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- [00:00]
Alice
It's 2025 and a new year means brand new opportunities. And for a lot of you out there, I know you've been thinking about one thing over the holidays and that is starting your own business. But you have so many questions like how do I get started? How do I come up with a brand? How do I even sell stuff to people? And what am I even going to sell now? Take a deep breath. Shopify has got you. Shopify makes it simple to create your brand open for business and get your first sale attend. And you can get your store up and running easily with thousands of customizable templates. You don't have to be a coding nerd or a design geek to get this done. All you need to do is drag and drop. Shopify also helps with the details like shipping taxes and payments from one single dashboard so you can focus on the important stuff like growing your business established in 2025. Has a nice ring to it, doesn't it? Sign up for your $1 per month trial period at shopify.com truecrime or all lowercase go to shopify.com truecrime to start selling with Shopify today.
- [01:01]
Brett
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- [01:33]
Alice
For weeks now, New Jersey residents have been plagued by unexplained drones flying overhead.
- [01:38]
Brett
Is there intelligent alien life? And if so, has the government been covering it up?
- [01:43]
Alice
All right. UFO sightings the military can't explain, Congressional hearings, Pentagon whistleblower.
- [01:50]
Brett
What does it all mean? What does it all mean? We are here to try and figure it all out with our new Ancient Aliens podcast. There is a doorway in the universe. Beyond it is the promise of truth. It demands we question everything we have ever been taught. The evidence is all around us. The future is right before our eyes. We are not alone. We have never been alone. Listen to the Ancient Aliens podcast, available wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Brett. And I'm Alice and we are the prosecut. Today on the prosecutors we finish up the Timeline in the West Memphis three case. Hello, everybody, and welcome to this episode of the Prosecutors. I'm Brett and I'm joined as always by my Savage co host, Alice.
- [03:39]
Alice
Hey, Brett, way to go. Anyone who hasn't been listening to us chit chat for the last 10 minutes, which you haven't if we have a great editor who we do.
- [03:49]
Brett
Yep.
- [03:49]
Alice
But I was telling a cute story about my son's gang of boys and they call themselves Savage and. How cute. And this is relevant because he's the same age as our sweet boys. Who were the victims in this case?
- [04:02]
Brett
Well, since you bring that up, I mean, this is an aside we'll talk about later. You know, one of the things the boys would say is that they had a clubhouse or a hangout in the woods. And some people really focus on that because there is no clubhouse in the woods. As if they mean a literal clubhouse when once again, you're dealing with 8 year olds. Very imaginative. My kids have clubhouses and boats and pirate ships and all sorts of stuff all over the house. There are no pirate ships in my house.
- [04:27]
Alice
So two bushes in our backyard is called the Magic Forest. It's just two bushes.
- [04:32]
Brett
There you go. So sometimes, I mean, we're digging into this case about as deep as you can, but sometimes I think people forget that we are still dealing with children. So sometimes it's not going to make sense.
- [04:44]
Alice
And I was going to say not only are we dealing with children, like across the board, those who are convicted, older children, of course, but teenagers, the victims who are really children at 8 years old. But then so many of the witnesses are also children, classmates of the victims, you know, and not that they don't speak the truth, but there's just different ways of perceiving the world when you're 8, 9, 10, even 18 versus when you're 40, 50, 60.
- [05:08]
Brett
And this case is obviously different from a lot in that it's gotten so much attention. But I think it's also interesting and probably sort of a microcosm of how crime affects people. I mean, this is the people who we're talking about, like Alice said, their classmates, friends of the victims, people who knew the convicted. This case has in many ways dominated their lives. I mean, for the rest of their lives, they get asked about this case and think about this case. I mean, this thing that happened to them, this traumatic event is something that that's never let go. And for some, in a very serious way. I mean, there are people who've been dealing with trauma from this case who weren't even, you know, necessarily directly involved, but they became involved. They were pulled into it. I'm thinking of Aaron Hutchinson right now and everything he went through. But we'll talk about that more. We are coming to the end of the timeline only because we're keeping it a little bit high level. I mean, I realize we're on episode seven, so, you know, I'm not gonna try and tell you that we've been brief, but this, we're gonna finish up the timeline today and that will be the end of West Memphis 3 101. And then we'll get into the higher level classes for everybody who is interested in this case. Last week we got through to June 9, 1993, and that's where we're picking up today.
- [06:32]
Alice
So June 9, Michelle Carter tells the police that Shannon Bowles told her that Damien said he killed the boys and bitco off their penis. Now, Shannon Bowles, on the other hand, also tells police that Michelle Carter told her that Damien said he killed the boys. This is not unlike many things that we've heard so far in this case. A lot of he said, she said, he said. And then also the people who are supposed to be the in between he said or she said says something that contradicts the other testimony. What we haven't heard, of course, is someone said directly from Damien, you know what they say.
- [07:09]
Brett
And I love this incident because this is such a good example of why you have to be careful with this case. And really any case, you know, people will take things that witnesses say they heard and say, hey, there you go. It's definitive proof that person heard X, Y or Z say whatever. And then you have this instance where you have one person saying that another person told them Damian did it. And then when they go and talk to the other person, they say, no, no, no, it was the first person who said that. I mean, just a great example of how in this sort of maelstrom of rumor and innuendo and everybody wanting to be a part of it, there's sort of a natural human reaction to want to be a part of this because it's such a big story. You have these kinds of things that initially you're like, wow, you know, she heard Damian say that this is a big piece of evidence. And then it very quickly falls apart.
- [08:00]
Alice
And here's why. Because the way we speak in the world is different than how you run investigations and what is allowed in court specifically for this reason, it is fine. And it is not lying when you speak in certain terms that are Vague or conflate things in our everyday. This is how we tell stories, right? We. It's very boring to tell a story like an evidentiary hearing. I say, I heard from Brett something, when really I heard from someone who heard from Brett. But I don't give you the entire chain of custody of whatever I'm telling you because that's how we tell stories. We're narrative communicators rather than chain of custody communicators. Right. And generally for communication purposes, it's fine, because you get the idea that I learned information from Brett because it has to do with his office, for example, and that's where the information is originating. And that's why I have some sort of reason to know it comes from over there. All fine. We're. When you're just having regular conversation, even gossip, is it that Michelle or Shannon are lying? No, but you can imagine they're in a group or it's just the two of them. But more likely, it's like they're hanging out, say, at the skate park at the mall. And everyone's talking. They're saying, did you hear. Damien said this? And Shannon turns to Michelle and says, did you hear this? Shannon thinking that it was from Michelle, but really Michelle heard from someone sitting right next to them. And they're all talking about it, and they're all talking about it as if it's true. So that when they're questioned about it, they're like, oh, I absolutely heard it. Which they probably did. They probably absolutely heard that Damien said this, but they can't pinpoint where it came from. Because this is how conversation works. This is how narrative conversation works versus who told you? How do you know? And this is why, by the way, we have to call witnesses to the stand. You can't just rely on hearsay. This is a classic example of why they need to be subject to cross examination. So you can get to the core of. Were you the one who heard it? Could you have heard it? Did you have the ears to hear? But you said you had noise canceling earbuds in at the time. How could you possibly hear. These are all relevant questions to test the way that we communicate in regular world, if it can translate to specific narrative for purposes of evidence. So all we have here is the same type of hearsay without any sort of being able to pin down that Damien actually said something. But as you can tell, more than one person in this community are talking about hearing that Damian was willing to say it. Does that mean Damien said he killed anybody? No. But it certain means that everybody's talking to each other and the same, at least narrative or gossip is being passed around. Now, on June 9, also this same day, Damien apparently attempts to take his own life by suicide. And he leaves a note that he says he loves his parents and he's innocent and he's going to be reincarnated. So this was a good thing in his mind. Damien had apparently saved all of his medication while he was in jail and then took approximately 12 tablets at once. Now we know this because immediately after taking them, he used the intercom to let the deputies know that he had done precisely this. So in other words, before really the drugs could take effect and there could be life saving measures. So Damien was taken to the hospital and treated without incident. They got the drugs out of his system, he told them right away. So there was really no dangerous effect of him having taken all these pills.
