Layman's Law School
Karen Read's Possible Case Dismissal and the YSL Drama
(upbeat music) - Welcome back ladies and gentlemen to the layman's law school where today two Southern gentlemen lawyers are gonna sit around talk about the legal issues of the day, hopefully in layman's terms that everybody can understand and you can learn something about the law. Today I have a very special guest, founder of the Hawk Law Group, my mentor in chief, my dad, my Padre, Victor Hawk. Welcome dad. - Welcome back. - Yeah, I'm happy to be here. I think that this is one of the really fun things that y'all do and the public appreciates. - Yeah, well, speaking of fun things, we did some fun things this week. - We did. - And we tried a case, we did very well. And when we do that, we have to have a little bit of a celebration, yeah, a little toast. - That's cool. - And like I said, fun things, we don't have to do it with Bud Light. - Yeah, that's really good. - Well done. - Cheers. Chase was the lead counsel in the trial this week and did a fantastic job. And the defense lawyer was kind enough to write him an email saying my butt was thoroughly kicked. - Yeah. - He got a verdict for $400,000 on a mental injury, which is extremely difficult. - Yeah. Well, I actually ran into one of the jurors at Kroger today. And I just told him I appreciated his serving. And he said, well, we just did what the evidence showed, so I was glad we could show him that. But today we're going to talk about the case that keeps on giving, actually two cases that keep on giving. We're going to talk about Karen Reed and the developments in that case with motion to dismiss as well as YSL. That's the case out of Atlanta in Fulton County. But to start off with, Karen Reed, she was charged with secondary murder as well as some other crimes including manslaughter and leaving the scene of an injury or death in a vehicle. And she was, she went on trial for a number of days. We've covered it pretty extensively and there was a hung jury in that case. And now what has happened, what happens? Rarely, in my opinion, rarely the jurors have come out and shed light on some of the deliberations and it has resulted in a motion to dismiss but at least on two of the charges. Now can you explain in a situation like this where a jury basically has come back and said, "Look, we were not hung on two." We had actually acquitted her of these two counts and that would be the second degree murder and then leaving the scene of an injury of death. How does that sort of, this motion to dismiss come about and what is it based on? - It's not unusual for a criminal defendant to face multiple counts. Just like Donald Trump was facing 34 counts. And Karen Reed's case, she was facing multiple counts, some more serious than the others. When a jury returns a verdict or if a jury is hung up, the judge has a lot of latitude in how to handle the situation where a jury says that they are deadlock. What's unusual is that in this case, the jurors return to verdict and found Karen Reed not guilty of two serious charges. After that, the trial judge granted a mistrial. And the question is, can Karen Reed be, now try it again on those serious charges even though 12 jurors have determined that she's not guilty. Seven years ago here in Augusta, Georgia and on review in Atlanta by our Georgia Court of Appeals we had a similar situation where the jurors announced that they were deadlock on one of the counts but made a specific finding of not guilty on the more serious charge and they were actually deadlocked on a lesser charge. When the verdict was read, the trial judge never looked at the verdict signed by the jurors, which a trial judge is required to do and then accepted the verdict and declared a mistrial. Under the law, the Georgia Court of Appeals held that once the verdict was announced, the trial judge has no discretion. I mean, the trial judge is out of it with regard to those counts. And the Georgia Court of Appeals held that because there was a verdict entered not guilty on the serious charge, he could not be retried for that offense. Similar thing occurred in Karen Reed's case. The jury returned a verdict of not guilty on serious charges. And so the defense is-- - Let me clarify for everybody listening. They, when you say that they returned a verdict of not guilty on these, what occurred here is that the judge just dismissed the case, declared a mistrial and they had not filled out the verdict form, okay? And it was a problem with the verdict form and this is why it's super important at trial for lawyers to stick up for the intricacies that are required to make sure things are done right. And in this case, the verdict form before said she is guilty or not guilty. And it didn't say as to what count, it was an all or nothing. She's either guilty of everything or she's innocent of everything. And they were asked that each one be actually listed. And I don't think the court inquired at all as to where they were on the first count of secondary murder or where they were on the second count or where they were on the third count. They just said that she just basically took it