MAJOR Tyler Robinson Trial Transparency Ruling, “Satanic Panic” Wrongful Conviction, and Neglect in Notorious Jail, with Rachel Kaufman

I'm Dave Aaron Burr, former state attorney for Palm Beach County, aka the Florida Lawman, and current manager partner Dave Aaron Berglaw. I'm joined today by my co-host Phil Holloway, criminal defense lawyer, former prosecutor, and police officer, hello Phil from Atlanta, GA.

Great to be with you as always, Dave.

Yes, sir, well, let's cover what we have on the DACA today. Cameras will be allowed in the courtroom, thankfully, for the Tyler Robinson trial. They heard you fill, bowed and clear. We'll discuss the details. And of course, down in Florida, Dave, and your neck of the woods, a jury has found four men guilty of first degree pre-meditated murder of the rapper known as Julio Fulio in 2024.

We'll share what's next for their sentencing. And later, we joined by lawyer Rachel Kaufman to discuss a case of severe medical neglect at the Fulton County jail. But first, the latest on the Tyler Robinson case on Friday, judge,

graph denied the defense's motion to keep Cameras out of the courtroom. Check out salt one.

The court before the court is defendant's motion to exclude still photographers, TV cameras and microphones from the courtroom. Defendant C-Scond border categorically prohibiting any electronic media coverage during the pendency of this case. Because defendant has not shown that a categorical ban on electronic media coverage for all proceedings, in this case is allowed by Utah law. Defendant's motion is respectfully denied.

“I'm glad for that ruling. But I've got a problem with it. You want to know what my problem is?”

The lawyers who are looking down and not listening to the judge? Well, that's part of it. Because look, Zoom Court etiquette is absolutely atrocious. Not just there, but I think in my experience sort of universally. But now look, the judge said his ruling was based on the idea that the defense has not proven that the law in the state of Utah allows it. He said nothing about the first amendment. He said nothing about open courts being

just a great idea and a close court being a terrible idea universally. He said that because you haven't shown me that the law in this state allows it. I'm going to deny it. Have I just

just deny their motion because cameras should always be allowed in courtrooms 99.9% of the time.

That's my problem with the ruling. It's not really grounded in the right reasoning. But I'm glad we have it. These have got to the right place. And I hear you fill. You and I are on the same page on this one because we believe the more transparency, the better because especially in this case where you have so many crazy conspiracy theories that it's important for the public

“to see what's going on. And I think the judge made the right decision. But as you say, maybe he could”

have gone further in his explanation. I mean, to this day, we have a criminal justice system that has so much secrecy and grandjuries or secret investigations are kept secret. And then in federal court, there are no cameras at the courtroom. I mean, really? Why? And then in some states like New York, no cameras in the courtroom. But here in Utah, they do allow cameras in the courtroom. But the defense doesn't want you to see it. And thankfully, they ruled against the defense's motion.

And of course, as we're going to see a little bit later in just a few minutes anyway, we have situations where we still have people that are wrongfully convicted because of shenanigans that the justice system brings to bear all people's lives. And so we've got to have open courts. We've got to have transparency like you say sunshine day is the best disinfectant. Absolutely my friend.

“And so do you think this has an impact on the trial? I mean, I don't think so. I think it's not going”

to affect whether Tyler Omnison is found guilty or not guilty. I think it's going to be found guilty because the evidence is overwhelming. But at least we can all see what Charlie Kirk didn't have a say so. And whether his murder was going to be televised or happening in front of cameras and TV cameras and still cameras and reporters and everything else. And so we we own this program and other true crime outlets as well. I mean, we cover trials all the time. We are able to

watch courtroom activity without it prejudishing juries. We this is why this show exists is so that we can talk about what happens in courtrooms. And so the idea that it's just you know, it can't you can't get a fair trial with cameras. I think is just facially devoid of any coherent rationale. Right. Right. Hey, you know what's a profession though that's still going strong after all these years. Sketch artists, courtroom, sketch artists. I mean, it seems like they work for an

But I don't have that artistic talent. Kudos to them. But how is that still a thing that you

“have a corner room, sketch artists? We have cameras now. We got iPhones just hold it up. But no,”

we're still back in the 19th century. Well, it's because of federal courts. That's where we always

see the sketches is out of federal courts because, you know, the federal courts are still in the Ice Age, so to speak, in this regard, because it's just like universal. At least within the states, there's some flexibility. I can see situations like, okay, don't show this witness in face. Like in the trial where, you know, we have undercover officers, right? We've seen this here on this program. Cory Richens, undercover officer, the cameras showed his face, since I can see a situation

where maybe you don't want to show witness his face or you don't want to show the jurors faces or their names. But just, you know, all we really need to see is what's going on on the witness stand and maybe some of the lawyers. We don't even need to see the defendant necessarily. So we can do this without jeopardizing anybody's right to a fair trial. Yeah, that's very fair. By the way,

“give me back the sketch artist. Here's my question. Now, how did they remember the actual scene?”

Because, you know, it takes like a while to do the sketch. But the characters keep moving around. The witness moves off the stand, the lawyers are walking around. What did this is based in their mind? I guess that's how you have someone like member during Trump's trial. They made him look like Robert Redford. I mean, I guess it's in the mind of the draft. I'm actually, I'm actually met one and I've seen one work before and they actually do like a really quick sort of rough sketch sort of

in the moment. And that's, you know, what they're able to use to refresh their memory. Interesting. Because it's not like they could base it on a photograph because that's not allowed. I mean, you can't even even have cell phones in some of these courtroom's.

Well, basically, we do have some good video and stuff out of out of your neck of the woods down

there in Florida. We got the Julio Fulio case going on down there. We have some people in the transition out of the way, too. That was a good segue. Well, done, sir. Well, we got a Georgia has to talk about Florida. And a little bit later on, you get to talk about what's happening in my neck of the woods in Atlanta. But we got Julio Fulio, right? There was a pretty vicious brutal murder that was, you know, captured on video, a crazy shootout that we've talked about here on the show.

“And we've got video of that. But now we have some individuals who are found guilty, right?”

We've got Isaiah Chance was found guilty. This is on Friday, by the way, May the 8th. The jury deliberated eight hours and found Rashad Murphy, David on Murphy, Sean Gayth, right?

