September 9, 2020 • 33 mins
What will Phil's client do when faced with an impossible choice?
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
If you will place your left hand on the Bible
and raise your right hand, and please repeat after me
and I who solemnly swear and the haven titled action
find the defendant guilty of the prime. It makes no sense,
it doesn't fit. If it doesn't fit, you must aquit.
We all took the same oth of office. We're all
bound by that common commitment to support and defend the Constitution,
(00:26):
to bear true faith in allegiance to the same that
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
(00:55):
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
(01:19):
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.
(01:41):
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
(02:01):
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
(02:22):
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
(02:45):
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
(03:05):
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,
(03:25):
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
(03:46):
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
(04:08):
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
(04:32):
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
(04:54):
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.
(05:16):
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,
(05:39):
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
(06:00):
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
(06:22):
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
(06:43):
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
(07:05):
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
(07:27):
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
(07:48):
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
(08:10):
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
(08:31):
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
(08:51):
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.
(09:14):
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.
(09:35):
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
(09:56):
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
(10:19):
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.
(10:41):
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.
(11:03):
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
(11:24):
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.
(11:45):
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,
(12:08):
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
(12:34):
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
(13:00):
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
(13:21):
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
(13:45):
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.
(14:06):
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
(14:27):
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
(14:49):
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
(15:11):
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,
(15:31):
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
(15:53):
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
(16:14):
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,
(16:39):
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
(17:01):
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
(17:25):
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.
(17:45):
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
(18:10):
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
(18:31):
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,
(18:55):
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,
(19:18):
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
(19:40):
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
(20:02):
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,
(20:23):
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.
(20:43):
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,
(21:07):
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.
(21:28):
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
(21:49):
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,
(22:12):
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
(22:33):
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
(23:13):
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
(23:35):
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
(23:58):
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
(24:20):
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
(24:41):
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
(25:03):
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
(25:24):
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
(25:45):
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,
(26:07):
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
(26:29):
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
(26:49):
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
(27:11):
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
(27:34):
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
(27:55):
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
(28:17):
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
(28:39):
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
(29:01):
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
(29:22):
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
(29:46):
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
(30:09):
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
(30:30):
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
(30:50):
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
(31:11):
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
(31:35):
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
(31:57):
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
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(32:18):
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
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and follow me your host, Philip Holloway on Twitter at
(32:42):
phil Holloway e s Q. Our website is sworn podcast
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Tenderfoot TV or leave us a voicemail at four zero
(33:04):
four four one zero zero four f one. As always,
thanks for listening.
If you will place your left hand on the Bible
and raise your right hand, and please repeat after me
and I who solemnly swear and the haven titled action
find the defendant guilty of the prime. It makes no sense,
it doesn't fit. If it doesn't fit, you must aquit.
We all took the same oth of office. We're all
bound by that common commitment to support and defend the Constitution,
(00:26):
to bear true faith in allegiance to the same that
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
(00:55):
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
(01:19):
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.
(01:41):
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
(02:01):
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
(02:22):
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
(02:45):
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
(03:05):
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,
(03:25):
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
(03:46):
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
(04:08):
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
(04:32):
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
(04:54):
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.
(05:16):
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,
(05:39):
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
(06:00):
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
(06:22):
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
(06:43):
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
(07:05):
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
(07:27):
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
(07:48):
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
(08:10):
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
(08:31):
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
(08:51):
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.
(09:14):
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.
(09:35):
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
(09:56):
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
(10:19):
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.
(10:41):
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.
(11:03):
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
(11:24):
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.
(11:45):
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,
(12:08):
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
(12:34):
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
(13:00):
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
(13:21):
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
(13:45):
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.
(14:06):
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
(14:27):
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
(14:49):
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
(15:11):
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,
(15:31):
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
(15:53):
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
(16:14):
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,
(16:39):
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
(17:01):
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
(17:25):
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.
(17:45):
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
(18:10):
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
(18:31):
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,
(18:55):
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,
(19:18):
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
(19:40):
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
(20:02):
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,
(20:23):
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.
(20:43):
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,
(21:07):
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.
(21:28):
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
(21:49):
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,
(22:12):
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
(22:33):
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
(23:13):
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
(23:35):
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
(23:58):
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
(24:20):
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
(24:41):
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
(25:03):
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
(25:24):
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
(25:45):
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,
(26:07):
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
(26:29):
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
(26:49):
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
(27:11):
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
(27:34):
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
(27:55):
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
(28:17):
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
(28:39):
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
(29:01):
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
(29:22):
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
(29:46):
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
(30:09):
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
(30:30):
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
(30:50):
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
(31:11):
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
(31:35):
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
(31:57):
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
(32:18):
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
(32:42):
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
(33:04):
four four one zero zero four f one. As always,
thanks for listening.
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