If You Are Ridin' Dirty And You Know It Cuff Your Hands – When a Traffic Stop Turns Into a Circus

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And it was interesting to see such a big dude look at me, like, scared. And I just kept saying, "We got this, dude. Like, we got this. Did you preserve the gun for Prince?"

And when he said no, the first thing I thought was, "You just precluded a significant portion of my client's defense."

This one wasn't that big in terms of time. It wasn't that complicated in terms of defense. But in terms of how it affected me personally, all I kept saying is, "If we get probation, maybe we can work this out." And nobody would give me probation.

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-guilties public defenders get on a daily basis.

In an unjust criminal system.

With a deck stacked against us.

Another Not Guilty.

All right. Welcome back, guys, to another week of Another Not Guilty.

And yes, we do have another story today because, you know, this shit happens every day in the criminal justice system where us public defenders get down, get dirty.

We're here today with Nikhil as co-hosting. Nikhil, how you doing, buddy?

I'm good, man. How are you?

Good. And what? You're on a little hot streak over there in Long Beach or something like that?

I am. I am. In Long Beach. Got two for two for 2019 so far.

That's nice. You know, it's nice. It's nice to get a little streak going.

So, we have a pretty awesome guest, Craig. He's a fellow public defender. Craig, say hi to the audience out there.

Hello, everybody. I'm very pleased to be here. Thank you for having me.

And so, we're talking about a trial you just did. It was not guilty, right? Congratulations.

It was. It was. It was huge for my guy. And I was very grateful to have the opportunity to sort of show him that the criminal justice system can work in his favor.

He had never been to trial. He had taken a bunch of deals. He had done a bunch of time at a certain point.

But he was adamant that he did not do what he was charged with.

And it was a Penal Code Section 29900 Sub A, Sub 1. Very lawyer, right? Yeah. Sub A, Sub 1.

And you add like vernacular in there to make people know that I am actually a lawyer.

You just don't play one on TV? No. No, no, no. Like the contrary to popular.

What's going on with Sub 2, Sub 3, and Sub 4?

You know, we're not going to touch on different sub sections.

Oh, please, hot shot. There's a bomb on a bus.

Grant Evans, that's all I'm saying.

It's real intense, man. I don't know what A2 is.

I didn't know we were going to be quizzed.

I'm more of a fan of 2900C3K.

It's basically somebody with a violent felony in possession of a gun.

And I knew from the onset when I saw the facts of the case that I could tell his story in a way that was believable, because it really bothered me the way that it went down.

And this 29800 is a felon with a gun.

Yeah.

Ex-felon with a firearm.

Ex-felon with a firearm.

Yeah.

To be guilty of the crime, felon in possession of a firearm, pursuant to Penal Code Section 29900, Sub A, Sub 1, the people must prove, one, that the defendant possessed a firearm, two, that the defendant knew he possessed a firearm, and three, that the defendant has previously been convicted of a felony.

As you'll soon find out, it is element number two, that the defendant knowingly possessed a gun that Craig will be attacking in this case.

You read the police report, and what's the police alleging happened then?

The police were alleging that they, you know, they pulled him over because he had no plates on the car.

They approached the car, they see him doing something furtive.

And furtive, as we all know, is like this adjective for concealed.

Yeah, exactly.

And you only hear it in police reports.

You never hear someone like, is someone putting those grapes away furtively?

Like, it's never used in like, real life, but only in police reports.

I've never even heard of anybody but a cop saying the word furtive, right?

I actually objected to it in prelim, and got it sustained, so they stayed away from it in the trial.

The score is conclusive?

Yeah, and it was speculative, because you're getting into his mind as to what is motivating him to move at that time.

So what does furtive mean then?

With intent to conceal.

So a furtive movement means the cop said he saw somebody move with the purpose of concealing.

Yeah.

And I'm like, hold on, Professor Xavier.

He's trying to hide something from me.

Like, take it easy, man.

Yeah.

I thought it was nonsense from the very beginning, but they approach the car.

He's furtively moving.

And they approach from either side.

They smell the odor of marijuana in the car.

They ask him, hey man, you been smoking marijuana?

And the client says, yes, I have been.

And they say, okay, well, do you have any marijuana in the car or anything?

In the car or anything illegal?

Can we search?

And the police report said that he consented to the search.

Of course.

Okay.

Right.

All right.

Client was like, no way.

They just started searching my car, man.

Like that's just.

Yeah.

They just went right into the car.

But I told him at the time.

Good day, sir.

Do we have permission to enter your vehicle?

Oh, yes.

Are you smoking marijuana?

Yes, I am.

Well, I did enjoy a fine indica earlier this evening.

Won't you please search the rest of my car?

I have nothing better to do, sir.

May I take a seat in the back of your patrol vehicle?

Thank you.

Yeah.

I will make sure I'm running to the seat and safe by handcuffing myself.

May I please just sit prostrate upon the ground?

Yeah.

So, yeah.

He says that he doesn't consent.

Police report says that he does.

And I actually thought that it was good that they wrote it in that way.

Because I used it to his advantage in the trial.

Because it shows that he didn't know that there was a gun in the car, right?

Correct.

Because if you know you have something illegal in the car.

Why would you consent?

Exactly.

Why would you consent to the search?

So, they search the whole car.

They don't find anything.

But one of the officers lifts the window switch door panel.

And I didn't even know that was a thing.

Windows switch door panel.

Okay.

In your car, you have the thing that goes up and down with respect to the windows, right?

Right.

Apparently, that is removable.

Mm-hmm.

I did not know this.

And I'm, you know, I can change brakes and do an oil change or something.

Yeah.

But he removed it.

Then there's the gun.

Oh, okay.

So, they take it out.

And then they...

This is what was killing me.

They take it out.

They take pictures of it.

Then they put it back in.

Then they put the base on top again.

And then take pictures for evidence.

So, I asked the guy, "Okay.

Okay.

So, you took the pictures after you had found the gun."

Oh, they do this all the time?

Yeah.

And we enacted where I found it from, right?

Right.

It's like, "What are you doing?"

So, in terms of like, I don't know, bias, could you maybe have placed it a little differently

than it was when you originally found it?

So, they arrest the guy.

They don't preserve for its prints.

And now, here we are at prelim.

What kind of car does your arrest?

It was a 2004 Nissan Altima.

And the most important fact that I'm forgetting was that he had bought the car a month prior.

