Serial S03 - Ep. 5: Pleas Baby Pleas
58:42 Share

This forecast is supported by U. S. bank. At U. S. Bank, when they say they're in IT with you, they mean IT.

Not just for the good stuff, that gray and openings and celebrations, although those are pretty great, but for all the hard work that took to get there, because together they're proving day in and day out that there is nothing as powerful as the power of us. Visit U. S.

Bank tok. Com to get started today. Equal housing lender member F. I, C.

You really have the boy.

okay.

previously on cereal. Don't you think you owe IT to him to tell this jury who shot this little boy and not be afraid anymore? Sir, the defense tourney .

came to me at the first pretrial, said you're gona dismiss this user are going to be looking at the harsh st past effect. K, every time I just look at everybody different, like, you know what what you .

want to say that I don't think .

that's what happened.

he said. That's what you're getting out.

From this american life and W, B, easy, chicago is cereal. One courthouse told week by week. I'm Sarah.

This is one of those cases that is so puzzling, because so many people are so certain of what they saw, who was involved, the end. We just have no way of knowing what IT is and what IT isn't. And you know, one break could change all that one break change at all.

This is a prosecutor, brian redan. He's talking about the avil wake field case, the one where the baby was shot in the car. He and another prosecutor were in charge of that case.

They're the ones who sought a thirteen count entitled against Steve on homes. They are the ones who argued a year later to let him go. And he eats at brian that they haven't solved IT.

And my why, why does that have to be this one? Why does that have to be the five one told .

when I asked to interview someone about obvious case, the can be prosecutors office easily could have said, this is still an open investigation. We can comment. But they did not do that. Instead, they gave me brian, and bryan told me a lot. I went to brian, chief ally, to find out why the case fell apart.

Did they release dave on homes because of some technicality? Or did they release him because Brown guy? First, though, we spend through the reasons they thought I was dave on to begin with, initially they had animal tips that IT was dave on. People who said, this is what I know, but you didn't hear from me just said.

no, this my information. You'll never find me if you bring me in a court, or if you try to put me on paper, record me or deny that I ever said any this stuff. But, you know, meet me in this park at eight o'clock and i'll tell, I mean, really like the stuff you seen the movies in.

the movies that's exciting in real life, not so great. But bryan said he was hoping to persuade one or two of those people to become witnesses by the time the trial rolled around. They had the jail held statement from that guy who am calling john, the guy who had known dave on since he was little.

Their brothers were friends. Bryant told me more about what john said, but he also told me they didn't really find IT credible, since some of the other people john had mentioned in his statement didn't seem to have a connection to dive on. They were older for one thing.

Bry's office was also looking into the guy a vielles father thought was responsible for the shooting, but they didn't have enough evidence to charge him with anything on davon. They also had his cell phone records putting him in neighborhood at the time, his own neighborhood. They also had a statement to the detectives.

And when he said he had been up the street at the family dollar when IT happened again, a statement davon told me he had never made. He didn't add up too much. But then they got the landscape er's. I D the landscape.

Remember what was the guy who finally chose dave once picture out of a photo array third time around, almost two months after the shooting, as I thought I was, the landscape er's idea that made the prosecutors feel comfortable, like they're looking at the right person. The landscape came off as genuine, believable. And bryan told me, the landscaper, he came to them.

He showed up. One day. The justice center took the elevator up to the nth floor to the libya, the prosecutors office.

Brian gets a call. IT is desk. There's a guy out here says he want to talk to you .

so I show up to the front. I say, hi you, you know, introduce myself and he says, i've get some information I want to talk to somebody about so I call the homicide unit. I didn't talk to him again.

We don't want to be witnesses, so I call the homicide unit. They come over here, they pick up and they talk to him. And when they're talking to him, there was there was a belief at the beginning from the officers handle in the case that this guy knows what is, but he's not gona pick him out.

Bryan says this guy was like a lot of witnesses. They deal with wanting to do the right thing, afraid to do the right thing, waffling.

He came down her a number of times and contacted the homicide in a number of time, saying, listen, I I wanted to do this. I wanted to come forward, but I do not want to come to ward. I do not want to testify.

I've got kids. He talked to us. He wanted us to move him out, out of where he was living because he was afraid of.

was he living in .

the neighbor d he was living in clive .

on and not in neighbor od.

No, but he was but he still was working in that neighbor od afterwards and in those have things. So he had he had his own concerns. Um but I think if if you asked him again, he would still believe that devon homes was the one.

And do you think devon homes is the one?

I think that there was pretty strong evidence that we found during the course of this and and that he was not, he is not.

Now we turned to part two of our conversation what made the case against dave van collapse, though I just wanted note, the amount of evidence brian had laid out does not seem like IT should be enough to take a person to trial for aggravated murder, much less convinced a jury to convict a person of aggravate or murder. But IT is enough.

Not saying that would have been a slam dunk for the state, but assuming the landscape showed up to court and testified, it's not far fetched to think davon might have been convicted. He easily could have gone down for this murder. But about a month before the trial was supposed to start, brian said they were made aware. He doesn't want to say exactly how they were made aware of a phone call, an exonerating phone call.

We had some evidence of somebody else that we believe is involved in the case on a recording that they didn't know was being recorded saying that the vine .

was not there was that I just .

IT was at a jail house school IT was not IT was not um again.

brian didn't want to to divulge too much about this recording. He thinks that if this case is ever gonna solve this call might be the key so IT doesn't to say too much about IT but what surprised me was IT didn't come from the detectives. IT didn't come from their side the most I can say is the recording came to them once.

