Case Study Pt 3; The Sentencing Hearing

you faithfully discharge the duties of our office. Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you're 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 was there with his form parently goal Caitlin, and our good friend Pat and we sat there from start to finish. 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 had been dealing with us for a number of years, and you know, what happens in the office impacts us in her 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 believed that she hadn't done this. I believe that there was evidence of prove that she hadn't done this. And 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 like I felt. It was just it was the highest emotion that and then

the lowest. You know, you're kind of sponged up and down. It was. It was unbelievable. Welcome back to part three of our case study series. This is the final episode following the case of a woman accused of the murder of her husband. In parts one and two, we told you what happened to the night her husband died, how your regular sworn host Phil designed her defense, and the impossible risks and decisions that led her to enter a

plea for a crime she didn't commit. Today, as Phil's wife Natalie mentioned at the beginning of this episode, we'll look at the shocking sentencing hearing in this case. After hearing from all of the expert testimony, the judge sent down a ruling that no one, not even Phil, saw coming. The judge didn't waste a lot of time after we put up hours and hours of testimony and argument. He came back pretty quickly and he may have ruled from

the bench. I think he said, well, something like I think she's innocent, so I'm just gonna give her straight probation. I just remember, Holy did I hear him right? Did he just say he's gonna give her straight probation because he thinks she's innocent, And yeah, that's what he said. He decided he was gonna get up give the clerk of court some time to get the paperwork together for sentencing. And it was quite a moment. Her little girl came up to me and give me a hug and said,

thank you for saving um. And if you think I'm emotional now, you should see me that day. It's incredible. That sweet girl. I'll never forget her. And I had a little girl with my own woman, you just remind me so much of my job. But the judge came back on the bench and the paperwork done, and and that was that, and we were we were just kind of all shocked and stunned, but very much happy. After that.

She was able to start picking the pieces of her life back up and become a mom again, being a citizen and parents and employee and now I'm just a hard working lady. Had you guys expected her to go to jail that day, Yes, very much so. I don't think I told her then. I may have told her since, but I was fully expecting her to leave that courtroom in a waist chain, handcuffs and leg irons. I wasn't expecting her to walk out the front door. It's on

a basic level. You know, you plead guilty to manslaughter, you're gonna have to go to prison. That's kind of the default setting. I tried to find out in Georgia if there'd ever been anybody that got probation straight probation from manslaughter. I couldn't find any, at least not in recent history. My research at the time the average sentence was like fourteen or fifteen years from manslaughter. Maybe it was eighteen, actually I think it was eighteen at the time.

The average sentences, you know a lot of years in prison for manslaughter, voluntary manslaughter anyway, So straight probation was that's what you know. We asked for it. We asked her fifteen years. If I'd have thought that Judge was gonna believe she was innocent, that we were gonna do that good of a job, I would have maybe asked for less. But I wrote in my written sentencing memorandum my recommendation was fifteen years on probation. I kind of

pulled that number out of thin air. I I didn't want to ask for two little time and be insulting. I didn't want to say, Judge, yes, she's pleading to voluntary manslaughter. Even though it's an Alfred Police she's pleading to voluntary manslaughter. We wants you to give her a slap on the risk and give her two years on probation. I didn't want that. I wanted to give him something that he wasn't gonna laugh about. And he said, well, I think she's innocence, I'm gonna give her fifteen years

on probation. I was like, holy crap, I should have asked for five or something like that. Hindsight is always And in the end, two or three years out, we we did go back and we we asked for early termination of probation and the motion is granted. So all's well, that ends well, I guess. Unfortunately, she's a convicted felon and she has all the baggage that goes along with that,

but she's not on probation. And as I recall, the people at probation, the probation officers and the probation department, they couldn't believe it. They're like, no, she's that. She can't possibly be here for manslaughter. Nobody's ever here from manslaughter. This is probation. We're not the prison. So they they were like, there must be a mistake with your paperwork,

and no, there was no mistake. Her initial probation officer I think he's retired now, but he and I talked about this case in the weeks for months afterwards and even the years afterwards, and they didn't even make her really report the probation because they knew she was innocent too. They made some discretionary calls that they're entitled to make. There they said, well, yeah, she's on probation, but we you know, she's paying her monthly supervision fees. We're not

