Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Whether you love true crime or comedy, celebrity interviews or news, you call the shots on what's in your podcast queue. And guess what? Now you can call them on your auto insurance too, with the Name Your Price tool from Progressive. It works just the way it sounds. You tell Progressive how much you want to pay for car insurance, and they'll show you coverage options that fit your budget.
Get your quote today at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Price and coverage match limited by state law. On May 4th, Ryan Duke's defense attorney waived his arraignment and entered an automatic plea of not guilty. The question is, was it just a formality? Or is Ryan Duke's attorney preparing for trial? As far as the evidence the state has against Ryan Duke, we don't really know.
mostly as a result of this gag order. But based on what we do know, it's safe to say that whatever testimony Bo Dukes gave the GBI will certainly incriminate Ryan and will likely be used against him in a trial. But what if Ryan didn't do what the state is alleging? Or what if the roles of Ryan Duke and Bo Dukes were reversed? With the presumption of innocence, if Ryan Duke proceeds with the not guilty plea and goes to trial, what would his defense look like? And does he stand a chance of getting off?
Today, we're going to speak with an experienced defense attorney named Ashley Merchant to help answer some of these tough questions. This is Case Evidence. So my name is Ashley Merchant, and I'm a criminal defense attorney in the Atlanta, Georgia area. I do primarily serious felony work. I guess just to kind of start off,
Speaking more generally, can you explain to me what innocent until proven guilty is and what the importance of it is? Where does it come from? What is it? Yes. And it's funny because everybody thinks innocent until proven guilty is a concept that follows you throughout an entire criminal case. And it doesn't. It's an evidence standard at trial. That's it. Pre-trial, there's really no assumption in favor of a defendant. I mean, most of the laws are a little bit
Pro-state and less pro-defendant. But then once you get to trial, the state has to prove you guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. And that's where we say innocent until proven guilty, because the state has that burden at trial to find enough evidence that you did a crime and to convince 12 people that you've done this crime beyond a reasonable doubt. And so it's really just an evidence standard that we have at trial.
Why is innocence until proven guilty, would you say, important in this particular case with what we know, with the gag order, what we don't know, and all the possibilities? So innocent until proven guilty is very important in this case particularly because there's not a lot of evidence and there's a lot of alternative theories.
And so anytime there's alternative theories, the judge will tell the jury that not only does the state have to prove him guilty, let's take Ryan, for example, Ryan Duke, has to prove him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, but they also have to disprove all reasonable alternative theories. And so what that means is if the defense says, you know, look at this guy, let's look at Bo Dukes, for example, let's say maybe he did it. The state also not only has to prove Ryan Duke did it, but they also have to disprove that Bo Dukes could have done it.
So is that how that works? They can literally say, hey, they can present other theories and they have to disprove those theories? It does. They can present other theories, but they have to be reasonable theories. So the defense can get up there and they can argue other alternative reasonable theories to the jury. And it's really up to the jury to determine if those are reasonable theories. So a lot of that's a strategy decision for a defense lawyer. You don't want to get up there and say some far-fetched crazy story because then the jury just doesn't believe you.
But if you have a reasonable, plausible alternative, you can present that. And in my experience, it's not good to get up there and say, oh, there's 10 other people that could have done this. It makes more sense for you as a defense attorney and as the defense to try and focus on an actual reasonable theory and put that theory forth and the state have to disprove that theory. So in this case, for example, Bo Dukes.
You could put forth that as a theory, that he's actually the mastermind and he's actually the one that did it. And then the state will have to focus on disproving that theory. If they were to take that stance, how does that affect the prosecution's plan and their whole game plan for everything if their whole prosecution relies entirely on Bo Duke's testimony against Ryan Lundgren?
If Ryan Duke's defense is that Bo Dukes did it, how does that work in the courtroom? How does it affect their case? Well, the prosecution is putting all of their eggs in the Bo Dukes basket. So their whole case is based on his credibility, what he has led them to, what he has said happened.
