Kouri Richins’ Suspicious Internet Searches, Conflicting Testimony on Drug Deals, and Dissecting the Defense, with Bob Motta

Atlanta, Georgia, and here's what's on the docket today. The Cory Richins murder trial enters

“week number two, and Richins' web searches and texts were shown to the jury. We'll discuss”

what effect that could have on the jury. As of this taping on Tuesday, March 3rd, Nancy Guthrie is still missing. It's been 30 days. What is being done to find her? We'll bring you up to speed. And later, we'll be joined by Colonel Defense Attorney and host of Defense Diaries Bob Mata. Bob has been covering the Richins' trial extensively, and we cannot wait to get his perspective. But first, I'm joined today by my co-host and good friend Phil Holloway,

criminal lawyer, ex-proskeater, and former police officer. Phil, so I know you've been following this trial. It's the second week of the Cory Richins' trial. And just to catch everyone up, this is a murder trial where Cory Richins is charged with aggravated murder out in Utah, aggravated criminal harm, homicide, and financial crimes relating to the death of her husband, Eric Richins. He died from a lethal dose of fentanyl back in 2022. So I know we've got a lot to go over from the last

week of testimony. We've got a lot of witnesses that have testified. One of the star witnesses, though, was Richins' housekeeper, Carmen Lover, and she took this stand when we taped this last week.

So what did you think, Phil, of her testimony? Well, great to be with you, actually, as always,

look, this trial is really a fascinating trial in many ways. And I've been studying it on lots of bases. One of those, though, is the the styles of the various lawyers involved, because you got multiple lawyers on the prosecution side and multiple on the defense side. And it's just interesting to see sort of how they handle witnesses and how they handle quite frankly some unexpected things that have happened in this case. And you brought up the housekeeper, Carmen,

right? She really throws her former boss. Corey Richins just right under the bus pretty quick. You know, she's basically telling the jury that she made arrangements with her boss and her boss's request to go out and purchase the drugs, the fentanyl, which is key to this case, that word fentanyl versus something else possibly will get into that. But she says that she bought the fentanyl on Corey's behalf, and that her request. And then later, the drug dealer who we'll

we'll talk about him too, but the drug dealer she bought it from, there may be some question about whether he thought it was fentanyl and all that. But there's a very interesting, let's just start with Scott one. If we can roll that, that's this housekeeper's testimony, because I found some things about this fascinating. The Corey Richins ever asked you to purchase for her listen drugs. Yes. How many times? Four. Did you purchase a listen drugs for her? Yes. How many times? Four.

“When you purchased a listen drugs for Corey Richins the first time, who did you purchase the drugs from?”

Susan Colour. When you purchase Corey for Corey Richins drugs the second time, who did you

purchase the drugs from? Robby. I Robby do you mean Robert, Crozier? Yes. How about the third time? Robby. The fourth time. Robby. So we'll have some more from her. The reason I wanted to play that right now actually is because, you know, I don't know about you, but I would like to have seen more context brought out here. When you talk about four times, when did this discussion about drug start? How was it communicated? Was this something that was set over the phone? Did you ever talk about it in

person? Were there text messages? Was there anybody else involved? You know, obviously that's just one snippet and there's a lot more to your testimony. I fully understand that, but just in general, I feel like there was a lot of context that was sort of left out during this and other parts of the questioning. Right, I do too. I think there's definitely more to this story and I would have

“liked to have seen that fleshed out a little bit more. The only thing we really heard about a specific”

was one time when she asked Carmen if she could get some pain meds for an investor that she knew. So we did hear that theme that the pain meds were not for her, but I would be curious and maybe, you know what, in fairness, maybe we're going to hear more from the defense when the defense puts up a case. Maybe we'll hear some explanation as to why she needed these drugs. I mean, I would be curious to know if she needed these drugs because maybe she had an accident or, you

know, maybe she had been injured. We would have expected to hear that on cross-examination if they had evidence of that, but perhaps they're planning on introducing that in their case and chief. I would hope so because I think this is part of the most damaging testimony we've heard so far in this trial. You know, this is opportunity. What does the state want to show? They want to show motive.

fentanyl in her hand and then prove that he died from fentanyl, that is a huge step forward

“for the state in their case. And I think this witnessed got them there to a certain extent.”

You know, I thought it was interesting. We've got a Saudi think about where Carmen claims that Corey actually knew that it was fentanyl and actually okayed the purchase of fentanyl. I think we have that at Sattu if we can go ahead and play that. What if anything did you ask Robert Crosier? If he knew anybody who had any pills, pain pills for sale. How many years long? He said he would reach out to a couple of

people. He said he had a buddy that had some fentanyl pills. What then would you do that? I had text Corey back and told her that I had a friend that could get them, but they were fentanyl pills. So you told Corey you had a friend to hook up for fentanyl pills? Yes. How did Corey return to his spot? She said okay. Go ahead and get him.

“I think this is going to be a key issue that we hear throughout this trial, especially when we hear”

arguments because you know we've got Robert Crosier who will hear from him a few minutes, claiming that she didn't sell fentanyl and then we've got Carmen Lover saying that she did sell fentanyl that she knew that there was fentanyl. And that's a big issue because we know that's what he died from from fentanyl. So if it was a different drug, that's going to undermine the state's case. What did you think Phil about Robert Crosier's testimony where he claimed that he didn't

sell fentanyl? I don't know that he was the most credible person in the drug dealer. No, I want to get to him in a second. But first, but those of you who are watching on YouTube, you see my mug that says whiskey tango fox trot on it. If you're listening on podcasts or on serious sexism, you can take my word for it because when I say that, I'm like, okay, where's more context? This housekeeper actually has said this was an exchange of conversation done by text message. Where are those

text messages? Okay, we've seen evidence, we know that there were text messages where the two are communicating, but where are the text messages because for the reasons that you pointed out and we're going to get to, let's say Robert Crosier here in a second, we're going to get to him, but it's very

critical that we established that Corey Richens knew that there was fentanyl that was going to be

involved in this and specifically that not only that she knew it, but in fact, it was fentanyl. And so we need more context. We need the text messages. We need to know how was it that these two were communicating and be very clear Mr. Prosecutor in front of this jury be very clear with this witness that we were talking specifically about fentanyl. We got to hit that point harder because we have sought three, which is what you just referenced. Robert Crosier claiming that he doesn't

believe that he sold fentanyl to housekeeper Carmen. I mean, if I said it to where then it would be true, but I don't know that I said that to her. Were you selling her fentanyl pills? I don't believe so, no. Okay. And let's go over that again, because I know this was you were using dirt enough here, but why was it that you remembered that in 2022, early 2022, you were selling oxycodone and not fentanyl? Because everybody was scared of fentanyl in early 2022 and in 2021,

you know, they all over the nose and people were dying and everybody was, it was kind of hard to get and people were scared of getting it. And like I testified, I had people that had