Okay.

He told the officers two months prior, but it was actually a month.

And I got a certified copy of his DMV and brought it into evidence through evidence code

section 1280 because it's self-authenticating.

Although the vehicle's DMV records or bill of sale are considered hearsay, it is still admissible

under evidence code section 1280, the public records exception to the hearsay rule.

We get it in.

He's about to take 32 months, because he had a strike prior.

And we're right before the prelim.

And he goes to his girlfriend.

And this guy was huge.

Just a mountain of a guy.

Just a really big guy.

Like, 6'3", 230, 240.

Just this really big guy.

But he was really polite and really nice and always on time.

And he started calling me big dog, which I thought was hilarious.

He's out of custody.

Out of custody, right?

He had bonded out.

And I think that had a lot to do with his ability to stay cool during all of this.

Right?

So I just took it like, okay, this guy is obviously showing me some kind of respect.

And I really appreciate that.

Not to say that I need that in order to do my job, but it's lubricative.

You know what I mean?

Yeah, totally.

Right?

You're about to start the prelim and they're offering 32 months.

Yeah.

He's saying no.

Right?

He was just about to take it.

And then he went and talked with his girlfriend and came back and said no.

And then, so what was your goal in the preliminary hearing then?

Did you have a goal?

What were you hoping for?

The goal at the prelim is I just wanted to establish the fact that this was like a game of hot potato.

I wanted to establish that they knew that he had just purchased the car.

I wanted to.

I started asking questions that were objected to under discovery because I asked, did you preserve the gun for Prince?

DNA?

Did you do a GSR test on him?

Just to see if I could poke around a little bit.

And I wanted to get the demeanor of the cops.

Yeah.

You know, just kind of like check them out.

And the cop that you had on prelim, was he a hothead?

Was he patient?

You know what?

Okay.

This is where it gets kind of funny.

I used to have another job.

Right?

And in that other job, I was kind of, kind of known.

Right?

And in a very specific portion of the community.

Apparently, this officer was an ex high school football star.

Oh, really?

Yeah, dude.

And he had remembered me from something that I had done previously in my other job.

So when we finished with the whole prelim, he came up to me, wanted a selfie and was like shaking my hand.

So in front of the client, dude, like out in the foot, like in the hallway, you know, so he was really honest and gave me a bunch of stuff where I was like, you couldn't see his hands.

He's like, yeah, I couldn't see his hands.

When he turned, you couldn't actually see what he was doing.

That's right.

You were in a tactical position because you're taking a 45 degree angle for your safety.

Yeah.

So you're in the best position to see this guy.

Yeah, he gave you that.

Dude.

45 degree angle.

He let you be that specific.

He like was giving it to me.

So I was like, nom, nom, nom, thanks.

Can we let people know that you used to be in TV?

Yeah, I did.

We can edit stuff out if you want.

Sure.

We used to be a movie star in some respect.

No, I used to pay my single apartment rent and my BMW for like going to auditions.

Yeah, I did a movie called Remember the Titans a long time ago.

Wait, are you the ref?

In Compton.

Yes.

Did I just put that together right now?

No, it's crazy.

This is the ref from Remember the Titans.

Remember the Titans.

But sometimes it happens.

And I swear to God, it does.

And especially with police officers.

And it's the craziest thing.

But I put this on my kid.

This actually happens.

So it's very rare.

It doesn't happen all the time.

But it happened in this particular case.

So you got good information at the prelim, you thought?

Or did you want?

I got what I expected to get.

Yeah.

I knew we were going to get held to answer because it's a preponderance standard.

And if the gun is in your car, you're going to get held to answer.

But I wanted to just basically establish the facts in such a way that they couldn't deviate

from them later.

And your defense is your client didn't know the gun was in a car.

He had it only for a month.

And I guess there was no suppression motion because your client does say.

Well, he consents.

And I knew from the onset that that would be a part of the defense.

Because it lends itself to innocence.

So why would I 1538.5 that?

I don't even need to.

It helps me.

Right, right.

The agency you were dealing with, did they have any body cameras?

No, no body cam.

So just the only photographic evidence is this.

This is what they took.

After they replaced the gun back into the.

So I want to make sure I understand this for our audience.

Sure.

So the panel where you like use the power windows like to turn up and down for all control,

all four of them.

Correct.

So it was placed out and inside like in that little kind of cubby kind of area.

Correct.

The gun was placed in there.

So kind of maybe even for easy access, you pull it out.

Yeah.

And I think that that's what they were going with.

Got it.

Was if you didn't print the gun, if you don't have DNA on the gun.

Right.

If all you have is him turning to the door, I think.

And a seminal fact was the fact that he had just bought the car.

So, I mean, have you taken apart the door panel of your recent, you know, recently purchased

automobile that's 14 years old and had a history going all the way back to being sold at auction?

I mean, that car has more of a criminal history than your client.

Easily.

You know.

Easily.

I mean, the 2004 Nissan Altima.

Oh, yeah.

It's been a lot.

Four cylinders of malfeasance.

That's what that is.

So, yeah.

So we proceed to trial.

Any workup?

What did you do for workup?

I got the certified copy of the DMV.

Okay.

So that I could show the history and that I didn't need anybody to testify to it.

Because I knew it was a foundation.

Yeah.

I got a statement from his girlfriend who was there when he bought the car and was on the

bill of sale that she had drawn up herself so that I could then put her on the stand to

establish certain things.

And that was pretty much it.

There was nothing else to do.

I got the MDTs so I know what time everything happened.

And what are MDTs?

The mobile digital terminal entries.

Like every time an officer commences a stop, they enter it into their MDTs.

Right.

And then the length of the stop and how long they're there and when they finally arrest

the guy.

It's like a record of everything the officer did on his shift.

Every time he entered information on the computer or received information.

And you can hold them to a timeline.

Right.

So if they say, oh, it was quick.

We only held him for two seconds.

You're like, well.

No, you ran his name here.

Yeah.

You ran his name.

Yeah.

Call in this information.

Yeah.

You didn't clear the scene officially.

That took 20 minutes.

Mm-hmm.

And that's a trick I actually picked up from Nikhil actually.

No, yeah.

You were really good with that kind of stuff.

Yeah.

You know, I was ready to go.

I felt good about it.

I was worried because his top was kind of high.

Right.

I mean, it was-

Yeah, the prison priors too, right?

