291. The Wrongful Conviction of Pablo Velez, Jr Part 3 of 3

Summary

Summary of "The Prosecutors" Podcast Episode 291: The Wrongful Conviction of Pablo Velez, Jr Part 3 of 3

Release Date: February 11, 2025
Host/Author: PodcastOne
Custom Case Art by: Hannah Hill (Instagram)

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Introduction and Recap

In the concluding episode of the three-part series on the Pablo Velez Jr. wrongful conviction case, hosts Brett and Alice delve deeper into the intricacies of the case, dissecting evidence, testimonies, and procedural mishaps that led to Pablo's two-decade-long incarceration.

Brett [01:14]: "Today on the Prosecutors, we conclude our look at the Pablo Velez case."

Breakdown of the Incident

The Night of the Shooting

The episode begins with a detailed recounting of the events leading up to the shooting at the Perfect Rack bar:

• Initial Altercation: Adrian Payan was assaulted by Jason Woolley, Richard 'Shorty' Cisneros, and Ron Strandberg at a bar.
• Retaliation: The following night, Adrian seeks revenge, bringing friends Esteban Rodriguez and Emerson Bjorkuez, leading to a shootout that results in one fatality.
• Identification of Pablo Velez Jr.: Claudia, Adrian’s girlfriend, identifies Pablo Velez Jr. as one of the shooters, despite questionable circumstances.

Brett [04:11]: "There are three separate types of bullets, which indicates three shooters."

Forensic Evidence Analysis

The hosts examine the forensic findings:

• Bullet Clusters: Three distinct clusters of bullets were found—9mm, .223, and 40 caliber rounds—each pointing to different shooters.
• Matching Shooters to Evidence:
  • Jason Woolley was identified as the shooter of the 9mm rounds.
  • The .223 casings were linked to a blue-shirted shooter, initially identified as Pablo.
  • Ron Strandberg was associated with the 40 caliber pistol rounds.

Alice [08:50]: "The clustering of the bullets suggests..."

Ambush Theory Debunked

Alice challenges the notion that the incident was an ambush orchestrated by the original group, arguing that Jason Woolley’s purported actions don’t align with typical ambush strategies.

Alice [09:49]: "If this were an ambush, what is the purpose of Jason Woolley shooting one bullet into the ground?"

Alibi and Testimony Complications

Pablo’s Alibi Discrepancies

Pablo claims he was having an all-night conversation with his ex-girlfriend, Anel, providing him with an alibi. However, inconsistencies arise:

• Timeline Confusion: Anel initially couldn’t confirm the exact date, suspecting the conversation occurred two weeks later than Pablo remembered.
• Potential Fabrication: The uncertainty raises suspicions about the validity of Pablo’s alibi.

Brett [12:48]: "The prosecution's obviously saying, look, this is him trying to cover up what happened."

Ineffective Assistance of Counsel

Pablo's attorney, Mr. McLean, failed to adequately prepare Pablo for testimony, leading to poor performance on the stand that likely influenced the jury's perception.

Brett [22:01]: "Juries can make a decision that you're guilty if you testify based solely on that."

Post-Conviction Challenges

Witness Recantations and Affidavits

Several key witnesses provided affidavits post-conviction that undermine the prosecution's case:

• Claudia Beltran: Initially identified Pablo, but later recanted, stating she mistakenly identified another individual.

  Brett [33:02]: "Claudia's recantation is immediate."

• Christopher Newby: Identified the actual shooters but refused to testify due to fear of retribution.

  Brett [36:15]: "Christopher Newby is actually a new witness, and he submitted an affidavit..."

• Jason Woolley: Affirms Pablo’s innocence, stating Pablo had no involvement in the shootings.

  Brett [38:16]: "He is willing to say it was not Pablo, Pablo didn't do it."

Brady Material Evidence

Evidence that should have been disclosed to the defense was withheld, constituting a violation of Brady rules:

Brett [27:46]: "This is Brady material, correct."

This includes notes from Officer King indicating alternative suspects and their threats against witnesses, which were never shared with Pablo's defense team.

Arguments for Pablo's Innocence

Inconsistencies in the Prosecution’s Evidence

• Ownership of the Cadillac: While the gold Cadillac involved in the crime was registered to Pablo, there is evidence he had transferred its use to Ron Strandberg for repairs, supported by third-party testimonies.

  Alice [42:17]: "Abraham Song testified that Ron Strandberg took Pablo’s Cadillac to have a stereo fitted."

• Weak Eyewitness Identification: Claudia’s identification was unreliable due to her initial intoxication and subsequent confusion.

  Alice [50:28]: "Claudia had a number of Long Island Iced Teas the night of the shooting..."

• Lack of Pablo's Presence: No solid evidence places Pablo at the Perfect Rack during the time of the shootout, and his presence was primarily inferred from the car registration.

Procedural Errors

• Defense’s Tactical Mistakes: Failure to preserve critical evidence for appeal and inadequate preparation for Pablo’s unexpected testimony weakened his defense.

  Alice [24:02]: "We've talked about this exact procedural situation many times."

Support from New Witness Statements

Affidavits from Christopher Newby and Jason Woolley further exonerate Pablo by identifying actual shooters and denying Pablo’s involvement.

Alice [39:11]: "Jason Woolley... says Pablo had nothing to do with it. Don't lock him up; don't lock up this innocent man."

Counter-Arguments: Evidence Against Pablo

Forensic and Circumstantial Evidence

• Car Registration: The gold Cadillac was tied to the crime scene and registered to Pablo.
• Photo Lineup Identification: Claudia initially identified Pablo in a photo lineup, albeit with inaccuracies.

Brett [45:22]: "Pablo looked as if he was trying to falsify an alibi at trial when he talked about... having an all-night conversation."

Lack of a Strong Alibi

Pablo relied solely on his statement to Anel, with no independent verification, making his alibi susceptible to doubt.

Alice [35:37]: "He doesn't have anyone to back up his alibi ... it's his word against everyone else's."

Conclusion and Call to Action

Brett and Alice assert that the case against Pablo Velez Jr. is fundamentally flawed, emphasizing the wrongful conviction due to inadequate evidence, unreliable witness testimonies, and significant procedural errors. They urge listeners and legal advocates to review the case materials and consider actions for Pablo’s exoneration.

Alice [54:29]: "I don't have any doubt that Pablo is innocent. He currently, as we speak, is up for parole."

Advocacy and Resources

The hosts encourage support for Pablo through prayers and advocacy, highlighting that his case has received little attention compared to more high-profile wrongful convictions. They mention resources such as a dedicated Facebook page and a comprehensive Google Drive with case documents for those interested in further investigation.

Brett [54:29]: "Read the same testimony we talked about. You could read this trial in an afternoon and see what you think."

Listener Interaction and Personal Updates

Towards the end of the episode, Brett and Alice shift gears to discuss personal matters, including family life and future podcast projects. They address listener questions humorously, updating fans on their growing families and upcoming personal events.

Brett [59:50]: "Sally sue wants to know, what did your respective spouses say when you said you were starting the prosecutor's podcast..."

While this segment diverges from the main case discussion, it provides a glimpse into the hosts’ lives, maintaining a relatable and engaging dynamic for the audience.

Final Remarks

In closing, the hosts reiterate the importance of scrutinizing wrongful convictions and advocating for justice. They express hope for Pablo’s imminent parole and encourage ongoing support from their listeners.

Alice [57:13]: "Please listen to these three episodes. It's not that confusing."

Brett [54:29]: "Keep Pablo in your prayers too as he goes through this process of getting parole."

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Note: This summary encapsulates the key discussions and insights from Episode 291 of The Prosecutors, focusing on Pablo Velez Jr.'s wrongful conviction. Listeners are encouraged to engage with the full episode and accompanying resources for a comprehensive understanding.

Transcript

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[Brett]

I'm Brett.

[Alice]

And I'm Alice.

[Brett]

And we are the prosecutors. Today on the Prosecutors, we conclude our look at the Pablo Velez case. Hello, everybody, and welcome to this episode of the Prosecutors. I'm Brett and I'm joined as always, by my hermosa co host. Yeah, beautiful.

[Alice]

Thank you.

[Brett]

Whoever suggested it inside and out.

[Alice]

Whatever I was gonna say, Brett would never say that.