“prescriptions. I had my own prescription and we sold those. So I think this is really important and I'm”

curious what you think about it when you heard him testify. There's no prescription. What you've been saying this whole time about where the text, where's the actual evidence, where are the prescriptions? He said that he had a prescription for oxycodone. He didn't say that he had one for fentanyl. He said that everybody was scared of fentanyl at that time and you and I both know those are tightly tightly controlled substances. So if he had a prescription for fentanyl, I would expect that

we would have seen that in evidence at this point. And you know, I don't think, I don't think you guys claiming there was a prescription for fentanyl. I think what the defense is trying to say there

is that what this guy did is he basically curated these pills that people had prescriptions

for, but they weren't using and they were selling to him and then he would then sell to other people. And he basically went on to say that, you know, on the stand at least, he said that he was selling oxycodone. And so there was this whole thing where the prosecutor was asking him about this affidavit that he had signed. And apparently, it was a really sloppy affidavit,

more powerful drug than oxycodone. And at the bottom, you know, where you swear under oath

and you have it notarized on the affidavit that what you're saying is the truth and subject to purgery and all that, the the notary attestation at the bottom of this affidavit referred to it as a power of attorney. So it was, and I was like, who created this document that's just, you know, really, really sloppy. And it turns out the defense had created that. They used a, I guess, a power of attorney and they just changed the language of it and they didn't change the language

in the notary attestation. So that whole thing was very frustrating and very sloppy. But we do have video, and I don't know the slot number, maybe producer Natasha could help me out, but there's a video and audio of this guy talking to the cops where he said, in no uncertain terms, and this is when he was in custody, because he's wearing the black and white or gray and white, you know, striped

outfit. He said in no uncertain terms that it was spent, no one everybody knew it was fentanyl.

I think it's a hot sex. Yeah. When Carmichael, what does she tell you? She said that she had a friend who didn't want to, you know, let's just ask for police because we're a friend. Also, specifically, she asked for oxygen, she wasn't she asked for. Now, I think she might ask for blue, like, man, we can. Pretty solid. Yeah, I told her, she knew what she was fun. Okay, so she, well, next, she's asking for oxygen, just like that, she got the answer, but she knew that there

was that one of those pills. Okay, I remember where you got those pills from. Hi, thank you, okay. So somebody's phone vibrates right near wherever that microphone is, right when he's

“discussing the word fentanyl, right? But it's clear, that's what it is. So there's no one,”

it's, he says in no uncertain terms, he, he provided fentanyl. So look,

this is part of why I say some of this is frustrating. When I'm the, if I'm the prosecutor

and this witness is backing up on me, so to speak, and he's saying things differently, things that I didn't expect. And by the way, there's been some of that that's happened to both sides. I'm not trying to pick on the prosecutor, but when he changes his story and says something you don't expect him to say, I got frustrated because I want to, and this is what happens when I watch drama. And if exactly where you're going to get, I get frustrated because I'm like,

oh my god, I don't want to just jump in the screen and ask these questions myself, but I want to say, look, did you remember talking to the cops on such a test day? And here's what you said, you said exactly this, and then you read it out, with indignation in your voice, and you essentially, when your witness turns on you, you sort of have to start treating them like an adverse witness, and that kind of thing, you're allowed to impeach, by the way, which is

your own witness, which means question their credibility, the old rules you couldn't impeach your own witness, but now you can. If your witness says something you believe is not true, or they change their story on you. So we're going to get into that with our guests a little bit later. I'm sure more, but when I saw that happening, I just was like, you really, Mr. Prosecutor,

“you need to make a bigger deal of this prior inconsistent statement in front of the jury.”

Yeah, I was thinking that myself, and I was wondering, you know, what was their theory? Why did they decide to do it this way? Because there are a lot of different things that they could do with this. I mean, they've got this witness that's lying, but you got to remember, the prosecution has a hard time when they bring a witness that they're arguing is there to tell the truth, and then they impeach their own witness, that's not a good look, because you bring this witness,

you're supposed to bring a credible witness, and then you're saying, oh, well, actually they're lying about this fact, and they were telling the truth when they talked law enforcement years ago. That's a slippery slope, but as we know, we're stuck with the witness that we've got, we're stuck with their statements, but this one is sort of like a law school evidence class. I think this testimony, because you've got this gentleman who testifies Robert Courgire,

testifies, testifies differently than he told the police, and the state can bring in that statement. It's a prior inconsistent statement, like you mentioned, Phil, they can bring that into him to impeach him. What they've done here is they've decided to sit on it. They've decided to not impeach him directly to his face, but impeach him later on with that testimony as we'll see in a couple days, you know, when we get through the chronological examination of these witnesses,

we see more recently they've actually put in this evidence, but they didn't bring it up when this guy was on the stand, and you know, the defense could have done that as well. The defense could have anticipated that this testimony was going to come in. They could have treated it as inconsistent

“statement, and they could have actually confronted him with it. And I think to your point, Phil,”

confronting him either with a transcript or even this video, literally when this guy get him to commit, say, you know, you just said this, you just said you did not sell her fentanyl. You just told this jury, you did not sell her fentanyl. You just told the story that, and then boom, play it. Is that you? Is that you in that video? Well, you're talking a law enforcement. Did you tell the

either he's lying to law enforcement or he's lying to the jury. And I think that's powerful stuff, and we missed that moment. So I'm like, you Phil, I wanted to just jump in and be like, this, what's your theory here? What's your theory here? And I'm sure that they've got a theory. I'm sure they're waiting to put the pieces together ultimately. You know, at the end of the case, but I'm like, you, I want that moment right when that witness is on the stand and I want

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It'll be in your freezer, super convenient, and you know you're getting quality. Use the promo code Megan to get 20 bucks off your first order. So it's always easier to Monday morning quarterback these things, which is exactly what we're doing now. 100%. I get it. So it's easier. We're up in the press box calling the game and we're not down on the field, you know, getting the crap beat out of us play in the game, like these lawyers

are. It's very stressful for both sides, and I'm not trying to be hyperlier overly critical,

but it's very frustrating, though, for me. And I think, honestly, I detected some frustration from the judge in this case, too, because like we've seen lawyers who didn't know the difference, and for the lawyers in our audience, I think maybe they'll get it. And even for some of our audience that is not a lawyer, I've never tried a case, but it's maybe experienced court watchers, they may get this. There's a difference between refreshing a witnesses' recollection,

“if like they have some trouble remembering something that happened years ago, and you need to”

show them something to refresh their memory. That's one thing. That's not impeachment. But then you have impeachment, whereas you're trying to show that they're basically talking out of both sides of their mouth, they're blowing hot and cold at the same time. Therefore, what they're saying is not believable. It's not credible. We call that impeachment. And we've seen lawyers using these terms, which mean nothing like the other. They're using them

interchangeably, and it just drives me out of my skin sometimes. Well, also, I mean, if I was the defense lawyer, and I knew that this guy, Robert, was on drugs back when he gave this statement. I mean, he's on drugs when he made this statement, and that's the statement that harms them. And the statement he made today, the one where he doesn't remember, I mean, you can use that as a defense lawyer. So maybe we'll see that in their case and chief. Maybe I would kind of hope to see it

during, during some of the cross-examination. But also, there's one other side I want to play before we move on. So we've got Cory and we can talk about this a little bit with our guests, but she cracks a

smile when this witness is asked about Michael Jackson's stuff. And I always cringe when a person

who's on trial for murder, cracks his smile like this, but can we play so far? Did anyone ever ask

“you for the Michael Jackson stuff? I'm sorry. I think that's just my question.”