Prison priors.

And, you know, the prior strike was a double up strike.

And he had something called 667A priors, which are one year priors, which the judge has

the discretion to kick.

But we got sent to a DA judge who just, it was like going against two attorneys, essentially.

Right.

When you get sent where you practice, do you guys get, do you know your trial judge like

immediately after prelim or does it go to like another master calendar court?

You won't know until the very day of trial.

It goes to another master calendar court and then you get sent out.

And the first person we got sent to, I papered.

Got it.

Because-

So even worse than who you ended up on.

Oh, yeah.

The first judge is not smart and not fair.

Yeah.

So I was like, okay, not you, but it ended up going to an ex-DA prosecutor.

So you went from that judge who definitely no to a DA judge who was biased, but definitely

did you think a better trial in the first place?

You know, I think I got a better trial, but she did some, a couple of shady things that

kind of shook my client.

Okay.

And he got really incensed at a certain point.

Uh, the DA didn't establish chain it.

She brought the gun and the actual gun for a dun dun dun.

Right.

The actual effect.

Like it's not for any other reason.

Not even just a picture.

No, she brings the gun, which is drama in a courtroom because they have to rack it and

clear it and do all.

It's theater.

It's jury's love theater.

Yeah.

Kabuki, bro.

Kabuki.

Cue the lights and sound.

Let's get a tight spot.

And then the cops look the most like cop of flight when they're like handling guns.

They're like, they're like, listen, I got to render this firearm safe.

Is it safe?

Is it safe?

Is it safe?

I have rendered, and they all say it all out loud.

Yeah.

I have rendered the firearm safe.

That's so true.

It's like, why are you yelling this out loud, man?

I wish you guys could see Nick's chest.

He's like, yeah.

I'm on this.

He looks like Buzz Lightyear.

I love that, dude.

I'm important.

I just saved everyone's life in this room.

Yeah.

It was silly, but yeah.

So she failed to establish chain of custody for the gun.

So when she sought to move it into evidence at the conclusion of her case, I objected.

Like, she never attached the gun to the URN number, and URN number is the number of a police report, right?

Yeah, the chain of custody pretty much means that this gun was filed under a particular police report by this particular officer.

Yeah.

And this particular person put it in the evidence locker, and this particular person checked it out.

Checked it out.

Checked it out of the evidence locker.

Brought it to court.

Brought it to court.

This is how we know it works.

This is the actual gun.

There's a log.

I filed a log.

None of that happened.

What happened?

She handed the gun to the officer.

She goes, is that the same gun?

And he looks at it.

I guess he smells it or something.

I don't know.

And then he's like, yes.

Yes.

Using his superpowers.

Based on my background training experience.

Like, what?

What?

What?

Does this make you better at everything?

What is the police academy?

Is that fucking the same gun?

The radioactive spiders that bite you in that place?

It was silly.

And so I objected.

And she conceded.

The judge said, yeah, you know what, Mr. Kirkwood, she didn't do that.

So then she turns to the DA and says, hey, do you want to reopen and get that in?

It didn't matter.

But it just, my client was like, wait a minute.

They're breaking the rules.

And for him, because he had never gone to trial before, it was illuminating to actually see something that was a bad call happen to him in his case in his life.

You know?

And I just kept telling him, dude, it's cool.

It's just the gun.

Don't worry about it.

But I, and then she couldn't get the bullets in the magazine in.

So she let it reopen again and get it in again.

Wait, those pieces of evidence?

They were all separate.

They were in a big envelope.

And so she, she reopens, lays chain of custody for the gun, and then stops.

I'm done.

All finished.

And I was like, ah.

It's like, how many tries is this DA going to get?

It was, it was ridiculous, but he was really, he was really nervous.

Yeah.

Hey, this is David.

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Thanks.

Let's talk about offers and let's talk about, um, and the DA that you got assigned to this case.

So you told us about the workup.

Does your guy know?

He was going to take 32 months pre prelim, but they rejected that.

Did that get any better?

Did he want to talk about an offer?

Oh, it got worse.

It got worse.

Uh, by the time we got to a trial court, it was two doubled up to four because it's a 1623 trial.

Yeah.

Why wouldn't they offer the 32 months again?

Oh, because he was going to trial.

Because he was exercising his rights.

Yeah.

He was exercising his rights and shit on you for that.

But no, no, no.

He must, they must've found you.

They must've got DNA evidence.

No, no.

The gun must've been used in a homicide.

No, no.

Surprisingly, no.

He made them do work.

Yeah.

Like their job.

They had to do their job.

That incenses me.

So I understand.

This offers, it's going up.

It's only good before prelim.

Take it now or it's gone.

Listen, I had to make photocopies.

That's an extra two years of your life.

Okay.

Like, all right.

I had to get my shirts dry cleaned.

You know, he was scared and it was interesting to see such a big dude out of custody.

Look at me like scared.

Right.

You know what I mean?

Uh, cause he was in a situation where he was vulnerable and he was depending on me to get

him out of it.

And I just kept saying, we can, we got this dude.

Like we, we got this.

And I, you know, we all know that a jury can go sideways.

You can have facts that you're like, wait a minute.

He wasn't even in the county.

He was in the Bahamas.

Ah.

And they convict.

Like, wait, didn't they call 911?

And then they convict, you know?

So, and I just really didn't want that to happen to this guy, you know?

Cause he was such a polite, nice guy.

Right.

And his, our theory of the case was so plausible and so terrifying to think about, you know,

that something like that could happen to you.

You're trying to get yourself together.

You buy a little car.

You're rolling down the highway.

You get stopped in Compton cause you're driving while black.

Give me a break.

Yeah.

You know, that you consent.

I wish the people on the, in Radio Land could see my air quotes.

Right.

You consent to a search.

Do you think people just consent to searches sometimes because they're scared of the police

and they just like do what the police say?

Yes.

Yeah.

I mean, a lot of times people do that.

I think that there's, we ignore the psychological coercion that comes along with being Buzz Lightyear.

Yeah.

And fucking having your hand on your gun.

Yeah.

Can I search your car?

And then it's like you, because it's not informed consent, right?

Right.

It's just consent.

Right.

So I don't have to tell you, you can't, cause real consent would be, you don't have to let

me search your car.

Right.

But would you?

That's real consent, right?

Like the, if that officer had that type of consent in the bedroom, it'd be rape.

It would be.

