Lindsay Clancy’s Defense Strategy and Revisiting the Casey Anthony Verdict Fifteen Years Later

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Positively Freedom.

“I'm Margaig Lodge, one of your co-hosts.”

And I am a former prosecutor at Jump Wall Professor, author. What else? A veteran criminal defense attorney. My bio also says that I'm a avid pickleball player, and a friend of Jonathan Spulbors.

You're also a very snappy dresser. I'm going to add that. Just snappy with the 1920s once they're worried about me. I go ahead. Who are you?

I'm Jonathan Spulbors. I don't have a list as long as yours. Mark my husband's colleague. But I have a criminal defense attorney. And the founder of my firm, Jonathan Spulbors law.

Now, I'm also going to warn you. Today we are discussing the Massachusetts woman Lindsey Clancy, who is standing trial this week on charges of murdering her three children. You guys, I'm just going to say this for the record. But I have a hard time talking about this case without swelling up,

because the facts are terrible. All right. Neither side is denying that she committed this awful act, but heard defense claims. She cannot be held quote criminally responsible.

And we're going to dive into that. That is a fascinating case. Also, I can't believe Jonathan's been 15 years. Now, since we heard a Florida jury say not guilty to Casey Anthony in her case. She didn't kill apparently her daughter, Kaylee, or at least they didn't have proof

beyond a reasonable doubt. Which could be something very different.

“We're going to dive into that case and ask the important question.”

Did the jury get it wrong? Mm-hmm.

But first, Mark, it is happy hour.

I would like to focus on you. And one of your many, many, many. I like that subject, man. Yes. Right?

Who doesn't? Sure. But you have many, many famous clientele in your repertoire. And one of your famous clientele right now, you are actively defending, is a man by the name of Antonio Brown.

Who? Yeah. Who? So, I have to start with a couple of things. I know his case is kind of entering into a different phase.

But I want to ask you about a picture that I saw of you and your client heading off to Court. Now I have to say, I've picked my clients up in Uber's. I haven't even picked them up in my own car. All right.

I've ever had a client pick me up in their car, especially when their car looked like this. Mark Iglars, please explain. All right. So, the backstory was the night before I reminded him that we had to go to court.

Just for a procedural thing, the judge had given him a furlough. Let him go to Tampa and care for his kids. And his and support his wife who was giving birth to a wife. Or his baby mama who's giving birth to yet another child that he has. And so then he had to report back in Miami and say, hi, Judge,

I'm back. And then they had to affix the ankle monitor back on him. Take off the one from the private company that we arrange. And now he's back on Miami House arrest. So we had to go to court.

So I reminded him of that the night before. And he said, did you want to come with me? And I made clear. Wait, hold on, hold on. Who's driving who?

And he said, no, we got to drive her. I'll pick you up. And then I'll take you to court. I had no idea he'd be showing up solo. Number one.

Number two in that. And let me explain to you. Yes, please. I was sweating. I was sweating from the door to the car.

Just looking at the fact that there was no cover on the car. It was a convertible. It was 90 something degrees. And I looked at him and I said, there's no way. And I just went with it.

I said, Mark, just go with it. He'll he'll he'll he'll put the top down. He'll crank the air. He'll be fine.

So the first problem, the first problem other than he's driving.

It's that I spent like a minute, literally looking over looking for the seat belt. And then he pulled me down. And I haven't done a lap seat belt since I was like a child. Right. I've had science prove those were useless, right?

Exactly. But wait, Mark, more important. I'm looking at that with. What kind of car is it exactly? Well, I didn't take.

I didn't take notes. But I can tell you, maybe maybe from what I'm about to tell you. You'll get clues.

“I insisted first and foremost, you must put the top down.”

And after he either didn't hear me or ignored me intentionally a few times, he eventually reluctantly pulled over and put the top down. I thought it was a package deal. I figured you put the top down. And then you put the air on.

So I spent a few minutes looking and I didn't see the buttons. Clearly they must have been hidden. The buttons that turn the air on. So I asked him.

And he said, two words, not classic. Well, it probably didn't have air that doesn't surprise me. But didn't have any sort of button where you press it. And then the car would start kind of like jumping up and down. Because when I see him, you're with a front end as higher than the back end.

Yes. Yeah. I didn't ask, and candidly, I couldn't speak much because the music. And I'm using air quotes from music was so loud that I couldn't hear. And I'm pretty sure it was his song that he recently released that we were listening

to all the way there. I'm pretty sure we didn't know. I'm just saying it was so hard. Wait, sing you. Come on.

Now, not a few bars in the sauce, in the sauce. Something like that. I don't know. But I can tell you that it was a nice experience because it was a fun story.

But I, when we got to court, it was the first time in 34 years of practice that when

“the media was all there, I think there's a clip, actually.”

No, with Antonio Brown singing in the sauce. I think you're on a procedural issue. Take a listen. He's been on House arrest since his arrest. But he was monitored by a private company because he was in Tampa.

Now that he's back in Miami, the Miami House arrest. Look at my face. Look at my face. And now service. You're just playing.

Look how swear. That was after I waved them off. They won. I can't. First time I've ever walked away from the media until I could cool down.

I'm telling you it was 45 minutes in that convertible. Yes, he did eventually put the top down. But the hot summer Miami wind blowing in your face, taking my carefully clothed hair and moving it over so rapidly that I was dripping and not myself. It was brutal.

You know why I'm not believing that you're whining a little bit about about the heat. Yeah, Tom. Yeah, Tom. Yeah, Tom. Can we just go?

“I just want to see the picture of Antonio in his court clothes.”

Can you just, if we could just, I just want to see it for another second.

