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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@shopify.com truecrime or go to shopify.com truecrime to start selling with Shopify today. Shopify.com truecrime I'm Alice. And I'm Brett and this is the Prosecutor's Legal. Welcome back to the Prosecutor's Legal Briefs. I'm your host, Alice, and I'm joined as always by my Trash Panda of a co host, Rhett.
- [01:43]
Brett
I love it, Alice. I love it.
- [01:45]
Alice
Thank you.
- [01:46]
Brett
Beautiful, wonderful. You're the best.
- [01:48]
Alice
You know, I do what I can. Trash Panda is a fantastic phrase anyways, but for once I'm not just making up and grabbing words out of the ether. This is in a filing in the Adnan case. So I am in fact quoting from a motion filed by the state and.
- [02:05]
Brett
We'Re going to talk about the Trash Pandas later. But Trash Panda that, you know, man, look, we're going to talk a lot about this filing, this most recent filing in the Adnan side case. Those of you who've missed it, Adnan is back in court before Judge Jennifer Schiffer. He's now seeking to have his actually, his stay out of prison continue because under the Juvenile Restoration act or something, I forget exactly what it's called, but it's a Baltimore law that essentially says if you were sentenced to life in prison or a very long prison term back in the 90s when we were so uneducated and barbaric that we would do that to people who were not 18 when they were sentenced, you can seek to have your sentence reduced. So he's trying to do that, and that's going on in court. But right before that was. I don't know if I have words to describe it. So years ago, it seems like now, I mean, I guess it was in 2022. It's funny because quite literally, Alice, and our journey in this case started in 2022 when this vacanter motion was filed by Marilyn Mosby in Baltimore to vacate Adnan's conviction, to let him out of prison and exonerate him later on because of all this injustice against him. And at the time, we had not covered the case, and it was actually this abomination of emotion that set in our coverage of the case. So I'm glad that Marilyn Mosby allowed us to do our 14 episodes on Adnan. And if emails and comments would be to believe, convince thousands of people who used to believe that Adnan sad was innocent, that he is actually, in fact, guilty. And that motion had a long and winding path through the courts before it finally was struck down by the Supreme Court of Maryland. And it came back to the Baltimore State Attorney's office. And Ivan Bates, who some of you may know from a documentary advocating for Adnan's innocence, where he talked about how he thought Adnan was innocent, had an opportunity to reconsider the motion and issue a new opinion on that, whether he was going to stand behind it or withdraw it. And oh, my goodness, did he take his obligations seriously?
- [04:29]
Alice
Absolutely. Now, when this was filed back in 22, I remember we did a legal briefs on it. And at the time, we didn't have access to the full picture, but we actually asked a lot of the same questions that Ivan Bates also asked when he took a new look at this reinvestigation, shall we say? And if you haven't read this filing, first of all, it's going to take a while because it's 88 pages. But I'm going to cut to the Chase. Those 88 pages essentially say we had to reinvestigate everything because the investigation led by Mosby was destroyed and Mosby wouldn't speak to us about it. And we had to piece together what was done, quote, unquote, in order to support the motion to vacate. And after looking at everything, re examining the evidence, re examining all the investigation since Mosby came into the office, I have to basically apologize to the court that I cannot stand by the lies put forth before this office. I mean, it is. It goes that far. Read the footnotes. It is putting everything out there. It is Naming people by names a lot of the time. And there are people who investigated this case and made representations to the court that he calls out. Usually there's at least some sort of blocking for your office. But the misrepresentations were so egregious and they were such a miscarriage marriage of justice, both for the victim as well as Hae Min Lee's brother, that he basically righted the record and laid bare for all to see, including basically doing what we did like the Adnan did it episode. The last part of the 88 page motion seeking to withdraw the motion of AK is essentially the whole case against Adnan. I mean, it is a work. It is a very. It could have been, by the way, many of these motions, it could have been as simple as a one pager. That said, easy. We reviewed the investigation and we would like to withdraw the motion to vacate as we no longer find that it is supported by evidence. Signed Ivan Bates that we see all the time. Obviously, this case has a lot of media attention, shall we say? And the office was under a microscope after Mosby filed this quote, unquote, bombshell of a motion. And for him to file this out there, it really is a lay it bare for all to see. And if there was ever a question about whether there are. There's a Brady violation. There wasn't one. Whether there was. There are alternate suspects who are actually viable. There are not. And whether the evidence was sufficient to convict Adnan. There was. And this is from the Baltimore City Attorney's office.
- [07:03]
Brett
And look, I think we're going to go through this. I mean, we're not going to go through the whole thing. We're going to give you a summary of this filing. You should read it. There's an executive summary. It's like nine or ten pages long. You should read that. You should read if you care about this case. You should read the 88 page filing. Yeah, it's a legal filing. Some of it will be hard for you to understand, but a lot of it won't. A lot of it is just shocking documentation of this fraud on the court. And look, the most annoying thing in the world is when people pat themselves on the back. And we would never do that. But I just want to say if you go back and listen to all of our episodes on this, starting in 2022, we nailed this from the very beginning. So I just want to get that out of the way. But the other thing I want to say before we get started, because I think this is really important because the same grifters, fraudsters and charlatans who always protect Adnan Syed will be out there trying to undermine this as well. It is so important who this is from. I cannot overstate the fact that Ivan Bates is in a documentary, an HBO pro Adnan documentary, talking about his feeling there was some sort of injustice here, number one. Number two, one of Adnan's biggest supporters, Colin, from undisclosed. When Ivan Bates won, I remember this. When he won the nomination to be the state's attorney, tweeted about how exciting it was because Ivan Bates was a supporter of Adnan Syed and maybe finally we would have this opportunity for justice. And he was under immense public press, all kinds of pressure to just do it again. Every single mainstream coverage of Adnan Syed is always that he is innocent. That is what they always say. The easiest thing in the world would have been for him just to say, we're going to stand behind the motion of vacate. We think you should move forward. He could have done that. But instead he actually looked at the evidence and the record information he would not necessarily have had back when he was doing that documentary and produced this document. This document is damning for any remaining belief that Adnan said did not commit this crime. It is an astonishing piece of legal work.