that they were deadlocked and that this was over. So that's the area that that's the framework within which this motion to dismiss came about. But I don't know, I took you off your train of thought. - No, I'm dead on it. I understand exactly what you're saying. The almost the exact thing occurred here in Georgia in Richmond County, Georgia. And where the trial judge never looked at the verdict form and they had, the jurors had announced that they were deadlocked on one of the counts. The trial judge accepted the verdict, but then declared a mistrial as to that count that was, they were deadlocked on. The intent of the prosecutor was to retry like in Karen Reed's case, the defendant for all the counts. The court of appeals held that the trial judge had to look at the verdict form and determine if the verdict form was in proper form. And signed all the information filled out like it was supposed to be filled out. Apparently the trial judge in Karen Reed's case didn't do that in advance. And the trial judge granted a mistrial suicide. If the trial judge had looked at the verdict form, then he would have had a number of options to cure the problem. She would have had a number of options to cure the problem. But because she didn't look at the verdict form, the verdict form stands on its own and the case is terminated as to those two or serious charges. - Well, in this particular case, there are a lot of issues that we could tease out, but one of the things we're gonna have to do is talk about sua sponte that just came out of your mouth. This is layman's law school. We gotta, you gotta achieve some different language. - Sure. - What does that mean? - That means the judge can just do it on their own. In other words, a party didn't ask for it, neither party asked for it, the judge just did it. And that's what that means. And in the Georgia case, looking at the exact same issues, the Georgia Court of Appeals held that the case was over when the jurors submitted the verdict as to those serious accounts and double jeopardy applies. Now, what double jeopardy means, just common sense explanation is once 12 jurors listen to all the evidence and render a decision, that person can't be tried again for those offenses. Yeah, for those crimes. And in fact, the Georgia Court of Appeals took about maybe 12 sentences to say, "This is so clear." - Yeah, yeah. - Okay, so-- - There's no way y'all can read your-- - Try her on that. - This person, yeah. - Yeah, in this particular case with Karen Reed, they hired another lawyer. The defense team hired another lawyer to actually file this motion. Why is there another lawyer involved? - Another lawyer would be involved because you're actually looking into the procedural history of the case and you will need witnesses to create a record for the Pellet Court to review. Those witnesses include the judge, the clerk of court, the bailist, the potential jurors-- - Both the defense-- - And the lawyer. - Both the defense lawyers. - That's right, that's right. - So you have to bring in another lawyer to file the motion and hear the motion. And so what this motion to dismiss is based on is communications that arose after the verdict was read out, where we are allowed in here in Georgia to talk to jurors after this. If they're willing to talk to us, we can ask them questions. And it looks like there's some similar rules in Maryland. - In Massachusetts. - Yeah, excuse me, yeah, excuse me, in Massachusetts, yes. And it turns out that in these affidavits that were actually filed by the defense attorneys here for Karen Reed, they list out exactly the communications, what they were told by these jurors. And let me see if I can find these particular quotes. I've highlighted too many things here, y'all. All right, so this is actually jurabee. It says it was not guilty on the second degree. No one, so on the second degree murder, no one thought that she hit him on purpose or even thought that she hit, yeah, or even thought that she could've hit him on purpose. And then there was a second, what they call intermediary C. This says there was absolutely no consideration for murder too. She should've been acquitted. Miss Reed should've been acquitted on that issue. And then we have the first one that actually came out, juror number one. And I learned this at trial this week. I should not have as many papers as I have. Because what happens is you start squirreling around for everything that you're looking for and you can't find it. But this is the basic gist of the text messages that were going on between David Unetti and some of these jurors. No consideration for murder too. Man's slaughter started polling and it was six, versus six, then ended deadlocked. Then the next text is interesting. If there was no consideration for murder too, shouldn't she have been acquitted on that count and hung on the remaining charges and goes back to the jury verdict slip that it was all confusing. She should've been acquitted, I agree. And yes, this is the intermediary between the informant who was the juror and the person that's actually talking to David Unetti. Yes, she should've been acquitted, I