And Isaiah Chance, guilty of first the Green Murder and conspiracy to commit murder in the

2024 shooting death of Charles Jones, the rapper, also known as Julio Fulio. So, too, is the Julio Fulio guilty verdict with respect to Isaiah Chance. State of Florida versus Isaiah Germaine Chance, case number 24 CF 11996A, trial division 134. We, the jury finds as follows as to count one victim Charles Jones, the defendant is guilty of first the Re-Murder as charged. Did the State of Florida prove beyond a reasonable doubt that

the defendant was a member or an associate of a criminal gang doing the condition of the office? Yes. Did the State prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant committed the crime for the purpose of benefiting, promoting or furthering the interests of a criminal gang? Yes. We did jury finds as follows as to count two victim Charles Jones, the defendant is guilty of conspiracy to commit first the Green Murder as charged. Did the State prove beyond a reasonable

doubt that the defendant was a member or an associate of a criminal gang during the commission of the office? Yes. Did the State prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant committed the crime for the purpose of benefiting, promoting or furthering the interests of a criminal gang? Yes. So, say we all dated this eighth day of May. So, Dave, so, Gay Thright and the Murphy's were all convicted of actually using firearms in the murder. Isaiah Chance was not. I also have a question

about the Gay Thright attempted murder verdict that we can talk about in a minute. But I'm under Florida law, correct me if I'm wrong, Dave. I mean, it should be the same as it is in most states where if you're part of any criminal act, even if you are just sort of participating along with other people, are you not guilty just the same as the principles? In other words, like an accessory or a party to the crime, why would there not be a guilty verdict across

the board? Well, the getaway driver is just as guilty as the one who holds up the bank. So,

everything and others were, I don't know. I wasn't there in the courtroom, but I do know that

“we have video of the Sean Gay Thright attempted murder verdict, you referred to it. Let's see,”

stop three. We, the jury finds as follows as the count three, victim Xavier Edwards, the defendant is guilty of attempted secondary murder, a lesser included offense. During the commission of the offense, did the defendant personally carry this claim, used, threatened to use or attempted to use a fire on? Yes. During the commission of the offense, did the defendant actually possess a fire on? Yes. During the commission of the offense,

did the defendant actually discharge a fire on? Yes. So, this is a strange one to me, Dave, and for those who may not know, you heard the, I guess, the clerk or the four person who ever was reading that verdict was the same as the four person. Okay, so they're saying that this is a lesser included.

So, anytime you've got a crime, in this case, it's murder, murders always are comprised of

other things that lead up to it. Typically, some kind of an assault, an aggravated assault, but, you know, a criminal attempt to commit a crime is, I recall law school 101, but when you have an attempt that is successful, the attempted crime sort of goes away at evaporation to thin air, how can there be a lesser included when someone actually was murdered? I, well, I can only speak from my own experience. So, we actually had a attempted murder and a manslaughter case in

one of our cases. Let me just explain to this one. So, we had a case of a police officer who shot and killed a motorist and it was murder in our eyes, and we went to the jury, and we charged the manslaughter, and also with the attempted murder, and you can be found guilty with both the attempted murder was 25 years of life, because if you have multiple shots, that way you don't have to identify which shot it was, that killed him. You can't, because if it's a justified shoot,

like, or if it's a shoot that is not up to premeditated killing, you don't have to just, you don't have to say, which shot was it that led to his death? A attempted murder is for all the shots, maybe one that was that, that hit him, one that didn't hit him, you don't have to show, who shot what? It's just like, if you shot, and as an attempted murder, that's it, you can go down for it, and that would cover multiple defendants. So, you don't have to prove who is it that

actually killed him, who is it that fire the gun, or you just have to show, you all fire the gun, and you all tried to kill him. It's, it's kind of smells or seems like it might be some kind of compromise as to, Sean Gaffer. I have a question for you Dave, since you're the Florida law man, and the expert on Florida law, which I am not, but I think I know the answer to this question, under Florida law, if you're convicted only of attempted murder, are you eligible to receive the

death penalty? No, no. What about the rest of them though, the rest of the life? Well, you can, you can get, you can get life for a attempted murder by this far as murder itself. That would get you the death penalty. So, your question is, why are they all over the death penalty?

“You have to be convicted of murder. Well, for the ones that are convicted of murder,”

they could potentially be facing the death penalty, they're eligible. Yeah. It is first

remurder, only first remurder. It's a capital crime in Florida. Now, in Florida, it's also very easy compared to other states. Not easy overall, but easy compared to other states to get the death penalty because you only ate out of 12 jurors in the penalty phase. It does not have to be an anonymous in Florida. And Alabama, I have the lowest burden of the Florida. I believe it's lower than even Alabama. Where ate out of 12 jurors, there's an issue with that. That's a new law that was

passed after the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas massacre. Where that mass murder would kill 17 innocence was able to escape the death penalty because 3 out of 12 jurors said, no, we're not going to execute this 19 year old with the oversized glasses in the soft sweater. So, they changed the law to make an 8 out of 12, which could face Supreme Court scrutiny one day with a Supreme Court says that's cruel on usual punishment that violates the 8th Amendment. And so you got to be

careful here when you do laws like that. I'm going to get to something like that in my closing statement.

“I think it's a good point. I can't wait to hear you're closing it a little bit later on in the program,”

but to put this in context for this to get to the US Supreme Court, for example, you've got to go

which, as you mentioned, is more, let's just say, flexible than many states, which might require

“a unanimous verdict on something like that. And those statutes, by the way, have been tested.”