IT did. They all SAT down in a conference room in the prosecutors office, the defense attorneys, brian, the cops, and they listen to this call. IT was between someone who knows and cares for davon and a Young man.

I'm not onna name in the call. Nobody identifies the shooter, but IT was pretty clear. The Young man knew what had happened the day avia was killed. Brian says he understood right away that he had to take this seriously.

When you actually hear somebody say IT, when they don't know that they're being recorded and that that changes things.

There were only a few weeks from trial at this point. Now they scrambled. They needed to verify that the recording was real, that the people in the call were who they said they were, and that the call itself wasn't theater manufacturer to spring day on.

Once they did all that, they were assessed. Do we still think theyve on homes as the guy? They weren't sure. Maybe not. They decided they couldn't proceed.

File a motion to dismiss the phone call ended the case against devon, but IT also gave ryan new evidence to work with the Young man in the recording, he sounded involved in some way. Brian called up detectives he knew in the fourth district. Do you know thing about this guy? Funny thing.

They said, as matter of fact, we're looking at him for a car jacking also for shooting. Brian says, can you hurry up? Chop, chop and they do.

Pretty soon they've got him in custody. They charged him for the car jacking and for the other shooting, even though these wouldn't Normally be cases for bryan's units. Since nobody died, brian prosecutes them, tries to get the guy to CoOperate, starts freezing him.

I'll help you out on a plea if you help us on the ovo wake field case. Twelve years is Better than, say, thirty years, right? The guy won't talk, won't talk, won't talk.

Brian tried for a months, nothing. Last fall, the guy pleaded guilty in those cases to a robbery in attempted murder and was sentenced to seventeen years. Brian knows that this guy, serving time for something entirely else, might be the closest cell creep towards justice.

In obvious s case, the kind of sideways justice will alcon am bryan had said, which is a funny thing, firm to say, because brian looks a lot like a Young. It's unsatisfying. I know the crime isn't solved.

That's unsatisfying, obviously. But also davon SAT accused for a year that shouted have happened. But when I asked her on the justice center about IT, people said, yeah, that's a shame, but at least they corrected IT.

No one was demanding an inquiry into what went wrong or yelling for reform. No handwringing. There was more resignation.

What you going to do? Judges say they can't control what cases that prosecutors bring to them. Prosecutors say they are relying on the detectives. Detective's say their information is only as good as what the public ffs up can they help IT.

If people lie with old, I get IT when no one feels fully responsible for the outcome, when blame is spread out and diluted, a situation like devons becomes easier to shrug off. What are you going to do? Starts to feel like an answer rather than an urgent question.

I ended up spending a bunch of time with Brown right again, hanging around while he did his job in bar, because I like them right away, and also because he is one of the most powerful people in the justice center. He'd never admit that i'm not sure he fully sees IT, but it's true. Prosecutors are the most powerful people in any courthouse.

Defense attorneys will tell you y'd rather have a fair prosecutor and an unfair judge than a fair judge and an unfair prosecutor because of all the people who shape a criminal case, the prosecutor has the most direction, especially at the crucial beginning, when the thing is still germinating. The prosecutors deciding whom to charge and with wet crimes is also deciding what the plea deal is gna look like. Don't tell the judges in the building, but often the prosecutor is more or less deciding the sentences people get because of this big power they hold.

Prosecutors of late have been the focus of blame for a lot of the problems in our system and the focus of reform efforts. And that's not undeserved. But IT is incomplete.

Most of the prosecutors i've talked to, it's not that they're gunning for cheap assembly line justice or for unprecedented discriminatory devastatingly high rates of concern, is that that's the job we've given them. I feel like I can't explain this without telling you some history of how we got here, but I want to explain that. So here goes our worst modern era of crime in the U.

S. If you look at the F B. I. Stats began in the one thousand nine hundred and sixties and seventies.

Most people now agree we were under policing and also under incarcerating. Then we swung away way the other way. Cops made more arrests, which meant more prosecutions.

But the huge crease in arrests in charges did not correspond to commence ate increase in the number of prosecutors or the number of cops. But that's another story. His once statistic really hit me.

In one thousand nine hundred and seventy four there around seventy thousand local prosecutors dealing with around three hundred thousand felling prosecutions. By two thousand and seven, the number of prosecutors had jumped to about thirty two thousands of a significant increase, but they were dealing with nearly three million feline prosecutions. That's a tenfold increase from one thousand nine hundred and seventy four.

The upshot, vastly more prosecutions handled by relatively fewer prosecutors. The only way for them to keep a float plea bargains, as one cleveland judge, to me, play arguing, isn't part of the criminal justice system. IT is the criminal justice system, please, are cheap.

They lead to more convictions and to more. And, and we've given prosecutors many tools to negotiate these. Please, lots of forces help this push toward harsher criminal justice.

Economic forces, the forces of racism and discrimination. Some unfortunate U. S. Supreme court decisions, politics and more politics. But the one you don't always hear about is legislation.

In the decades, post one thousand nine and seventy, most states began revamping their sentencing guidelines and their criminal codes. A lot of crimes were being defined both more broadly and more specifically, theft, fraud, burglary, robbery, assault, sexual sault, kidnapping. Their definitions expanded, which made them harder to defend against.

And they Carried more serious penalties, saying, with laws about guns and especially about drugs, expensive criminal codes allow prosecutors to expensively charge, because a single criminal act doesn't have to be single charge. You can pile on as many charges you want, doesn't matter if they overlap, so long as each one requires you to prove something slightly different. That's how an armed robbery can end up charged as, say, eight felonies.