[Brett]

That was Madison. That's not true.

[Alice]

Thanks, Madison. And way to go pronouncing that. That was muy hermoso. Hermosa.

[Brett]

You know, I'm not gonna say Spanish is easy because no other language is easy for me, but Spanish is a little bit, a little bit easier than some of the things people throw at me like Dutch and Russian and Chinese and everything else. It's like, oh, my goodness, there's this other letters make those sounds.

[Alice]

I think everyone just wants, I bet you all these people have pools going like, what does a Russian accent sound like with a southern accent?

[Brett]

And then they can find out.

[Alice]

They can find out.

[Brett]

That's why coming here. So I do want to say today, our episode with Allison Sweeney came out, which was awesome. Thank you so much to her for doing it. I'm not exactly sure when this episode will air, but if you're listening to this, her latest movie on Hallmark mystery, Reality Bites, A Hannah Swenson mystery, is coming out Thursday. February 6th at 8pm Eastern Time. So I hope you'll watch that. We'll probably check it out. We will certainly check it out as well. The prosecutor, I forget his name is like Burt Rally or something. He's very attractive, very close to brilliant. Brilliant is just amazing. So definitely watch that. But, you know, as much fun as that was, Alice, I missed you. I hope next time that Allison comes on the show, you can be on the show as well.

[Alice]

I hope so as well. Thank you, Allison, for filling in for me while I was out with my baby. And it was a great episode. I don't know. I may be replaced soon.

[Brett]

Never.

[Alice]

Never. Well, I am glad to be back and especially glad to be talking about a case that truly, I don't find it that confusing. But I know that there are a lot of people at play in the Pablo Velez case, most who have nothing to do with Pablo, which is, I think, why it's so confusing. And I'm glad to talk about it with you.

[Brett]

Yeah. And so we've done two episodes on this. I hope you guys are starting to understand what happened that night. But just to give you sort of, once again, a little bit of a rundown, because I know it's a little confusing as these kind of things can be. Basically you have these two groups of people. You have this individual, Adrian Payan. He gets beaten up by Jason Woolley, Richard Shorty Cisneros, and Ron Strandberg at a bar. The next night, he basically gets called back to the bar by his girlfriend Claudia, who says, hey, the guys who beat you up are here. And he's smart enough to know three on one didn't work out last time. So he brings a few friends. So now it's Adrian, it's Esteban Rodriguez, and it's Emerson Bjorkuez. These three guys show up, but unfortunately, what was a fight the night before becomes a shootout. This night, there are at least three people shooting. One person is killed, and eventually Pablo Velez is identified by that girlfriend, Claudia, one of the shooters. And we've been going through whether or not Pablo was actually involved. And let's talk about the forensics in this case. Remember, we already know there are three people who were involved in this incident before. So what are we looking at here? Well, as you might expect, there were three clusters of bullets. One was a 9 millimeter casing, and this was actually the shot fired by Jason Woolley. Remember, he actually fires a gun into the ground as this confrontation is beginning. And that's what started the shooting from everyone else there were also.223 casings. I think this is 5.56 if you guys are into guns. The NATO round, sort of what you see often in rifles, sort of long rifles. You would expect that we see a group of these casings and in fact that was fired by the blue shirted shooter in the north of the parking lot. And this is the individual that Claudia will later identify as Pablo. And There's a cluster of 40 caliber pistol rounds. These were most likely fired by Ron Strandberg because they match his gun and thereby park cars on the south end of the parking lot. So basically you've got this situation where there are people in three different areas of this bar. We talked about this before. Was this an ambush? It kind of feels like it was because you have people at different positions sort of lined up to be shooting into the interior of this area. You also had some 40 caliber bullets that were on the ground that appeared to be as if someone was chasing Adrian. Remember, Adrian's the one who got beaten up and sort of firing at him as he's running away. So you've got Ron Strandberg, a gun that matches him. You have Jason, who is firing his gun into the ground. Right. So we know those two people are two of the shooters. And the question is, was there a third and who was the third? Now, Claudia saw two shooters. She actually believed that Jason fired more than one shot into the ground and then chased Adrian, continuing to fire at him. This didn't happen because Jason, we know, was firing a 9 millimeter. So it seems much more likely is that it was someone else. Now, one possibility could be that Woolly fired the 9 millimeter from a 40 caliber pistol. This is something people have suggested and continued firing these 40 calibers. This fits Claudia's memory and would fit the distribution of the rounds. This would be a very strange thing to do. It is theoretically possible to fire a 9 millimeter bullet from a 40 caliber gun, but it's not something you'd recommend to anyone. It can damage the gun in the way that blows up and kills you. So you don't normally want to do that. It's a very strange thing to do. There's no reason to think he would do that. And since we have someone who's firing 40 caliber rounds, it's much more likely that Jason Woolley, he fires that one bullet into the ground. Maybe he chased after Adrian, but he wasn't shooting and Ron was the one who was shooting. And that's why we see all these 40 caliber rounds. But the Real question that we're concerned with here is who was shooting the.223? Who was the one with that third weapon? The blue shirted individual. And it either is Shorty Cisneros or Pablo Velez Jr. The prosecution would eventually say it was Pablo who had shown up after working and apparently engaged in this shootout. And I guess Shorty Cisneros, he was there, but he was just the one person who wasn't shooting.

[Alice]

I'm not gonna lie, that made me a little bit confused. No. And another thing about theory about the 9 millimeter bullet coming out of the.40 caliber gun is that's probably unlikely too, because we have, despite the whole it could blow up in your face and kill you if you put a nine millimeter in there. Is that the way the clustering of the bullets are found? Right. The. The cluster suggests. And look, why? I don't know. If this were an ambush, what is the purpose of Jason Woolley shooting one bullet into the ground? To set off a shootout where nobody knows whose bullets kills whom. But all eyes are on the one shooter, which is Jason. And you want him to be clean. A whistle. So it doesn't actually help his plan if he fires one shot into the ground, but then starts running after someone shooting them with their gun. Because I would think the purpose of the ambush is he sets off the domino effect to allow the shootings to happen, but he can have clean hands, so to speak. So that doesn't really work with the ambush theory.

[Brett]

And let me just say this, because it is confusing whenever you talk about guns in those different rounds. The most important thing here is there are three separate types of bullets, which indicates three shooters. There were three people involved in the fight the night before. In order to believe that Pablo was one of the shooters, you have to believe that Pablo showed up to join the other three in what seems to be an ambush. But one of the original three doesn't have a gun. Pablo does. But one of the original three, apparently Shorty Cisneros, doesn't have a gun. And Pablo, who wasn't even involved in the fight the night before, is the one who brings a gun and starts shooting. It would seem more likely, if you're calling in extra backup, that there would have been four guns because you want the most people shooting to ensure that you accomplish your objective.

[Alice]

Right. And so the reason these three episodes may seem a bit confusing is because essentially we're talking about two stories. We're talking about what happened at the club, and then we're also talking about, in conjunction Pablo's timeline and whether those two fit together. So let's talk about Pablo's girlfriend. So at some point in July, Pablo did have an all night conversation with his ex girlfriend, Anel. Pablo would tell police this occurred the night of the shooting. Remember the timeline. He says that he got back from his long haul driving, goes home, eats some lucky charms, and then drives to his girlfriend's house. And apparently he says that they had an all night conversation, which would be a good alibi because then it would mean he is somewhere not at the shooting. And in fact, Pablo would tell Anele he thought it was the same night. Now, Anel wasn't sure, so she went to her job and determined that the conversation would have occurred on a night she had the next day off, as she would want to sleep in. And she worked on the 16th, which is the day after the murder, because of looking at the calendar and thinking about probably wanting to have an all night conversation when she could sleep in. She then believes and concludes that the conversation Pablo remembers having occurred occurred two weeks later, on the 29th instead of on the 15th, the night of the shooting. And this is because she also believed that she'd gone to the doctor around when the conversation occurred. So it's not that she definitively remembers this is not the night of the shooting. She's looking at her calendar and piecing together when she thinks it happened. And she based on kind of things in her calendar, she thinks it actually happened two weeks later. However, Anel also indicated that this conversation Pablo talks about occurred around a phone call she believe they'd had in late July. But the phone call she thinks this conversation is about actually happened on July 13, which would be two days before the night of the shooting. So what happened here is Pablo confused about when this conversation happened? Is Anel was Pablo asking Anel to just make up an alibi for him?