Nobody ever asked you, Carmen Lobber didn't ask you to sell her Michael Jackson, the Michael Jackson droid. No, no, what does that? Do you know what that is? Why did they call that "project?" No, no, no, it's a "project" profile. There you go. Yeah, I've heard of it. Is I watched the Michael Jackson thing when he died, but yeah, nobody has ever asked me for that. Do you know if you can even I die that on the street? I doubt it. I don't know if it seems like they would

keep that under a tight locking key. Yeah, Proca Hall. I mean, any of us who've ever had any kind of outpatient surgery or procedures or whatever, we may have been administered on, no I have, and it's kind of thing where they take the count, the three backwards in your out by the time you get to two. Yes. It's very powerful stuff. I would imagine though that you probably could be obtained on the illicit market somewhere, but I didn't like the look. It's okay to have a

kind of, you know, chuckling and even jurors. But to see the defendant in on it is a little unsettling

depending on the context. I agree with you. No, and I always prep my clients that the jury is

watching every single movie you make, you know, so you just got to be super careful. We had another interesting moment in the trial where an undercover officer testified. This was he was, yeah, he worked for Salt Lake City Police Department and he had an impressive beard which we see often on these undercover officers. I think, you know, it's not, it's not coincidence, but he was questioned. And you know, I don't love the testimony. He was, I hate it when officers are questioned

about street-level drug dealings as though they're experts on street-level drug dealings. I get the theory that, you know, cops because they're making these arrests or experts, but I don't really think

“anybody can be an expert on this area. But so that's what he's testifying about, you know, he's talking”

about that there's a, you know, how these, these hand-to-hand street-level drug deals work and whether

or not it's going to be part of a ring. But what was interesting was he was actually shown transmitted. He was shown on court TV and the judge had to stop everything. And we've seen this happen in other trials where nobody remembers that it's an undercover officer and it says, oops, we have to stop, you know, videoing this. We have to stop this officer from being shown on the, on the stand. So I think that was a little bit of a snafu that happened. He's out. I mean,

that beard is unmistakable. I mean, we're not going to show it. But, um, and it what, and honestly, so court TV has the, the pool camera on this, right? And they're doing a great job. And they, they, they go by what instructions are given by the court. And so, look, folks who are friends of mine at court TV have assured me and told me and I have absolutely believed them that they weren't told.

“And, and it doesn't seem like that's the case because there's been no action taken. I think the court”

realizes that that's on them that somebody made a mistake. But that guy's already out there. If I were in charge of that police department, I'd already be transferring him somewhere else because whether they ever, anybody ever shows him on a replay or not, regardless, his, his names, and it's very distinctive. That beard was unmistakable. So I think his ability to serve under covers probably already toast. Yeah, and I agree with you. I mean, we want cameras in courtrooms.

So the last thing court TV or anybody else is going to do is, you know, something, yeah, something that messes that up for us. But we didn't hear his audio, by the way. We didn't hear the audio of the, like, they could have done him audio only. For example, and that would have achieved the same purpose. I think what they were going to get into him and maybe they did and we just don't know is like, he was going to get into things like the Nolan Clature of what the street

level terminology was for some of these pills because it was obvious that we now have an issue of,

“okay, was Corey Richens getting hooked up with fentanyl or was it some other type of opioid?”

Because if it's not fentanyl, then they're going to have a hard time hanging this murder on her. Right. And I think that, you know, they actually risk potentially a mistrial. If they can't hang the fentanyl on her and they've put in all this evidence of drug dealing that she was addicted to pills and things like that, that really changes the analysis because that evidence would not be, it would not be relevant. And it would be prejudicial. And we know there's a balancing test. It's got to

be super relevant and not super prejudicial. It's really a balancing test. And if there is no evidence that she actually obtained fentanyl and they've put in all this evidence that she was, you know, handling drugs, getting drugs, all of this stuff, it's not relevant to whether or not she killed her husband when he died from a fentanyl over this. So I think they do risk a mistrial, so hopefully they'll be able to link that up for their own case. But I want to talk a little bit about Savannah Guthrie's

mom, Nancy Guthrie, 30th day fill this is crazy. And I know you were out there in Arizona. I mean, can you believe that it's gone on for 30 days now and we don't have any real solid updates? You know, I guess I got out there the day after the Super Bowl, so it's been a couple of weeks. And you know, at that time, I was thinking to myself, and I think most of us who were covering it, who were watching it and following along with the investigation, even at the time,

when I would talk to other folks in the media, because we were all kind of at the same hotel, in this case, a couple of different hotels. But we're all, you know, seeing each other in the lobby and lobby bar at dinner and, you know, around. And the general consensus, I could say even back then, was that, you know, it's highly unlikely that she's still sadly with us. And here at 30 days and counting, right? I think that just underscores that. There's, we have a video now of Savannah

and her family visiting. There's a memorial that is like when I was out there, we can show that.

When I was out there, one of the first places I went was right in front of her home where the

media was sort of set up. They've now blocked that off by the way. You can't park there. It's a no-parking area, but right there at her driveway entrance. It's a semi-circular sort of rock gravel dirt driveway.

folks who come out, they leave flowers, notes. There's a sign there, obviously showing support

and wanting her safe return. And I can tell you from looking at this, what I'm seeing on my screen right now, this has tripled in size just in a couple of weeks since I've been there. So there's clearly a lot of support still on the community and well wishes for them. Yeah. Well, and we have a little bit of an update. I mean, it seemed like something at least we're getting something. There was a new ring camera footage, a new video showed a vehicle leaving her neighborhood. And this was around the time

of the disappearance. The ring camera showed in its house. It's about two and a half miles from her home shows that they drove about eight minutes after her pacemaker had been disconnected. So her pacemaker, you know, we sort of have a timeline because her pacemaker was links to her watch and linked to her phone. And when that disconnected, that's the time that we all assumed that she was actually removed from the house. So we're working on that timeline using that timeline. And if we use that about

eight minutes after that is when this car was seen about two and a half miles from her house,

“leaving the neighborhood. And I think it's interesting because this wasn't found initially because”

they had a much smaller search area. So what the police do is they start small and then they slowly

broaden that area. So they had a very small perimeter at first, getting all of the, you know,

ring camera footage, anybody cell phone cameras, anything like that. And then they've expanded it a little bit. And so now they've got this footage from about two and a half miles away. So, you know, maybe this will help us establish someone, establish a suspect to establish someone because they've got a car. It was a light color SUV. And so hopefully that will give us something if they can question whoever owns this car that will give us a little bit. So the area out there

is it's not a very congested area. It's, but it is a residential area, right? And so I think that it's, we're in this, we're in the area where that video of that car could mean something

“or it could be unrelated. We just don't know. And honestly, from looking at it, by the way, we've”

showed it. And if you haven't subscribed to us on YouTube here at MK True Crown, you might want to take a minute to do that. So you can see what that car looks like. And by the way, if you do watch on YouTube, put in the comments, because I'd like to read it and I will read it. What, what you think that car is and how it may be relevant, because I'm really on the fence about it. I don't know, it could be completely unrelated, but it was in the middle of the night, the wee hours of the

morning, I guess. And there's not going to be that much traffic out there at that time. So that does push it maybe in the area of, hey, maybe that is the car because look, remember back to the Brian Cobrager case, right? It was his presence of his car near the scene that sort of unrolled or started unraveling that case, and eventually led to his conviction. So maybe it will help.

