Episode 4

This is the forth chapter in Luis's story, In the last episode of the show Luis had just been arested for attempted murder. In this episode he find himself at the begining of a very long court process.

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
I'm going through it, man,I'm going through it, and I'm seeing
I'm seeing that lawyer, and you'redoing nothing for me. And then,
you know, just in my mind, I'm like, man, I don't
I don't stand the charts. Looktell the man, no trouble. I
don't want to be man. Ijust want vibe big man like me.
No need for the tin of phonehigh. I got too much can online

(00:23):
completing. So as soon as Igot as soon as I go to my
first court and I hear that they'retrying to charge me with this attempted murder,
you know, and it kind ofit hits me and I know that

(00:46):
I have to get a lawyer becauseif I don't have a lawyer, I
feel like they're just gonna run meover, you know. So that's the
first thing I do is I tellmy family hired lawyer and one of my
hands she had she had a friendwho her son was was that arrested for
a murder, and they had thisattorney in. This attorney got him released

(01:11):
within six months. So my aunts, woman, let's call this lawyer up.
Even my friend is recommending him.He's really good. So we get
this lawyer and it's this older,older guy in his name is Patrick Lake.
So I guess my family meets withhim and everything, and he tells

(01:32):
my family that all they had agood case and that things are gonna be
good and not to worry, andyou know, so it takes my case.
You know. He comes to seeme the very first time he sees
me. You know, I askedhim, okay, well let me see
the let me see the police spoor, let me see everything. I want
to see. I want to seewhat's going on. So he shows me

(01:56):
and I'm telling him about, youknow, doing the line up, but
tell me, I want to dodesign up because I'm innocent, you know,
I didn't do it, and there'sno way to scut it a point
meal because he never saw me,you know. So I want to do
the lineup and he's telling me,no, don't do the lineup, but
I refuse us, Like now thenI'm going to do that line up.
You know, it's it. That'sthat's going to show that it's not me.

(02:21):
So I finally do it. Butin the process of everything, right
like it's a it's it's a verylong process, like you go to court
and nothing happens to say come back. Then you're going to court again,
and nothing happens they say come back. So a lot of it is just
like, oh, come back anotherday, You come back another day.
You know, it gets kind offrustrating because in your mind is like why

(02:43):
is why is it taking so long? You know, like the evidence is
there, like it's it's not me, you know, like so, and
there's a there's an option that youcan take, which is take a speedy
trial. Right, you don't givethe you don't give the DA any opportunity.
They have to process your case fast, right, they have to give
you a speedy trial. So that'swhat I'm telling my lawyer. I said,

(03:05):
I want to speed to child,like I want to speed child.
I want to get out of herealready, and then don't want to waste
no time. But the lawyer he'she's bullshitting too. He's like, no,
well, let's give them some time. Let's give them some time.
And I'm like, nah, Idon't want to give them no time,
like that's my right. I wantto I want to have a speed triald.
I want to get this over with. I want to prove that I'm
innocent. And uh so we endup hands are still giving them time,

(03:30):
and you know this happened. That'sI got charged on February second, that's
the day I got charged. Igot a ring and everything. So all
right, the time, it waslike, uh, I want to say,
like July, that's when I barelygot through the through the superior court
process. Right, don't not tospeak court, I forget, but it's

(03:53):
one it's one step before you getbound over, right, So the first
step you're going to do it,and they're trying to have evidence to prove
that you should still be there.And then you have a hearing and it's
to bound you over the superior court. So when I go to that,
to that hearing, you get allyou have all the rampart officers there,

(04:15):
you got you got Turner, thegang expert, and then you got this
guy named Rona. He was adetective on the case. And they show
up and they give their evidence,you know, and the victim shows up
and he speaks and he says,I understand that no, he does not
recognize me, you know, asthe shooter. He's like, no,

(04:36):
that's not the shooter, and uh, and then they talked about the infield
show up and the victim said no, that that never happened, you know,
because the officers are saying that thatthey pulled me out of the car,
that they opened up the ambulance stores, that they told the victim,
hey, we got somebody here,let us know if that's him, and

(04:59):
they did. They shinned the lightson me, and then everything was like,
yeah, yeah, that's him,that's him, that's the motherfucker's shot
me. But he said no,that he did not say that, you
know, And and this never reallyhappened. So anyways, the officer gus
understand and said, yeah, hesaid this, he said it was him.
So that's the evidence that they usedto bound me over to the spirit

(05:23):
of court. So now I'm inthe security court. Now it's pretty trial.
Now now you're getting ready for trial. So this whole time, I'm
asking this lawyer to con visit mebecause I want to be, you know,
active in the case. I wantto I want to know what's going
on, and I want to tellhim, okay, well they'll do this,
do this, do this, youknow. But he he only came

(05:44):
to see me like two times,man, and and during court like I
would see him like for two tothree minutes right before court. So I
was already getting first reading, andeverybody in the in the county jail was
telling me, man just firing him, Like he's not doing nothing for you.
He's probably gonna sell you out tothe DA. And they're telling me.

