Duggar Charges, Fitzsimmons Bench Trial, Spencer June Date: Three Active Cases and the Law's Hardest Questions

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2:17This is Hidden Tillers Live with Tony Rusky and Robin Greene. Waiting to be extradited to Florida on felony child s abuse charges and his wife is facing her own counts and a separate but connected investigation in Arkansas. Two states, two cases, a recorded confession and a family with a documented pattern of handling exactly this kind of thing internally because that's what you do. The legal picture here is as complicated as it is damning and if anyone can break down what Joseph Duggers' defense actually looks like from

3:18the inside out, it's a criminal defense attorney who's seen cases like this from every angle, Bob Mata, defense attorney, joining myself and Robin Drake today as we discuss a lot and we will start with the Duggers situation and we invite your thoughts, your comments in the comments section wherever you are watching us right now. Let's start here. Bob Joseph Dugger allegedly admitted to the abuse to the victim's father and then to Tony Town detectives who were on the line reportedly confirmed during a recorded phone call. Walk us through. I mean what a defense attorney is actually working with when a client has already made statements like that before an attorney is anywhere near the picture of what's going on here. What kind of situation are we are we looking at for the defense of Joseph Dugger? A bad one. Forget that.

4:22All jokes aside, it's the first thing I ask a client when they walk in or a perspective client that you talk. Yeah. Did you make a statement to law enforcement and that's typically where I'm at with respect to whether or not it's going to be suppressive. There's going to be a lot of things to look at it because that's where you're at. If there's a statement out there and it's incredibly damning, the best that you can hope to do is defense attorneys look at it and say all right, well, was it a tap? Was it an over here? Did they go and get a warrant in terms of the over here that they definitely have? But the statements with respect to the initial statement was that and you've got two states involved, right? You've got Arkansas and Florida. I think Florida is they're wide open down there. The sunshine state. Yeah. You can just do anything you want down there. They want everything out in the sunshine. I think that like Arkansas and you might know

5:25tone is a one person consent state. So, you know, I mean, you're going to have to try to attack it because once you see that it exists in the world, it becomes probably the worst evidence that they have against you because it's a confession. Yeah. All the way to slice it. I mean, how do you go about going into a case like, I mean, is this a case that is likely to even go to a trial? I mean, once you have a confession like that, or is it, is it a, some sort of a deal that is made, or is it, let's take this to trial? And I'm likely to be found guilty, but I'm going to, I'm going to negotiate this. I'm going to plead this to be less than than what they're saying. It is that I don't know. I mean, where do you, where does something like this go when this is our dropping start off point? This is what I'm always talking about. And I'm always trying to remind people that a vast majority of cases do not go to trial. When I have evidence like this, it's typically, and I know about it on the front end. So if I ask that question,

6:29did you make a statement, and he's sitting in front of me, or if I've gone to do a jail visit, and he's like, yeah, I made a statement, and then I'm saying, okay, what would you say? And then he says, this is what I said. I said, okay, well, here's what we're going to do. I have to wait until we get the police reports. I have to see how they say that this went down. I need to see if there were warrants involved. And at that point, if there is a way that I can bring a viable motion to suppress, then we can try it. After that, if that fails, then we're dealing with a piece of evidence that's going to be impossible to get over. And what I'm recommending to you is that I started having a conversation about plea. But ultimately, at the end of the day, the sticking point is always whether or not somebody wants to go to trial is not the lawyer's choice. That's right. That all we can do is advise them. We think it's a bad idea. It could be a trial tax. If you plead this thing out, maybe we shave a couple of years off of it, whatever the case

7:31may be. But I mean, the reality is this thing quickly shifts into the ladder of what you were talking about. Where you're trying to work out a plea deal, and you're trying to see if you can help them in any way in terms of shaving a bit of time off. But reality is when the state has that kind of evidence, and it's your own words. These aren't Richard Allen confessions. I did it. Apparently, I did it. This is the guy talking about it. Things that only he would know. It's a death knelt to any kind of potential trial. So I'd be stunned if it didn't get put out, but I've been stunned before. And Bob, I'm curious, how does, if it does at all, this family's got now a track record of some really important behavior with Josh before hands. Is that going to enter into this at any point, whether it goes a trial or it's going to

8:32be mitigated out beforehand through a plea deal? Does that look that by anyone? Yeah, I mean, I think it's looked at probably by the state. But in terms of relevance, if it were to go to trial, I don't know that it would be relevant in terms of because look, it's relevant to us in the real world. But when you're talking about a trial, it's got to be relevant to the case that's before either the judge or the jury and bad behavior of other family members while it may show a pattern and that there were issues with this family. Clearly, is relevant again in the real world, but in terms of this particular case, unless you're going with some kind of mental defect type of defense. So actually, to follow on with that, I've been binge watching The Duggers, I've been reading Jill's book and what's been really, really striking is the trauma that the other siblings were exposed

9:37to by Josh and now another. And I'm curious as a defense attorney, how challenging is it to work with potential people, both I guess both prosecution and defense, that a lot of times the siblings are excusing the behavior, which breaks your heart even more, they're down-planned, that they're they're just, I mean, they are really not wanting to hurt their brothers in earlier statements. So I'm curious how hard and challenging that is to work with as an attorney trying to show the true criminality here when a lot of times the people involved are trying to say, yeah, he did it, but it's not criminal. I don't care. You know, they just wanted to go away. Yeah, and that's that thing that we talk about. It seems like weekly where, you know, I'm kind of discussing the fact of the matters that we're dealing with the defendant. So we're in a unique position that the state does not have any kind of access to the defendant. So like we're dealing with it on a more human level, whereas prosecutors are typically looking at it as

10:42a piece of paper, a name on a piece of paper in facts, and we're just plowing through. Like that's something that we always have to deal with. Like when I was representing Anthony Garcia, who, you know, his family came up with the money to hire us and they're sitting there stunned that their son has been accused of murdering four people over five years, like stunned. Like they had no inkling of knowing that that he was capable of this. They had no, they couldn't grab their mind around it. You know, so I mean, every situation obviously is different, but in terms of like trying to get the family over the hump is also made more difficult depending on whether or not you've got a client who's made admissions to you as the attorney, or if you believe that your client is coming in and they're saying that they didn't do this,

11:44you get the discovery and you're tending to agree with them based on the lack of evidence. How do you handle that with the family other than preparing them for kind of the inevitable thing, which is he's going to be sitting at that defendant's table. The likelihood is that he's going to get convicted because juries want to hold somebody accountable for heinous acts. So it's a really, it's a challenging aspect of it. And Robin, like you would kind of aptly brought up, like I don't know if it was the last time we were on or the time before, you know, we have to wear a lot of different hats. I mean, there is that psychology hat that we have to put in terms of how to deal with the family that you know is going to be resistant to wanting to assign blame or resistant to accepting the fact that they've done this thing. And, you know, ultimately at the end of the day, the bottom line is whatever is going on, the family doesn't affect in any way, shape or form, our representation of our client. I mean,