“Yeah, I'm with you Phil, I think it will, and I hope it will. So at least the family can get some”

closure. So next, we've got Bob Mata. He's a criminal defense attorney. He's from Chicago, and he's the host of the defense diaries. He's going to join us, stay tuned. Waking up, sneezing and congested every morning, isn't just frustrating. It may be a sign that the air inside your home is not as clean as it should be, even with regular cleaning, dust, odors, and invisible pollutants can linger in the air that you breathe every single day.

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That's an $84 value free. Get this exclusive podcast only offer now at airdoctorpro.com. That's airdoctorpro.com using promo code true crime. Welcome back to MK True Crime. I'm Phil Holloway along with my co-host today.

from Chicago and the host of Defense Diaries. Bob, welcome to the program. I see that you have

“been covering every second of this trial just like we've been following every second of this trial.”

And it's always good to have the perspective of people that we haven't talked to before

that we don't talk amongst ourselves with. People like you because actually and I just spent the first part of the show, sort of giving what we thought about what's happened in the show and we're very curious to see now what your take is on it so far. Yeah, well, high-filling, high Ashley. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. You know, the first few days were a little slow like any criminal trial. You got to have those proof of life, proof of death, witnesses, and then, you know,

it started to pick up and it's a fascinating trial that really is because you have that classic theory of the state, which is a very compelling theory. And then ultimately, you know,

we got to hold the state like we always do to their board and to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt

“that she intentionally killed them, which has been fascinating. And the concept of the two different”

dealers, you had Carmen Lover and then you had closure come on after her, we're really, really interesting witnesses. And I don't know personally, at least in our chat, in our channel, I don't know that the feeling was that the state had moved the needle much in terms of meeting that very high burden as to that aggravated murder charge. But, you know, it's, this is really a case that's going to be a death by a thousand paper cuts for the state because it's, it's really circumstantial.

You know, you talked about proof of life and proof of death and so to expand on that, for our audience, you know, we've got a, it seems basic, but in every murder case, you've got to prove that it was a human being that that, okay, and it's not enough to just refer to someone by name. And so we saw early on in the trial, we saw Eric Sister, right? And we saw other people who sort of served many purposes, but they were able to also prove, you know, that particular

fact that at one time, he was a living human being. But we, we now have seen some testimony, he's not proof of death. We've seen some testimony now from Dr. Christensen, who was the chief medical examiner, right? So the state has called him to the stand and then the prosecutor, Fred Burmester, introduced this recording that I want to talk to you about. It's a recording between Cory Richens and, and him, Eric Christensen did chief medical examiner and it's regarding

how this fentanyl got into Eric's system based on the autopsy. Can we run salt five? Some change anything in the cause or matter of death, it's still, you know, definitely, you know, death from fentanyl intoxication, and we still don't know how we got it into him. Yeah, and I mean, is that anything you could ever find out if it was, I mean, do people normally eat that? Like, take it, swap, like, is that something you'd like to say?

It's not usually something people eat. Well, that's not even true anymore. So with the

“list of the manufacturers, sometimes people take pills, not that bad, that's how we have these days.”

You can't really tell. Yeah. All right. Well, I appreciate your time. I do. Thank you very much. And if you have other questions, don't hesitate to give me a call.

But the first time in almost 40 years in the justice system that I have seen a criminal defendant,

in this case, a murder defendant speaking with a state's very important witness, the chief medical examiner, regarding a case. Now, presumably that was done, you know, before she was maybe a defendant in the case, but still, I found that to be very fascinating. What do you guys say? I agree. Well, first and foremost, I thought Christianson was a phenomenal witness. Not necessarily for the defense or the state, but for the jurors. You know, he was just very

knowledgeable and answered so many questions about fentanyl and the amount that you would need to take in order to kill you. And I just thought he was very, very helpful to the to the jurors in terms of kind of having an understanding of how that drug operates. But yeah, to your point, when we were watching that testimony, all I wanted to know was when did this call take place in relation to Eric's death? And then we kind of figured out collectively about halfway through it.

And it's about eight months after Eric's death. So the way that it went down is ultimately, they had done a supplemental report because they had done much more thorough talks, screening with, you know, a lot of the other biologicals that they ended up testing to really try to get a better feel because initially the MU had performed the autopsy and really ruled the death

I looked at it. And you know, I was like, well, you know, was it unusual for a wife to want to call,

and you look at it from both perspectives as defense attorneys, right? I'm looking at it. All right, if Corey's guilty, how does this look? Is this a weird thing for somebody who killed their husband

“to do? I think the answer to that would be yes, that's a very strange thing for somebody who had”

committed the crime to do, but you could argue it both ways because it's unusual otherwise. But I think if I died, you know, and they didn't really know how I think my wife might make that call too. I just thought it was unbelievable that she got Christians now on the phone. Oh, I know, I thought that was too. And I agree with you. I think the defense that was going to have to really spin this to try and explain why a grieving spouse would want to call an Emmy, you know, and for answers.

And I think, you know, if you can, if they can hit any of the jurors who have lost a loved one and just want answers. And we see this from the Nancy Guthrie case, you know, I think most people assume that she is no longer with us, but we want answers. And I think everybody can really feel that and know that they want to know what happened. Did he take his own life, perhaps, you know, that could be a theory that maybe the wife was thinking about. So I think the defense, if they could weave that in,

they could minimize the damage of this. But I mean, the problem is the jurors, they tend to really

“overinterpret evidence like this, you know, as guilt. Yep. Well, actually, look, I think it might be a”

mistake for the defense. If they try to portray her as a grieving widow, considering all the other evidence, we've seen about the, the affair and how she wanted to be done with her husband, one player, the other. I don't know that, and she didn't, I mean, I mean, it's eight months later, she didn't sound to be that full of grief in the call. But look, the question I've got for both of you guys, we'll start with you, Bob. Look, why is it that you, you mentioned, and I took a note of this. It was

very interesting. You just said that it took you guys, oh, I guess the folks in your chat rooms, at your show, y'all, you guys had to figure out a collectively win this call took place. And I've

been talking some, and I'm going to talk more about the advocacy in this case. But why is it that you

had to go to the steps that you went through, and the measures that you took to figure this out, should that have not been part of the context that was available to the whole world, and to the

“jury when they introduced this into the trials that we know when this call took place?”