(06:05):
You're like, look, this iswhat they do. Many They get
their clients and they pick and choose, like they'll say, okay, well
they'll talk to the day, we'lllet me get this this case right here,
and they'll let you have this case, you know. And I feel
like this dude did that because becausehe did have a lot of cases from
these from these other guys, particularlyfrom Aching Street. You know, they

(06:30):
had a lot of clients from AchingStreet, and it seemed to me like
all these guys are getting off,you know. I mean there was one
guy who got caught with like threeassault weapons, like fully automatical assault weapons,
and he gets caught red handed inthe car and everything, and he
gets out right away, you knowfrom something that with that here. So
well, there's a lot of casesthat I'm seeing. There's a lot of

(06:50):
guys that I'm running into, andthen there's other guys that I run into
that are like a man, thiswho ain't doing nothing for me, Like
he hasn't came to see me.He ain't doing shit. So you know,
I'm trying to tell my family tofire him, like I don't want
this scandal, and man is standingdoing nothing fun and my family's like,
you know, no, no,it's everything's gonna be okay, Like like

(07:12):
he tells us that things are goinggood, that you know, he's gonna
win the case that he can't,he's not gonna lose it. And and
so you know, my family going, that's paying him. So I just
said, well, fuck, Idon't want along with it, but everybody
else's inside's can just fire him andgo properly. You're better off defending yourself

(07:33):
and having this dude railroad you youknow. But you know, during this
whole process of the preach owl andall that, I'm telling the lawyer like,
look, there's there's this thing calledthe pictures motion. The pictures motion
came into effect after the rag Partscandal. So because of the Rampart scandal,

(07:54):
they brought in a new law thatsays that you can request all all
documents on a police officer, sohe has any kind of of write ups
like like complaints against him and ormisconduct or anything. If there's anything on
this file, we're allowed to seeit. Before you couldn't do that before

(08:16):
you couldn't you can see the officersfile without having a quote order and doing
all this other games. But becauseof the scandal, you know, they
had to admit, like, youknow where we have a lot of corrupt
cross and on our for so wehave to open up the files and let
the people see, you know.So this guy never found that. He

(08:37):
never found that because telling him,like, look, these cops are line
and they're for grandpart, so I'msure there's gonna be some types of complaints.
There's gonna be stuff on their files, and I want to see all
that, you know, I wantall that stuff to come out of the
corner. But this dude, shesaid, yeah, we're gonna do that,
and he never does it. Andthen I'm telling him as well,
like, well, this whole time, the case is based on just the

(09:01):
one officer saying that that the victimpointed me out in an in field show
up. You know, so weshould get an eyewitness expert to basically explain,
like even if it was true,what this guy is saying, I
want to take a look at allthe conditions. You know, how accurate

(09:24):
is eyewitness testimony in a situation likethat. You know, it's a very
high stressed situation. And it's likea lot of the times you hear a
lot of cases like that where theygive the wrong identification. You know,
it's a whole lot of cases specificallywith I identification being being messed up,

(09:45):
and you know, innocent people getconnected. Yeah, yeah, so the
man know who I don't want tobe man, I just won't vibe big
man like me. No need fora telephone hide, it's not about too
much getting online. Won't roll thetele gude, won't move by, but

(10:09):
they're gonna ride. No need fora telephone hide now, canful of You
know? There was there was guysin the county that had been in the

(10:30):
county for years, and you know, so that everybody's everybody's telling me,
you know, giving me their opinion, trying to look man, do this,
do this, give me advice?You know, And I'm going back
and I'm telling the lawyers, andthe lawyer is not really he's not really
hearing him of this man, He'snot really He's never really being shipped,

(10:52):
like really trying to help me,you know. So so I'm I'm getting
frustrated, like, man, thisthis guy's not doing nothing to help you,
you know, And and courts keepcoming and then he's telling me at
the same time, he's like,no, here, everything's will be all
right. You know, they don'tgot no evidence. All they have is
this, and we could we couldbeat the ad and this and this and

(11:13):
that, you know, making itsound good. But you know, we
walked into the court room and Idon't hear nothing from them, you know,
I don't hear nothing. I don'thear or hym arguing nothing, you
know. So in my mind,I'm like, man, you're talking a
good one and you're not doing nothing, you know, nothing in my favor.
But you know, we finally weend up we end up going a

(11:37):
trial, and you know, aryingthe trial, I'm trying to get this
guy too well before before the childother stuff that I try to get him
to do was I try to tell, Okay, well, the officers,
every single officer that responds to anykind of crime scene, they all have