- [09:23]
Alice
And let me say something else about Ivan Bates integrity here. There is a world where he could have done that. Just do the easy thing and say we stand by the motion. And no one would have been the wiser because we wouldn't have known the quote unquote investigation, the reinvestigation that was done by Mosby's team and how it was not supported by evidence because what would have happened instead of having to represent this in court, it never had to come to light. He could have looked at the evidence and been like, oh, that's not very good. It's okay. We'll stand by it because it's the, you know, little p. Political good thing to do. People will love it because all the media seems to say he's innocent and I'll be the hero here and then strike a deal with Adnan so that they never had to present the new evidence. He serves time served or whatever, and none of us would ever know the shenanigans that happened. But that's not what prosecutors or any public servant is supposed to do. And I, like, have renewed faith in the public service sector that he really took a deep dive. And he took a deep dive before we started recording, we even said, in order to reinvestigate what Mosby did. It wasn't to reinvestigate Adnan's case. It was to reinvestigate what they did in order to put the motion to vacate together and to write this 88 page tome. They probably could have solved another murder or prosecuted many other cases. That's how much time this took. They had to do that, though, because they had to unwind the shenanigans. And this is why we've said so many times before, this was not a victimless action by Mosby. There are probably actual real victims in Baltimore whose cases have not been prosecuted yet or fully investigated yet because they've had to spend their time basically going back to Square1 from 20 years ago. We know Adnan's guilty, and he had to unwind all of the shenanigans, and he had to do it for the integrity of the court, because he's an officer of the court. And not to do so could potentially come back with ramifications on his very profession and his license to practice law. So this is important. This is a big deal. A lot of filings get filed, and we're like, nothing burger. This is not a nothing burger. So now that we've, like, totally built it up, if you don't have time to read the 88 page, we'll dive in there for you.
- [11:40]
Brett
Yeah. And one thing I'll say before I read, I'm going to read his statement, and then we'll get into the executive summary. The other thing I'll say about this, this filing is not even about guilt or innocence. And they even say that it's not about a guilt or innocence. It's about whether or not they can support this motion to vacate. And legally, that's what they're doing. Because theoretically, the judge could deny the motion to vacate. The judge could say, well, you know, I'm gonna leave it. So they even say, look, this isn't about his guilt and innocence. Which makes it even more astonishing that they spend so much time reiterating the strength of the evidence against Adnan Syed. I mean, it is. The whole thing is remarkable. It's amazing. Okay, so I'm going to start. I'll read you the statement. Basically, there are three documents. There's Ivan Bates statement, there's an executive summary, and then there's the document itself. We'll spend most of our time on the statement and the executive summary. I wish we could do, like, five episodes on this document because it really deserves that. But y'all are just going to have to read the 88 pages for yourself. And you should. I'll read you all.
- [12:38]
Alice
It is. It's a fun read.
- [12:39]
Brett
It's amazing.
- [12:41]
Alice
It's a really fun read.
- [12:42]
Brett
I had a long day.
- [12:44]
Alice
I mean, it's told, you know, sometimes you can read a work and you know that the person's like, furiously writing. I can almost see the smoke coming out of the computer, like, the intensity with which he is writing. I think Ivan may have written this.
- [12:57]
Brett
I had a long day yesterday, and I was like, man, I gotta read this so we can do. So we can do a podcast on it. And I started reading it and I was just. You were following on Twitter. I was just constantly like, I cannot believe what I'm reading. So you should check it out. Okay, so here's his statement. The press release after a thorough review of the motion to vacate judgment filed by the previous administration in the case of Adnan said, my office has determined that it contains false and misleading statements that undermine the integrity of the judicial process. This is the Maryland State's Attorney discussing a filing by his immediate predecessor. As prosecutors, our duty is to seek justice and ensure that all legal proceedings are conducted transparently, accurately, and fairly. While I did not ask for this task, it was remanded to my office by the Supreme Court of Maryland. Thus, we have a duty as Maryland barred attorneys, prosecutors tasked with pursuing justice, and officers of the court to address false and misleading statements in the state's legal filings, a duty that we take extremely seriously. As such, we cannot adopt the falsehoods and misleading statements in the motion to vacate judgment, nor fail to bring them to the court's attention. For these reasons, I formally withdraw the motion to vacate judgment. I did not make this decision lightly, but it is necessary to preserve the credibility of our office and maintain public trust in the justice system. My administration remains fully committed to. To reviewing cases where wrongful convictions or miscarriages of justice may have occurred. However, we will do so with the highest standards of integrity and a commitment to truth. I recognize the complexity and sensitivity of this case. I hope this comprehensive review and my ultimate decision brings closure to all parties involved.
- [14:47]
Alice
I mean, there cannot be a stronger statement. It's not equivocal whatsoever, and it gets right to the point and it calls out. It doesn't try to sugarcoat what happened. And there you have it. Not just. There's no longer. The strength of the evidence is not something. It's straight up false and misleading, which.
- [15:06]
Brett
Once again, this is not someone saying this in the press. It's not Us saying in a podcast, it's not a YouTuber just throwing out barbs. This is the elected chief prosecutor for Baltimore accusing former attorneys in his office of lying to the court, which is one of the most serious accusations you can make against an attorney. The kind of accusation, accusation that can result in you having your bar license suspended and frankly, could even land you in jail. On the right, in the right circumstances. Probably not this one, but this one could definitely have you facing consequences from the bar.
- [15:42]
Alice
Absolutely. So let's move on to the executive summary. And like Brett said, this filing is not about guilt or innocence. It's whether the vacation was supported. And in order to do that, he had to figure out what was done in order to support, to research, to investigate what new evidence came to light in the office that allowed them to file this motion to vacate. And when he started digging in, this is never a good thing. We all know lawyers have to keep records of everything. We know that when Mosby came in, he said that there was a SYED review team that was created. He abbreviates it as srt. And usually you would think if you had an investigation, certainly something that wasn't completed, because when you go to vacate a judgment, there's still things that can happen. Right. The case is not yet closed. You would keep the results of your investigation. But unfortunately, the SYED review team did not preserve their investigation. And when they reached out, when his office reached out to the prior state's attorney, Mosby, Mosby would not speak with Bates's attorneys to piece together what supported their motion to vacate. This is highly unusual to do an entire investigation and then to destroy your records. It's not like this was 10 years ago or 20 years ago. This was like two years ago. Right. And so at the forefront, he puts this out there, that there are things he cannot know. And he even notes this in footnotes. He did the best he could, but there are certain things that remain to be seen. So what he tried to do is he tried to recreate the investigation by interviewing everyone involved, from the prosecutors to the police lease, to defense team members to members of the state's attorney's offices. And one of the things that I think we had previously noted and he highlights is the original prosecuting attorneys who were at the time in the office, I believe, were never interviewed by the syed review team. That's highly unusual. Wouldn't you think that you would want to talk to the people who are closest to the case, the ones who prosecuted the case, especially if you're going to allege things like Brady violations, especially.
- [17:54]
Brett
If one of those Brady violations is going to be based on a note. And they talk about this. They talk about how they're, you know, they're withdrawing this motion. It's not supported by law, in fact. And they say, you know, there are these two Brady allegations and we talked about this in our episode. And they talk about the Brady standard. They talk about the Brady standard a lot more than the initial motion to vacate did, which talked about almost none of the law for reasons that are now pretty obvious. And they say that nothing the Mosby team pointed to met the burden. The two notes that were allegedly Brady material were both already available to the defense. And to the extent they were relevant to any alternative suspect, those suspects were already known to the defense. And we learn even more about these notes. One of them is like hearsay within hearsay within hearsay. It's an anonymous person, like literally they.
- [18:44]
Alice
Keep saying it's a guess.