Yeah, I mean, absolutely, in terms of laying the foundation. You have, you know, I just wanted to need to know exactly when this call took place. And I didn't know, I was asking my chat, you know, on occasion, I can get diverted doing other things because I'm on for eight hours, you know, and I'm asking the chat, I'm like, did they bring out when this call took place, and the chat was like, no, and then, you know, people started doing research, but yeah,

I mean, absolutely, and I felt that that's to your point, Phil, I've been kind of a running theme. I felt that the prosecution in the case has been a little bit dischointed. You know, I mean, when you go back to some of the earlier witnesses, in particular, Lobber and Trojur, like I would have liked to have seen, especially with Lobber when they were trying to bring in and introduce the tax message between Cory and Lobber, and they had to use the celebrate extraction,

and yet he hadn't put that into evidence yet, which created an issue for the state. I mean, in terms of, and look, it's easy to sit here and I'm sure Cory back, you know, the order of witnesses, when the state or the defense is going to put their case in chief on, but, you know, for me, logically, you would have liked to have seen that because that did create an issue for the state in terms of kind of smoothly going through their case.

So I've just been kind of wanting in terms of how the state has decided to proceed with this case in general. I mean, today, we've been going through a huge, huge, just die a tribe of testimony from a forensic accountant who's been on the stand all day, and it's got that Murdoch feeling, you know, where you're three weeks into the financial crimes, and you're like, man, when are we to get to the murder? And it's got that kind of feeling, and I know that the judge

in this case has been careful, and I think that he's been even handed in terms of the pretrial rulings, but in terms of how much he was going to allow him, because they did sever the financial crimes, and she's going to be tried separately for those, but yeah, my feeling fills, I've just, I've found it to be a little bit disjointed in terms of the state's case. Well, actually, you know, you and I talked about this, and I want to get into it with Bob, actually,

you and I talked about the issue of whether or not this is, you know, are we dealing with fentanyl? Or were it more accurately? Were they dealing fentanyl? Or was it oxy or oxycontin, or something else?

the drug dealer saying that Carmen, the housekeeper, knew there was fentanyl, okay,

and that's become an issue, but I want to get your take on it too after the side. Yeah, I've told him, she knew what she's fun, okay, so she wasn't like she's asking for oxy's just like that, she got the answer, but, okay, so she knew there was that one of those pills. I remember where you got those pills from? All right, actually, in Bob, look, and I don't like, I want to know from both of you guys, because you guys are pros, you've done this

before, you know, the state has to prove that Cory killed her husband and specifically that she did it with fentanyl, so we've seen there in that spot, we've seen that early on, this witness said clearly there was fentanyl that was involved in all these transactions, but we've also seen him in court saying the other saying the opposite, so I want to ask you guys, we'll start with you, Bob, do you think the state has proven that there was, in fact, fentanyl that was at the

“heart of this case? Well, I think the state has proven that fentanyl is what killed them,”

because of the medical exam, or testimony, whether or not they've proven whether Cory rich and specifically asked for fentanyl and got fentanyl, I give you a little pushback, I like to call that interview that I'm not here to jam you up, interview, because that cop said it about 15 times, I'm not here to jam you up, if you carefully watch the transcript below,

closure never says the word fentanyl, the cop says it, so what he does is he says, oh, so

she she didn't order oxies, no, the M30s, if you go back to the testimony, at that point time where the rock sea thirties, so when the counterfeit rocks he came out, they looked identical to rock sea thirties, they were blue, they had the line across and then they had the 30 on it, so I look at that very, very differently, if I'm arguing the case at closing, I'm going into that video and I'm saying that's not what he said, because even though he came in and he basically

recanted in terms of what he was saying and it was basically, look man, I was high as it is all get out at that period of time in my life and I, you know, I don't remember saying any of that and I didn't say it but beyond that, I think if you look at that interview very, very carefully, it's the cop who's feeding him everything that he says, it's not, it's not closure saying it

and it's all with the cop on his thumb on top of him, you know, I mean that the bottom line is,

I don't know how many times he told this guy, we're not trying to jam you up on these federal charges, but we're going to jam you up on these federal charges if you don't say what we need,

“that's how I'm spinning it from the defense angle. Yeah, I would hit it hard during closing,”

I would say, you know, they have proven that he died from fentanyl overdose, but what they have not shown is that Corey Richards is the one that gave him fentanyl and so he could have gotten it from any other source, it would definitely prove, you know, talk about how they, they brought in Robert Corpsier, they brought in this person who, you don't even know what he's saying, if he's telling the truth back when he was high, I mean he's high during this police interview,

he like you said Bob, he's not the one that actually brings up the term fentanyl, just because he didn't, you know, dispute it, well he's high and he's trying to please the cops, of course he's not going to dispute it. He's saying whatever they want to hear because, you know, they're the ones that hold the keys to his freedom, so they brought in all this evidence and I would just highlight the fact that they've gotten witness upon witness and guess what nobody told you, nobody told you

flat out that they put fentanyl in her hands. Nobody said that and so you've got, you know, you've got a lot of little links but you don't have anybody and the state has brought all of these witnesses, they clearly have subpoena power, they clearly have search warrants, they've gotten, you know, they have experts who testified forensic experts, they've got all of this data, they've got, you know,

“these phone things that they hooked people hooked the phones up to and what did they bring?”

Nothing, nothing about fentanyl, so I would really make them eat this, this lack of link to fentanyl, you know, and then that's the plausible explanation, that's reasonable doubt. Yeah, ladies and gentlemen, with jury, she's an adultress, she's a con artist, she's a liar, she's committed financial crimes, all these things but she's not guilty of murder because you can't tie her to the fentanyl that we know caused his death. That's kind of where you're going with this,

that seems like the best way for the defense to play it. But speaking of the affair, we have

“some text messages that come in, actually, what's going on with those?”

You know, we saw these text messages and I got to tell you, I expected something more. You know, I expected something a whole lot juicier, if they're having this sorted affair, I expected something more than some, I love use on Valentine's Day, and I know the volume of the texts are troublesome, and I know some of the content of the texts are troublesome, but if they're having this sorted affair, I guess I expected something a little bit more, and so I would really

hit that home as well for the defense. Maybe she was talking to another man. Was it fully on an affair? Did they prove that it wasn't a fair or was it just someone that she's talking to? Just because she is with some other guy does not mean that she wants her husband to die, and I would really hammer that point home. The affair, not great, not great evidence, not something

you want. You never want to jury to know that your client is a cheat and a liar. That is not

“good, but you can get around that, you know, and I think the jury is probably expecting something”

a whole lot more than what they've got with this, with these text messages, from Curious Bob, what did you think about all the text messages that came in? I was with you. You kind of want to see if you've got that motive floating out there with the cheating spouse. Really, if you're the prosecutor and you're being honest, you'd like to see that the messages were like, "We're close." I'm going to do what I have to do to get rid of him.