And so they've got to try and find some what we call corroborating evidence to corroborate his story, things that make his story more likely to be true. They've got to bolster his reputation. They've got to say that he's been consistent and that he doesn't have a motivation to lie. And then on the flip side, the defense has to say, you know what? He actually does have a motivation to lie.
And there actually are holes in his story. And this is why we think Bo Dukes is not telling the truth. This is why we think he's not worthy of belief. And a big thing that the defense might use is the fact that he has prior criminal convictions. One, for example, he's got a theft. So he's a prior convicted felon and he's got a theft case.
And as they've alleged in the indictment in this case, the state thinks that the motive was theft. They put that in the indictment. They put in the indictment for the felony murder counts that it was a burglary with the intent to commit a theft inside the house. So clearly they've got some evidence. We don't know what, but some evidence that there was some theft. Well, with that, Bo Dukes makes a lot of sense because he has prior theft convictions, where Ryan Duke has none. And so that's something that would be very reasonable for the defense to argue. So.
So can they bring up his past criminal record as part of their defense? Definitely. When Bo Dukes takes the stand, his criminal record becomes relevant and it becomes admissible evidence. And so he's got a prior felony conviction for thefts, frauds, things like that. And so that actually is something that would be admissible at trial. They can actually put in a certified copy of his conviction and his sentence and they can cross-examine him on it.
They can also, another thing that I think is something that I personally would do is use his immunity agreement, use what he would be facing if he was in Ryan Duke's seat.
What if the tables were turned? And so when you cross-examine Beau, you would question him about, you know, if you hadn't come forward, if you were the one sitting in Ryan's chair, you would be facing a life without parole sentence. You would be facing a murder charge. And so that way the jury understands what Ryan's facing and they understand the motivation Beau might have to turn the tables because he's put himself in a significantly better position by being the first one to come forward. He now has got immunity.
Right. How do immunity deals work? I mean, in the courtroom, what are you immune from? I mean, anything, everything? How does that work? Is it a written piece of paper? Is it a handshake agreement? You know, in this case, it seems like there was definitely some sort of deal on the table because...
Bo confessed that to one of his friends, which ended up in our hands. So what could that be and how could that possibly change in the future based on his behavior? Immunity agreements are really dependent on how good your lawyer is, quite frankly, and what your lawyer can get from the district attorney. It's a contract that you're negotiating. You're negotiating terms of it.
And as a defense lawyer, you want it to be broad. You want it to cover just about everything. You want it to cover what we call derivative use as well. You want it to cover what you admit to doing and what they find based on what you've admitted to do. So even if you don't say everything in the first interview, you want to make sure that what they find is
later on that your client might have done, that that's also covered in the immunity agreement. So his agreement is very broad and it covers a lot of different grounds. And you never want to have an immunity agreement just as a handshake. You want it in writing. It needs to be a contract. It needs to be something that's on paper because the jury has a right to see it. So when they go to trial in Ryan's case, the jury will have a right to see Beau's immunity agreement.
and look at that and say, you know, that's his motivation for testifying. He's testifying in exchange for this deal. It's no different than if a defendant took a plea deal and they testified in exchange for that plea deal. You want to set out the parameters, exactly what you have to do to get the immunity. And a lot of times the problem with plea agreements, if you take a deal in exchange for the plea agreement, is the prosecution lists the condition that you have to give truthful testimony. Well, then when you get up on the stand,
Who determines if you're telling the truth? And if you don't say what the prosecution wants to hear, they think you're lying and they void your deal.
Because they say that's not what we think is the truth. And so you're not giving truthful testimony. Whereas defense, maybe we think they're telling the truth. So those can turn on what the actual trial testimony ends up being. You can get immunity, but you can also very easily lose that, it seems like. You can. You can lose that if you're found to be lying. If they determine that when you testify, you're not telling the truth, you can actually lose that.
So is it set in stone as soon as they sign a piece of paper and say, okay, here's the deal. But until then, it's not really, because I mean, in my past experience, I've
I've just kind of seen that it seems like police officers are allowed to lie to you as part of their investigative way of doing things. So couldn't they just say, yeah, we got a deal for you, but we never signed anything. Now we don't have a deal. Right. Is that possible? I mean, if they don't have anything signed and it's not ironclad, yes, you could definitely get out of it. They can definitely back out of it.