- [18:45]
Brett
One of the, you know, we talked about, and I'm sorry, if you don't know anything about this case, you're going to be confused this whole time. Go back and listen. You got like 18 episodes to listen to. But we talked about Bilal Ahmed and we talked about his ex wife initially. This is mind blowing that they let this happen. So initially, like she wouldn't talk to the investigators. Apparently Adnan went to her house and like sat down with her at the kitchen table to get what eventually became an affidavit in support of all this that, you know, he waved around and talked about, I think in his press conference, his multi hour press conference he had, which by the way, yesterday in his motion for re sentencing, while he's explaining why he shouldn't have to go back to prison, he talked about how he's kept a low profile because, you know, he hasn't engaged in any media because he doesn't want to re harm Hae Min Lee's family. And it's like, do you ever stop lying? I mean, you have been lying for so many years and you lie to our face in ways that are so obvious. You sat there in like the kindergarten room, whatever it is, the daycare, and gave hours and hours of a press conference where you accused everybody under the sun of being involved in this conspiracy to frame you and took absolutely no responsibility for what you did. And then you stand in court and you lie to the judge who has your fate in their hands. Just the absolute lack of shame by Adnan Syed and everyone associated with him is astonishing. But that's an aside. I'll get back to the executive summary. They go on to say that the srt, as Al said, never spoke to Kevin Urich. These are his notes. Half of it is, is you couldn't read it. You know how when you take notes and it's in your handwriting, so you can't. You're the only one who can read it. This is the situation. They didn't even bother to ask him what it said. And in this summary it describes this as shocking. And I'll read you what it says. Shockingly, the SRT did not ask Mr. Urich about his handwritten notes. They did not ask him to decipher his somewhat illegible handwriting or to interpret his notes otherwise. They did not ask him if he had any independent recollections regarding the notes. Most shockingly, they did not ask him if he withheld the notes from the defense or about his discovery practices. In 1999 and 2000. When interviewed by this office, Mr. Yurich provided substantial information about the notes that differs materially from what is represented in the mvj.
- [21:20]
Alice
Right. And remember, just this is shocking because we now know what the notes are. We had been told that there were notes and there were potential suspects, but even Bates own motion states that the alleged facts supporting it are conflated. So there's not even clear among the investigation what they found, because they are not being clear. In fact, there was no evidence. And so when Urich was then interviewed by Bates team, he said that the note stated someone had said he would kill Hae, was in fact referring to Adnai. And so they took this note and gave it whatever meaning they wanted to. But Urich, who is the one who actually wrote this note, said no. When I said someone was going to kill Hay, I was referring to Adnan Syed, not some mystery third party. Stunningly, the SRT did indeed interview the person who provided the information to Urik. And she told them that she did not recall Bilal Ahmed ever threatening to harm Hae. Now, despite receiving this information, Mosley nevertheless told the court that the evidence indicated that this note referred to a third party, Bilal Ahmed, threatening Hae. And this is why, by the way, as he's uncovering these falsehoods, they aren't just matters of interpretation, but where they learn one thing, they even write it down. He finds, like I think he says, he searches their emails, but a lot of things have been destroyed that they. These are complete misrepresentations of what they know.
- [22:49]
Brett
Moreover, and when the SRT filed The motion to vacate. They did everything in secret. We talked about this. They all talked to the judge and they played fast and loose with the facts and they didn't say the names of their suspects. Like we didn't know who they were. And one of the reasons for that is because everybody knew who Bilal was and Alonzo Sellers. And in fact, the defense knew about both of them and investigated them. And they knew about this whole theory that is laid bare in this, this filing that essentially Adnan was being groomed by Bilal, that he was one of his quote unquote boyfriends. And that was while Bilal killed Hay because he was jealous of her, which makes no sense because he would have killed her after they broke up. But, you know, whatever, I guess Nisha in Silver Springs, it's just lucky Bilal didn't know about her. But that's this theory. And perhaps most stupidly of all, you know, in order for there for it to be a Brady violation, you have to have something that's not turned over. But the review indicated that the notes had indeed been turned over to the defense, meaning they couldn't have been Brady material at all. In fact, the SRT relied entirely on the fact that the current defense attorney couldn't find them in the file to determine this was a Brady violation. Despite the fact the file has passed from person to person over the last 25 years, including the attorney Grievance committee, Rabia Choudhary, I think it lived in her trunk for several years. Susan Simpson, post conviction attorneys, appellate attorneys and current counsel. And there were other documents that should have been in there that everyone knows were turned over and in fact, documents created by the defense itself that were missing, which indicates that these two pieces of paper not being in the file were not actually Brady violations.
- [24:36]
Alice
Craving your next action packed adventure, Audible delivers thrills of every kind on your command. Like Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir, where a lone astronaut must save humanity from extinction. Narrated with stunning intensity by Ray Porter. From electrifying suspense and daring quests to spine tingling horror and romance in far off realms, unleash your adventure aside with gripping titles that that'll keep you guessing. Discover exclusive Audible originals, hotly anticipated new releases and must listen bestsellers that hook you from the first minute. Because Audible knows there's no greater thrill than the one that speaks to you. Discover what lies beyond the edge of your seat. Start your free 30 day trial at audible.com wondery us. That's audible.com wondery us. And by the way, that list isn't ours. That's literally a footnote in the motion. I may or may not have spit out my coffee when I read that line because he quite literally lists. He's like, there's a problem with the chain of custody when you are relying on the defense's own file saying, these documents aren't in there. So many people have touched this file, including, he says, YouTubers and people who are not part of his defense team have touched this file. That's not where you go to see if something's been turned over. Where you go is perhaps the prosecuting attorney, hey, what were your practices? And indeed, he said, well, the practice, as is Baltimore law, was to have an open files discovery process. What that means is you can come over and flip through my physical files. Every single piece of paper I have, you can look through. And it's not just that, oh, that was the pattern and practice of my office or that was law. Because of course, if you have a bad actor, a bad prosecutor misconduct, even if it's the law, maybe you didn't do that. Well, conveniently, they actually kept a log of when the defense Syed's team came over on multiple occasions to take advantage of the open files discovery process. And they did. And they saw these things. And one reason that we in fact know they knew about these things, like Brett said Bilal and Alonzo were known to the defense. They were the alternate suspects. We know this because it's been part of the lore for the last couple decades in terms of trying to say Cy was wrongfully convicted. So remember what the standards of Brady are. It's not just, oh, any scrap of paper can count. Not only was that scrap of paper in fact turned over or part of the open records discovery process, but number two, it has to make a difference. And because these things were already known to the defense and they developed these alternate suspect, some other dude did it defenses. There is absolutely no Brady violation here whatsoever. And I will say Bates really comes in like vindicates prosecutor Yurich in terms of because he was thrown under the bus previously with