I want to be with you, baby. I do anything to be with you. Exactly. That kind of stuff, and we just... No, wait till you go on. Right, exactly. She's talking about having the dream of that she wishes he wasn't there. Those are a far cry from saying, "I'm going to make things happen to get rid of this guy,

so that we can have our life together." I found them wanting as well, and they were pretty tame in terms of what we saw. It's just one of those things where I'm kind of looking at the totality, the circumstances, and I don't know how much those moved at the needle, and I wanted to ask you, Ashley, about the witness who was Cody's wife and her name escapes me, but she was

short, but impactful, but I'm not sure that she was impactful for the state, because she basically

laid out this concept where Eric was really controlling the finances in a way that was could be construed as abusive, in the sense that Cory felt that she had to make moves in order to have some financial independence. It really made me feel some sympathy for Cory, and I was kind of rooting for her at that stage in her life to say, "You know what?" She went got her master, she went got her real estate license, and she wanted to create a situation where her husband or

spouse wasn't holding all the purse strings. I don't know how that played out. I was curious to what your thought on her was. I actually think that that plays into what we were just talking about with the texts, because you sympathize with her. If she's in this controlling relationship, and so if her husband is someone that the jury doesn't like, they're going to view everything

“through that lens. That's what happens. And so if there's some reason that maybe can soften the fact”

that she was talking with another guy. I mean, I know that we're talking in a fair, but you know, the texts were kind of innocuous. So you know, sort of soften that, that he was controlling, and he was trying to do all these things, and she was just trying to get her life back, I think that that could carry some weight with the jury. And the fact that she's trying to better herself, the fact that she's trying to do things to better herself financially, I think that's

also really helpful because does she need to kill him? Does she really need to kill him? Or is she able? Is she making a plan? You know, a plan to get around him, get around his ways, get around his controlling, you know, ways, and actually just continue on with her life. Why would she be

bettering herself if she's just going to often, you know? I personally, so I, here's the thing.

Let me just preface this by saying, I think she's guilty. The walk, the dog letter that we haven't really gotten into yet, but we have on previous shows here at MK True Crime, go back and check those out. But I think for, I think for all the reasons that we've been talking about in the evidence that we've seen in the evidence that we know about that we haven't seen, I think she's guilty, but I think that the prosecution has made some mistakes. I think there's some

advocacy issues that I think made hurt their chances at a conviction, and I also think there's something called over trying your case. And let's, and when we talk about those, I want to talk about these memes, right? These memes that have been introduced now into evidence. Witness Chris, I'm going to miss, I'm going to miss pronounce this name, "Catrodom," let me see, how do you say that? "Catrodomos." Chris, "Catrodomos." Chris, "Catrodomos." Yeah, definitely. He testified that he's a recovered

images. They were deleted, but the so-called ghost or print of the images remained on the phone. And so these come into court, let's just go ahead and roll five, seven. This is the prosecution submitting these memes into evidence on the day Eric had passed away, of course, the defense is objecting, but the look on Cory's face is prices. The database overwrites it because of time

has passed, and there's no more room in that file. You'll never know the source of that text,

whether it was incoming or outgoing, who sent that type of thing. All you're going to see is the

“remnant of that, and that's what these are, the small PNG files. Again, move to admit 3-19.”

We were in your objection. At this point, it seemed like it's a what Mr. Corpody must found, so I'm going to make it something. I understand defendant's objection. It is respectfully overruled. You can explore these topics during cross-examination. States exhibit 3-19 is admitted. We could publish, please. So these are the images you were just describing. Yes.

And you described that they were found in the image files as a remnant of possibly a text message. Right, I wouldn't say a remnant, it's a thumbnail. I mean, it's a PNG file and it's a thumbnail. Yes. From the data that you analyzed, were you able to tell if these images were accessed by Ms. Richens' phone? They were accessed by her, the system in her phone, yes. How do you know that? It gives an access to indication in the file path, in the data,

and the extraction, it'll say when the device was accessed, and it will give a timestamp. So I'm holding up my whisky Tango Fox Trot magazine. Because I'm like, "What in the hell does this even mean?" And how is it relevant? If you're the state, how does it advance your case to show that she had three, what looked to be superficially meaningless memes? And for those of you listening on podcast or serious XM, as I mentioned earlier, check us out on YouTube because I want

you people to see these images and tell me in the comments to this video. Why they're relevant? What do they prove? But I'll start with you guys. Actually, what do you think? I am with you. WTF. Like, why are we seeing these? And, you know, jurors get mad at that. We saw that a lot in what I think is the world's longest criminal trial, the YSL trial here in Folten

“County. There was a lot of why am I sitting here listening to this. Why is this important?”

Why do I care about this? I mean, so is it inappropriate to be getting these text messages? I don't know. I mean, I don't know. They're stupid, but look at my phone. I'm sure my kids have sent me random weird things. My husband sent me things. Maybe we have inside jokes. Like, what does this tell me? Absolutely nothing. And I would rail on that as the defense. And,

you know, they've wasted time. I always make a promise to jurors at the very beginning of my trial.

I promise you, I am not going to waste your time. If I put a witness on this stand or I ask a question, it's got a point. It's got a purpose. And jurors hold that against the state when they waste their time. So I think that the state is losing the style here. They're losing, you know, the style points here. Maybe they're winning on the substance because I think we all think that she did it. But I definitely think this is one of the hits to their style. Yeah. And for me,

it's funny because the reality of that situation is blood worth, Brad Bloodworth, who's the lead prosecutor felt so strongly about that evidence that he used that as his closing for his opening.

It's crazy. It's crazy. And, you know, and I thought that ultimately what the state is trying to

put out there is that the timing, as we know, is timing is everything. And in terms of when they were able to show the extraction, showing that when she acts as those was right after the Emmy left the house to write out. So they're saying it's suit like he's not even cold. Right. She's accessing these memes with show a guy wiping money all over his face, Trump meme talking about being filthy rich and a meme calling everybody idiots. So the implication being

she's now got the money and all the people around are more on because they don't know what she just

“did. That's what they're implying by it. I thought Ramos, the defense attorney, you handled that”

cross-examination, did a pretty good job in terms of kind of really focusing on the orphan slash ghost aspect of these particular images and saying, look, you can't even say, did these come in from somebody else? Was it something that she searched? Did she send it to somebody? You know,

I don't know why those images are there and I don't know if she sent them off to anybody.

We don't either. And before we let you go, there's a couple of things I want to make sure we talk to you about real quick. There's this whole thing about web searches, right? And these are searches that were shown to the jury and were not read out loud. They include, can you delete everything on an eye-clad account? Can you, can you, can delete that? You retrieved, you top prison, women's prison, and you're talking about that. That is completely wipe an iPhone. Clear,

can cops force you to do a lot of tech or test. Well, in fact, let's, we got the video of this that we can show while we're talking about it because that's all the jury saw. They didn't hear these things read to them out loud. Will life insurance pay if death certificate is pending? A luxury presence for the rich in America? I mean, my God, the question of God that it's like I'm going to bring out my mug again for whiskey tango funds right here because why? Why is somebody

not reading this to the jury? Because it just gives it so much more powerful presentation.

My friend Kathy Ruson over at court TV tweeted this and I think I responded to it, but I noticed it at the time, too. She says, "I think it's strange that the state isn't having the witnesses read these texts." And in these searches allowed, is there's some rule in Utah that says they can't. We hear experts and we hear people reading these things all the time because there's a lawyer when you put your voice to it, you know, you can put whatever inflections you want. You don't just

“have this thing that you're just showing to the jury? I think that's why they didn't have it.”