Florida's has not. So, you've got to go through the state appeals process. We call that the direct appeal. And assuming that death penalty would be upheld under Florida law and on direct appeal, then you start what's called the collateral appeal or the federal habeas types of appeal, and that starts out in a trial court, then you got the court of appeals, and then the US Supreme Court, if they were to take it. So, before Florida's new statutory scheme can be tested,

what do you figure, probably 20, 25 years or maybe more? Do you think it's that long? Well, I know that people sit on death row that long, waiting on all their appeals to take place, maybe not in Florida, but let's suffice it to say, it's going to be many, many years before this issue could reach the US Supreme Court. That, that may be true, but, you know, this is the type of thing that would affect the whole country, and I think that the spring could

want to take this up, because there all it takes is one person who just takes all of this

“Supreme Court and challenges it, but at that, but you have to have someone who has an eight to four”

verdict. There was that social path in Fort Myers and Wade Wilson, and he was given the death penalty 10 to nine to three, and he'll take it up, but I think the best case is someone who actually gets eight to four. So that may be the delay, where you wait for someone who actually gets a death penalty by an eight to four, which I think would be tossed by the Supreme Court, not 10 to two, because there are other states would tend to two. By the way, getting back to your previous question, you're also

asking about the you have attempted murder and murder, but I believe also in this case, you had others who were wounded, and so it's attempted murder for others who were wounded and survived, but murder for the ones who were killed, Julio Fulio, but my example is also how you can still charge someone with manslaughter who died and attempted murder at the same time,

“and you can get a conviction for both. So you saw in the videos that we played, and from”

by the way, those of you who are listening on podcast or serious sex, and check out our video version of this show on YouTube, because you can see in the courtroom, you can see all the different defendants sitting there. They brought in, it looks like extra tables, and they're all sitting there with their different defense teams, but there's only one jury, right? And so our producer Michelle poses an interesting question. That question being who benefits most from four

defendants being tried together, and when they may have separate defenses, and obviously separate defense teams, defense lawyers, who benefits from that Dave? You, as when you're a prosecutor, would you benefit from that? Yes. You benefit as the defense? No, no, you can't have a softball question for me. Yeah, thank you. I like that question because, oh, you got to put them all in one

stew instead of first off the workload of having to do four separate trials. That's bad enough,

but when you're in a separate trial, you get to point the finger at each other. They all didn't, but when they're sitting there next to each other, a play got all your houses. The jury gets a pretty much attribute one conduct to the other because of all looks like they were acting in synchronicity. Well, having participated as in the defense, at least one murder trial that I can think of, I'll stop, I had that more than one defendant, and then one it, by the way. In fact,

actually, and I had one together that we won, too, but you're opposing not only the prosecutor, but you're opposing your other defense counsel, who are represented the other defendant, because they may be trying to blame it on your guy, right? Or your gal as the case may be. So it's really, if it's swimming upstream to defend any case, because you're going up against the

power of the state and all that, but so you're always swimming upstream, but when you're also fighting

your your colleagues who are representing other defendants, it really makes it extra hard. Yeah, it's much easier to blame the person who's not in the room, whose lawyer is also not in the room, because when they're in the room, they fight back. Time for some life talk. You probably have life insurance, but you might be paying too much for too little coverage. And did you know, if you get it through your employer and you're laid off, you could lose your coverage,

scary to think about, but simple to fix things to select quote. For over 40 years, the quote has been one of the most trusted insurance brokers helping more than two million Americans secure over $700 billion in coverage. Unlike one size fits all life insurance companies, select quotes licensed agents work for you for free. In as little as 15 minutes, they will

Head to select quote.com and a licensed agent will find the right policy for you.

Get the right life insurance for you for less and save more than 50% at select quote.com/magan save more than 50% on term life insurance at select quote.com/magan today to get started. When I talk about the awesome power of the state day, we've got this case and we can transition to Kentucky, we're out of Florida now and on to Kentucky. We have a guy named Jeffrey Clark, who was convicted wrongfully of a murder back in 1992. It was owner about April 1st of 1992,

and he was convicted of this murder. And look, the victims remains were found in a field 50 miles away from her home, she'd been stabbed multiple times, investigators said she had defensive wounds. And the night that the victim disappeared in that case, Dave, she had been hanging out with friends. And there was somebody was even issuing threats against her, but Dave, we had these other two

“guys that were convicted. How did this possibly happen?”

I mean, this is the greatest fear of a prosecutor is that you get it wrong. And then you incarcerate the wrong person because I know some people believe the prosecutors just want to conviction every case. Now we want to do justice. And I know I still speak like I'm currently a prosecutor, but when you can make the wrong person, not only is that in justice, but then there's a real killer out there that walks free and not like OG Simpson find the real killer. We're talking

about a real killer out there that did this and gets a walk free. So how did it happen? It was a

blunder. In fact, let's first hear from Jeff Clarke himself. Now, this is not the Jeff Clarke

who was indicted for the election conspiracy stuff. This is the accused and convicted murder or Jeff Clarke who got free. In fact, we have a sought from 2016 WLKY. Let's let's play that. I understand what it feels like to have you like taking from it for nothing. You know, like I said, it's not over with yet. Jeff Clarke and Keith Hardin are out on bond tonight, waiting to hear if their case will be retried. Clarke and Hardin were charged in the 1992 murder

of 19-year-old Ronda Warford. They were convicted of the crime three years later and have been behind bars ever since. Earlier this summer, a meat county judge threw out the men's murder convictions saying new DNA evidence created doubt in the case today that same judge issued an order setting a $5,000 cash bond for the two men. You just don't know if this ever will happen.

Well, you know, hey, DNA has been a game changer. You've got hair, you've got blood. I mean,

that's the key. And you know, you could say that back in the day when this happened DNA wasn't quite where it is now. Just true. But it's just cold comfort for Clarke and his codependent hardened who spent 22 years in prison before their victims were vacated.

“You know, and here's the thing. I'm going to talk more about this kind of junk science in my”

closing, but in the original trial, a so-called expert testified that a hair found on the victim's sweatpants matched heartens in color and in certain microscopic characteristics. But for reasons that I'll talk more about that, I think is as junk science because in 2014, a Pennsylvania lab analyzed the hair and determined that the hair did not belong to either of the victims. And of course, this is another piece of this particular case that really troubles me investigators Dave.

They found a bloodstained handkerchief and a broken chalice in heart and foam. The investigators, I guess, speculated because they literally out of out of whole cloth created this sort of narrative. They said the blood was from an animal sacrifice and the heart and used the chalice to drink the blood of the sacrifices he made to Satan. But in 2014, the same Pennsylvania lab that looked at the hair, they tested the blood on the handkerchief and they found that it belonged to hardened.