agree. So the issue here is for the Massachusetts court, according to their rules. Because when you talk about double jeopardy, that comes from our constitution, our federal constitution. We didn't like the fact the way the England was doing things over there. Okay, so that's why we had our revolution in our revolution. We said we didn't like that so much, we put it in our declaration of independence. And then almost every state has some sort of version of that as well. There are federal constitutions and state constitutions. And the Massachusetts state constitution actually has some stronger protections. And then you have something called case law. Can you tell the viewers how sort of case law comes in to kind of help explain things to establish, how is it law? You know, we think Congress writes law about how there's a case may actually determine in this particular case, whether or not she might actually have these charges dismissed. Whenever laws are written, they can't cover every potential occurrence of human circumstance. I mean, we're a live culture. And so you can have a statute which governs conduct, but there'd be circumstances arise that were unexpected and trying to apply the law. Reasonable people can agree on how to apply it. In case law teaches the lawyers how to apply a particular statute, how it fits in. So in Massachusetts, there will be laws governing the court's conduct and the receipt of verdicts. And the court will have been required to follow those rules. And the case law, the appellate review, is an opportunity for a higher court to look at the judge's conduct, to see if the judge did something that was not in compliance with the law or the interpretations of the law that the appellate court has given before and then make a decision about what to do about it. - Yeah, and just to give everybody an idea about how things can be live and change, right? So there's a constitutional right to be free from illegal search and seizure, right? Well, where does that line start and stop? Okay, does it stop at the edge of your property? Okay, are the police allowed to actually search your property by flying a drone over the top of it, right? Well, the law is basically that if a reasonable person would have an expectation of privacy in that particular area and the police are not using any sort of thing that the public would not have access to, okay? If you're living in Charleston and you got your window wide open to the sidewalk and the police walk by and they see you doing something illegal on the house, okay? That's not illegal search and seizure, right? But with like, let's just say we've had to change the rules about that when it comes to drones because people know and understand they become a very common part of our culture. There's 12 year olds out there flying drones around that can be, and so do you have a reasonable expectation of the fact that nobody's gonna be looking at your property? We know we got Google maps out there, satellite, so that's a way in which you would need a case to actually come along and supplement that what is, you know, search and seizure? What is unreasonable, you know? And it's like, well, everybody knows they got Google Earth, everybody knows that it gets updated every year, everybody knows that there are a bunch of drones out there and any moment you could be. So are you subjecting yourself to being seen, being searched, you know, in that regard? But getting back to Karen Reed and talking about the case law and how it changes here a little bit, one of the protections that the case law allows is that when there's a mistrial, if the court enters it, right, it has to do certain things in order to make sure that the mistrial is justified. And one of the things that says the is called Commonwealth or Washington, and it was 43 U.S. at 505 before the court declares a mistrial for manifest necessity, counsel must have been given full opportunity to be heard, the trial court must give careful consideration to alternatives to the mistrial. And that's a Wraith 463 mass at four. So now what I just did there was anybody in the law, if we're talking to a judge, we're showing them in the law where not only, you know, is there a statute, but this is the case law that in the past we've said that this is the proper rule and you have to tell them where it is, you know, you might have that opinion, in that case, might be 60 pages long. And so if you cite it properly, you can tell them right to the page where the issue is. And in this particular case, the judge didn't ask to hear from and did not allow any sort of statement from the defense or the state, she just declared a mistrial. In that particular case, David Yannetti or Alan Jackson could have got up and said, "We wanna know what they're deadlocked on." And had they had that opportunity, the judge sent a note back and said, "What are y'all deadlocked on?" And they said, "Well, we've acquitted her on these two, "within 100% in this particular case, "she would not be tried again "under those two counts, the second degree murder." And so the alternative to actually dismissing those charges outright is they've