Mark Geragos on Scott Peterson, Kim Potter, Alec Baldwin, and the State of CNN | Ep. 218
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 30 minutes
Words per Minute
182.20358
Summary
Mark Garagos has defended some of the most famous and infamous cases over the past few decades, including several cases making big headlines right now and even today. Here are just a few of his most famous clients: Michael Jackson, actress Winona Ryder, actor Jussie Smollett, Colin Kaepernick, and Scott Peterson. Mark Garagos is a trial lawyer and managing partner of Garagos and Garagos, and co-host of the podcast, Reasonable doubt.
Transcript
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Beat, beat, beatboxing actually has hidden health benefits.
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It can help strengthen and protect your voice from injury.
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Your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.
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Thrilled, thrilled about what we're doing today.
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My guest today for the full show is someone I have long admired, Mark Garagos.
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He's one of the most fascinating, accomplished, legit lawyers, trial lawyers in the country.
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He has defended some of the biggest names in the most famous and infamous cases over the past few decades,
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including several cases, several making big headlines right now and even today.
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Here are just a few of his most famous clients.
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Michael Jackson, actress Winona Ryder, actor Jussie Smollett, oh yes, Colin Kaepernick, and Scott Peterson.
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Do you know that there's news in the Scott Peterson case?
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This is one of the first cases I covered when I was at Fox News.
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I was much closer to being a lawyer than I was to being a journalist at that point in time.
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And so I love this case because it had all the elements and the whole country was riveted by it.
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Scott Peterson was convicted of killing his wife and their unborn child back in 2004.
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Well, he was in court yesterday being resentenced.
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Well, he received a new sentence for those 2004 murders.
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But Peterson might be getting a new trial as well.
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So it's not just that his sentence has been effectively reduced.
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And Mark Garagos believes to this day that Scott Peterson is innocent.
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And new testimonies underway right now in the trial of Minnesota police officer Kim Potter,
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who's on trial for having shot Daunte Wright with a gun, which she believed was a taser.
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Mark Garagos is a trial lawyer and managing partner of Garagos and Garagos,
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and co-host of the podcast Reasonable Doubt with Adam Carolla.
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I remember you covering the Peterson case and thought you had a bright future.
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And see, I could prognosticate things then and now.
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I would have been so honored if I had known that at the time.
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And you're such a skilled trial attorney, such confidence.
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And you're at the peak of all these massive cases, a lot of pressure.
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Kimberly Goufoyle was just starting out, then married to the mayor.
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And Nancy Grace just kind of blown up, so to speak.
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And Court TV was really in its heyday at that point.
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I will tell you, I'll tell you, though, that I was thinking about a lot of those things
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yesterday because, as you just mentioned, Scott was just resentenced.
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And, by the way, I think that's a little bit of kabuki theater because the same judge
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who has this, and you had mentioned that the California Supreme Court had reversed the death
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penalty unanimously, by the way, because we had complained in real time the judge was using
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the absolute wrong standard for excusing jurors.
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If somebody didn't have a kind of a preference for the death penalty or not, he was just
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excusing anybody who was against the death penalty, which is not the standard.
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Yeah, he should have followed up and said, but can you still be fair?
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Which, by the way, was the law, and it was clear, it was U.S. Supreme Court precedent.
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And the California Supreme Court, not only the poor judge DeLucchi is now dead, but not
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only reversed it, but kind of excoriated the prosecution.
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You know, this was basically a year-long proceeding, and what a waste of time.
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My position has been, well, if you get kind of pro-death penalty jurors, you're getting
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pro-law enforcement jurors, and that should have tainted the guilt phase as well.
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What they did, instead of going that far, what they did is they issued, right after the
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reversal, an OSC, Order to Show Cause, saying to the trial judge, look, there's this woman
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who was a juror, Strawberry Shortcake is the way she was dubbed by the media.
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And just to jump in, hold on, Mark, because I just want to make sure that our audience is
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He got a new trial instead of a death sentence because the judge shouldn't have been disqualifying
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So that's why he got a different sentence on Wednesday.
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Well, what he got was he got a different sentence, exactly.
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He wants a redo on the guilt or innocence phase based on something else involving jurors.
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Yes, but it's a different issue, and it revolves around this, as you say, Strawberry
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And so what they've done is they had a, they issued the Supreme Court issue in order to
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So now there's, they're back in the trial court.
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The same judge who resentenced him to life yesterday has now set a hearing for next year.
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Um, and the kind of an interesting twist that hasn't been reported on, she filed a declaration
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denying that she had lied or denying that she hadn't been truthful, but now she's got
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a new lawyer and she's invoking the fifth amendment.
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Oh, and so, wait, wait, wait, wait, so again, let's set it up because you people are not
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Um, so this juror, the alleged misconduct is when you guys were going through, because
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I mean, I guess we should remind people that again, you were his trial lawyer.
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So when you were voidering the jurors and figuring out who you guys wanted on the jury, you and
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the prosecution had to agree, um, that this woman filled out a form and did not disclose
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that she had been the victim of domestic abuse while pregnant, which of course was the situation
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Might have given, might have given us pause, right?
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And as a defense lawyer, you can either bounce somebody for cause saying there's no way this
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person can be fair, or you can use your perimptory challenges saying, I don't have to tell you
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Um, you don't, you weren't given that opportunity cause you didn't know, you didn't know that
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And so I'll, I'll bounce it back to you on what, so now she's pleading the fifth.
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She filed a declaration, presumably at the behest of the prosecution, because it was
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Now she's, now she's asking for immunity, which is shocking to me, which if you read
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between the lines, the prosecutor got her to say something, presumably that she no longer
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thinks is true or didn't think was true at the time.
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If they don't give her immunity, uh, then as you know, they'll strike the declaration and
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Scott's got a better than even chance of getting a new trial.
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Because she, she, like, as I understood it, it's his defense counsel saying we came to
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understand that she had this thing and she didn't disclose it.
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Therefore we're entitled to a new trial because he's entitled to, you know, a jury that doesn't
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Why was she submitting an affidavit or a declaration?
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Because they were trying to say, uh, the, the appellate lawyers were saying for Scott
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that the, um, she had, uh, not disclosed this, that she knew that it was relevant.
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Uh, one of the reasons that this was a hot issue, I had caught two other jurors who had
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lied, prospective jurors who had lied about their background and having domestic violence,
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I mean, we're going back 17 years back then they had chat rooms and somebody had faxed me
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a chat room, uh, conversation that one of these prospective jurors had where she had was bragging
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that she fooled the dumb shit defense lawyer, me, um, and was going to get on this jury and
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And I confronted her with that after I got that, I was a little ticked at my PI for not
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finding it, but that was the kind of stuff we were dealing with.
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That's where we coined the term stealth jurors, jurors who wanted to get on a jury for, you
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know, some other agenda other than to do justice.
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So what, so now this court is, uh, I guess February 20th, I think is what the February
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25th, the hearing on whether he should get a new trial on guilt or innocence will begin.
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I know what you want, but what do you think the odds are?
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Cause I've read a lot of articles on it now and, and half of them say legal analysts say
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And then half of them say legal analysts say he has a very good chance of getting it.
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So, uh, the California Supreme court, as I indicated, had unanimously referred this back
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It's an awful heavy lift for a trial court judge in a case like this.
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Remember at the time you, you probably have a, uh, a pretty good memory of it.
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I mean, this was the most hated man in America.
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As soon as Amber Fry came on the scene, that was all she wrote in terms of the kind of pre
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trial prejudice and animosity and animus towards Scott.
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So it's, I hate to be a cynic, but it is a heavy lift.
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However, if strawberry shortcake does not get it, get immunity and will not testify, um,
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that declaration of hers gets struck and they're left with no evidence to rebut they being the
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And so the, presumably the, he would get a reversal.
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Now, if I, if you're asking me to prognosticate, I'm always more confident that that would happen
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in federal courts and state court, but we'll see.
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It let's go back through it because his sister, Scott's sister, Janie has been a tireless sister-in-law
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I watched a 48 hours piece not long ago that got into it in depth with her and, um, she
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It's not just like the prosecution didn't meet its burden that he is innocent of this crime.
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And the theory is, and just to remind the viewers, um, what happened was it was December.
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And I'll let you tell him, Mark, what was the, the theory of the prosecution was what
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happened to the prosecution was that he had, at least in the opening statements, they had
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taken the position that he killed her on the 23rd, that he transported her in the back of
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a boat up to the bay that he dumped her on the 24th and then came home and had made conflicting
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statements, golfing or fishing, blah, blah, blah.
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Um, during the trial and by closings, we had, I thought demonstrably proved that she was alive
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And the way we had done that is they had a forensic, uh, computer expert who was on the
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stand and during cross-examination, I got him to admit that it appeared that the activity
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on the morning of the 24th was consistent with the websites that Lacey would go to that
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she had logged in and had all the signatures of Lacey.