Just as hard and had testified to it, trial and not an animal. And before I get too much on my high horse, this, I think, represents the phenomenon that, you know, everybody knows that defendants are presumed to be innocent and the state must prove their guilt beyond a reasonable doubt before

“you can convict them. But as a practical matter, the truth is when jurors, before they're even”

selected as trial jurors, when they're just going through the jury selection process, they come into a courtroom, they look at the defendant. And most of the time, they wonder to

they asked themselves, I wonder what he did or she did. So as a practical matter, they assume

there's guilt, right? And so when a defendant sometimes testifies, a lot of times they're having to go up against this actual bias that's built in. Yeah, and when they hear that the defendant is praying to Satan and drinking animal blood, yeah, you're done. I mean, that's pretty much it. I mean, that's all they have to hear. And here, it looks like it wasn't even true. And the head an investigator who also, like said all these things that was contradicted. So one of the

investigator was acting in bad faith or was it just wrong. So the other thing was it apparently you had Clark had this tattoo, a witness said, of an inverted cross, which is a symbol of Satanism. And again, this plays to the jury. Like, whoever this guy is, I want him to be locked up

forever. And it turns out that the tattoo never existed. And so here's my question you feel.

How come the defense lawyer didn't raise that? Like, there is no tattoo exam in the body.

“You can see there's no tattoo. How did that even get to a jury?”

Well, there's a lot of things here that, you know, quite frankly, it's a head scratcher as to how some of this got to a jury, because the lead investigator in the case got in a Mark handy was actually sued. But before he was also prosecuted Dave for the surgery, yeah, and a trial that took place before this one. And it was convicted of surgery. And of course, he was sued civilly. And this whole, basically false theory that this was a

satanic ritual killing. Like I said, it was literally like made up out of thin air by this detective. And the whole thing is like a snowball, it kept developing size and momentum. And by the time it came to trial, it was just like the system was steam roll in these guys. Yeah, so what's going to happen civilly building? I have to pay out big money for this. I mean, there is a cost when you wrongfully incarcerate someone, you can pick someone,

especially when the investigator goes down for perjury in another case, and then all this other stuff comes out about the investigator. Someone's going to be paying out. And like 24.3 million dollars and compensary damages, this is what the jury ruled in favor of Jeffrey Clark awarded him $24.3 million in compensatory damages. And 75,000 in punitive damages to me, that punitive damages award

“seems a bit low. But nevertheless, that's what it was. And Clark said, quote, I finally feel like”

I'm able to wake up from a 34 year nightmare. He's thankful to beyond thankful to the non jurors who

saw what I've been through, he says. And so yeah, that's the answer is who pays? I mean, it's,

you know, the taxpayers pay, you know, because this was like, this looks like, you know, misconduct that was sort of baked into the cake from the very beginning by law enforcement here. Yeah, I think the reason why the punies were low, 75,000 was because the jury gave everything you want for compensatory, $24.3 million and probably just said, okay, we're doing justice that way. But we're going to issue some punitive damages just to show

that we are angry right now that this should not have happened. And it should not have felt.

“Well, here's, did you hear, I mean, there's more to it. It's not just the investigator, right?”

The local sheriff and the coroner were accused of conspiring to manipulate Ronda's date of death to fall on the date when neither of these guys had alabas because they apparently they did have a pretty good alabas for April 3rd through the fifth. The original death certificate they've showed that the coroner originally stated the date of death was likely April 4th and 5th. That fit the timeline of when they had an alabas. But then guess what, it was changed to April 1st

by using white out. White out. Yeah, changed it to April 1st. Well, I, I mean, they brought a jailhouse niche in there who said, I guess, wrongfully that Clark had confessed to the murder twice. And so it was just, you know, you had jailhouse niches, you had changed dates of death on the death certificates, you had bogus theories about satanic rituals and you had junk science and it was just this whole big giant mess that resulted in a terrible injustice. Well, since Clark and Hardin were

exonerated. Now, Ronda's case has been reopened, although no new suspects have been named hopefully. They'll do some justice for her family. And next, Georgia attorney Rachel Koffen will

Everybody's talking about weight loss injections because the results are so dramatic. Yeah,

but those needles, right? I mean, these things they work by lowering blood sugar and reducing appetite. So what if you're looking to lose weight, but not interested in painful, weekly injections,

“especially when you hear some of those intense side effects? That's why doctors create a weight”

loss supplement called lean and the results are remarkable. The studied ingredients in lean have been shown to lower your blood sugar burn fat by converting it into energy and curb your appetite and cravings. So you're not as hungry. Sounds good to me. But listen, the lean is not for the

casual dieter with only a few pounds to lose. The doctors at Brick House Nutrition created lean

for frustrated dieters with 10 more pounds to lose even better. Let's get you started with 20 percent off and free rush shipping so you can add lean to your healthy diet and exercise plan. Visit TakeLeen.com and enter MK for your discount. That's promo code MK at TakeLeen.com. Welcome back to the MK True Crime Show. I'm Phil Holloway along with my co-host Dave Erimberg.

“In this next segment, we've got a very special guest. We want to welcome to the program”

Fulton County Atlanta attorney Rachel Kaufman who's a colleague and a personal friend of mine and Rachel is here to discuss of course we have Fulton County. What else is there to discuss in

Atlanta because Fulton County is the legal gift that never stops giving when it comes to programs

like this when you want to talk about the justice system or anything related there too. And of course Rachel is one of the handful of lawyers that I would say is one of the true Fulton County justice warriors along with our colleague and co-host here Ashley Merchant. Rachel, welcome to the program. We've got this problem. It's a never-ending problem with the Fulton County justice system. Particularly today, we're going to talk about the Fulton County

Jail because we have a recent case. We'll start with the most recent, I guess, outrageous case involving former inmates now named Ruth Rashad Muhamid. Rachel, he spent 188 days in the Fulton County Jail starting in August of 2025. But it really, that's misleading because it wasn't all in the Fulton County Jail 177 out of 188 days that Rashad Muhamid was in Jail. He spent in Grady Memorial Hospital, which is a great hospital. If you're seriously ill or injured here in Atlanta

and he was seriously ill because guess what? Rachel, Fulton County Jail ignored this man's medical treatment so bad. He was desperate crying out for 11 days when he went into septic shock as a result of an untreated condition. He had a bladder illness and he required antibiotics to treat that because he had a catheter and Rachel, he almost died and before we bring you into the conversation, let's go ahead and run sought five, which is Rashad Muhamid describing the emotional fallout due to

medical neglect after he had multiple amputations of both legs and some fingers. I'm not okay every day is a battle. It's a struggle and me, me and Mr. Crump had to go back and forth about me even coming here today because it's so traumatizing just when I walked in there and I smelted the smell of this place is disgusting. It turns me off. I can't believe what happened to me here. It's really unbelievable and I'm processing it all as I go. So please bear with me and just think

about me and what I'm going through to the hurts in hurts daily and I need help. I need a lot of help for the rest of my life and I don't want to stop away from that. I hear all the other conversation but I suffer in this place. I asked him for something simple like my medicine. I told him from the moment I got arrested. I need my antibiotics. It's not about being a custody. If I did seven months in my antibiotic I would have did it with my chest up and my chin out. But I didn't have my antibody.