Please, please. Can I object? Can I object? No, you can't. You can't.

You don't know. OK. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I don't understand this side. That's because he's a warrior. He trains in the summertime. All right. Enough about me.

Stop. Yes. Anyway, so this airs Wednesday tomorrow. I will be need deep when this is released in a deposition of the alleged victim.

Finally, I get a chance to cross examine him on his allegations.

And hopefully support our standard ground motion. So this attempted second degree murder, mischievous can be dismissed. And we can move on with our lives. I thought you did that like a month ago. We filed a standard ground.

Yes, but we haven't yet had the hearing. The hearing is supposed to take place on the 28th of July. But if I'm not ready to go, I am not going to have that hearing. And I have to be ready to go. And we have not been able to get all the witnesses in for depositions.

We have depositions here in Florida. But we get to pull witnesses in and cross examine them and question them about everything. So many of them have lawyers. I have not been able to depose everybody yet. So I'm not going to commit malpractice and do the standard ground motion without fully vetting all of the witnesses.

Some could be very helpful. Can I ask you a little bit of a boring procedural question there? So, you know, because you know, we have speedy trial rules. Right? So is it are those waived or out the window when you file a standard ground motion? No, when you do all that.

When you take a continuance, the minute any side, you know, takes to the lay. When I say any side, when the defense takes a delay of any sort. Like, hi, Judge, we need more time. We'll take a continuance. That waves your right to a speedy trial.

“The only way you get one is if you then demand it by filing it.”

Otherwise, they have all the time in the world. We're not rushing this thing. You're not. Yeah, no, no point because he gets to go where everyone wants and do whatever he wants. And well, I've got that great listen. He's up for the Hall of Fame next year.

The more this shadow is over him. The less likely he is to get people really, you know, when you're facing 30 years with a 20 year Minimum mandatory, we need to get that off of his shoulders. And so we're eager to. Okay.

I'm a proponent of your standard ground law. I like it. I'm a glad you're batting for him going to bat for him. And he's got the best that there is. And one last thing because that card just makes me want to break into that scene from one of my favorite movies.

My cousin Vinnie. Yeah. Marissa Tomago. No, the defense is wrong. That's not a 64 tempest.

I love it. You're so good at that. Oh, I applaud you. I can't get enough. All right, let's talk about dead children.

I think we kind of have to do that. Got to segue into into that.

And it reminds me of a case that we talked about just a few weeks.

Yes. Yes. Pressure.

“Because this is a case where a mother has murdered her three young children.”

This is really hard for for me to discuss. I'm sure it's going to be hard for you to discuss. Well, let's get out the facts. Right. Have been Massachusetts.

Lindsey Clancy. They're picking the jury right now. They're going to be with murdering her three children ages three five and seven months. Yeah.

Very fair. Right. Right. So it's not a who done it. She did it.

She did it. They're arguing that she's not guilty by reason of insanity. She's not criminally responsible for this. Right. And.

What do you think, John? Let's, uh, you want to talk about some of the facts. Yeah. So I want you. Well, you want to think the prosecution side of the defense side.

Well, that's you know what. I would take the prosecution side in this case. Because we don't know. Yeah. Only because I just hate it.

Like I can't. It's really hard for me to wrap my mind around any mother for any reason. So children. So wait. So let's set it up.

There's two prongs. It when you're arguing insanity.

The first part is that she did suffer from a mental defect or disease.

That's number one. And as the prosecutor. Are you conceding that based upon her history, which I know we'll discuss in a moment. And then the second part, or so they general right now. The second part is whether she knew right from wrong.

Are there any facts that you can point to like the person who robes a bank. Maybe absolutely cuckoo for cocoa puffs. But if they put something over the license tag. Oh, well, why would they do that? Because they knew it was wrong.

Why did they wear something covering their face? Because they knew it was wrong.

“What facts can you point to as the prosecutor to say she knew that this was wrong?”

Something. Here's where the prosecution is going to have the easiest part of their job. When they're trying to prove that she knew the difference between right and wrong. They're going to show that day, which is an interesting day when you analyze what she did. Because they're going to bring in people who had conversations or some sort of communication with the defendant.

That day where she seemed perfectly normal. For example, she went to the doctor said, Oh, no problem. She wasn't slurring a word. She seemed perfectly normal. She asked for a mural acts for the kid.

Like, she's just having a normal. Got it. Check. Okay. So number one.

Number two. Here's where the digital evidence I do think helps them for the most part. They're going to prosecutions going to claim that she planned this. And if you're planning, you know the difference between right and wrong. Because she made her husband do something unusual.

And he asked him to go get take out from a from a place that was a little farther from home. They were normally getting out. Flamin. Flamin. That's right.

She went on Google Maps to determine how long this food run was going to take him. Hmm. So that she could commit these murders. And then she was going to kill herself after. And she wanted to make sure she had enough time.

The digital evidence, the phone evidence, is going to clearly support that. I want you to play the role of the prosecutor and now just argue why the suicide is significant. Ladies and gentlemen, Jerry, right? The fact that she wanted to kill herself or attempted to kill herself, by the way, she's quadriplegic. She didn't succeed in killing herself.

She jumped out the window and she expected the ice to be mushy. It was hard and frozen. So now she's in a wheelchair the rest of her life. Add that to the stuff she has to live with. But make the argument as to why the fact that she tried to kill herself favors the prosecution.

All right. So here's the probably the strangest fact of all. The prosecution is going to contend because this is only half. Look, this is not a situation where she had a lover and she needed to get rid of her kids. Like, we've seen that.

“And Susan, if you remember that years ago, this is not that.”