gonna be going and visiting me her at home. We're not gonna make her come in and report to us. They have. They essentially had her own non report in probation because I think they knew she was innocent too. I mean, everybody who looked at this case beyond scratching the surface, if they dug down just a little bit, they would see there would be no question that she's innocent. We just did what we had to do. We just stuck it out. This case dragged on for years, and

it dragged me down. It dragged me down emotionally, it dragged me down mentally, physically. I was just tired, you know, and but you have to stick it out. We fortunately were able to find the right experts, We had some resources. I think her her father, God bless him. I think he drained his retirement savings. I think he had a sport airplane that he liked to fly his retire e from f A. He sold his his airplane that was his his love, that he was gonna spend his retirement

years flying planes around and there's a pilot myself. I hated to see him have to sell something that he thought he was gonna enjoy in retirement. Quite frankly, she was the one. It was extraordinary. I don't know how she held up her family was extraordinary, and the sacrifices they made, it's it's extraordinary what they did. This is

Phil's former paralegal, Caitlin. She sat with Natalie at the sentencing hearing and couldn't believe this case she had worked on for years was going to end with the client walking out the front doors. We were still really gambling with the sentence because it was a wide range. It was like no time to fifteen, if I believe correctly. I was worried that the judge might meet in the middle.

I think that that was her best option. And I think, you know, after that many years, you're just kind of worn down and you want your life back and you want it to be over and you want to be able to travel to see your family. She was born down and I think I would feel the same way, and I would have gone through it, and I mean I still to this day I haven't worked for Phil and probably six or seven years. If he tells me something, I go that I believe him. He knows what he's

talking about. So I think that if he told me to do it, I would do it. The sentencing hearing was unlike anything I've probably will every experience in my life. I remember after it was over telling Phil's wife that it was the happiest I've ever been in my life and it had absolutely nothing to do with me, and that blew my mind. The sentencing hearing was very emotional. Her children read victim impact statements, but they would be hard to hear from anyone, but much less ten year

old children. I remember the judge said, do you wished that it could have been tried so that he could find her not guilty? The entire room was crying at points, and when the judge sentenced her to complete probation, I mean everyone cheered, everyone cried it. It was a very beautiful thing. When the sentencing hearing was over, I don't remember exactly what her kids were saying. I just know

that they were supporting her. I just remember that they were all in support of their mom, just crying that they need their mom you know, they lost their dad and they need their mom. I remember she was just so nervous. She asked if I could sit with her at the table, But it's not a place for me. Here's Phil's client. When I spoke with her about entering

the Alfred plea, even years later, she was calm and resigned. Honestly, I was expecting to hear about how emotional and difficult it was to plead to the crime of killing her husband, a crime she didn't commit. But sitting with me her children in Phil's office when we got to the subject of the plea, she wasn't emotional at all. She was straightforward and sort of stoic. I actually wrote a letter

myself to the judge. We weren't able to use it because there was some wording about not really wanting to take a plea. I think that I was not able to use it, but I didn't want to write my own letter. The judge asked me if I was sure that I really wanted to do it, and I was like, yeah, you know, because I mean I felt like there was no other way to get home. And then they did the sentence saying that he gave me probation the whole thing was surprising. So the fact that I got to

go home and be with my family. How weird is that that that would be surprising to me? And surprising isn't even the right word, Like if you don't live through it, you wouldn't even believe it. I mean I was. I was relieved, and I remember that I wanted the acal monitor off, but they had to my kids and my dad and everyone was at the hotel. I didn't have to have the alarm on the incal monitor anymore, but it was still physically on me. So we went to the hotel and I got to stay with the

kids and that was nice, and we had dinner. They came early in the morning and they took off the acle monitor in the foyer drop off of the hotel, and uh, we went swimming. I don't harbor any illusions. There's a lot of guilty people that you know, we represent, but it's the innocent ones. Once we figure out that they really are innocent, those are the ones that are challenging.