(12:00):
these infield incident reports that they haveto learn every single day. So every
single day and officers have to comeback and he has to fill out these
reports saying they this is what happenedtoday, you know, and he has
to pretty much give up everything,every every single little thing that happened,
every little encounter that he had,whoever he talked to, anything. So
I tell them little, I wantto see all that too, because all

(12:24):
these officers, you know, they'regoing to have I want to see if
they're gonna have different stories, becausethese guys are lying. So I bet
you one of these guys who isprobably going to tell the truth, you
know. So we want to seeall of them, all their all their
reports. And then I also tellhow also to get the radio transmissions,

(12:45):
you know, like dispatched talking tothe officers or the officers talking to each
other over the radio, you know, to see what they were saying,
like if there was ever a descriptionof the suspect, you know, because
that was my main thing is likeif somebody, if somebody called the cops
and they said, hey, i'vejust seen this to a shoot. I

(13:05):
mean, their automatically gonna give adescription, even if they didn't see the
person's face, they're gonna be oh, I saw such and such wearing such
and such. You know, there'sgonna be some type of description, and
in my mind, like, there'sno way I'm gonna fit it because it's
not me. So I'm trying toget that as well. And you know,
and we're trying to get I'm tryingto get the medical I'm trying to

(13:26):
tell them live. You know,the ambulance people they showed up and they
drop this guy. Well, weneed to get those ambulance people. We
need to get them to testify andsay what happened, because their witnesses they
went and picked up the guy,they put him in the ambulance, they
took him to the hospital. Soif it's true what these cops are saying,
and they're gonna say, yeah,that's what happened, right, If

(13:48):
it's not true, they're gonna belike, no, that's not what happened.
We picked the guy up, weput them an ambulance, we close
the doose, and we took off. And there was never an infield show
up. And there was a reportthat the handless people have to do,
you know, there's an incident report. So in the in the discovery,

(14:09):
they gave me this page and it'sand it's faded, like you cannot see
anything on it. You can't seethe you can't see the ambulance driver's name,
you can't see nothing. Like it'sjust blanks, you know. You
could tell it's like a copy ofa copy of a copy of a copy,
Like there's there's nothing there. AndI'm telling my lorder, you need
to get this, you know,get the original copy of this so we

(14:30):
can see. Well, you didn'tdo nothing, man, there was no
defense whatsoever. Nothing, you know, I'm trying to tell him, like
we'll go down there and you know, try to try to take take the
video or take pictures of the scene. Man, because this is a very
long street. And the officers aresaying that they were all the way on

(14:54):
the other end of the street andthey looked down the street and they seem
like corner, like there's no waythat that's along that street, and it's
it's the middle of the night.It's Arcas Hill, and on that street
there's not a whole lot of lightingbecause people shoot the lights out, so
it's dark for the most part.There'll be there'll be lights here and there,

(15:16):
you know, but for the mostpart, it's a dark street and
that's common in all those all thoseareas right there, you know, majority
of the street lights get shot out. Well, you know, there was
a lot of things that I wastrying to be decided to do. Man,
trydn't get nothing done, nothing whatsoever. Even the witness. Um,

(15:37):
there's this female witness who was onher balcony and she seemed the whole thing
right there. While I was inthe county, I ran into this guy
named Francisco and he lived right thereon Third, right in front of where
the incident appeared, as far asthe hambulance laughter right. So they were

(16:00):
on their balcony, him and hiswife. They were on their balcony when
you heard the sirens and they andthey see the whole incident. They seen
everything from start to end. Youknow. So the guy's telling me,
You're like, hey man, youknow we seen all this, like and
I'm telling I'm telling him what thecops are seeing, and he's like,
no, fuck there, that's bullshit. Like me and my wife, we've

(16:22):
seen exactly what happened. And we'veseen when the cops pulled the guy over.
We seen when they dragged him offthe car, we seen when they
put him in the ambulance and theyclosed the door. We've seen when you
showed up and you had to kindof hop out of the car and they
threw you right back in the car. We've seen everything, So I tell
my lord, but I look,we got we let this witness need to

(16:42):
interview them, and this guy's bullshittingon an interview. You know, this
witness. And the only reason thatthis witness ended up calling the corner court
is because her husband kept telling her, like, no, just keep calling,
keep calling, because this dude wasnot answering. The duds are not
doing anything right. But she waspersistent, and she finally got a hold

(17:07):
of him. You know, heinterviewed her and he put her on the
for the trial. You know,he put her on as one of the
witnesses for the trial. So yeah, so when we're getting ready for this
trial, like right when it's happening, you know, you gotta do the
jury selection. So we're doing thejury selection and you get all these people

(17:29):
in there, and uh, Ithink you're the d is allowed to to
to veto like a certain amount ofyour picks. So the defense picks you
know, these two jurors. Thedig can be like, no, I
don't want them, and they takethem off, right, So you know,