- [11:23]
Brett
And you know, I mean, obviously people over the years have said this was a, this was all Damien trying to generate sympathy, doing this with no intention of actually killing himself. And it was just one big show. I mean, I don't know, it's hard.
- [11:37]
Alice
To say, except that generally also I think it's well documented that the vast majority of people who attempt to take their own life, especially by something like pills, which could be potentially reversed, have remorse immediately after doing the act that could lead to their death. And so I think that is a general that that happens to many people, whether or not they're trying to create, you know, some sort of narrative or not. Did they ever. Could you tell if he actually took all the pills?
- [12:05]
Brett
No, he took them.
- [12:06]
Alice
He took them. Okay, so he took them. I mean, look, that's a big step. That's all I'm saying. I, I've never done that before. It's more than just talk. I guess he could have just said it and then hope that maybe no one found out that he didn't take them, but he in fact did. Okay, so this all happens on June 9th. Things are hot in this case, right? In terms of potential suicide is obviously very alarming. So the next day, June 10th, Buddy Lucas is interviewed by police. He says that he knew Jesse well, that Jesse loved children and he couldn't imagine Jesse hurting anybody. However, he also stated that if he was hanging out with Damien, Damian could convince Jesse to do just about anything. This is not really helpful for Jesse because basically it's saying he himself wouldn't hurt children, but he is basically mentally able to be convinced to do something else that he normally wouldn't do. Which by the way, I think applies to probably most teenagers, maybe not just Jesse, but obviously this will come into play because of the arguments of his diminished mental capacity. Now, Jesse's love of children was challenged by one of his other friends though, Dennis Carter, who had been interviewed the day before on June 9. Dennis, who was a lifelong friend of Jesse's, describes how a month before the murders, Jesse had punched a 13 year old girl so hard, as hard as he could in fact, that he ended up in juvenile court for it. And I think we saw this earlier in the timeline that he had in fact been incredibly violent with girls who were much younger than him. And punching someone in the face is very different than a play punch in the stomach, even as the face is. I don't know, in my household when we wrestle no faces is what we say, because you can do real damage to the face.
- [13:54]
Brett
And I believe this was the girl that Jesse said that he'd had sex with and she said that didn't happen and so he punched her in the face.
- [14:01]
Alice
That was the thing that sparked it. You know, it wasn't like a your mama sort of situation. It literally was to do with her. And that wasn't the only incident that Dennis told law enforcement about Jesse maybe not being just such a lover and protector of children because a few months before a five year old had been throwing rocks and one of the rocks hit Jesse. I can imagine a five year old throwing rocks. My kids do this all the time and I can also imagine that they're not very good at aiming and it would not surprise me that if someone were standing around a rock would hit them. Well, one of these rocks hit Jesse and instead of brushing it off because it's just a little five year old child, Jesse chased this little girl down and threw a rock that hit her in the head. And he stood over the girl after he hit her and he laughed. Dennis said he wasn't surprised when Jesse was arrested for murder because of these past experiences with him.
- [14:50]
Brett
And you know, you don't often hear this part about Jesse because he is, if you've seen Paradise Lost, he's very much presented as this sort of nice, affable, sweet kid who clearly has some mental disabilities, some lacking in basic intelligence. But Jesse could be incredibly violent and had been violent before and had been violent with children. So just more sort of color to these folks. And we're going to talk more about their backgrounds when we get into the upper level, West Memphis three classes. But we did want to give you Sort of an overview of some of the things that are happening as this investigation is continuing, even post arrest. So on June 11, at this point, Jesse has a new alibi. And I say it's a new alibi because initially in his statement to police, including in his confession and before his confession, he said that on the day of the murders, he went home and that he basically spent the rest of the day at his house. Shortly thereafter, a new alibi was remembered, developed, depends on your perspective, that in fact, he had gone to a place called Dyess, Arkansas, to go wrestling. And not like traditional Greco Roman wrestling, but wrestling. Jesse wanted to be a wrestler, and he had, like, a luchador mask and everything. And he and a group of people, people would go to this area about an hour north of where they lived, and they would practice for, you know, one day maybe they're going to make it big. And they would do that on Wednesday nights. And this happened on a Wednesday night. And so there was several people who came forward and said, Jesse was with us that night, wrestling on June 11, detectives, they're trying to nail this down, and they talk to Bill Cox, and he is going to blow a hole in everything. He's going to produce a receipt that shows that the money that was paid to rent this location where everyone would wrestle was paid on April 27, not May 5. Now, why is that important? Because most of Jesse's alibi witnesses recalled that he was there May 5, because that was the day that they signed the contract and paid the money to rent the gym. During Jesse's trial, there were several witnesses who would testify about this alibi. And this was devastating, frankly. It was. It was your defense lawyer. You're having to make a decision. They knew about this, obviously. I mean, they had the discovery from the police. They knew this contract existed. They knew when it was dated. They knew what the testimony was going to be about the contract. They went ahead and put on the wrestling alibi anyway, and it allowed the prosecution to really just hammer these other people who were with Jesse. And several of them, by the end of cross examination, were very sort of confused by the whole thing and really weren't sure at all now when this actually happened. So this ends up being a really bad thing for Jesse. And at this point, we're far enough removed from the trial that most people, when they talk about this case, they just talk about the wrestling alibi, and they don't really point out why the wrestling alibi fell apart so spectacularly in trial. But that's why, because of this Circumstantial piece of evidence. We've talked about this a lot, got a lot of witnesses. They're racking their mind. They're trying to remember what day things happened, when it happened. And a lot of the people in the trailer park were very supportive of Jesse. They, you know, they would go testify and they would wear a little yellow ribbon in support of Jesse. This was also really bad because the prosecution would ask every one of them, what's that ribbon stand for? Oh, you're on Jesse's side. You want him to get off. You'd be willing to say anything. You love Jesse, don't you? And they would all say yes. And so Jesse's alibi comes under a lot of pressure. And like I said, we'll talk more about that later. But this is the first large crack in Jesse's story. So also on June 11, things are really coming together for the police. So Jesse's alibi takes a hit. And they also interview a girl named Christy Van vickle. She is 11 years old at the time, and she says she was at the girls club watching a softball game. There were several softball games that night, and Damien was there. Damien admits he was there. I always. I always wondered whether he would say he was there, because it's like, why would Damian be at a girls softball game? But he said something that I said earlier. Not a lot to do in West Memphis, so people would just go watch girls play softball. So he's there, and he's there with Jason Baldwin. And she said that she overheard Damien talking about killing the boys. She told her mom, and her mom would eventually tell the police, which would lead to this interview. This statement was bolstered by someone named Jackie Medford, who was also at the same softball game, and she overheard the same conversation. And we'll talk about this more, too, because we're gonna talk about everything more. But if you're interested in this, I would advise going and reading the transcript on Callahan, or even better, listening to it, listen to their testimony. Their testimony is not incredibly detailed. They don't give a lot of details about exactly what was said, but they stand up to cross examination really well. And the mom is really convincing, so worth listening to. We will talk about this more, whether or not you can believe this and what the significance is of it, if it happened. But big day for the prosecution. The other thing that happens on June 11th is Jesse meets with Dan Stidham, who is his attorney, and he repeats his confession to Stidham at that time. And initially, Stidham Believed that Jesse was in fact guilty and sort of thought I'm going to be negotiating a plea agreement here and maybe getting to a point where Jesse's going to testify against his co conspirators in exchange for his life to avoid the death penalty, maybe even have a possibility of parole down there somewhere. So initially that's what Stidham thinks. Over the course of his representation, he eventually comes to believe that Jesse is lying about the confession and begins to believe that he is innocent. At some point Jesse starts to recant his confession until he's convicted. And then we sort of swing back and forth. We're going to spend a lot of time on Jesse's confessions and we're going to talk about all of them. People really focus on the first one for a good reason, but we're going to talk about them all. And sort of the back and forth that happens with Jesse. 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- [22:51]