I've told people before and I'll say it now. It's a hell of a lot easier to represent somebody who's guilty than it is to represent someone who's innocent, because it's the innocent ones that they keep you awake at night, and that's definitely what happened in this case. For years, this was a traumatic case on everybody. I'm just thinking about it brings back a lot of thoughts and feelings that I haven't have felt in a while. You know,

I live with this for years. And not only do I think she's a nice person, I think she wouldn't hurt a flee. I was witnessed the tragedy of epic proportions for this family, regardless of guilt or innocence. You know, a husband and a father was dead, and I'm having to sort through autopsy pictures and look at them like it's a time magazine, putting emotions to the side to try to be objective with it. And now I've got the luxury of, you know, looking at it as a human.

But for years I had to look at it and push all these natural emotions to the side. There's just so much that I think a person can take when you talk about this tragedy, this gore, this human suffering and misery, and you just can't. You can't look at it objectively forever. It took its toll, and it still does in a way. During that time period, I mean, lots of things happened. You know, I had small children that I was trying to be a father too, i

was trying to be a spouse. I'm trying to go home at the end of the day and not think about all this stuff. You know, it's not healthy, it's not good to take your work home with you. But when somebody's trusting you with their life, and their kids are trusting you with their mom's life, it gets to you. And it's the kind of stuff that keeps me awake at night. Let's say, my you know, I've got somebody who, let's just say they're really guilty and maybe the state

can't prove it. And I know that I'm not trying to be obtuse about it. But I don't lose a lot of sleep over those types of cases. But it's the it's the innocent people that it wrapped up in this system that calls me to lose sleep at night. The pressure is really on, and frankly, the fact that there are innocent ones that need me is troubling enough, But when they actually are looking to me to save them, and their kids are looking at me to save them,

and they've got nobody else. It's a lot of pressure and it's a pretty lonely place. This case has changed the way that I look at the system because it's given me some hope that you work hard, you might can get to something close to justice. I mean, I've won jury trials on murder cases where I thought the person was guilty. All these years later, I can look back on several things and I can say, well, I've lost cases that I should have won. One cases I

should have lost. The bottom lines, I never know what the hell of jury is gonna do. So what this has done is is sort of given me some inspiration, if you will, to know that there may be other ways to get to the same result. We went around on a jury because maybe I didn't trust a jury in this case. We got a really good result from the judge in terms of sentencing, and then we later got that probation terminated. If we go back in a few more years and maybe apply for a pardon, who

knows what we're gonna do. But the bottom line is that we got ninety five percent of what we needed in this case, which was a free client. Free mom, a free human being who's innocent. We kept her free. That's everything we need. She's not on long term probation. That's a bonus. So we got most of what we needed through maybe the side door, without having to risk the mandatory sentencing of a murder conviction. I went and I met with my probation officer like they have like

a oh what do they call? It was like something funny like orientation. And then that's how I found out that they had actually changed my probation officer, but they didn't tell me. So the first guy was like annoyed with me because I kept calling and checking in like I was supposed to. And then he told me to stop calling him and then if he if he needed me,

he'd call me. And then they filed the paperwork and within a certain amount of time after that, I think it was actually April Fools because I remember thinking, please don't let this be a joke, and um that I was officially on non reporting and then all I had to do is pay the I think it was like thirty five dollars a month probation fee. Then we had we went back towards back to court to have the early termination of probation, and it was granted to me.

I mean, don't think that, like it's so weird to say that. I like, don't think I don't know how lucky I am, because I do know in light of the situation that I'm rigin it. I've read so many stories of people so much less fortunate in the outcome than my story as far as the legal parts of it go. I think I've been incredibly lucky in that department. But then at the same time, I never should have

been in the system in the first place. So then there's that's like mixed with it's like gratefulness tinged with bitterness and resentment. It shouldn't have been here in the first place, but given the fact that it could have gone worse, I guess I'm grateful. I think it's a really scary system. I think that there are there are people in tremendous positions of power making judgments about things that I don't know that are always easy easy to

pass judgment on. In my own house, if I have one donut left and I come into my house and I'm like, where's my last donut? I have a house full of kids that are like wasn't me. I didn't eat your donut. I may never find out who ate my donut, but I can't just go up and point to that one and be like, you ate my donut. I know you ate my doughnut. And he might or might not have been the one that ate my donut. I can't make a decision of who to be mad