asked for the court to basically allow for proceedings to get down, to actually interview all of the people involved, all of the jurors to find out exactly what occurred in that jury room and not just rely on the three people that they have right now and actually determine whether or not they were still deliberating or they had deliberated and actually come to a decision because that is in the Supreme Court, that is one of the key determinations. If they have deliberated and they've decided on that issue, then it's over. But if they're told to say, "We can't come to an agreement," and they go back in and start arguing all the same issues again, then they're still deliberating and that is a justified mistrial. So knowing all of this, what are you predicting is gonna happen here? - Well, let's just use our common sense because I've always told y'all that if you apply common sense to a given set of circumstances, the law is almost always going to follow that common sense. Now, in this case, did the jury actually fill out the form? They did not. So the jury just made an announcement. It made a very eloquent announcement that they have considered all the evidence and they cannot agree, yeah. - And there were multiple counts. - There were three counts. - Did the judge inquire as to each of the counts? - She did not. - Okay. Because the judge didn't make an inquiry prior to determining that a mistrial is appropriate, I think that the courts are going to say that that's an abuse of discretion and we'll make an inquiry of the jurors and the parties and make a finding of fact. Did this jury come to an agreement on those serious charges and there's no dispute about that? The rule is, if you don't agree, there's no dispute about that. The rule is, when something like that occurs and basically it's the court or the lawyer screwing up. Yeah, they made a mistake, all right? The result should always favor the defendant. In other words, if there's ambiguity about how they handled it, if there's this agreement about how they handle it, but there's agreement that the jury had completed the deliberations on those counts, it should be resolved in favor of Karen Reid. That's pretty much accepted law. Yeah, in other words, if the judge and the lawyer screw up the verdict or the rendering of the verdict, whatever the facts are, they should be interpreted in favor of the defendant. Yeah, and what's important, and this is one of the things that we always tell people is how much words matter. So in that case, Massachusetts law requires that before the court declares a mistrial for manifest necessity, number one, counsel must have been given full opportunity to be heard and to the trial judge must have given careful consideration to the alternatives to mistrial. So there's an important word right in the middle and that is and, okay? So that is what they call conjunctive versus disjunctive. Fancy word for a connector. That's right, yeah, you gotta have both. You can't have, you can't, if they prove that she gave careful consideration to all the alternatives. Great, did she give defense counsel opportunity to be heard on the issue and to raise the issue of whether or not they had come to an agreement on some of the counts? If the answer is no, then that means that this is gonna go one way. Not that it's necessarily gonna be dismissed, but I think what's gonna happen here is that there's gonna be an inquiry. There's gonna be an investigation into, in some sort of hearing on the issue of what the jury actually was deadlocked on, what they agreed on and whatever they agreed on, as far as her being acquitted, I think that that acquittal is gonna stand. I agree. And they will have to bring in an independent judge to hold that hearing. And the trial judge, as well as the defense lawyers, will be required to come in and testify under oath and probably the jurors too. You know, in Georgia, when this similar case was brought up, the trial judge initially refused to allow the jurors to file affidavits or testify. And the court of appeals held no. On an inquiry like this, the jurors do get to participate in the hearing and the court must consider their sworn testimony about it. Yeah, I can't imagine on what basis they would have. It comes from a very old legal doctrine, basically, that you can't introduce evidence that undermines a jury verdict. Okay. And it's pretty antiquated. It's not in common use anymore. So we were talking about Georgia law. Well, there's a Georgia case in the news as well. Why so? And, you know, whenever these, and there's a lot of allegations flying around about judicial misconduct and lawyers getting sent to jail and stuff like that, and here's the thing. It's like, when can things like that happen? It can seem like it's a black eye. But I always say, you never know who you're working with until things go wrong. Everybody gets along, everything's fine until there's a problem. And I think probably what you're gonna see here, and this is my hope, is that you're gonna see the Georgia judicial system, you know, deal with this in a way that will make most lawyers proud. They're going to make sure that