12:50our duty is to that person and that person alone. But the reality, again, the reality of the situation is you're trying to juggle all these different things when you're handling a case like that. And it's hard. And it's a really, it's a difficult thing to, to tangle with because you've got families that are devastated or in denial. And you're sitting there and you're like, man, you know, and frankly, I can't relay what my client is saying to me, you know, I mean, I've got attorney client privilege and I explain that to him on the on the front end. They're not able to sit in with us when I'm having an interview with my client because it breaks privilege. You know, so it's like, you kind of have to keep them in the dark to a certain extent, but you're trying to prepare them for the worst if they're depending on where they're at with it. You know what I mean? If they're in denial, if they're, if they're just like refusing to

13:50be helpful in any way because they just don't want to hurt that person because they love them and it's their sibling. And you know, you can't detach yourself from somebody you've unconditionally loved your entire life and all of a sudden they've done something horrible or they're accused of to have done something horrible. It doesn't make you not love that person anymore. You know, I mean, it may make you think about them differently, but still, you know, and it's hard to quantify what love is and words. It's healing. You know, we've been trying to do it since we could put paper to pen to describe what love is. But yeah, I mean, all of it's all of it's challenging. And, you know, this family man, the psychopathy of it in terms of it. It's it's it's it's it's it's here's where it gets me because if somebody's not aware that the they're part of this I BLP structure, which is a religion and I put it in air quotes. They basically have a structure

14:53where you don't necessarily report wrongdoing to authorities on everything. There we go. There's if you're watching us on YouTube, that is a little chart. They're umbrellas. There's Christ, which is the church and, you know, Christ and Bill gothard, you know, they hang out. They go to Denny's on the breakfast buffet and they get the Rudy Tutti fresh and fruity and then everything's great. And then and then there's the husband that's underneath God and Bill gothard. You know, he's probably going to the eye hop. He doesn't quite get the Denny's Rudy Tutti fresh and fruity. But he got the husband and then everybody from below the husband, which is the wife, the children, the victims, everyone. They all have to go to the husband and then report and then the husband decides if this is something that is, you know, appropriate to report to the authorities. And we all know in the first round of this horror story that Jim Bob allegedly decided, you know, what? We're going to kind of hold this one in. We're going to call this one close to the vest

15:55when the allegations came in from his own daughters of their son doing things to them until finally a family friend said, you know what, Jim Bob, this whole campaign thing that you got going on, your whole political platform that you're running on, these things, these virtues that you claim you hold dear to your heart that come from God himself. You're kind of going against all that shit by not turning your son in for doing what he did to your daughters. And then it was, okay, maybe we should do something about that. You kind of got, it's a different aspect over here because Jim Bob's as far as where we know it's not involved in this conversation, although who knows the day is young. But what we understand is, is that Joseph here, this is five years ago, they did this when the girl was nine. He was like 25, 26. He's sitting on a couch with a nine year old several times with a blanket over them and then he's doing things with his hands. That's all we need to say. This is what's going on five years ago. And then the girl finally comes out,

17:01says this admits it tells her to her father. The father calls Joseph and says, hey, I hear something happened on the couch with my daughter. Joseph comes clean. And then he gets the officer on the line from Arkansas. And then he comes clean again. And it's not clear if Joseph was aware of the officer, if it's on the line, I'm going to take a wild guess that the answer is no. But he did, he did then again say, yes, I did this. See, that's that over here thing that I'm talking about. So yeah, like if you're going to get it over here, I mean, we've handled this work. Yeah, it does. But like typically if it's a law enforcement over here and they're using a the CI and integrity, it's it's it's somebody that's involved with that person and or a relative of the victim. You know, most of the times it's it's a a baby mama or a parent of the child that

18:03was abused that was in a relationship with that person because you see it all the time. You see it with like in, you know, boyfriend, yeah, parent relationships where you see abuse happening. And then there's an outcry sometimes after many times after the relationship has been terminated for whatever reasons. And then at that point, they go, they make the outcry. The kid does and then the parent goes to law enforcement and they're like, all right, this is what we need to do. Yeah, we're going to go in. We're going to get a, you know, a tap warrant and over here warrant. And we're going to be listening. So you're not necessarily it's kind of like when they'd wire somebody up except via phone, you know, phone calls. Yeah, you know, but it's like you got to go in. Obviously, they're going to have the probable cause to get it in many times. And the cops are literally sitting there like listening just like sure. I mean, how how much does this complicate it when you have a family that doesn't believe in going to police when when this sort of

19:05stuff happens. I mean, it's he's they're training it like, oh, Shucks, you caught me. I mean, this, I mean, it makes me curious. I like I wonder how honesty is going to be with his own defense attorney. You know, when they, when they hold all these things in close until they're called out on, which seems to be the track record, that's got to make things a little bit more complicated and illegal. But, but, but they always, and they hold religion as the reasoning for their, their thought process or their lack of accountability under the law. How does how does that? Does that play in and all under the law? They're, they're religion and their belief system of, well, we handle these things internally and we don't go to the law, even though, you know, under the law, we have to, but we don't because our our religion supersedes it. Yeah, no, that's not how it works. Yeah, I didn't think. Yeah, and you saw the guard rails, you know, we talked about guard rails on these things. And when Tony had the graphic up of the umbrella, you know, Christ, father, whatever, those are the guard rails, nowhere in those guard rails,

20:05did you see legal, legality, state law, federal law? There was no guard rails. Yeah, I mean, let me ask you this, how did it work for Laurie Valow? Yeah, they were all just vessels. They were demons. They weren't even humans anymore. And it's like, in that case, in particular, I'm like, this woman's batshit crazy. You know, I mean, and like, the challenge for the defense in that case is that they don't have the insanity defense available to defendants in that state. You can only go in and attack, you know, kind of the mens rea portion of a statute by saying, this person could not form the requisite intent because of a mental defect. So it's, they have like a semblance of it. But, you know, like, you're not going to be able to lean on on a religion if it entails, you know, being a pedophile or murdering people, you can't say, well, you know, that's that's what our religion calls for. We keep it all in house. We deal with it. We deal with it on our own. That's it. It's also interesting, too, you know, just the difference between

21:08Valow's, you know, small, you know, crazy cult mentality. And I mean, she had roughly their followers of people of their minds that they had roughly five to 10, maybe 15, 20 at their height until until the real crazy came out. Yeah. But it's interesting. But with the IBLP, this is a massive, massive group that has tons of social proof that's reinforcing itself about how to handle all these situations. And so, you know, defend, yeah, you're right. It does not fit within legal guidelines of anything of what is right or not right. But I wonder how much they might try to fall back on, hey, this is the way we handle things. This is how we, you know, because I mean, they're reformed project for Josh was a send them away to one of the free labor camps that's run by IBLP. Seriously, it is labor. They got labor camps for kids. I can't like science technology in a way. It's like seorg to assert. They're kind of like Scientology light in a lot of ways. Yeah. But way out there where it's exposed to everyone's like, you can sign up, go to a

22:09website. You can literally sign up right now. If you want to go to one of their clinics and camps, I was looking at it right before we came on. I saw there's a workshop coming up in April that made me should take a field trip. Yes. Their video is on authority. It's really interesting. Yeah. It's the whole thing is it's a nonstarter in terms of the, I mean, there's a, you know, the separation of church and state exists for a reason. Sure. Not in this case. Or I mean, well, maybe not to them, but to the law it does. So when that's what matters, yeah, it's it's a really bizarre case. And it's just, you know, I mean, how to work out for the Catholic Church, you know, when all that started coming down with, you know, the priests and the real issues that they were having with molesting young boys, you know, in the same with the Boy Scouts, you know, I mean, like all these kind of, you know, institutions that have existed that really put predators in a prime position to be able to do what it is that they most desire