at if I just don't know. You can't do that in your own home, so I don't feel like you should be able to do that with society. They've got to take a step back and like take information and look at it and before because they can't undo what has happened here, and they can't undo the people that you see in the Georgia Innocence Project and stuff like that that has spent fifteen years on death row. You

cannot undo that. And you can't undo on the other side of the spectrum, you know, somebody who has suffered a loss. I mean, I actually have people that I'm close to that are are victims of violent crimes. One person in particular, it has never been solved. There's never been any kind of closure in that department for that person. You know, you think about that like the world is it's it's it's just not that black and white. And I mean, this could happen to anybody. It really could.

It's all subject to somebody's, you know, perception of how they think things happen. I don't trust my perception all the time of knowing what happened. I mean, that's that's the biggest thing for me. Stop these things before they happen, before families get torn apart. And I go to interviews, I go to job interviews, and I have to say, you know, I feel like I need to be forthcoming.

I do have a felony on my record, and people are just like, oh really, and then they want to hear the story, but they're going to have their own judgments. And that's the other thing is I don't want my family's tragedy to be fodder for other people's entertainment, you know. I mean, that's one of the reasons, one of the many reasons I don't really want to use my name is because I don't want to exploit, like it was very painful for us, incredibly painful for me. On top

of the pain horrifying. Do you know what it's like to see a person sitting at pool of blood. Then take that person made the love of your life and the father of your children, Like you don't know that. I hope to god no one ever knows that that horror. I think that's why your brain can't wrap your wrap around it is because your brain can't, like there's in

no way your brain can handle that. But when I do got interviews for to find better jobs, which I I haven't been able to to do, I always have to work that that tier that you know of of jobs that doesn't require background checks, And that's that's a tough way to make a living. You know, there are certain things that are of sins that are off the table for you. I wouldn't even want to go back to school because what if I went back to school and I got a degree in something and they still

wouldn't hire me. That I'm just in debt. So you just kind of keep plugging, plugging away and just trying to get these these kids on their feet. I mean, I I don't make enough money now, and there was so much money spent on the legal expenses. I can't send any of my kids to college. Thankfully, they wanted to come home to me because you know, they could have stayed in kipe Con and you know probably how to better financial upbringing that I've been able to offer them.

It's so glad that's Thurble. Did you think about staying in Massachusetts? I mean, of course I loved it, but that was the goal. You know, we never really got to deal with the loss because we were in survival mode. I am frozen in time. I go back and revisit things all the time. I was talking about their dad in the car and the way here, and I can sit here and I can talk into the microphone and I can talk to my family, I can talk to the wind, and it doesn't change it. I'm absolutely stuck.

Would you say that I'm stuck somehow? It's in your home. I mean you see him in your kids. I do see him in my kids, And I mean you loved him. You think about him in the music, everything you know. In this place, everything is eerily the same. Like We'll be in the car and I'll be like, oh, your dad like this song? Orn Like I feel like I sometimes I want to just stick a sock in my mouth because I feel like I bring it up too much. Not not legal stuff, but like I still talk about

their father. I feel like every conversation starts off one way, but it always comes back around to somehow, back to that night or back to their father. He's still alive in our house. I don't know if that's healthy, but I keep him. I keep him alive and human being, getting loved him. You know. I don't think it's negative to think about him, And I mean, you can't help it. You can't though, you know, because if you're thinking about it, you can either say it or conceal it. So yes,

it's true. On my Christmas tree, I have Christmas ornaments that belong to my husband when he was a little boy. It'll be there someday. Will take it with them, then I keep I keep them. We just we went through a lot together, not just you know how it all ended. That's the funny thing about about marriage. It's not just the good times, but when you are married, you go through life. Take care. At the end of a lot of our episodes, we have a segment that we here

at the production team called Phil's Final Thoughts. But for years Phil's client was silenced, her voice taken away and run over by all these problems and assumptions and hoops in the legal system, so we wanted to give her

the final thoughts. Today. It's not going to make up for the years of confusion and silence, but I know from talking with her that she learned a lot about the realities of the a system, and hopefully sharing this story helps shed some light on how we as a society think about justice and how important it is to

be able to defend yourself. My friend, who's actually the crime victim, felt like it would be cathartic for me to talk about it because I don't like to talk about it, and to have that little piece of my voice heard that I was never really allowed to use, and it's and it's like I'm trying to find balance in and having my voice heard but also protecting my family. So I do want the anonymity, but I also want my voice heard, which is really selfish in me. But