defendant is given all the protections they're supposed to be given, and they're gonna root out any misconduct and show it before everybody. Okay, they're gonna explain, 'cause this stuff happens. These are human beings, everything on one of them. They have very, very difficult jobs. And my goodness, in Judge Glamville's case, he has an incredibly difficult job with this case. 10 months of poor dire. Over six months of trial, I don't have eight months of trial now, and they really hadn't got very far. Prosecution still has 150 witnesses. This is a Georgia Rico case in which, kind of what is his name, Jeffrey Lamar Williams, also known as Young Thug. Okay, he's being tried under the Georgia Rico statute, which is basically a large statute that used to, it's copied from the federal statute that was used to take down the mob, but it's basically a statute that tries to allow law enforcement to go after criminal enterprises that are widely sprawling, and they're involved in a lot of different things. Basically, it's a criminal conspiracy or enterprise type of law. Instead of trying to convict somebody of a robbery here and a drug deal there, it's proving that the person has a network of criminal organization in which they're engaged in illegal activity. But in this particular case, what occurred was that one of the witnesses, Mr. Ken Copeland, was supposed to testify in exchange for immunity in this trial on behalf of the prosecution. And the prosecution found out that he was planning to plead the fifth after having been given immunity. And the day before his, well, he got on the stand, I believe, in this case, and actually pled the fifth in front of the jury. After a hearing, what do they call an ex parte hearing with the judge, the prosecution, and without the defense? Dad, can you explain, first of all, what is an ex parte hearing, and why is this issue such a big problem? - One of the primary prohibitions involving judicial conduct is the prohibition of meeting with one side without the knowledge or consent of the other party concerning a case before the judge. I mean, it is black letter, ethical rules, black letter, law, and the idea behind it is the judge is supposed to be completely impartial, not influenced by any meetings outside the presence of one or both of the parties. And in this case, the judge made a really, really poor decision to meet with the prosecutor and the witness and to engage in conversations with the witness about the potential problems that his conduct had created and to talk about the immunity and its effect of his grant of immunity caused by the assertion of his Fifth Amendment privilege. And it's just wrong in so many ways. I don't know how to explain it. I did see Mr. Still get held in contempt. - Yeah, I was gonna ask you about that to me. To me, that would have been my proudest moment. - It can't be. - In that particular situation. - Yeah, it can be one of your proudest moments because you can't, as a lawyer, be afraid of calling out misconduct by a court. You can't be afraid of that. And when you call it out, judges get their feelings hurt and they will respond sometimes with the finding of contempt by you. And that's exactly what occurred with regard to Mr. Still. And the court made an inquiry of Mr. Still about how he found out about the ex parte meeting, which is a completely irrelevant to the fact that they had the ex parte communication. And it's okay to be found in contempt. I've been found in contempt before in order to jail when the judge was doing something wrong. And in both cases, the judges reversed their order later on. But the idea was from the court that I would be quiet. - Right, you would do what they asked. - Yeah, I would do what they asked, but I didn't. And I wasn't because I was right and they were wrong in both those instances. But you can't, as an advocate, Mr. Still could not let the court's threat of contempt or finding of contempt or order name to jail affect his responsibility to be an advocate for his client. And so I think the judge really made a huge error in the trial proceeding. And the end result is going to be very bad for the prosecution and for the judge himself. - Yeah, so in this particular case, so when you talk about ex parte communication, there are a couple like justifiable reasons for doing it. Some sort of emergency that's come up that needs to occur, there can be administrative issues that need to happen, for instance, a prosecutor could be like, you know, I had a death in the family, I'm gonna need some, we're gonna need a week or something to that effect, but these meetings are all transcribed and it's for that purpose. And originally, when Brian still asked for this, transcript the judge says, well, I'm gonna produce a redacted copy of this particular transcript and then it got kicked up to the court of appeals and then the Supreme Court took note of it. And then he recently came out and said he would have released the whole transcript. Well, we have that transcript, but unfortunately, this meeting didn't start like a normal ex parte meeting in which the court reporter there, they're writing down