Hmm. This is a case where the prosecution wants to show that she wanted to kill herself. And in order to compel her own self to take her own life.

In order to be committed to that end, she first needed to murder her three children.

Because that is the only way that she would make sure that she did what she set out to do it. You know what that's that's not what I was going for. And that's it. Well, you just made a good argument. I think the argument that they'll probably make, although that's a great one that you just came up with.

I didn't think about that is she wanted to take herself out because she knew what she was going for. Because she knew what she had done was so heinous and wrong and she wanted to avoid prosecution. She wanted to avoid living with what she had just done. As opposed to what we saw on the precious bland case. And some others where the woman is still like cuckoo for cuckoo puffs.

She doesn't why are you guys here? What what's the police here for? What what you know, although in the precious bland case, she did try to kill herself. And the argument's going to be because the voice is the same voices. That voice is too.

So it's going to be just interesting.

“Now can I jump on the defense side since we just heard from you?”

Yeah. So eloquently and brilliantly. Oh, yeah. Okay. So like unlike the Andrea Yates case and some others where they say, let's come up with something after the fact, right?

And say, this is what you're suffering with. There was no evidence like in the Andrea Yates case that like in this case. Psychiatric treatments, hospitalizations, a medical history, changes in the medication. She reported these, these intrusive thoughts, hallucinations, voices. She had treating doctors.

I mean, there's a lawsuit against the hospital for failing to treat her properly. Mm-hmm. When for help, she held out her hand saying, I didn't cause this postpartum psychosis. I need help. And then I think they did the best they could at their level of awareness.

But it wasn't good enough. Well, obviously not she's suing for malpractice. And I think on behalf of the children, there's a wrongful death suit. Also for the way that she was treated.

Now look, I think whatever one she finally does get a jury.

People can relate to the whole postpartum thing. If they have any women on the jury who's ever had children ever had children, they might relate not every woman suffers from it. But I think it's a bigger stretch to ask jurors look. This is what she was suffering from.

She had postpartum depression. She was on medication. They wrongfully called it bipolar disorder. And then it resulted in this because Mark, if I'm prosecuting this case, number one, it's going to be so hard for the jury to sit through this evidence.

But as a prosecutor, I think they almost have to not reenact it.

“But you have to say, to jury, here's how many seconds.”

Count how many seconds it took to to asphyxiate the life of an eight month old child. Jumping out of my seat. And check. And check. And check.

But if you're going to talk, no, if you're going to talk about planning. You're going to talk about knowing. You're right. And wrong. Maybe I don't know.

Why do they have? Maybe I don't object because you know the judge is probably going to let it in. If it goes to planning how each child. And she didn't apparently use the exercise straps like a certain way. She like tied them around with shows extra planning to your point.

Right. But here's the question. Just from I'm just talking to you as human being. Put your lawyer hat down for one second. Just for one second.

Can't do it. Really? You don't do it. I'll try. I'll do it.

Okay. I mean, the ace in the hole before I ask this question to you is the husband. The husband lost his three precious offspring and he is supporting her. He is saying that this woman was not in her right frame of mind. She loved those kids.

She would never do anything like this.

So I asked you, John, you're going to convict her. You think that she's a murderer. You will give her life in prison over this. I'm just asking you and I'm not giving my position away. I'm playing devil's advocate.

I just have a tough time. Maybe with my lawyer hat off. Yes. I have a tough time with these types of cases with the mother killing the children type cases. I had a tough time and Andrea Yates had a tough time with students Smith.

I had a tough time with precious bland. Right.

“If I recall her husband, I think supported her as well.”

Yes. That helps. Yeah. That is true. But do you also think, again, I'm really playing devil's advocate here?

Would a lawyer say to espouse? And I'm gone far field, but work. Go. We like that. Would a lawyer ever say to espouse?

Listen, dude. If you don't support her, they'll come after you. Or not alerting the authority sooner that your wife was back. Shit, crazy. And your children were in danger.

You know that at first, I was like, John, and then I went.

Hmm. I mean, I'm a, maybe not criminally, but child protective services. Well, pretend right. Take those. You know, when a closer examination.

But my god tells me, I don't believe so. I think that this is really pure. And that they were getting the help that she was attempting to help. Or attempting to help that she needed, and they just failed her. Well, it really, it's tough on the medical community too.

Could you imagine we don't want to get to a place because this type of mental illness is prevalent and properly treated. You can have a perfectly normal and wonderful life. We don't want doctors saying, I'm not going to treat you because I don't want to be held accountable if you go off the deep end. And you blame me.

But before we leave this topic, I've got to do this.

“I want you to immediately now take off your prosecutor hat, but your defense lawyer hat on, you can little taste of your closing.”

The best part of it, the highlights, the stuff they're going to show on the news. Go, John, go. This mother loved her children. She loved her children so much so that she sought medical help for what she knew was not right. She knew these feelings she had postpartum were not proper.

She knew these feelings could be harmful.

“So she did the responsible thing and went to the professionals, ladies and gentlemen.”

She didn't go to the herbal aisle at the pigly wiggly and get some Saint John's work. She went to the professionals and the professionals failed her. So if you're going to blame anyone for this type of psychotic break, you cannot blame the mother who was a victim of the farm ecology who was a victim of the medical professionals who failed to properly diagnose, treat and medicate this mother who was crying out for help with every doctor appointment with every doctor visit with every ounce she had in her until that day,

when she could no longer help herself, no one could on this fateful day, ladies and gentlemen, you cannot put this woman in person with a rest of her life. So good. So good. Well, how do I wish I get in trouble in your town? Goodness. I would love to get you just got to walk against the light to get in trouble in my town mark. That is so good. Thank you. That was I really as much as I hated the topic. I loved hearing your analysis. Thank you. That was great. And now we get to talk about Casey Anthony in the next block.