23:11doing. You know, eventually, you hope that the kids are going to finally start out crying and it's going to be made public because it's like that, that dominion and power that's held over these kids in terms of, and then when you add the family dynamic in, it just makes it all that much more. It's bread. I mean, I mean, I think this kind of, this kind of control is bread into them. I mean, that's why it's so different from these other cults that start later in life. I was Tony and I were talking about yesterday. Right. This is from birth. Yeah. So you don't get over indoctrination that is part of who you are from. Yeah. All it's all the memories they have is just unbelievable. I mean, you could make the argument that they don't know any better because that's all they don't know. You could. I mean, you might be able to actually, but they did get out there. I mean, I mean, yeah, I mean, that actually is an interesting argument. Um, still not a defensive. Right. It's not ignorance. The law is no excuse. No, no. Yeah. The, the other thought to

24:11this, and this is just pure conjecture, he hasn't been charged with anything else. This sort of shit never happens in a vacuum. Does anyone for one second believe that it just was a while he had a wild hair one day? It's a one off. It's a one off. I'm just gonna get this blanket and go see with this nine year old over here. And I mean, I got some questions. I want to experiment. I mean, I mean, I don't think that's how this went. I'm thinking there might be a trend and a track record and there might be other victims. Again, hasn't been charged with anything, but I'm going to take a wild guess if we're just going to base it on reality and how we know these fuckers work. There's probably more people and they don't even know their victims. So that's what well, and that's the thing. They don't know their victims because it's the only life they know. This is the way it is. It's anybody, anybody who had interactions with these pieces of shit with their children needs to be having some very serious conversations. The problem with that statement is most the time they travel only within their own sect, within their own cult, within other cult members. So they all the cult members,

25:15all the fathers who are right below Goddard and Jesus at Denny's, they're all ready to be like, Oh, the buck stops here. We'll handle this internally, but I would hope to God literally. It's time to come forward. And if they do, and if there's a litany of more people that come out and have a horror story against Joseph Dagger, again, not saying there are, I have no idea, but if there are, and they start coming forward, this is going to be the worst PR nightmare the Dougers have ever seen. They thought Josh was bad. Wait till this one comes in. There's a it is, but it's, it goes to what Robin was saying, like the, the, the people that you think most about in those situations are the kids because they are, they're indoctrinated from birth and they know no different. And if you don't, if you're not educated, that something is wrong, because that's the thing that you deal with. And we dealt with in this country forever until they started educating kids in school about abuse. And you were not the problem here. It's the

26:16predator problem. It's not your fault. That person is doing something that they shouldn't be doing to you. And then unless the kids are taught that, they don't know, you know, the most striking word watching the, the saddest, you know, you know, TV specials I've been watching on this and then read on Jill's book is the most powerful tool they use nonstop is shame. They shame these kids into behaviors. And the most striking thing about that is where else, who else, what are the kind of horrendous human beings use that same power of shame? People that victimize children? 100 response. Yeah. So it's exactly the same thing. Or they live, same behavior. Yeah. These idiots better think long and hard before they get on the bandwagon of we love all of our children and we hope everything and get on the band like they did behind Joshi where they were just like we love them and they did and then they just kind of go silent. They better think long and hard about it with this one, especially if there ends up being a lot of allegations that start coming

27:19up against him because that's going to, I mean, they're already on the wrong side of history. But if they want to get even further deep, I mean, yeah, go ahead. Dig in. Dig on in. Get dig on in behind Joseph. That'll work out well. This is also why this is why it's so challenging because these cultures inoculate themselves from the outside scrutiny by marrying internally. You know, that's why that's why that's why the father has to approve the courtship. He can only court someone that the father approves who's going to be someone who's already indoctrinated into the system. You know, and so and so when you have that that insular, you know, self perpetuating cycle of crazy, then it's never, nothing ever comes alike because I was looking at the stats on this. You know, we talked about yesterday, Tony, it's like the, the Amish have a lot of similar problems, a lot of similar problems, but they actually are so cloistered that they don't interact with English all that often. And so it doesn't really come to light. But when you're looking at the raw numbers for legal cases for these types of cases, they're on par with exactly with each other.

28:23But this group actually interacts more with the outside world than the Amish do. And it's not disparaging any of these things. I'm just, we're just talking raw numbers. Yeah. And I mean, to kind of go back to it, it's not just that shame aspect, but you know, they're, they're taught, there's a normalcy. Yeah. Thing that they're that are indoctrinated into as well, that this is normal. This is how it's supposed to be. And again, if you're a child and you don't know any better, how are you supposed to know? If you're being taught, you see, that's brainwashing. I mean, it's totally, yeah. Yeah. And just talk about the normalcy of things, you know, part of the most horrendous thing that I called my wife and she came up and she believes the reward I saw watching these things on TV, right? And I'm watching one of the videos of them given instruction, one of the church leader up there, given instruction on how to properly spank a child on a stage. He bends the boy over his knee on stage, shows him how to spank him, that how he's going to love him more from.

29:25And then he didn't give him a big enough hug. He spanked them some more and said, now give me a bigger hug. Yeah. I don't know how people like what trauma bonding's called. I don't know how people watched the, it's not like the Dugger show was ancient history. You know, this was, this was just a few years, this was like 10 years ago on TLC. And it's all in your town. Tony, it's always in your town. That's what I'm curious about. It's so many people. Yeah, come, you'll find, yeah, wait, wait, tell July, you'll come during the call. He is always in your town. There's so many here. I know. But the thing is the, so many people watch this damn show and this got their warm and fuzzies out of it. How does anybody look back at the clips of this show and not be completely creeped out? I mean, it's exactly like Ruby. I was creeped out back then watching it. I don't respect all religions. I think some need to be called the fuck out. And this is one of them. We need to stop respecting everybody that claims what they're doing is a religion when it's really just coercive control. I mean, 100%, but you're never going to be able to stop it because. No, you're not,

30:29yeah, because of the amendment, you know, but, but, but we need to, as a society, not respect it socially. We need to call this shit out and not be like, oh, isn't that cute? You all like to wear skirts and repress your women. Oh, you have the right to do that. That's super. And you do have the right to do it. I have the right to say your batch of fucking crazy. And these women, I hope to God get away from you into so and you will never speak to you for the rest of your life. And you die in a flaming pit. But, you know, that's my right to say that too. But we need to do more of this rather than look at it as, oh, it's cutesy. Don't they make nice, nice omelettes when you stop at the Amish restaurant or whatever insert religion that represses human beings here. You know, it's just, it's sickening. And I just, I'm so sick of pretending there's something moral or godly or wonderful going on behind the closed doors at note. None of us see until they're fucking kids. But, but T, it's like for, for every person like that that thinks that it's just adorable and look it up. Yeah, there's people like us, you know, but there's not enough. I know people are freaks.