respect to these potential Brady violations. And then he doesn't stop there. So he goes through the two notes, he goes through the alternate suspects, and he concludes, we've tried to piece together the SRT's review. We've looked at every single thing. We've recreated these things we found out about Operation Trash Panda where they quite literally did the whole trash poll to try and get DNA from Alonzo Sellers and they four bags of trash. And by the way, they must be really bad at being trash pandas because they couldn't get any good DNA from it. But anyways, they detail all of these things that the SRT team did. And Bates concludes, despite all of this, they tried so hard. These two notes did not account to Brady violations. The court was told something about the evidence that was just patently untrue, and the office knew it was untrue. And there are no alternate suspects that the defense didn't previously know about. And there's no reason to think that further investigation would point to either of these men being alternate suspects. And so he doesn't stop there, even though, remember, this motion is not about guilt or innocence. He goes on to say, then there's DNA. So this is from the executive summary. It appears that the DNA is what Ms. Mosby relied upon to exonerate Mr. Syed. This justification is problematic for three main reasons. First, the DNA was found on a pair of shoes in Ms. Lee's car, and the shoes were never proven to be Ms. Lee's. We have found no corroborating evidence supporting that fact, other than that police recovered them in the backseat of her car car. Second, there were four DNA samples on these shoes. However, Mr. Saya's DNA was not on the shoes. And in fact, Ms. Lee's DNA did not even appear on the shoes, again creating questions about whose shoes they were and whether those were the shoes that Ms. Lee wore that day. Finally, it appears that the DNA discovered was on the bottom of the shoes, which is unsurprising, given that anyone's DNA could be transferred from the ground to a person's shoes. I'm not going to say we said it, but we said it. It is critical to note that during this office's extensive review, an email was located from an SRT member to Ms. Mosby, sent the day before she dropped the charges against Mr. Syed, stating that the DNA evidence recovered on the shoes was, quote, not conclusive of innocence. That's from her own review team. This office agrees that DNA from the bottom of a pair of shoes recovered in the backseat of the victim's car is not dispositive or even relevant to the case. To date, there is no information whatsoever to say that these shoes played any role in Ms. Lee's murder. Unlike Ms. Mosby. This is a real kicker, y'all. I got so excited, I deleted it. My whole computer froze because I got so excited. Okay, here's the kicker. It ends with this. Unlike Ms. Mosby, we cannot vacate this conviction based on the lack of Mr. Syed's. DNA on the bottom of a pair of shoes found in the backseat of Ms. Lee's car.
- [30:54]
Brett
I mean, and I just have to reiterate, this wasn't necessary. The motion to vacate and the DNA actually don't have really anything to do with each other. The DNA was what she used later to say, we're not going to recharge him. We're formally exonerating him and all this other stuff. Right. So you could have even left this out when discussing the motion to vacate. But he wants to correct all of the misinformation, and this is so huge. This stuff makes me mad, and it makes me mad on behalf of all of you, because all of you were misled on such a basic level. You were misled by people that you were supposed to trust, people that had the trust of the state of Baltimore. You were misled by podcasters and creators who sold you this lie that Adnan Syed had been exonerated because of DNA. You were misled by the mainstream media in Baltimore, the national press, everyone who should have taken a moment to think about this. You didn't need this to know how weak this was. We knew it. We're not brilliant. We're not geniuses. We don't have some secret knowledge that the rest of the world lacks. But all of these people went along with this to sell you a lie. They lied to you that Adnan Syed is innocent, so you would accept this charade, this fraud. And I just got to tell you now realize we're in the middle of this. If you are a graduate of Georgetown University, there is a murderer teaching on your campus right now. And if you're giving money to them or if you have any connection to them, you need to let them know that you don't like the fact that students at Georgetown are being taught by a murderer who is lauded by that campus and lauded by that university as some sort of hero, when in fact, all he is is a coward of a man who killed a woman because she didn't want to be with him. And you should be angry about that. And this should make you even more angry. There is so much anger to go around in this case, and all of this should infuriate you.
- [32:59]
Alice
Absolutely. And again, we are reading the words of Ivan Bates, who is no friend of us. I would say he was more likely to align with Mosby than us. And so these are not our words because we didn't have access to these files. He, by the way, didn't have access to these files, which is Shocking. If I walked into an office and the motion to vacate review team had destroyed their records, oh, there would be hell to pay because what are you hiding? And that's exactly why he is steaming. I think there could be a different world if they didn't try to cover their tracks and try to pass on this fraud on the court to him that he has to inherit. That's why this matters so much. And yes, to Georgetown. I used to teach at Georgetown and I'm not sure I'd ever go somewhere there. There you go. I was an adjunct professor there, so it might show you that they'll hire anyone. But no, I had to go through a thorough background check, by the way, and also state that I had no convicted felonies, things like that, which he continues to have. So. Anyways, there's more. Brett, bring us home.
- [34:00]
Brett
Yeah. So in the conclusion of the executive summary, we're going to talk briefly about the 88 pages. Because there's so much. Because basically the executive summary lays it out and then the 88 pages is just all this detail. It's insane. So here's what the summary, the conclusion says. As licensed attorneys and officers of the court, this office cannot adopt the false and misleading statements and unsubstantiated conclusions in the MVJ that the state violated its Brady obligations in State vs. Syed. Indeed, as the moving party, this office is compelled to bring the faults and misleading statements to the court's attention. Which just goes back to how serious this is that they have to do this. And I mean, maybe you think Ivan Bates has really wanted to go after not just Marilyn Mosby, but other people who had worked in that office. As prosecutors, we are sworn to seek justice and uphold the law. This office approached this case as it does every case, asking the question, how do we get to justice? Based on an exhaustive review. The only answer to that question is to withdraw the MVJ and provide an explanation for the decision to The Lee family, Mr. Side and his family, and the public who may have an interest. Mr. Side's case has been the subject of protracted post trial litigation, all of which has ultimately resulted in the affirmance of the jury's verdict beyond a reasonable doubt that he is guilty of the murder of Hae Min Lee. While this office withdraws the motion of vacay judgment, that decision does not preclude Mr. Syed from raising any new issues that he believes will support his innocence in the proper post trial pleadings. And let me just read you this next part, because it's almost like they listened to our episode and just decided to quote it. However, properly shifting this Burden back to Mr. Syed will reinstill the adversarial nature of proceedings that are the hallmark of the truth seeking function of our criminal justice system. Amen. The Office of the State's Attorney for Baltimore City is hopeful that this decision will give Young Lee and the entire Lee family some closure on this protracted process that has caused more grief to the family and will help to restore a sense that justice will prevail in the murder of his sister. Hey, Min Lee. As A final note, Mrs. Mosby represented to the court that this was an open and ongoing investigation, and that was represented to you as well. This office's review of this matter has not revealed that there was ever an open investigation into any purported alternative suspects in the murder of Haman Lee. BPD similarly reported that it did not have an active investigation, and this office will not ask for one to be opened.