Alice
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- [24:58]
Brett
And if you're a parent and you've had this moment, I had it recently where your kids are getting older and all of a sudden they want these devices. They see their friends with them, they see the parents using them all the time and they want one too. My daughter who is not old enough to have a phone came to me and said she wants one of those watches that do everything. And I knew exactly what she was talking about. Well, Gab makes it possible to give her something that she wants to use without all the dangers. The Internet. It's something that gives me peace of mind and it can give you peace of mind as well. I can't recommend GAB enough and you can use our code to get the best deal on something that will make parenting easier and give you peace of mind. Protecting your kids has never been easier. For the best deals, sign up to Gab today. No contract required@gab.com prosecutors that's Gab G A B B.com prosecutors gab.com prosecutors terms and conditions apply. Mochi Health is here to help you start your weight loss journey with caring, personalized support.
- [26:06]
Alice
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Brett
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Alice
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Alice
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- [26:53]
Brett
June 14 Police talked to Barbara Dieter. She reports that in March, two people she identified as Damien and Jason had attempted to steal her dog. The implication is that they did so to sacrifice the dog in some sort of occult ritual. This lady does not testify, but just, you know, I feel like half the job of the police at this point was like trying to figure out, sieve.
- [27:21]
Alice
Out people who just wanted to be helpful, but they weren't.
- [27:25]
Brett
Yeah. And also, it's just almost like a mass panic type thing. Right. I just feel like I don't want to fall into the whole this is another Salem witch trial thing because it gets. That is so overplayed. But there's definitely some of that going on where this is such a big deal that people are seeing, they're seeing, you know, Damian everywhere. He's in the shadows at all times. Right. And they're remembering back just like they did, frankly, in the Salem witch trial, you know, oh, you know, I saw her. He was out in the clearing. I bet he was worshiping Satan. Right. So you get a lot of that.
- [27:59]
Alice
And whether Jason and Damian were trying to kidnap the dog, it could have just been because they were rascals, you know, and trying to kidnap a dog. The implication for the occult ritual is the part where I think the police need to, like, sieve out, but it might be difficult because are they just coming forward because, you know, Jason or Damien looked askance at their dog or did they make aggressive gestures because they're rascals.
- [28:24]
Brett
Exactly. So on June 18, James Bailey is going to tell the police something they already know. But it's always nice to get things sort of supported. They says that he saw Damien and Jesse in Vicky Hutchinson's trailer, two doors down from where he lives. And we know this happened because at some point, Vicki Hutchinson, she's playing detective, she's friends with Jesse, she knows Jesse well, and really Jesse's innocent. She's the one who pulls him into all this because she gets him to introduce her to Damien, because she's really trying to trap Damien, she's trying to get evidence that Damien did this. And so Damien and Jesse are at Vicky's trailer several times and a little unclear what Damien and Vicky's relationship was. Little unclear what Jesse and Vicky's relationship was. You know, Jesse's spending the night at her place. There's a lot of weirdness there that I'm not a huge fan of, but hard to say exactly what's going on in between.
- [29:16]
Alice
You know, we're recording this over obviously many weeks, maybe months. And so we continue to read up on everything to do with this case. We still continue to live, breathe everything, this case. And so most recently today, I was reading about Vicki Hutchinson. I was just texting Bret. I was like, just from like a new perspective, like, I have a seven year old boy. I'm older than Vicki, but I'm about her age. If I were just hanging out with a bunch of 17 year olds and having them spend the night, whether she has anything to do with this case or not, whether Damian and Jesse have anything to do with the case or not. Apropos nothing of that. That is a strange situation and it's worth mentioning because it's difficult to understand her motivations when obviously she keeps saying there's nothing romantic with these boys who are boys at the time, but the relationship is strange. The amount of time she spends with them is strange. The way she's inserting herself into the case is strange. Again, not to say that she has anything to do with this case, but it's difficult to know whether you can trust a single word she says because it's unclear where the motivation comes from. And this is not a regular insertion you would have from like a bystander here. And she appears to be more than just wanting to insert herself into a very interesting case. Not to mention that these boys are closer in age to her son than she is to them. And her son was friends with the victims Here. And if she really thinks Damien is a killer and she wants to trap him, why is she inviting this killer into the home where the friend of the three other victims who supposedly were killed by Damien live with her and it's her own son? You know, you would think that she'd want to protect her own son. So if you really thought, because you would think you only want to trap someone who you really thought was guilty, why are you inviting this killer of 8 year old boys into a home where the friend of those 8 year old boys, another 8 year old boy lives? It doesn't compute and I can't make sense of it, but I think it's worth noting because she comes up a lot in this timeline.
- [31:16]
Brett
Yeah, I mean, Vicki Hutchinson, she's an issue and we'll talk about her more later on. But yeah, you know, she, she involves herself in this case. She lies. She very clearly lies about several things. She then recants her story. You know, she's on every side of this. She had a lot of issues with the truth. So one of the reasons she was talking to police in the first place, so. But she's definitely a part of this really, no matter what happened, she's in the middle of it. So he talks about he saw Damien there maybe once or twice. Jesse was often there. Jesse, remember, would babysit her child. He also spent the night a couple times. You know, you may recall Vicki saying that she was afraid of prowlers and so she had gotten Jesse to spend the night. And in fact, the night before Jesse was arrested, he spent at Vicki Hutchinson's place. So moving along, we're now moving towards the trial. Police are starting to follow up. We're going to take a big jump here. October 7, 1993, Tiffany Allen. Tiffany Allen, we've talked about her several times. She is the girl that Jesse supposedly punched in the face. And the police are asking her about that incident. They also ask her about any satanic groups in town and whether she knew anything about them. Initially, she said she didn't know anything about that, but when Detective Ridge sort of pressed her on this, she says that she does know about a group that would meet behind the old sewage plant at night. Now, she said she had heard of the group, but she wasn't sure it actually existed. And she didn't know if Jesse was a member of the group. She also mentioned a fight that Jason Baldwin had with another boy. Said that Jason had been hit hard enough to knock him down and his mouth was bleeding. Tiffany said that Damian bent down and Dipped his fingers in the blood, and then stuck his finger in his mouth. This is a reoccurring theme. You hear this several times with Damian. There's also an incident when he was in the mental health facility in Arkansas where he got in a fight. And I think in that case, he did the same thing with another boy. This whole blood thing is a creepy thing that Damian likes to do. Probably more to freak people out than is some sort of, you know, satanic ritual, but who knows?