That sound like echoes bouncing around a canyon. Committed a theft while having a deadly weapon, committed a theft while having a deadly weapon and either displayed the weapon brandished IT indicated that he assessed or used IT. On top of all that, you've got sentence enhancements, what are known in clean as specks that you can tuck inside particular charges, repeat offender specks, gang specks, gun specks, and the one I, some most in cahoots county, usually one and three year Mandatory prison time for the use of a gun.

Even though the use of a gun is baked into the definition of many charges. Already the result is a kind of indication shock and R. Charging like this, what's known as stacking charges or just overcharging induces, please, of course, IT does because the prosecutor can accord in the indictment however he needs, if you played, will drop everything but the phone is assault, or you go to trial on the full, formidable indication.

And chances are, if you go to trial, you're gonna get convicted of something. Just the visual of a long entitled is a signal to the jury. Look at this list, he must done something.

And while some charges probably are going to merge at sentencing, as a rule, the more stuff you're convicted of, the longer your sentence is going to be. So yeah, you plead. That's why the prevAiling practice in most prosecutors offices is to charge crimes as harshly as they can.

IT might swell prisons and invigorate entire neighborhoods, but IT is efficient. All of this brought me to brian right again. I wanted to know something very basic.

How does he make his decisions? How much of what brians doing is coming from brian? His own sense of what's right? And how much is beyond his control, the job we've given him?

Yeah.

brian works in the major trial unit homicides, mostly in his office. He's got a mini fridge and a needier desk and a window with the blinds drawn that overlooks like nothing fancy by long shot case files and boxes. Evidence are piled around complaining chair.

Brian looks sharp, though he was a suit every day. He never knows when he might be pulled into a courtroom, but the way his beard stubble scraps against his color, you understand he's enduring the costume, not enjoying IT. He doesn't appear to revel in his power.

He favors the all sharks variety of dominance. From what I can tell, brian is univerSally respected in the justice center. He's fourth right.

He has compassion. He can take a joke. The thirty eight married two little kids, a regular, amiable guy. The days I spent with him, he had two cases on his docket. One aggravated vehicular homicide, a rape case. One full is assault, which he Normally wouldn't get, that the guy sault three police officers, the rest murder or aggravated murder. Mostly drug deals gone bad.

Some bullshit like retaliation. Yes.

all day people are knocking, calling, texting. He's getting updates on cases, giving updates on cases .

be decided. yeah. right?

Brian takes a call from radius and homicide detective, he's working on a shooting case happened outside a nightclub. B, on the west side. Detective ds tells ryan they're about to interview a witness.

right? All me, when you done right, this is a guy that we've been he was with the defender and we've been trying to get him to comment and do an an interview. And every time he says he's coming in, he cancels already and have a ride or we've show at his house and he's not there.

So we last week, I printed out a sophana for the two homo detectives. They want to serve them. And so he just called and said, he's going to be here today.

So this is excEllent timing. Brian has a pretrail. L in that case, this afternoon right now though, he's about to have a meeting with two other detectives. On another case, they just walked .

in pay art horn to hi .

art echoes and around the grade, the same one from devon's case. And no, they wouldn't let me record them. They were there to talk about the case that had made the news wasn't the kind of shooting you usually hear about in cleland, IT started as a squabble between strangers on a city bus, then spilled onto the sidewalk where an older man had shot and killed a Younger man. Brian explained me that this case was unusual for them because the entire episode was recorded by security cameras on the bus.

This is one of those rare cases where you you see the whole story. Ninety percent of our cases were not watching them unfold. And if if something is caught on on camera, whatever, usually it's from a distance and you don't kill the dialogue and don't get to see everybodies reaction, you don't have seven different angles or nine different angles of that. You know this is like the the outlier crazy. I can't believe I have to watch this whole thing and see all the decisions that we're made that LED to the sky dying because you're watching IT you're watching like god just and you want to tell me, just stay off the boss, just the boss.

This incident happened three and half weeks earlier. The older guy was in jail, but he hadn't been invited yet. The meeting with detectives this morning is to figure out how they're onna handle IT what charges brian should present to the grand jury.

This is a tRicky one though, because brian can see how the whole thing unskilled. Now he's not sure a crime even occurred. The stories in the newspaper had quoted police as saying that the older guy, the shooter, had been harassing passengers on the bus, but the bus videos show the opposite, the older guy, the shooter, he was the one being provoked.

It's possible this was self defense. We got a conference room. There's a big screen set up so they can watch the footage from the bus.

Brian had mentioned something about seven or nine camera angles, and I thought he was joking, but he wasn't for exactly this reason. Crime city buses in clean or wired up like a tennant bank faults. The footage were watching starts from before the beginning, when everything was calm.

thank.

The older guy, the shooter, his name is abdul rock mon, had gotten on the bus at public square right near the justice center. He's in his early sixties, but he looks older, has got a long grey beard, a loose sweaters. T he's scruffy.

He's not homeless, but he might have been mistaken for homeless. You see mister rock man sitting in a window seat by the rear doors of the bus, mining his own business. He's holding what looks like a folded newspaper magazine in his hand.

Then a Younger guy sits down next to him. They don't know each other, but evidently the Younger guy starts insulting mr. rock.

Man, you can't make out what he's saying. But other passengers told the cops later that he was complaining to mister rock, md, that he smell bad. This Younger guy is not the one who gets shot.