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So, and we had shown in the hamper that the clothes that were there would have been the
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dirty clothes that she had won on the 20, uh, worn on the 23rd.
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The prosecutor, Rick DeStasso, who's now a judge, by the way, um, got up in closing rebuttal
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We don't know where, but the fact is his alibi was in the Bay.
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That's where she was found four or so months later.
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So therefore, uh, you, you must convict a couple of the jurors in real time back then
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said, but for her being found in the Bay, um, they never would have convicted.
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Um, I always thought, and I publicly, before I took the case said, you know, there's guys
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in state prison on a lot less evidence that the body washes up in the same location, um,
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But the, the problem was it was a four month hiatus.
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And so that kind of takes away, if you will, the, uh, the causal connection.
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And number two, that area where the Bay was searched repeatedly by four or five different
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agencies and they found nothing until after this huge storm.
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And that's when they found, um, Lacey's body and Connor's, um, body as well.
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Because Lacey was eight months pregnant with their, their son, Connor.
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And the theory of the prosecution was that he killed her because he was having an affair
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with Amber Fry and he didn't want a child and he didn't want to be with Lacey anymore.
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Um, you know, the very beautiful blonde who, you know, she, it was the Gloria all red moment,
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Um, and that was the bombshell because when Lacey was missing, the whole country was saying,
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Is this beautiful eight month pregnant woman, adoring mother, Sharon Rocha, you used to see
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It's like, oh, they seem like this all American couple.
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What happened to Lacey and Connor, the unborn baby.
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And then things turned when Amber Fry came forward.
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Amber had been told by Scott, and this is one of the things that led people to hate him
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She only met Scott Peterson on 1120, November 20.
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This will be my first Christmas without her, which of course, you know, the prosecution
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Um, and then Sharon turned on him, uh, Lacey's family turned on him.
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And then you tell me, Mark, because I know you don't like it when your clients give interviews
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I listened to you for years and I know you you'll dump a client for that.
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Um, but he sat down with Diane Sawyer and spewed a bunch of nonsense that we all knew
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We actually pulled a clip because I wanted to ask you about how you, the lawyer thought
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But here he is 17 plus years ago, talking to Diane Sawyer on, on GMA.
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It was not, um, a positive, obviously, it's, uh, you know, inappropriate, um, but it was
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not something that we weren't, um, dealing with.
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No, no, no, um, I, I, you know, I can't say that.
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Um, that even, you know, she was okay with the idea, but, uh, it wasn't anything that
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The Diane Sawyer confused face speaks for us all.
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Well, the, I used to say during this case that, um, the, uh, the absolute worst demographic
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for Scott and for me was professional white women.
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I have never seen, I could go to the gym in the morning during this trial and there would
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be, because there were no cameras in the courtroom, which by the way, was probably my biggest mistake
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because, um, things were being reported from New York and there were all these urban myths
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and I could explain or disabuse somebody about any of the pieces of evidence, but ultimately
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And then it would always default to, yeah, well, I had an ex-boyfriend just like him and
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And you can't, you know, there's a, there's a visceral quality to that where you just can't
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And this interview, I mean, you've captured my sentiment exactly.
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I tell people, funny, I, I suppose we may talk about Alec Baldwin, um, the, the idea that
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somehow you need to go out and do an interview and you need to curate your image, so to speak,
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when you're in the eye of the storm is, I can't think of worst advice consistently.
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The only guy who ever did it with any success ultimately was Robert Blake.
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Um, and, um, uh, other than that, I can't give you an example where it worked out well
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for somebody to go do an interview while they're pre-charging or while the prosecutor's making
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No, I mean, he, I, I would say it's so obvious that he's lying.
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He did not tell Lacey about his affair and there, there was no tension because she didn't know
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And then the other thing he did, you know, apart from, I believe, murdering his wife and
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Um, but the other thing he did was he, while he was at Lacey's vigil, you know, they're
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Because their body didn't come up as, as you say, until April, uh, at the Marina, he's
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She went to the cops when she realized the guy she was dating was the guy married to this
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So to her credit, she went to the cops and said, I think I'm dating this man.
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They had her do 29 hours worth of tapes with him.
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And one of them, I will never forget is she's talking to him.
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Well, I, you know what I, the, the counter to that is, and what I look, I'm with you.
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The first time I heard it, I said, how are we ever going to get over this?
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But then in talking with him, he said, look, I understood that the minute Amber surfaced,
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that the minute she came out, all bets were off.
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I had to keep her on ice, hoping that we would find Lacey.
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And I, I, you know, I've often said, people say, well, how can you, you're drinking the
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Kool-Aid, you're inside, you know, you're psychotic.
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Look, I've represented over the almost 40 years, probably, I don't know, 500 homicide
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But I, I know when somebody's good for something, I know when they're capable of it.
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I know when somebody's a sociopath, I know when they're, I mean, I can just read it just
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And that's just my spending that amount of time with him.
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And I'll tell you, based on the evidence, the evidence, I know that people say, well,
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He, you know, the, the tapes you mentioned always are, are thrown back in my face.
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And I said, yeah, but the problem is nobody can explain where this happened, how this happened,
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how this guy who gets on an interview and, um, uh, does not acquit himself well, um, was
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able to not leave a forensic trace anywhere, anyhow, of this crime.
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And by the way, why couldn't he have like smothered her or strangled her, which wouldn't
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Yeah, but there wasn't anything that was consistent with that.
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I mean, they went through, if you saw kinds of the, um, and we went extensively over the,
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uh, forensic, they couldn't even find anything.
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There would be evidence or telltale signs, trace evidence that would have been.
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Why wouldn't, why wouldn't he take a polygraph?
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The night cops came over the first day she was reported missing.
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And they said, we, we take a polygraph and he refused.
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Only because it's not admissible in California.
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No, but this is at the point where she's missing.
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He's supposed to be the grieving, terrified husband.
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Like if I go missing for a day and they say, Doug, will you take a polygraph?
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Doug says, yes, of course, whatever, whatever you need.
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I don't know if Doug was playing around on the side, but he did not.
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I don't want to, I don't want to, I don't want to ruin a, what appears to be a very happy
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If you want to take a polygraph, I'm going to do it with my guy first.
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I mean, polygraphs are notoriously, um, uh, slipshod.
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There's a reason there's a code section that doesn't allow them in.
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And there's people who know how to pass them and people who would never pass them, even
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So to me, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
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There's absolutely no evidence, uh, of anything that shows where, how, or when.
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Well, he, the evidence was all circumstantial about his affair, about him saying she was
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dead, about him on Christmas Eve, weirdly going fishing in his boat.
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He couldn't remember what bait he used when the cops asked him, he went fishing in the
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Her body and Connor's body washed up four months later.
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They never were able to say how he allegedly killed her or even as you point out when exactly
00:22:23.300
And by the way, we did a, um, a demonstration in that boat of trying to toss a body over
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and he would have capsized every, every time the judge would not allow that demonstration
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to be admitted into evidence, which I thought was outrageous because he allowed it a prosecution
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Also on the fishing on Christmas Eve, it came out in trial.
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I never knew this, that, um, Lacey's, uh, stepfather was fishing on new on Christmas Eve
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He had never disclosed that even though people were saying who goes fishing on Christmas Eve.
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Um, so, you know, there's a lot of things you can always weave together things that don't
00:23:03.380
But at the end of the day, this is not, this is a guy who's got absolutely nothing, a complete
00:23:11.160
And if you think he just committed cold-daunted murder, especially of his unborn son, which
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nobody will tell you that he wasn't excited about having a son.
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And I think that's what he wanted to say yesterday in the sentencing hearing, but the judge wouldn't
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I'll, I'll, I'll make just a couple of points for you.
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He was smiling at the memorial, caught on camera with big smiles.
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And people were like, that is not a grieving husband looking for his wife.
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But we recently had on Amanda Knox and she was talking about, you know, obviously she
00:23:47.900
was wrongly prosecuted by this crazy Italian prosecutor.
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And she, her affect too, was a little off seeming at the time.
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And it was used against her in a very unfair way.
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You really can't go by that, uh, as it turns out.
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And then the other thing is what the theory seems to be for, from Janie and others is
00:24:08.840
There were burglars in their Modesto, California neighborhood that they were seen that previously
00:24:15.040
we were told that the, the robbery or the burglary they committed was on the 26th, but
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they have evidence that it actually happened on the 24th.
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Her dog may have seen them and may have been kidnapped by them.
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Um, the dog was later found by itself with its leash still on.
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Some believe Scott did that to make it look like somebody grabbed her and others, you know,
00:24:39.360
Um, I, I think it's fascinating if he actually does get a new trial, it will be the new trial
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It's going to like, I, no one will be able to pull it, peel their eyes away.