And that's the problem with having an oral agreement or having an agreement that's not extremely broad. You also want to factor in the fact that the federal authorities can charge him. And so you want to make sure that any agreement you've got as a defense lawyer to protect your client includes the federal authorities coming forward and charging him with some type of crime. Because if you take a body over county lines, you can implicate certain federal statutes. And so you could actually end up with some federal charges as well.
Oh.
You can do more without spending more. Learn how to save at Cox.com slash internet. Cox Internet is connected to the premises via coaxial cable. Cox Mobile runs on the network with unbeatable 5G reliability as measured by UCLA LLC in the U.S. to age 2023. Results may vary, not an endorsement of the restrictions apply. Is your vehicle stopping like it should? Does it squeal or grind when you brake? Don't miss out on summer brake deals at O'Reilly Auto Parts. O-O-Auto Parts.
So in your personal opinion, we know that Ryan Duke has pled not guilty sort of. Explain what's going on and what you think it's going to be. What do you think it all means? Right. So he was indicted and he's pled not guilty. So the indictment is interesting to me because it's very vague. It doesn't actually include a whole lot of information. Right.
It talks about him using his hand, which is odd because in Georgia, aggravated assault normally is not with a hand. It's with an object. So normally it's with a gun or with a hammer or a rock, you know, something. I mean, in a home situation, maybe picking up a lamp, you know, something that would actually cause some type of blunt force trauma. A hand, other than strangulation, is not usually the cause of death.
And so in this case, it's interesting that they're putting that he caused the death with his hand, but they're not telling any more. And so I think if his lawyer challenges this indictment, he'll probably be successful because it doesn't give enough information. An indictment has to give you enough information in order to prepare for the defense, in order to defend against what it is you're accused of doing. Saying that he killed her with a hand, that doesn't tell you anything.
No, not at all. Not at all. I thought it was super strange. I've had kind of mixed reviews and feelings about whether it's odd or whether it's normal. I thought it was really weird. It is one of the most vague indictments I've seen. And so that's why I think it would not stand up to a challenge because the indictment has to put you on notice as to what it is you're supposed to defend against. It doesn't have to tell you every little detail or every little bit of evidence, but it has to tell you how the government thinks you did this.
So when you say Ryan Duke's attorney can challenge the indictment, what do you mean? You mean challenge it in court when he's defending himself against what he's being accused of or challenge the indictment before it goes to trial? Before it goes to trial. We actually have something in Georgia that's called a demurrer. And what that means is that means to quiet the indictment. It's kind of a quash the indictment. It's a Latin term for quashing the indictment. He can try and quash this indictment, which means get rid of it. It's essentially getting it dismissed, the indictment dismissed. Now, if he's successful with that, they have another bite at the apple.
So let's say his lawyer files that demur, that motion to quash this indictment, wins. The indictment's quashed. The DA has to go to another grand jury and try and get another indictment. They have two bites at the apple. If this indictment isn't good and is thrown out, they can go back and try and get another indictment. And that next indictment, they could add more information. So if Ryan Duke's attorney was successful doing that, then would Ryan Duke be released immediately?
In between the period of that second indictment? He could. He could technically be released. But what would most likely happen is the DA would go quickly to the grand jury and get another indictment. They could even get the second indictment before this one was dismissed.
It's extremely vague. It does not tell us enough. I mean, normally they're not very detailed, but they at least tell us the manner in which the death happened. They tell us what, you know, died as a result of a gunshot wound, died from blunt force trauma by a hammer. I mean, those are examples. Died by strangulation.
You know, those are examples of what an indictment normally says. It says how the death occurred. It's not going to tell you all the evidence. It's not going to tell you the state's whole theory, but it's going to tell you what they think happened and how the death occurred. This doesn't say that. It just says cause the death.