[Brett]

And look, this is the problem with alibis, and we see this in every case that involves an alibi, is when you're relying on people's memories, everything gets confusing. And you see Anele doing what you want people to do when they're trying to remember. She's looking for sort of guidepost to hitch her memory to. So, you know, if we'd done that, I would have done it on a night that I could have didn't have to go to work tomorrow. Now she says that, and that makes sense in hindsight, does that necessarily mean she was thinking that that night when he showed up at her house? I don't know. You Know, then there's the whole it happened around a phone call. Well, that's the opposite of what she thinks, because she's saying this was late in the month, but that phone call happened right around when the conversation would have occurred. And so you're trying to figure this out. And the prosecution's obviously saying, look, this is him trying to cover up what happened. He is trying to build an alibi, but also recall this, what is actually happening here. At some point after this murder, Pablo is going to realize that he is a target of the investigation. You know, I mean, at some point the police are going to show up and start asking him about his cold car. And what is he going to do? What does any person do in that situation? They start thinking back, man, what was I doing on that night? Right? And then he thinks he went over to her house. Now, whether he did or not, I don't think that's something that was nefarious that he would say that. I mean, we know this was at least a few weeks later. I mean, in her telling, the conversation doesn't happen until July 29th. Right? So he's trying to remember back to a night if he didn't do it, which was completely innocuous for him, right. It wouldn't have been a big deal. It was just another night that he got home from his trucking thing and then he went over to her house and they had this conversation. So I don't think you can say he's trying to create an alibi here, even if he's wrong. And certainly her memory is not that great either. And look, she's his ex girlfriend, she's not happy with him. In the post conviction stuff, there was obviously a lot of ineffective assistance to counsel claims. And Pablo had actually told his attorney, look, you really need to work on this witness because they're going to call her and she's mad at me. They had broken up for a reason. And you probably won't be surprised to find out it was because Pablo had cheated on her. Right? And now he's trying to get her back, but she's not interested in it. So she's very angry. She's not inclined to help him and she doesn't help him. But we see this all the time with these alibis. Alibis are a mirror. You see in them whatever you want to see, right? Like if you're somebody who wants to believe somebody's innocent, you'll, you'll look at the alibi and you'll say, rock solid. And if you want to believe someone's guilty, you'll look at the alibi and say there's so many holes in that. There's no way. We see this in every case with alibis, and it happened here. But here it was another thing that helped the jury get to guilty because it made it seem like he was trying to fabricate an alibi to get off from this crime. And obviously her testimony, I think was pretty damning to him. Now let's talk a little bit about his background. Pablo, he was a hard working guy. He had no criminal record, but he was not an angel. He had been to the Perfect Rack and probably evident to you now, that was a gang hangout. There were a lot of different gangs, there were a lot of fights, shootouts. I mean, this was just something that happened at the Perfect Rack. And he'd been there a couple times at least. His dad may have been a cocaine dealer. In fact, the only arrest on Pablo's record, he had been at his father's house when there was some sort of big drug bust of his father. And he was temporarily arrested, he was released, didn't have anything to do with it. But nevertheless, he has this close connection to his father. And I will tell you, I am certain that law enforcement viewed Pablo as sort of someone who is probably engaged in all sorts of criminal activity. But we haven't been able to get him yet. You know, he's Pablo Velez Jr. So, Pablo Velez Sr. Big drug trafficker. What are the chances Pablo's not involved? Right, so this is something that would have automatically put him on the radar. Now, he had sold his car to Ron Strandberg, who is once again a member of a gang and sort of a violent person. But he'd never transferred the deeds, and he was apparently willing to report the car stolen without verifying that it was actually stolen. And then when Ron was like, never mind, you know, he didn't think anything of that. He did have a gun. It was legally owned. It wasn't the gun used in the shooting. And as we said, you know, he'd been cheating on his girlfriend. He was out on the town. Right. In other words, he's just the kind of person you would expect would get tagged in a crime like this, a crime that he didn't actually commit. He sort of fits the mold for what you would expect to see if you're looking for an actually innocent person.

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[Alice]

Here'S the trouble with kind of not having clean hands in general, right? The reason he probably didn't question his friend on these things is he is around a gang hangout. Things like this happen probably all the time that don't involve someone getting killed, of course, something less, I guess, damaging than that. But they probably do things like this to help each other out with the law. Not uncommonly. And so it's just another thing that you would do for a friend or a brother in your gang and not knowing that you're essentially now the target of a murder investigation. So let's talk about Pablo's testimony then. Because Pablo testified in this case and we've talked about, you can always assert the fifth you don't have to testify on your own behalf. And there's a jury instruction that says if the defendant doesn't testify, you can't hold it against him. There are lots of strategic reasons for the defense not to put up their client on the stand. For one, they may not be likable to the jury, right? Especially if you have someone who's not someone who sings in the church choir or is a sweet old grandma. If you have someone who may have cheated on their girlfriend or may hang out at the Perfect Rack, may have things that are just not very likable to a jury that could be bad. You open them up to cross examination, those sorts of things. But Pablo does choose to testify in this case, and you might wonder why, as there hasn't been any evidence that his testimony would need to rebut. In fact, it's pretty thin what the prosecution has in placing him even at the shooting. And here's the thing, Pablo never intended to testify. So what happened? Pablo had a number of witnesses who were going to testify on his behalf, and they were all present the final day of the state's case. At some point, Pablo's attorney, Mr. McLean, told them that they could all go home, but then the state finished their case more quickly than they expected. And McLean explained to the judge what happened, that he'd sent everyone home so as not to waste their time, and he asked for a recess. But we have talked about this before. You can't always time a trial. And the judge wants expediency in their trials. And the judge did in this case. What happens in literally every trial that Brett and I have tried together, the judge said, call your NetWest witness, it's your turn. That's it. This happens. This is why there's so much waiting around if you're a witness in a trial, because you don't know when this will happen. So he's like, look, I sent everyone home. I didn't know the state was going to finish as quickly as they did. And we just have a recess until tomorrow. And you have to ask for a recess because otherwise the trial continues. You don't take breaks in trials. And the judge basically blinks and says, no, call your next witness. And if you don't call another witness, then you are forced to rest the case. And so the only person there, because all the witnesses were sent home was his client, Pablo. And so, with no prep or expectation he would need to testify, McLean called Pablo to the stand. This is like worst case scenario. But the other scenario would be that they would be forced to rest their case. Closing arguments, submit to the jury. And now if we look back and just read a cold transcript of Pablo's testimony, the testimony actually went fine. It doesn't seem like the prosecution landed many blows. But of course, we know that a cold transcript doesn't tell the whole story. And the jury isn't reading a cold transcript. They're seeing a live Pablo on the stand, seeing every twitch of the eye, every nervous jitter, and the way he responds to cross examination, to direct testimony. And it is very different to hear that testimony in person than reading that transcript.

[Brett]

And from reading the briefs, some of the briefs, this is obviously something that's raised in the ineffective assistance of counsel aspect of this case. Pablo essentially says that, you know, he wasn't expecting to testify, he wasn't ready to testify, and it was a difficult process because he'd never testified before. He's getting asked his questions. Sometimes he's getting confused. He's trying to figure out exactly what he's being asked. That kind of thing makes you look like you're maybe making things up, you're holding things back, or you don't answer the question right, like all that sort of stuff. Because as Al said, and as we've mentioned, Many times, one of the things the jury is doing that is very difficult to account for in a podcast is looking at the person testifying, reading their behavior, and making a judgment about whether or not that person is telling them the truth. It's a very human thing that we do every day, and it's something juries do. Are you telling me the truth or not? And that's hard to reflect in a cold transcript, but you really, for that reason, want to prep your witnesses. You want to prep all of them, but especially your client, your defendant. He's going to testify. He needs to be ready. He needs to be ready. He needs to know exactly what you're going to ask him. So at least his direct is good cross examination is what it is. But at least on direct, you want him to be confident, strong, answering the questions directly and clearly. And Pablo had no, no opportunity for that. So this is a real sort of bad moment for him in the trial, and particularly in a case where there's not a lot of evidence against him. As we've said before, and as a lot of appellate courts will say, juries can make a decision that you're guilty if you testify based solely on that. They listened you testify, they listened to you say you didn't do it, and they didn't believe you, and that was enough for them. So this was bad. I mean, this was a huge mistake. And frankly, there was some good testimony from those witnesses who came back the next day and testified it wasn't worth it. If. If you got arrest, you got arrest. He would have been better off doing that.