By the way, mister rock man gets up, tries to leave the sea. The Younger man blocks him. Ryans watched all this before, but he can't help wishing IT won't go the way .

it's gonna go. This keeps john and just go sit. There's opens about right there. Just go sit there.

The Younger guy is being an asshole shining up a confrontation. But as brian pointed out, ashli is not a criminal offence. He finally lets mister rock man pass.

Mister rock man stands by the bus doors, but he doesn't move to a different part of the bus. He's still arguing with the Younger guy who's starting yet physical. Now he slabs the folding magazine from mister rock man's hand.

Mister rock man bends rather Gracefully to the floor, picks IT up. You're going to chat, it's not clear, but you can hear mister rock man say, I like my freedom, as then i'm not going to fight with you. They start name calling bitch, you bitch.

Younger guy says, coming another bitch. I'm going to fuckyou up. It's familiar of this scene, a bunch of strangers getting into IT on public transportation in the whole time you're doing the bystander's trigonometry.

How long till I stop? Should I say something? Where are we? Should I move seats at this point? A woman named Rachel asks, the mental cannet SHE is sitting in nearby with a few other people, including her boyfriend Andrew.

Easily, the man is going to a get killed in about two minutes. Rachel says to the guys are arguing, hey, can you see my new is sitting right here? Get your us off the bus in.

Calm down. And he does. Mister rock man gets off for the next step, but then he lingers on the sidewalk. You just want to scream, walk, walk the extra five box for god sakes. But he gets back on the bus ten seconds later.

The Younger guy says, this is is especially hard to hear, but it's important because it's possible this is what jacked up the situation. He says, I got A C C W. C C W stands for Carrying a concealed weapon, god license.

He's implying that his armed right now, legally, he does not have a gun. But presumably mister rock man doesn't know that. Then the Younger guy pulls the court to single.

He wants to get off at the next stop. He says to mister rock, man, man, it's get off the bus. Like, let's stick IT outside you and me.

He's up in mister rock man's face. Start slapping adam. Suddenly mister rock man pulls a gun. His own gun has got IT in his right hand, and he points IT at the Younger guys head. Rachel and the other people on the bus start freaking out.

The bus pulls up to the stop, Rachel muscles her way to where mister rock man is. The doors open, and then SHE kicks him where in the bat straight off the bus onto the sidewalk. Her boyfriend Andrew easily is right behind her. Now he steps off the bus, his tall and lanky, dressed all in White, long, White shorts, White shirt, White hat, White sneakers.

He strives toward mister rock man, whose working backwards now, mister rock man holds up his gun again, waves IT around a little Andrew easily retreats quickly back onto the bus, where the Younger guy who started all this is hovering by the open doors. Then you hear Rachel and someone else say something you especially washed. They had not said, which is.

that's a water gun.

mr. Rock man is walking away now. But Andrew, when the Younger guy go after ham again, finally, right, does someone on the bus said something like, why do you all gotten beat up on this old man?

Mister rock man shoots Andrew easily in the torso. E he falls, someone starts screaming. mr. Rock man jogs away.

The police have statements from some of the people inside the bus, but the statements are not as reliable as the married recordings we've just watched. The detective's conceive themselves how the thing cracked up, emotionally blocked by block as the bus traveled east on superior avenue, a mister rock's house, they found a gun. IT fell out onto detective echoes his foot when he was looking through.

Mister rock mans closed. They don't have casings, but they're ninety nine percent at the same gun from the bus. So no question, what happened here? Abdo rock man used his own gun to shoot Andrew easily.

The question is, was at a crime, okay? Bryant says, so really the issue is, did he have a choice? He had these two guys coming after him.

One of the detectives nudges bag, says, I feel that argument won't work after mister rock man could have made other choices. Hey, could have gotten off the bus earlier. Brian says when he gets off the bus the last time he's walking away, he's not be engaging and he's got two guys aftertime. One of the detective suggests brian might change his mind when he sees this one. Last video we watched IT later, one more camera angle, the part, the detectors, wanted brian to see mister rock man's pasture right at the end.

So at that point, I mean, he's gone backwards, but he is doing that where boxing shuffle.

it's true. He's doing a boxing shuffle like he's fixing a fight. I learned mister rock man wasn't always called mister rock man.

Decades ago. He was called ricardo spain, and he was a heavyweight fighter. He mostly lost his professional belts, twenty three losses out of twenty six fights. One of them.

the law, I was against mike .

atlantic city, eighty .

five. The legs have gone. This is all over. Yes, IT is, I don't believe that that at all. Inside a minute.

Yes, IT is thirty eight seconds, which is not the fastest tyson ever. Not to guy out. Now I understand why the detective wanted to be sure brian saw that last video, because IT does make you wonder, was a former heavyweight who can still muster a boxing shuffle really afraid of those two guys on the bus?

After the meeting with the detectives, I said brian was leaning slightly self defense, but he's still not sure. And because he's not sure, he's going to let the grand jury make that call tomorrow when they present the case for indeed ment. Technically, of course, the grand ery is always supposed to make that call.

There are the ones who vote on whether there is probable cause to charge someone with a crime. But well, for you lawyers and legal eagles ham sandwich, I know for the rest of you, I will spare the ham sandwich click and just explain. The grand ury is supposed to be a citizens check on government power, but in practice, grandjon is usually vote.

The way prosecutors want them to vote, trouble will cause is a low, low standard. You just have to show that it's logical to believe this person might have committed this crime at a grand jury presentation. There is no judge, no cross examination, no defense.