I mean, wow. Wow. I mean, did you discuss that case back in the day where you are? Oh, my gosh. Yeah. So all over. I mean, talk about, yeah, we'll say, but we'll come back from the break and we're going to dive into this 15 year old case feels like it was yesterday. Yes. Oh, very wrong. Stay tuned. We're talking Casey Anthony. We'll be back in just a moment. Welcome back to positively legal almost to the week 15 years ago.

A jury found that Casey Anthony was not guilty of first degree murder aggravated child abuse and aggravated manslaughter in the death of her two year old daughter. Kelly. Now, Mark, we both covered this case extensively back in 2011. I would just seem like yesterday, but it was 15 years ago. Yes.

And now it's time to take a look back before we do. Can I ask you? I've never spoken about this.

Mm-hmm. Were you shocked at the outcome as much as I was? Yes, I was shocked at the outcome. But later on, we're going to discuss why the jurors did what they did and I do want to talk about that and prove beyond a reasonable doubt and what that really means.

“But this case was shocking because if you're just, if you are a casual watcher of this case, I think you'd be astounded by how the jury came to the conclusion that they did because if you remember here, the basic facts, right?”

We have Casey Anthony. She was a young mother. We saw a lot of pictures and heard a lot of testimony about her being like this young. Part of her, she had a two year old beautiful little two year old daughter, Kaylee Anthony. And she did not seem like the most responsible parent beginning with the fact that what we learned there. She is a little Kaylee Anthony. What we learned almost immediately was that this precious child was missing for a month.

Before anybody alerted the authorities that she had gone missing and it was Kaylee Anthony's own grandmother, Casey's mother, who first alerted the authorities that her baby granddaughter was missing.

Let's do so. What is that? Two. The daughter was missing for a month. I just found her today that I can't find my granddaughter. She just admitted to me that she's been trying to find herself.

Wow. The trauma that this grandmother is reliving and try. Because she knows, you can tell on her voice, Mark, she knows that there's something really wrong. This isn't a missing child. Hey, she know when the fact that she mentions to the nine one one operator that she was in her daughter's car found her daughter's car. And it smelled like a dead body in there. This woman knew she just didn't know how she didn't know when she loved.

She knew that she was never going to see her grandbaby again.

But it always seemed that both of them, like worship the ground she walked on, she wore the pants and that family and they were willing to do whatever it took to cover for her, including been not limited to when they found chloroform searches on the computer, you know, grandma took the fall, I'm said, no, I did that, you know.

“There was also a discussion about duct tape, remember the duct tape over Kaylee's mouth, Jeff Ashton, the prosecutor discusses that and saw three in his closing argument, let's listen to that.”

There wasn't one piece of duct tape placed over Kaylee's face, there were three overlapping at angles placed over her face. Why do you need three? What does three do that one does not? You need three because your purpose is not to simply silence the child. Your purpose is to make sure the child cannot breathe. There's just no reason to put duct tape over the face of a child living or dead.

And that ladies and gentlemen is proof beyond a reasonable doubt of how Kaylee died. Says him, "What did you make of the duct tape, Jonah?"

“I remember during the trial, I think one of the defense witnesses had said, well, the duct tape had gotten there because the baby had been out in the elements, I guess, for a while.”

And the duct tape just kind of blew like brambles or whatever in the wind, just blew. And then it just happened to land somewhere on where the child's face once was. I think there were some scultals.

We drew some stuff on there apparently, if I remember correctly, and again, you never know what's real, what's not, but when something drawn maybe a heart or something, am I?

There was some kind of weird weird thing there. And I just thought that that was a ridiculous explanation. And when you take, I mean, there were quite a few ridiculous explanations, not the least of which, if you remember. So this grown woman child that these parents had coddled and you know, covered up for her entire life and enabled or whatever they did. The first person she threw under the bus was her own father.

Oh, sure. And trying to throw people off the trail to say that, oh, no, no, no, no, yeah, no, she's missing, but you know why she's missing because my father drowned her in the pool. Or he accidentally drowned her in the pool, he's trying to cover it up. No, wait, my father molested her and he was so ridden with guilt that he had a drown her in the pool. Like all these third party defenses from her, then attorney Jose Bias, which was not only, I think was just so insulting to that man and, and fortunately, the judge did put the Kabash on being able to go down that road because I don't think it was supported by even a modicum of evidence.

But this, this grown child did that to the parents who enabled her entire life. Speaking of Jose Bias, this launched his career, had lunch with him at some point to discuss this case after. I can share some of those things. Let's go to sought for, let's get a taste of his closing. To find her guilty of any single charge, any single one of them, you have to have an abiding conviction of guilt.

“That's what you have to have inside of you. You have to know that this case was proven. You have to know that these facts were proven.”

And you don't have that. Yeah, part of it was I had really, I don't think that I was that kind of him when I was on air discussing the case. Part of it is because probably this was the, you know, his first biggest case and I could see how insecure he was at times.

And I also, I don't know, I was fairly critical and it was nice to have lunch with him and just talk things through and I mean, he certainly has a tremendous career as a result.

First of all, let me just tell our audience, as criminal defense lawyers, you literally win some and lose some.

And sometimes you win the cases you should have lost and you lose the cases you should have win. You should have won and that sometimes just happens. And we don't love it. Right. We want to win the cases we should win. We want to win the case we should lose.