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It's just got too many salacious, interesting elements.
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He's represented everybody, everybody, including Jussie Smollett, including Michael Jackson,
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going to ask him about Kim Potter, Ghislaine Maxwell, and much, much more.
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Kim Potter is the police officer who's now on trial for having shot Dante Wright to death.
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Um, where she clearly mistook her, her taser for her gun, or I guess her gun for her taser.
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And, um, you can hear her on the tape saying, I'm going to tase you, taser, taser, taser.
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And then she shoots with her firearm and he dies.
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And it's obviously a tragic accident, but the prosecutor there has decided to treat it as a
00:25:52.140
She's charged with first and second degree manslaughter.
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And, uh, boy, they are in a battle there in that courtroom.
00:26:00.120
Um, this is the case in which the prosecution had, uh, I'm sorry, the judge had some lunatic
00:26:07.240
She spoke to that, uh, just the other day saying it was an effort to intimidate me.
00:26:15.900
But anyway, a new piece of videotape now showing Kim Potter after the shooting, we've all seen
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Here's a new piece of videotape showing her right after that upset and hear how her fellow
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Listen, there's a lot of crying and then we'll get to the dialogue.
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I think the average person looks at that and says, why are we charging her again?
00:27:01.460
She, she screwed up, but like, how is it criminal?
00:27:06.560
You know, there's, um, uh, I've been on obviously the criminal defense side.
00:27:12.340
I also do a, uh, probably half of my practice are suing police agencies in situations where
00:27:21.300
And I've watched police officers almost uniformly get acquitted or have the judge dismiss at a
00:27:31.660
It's very, very difficult to ever convict a police officer.
00:27:36.180
This case, I think, um, is, uh, is very tough for the prosecution.
00:27:42.920
Um, and the, this tape, and I'm glad you played it certainly gives, um, you know, people often
00:27:51.200
say, well, they didn't show remorse or they didn't understand, or they, there wasn't, they
00:27:57.680
I, you know, we I've spent a career defending people who didn't act right.
00:28:01.560
I mean, clearly here, this is somebody who's in the throes of, uh, a great deal of angst.
00:28:06.900
And I think that that is going to probably carry the day for it because remember, other
00:28:12.020
than people who are famous, police officers are the only other category of people that
00:28:21.160
You know, to me, it boils down to the, what are the instructions going to be to the jury?
00:28:29.160
Because if the judge tells the jury that she can't have behaved recklessly, which is required
00:28:36.180
to prove first or second degree, um, she, she, if she can't have, uh, behaved recklessly
00:28:43.480
without knowing she was taking a dangerous risk, you know what I mean?
00:28:46.920
If she, if it was a true accident, she didn't realize she was pulling out a firearm and
00:28:51.480
shooting, then I don't see how she gets convicted.
00:28:59.960
They were amazing during the Rittenhouse trial and everything Andrew said was right.
00:29:06.620
He says, the critical question is this, is the state required to prove that Kimberly Potter
00:29:11.040
was aware that she was holding a firearm in her hand in order to prove.
00:29:16.920
Beyond a reasonable doubt that her conduct in handling it was reckless and manslaughter.
00:29:20.780
Do they have to prove she was aware that she was holding a firearm?
00:29:25.140
The defense is, their position is that you cannot be engaged in reckless conduct that you
00:29:31.320
Like you don't, you don't know you're firing a gun and the judge hasn't, hasn't instructed
00:29:37.080
the jury and it hasn't, and she hasn't given either side guidance on how this is going
00:29:41.380
I kind of wonder, like, it all comes down to which way she wrote, how she, uh, informs
00:29:48.440
Well, one of the problems is, and we've been arguing this in, uh, California state court
00:29:54.540
for years, the difference between the state of mind for what's called an implied malice
00:30:01.000
The difference in homicide between murder and manslaughter is whether there's malice.
00:30:06.480
Well, there's also what's called implied malice.
00:30:09.940
If you act in such a way, the law will imply that you had the malice for murder.
00:30:15.100
Um, I've often argued, and there's, I'm not alone here that sometimes the state of mind
00:30:22.320
when the jury gets the instruction on one of these manslaughter charges is very misleading
00:30:29.240
and, and a jury doesn't know what to do with it.
00:30:32.520
And here you've got, I can understand why the judge is not giving guidance, so to speak,
00:30:38.440
because they have what are called pattern instructions.
00:30:40.720
They've got instructions that have been either affirmed or, uh, blessed if you will, by the
00:30:47.640
appellate courts, but she probably in this case wants to hear how the evidence comes out
00:30:52.080
and then tailor it to that and tailor the instruction of that.
00:30:55.480
But it's a horrific job for jurors, for lay people to have to kind of parse through the language,
00:31:03.820
And then put that in context of what am I going to do with a police officer who didn't
00:31:09.800
go out there with the intention to do the killing.
00:31:12.800
Um, and so that's a, you know, God forbid that you're one of those jurors.
00:31:17.520
It's interesting because the defense seems to be hedging its bets.
00:31:20.240
They're going to argue that she didn't have a state of mind at all intending to kill anybody.
00:31:25.640
Obviously she didn't intend to fire her, her gun.
00:31:28.200
I think we can all give her that based on what we've seen, although some people aren't,
00:31:31.400
but they also seem to be kind of hedging by saying, even if she did intend to fire the
00:31:36.900
gun, she had cause because, um, the, the guy Dante Wright was, uh, was driving away with
00:31:44.560
an officer in the car, half in the car here is.
00:31:48.020
So they, what, what the prosecution did was they put on, um, officer lucky who was a three
00:31:53.100
year officer who she, she, Kim Potter was supposed to be training that day.
00:31:57.820
Um, and he was a prosecution witness sort of talking about his experience and what he
00:32:02.540
And then the defense attorney got up there and in like 20 minutes, seamless little boom,
00:32:07.940
boom, boom, boom, cross-examination got out the following, um, testimony.
00:32:15.320
There's a voice that appears and says, Kim, that guy was trying to take off with me in
00:32:35.540
And your intuition is formulated, um, by a number of things, but among them is that you've
00:32:42.060
been in this area all your life and know the streets as well as anybody and you ran the
00:32:49.180
plates, uh, found that, uh, the tabs were stale and then, um, you had a reason to stop
00:33:00.960
Cause you had an intuition that something else was going on besides the tabs.
00:33:10.120
And there was, uh, nothing wrong with, uh, you stopping the car for the reasons you said
00:33:20.480
So he's just, he basically just trying to set up, it was a proper stop.
00:33:23.900
You were following order and that this was an area that was known for problematic, you
00:33:30.940
Um, and you know, you also get out the fact that the one officer was half in the car when
00:33:37.340
It's a, it's a technique that was used by the defense lawyer that he's probably, uh, been,
00:33:43.880
uh, gored by that, uh, countless times by prosecutors who go through that same litany,
00:33:48.900
um, when they're trying to convict one of his clients.
00:33:51.740
I mean, I've heard that kind of, this is a high crime area.
00:33:58.980
That's that, that's normally what the prosecutor would do here because you have a cop who's
00:34:05.600
They, the other cop is going to support your theory.
00:34:09.500
You're being the defense lawyer and is going to give you what you want, which is exactly
00:34:15.400
And by the way, you're absolutely correct, Megan, because what this does is even if you
00:34:21.480
think that she, that she isn't being truthful when she says she had a gun, um, that even
00:34:28.520
with a gun, there is the, you know, she had a reasonable doubt as to what was happening
00:34:34.620
there and whether or not she could use the force that she used.
00:34:39.000
I mean, if you had to place a bet and I realized the trial's in the middle, but like, what would
00:34:44.620
Because I realized the prosecution is like, it was irresponsible.
00:34:49.820
But it's like, you watch this distraught woman.
00:34:55.960
She doesn't have a litany of complaints against her.
00:35:00.520
They're really going to throw this woman in jail for upwards of 15 years that Keith Ellison
00:35:04.060
there wants to jack up the sentencing guidelines on her.
00:35:10.160
Well, I'll tell you during, I'll give you an example during the written house trial.
00:35:14.060
One of the reasons I was kind of leery of predicting, even though I thought that it looked to me
00:35:21.240
like it was a self-defense, was you can't look or I can't see the jurors.
00:35:25.780
I mean, the jury selection, I've said this for years, is everything.
00:35:29.800
Most cases are over by the time you've sworn the panel.
00:35:32.000
Because you understand, I don't care how good you are as a lawyer, you're never going to
00:35:38.020
change people's view or their prism for what they look through and who they are.
00:35:44.020
So you have to basically pick a jury or deselect a jury that'll give you your best shot.