31:36You know, it's a, but, you know, to each his own, yeah, that therein lies the rub, but like ultimately the accountability aspect of it. And it's, it's that thing where you're, you're really from the law enforcement side of it. You know, when they're trying to infiltrate, it's so damn hard. It is that protective bubble. It's the boo they allow in. It's like I've done like, you know, my king with his, you know, who's got his, his channel profiling evil. But like when he went in and was able to infiltrate that particular cult down there where they had done essentially the same thing. They had essentially bought like an entire neighborhood. So they were insulated from the outside world. And it's those kids that are, that are born into it. Yeah, that you're concerned with more than anything else because consenting adults, you know, I always sit here and wonder how do people get brainwash like that? I'm talking about like doctors and educated people where I'm always like, nobody's ever brainwash me and it's crazy. But then you see people on

32:39a, on an equal educational level that are brainwashed into it. And it's, you know, I mean, obviously you have to deep, you know, dive deep into what's going on with that person that puts them in a unique position to be so susceptible to it. Yeah, acceptance and validation is a very, very powerful level of influence over people. And when you use that acceptance and validation and you throw some love bombing in there and you're valued and seen for who you are and you have any inkling of not having that in one aspect of your life, I don't care how educated you are, I don't care how emotional intelligence you are, you can be extremely susceptible to it. I do believe though that when you, as I was talking in Tony about this, you know, hard to imagine us like people that really dive deep and try to understand what's going on here of not, not being inoculated against it. I do think we're inoculated against it just because we're fascinated by it. But yeah, that's what it comes down to. You know, when, when groups and organizations

33:40offer a path to calm the chaos in your brain and and they always start out with the high level love bombing or validation or seeking to have accepted all the things that are brained, the big four firing when you're getting. Yeah. And they're not getting it from any other aspect of their lives. That's when it starts getting rooted and it starts getting some traction and then it's, it's the slow build. It's the grooming into it. And man, there's so much and there's going to be a lot more to come on these. And I hate that case. I hate it. I like the case we're going to be talking about later today. That's that's what I like seeing happen. Yeah. Yeah. I've been looking for that one, Bob. Yeah. I saw your thoughts, your thoughts in the comment section on sub stack and YouTube. We'd love for you to weigh in and and give us your thoughts. Let's move over to another case that is going on right now. That's getting a lot of attention. The trial of Kelsey Fitzsimmons comes down to one contested

34:41moment in one question, which direction was the gun pointed? The prosecution says she raised her service weapon and leveled it at a fellow officer's face and pulled the trigger than attempted to re rack it and then she got shot. The defense says the gun never left her own temple and that when what the state is calling an assault is actually a mental health crisis that nearly ended her life. A judge, not a jury will decide. Bob Mata is with us to help break all of this down. This is a confusing case. There's there's a lot of so many moving parts to it. You have you have a mental crisis emergency going on still with with her in this moment, even though she was cleared and she got her weapon back. Clearly she wasn't in a healthy spot yet. And then the way it was handled as well. Now, were they following protocol? It looks like they might have been. Maybe that protocol needs to be changed. At the end of the day, nothing here was good on anybody's part. Bob, as you

35:45walk into this as a defense attorney, I've been so interested to talk to you about this one. What's your take and what's going on here in this? Well, I mean, let's start with the biggest decision that was made, which was bancher jury, right? So that that question for me and we've been covering it on our channel or Ali streaming it with a former judge, Massachusetts retired judge who's brilliant and who was very much involved in that area of the law during her time on the bench. So her insight's been invaluable. But where I was at, you know, because if you follow the case from the beginning, the original judge was not friendly to the defense or to Kelsey Fitzsimmons. At all, she was depending on who you ask either removed or she stopped away from the case. And so judge Carp was put on, I looked into him in terms of his background a bit to kind of see what his track was. And he's been on both sides. He was a prosecutor, but he's also been a defense attorney.

36:50I like to see, I love to see that. I love to see attorneys that have practicing on practice on both sides of the aisle, because I think it really gives you a lot of insight that attorneys may not have if they've just done one or the other. And ultimately, from the last two pre trials, I had landed on the assessment that if I was handling the case, I would be advising my client is in this particular case where it's going to boil down to nothing more than reasonable doubt based on a he said and she said story because there's no body worn cam. Nobody else was in that room. You got two people giving two different sides of a story. I'm always concerned about do juries truly understand the concept of what beyond a reasonable doubt means. I don't have that concern with judges. They know what it is and they know to apply it not just globally to one charge. You have to apply it to each and every element of every charge. So in this case, when you're talking

37:52about an assault, they've met that burden on that one element, which is, did he have apprehension of fear that he was going to be harmed or worse? As soon as she had a gun in her hand, no matter where she's pointing it, they've checked that box. All right. So what it's the intent is where this case lives in terms of trying to get into what, because they have to prove it, the state has to prove it, the Commonwealth, that it was her intent to cause him to have, and that's where this thing lies. So her intent was to cause him that apprehension of fear of injury or death, then she's guilty, right? So but end of the day when you have two different stories in my estimation, and it's a huge risk because you're going from 12 to one in terms of having a bench trial. It's like I often rarely go with a bench trial and it depends on the judge. It depends

38:56on how familiar I am with the judge. It depends on the fact patterns. It depends on whether or not. I think there's novel issues of law that I don't think that a jury might be able to grasp fully that I really think that they need to in order for this case to be tried properly. And in this particular scenario, I thought it was the right call. I've seen nothing that changes my mind in terms of what I've seen in the first day and a few hours today. I think it was the right call for them, but ultimately that's Kelsey Fitzsimmons. Right, Lizzy. Not that I mean, the lawyers just say, look, we think, and I'm sure that it was braidel that said, look, I think that this is a bench trial, you know, I think this is the way we go, because you remove the emotion from it. Like that, that is, that is the thing that you're looking for. If you're, if you're defense counsel, you need to get that emotion out of it. And I'm talking about it all the time because it has no place in the law. Right. It has no place in a courtroom. And the prosecution is adamant about

39:58getting it in because they don't have the power of it. Sure. Yeah. And Bob, so my question, one of the challenges, again, I'm curious about your thought on the challenge that I would think was a challenge in this, at least in the FBI, and I know every department's different, the deadly force policy is pretty liberal when it comes to all it has to be is perceived threat of violence to yourself or someone else on body of the injury or death and deadly force is authorized. How will defense get by that? Because all it has to come down to is that one officer's perception, again, you show a gun and you said it right at the beginning, you show a weapon, it doesn't matter what she says is in her mind or her intent. All it matters is, at least from my understanding, that's why I'm curious, from your perspective, what that officer thought it looked like. So I'm only worried about that if Noonan's my client. Honestly, what you're talking about, whatever his intent is, because two things can be true,

40:59his perception could be true and what. But wouldn't they automatically side then with prosecution? No. Because it comes dumb, it does come down exactly that he said, she said perception wise, but doesn't it, but doesn't know what you're talking about as a case against Noonan, what his perception is and whether or not it was a good and lawful shooting is irrelevant. Like that's not what's an issue here. What's really an issue is what she did with the weapon, because under what you're talking about, if she never aimed at him and the judge is convinced beyond a reusable doubt that she did, she's guilty. It's that simple. If he's not convinced and it's somewhere where it's a reasonable doubt, maybe she just, because you can't use deadly force with somebody who's going to kill themselves. Well, if you're protecting somebody else or yourself, one thing, you can't shoot and kill somebody if they're otherwise like, what are you worried