So it was either my life or I died because I don't have my medicine in here.

“Make sure he was coma post in the hospital. What is going on in the Fulton County jail?”

Well, I'm sorry to even I can't believe I'm right now. It's so hard to hear that because there people have been dying and been injured like this now for I don't know almost six

somebody with a simple bladder infection can't get his antibiotics and the result like it's

“foreseeable that he would that he would die or be permanently injured. I hear from tons of clients”

and people that I volunteer with who've spent time as inmates in the Fulton County jail just how traumatizing it is. And these are people who are not used to talking about trauma about their emotions and they smell the place. They think about the place. They see a picture of it. And it's like a visceral reaction because their lives were literally threatened. I mean, they were threatened every single day that they were in there. And I'm not saying that inmates should

be kept, you know, at the four seasons, but they do have constitutional rights and they're just being blatantly violated over and over again. Dave, I want to bring you this too because look,

we have a back in 2024, the Biden Department of Justice basically did a thorough investigation

“into the Fulton County jail found that the conditions there were just completely intolerable”

to the point where it was, you know, violative of the inmates' constitutional rights more or less across the board, just based on the conditions of confinement. Dave, you know, what are people supposed to do when their, their county jail, so to speak, the, the, the handles like all of the inmates are all the courts is so poorly run that literally they can't take care of peoples or they just choose not to or negligently don't take care of people's healthcare needs, just basic

stuff, Dave. You've got to go to court for it. There's not a big constituency for the incarcerated,

the folks here, I'm sure Mr. Muhammad had committed some serious crimes. It does not justify

torturing them. That's violation of the 8th Amendment to the Constitution. And they're entitled to do process, they're entitled to be treated like human being and you go to court and ask a judge. The judges, generally, are less political and they're not going to be like politicians who will stand up there and say, good, let's make it even worse because that's not what the criminal justice system's supposed to be about. Yes, it's supposed to be out of retribution, but also

there's an Elma rehabilitation and we are not like other countries where you torture people to death. And so you go to court rather than rely on the politicians who are facing the voters in the next election. Rachel, let me jump in. I do not know that he has committed serious crimes, but he because he's in the Fulton County jail. He's been arrested and he's currently being held without bond and that tells me very little in Fulton County. People get lost in the, they lose

“people, right? So that's what's really, you know, there's not a difference in the constitutional”

right to medical care between jails and prisons. They still, you still maintain that right, but jails are not meant to be holding people for the length of time that Fulton County inmates are on average spending in comparison to, you know, the same crime in other jurisdictions that are comparable. So they're spending a lot of time in a place that's meant to hold people pending either a plea or a trial trial in which they could be found not guilty. So these people haven't

even had their day in court, many of them. And they're getting lost. Yeah, go ahead. No good. Well, it's a fair point that he's in jail, so it's pretrial. He's not been convicted and that's that makes it even worse. He was a respirator, a serious crime, it was after a shooting and he was a respirator, a salt and gun possession. So the, the obviously thought he did something a very serious, but fair point that he's not in prison. He's in jail, which means this is a pre-trial.

He wasn't convicted. So let's, let's go ahead and I've got one more video of Mr. Muhammad before we get into a really, you know, argue, well, I guess it is a more atrocious case than his where someone died. And of course, Rachel has been involved in some litigation involving a death due to medical negligence in Fulton County. Before we get into those, though, here is Muhammad describing his hospital confinement because there's stuff here that we can talk about.

Everybody tell him, I can't believe they're doing this to you. Why is this happening? Even the sheriff's, all the sheriff that sat on me for those, 188 days that they said I was in hospital care, I was chained to a bed. I was in there with a sheriff from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. with a sheriff. From month, I was medically cleared by Grady. I could have went home since November.

For this long, the mental torture and torment. Every minute feels like an hour.

Just being in jail, y'all know what's talking about. Not being in confinement by yourself. I couldn't call my family. I couldn't, they couldn't come visit me. There was no right in the letters. I couldn't talk to his earnings. Grady detention is different than being in here. You totally cut off from the world because they say it's not a secure environment. Rachel, we don't know what Fulton County's response would be. But as our producer, Michelle

asks, does it violate someone's rights to be so isolated while in the hospital that they, they can't talk to their, even their attorneys?

“Arguably not being able to have contacts with your attorneys is a violation. I believe”

of your constitutional right, but I don't. The problem is is that the law civil rights law

with, like when you're suing a government entity, it's just been set up to really find any way to kind of get around holding the individuals and the, like the organizations that are responsible accountable. What I can say is really just really quick is that part of the problem in Fulton County that I've experienced that I know that other people have experienced is the facility itself is not conducive to any attorney meeting with their client. And I think that there's

bigger issues that something that I brought to the attention of the U.S. Department of Justice about access to a client. Sometimes the elevators are down in their main building, which is 901, Rice Street. And so attorneys either gets, I know attorneys who've been stuck on the elevator for several hours. I know other people who, you know, wait on the floor, trying to get access to their client. So, you know, you go up to the floor that the client's on, but you don't have

any access through a plexiglass. Even in the Fulton County jail itself, you could wait there for two hours and nobody comes and helps you. There's a buzzer for your supposed to be able to call the floor. And nobody comes and helps you. If you go down to try to ask somebody at the front desk about it, you might get stuck in the elevator, so you're risking that every time it's an attorney going into that jail. So, but I, but grade is attention center. I mean, not, not having

“access to a phone is a real problem. One of the things that the DOJ has brought up. I believe”

they talked a lot about how they've misused within the jail. I'm like solitary confinement for as punishment, especially for mentally ill people. But they're, yeah, they are cutting off people's contact to the outside, which is particularly dangerous, given that we know that they're not able to get what they need in there. I mean, that's not a tough thing to get somebody, but I ought to mention that they'll be that difficult. Speaking of what they need. So, they're a private medical

provider, which is common. This is how most jail's worked. They don't have medical staff that are employees. This stuff's usually contracted out. A private medical contract, contractor was responsible for Muhammad's medical care. The company is called NAF care. They're standing by their staff's treatment of Muhammad. They say, quote, "We are saddened by what Mr. Muhammad experienced. We have conducted a clinical review of the care provided and stand behind the