00:35:52.160
But I will tell you that so far, the way the evidence is unfolding, it sure is a compelling
00:36:00.180
And that, I think, is probably where it's headed.
00:36:04.520
Like I said, I'll circle back to what I told you before.
00:36:07.900
Cops get a presumption of innocence that a lot of other people don't get.
00:36:18.940
She didn't have a history of negligence on the force.
00:36:21.260
You can show this is like a hothead or she's she never had any business having the badge.
00:36:25.660
Not only did she resign right after this happened, but the chief of police was forced out.
00:36:29.440
It was like, OK, by the way, the New York Times is reporting that there was a lawsuit against
00:36:36.000
Dante Wright's family, raising questions about whether Dante Wright in May of 2019, the woman
00:36:42.700
filing a lawsuit claims that Dante Wright shot her son in the head in Minneapolis, leaving
00:36:50.200
I mean, I don't know that the jury is going to hear anything about that.
00:36:52.900
But, you know, it's the cops walk up to these defendants not knowing what they're dealing
00:36:58.180
with, but they always have to presume the guy's got a gun and is willing to use it.
00:37:02.560
Well, the I saw that today and most probably that will not come into evidence because unless
00:37:09.480
the cop knew or had some indication that they knew about that incident, the judge would
00:37:18.100
But having seen that, it certainly, I think, would give pause to a prosecutor if they knew
00:37:24.200
about that when they were filing the case and what charges they were filing.
00:37:27.520
I mean, that's that's when you get back to prosecutorial discretion.
00:37:32.380
And part of the argument you've kind of implicitly made here, Megan, is why why are they exercising
00:37:44.580
Is it because they want to seek justice or are they pandering?
00:37:52.740
I mean, he is he's a political hack and he's the A.G. there and he's the one who insisted
00:37:59.120
And now he wants to push for a jacked up sentence if she's found guilty.
00:38:02.960
It happened in the wake of George Floyd and it was in Minnesota.
00:38:07.440
So all that, you know, temperatures are already up and the nation is stressed.
00:38:12.540
And that was reflected, I think, in her reaction to what she did.
00:38:16.780
But we still need to be the laws of the law and not everything's a crime just because it's
00:38:23.960
I think they already sued and they'll get millions of dollars.
00:38:27.460
That's to me the remedy or a civil lawsuit, which is going to go the way of the family.
00:38:33.580
We're going to pick up Jussie Smollett right after this break, who is represented by his
00:38:39.980
And remember, you can find The Megyn Kelly Show live on Sirius XM Triumph Channel 111 every
00:38:45.240
weekday at noon east and the full video show and clips by subscribing to our YouTube channel.
00:38:53.920
If you prefer the audio version, a podcast, just go ahead and subscribe, download for free
00:38:58.420
on Apple, Spotify, Pandora, Stitcher or wherever you like.
00:39:02.720
Subscribe now because we have a whole true crime week coming up in the week leading into
00:39:10.020
And one of the cases we're going to do a deep dive on is Scott Peterson.
00:39:17.780
So, Mark, Jussie Smollett, the trial is in deliberations right now.
00:39:29.040
The jury has had the case for about five hours is by my count to two hours yesterday after
00:39:35.700
And now they began this morning right after nine central time.
00:39:43.080
And just FYI, the racial makeup of the jury is, let's say, they're white, the majority
00:39:51.260
white, middle aged, one black man, one black woman is an alternate.
00:39:55.320
And they are now kicking around whether they believe Jussie Smollett was the victim of a
00:39:59.760
hate crime or made the whole thing up for favorable publicity.
00:40:04.140
So I didn't realize until preparing for this that you your firm had a role in this case.
00:40:08.760
Well, I handled the case originally the first time it was dismissed and had I violated one
00:40:15.980
of my standard rules, which is I generally will not do a state court case, criminal case
00:40:28.660
But state court criminal, I always think is the kind of a a weird creature, so to speak.
00:40:39.920
And then lo and behold, the case was once again resurrected.
00:40:46.160
And I am kind of dancing on the head of a pin here because my New York partner, Tina, is
00:40:56.140
And I was hoping, actually, that there would have been a resolution before this because
00:41:02.040
the judge has kind of indicated that he's issued an informal gag order.
00:41:06.520
And even though I'm not on the trial team this time around, my partner is.
00:41:12.400
I will tell you that that I thought it was resolved fairly last time.
00:41:19.540
I have my own theories as to what's going on right now.
00:41:24.240
But since there's an informal gag order, I'm gagging myself.
00:41:28.940
And after a verdict or a resolution here, I'm happy to fill you in as to what I really think
00:41:37.300
You mean with it with a lengthy deliberation or with the fact that charges?
00:41:40.560
No, with why this was resurrected, why the case was resurrected and kind of the players
00:41:49.700
I think I think, frankly, it's outrageous that he's on trial again for the very same thing
00:42:00.280
What punishment did he face the first time around?
00:42:03.020
Well, the punishment was he was the case was dismissed.
00:42:06.340
He forfeited ten thousand dollars, which was the basically the 10 percent of the bail and
00:42:15.420
So that was all the things I I that's nothing he deserves.
00:42:20.380
I don't think he belongs in jail for a long time, but he deserves to be punished.
00:42:25.040
He undermined legitimate claims of racial attacks.
00:42:27.760
He did more to damage, you know, black people who genuinely get attacked by racists than
00:42:40.840
Yeah, I was just going to say, when I'm not muzzled, I'm happy to respond to all of that,
00:42:45.300
including the fact that he's maintained his innocence, testified that it didn't happen.
00:42:52.900
Yeah, well, the O.J., I always say the jury got it right in both cases in O.J.
00:42:58.280
The I understand that I understand that the proof argument in the O.J.
00:43:02.420
case, but that man killed his wife and her friend, Ron Goldman.
00:43:11.700
So so we'll table Jussie Smollett and we will accept your invitation to come back and
00:43:17.220
I do think it's five hours is actually not that long because they have a lot to go through.
00:43:21.380
And I don't think I think it's too early to be drawing conclusions one way or the other.
00:43:25.640
You know, people who think it's clear are like, why didn't they come back two hours?
00:43:28.560
You know, but I think out of respect for the process, a lot of juries just want to go
00:43:32.280
through the evidence, go through the testimonies.
00:43:34.080
And you never know if there's a whole that's that's I've had jurors say that in high profile
00:43:39.160
I remember in a case I tried in Santa Monica 20 years ago that I asked them why they were out.
00:43:45.880
They came back and they acquitted the client across the board.
00:43:50.960
They said, we really it really weren't hung up.
00:43:54.700
We didn't want people to think that we were just going to come back not guilty immediately
00:44:03.200
There is a question, an interesting piece over on National Review today about whether
00:44:07.820
Jussie Smollett should face perjury charges, because to people on my side of the aisle who
00:44:13.760
think he's clearly lying and have been listening to the police chief and everybody all along,
00:44:18.300
they they conclude what he said on that stand was so patently false that he should be facing
00:44:23.200
I mean, there's no question either he was lying or those two brothers were lying.
00:44:30.580
So I get that you're going to keep torturing me with this when I can't respond.
00:44:36.520
I don't want to get my poor partner in trouble.
00:44:41.620
How unusual would it be to if there is an acquittal in a criminal case for the prosecutor
00:44:47.520
to then come back and charge the man acquitted with having perjured himself?
00:44:53.220
Well, let me give you a more an example that happens more often in federal court where you
00:45:02.360
If you get on the stand and testify and lose, you get your sentence enhanced.
00:45:08.240
I mean, that's that because you did not accept responsibility.
00:45:17.300
So it happens in the reverse all the time, and it shouldn't be that way, but it is because
00:45:23.820
you've got an absolute right to go to trial, force the prosecution to prove their case.
00:45:28.940
You shouldn't get punished when you go to trial and try to prove that you're not by taking
00:45:34.560
the stand, which is waiving your Fifth Amendment rights.
00:45:38.640
In fact, it reminds me of when people say, how do you sleep at night knowing that your
00:45:45.920
I lose sleep over going away when I've got a client who I believe is innocent.
00:45:51.120
That's when I lose sleep and engage in alcohol therapy.
00:45:55.940
You know, when I went to law school, I used to be that person.
00:46:00.540
And there was a very well-known defense attorney who came in and started talking to us.
00:46:08.120
And the young, idealistic me actually asked that question.
00:46:11.980
How do you sleep at night knowing that you're getting guilty murderers and so on off?
00:46:21.020
I'm definitely more prosecuted, prosecution oriented still.
00:46:24.280
But I love the role that criminal defense attorneys play.
00:46:26.980
And it is critical to to do process to the to the nation standing on the stilts upon which
00:46:34.840
And I hate that it's being eroded, you know, more and more in various settings.