By using his hands or his hand. Well, that doesn't tell us anything. Using his hand, I mean, did he strangular? You have to put strangulation if it's choking. By using his hands in a choking manner. A hand in and of itself is not an offensive weapon. And in Georgia, to be what they're alleging, the object has to be an offensive weapon. And so that's why normally you would see a gun. You would see a knife. You would see a rock. You would see a hammer. Whatever it is.
A hand has to be used in a choking manner to be an offensive weapon. It doesn't say that, though. It doesn't say that. It doesn't say anything. So we don't know. And quite frankly, the government may not know how she died. You know, they may have a statement from Ryan, from Beau, and they don't have a body. And so without a body, it's very hard to determine the manner of death.
Don't they have to know how they died if you're going to convince a jury that somebody killed somebody? They do. They have to have a theory as to how the person died and how Ryan made that happen, how he effectuated the killing. And so the fact that they don't have anything in this indictment tells me either they don't know or they don't want people knowing. But they're taking a chance by making an indictment that's this vague, that doesn't have information because they could lose this indictment. So why would they make it so vague? Why is that in their benefit to do that or is it at all? Yeah.
It is in their benefit to do it. And if the defense attorney doesn't challenge it, the way that it's in their benefit is if they go to trial. Let's say the defense attorney doesn't challenge this and this indictment goes to trial. The state has to prove what they allege in the indictment.
So the government always wants to put as little as possible in the indictment because they've got to prove it. Whatever it is they say happened, they've got to prove it. So if they put strangulation, they've got to prove she died by strangulation. So they want to put as little as possible, but they still have to put enough in to tell the defense and the defendant what they're accusing him of doing.
So it's a fine line. So the benefit for them by not putting extra information in is at trial, they don't have to prove that. They only have to prove what's here. So right now, all they've got to prove is that he caused her death by using a hand. That's it. They don't have to have a murder weapon. They don't have to have a cause of death. They don't have to have any of those things. They just have to have some link between him causing the death and his hand. Do they have to prove how hitting somebody with your hand could kill them? Yeah.
if that's what they're alleging, but we don't know. Then that's the whole point why this indictment is so vague. We don't know if they're saying he hit her. We don't know if they're saying that he used his hand and did some pressure point, you know, where you can hit a certain vein or artery. I mean, there's so many different ways that you could use your hand if you're highly trained. I mean, you could use your hand to kill someone. I mean, maybe he used his hand and knew exactly how to hit her spleen to cause her spleen to bleed. I mean, there's so many different theories. But the state, by not putting that in there, they're not stuck with it.
So they're not stuck with proving it a certain way. So they may not know, quite frankly. Where does the information of Ryan Duke being inside her house and using one hand come from in the first place, do you think? I think that it comes from Beau, and I think it comes from Ryan. I think those people talked. I think they probably have...
hearsay from other folks. You know, Brooke, who wanted the reward. I mean, different people who heard different stories, they probably have a lot of different hearsay that they've pieced together to formulate what they think happened. And now they're trying to get the evidence to prove that, to corroborate that, the corroborating evidence. And quite possibly the glove that they found at the scene, it probably was never tested for Ryan Duke's DNA. Bo was in the system. Bo had DNA in the system because he's a convicted felon. Ryan is not.
So if they did find DNA on that glove, they never would have tested it against Ryan. So now that he's arrested, they can get a search warrant for his DNA. And they can run that and see if his DNA is on that glove. And that would be something that they would be looking for to corroborate the story if they said that he was at the scene. So I would think that at this point, they're probably rerunning a lot of DNA.
And one thing that's important also is GBI has made a lot of advances in DNA. 10 years ago, they had, I call it touch DNA, but it's an amplification type of DNA. They had it 10 years ago, but GBI didn't do it. They only had places that, you know, certain labs around the country did it at a high, high cost. Well, now GBI has the ability to do that. And so they actually can get DNA from a touch where it used to be you had to leave semen, saliva, blood. Now they can get it from skin cells.
So, I mean, it's pretty amazing that they could get it if, let's say, there was a hat that was left at the scene. They could take the brim of the hat where the skin and the sweat would be, and they can actually test that for DNA. So use that as the glove. If they had a fingerprint, maybe a partial or something, a fingerprint, they can actually take that skin cell from that fingerprint and test it for DNA.