- [33:28]
Alice
Yeah, I. I think there are enough reports to believe that Damien really does or has tasted another person's blood. Whether that has anything to do with, you know, a satanic cult is another thing, but it's a, you know, a memorable trait, shall we say, and certainly one that probably turns people's stomachs, which is why they're recounting these sorts of experiences. Okay. Also in October, October 13, 1993, the police talked to Charlotte Ann Beloy, who claimed knowledge of the local cult. Now, she said that a number of kids would gather at various locations and they would, quote, huff gas and glue and everything else they could find and worship the devil. She told police that Damien had told her he was a devil worshiper. She also told police that the one time she met Jason Baldwin, he was at Lakeshore with Damien, Jesse, and another boy named Buddy Lucas. Remember, Buddy was. Who was the one who was like, Jesse loves children, would only protect children. That's the same guy. So someone who was trying to give good testimony, I guess, or good, you know, good things to say about his friend Jesse.
- [34:37]
Brett
And I'll say this. This is the most believable testimony about the culture because it's basically, they did drugs together.
- [34:45]
Alice
Which totally rings true for, like, I could see Damian, Jesse, Buddy, you know, all these guys. Basically a bunch of teenagers getting together and huffing glue. And whether you worship the devil or not, I also believe that Damien often said that he worshiped the devil also. Again, kind of like the blood thing, was it more for the shock factor to be a rascal? You know, I'm kind of liking that word tonight. And I. And I say that really because, like, that's what teenagers do, is you have to separate the actually dangerous versus just saying things to get a rise out of people. So I very much believe he said that he worshiped the devil. Whether this group of people actually worship the devil may be another story.
- [35:23]
Brett
And look, this is, in some ways a total aside. In Damien and Jason's trial, there's a lot of talk about devil worship and that kind of Thing, I don't know that Getchell believed. I don't even know that the prosecution really believed. And I don't know that anybody believes now except for a few people. I did read one book that believes, it really believes that, like, this was some sort of satanic ritual, you know, whatever. I don't think most people think that. I think most people think if this did happen, it was something much more mundane than that. But I am fascinated by this whole weirdness with the satanic panic aspect in this case. We're going to talk about it a lot. We're going to do a whole section on it because I think it's worth just knowing the way the world was at the time. So, I mean, I can remember being in high school shortly after this, and I started high school in 1996. The satanic panic was over by then, but you still had sort of like, you know, kids always do this kind of stuff. They're always like, dabbling in things. I mean, I remember everybody being into magic and stuff, right? Like, everybody was a magician. Everybody could do, like, something. I don't know. So I just wonder how much of this is just these people got together to do illicit things. And somehow, maybe because of the way Damian was and the things he was saying that got transmuted into, oh, they're huffing gas and worshiping Satan. It's like the. And Satan thing gets attached to, otherwise not innocuous. I don't say it's a good thing or not a bad thing to huff gas. Don't huff gas, kids. But relatively ordinary teenage activity gets this, like, witch thing going on with it. So I don't know, like I said, I think a lot of it, Damian brought some of this on himself just because he talked about it so much and really wanted, I think, to give off the vibe that he was some sort of. He was something special, right? I mean, that. That's part of it. He's something special. He's involved in something different that all you. You people who go to church every Sunday, you can't understand this, right? Like, there was a lot of that going on, too.
- [37:28]
Alice
And that's a really good point because it's not just talk. He dresses to get a rise out of people. He speaks, as we saw in his first interview, he says things to get rises out of people. He does actions like dipping his fingers into other people's blood and eating it. Right. And I note this because whatever the motivation is behind it may not even be relevant in that he takes actions to make you or the listener believe certain things about him doesn't necessarily mean he killed the boys. But when you see him willing to take actions, he does actually carry through with the actions. Maybe because he's like a complete jokester willing to carry the joke or, you know, not a funny joke, but a dark joke to the end, which is different than people who are all talk and who don't take actions. He's one who takes action to lean into whatever he wants you to believe about him. So on October 14, the next day, the police follow up with Buddy Lucas, who they spoke to previously that summer. Now, Lucas says that on the day of the murders, they had a barbecue and decided to take Jesse some chicken. Lucas says that when he dropped the chicken off, Jesse was gone. And he asked his dad where Jesse was, and he said he saw Jesse walking off with someone he did not recognize. Now, the next morning, Lucas went over to Jesse's house, and he said that Jesse was nervous, breaking out in sweats, and it looked like he'd been crying. He told him that he had to tell him something. Now, Jesse told Buddy Lucas he'd been walking the night before with Damian and Jason Baldwin in West Memphis. Buddy remembered being upset that they didn't come to get him because he was feeling left out. Jesse told him that he'd gotten in a fight and that he'd hurt some people. When Lucas heard about the boys being murdered, he asked Jesse about it, and Jesse told him he was in trouble and that Damian and Jason had killed two of the boys. Jesse said that he had hit the boys in the back of the head and that he did that to keep them from running away. He then gave Lucas a pair of shoes. Lucas said when he gave him the shoes, Jesse broke into a sweat and started crying. Jesse begged Lucas to take the shoes, saying he didn't want anything to do with them. And Lucas told Jesse he was going to tell the police, but Jesse told him that Jesse himself would tell the police. Lucas wore the shoes on several occasions afterwards, including in Muddy Fields. So this is a lot. Obviously, it sounds like what Lucas is saying is that Jesse is confessing in a lot of the same ways Jesse's already confessed to Buddy. And Buddy, like everybody else that the police have interviewed, who has something interesting to say, they give him a polygraph test and Buddy takes the polygraph. But before doing so, he says, wait, wait, wait. I'm going to recount my earlier statement. However, when the polygraph was administered, he registered deception. When he denied the things he stated earlier to the Police. So the earlier things was pretty interesting, I'd say. But it's detecting deception now, after he failed the polygraph, and the only question he passed, by the way, was whether he was present at the murder. So, at least for the lie detector, he wasn't present at the murder. But everything else he failed. Buddy told the polygrapher he'd recanted his statement because he was afraid of what would happen to his family if he testified. Buddy would later tell Fogelman that he failed the polygraph because the police yelled at him and he was scared. Now, during this later conversation, Buddy told Fogelman he'd gotten the shoes in February after riding four wheelers through the mud, which is the same thing he initially told police before he told the story about Jesse giving him the shoes the day after the murders. So after talking to defense private investigator Ron Lacks, Buddy decided he did not want to testify. I mean, so very interesting. Recants explains away the recantation. And there's obviously a lot of inconsistencies going on in his testimony.
