Podcasts about drejka

Within Brims Skin. Through and Through #272. -- The gang is at it again. Brimstone is joined by his wing-man Alex DaPonte as they chat road rage, disrespectful drivers – and why giving the middle finger makes you ridiculous. They discuss a supercar getting demolished by a trucker who didn't appreciate being harassed and how the whole thing was caught on camera and not handed over to the supercar. They discuss the Waymo situation in California and how it was worked out, what would you do if put in a certain position, how many times 50 Cent has been shot, and why is Alex asking to be tased for content. Brim explains what gets Within Brim's Skin.

Gościnią Marcina Cichońskiego w podcaście "DGPtalk: Po stronie kultury" jest Magdalena Drejka, piosenkarka. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Cortez byl dalším hostem našeho podcastu. Probrali jsme snad všechno co jsme mohli, od incidentu Tylera Durdena, přes nový album Draka až po bizáry na internetu. Email na Drejka si zabil samozřejmě, ale vždyť ještě není deset! Celý podcast včetně videa a bonusových rubrik najdeš na herohero.co/vrapu 

Not Guilty – those were the words Curtis Reeves heard just hours after the jury was charged with determining his fate.  It was a dramatic ending for a dramatic trial – one that left one family devastated and the other equally elated.  Host Vinnie Politan and Court TV's Ted Rowlands have full coverage of the verdict, including thoughts from the defense team and Curtis Reeves himself.  Get the latest updates on CourtTV and CourtTV.com and tune in to see Vinnie Politan and the entire Court TV team review each day's testimony on Closing Arguments weeknights from 8pm to 11pm.   To see Court TV's coverage of FL v. Drejka, click here. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

W 174 Epizodzie Sitek i Chuptyś wystawiają certyfikat jakości (0:00).Co robi teraz Certyfikowany Kochaś? (01:20).Drake w nowym ”Lekko Nie Będzie” (02:20).Wielki Zderzacz Hadronów pod Toronto (07:00).Prawdziwa treść Certyfikatu Lover Boy'a (11:15).Secure, Contain, Protect - Jak to jest być ziomkiem Drejka (14:20).Analiza tesktu utworu Diplomatic Immunity przez jego Ghostwritera (17:20).[BOOKBEAT] Szantaż emocjonalny sponsora (23:20).[BOOKBEAT] Jak gaslightować czytelnika oraz czy Niccolò Machiavelli był Certyfikowanym Kochasiem? Niccolò Machiavelli - ”Książę” (24:40).[BOOKBEAT] Naukowiec, ateista bada medytację. James Kingsland - ”Siddhartha's Brain” (31:42).Mądrości Smugglera: różnica między magazynem, a gazetą. (43:10).Paranormalna Polska COMING SOON?? (45:30).Przegląd Prasy DTP: Śmierć kliniczna potwierdza istnienie lekarza w szpitalu (47:00).Przegląd Prasy DTP: Spontaniczny samozapłon czyli zagrożenie dla ekstrawertyków, streamerów oraz kochanek Drejka (56:50).Przegląd Prasy DTP: Tajemnica ślepowidzenia, niemieckiego stópkarza oraz wiary w siebie (01:04:50).Przegląd Prasy DTP: Twarze z Belmez - historia ducha, który źle się ustawił do objawienia oraz głów na kafelkach, ale nie na szkieletach (01:09:27).Szkodliwość egzorcyzmów: społeczne, zdrowotne, gra w Diaberka (01:14:00).Przegląd Prasy DTP: Efekt Nocebo - jak twoje bycie Down Bad przejdzie do historii nauki (01:19:30).Przegląd Prasy DTP: Czarny Rycerz czyli satelita UFO oraz George Clooney, który uwodzi Sandrę Bullock w kosmosie (01:28:00).Przegląd Prasy DTP: Eksperymenty z telekinezą - pani babcia, które strzeliła starego (01:35:25)Jak usprawnić OUIJA BOARD oraz dlaczego ona działa? (01:39:55).Jak rozmawiać o zjawiskach paranormalnych żeby nie być chamem? (01:43:00).Przegląd Prasy DTP: Tajemnice ascezy (01:45:30).Przegląd Prasy DTP: Bestia z Gévaudan - PRAWDZIWY WILKOŁAK (01:50:00).