In fact, in ohio, according to the state bar quote, even if a prosecutor nose of information which would help show that the accused person is innocent, he is not required to present IT to the grand jury. So how works is that the cops in the prosecutor tell the grand jas what they think happened. The prosecutor presents them with a proposed detection here.

All the charges, we believe fit this crime. If you guys agree, sign right here bryans gonna. Figure out what charges is.

He gonna ask them to vote on tomorrow. Like, what will you write up in the indictment? In terms of .

the charges, I think no yet. Murder, I think, is the high end that that would be. And below that is voluntary.

Mans, ugh. Ter, and I think that goes between those two. And voluntary manslayer is basically like heat and a heat passion. Or are you being provoked? It's a crime that's .

that's provoked. But and your .

your .

decided I no.

I am not the decider. I am not the decider. I don't decide anything just for what suit i'm aware to. No, it's sure he has to run stuff .

by the bosses down the hall usually saw evidence whose supervises his unit. His brother moo is also in the major trials unit. But the idea that brian is not deciding anything, no, because he could play this various ways.

Brian could show the juries one camera angle or seven camera angles. He could present all the statements from the people on the bus, or just the ones that same mr. Rock man was the aggressor.

He could put murder on the proposed independent and never mention the word self defense. But this one, he tells me he really can see IT either way, crime or no crime. So his plan is to put the whole nigella in their labs, let the grand agers decide he's going to show them all the camera footage, read them all the witness havens. He talks IT through with a parallel al nia. He is preparing .

the materials for the grand jury. Should we do the video before we talk about what each one says are play the body? What do you think? I think I want to play the video first.

see that he doesn't want the camera footage to be covered by the statements. So it's going to be footage first and he decides he's not only gona mention self defense, he's gone to explain self defence, tell them what the legal elements are.

I might have you throw something together from a roque and south fans. I've got stuff.

He goes and gets the pages to .

estaban off the fence. The foreign elements must be shown. And this is out of A A high spring court case. The slater was not fault and create in the situation given rise the situation. So I had a boniface belief that he was imminent danger of death or great bodily harm.

You didn't instigate IT. You had a genuine fear that you'd be killed or badly hurt. You fulfilled your, quote, duty to retreat. You try to get away.

But if you just want to add in those two things going and then you can .

a while later, brian tells me he's thinking he's not gonna put murder on there, just the voluntary manslaughter.

This is not set stonier, but I believe it's just going to be voltore manslaughter. I don't think there's going .

to be a murder charge when .

the decade ded IT hasn't been decided. So I said just I think that that's what what going to. There's clearly some agent here.

There's clearly some you know, he's being proud, right? I mean, I think you can see that in the video. It's and it's clear from the beginning, the guy, the kid won't let them get out of the sea. I mean, there's some um he didn't start this so we say and I could be I mean here in in really for my perspective, like it's not if not so much matter what I think right now, it's it's kind of what the grand jury is going to think, you know. So i'll play IT for them in.

I mean, you have you have a point of view that you're going that's gonna come across for sure how you present things, how you what you stress, what I mean, it's probably hugely influential. I don't mean in a in a in a quippy way.

I just mean like, yeah, I think so. But I also try to be fair to the process, you know I mean, I don't want them to just .

say what .

do you think? What do you think you know? Because I know what? What's the point? I just, I if if I, if I was going to do that way, why even do the whole thing? why? Why play the video form? Why talk about what each witness and there says? Why talk about where they are in the boss? I could just go in there and say, you know, he shot him.

He shouldn't shot him and that of murder. You know, in a case like this, I think that is so important to give the full picture. And if they have the full picture, they should be able to make the decision based on that, not on what I say.

Afterwards, I went down to the first floor atrium to get a snack. The atrium has a little cafe in tables in charge that you have to choose carefully because they are frequently sprinkled with bird poop. Now, you know, I was chatting with a manual, and then we started talking to these three defense attack.

Ys, we knew at a nearby table I told him about the rock man case about how much material brian rd, again was gone to show the grand jury and their faces. One looked furious. Another was smirking.

I felt one of them roll his eyes at me, but I might be making that up regardless. The gist was clear. He's putting on a show for you.

It's never like that. They said they never have that much evidence before they go to the grand jury. People get and died for stuff in ninety seconds.

No discussion. They know you are coming, sucker. These are all people who know brian right again, who respect him, but such as their disbelief that actual fairness could be at work upstairs.

That almost going a lot was possible. I told bryan about this conversation a little awkward. Dly was just like how you got a play. Sister, I not telling you you got who's said why? Because then .

i'll be butted ted.

jack. Bb, your secret safe with me, I did not tell, but I did wanna know. What did bryan think of what the defense attorneys were saying that prosecutors in cops are taking cases before the grand jury, often seeking severe charges based on thin information before the crime has been investigated in any railway? Answer was, yeah, that does happen. Sometimes you do get cases that are solid right from the gets go, or maybe get lucky with evidence like with this rock my case.

And again, sometimes there's just there's just not enough there. And or we we think we have enough in the new learn information are later on. And again, remember a lot of times too, you're under a time brunch.

He's talking about speedy trial rights for defendants. Also, if they don't inde, within ten days, the defendant gets a preliminary hearing before a judge to determine probable cause, which the prosecution does not want. That is a whole procedural nonsense you do not want into get into right now, I promise.

But what IT all means is that they are in a hurry to get cases to the grand jury. Brian told me. It's all about speed, unfortunately.