00:46:39.400
And you sort of you get railroaded for ideology if without a defense lawyer.
00:46:42.560
You know, it's an interesting flip that has taken place.
00:46:47.280
You know, I made my career basically in the 90s defending Susan McDougal, who was Bill and
00:46:53.340
Hillary Clinton's erstwhile business partner in Whitewater.
00:46:59.520
I tried against the Office of Independent Counsel for an obstruction of justice.
00:47:05.740
Um, and all the arguments that we used to make and that the Democrats used to make in
00:47:12.120
the 90s about an office of independent counsel and a prosecutor who had political motives.
00:47:19.200
Well, now you see that those are the same arguments that President Trump was making.
00:47:26.740
And the Democrats were all of a sudden embracing law.
00:47:32.360
There's much, much more to discuss, including Alec Baldwin.
00:47:34.480
Michael Jackson will do it right after this quick break.
00:47:41.960
All right, let's talk Alec Baldwin, because I did listen to your Reasonable Doubt podcast
00:47:47.540
And as usual, you were fascinating on it and had some very strong thoughts on Alec's decision
00:47:53.380
to come out and fight the PR war before the legal war, which is the far more important war,
00:48:00.940
You can't stop these huge egos, you know, from going out there and doing what they believe
00:48:08.860
And I want to play for the audience the the section I heard you taking particular issue
00:48:14.940
with on the question of whether he feels guilty.
00:48:18.960
No, no, I feel that there is I feel that that that someone is responsible for what happened.
00:48:29.520
And I can't say who that is, but I know it's not me.
00:48:32.200
I mean, I honestly got if I felt that I was responsible, I might have killed myself if I
00:48:42.200
Look, there was an easy way to thread this needle if you're insistent on throwing yourself
00:48:47.840
on the grenade is obviously he is the the you say, do I feel guilty?
00:49:01.740
I mean, there is a way to thread that needle this response he is going to get, you know,
00:49:07.160
I don't wish a criminal prosecution on anybody in the world.
00:49:10.740
I mean, it's the worst thing in the world, but to go through.
00:49:13.920
But he's going to have this thing at a very baseline level jammed right back up at him
00:49:19.420
in civil lawsuit deposition, all kinds of ways.
00:49:26.740
And by the way, you would mention Scott Peterson in the GMA.
00:49:31.400
As we're talking right now, as we speak, the judge in Mr. Smollett's case is apparently
00:49:41.960
I mean, one of the things I'm going to have a and I had mentioned Susan McDougal, one of
00:49:46.620
her kind of bet noirs in her prosecutions was the GMA interview.
00:49:51.840
So God knows if you're a criminal defendant, that's the axis of evil is to ever get on the
00:50:06.420
So that's why they get all these exclusives, because they've made that part of their beat.
00:50:12.580
Like if you had Alec Baldwin on the stand and you were representing Helena's family, you
00:50:18.460
know, she was a cinematographer who got killed or some of the other guys that filed
00:50:21.480
lawsuits who witnessed it for emotional distress.
00:50:24.700
What would you do with that Alec Baldwin statement?
00:50:27.640
Yeah, there's a lawyer who's co-counseled, I think, with Gloria on one of these lawsuits,
00:50:32.320
and I know exactly what they are going to do with it.
00:50:35.380
They're going to they're going to jam it right back up.
00:50:38.960
Who do you know that was responsible if it wasn't you?
00:50:44.280
By the way, every actor from John Schneider on the right to George Clooney on the left
00:50:50.120
has already said this is an impossibility if you were careful, blah, blah, blah.
00:50:57.080
And by the way, he's going to walk himself into, you know, they've only got a tower, apparently,
00:51:02.340
if you believe what's being reported, of five million dollars in insurance.
00:51:06.120
He's going to walk himself right into blowing through that tower and being personally responsible
00:51:14.900
I don't know why they think that image control is job number one.
00:51:19.620
Job number one is to keep you out of harm's way criminally.
00:51:22.900
Job number two is to deal with the civil liability.
00:51:25.860
Job number three is to make amends morally and ethically for, you know, your role in this
00:51:33.040
horrible, horrible situation, which I don't think it was intentional in the least.
00:51:39.960
But at the same time, how do you you know, he could have said the the obvious solution
00:51:45.800
is it's very difficult for me getting up in the morning because I was the last person
00:51:50.380
who cocked that gun, whether I pulled the trigger or not.
00:51:55.300
I feel an enormous, enormous amount of guilt in a non-legal sense over that.
00:52:03.860
And the more he blames himself, the more our instinct would be to let him off the hook.
00:52:21.740
People can sense that whether it's a jury or a judge or a fact finder, either you're authentic
00:52:28.020
and you have remorse or you're a phony and you don't.
00:52:31.180
I mean, remorse, by the way, that tape you played earlier of the officer who shot Dante,
00:52:38.800
that to me is real, authentic remorse and immediate angst.
00:52:50.480
And so in trying to stave off legal charges, that's the avenue.
00:52:55.540
Make sure you're giving them all the information.
00:52:57.860
He appears to have ticked off the sheriff with that Stephanopoulos interview, because let
00:53:02.420
me play the soundbite that Alec said that that seems to be getting him in hot water because
00:53:07.380
the sheriff has now responded publicly, which is not what you want.
00:53:11.960
Here's Baldwin on whether he actually fired the gun.
00:53:14.920
So, I take the gun and I start to cock the gun.
00:53:19.200
I said, do you see that she will just cheat it down and tilt it down a little bit like
00:53:25.960
And she says, and then I let go of the hammer of the gun and the gun goes off.
00:53:36.420
It wasn't in the script for the trigger to be pulled.
00:53:44.340
I would never point a gun at anyone and pull a trigger at them.
00:53:49.920
Well, now the Santa Fe sheriff has responded saying, and I quote, guns don't just go off.
00:53:55.420
So, whatever needs to happen to manipulate the firearm, he did that.
00:54:01.800
What would you have thought if you saw that as Alex's lawyer?
00:54:07.500
And I would have, you know, probably pulled a Harlan Braun and resigned like he did in Robert Blake's case.
00:54:22.500
You can't go out there and then inflame the very person who is investigating you.
00:54:30.480
You try to show that you are anything but trying to provoke them.
00:54:38.420
But he's repeatedly done everything that he shouldn't do.
00:54:41.980
It's almost a textbook case of what you shouldn't do when you're in harm's way.
00:54:48.860
He's trying to keep himself out of jail and at a bankruptcy court.
00:54:53.340
Well, you know, he said the other day, I don't know if you saw it or if you've got the clip.
00:54:57.600
He said, somebody told me, basically, I'm not in harm's way.
00:55:01.380
I don't know who that somebody was, unless they're baiting you into being stupid.
00:55:08.420
If somebody's telling you that, I hope it isn't your lawyer.
00:55:13.420
Okay, so let's talk about speaking of famous clients with huge egos who believe they know
00:55:19.180
better when it comes to dealing with the press and how to handle law enforcement.
00:55:22.700
Michael Jackson, while you were dealing with the Scott Peterson case,
00:55:27.500
you were representing Michael Jackson on the child molestation criminal case.
00:55:33.320
And I realized that ended because you had to focus on Scott Peterson and Michael was like,
00:55:44.300
The, originally, before that case was filed, I had had repeated conversations with the DA.
00:55:58.860
This family, this Arvizo family, I've investigated.
00:56:02.080
I have figured out, and I did it in real time for Michael, because I'd represented Michael for years at that point.
00:56:09.200
And I knew that they, this was not a family that was going to end well for Michael.
00:56:15.920
And so I advised them, the Jackson team, they needed to kind of extricate themselves from this.
00:56:26.260
And then the Arvizo family went to the same lawyer that had previously represented the accuser from 1993 that Howard Weitzman, when Howard was represented.
00:56:40.440
You told Michael to extricate himself from what really, like when he was friends with the boy and the family prior to them accusing him?
00:56:48.560
You were like, these are grifters, do not befriend them.
00:56:52.020
Yeah, I won't reveal the attorney client, but that's a pretty good synopsis.
00:56:57.540
And so then what happened was, is the Santa Barbara DA ended up indicting him so that they wouldn't go to a probable cause preliminary hearing.
00:57:08.640
In California, almost all criminal felony cases are prosecuted by way of a preliminary hearing.
00:57:16.840
They didn't want the witnesses on the stand because they knew what we would do to them, so they didn't end run.
00:57:22.000
Well, when they indicted, they indicted him on a conspiracy.
00:57:26.980
Well, I took a look at that, and I remember saying to Michael at the time, I said, hey, this conspiracy has nothing to do with you.
00:57:33.460
This was my investigation of the Arvizo family.
00:57:36.740
I'm going to end up having to testify in this case.