W 130 Epizodzie Dwóch Typów prezentuje nowy album Drejka (0:00). Rocznice ślubu to rangi w League of Legends (01:20). Mrówki w komputerze - tajemnica Reziego (05:30). Pszczoły łamią konwencję genewską (06:50). Dwie pieczenie na jednym ogniu - dwa fetysze starego (08:30). Mieszanie farby w sklepie (09:40). Elon Musk rozbił kolejną rakietę. Bardzo relatable (11:50). US Toddler - Pierwsza w historii płyta nagrana w pełni z brzucha matki (14:20). Żelazny Weteran, żelazna dama (22:50). Efekt Kobry (24:00). Reklama o ropuchach w Australii (28:20). Pierwszy atak dronem - Amerykańska Stonka (31:50). Top 10 zakazanych zwierząt w Polsce. Top 1 - Babka (32:30). Perły, miód i żarty z tego podcastu (40:30). Polski Youtube Iceberg (44:20). Człowiek który chciał kochać się z całą Polską - Steven Seymour tłumaczy przemowę Jimmy'ego Cartera (45:10). Nowy patch do wolnego rynku (58:35). Szachy 2.0 i 0.5 czyli Fairy Chess i Czaturanga (01:00:30). Szachy 3D - (01:11:00). Koncept nowego serialu anime o szachach (01:14:00). Jak NIE OSZUKIWAĆ w szachy (01:17:50).

  Don West and Steve Moses join Shawn Vincent to take a second look at the Michael Drejka case, focusing on the fundamental legal elements of self-defense: reasonable belief, imminence, and severity. Then they look at how some of Drejka’s precursor decisions turned a close call on self-defense into a manslaughter conviction.