“treatment delivered by our team." That this involved a medically complex patient. And we believe”

our staff acted appropriately and did everything within their power to provide care and support

under difficult circumstances. Now, look, this is Dave. This is not the first time. And it would

seem that the Fulton County jail is a repeat offender, so to speak, because Dave, we have situation in Fulton County back a few years ago when a man, by the name of Lasham Thompson, literally died. And this is a little bit, I hate to be so graphic, but there's really no other way to describe this, but he literally died because he was eaten by bed bugs. The family of a 35-year-old man who died in custody is speaking out against the Fulton County jail, claiming he was eaten alive

by bed bugs while behind bars. He was lucky every day personally like the lab, play, watch TV, he loved music. Rod McRace says after not speaking with his brother, Lasham Thompson for a while, he found out last year he'd been arrested in Atlanta in June, and in September, died in the Fulton County jail. That's got phone call that your burger was smart and responsive. But what made matters even worse was when he found out he had died in the psychiatric

wing, covered in source and bites from bed bugs. The Fulton County M.E. lists his cause of death as undetermined, but his family claims an infection from the bites led to his death. The pictures of Thompson's dead body covered in bites are graphic, and the pictures of his cell show the filthy conditions. Getting the loss was unbearable, something nobody should see those type of pictures. They put that man in that cell, left him there to die. So, we were talking

charge, and he was housed in the psychiatric wing. Like I said, if you're listening on podcast

“or on series XM, you need to come to our YouTube channel and check this out because the images”

there are just unbelievable. Rachel correct me if I'm wrong, this was also NorthCare who is responsible for health care at the time. That's my understanding, and I think that what I've learned through my litigation with the county is there's a relationship with their private medical provider, and it's very common for large counties to have outside contracts with medical providers, and NorthCare is one of the only ones that that actually does it. Part of, I think what seems to

be the issue, is this the lack of communication, a lack of coordination between the county itself,

that provides the budget for the sheriff and for the facilities, and then there's the sheriff's

office, and then there's the medical provider. But part of the issue is that the building is truly like not, it's not able to serve the needs of the people that are in it. So that's been this kind of big debate, is what are we going to do about like all these, and really quick,

“Lashon Thompson was in the mental health wing, part of what I think is a horrible problem in the”

jail is that there's so many severely mentally ill people who are being held in general population, because the psychiatric unit or whatever they called it is incredibly small. And so I don't know if there's just an inadequate staffing, if it's the overcrowding that causes the medical providers to not be able to get to all the patients, but everybody knows that there is a huge problem. And instead of like pointing fingers, I'm just like we all have to

come up with a solution now, because people are losing limbs, and they're dying being eaten by bed bugs awaiting their day in court. It's just, it's third world stuff. They did you ever think we would be talking about anybody dying from being eaten alive by insects in a jail, and there's nothing even being done about it? I've heard some horror stories fill, and so I can't say them totally surprise by these disgusting stories, but the county commission, and this is near you, they did vote

back in April to borrow up to $1.3 billion dollars for jail improvements. So let's post

“to include a special purpose facility and renovations of the existing main jail. So what's going on?”

It's happening. So someone's doing something bad. It's just long delayed and long overdue.

Exactly. I'm not better late than never, as they say. Thank God. But in the meantime, the people

that are still in that jail until that other jail is built, we have to do something to make sure that they're getting basic care. Again, I'm not saying that they need to get a white robe and change their sheets every day. It's not supposed to be a pleasure cruise, but they can't be like losing limbs because they can't get access to their medication. They can't be held in solitary confinement as severely mentally ill people, and nobody in the jail realizes that they're

severely mentally ill, because there's no room to put them in the place that they should be, which, yes, thank God that it's happening, but in the meantime, these issues are going to continue to arise unless something urgently is done. The DOJ is supposed to be, there's supposed to be a monitor over the whole thing, and I was actually at the South annex, which is another one of their jail facilities last week, and the DOJ was there. I don't know if that was the monitor,

or what they were looking at, but there seems to be some sort of oversight, even then these things are happening. I mean, this guy is... Speaking of the DOJ, in their report, I'm looking at page 61, and this is a verbatim, quote, directly from the DOJ's report. They say, quote, "the conditions at the jail, including high levels of violence, poor supervision, poor management, and an inadequately maintained facility, unreasonably impede incarcerated people with serious medical

and mental health needs from accessing necessary care. Jail officials are aware of the inadequate medical and mental health care in the jail, but have failed to take reasonable measures to improve care." So the DOJ has cited them as being aware of this racial, and they, I guess, have not done anything. Yeah, and I guess I think to someone who, to those listeners who are thinking, well, like they're in jail, like who really cares. I hear you. I do, I really do, because I think

I understand that in the eyes of many of you people that are in jail, you know, belong there, and whatever happens to them, there is sort of their own fault. I just urge you to consider that sometimes, once in a while, and if it was somebody in your family, you would be,

where like they're in that jail, and you cannot get them to help that they need. And there's a reason for what, you know, an explanation for what they're doing, even if even if you have access to an attorney, the system moves so slow that it isn't going to necessarily get you out faster than you can get your antibiotics. It's just there are people in there who don't deserve that level of depravity. And you can imagine that the justice department, you know, they're not

investigating every jail in the United States. And so this is like a particularly horrific place. And

as someone who has never been on the other side of the wall, maybe I should be for things that I've

done, but I haven't, you know, I've never been arrested, but I have spent hours and hours and hours in that jail on the other side, unable to, you know, access my clients or see, you know, I wish I could, could see what was happening because if I saw somebody being eaten alive by bed bugs, I would do something about it. We can't even bring our cellphones in there, let alone go to the floor. So I don't have, I can't, you know, nobody can really see what's going on behind the wall,

“and as well. Maybe that's why they don't want you to have your cellphones in there. But have you ever”

have them lose one of your clients, Rachel, because I've heard of many situations where people anecdotally tell me that's going on down there. Yeah, you know, there's problems that it's funny until it's not, but it's like, you know, they'll, you'll have somebody who's just really not doing their job in booking. So people get booked in and then there's it's both to like pop up where they are and then someone's supposed to input where they, I think, where they are being housed and they just

don't do it or don't do it fast enough and people get people definitely get lost. And now that Fulton County inmates are being housed in several different buildings and facilities, some were even being outsourced to other counties. That makes it even harder for them to keep track of where they go. And so again, from talk to bottom, it's just an absolute chaotic mess. Rachel, before we get to some video and sound, we've got of the Fulton County sheriff Pat LaBat

talking about some, I guess, some claimed remedial efforts. You have a case and I know you can't give us maybe everything because of certain maybe aspects of that litigation, but you have a case pending involving a jail death and medical care. Is that right? I do. So I had a client It's been so many years. It's crazy. He was my client in 2019. He was a juvenile who was accused of a murder. He had, you know, a lot of mental health issues that were known since birth.

