David Anthony Burke faces the most serious charges the Los Angeles County DA can bring. First-degree murder with three special circumstances. Continuous sexual abuse of a child under fourteen. Mutilation of human remains. The death penalty is a possibility. His defense team — led by Blair Berk — drew a line before charges were even filed: Burke "was not the cause of her death." He has pleaded not guilty.

Criminal defense attorney Bob Motta joins Robin Dreeke and Tony Brueski to break down how a defense team fights charges this severe — and where the strategy either holds or collapses.

Motta examines the specific language Berk used. That is not a vague denial. If the defense already knows the cause of death from the unsealed autopsy findings and they're confident it helps them, Motta explains what kind of alternative explanation that phrasing is designed to support. Because at some point, Burke's lawyers have to tell a jury a story that explains how a fourteen-year-old girl he was publicly connected to ended up in the condition she was found — not just poke holes, but give jurors a version that makes sense.

Prosecutors allege Celeste was threatening Burke's career the night she was last seen alive. That's their financial motive special circumstance. Motta examines how the defense dismantles that — and whether it can work. He also addresses the mutilation charge and whether a defense team can separate causation of death from what happened to the body afterward in front of a jury.

But there is a second story in this case. Celeste was not actually missing for most of the year the public was told she was gone. Eleven sheriff's calls to her family home in fourteen months. No school enrollment for a full year. Surveillance video placing her in her own neighborhood months after she was reported missing. An ex-boyfriend on the record. A private investigator asking hard questions. Motta and Dreeke address how both stories converge — and what the defense does with them.

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This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.

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