- [36:28]
Alice
And that was just the executive summary, y'all. That's not even the motion. The motion itself is 90 pages of just obliteration of Mosby's argument that Syed should have his conviction vacated. Much of it is an in depth discussion of the things in the executive summary. I mean, it's absolutely astonishing. You really should read it for yourself. Not all documents filed by the state are this transparent or this detailed. And I think he had to because of all the misleading and false statements by Mosby. Now, everyone involved in the motion to vacate Syed's conviction should be under review by the Maryland Bar, as detailed in this 88 page motion, if not the Maryland courts. There are footnotes indicating, like, questions of where gaps are when emails are sent. I mean, there's even a footnote where it said, like. Like there's a draft of. This is the whole point about the adversarial system. There was a draft of a motion that should have been filed by Syed's team. But why was it being drafted by the Baltimore State Attorney's office? That's a good question. Because that certainly doesn't sound like an adversarial system. Why are they essentially being the defense counsel? Again, that's not what the prosecutor's role is. Now, the level of actual misconduct recorded in this document is incredible. This is not smoke. This is fire that he's reporting on. The entire vacature was a fraud on the court of unbelievable enormity. To give you an idea of just how astonishing this is, the State's Attorney's office felt compelled to write the following. Here we Go. I'm going to crack the neck on this one. Maryland Rule 19, 303.3 a provides impertinent part. An attorney shall not knowingly make a false statement of fact or law to a tribunal or fail to correct a. A false statement of material factor law previously made to the tribunal by the attorney, offer evidence that the attorney knows to be false. If an attorney has offered material evidence and comes to know of its falsity, the attorney shall take reasonable remedial measures. As Maryland barred attorneys and officers of the court, the state cannot stand behind the false and misleading statements in the MVJ that the state committed, quote, brady violations. Indeed, as the moving party, the state is required by the Maryland rules to take reasonable remedial measures to address false statements in the state's legal filings, a responsibility that the State takes extremely seriously. As such, the state cannot adopt the falsehoods and misleading statements contained in the MBJ nor fail to bring them to the court's attention. Those are shots fired. That is a bar complaint right there. You can excise that from the motion and submit it to the bar. And you probably have to.
- [39:15]
Brett
And look, for some of you out there, maybe, you know, you're not lawyers, so this doesn't strike you, but for a lawyer, I mean, this is, this is almost chilling to read. Just the idea that these people put their whole career on the line to lie. When you say lie, when you say falsehoods, falsehoods. Not, you know, it was equivocal interpretations or stretching. He's saying they lied. That's what he's saying to the court in an official filing. And they never corrected it. And it's so bad that they felt compelled to correct it. As Alice said, they couldn't just say, hey, you know, we looked at the evidence, it doesn't really support it. We're going to withdraw the motion. They couldn't do that. They filed. And once again, this wasn't easy. This took a lot of time and effort and resources to do this investigation and write an 88 page motion to withdraw something. Not. Not to argue for something, not asking.
- [40:18]
Alice
The court to do anything. Right.
- [40:20]
Brett
I mean, this is. It's. If you. I cannot express to you how astonishing a document this is. And maybe this is just because I'm a nerd or I'm a lawyer, but, man, it's amazing that they did this. And hats off to them for it, for doing it, because it restored my faith. I tell you what, I've been getting kind of cynical about the whole judicial system. I'M always telling you guys, y'all need to have faith. I was starting to lose faith. Ivan Bates had tweeted something that I didn't like a couple days ago, and I just let him have it along with a lot of other people. And then the next day he drops this thing. And I had to apologize to him. This is what you're supposed to do. And it's just so refreshing to see someone just try and follow the law, the facts, and seek justice. Not. It's not political. It's not. He's not playing to the press. He's not looking for kudos. He's not going to get anything out of this except grief. We're praising him. I guarantee you, nobody in Maryland cares what we think. He's going to get nothing but grief. But he did it anyway.
- [41:20]
Alice
And for those of you who may think this is like a political stunt, the political thing to do would be to just follow what Mosby did, because he can seek political cover behind Mosby. So, right. There's almost like no risk because he can just hide behind this person who did it previously. And second, this does not read like a press release in the sense that how many people actually read an 88 page filing to withdraw a motion? Very few people, except for us nerds. Right? And so this is not really written to the constituents. This is written because we are talking about the deepest core of what the legal profession requires of us. It requires us to tell the truth. And when we know of falsehoods, we have to correct it. This goes back to like the model Rules of Ethics. He's quoting the Rules of Ethics because that's exactly what a bar complaint would say. If he doesn't do it, he is at risk for being in violation of the ethics rules.
- [42:26]
Brett
So then he goes on to say, and I just appreciated this so much because once again, this. I feel this in my bones. He says outcome bias is deeply troubling in a prosecutor under any circumstances. But certainly in a case where a jury convicted a defendant beyond a reasonable doubt and that conviction withstood extensive post conviction litigation and appellate review, the SRT's biased approach to reviewing and investigating this case infected every aspect of their findings and the conclusions of the motion to vacate judgment, including their assessments of the strength and reliability of the trial evidence. Just, I mean, I, like I said it, everything about this, you got to read it. If you care about this case. You just have to read this. I'm sorry, you just have to. You have no choice. Like, you can't. You Cannot know everything you need to know about the Adnan side case without reading this document. And they go on. We read to you the executive summary, which just eviscerates the DNA thing. But there's a footnote. You always say read the footnotes. There is a footnote in this motion about the DNA that is both hilarious, shocking, I don't know what you want to call it. It says, it is unclear whether SA Mosby was aware that the shoes were not found on or near Mrs. Lee's body when she decided to drop the charges against Mr. Syed. Which once again, the astonishing level of incompetence here, incompetence is probably giving her too much credit. It's probably just outright corruption. But nevertheless, on March 23, 2022, one SRT member emailed another SRT member a forensic testing spreadsheet that inaccurately stated that the shoes were covered on Mrs. Lee's body. Which once again just goes to how fundamentally flawed this whole investigation was. Everything they're doing is wrong. I mean, can you imagine? We have a podcast. What we do doesn't matter. It's fairly entertaining. If we said that, that her shoes had been on her, can you imagine the grief we would have gotten? The one star reviews, the endless emails. We can say the smallest thing wrong and we get that. And these people are trading on the idea that these shoes were actually on her body at the time she was found.
- [44:49]
Alice
So despite this massive, massive error, the SRT never corrected the spreadsheet. In fact, the January 2025 report included a document labeled Forensic Testing History Spreadsheet SAO that still reflected inaccurately that the shoes were recovered quote on Ms. Lee's body. On October 11, 2022, an SRT member sent a BCSAO staff member edits to a press release which added the following clarifying language. The victim's shoes that she was last seen wearing were removed prior to her burial and left in her vehicle. That's just misleading.
- [45:29]
Brett
Totally misleading like, totally misleading like who?
- [45:32]
Alice
Who removed them and prior to their burial.
- [45:35]
Brett
What ye the whole thing anyways.