  Don West and Shawn Vincent discuss the extraordinary Amber Guyger case in which an off duty police officer mistakenly enters the wrong apartments and shoots the occupant thinking he was an intruder in her own home. The case tests the absolute limits of the Castle Doctrine and serves as a warning for concealed carriers to check their assumptions when making decisions in potentially threatening situations.   TRANSCRIPT:   Shawn Vincent: Don West. How are you doing? Don West: Hey Shawn. As always nice to talk with you. Shawn Vincent: Yeah. So when we're recording this right now, we're about a week and a half away from my 43rd birthday. Don West: It doesn't sound like such a big deal to me since- Shawn Vincent: Yeah. You're a little past 43, right? Don West: Yeah, but at the same time, I'm thinking back to those days where I was in my life and my family and my career. And you are, I guess probably about halfway through by now, don't you think? Shawn Vincent: Yeah. I think judging by my diet, I think I'm a little over halfway through for sure. Don West: You once described yourself as mid-life. I guess if we do the math, 86 would be a pretty good life. I think if I make 86, I probably [crosstalk 00:01:17]. Shawn Vincent: You can say you did it. When I met you, I was nice mid 30s. I think at 43 should become mid 40s. I'm early forties now. One more year. I'm mid 40. Someone the other day told me that I looked spry today, which I think is- Don West: Well, that drips with something, doesn't it? Shawn Vincent: No one ever tells someone in middle school, "You’re looking spry." That doesn't happen so. Don West: Well. I once heard a lawyer talk about other lawyers in terms of experience, whether if they had 20 years experience, they had 20 years experience or whether they had one year of experience repeated 20 times. Shawn Vincent: Sure. I like that. Don West: I have to think, knowing you, as long as I've known you, that you have continued to build on that life experience and provided a positive and grateful environment for your children and developed a nice little niche career where you're doing good things for people in bad situations. And from my perspective it looks like it's all coming together. Shawn Vincent: Well, I like that a hell of a lot better than I like spry, so thanks for that. Well, can we say seasoned? Let's go with seasoned. Don West: Yeah, I'll go with seasoned. I think that's euphemistic enough. Shawn Vincent: Perfect. Well, hey, we have a case that I've been dying to talk to you about and it happened out where you've been spending some of your time in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Don West: Yeah, that's right. It was all the news for quite a while. It's the almost infamous case of Amber Guyger, the police officer who shot and killed a young man by the name of Botham Jean. Shawn Vincent: Sure. She was an off-duty police officer, right? Don West: She was. This day that this happened, I believe around August, September of 2018, I think it was just about a year before the trial. And not only was she off-duty, but she had worked I think a double that day. At the time she went home at the end of her shifts, she was in full uniform, equipment belt and all of that stuff. Shawn Vincent: Right. Don West: Going home after a long day. Shawn Vincent: Right. So she lived on the fourth floor of this apartment building and it's got an attached parking garage. And Botham John, he lived in the same apartment that she lived in one floor up. So- Don West: Yeah, I think that's right. It doesn't matter which floor exactly but that's exactly what happened. She went to the wrong floor thinking she was going to her apartment. Shawn Vincent: I've been in parking garages where unless there's the big number written on the wall in the right spot, you don't necessarily know what level you're on. They all look about the same floor to floor and I've been in a hotel where you get off on the wrong floor and it takes a little bit before you realize that you're not in the right spot. So I can imagine an apartment building where if it came in from the garage on floor five, it looks a lot like it does on floor four. Don West: Oh, sure. I think everyone's probably had that experience. I have a tendency to do that with cars. Walk up to the wrong car, especially if it's a rental car. I wind up being distracted because of whatever it was that took me there and walk up right to the car sometimes lift the handle to get in, only to realize that I'm off a row or two. And I just, without thinking walked up to somebody else's car and from their perspective, especially if they had been sitting inside, would have thought I was trying to break in the car. Shawn Vincent: Yeah. And I rent cars enough to where sometimes I've literally forgotten what car I rented and if it weren't for the little fob that will click to make it blink, I'd have no idea what car to get into. So we've all made mistakes concerning orientation. Where you are and being confused about that. And in this case, Amber Guyger came in the wrong floor, she goes to the wrong apartment. It's the one above where she lives. It's in the right spot it's just one floor up too far. She doesn't notice that the floor mat out front is different. There's something wrong with Botham Jean's door to where it didn't clasp properly. So she was able to open it without a key. Don West: Yeah. I think the way these doors worked... The sense of it I had was it was a magnetic key like a hotel room key. Shawn Vincent: Okay. Don West: In fact people testified in the trial that the doors didn't always close completely. So it was entirely possible that from the inside you'd think your door was closed but unless you pushed it that last half inch, it would be sitting there slightly ajar. And from the outside, I don't know if there was a light or what might tell you like there is hotel rooms, but in fact in this case there was testimony that she knew that the door was unlocked. So it wasn't that she was able to get in the wrong door using her key it was that the door wasn't latched completely so that effectively it could just be pushed open. So that was one of the facts that the prosecutor used in the case to explain why she should have known something was up, or at least that she was in the wrong place because of that. The floor mat you're talking about became significant in that it was symbolic. It was bright red. So people attending the trial that were sympathetic to Botham Jean wore bright red clothing and other paraphernalia and such to indicate their support and also to reinforce the idea that in their mind it was a ridiculous claim that she didn't know she was in the wrong place because she didn't have a bright red door mat, and he did, and she was standing right there on it and crossed it when she went in the apartment. Shawn Vincent: Right. So she goes in the apartment and, if we believe her, she thinks she's walking into her apartment, and there's this guy there. From the accounts that I read he was apparently eating ice cream and watching football but she doesn't necessarily see it that way. Don West: I don't know exactly what she said she thought