Long story short is they he was deemed incompetent by a psychiatrist sent away to some facility so that they could try him as an adult and restore him to competency. And he received the care that he needed there, like the kind of mental health care that he needed to keep himself safe. And then when he turned 17, we began litigation of his competency and after two trials,

he was ultimately found competent. And so they put him in the Fulton County jail and he ended up

in general population and lost 65 pounds. Stop taking his medication. Nobody was, I mean, he was neglected and I would are and just abused by having been put in an area of the jail that he just really wasn't able to, you know, mentally be there and he had been sent to, you know, solitary confinement

“for upwards of I think 45 days the night that we believe he hung himself in his cell. But then again,”

there's, you know, videotape that's missing and it's just unclear what actually happened to him. But he was not, it was not safe for him to be in general population. They knew it. Everyone should have known it. There was nowhere for him to go because really what, clearly what they do in the psychiatric, you know, unit is a problem too. He would have been eaten alive by bedbugs

there. So he was just basically being tortured and it was during COVID and there's some issues

with the medical care that I really can't talk about. At this point, however, you can look up Shane Kendall and there's some information online if you'd like to know a little bit more about him. Our fight is continuing against Fulton County for inadequate funding of the jail because I, you know, when you're actually looking at the root cause of what's going on, I mean, you can have the best doctors in the world. But if they're practicing, you know, in an unsanitary,

“words are probably can't say here. As whole, I think, you know, we can say shit, I think that.”

Okay, shit. Oh, yeah. It's an unsanitary shiggle. I'm pretty sure that they're not going to be able to successfully do their job. And so there's gotta be conversations between the medical providers and Fulton County. Everyone's blaming each other. Everyone's wanting, yeah, I saw there's, you know, asking Sheriff Lebotto withdraw. The problem with, I don't say that's the problem with the relationship

for adequately funding the jail and the sheriff, you know, in the sheriff's office and their operation of the jail. But they don't really have that much control over when they provide that money to the sheriff, how he spends it. And there seems to be some conflict between certain commissioners and Pat Lebotto Sheriff Lebotto about the ways in which he's spending his money, which can also be, if you look that up, that's kind of interesting because I know there was like an ankle monitor,

“or some risk monitor company, they know that he, I think he paid his wife for some stuff with”

money. So there's the weird stuff going on there. And so there may be some valid concerns from the commissioners that they, that they, that they don't like how he's using their funding. They nonetheless have to provide adequate funding. And they, and arguably, the fact that they're

providing a billion dollars, or they're, they approved the provision of that amount of money to build a new

jail, they've been denying, you know, his request for money in, like, the, you know, 10 millions for several years. So if that's not inadequately funding, I don't know what is. Thank you. I got a question for you because you were the elected prosecutor in Palm Beach for quite some time. And so if you put that, that's why you're so scary. That's why you're so scary, Dave. Oh, my god. I was just wise. It was serious. I know. I didn't know you were a prosecutor. Okay. Okay.

- I'll say, Bob. - I'll say Bob. - I'll say Bob. - I'll say Bob. - David is not a responsibility for the elected prosecutor

when you got this kind of pattern that's clearly emerging here. Is there a responsibility by the elected prosecutor to say, "Hey, is this rise to the level of crime "in my jurisdiction in a battleway?" We were talking about Fulton District Attorney

finally Willis, of course, and, but, be that as it may

regardless of who is the person in that office,

is there not a responsibility for the elected DA to try to figure out what's going on under that roof so to speak. - You could in panel a grand jury to investigate those issues.

“That's what you should do once you have evidence”

that there are some real problems, like in Mr. Muhammad's case. So that is a real option. Otherwise, the state attorneys or district attorneys, whatever you want to call them,

they get the cases bedded from law enforcement. So it comes from law enforcement and law enforcement is in charge of the jail. And so that's where you need to panel your own grand jury. - Well, day, we've got one more sought here.

We've got Sheriff, Pat, look back here. - It's a little more thing. - Sure. - I don't need a grand jury. I don't need a grand jury.

Just talk to some defense attorneys. And I could tell you that if law enforcement gets together with the prosecutor and the Sheriff's Office and the county, who doesn't want to pay that much money and they all agree that like maybe

we could like trim the fat off of the amount of people that we arrest and put in this jail, given that it's overcrowded and can't handle it. I don't think that they may miss some revenue. But then people won't die in the county.

- We've got the DOJ. - Obviously there's DOJ that's continuing to look at this. We've got the Georgia Bureau of Investigation looking at it. We've now got the Fulton County Commissioners.

I guess they're tired of litigating these things. You're having to flip the bill for it. So they, you know, they're asked to do it. - I've got the governor camp to look into it. And we've got, well, we've got some people

that have compared this to the conditions down it. Getmo and Guantanamo Bay. Here's Saate, which is Sheriff LeBat in his response to that comparison. - I was speaking to a criminal defense attorney

who compares Fulton County's jail to getmo. And here's why he says that comparison. He says there are people in Guantanamo Bay, who have been waiting years for their trial.

Some of them have never been charged.

There are similar comparisons to some of your detainees.

“When you hear that comparison, what goes to your mind?”

- Well, it's unfortunate. So unfortunate, the county has been in this posture for years on here. Long before I was elected, long before Madame D.A. was elected.

