Case Study Pt 2; How Do You Plead

you faithfully discharge the duties of our office. Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. From Tenderfoot TV and I Heart Radio, this is sworn. I'm your host, Philip Holloway. I think it took like two years at least over a year to do what they called it, and I hung onto a lot of hope before that day happened, because I

thought there's no way, there's just no way. That I got the call and I had been indicted, and that was that was crushing, because like there is an element of like feeling of being judged for something you know that you didn't do, and You're utterly defenseless to the accusation, like something could fall out of the sky and then just change your life forever. You're really powerless and you don't know what's going on, and they've got all the cards.

Welcome back to part two of our case study series. This is a continuation of last week's episode, where we looked at the horrific night that changed one of Phil's clients lives forever. Phil was brought on as the defense attorney for a woman who called one after her husband was shot. She was immediately arrested. Today we're going to look at the charges filed by the d A's office and the impossible decision of whether she should plead not guilty or if the risks of going to trial are

too great. We went to the first appearance of court. You know, a lot of family was in the courtroom. My father was in the courtroom. These guys were not there. And the police officer get up there, and then they had my friend get up here, who basically said that she would be my guardian. I was on house arrest there for I can't I can't remember a while. And then my friend who's also was a friend of my mom's who became a close friend of mine. She actually

put her house up for my bond. Thankfully she's a really nice husband, because I don't even think she asked her husband. I think she's just a house I was not nice to be around from what I lost, like fifty pounds in two months. I didn't get out of bed, I and shower. I just kind of like lay there and like, it's not easy to to be around. Had the ankle wannitor on, which I still feel it. I think it's been off for like six years. I can't even remember, and sometimes I'll still feel like a buzz

on my ankle. It's like a ghost house arrest ankle. Yeah, and it would buzz if I got like the battery would get low, and it had a really crappy battery, so it would go off all the time. Phil's clients spent most of this legal process on house arrest. There were limited places she could go, unlimited times she could leave the house. But when I was talking with Caitlin, Phil's former paralegal, she brought up a whole another aspect

of house arrest that I hadn't thought about. I remember how expensive it was if the state sentences you to house arrest. You are now responsible for the monthly monitoring fees, if I remember correctly. They even tell you which company to go with, but you have to pay for it, and that can be pricey, especially for someone who has only let out certain times of the day to work and raising four children, you know now as a single mother. I remember that there was a big deal. It was

very costly. She was out on bond the entire time. Which that seems so clear to me that there's no threat of danger. We're letting this woman walk freely for four years. Why are we even charging her. She's a productive member of society. She is sweet, she is caring. She was loving her kids. Her children, who this was their father and it was terrible that they were brought into it at all, were in complete support of her. I mean, she had the support of everyone who knew

about it. I say still, what surprised me the most about it was that we were even going forward with it. It also surprised me that it took four It was a very lengthy process. So when you took on the case, what were your first priorities? The kids? That was a big thing for her and for us and for the grandparents.

These were children who had lost their father and the mother was in jail, and it was just a matter of time, we felt before the state was going to be coming to take them away and maybe put them in foster care, do something with them that you know, their mother didn't want. So we needed to get them placed with loving family members. And in this particular case, she's of course presumed innocent and the father's deceased. Even though she's in jail, she is still the parent and

her wishes kind of control legally and practically. But in this case, the family home being a crime scene and she wasn't able to go back there, we needed to do something with the kids. So we had to figure out how the hell to do a guardianship. I've never done one, but we figured it out, and you know, we had to get an emergency guardianship in place. Grandparents normally, you know, for visitation type situations, they can't go and

roll the kids in school. They need a judge saying, look, for the time being and for the foreseeable future, you have the legal authority to act in lieu of a parent. And so that's what the guardianship was about. So that was a very pressing matter for everybody. With the guardianship in place, Phil's client's children moved from Georgia to Cape Cod in Massachusetts to stay with their grandparents. Phil's client was able to visit every so often, but there were

a lot of roadblocks. And then we had a court appearance where they were gonna let me go to Massachusetts to visit the kids, and at the same time, my other friend they swapped custody of me, and for whatever reason, she wanted me to move in with her, and I did. And you know, she was a great influence on me because she made me live. You know, she was the one that pushed me to get up every day, and you know, she really like momed me. She pulled me out and shook the fog out of me and meet

me live. They just kept dragging it on and on and on, and it was literally like, oh, we're not ready, we need this. How long will it take you to get this? Well, we should be ready by February February and roll around, Well, we can't do this because of this and so and so is out of town or just always something. And I felt like Phil and I were mostly ready because I mean, it was what it was like, I can't make more out of what happened. This is what happened, and that's kind of it. And