- [45:37]
Alice
In other words, it shows an awareness that the shoes were not in fact on her. Right. That's the point of that clarifying language. One minute later, the staff member sent a draft of this press release to the other two SRT members for their review, stating attached is the press release today for your review. Another SRT member has reviewed the draft that the staff member sent mistakenly did not include that clarifying addition nor any of the other redlined edits. So the final press release provided no details about where the shoes were recovered.
- [46:12]
Brett
Yeah, so. So once again, I mean, that, that's. They were so focused in the, in the filing does a great job on this. They went in, you know, people, once again, we just do a podcast, but people always say we go in, you know, knowing what we're going to say and whatever. They totally went in. They were always going to try and do this. They didn't actually review the evidence. They didn't care what the evidence showed. They just wanted to support releasing. Edna said. And there's so much proof in this filing of that. And they go through this, and in particular in the first, probably two thirds of it and then the last third, they basically give all the reasons. They're like, okay, well, we're done with that now. We've done the. Now let's reiterate why Adansad is guilty. And they go through all the things that you've heard before. They talk about the cell phone analysis and why it's accurate and why it's damning. And I won't go through that because you've heard our, our discussion of it, but you can read theirs. But it includes this nugget which I think goes to just show you the kind of evidence the SRT was using. An SRT member stated in the December 2021 memorandum. I also reviewed a blog by Susan Simpson, a defense associate who analyzes cell site information. She also noted that only a few of the cell site tower information actually correspond with Wild's testimony. I also talked to my husband, who was an RF engineer for the Marines and is currently in a position involving electronic transmissions. He explained how the cell towers worked, covered a large area, and then it was idiotic to try to pinpoint a location based on the cell phone tower ping. Once again, if I ask my wife a question for the podcast, that's great, right? Not exactly what you should rely on when you're vacating someone's conviction. And Susan Simpson writes a great blog. You can read her blog post on the cell phone towers. It's actually super helpful and interesting and damning for Adnan Syed, which she does not seem to realize. And apparently this person just took her sort of bottom line statement about it. But she is so clearly pro Adnan. She did a whole podcast trying to get him exonerated. She's very talented at what she does, but probably not the source you want to go to for making an objective determination about the evidence. I don't know, maybe consult an expert, an actual expert, not your husband. That was pro Probably a better way to.
- [48:32]
Alice
Who works in electronic transmissions. Like what? Microwaves? Like. I don't know how it's even relevant here, but certainly when I assess the veracity or the strength of something highly technical like cell phone tower dumps, it's certainly not going to be dismissing it by calling it idiotic, because that's not a legal term. It's not a legal standard either. But that is what they are doing here. And there is so much more to say there. But. But if you are interested in how cell phone towers and cell phone information actually works, we do have an expert from the FBI. Not some guy who just kind of works on electronic communications and transmissions who may or may not be tangentially related to. No, this is his thing. This is how he catches people currently, like in the midst of Amber Alerts, stealing people. He finds them through cell phone tower dumps. And he will talk to you about it. And he came on our show on Legal Briefing. Can't remember the episode. You can search for it. He's awesome. And it was really refreshing to see that Bates mentioned the strength of the evidence here. And he doesn't stop there because, oh boy, we know that the defense and those who claim Adnan is wrongfully convicted, they all have to bring up J. Wilds. J. Wilde certainly is, you know, working for the police here to frame Adnan. Well, Bates talks about the credibility of Mr. Wild's account, and he notes that it was bolstered by the fact that his description of Ms. Lee's clothing to police on February 28, 1999, matched what she was wearing when police recovered her body. In addition, Mr. Wilds led police to the obscure location of Ms. Lee's parked car. And testimony from Ms. Vinson and Jennifer Pusateri corroborated critical parts of Mr. Wilds Wilds's account. Finally, Mr. Rawanowitz matched details of Mr. Wilds's testimony with data from his own independent testing in 1999 of cell tower coverage at specific locations around the Baltimore area. In contrast with the many and varied ways that the state corroborated Mr. Wilds account, the SRT failed to identify any actual evidence that Mr. Wild Wilds testified falsely. Although it is true and was well known to the parties at trial that Mr. Wilds told various lies to the police during the murder investigation, the MBJ suggested that the State cannot rely on J. Wild's testimony alone. The State has never attempted to do so. The extensive evidence presented at trial of Mr. Syed's guilt judged substantial, direct and circumstantial evidence by the highest court of the state was multifaceted and has survived repeated challenge on appeal and in post conviction proceedings.
- [51:28]
Brett
And you will have people out there who are defenders of Adnan Syed who will tell you that there's nothing in this filing indicating that Bates thinks he's guilty. That should be the last time you listen to those people because they're either willfully ignorant or once again, they're lying to you. I mean, that paragraph right there, that tells you all you need to know. No. Ivan Bates might have thought Adnan said was innocent when he was a citizen, but when he got in and saw the evidence, he said, nope. And he said, I'm not pinning my credibility on this murderer. And he lays it all out in this document. I mean, it is a just tour de force. If you're looking for something to answer all your questions about. Adnan said, don't worry about our 14 episodes. Just read this. Read all 88 pages.
- [52:17]
Alice
That is true. And also it gives part of Jay Wilde's his life back. Right. He has been just absolutely smeared across all these, like, social media campaigns trying to spring Adnan wrongfully from prison. And here the state is saying, look, we've looked at everything. There is no reason to think that his testimony isn't reliable here. Yeah, he told some lies, Demise. We've put that all out there. That was known and that was presented to the jury back then. And with all of this, this tour de force at the end of the 88 pages, Ivan Bates concludes, taking into account the numerous false and misleading statements in the mvj. And after fairly and dispassionately reviewing the available evidence, the state is forced to conclude that we are not able to meet our burden of proof under Maryland criminal procedure section 8.301.1. As such, we have no choice but to withdraw the mvj. That's a mic drop.
