Loading summary
Transcript72 lines
- [00:01]
A
When it comes to gifting, everyone on your list deserves something special. Luckily, Marshall's buyers travel far and wide, hustling for great deals and amazing gifts so you don't have to. That means your mom gets that cashmere sweater, your best friend that Italian leather bag, your co workers unwrap their favorite beauty brands, and your nephews the coolest new toys.
- [00:20]
B
Go ahead.
- [00:21]
A
A price is this good, you can grab something for yourself, too. Marshalls, we get the deals. You gift the good stuff. Shop now@marshalls.com or find a store near you.
- [00:34]
B
Hi there, everybody. Deborah Roberts here. And welcome to 2020, the after show, where we have an opportunity to take you behind the scenes of our reporting here at 2020 and give you a look at how we put our stories together and who the contributors are. And today we are taking you inside the courtroom, which is where so many of our stories actually are born, you know, out of trials that we've and the outcomes. We are talking to ABC News legal contributor Brian Buckmire, who has been with us before. Brian, you're an attorney and the host of ABC's podcast Bad Rap the Case Against Diddy. And you might also see him contribute to our 2020 reporting. He's always giving us context and analysis during our episodes. And just most recently, you and I talked about a case that I covered, the Christeel Krug case. You've talked about the Ahmaud Arbery case, Henry Louise Wallace, among others. So many that you have worked on. But, Brian, good to have you back.
- [01:29]
C
Thank you.
- [01:31]
B
Yeah, you and I run into each other a lot in passing, sometimes getting powder in the makeup room. And usually we're talking just very briefly about that day's reporting and what's happening that day. Let's talk about you, though, because I know, of course that you're an attorney or our viewers know you're an attorney, but I didn't know that you were born in Canada to Caribbean immigrant parents, that you were an athlete, you were a soccer player, you're a defense lawyer, still practicing. Tell us a little bit more about what brought you to the law.
- [02:00]
C
Yeah. So born and raised in Toronto, Canada, mother is Jamaican, father's Grenadian. So I'm first generation Canadian, I guess you would say. I came to the United States because if you are familiar with Jamaican mothers, you've got three choices, it's doctor, lawyer or teacher. And it's I've heard that pick up a book or pick up a ball. I picked up both. But somehow a ball got me into the United States. So I had a soccer scholarship. I played Division 1 and Division 2 soccer. So then, yeah, was somewhat pretty good, I guess, at soccer. I was what we consider a second team All American. And then I applied to law school on both sides of the border and I was fortunate enough to get into first Hofstra Law and then I transferred to Washington and Lee in Lexington, Virginia. I got a job before I graduated, which I was very fortunate to do so at the Legal Aid Society in Brooklyn. And that's where I started my practice. I am the oldest of three, got a three year old son and an amazing wife who somehow tolerates me doing all these different jobs.
- [03:04]
B
What is it about the law? We use lawyers so much in our stories, including you, to talk about, you know, what happened inside the courtroom, what about that defendant, or maybe even to sort of give the side of the defense. Sometimes the defense lawyers in the particular cases don't talk to us. What was it about the law that intrigued you?
- [03:20]
C
So I think it, for me, the law is how we decide how we interact with each other. The law is how we find equity or justice or equality. There are many situations where we don't have the freedoms or the rights unless we have someone advocating for you. And I think like most people who turn to the criminal justice system, either as a judge or a prosecutor, you've had that family member who was a victim of a crime and didn't get prosecuted or in my sense, I have uncles who are Rastafarian, so they have the dreadlocks and whatnot. And they're profiled and they get profiled. I think at one point in time my uncle got stopped and had his jacket taken because he couldn't prove that he bought a, a winter jacket because he didn't have a receipt. And I'm like, oh my gosh, do I have to like carry receipts for the clothes that I have now? There are different times. I just saw the law was the thing that either could help or hurt. And being able to advocate and have an understanding of the law was something that I appreciated and just brought me into the practice.
- [04:18]
B
Yeah, and we appreciate that you're doing it. One of the cases our listeners will associate you with is the Diddy trial. And you've been with 2020 and working with us on. And I want to play a clip from Bad Rap, the case Against Diddy. It's a podcast that you hosted for ABC about the federal trial of Sean Combs. Let's listen.
- [04:36]
C
In Diddy's old life, he could choose which of his many homes he wanted to spend time in. A three story mansion overlooking the Pacific Ocean and downtown la. A compound in Miami, including a nine bedroom mansion. A New York City apartment with views of Central Park. Homes in New Jersey and Atlanta, and a waterfront mansion in the Hamptons. Now Diddy's in the Metropolitan Detention center, or MDC in Brooklyn. This bland behemoth is where he'll stay as he awaits trial. So we're pulling up to MDC now. It's got like this unkept, unwashed, grungy ness of it. There's a tall metal fence around the MDC complex, so the parking lot's as far as most reporters get. But as a defense attorney, I'm here almost every week and I can get further than most.