I felt like we weren't procrastinating, they were procrastinating. We kept going to court and even asking if I could go to Massachusetts to be with them, because it wasn't fair to bring them home because they kept saying next month, next spring, by February, by April. They kept kind of hanging it over us and prolonging it. That wasn't fair to them. So we asked repeatedly if I could go up there, and they said no. They would let me go up there, They let me go for visits, but

I couldn't continue my time up there. I think that was like four years of just constantly dragging it out, and they were getting older and older, and I was missing everything. You know, my dad and I couldn't afford to send me up there every week to go and see them as much as we want to. You know, that's like and that's an expense. I mean, I'm a single mob right now. I worked two jobs. There's no way I could afford to fly myself to Massachusetts every month.

There's no way and so I missed a lot and they missed a lot. Have you even able to have a funeral? I mean there was a funeral, but not for everyone. That's Phil's clients do her My oldest daughter has told me it was for a funeral for someone she didn't even know. From what she told me, there was like music that I never want to listen to. She said that it was like really strange because she didn't know who the funeral was for, because it wasn't

for her father. And I think that's because I don't think people knew him quite the way that his wife and his children knew. But I think that's absolutely true. But I don't know what it was like. I wasn't I wasn't there. I was in jail. Her daughter came to the interviews, and she was the child who woke up that night the night her father was shot. She was eleven when her father died and had to start

a new life in Massachusetts. While her mother was on house arress, we flew up to Massachusetts and it was kind of like, I mean, I didn't really understand for a while why we were up there. I remember not sleeping much. We didn't know how long we were going to be there. We didn't know why really we were there. Nobody wanted to talk about it or I don't know if we were able or what. And I mean it was nice, like I love Massachusetts. I was like Cape

cod like it was beautiful. I missed my mom. I didn't know what she was going through, and I mean I didn't given time, I didn't even know where she was. I was grateful to not have to deal with people wondering what happened, wanting to talk about it, or worrying about me or anything. I just kind of went and pretended like nothing happened, which was probably unhealthy, but it was I don't know safe. Coming back was really weird.

I actually ran into not that long ago, um, a girl I used to play with when I was little. Her family came into the the store I work in, and it was just so weird because I recognized them immediately, they recognized me, and they were so nice. It was like, how are you? How is your family hugging me? So just it was really pleasant night. I was a little afraid of what they would say to me, you know, because I'm like, oh boy, here we go. I'm at work.

What's bombard, What's what do you got to say? Let's do it? But it was it was surprisingly really comfortable. And sometimes it's not just it was I was a different human being before and after, like she was saying, you know, and it's uncomfortable being pulled back into that persona and having to like, I don't know, time travel. It's not even reliving it because I didn't, you know, I didn't go through what she went through. We really

tried my dad. It was amazing and really getting them help and and not further traumatizing them, which was the main reason I wanted them to go with him to Massachusetts, because I did not want them to be repeatedly traumatized after they had already suffered a tremendous loss. And thankfully I think I think, you know, probably as an older

guy and as a parent, the way I do. But you know, he gave you guys a safe place, and he took care of you, and he got you the help that you needed, and they got to make friends and they and they got to be kids, which is a huge gift after what we went through was a laundry list of charges. Did they offered the plea At first, I didn't want the plea. I was like, no, I'm not taking a plea. I was furious. I think that it was voluntary manslaughter and that he told me about

the Alfred plea. You may remember from earlier in the season, and Alfred plea is a guilty plea that defendants can enter in order to take a deal offered by prosecutors that still maintains their innocence. It's named after the Supreme Court case North Carolina v. Alfred. By entering an Alfred plea, the defendant is acknowledging that the risk of a jury trial is too high. They can accept the terms of

a deal without admitting guilt to a crime. I can appreciate it, but I don't know, like in reality, in real life terms, does it make a difference. It doesn't really make a difference. It does give me some some piece of mind that there is some element of like, okay, take it, but you're wrong. There's at least something there.