So it's likely that whatever story the GBI is saying in this indictment right here either came from Ryan Duke, Bo Dukes, or both. Let's say that Ryan Duke in some capacity did confess to, let's say, just being inside her house or whatever vague information they have here, or even confessed to killing Tara. Tell me what you know about false confessions or...
Even if Ryan Duke did confess to killing Tara or being in her house or whatever incriminates him in this indictment, can he take it back?
What if he was pressured? What's the deal with that? I mean, it's a very fascinating area of the law because people tend to, in a jury situation, they tend to believe if a defendant admitted to doing something that they did it. They have a hard time thinking that someone would lie and put themselves in harm's way. But we actually see it happen all the time. And there's a psychology around it. When you have a police officer interviewing you repeatedly, you want to help them.
And they're very good. They're trained at getting information out. They're not necessarily trained at getting accurate information out. They're trained at getting information. And so they are asking you questions in a manner that makes you want to help them and makes you think that if you tell them what they want to hear, you're going to get some benefit from that.
And so a lot of times when people are in those situations, it's high stress. They've been accused of something awful. They are in police custody. They're uncomfortable. They're exhausted. They're vulnerable. I mean, they're very vulnerable to be telling things that may not necessarily be the truth.
truth. And so a lot of times the story is told to them repeatedly by the police, the version that the police want to hear. And they almost adopt that as their own. And so we see a couple different types of false confessions. We see ones where the police have told a story and the defendant just says, yes, that's what happened.
But the defendant never actually says it in his own words, his or her own words. So those, it's like the police saying, you know, I know what happened. This is what happened, isn't it? And you have an exhausted, stressed out defendant who's sitting there and sometimes uneducated, feeble-minded sometimes, sitting there and police are saying, we know this is what happened. And they just agree. Yeah. You know, they're just tired. And so it's one of those things that if someone asks you enough times, you may just give in at the end. You may just say, yes, yes, that's what happened. Can I go now? Yeah.
And so we see that as one type of false confession. We also see in Georgia a lot because of how our evidence laws are written. We see a defendant who maybe makes an admission and then takes it back. And what the rules of evidence say is that only the part where they're confessing to the crime actually comes in at trial.
So the part where they're not confessing, that doesn't come in. And so, for example, I had a case where my client wanted something from the police. They were holding his daughter and he wanted his daughter to go back into his wife's custody. So he's telling the police, what do I need to tell you for us to get our daughter back? They said, you need to tell us this. So he told them that.
And then they left the room and he tells the camera, I just lied to them and I made all that up. None of that's true because I wanted my daughter back. I wanted my wife to have my daughter back. I didn't want her to go into the state's custody. But at trial, the only part that was admitted was the part where he said he did it. The explanation as to why he lied to the police, that wasn't admitted. So the jury is left hearing the confession.
And not the part where he says, you know, I actually lied and this is why I did it. They allowed to do that? They're allowed to do that. They're allowed to do that. Just take excerpts of what you said and say, hey, this is what matters, the other stuff, don't worry about it. Yes. And they actually do that all the time when they have a confession. Any part of a confession that helps a defendant is considered self-serving hearsay. And they're not allowed to bring that in.
I mean, we're not allowed to bring that in as the defense. So the state tries to keep it out. They're successful keeping it out. That's what our law says. And so you're only hearing the bits and pieces of the confession that support the government's case. You're not hearing the bits and pieces of the confession that don't support the government's case. And so, you know, a lot of times with these false confessions, it wasn't even really a false confession. It was that nobody ever heard the whole thing. They only heard the bits and pieces that helped the government. Wow.
Wow. It sounds like you're kind of screwed when that happens based on the way it works for the state. I mean, that's one of the reasons that I get a lot of clients who come in and they may be completely innocent and they want to go and tell the police what happened. And I'm like, no, we're not going to tell the police anything because it's never going to help you. Right.