“He won this case knowing for well, he should have lost because I think either he lasted the experience or he just lacked the finesse to care that the arguments he was making were utterly ridiculous.”

And he hung and when I mean by that is, you know, we have a dead baby. We have duct tape. We have a mother who didn't report her own child missing for 30 days and never her grandmother had a reporter missing. We had every reason in the book, oh, zanny the nanny. We had any who we knew right, who wasn't a real person. We had pictures of her partying while her daughter was missing. We have a dead body smell in the daughter's car. But ladies and gentlemen of the jury, we don't know how Kaylee Anthony died.

We don't know when she died. And for those two reasons, ignore all the circumstances evidence that this mother is the only one or maybe somebody at her behest had this child killed her till the child. Ignore all that because the child wasn't found until she was a skeleton. And because the client doesn't have to testify, you can't prove beyond a reasonable doubt that it was my client who murdered her child or didn't accidentally kill her and then throw her away like garbage.

“John, if that's what he said, that's pretty good stuff coming out of your mouth. It sounds credible. The truth of the matter is the jurors do have to know how she died.”

Because they have to decide, okay, how did the child die? So is it manslaughter? Is it second degree?

They had a manslaughter option. I know, but you don't just go by default and say, look, we have no idea. So we'll just go with manslaughter. You need to know how it happened and these jurors didn't know. Let's remind everybody, though, about how people reacted to the verdict back in 2011. So it's six. A lot of people are not happy. Let's take a look. It's like there's more media than people.

“Yeah, people freaked. I think Nancy Grace is still grabbing her chest, you know.”

Cleaching her pearls. Because the common sense factor mark, this jury lacked the common sense factor and how many times, but you can't count on both hands. How many times have you heard a prosecutor anybody giving closing arguments saying, don't, saying, don't leave your common sense at the door. And that's kind of their way of saying, fill in the blanks. Right. But they, you can't take those leaves. Let's look at the famous, not guilty verdict, sign number five, and that should bring back some memories. Certainly does for me.

As to the charge of first degree murder, verdict as to count one, we the jury, find a defendant not guilty. So say we all did it at Orlando Orange County Florida.

Winning the lottery July 2011 signed fourth person. As to the charge of aggravated child abuse, verdict as to count two, the jury, find a defendant not guilty. So say we all did it at Orlando Orange County Florida. This fifth day of July 2011 signed fourth person. As to the charge of aggravated manslaughter of a child, verdict as to count three, we the jury, find the defendant not guilty. So say we all did it at Orlando Orange County Florida. This fifth day of July 2011. That's the greatest, this is the greatest words you can hear.

As a lawyer, as a defendant, right? I mean, John, that is so heavy. I wonder if she expected it. I wonder if she thought that would happen. She did not expect it. And part of the irony is, if you're a young mother and you didn't have anything to do with your child's untimely death, what do you want to know? Wouldn't you want to know what happened to my kid? Now forget the fact that you, your kid's missing for a month and you don't do shit about it. Let's just suspend that for a second. How do we suspend that? That's enough for me. That's proof, yeah, I'm kidding. But in the court of public opinion, that's proof beyond a reasonable doubt, not a reasonable person.

Thank you so much. And now she apparently, because, and might be premature talk about this, but she's, I think she works as like a some sort of investigator. Yes, you're an investigator. She lives with the lead investigator from her case, and he was also involved in the OJ case. Listen, you've got, you've got an investigator right there. Let's go find out what it really happened.

You just got away with that murder. You're going to have to take it to the grave. You're going to have to take, well, technically, we'll wait a minute. Let's go off on a little tangent. Technically, she doesn't have to take this to the grave.

She was acquitted. She could come out tomorrow and say, guess what? If I did it, you know.

Okay, the sequel. She could do that, couldn't she? Right, right, that life would not be grand for her. I want to hear from the jurors, because some of them spoke, sought seven, juror Jennifer Ford spoke about the lack of hard evidence. Let's hear from her. The original vote for the aggravated manslaughter was 66. Correct. And which side of the six were you? The manslaughter. So originally you thought that she was guilty of manslaughter or it could be guilty. Could be, and I wanted to investigate it further to see if it based on the evidence that we were given.

“So what convinced you and the five others to switch your votes and vote for not guilty? I think everyone will tell you the same thing. It's just lack of hard evidence.”

It's just, like I said, the duct tape and the chloroform and things like that. You could, if you took a hard, a good hard look at it, you could kind of, there was so many, there was a lot of doubts surrounding all of those certain things. So there's not enough to make anything stick. So you don't necessarily think she's innocent, but you just feel that you don't have enough proof to find her guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Right, I, I don't know either way. Like, I mean, it's obviously, it has not been proven that she's innocent, but it certainly has been proven that she's guilty.

You know, to her credit, John, she's doing her job. You know, these jurors who know what the public wants him to do, but in spite of that, all of them, unanimously, 12 independently and collectively did not have the dots connected. They didn't know how it happened. Some of them I heard had tears in their eyes because they're going, can you believe what we're about to do here? They, I don't know that they felt good about it, but they had to follow the law. You don't necessarily have to connect every dot.

If you don't, hundreds of dots, and you connect 85, that's pretty good. But what if it doesn't prove what happened and you still don't know, and they threw out so much stuff. Did the child die somewhere else and the father did something to the child? There were so many theories thrown out there that the jurors just went, well, we just don't know. And this is, and this is how you get away with murder, and I have to ask this, and I don't know if the four person on that jury ever came out and spoke.

I was looking for that, but here's my thing. You go back into the jury room. You take an initial vote. This woman right here said it was six and six, right six of us thought guilty of manslaughter, which was not the murder charge. But so what?