00:57:39.320
You need another lawyer, which is when we brought in, Johnny Cochran brought in Ben Brofman, my good buddy Ben.
00:57:48.900
Not once, but twice that I was the one who did the investigation.
00:57:55.540
I was the one who was any so-called conspiracy, which was kind of manufactured by the prosecutor was at my behest.
00:58:05.240
Because they were like, Michael, you've been investigating this poor family, this poor young child.
00:58:15.260
And like I say, I didn't testify just once in front of Judge Melville in the jury.
00:58:20.760
And I'll never forget the second time saying something, which that jury found to be very humorous.
00:58:30.120
And I turned to Pat Harris, who was then with me, and I said, this jury is never going to convict him.
00:58:44.840
But of course, the stories about him would continue.
00:58:48.780
Well, yeah, because as you pointed out, the family had to like, they'd sued other people.
00:58:51.920
Like when you see these vexatious litigants who sue over and over and over again, it's like, OK, but the accusations against him would never stop.
00:59:02.640
And I use, you know, a lot of our listeners are just listeners.
00:59:09.880
The documentary about Michael that was on HBO and what you thought of those two accusers, James Safechuck and Mark Robson.
00:59:22.480
I'll tell you what I thought about that documentary.
00:59:26.760
I came very close to suing in that case because I remember Adam actually on our podcast had played a clip from the documentary and they made it seem like I was saying, I'm going to land like a ton of bricks on top of these accusers, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
00:59:46.700
What the documentary filmmaker had done was he cut and spliced a press conference I had done.
00:59:55.260
The press conference was because when I picked up Michael from Vegas and took him to Santa Barbara to surrender, the air carrier, the private charter had installed a pinhole camera that had spied on my attorney client conversations with Michael.
01:00:17.600
Greta Van Susteren called me the next morning and said, there's a guy who's shopping a lawyer who's shopping your conversation on the jet with Michael, um, uh, for a million bucks.
01:00:35.640
You're, and he said, my client thinks he's won the lottery.
01:00:38.580
So I went to court, I got a restraining order, came outside and said, I'm going to land like a ton of bricks on you.
01:00:45.820
When you violate the attorney client privilege, the documentary maker cut and pasted that to make it seem like I was talking about the accusers, which I wasn't.
01:00:54.860
By the way, that guy who we got the restraining order against was later prosecuted federally convicted.
01:01:02.140
Um, and I got a $25 million judge or $22 million judgment against him, um, for, for that as well.
01:01:10.280
Well, the court of appeal reversed it and said that that was excessive.
01:01:14.380
So I'm sure the guy doesn't have $22 million anyway, but it's a moral victory.
01:01:23.000
So I saw that documentary and I was like, okay, it's not, doesn't look good for Michael.
01:01:29.200
Um, but because I am a lawyer at heart, like you, I needed to know more.
01:01:35.860
And then I found all this stuff in particular about Wade, um, about the, the lies he's told in his civil litigation against the Jackson estate about how he denied having shopped, written and shopped a book about Michael with laudatory things in it.
01:01:50.800
And then it turned out they found it, they got it from like random house or one of the publishers.
01:01:56.880
He got caught lying under oath at his deposition.
01:01:58.960
Then they demanded copies of said book from his computer.
01:02:02.520
He, he said he didn't have any, or so he basically lied at every step.
01:02:05.440
And then they proved that he had copies on his computer that he tried to write over.
01:02:10.000
I mean, he was lying all along and the other guy, James, every single point.
01:02:16.640
And that documentary maker should be ashamed of himself.
01:02:27.420
It was a complete rewrite of history, but you know, that's a, I, I hate to say that that's emblematic, but it certainly seems to be emblematic of what's happening in America right now.
01:02:38.600
And, and with the, what I think people on the right like to call mainstream media, but it's really kind of abhorrent as to what's happened with journalism and so-called journalism and the docu-journalism.
01:02:50.780
Well, then you get the imprimatur of Oprah at the end, like interviewing the documentarian, like, oh, tell us all, just as truthful as we think you are.
01:03:05.240
I don't know what happened between Michael and either one of these men when they were younger.
01:03:12.680
Um, but the, the documentarian, again, air quotes, had an obligation to include that information about those two accusers because the other guy, Safechuck, um, had just been hit, I think, with a $500,000 lawsuit two weeks before he came out as an accuser.
01:03:28.560
You know, it's like, now, maybe that doesn't make him a liar, but we deserve as an audience to know.
01:03:35.080
And I, I go on this tear a lot, Mark, because I hate the absence of due process and trial by media, even though I'm in the media.
01:03:41.900
Um, and what I hear from everybody is, though, yeah, but he was a molester.
01:03:47.220
Yeah, but he, it was a long line of boys that he molested.
01:03:50.440
And I don't, I don't know whether that's true or not.
01:03:55.480
I heard, I heard the same things everybody else heard.
01:03:57.760
People, people would say, would you take your son?
01:04:00.460
Because my, when I was representing Michael, my son was 10 years old.
01:04:05.100
They used to say, would you take your son, Jake, to Neverland?
01:04:08.020
And I said, well, actually, I did several occasions.
01:04:13.220
I don't know anything about the other accusations.
01:04:15.680
I do know that the accusations, when it involved the case I was dealing with, were ludicrous.
01:04:22.760
Because I would not allow my son to spend an overnight with any parent, with any grown-up.
01:04:29.280
You know, I would like, that's weird, and you shouldn't allow it.
01:04:38.160
But still, you just don't let your six-year-old spend an overnight with a grown-up under any circumstances.
01:04:44.960
Like, when you think about him, do you believe you said you have a sixth sense?
01:04:48.900
Do you have a sixth sense that he was capable of it?
01:04:52.740
I mean, he just, there was a childlike naivete on his part.
01:04:57.000
And by the time I got to him, he had been, you know, you're talking in the 2000s.
01:05:02.460
This was not the same Michael Jackson that was in the 90s, at least as reported to me.
01:05:10.900
And every encounter I had with him, he was just, I thought, he'd just been pilloried.
01:05:22.620
I mean, it really, it really kind of made you sad.
01:05:27.540
And I just, I just didn't think he had, he had kind of become trapped, so to speak.
01:05:37.540
Putting, tabling for now, the allegations against him, since we don't, we're not going to resolve those here.
01:05:43.020
Do you think that there is, his situation and what happened to him personally was analogous to what happened to Elvis?
01:05:49.900
You know, like that level of fame, attention, grifters.
01:05:57.960
You know, one of the, I represented Chris Brown for about 10 years.
01:06:04.100
And Chris, I was always worried that would happen to him, and it did not.
01:06:09.000
I mean, he kind of pulled himself out of all of that that he had been involved in.
01:06:14.260
And you worry when somebody reaches fame so early and on such a magnitude that what it does to you.
01:06:23.820
And so, you know, they, I think that, I think that's a, an apt comparison by you.
01:06:29.740
And I think that it's interesting that he had that relationship with Elvis's daughter as well.
01:06:37.300
There's just certain people who've reached this bizarre level of fame that is in no way healthy.
01:06:43.100
I would put Tom Cruise in that same category, too.
01:06:46.300
I don't think his, his weird Scientology rants are totally unconnected to his incredible fame and success and just what it does to a person.
01:06:55.440
I would not wish that on, on my, for my children, for anybody I care about.
01:07:00.660
I've walked down the street with various clients.
01:07:09.180
And I've walked from my office with Mike down to another building to do a mediation.
01:07:20.280
I've walked down the street with Colin Kaepernick.
01:07:23.180
I mean, the, the level of fame and what happens and, and the fact that you really can't go out,
01:07:30.540
you're outside without stopping traffic literally and people kind of besieging you.
01:07:36.840
I mean, it's, it's on a level that it's really hard to capture and make people understand for certain people when they get to a certain level of fame and, and, and, and kind of notoriety.
01:07:50.160
Would you, would you say that probably the most famous person you've represented and seen that with is Adam Carolla?
01:08:00.220
You know, I will tell you something about Adam.
01:08:03.520
I, I often say Adam always says that he thinks about me when he sees anything legal.
01:08:09.540
I've in the last six or seven years that we've done the podcast together, I've learned more about human nature.
01:08:17.700
He's a great sociologist and, and really kind of social or cultural anthropologist.
01:08:26.380
He's got such a, he's got such a way of viewing the world that is just, you know, that you've, you rarely come across somebody like that.
01:08:35.400
He's one of those people you just want to shut up and listen to.
01:08:37.340
It's just like, go on, just keep going because he has a way of, of capturing what's happening in the nation.
01:08:44.540
But jumping back, because I know you didn't represent him.
01:08:51.960
Actually, I did represent him, but we won't talk about him.
01:09:18.740
I mean, I always say like they could, they could just send her down to Guantanamo.