everything. And usually what the court will do will explain the nature of the ex parte meeting, why they're there, why it's an emergency, what administrative issues that need to be dealt with, there's none of that. And interestingly, after having read the transcript, the Copeland, Ken Copeland, the witness in this particular case that was, according to the defense, allegedly coerced and put under the arrest to actually testify, says that that didn't hold transcript. And I noticed that there was no explanation. There was not a lot of talking about the court to start out the meeting as there normally would be in this particular case. And so I have some questions about whether or not this transcript is the actual full transcript, but it is complete with a lot of statements made by the court that are letting this guy know that he ought to testify and that would be in his interest, that is incredibly improper. - Well, he was helping the state. - He's helping, yeah, he got a judge that is showing favoritism toward the state, trying to push the state's case forward and outside the presence of the defense. And so I think that that's a little bit of a black eye for Judge Glanville and there's gonna probably be some bar issues of judicial, there is a board that reviews judicial conduct like this and they will probably weigh in on this eventually. But I think that this case is teetering on the edge of this trial just based on the issues that I've seen, what the issues that I've seen already. And what y'all have to remember is who's paying for all this? - The taxpayers are paying the jurors, the bailers, the courts, court reporters. - Absolutely. - Yeah, absolutely. And this is a case that's almost built upon what is right out of a key and peel skit where there's a rapper and he's rapping about us on, "Yeah, I killed James Smith on Thursday, July 3rd." And that's in the rap song and then they got him in the interrogation room playing the song for him. "Hey, it says here," and he died on July 3rd. Did you do that? He's like, "No, no, this is just art." But that's exactly, I think, what the prosecution's asserting here. And they do have some evidence, but ultimately, I think that this is all gonna fall apart in part because of the way in which this has all been handled. And that's a little bit unfortunate. But it's really good and I really like how the public has gotten interested in this kind of stuff and has kind of weighed in with their opinions on issues like this that are going on the court. Usually, it was just me being nerd talking to me, "There's a great case in dinner and everybody going." - Well, you know, there is a collateral issue just so that everyone knows and understands, the court will be dealing with this ex parte communication and maybe even the appellate courts, Georgia Court of Appeals, the Supreme Court of Georgia, and there will be another judge appointed to hear the information about it. And that will affect the trial itself, but there is a judicial council that governs ethical conduct of judges and they'll do their own investigation. And they can, they actually remove judges that engage in this kind of conduct. So that's still there. - The collateral issue, I think, is this. You have a constitutional right to be present during your trial and confront your accusers. That's a due process right. And that was clearly denied by the ex parte communication. Then the second aspect of it is when the court reviews it, they'll say, "Well, how was he prejudiced by this?" - Well, your prejudice from the perspective that you have a judge who's now shown bias. - Wait, so let's go back, how are you prejudiced? Okay, you and I know what prejudice is. How are you hurt by this? So it has to not only be a violation, but a violation that matters, a violation that hurts you. So if you're prejudiced, that's what that means. - Yeah, we're talking about, there's a prejudice against the defendants who are presenting their defense. In other words, the prejudice in this guy's case is that the judge is helping the prosecutor to get evidence from a witness that will harm his case. That's prejudice. - Right, and throughout that transcript is the judge trying to explain how his rights are gonna be protected and the only way he can hurt himself is if he purges himself and all that stuff. And had the defense been there, they would have had the opportunity to explain all the ways in which, no, this could affect you in different ways. This could affect you not only if you're purging, but if you're talking about a crime that you haven't been given that's somehow connected, and you start answering questions about that crime, and it's not connected to the one that they're asking you questions about, but you admit all that, those things are not gonna give you immunity for those crimes. And he could explain that, and that would have the witness be able to make a decision about-- - And inform decision. - And inform decision. So if you could explain to the listeners and the viewers, like, what is the effect of having a witness get on the stand that you're associated with? - This guy that Ken Copeland is one of the