You know, like he could be trying to, that's actually true.

It's true.

We're doing this, right?

Yeah.

We are going to beg right now.

It is Saturday.

Correct?

It's not.

Oh, that's what I mean.

Like in the scenario.

Yeah.

It's Sunday.

Like now, but in the cop bedroom scenario.

It's cause it's cause it's cause that's what they do on Saturdays.

Yeah.

Schedule it in.

Yeah.

It's Saturday, honey.

Listen.

That's implied consent.

Let's go.

You know, it's a game of Thrones.

It's tomorrow.

We can't do it tomorrow.

Yes.

Right.

It's a yes.

It's a hand on your gun.

Yeah.

It's a hand on your gun.

A hand on your gun.

A hand on your gun.

Don't make me tease.

Oh, so yeah.

You know, uh, voir dire was fun.

He had never seen voir dire and I really liked voir dire.

Yeah, you do.

I do.

I like it.

So how was voir dire?

What were you trying to do with voir dire then?

Uh, talk a lot about, uh, the presumption.

I talk about that a lot.

I talk a lot about.

How do you like, what's your style?

What do you do?

How do you do it?

I try to do it.

I call it judicial speed dating.

Okay.

Cause I'm trying to get to know somebody really quickly.

Yeah.

Uh, and I, I, I asked them, you know, if you had to vote right now, how would you

vote?

And a reasonable person would say like, oh, well I listened to the evidence.

And I say, well, that sounds really reasonable, but that's not what we do here.

Right?

Yeah.

What we do here is we presume that the person is innocent until they prove him guilty.

So if you had to vote right now, having heard nothing, you have to vote not guilty.

So we kind of like try to rehab and put him over there.

Right.

And I also voir dire on police contact with African Americans in urban areas because that's

a hot topic of conversation right now.

No, what's funny is that on this jury, the four person was this, uh, like 53, 54 year

old Caucasian guy.

And my client was scared of him.

Really?

Because he was like, no dude, I don't know about that guy.

But in the, okay.

Stupid story.

But in the acting world, you learned that like 80% of communication is nonverbal.

Right.

And you, the way you communicate with somebody, there are the words that you say, but it's

also the way that you say them.

So I'm talking to this guy and it comes out that he runs a warehouse.

He hires a lot of people who have felony records.

Right.

And his body language when I was engaging with him was open.

Yeah.

You could just, the vibe off of him was I'm listening to what you're saying and I'm hearing

you.

I didn't think that he was going to be an advocate, but I thought, okay, he's in a supervisory

position.

He's an older white guy.

He's going to lead these guys.

And if I can convince him, I can move the rest of them.

Yeah.

Right.

He turned out to be the four person.

And I was like, yeah, but I mean, you always kind of take that risk.

So then in this case, your client chimes in and says that person's not good.

You think he is good.

Yeah.

How do you resolve that?

How do you do that without your client being like, you don't know what you're doing?

The rapport that we had built up to that point, because you, you don't just get into

a situation like that cold.

Yeah.

You've been building rapport with this guy for like two months, three months.

Every time you have a pretrial hearing, when you do the, I usually, we become friends

after the prelim because they're like, oh yeah, you're going to do your job.

Yeah.

Right.

They're like, oh my God.

Okay, great.

They saw you cross whoever at the prelim.

Yeah.

And like go after the person.

And there is some of these cats.

They're like that.

You're the first person like in my life to actually argue for me, you know?

Yeah.

So you build a rapport.

So when I turned to him and I was like, look, man, I've been doing this.

This would be my 11th year.

I've been doing this for 10 years.

Just trust me.

Just please trust me.

Follow me.

I kept saying that.

Just follow me.

And I was really hoping that I was right.

But you have to, it's like poker.

You have to just.

Hey, it's your buddy Dave from Another Not Guilty.

And boy, do I love hearing about not guilties.

If you or someone you know has ever been involved in an NG, either as a defense attorney, prosecutor, judge, juror, witness, defendant, clerk, bailiff, who knows, whatever.

Anyway, we would love to hear from you.

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Thanks.

How was the how was the D.A. and their their body?

Uh, she was, you know, looser than most.

Most days are like stiffer than cardboard.

But like, would you have an issue judging another human being?

There is a child.

The child is in a room.

The room has a cupcake.

The cupcake disappears.

The child has cupcakes on his mouth.

Guilty, not guilty.

And you're like and they they have the nerve to use that in clothes.

And I always turn it back and I'm like, this is not cupcakes.

Yeah, this is this dude's life.

Yeah, this is his liberty.

So if I hear another word about a cupcake, I'm going to lose it because that's not what this is about.

And they all fall into that trap.

Yes, they trivialize it.

They make it seem like.

Oh, it's just cupcakes.

No, dude.

This is like serious stuff.

So, yeah, that's how we were able to do that.

Just the rapport and the guy honestly trusted me.

And what's the vibe from the judge?

So you're kind of concerned about the judge.

How's the judge been up to this part?

She is obsequious.

And that's a big fancy SAT word for Dolores Umbridge out of like Harry Potter.

She's really nice.

And really.

Oh, it's so wonderful to see you.

But it's so saccharine sweet scary.

It's like he was late one time.

Yeah, that's like the.

Yeah.

He was like five minutes late one time.

And she was like, I would hate to put you in jail for the remainder of your time here.

And it's just spooky.

Like it's a spooky, scary kind of thing.

And I just took the a I was like, dude, you have to be on time because they use that.

Yeah.

As an excuse to, you know, to remand all the time, which is ridiculous.

Right.

Because if we like in my court, we wait for DA's all day.

I wait for days to come in the bill.

They show up at nine o'clock.

They come in late, you know, and they're they're late 45 minutes.

Well, it's because they're working hard for justice.

Um, but like it's like they're getting like they come in with like a latte.

You know, they're just like totally late.

Not giving a fuck.

Yeah.

And my guys like I took six buses.

Totally.

And like three trains.

I live in this place because, you know, 80 miles away because it's so expensive to live

here.

I've been walking work.

Yeah.

And they're like, you're one minute late.

You are going in.

Yeah.

It would be similar to like having a doctor's appointment and you're five minutes late

and they put you in jail.

Like what?

What?

What?

They put you in jail.

I was just because there's a bus and it's late in public transit and yeah.

All of it.

So insane.

But yeah, she was she's intense.

She was intense.