- [41:34]
Brett
And Buddy Lucas is one of those people that has sort of vanished away from this case. But, man, wouldn't he love to talk to him, because is he lying or is he telling the truth? The story he tells about what Jesse told him is very consistent with Jesse's confession. In fact, it's more consistent with a later confession that Jesse gives called the Bible confession, than it is with his initial one. His initial one, Jesse says he didn't do anything to the boys. The only thing he did was he chased down Michael Moore and he brought him back. Basically, that's all he says he did in his initial confession. In his Bible confession, he says that he had done that, but he'd also struck one of the boys in the head, which is consistent with what Buddy Lucas is telling police. That's interesting, because you would think if, for instance, Buddy is telling the story that he's heard was out there, or if the police fed him the story, you would expect that they would feed him the initial story that they would tell him, or then that he would hear sort of in the ether, the story that Jesse told, the story that was eventually published very quickly in the newspapers around Memphis. But the story he's telling is a different story, slightly, very slightly, but importantly. And so he feels like this could be it, right? This could be the key. This could be the guy who brings it all together. But then he recants, and he's so back and forth, and he's failing his polygraph and everything else. And whether you Believe in polygraphs or not, he very quickly becomes this hard to believe witness, and you're going to have problems with him. Then Ron Lacks gets involved. And this is another person who Ron Lacks convinces either to tell the truth or to keep his mouth shut, once again, depending on perspective. So fascinating person. Not a lot of time is spent on him. I think, in a lot of the coverage of this case feel like more should be spent on him. And the police are still trying to shore this up because they see how important a witness he would be. And as late as January 3, 1994, they're talking to his aunt and uncle because they hear that they may have information. And they said that Buddy had told them that he received those shoes from Jesse after the crimes and that they had blood on them. Now, of course, no bloods ever found on these shoes. Right? So. And it's hard, you know, it's pretty hard to clean blood off of shoes. So take that for what you will. But this is sort of another consistency with his earlier story. Now, it could just be that as we've talked about a lot this episode, Buddy is another person inserting himself into this case and has made a lot of this up to try and be important and then at some point realizes, what have I gotten myself into? Hard to say which one it is.
- [44:24]
Alice
Right. And you could see the case for him trying to insert himself just because literally in his interview with the police, he's saying the night of the murders he was mad that he wasn't invited to go walking with them. Right. Like, you even see whether that part is true or not. You see the way his mind is working in terms of, like, the fomo. He's not part of this. Everyone's talking about them. These are the people he's hung out with. These are his friends. At least one of them is his good friend. Then obviously, you know, whether you want to insert yourself into a murder investigation is how wise that is, I would say, is probably not wise. And maybe it finally hits him like, whoa, this isn't just fomo. This is something much bigger than myself. And now I've told a bunch of lies and I have to unwind it, but I don't know how.
- [45:04]
Brett
So early 1994. Jesse's trial is held on February 5th. Following that trial, he is convicted on the drive of the police to the prison processing facility. He will confess to the officers, which leads to February 8, 1994, and what will come to be known as the Bible confession. Jesse gives a detailed confession to Dan Stidham with his hand on the Bible, he will repeat this confession to the prosecutors. Despite these confessions, Jesse will ultimately decide not to testify at the Echols Baldwin trial. He is obviously someone the prosecutors want to testify, and he doesn't do that. We'll talk a lot about that when we talk about his statements and what exactly is going on with his decision not to testify. It's something that's obviously pointed to a lot by people who believe the West Memphis three are innocent because Jesse has a huge incentive to testify. He could not spend the rest of his life in prison if he testifies, but he chooses not to do that. But it's not going to matter. March 19th. Eccles and Baldwin are found guilty of murder. Damien, who is seemingly committed to doing everything in his power to harm his case, even at this late hour, says to the Cameras recording for HBO's Paradise Lost, quote, I kind of enjoy it because now, even after I die, people are going to remember me forever. People in West Memphis are going to tell their kids stories. It'll be sort of like I'm the West Memphis boogeyman. Little kids will be looking under their bed. Damian might be under there. His parting thoughts.
- [46:40]
Alice
Great tv. Terrible, obviously, for, like, your life. I mean, this is obviously. This is like a jinx moment before the jinx happened, but also with hbo and.
- [46:50]
Brett
And this was the moment. So, you know, I watched the whole Paradise Lost documentary and, you know, I think I was with basically everybody. You know, you watch it and you're like, I just. I don't know. This seems weird. Like, all this devil stuff. There's some crazy people involved in this. They don't seem like they have a whole lot of evidence. You know, Jason Baldwin looks like an angel. Jesse Misskelley obviously has some mental issues. And then, like, you hear him say this, and it's like, wow, what is wrong with that guy? And going away from that, I was like, look, I don't know about the rest of them, but I got some serious questions about Damien Echols because of what he said in later episodes of. I mean, there's three separate documentaries, but now they treat them as part one, Part two, and part three, episode two. In episode two, there's a lot of effort to sort of claw this back and explain. You know, he was really in his head. He was shocked, he was stunned. He was in shock, didn't really know what he was saying, which, okay, fine, maybe. But when he says it, it's just this is not the kind of thing you would expect. Someone who is number one innocent and number two, has just been wrongly convicted, and number three, has just been sentenced to death. To say to the cameras about what has just happened to him. You know, he's the West Memphis boogeyman, right?
- [48:05]
Alice
It was like a proud. He didn't. I will say he didn't look shocked when he told it to the camera. Right. To the producers of Paradise Lost, it was like a pride in being the boogeyman of West Memphis. So now, in October 24, 1994, Michael Johnson writes a letter to Brent Davis. Johnson says that he was housed with Ms. Kelly at the ADC Diagnostic Unit. And he writes that Jesse told him details of the murder. And he asks him to, quote, do everything in your power to keep Ms. Kelly behind bars for the rest of this life. He's a very cold, morbid person. It's very interesting, right? This is the opposite. He's not exactly asking for credit because obviously Jesse Misskelley has already been convicted. He's basically saying, I'm afraid of this dude. He's, like, really bad. Don't let him out, no matter what you say. Because everything he told me about these murders is just so disturbing. I'll say. I don't think I've ever gotten one of those letters. I usually get one where it's like, I know who killed JonBenet or something like that. You know, I can solve this mystery for you. He's not trying to solve a mystery. He's saying, this guy needs to stay behind bars. Take it for what you will, because like all jailhouse confessions, maybe there's some stock in it, maybe it's not. Maybe he just really hates Ms. Kelly and wants to make sure this guy never gets out because he stole his pack of cigarettes. You know, it may have nothing to do with anything, but this letter was written now. November 4, 2010. So fast forwarding many years now, after years of failed efforts in the courts, the Arkansas Supreme Court orders a trial court judge to determine whether newly discovered DNA evidence or evidence of juror misconduct justifies either a new trial or exoneration of the three defendants. We obviously jumped ahead in the timeline because a lot happens. You're like, why these three are convicted? And then what happened to basically bring this back to court to have a new trial boy? I don't know. They became like, you, too. The. The following around them after the HBO documentary of Paradise Lost. I think that's right. Like, it's Paradise Lost that generates all of this attention to the case. And I. I don't say this lightly. It's like a U2 concert in support of the they are then known as the West Coast.