[Alice]

And we've talked about this exact procedural situation many a times. And to see it really play out, I mean, this judge is not unreasonable in that we have faced this with every single judge we've appeared before as well. And it's just part of. It was a tactical error, a real tactical error here.

[Brett]

I can't remember which trial we were watching, but there was some trial where it seemed like this is exactly what was happening. Like they. We were either watching a trial or.

[Alice]

There were like, nonsense questions and it was just like, yeah, it just went on and on.

[Brett]

And you're like, what is going on here?

[Alice]

Was it murder?

[Brett]

It was either Murdoch. Maybe it was Karen Reed. It was one. I can't.

[Alice]

Oh, no, no, we talked about it was Karen Reid. Because it was like really confusing questions.

[Brett]

It was actually not been Richard Allen. I'm not sure it was one of those. It was one of those.

[Alice]

Maybe it was Richard Allen.

[Brett]

It might have been Richard Allen because.

[Alice]

It was questions like, what's your favorite color? Like, it was. So it was a filibuster, right? We called it a filibuster testimony.

[Brett]

And. And I think the reason was they didn't have another witness ready. And so they needed to get to the end because they probably figured if it was Richard Allen, that Judge Goel was the kind of judge who would say, call your next witness. Arrest your case. And this is one of those things we talk about people on Twitter and everything else just have no conception of how judges really are. Like, the things that judges do and can do and are perfectly legal would make the average person on Twitter think, there's a conspiracy here. You know, how awful this judge is. And this judge in particular was very short with the defense. I mean, this was a judge who did not. I don't think he or she, I think, was a. He did not like the defense attorney and thought the defense attorney was not a very good lawyer. It's evident from the transcript. And I think that's why this happened. And it was perfectly within the judge's purview, as the person who controls the trial, to tell him this. Call your next witness, arrest your case. We're not recessing. And that's what happened. So let's talk about Mario Superman Sosa. So this is one of those things that came out many years later that you see in a lot of these cases. Apparently there was a man named Mario Sosa who was interviewed by the police about the shooting Mario Superman. Sosa identified Ronald Strandberg and Richard Shorty Cisneros as the shooters. But Sosa told the police that he would not testify because he knew if he did testify, his family would be killed. Now, this is. I mean, that should not be surprising to anyone. Remember, these people are members of a gang. They take this very seriously, to the point that the victim. We talked about this last week. The victim, when he testified, lied on the stand about what had happened, lied on the stand about who did it, and later admitted to that. Because he survived that shooting. He didn't want to get shot again. So this person, you know, he says, look, this is who did it, but I'm not going to testify. So Officer King was one of the investigators on this case. And at trial, he was asked if anyone had identified other shooters during the investigation, and he said no. But in his notebook, he wrote the following. Ron driving gold Cadillac, possibly Ron, shot Emerson. A source wrote a letter documenting everything and hid it. If anything happens, the letter will be mailed in. Shorty has everyone scared so this is in this officer's notebook. The officer who testified, the officer who said never happened, didn't talk to anybody who had any other suspects. And you'll all be shocked to know this evidence was never turned over to the defense, however incompetent they are. And I will just tell you, reading this, I'm very surprised that this has not led to a vacation of this conviction and neutral. I mean, this is, this is very clearly. This is actually Brady material.

[Alice]

This is Brady material, correct.

[Brett]

So we've seen, you know, you think about the so called Brady material in the Adnan Syed case, where somebody's wife calls and tells the prosecutor something. The prosecutor told the defense attorney who then told her husband and then he told her. So it's like this circle of information that isn't actually anything and that's called Brady material that we need a new trial for. This is, I mean, this is damning Brady material. Someone should be prosecuted, sued. Withholding this kind of information is astonishing to me, particularly because it is so believable. The police know this. They know that this kind of stuff happens. They know that these kind of threats are made. And it's remarkable to me that they would have this information and continue down the path they went anyway. And the fact that they didn't turn it over to me is a pretty straightforward, clear, easy violation. But to this point, it has not led to any kind of relief for Pablo. And I think the reason probably is, as we've talked about before, it is really hard to make out a Brady claim because it's a balancing thing. You have to show that this new evidence was so powerful that if known, would have overcome what you had. And I'm not exactly sure what happened here, just because a lot of the court opinions are not available, you know, they're not published, so it's hard to find them. But if I had to imagine when this was presented, I assume what the court said was you had a positive identification of Pablo by someone who was there. The gold Cadillac which was in his name, he testified and the jury was entitled to disbelieve him. This person, even though they said this stuff that was helpful to Pablo, also said they would not testify. So how valuable is it really to the defense? Like, these are the kind of arguments that the state would have made for why it's not Brady material. And, but I'll just say this. There's the legal argument and there's sort of your duty. And we've talked about this a lot. That legal argument may be 100% accurate. But I go back to the. When we talked to Arlinda about the whole Baldwin trial. You know, these prosecutors and these police officers also have just an independent responsibility not to prosecute the wrong guy. And I feel like you have somebody come in and tell you this, it should really give you pause about continuing that prosecution.

[Alice]

So the defense submits additional affidavits on post conviction appeals to tell their side of the story. And this is some really interesting stuff. So affidavits are obviously sworn testimonies, but in writing. And they do have a different role, though. You can understand why someone testifies at trial and then they submit an affidavit later on that may change their trial testimony. How problematic that can be. Because what could have made them change it? Well, here we have Claudia, who was obviously at. She's the one who identified Pablo in the lineup. Remember, she's the one who followed the gold catalog, you know, remembered the license plate number, wrote it down in her bible, that whole thing. Now, in her affidavit, Claudia explained that during Jason Woolley's trial, she had testified and a man was sitting behind Jason taking notes. Now, Claudia immediately recognized that that man was the blue shirted shooter, the one that she had originally identified as Pablo, and she assumed it was the same man she'd picked out in the photo lineup. But when she shows up at Pablo's trial and sees Pablo Velez for the first time, she's immediately sure that's not the same guy. She finds the ADA on the case, Eileen Bogar, and tells her Pablo is not the guy, that is not the blue shirted shooter, that is not the person I meant to pick out in the photo lineup. And she tells her, and this is where it's disturbing. In her affidavit, she. She says that the district attorney tells her it's too late to change her story and that she should just answer the questions with whatever she told the police originally and may not be a surprise to you guys at this point. The man taking notes during Jason's trial, Richard Shorty Cisneros, by the way, that's not true. You're allowed to change your testimony anytime, especially if you think it's not the truth. So I don't know if the district really said that and if Claudia really as forcefully told her, I got it wrong. People tend to be more black and white in their affidavits. I don't know the actual conversation. So before we, like, pile on the ada, it's possible the conversation happened where it was a little Bit less black and white as this. You can imagine something like, I don't know, I'm getting real nervous. How do I know this is the right guy? I don't know. I don't even know what it is, what's up anymore. I don't know that I want to testify. I don't know if it's him anymore. And then you can imagine the ADA being like, everyone gets nerves when they get on the stand. So remember what you told the police. You were sure of it. We went through it many times. You know, you didn't misremember anything, right? You don't have to be worried. These people are not judging you. It's not about you. You can imagine that conversation. That's in the best light possible. But if it happens as Claudia says, you can imagine that's very bad. Because if she says, this is not the truth, I now realize the error I made. I am sure that's not the same person. And an attorney is telling her, doesn't matter. Don't change your testimony. That obviously would be problematic. You can always change your testimony, especially when you're under oath.