41:59about? You're saying, well, kill yourself, but I'm going to kill you for you. It's that death up suicide by God. Yeah, that's what that's what made me. Yeah. If Kelsey's crew is saying flat out, she never aimed it at him, then they have nothing to argue. They can't argue. They can't go down the postpartum road. They can't go down like she wasn't in the right mental state. They can't go down any of that because she didn't do it according to them. She never aimed it at him. So that's, I mean, are they, pardon the pun, are they shooting themselves in the foot a little bit by using that story, by going with that story and saying that she never aimed it, would you have more lateral move here or even more of a positive move? If you were to say, yes, she did, but look, she was not in her right mind. This is nothing she would have ever, you know, it was horrible. Couldn't, I mean, it's to five year, you know, sentence if she gets it. I mean, she's rationalizable and she would probably edit anyway, but if you're saying she just

43:04didn't do it, and they're saying she did. I mean, these officers wouldn't necessarily go and there's one to shoot her. I mean, it's definitely not. It's just, but again, you're making that judgment call in those split seconds. If there's a gun, and it's, let's say she didn't animate him, but let's say she pulled, let's say other scenario of her, she pulled the trigger, and it didn't fire at her head. And then she goes back down and she's tapping the gun and she's trying to rack the gun and trying to get it to load again in that second. That gun can go back up, but it can go straight at you and it can go straight at her. You don't know where the hell it's going to go. As the officer, you then have to make that call on that moment, and I'm not saying right, but that's what would have happened if, if essentially, but you guys are mixing it up, like, Nounan's not on trial. I know what I'm saying is the scenario is you keep giving me only matter if Nounan's on trial, right? But what this, what the only matters here is whether or not

44:05Chelsea's intent was to cause that apprehension. She just asked to determine basically, are you lying? Did you aim it or did you not? And if you aim it, you're going to jail. You're guilty. It's that simple. If the other finds Nounan to be credible, but he can find Nounan to be credible, because again, everything's about perception, like in terms of all perceptions to be right. Exactly. So he is acquitted, you know, the one thing that I worry about with the bench trial is, look, I mean, in Massachusetts, they are appointed, and I think they're appointed for life, you're not elected in that state, but it's still a political office. And if you've got, you know, politicians that are concerned about a massive lawsuit coming down the pike, you do worry about a bench trial wherein you've got a judge who doesn't necessarily want to say out loud in terms of an opinion or a rendering of verdict in that case. Well, yeah, I think this cop is a big fat liar

45:06because that's opening the state in the jurisdiction and that county up to, you know, lawsuit and liability in that lawsuit. So like, you know, like that's one thing that I'm thinking about as a defense attorney, like with going with the bench trial, but in terms of like that thing that we were talking about, you know, because what you're talking about is a mental defect type thing like, well, because that makes it a much more difficult case. Yeah, because I mean, there's without question, it was diagnosed postpartum, she had been cleared, she was supposed to be going back to work on the third or the fourth. So, and she was theoretically in a good place. I mean, like, you know, under the paper work she was, obviously, she wasn't. Yeah. Here's, I'm going to give you my typical pushback on that. So as far as whether she was or she wasn't, we're talking about an X part A restraining order, okay, base, which means that he goes in, Justin goes in on his own, and we don't know Jack shit about him. Like, not what I know is that

46:12he was placed on administrative leave because he was caught on the security camera of that house more than 200 times in the backyard, smoking weed and getting high. So like, I mean, we just, again, we know very little about what was going on with these two folks. What I can tell you from just forget about defense attorney, but just an attorney in general that has done plenty of not only criminal defense work, but plenty of divorce and custody work. And believe me when I tell you that restraining orders, temporary restraining orders are used as an absolute weapon in custody fights. Sure. Without a doubt, we get people out of residences. If they are, they happen to be married and they have joint ownership and also to get the upper hand and the custody, meaning that that person has been given temporary custody of the children or the child prior to the thing being litigated and it gives you an upper hand. So it is used all the time as a sword. It's not what that statute was. Yeah. What you have here is a guy who has a mother

47:17who is a very interested grandmother who is a mother who is a grandmother who would very much like to have her grand, her grand baby with her all the time who is orchestrating shit in the background. And I'm not guessing on this. I've seen the emails or the text messages rather from Justin's mother to this lieutenant with the police department over there and north and over. And you know, these are very personal type of messages and it's all relating to, you know, them helping them out. Hey, can you can you send a car by all planting the seeds that Kelsey's batshit crazy? Like all the little text messages, oh, yeah, you know, we heard that they're in town. We're worried. They're going to come over. Like all of which has never been substantiated because there's been not one shred of evidence that she ever in any way she performed abused, tried to abuse in any way that baby. Like so that doesn't exist in the world as a reality guy saying it in his words,

48:18Kerry, whatever won't you assign to them. So so you have this thing going on where he goes in, goes in ex gets an ex party, which means she's not there. She doesn't she's not aware that it's going on. She's at home with her four month old baby and all of a sudden she gets a knock at the door. Okay, she doesn't get me for warning. And she's got her department standing there. Hey, we got to serve this arrow on you. We have to take all your weapons. But more importantly, we've got to take your infant son and Justin has temporary custody of him through this. You'll have your day in court. You know, you can go go to the hearing. You can disprove what he was saying. And but here's where the problem lies with this case. And I don't know if you guys are aware of it. For for some god for sake and reason in in a in a situation where you have a restraining order that is being served on somebody and removal is an aspect. And I'm talking about removal of children from that house. That is one of in talks of talking about the fatality. Like a situation

49:21becoming lethal. Robin, do you do what you do? Yeah, go look into it and see the number of lethal situations that arise out of specifically removal type situations where somebody's come and try to take somebody's kid. So not only do you have that going through, you have the fact that law enforcement is told by Justin. And this isn't even in the petition. He just says it. He says, oh, I'm worried she's going to kill the baby with no substantiation behind it at all. But that's planted in the seed or into the minds of law enforcement, heading over that day. They're talking about having to do a, you know, a section or out to a 5150. Like they got a polaroid because she's she's off a rocker, you know. And it's all based on an ex-partei hearing where again, nothing was challenged. Anybody can go into court. It's never the hell you want. And if the judge who is not getting any resistance to what you're putting on there, the judge can say, well,

50:24yeah, I'm going to air on the side of caution and I'm going to grant it. And then, you know, you get that hearing set up. So not only does that happen, but what they decide to do, which is inexplicable to me, is they tell that dude to come to the house to get the baby. So I needed to understand it. So she upstairs. And then she's told that Justin and his sister are there to collect the baby. That is not how that works. That is not 20 to 20 to 40 percent, Bob. Studies domestic violence custody removal case show the 20 to 40 percent involve some level resistance threats and physical confrontation when law enforcement shows up. Yeah. I percentage. Yeah. And then you're creating this devolatile environment and like not like they're going to walk and be like, I'll just give us a kid. Okay. See you later. Right. You know, it's not how that is. Like you're you're going into and I've been someone who we already know is having some rough mental times and and and this could have been hand again. Yeah. There's so many ways this could have been handled better. I mean, I don't want I don't want you to undervalue the point that they