I mean, it's just not. That's why you have an attorney, right? That's why you have an attorney. And your attorney can draw from those experiences and tell you that innocent people think you should go and tell the truth. You know, when the police call them and say, hey, we want to hear your side of the story, they want to go tell it. But what they don't realize are all these intricate details where the truth can be manipulated somehow if it benefits the government's case. And so that's why you have to be really cautious. And I mean, quite frankly, I'm of the opinion that
that I don't let my clients talk to the police. I mean, I hate that because I think it stunts the truth seeking. But at the same time, I just don't trust that the whole story will get out. And I'm just always worried that they're only going to get part of it. So we may see that in this case. You know, Ryan may have made some admissions that weren't true, that he thought if he made those admissions, he was going to get to go home or he thought he was going to get a better deal or something like that. And so
When the jury hears a confession at trial, there's oftentimes a backstory that they're not hearing about from that confession. That the defendant was promised something else, you know, promised he could go home, promised his family wouldn't be harassed, promised they would let a witness go, you know, whatever it is. But a lot of times the jury's not hearing that. And so they think the confession's a confession. If Ryan did confess...
to the GBI during an interview, that obviously happened without his attorney present because he has a state-appointed attorney to begin with. Does that change anything? Can they use that in court? What do they have to do? What do they have to say before the interview starts to make that confession legitimate? And what things do attorneys use to say, hey, this was not done properly? It's very hard to get a confession thrown out. It is next to impossible. You have got to have a client who is...
astute enough to say, I want a lawyer. I'm not talking to you anymore. I mean, pretty much. Otherwise, if it's ambiguous at all, your request for an attorney or, hey, maybe I don't want to talk. And then you decide you start talking again. I mean, all of that comes in. So it's very difficult for us to actually get a confession thrown out in court because of Miranda or failure to do Miranda. I mean, it's just, it's almost impossible because what happens is the police are able to ask a lot of questions when they're investigating without Miranda.
And then, and now in this case, that wouldn't apply because he was under arrest at the time. But if he didn't have a lawyer, he was under arrest and he signed something saying he wanted to talk to them. His statements are pretty much coming in. Unless he specifically said, I want a lawyer. He's pretty much getting his statements in. Right. So...
What is Ryan Duke's attorney going to do now? Based on your experience, where is this thing heading? And what would a good defense attorney do for Ryan Duke?
I would be looking very, very carefully at Bo Dukes and his family and his motivation. I would be gathering reports on him. I would have my investigator looking at all of his witnesses and whereabouts and whatever's been going on for the last decade in his life to see because he is the link right now, and it sounds like he's the one that has led them to arrest Ryan.
And so there's two versions. If Ryan and Bo were involved, there's two versions. One of them has Ryan doing the killing and one of them has Bo doing the killing. And so I would be looking for whatever I could find as to why Bo all of a sudden would come forward and make this statement, this untrue statement.
that Ryan did it and Bo was just an after-the-fact accessory. What is it in Bo's life that would have caused him to do this? Is he a thief? Did he have money problems? Was this financially motivated? Did he have some love affair with Tara Grimstead? You know, was there some other motivation? Why would he have done that? So I would be developing evidence to show the other reasonable theory that Bo could actually be the one that did this murder.
Have you seen that before where the roles are reversed like that? I mean, this to me seems like serial and Jay is Bo. It is. I mean, it's just like in serial where, you know, the first person who comes forward and says their story is believed. I mean, if you have kids and your kids aren't necessarily honest and truthful and they cause a mess and you bring them and you say, you know, hey, which one of you caused the mess? Who did this?
There are certain types of people that one of them is going to say, oh, he did it because the first person to confess or tell a story, you believe. And then after that story comes out, after, you know, one kid says the other kid did it, you're backtracking to try and undo that story.
Yeah, exactly. You believe the first story. The police form their case around the first story. And so it takes a lot of evidence to undo whatever theory it is that they're trying to advance. So once they formulate their theory, they're locked into that. And absent some huge exonerating evidence, something huge, DNA not matching, something, their minds –
are looking for things to support that theory. And so by Bo coming forward first, it's unfortunate because you certainly don't want to encourage, you know, in the situation with the kids, you don't want to encourage one of your children to lie on the other child, you know? But that's what we're doing. I mean, we're essentially doing that. We're essentially encouraging Bo and people like Bo to come forward and tell their story first because then they get the good deal.