“Right six and six, then you have to wonder, did the four person wrangle, not guilty verdicts at them?”

How did it go after that? Well, I would love it to be a fine-the-wall jury room. We don't know, but let's listen to the alternate for what it's worth. He was there and he listened, right? And these jurors were sequestered by the way.

So, which would turn out to be a good thing because if they weren't, they would have seen the avalanche. I mean, this was the hottest thing. This made careers out of people. Let's look at Sott number eight.

He says two words that I never thought anyone would ever say.

Good mother, Sott eight. Mr. Euclour, good morning.

“You say you agree with this verdict and that you two would have voted to a quit. Why?”

Well, there was a number of reasons. The first of all, there was so much reasonable doubt that prosecution did not present the evidence that showed that Kaylee had been murdered. They didn't show a motive of why, from their own witnesses. This really nice, this really good mother had killed her child.

And then finally they did not show, you know, how Kaylee had died.

What do you think of that? First of all, I think they should give jurors IQ tests before they pick them. No reason. We know many are not bright. Doesn't mean that they're all not bright.

Number or dumb, but some are going. He did hit on the one thing. I think if there were somebody wrangling all those jurors to come to the conclusion they did. The fact that they couldn't prove how the child died. Left open the question that the child could have died accidentally.

And the child could have died. There we go. Even if, you know, could have rolled over. I had a case one time where a parent accidentally rolled over on a child while they slept.

So maybe they, because they could not figure that out.

“But here again, that there are plenty of times I'm trying to think where you don't have the actual cause of death.”

And jurors still come to a guilty verdict. I know what's happened. I just can't think of the top of my head. Right. But in this case, maybe because it was, she was just such a young child.

They thought anything could have happened in there. Very good. Come back with knock guilty. Now, now Casey again, who who opened up recently her own private investigation firm about 40 minutes away from my office here in West Palm. I'm in Fort Loderdale.

She's kind of laid under the radar. She's very low profile. You don't hear much about her. But in March of 2017, she did surface. And there was, she did an audio interview.

I think it's sat nine.

Let's hear what she had to say.

Here, understanding how did she do it? I don't know. You don't know. There's something about drowning possibly. Everyone else has their theories.

I don't know. Give a shit about one. Anybody thinks about me. I'm care about that. I never will.

I'm okay with myself. I sleep pretty good at night. She doesn't know. I mean, she doesn't know. She doesn't seem like she cares, Jonah.

No, she doesn't seem like you care. She doesn't give a shit. What anybody thinks about her. She sleeps well at night. That's not going to win friends and influence people.

You know, if she's going to try to have a career and a life ahead of her. She should be crying big tears. Her daughter is dead. And I know it's been 15 years. And if you believe her, she doesn't know how it happened,

which I think is utter bullshit. But she's just an unlikable person. And she needs to go away. Please don't write a book. Are they making Netflix the better yet?

Because I hope they don't. Did they? No, I don't know. I probably haven't. You know, they probably will.

What did we learn from this case? You know, there's a few things.

I'll start off with, you know, the media didn't always get it right.

You know, they were sure. I mean, every one of us, I mean, certainly I did thought with certainty that this was going to be a guilty verdict. And dead wrong on that. Mm-hmm. You too?

Yeah.

“I think everybody with two brain cells to rub together thought it was going to be a guilty verdict of something.”

But Jose Bias got to the one nerve of that collective jury, whatever that was. Now you're giving him credit. So is it because here's the question. Is it because of his arguments or in spite of his arguments? They found her not guilty.

Wow. That's a really good question. You got to give him credit. I mean, he made the right arguments. He said, you know, you don't know was reasonable doubt.

And apparently, one of the jurors commented that he was the only one who had emotion and felt anything in that trial. Right? I'm surprised to hear that. But that was one of the jurors' perspectives. So he did a fine enough job.

He didn't just wear nice suits. Apparently, he did a nice enough job. And he certainly got the outcome that he was looking for. It was a classic, a classic reasonable doubt argument. And I think the lesson here is when you appeal to, it just has to be one nerve, one cord with a jury.

You're going to win. Or at least get a hung jury. Like these, this jury did exactly the opposite of what anybody else looking in was going to do.

“There's one juror who said, and I quote, I think about this case, at least once every single day.”

He told people magazine in an interview. He said that it wasn't until after he was done being sequestered that he realized that the whole world was watching. They actually then created a bubble. And you wonder if it gets in. And apparently it didn't.

He did not know that the world was watching this case. And he said that he's the one, by the way, he said that Jose Bios was the only one quote in the room who seemed like he cared. So that passion resonated, I teach my law students. You've got to have passion, right? You've got to really care.

And he believed that his client was innocent, whether he really felt it or not. He looked like he did to the jurors anyway. And he said, this is what this juror said. Every time I see her face or hear her name, I get a pit in my stomach. He said, it all comes flooding back.

I think about all those pictures of the babies remains. And they showed us in court. I remember Casey. I remember the smell of the courtroom. Oh, wow.

So he's saying that when they were about to come out with their verdict. He said, we sat there for a few minutes.

We are letting her go free.

He told people magazine this in 2011. We were stunned.

“What we were about to do, he said, one woman juror asked him, are you okay with this?”

And he said, hell no. But what else can we do? We promised to follow the law. He says, my decision haunts me to this day. He said, if I think if I could do it all over again,

I'd push to convince her of one of the lesser charges. Wow, John. That's actually a shame. I feel for that person. And I got to tell you, Mark, if that trial was happening two days. Yeah.

I'm not in 2011, two days. It would be a totally different verdict. Why? Why? Why?