51:27brought in the guy who went in next part day who was taking ripping her child away from her. No, no, no, no. And shit, he said and they're introducing him to that scene. So like I don't think we're here having this trial. If she is not told that yeah, Justin's in the house and he's grabbing that like I think that put her over the top. There is no way that guy should have been there. Sure. That's it should have been a social worker who wasn't in the house. If they're concerned about and if they're talking about sectioning her that tells you what their mindset is going in. You're you're trying to delve into the mindset of these cops and are they on high alert walking into that house and we know the answer. We know the answer is yes because of the information they've been provided. So that factors in in terms of a noonins perception. Like he is walking into that house. Yeah. Having been told certain things whether true or not matters not to him in terms of this is where I'm that mentally this this girl like from what I'm hearing could pop

52:31off at any second. So he's on super super high alert. And then when you introduce the fact that the very person that has made this happen who is responsible for her having her baby ripped away from her four months old is in the house along with his sister. At that point, man, you know, I like it's it's hard to say what would be going through a normal person's mind. But you know, like from where we're at everything was right with the world. Like I'm the last person. I have four kids. My wife has had four babies. She was fortunate not to have postpartum depression. But like that that's a real thing. That's it. I lived it. No one to blame. Like that's not Kelsey's fault that she was feeling. No, not at all. No, but that reality is she got over. She was over the hump. And where she's sitting on June 30th is that she's excited. She's got her baby. She's going back to work. And then all of a sudden Justin had decided for whatever reason

53:33based on whatever again, we have no idea what was going on in that relationship. He uses this, you know, this kind of this bachelor party where he's got a drinking issue. Like he's like, he's not a clean hands guy in this. Like let's not try to make Justin like neither were these are just people. Yeah, you're like in like all of us. They all we all have issues. So like, like this again, it's not a story. It's not a movie. This is real damage people who have their own issues, whether it be alcohol, drugs, combination of both. It is what it is. And you know, it was just it could have been avoided if it had been properly handled. And and the really the blame falls on the North end over police department in terms of because they did not follow procedure. I assure you bringing a civilian into that scene when they're serving it in a movable case is not standard operating procedure. It's not and to make it even worse, it's the very guy who's getting the cost. I mean, like the concept of it isn't you know, but did she point the weapon that mean at

54:38the end of the day, that's what it all goes back to all of the minutiae. It's there, but did she do that? And that's that's the question. And how's the judges side that? That's curious. To me, like so I was just saying it before I jumped on your stream, this entire thing is going to if I if I'm going to win that case on defense, I'm bringing in a mental health expert, but specifically somebody dealing with memory and trauma responses to memory and how it was like, yeah, you cannot in any way, shape or form be able to clearly remember something in a high trauma situation. Because again, your perception, what you were thinking going into it, all of that do you have a motive to lie if you're a cop and you're worried about it being ruled a bad shooting, you're going to be aware of that very, very, very soon after. If not going into it as soon as you pull the trigger, you're going to be like, oh, shit, you know, like he's

55:39got a motive to lie. I mean, she's got a motive to lie. They all do. Yeah. I mean, that's where it's like let's ask another human to tell us what reality was. And we have no way of ever truly confirming it either way. Yeah. So I've got a memory expert on it because that it just creates a reasonable doubt where you can trust either of their memories. No, what they thought because it's, it's their perceptions and it's done a three second four-second interaction where they shut them down. It's a tough case, man. It's a tough case. Your thoughts in the comment section and sub-stack in YouTube. We love for you to weigh in. Do drop them right there. The links are in the description. One more case I want to get to today. A trial date is finally on the calendar. June 22nd after months of delays, a judge removed and a primary election that turned this case into a national story. The clock is now running for real. The next 90 days will determine whether Aaron Spencer walks into a general election as a candidate or walks into a courtroom as a convicted felon. The public thinks it knows the story. The prosecution says it does it. And less than three

56:45months, Jerry and Arkansas is going to decide which version is right. One father, one dead predator, and a system that's being asked to explain itself. Bob Mata is with myself at Robin Drake to help break all of this down. We got our dates, the 22nd. There's been a lot of arguments. Should this stay here? Should it move somewhere else? We have a new judge that, thankfully, is on this case. It's not the same one that let the offender out to begin with. Where do you think we're standing here? Now that there's been a little breathing room between where we thought the trial was going to start, to where we're sitting right now with a date of June 22nd. I think there's still, so what happened in the interim? Let me jump back. Yeah. They had the primaries in your neck of the woods and Aaron Spencer was running and he won the primary. I guess the only person he's going up against during the general election in November is an independent. So I think there's a hope within the Spencer camp that the state's going to

57:56think better of this and decide not to try it. I keep trying to tell the family, I'm like, I just don't want you to kind of like, that's probably not going to happen. This thing's going to trial. There's good log in, which is unfortunate. It's sad that it's that way because it's not a case that I think needs to be tried. And I think if you were to pull the public at large down there, they would agree, like massively, it would be a land type situation. So I mean, this allows the attorneys to go ahead and say, you know what, we're going to have the new judge reconsider a bunch of the rulings that was made that were made by the prior judge because we think that she got them wrong. And I mean, it gives them that opportunity to really kind of dig in a bit more with some of the decisions that, which is the one advantage of getting a new judge because you have the option to be able to say, we're basically asking you to relitigate these not even reconsider what that judge did. We want you to form your own opinion on it. And typically,

58:58the judges will do it. So this is on the time to do that. Whether or not they're going to do it is unknown yet. We'll find out when they file things. I certainly would be trying to do it, especially with the lost dashboard cam video, which is inexplicable to me. I mean, maybe the entire event theoretically was recorded and somehow got lost by law enforcement. And we're talking about that the predator had a dash cam in his vehicle, which in theory would have caught all of it on tape. When can they start? I mean, we have so many damn cases like this bomb where it's like, oh, they lost it. And that's that's just kind of where it ends. There's no, those things should almost be litigated. Really? You lost it? Then let's go figure out how you lost it. Let's go take a look at the timestamps of where this was deleted and why and how. And let's just see how much of an accident it was. I mean, if we, if they're started, I mean, what needs to be done

59:58so this isn't such an easy lever for law enforcement to pull. Does it need to be like literally on the books of like, look, if this, if this material is gone or destroyed or deleted, there will be a criminal investigation into that specific act of doing that with that, with that slow people down from doing it because there would be really clear paths to busting people for destroying evidence. I don't know what needs to be done here because clearly this happens all the time and it doesn't seem like it's that far of a puddle to jump over for law enforcement because they use this lever a lot to avoid accountability. Yeah, man, here's where the problem is that the burden is on the defense to prove it. Yeah, like, it can't, like, because it's easy for the cops to come in and say, oh, it was accidentally erased. It should be other Charlie, totally separate from the case. It's just like, oh, this was deleted. Well, that's illegal to have that deleted or to be lost. Yeah, that becomes a very slippery slope. So all I can do on this,

1:01:04you know, accidentally deleted, like, I mean, well, I mean, there probably are cases where they could look, okay, yes, this was truly there will inevitably be truly accidental deletions. But if we make it far more important, like, you just, you don't do this. Really, be careful. Don't fuck with this material because if something happens, if you, if whatever happens, and it's gone, you could go to prison for that. I mean, there's other things we have in our world where it's like, if you screw with this, that could be very bad. So we take a lot of extra precaution not to let something bad happen with this over here. But with this sort of stuff, it's kind of like, so here's your reality of how these things typically work is that until you're actually called on the carpet because something when sideways, you're not going to fix a broken system. And so, I mean, just think about the number of law enforcement agencies out there that have had to have one, you had to get funded for body cams, then you have to maintain body cams, you have to train the officers to remember to turn on the body cams and then keep it. And so what happens is, is that