And you could tell that she had a very, I'm sorry, haphazard attitude about the case.

She was like, yeah, whatever, you know.

So she let you do what you wanted to do your thing though, right?

She let me do my thing because I had done trials in her court before.

And I, you know, I am a certain kind of person and you're not going to stop me from being

that because I can't.

And if I can't stop me, you're not gonna, you know, so, and I don't do anything illegal

or unfair, but I have a big personality.

And especially when you put me in front of a group of people.

Waka, waka, waka.

Come on.

Come on.

I got snacks.

Selfies after the trial.

Come on.

Who's got some gear?

Who's got some merch?

The memo.

Some 25 year old merch.

Let me like blow the dust off the sorting hat and see how that goes.

That's my second Harry Potter reference.

It's nice.

It's for my daughter.

Shout out Samantha.

Any 402 motions?

Anything interesting like that?

The only 402.

Okay.

This is hilarious.

He allegedly admitted to the police officers that he was a Piru blood.

So the DA was like, well, we should, that's admissible.

We need to talk about that.

And I thought that was the most, like literally the most ridiculous thing I'd ever heard of

because there was no gang allegation.

So it's not relevant.

And her argument literally was, well, he's a gang member.

Gang members know what's inside of their cars.

Oh, do they?

I rolled my eyes so hard.

They almost popped out of my head.

It was this.

I'm sorry.

It was not a, it was not the most cogent of arguments, but that got kicked out.

And.

Okay.

So that definitely didn't.

Oh, no, it's 352.

The probative.

Right.

The danger of unfair prejudice.

That's great.

I feel like that.

That's not a gimme call.

I think a lot of judges will let that in.

Luckily, she was like, no, that's ridiculous.

And she almost verbatim said, that's ridiculous.

That's not coming in, which I appreciate.

And which makes me glad that I papered the first judge, because the first judge probably

would have let him in.

Because that could potentially be reversible.

It's so prejudicial.

Right.

It's rough.

And it would have been just patently unfair.

Yeah.

Because he wasn't charged with it.

So.

You never defended it.

Yeah.

It didn't come out in prelim.

It was just ridiculous.

Um, what else?

I wanted the marijuana stuff in because I wanted to show the honesty of the guy.

Think about that.

It would have been so easy when the cop comes up and says, hey, excuse me, you've been smoking

weed there, son, for him to say no.

But if he says yes, it's showing that even though he's aware of the fact that he's admitting

something that is potentially jailable, he's still being honest about it.

You know?

So I used that in the close.

Like why would he, why would he say yes and yeah, go ahead and search my car?

Like who, what?

Like who does that?

So it was, that was helpful.

And that was it in terms of the 402s.

It was, you know, short.

Okay.

So opening statements, how was your opening statement?

Uh, you know, it's just a roadmap.

It's kind of, I always show what the evidence is going to prove and then what the evidence

is not going to prove.

And then I use what the evidence is not going to prove to show why you should vote not guilty.

It's very formulaic.

I do it almost every time.

A senior attorney in our office, I saw her do it on this crazy case that she ended up winning.

And her whole opening is the evidence is going to prove one, two, three, four, five, six,

seven, but it's not going to prove eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14.

Therefore you have to vote not guilty.

It's sort of a linear logical argument that you can, it's very easy to not argue because

you, as we know, you're not allowed to argue in opening.

And it's just kind of lays it out in a very basic way while still being able to tell the

story and advocate on behalf of your client with respect to the deficiencies in the case.

Like you're not going to hear this.

So I was like, you're not going to get fingerprints.

Yeah.

That's great.

Right.

That's a great.

You're not going to get a DNA.

You're not going to get GSR.

The photographs you're going to see.

Right.

Taken after.

Correct.

You throw it out there right away.

You put it, you throw it out there right away.

So you, and I try always to make sure that I make promises that I know that I can keep.

So I know it's like chess.

Well chess, you don't know the ending, but you know what I'm saying?

Like, you know that you are going to be able to meet these promises.

So you make them in the beginning so that then you can go back and go, huh?

Huh?

Didn't I tell you guys?

Like what are some of those promises?

What were you promising up there?

Well, I promised that you would not hear any evidence from my client saying that he knew

anything about that.

I promised that they would be angry about the fact that the gun was not preserved for fingerprints.

And I didn't tell them why.

I just said, you're going to be mad about that.

So you're telling the jurors how they're going to feel.

That's a little bit more than just that.

And you are going to be mad.

No, you're going to be upset about this.

The evidence is going to prove is that, you know, these, this gun was not preserved for fingerprints.

And that's going to upset you.

And we're going to, we're going to look into why.

And then I, we make eye contact.

And you had, you take a moment.

Today, today on the Craig show, we're going to be examining live evidence today.

And you're not going to, and you're going to not hear a story about no fingerprints.

And you're going to be upset.

And we're going to, but we're going to get through this together, guys.

And then we're going to do pumpkins for Halloween, guys.

That's what we're going to do.

And Martha will be able to teach us how to fold a fitted sheet.

I could never get those darn fitted sheets.

Oh my goodness.

All right.

So you deliver, you set up the promises.

Right, right, right.

And so then we get, you know, we, they had a PowerPoint, you know, and I was like, okay,

you know, very nice.

Yeah.

All right.

Golf clap.

That's great.

You know, the Pelosi clap.

But, and then we just jumped right into the evidentiary portion.

Yeah.

We just jumped right into the evidence.

And who did they put up?

They put up officer, obviously.

They put up the first officer who was just the nicest guy.

Is this this guy?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so I'm talking to him and the prelim was so long prior.

It was so like a couple of months previously that I had kind of forgotten about it.

Cause you're like, yeah, whatever.

But he renewed it.

Like, so I'm crossing him.

And I took the chance with a couple of questions to where if he had been a liar, as we've all

really run up against you, I asked him questions that I did not know the answer to trusting that he was going to tell the truth.

For example, you never saw his hands.

Yeah.

But if he was going to lie, I was going to come back to, cause I always do a big, at least two minutes on report writing.

Yeah.

Why it's important.

You're there to observe and report.

Tell me how much of your training is observation and reporting.

Why is the report important?

Why is the accuracy important?

And so if you see something incriminating with a potential suspect, of course, you're going to include it in the report.

So like failure to failure to include becomes your impeachment.

Correct.

So if he had turned around and lied, I would have gone back to, but wouldn't that be a fact that you would have included in the report?