And again, speed might not be a problem if you didn't have thirteen thousand felonies to process, but you do. So yeah, it's obviously not ideal when investigations aren't fully cooked. But brian said, sometimes you've got a major crime .

in front you if somebody is arrested for IT and you got to make a determination, I mean, what are you going to do if you if you really think that you have the guy, that you have the right guy. Um do you want amount on the street to? You say it's a murder. You want to know the street to go to another one or just say, you know, I think we've got enough here. You know, it's so it's .

not perfect. And sometimes because of that, he said, they make mistakes. And sometimes because of that, this is me talking. Now you end up with cases like dvds, but what you going to do more after the break?

Holidays got you stressed, take a meditated moment and make cookies any time with instincts, feel your shoulder drop and your breath deep in as you realize you won't have to go out for groceries. Risk yourself away on smooth waves of bat allow the familiar fragrance to waft through your home and your mind. Dissolve your anxieties with cookie recipes from new york times cooking.

Get ingredients delivered in as fast as thirty minutes through indecent. Find a recipe at N. Y. T. cooking. Got calm slash indecent.

This podcast is supported by carvin a with carvings, a value tracker. You can track our cars of value anytime, anywhere. If you want to know what your cars worth car one of value tracker analyzes your cars, make model condition, market and more to give you the value for your vehicle.

Carona will even let you know when your cars of value changes with update emails. So you're always up to date however you value your car. No, it's worth with carbon a value trucker. This afternoon.

the main thing brian's got is a pretrial, a humble back of the hallway pretrial, which is precisely we're, i'll get to see the most powerful guy in the equation, brian, do the very thing a half century of legal tinkering has primed him to do, negotiate a plea. The case is the one that detective idea is called about this morning. It's a nightclub shooting.

The defendant named dominic Williams, had been at the M M M saloon, and when the place let out for the night, Williams allegedly shot and killed the guy right outside a bunch of shots fairly close range. As Williams was running away, an off duty police officer working security at the club started aftertime, and Williams shot at him, didn't hit him with the cop, shot back and hit domine Williams in the button. He was arrested on the spot.

A gun was found on a porch in nearby detective D. S. Calls again and tears brian about the witness he'd run into interview the witnesses of friend Williams was at the bar with apparently .

the front talk. okay. So we've got he's identified.

He's identified the Williams as a shooter then. okay. Well, that's a pretty good statement for us. Then I guess ah ah yeah um when you when you come Operate, can you are you going you think we done with what one fifteen okay brians pretrail in this .

case starts in fifteen minutes. This call puts brian in a stronger position to negotiate on the way to the elevator. Brian cees supervisor saw evellin in the hallway, gives him a swift update on this new evidence.

We take the elevator .

up to sixteen. Head to the real area. Brian find stone. William is attorney crag wine trib.

He's been assigned this case along with another tourney who didn't shop today. They sit down. Craig starts to talk about a possible plea. He doesn't know about the ID witness cops are interviewing downstairs. At this very moment.

we get a present, an offer to use at the deal OK. Well, one thing I should die the is the guy that Williams was with his body at the bar that we were able to track him down. They just interviewed today, and he is, your guy says, yeah, he, I walked outside, walked out before your guy and then volume s walks out. He says, then I see you need to .

walk out that's the victim darante he go.

doesn't say word and was rated off like five shot tail. How is he tracked down? what? What was the story? Put a pio out to him, put IT on a door. You go into the, drag him out of fundamental my house.

You know what you think? Yeah, okay yeah ah and so now that he seen sunlight, where did he go? By the way, why did he disappear in? What's his story? How he has and step forward to say, oh my god, I witnessed homicide, is that he's been in contact with the as itself and justice stood him up like five or six times to come down.

More important things to deal. He doesn't want to be a rat. He does not want to rat on your guy. I think currently he has brian is .

used to crag win tribe is probably done about ten murder cases with them. Unfun fact about crag wine tribe. He represented erie castro, the guy who impressed three women in his house for ten years. After a case like that, maybe you either quit the law or you stick IT out. Why is greg your way through the day whenever possible?

Regards, I know you're talking about now. He was the guy I walked in and I saw him being being LED by D. S. Had the king and a dog he think .

I couldn't see get .

IT by plays along. Those are, those are prop seal of get rid of before the trial, i'm going to get the court room. We're going to practice how many steps straight. How many steps are the right know I do we .

they start talking numbers sounds like an auction, but that's how they're negotiating this plea. First figure out a prison sentence dominic illian s can live with, then figure out the charges he'll have to play to. That'll add up to those numbers.

I was looking at a range of like a maybe twelve to fifteen. You don't get smiles on, see, twelve to fifteen until you found this guide slider and around brian's laughing .

because laughter able, there's no way twelve to fifteen is more like armed robbery time. My trip knows that.

What do you think a bottom and number is on this flat timer? Or it's going to be a big number, it's not going to be a lifetime? E, I mean, that's the that's the issue here.

I'll translate. Flat time means the number is the number. Twenty years is twenty years.

But murder charges in ohio Carry was called the live tail murder starts at a Mandatory fifteen to life. Aggravated murder starts at Mandatory twenty to life. Williams is charged with both kinds, which come with a raft of gun specks.

If you get a life tail, say twenty to life means you have to serve twenty years before you can apply for parole, which you are not likely to get, at least not the first time around. So twenty of life could mean twenty years or IT could mean you spend the rest of your life in prison. Dominic Williams is twenty seven years old. Understandably, he wants flat time for that to work. They're gonna to reduce the charges to some kind of manslaughter.

What do you think realistically? It's not I mean, it's not twenty years high. That was before the other guy said, yeah, he's the one that shot him and I watched them yeah, it's not it's not a good factory, guys.