That's exactly exactly exactly why you saw it in Karen Reed when Jackson was objecting as to who is going to read the text messages. And it like Phil, just look at how you were reading it. If I'm the defense, I don't want you reading those text messages with like, you know, okay, for Julie. I don't want to go reading that. But I don't have to look at court. I wouldn't necessarily read them the way that I'm reading them here on this show. I think as a prosecutor,

I could control myself and just read them. I published these to the jury and then you put them up on the screen and you just, you can actually read them allowed with neutral sort of a tone and neutral inflection. I think that's the way to do it. I think we'll see that in closing. I think we'll see them read them and closing. But I think the difference is on the way this stands. And you know,

“it comes down to who do you pick? Do you pick a law enforcement officer? Do you pick a man?”

Do you pick a woman? You know, the defense isn't going to participate. They're not going to help this. So they're not going to offer up anybody. And I think there may be a risk that they just decided wasn't worth it in reading these. The real purpose, we got sought eight, which is the defense lawyer suggesting that Cory Richins could have been searching prisons because of real housewives. It's great. I loved it. Kind of a lot of those letters. Let's see. As we saw, I have no dates.

Correct. Right. Yes. And we do see some of them when they were searched, correct? Yes. Okay. Are you familiar with a real, a certain real housewife in Salt Lake City? Recently? Yeah. In April 2022? Oh, no. Okay. Are you aware of somebody maybe being sentenced around that time? No. Okay. And now that would provide context to you, correct? I could. Yeah. Because right now, just as we see the searches, we don't know why that would be a search,

correct? I don't know. Yep. Ten orbs can't speculate on anything. You can't speculate. No. You shouldn't speculate. Yeah. He's asking to speculate, but we've had to leave it there with you for this segment. Thank you very, very much Bob for joining us. Tell the folks real quick for that you how can people find you? You can find me all over the place. Our YouTube channels called Defense Diaries Podcast. My wife, who is much smarter, much better looking than I am.

It's my co-host and also a pitbull defense attorney or something. We co-host that together. And then our podcast that you can find anywhere you get your pods and we've got the defense Diaries Podcast buried inside the John Wayne Gasey v. Gasey because my father was serial killer

“John Wayne Gasey's trial attorney back in 1980. So yeah, just check it out. All right. And I think it's”

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Welcome back to MK Tree Crime. We'll get to our closing arguments, but first we have a question

on the Cory Richen's trial from user name SniMac. SniMac asks, "Do you think defense attorney Wendy Lewis went too far in pressing the housekeeper drug distributor?" And I love how you added that drug distributor. Carmen Lover about her learning disabilities on the stand. And what would you have done differently if you were the prosecutor or the defense attorney in that

“courtroom? We love those questions. Phil, I think you had something you wanted to share on this.”

Yeah, I do. Well, first off, let's show the question how it came out in court real quick.

You told the officers numerous times. I have been using drugs since I was

six-grade. Yes, my brain isn't not that good. Correct. I don't remember things. Yes. You have a learning disability also, correct? Yes. Can you share what that is? No, I don't know. I would ask you to share what it is. That was a question not a request. Sorry. I apologize, but it could be relevant. Miss Lowe's. Miss Lover, if you would please enter the question. Yes, I do have one. What is it? It's not the highest

education group. It's a low-grade education. Is that because you struggled in school because

you're learning disability? Yes, all right. It's nothing to be embarrassed about. A lot of people

have that right. All right, so actually, we, we, we know this. You know, I've had to deal with sensitive topics in court a lot. And our job when we were, whether we're a prosecutor or whether we're a defensor or we have to be a zealous advocate for our client. And part of that means that, you know, you've got to explore a witness's ability to perceive an event, to recall an event later, to articulate it. And if the witness is deficient in any of those areas, it goes to what we call

their credibility. Not that we think they're lying, but maybe whether or not there's some other reason that the jury should not necessarily trust what they say. So we don't want to pick on people, but it has to be done. And it can be done in a respectful way. In fact, let's run SOT 11, which shows a very good lawyer doing this where they witness who has vision problems. This is Riley, when you sort of defendants, were you wearing your glasses? Yes, I was.

“Over here, dear. I think the film levels are thick as if you're gone through.”

Oh, I don't know. Over 60 years. Maybe 10 times. Maybe ready for a thick aset. Oh, no, no, I think they're okay. Maybe we should make sure. Let's check it out. Now, how far was it defendants from you when you saw a mentor in the sack of SOTs? About 100 feet, 100 feet. Would you hold this please? Thank you. Sorry, excuse me, excuse me. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.

Okay, this is 50 feet. That's half the distance. How many fingers am I holding up? Let the record show that council is holding up two fingers. Y'all on a please, huh? Oh. Sorry. Now, Mrs. Riley and only Mrs. Riley. How many fingers am I holding up now? Oh.

What do you think now, dear?

from the movie My Cousin Vinnie. And he does a good job. And we actually studied this film in law school because a lot of real life lessons that you can take from it that apply to the real world. But it's an example, even though it's a comedy, it's a fiction movie, but it's a good example of how when you're an advocate for your client or for your position in court,

“you have to sometimes delicately, but still you have to do it. You've got to show the jury”

that a witness, even if it's through no fault of her own, that a witness may have difficulty giving testimony to the jury that is reliable. Right. Yeah, she do. And we have to do it. It's part of our duty. We do this every day. I think there's a little bit different way that I would have done it just to answer her question. I would have probably since this wasn't a topic that this witness clearly wanted to divulge. I would have been a little more controlling in my questions

and just asked her, you know, isn't it true that you've got a learning disability? Isn't it true that your disability affects your your your your recall? You know, isn't it true that your disability affects your memory? Isn't it true that your disability has caused you to not be able to finish school? And things like that because this lady clearly doesn't want to divulge what her learning disability is. It didn't even sound like she really knew what it was or

understood what it was. But I think they could have gotten those questions out and much more controlled manner and gotten the point across pretty quickly. But, you know, I love my cousin Vinnie. And I think if there's any way that you can do anything from my cousin Vinnie and Courtney definitely

should. Yeah, I've always wanted to say that something was, you know, identical the way the

co-counts all did in that case. And one of these days I might be able to get to do that.

“I think you should wear the outfit too, you know, the suit with the ruffles and personal outfits.”