[Brett]

And this is the point where typically my critics would say, I now am going to make excuses for the prosecutor or the police, because ordinarily what I would do is sort of what Alice did. I think it's really important when we talk about these cases. It is so easy to demonize people. Think about all those cases of. Of missing and murdered indigenous women. We were dealing with rcmp. It would just be really easy just to be a. Look, the RCMP is evil and they're just a bunch of corrupt jerks and they should be disbanded. Right? That'd be really easy to do, I think. Much more effective and much more, if you want to actually have constructive change. Try and figure out why these things happened, why these people did what they did, and see if you can fix it. Could be things like lack of resources, that kind of thing. I think that's very important, and I think Alice just made a really good point. It's very easy in affidavits to be very black and white. However, in this case, I think there is reason to believe this is exactly what happened. You see recantations all the time, right? And oftentimes they are absolute crap to the point that the courts don't really take recantations seriously because it's so easy. I mean, you know, 20 years ago, you testified the guy did it. Then you have some advocate come along and say, oh, we know, you know, it's been 20 years. So the perjury statute of limitations has passed. So now if you say he didn't do it, you get him out of jail and there'd be no consequences, and all of a sudden they recant. Right. And is that a real recantation or is it a false recantation? You can have false recantations just like you can have false confessions. However, in this case, number one, Claudia's recantation is immediate. Yes, we have this affidavit, but remember, when she testifies on the stand, she doesn't testify it was Pablo. She is testifying consistent with what she says in her affidavit. And the other thing that happened that makes me think she did have this conversation, was Eileen Bogart surprised when she did that on the stand? No, she wasn't. As a matter of fact, she told the jury in openings that she expected that the witness would not actually identify Pablo. She had had this conversation with Claudia. That's how she knew that you wouldn't say that otherwise. And when she got up on the stand and said that you would be shocked and you'd be fumbling all over yourself, she knew that she was going to say it wasn't Pablo. They had had this conversation and she had prepared a backup plan on how to deal with it if she didn't just go along with what she'd said before. So I think this is absolutely what happened. I think this is the kind of recantation that has all sorts of support for it, because it's not one that happened years later. It was one that happened at trial.

[Alice]

I think it gives it even more credence that she recognizes the man sitting behind Jason Woolley, taking notes when she doesn't know who Cisneros is. So it's not like she's playing a game and trying to pin this on someone. She independently recognizes someone, as opposed to just saying, oh, Pablo doesn't look like the person I remember. She actually, she can say that confidently because she has identified the actual person who she did see. So I think those two independent factors really support this type of recantation, where it's not just a willy nilly recantation because you were strong armed by an attorney to submit a helpful affidavit.

[Brett]

So let's talk about Christopher Newby. Christopher Newby is actually a new witness, and he submitted an affidavit as well. He said in his affidavit that he knew Ron and Shorty and that they were the shooters that night. He said he also knew Pablo, but he did not see him at the Perfect Rack. He said in his affidavit that he never reached out to police because he knew the reputations of the shooters and he did not want to be viewed as a snitch. Now, this kind of affidavit, ordinarily, I would not give much credence to, just because anybody can submit an affidavit 20 years later to help out a buddy and say, well, I was there, I saw it. Sorry. But there's a couple things about it. Number one, it's consistent with what other people have said, with who the shooters would have been. And number two, his reason for not coming forward is consistent with other things. We've heard that witnesses were afraid. And remember when we went through the timeline, we mentioned that incident after the Perfect Rack, where there was a shooting and some people got beaten up and there was no report ever made, but what were we told was happening there, Ron and Shorty were threatening witnesses who had been at the Perfect Rack. All of that fits with what Christopher Newby is saying. So even though in isolation, his affidavit might not be all that convincing, I think given the other evidence in the case, it feels much more likely to be true than maybe what you would ordinarily see.

[Alice]

And Jason Woolley himself submits an affidavit. In his affidavit, he said that there were three shooters, two of whom were in the gold Cadillac. Jason refused to identify the two men in the Cadillac as he feared for his safety, something that we've heard of more than once in this case. And he would say that he knew, quote, without a doubt, that Pablo wasn't one of them and had, quote, absolutely no involvement in the shootings. He said Pablo doesn't deserve to be locked up. This is pretty big. Again, we know this is gang related. And so he's not willing to go so far as to name who the shooters are, but he's saying Pablo had nothing to do with it. Don't lock him up. Don't lock up this innocent man.

[Brett]

And yeah, and this is another one that in a different circumstance, I wouldn't put a whole lot of stock into if this were just Jason Woolley and another gang member who's also in prison and he's willing to take the hit. You see that happen all the time. You see, members of gangs will take the hit for other members of gangs, particularly higher ranked members of gangs, say they were the lone shooter when they were obviously two people. And a lot of times they'll get money on their books, they'll get respect in prison. When they get out, they're going to get all sorts of credit. You see, that happens. That is obviously not the case here. There's no evidence that Pablo was even in the gang. In fact, he wasn't in the gang as far as we know. Jason has no reason to do this. And in fact, he's expressing the same fear that everyone else has expressed if he names the shooters, but he is willing to say it was not Pablo, Pablo didn't do it. And so I think this is also an affidavit that you give more credence to than you might in a different kind of case.

[Alice]

So obviously we started this saying we were looking at this because this is an assertion of actual innocence for Pablo, right? So let's look at the case for Pablo's innocence now that we've gone through the trial, the affidavits, post trial and other aspects of the investigation. So Pablo's claims, and this seems supported by his ex girlfriend, that he couldn't make the payments on the car, so he gave it to a friend, the friend being Ron Strandberg, and on the condition that Ron would take over making the payments. Now, this claim is further supported by Abraham Song, who is the owner of E Race Performance. Now, song testified on July 8, 2004, that Ron Strandberg took a gold Cadillac Deville registered and Pablo Velez's name in to have a stereo fitted. We talked about this earlier. You know, I don't think they're that good friends that he's just having a stereo fitted for Pablo. He was doing this because he got the car from Pablo and this was now his car. He was making his own, you know, touches to it. He was putting in the stereo because this was now his car. So that's one Claudia Beltran, she afterwards in that affidavit says it was Richard Shorty Cisneros was the one who she identified in the lineup, not Pablo Velez Jr. Also in the typed up report of her initial photo identification, it says that Claudia said, quote, he looks like him. But in Detective King's handwritten notes, it also said that Claudia said that the blue shirted shooter had lighter hair. So even at the time where she made the, quote, unquote, positive identification, there were doubts. It wasn't a. Absolutely. That's the guy I saw. It was, huh. These are the pictures you've given me. Typically, we like to have an answer for someone and this is a closed universe. There's not an option where it says he's not here, even though that is always an option when you're given a photo lineup. But she's making the closest identification of the photos shown to her. And even then she's saying, this looks like him, but not exactly, because the person I saw had lighter hair. Now, Claudia also, we know, had a number of Long Island Iced Teas the night of the shooting, which may have affected her recollection because she was probably a little bit inebriated or maybe a lot inebriated. And when Claudia testified at Pablo's trial, she said she did not see the shooter in the courtroom and said that Pablo was heavier, taller, and had darker hair than the shooter, essentially saying Pablo is not the shooter. And Claudia later said, as we know in the affidavit, that the prosecutor even knew this because Claudia told the prosecutor the morning of the trial that Pablo was not the blue shirted shooter. In her affidavit, the prosecutor told Claudia it was too late and she should answer the questions with whatever she told the police. Originally, another point for the case for Pablo's innocence, Nancy Almanza said that she did not see Pablo at the Rack the evening of the shooting.