Having your voice and having your ability to fight for your rights and fight to prove yourself having that taken from you and literally held hostage by a system is really frustrating because I felt like they had taken this horrible tragedy of my life, one of the greatest heart breaks in my life, and they hijacked it and they made it into something that I can't even describe, you know, And then it was always hanging over you, like what's

going to happen to them if it goes badly. We asked the kids what they wanted me to do, and they said, they want me to take a plea. I understood that it was better to go in front of somebody who understood the judicial system that it was to go in front of people who have no idea what I sadly had to learn over that period of time about the judicial system. And I took the plea, and for the rest of my life, I'm filling. I'm sorry.

That's why I were by sweatshot. At the end of this process, the prosecutor came to us with an offer, and I don't remember if it was the first offer, that was certainly the last, but basically it boiled down to having to make a choice. What they did is they gave us some options basically that we could pick from. But bottom line is I think they realized that they had problems with proving murder beyond a reasonable doubt. Potentially they agreed that they would reduce the charge from murder

to voluntary manslaughter. Doesn't sound like much of a reduction, but in Georgia, murder carries a man to hoary life sentence and it could be without parole, the judge says. So bandslaughter, on the other hand, carries a maximum of twenty years, and you know, without a record, you're pretty much eligible for parole after about twelve fourteen years. That's still a hell of a long time, but at least there's potentially a light at the end of the tunnel

for you. The option that she had was to plead to the reduced charge of voluntary manslaughter and she would receive a sentence of fifteen years with eight to be served in prison. In that scenario, she would be eligible for parole basically immediately. But if we took that scenario, there would be no opportunity to ask the judge to even consider a lesser sentence. So this was option number one for her. Option number two is pleaded that reduced

charge of voluntary manslaughter. In this option, the prosecutor would recommend a sentence to the judge of twenty years with ten to serve, and under that scenario, the judge would be bound to not exceed their recommendation and he could go under it. That's what we call a partially negotiated plea with a cap. In other words, they were gonna cap her potential exposure at ten years and we could ask for something less. Those are too crappy options to

choose from. But under option two we would at least have the opportunity to present mitigating evidence, things that we thought wade in favor of a lighter sentence. But also, under the rules of evidence and Georgia that had recently changed, lots of evidence is admissible at a sentencing hearing that had not really been so admissible before, things like hearsay.

Our strategy was, look, if we take option too, yeah, you might get two more years in prison, but we also can maybe get two, three or four years less. You know, I never thought she was gonna get none. I thought there was definitely some prison in her future. But I was hoping to get something less than eight because eight was what we had. Is the bird in the hand option, so to speak. So she had to choose between two pretty bad options that were pretty risky.

Of course, the judge didn't have to take either one of those. He could have said, no, I'm not going to accept either one album, then you're gonna stand trial for murder. We always had that is a potential outcome of this too. We also had the mechanism at our disposal. There's something called a an Alfred plea. If you believe that a jury might very well find you guilty, notwithstanding you know your innocence, you can you can take advantage

of the special kind of plea. The judge can pass judgment and sentence on you without an admission of guilt. Otherwise you've got to actually say you're guilty. We couldn't do that with her. I couldn't put her under oath and say she's guilty when she's not, and what I don't think she is. If you'd like more information about Alfred, please mandatory minimum sentencing and the risks of taking a case to trial take a look at some of our previous episodes. This season. We covered these topics more in

depth in some earlier episodes. It was more than one conversation. It was a process, and it involved not only she and I, but it involves dozens of conversations with her family, and I'm sure they consulted, maybe at least the older kids. I even wrote it all out and had her sign it, basically saying, look, these are your options. This thing can all go south and you could still wind up standing trial, and if you're convicted, you can still wind up in

prison forever. You know. I had to basically sign a document that says I understand and acknowledge that the decision is mine and mine alone and cannot be made my my attorney or any family member or friend. I needed to put that in writing so that she's kind of like informed consent. If you go to have minor surgery, that doctors is gonna have you sign something, say you know the risks, and you're doing it anyway. So that's what I had to have her do in this case.

It's very rare that I do that, but we did it in this case because well or not, things went our way. At least I would know that not only had I told her everything verbally, I had given it to her in writing so that she could take it home and study it and think about it. I did not want her to make a fast decision. I wanted her to make an informed decision, and I wanted her to have as much time as she needed. Whether or

not to go to trial. As always, the client's call, and it should be made after consulting with counsel and anybody else that's relevant in their life, like spouses, kids, moms, dad's, brother, sisters, what have you. It's a personal choice, and you know, we we weigh all the factors. We weigh the likelihood of conviction, we weigh the chances of maybe an acquittal. Of course, you never can You never know what the hell of jury is gonna do. Juries are so unpredictable.