- [50:16]
Brett
It was a Pearl Jam concert.
- [50:17]
Alice
There literally was a Pearl Jam concert, which is as big as it got back then. But much like other cases we've seen, like Serial and Adnan Syed and Hae Min Lee's murder, it was public pressure and really a documentary that spurred all of this public outrage to seek this new trial and why the next part of the timeline happens. Delete Me makes it easy, quick and safe to remove your personal data online. At a time when surveillance and data breaches are common enough to make everyone vulnerable, it's easier than ever to find personal information about people online. Having your address, phone number and family members names hanging out on the Internet can have actual consequences in the real world and makes everyone vulnerable. More and more online partisans and nefarious actors will find this data and use it to target political rivals, civil servants, and really even outspoken citizens posting their opinions online. Like maybe your favorite prosecutors. With Delete Me, you can protect your personal privacy or the privacy of your business from doxxing attacks before sensitive information can be explained.
- [51:32]
Brett
And Alice and I know this all too well. We're online, we're a target. We're always making people angry. And privacy is really important to us to the extent we can maintain it. Of course we've been doxxed, we've had our information blasted online. We have seen what that can do and it can have a real chilling effect, particularly if you're someone who's not used to it. Maybe suddenly you're not doing the things you want to do or saying the things you want to do. Because of that. Don't let it happen to you. Use the Delete Me. Take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Delete Me now at a special discount for our listeners. Today, you can get 20% off your delete me plan by texting prosecutors to 64000. The only way to get 20% off is to text prosecutors to 64000. That's prosecutors to 64000. Message and data rates may apply. Guys, you know we have more children than we can count at this point. And we want them to be healthy. We want them to grow up strong. We want them to get the nutrients and the minerals they need. And sometimes you think, hey, what about children's vitamins? But unfortunately, most of them are basically candy in disguise and they're filled with two teaspoons of sugar, unhealthy chemicals, and other gummy junk. And that's where Haya comes in. It was created by pediatricians to include super powered chewable vitamins that your kids are going to love. Most kids, like I said, they're getting these vitamins that have 5 grams of sugar and that can contribute to a variety of health issues. The last thing you want. But Hayas made with zero sugar and zero gummy junk, yet it tastes great and is perfect for picky eaters. It fills the most common gaps in modern children's diets to provide the full body nourishment your kids need. It includes things like vitamin D, B12C, zinc, folate and many others to help support immunity, energy, brain function, mood, concentration, teeth, bones and more.
- [53:42]
Alice
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- [55:16]
Brett
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- [55:50]
Alice
That is brought before the judge to for a new trial. Now. On August 19, 2011, following nearly two decades of intense scrutiny, allegations of jury misconduct, new expert testimony, DNA evidence indicating that these three are likely to get a new trial, a deal is struck. The West Memphis three have had all of these people writing letters speaking in support of them, basically alleging everything you can in order to get a new trial. And the. The attention around their case is so intense, the prosecutors are like, let's, let's strike a deal. Because it looks like a new trial will probably be granted. And this many decades later, it is hard to retry a case. Almost no office will retry a case decades later because evidence is just, I mean, withering away, quite literally, because people forget things. And it's been so long, it takes so much effort to retry a case this long after. It is not surprising to me that any prosecutor's office, after this many decades, would choose not to try a case again, even if the strength of the evidence was very strong. It's just a very difficult thing to do because witnesses, decades later, as you've seen, forget everything. I forget everything from last week, much less decades later, they strike a deal with the three convicted, and the three plead guilty as part of an Alford plea and are released. And we've said before that the Alford plea is a guilty plea for legal purposes, but you maintain your innocence. So in the years that follow, the three have continued to proclaim their innocence with periodic efforts to test new evidence. This is still going on today in 2025, as we record, there are still allegations that there's new evidence to be tested, and they're trying to get things tested. And every now and then it's like, oh, there's been another delay in testing. So in terms of evidentiary development, nothing has really happened since 2011 or even before that to change the face of the evidentiary landscape.
- [57:56]
Brett
Yeah, and, you know, it's one of those things where, who knows? I mean, they're trying to do some DNA testing now that's been delayed for reasons that are unclear. There's not a lot of transparency in how this is all going on. Hopefully it's being handled. Well, initially, it was mostly Damien Echols who was involved. Jason Baldwin and his lawyers have now gotten involved in this, and I think we'll probably ensure that this is done in the right way. I have more faith in Jason Baldwin and his lawyers, frankly. But we'll see what happens. Now, look, people wonder about this. I mean, you hear people say, if Arkansas truly believed that these three people killed these three kids, why would they do this? We know why the West Memphis three did this. Because they wanted to get out of prison. Jason Baldwin, by the way, famously, initially, supposedly did not want to do this. He wanted to go through with a retrial. It was sort of an interesting point because there had been no retrial actually ordered at this point. They still had to have that hearing. It would have been a long, difficult hearing. And frankly, I think the cards are on the table. There was going to be a new trial, and as Alice said, they were going to be in a position where we've talked about this before. You would rather have a circumstantial case because you can always rely on circumstantial evidence later on. This case is based entirely on witnesses, based entirely on statements. Jesse's confession is what got him convicted. Right. And they're going to have a lot of resources. They're going to have a lot of experts are going to come in and they're going to tear all that down. And there's going to be witnesses who don't remember. There are witnesses who have recanted, including some of the, you know, we talked about some of these people, like Vicki Hutchinson, for instance. She is recanted. Since then, they probably were going to lose. And the prosecutor was candid about that. When he was interviewed about it, he was like, I don't think we'd win if we did this again. So he didn't want to roll the dice because what he did not want, and he claims that he still thinks the West Memphis three are guilty, but what he didn't want is for them to be exonerated, to have their convictions overturned, and then the case just either be lost or go away. So he made this decision. And that's the thing about an offered plea is no one is happy about it. But I don't think you should take it as Arkansas never would have done this if they really thought they were guilty. I don't think that's true at all. I think this was basically all they could do. And the West Memphis three were willing to do this. And I will tell you, I think Jason Baldwin was right. Have you seen west of Memphis Supposedly, and I just assume this is true. It's not like I know, but supposedly Jason Baldwin really did not want to do this and was essentially convinced that Damien was sick and they're trying to kill Damien, and, you know, he's got all these problems, probably none of which were true. And he caved and did it and went ahead and went along with the offered plea. They totally should have asked for a retrial. You know, I think back to the Michael Peterson case, the staircase, there was a good chance he would lose because he still had. It was. The case was still good against him, wasn't as good as it was the first time, but there were still things. There were things you could argue, right? The prosecution had a good shot there. I don't think they had any shot at all in a retrial if this had been tried again. And I just think that was a huge mistake. And I understand the desire to go ahead and get out, But I'll tell you what would have happened. Those convictions would have been vacated, and that judge would have let him out on bond. And I don't even know if they ever would have been retried. And then they wouldn't have convictions on their record. That's what would have happened if they had just done that. Now, that's easy for me to say because I wasn't sitting in prison, but I think Jason Baldwin was absolutely right that he should not have taken this deal.