[Brett]

And in fact, there was no evidence that Pablo was at the Perfect Rack that evening. Other than Claudia, no one saw him there. The only other person who said Pablo was there was Adrian Payan. And he has since said he lied about that. And in fact, we knew at the time that he was lying because he said Pablo was there earlier than he physically could have been. The shooters in this case were likely. The three shooters were likely the three men who beat up Adrian Payan the night before. Jason Woolley, Ron Strandberg, and Shorty Cisneros. As we've said, Cisneros closely matches the description of the shooter Claudia initially gave to police. I feel like we could have done one episode five minutes long and just said Claudia said The shooter was 5 foot 4. Cisneros nickname is Shorty and not because he is tall. He was involved in the fight the night before. He is likely the shooter. This is not. This is not rocket science here. Right. And we know, or we've heard that Cisneros to this day is still putting money on Jason Woolley's account in prison, which, as I said earlier, is the kind of thing that happens in these gang related issues when you're helping out a buddy who's making sure you're not going to prison. We know that the.40 caliber shell casings found at the Perfect Rack scene match the casings found during a June 2004 incident where Strandberg was shooting into the air. We know that Cisneros, Willie and Strandberg were out intimidating witnesses following the shooting. Guess who wasn't with them? Pablo. And one thing that's interesting about the bullets, we talked about that earlier. It seems this evidence didn't actually make it into trial. And it appears that this was a screw up by the defense because the issue wasn't even preserved when this came up in the appeal. The appellate court said, look interesting, but you didn't preserve it, so we're not even going to address it. Once again, his defense attorney was not the best we know. Jason Woolley, despite getting money on his account, has said that Pablo was not involved. As I said, Adrian Payan has recanted. Now says Pablo wasn't even there. There were 51 calls the day before between Cisneros, Strandberg and Woolley leading up to and just after the shooting. There were no calls involving Pablo. Probably because Pablo wasn't even involved in the fight the night before at the Perfect Rack, which was the trigger for this shooting. We know that. And Pablo was a truck driver. He didn't get back home until about 1am, which is only about an hour before the shooting occurred. Now, could he have made it to the Perfect Rack? Yes, he could have. He was only about 11 minutes from his house. But it seems unlikely that he wasn't involved in the fight. The events leading up, got home, hadn't even gotten a phone call from anybody involved in the shooting, nevertheless decided to go to the Perfect Rack, shows up at the Perfect Rack and just gets recruited into the shooting by this gang he's not even a part of. But that's what you'd have to believe happened here if you think Pablo was involved.

[Alice]

So that's the case for Pablo's innocence. And all of you guys are like, okay, do your thing, guys. Show us all the evidence now as to why he was rightfully convicted. Okay, so let's look at the evidence that's against Pablo. I'm going to give you a little bit of a teaser. It's not a lot. So what we have, Pablo never completed any paperwork transferring the lease of the gold Cadillac to Ron Strandberg. So it was compelling evidence because the gold Cadillac seen at the crime scene, seen driving away from the crime scene housing at least one of the shooters is registered to Pablo. That's pretty bad, right? And we talked about that's a great lead when you are investigating the case. The gold Cadillac tied to the shooting. I don't think anyone is disputing that here is registered to Pablo. Pablo was identified as being a shooter at the photo lineup and he did have that car title. He doesn't dispute it. Pablo looked as if he was trying to falsify an alibi at trial when he talked about, you know, going to his girlfriend's house to have an all night conversation. And he doesn't really have anyone else to back him up on it, certainly not his ex girlfriend. And he was returning that evening from a week long trip as a truck driver. He dropped his trainee, L.G. holmes off at a gas station at 12:40am and he then claimed to have gone to visit his ex girlfriend, Anel, but she refuted this at trial. In other words, he doesn't really have an alibi that can be confirmed by anyone but himself. And we of course look at that suspiciously because you want to be self serving and if you have no independent verification for your alibi, it's not going to be that strong. But guys, that's basically it. Let's talk about the gold Cadillac. Makes complete sense that if you couldn't make payments on it, he gave it to someone. And that person, it's not just his word saying, oh yeah, he gave me the Cadillac. We have other third parties who are disinterested. The owner of like a car repair shop saying, yep, someone other than Pablo brought in this car and had the stereo installed. That is a step that is just consistent with someone working on their own car. We know that even though he was identified as the shooter, it wasn't really a rock solid identification even at the time. And the person who identified him recanted it and wasn't lying on the stand. She never identified him on the stand. But after the fact, she now says that the prosecutor told her not to change her story, essentially. Yet even given that direction, she does not positively identify Pablo in the courtroom. And we talked about his potential alibi. Look, it doesn't look good when your name's on the car at the shooting and you have no one to back up your alibi. It makes sense that he's trying to explain that night away. And even if he misremembered when this conversation happened, there's no one who can back him up on any of this. And so it's his word against everyone else's. But this is a very thin case with respect to placing Pablo there, especially when you then bring in his cell phone pings and the possibility of him even being there. And then when you step away and look at why would he be there? How could he even know to be there. And what did they have against him? The. The end of the day, I would say not that much.

[Brett]

And, you know, I am always skeptical. These cases we talked about, why, you know, these cases become cause labs, and people bury the real evidence, and they twist things and they try and convince you that everybody's innocent when most people are guilty. And so I just want to say to those of you out there who feel like that, and often feel like everyone is guilty and disagrees with us, and everyone we say is not guilty, the thing that I know you're probably thinking, and I just want to go through it one more time. What are the chances that Pablo's car was there that night and someone identified him as the shooter? That seems like too strong a coincidence to ignore, despite everything else we've said. But I want to remind you how that happened, because his car was there, the police were already suspicious of him. Claudia gives a description of the shooter. Had his car not been there based on that description, Pablo's picture would not have been in that lineup because he doesn't fit the description. They put his picture in the lineup despite the fact he did not fit her description because he is the owner of the Cadillac. This is not necessarily as nefarious as some people make it out to be, because, as we've said, eyewitness accounts are really bad. And so, you know, maybe she's saying the guy's five, four, she's saying he's her height, but he's really six feet tall. Is that likely? No, it's not likely, but maybe. And so they went ahead and put the picture of the guy who owned the Cadillac that was there in there. There are six photos there. So just on pure chance, there's what, an 18, 17% chance, 16% chance, 16.5% chance, whatever. I don't do math. There's five is 20.

[Alice]

So under 20%?

[Brett]

Yeah, under 20% chance, but a not insignificant chance that she's going to pick him randomly. And if you look at the picture of Shorty Cisneros, as we put up and as we'll put on the website next to him, they look very similar. And they didn't use a full body, they just used his face. So that coincidence, which seems so compelling at first, and I thought was compelling at first, when I first looked at this case, I was like, when. When you look at it, when you put any amount of, you know, microscope on it, all of a sudden it starts to fall apart. I do think it falls apart in this case, and I'LL just tell you, we've done a lot of these cases, several people that we think are innocent. Pablo is the most innocent of anyone we've done. Like, I just. I see this case, and it just seems to me this is so obviously a wrongful conviction. It's so obviously a situation where I think the police basically were like, hey, there were three shooters. We know one guy, the guy who shot into the ground. We know him absolutely. We think Ron Strandberg was there. We think Shorty Cinderis was there, but we can't prove it. But we got somebody saying Pablo was there, and Pablo is the son of a drug dealer. So by goodness, great opportunity to get a bad guy off the street. A little shaky, but that's fine. We'll let the jury decide. Right. And they rolled with it, and he gets convicted, and they all went home feeling fine because he's a bad guy anyway. And that's how a wrongful conviction happens. And I think that's how this wrongful conviction happened here. I don't really have any doubt that Pablo is innocent. He currently, as we speak, is up for parole. I think his parole will be decided in April, and we can hope that he'll at least be paroled and released. But that's not going to change the fact that he spent 20 years in prison for a crime that I think it's evident he didn't commit. Alice, you want to tell me why I'm wrong?

[Alice]

No, you are right. You are absolutely right. It was a little bit shocking to see how thin the case was against him, especially when you saw Claudia's. I don't even want to call her recantation because I think she was consistent from the beginning when she identified, quote, unquote, him in the photo lineup. I think it was never a strong case, but you have these characters who are afraid to say things because this is not the only act of violence among these gangs. This will not be the last one. There's going to be a lot more. There's a lot of witness tampering outside of all of this. And when you have an easy person to pin it on, well, Pablo's name is on the gold Cadillac. Let's run with it. You don't even have to do that much witness tampering as a gang member to keep people quiet. Right. The police naturally followed the lead. I agree that they should have investigated Pablo. He should have been suspect, really number one to look into because of his name on the car that was seen, you know, speeding away from the shooting. But if they did any sort of digging. They should not have stuck there. We always say leads are just that until proven. Not a viable lead in your case, no, I don't have any doubt that he's innocent. And it's a real travesty that we don't spend all our resources on these types of cases. Instead of the Adnan said kiss, that's the part that I think is horrible. Even us, you know, we did three episodes on this. How many did we do on Adnan? Not because we liked Adnan, but because we had to refute all of the noise that was said out there about him. This is pretty cut and dry. And here's the thing. This isn't just based on feeling. This is based on the court record. This is based on affidavits, this is based on the briefings. Obviously, we weren't at the trials at the time, but read the transcripts. It's all there for you. And I think you would be hard pressed to find any more if you think we're leaving out some sort of key piece of evidence that pins this directly on Pablo. I think we laid it out very clearly for you what the evidence is against him. It's not nothing, but it falls apart pretty quickly upon any sort of digging. So if you think differently, I'd love to hear from it, because this is exactly the type of conversation we'd like to have about it. And I think that's productive conversation. But those three, that's it.