I think juries really respond to the omission impeachment.

Cause I agree.

They think, cause the one, they never see the police reports.

They don't know how God awful.

Some of them are.

Right.

But two, I mean, I think that they think like if it's, if it's important enough to testify to it.

Right.

Months later, how do you remember this?

Right.

Like there's no way you've made 6,000 stops and you remember this.

Totally.

Totally.

Totally.

So I was ready either way, but I was getting a vibe off the guy.

And as so much of this job is your gut, right?

Like so much of it is.

So, and then, you know, we did him and then the other officer testified and I just juxtaposed their stories together.

And they actually matched pretty well.

So they put on both the patrol and the partner officer.

The partner, the senior and the junior.

Okay.

I mean, there was no like combative or when you had to be aggressive with the cops on, on cross-examination.

Or was it?

I never had to get like sassy.

Like it wasn't necessary.

It wasn't that kind of case.

There are certain cases where you, what I always do is go through the preliminary hearing and like write it all out.

You know, preliminary hearing transcript, page five, line six.

Yeah.

So that I know what everybody has said.

So if they deviate from it, I can impeach them with it.

But both of these guys, it was just really straight ahead for them.

And I think honestly, the linchpin to the whole thing was, did you preserve the gun for Prince?

And when he said no, the first thing I thought was you just precluded a significant portion of my client's defense, right?

Like if you don't preserve it, then that means I can't test it to show that his prints aren't on there.

Did you ask him that?

Yeah.

I asked him like, so now you, by, by doing that, you've now, I can't test it.

No, I just argued.

I just argued.

I asked the question.

Cause I was like, I don't think he likes me that much.

You know what I mean?

Oh, I just asked the question and, and argued it later, but got it.

Okay.

Yeah.

Great.

So, so they put on only two officers essentially.

Yeah.

Two officers.

Uh, and then they did the rack and give me the gun.

Okay.

You know, it was like a call of duty five or whatever.

Um, and then, you know, we had the issue with respect to the gun being admitted and we had some fights over that.

What about the, uh, when they lifted up the side panel and then they took the picture, they put it back and took a picture.

Yeah.

Well, we went through all of that.

You know, we went through, uh, and I talked about the background training and experience of the officer.

I said, how many stops like this have you been on?

He says hundreds.

How many times does this happen?

Like eight to 10 times.

So, okay.

You've been in situations where eight to 10 times this has been true for you.

Can you say with any sort of accuracy, how many times this has happened to him?

And I pointed to the client because this is the kind of thing it's experienced.

Like he knows cause he's done it before.

So how in the world is my client going to know this?

And then we started getting into jury instructions.

Okay.

So you put on a case then?

Uh, no, the case that I put on.

Yeah.

Thank you.

We skipped my whole thing.

Uh, I put up, uh, his girlfriend.

Okay.

To establish the sale of the car.

And it was literally five minutes.

I tried to humanize him a little bit by asking questions that should have been rejected to under relevancy.

So is he working?

Oh yeah.

He's working.

How long you guys been dating?

Really colloquial.

Yeah.

And what was the cost of her like?

Oh really?

I think she actually had no questions.

I think she waved because there was nothing.

Yeah.

She's like, what, what, what could she do?

She tried to fight me on getting it admitted, but I, it meets the criteria for 1280.

Like it's self authenticating.

Oh, the records.

Yeah.

She tried to keep the records out.

Oh, okay.

And she was successful in keeping out all but the bill of sale.

It was like a 10 page doc and which I was trying to show like the life of the car, but the judge only let me keep in the bill of sale to show the date of the purchase of the car.

Well, cause you wanted to show like so many transactions.

Yeah.

So many people had had it and they said it was confusing.

Both the DA and the judge said, oh no, that's too confusing.

I said, you're not giving these jurors enough credit.

They're stapled together.

You can like, they're alphanumeric.

I think let's get this straight.

So you wanted to show bill of sale and the car's history, right?

Yes.

Show me the car, the car Fox, right?

Exactly.

Exactly.

Cause you can get that from DMP.

And you got all the self authentic, authenticating, you know, business, business records, I guess, or, you know, government, official records, pretty easy.

You know, like the codes, it's even one less element than the business record exceptions.

Yeah.

Only like three elements, I think.

And the judge said no, because it was confusing.

Yes.

And that was upsetting to my client.

But I told him, look, the only thing that's a load bearing wall in this is the bill of sale.

The other stuff is helpful, but it's just, you know, it's just helpful.

All I need is the bill of sale.

Right.

Cause you can still argue.

Exactly.

The reasonable inference is that this 2004 Altima has been owned by someone else besides your client.

I'm just saying, unless there was like, you know, a grandma who kept it in a garage in Reseda for like, you know, 14 years, obviously the car has changed hands.

So I just argued it.

I argued it.

All right.

So closing arguments now, right?

Yeah.

The next, and it was, you know, the day after Valentine's Day.

So everybody was a little blurry eyed.

So I had, it was like, everybody stretch, you know, love was in the air though.

Clearly.

And I hope everybody had a good Valentine's Day before we start the clothes.

God, no, you did not.

How's everybody doing on a Friday?

You know, did we get some chocolates?

Oh, this is the Greg Kirkwood show.

Brace your hand if you had wine.

Are you okay?

I had some wine.

We're okay.

We're okay.

It's okay though.

Did you get some water?

Okay.

All right.

Oh, it's so good to see you.

How are you?

I'm ridiculous.

You're really doing that?

You're doing that?

No, I'm joking, dude.

But it's the, that's the vibe.

That is the vibe, right?

Right.

That's the vibe.

I knew that.

Yeah.

How are you?

It's so good to see you.

We're here at the end now.

Right?

This journey.

Remember when it started all the way back when?

Yeah.

Like three days ago.

Oh, we've changed so much.

Thank you so much for being here.

I'm so happy.

You were lucky to be on this journey with me.

There's something to clarify.

I'm like, calm down, dude.

I'm so appreciative right now.

Brother, the prayers, the training of the vitamins, brother.

We're here for closing, brother.

We know, we know how much of a disruption this is to you.

All right, let's get on with this.

It's taking longer than the clothes.

I got a little theatrical in my clothes, though.

I actually did.

All right.

No, I love you.

Tell us about it.

Tell us about it.

I'm trying to write out my clothes so that I don't ramble.

Okay.