- [05:29]
B
Now this was episode one and you're kind of blending your world as a media rep there as well as a lawyer. I'm just really curious because I have heard so many people talking about this Diddy case, right. Friends of mine who I wouldn't even think would be intrigued, maybe didn't even know much about Diddy. And they're in the grocery store listening and watching and catching the latest on the. On the case. Why do you think people were so captivated by Diddy's story?
- [05:53]
C
So as a child of the 80s, I think that I grew up almost like at the heart of Diddy, like seeing his rise, seeing his music and seeing his popularity. But I think regardless of how you came into his story, whether you saw it at the beginning or the tail end, there was something that attracted you to his fame and his popularity and his charisma. And then I think the story of fall from grace is as old as time. It's just one of those allegories that regardless of the story that's being told, when we see someone reach a pinnacle and then somehow lose it because of something they did or didn't do, it gravitates us as an audience to watch. And so me being in my late 30s, oh God, my late 30s.
- [06:35]
Those were the days.
- [06:37]
B
Yeah.
- [06:37]
C
And my brother and sister who are in their early 20s, and then my parents who are in their 60s, we're all talking about this. And it's the strangest thing that connects multiple generations of just watching someone who had reached the pinnacle of what they could, and then this fall from grace and then seeing, is it a fault? Is it not a fault? Are the allegations true? And then of course, in many cases, we don't see the allegations that they're being accused of or to See parts of it. And then to see the Cassie video, I think that closes.
- [07:07]
B
Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Everybody talked about that.
- [07:09]
C
I think that's when it really blew up. That, like, this is something.
- [07:12]
B
So Cassie was a former. She was a singer, but also a love interest of his. And then this video of him abusing her in a hotel. Sean Diddy Combs over the years, I mean, he had the big white party, and he was. You know, he dated Jennifer Lopez for a while, and he was just this. This big presence in the music industry. But there had always been rumors that there was something going on in his life that was, you know, a little nefarious. Tell us about being in the courtroom. Because typically you're in the courtroom as a lawyer. This time, you spent a lot of time in the courtroom as an observer, a media observer. And how do you pay attention to the case in a way that's different than what you would do if you're legally defending someone?
- [07:51]
C
Yeah. So I, like you said, I still practice. I am barred in the state of New York, the eastern and Southern district of New York, where this was, and I'm actually barred in the Supreme Court of the United States as well. And so oftentimes when I walk into court, and it happened a few times here, where the Marshals say, oh, Mr. Bachmeyer, do you have a case on today? And I'd be like, no, I'm sitting over here with the media. They're like, but the. But the nut over.
- [08:14]
B
You're kind of out of context for them.
- [08:16]
C
Yeah. And then, like, why are you waiting in the media line? Why don't you just walk through the attorney? Like, do you have. And so for me, what I tried to do, and even in the clip that played with the mdc, which I just was at yesterday, the thing I really liked about the ABC team is like, can we just follow you around? Can we. Can you, like, bring us into your world of, like, what this looks like?
- [08:34]
B
Yeah, you. You were very close to this in so many ways.
- [08:37]
C
Yeah. And so I'm going to mdc, and my client's telling me, like, oh, yeah, Diddy's here. He's like, I think they're. They're doing a search because they think they got a cell phone from him that, like, someone else sold to him. And so, like, everywhere I'm going, I'm just absorbed in this Diddy world, the ability to tell the story and bring people in. I thank ABC every day and the people who stop me on the street and say, hey, good job, or horrible job or whatever it may be like, hey, thanks for listening one way or another.
- [09:04]
B
Yeah. But with a certain amount of knowledge, too, that most of us wouldn't be able to obtain and probably most of our legal minds wouldn't be able to just because you have been so connected to that world. Well, Brian, when we come back, I want to talk about your thoughts on defense work and what you feel like is most misunderstood. So stay with us, everybody.
- [09:30]
D
Shopping is hard.
- [09:32]
C
I can never find anything in my size. I don't even know my size. I buy my clothes the same place I buy my groceries.
- [09:38]
D
There's a better way. Make it easy with Stitch Fix. Just share your size, style, budget, and done. Your personal stylist sends pieces picked just for you.
- [09:48]
A
That was easy.
- [09:50]
D
Stitch Fix Online Personal styling for everyone. Free shipping and returns. No subscription required. Get started today@stitch fix.com at Capella University.