- [53:17]
Brett
Yeah. And by the time you reach that point, you will have concluded that there was definitely a corrupt prosecutor in this case. But it wasn't the one who prosecuted Adnan said. It was the one who then subsequently was convicted of multiple felonies and is a felony at this time. And if she hasn't already lost her license, she should lose it after this. But we'll just have to see what happens there. Now, as we said, this is a companion to the Juvenile Restoration act attempt by Adnan Sead to stay out of prison. Ivan Bates has definitively withdrawn this motion. Some people, when he initially withdrew it, were like, well, maybe he just wants to replace it with A different one. No, that's not going to happen. This is done. If Adnan said it's going to have his conviction vacate, it's going to be. It's going to have to be some way out. Now what's going to happen with the hearing? They had an all day hearing on this. He put on a bunch of witnesses about how wonderful he is. There was very powerful testimony by Young Lee and by Hae Min Lee's mother. A lot of tears. Very moving. The judge was obviously moved by it. The judge noted that she was going to issue a written order. She did not say what she's going to do. I'll give you my prediction. Number one, I think she didn't say because I think she wants Adnan to suffer a little bit longer. I think she wants him to lay in bed for the next few nights wondering whether or not he's going to have to go back to prison. I do not think she will send him back to prison though. I will say this. Her comments to him were. She wasn't buying it. She's not like the last judge who was a willing accomplice to the fraud that was being perpetrated on the court. She was very clear that the victim in this case was Hae Min Lee, not Adnan Syed. Nevertheless, I don't think she'll send him back. I think he'll stay out. It's unfortunate that he's never going to admit what he did. I will say this. The one good thing about her releasing him without any conditions is he'll no longer be in custody. Which means he no longer has a real legal vehicle to challenge his conviction. The only legal vehicles he would have would be something called a writ of quorum nobis, which is incredibly difficult to succeed in. I may be one of the only lawyers in the country who's actually litigated that all the way to a Federal circuit of appeals. Ended up actually reaching an agreement with the other side and letting it go forward. So it was actually granted. Almost never happens. I wish we could tell. Maybe one day when I lose my job, we can tell that story. Because the whole case is crazy. Just an insane case that you guys would love. But there's that. But it almost never succeeds. And the other thing would be if like one day there was actual evidence, like they actually found real DNA of Bilal, you know, on Hay and were able to definitively prove that Adnan was not guilty. Usually in most states there's some sort of DNA statute. We're seeing this in the West Memphis three that even. That you can pursue even if you're not in custody, to sort of clear your name. So the avenues to clear his, quote, unquote, clear his name are basically zero if he's released from prison. So I think if things go the way I expect it to, he'll be free. He'll always claim to be innocent, and there will be many, many people who believe it's true. But he'll also always be a convicted murderer, which is important because he is a murderer whether he's convicted or not. But I think it's at least some justice to have the state officially recognize what he is.
- [56:39]
Alice
I'm gonna take a slightly different tact in case she's listening and wants some ideas of what to do. I would put him back in prison for the amount of time that he was improperly out because he didn't seek the proper vehicle and because there was fraud on the court in order to make sure. Right. There's also the deterrence effect, shall we say, of prosecutorial miscond, that when you seek to bring fraud on the court, there are consequences. And he never would have been out but for fraud on the court. And I think they will grant, you know, the juvenile, whatever, resentencing act, but the amount of time that he was out until whatever that filing was, even if it's a day, in order to make a point that you have to abide by the rules of the justice system. And there are not exceptions for people who somehow get the ear of a YouTuber or get the ear of some NPR, you know, podcast that they are no different than anyone else. We all follow the same rules and the same laws. Adnan Syed is not exempted. That's what I would do if I were her.
- [57:39]
Brett
Well, now if I'm getting to do whatever I want to do, it's a different story. That's what I predict will happen. What I would do.
- [57:46]
Alice
I'm predicting this as well.
- [57:48]
Brett
Well, that would be great. I would take that because.
- [57:50]
Alice
Because of the anger that she should rightfully have about the fraud on the court. And I do think there needs to be a message sent. I think it's within her realm, and it would be very justifiable in order to do that. Basically saying, like, oh, you want to skip the line? You got to go back to the line.
- [58:04]
Brett
I would write two opinions, one releasing him and one sending him back to prison for the rest of his life. And I would call him back to court and I would tell him, I have two opinions written here. One of Them releases you without conditions. One of them sends you back to prison for the rest of your life. If you would like to go free, you have to stand there and admit what you did and tell us exactly what happened that day. You have 30 minutes to think about it. Come back in here in 30 minutes and you let me know what you're going to do. And if he did not confess, I'd send it back for the rest of his life. That's what I would do. She's probably not going to do that, but that I would love to see. That would just. The world is not amazing enough for that to happen. So I will tell you, take Alice's middle ground, that he has to go back for the time he's been out. I'll take that.
- [58:56]
Alice
Well, there you have it. That was the filing. You can read it for yourself. If you disagree with us, that's perfectly fine. We are not gleeful because we think we're right or anything. We are gleeful because, as we stated earlier, I have renewed faith that prosecutor's offices will do the right thing. That fraud on the court will not stand. And I'd like to say 2025 is going to be the year where. Where reason and integrity will continue to prevail in the justice system. Because the justice system, unlike anything else really, in our society, it only exists because we put our trust in it. And when things like what has happened around the circus of Adnan Syed, it absolutely tarnishes and degrades the entire judicial system, not just in Baltimore, across our entire country. That's why this matters to us. Us. Because this filing is seeking to do his part from his office, what he has control over, to ensure that the judicial system is blind and no one is treated differently. And that's exactly what I would want if I were being prosecuted or if I were wrongfully convicted. And you should want this as well. You should want this for your taxpayer money. You should want this for the justice system that you live under. And I. I am very glad. Because Hae Min Lee's name comes up multiple times in this filing. Bates does not lose sight of who the real victim is here.
- [60:19]
Brett
And he apologized to the family at the hearing.
- [60:22]
Alice
Absolutely.
- [60:22]
Brett
For what had happened.
- [60:23]
Alice
And he talks about the harm done to Young Lee and the entire family. And absolutely that was done by Mosby. That was done by that office. Because that fraud on the court was a fraud on her and her family as well. And this is not to. He does not overstep lines here. Everything he says is backed up by that's why he shows all of the evidence that he uncovered in this. And I can only hope that we don't have to do this again, that moving forward, there will not be motion to vacate judgment. As we saw, that was a complete fraud that we can take. Now, all of this, learn from it, move on. As we've said so many times before, don't give any more of your time to this case. It is done. It is. There are no open investigations. He did it. He has not admitted to it. I don't think he ever will. But there is no more time he deserves from any of us. We should move on to truly wrongfully convicted people or trying to take these resources to solve cases for victims who are still awaiting justice. We do not have infinite resources. The Baltimore State's Attorney's office doesn't have unlimited resources. Now, hopefully they can go work on real cases that are still open now.
- [61:36]
Brett
Yeah. And look, I mean, if what happens is what I expect to happen and that motion is filed and he's freed, but guilty, I don't think we'll ever mention Adnan Saad again. And I hope not to because he's not worth your time. He's not worth any of our time. The only reason we've had to talk about him so much is because of the same reason that Ivan Bates felt compelled to write an 88 page map. There is value in facing this kind of injustice and calling it what it is. And you know what? I love this podcast. I'm glad we did. I'm glad we did this podcast. Calling Adnan Said a murderer and saying that Adnan Said is guilty is one of the proudest things I've ever done. Like the. If that's all we got out of this podcast, it was worth it. And I'm glad that we could be some tiny voice of truth. Truth. But Ivan Bates roared like a lion in this. In this filing, and he deserves all the credit in the world for it. So.