- [61:45]
Alice
And for those of you not following, basically the deal was that all three had to take it or not. They weren't going to split it up. And so I think Jesse and Damien were going to take it, and they were pressuring Jason to have to take it as well. And so I think he even said it in west of Memphis that he was doing it to free Damien, like it had nothing to do with him, which was very altruistic. I don't know that I would have done that. Because just looking at the way the trial runs, with all the direct evidence, with all of the firsthand testimony that has since been recanted, slash, people have just died or no longer remember what happened. It's a really, really tough case. But again, like you said, we're not the ones sitting in prison. And if they took this plea, they knew they were going to get out. Otherwise, with their current sentences, they would spend the rest of their lives in prison.
- [62:30]
Brett
So, you know, if this were any other case, we probably could just stop here. We could give our theories and move on after seven episodes. But that's not what we're going to do. Because this case is not an ordinary case. I do feel like at this point, as I've said, if you've made it with us through the entire timeline, you now have a really solid idea about this case. But there's lots of stuff we glossed over because we didn't want to spend all, you know, all day on it or an entire episode on it yet. We wanted to get you all this background in the next few episodes. We're going to start off with our 200 level classes. I really. I really like this analogy to like a degree. So this was your. This was your 100 level classes, you know, then we're going to do some 200 level classes. We're going to go back, we're going to talk in detail about a lot of the things that we have just covered in brief now. We're gonna talk about the autopsies, we're gonna talk about the evidence, we're gonna talk about the ligatures in this case, the knots in this case, which is very important. We're gonna talk about stuff like that. And then we're also going to spend a lot of time on very specific things. Like we're gonna do a whole episode on the Satanic Panic. We may even do that next because I kind of feel like maybe just go ahead and do that. So we've talked about it in detail and then go into the crime in more detail. We're going to spend a lot of time on Jesse and Ms. Galley's confessions. I was telling Alice, just to give you an idea of. There's just a lot here. So our outline on Jesse's Confessions is as long as the entire JonBenet Ramsey outline, which is hard to believe, but it's true. So we're going to spend a lot of time on those. We're just going to be doing this for a long time. So I hope you're along for the ride until the end. I think this is fascinating. I will tell you, I was thinking about this. By the time we got to episode seven of Karen Reed, I hated that case so much. I hated it. I hated it. I did not want to talk about it for one more second. But this case, not how I feel at all. This case I've really enjoyed. So hopefully you're enjoying it, too.
- [64:34]
Alice
So I want to say something because I know you have a lot of new people who are joining us. Really like your analogy of the getting a degree. And this is like the background course. And then we're getting into the higher Level courses another way. So that those of you who have not heard us cover deep, deep dives like this before, think of it this way. Because a lot of you may be thinking they just got through the timeline in only seven episodes. In seven episodes. And they totally didn't talk about X, Y or Z enough. This is how much is in this case. Think of it this way. It's like we're circling in, right? There's so many parts. One of those like adulting books where you like get smaller and smaller and every single little bit has even more detail as you get down to the granular level. We've tried to give you the lay of the land so you even know what we're covering. But we're going to get so granular within the broad strokes outline that we've just barely covered in these seven episodes. And anything you think has been glossed over, go ahead and email us. But also hang on because it's probably going to be in one of these episodes. We are not glossing it over on purpose now. We're merely giving you the broad strokes and then we're going to fill in the details within this picture that we are showing and trying to describe as we get into the case. And it's funny that we're just getting into the case at episode seven.
- [65:48]
Brett
I often wonder, you know, I went back and looked at our list of cases we were going to cover. I always like looking at that because I would list cases and I would put how many episodes I thought it would be. So this case I had four episodes, which was like a lot like back then we just started. I thought, man, four episodes is. That's a ton of.
- [66:06]
Alice
And now we're Back then it was, you know, like even when we did JonBenet. I know there was a lot in that case too. That was a long outline.
- [66:13]
Brett
We could have gone longer. We could have.
- [66:15]
Alice
That's my point is all of these cases that used to be long, we could have made them even longer.
- [66:20]
Brett
And I don't know if this is better or worse. Maybe you're thinking, man, I long for the days of 10 episode series. This would be so much better if it was only 10 episodes. I don't know. But like I said, by the time when we finish with this, I don't think anybody will be complaining that we glossed over anything. I'm sure they will because there's so much. I mean, you could talk about a lot of this stuff, but anyway, that's where we are. So thank you guys for staying with us this far. We have a lot more to talk about and there's going to be some interesting stuff. We got some interviews we're doing I think you're going to enjoy as well. We'll release those as Wednesday episodes, by the way, so you know, you don't have to worry about this being even longer because of the interviews we're going to do. I think the interviews will add color for you as we talk through this. If you have thoughts and I'm sure you do, shoot us an email. Prosecutors podmail.comsecutors pod for all your social media. I'll go ahead and tell you, as I said, I said earlier that people were going to be emailing us things that they were confused about. So I'll give you one that someone did mention. So we talked earlier that on the day of the murders that the Dana Moore saw Terry hobbs in the 7 o' clock hour that day. And someone asked how we knew that. Well, the reason we know that is because John Mark Byers, in case we didn't make this clear when we did it, John Mark Byers and Dana Moore give statements to the police. Dana Moore talks about how before she called the police, which was just after 8, she actually walked down to Terry Hobbs house. To the Hobbs house. Interestingly, she doesn't say that she talked to Terry when she's talking to police. But John Mark Byers says that when he talked to her she talked about how she had spoken to, I think he calls him Mr. Hobbs and his boy was missing as well. And so that would have happened before 8 o' clock because that's when they start calling the police. John Mark Byers initially calls the police right before 8 o' clock. He calls the county, he's directed to west Memphis. He gets in touch with west Memphis and someone I think is dispatched at 808 and then that person Regina Meeks shows up and actually Terry Hobbs is coming to John Mark Byers house. It's the first time I think John Mark Byers and Terry Hobbs ever spoke right as that's happening. So this is all very important because if you think that Terry Hobbs is involved, then you really kind of have to push the murders back in time because sometime in the late 7 o' clock hour, probably between 7:30 and 8, he is talking to Dana Moore and then right after 8 he is talking to John Martin Byers. So just something to think about and something that came up because somebody emailed us all to say if you have thoughts or things you want more clarity on Shoot us an email. We're happy to talk to you about it. Gallery is discussing this case. Join the gallery. Lots of great discussion. If you want these episodes early and ad free, join Patreon. You can also watch us record them if that's your thing. And hello to the 130 or so people who joined us tonight. Okay, Alice, anything else you want to say about the case?
- [69:22]
Alice
We really reached the end of the timeline and it really took seven episodes, which I think shows you. Please trust us that we will go into detail on a lot of these things. Because if we took seven episodes to do the timeline, we are trying to do this right and to cover it well. And I hope you can tell so far we are really just trying to present all that is there because so much is not reported and said this at the beginning. We really come to this with no agenda and we continue to do this and we endeavor to do it because I think this case has so much lore around it. We just want the record to all be out there and then we can debate the merits of it once we're there.