- [10:01]
E
Learning online doesn't mean learning alone. You'll get support from people who care about your success, like your enrollment specialist who gets to know you and the goals you'd like to achieve. You'll also get a designated academic coach who's with you throughout your entire program. Plus, career coaches are available to help you navigate your professional goals. A different future is closer than you think with Capella University. Learn more at Capella. Edu.
- [10:35]
B
We're back with ABC News legal contributor Brian Buckmire talking about his work here at ABC at 2020 and across all platforms. We call on you to help explain some of the nuances in these cases that sometimes can get really kind of complicated that we cover on 20. And often in the build up to cases that are just about to go to trial, we hear from prosecutors, there's an indictment, the charges, and then of course there's the defense part of it. And that's your mind typically. But you can sort of like switch gears and kind of give us a sense of both sides of the case, right?
- [11:07]
C
Yeah. So I think as a defense attorney who has never prosecuted before, I went from public defender to now being an attorney in a private firm called Hamilton Clark LLP here in the city where we do both defense work and plaintiff work as well as if I don't know the prosecution's best argument, I'm not doing my job. So I have to think about what the prosecutor's gonna do. I have to think about what the officer is gonna do. I have to sometimes be a better DNA expert than the DNA expert themselves in order to find the best way to defend my case. And so what I try to do, as I alluded to earlier, is inform the audience as best as possible about this case. I hope that when you are done listening to me that you come away with understanding the system better, understanding the case better, and maybe something to like, kind of like just comment out, like the. If people still go to water coolers when they go to work, like, hey, like, I heard this interesting thing, like, did you know that Idaho has the death penalty with firing squad and it's the only one where they can choose it for you? And that's true when we're talking about. Yeah. When we're talking about Brian Kohberger or if you're talking about the Charlie Kirk assassination, that they have the death by firing squad as well.
- [12:14]
B
I've heard about that. Yeah. Utah.
- [12:16]
C
Yeah. It's one of five states that do it. And you're like, oh, this is interesting. I'm not just hearing about the shooting or the murderer or the victim or the. I'm learning something about how this system works.
- [12:26]
B
You mentioned before we even came on air, a poem that sort of means something to you.
- [12:31]
C
Yeah. So a lot of people ask why a public defender, and a lot of people back home in Toronto say, why go to the States to do it. I think that even as a Canadian, we have to admit that a lot of people are looking at America and probably looking at New York as the metric of to, like, how do we do this? And I think when we look to New York and we think about crime or justice, when you think about stop and frisk, when you think about other policies that have been found unconstitutional or constitutional, that's where I wanted to be. I thought it to be like ground zero. And there's a poem that we had to read in high school that was about the World War II. My German is not the best. I'm sorry. I think it's Martin Niemoller. He wrote a poem saying called First They Came for. And it goes somewhere along the lines of, like, first it came for the socialists. And I didn't say anything because I wasn't one. Then the communist, then I think the tradesperson, then the Jewish people. And then when they came for me, there was no one to stand up for me.
- [13:23]
B
I remember hearing about that. I mean, just most recently, too, we hear it a lot.
- [13:27]
C
Yeah. And so as a public defender, I think to myself, if I don't stand up for the least of us, then no one will stand up for the rest of us. And so even if a person is. Is a criminal, they have committed the crime. I want to make sure that their constitutional rights are upheld. Because I think it's a very short and slippery slope that all of our constitutional rights may be infringed upon if we don't make sure that the least of us have their rights protected. And so for me, that's kind of how I think about representation.
- [13:56]
B
What's most misunderstood, do you think about how trials really work? Because we're educating people often about what's happening in the courtroom, that all the.
- [14:05]
C
Answers end up coming to a conclusion after 30 minutes. This is not an episode of Law and Order. Like, we're not going to get all the answers. And I think the best example I would give is like talking to producers during the Brian Coburger case where he took a plea. We're like, we're going to find out the motive. Are we going to find.
- [14:19]
B
This is like, not necessarily.
- [14:21]
C
Not necessarily, guys.
- [14:22]
B
And as we sit here now, we still haven't heard about a motive?
- [14:26]
C
No, not at all. And unfortunately, we may never. And even some of the missing persons cases is like, guys, you might have to be comfortable with not knowing those burning questions. And even at trials, we don't get that. Sometimes you gotta be okay with that.
- [14:40]
B
Yeah, we don't get that ending that you would get on television. You talked earlier when you were here about technology and how that fascinates you. And so many of the stories that we cover turn on forensics. There's that cell phone data that the criminal almost got away with it, with the exception of the cell phone tower that placed them someplace. There's DNA that now long unsolved cases have suddenly been solved because of DNA. How has that changed how you look at and even sort of report cases now that the technology is so way ahead of us?