I mean, I really think I could be a manslaughter with our range of maybe you don't fourteen to twenty. Potentially, but beat that as may. I forgot i've got I have a police officer.

I got to worry about two. So keep that in mind. I mean, that's you know that's where you're talking in. If you if you want to range, you're talk in height. One is in the mid thirties, probably war. He just takes IT on the chin and doesn't murder and you get the live tae right let's figure IT out yeah.

Whatever member they settle on, there's confidence the judge will go for IT by the time we get back to brian's office. The detectives on the Williams case are waiting for him to tell him more about the witness interview. It's radius and also a detective.

jodie remington.

and five years federal .

something yeah.

brian and the detectives are easy with each other, no areas or formalities. You can tell they work together a long time.

People been talking, but he said, as far he knows, that was for no reason.

Watching how closely brian works with detectives all day gave me an appreciation for why this system finds prosecuting a cup so excruciating. Brian has had to do IT just a months and a half ago, he prosecuted a clean and officer after he shot, killed the teenager. Eighteen had broken into a store, the cup was charged with negligent homicide, and mister miner and brian took IT a trial, not with relish.

Nobody wants to do on I mean, nobody no judges don't want them process returns. One of the police that are investigating don't want him um because they're hard legally.

They're complicated because cops are allowed to kill people in certain circumstances but also for brian, they're morally complicated. Ban supports police officers. He knows how many guns are on the street.

He thinks their job is harder than it's ever been. But he also doesn't think that eighteen year old deserve to die that night by prosecuting the officer. Bryant feel like he was taking aside, if I like, he was doing his job. But at the trial, the police made IT obvious they did not feel the same way. Um you were in .

that room. What was the thing that seemed the weird? You in that room, me at the table by myself.

And like forty police officers on the other side, I mean, that was weird, wasn't IT. I mean, IT was weird. IT was strange, you know. And then I had one detective that came in out me, find me, but, you know, that's weird. I mean, I know, I know them, but that see what? I mean, know how easy you can turn into others, them, how they can, how they IT looks like we've turned on them.

The all around is comfort of that. The police feeling attack brian, feeling as if they are glaring at him like he's a trader. Plus the public perception that the government suits on the night floor will never really give their all to prosecuting their piles.

And blue is why my hook, a county, recently changed its policy. Local cases of police shootings are now farmed out to prosecutors from another county. Incidentally, the judge in that case found the officer not guilty, and the judge was endorsed for real election by the police union soon after. Neither outcome surprised brian.

Back to the dominic walliams case, the net club shooting, ryan asked the detectives what they think Williams is sentence should be.

I know you guys, you don't give a shit, but what do you guys think of for a number for Williams?

I'm always come to that. Should that that our victim did something before this to bring this about, he may have, I think the problem that dominic cares is, I mean, he shoots in five times. He's not armed.

And then he knowingly runs from a police officer who's identifying himself and he has the on this to turn and shoot at a policemen. They're talking flat time and I don't and I have based by saying, twenty years and no go, I mean you and now the the one witnesses identified him and said he is the shooter. So I mean.

I not on the case, I was place to speak, but yeah seems low. That's Chris rode, another prosecutor who was waiting to talk to brian about .

a different murder case for a gao I think sounds like executed this guy outside and then shot the cops was fleeing and find two cases.

And I know we found two cases, but I know the policeman thought he shot more, but even even this we brun in today said he stood over him .

and shot him yes yeah I mean, so it's it's if you want to fa time, it's at least thirty, right? I mean.

I 会 这样。

好看。

After the detectives left, brian and Chris rode discuss a double homicide. If that guy wants to plead, Chris said, I would have to be something like forty to life or fifty to life. It's going to have to be a high, high mark.

He said, I found these huge numbers shocking. I'm not even sure why. Obviously, I know people get multiple cade sentences, life sentences, all the time. Maybe IT was because I had just been reading about germany's sentencing practices, where a sentenced for the very worst crimes usually last about fifteen years at most.

Or maybe because i'd now seen and talk to people, Young, Young people, who were staring at the prospect of ten years, fourteen years, and they were desperate bride. And I talked about this for a while. I told him about my conversation with Charles wakefield, ibs father.

He wanted the person who killed iv, l. To be punished. But he also considered what happened, his daughter, a coin code accident.

He knows who ever shotted didn't set out that day to murder a baby. That was a mistake by justice center standards. His vengeance was very conservative. I can't remember how I came up but so he kind of throughout the number like ten years and I was really surprised because I was like, you know, pursing it's convicted for that murder there no way ten years is coming out the other end like you know and body was interesting in me like that that seemed he could baLance the scales in his head with with a ten years sense like that seemed about right to him.

Do you think ten ten years fair though for killing kid?

I mean.

I don't know the fair is such a weird thing because I feel like IT totally depends on the person, right? So like me say it's in eighteen old or a seventeen year old, maybe ten years is fair because by the time that person is closing in on thirty years old, they've totally changed and matured and like realized like, wow, I made a lot of horrible choices like I don't know that you're gona have a difference between thirty and fifty or thirty and sixty or thirty and seven month in terms of a .

danger to the public. I shouldn't be some aspect of a significant punishment forward to. And I don't know that ten years after taking the life of somebody is enough.