defendants close, you know, is in his close circle of music producers and apparently, and according to the prosecution, this criminal enterprise, when a person like that gets up in his ask questions and open court, they would try like this, and they say, "I plead the fifth." What effect does that typically have as far as on the jury when one of your close associates gets up there and does that? - Well, from my perspective, if a person gets up there and pleads the fifth, just because A has committed criminal conduct, that doesn't make B responsible for that conduct. And so when they plead the fifth, the first position that I would take is that this guy, this person, has been engaged in criminal conduct, and there is no reason to believe anything that he says because he's, you know, he knows that he's committed those crimes, but that doesn't mean that I committed those crimes. - Sure. So I think the issue in this particular case, though, is the fact that the prosecution knew he was gonna plead the fifth, that he had multiple meetings about it and trying to convince him to not, and then they put him on the stand anyway, and then he pled the fifth in front of the jury because I don't know if you've seen it in your Donald Trump speeches lately, but it's back when Hillary, or any, you know what happens if they plead the fifth? - Yeah, they're guilty, right? So that's an assumption a lot of people actually improperly make, and I say improperly because when you're in a fight for your life, you've been charged with a crime or might be implicated in a crime, and you're being questioned by somebody who is a professional at boxing you in to certain answers that knows and understands if you answer in a particular way that that checks the box for a certain element for a crime, and that means you can be charged, you don't wanna get in that arena and play against a professional when your life is on the line. You want an attorney to be there, and by pleading the fifth, essentially that's what you're doing is like look, this is too serious, I don't really know what I'm doing here, and I might being incriminated, and so I'm just gonna plead the fifth, and if y'all wanna charge me with a crime, charge me with a crime, and my attorney will defend me. I don't have an obligation to defend myself in that particular arena, and so it's a very important right, super important right, it protects a lot of innocent people out there. I've seen it time and time again through your career. I've worked with my dad since I was very, very young, and I've been a part of a lot of trials, and he's helped a lot of people that should be free, stay free, and help recover for people that were hurt, and I've watched that play out in real time, and making sure that people's rights are protected, and only the people that should be in jail are in jail. We got enough folks in jail. I'm glad for law and order, and crime and punishment, and all that stuff, that we actually hold people accountable in this country, but I'm also very, very thankful that we are protected against the power of the state. - You mentioned the effect of pleading the fifth in front of the jury. I've always taken the position that you don't guess people guilty. In other words, just because this person gets up on the stand and says so-and-so, that doesn't mean that you did something wrong. You don't, because he played the fifth because he engaged in misconduct, does not mean that you engaged in misconduct, and you don't guess people guilty. - Yeah, it's a slight harm. When you talk to him, it doesn't matter. If they'd have brought up the prosecution knew that 15 of his closest associates were gonna get up prior to getting them to call him to the stand, we're gonna plead the fifth. It would look like I'm hanging out with a lot of criminals. If a lot of people basically got up there and did that, but it's also not the level of proof that most jury's will convict on, but it is harmful. And so if the prosecution knew he was gonna actually plead the fifth and not give them any testimony, I'm of the opinion that it was wrong for them to actually put him up there. - Absolutely, and generally how that's handled is there is a hearing before the witness testifies in front of the jury. And if he's gonna assert the fifth, then they don't put him up at all. That's the proper way to handle that. - So for those of you all who don't know, Dave Chappelle once educated us on the fifth amendment, basically, it means that you don't have to incriminate yourself. If you're asked questions, and you believe that the answer may incriminate you, then you can plead the fifth and not answer those questions. Very, very important, right? I'm sorry to do that in reverse and explain it after the fact that we discussed it, but that'll be it for us today. Thank you very much, Dave, for coming in, filling in for Reid. I have thoroughly enjoyed it as I have the rest of the week. When we get to try a case together, it was a lot of fun, but we've had a great week. - We have had a great week, so thank you all for listening. We'll see you next time. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)