[Brett]

I think Alice is right. It is sad we don't spend more time on it. And I'll say we received an email from Lisa Martinez, who is Pablo's advocate, three or four years ago, about this case. And we get emails all the time from people who want us to cases, people who want to look into convictions, everything else, and put them on the list, move on. And at some point came back to this case and started looking at it and realized, oh, you know, wish we'd have done this one earlier. Right. Not like making difference as doing it, but nevertheless, I mean, I think it's always good to bring attention these cases. I mentioned Lisa. Lisa is going to write an article for the True Crime Times, which is our substack that we've talked about. Should be out as this episode's coming out, so check that to see that she's been working on Pablo's case for a long time. As we always say, we want you guys to look at the primary documents. Those are harder to find in this case than some of the other ones. This case is not famous. As I said, a lot of the information is not out there. We'll link to a bunch of different stuff. There's a Facebook page that has a lot of information on this. We have access to a Google Drive that has basically everything in this case. I'm going to see whether or not that's something we can put up or not. People don't always like to do that. Just make it public. Public. But if it is, we'll put it up on the website or link to it on the website. Read it for yourself. Look for yourself. And read the same testimony we talked about. The trial wasn't that long. You could read this trial in an afternoon, look at it for yourself, see what you think. Read the affidavits. And I think you'll find that this is a case that is an actual wrongful conviction, and it's one that needs to be. Something needs to happen in this case. I mean, the. The least of which is Pablo needs to be paroled this year and got a lot of people listening to the show in Texas. And I hope somebody who's listening to Texas has a little bit of influence, because if you're looking for a case where you can do actual justice and release someone who's actually not guilty and not be concerned about putting a murderer back on the streets, this is the case. All right. Well, Alice, do you have anything else you want to say about this case before we move on to the rest of the evening?

[Alice]

No, other than please listen to these three episodes. It's not that confusing. I think we laid it out at the very end. Like, the bottom line, y'all, if you want to skip the first two episodes and just jump to the end, it's a thin case. Read it for yourself. You can do it very quickly. And then if you're. If you're affiliated with Innocence Project type kinds of representation, take this one up. Drop Scotty P. Scott Peterson doesn't need you. I'm sorry. That guy is guilty. Pick up this one. You can do a lot of good here.

[Brett]

And this is ironic, but I'm going to say it anyway. I've actually seen this recently. Those of you who. Who follow some of the goings on in Washington. We're currently at the end of President Biden's term as we discuss this. And President Biden, in one of his last acts, commuted a bunch of death penalty sentences. Well, two of the people.

[Alice]

All of them, except for, like.

[Brett]

All of them, except for, like, the people we really don't like. Yeah, no, there's Sorry.

[Alice]

Basically everybody.

[Brett]

Due process problem there, right? Like, you guys, you're cool, you're cool. F you. That's basically what he said. But anyway, two of the people that were commuted are refusing the commutation. And their argument is, well, they claim they're really innocent. I have no idea if they are not gonna go to limb and say they're probably not. But nevertheless, they are saying they're innocent. And they say, look, as long as I'm on death row, I have so much more access to resources because I'm on death row and people want to keep me from being executed. So they're willing to fight for my innocence. And we see this with the Innocence Project all the time. They might as well change their name to the Anti Death Penalty Project, because right now what they're doing is everybody who's up for. For the death penalty, they just come out and say they're innocent and it doesn't matter what the evidence is against them. You know, we have to go through a week of Facebook post about how, you know, Missouri is about to execute an innocent person. South Carolina's about to execute an innocent person. They literally did one in South Carolina where they claimed the guy was innocent even though he had murdered his cellmate while in prison for the murder for which he was getting executed. It's like he is not innocent. You may hate the death penalty, this is not the guy, but they will defend you if you're on death row. Pablo didn't get the death penalty. He got 30 years in prison. And so I feel like he has fallen through the cracks of the Innocence Project and people who fight for that. Yeah, he just falls to the cracks because he didn't get death penalty. Oh, he only got 30 years. He's just not worth the resources. And I have no doubt that the Texas Innocence Project right now is representing some of the worst people in the world simply because they're on death row. And they need to put some of their resources towards people like Pablo because he is actually innocent. And I don't care if he's not gonna get the death penalty, he should not be where he is. And it's just unfortunate that he doesn't. I mean, he's just forgotten, you know, I mean, if it hadn't been for Lisa Martinez, we wouldn't even know about this case. But here we are. And like I said, hopefully in a couple months, we're going to have good news for all of you in a follow up. But we're just going to have to see whether or not. We do. Or not. Okay, that's enough ranting on my part. Alice, do you want to answer a question?

[Alice]

Let's do it.

[Brett]

This is from Sally Sue.

[Alice]

Hey, Sally Sue.

[Brett]

And Sally sue wants to know, what did your respective spouses say when you said you were starting the prosecutor's podcast and why did they call you crazy.

[Alice]

And call us crazy? When we started, the prosecutors, they may have called us.

[Brett]

The second question. How did your respective spouses react when you said you were going to also do the prosecutor's legal briefs? Why did they accuse you of having a midlife crisis? And then they might have asked you, Alice, when you decided to do two additional podcasts, are you insane? Are you literally insane?

[Alice]

And then, you know, substacks and writing op eds. I think the proper question was, well, if the prosecutors, I think our. Our spouses were like, good job, good job. Glad you have some hobbies. And they're so cute.

[Brett]

So cute.

[Alice]

Glad this takes an hour a week. When it turned into a full time job, that's when they started calling us crazy. Without quitting our real full time job.

[Brett]

Exactly. That's the problem. It's not so much that it's a full time job, it's that we have two now. At least.

[Alice]

At least two full time jobs.

[Brett]

Yeah, exactly.

[Alice]

No, truthfully, our biggest supporters are obviously our spouses, who are heavily involved in all of this, but they take none of the glory. They're like always giving us ideas. They weigh in all the time. They're texting us in real time, telling us where we mess up when we record, which we greatly appreciate. So just know this is like an all family affair for both of us. But you're just. We're just the voices you hear.

[Brett]

Yeah, exactly. And speaking of spouses, I have to ask Alice what I should call my third podcast that I guess I have to do now because in April we're having a baby. Number three. I'm so happy, little girl. We're all very excited. Mostly. Her older sister and brother cannot wait for her to arrive. So, you know, it's going to be another. Another interesting time. Why not? Now we're up to seven children between us.

[Alice]

Surprise, surprise.

[Brett]

But you know what's really important? The podcast will be fine. It will continue as it always does. Continue along.

[Alice]

We don't know how, but it will.

[Brett]

Yeah. And I just, I obviously ask for all your prayers and support because last time was. Was, you know, a little bit of an ordeal. A lot of an ordeal, as Alice knows. So we're hoping for much Smoother this time, but we'll see.

[Alice]

We're so excited because we seem less crazy when we travel around with our four kids. If you at least have three.

[Brett]

Yeah. We just took our two skiing, and I'm not sure how we're going to do three, but we'll make.

[Alice]

I don't know how you took them skiing. I'm really, really impressed. Like, just the gear alone. I don't know how you did it.

[Brett]

We had so many bags. I bet I was telling my wife, it used to be we just, you know, we pack one bag and we go get to the airport right before the plane took off. You know, no biggie. Now I'm that dad who wants to get there, like, at least three hours.

[Alice]

Early because, you know, it takes that long to corral toddlers who are like, oh, squirrel, squirrel.

[Brett]

And now I am going to need to get a Hottesting.

[Alice]

Oh, my gosh. Can I go hotesy shopping with you? It would be my greatest honor.

[Brett]

Well, you know, test driving cars today, so if you want to go with.

[Alice]

Her, I'm texting her right now.

[Brett]

We need space.