You have to make the best decision that you can. I will say this about this case. I felt that if we went to trial, we stood a decent chance of getting a jury to acquit her own murder, but maybe find her guilty of manslaughter. Anyway, if for example, they thought, well, she killed him in the heat of passion. Um, this was like an argument, and she didn't really have time to think about it. She just got really piste

off and pull the trigger. And if that had happened, then the judge would have had to make a sentencing determination, and in that scenario he could have given her no jail time or twenty. But if a jury finds you guilty of manslaughter, the judge is gonna give you twenty. That's just kind of a given. We knew that was what was going to happen, which helped us decide to enter a plea to manslaughter because we felt that there was a decent likelihood that she would at least be

found guilty of manslaughter. I don't necessarily trust the juries to always get it right. We felt that our best chance was to let the judge see this whole case for what it really was, which was I think a house of cards. I trusted the judge to do the right thing, and in hindsight, thank god I'm right, because if my plan had on south, I would have really looked like It's kind of like the football coach who

decided to go for it on fourth down. If you make it, you look like a hero, and if you don't, you're the goat. This was fourth and long for us, and we we decided to go for it. We decided that we would take advantage of the new rules of evidence and we would just try to have a little

miniature trial in the context of a sentencing hearing. So I was able to bring in a forensic psychiatrist, Dr Norman, who did a really good job, I think, getting inside her head and trying to show whether or not she had any intention to kill anybody, whether or not she was suffering as we suspected from PTSD, or how accurate could she be expected to be in relating to a nine one one operator what happened when she's got her

husband bleeding out on the floor at her feet. When his client decided to take the plea, Phil started looking into more evidence to convince the judge to give his client a lighter sentence. As he mentioned, one piece of that evidence was a psychiatric evaluation by Dr Matthew Norman. He spoke with Phil about his experience with and memory of this case. I am Matthew Norman and I am

a general and forensic psychiatrist in Atlanta, Georgia. That case, my recollection was you had contacted me and there was some material to review, which included a nine one one audio tape. It was a little different for me. It was not a traditional competency to stand trial or criminal

responsibility that is insane any case. It was much more looking at a set of information you know, the discovery in the case, the documents in the case, what the police were saying, what the individual who wind up getting arrested was saying, and also listening to the nine one one calls and trying to see one is there something going on psychiatrically or psychologically, they could explain what law

enforcement was saying. Hey, these inconsistencies, they don't add up to us, and therefore we think this person has done something that's not right. I did that and notice something almost immediately within that, and certainly after sitting down and interviewing this individual and doing a psychiatric evaluation, was able to arrive at an opinion the inconsistencies were better explained through science. It is uncommon for most of us to have to be presented with the situation that she had

to be presented with that evening. It's not something thing most of us would ever wish, even somebody we may not like to have to go through for a law enforcement to turn around and go, well, you know what, because she made these inconsistent statements, we think she may not be telling the truth or it may be a

different story. And I think what the trouble is is when you see those situations on a regular basis, and perhaps that's what law enforcement did, is they thought, well, I might behave differently, but most of us don't have to go through what this individual had to go through and deal with. And the science behind what the brain will do in the midst of a traumatic experience is different for different individuals, but certainly also can then cause

impairments in memory and cognition. The adrenaline gets flowing. With that adrenaline, we start thinking in a different way. Then

our memory starts getting a little warped. And in listening to the nine one one call that she made and going through the statements and meeting with her, that certainly was My opinion is this was something that she'd never dealt with before, and most of us don't know how we would respond, and I don't think she knew how she would respond, even having to call nine one one, I mean having to make that decision and being presented with the situation that she was presented with, where there's