I just don't I mean, I I understand that there is going to be there is going to be that change. And hopefully there is there's that realization like any late twenty years or something like, holy shit, I fucked up now, I fucked up. But I don't know that that's just because you have that realization that you should be able to get out. There should be .

some .

aspect of a punisht years punisht. Uh, it's not just that that IT was a baby, okay. IT was a bladen disregard for everybody safety on that street. Thank as my else. Think a chat. Okay.

at this point I feel like even I need a reminder. IT is not ryan's job to sentence anyone that's for the judge. But certainly brian is teaming up the sentences people get and when he's thinking about sentences, IT was also striking to learn what brian was not thinking about deterrent crime or who exactly is getting locked up. He doesn't come to work everyday thinking about criminal justice policy. That's not what's guiding him.

I you know deterrence and laws and how to fix communities and all that type of stuff like I try I try not think of that way. I think it's just were Better off worrying about our our victims here because when i'm talking to somebody that had their son killed or their daughter killed, mother raped and murdered, they don't care about the deterrent.

They don't give a shit about somebody else's kid or whatever they care about what am I doing for them and that's what I that's how I try to keep IT. So I try to think of what can I what s the best thing I can do for these people you know sometimes it's the play, sometimes it's going to try whatever it's um I don't know that we ever if we deter people, we hope we do. I mean, that's why we have some of these sentences and things like that.

But you know, we've got gone specks now for people that if you commit a crime with the gun, you're going away from our prison. We have one year gn specks and three year and five year and eight year specks, and I think they're great. But I don't know if it's eliminate the amount of guns around the streets. You know. I mean, does IT is a deterrent? The next guy from picking up behan.

I don't know. Brian, is using all the legal and procedural tools at his disposal, all the tools we've given him to resolve cases, mostly through please. But he doesn't know if what he's doing is making clean and any safer.

You can't consult research that it'll tell him what sentences equal, what result or a state why database is showing whether sentences are being applied equally without racial bias because, and I know i've mentioned this before, but IT bears repeating because IT is a massive black hole in our own understanding of our own criminal justice system. But there is no comprehensive data on sentencing. We don't keep track.

What we do know is that overall, more and more prosecutions, longer and longer prison sentences, while they do have some effect on crime, but not that much, it's very little big for such huge box. That's why brian concentrates on the only result he can really see day to day, which is when some measure of peace descends on a crushed to family. So that's what he aims for, a punishment big enough to trigger the healing power of retribution. I mean, that's so what you have to look at, IT, he said. Because if you look at IT any other way, you will lose your mind.

Dominic Williams wasn't going to be agree to thirty years flat time. He also rejected an offer of twenty life. Instead, he took him to trial.

He was convicted easily. He is now serving sentence of thirty five years to life in the grand jury vote on the abdul rock man case. They now build the voluntary manslaughter.

They did not think he should be charged with a crime purchase. Ting Andrew easily seems they decided IT was self defence. After spending about seven weeks in jail, mister rock man pleaded guilty to illegally having a gun, and he was sentenced to two years probation.

Brian met with Andrew, easily y's family, to tell them about the grand jury vote. He said they were unhappy about IT, but that he thought they understood IT. Many months later, I interviewed under easily older sister jacquin.

SHE did not understand that he had watched the security tapes from the bus. SHE didn't understand why the prosecutors didn't charge the two people whom he thought incited the thing. Andrews girlfriend Rachel, who d kicked mister rock man off the bus, and the Younger man who d initially bullied mister rock man and SHE didn't understand why mister rock man himself was uncharged.

SHE didn't think he was acting in self defense when he shot her brother. The two people that dear put their hands on heat and shoot. So you had every reason to shoot.

If IT was self defense.

you know, they come up here. You slap when you kicky you. okay? Yes, of fence. My brother touching my brother. Say that one word to you, could you understand how a grand jury could watch the same types and come to a different conclusion than you do? No, we do as how you know why.

But you know they rode IT give answer or say, you know, all we do is present and is up to the grand jury as all I get. No, I don't. I mean, I know a lot, a lot about did you just assist in politics.

But now, when I asked jackie what would have been different for her family? What would have felt different if mister rock man had been edited for murder or manslaughter? SHE couldn't say exactly.

IT might have helped some, SHE said, but IT wouldn't have helped a great light. Either way, her brother would still be gone in the pain of that would still be radiating through her family. Even so, he said he wanted IT.

The best outcome you can hope for when a crime happens to you is that your pain is acknowledged, but the person who harmed you is puni shed and that you get some reparation. And believe IT or not, that travel does happen. We met someone next time on cereal.

Serials produced by Julie snyder, a manual joky benk ho n in me, with additional reporting by italy eco skin editing on this episode from ion glass with any danger field is our digital editor. Huge congratulations to her for having a baby this week. Research, in fact, checking by ben fAiling sound design and mixed by stone Nelson, additional production from capable in ski music clearance by Anthony roman setters. Our director of Operations, the central staff, includes Emily condon, Julie whittaker, casey hoey, Francis swan and maternity.

Our music is by adam dorn and how wilner with additional music from mamzelle nicker n and weird our theme song is by nick forborne and remix by Adams special things to lea eller dona wine burger sa Andrews and Scott showed ker at the ohio criminal sentencing commission ROM super money, the very instituted justice john fah polo box musing, Rachel decade, judge pinky car, canberra, coral kyoto, David rafle, mike barber and Kitty. The art on our website was made by adam meta. He created the mirror for this episode and more studio did the animation.

Please check IT out on our website. Serial podcast, that org, that serial podcast, that org. We can also sign up for our email news letter and be notified when new episodes are released.

Were also, of course, on facebook and twitter. Serials are production of this american life in W B E Z. chicago.