[Alice]

I'm gonna text her right now because I told you how I almost got a second. I didn't almost. I asked to get a second one, and that's where Mr. Alice drew the line. It's like, one. Honesty's enough. We're not getting two.

[Brett]

You can never have too many Hottests, you know. What did you. What do you have now?

[Alice]

I have a Hottesty and a Highlander. You have the Grand Highlander, the Hotlander. We call it a Hot Lander. Okay, that's great. Why are Toyota and Honda not sponsoring us?

[Brett]

Yeah, I know exactly where. Where are you people? Come on. You know Toyota that one time?

[Alice]

Well, I did send something to Mrs. Brett. She laughed, but I don't know if this is true. So if I'm spreading disinformation, I'm sorry, but apparently if you buy a Volvo, they give you the option to pick it up from. Where are they based? Germany.

[Brett]

So you're the one who told her that. She.

[Alice]

Switzerland?

[Brett]

Sweden.

[Alice]

Sweden.

[Brett]

She told me that. She's like, we.

[Alice]

So you can. It's the same price, so you get to go on their dime. I probably just one person. I'm. For three days test drive the car, and then they'll ship it to your country for you. So it's. You get a free trip to Sweden again. I saw this on social media, so it might. It's. There's like a 30% truth to it probably, but I did send that to Mrs. Brett because I know she was potentially looking at a Volvo, which has some pretty cool. You know, it's not a hottest thing.

[Brett]

I liked the Volvo, but yeah, it.

[Alice]

Has the like fold down booster seat. Right. I think that's awesome.

[Brett]

I can't think of any. Well, anything to call it a hot VO. Doesn't work.

[Alice]

Well, we have. We have a couple months to work on it.

[Brett]

Yeah, we'll work on it. As we ended up with a Volvo.

[Alice]

Well, congratulations. I'm so happy for you guys. I'm a pusher of kids because again, you seem less crazy when you travel with other people with more kids. And the only people I hang out with are Brett and his family, so I needed them to like up their kid count so I wouldn't look as crazy.

[Brett]

The problem is I was gonna name my daughter Brittany, but you stole the name.

[Alice]

So it'll be we could have two Britneys.

[Brett]

We could have to.

[Alice]

Could she be Britney ii? Is that how it works?

[Brett]

I don't know. That's a good question. Brittany ii.

[Alice]

Even if it's not in the same family, can it be Britney ii? Brittany the Higher, Britney the Blonde? Because mine is not, you know, blonde. I don't know if yours is going.

[Brett]

To be blonde, but Medieval Kings or something.

[Alice]

More likely yours is blonde than mine. So who we have Britney the Darker, Britney the lighter. Let's just go ahead and cancel ourselves right now.

[Brett]

Yeah, why not? Why not? Absolutely. Anyway, well, thank you guys for all your support. Thank you, Alice, for all your support. You know, we're. We're all doing this together, right? We're just getting through it together.

[Alice]

So thanks for living life with us, guys. This is like. Yeah, this is real. Real. We're in the midst of it. I can imagine maybe in like five to eight years. We look back and we're like, how the heck did we do it? But we are in the pit.

[Brett]

Podcast. Your fifth podcast should be just. We just sit around.

[Alice]

Podcast? What are you talking about?

[Brett]

To have a fifth child too.

[Alice]

I don't want a fifth podcast or a fifth child right now. So just, you know, cool it. Cool it.

[Brett]

Would you guys listen to our. Our lifestyle podcast? You know, we do all these ads for lifestyle podcasts and they're like, I talk about my day with my friends and my love life and all this other stuff and I'm like, who listen? Not, you know, I'm sorry if that's one of the ads on this. It's like, who listens to this stuff? But apparently a lot of people.

[Alice]

I feel like we are just having children into our new podcast, which is about kids, like parents, right?

[Brett]

Yeah. There you go. We just transitioned into parenting podcast.

[Alice]

Oh, my goodness. Anyways, I really am so happy for you guys. That was a really great little, little treat for our 45 best friends right here.

[Brett]

Yeah, exactly. You can feel free to tell everybody else too. It doesn't matter to me. I don't keep things secret like Alice does. It's fine.

[Alice]

It wasn't secret. If you saw me in person. It was definitely not a secret.

[Brett]

Well, I think when you had Brittany, didn't we go to an event with some listeners and you were very pregnant.

[Alice]

I was very pregnant. And they were like, hi. It was one of those job pretending like they didn't look below my eyeballs. And I was like, yeah, you guys, I'm so pregnant.

[Brett]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Alice]

I think I was like eight and a half months pregnant.

[Brett]

Yeah, you were very pregnant.

[Alice]

And it was at a bar.

[Brett]

It was at a bar. And you were drinking, so I wasn't.

[Alice]

Drinking, but I was at a bar, like, eight months pregnant.

[Brett]

Yeah. That's the secret is Alice. Alice drinks all the time, you guys. I. I don't. It's always water. This is our.

[Alice]

That's what you don't know. Yeah. That's the behind the scenes.

[Brett]

That's the true conspiracy.

[Alice]

Man, I hope Huggies, like, I hope they actually sponsors by sending us diapers, because they can pay us in diapers and it would be about the same thing right now. Diapers are gold right now.

[Brett]

We need to let Podcast one know. Like, by the way, in case you didn't know, new baby.

[Alice]

A lot of babies in here.

[Brett]

A lot of babies, you know, we got you, baby. We need more.

[Alice]

We got you, baby. We got you babies.

[Brett]

Babies.

[Alice]

So many babies. Prosecute parenting. I like that.

[Brett]

Process parenting.

[Alice]

Process parenting.

[Brett]

Yeah.

[Alice]

I mean, it's true, right? Because, I mean, there would be a lot of anecdotes because I'm already working on them. My. My oldest is not that old, but he's in first grade. But I try to use my, like, scare tactics on him and his friends all the time. They'll be like, blah, blah, blah. Well, you'll go to jail. And I was like, you know who actually gets put to jail by me? Yeah. And they're like, you're kind of scary.

[Brett]

My kids are all about putting people in jail now. That's like their big.

[Alice]

Yeah. Unfortunately, the. The prosecutor side really rubs off.

[Brett]

Yeah. Anyways, all right, well, this is all fodder for Podcast number three, Prossa. Parenting Processing process Parenters.

[Alice]

We're kidding. Guys, we're so tired. We're not kidding about the baby quitting about the third podcast.

[Brett]

Yeah, well, maybe. Either way, we're gonna do another show next week. I have no idea what's gonna be about. Couldn't tell you. Haven't. Haven't even thought about it.

[Alice]

Someone go commit a crime. We'll do it.

[Brett]

We'll figure it out. Yeah. Okay. Well, thank you all for following on this. Thank you know, keep Pablo in your prayers too as he goes through this process of getting parole. We will let you know if we hear anything about that. Alright, Alice. Well, do you have anything else you want to add, I assume no, but I'll let you say whatever you want.

[Alice]

Congratulations.

[Brett]

Thank you. Thank you so much. All right, well, we will be back next week with a mystery. Just not sure what it is. In fact, it's a mystery even to us. But until then, I'm Brett.

[Alice]

And I'm Alice.

[Brett]

And we are the prosecutors. Years. Yeah. Drinking water instead.

[Alice]

Sorry.

[Brett]

Next week, you know, I'm going to miss out on some stuff. Stuff.

[Alice]

Oh man. Yeah. You're really gonna carry dry January into vacation.

[Brett]

I am, I am. Well, I started on vacation because I don't like to drink when I'm skiing, which I know is weird.

[Alice]

It's fun to do it when you're with your kids.

[Brett]

Well, that's true. It's never, never stopped me before. But I don't know about other people but like if I lived at altitude, I'd weigh 150 pounds because I can't eat. I don't like to drink. The only thing I want to do is drink more.

[Alice]

And everything takes extra effort.

[Brett]

Yeah.

[Alice]

So like I do working out all the time. It really is for me.

[Brett]

I'm, you know, more power to you. People who love the. Who are all about the. What is it? Apres a pre. Skiing. Yeah, it's like how about what's after going to the bar, going to the. The lodge and drinking smoothie.

[Alice]

I mean, I mean s'more dude, I.

[Brett]

Just, I just chug Gatorade the whole time.

[Alice]

Sa.