1:02:09people get lax, they get lazy because they go out on hundreds of calls a day or a week. And then the one time they needed it, they didn't have the reps they needed because the training faltered, the equipment was faltering. So the reality is, is until it becomes an issue, it won't become an issue. And so, unfortunately, that's the way it happens a lot of time. And sometimes it's, you know, bad actors and sometimes it's just, you know, incoherence. Yeah, incoherence. Right. In the system. I always tend to edge more on having been in the system. I tend to edge more on the incoherence in the system, more than bad actors on the inside. Because believe me, these cops, cops don't want shit to go sideways because it'll end their careers. And they got to provide for families. And they know 100% if they're involved in a case like this and they don't have the body cam, the first thing they're saying to himself is not, oh, thank God I don't have the body cam. They're saying, oh shit, I don't have the body cam. So that's generally the way it goes. Yeah. And I think, you know, I think the counter to that would be, you know, it's an incredibly

1:03:10dangerous job. And I think that everybody would agree that they're, for the amount of danger that they're really exposed to, they're grossly underpaid, which always leads to that thing where, you know, if they're going there, they're doing a drug raid and you've got two partners running into that back closet and they finally find a giant pile of cash and they're looking at one and they're like, we're making fucking 60 grand a year. And we're like, we could get killed any day. We step foot onto the streets with this uniform on. I'm going to give you 10 large and I'm going to take you out. So I mean, because of the, the structure in terms of how we compensate these people that are doing this incredibly dangerous job, it almost encourages them. Yeah. Maybe step over the line a bit, which becomes a very, very slippery slope. It could start with all right, you know, like no one knows how much cash is in here. No one's going to know 20 grand is missing if we each take a stack and shove it in our vest. So, you know, you're still getting

1:04:15a big pile. It'll all go to the state and they can use it to buy boats and whatever the fuck they're going to do with it. Or, but that, that problem becomes is, is a once you become corrupt with that one little taste. It then becomes a very, very slippery slope. And it also, like the concept of like I need to rise up in the ranks, which is typically going to be determined by the amount of clothes cases you get can also encourage, you know what? Like I'm just going to go ahead and drop this key fob here, like everything. Like I don't know where I'm out on Avery. Like do I think that the cops did that whole thing and play? No, I don't. But do I think that in order to make sure that they got the conviction on the guy that they were sure had done it? Do I think that they drop that fucking key fob? Yes, I do. But they had all kinds of other evidence, but that is like the kind of evidence where, okay, you had four searches in that house and nobody saw it and then all of a sudden it appears. You know, it's strange. So, I think the answer to Tony's

1:05:19question is as much like in the world of suppression motions, there has to be greater teeth. And they've got to work on that burden on the defense because how am I supposed to prove intent from a law enforcement agency where I have zero access to what they're doing? You're asking for an impossible burden to be able to hurdle because I don't have access. I'm like, okay, Judge, I'll happily, are you going to allow me to go in? Can I subpoena all their shit and dig through all their shit? And then I'll find it for you because short of that, how do you expect me to prove bad intent? Yeah, you're asking them to police themselves and to like, well, yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, it's just, there just seems to be far too easy ways to cheat if one wants to get to work. You got to make teeth. You got to make your teeth where, all right, you know what, you lost it. Now you lost the case. I lived in a glass bubble. I was just surrounded by good people. I really was. You know, I went to work every day to do the

1:06:22righteous work and I had to get around bosses that were stupid. I had to get around the organization that was fixated on getting promoted and agendas. You know, but I was fortunate. I know there's, I did a lot of training with a lot of law enforcement across the country where I train them on leadership and things like that. So I'm generally the glasses half full. I know there's bad apples and bad actors out there, but I do see an amazing amount that actually are doing the right thing that they're not going to see any pile cash and go for it. I think that's the majority. And yeah, it is because and not even be tempted by it. I mean, you know, it's like when you see someone go bad and and and they and they see themselves a wound collecting victim in all these situations and they're saying, oh, I did it because I don't get paid enough or they're using some rationalization excuse to be an ass. You know, the only thing I say is, well then quit. Get another job, you know, because the people that serve join to serve. They're not joining to take. So it is like you were a fat dude. You know what I mean? Like you're that's a different

1:07:22thing than kind of a low level. You know what I'm saying? Like I mean, you get all types. It's like your education level is such where I love I love everybody like Rob and Drake becoming law enforcement because you're the guy one in there. You're the guy. Right. Because because inherently you're a good person. You win in with because I don't think that people get into law enforcement thinking like, oh, I'm going to go rob drug dealers. I don't know. It's not. It is not a profitable, you know, right. You're going to do for life. It's a dangerous gambit. I'm talking about it. Right. So like, but I think that what happens, like, well, let me put this ponderable to you, Rob. And so ponderable, say you've got a case where you are 100% absolutely certain that you've got the right guy. However, you're missing that one piece of evidence that one piece of evidence that a lot,

1:08:22and you are certain of it. There is, it's unequivocal. You know that you've got the guy, but you're missing that one piece of evidence that allows you to get in front of a judge and get an arrest warrant. And that and that temptation in terms of because you're theoretically morality, why's you're doing the right thing? Because you're taking a monster off the street. I uncovered it in Gacy. That's what happened in Gacy. They knew that Gacy had kidnapped Rob Peast and most likely killed him, but they knew that he kidnapped him. It had to have been. And he was the last person to see the kid alive. And the kid is vanish off the face of the earth. And he's not a kid that was, you know, running off to California. His mother adamant about that. So they knew, but they couldn't, they had the first search of the house. They couldn't find anything related to Rob Peast. They followed him for 10 days. Gacy's not a moron. He's not going to kill one. He, because it was an open and notorious tale, because they didn't have the manpower to do a serabitious tale. So they, he knows that they're, they're following. I was like, he's not

1:09:24going to kill anybody while they're following. So they don't get anything. I'm an in 10 days. In the meantime, Gacy runs into federal court files for a temporary restraining order to stop the 24, seven tale, which he was going to win, because they had been on and they had searched his house once. And they've been following him for 10 days. And they didn't get the federal courts are going to let you follow somebody in perpetuity. The way that they were, you know, like where it's open and in obvious and they're following him into restaurants. And they're, you know, they're coming into his house. So they were going to end it. So they were, they were putting this situation where for all intents and purposes, that investigation was going to end right then and there as soon as the judge, the federal judge granted that TRO, which created a desperate times call for desperate measures situation, which is how that receipt becomes infused as if it was found in his house in order to get the second warrant, which is what they got. And then they went in and they found the bodies. So like, but that's, that's that scenario that I'm, that I'm talking about where,