- [15:14]
C
So the fortunate unfortunate thing is that the criminal justice system is often a little bit behind on the newest advancements of the technology. But when we do get there, you've got to wrap your mind around it quickly in terms of its application. The greatest example I can give you most recently is the investigative genetic genealogy. Getting samples from a hair. Well, not technically the hair, the skin cell on the base of the hair and how that can create a profile that can identify you in a family tree. And that, to me is fascinating, both in the sense of the ability to exonerate people, people who have been wrongfully accused of a crime, and we see that through examples of the Innocence Project, but also in the way of finding catharsis and justice for people who don't know where a loved one has been for the last 20, 30, 40 years. There may be an answer for these victims.
- [16:01]
B
Yeah. And for me, and just most recently, I covered a story for us that there was no body that was found and a woman was convicted. But the family still doesn't have what closure they could have, at the very least in terms of putting somebody to rest. Well, some of these stories are never really completely answered. But, Brian, when we come back, I want to talk a little bit more about your career as a defense attorney. So stay with us, everybody.
- [16:32]
F
Meet the computer you can talk to with copilot on Windows. Working, creating and collaborating is as easy as talking. Got writer's block. Share your screen with copilot vision to help spark inspiration and use copilot voice to have a conversation and brainstorm ideas. Or maybe you need some tech help with copilot vision. Copilot sees what you see. Let copilot talk you through step by step guidance so you can master new apps, games and skills faster. Try now@windows.com copilot.
- [17:05]
B
We're back with Brian buckmire, a legal voice here for us at 2020 and at ABC on so many of our platforms. And you practice in the courtroom. You sit and talk with us. What's more stressful sitting and talking with us about these stories or being in court?
- [17:20]
C
It'd probably be abc to be completely honest with you.
- [17:24]
B
It's a podcast.
- [17:25]
C
Probably. Yeah. No, because.
- [17:29]
I think you guys give me far more credit for being able to do this. Well, I still feel like a fish out of water. I feel most comfortable after all these years.
- [17:37]
B
Brian, come on.
- [17:38]
C
I still. And I've had this conversation funnily enough with Alex Perche when he was like, so when people ask you what do you do? What do you tell them? And I was like, oh, I tell them a lawyer. And sometimes I'm on tv and it's like, you're on TV all the time. I feel far more comfortable as an attorney.
- [17:51]
B
You're doing pretty well, my friend, let me tell you. Doing pretty well. In fact, I didn't know you were practicing because you are on TV so often. Before we go, any cases that you look at when you're, you know, examining them for us and sort of wish that you were actually working on or maybe some that you wished you thought maybe you could have made a difference on. Oh, and you don't have to name the case. I'm just curious whether there are any.
- [18:12]
C
Can I legally have it? Yeah, I can't. Yeah. Oh, yeah. There are definitely a case that I wish and I did not outwardly say that I could do the case, but I think my posture definitely suggested to the client that I could have taken the case.
- [18:28]
But they had already picked an attorney.
- [18:32]
I know one of the attorneys on the case. And that was a case that I wish I had taken, wanted to take. But.
- [18:41]
That didn't happen.
- [18:42]
B
It didn't happen. Well, I tell you, some of those defendants would be very, very fortunate to have had you on those cases. But we're just happy that you're here with us, Brian. It has been such a pleasure getting a chance to chat and get to know you a little better.
- [18:54]
C
Thank you for having me.
- [18:56]
B
Of course. Thank you. Well, that does it for us today on the after show. Brian, so good to have you.
- [19:00]
C
Thank you for having me.
- [19:08]
G
Make their holiday unforgettable with a gift that says it all from Pandora Jewelry. A gift that tells a story and shows you know theirs that doesn't just sparkle but speaks. This season, give a gift that's perfectly theirs. Whether you're shopping for a shiny surprise for your significant other, matching bracelets to celebrate your friendship or a heartfelt gift for a family member, say more this holiday season with pandora. Shop@pandora.net or your local Pandora store.
- [19:37]
H
Hey, Ryan Reynolds here wishing you a very happy half off holiday because right now Mint Mobile is offering you the gift of 50% off unlimited. To be clear, that's half the price, not half the service. Mint is still premium unlimited wireless for a great price. So that means half day.
- [19:57]
B
Yeah.
- [19:57]
H
Give it a try at mintmobile.
- [19:59]
C
Com.
- [19:59]
I
Switch upfront payment of $45 for three months. Plan equivalent to $15 per month. Required new customer offer for first three months only. Speed slow after 35 gigabytes of network busy taxes and fees extra. See mintmobile.
- [20:07]
C
Com.