When you do it. All right. Well, you can be there and take pictures. So, I think, Phil, you got your closing argument. You're going to go first, right? Yeah. I'm happy to go first. And, you know, what I'm going to talk about here in my closing, I think Dove Tales actually into some of the themes that we've been talking about through today's show. So, and it deals with trial advocacy and particularly trial preparation. So, imagine that you

step into, say, a battlefield and you're blindfolded, right? That's what it would be like going into a trial without interviewing witnesses firsthand. There was a comment in the comment section on the YouTube video for this show one day last week. And someone was asking if it was appropriate and ethical for a lawyer to talk to a witness before trial. And I said, yes, it's expected. Because we as lawyers, we can't afford surprises. Surprises that derail our case witnesses are

“the backbone of whatever the truth of the case is. They hold the key details that can make or break”

a case and they can bring a verdict either in your favor or against you first. Interviewing let's us uncover the full story. We've talked today about context that's missing from some of this testimony interviewing a witness ahead of time. And then re-interviewing them right before trial actually, that allows you to uncover the full story witnesses might remember nuances that police reports miss or they might remember nuances that they didn't tell you about

the first time. That crucial glance, the fleeting conversation that somehow they are able to articulate

or it comes up in your conversation the second time can be very important. And without this pretrial preparation, this interviewing of the witnesses, we're sometimes guessing and we're guessing specifically about what's going to come out on the witness stand. And when you guess about what might come out, that's when you can lose a case. We've got to assess the witnesses credibility. And one way to do that is to know if they've ever talked about this subject before had they ever

said anything different. Is this person reliable or do they crumble under pressure? We need to know these things before these witnesses take the witness stand. We test their story. We spot inconsistencies in their statements and we can prepare to either bolster or challenge them on the stand as the case may be. So a witness who flips for example under cross-examination can literally torpedo your case. And then it's also guys it's about strategy, right? We need to know what they're going to say

before they get up on the stand and say it. So nothing really should surprise you. And particularly

on cross-examination, there's a golden rule of cross-examination. Never ask a question that you don't

already know the answer to. You know what they're going to say because you've talked to them ahead of time. You've read what they've written ahead of time. You've read their written statements but you've also spoken to them. And another benefit is that allows you to sort of establish and maintain a cohesive narrative story a theme if you will for the jury. You can anticipate the opposition and how they're

of both criminal cases and even civil cases. And so skipping this step would be like playing chess for example without seeing the pieces that your opponent is working with and I would quite frankly

I would call it reckless. It's reckless for a lawyer to speak to a witness for the first time.

Now, I want to paraphrase here or in parentheses say this. Sometimes witnesses are not willing to talk to the lawyers ahead of time. And people sometimes don't realize that in many states like Georgia where I practice we don't have the benefit of using pretrial deposition. Like if you're a civil case you can make someone come to your office or to their lawyers office and answer your questions about who ran the red light. But if it's like if it's a civil case but then the

criminal case you can't do that. But you've got to try. If you're the lawyer you've got to try to talk to these witnesses because doing so it honors justice. It's thorough preparation and it ensures

“that in the courtroom truth prevails and that's what trials are about. The word verdict is based”

on the Latin word veritas which means the truth. Through witness interviews used in preparation

for trial this helps us to ensure that the verdicts that come out in court speak the truth. And actually that's my closing for the day. Manchester to hear what you have to say. All right well thank you Phil and yeah just so our viewers know we don't know what we're about to rant about each other's rant that is we know what we're going to rant about but not what the other person is. So Phil you're in for a treat. I have been on this this role where I'm enjoying

talking about stories real stories taking life experiences, criminal experiences, criminal practice experiences and bringing them into here and talking about them in my rant and kind of explaining how the sausages made as I like to say. You know why we can't have nice things that's another

thing I like to say. And what I mean by that is you know sometimes common sense leaves the building

when it comes to the criminal legal system. So I want to talk about a client that I have and I'm going to use the case of a DUI and the reason I'm going to use this is because it's really simple and it's kind of easy to follow. And the facts of my particular case are a little

“bit more detailed but I think the DUI is a perfect example and why I want to talk about this is how”

the criminal system and immigration actually plays together. This is not political, this is just how it is and how it works or doesn't work. So I've got a client who's charged with a DUI and if you know when a DUI happens if someone's not drunk the officer actually thinks they might be on drugs. So if the officer thinks they're on drugs what they have to do is they have to actually take a blood test and send that off but it takes months to get that back. And so the officer has

a choice. They can either make an arrest at that stage just on their subjective view that the person may be on drugs or they can actually wait until they get the results back. So we're going to use that example for my story. So I have a client he's charged the officer well he's alleged let's start there he's alleged to have committed a crime he hasn't formally been charged. The officer contacts me and says hey I want to talk to your client I say well that's nice but I don't let my

clients talk. So that's not going to happen but how about instead you wait until you actually get

“the crime lab report back before you arrest my client and put him through the process. And I think”

people who aren't involved in the process sort of think well that seems reasonable you know why would you arrest someone before you have the crime labs back? I can tell you the majority of my cases I probably would estimate 99% of my cases are charged long before they have crime lab reports back. So it's very common but this case was a little bit different. I said to the officer you know well my client's actually here on a work visa he's here legally he was invited to be here because

he is of the type of work that we needed in this country and so we let him come in we gave him a visa he is completely documented he's allowed to work here. So it makes sense if you actually are really sure that he committed the crime you think he committed and wait until the labs come back before you actually charge him with a crime. Well your officer said you know I'm going to talk with the prosecutor I'm going to see what they say and shocker says we're going to go ahead and make

the arrest we're going to go ahead and make the charge. Okay I understand so client gets arrested client makes bond clients out on bond and of course is any good criminal defense lawyer we're consulting an immigration lawyer because I don't touch immigration so I want an immigration expert to actually consult on this. So what do I learn and this is why I want to tell this story because it's absolutely insane and I don't think anybody understands how this actually works in this country.

So the immigration lawyer says well all right so your client's out on bond and he's legally allowed to be here but because he was arrested the department of you know the ice essentially is restricting his travel so he can't leave he can't go back to his home country he can't self-deport he has to stay here he can't leave he can't travel he can't do anything like that okay fine so then they say well he has 200 days some amount 200 change to show that he has been

exonerated of this charge or else ice will start deportation proceedings okay well crime lab

okay so what do we do well ice is then going to take him into custody and they're going to

“initiate deportation proceeding it's against him okay fine he wants to self-deport that's fine”

well he can't self-deport can't self-deport because then that could be used against him in the criminal case here that he has in Georgia and if he self-deports they would be able to argue

that he fled okay well we don't want to do that so he's not going to self-deport okay so he's

going to sit in immigration custody yes well immigration the court has to actually move very quickly because they have strict statutory timelines okay so while they're processing this case guess what crime lab's still not back he's going to be deported at the expense of the federal

government deported to his home country because all of this happened in this exact process so he

gets deported to his home country and then if they want to bring him back to prosecute him for

“this case they're going to have to extradite him this is the stupidest situation I think most”

people have ever heard of why do we have a system in this country we have got to overhaul our immigration system and we have got to overhaul our criminal defense system because things like this should not happen it is nonsensical I think the fact that we've got people who are willing to either self-deport because they want a self-deport or they want to face charges and go ahead

“and get exonerated because they know they didn't do it but they can't do that because ice is”

detaining them it's nuts it's absolutely nuts so I'm not here to say one side right one side wrong I'm here to say that this system is absolutely insane it is not working it is inefficient and that is why we can't have nice things because we're spending a lot of money locking people up trying people moving people around when it just doesn't make any sense so my hope is that we get a much better system sometime in the future but I just wanted everyone to know kind of what happens

and how the sausage is actually made I do want to thank everyone I want to thank our guest we had Bob Mata here earlier I also want to thank my co-host Phil Holloway and I want to thank you for joining us we love hearing from you so please feel free to reach out send us your questions and have a good week