01:09:22.260
She could get anything out of anybody down there.
01:09:23.960
Um, she, so when you were with Michael Jackson, since you spent so much time with him, like
01:09:31.260
So he's, he was childlike, but like, can you expand on it?
01:09:34.160
Cause I'm genuinely curious what that would be like.
01:09:36.300
By the time I got to him, um, in the, uh, like I say, in the two thousands, um, we spent,
01:09:44.220
I spent, uh, multiple times or multiple days at Neverland.
01:09:50.400
I watched him, um, in, uh, when he was camped out in Vegas as well.
01:10:00.080
He was struggling with all the things that were happening with the accusations.
01:10:05.900
Um, and I, I kind of, there was a lot of empathy I had for him.
01:10:10.000
I, I, one of the things that's hardest about doing the kind of work that we do is when you've
01:10:16.400
got people who are in the eye of a storm, it's, it's very hard to try to get them centered
01:10:22.120
because they're, they, they, it's kind of an existential threat, right?
01:10:27.200
The criminal prosecution is there's, I often tell clients at least with a death, a sudden
01:10:34.260
death of a loved one, you have the ability to mourn, to have a funeral or some kind of
01:10:39.420
a ceremony or wake, and then you get to move on.
01:10:45.360
And so that's, that's what I witnessed and it, and it was awful to watch.
01:10:50.260
It's just a, it's a strain, it's a drain, and it's just a, um, uh, it's a real, real
01:10:57.980
painful thing to watch somebody who is so creative, who is so brilliant, who's such a genius in
01:11:04.100
one area to have to deal with something that is so foreign to them.
01:11:16.240
I could keep you here for 10 hours and I'd still have more to talk about.
01:11:19.980
I want to ask Mark about CNN, where he worked for a while.
01:11:22.460
What does he think about how they're, how they are today?
01:11:31.180
So Mark, I used to watch you for years on CNN, back when CNN was watchable and you'd give
01:11:37.960
And then you were gone one day and I was like, uh, somehow you were linked to Michael Avenatti
01:11:43.020
and I was like, okay, he must've been temporarily insane because Mark Garagos is way too smart
01:11:50.360
Um, so what happened, why you don't work there anymore?
01:11:55.160
Why would you ever have associated with that nut case?
01:11:59.720
So, uh, as a client, I mean, he had a, um, DV case and I represented him and I've known
01:12:07.320
Um, and then the, uh, cases you mentioned, um, happened in New York, um, CNN in their infinite
01:12:19.500
In fact, I think I famously called him the cut and run net, but they, they were already
01:12:24.620
kind of descending into this polemic that they've, um, decided the path they've decided
01:12:31.240
I think there was some kind of irony that you would see Anderson sitting with Toobin next
01:12:38.940
to him as they're announcing that, um, Cuomo would be suspended.
01:12:43.180
Uh, and now I'm seeing where Mr. Zucker is being pilloried for his handling of the situation.
01:12:51.060
And, uh, there, I think the writings on the wall, there's going to be a, a shakeup and
01:12:56.660
the largest stockholder in their merger there has already said they need to get back to what
01:13:01.740
they used to do, which is Malona, the discovery channel.
01:13:05.420
So I think within the next six weeks, you'll see a reboot there.
01:13:08.520
They, they, given what's happened over there and the ratings and everything else, they're
01:13:13.520
not long for this world in their present kind of composition.
01:13:17.760
I mean, I, I've said publicly, I used to watch CNN when I was getting ready for the Kelly
01:13:21.800
I used to have in my office, I had CNN on not Fox because it was like O'Reilly before
01:13:27.800
me and who I, I think is enormously talented, but he's not, you know, if you want to get facts,
01:13:32.560
at least back then you would put on CNN, you would put on Anderson Cooper and that's gone.
01:13:39.300
They went hard partisan during Trump and it was way more opinion from the anchors than
01:13:44.420
And it was all uniformly anti-Trump, anti-Republican.
01:13:48.540
I wonder having come from the belly of the beast, what, what you think when you watch it?
01:13:52.000
Well, I, I often used to say, I, I thought there was some kind of, I hate to psychoanalyze
01:13:57.240
him, but you know, Zucker, as people tend to forget was at NBC when, uh, Donald Trump
01:14:04.520
was, uh, kind of anointed with the apprentice series.
01:14:08.540
And I think that there was something going on where he just decided to go all in on the
01:14:19.160
And, you know, at this point, like you, I have to go search for BBC, sometimes Al Jazeera
01:14:26.180
to try to get any kind of a, um, uh, a factual or what's going on in the world.
01:14:32.380
And you just can't find what it used to be 20 years ago.
01:14:36.180
I mean, it used to be that you had, uh, Larry King on there for many years.
01:14:41.640
And I always thought that was a fascinating show, which is why I did it.
01:14:47.440
People would talk kind of like what you're doing now.
01:14:49.860
And you would get to at least hear things that weren't just like a, a Twitter bite of
01:14:56.020
You get people to talk, you'd have a given take, they could have different, uh, viewpoints
01:15:03.120
That to me is more interesting than somebody just going on a polemic with two other people
01:15:10.880
It might be intellectually stimulated instead of just outraged all the time.
01:15:18.600
So CNN cut and run cause you were sort of with Avenatti when he got caught up in that
01:15:23.800
I was there and, and, and had, um, was trying to mind you, I had a relationship with Nike.
01:15:30.900
I knew Michael and tried to, uh, kind of mediate a situation that I thought, um, would turn
01:15:37.920
I've been, I've got a, we could do a whole, uh, hour on what, what happened there.
01:15:43.740
But, um, like I say, Michael was also a client.
01:15:47.400
I don't want to denigrate him in any way, shape or form.
01:15:51.980
I mean, you, yeah, you will do it and I'll sit and just listen to you.
01:15:56.840
Well, so he got, he wound up getting charged criminally.
01:16:01.520
This is just one of them, but it's funny because he said CNN cut and run.
01:16:06.120
He went pro per or pro say federal court in Orange County, got a mistrial based upon prosecutorial
01:16:13.780
And it's actually up in front of the ninth circuit now as to whether that's once in jeopardy,
01:16:18.780
because normally if you get a mistrial and you requested as a defendant, you don't get
01:16:24.340
a once in jeopardy, meaning that you can't be tried again.
01:16:27.640
But there is a kind of a sliver of the law that says if you're goaded in the asking for
01:16:33.900
a mistrial by the prosecution, that can be the one instance where the prosecution can't
01:16:43.280
Um, but you're not, and CNN did cut and bit because just because you were in a meeting
01:16:47.780
with him, that's the end of your relationship after what a decade, they'd been making money
01:16:55.800
I mean, I, I will tell you it was really, and I had always resisted being a contributor
01:17:01.220
because I always felt that being a contributor meant that I would have an issue with kind of
01:17:08.280
advocating for clients because some clients, uh, do not belong on CNN in years past.
01:17:14.200
I would want them either on a morning show or I would want them somewhere else in terms
01:17:22.860
And I did, um, I did take a contributorship with the caveat that I was able to do other
01:17:30.320
And if it was client related, they had no input whatsoever and they just cut and run like,
01:17:37.600
I think because they felt, uh, that they, you know, there was a lot of people who were second
01:17:43.060
guessing themselves about Michael when that happened.
01:17:46.620
I, and, um, uh, well, that was smart of them to do because they expressed no skepticism about
01:17:53.040
him and his ridiculous claims about Trump and so on.
01:17:55.720
I mean, I was at NBC at the time and I had him on and he was expecting, um, to get the
01:18:00.460
same treatment from me that he got from the mainstream media.
01:18:03.720
And I really felt like a simple Google search would have served him very well in misunderstanding
01:18:08.700
me, you know, and getting over his misunderstanding of me.
01:18:11.180
And I gave it to him pretty tough and, and it's fine.
01:18:14.300
I gave it to the other guy who was on the opposite side of him.
01:18:18.880
Um, but it was very clear that he was, this is not an honest lawyer and what he did to
01:18:24.000
But, but I, I think the fact that CNN promoted him and so on, they felt so guilty.
01:18:30.080
They didn't need to take it on you just because it was your client.
01:18:34.080
And to me, they, now it's like they won't cut, cut, you know, ties with
01:18:46.640
Don Lemon, credibly accused by a guy of Don allegedly fondling his own genitals and then
01:18:52.640
rubbing his hands all over this poor guy's face in a bar.
01:18:57.020
And I feel like what's, what is the moral handbook that they are following over there?
