, he's innocent.

I wanted them to feel that urge to, to protect him and be angry for him that I felt.

So that this system works, that this system works because you all make it work.

And when they talk about the problem with democracy, listen, there's one place where democracy works

is right here in this room, in this courtroom with you all and Jason.

It's going to work today.

It's going to work today.

And it's going to be like, you know, I, I tried to make you be my friends, you know,

in Bourdier and we're in this together.

It's you and me versus them.

It's, it's the jurors and us and Jason and we're together and against you because he's innocent

and we're going to make this system work.

Yeah.

Yeah.

This is great.

So how long were they out?

Well, Christy can share her thoughts about closing.

Oh yeah.

I mean, all your, the best way I can put it is that your closing was a cinematic masterpiece.

The stuff they record, huh?

So, so then how long, uh, how long were the jurors out for then?

Hmm.

They deliberated for a little over four hours.

Oh, okay.

So they went through everything.

Yeah.

Because they had, they had a lot of, I think they had almost 20 pages of jury instructions

because a lot of the charges also had lessers.

And then even the small stuff, like the attempted theft, things like that.

So they had a lot to work through.

And then, um, during deliberations, the, well, the 34 hours, did you guys hang out with Jason

at all?

Did you guys just go back to your office?

So during trial, I usually escape to one of the bathrooms in the jury deliberation room

that's not being used.

And I'll just escape in there and use the elf bar a couple of times secretly and, you know,

get back out there.

But Christy and I just hung out in the jury room and, you know, our coworkers came in

and checked on us and we just kind of waited.

Wait, that's my least favorite part.

We hung out with Jason.

Hang out a little bit.

Yeah.

Gave him, gave him the other half of Aaron's red line that he'd been, that he'd been wanting

so badly.

Our judge thought that the jury was going to hang.

So he left the courthouse and once they came back with a verdict, his clerk called him and

you could hear his lawnmower in the background.

He thought they were going to, he thought they were going to hang and that they were going

to be out for a long time.

So he just went home to mow his grass and then we had a verdict.

And I went back to talk to Jason before he went out to get the verdict.

Cause I wanted him to, I wanted to tell him they have a verdict, you know, we're, we're ready.

And he said, he said, I think they're going to hang.

And I said, no, they didn't hang.

They have an actual verdict.

And he goes, I think it's going to be, it's probably going to be a lesser, like, what do

you think?

Like 10 or 15.

And I, I knew that guy with the braids wasn't going to convict him.

Like I knew, but I didn't want to make any, I didn't want to, I wanted, I wanted the moment

to be real for him.

And I said, I don't know what they'll do, Jason.

I, I, I don't think that man, the braids is going to, is going to convict you, but that's

all I'll say.

And then he cried like a baby.

We all did.

And those jurors, before the reading of the verdict, you guys all cried.

We had been crying the whole time.

Oh, okay.

Since the closing.

Tell us about the reading of the verdict.

All right.

So the verdict comes back.

The foreperson is one of the middle-aged, you know, women in the back that didn't really

say very much, but you know, it wasn't an alarming choice to me.

And when the judge read the verdict, we just cried again.

Not guilty on everything.

Terroristic threatening.

Okay.

He was guilty of terroristic threatening?

Yes.

Because he said, I'm going to burn your house down with you inside it.

And he admitted to saying it.

Yeah.

Which was the misdemeanor that credit time served, basically.

And then not guilty on burglary.

Not guilty on kidnapping.

Not guilty.

Strangulation.

Not guilty.

Intimidating a participant in a legal process.

Not guilty.

Attempted auto theft.

Not guilty.

Fourth degree assault.

Man, that's a lot of not-guilty.

This is another not-guilty.

Another not-guilty.

Another not-guilty.

Another not-guilty.

And another not-guilty.

So he just read all these not-guilties right in a row.

And our client just had to sit down.

He was standing.

They make us stand for verdicts.

And I know some jurisdictions don't do that.

Where in the line was the guilty?

Like, it was not guilty, not guilty, not guilty, not guilty.

Then guilty!

The last one.

It was the last one.

Yeah, because it was a misdemeanor.

It kind of jumps at you a little bit.

Guilty all of a sudden, like.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But when I.

Guilty of what he said he was guilty of.

Right.

That's the one we conceded.

But the judge, you know, thanks the jurors for their service and dismisses them.

But, I mean, don't you have to, like, on at least criminal threats or terroristic threats

out here.

I mean, the words are one thing, but intending it to be a threat.

The other person perceiving it as a threat.

All that's part of the thing, too.

I mean, him just saying something in the moment, you know, like, isn't really a criminal threat,

is it?

Or a terroristic threat?

How did you guys mess that one up?

Ah!

She deserved it!

I think our terroristic threatening statute is constitutionally suspect.

I mean, the Kentucky Supreme Court has said it's okay, First Amendment-wise.

But, yeah, the victim doesn't have to perceive it as a threat.

What?

Yeah, but remember, this is just a misdemeanor.

This is just, like, 90 days max in jail.

Yeah.

All right.

And he's already done.