I put it in like 17, 18 point font.

Yeah.

So I can walk around and I can move.

And it gives me like something to work with.

But I had been talking about just, you know, my feelings of the case about a colleague, with a colleague the night before.

And the takeaway was how scary this is.

How terrifying this is.

If you're just, let's say your name isn't some ethnic sounding name like my client.

Let's say your name is Bob.

Right.

And Bob, he's gotten into some trouble in his life before.

Right.

But he's got it together now.

He's got a little job.

He's got a girlfriend.

Scrapes together a little money, buys a car.

Right.

He's driving through Compton one day.

Gets pulled over.

How scary is that?

Everybody feels that.

That pitter patter.

Your heart.

Oh my God, I'm getting pulled over.

The cops come.

He's honest.

You smoking weed?

Yes, I'm smoking weed.

Then they search the car.

You know there's nothing in the car.

So you tell them to search the car.

Bob knows.

He's cool.

He's sitting in the back of the car.

Bob's chilling.

Even the officer said Bob was not nervous because I asked that question.

Another open-ended question.

But the conclusion to the whole thing is, and then they find a gun.

And then you've got to sit over there in that chair where my client is sitting.

And you have the possibility of getting this wrong.

You guys could actually convict him under these facts.

And that's terrifying.

Now let's talk about why they didn't prove this case.

And then we got into it.

Absolutely.

But it was uber dramatic.

I was having fun.

See, you told the jurors they were going to be terrified.

It's not an in your shoes argument.

Because you can't give a like, you know, like, oh, if this were you.

But objectively speaking, if you're just Joe Schmo from Kokomo, and you buy a 2004 car, and a cop with 10 years experience knows to lift a window switch, and you don't, and then they don't preserve it for prints, so you can't even exculpate yourself?

Come on, man.

Come on.

Come on.

Next on Craig.

I just wanted to humanize the guy.

Because he had tats from like his fingers to his neck.

No, no.

But I tell you, it's almost like, I drive home from work, you know?

Come on!

You already put me in that.

And who's bought a used car?

Yeah.

Who's been pulled over before?

All these regular activities.

Not just.

Exactly.

Because even though she didn't call him a pyro, I'm sure, you know.

Right.

But he had tats like.

Yeah, right?

Face tats.

Yeah, oh, totally.

So he appears to be scary.

But in reality, he actually really wasn't.

But I just wanted them to not think about that guy.

But I chose the most generic, like Bob, you know?

Imagine she was wise.

And then jumped into the problems with the case and, you know.

You know what I'm talking about.

They came back the same day.

Same day.

How long?

How long were they out?

I think it was like three hours.

Like we went out at like 11.

Oh, wow.

And they came back at like 3:30, something like that.

Okay, so they spent a good portion of the day delivery.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But, you know, my client left the court and like went to the bank on like Central.

So they have a verdict.

So I call them.

Oh, no.

And I'm like, I'm like, dude, where are you, bro?

He's like, oh, man, I had to go to the bank.

I was like, why?

I told you, please don't leave the building or stay within 100 yards.

But I think the stress, it's really stressful.

Yeah, it is.

It's like super stressful.

So he's like, I guess I should just do some errands.

Maybe dry cleaning or something.

I don't know.

But he runs to the bank.

And so I'm stalling in my office.

I'm sitting there with Marie and she's like, don't go down.

Just stay up here.

Tell me about your day.

What you doing today?

Yeah, talk to me.

Sit on my couch.

So I sit there and I'm like waiting.

And I call him again.

He's like, oh, I'm close.

I'm like 10 minutes.

I was like, bro.

10 minutes?

10 minutes?

That's like 100 years when a verdict is out.

I mean, we sweat when our clients are late for their arraignment.

Oh, dude, totally.

It's your arraignment today, man.

Where are you?

I mean, Michael is at the end of the hallway in the bathroom.

And I'm like, where the poop already?

And get to the fucking corner.

Just fucking squeeze it out, bro.

Stop eating bananas, man.

Constipates you.

I know that because I have a four year old.

She never gets to eat bananas.

So he gets there and he's kind of freaking out because they put like four bailiffs.

And I counted four.

They get real.

And they were like big.

They should also tell that to the jury, too.

Right.

Like, why?

Why are we flipping out?

Oh, my God.

It's like the gold reserve in here.

There's like two here, two here.

It's like all these guys.

And so he starts kind of like freaking out a little bit, you know, and he's sitting there

and I'm sitting there and I get nervous.

I do.

I get nervous for the client because it's like if you lose, they remand immediately.

They take you right then.

If your car is in the parking lot, you're still going to jail.

So I didn't I really didn't want him to go in.

So, you know, and then the jury comes in and they wouldn't make eye contact.

And I was like, oh, no, that's really bad.

And I'm thinking, but wait, where's my where's my foreperson?

Where's my inventory warehouse, man?

We were we were buddies.

We were going to go fishing, man.

Come on.

So I'm calming him down.

And he's he's praying.

He's like literally praying.

So I'm trying to calm him down.

And I say, you know, stand to greet them and let's let's take this on the chin and let's

do this, you know.

And I told him no matter what happens, don't do anything.

If you win, don't do anything.

If you lose, don't do anything.

Because if you let them a judge that used to be in Compton told me that it's really cheesy,

but never let them see a sweat because then they get you twice.

Right.

They get you because they're seeing you be all anxious and nervous.

And then if you lose, you just lost twice.

So I just told him, just play it close.

Keep it cool.

Follow my lead.

You'll be fine.

Pay attention to the like multiple armed guards and let's get this done.

Right.

And they read it.

It was the longest 30 seconds of my life.

And, you know, we the jury and the above entitled cause find the defendant not guilty, you know,

and the guy started bawling.

Oh, wow.

Like seriously crying.

And I mean like sobbing.

And this dude was like huge.

Right.

So I'm clapping him on the back and I'm trying to like keep it cool.

Cause you know, I win all the time.

You know, you can't be happy.

Don't be happy about a three pointer.

You shoot him all the time.

No, I started crying.

I started crying with the guy cause I felt for the guy.

Uh, and if you can't do this job without a certain degree of compartmentalization and

without another degree of empathy, like you have to be able to do both of those things.

Uh, and I just, I felt for the dude, man.

I, I, I felt cause he had a job.

He had a girl, he had an apartment.

Like he had finally gotten his shit together.