(17:52):
we're getting these these uh, thesejurors that we're trying to stick to,
jurors that know the pretty much knowthe area and know what's going on.
Because you get these people that comein and have no clue what's going
on. You know, they're automaticallygonna gonna be biased because they they're not
from this area. They don't knowanything about this area. They don't know

(18:15):
anything about this stuff. So they'rejust gonna believe whatever the DA says,
right, because they're average citizens.So why would the DA like to them?
You know, why would this guybe locked up if he's not guilty?
You know, that's that's the that'stheir view. So I remember,
we're going through these jurors and youknow, my attorney, I think he's

(18:37):
easy to veto some as well,but he's not vetoing anybody. He's not
doing anything, you know. SoI'm looking at him like, what the
hell, like say something, youdon't do something, and he's like,
I don't, don't worry about it, don't worry about everything's in the cluding.
Then we have it's good, it'sa good jury. So I feel

(18:59):
like they're days of a jury selection. You know, I finally come up
with the jury and I think therewas a couple of females, like maybe
four or five females, then therest males. Then um, I don't
think there was any It was onlylike maybe two or three minorities, you
know, and you know one ofthem was was this was this female that

(19:25):
she actually ended up being the reasonwhy I got a home jury. Well,
so in in uh what's the juryselection is over? You know,
they start they start the opening statementswith the BA. So at this time
I'm in trial though you know,it's a long long day even just the

(19:49):
jury selection everything. It's a verylong day because in La County they get
you like at two in the morning. You know, you have to be
up at two in the morning,and they the process take you over to
the tank to take you one tankto another tank to another tank. You
get on the bus, you getto the county, you're seeing the team.
You're there all day long and you'reyou're the very last one of the

(20:12):
very last ones to leave the courthouseand sometimes you don't even to like nine
o'clock at night. By the timeyou get to the town. You by
the time you get to yourself,you're maybe gonna get like two hours of
sleep, you know, and youhave to get up and do it all
over again. So it's a dreamingprocess, and it's you know, it's

(20:33):
it's it's a lot of mental likeit really messes with you, you know.
So I'm going through it, man, I'm going through it, and
I'm seeing I'm seeing this lawyer anddoing nothing for me, and then you
know, I'm just in my mind. I'm like, man, I don't
I don't stand the chants. Sothere are some very long, long days

(20:55):
that you know, I'm stuck inthis court all day long, and I'm
going back to the down me,you know, and I'm getting process to
go back to my sale, andfinally I get to mysel and then I'm
only on myself for a couple ofhours before I have to get up again
and do it all over again.So it's pretty dreaming, man, pretty
dreaming physically and mentally. And themajority of time I'm by myself, you

(21:15):
know, because you're stuck in ain a tank alone, you know,
when you're in trial. Sometimes youmaybe there'll be one or a guy in
there, which you if he's intrial as well in the in the next
quote room, because it usually it'san adjoining tank, so there'll be one
tank for for two point rooms.So those those a couple of times that

(21:37):
I've seen one other day. Butfor the most part, it was a
lot of time by myself in thetanking waiting, you know that you're in
trialing, and then you get abreak and and and you know support over
there, thank A just complaining thebus and you know what I said,

(21:59):
by the time of us comes likeo'clock at night. By the time you
get to yourself, that's like anotherhour or two hours from the time you
get to the counting, you toyour process and get back into yourself a
few more hours, you know.So yeah, that's very very stressful,
man. And I'm looking at I'mpaying attention in the court, you know,

(22:22):
to what my lawyer is doing,what the DA doing, and it's
just kind of like losing hope,and it's like learning this DA. He's
talking a good one, you know, he's telling this this story which is
based on all based on lives andman, but he makes it sound so
good. And I'm thinking in myhead, like, man, these people
are eating it up. They're eatingit up, and they're gonna They're gonna

(22:45):
believe every single word this guy says. And and that's a rap, that's
I'm over with. But I'm done, so, you know, towards the
end, A kind of already kindof losing hope, the careful side,
not I feel I gunning gave you. Yeah, when I blow up,

(23:12):
I'm a sort of highlight Peter Panthe real life, be living out my
dreams. I'm waiting up until theforeign land, whole risk covered up in
ice dealership, never asked the price. I hit the mullet ball with my
dogs. Y'all swipe me once whatI was thinking twice because this is what
I was made for. And Inoticed what I came forth on a big
stage, a couple of thousand people. They do whatever I say. So

(23:33):
have ships that color of rainbow thatchanged on me like jango be a long
way from my chank. Look mysounding shots for them, thank rolls.
And I'm crying money on my mindand I'm had it to the side.
I will stop and selling finding writemy name and diamonds. But all these
lights of fine and I wonder isit worth? They feel like I'm losing
my mind. Yeah, reminds me