- [69:59]
Brett
Alice, you have time for a question tonight or do you need to go?
- [70:02]
Alice
Absolutely.
- [70:03]
Brett
Okay, well, let's do a question. I'm going to. I'm going to ask you this question, even though this question is kind of old now. But I think there's a couple of ways to answer this I think that are universally applicable. So this is from Zeb. Zeb wants to know our opinions on Jessica Crumbley's lawyer. She seems like a hot mess. Isn't intentional to get a new trial? Okay, so no to your second question. And this is something people ask all the time. And I'll just tell you, it is never the case ever, ever, ever the case that a lawyer is intentionally being ineffective. It is just never the case. It is a silly, stupid thing to do because it's really hard to win an ineffective assistance accounting claim. So much better to try and win the case than to like throw it so they can try it again. Like it just doesn't even make sense. Is the first thing people always ask that it is never the case ever.
- [71:01]
Alice
The only thing that might make sense is you tried your best and then later new counsel brings an ineffective assistance of counsel claim. And. And you basically testify in support of that, saying that will happen.
- [71:13]
Brett
Yes.
- [71:14]
Alice
Right. You can say like, it was my first murder trial. I didn't know that I should have done this. That was on me. It wasn't malicious or intentional to throw the case. But now looking back with all the experience I have, my first murder trial, I didn't know I was supposed to do that. So now I realize that's the case that can happen. That's different than I'm going to throw this case in the first instance. Because that's a very stupid play. Because even if you intentionally throw the case, and I don't know, this is. These are real fact patterns from a case, by the way, you get drunk and you fall asleep at the table, that could still not win an ineffective assistance of counsel claims. So by throwing the case, quote, unquote, you're doing your client a massive disservice. Not to mention you're always supposed to advocate most vigorously for your client. You could be subject to bar complaints, losing your bar license. It's a very serious matter to do something like that. This is not a game of chess or whatever where you're trying to. That's not in your cards to do. You cannot throw a case intentionally.
- [72:10]
Brett
Yeah. And, you know, all the lawyers in this case, in the Westminster case, would eventually say they were ineffective. You know, Dan Stidham would say is the first death penalty case he ever tried. He did the best he could. And look, I mean, if you read the transcripts, you can tell that Stidham's really trying. But you also see where he really did need a little bit more experience. I mean, there were times where the judge, he would object, and Stidham had this thing that he would give these speaking objections is what we call them speaking objections. When you stand up and you say, objection, and then you explain why you're objecting, and judges hate that. You're supposed to say, you know, objection, irrelevant. Right. You don't say, objection, your honor, that has nothing to do with this case. And I don't even know why he's bringing it up. And that's improper and you should strike it. And he would do that all the time. The judge would be like, so what is your objection? And I'd be like, relevance, relevance. And he would never get there. And so you could see that, like, he is new at this and he's learning. So he would say that. And the other thing I'll say about defense attorneys, this is true. Prosecutors, too, but defense attorneys, I feel like even more so defense attorneys, you see the whole spectrum. I mean, you see lawyers that are just like Clarence Darrow. Good, right? I mean, just so good at what they do. And then you see lawyers who have no idea what they're doing. But the other thing you see is lawyers who just Have a difficult case. I mean, a lot of times people watch these trials and they'll say, man, I thought this lawyer's terrible. He's an awful attorney. Well, it's because he has nothing to work with. You know, he's doing the best he can, but his best, at the end of the day, all he has is what he has. Right. So what's he supposed to do? You know, I mean, you can only.
- [73:43]
Alice
You can't pull a rabbit out of hat every time.
- [73:47]
Brett
Yeah. So you know that's going to happen. And I would say this as well. Just give us lawyers some grace. You aren't too hard on us. All y' all watching all these things on television, you think we're boring. You think, you know, we don't have it all together. Trials are hard, and everybody's just fumbling around. I mean, you've probably noticed that when you watch live trials, every trial is its own animal. It's like everybody's first time every time. And it doesn't really even matter how, how much experience anybody has, because the judges are all different. They have different things they like.
- [74:17]
Alice
I mean, it's just your clients are different. There's different things going on behind the scenes that you may not even see. You're exhausted, you have no sleep. It's like it's an emotional toll on top of a mental toll and a physical toll. To do trial, like trial is just hard and then have that all be broadcasted in real time. Sounds like a nightmare. Frankly. None of my trials have been ever broadcasted. And if it were, that added element is just a lot.
- [74:42]
Brett
Yeah. Somebody actually asked if there was anywhere. This was another five star question. There's anywhere they could watch us do our thing. Fortunately, in our court, they don't allow cameras in the courtroom, thank God. So nothing we've ever done. Now, I will say this. If you can listen to oral arguments I've done. So if you really want to hear oral arguments, if you go to the court's website, you can just look it up. You can listen to those, and those are fun. So that can be your homework.
- [75:08]
Alice
Except they're probably not to you because it's not like narrative either. There are specific questions that are asked to the court, and unless you read the briefs or at least know exactly the case, for the most part, for oral arguments, you don't know what's going on. It's not like there's no timeline. No one builds because you have very limited time. You may have 20 minutes, 30 minutes, and that's it. So you don't. You dive right in. You quite literally dive right in to the legal questions presented. And then the judge will probably cut you off in your outline and say, I don't care about that. I want to get to point two. Tell me about point two and why you don't win on this hypothetical.
- [75:38]
Brett
Yeah. For anybody listening, it's like an inside joke that no one explained. So it is.
- [75:44]
Alice
It is an inside joke no one explained. That's exactly right. Like, even a lawyer listening to an oral argument, if you have no background and haven't read the briefs, you can pick up kind of generally what's going on, but you're not going to know intimately what's happening.
- [75:56]
Brett
I got one in August, but I may let another lawyer do it. So we'll see. Okay, well, this has been fun. I hope you guys will join us. We're done with the timeline now. We're getting into the nitty gritty starting next week. So hope you guys will join us for that. We are so excited. We will see you then. But until then, I'm Brett.
- [76:17]
Alice
And I'm Alice.
- [76:18]
Brett
And we are the prosecutors.
- [76:41]
Alice
So. Okay, you want a funny story before we start?
- [76:44]
Brett
Sure.
- [76:45]
Alice
Sophie. Thanks. I. My kids are all sick today, so I'm glad I look nice because I don't feel nice. So my oldest, who is adorable and so cute, he was like, I'm part of a gang. And I was like, okay. I was like, tell me more about it. I love that you're coming to me about this. And he was like, were savage. That's the name they've given themselves. It's obviously all boys. They're. They're seven year old boys. This is actually on point for like.
- [77:15]
Brett
What we're talking, where every RICO investigation starts.
- [77:18]
Alice
Yeah, exactly, Sam. How to play it cool. So he'll keep telling me about it. And he was like. And I was like, well, what do you guys do? He's like, we make mischief. And I was like, all right, like, great. I mean, are you like getting in trouble at least school like, you know, you know, be nice to your teachers, okay? And he's like, oh, no, we have strict rules. And I was like, well, tell me about these rules, by the way. Like, I don't know where they came up with this because as you guys have heard, we don't watch tv. It's not like we west watch Westside Story. He has no concept of gang.
- [79:16]
Brett
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