What change?

Because I think what change is that jurors now substitute their own common sense

in lieu of when you have a case that if you when you have a case where you're arguing beyond a reasonable doubt to the letter when you're taking an exact own knife to that concept. I think when it jurors will find a way to override it and go with their gut. I'm going to disagree with you. I'm going to disagree with you.

I'm going to disagree with you. I don't think anything has changed in 15 years.

“I think that jurors still start off or the supposed to start over the presumption of innocence.”

And unless there's hard evidence, which one of the jurors said was missing, they can't know exactly what happened and that's reasonable doubt. And actually a guilty person can walk. I know we have to go to another segment. I just got to challenge you on one thing.

Sure. Our good friend Mark Aragos. Yes. God Peterson. What was Lacy's cause of death?

Don't know it. Do you? jurors don't know it either. Do they? But they convicted him.

So that evidence in that case far to end that was before 2011. We can get into that again, but I think it's different to apples to oranges. But good point. And anytime you can mention, Gary goes, that's a good thing. All right.

So what are we going to talk about in the next block? So people stick around, Jonah?

“Well, we're going to talk about the net.”

Oh, guys. Please do not go anywhere. Because we have a case involving a kitty cat and a bank robbery that you're not going to want to miss. It's also sparked an idea I have for a quote unquote crime that I intend to commit. We're also going to go off the record with one of my favorite segments in the show.

We're going to do both of those things and then be a little gratuitous when we come back. Don't go anywhere. Welcome back to positively legal and it's my favorite segment because we get to go off the record. But before we do, there's a story that was made from my co-host because it involves a cat. Because only one of us in positively legal likes cats.

And it's going to be her. And it involves bank robbery, which she also enjoys. So John, you want to set this up. Yeah, two of your favorites.

All right, first just let me say it's not that I like cats don't get me wrong into.

I have rescued several cats and many of them are still under my roof. So I'm sort of a quintessential crazy cat lady. But here's here's an interesting crime that was committed with a cat. So there's a guy in Maryland. He wanted to rob a bank.

Okay, that's how people do that. What do you do when you want to rob a bank, right? You get a little mask. You get a gun or a fake gun. You get a bag to put all the dough and whatever you do all that. But no, no, no, no, not this guy.

No, no, no, no. He first went to like the local animal shelter. And he cased the joint. He cased the local animal shelter. We don't just rob the animal shelter.

You got a case on sure. No, yeah, you can. Hopefully that's normal, right? And then one thing led to another and he ended up stealing a little kitten. A cute little tuxedo kitten named Magnolia before the bank robbery.

What was a bank robbery? Yes. Why? Why? Because Mark did cause. Come on.

When you want to soften up a bank teller and have a give you all the money in the drawer. What do you do? You walk in. You tell it to hold your cat. Hey, hold my cat.

Would you? And then why was she was holding the cat? That's not a thing. You can't do that. It is now.

Well, she was holding the cat. He wrote a nice letter. Give me a little give me all your money better. And then he slid that over to the bank teller. And while the bank teller was holding little Magnolia,

she ended up having to give him some money. But here's the good news. Oh. Magnolia is safe and was saved. Wait, wait, hold on.

We start with that.

You don't want to start with the bank teller. How is it? Was anybody in that shop? Did you have a heart attack? No, the bank teller is okay.

Okay. Okay. Go ahead. Yeah.

“Little Magnolia was brought back to the shelter.”

And believe it or not. Now, this is something. This is a real cat caper. Little Magnolia is still available for adoption. First, the next bank robbery.

She's going to need a very special family. Right. Because she might have a little cat monk shot. Like those are things that she's going to need a lot of love to get over. So career criminal canine.

She knows how to behave. At bank robbery. Right. So if you're interested in adopting Magnolia, you can send an email to [email protected]. That's B-E-L-T-S-B-I-L-E.

Cats. Dotnet. Little Magnolia needs a good home.

“Well, let's hope she finds a good home after all the trauma that she's been through.”

Oh, that's a good news. For a little accessory after the cat. Can we adopt the bank clerk? Is anybody able to do that? We don't give a crap.

Yeah, all right. Fair enough. All right. Time for closing rants or arguments or whatever we call this segment. Janna, who's going first this week?

I guess I'll go first because interestingly, my rant is kind of on point. Like when we're talking about juries who got it wrong. But I'm not talking about a criminal case. I'm talking about the two civil cases that were filed by one. E-Jean Carroll against one Donald J. Trump.

Now, last month while the Supreme Court was doling out decisions, it refused to hear the appeal by team Trump regarding the second case filed by Carroll,

which resulted in a $5 million award for which Donald Trump wrote a check last week with interest.

I'll get to that more in a minute. Let's talk about how one woman was able to win over $88 million between two absurd cases, alleging facts for which there was no actual proof. On account of the event at the heart of them both occurred when most of us were still wearing leg warmers and getting perms.

Case one filed in November 2019. New York State Court later moved to federal court. Carroll sued Trump because Trump denied Carroll's claim that Trump sexually assaulted her in a dressing room circa 1990 something. Even she could not recall the date only the decade.

Basically Trump called her a liar. That's the whole case. It's at frozen for years fighting over presidential immunity. We didn't go to trial until 2024 and Tata, the jury spit out an $83 million verdict because Trump exercised his right to deny what he claimed was bullshit.

Case number two filed the literal day the New York's adult survivor act took effect November 2022. That law opened a one year window letting people sue over sexual assault claims that would otherwise be time-barred no matter how old.

