September 16, 2020 • 33 mins
The shocking courtroom decision that will change Phil's client's life forever.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
If you're good, place your left hand on the Bible
and raise your right hand, and please repeat after me
and I do solemnly swear. The jury then titled action
find the defendant guilty of the time. It makes no sense,
it doesn't fit. If it doesn't fit, you must aquit.
We all took the same of 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 Saint, that
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
(00:56):
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
(01:16):
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
(01:38):
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
(01:58):
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
(02:18):
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
(02:39):
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.
(03:00):
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
(03:21):
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
(03:44):
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
(04:05):
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
(04:27):
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
(04:48):
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
(05:09):
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
(05:30):
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
(05:51):
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
(06:13):
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
(06:34):
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
(06:56):
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
(07:19):
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
(07:41):
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
(08:05):
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
(08:27):
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
(08:50):
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
(09:12):
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
(09:36):
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
(09:57):
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
(10:19):
so nervous. She asked if I could sit with her
at the table, But it's not a place for me.
(10:41):
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
(11:02):
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
(11:24):
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
(11:45):
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
(12:06):
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,
(12:30):
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
(12:52):
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,
(13:14):
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
(13:34):
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
(13:55):
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
(14:16):
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.
(14:38):
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
(15:00):
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
(15:25):
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
(15:45):
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
(16:06):
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.
(16:28):
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
(16:51):
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
(17:13):
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
(17:36):
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
(17:58):
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
(18:19):
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
(18:44):
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
(19:05):
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
(19:25):
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
(19:48):
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
(20:11):
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,
(20:34):
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.
(20:55):
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
(21:18):
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
(21:41):
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
(22:03):
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
(22:25):
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
(22:49):
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
(23:09):
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.
(23:30):
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
(23:52):
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
(24:17):
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
(24:38):
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.
(24:58):
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
(25:35):
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
(25:56):
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
(26:17):
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
(26:39):
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
(27:00):
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.
(27:23):
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
(27:47):
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
(28:09):
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
(28:30):
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,
(28:51):
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
(29:11):
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
(29:33):
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
(29:54):
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
(30:17):
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
(30:37):
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,
(30:57):
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
(31:20):
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
(31:43):
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.
(32:06):
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,
(32:30):
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
(32:54):
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,
(33:15):
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
(33:36):
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
If you're good, place your left hand on the Bible
and raise your right hand, and please repeat after me
and I do solemnly swear. The jury then titled action
find the defendant guilty of the time. It makes no sense,
it doesn't fit. If it doesn't fit, you must aquit.
We all took the same of 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 Saint, that
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
(00:56):
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
(01:16):
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
(01:38):
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
(01:58):
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
(02:18):
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
(02:39):
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.
(03:00):
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
(03:21):
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
(03:44):
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
(04:05):
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
(04:27):
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
(04:48):
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
(05:09):
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
(05:30):
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
(05:51):
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
(06:13):
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
(06:34):
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
(06:56):
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
(07:19):
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
(07:41):
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
(08:05):
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
(08:27):
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
(08:50):
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
(09:12):
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
(09:36):
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
(09:57):
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
(10:19):
so nervous. She asked if I could sit with her
at the table, But it's not a place for me.
(10:41):
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
(11:02):
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
(11:24):
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
(11:45):
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
(12:06):
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,
(12:30):
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
(12:52):
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,
(13:14):
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
(13:34):
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
(13:55):
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
(14:16):
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.
(14:38):
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
(15:00):
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
(15:25):
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
(15:45):
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
(16:06):
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.
(16:28):
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
(16:51):
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
(17:13):
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
(17:36):
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
(17:58):
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
(18:19):
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
(18:44):
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
(19:05):
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
(19:25):
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
(19:48):
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
(20:11):
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,
(20:34):
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.
(20:55):
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
(21:18):
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
(21:41):
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
(22:03):
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
(22:25):
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
(22:49):
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
(23:09):
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.
(23:30):
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
(23:52):
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
(24:17):
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
(24:38):
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.
(24:58):
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
(25:35):
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
(25:56):
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
(26:17):
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
(26:39):
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
(27:00):
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.
(27:23):
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
(27:47):
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
(28:09):
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
(28:30):
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,
(28:51):
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
(29:11):
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
(29:33):
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
(29:54):
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
(30:17):
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
(30:37):
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,
(30:57):
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
(31:20):
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
(31:43):
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.
(32:06):
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,
(32:30):
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
(32:54):
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,
(33:15):
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
(33:36):
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
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