And so we want people to tell the truth, but at the same time, we're encouraging people to come forward and give their version of the truth that helps them early on in the case. And you see this a lot. You see this in serial. You saw it in that case. You see it in jailhouse snitches all the time. There's informants in the jailhouse. And it's amazing to me that juries believe that an inmate is going to tell his roommate everything that happened.
And then that roommate is going to call the DA up and say, I know that so-and-so confessed to all this stuff. I'll testify in exchange for a deal. And the juries believe that. I mean, it's amazing to me. But they always do. And they have – They all have a great motive to do that. It's insane. And then it's like afterwards they write a letter. After the trial, the inmate writes a letter and is like, hey, I testified for you. Can I get 10 years off my sentence? Right. I'm like –
Why would anybody believe them? They have nothing to lose and clearly something to gain. Right, exactly. And so you have to look at their motives. So that's what I would be doing if I was working on the case. I would be looking at what are Bo's motives. Let's dig into him because the police aren't going to be doing that. They're focused on Ryan and the police regularly don't look at alternative theories because they have to disclose them to the defense.
So if the police are locked into this theory, if the government's locked into Ryan did the killing, Bo was an accessory, they are never going to investigate Bo as the killer, ever. Because if they do and they find evidence of that, they have to turn it over to the defense. So they're not going to do that because that's going to hurt their case. So as a defense lawyer, we have to do that. We have to go and we have to do that investigation to show alternatives.
We have to find that evidence that the police aren't looking for because they've locked into a theory. They've locked into what they think happened, and that's what they believe. I mean, a lot of times it's as simple as an initial credibility determination. You know, whoever interviewed Bo believed him. Sure. They believed him. And who knows why, but whoever interviewed him believed him, and they ran with that story. Right. Right.
And so that's, you know, that initial credibility determination we're working to undo, essentially. What do you make of this gag order?
So it's interesting. I think that they just don't want to be bothered by dealing with this. This is a very small town. I don't think that they have the resources to deal with interviews and requests for information. And I almost get the sense that the judge just didn't want anybody to talk about it and just kind of wanted to be taken out of the spotlight. And, you know, it puts a different perspective and stress on the case because everybody's watching.
And so everybody is questioning if, let's say, there's a deal offered or something. Okay, well, why? Why is there a deal offered? If we really think that he did this awful crime, why would you offer him a deal?
Right. And so by putting a gag order on, you can kind of stop some of that speculation and stop some of the people from looking at the facts of the case. I mean, I think it's unfortunate. I am not a fan of gag orders. I'm a fan of open government. I think everything should be open. I think we should be able to broadcast live from courtrooms. Because if it's happening in a court of law, it should be public. It should be something that, you know, you're proud of what you're doing and how you're conducting yourself and the world should be able to see it. So
So I don't like the gag order, but I don't know if the motivations were necessarily sinister or if they were just, we can't deal with this. It just seems so typical in this case to me. I mean, it's been...
12 years since we had any sort of arrest or movement in this case at all. And during that 12 years, the GBI kept this case file sealed, completely sealed. They don't have to do that. No. They're allowed to do that, but they don't have to do that. They never cleared anybody. They kept it wide open or just sealed and open suspects, open person of interest, no news, no answers.
And that didn't seem to get us anywhere. And now, as soon as there's some movement in the case, there's been two arrests, they put even more silence on this thing. It just seems like, did they not learn anything over the past 12 years? I think the community is just kind of fed up at this point. Well, it's kind of buttressed by the warrant and the indictment. They don't say anything. I mean, the warrant is one of the most vague warrants I've ever seen. The warrant is supposed to give you information. Normally, when I have a case, if I can get the warrant, I know what they're saying my client did. You know, I know what the allegations are.