01:19:01.680
Like I say, I think that I, everything that I've been hearing, I still have friends there
01:19:08.080
that, uh, that I've known, like I say, for decades and everything that I'm hearing is,
01:19:13.160
is that Zucker's not long for, uh, the, uh, the job and that people are not happy with what's
01:19:24.080
I mean, they kind of went all in on the Trump mania and obviously once Trump was gone, what
01:19:34.900
Uh, it's really, uh, you know, I'm old enough to remember when they would get a 10 share and
01:19:46.280
I read the other day where Chris's nine o'clock show, sometimes he was getting 900,000 people.
01:19:52.560
I mean, there was a time when CNN, you could just have the color bars on there and you
01:19:58.580
I mean, I, when I launched America's newsroom with Hemmer in 2007, we created that show from
01:20:03.620
9am to 11am, we'd get around 1.3 million and we were thrilled.
01:20:08.360
And the company was thrilled with that at nine in the morning when everybody's at work, it
01:20:13.000
And now, I mean, all this time later for the 9pm on CNN to not even be cracking a million,
01:20:20.020
I mean, they're, they're always like in the wake of his downfall, they're like the highest
01:20:24.880
I'm like, you should not be bragging about that.
01:20:26.640
You should not be, don't call attention to the fact that he's your.
01:20:29.100
And when you have to resort to talking about the demo, then you really know you're, you're
01:20:34.320
Well, the demo actually is relevant because that's what they basically advertisers on.
01:20:38.560
But the demo, the demo numbers are embarrassing when you take a look at the absolute terms.
01:20:43.700
I mean, Fox's demo numbers, meaning under 25 to 54 year olds, are higher than CNN's overall
01:20:52.000
number, the number of overall households in the nation that are watching on many hours.
01:20:58.300
And I hope it's true that they're going to get back to news because we need a channel that's
01:21:12.020
Let me go in, you know, where 20 minutes I can watch and understand what's happening
01:21:17.420
And by the way, not everything is America centric.
01:21:20.180
I'd like something in the context of the world.
01:21:25.520
No, the foreign news doesn't rate, which is why you rarely see it.
01:21:29.900
OK, I want to ask you about another avenue of cases that you've been filing when it comes
01:21:35.460
You're in the People's Republic of California, where the restrictions have been.
01:21:43.920
And so in addition to being a lawyer, you're a restaurateur.
01:21:47.240
And tell us about what you've been trying to do and how it's been going in the courts.
01:21:50.940
Well, it's frustrating because we won a victory at the trial court level in Los Angeles.
01:21:57.560
We got a judge back when back, I want to say, in November when we have an unelected county
01:22:04.360
health officer named Barbara Flar without any evidence whatsoever, without any data whatsoever.
01:22:14.160
Now, mind you, I can sustain it as a restaurant, but most restaurateurs can't.
01:22:19.460
I mean, there's 30,000 some odd restaurants in L.A.
01:22:22.540
County, and they a number of them went out of business due to the COVID shutdowns.
01:22:28.660
Well, then we went to and we moved to the outdoor dining and that was working and it was
01:22:33.660
People were able to survive, not the least of which because of some of the funding that
01:22:40.120
But then she just decreed there was going to be no more outdoor dining.
01:22:45.760
And sure enough, we got a judge in the writ court who ruled after basically issuing three
01:22:52.280
orders to show cause and the county could not respond.
01:22:55.440
They couldn't point to a single piece of data, a single study that showed that COVID was being
01:23:05.160
Well, we ended up going, they got to stay at the court of appeal.
01:23:10.580
I've been up at the U.S. Supreme Court and just within the last five days, they denied
01:23:18.420
But one of the things that's happened is Justice Gorsuch has basically called out this case,
01:23:25.800
this 100-year-old, 120-year-old case named Jacobson, and said that it's been given a towering
01:23:32.920
And that's the fight that we've been fighting, that basically unelected bureaucrats from health
01:23:40.860
departments are decreeing what people can do or not do, and that all of that is predicated
01:23:49.520
on this state of emergency that our governor has announced, I think, going on 20 months ago.
01:23:55.880
We're still in a state of emergency in California, which is the only basis upon which the county
01:24:03.680
It's so crazy because you're out there in California.
01:24:07.780
Up until recently, I've been living in New York for 20 years almost.
01:24:11.880
And the mayor of New York just on his own decided that five to 11-year-olds must have
01:24:16.560
mandatory vaccinations in order to eat inside any restaurant there.
01:24:20.420
You have to double jab your five-year-old to eat in a restaurant, to go see the Rockettes,
01:24:24.600
to go to a movie theater, to go to the gym, whatever, go see the Knicks.
01:24:31.860
They've been going to all of these events, and the rates didn't spike.
01:24:35.060
The spike's coming to the Northeast now because it's winter, right?
01:24:42.480
The children aren't a major factor in any of this.
01:24:44.440
So we have these local legislators who are drunk on their own power.
01:24:53.840
You just kind of – it's like, no, that's insane.
01:24:56.840
COVID's not spread outside in any meaningful way.
01:24:58.960
And by the way, the only thing – I mean, if you saw the stacks of paper that we file
01:25:05.240
back and forth in the briefing, the only thing that was ever cited by the county in defense
01:25:11.180
of this outdoor dining ban was a – what I would characterize as an anecdotal example
01:25:17.900
of a person in Wuhan who had said he got it and he thought he got it outside.
01:25:31.640
I just feel like it's gotten so out of control.
01:25:34.620
I love to see the lawsuits because they're drunk on their own power.
01:25:37.820
de Blasio is out of here at the end of this month.
01:25:42.680
And what they say is he – I mean, talk about delusions.
01:25:53.860
And that he wanted to shore up his support with his far-left liberals by imposing all
01:25:58.460
sort of draconian orders on the people right before he left.
01:26:02.200
And now all these people – think about the people come from Europe with their kids.
01:26:05.360
You know, they come to see New York the way we go to London, the way we go to Florence.
01:26:11.660
Their trips are off for nothing, for an Omicron, which, yes, it's more contagious apparently,
01:26:19.840
Well, and the problem is, is when you ask for any kind of data, when you ask for any kind of
01:26:25.600
anything, just show me something, they can't answer you.
01:26:29.540
And that's a very frustrating situation to be in, both as a lawyer and as a restaurateur,
01:26:36.180
as you call it, it's – you know, restaurants are on a very thin margin to begin with.
01:26:42.980
And you can't just continue to destroy restaurants and destroy the small businesses.
01:26:52.680
And it's only a matter of time before this catches up to us.
01:26:55.620
I've said before, it's not going to – this is not going to end well.
01:27:05.260
I think when we saw – what we saw in the Rittenhouse case was what happens – I said
01:27:11.100
this on the air – when social justice meets courtroom justice, you know, that to me, the
01:27:15.860
courts are still the one place that haven't been totally co-opted by the far-left social
01:27:20.200
justice warriors who just want identity to matter and not facts, not evidence.
01:27:25.440
And it's a comfort to me, you know, as somebody who did practice law for a long time, it's a
01:27:30.160
But when I see what they're teaching in law schools, there was just some case – oh,
01:27:36.060
One of the universities – one of the law schools now is requiring people to have an
01:27:39.380
affirmative statement of how they're going to be anti-racist and, you know, pursuing
01:27:45.120
It's none of your business what their political persuasions are, where they stand on these
01:27:51.680
I worry about the up-and-coming generation of lawyers and whether we're going to be able
01:27:55.300
to keep that divide between social justice and courtroom justice.
01:28:02.420
We'll come full circle to McDougal again in the 90s.
01:28:05.320
I was complaining then that that was kind of, at least by the Office of Independent
01:28:14.440
And sure enough, the same thing happened 20 years later, except now it was aimed at Republicans
01:28:24.700
But the lesson to take away from this is the worst place in the world to try to test out
01:28:32.320
your social or cultural issues is in a criminal courtroom.
01:28:37.440
That's where – that should be the one sacrosanct place where we – first of all, we have prosecutors
01:28:45.260
who are making decisions that are based on justice as opposed to some other kind of calculation.
01:29:04.060
And I've experienced other young lawyers who I think, you know, could use a dose of – you
01:29:09.800
know, my father, who was my partner for many years, used to say that one of the things he
01:29:13.820
thought that the criminal justice system could use is a dose of the military justice system.
01:29:20.180
And he'd say, well, in the military justice system, you can be a prosecutor one day and
01:29:26.180
And that's a great way to kind of weed out the ideological agendas if you have to understand
01:29:31.940
what it is to prosecute somebody and you have to understand what it is to actually defend
01:29:38.320
And conversely, any plaintiff's lawyer or prosecutor should be sued at least once in
01:29:52.100
But are you going to at least – are you going to give me a prediction on how Jussie Smollett's
01:29:58.340
No, but I'll call you – I'll call you – I'll call into your – what is it?
01:30:16.820
Tomorrow on the show, we're going to have the Hodge twins.
01:30:21.260
Meantime, download the show as a podcast and go ahead and subscribe if you would at youtube.com