I mean blood and gore and and it's not a pleasant situation. It is traumatic. Tell something traumatic happens right in front of me, It's hard to know how an individual would respond. You might remember from the last episode that Phil also enlisted the expertise of a new medical examiner from Kentucky when he thought the assigned examiner's findings were suspect. Normally it is extremely expensive to fly on experts from out of state and have them testify on

the stand. But there are different rules for sentencing hearings than there are for a jury trial. So we were able to bring in some live witnesses and get into some of the underlying facts of the case. But we also were able to get in some hearsay. I could not have to spend the money in front, but her parents didn't have the money. Her family didn't have it to bring the medical examiner from Kentucky, so I was

able to use his very detailed report. So the judge was able to consider a mixture of live evidence and some some documents, some photographs to try to convince the judge that prison was not the place for her. The judge begged me almost not to do this. I don't think he wanted to have this type of hearing. He basically said, you know, Ms Hollway, Look, if he thinks she's innocent, you need to have a trial. This is

what we have trials for now. The judge didn't know what all we knew, and he didn't understand the case as intricately and as personally as as we did. I just think that he would have rather not have to make the decision. But in retrospect, if I had to guess, I would think the judge is glad we did it the way we did. She didn't want to take the chance of being found guilty of murder and spending the rest of her life locked up away from her kids.

That's a mandatory sentence. The judge would have had no always but to give her life, and even if she were eligible for parole, it would be thirty something years before she were eligible for parole. She wanted to see her kids. This was all about her kids. This was a heart wrenching, tearful decision that she made. She did it for her kids, to essentially plead to manslaughter when she knows she's innocent. She did it for her kids.

This is Phil's wife, Natalie. I think it's helpful for me to know a little bit about what's going on, but I also think it's better for him to take a break from it, the business that he's in. It seems to be very heavy on his heart, and so I think for him to have an opportunity to take a break from that is difficult, for sure, but good for him when it can happen. I actually had met her one time via happenstance through some mutual friends. But he just came home and told me that this woman

had been charged with murdering her husband. Didn't he didn't think that she had done that, and he felt that there were probably a couple of other people that she might have spoken with it didn't believe her side of the story, but that he truly believed that she hadn't

done anything incorrectly or wrong or out of alice. Those days before our kids were in school, I would go there and have lunch, or you know, I would be running to my mom's house for something and then stop by it to see Phil or just to you know, bring something to him to the office that he had forgotten. So I know that she was there because there was so many limited places that she could be, so I

know she was there frequently. I think what I remember the most about it is over the course of kind of start to finish at the trial, you could just see on her face and in her being the weight of what this was doing to her in her family. I mean literally she lost weight. You could see it, pushing your shoulders down to the ground. This case was such a big part of Phil's life that Natalie came to the sentencing hearing to support him and his client.

I was there with his form paired legal Caitlin and our good friend Pat and we sat there from start to finish. And I don't go to many I've probably been to UM four or five of Phils trials, so I kind of always say that I felt I felt like I was in church. I don't know how else to describe that, Like I felt like I was at church, and all of a sudden I was overcome by a

power bigger than me. Again, we have been dealing with us for a number of years, and you know, what happens in the office impacts us in our family life as well. And so we were there, her family was there. It was very emotionally heavy and draining and exhausting and long for everybody that took the stand that day. There were people on both sides of the aisle that had very particular feelings and were very vested in the outcome of this case. I just believe that she hadn't done this.

I believe that there was evidence of her that she hadn't done this. And I don't know when the judge, When the judge came on the bench, it was like I was overcome. I don't know. I mean, we started crying and we just I could not get myself together. I felt it was just it was the highest emotion and then the lowest. You know, you're kind of just going up and down. It was. It was unbelievable. M Sworn is a production of Tenderfoot TV and I Heart Radio.

Our lead producer is Christina Dana. Executive producers are Payne Lindsay and Donald Albright for Tenderfoot TV, Matt Frederick and Alex Williams for I Heart Radio, and myself Philip Holloway. Additional production by Trevor Young, Mason Lindsay, Mike Rooney, Jamie Albright, and Hallie Beat. All original music and sound designed by Makeup and Vanity Set. Our theme song is Blood in the Water by Layup. Show art and design is by Trevor Eisler, Editing by Christina Dana, Mixing and mastering by

Mike Rooney and Cooper Skinner. Special thanks to the team at I Heart Radio from u t A or In rosenbaumd and Grace Royer, Ryan Nord and Matthew Papa from the Nord Group, Back Media and Marketing, and Station sixteen. I'd also like to extend a very personal and special thanks to all of our contributors and guests who have

helped to make all of these episodes possible. You can find Sworn on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at Sworn podcast and follow me your host, Philip Holloway on Twitter at phil Holloway e s Q. Our website is sworn podcast dot com, and you can check out other Tenderfoot TV podcasts at www dot tenderfoot dot tv. If you have questions or comments, you can email us at Sworn at Tenderfoot TV or leave us a voicemail at four zero four four one zero zero four f one. As always, thanks for listening.