I want both of those things. I don't want to be angry. It's a lot easier to be angry than it is to be vulnerable. I want to heal. I want to heal for them, and I want to heal from me. I don't want to be locked in the past. I want to free myself from this like bubble of sadness that I live in for most of my life.

And I hope that there's someone out there that if they're going through this and they feel completely alone and that nobody understands and they're feeling helpless and they don't have a voice, and they're looking for somebody that that they can relate to, I would like to be that person for them, because I didn't have that for me. I mean, I don't know how you protect yourself from it. You know, I would have There's nothing I would have done differently. I still would have tried to take a

gun away from my husband. I still would have called one, and I still would have done all those things that night like would not have changed. Hopefully, somebody somewhere is looking at this in depth enough that they're going to make some changes. And I do think that it needs I do think there's problems with the judicial system, but I think it has to start with how the police interpret situations. I think it has to start there, because that's once that ball gets rolling, I don't know that

they can stop it. It's you know, the momentum just keeps growing and growing and growing, and I think everybody gets fired up and everyone wants to win. And I don't think that they think about us as people. I

think we're like pawns in a game. Because I actually had a friend when this was all happening, and I'm sitting there in my ankle monitor and we were watching the news and they had arrested this guy on the news and my friend said, oh, well they got the guy and I said, well, we don't know that yet. We have to see how this plays out. And she said, well, he obviously did something or they wouldn't have arrested him.

So I know that a lot of people watch the news and they hear these stories and they just are like, well, something had to have happened or none of this would have happened. And I'm telling you that, yes, something happened, but not what you think happened. If you know, the police wouldn't arrest you if something hadn't happened, and it's

it's not necessarily true. Like when I watch the news, like I'm a human being, and sometimes I watch it and I make decisions where I'm like, oh, that person did this or that, and then I have to go, wait a minute, I don't really know that yet. You know, and you've got to let things play out. You can't just make these decisions of if this happened, then that must have happened. But you just don't know. But I do know that a lot of people make that assumption.

And I do know that when people hear about my story, there are going to be people that are going to make the assumption, well, you know, none of this would have happened had X y Z happened. And I know that, and it's and it's the reality that I live in. But the only people that really matters to me that believe in me are are my family. Prior to this happening.

If I were to sit there on a jury which I never had jury duty, and I were to see a defendant getting paraded in and shock goals and jail uniform and I was basically told that they had committed a crime, I don't know that I would be as objective as I am today, that I would be able to sit back and say, we'll give you the give me the facts first, that I would be able to

to to not just assume. It's so easy to sit down in your comfortable chair in your living room and watch the news and think that you are untouchable and like these things happen because other people bring these things upon themselves, you know, and it's so easy to do that and then get called to jury and then like have somebody paraded in front of you and think, well, you know that would never happen to me. Something you know else might have must have happened. It's just not

like that. And if you take the time to read any of these stories, I searched and searched and read countless, countless, countless stories of all these different people who were falsely accused, I mean like almost to the point of like fraudulent testimony, like not because they felt like it was justice, but just to get these convictions I'm guessing, to get the public off their back. And then it turns out twenty

years later that DNA exonerates these people. You know, we should be afraid as citizens because it's a tremendous amount of power to give to these people. It sounds really good when you're sitting in your chair, but if those tables ever get turned on you, you're screwed. Thanks for joining us on this case study. Again, just want to take a minute to say thank you to Phil's client and her family for sharing this story with us. As

Caitlin said, they aren't people I'm likely to forget. If you have any questions or comments on anything you've heard so far this season, give us a call at four oh four zero zero four four one, Thanks for listening. 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 Beadall. 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 dot tv or leave us a voicemail at four zero four for one zero zero four four one. As always, thanks for listening