Your Honor, he's going to deny probation, and he'd like to be sentenced on the misdemeanor

today.

Yes, that's what he did.

That's what he did.

We're ready for sentencing right now.

We're not waiving time.

He wants to be home tonight, actually.

Well, I want to say, too, when he, you know, when he dismissed the jurors and thanked them

for their service and they were looking at us, you know, they made eye contact with me.

A lot of them did.

And smiled and nodded their heads as if to have this understanding of, we're with you.

We didn't just do this because we thought we had to, based on the evidence.

We did this because we believed you.

And we don't believe he's not guilty.

We believe he's innocent.

And I just felt that.

You just catch a vibe from people, especially when you go through a situation, you know,

when you're being so raw in front of them.

It was definitely a different experience having them react to me that way, especially the guy

in the braids who gave me a big smile and went on his way.

The best juror of all time.

The aha moment is something you keep with you forever.

Like, when he hit the, can you believe it?

Any other side stories we might have missed or things you guys wanted to add before we wrap it up here?

I mean, we got to be there when Jason was released from jail, especially after all this time in solitary confinement.

And I think just as a whole, this thing was so satisfying because all of these systems had failed him

and written him off for so long.

And then this happens.

Is he home? He's doing well?

He's, he's, he is home and he is living in Lexington and he'll, he'll, he'll, he'll text, you know,

on a random Tuesday morning and say, I need you to get these papers for me.

You know, and he'll, he'll need some like legal document.

And, you know, he's had trouble with getting his adoption papers and stuff, which is something

I helped him with because all that sealed, but he needs that for, you know, legal reasons

for IDs and stuff.

So sometimes he goes in the wind and which is where he is right now.

And sometimes he's, you know, at my office front door.

All right.

Well, listen, it's first off, thank you for coming on the show.

Chrissy, thanks for reaching out.

This has been a great, a great story.

I love hearing it's a very unique trial.

And, uh, thanks for sharing your story and George, thanks for coming on as well.

It's good to see you again.

It's been a while.

Well, I appreciate you so much for having us on.

We really, you know, Jason, so he's just very close to our hearts and we, um, you don't

get a case like this very often where somebody's facing so much time for something that they

didn't do.

And you, you really get, you have an innocent client, you have an innocent client and, um,

may have acted unconventionally, but he definitely didn't act illegally.

So it's a kind of a once it's a, it's a career, you know, you keep it close to your heart.

So thanks for letting us share it.

Cause I think there's a lot of lessons to be learned from it too.

The, the, the last question that we'll ask, we, all our guests and, uh, you're going to

have to answer it too, is, uh, we'll start with Aaron is, you know, Aaron, you've been

a public defender for about 10 years or so.

Can you tell the audience, our guests or our listeners why you wanted to become a public

defender?

I wanted to be a public defender because I wanted to litigate high crime.

And that's the, that's the place where I got to do it.

And, and while I love that, there's just this element of dealing with people that everyone's

pushed aside and you realize that, you know, to be a good lawyer, good art comes from pain.

And I think that your best lawyers are the ones that maybe have been there themselves and

can resonate with other people.

And we, everybody has a lot more in common with our clients than they originally think.

And I, I really, um, I grew to love, you know, just hearing the stories, seeing what, what,

you know, what, what's coming, what's the next, what's the next thing we can find, um, and

making a difference that way.

So yeah, I love it.

I wouldn't want another job.

Thank you for your service.

And Christy, same to you.

Why'd you want to become a public defender?

I, I initially wanted to become a public defender after I stepped into a courtroom for the first

time in college to observe, um, as a part of an extra credit assignment and some liberal arts

class.

And I walked into a random courtroom during a sentencing hearing in a criminal case.

And I remember being captured by the storytelling involved, especially when it came to the testimony

of the accused.

And I'm not someone who generally cries, but I remember just sitting there quietly sobbing,

like what the hell is going on inside my body right now.

Um, but yeah, being in that courtroom, um, that got me hooked.

And then I think this idea of there, but for the grace of God, go I, that Aaron sort of alluded

to resonates with me.

I think I, I, or any one of us could change one or two things about the events in our lives

and end up at that defense table as a defendant.

So I've, I just, I love being able to do something that allows me to have an impact on the lives

of other people.

And I think my clients impact my life as well.

And I think it's mutually transformative.

Right on, right on.

I look at it more as we're just, you know, you're helping your fellow human.

Like Christy said, we're all one mistake away from, from switching seats at that table.

So you're, you're not just helping indigent people or helping criminals or helping mentally

ill.

You're, you're helping the human humans, your peers.

Um, and I think we just need to remember that sometimes.

You guys are awesome.

Thanks George.

You guys definitely give us the energy.

This is sort of thing, you know, this is why we do this, man.

Cause, cause now I feel more energized.

I'm ready to tackle some more of the stuff that they give me.

I'm going to start working on my next trial right now.

Right now.

All right.

Yeah.

But thanks.

Thanks for coming on the show.

I appreciate it.

Thank you so much.

Yeah.

Thank you guys.

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 with Another Not Guilty straight from the trenches.