- [62:32]
Alice
So with that, it doesn't change the sad fact that Hae Min Lee's life was cut short. And let's not forget that. That's why you should feel outrage. But hopefully tonight, and all the knights coming forward, young Lee, Hae Minley's mother, the rest of their family can at least rest knowing that. But the state's office took a good look, and this conviction stands. And he is the one who did it. And justice was served in the court of law for Hae Min Lee. Wow. That was a fiery episode. Always. It's A fiery filing. What can I say? But as always, let us know what you think. You can email us@console.com you can read the filing for yourself. We will post it. We have posted it. Please do take a look at what a real honest investigation looks like and what, what fraud on the court can look like and what we need to do in order. This is not about where you turn your attention and where you, you know, decide to get your news. This is real life, real justice in the courts that has real ramifications and I hope there are ramifications for the people who perpetrated this fraud on the court. But with that, are there any questions that we want to answer after that fiery episode?
- [63:38]
Brett
I mean, we can. Sure, why not? Let's answer.
- [63:41]
Alice
Why not. Let's take the temperature down a bit. It.
- [63:43]
Brett
How's, how's little guy doing while we're over here?
- [63:47]
Alice
I don't know.
- [63:50]
Brett
He's fine.
- [63:51]
Alice
Ignorance is bliss.
- [63:53]
Brett
Okay, let's. Okay, so this is legal briefs. Right. So we gotta do a legal brief.
- [63:57]
Alice
Yes.
- [63:57]
Brett
Question. Remember you leave a five star review and leave a question. We answer your question. And there are fewer legal briefs questions than regular questions. So you can sort of get right to the front of the line if you do a legal brief question. Okay, let's see. Guess I'll ask you this one. But I don't, I don't actually have an answer for this, but. So this is from Kat. Kat wants to know I'm a nanny and say some pretty funny things to the kiddos. Like if you play on your iPads all day, you'll have a chicken noodle soup brain. What are some weird things you caught yourself saying to your kids?
- [64:33]
Alice
I don't know if I'm an aunt. I think everything I say is weird to them. Right. Like, no, don't lick your fingers after you've gone to the bathroom. Said that today.
- [64:42]
Brett
The thing about kids is they really challenge your ability to explain things because they're always asking you questions that you don't actually know the answer to and so. Or that are either so complicated or like sensitive that you don't want to, you don't want to tell them exactly how something happens. Right. My daughter is always talking about when I die and like, what she's going to do when I die and how like when she's 100, I only have a little while left to live and stuff like that. And because she doesn't really understand it, so she's always asking me these questions about like, what happens when you die and, like, all this other stuff, and it's just like, man. So I don't know that I have funny things that I'm always saying to him, as much as if he recorded me trying to explain complex questions to them, it would be hilarious.
- [65:33]
Alice
I mean, I'll say one thing. And you know this from coming to my house all the time. I don't think we're the only people, but we started this when my oldest was, like, one. But. But my kids love sparkling water, but we don't call it sparkling water because that is a strange concept. What do you mean? You're water sparkling. It's not sparkling. There's no color to it. So we call it spicy water or bubble water. And so we forget and we call it that in the wild. So we'll be at the restaurant, be like, can I have some of your spicy water? And they're like, excuse me, ma'am. What?
- [66:04]
Brett
I'm always telling people I'm gonna go to the potty. I was like, I gotta go to the potty. They're like, oh, o. Okay.
- [66:13]
Alice
Good for you, little buddy.
- [66:17]
Brett
Wow.
- [66:18]
Alice
Yeah, those are really. Those are really good. Yeah. My kids are really obsessed with death, too. And they talk about it all the time, in fact, so much so that when I put my oldest to bed, he's seven. I don't know if it's, like, an age thing, but it's been several years now that when I say good night, he'll say, I'm so gonna miss you when you die. That's how he says good night to me every night, y'all.
- [66:39]
Brett
Well, that's how. Did I tell you the baptism story? Have I told the story?
- [66:44]
Alice
No. No.
- [66:45]
Brett
So we go to church, and in my church, we don't. We don't baptize infants. We baptize, like, adults, right? So there was a. Like, a girl in the youth group who was getting baptized. And so, you know, my kids go to Sunday school during the preaching or whatever, and so they brought all the kids out so they could see it. So they see the whole baptism and everything. And. And after they go about, I go to pick up the kids, and my daughter is, like, on the edge of tears, and she's like, daddy, I don't want you to get baptized. And I was like, baby, what's wrong? And she's like, I'm not ready for you to go to heaven. And I was like, baby. She's like, baby, they're not taking Madison. Madison is the name of the girl. They're not Taking her out back to like, put her down or anything. Baby, it's so that one day when you die, you'll go to heaven. It's not. She's gonna go to heaven right now, but in her mind she was like, she's getting baptized to go to heaven, so she's. She's gonna die now. It was like, it was just. Just the, the tears, like, on the corner of her eyes. And I was like, I was baptized a long time ago. Baby, it's okay.
- [67:51]
Alice
I'm still here.
- [67:52]
Brett
I'm still here. But that's the thing, like, with kids, you don't. You never know how they're gonna take the simplest thing. And that's one of the joys of parenting, I guess.
- [68:04]
Alice
Also, this is the last one. This, you know, we've already talked about. Someone asked us our religion, so this, this will completely. Brett will completely disagree, but I was a little exhausted with questions this weekend at church. We're sitting in the pews and like, all four kids are like, kind of sick, coughing all over me being really not great during church. And my 5 year old, like, has asked 1 million questions. Literally, like, why is that going? What's the light coming through? When are you gonna make. Can I have some goldfish? What about that Goldfish? How do they make goldfish? Where the treasure? And like, non stop. And like throughout the whole mass. And like, finally it's like 45 minutes, we're almost done, but there's still like 15 minutes left. And he looks at me and he goes, what's in that cup? And I said, wine. And he goes, what happens to the wine? I said, it becomes. It's the blood of Jesus. It's part of the Eucharist. And he's like, how does it become the blood? And I said, transubstantiation. And everyone behind me started laughing their heads off because I was like, I can't answer any more questions. Like, he really knows.
- [68:58]
Brett
What transubstantiation?
- [69:00]
Alice
Yeah. Five pews back, everyone was just laughing their heads off because I'm like, I.
- [69:05]
Brett
Can'T handle it anymore. Oh, that's hilarious.
- [69:09]
Alice
Okay, well, there we go. We've lost everybody now. Oh, my goodness. Well, guys, thanks for staying with us. We got a question for you in and see how fun these questions are. Leave a five star review, you get to ask a question. Thank you guys for ideas of what to cover on legal Briefs. And also don't forget our other podcast, the prosecutor's podcast. But until next time, I'm Alice.
- [69:32]
Brett
And I'm Brett.
- [69:33]
Alice
And this is the prosecutor's legal brief playing with people's emotions.
- [70:13]
Brett
I would never do that.
- [70:23]
Alice
Yeah, I know. I mean, it took me, like, two days to read it broken up, but it was. It was a scathing, to say the least. Also, my point was it took forever to do the. To undo the craziness.
- [70:37]
Brett
Yeah.
- [70:38]
Alice
You know, like, imagine if they, I don't know, solved another murder during that time.
- [70:44]
Brett
Yeah. Instead of having other investigators on Operation Trash Paint it.