When that door opened, Carroll walked through it, adding the sexual battery claim she'd never

been allowed to bring before plus a fresh defamation claim over the new denial. This one went to trial first in 2023. That's the $5 million verdict. You keeping up? Okay.

Here's the part that gets buried. These claims were born from an alleged dressing room encounter almost 30 years old. No physical evidence. No contemporaneous police report. She never went to the police at all.

What the jury had was her word and two of her best these words. The court wrongfully allowed, in my opinion, prior bad act evidence of Trump talking smack with Billy Bush about brushing counters with women. And that's about it. That's the case.

And notably, the jury itself didn't find rape under New York's legal definition. So you take this true, she said he said case. Not the kind we see in cases of consensual sex. No, no. Donald Trump flat out denied ever knowing her.

And yet a group of nine people handed Carroll five million bucks anyway.

“How does this happen where these jurors playing dumb or dangerously defiant?”

Here's my theory. I'm pointing it anti nullification. During nullification is when a jury ignores overwhelming evidence of guilt because they want a defendant to walk despite the law. We illegal analysts are worried we might see jury nullification in the case against the Ouija

bluttered killer has a literal fan club.

“In this pair of absurd, e.g. in Carroll cases, we're watching jury nullification”

birth a bastard child. A jury that lets its contempt for the defendant inflated verdict passed anything the fact support. Some jurors think their job isn't a way facts. It's to hand out justice as they personally define it.

And here's the kicker. Appeals courts can't fix that. They don't re-way the facts. They check whether the law was followed. So a jury with a grudge and a courtroom full of technically correct procedure can produce a verdict

as real as the federal kangaroo's apparently running rampant in both of these civil courts. Denying abhorrent accusations is not defamation. On the other hand, calling someone a rapist when he's not a rapist is. And I don't think this evidence proved otherwise. These jury's punished a man it had already decided to hate.

Here's hoping the appellate process does trump write the second time around. And that's my ramp.

Nicely done as always, John.

Thank you very much. Thank you, sir. And now I'm going to round. Okay.

“I couldn't believe this when I heard about it this week.”

You got Taylor Farms who provides lettuce to Taco Bell. The FDA came out and announced it was the lettuce that caused the explosive diarrhea. Don't eat the lettuce. Don't go to taco smells. The lettuce will get you.

So we reacted Taylor Farms lost millions. Taco Bell is probably still reeling from this. And it all stemmed from a test that the FDA performed on the lettuce. And it revealed Taylor Farms was responsible. And then they came out with a foopsie.

Our test was wrong. It created a false positive. So accept our apology if they even gave one. And it wasn't that. So now we don't know what causes the explosive diarrhea.

It may or may not be Taco Bell. It's not the Taylor Farms lettuce. And go on your way, folks. I say no. I don't accept your apology, FDA.

You've done this too many times before. In 2008, there was an epidemic. Salmonella, not just the guy went to high school with. Salmonella outbreak. And they said don't eat the tomatoes.

Stay away from the tomatoes.

The industry lost between 150 and 250 million worse.

They took these healthy delicious tomatoes. And they destroyed them because the FDA said don't eat tomatoes. Then once again, oopsie, it wasn't the tomatoes. It was the peppers. The Mexican jalapeno peppers.

Carry on with the tomatoes. Sorry, this won't happen again. If I had more time, I'd give you more examples of this happening. So then you think, okay, no harm, no foul. Taylor Farms, Taco Smells, they're going to now sue the government. They should.

They screwed up again. How much are they going to get? Nothing. Sovereign immunity. They're going to get nothing.

So what I want is names. I can handle the truth. I want to know who's responsible. Tell us. I'd like to know why we're using a test that gives false positives.

Which gives us no confidence in our government and what the FDA has to say. The last time there was a false positive, it was when I was representing someone who said, "Sure, police, you can test my, you can do my car and test whatever you find and they found some caffeine powder that he uses on the construction site.

Just to get them boosted up so we can work 12 to 14 hours. They false tested it positive for cocaine. They charge them as a drug trafficker. Enough with the government using these false tests. We need to do better.

Take away sovereign immunity. So somebody pays the next time a company gets held out to be the bad guy. Let us do better. Thank you.

Sorry for anything. I did. I did. I did. It came to me, Johnna.

It just came to me. I don't have this written down today. It just came to me. It might be the best pun ever. God bless you.

All right, listen.

“Wait, before we go, what are you grateful for, Johnna?”

What are you grateful for today?

What are we positive about today?

We have two things.

“I am grateful for that off the cuff pun.”

Because that genuinely made me laugh. I'm also grateful that you and I got to be together on Newsmax yesterday. And it was a surprise to me. It was nice to see you. I feel like we're partners now.

We're legal partners.

We're like legal partners.

Really? I feel like LA law. I feel the same way. I really enjoyed this past hour. It was.

“It was a treat to spend time with you and hear your thoughts.”

I'm extremely grateful.

I'm also always grateful for my wife of 25 years.

My death. And my precious offspring. Some who are with us for the summer. I'm really grateful for that. I'm grateful for the last breath of air that I took.

Because it's not guaranteed. The next one is never guaranteed. I'm always so grateful.

“And most of all, I'm glad that we get to do this, Johnna.”

This is really cool. I thank the producers. I thank Megan for giving us this show. And I'm just very grateful today. So thank you.

Thank you. And today. So let's wrap this up. Thank you to you, Johnna. I'm grateful for you.

And we'd love for you to give some feedback. We do read all the comments. I don't want to, but I don't want to, Johnna. I read the comments. I like to know what you guys think.

Let us know what you think. So we can do better. We can do things that you want us to do. And we hope you all choose to have a wonderful week. See you next week.