1:10:30where you just know that you've got the guy, but you just don't have the evidence. Well, and so, and so here's where, and so here's where I know and I guarantee that's where the where he is, but here's where I'm going to give the class half full on what guys like me doing those situations. One, get better. You know, you, you own it and you just dig deeper to stay on, on the righteous path because here's, here's what good, healthy minded people do. You play that shit forward. You play forward, you know, let's suppose we take that action. When you do something wrong, when you have a lack of transparency and openness and abiding by the law, it will be found out, you know, just if you're looking to percentages, it's going to be found out at some point. And what's going to happen when that happens? You're destroyed. The case is destroyed and the guy's going to walk. So why do it? Yeah, I mean, so either way, the guy will eventually walk, either it's by your hand or you see what I mean? So the clear might of people,

1:11:31but that's why, but that's why you didn't catch that. It took 45 years for me to uncover it. It came from the cops. I know what I mean. So in that situation, it was literally with with the cops said, Mike Albrecht is like, eh, you know, because I asked him, like there has to be something that you've never told anybody in all the interviews you've done. He said, well, you know, he's like, there's one thing. He's like, you know, that photo receipt. I'm like, yes, I know that photo receipt. And then he tells me the story that it really wasn't found in the house that that loathe the lieutenant said that they the story was going to be that they found it on the garbage pull from the curb, which is fair game. You don't need a warrant for that. Like once it hits the curb, anybody can dig into it. It's still strong evidence is strong as, you know, hey, we found it in the inside garbage in terms of like, it's clear that the kid was in here because the receipt from the, you know, from the, the pharmacy that was in the kid's pocket is in his house and it can only have gotten there if Rob Pist was there. That's powerful evidence. It's still powerful. So I told Mike, I'm like, look, man, then Mike, what he said is, Gacy's dead. I don't

1:12:34have to worry about an appeal. So like he would, but they would, what they did in that case is, Cosen's act kept it very, very narrow. He kept it very, very small amount of people that knew it. It was Cosen's act. And I think it was Ron Adams is right. And man, the guys on the street that we're out doing the work, pounding the pavement, knocking on doors, talking to witnesses, they had no idea, you know what I mean? And so like he insulated them from what was going on with it. But like, when I, when I broke it, I'm like, how do I handle this? Because it's the greatest morality play in the history of morality. And it's great. It's a grave in yet. Yeah, it's a fucking monster. It's like, it's a question. You know, if you had the opportunity to kill Hitler, knowing what we know now, would you do it back there? And so in cases like that, so in cases like this, you know, it comes down to, you know, first of all, you have people, you don't have to have a hundred percent of organization with the righteous mindset. You only need is one in a leadership position to be able to keep poking people in the righteousness because people want to do the right thing, but they'll be tempted to do the, the convenient

1:13:37and easy thing for a righteous reason. In situations like that, you know, we had an expression in the Marine Corps. If you're going to play, you got to pay. And so, you know, if you're going to put yourself on the line to do something like that, even know you think it's righteous, do just stand up and be ready. Because when that shit comes down on you, you got to own it, and you might be going jail with them. And that's how I sold it at the end of the day, because it was a cautionary tale, because I had a punkle on who was the lead prosecutor. And in his reality has had my father asked one question during this oppression motion, which was, who was the evidence tech that was following you around the day of the first search? Because I hunted that guy down 45 years later, fondament, Colorado. He did not work with the display police. He was Cook County Sheriff's Office. And he was the evidence tech that they supplied to them because they didn't have a big enough department. So that guy, no one ever spoke to, no one ever saw their reports. And when I asked him, I'm like, look, you were the guy following

1:14:39him around, taking the pictures, keeping the evidence log. If I'm looking at the evidence log from that day to that search, and this photo receipts not there, what does that mean? It means it wasn't there. Because I would have photographed it, and I would have noted it, and I would have said where we were sending it off to. And so I knew at that point, and then it becomes that thing, had my father asked, and he had discovered who that guy was. That entire case falls apart. Everything is free to the poison industry, including the confessions that Casey gave, all of it goes away. And then Bill Kunkle is charged with the most horrific task I can think of, which is to go to these families and say, the guys walk in, because we fucked up. You know, I like, so that thing that you're talking about, Robin, like you need that person in that position, letting the guys and the gals know that are working on the force, that this is the possible ramifications, if you're so tempted to do so. It's stuck away from it. Don't do it. Because with Casey, they could have just followed him. And then you got to live with that at the rest of your life,

1:15:41too. You know, it's, it's so much easier. I've made similar calls, not to that kind of extent, where I play that tape forward. I can have this win for this righteous reason. And I now have the burden of carrying that for the rest of my life, as opposed to, I don't do it. I stick on the righteous rightful path of doing what's right. And then I just have to carry the burden of I screwed up. Yeah. I can, I can get over, I screwed up a lot easier, because I can then get in better tools. I can own it. I can move on. I can teach others not to do that. I mean, so yeah, it's I think the other part of it too, Robin, is that what I would like to see, because I'm very close friends with the old Chicago retired Chicago cop, who, you know, I met through the Gacy season, who was like, you know, Bill Dorish is a guy that that ultimately was chased out of this country by Chicago PD, because he was a whistleblower. Yeah. You know, and I think that

1:16:42that cops have to feel like, if I see wrong happening, if I see illegal things happening within my apartment, I can't be afraid to go to my superiors and wrap that guy out for fear of my career or worse. Yeah. And like, if you can establish, no one wants rats, but no one wants bad cops, because the problem with one bad apple in a in a particular department is it spoils the whole bunch in terms of the public's perception of apartment, man, where you could have like 50 great cops and two two assholes in the entire department is tainted because of those two guys. So I think like, like, and I don't know how you go about that. I don't know that you'd know way better than I, the mechanics of like giving officers the freedom to say, hey, man, you know, it is 100% leadership. 100% that type. You got to, you got to be able to encourage that relationship where we actually have that kind of transparency. And then trust is built on little things, you know,

1:17:47whatever you think politically of Rudy Giuliani afterwards, but when he was actually mayor of New York, he actually conquered the crime in New York by, by trying to take the squeegee guys off the street, because when you actually attack things at the, at the granular level, it filters up then that, hey, if they're going to pay attention to something that's so small, I can count on for the big things. And so you build that trust, you build that trust reservoir at that small granular level, saying, I got your back on this, I got your back on this, I got your back on this, and then encourage that kind of transparency into agency wise, you know, internally, so that way you can mitigate shit before it reaches that level. And also when you're doing that, people value the things they're doing every day, they're going to do things the right way, the proper way. So the chance of something going sideways, investigations going wrong, where they'd be in the position to try to cheat the system a little bit, doesn't even come up. That's why it's leadership, leadership, leadership. 100%. Mandal bomb, mandal bomb, mandal bomb. You think you can take me?

1:18:49You sure pops. All right, that's going to, I just watched that one the other day. Sign fell if you're playing along at home. All right, that's going to wrap up this episode of the program. Your thoughts in the comment section on substacking YouTube. We'd love for you to weigh and be sure to press subscribe wherever you're getting podcasts. You don't miss any of our episodes. Go check out Bob's podcast, Defense Diaries and YouTube channel wherever you get podcasts or YouTube, which happens to be YouTube. So go find them there. Robyn's a new book. It is that right now. It's not all about me. It is available wherever you get books. Go and get that right now as well. Until next time for for Robin for Bob for Todd. I'm Tony Bursky. We will talk again real soon. Then press subscribe now and don't miss a moment of true crime coverage from Tony Bursky and the Hidden Killers podcast.

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