And this stupid fucking case was going to do something to him.

And it was going to wreck him for years, man, in prison.

I mean, come on, man.

And like prison is no fucking joke.

Like you can die over, you know, a cookie.

Like seriously, you ate my jello or some fucking physical sexual.

It's just, it's, it's, it's the incarceration of human beings should be reserved for cases where it's like, okay, you ate a baby, you know, but for stuff like this, he should have been looking at that amount of time.

He's crying.

Right.

You know, I exonerate his bond to take care of the housekeeping kind of stuff.

Uh, I shake the hand of the DA because you should, he asked to hug her.

And he was like, he told her like, uh, I know.

Yeah.

And he was like, I knew you were only doing your job.

And he's this huge fuck.

I mean, he was really a big dude and he's like hugging her and I'm walking him out.

Yeah.

Whoa.

Yeah.

It was intense.

That's a pretty intense.

Like it was intense.

How did the DA respond to the hug?

She was cool about it.

Actually.

She's actually a really nice person.

Does she hug awkwardly or does she embrace him back?

Uh, you know, honestly, I wasn't looking candidly cause I was packing up all my stuff.

Cause once I'm done, I'm like, and I'm out.

Goodbye.

See ya.

I'm outta here.

Bye.

Uh, and I wanted to get him out of the building like immediately because I didn't want him to be so elated or so happy that he does something.

Not to say that he would, but my job is to protect this guy until he gets out of the building.

So I'm walking him out and he's like, I had a dream, man.

Last night I had a dream that you won this case and the angel came to me and he gave me lottery numbers.

That's what he told me.

He gave me lottery numbers.

It's 220 million.

I'm a winning.

And then we're going to go into business.

I swear to God, he said this.

And so I was like, okay, well when you have the ticket, you know, holler at your boy.

Right.

And so he's still crying.

His girlfriend's there.

He's hugging his girl.

We went down the elevator.

I walked him out.

I shook his hand and I told him to go home and like I gave him a hug.

He hugged me back.

He's just a really nice dude, you know, and I clapped him on the back.

He said, you know, go home, get some food, celebrate, do it at home, celebrate at home, go home.

And that was it.

The game was over.

And I went upstairs and, you know, we've all tried like big cases, right?

Where it's life, you know, or it's if you lose, they, you know, grind you into powder and throw you to the four wins.

But this one wasn't that big in terms of time.

It wasn't that complicated in terms of defense, but in terms of how it affected me personally, it was one of the bigger cases that I've had recently.

Yeah.

Because I just felt for this dude.

And that situation was so arbitrary and so stupid.

And the amount of time that they were, all I kept saying is if we get probation, maybe we can work this out.

And nobody would give me probation.

Right.

Nobody.

And they all knew the facts.

I like everybody knew what I was going to do, but nobody wanted to give the cat probation.

Sometimes it makes me really bothered by the system that we would that the system is designed to give so many or be so reluctant or skeptical of a second chance.

Yeah.

And anybody that they would rather lose.

Yeah.

Then be empathetic and say, let's try.

Let's see if this person.

Right.

And and probation is no joke, man.

I mean, they got, you know, arbitrary probation officer.

They can search your house at any time of the day or night.

They can search you at any time of the day or night.

You coming in all the time, you know, sending you to jail if you do anything wrong.

Yeah.

Like it's just.

Yeah.

So it sucks, man.

I was happy.

But it's happy that he ended up.

It worked out for him.

Yeah.

It worked out really nicely, you know, and I'm happy for him and I hope he's doing well.

Well, that's great, Craig.

Anything else?

Any follow up questions or anything like that?

Or case?

No, I think we're good on the case.

We got to.

I just want to say thanks for coming in.

Oh, sure.

Thanks for asking.

We have one more question for you, though.

Sure.

And that is why did you become a public defender?

I became a public defender because I thought I could help.

Like, honestly, my father was an addict and was really struggling with narcotics when I was a kid.

He's been sober for about 30 years now, but was not so until I was about 13.

A lot of the men in my family had been to prison.

A lot of the people in my neighborhood, because although I did grow up in the burbs when I was in high school, prior to that, it was not that.

So I saw my friends, my relatives just going down, you know?

And I knew that I had, like Liam Neeson with his racist ass, a particular set of skills, you know?

I knew that if I could just get through law school and get past the bar, that I could tell these stories.

Because I've been telling stories since I was 10.

Like, I knew that I could do the gig and that I could help.

And in light of the fact that my father was an addict, I didn't see narcotics as like, oh, you're a bad person.

And so much of our practice deals with people who are either doing stuff because they're high or because they're trying to get the next high or because they're high and their addiction to it has changed the chemistry of their brain to such an extent now that they are basically psychotic.

Psychotic, like psychotic-induced methamphetamine usage and stuff like that.

It's an epidemic, you know?

And I thought, well, you know what?

I can help.

I think I can do something here.

And civil didn't appeal to me because I don't care if you got your widgets or where they came from.

But I can tell these stories.

And I tried prosecuting, honestly.

I was a clerk with the city attorney's office for a summer when I was in law school.

And I did not like it.

I did not like prosecuting people for minor things, which were essentially status crimes, you know?

Well, I am homeless, so I am sleeping on the sidewalk.

Or I am hungry, so I went in there and lifted something and the guy touched me, so I brushed his hand away, so now it's a robbery.

You know, I just couldn't stand it.

And so I switched teams.

And luckily I got hired.

And, you know, we were off to the races.

Yeah.

Well, I know when I first started in the office, you were like a mentoring lawyer over at the Metro DUI court.

Oh, yes.

Super mentoring.

DUI court.

That's a court I hated, but you even brought stories to DUI court.

But it was fun working with you back then.

Well, thank you.

Always looked up to you.

And you guys have just become incredible attorneys.

Like, Nick, the stuff that you're doing is just incredible.

Thanks, man.

You know, like both of you guys are just doing amazing work, so I'm happy to finally accept your invitation.

Yeah.

To come in and tell a story.

We hope it's not the last, man.

I would like to do this again.

Yeah, come back on.

Yeah, I've enjoyed it very much.

Thanks for tuning in to this week's episode of Another Not Guilty.

Shout out to Daniel Mark, creator of A&G's original theme music, and our audio engineer, Chris Adams.

And guess what?

We have another Not Guilty story coming your way next week because we public defenders fight injustice every single day in the American criminal system.