In this case, the warrant hardly even tracks the statute. I mean, it doesn't say anything about any of the evidence. It just says, we think that he committed this crime, which I'm shocked that they could even get a warrant based on that because normally it has to say why we think he committed this crime. It just says, we think he committed this crime. I mean, it doesn't give any information. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. I mean, I'm shocked at the warrant. I'm shocked at the indictment. And so I think that follows along with the gag order. This whole case, they don't want anybody to know anything. Why? Why?
Why? Why do they not want anybody to know the manner she died? I mean, it's amazing to me that you can read an arrest warrant and an indictment and have no clue how this woman died. It's unbelievable. You read them and you have absolutely no clue what happened. None. You have no clue. So how would the defendant? I mean, this is what's supposed to tell the defendant what he's got to defend against. I mean, he probably has no clue. You know, there's nothing here. I mean, you have no idea how she died other than
You know, with malice of forethought, he used his hand. That doesn't tell us anything. And so then we have the gag order. And so we're just left to wonder, what is it that everybody's trying to hide? What happened? Is it that they know and it's awful and they don't want us to know? Or is it that they don't know and they don't want everybody scrutinizing the fact that they just really don't know anything more?
That's what I'm afraid of. That's I mean, that's what it sounds like to me, because other than maybe getting some new DNA evidence or something like that, or being able to confirm from some remains that she actually is deceased. I mean, what do they know? What has changed other than Bo Dukes coming forward and making some statements and then Ryan maybe making some confessions when he was arrested? What else has changed?
Nothing. It doesn't seem like it. I mean, they're certainly not giving us that information. So I'd be, I mean, I'm very curious about when they start to have motions and when they start to file things, if we're going to have access to it or if they're going to continue to try and cover everything up and keep everything as vague as possible. I mean, it's crazy. It's almost like it's like the secret trial in the secret tribunal and that's not how it's supposed to work.
No. I mean, it's taxpayer dollars. Like, our tax dollars are paying for every aspect of a criminal trial. So we, as taxpayers and citizens, have a right to know what goes on. I mean, that's the ultimate checks and balances. Even a public defendant here. Yeah.
I mean, defense attorney, I mean. Right, right. I mean, they're paying for everything. They're paying for his defense. They're paying for the prosecution, paying for the courthouse, paying for the staff in the courthouse, the air conditioning at the courthouse, the property. I mean, everything. It's a public forum. I mean, that's one of the rights that our country was founded on, you know, a public right. It's in our constitution, a public trial. You have a public trial, right? So the fact that the public is being kept out is very alarming. I mean, that's, you know, we...
this whole country to make sure that that didn't happen, that things weren't allowed to happen in secret and things weren't allowed to happen like that. And even if the defense attorney is in favor of it, it still harms the process. It harms criminal defendants because when things happen in closed doors, we don't know the truth. We can't scrutinize it. I mean, it's just like body cams. If you look at the police, for years they were able to do stuff and nobody questioned it. Now all of a sudden we have body cams. Well, my God, has the news not changed in the last few years? Now there's accountability. Exactly.
It's huge. Five years ago, when I questioned jurors, they would have said, I believe whatever the police say. Now, when I question jurors about that, they're like, well, I don't know. I see the news.
Right. Yeah, I watch the news. Right. I know what police do sometimes. And that's because of body cams. That's because of the public right of access. And so I hate it whenever that is curtailed in any way because the public has a right to know what's going on. And that's the only way to have accountability. Yeah, this goes completely against that. It sets a bad precedence for where things are kind of naturally going in the world, I feel like.
accountability, transparency, all these things that the government and police are having to do more and more in 2017. This goes against all of that. It's just some small town, just BS. They don't want the world looking at their stuff. They want it to, you know, they want to do it how they do it. And they don't want anybody outside looking at it and scrutinizing it. I mean, I think it's that simple. Thanks for listening, guys.
Today's episode was mixed and mastered by Resonate Recordings. If you want to improve the quality of your podcast or start a podcast of your own, check them out at resonaterecordings.com. This Thursday, we're releasing a special bonus episode that you don't want to miss. And we'll be giving you a sneak peek of what's to come in episode 19, which comes out on Monday, May 22nd. So stay tuned. Thanks, guys. I'll see you Thursday.