And so we are on the side of trying to figure out how to get it done correctly. And so for us to continue creating and it made advocates a unit, so that not just the detainee can advocate for themselves,

but so we can advocate for those individuals. And it has yield some very good results. - Rachel, have you ever seen any results from this advocacy unit, I guess, that he's talking about? - He probably should cite some examples,

because I actually think that that's, I mean, in the interim, that's not the worst idea in the world, at least people feel like they can get heard through that. I just wonder if, that's a fun thing that they're doing now, but in three months will someone actually respond

when they have something to say? I like to think that Pat Lebot means, I mean, he's a nice person every time I've met him, but it's just not a problem to continue to be passed around.

And I don't know if an inmate committee

is gonna really stop that, so. - Well, after Mr. Thompson, died of the bedbug in festation,

“there were a couple of more deaths in the psychiatric unit”

in the weeks, immediately following that, both were murdered by their cellmate. So there's lots of ways and people continue to die and be killed, and you can chalk some of that up to, you know, jails are just kind of inherently a dangerous place,

but the Fulton County Jail seems to stand out. - Dave, anything you wanna say before we go to our break on this? - No, I wanna thank you, Rachel. I thought you were a great guest, and I hope you have you back, especially,

you can see what an easy-going prosecutor that I am, even though I'm not even a prosecutor. - That's it, Rachel, thanks so much for joining us and for everybody else stay tuned because we're up with our closing arguments

and our mailbag, stay tuned. - Okay, let's talk about an uncomfortable reality. What happens financially to our loved ones once we pass away? We put all thinking about it,

“but the best thing we can do for our family”

is to ensure they're not left with the financial burdens of a mortgage, tuition, medical bills, all of it. Fortunately taking steps to financially protect your family is way, way easier nowadays than it used to be,

and that's where ethos comes in. ethos makes getting life insurance fast and easy, and it's something you can do 100% online. You can get a quote in seconds, apply in minutes and even get same-day coverage.

There's no medical exam, all you need to do is just answer a few simple health questions,

and you can get up to $3 million in coverage.

You'll get the lowest rate from their network of trusted carriers with some policies as low as $30 a month. It's no wonder why ethos has a 4.8 out of five stars on trust pilot with over 4,000 reviews.

Take 10 minutes to get covered today with life insurance through ethos. Get your free quote at ethos.com/mk. That's ethos.com/mk.

“Application Times may vary, rates may vary.”

(whooshing) Welcome back to the MK True Crime Show. It's now time for our closing statements. How about Phil Hawley, why don't you go first? Dave, I'm happy to do that,

and I appreciate everybody listening and watching today. Look, we talked earlier in the show about, you know, wrongful convictions and ex-orderations and sort of that's, that got me thinking about something

that's always bothered me, and I've talked about it

before on this show, it's junk science. And in this particular case, we have another type of it for decades, prosecutors have presented microscopic hair comparisons as powerful evidence. Things that really makes an impact with a jury.

Basically an expert would look at a crime scene hair under a microscope and tell the jury that it matched the defendant or that it could have come only from that person or it's consistent with that person. And this is the type of stuff

that jury's really soak it up, but this folks, this is not science. And this is subjective pattern matching with no reliable statistical foundation. And unlike DNA, there is no proof that hair characteristics

are unique to one individual. Different examiners, for example, will regularly disagree on the same hair sample. The FBI has admitted this problem in a review of the FBI's cases.

They found erroneous testimony and get this 96% of the trials where hair evidence was used to implicate defendants. This is pseudo science. And it's contributed to over 130 documented wrongful convictions, including death sentences.

innocent people have lost decades of their lives because of it. The National Academy of Science has condemned these techniques for lacking scientific validity and standardized protocols.

DNA testing from hair is reliable when done properly but old-fashioned microscopic hair analysis simply is not. It has no business in a courtroom in my view because that square lives in liberty are on the line. Despite this though, some courts in the US still admit

this junk science allowing so-called experts to refer to hair evidence as consistent with that of a defendant. Even if they can't say it came directly from them, they can say it's consistent with that defendant. This approach runs a foul of federal rule of evidence 403

that any evidence is in admissible

“when the probative value, that's the weight of the evidence”

that points towards guilt when the probative value of such evidence is outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice. And I would submit that any wrongful conviction or wrongful prosecution even counts as unfair.

So it's time to finally put it into the use of this

and quite frankly, all junk science from our justice system before more lives are ruined as a result. That's it, Dave, that's my rant for today. - Hey, made some good points there, Phil, even from a former prosecutor, well said.

And here's my closing statement. In Virginia, we're seeing an aggressive push

“to classify pen though, not as a controlled substance,”

but as a weapon of terrorism. Now, I spent years in the front lines

of the opioid epidemic, I was one of the first to investigate

Purdue farmer for their drug oxycontin. And I served as drugs R for the Florida Attorney General. I even wrote a book called Fighting the Florida Shuffle on sale at a bookstore near you and on Amazon. And that involved fighting against fraud and abuse

in the drug treatment industry. Now, I understand the impulse from legislators to try to meet the scale this tragedy by giving prosecutors the biggest hammer in the toolbox. They want to recognize that fentanyl is a threat

to our national stability, correct?

Even the federal government has doubled down on this, recently, designating fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction and labelling the cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. But as a prosecutor or former prosecutor, here's the problem. A good idea in the press release

can be a disaster in the courtroom. Usually to prove terrorism, you have to prove a specific intent to intimidate a population or coerc, a government. Drug dealers are many things, monsters, predators, killers.

But they are motivated by profits, not politics. And we saw this exact prosecutor, reached failed recently in New York with Luigi Manjoni. When prosecutors try to slap a terrorism tag on the alleged killer, but a judge dismissed the terrorism charge.

Virginia solution is to rewrite the definition of terrorism under Virginia law. They've declared that simply possessing the drug as an act of terrorism itself. Regardless of your motive, it bypasses the need

to prove a political objective entirely. What could possibly go wrong? But when we stretched a statute to fit a crime that it wasn't designed for, we risked the integrity of the entire system.

If a street-level dealer is legally the same as a guy plotting to blow up a bridge, then the word terrorism loses its meaning. We don't need creative labeling to put these people away for life. We have drug laws for that.

Let's punish these dealers for the poison they peddle. But let's not break the legal system just to get a tougher headline. Because if everything is terrorism, eventually, nothing is.

And that's my closing statement. Bill, it's been great to be on with you today. I want to thank you, and I want to thank our guest Rachel.

“And I think we want to thank the audience for being here.”

Have a great week.