was going on other than she was convinced she was entering her own apartment and she never wavered from that. And I think that ultimately that was accepted, that she had made a mistake and that she had gone into his apartment fully believing that she was going into her own. After that, it becomes pretty confusing because the layout in terms of furniture isn't the same. I'm assuming that she would have known whether she left the TV on or not when she went to work that day. I think a lot of people said, "Why would she go in, even if it's her own apartment, if the door isn't latched, doesn't that tell anyone much less a trained police officer that there's something different?" Shawn Vincent: Something's wrong here. Don West: Yeah. And of course the idea that being a trained police officer and having her equipment and tools of the trade, including weapons and such, but having the tactical training and experience in these encounters on the street, why would she make the decision to go in at all rather than recognizing something was amiss but not even knowing what it was, assuming it was her own apartment why wouldn't she call for backup? Why wouldn't she maintain her position of relative safety until she had some people with her that could figure it all out. Shawn Vincent: Because instead what happens is Botham Jean gets up and comes towards her, right? She testifies that she was giving voice commands, "Put your hands up, what are you doing here?" That sort of thing. Don West: Yeah. And it's obviously impossible to know whether he was confused or could even hear her, but her testimony was that he came in her direction and from her perspective, he wasn't obeying her commands. Shawn Vincent: Right. Don West: And of course the distance closed rapidly. He must've been incredibly confused and wondering who that person was and of course why were they in his apartment and what was their intention. Whether he perceived it as a threat, who knows? Shawn Vincent: Yeah, we'll never know. Don West: There had been a neighbor over there earlier and maybe the door was even left open on purpose. I don't know any of that stuff, but it must've been incredibly confusing for him. And now we're looking at his perception and how that affects his behavior and then how his behavior affects the perception of Amber Guyger and then of course her response, which tragically was to point her gun at him and fire twice. One I think missed, but the other penetrated his chest, I think pierced his heart and an immediately- Shawn Vincent: And then that's it. Don West: Mortal wound. Shawn Vincent: Right. Then what happens immediately afterwards becomes a point at trial as well. There's video of her freaking out while there's first responders there, there was some hay made that she never seemed to try to render any aid to the guy that she had just shot. She obviously quickly realized that she was in the wrong apartment and that this was a horrific mistake. Don West: Well that's an interesting observation because that has nothing to do with the lawfulness of her act of shooting him. We'll talk about how all of that plays out. Whether or not she immediately rendered aid has to do, I think with the way the prosecutor could paint her maybe as being callous or uncaring about what she had done combined with some of the things she said on the call about losing her job and all that stuff seemed to suggest she was more worried about herself than she was- Shawn Vincent: Sure. Well, often- Don West: Than the guy that she shot. Shawn Vincent: Often a second degree murder charge -- especially in Florida where we've worked on some cases together -- the second-degree murder charge implies a reckless disregard for human life and if there's any chance to provide aid to resuscitate somebody and you don't do that, that helps paint a picture of someone who has disregard for that life. Don West: We've come across a couple of cases where the prosecutor exploited the idea that no aid was rendered and tried to impute some meaning to that. Shawn Vincent: Sure. Don West: And- Shawn Vincent: We just talked about the Drejka case and instead of trying to help the guy or express concern for him, he was wandering around letting people coming up at the store, letting them know he had just shot somebody. A weird reaction that was. Don West: We know being involved in something like that may make you act in a different way than you would even if you were thinking it through. But certainly the perception others have of you becomes pretty important and frankly, I've seen cases where the response to the shooting was so immediate and so positive in an attempt to get aid that the prosecutor commented on that in making their charging decision, that they thought that the person did everything right afterwards and it impressed them about the way they viewed the case Shawn Vincent: We talked about Zach Peters and he didn't necessarily render aid but indicated on this 911 call that they were still alive and that you better get here quick. The implication being that he had some concern for whether or not they'd be able to survive that episode. Don West: Our advice has been, even though it may be the last thing you want to do to help the person that you firmly believe just tried to kill you but for your use of deadly force would have been dead, the last thing you want to do is reach out and try to provide medical assistance. But we have specific examples we can talk about plus the idea of being able to show that your conduct was not rooted in anger and malice but rather was a response to the threat and that once the threat is over, you will, as any human being should try to mitigate the situation. Shawn Vincent: Right. Because the point- Don West: Your goal is not to kill the person. Your goal is to neutralize the threat. Stop the threat. Shawn Vincent: That's right. And that should be the attitude from the beginning to the end. And all the actions that you take should indicate that respect for life. Otherwise- Don West: In a case that we're talking about like that when the prosecutor is looking for any opportunity to look for evidence that will support their theory. Now their theory could be any number of things but in this case the theory was that what she did was not reasonable and that even though the law may have favored her, notwithstanding the fact that she made a mistake, her conduct should be viewed by the jury as being unreasonable and then set about explaining why and how at different points in time throughout the entire scenario and the fact that she seemed more focused on herself and the fact that she would lose her job than trying to render immediate aid was just one thing that piled on a lot of other things that happened long before the trigger was pulled. Shawn Vincent: That's the cherry on top of the pie here, the meat is this whole thing that... And we've never encountered a case like this where someone... She essentially broke into someone else's house and then shot them and is claiming self-defense. It wasn't breaking and entering, but she went in uninvited to somebody's house and shot them in their living room and then makes a self-defense claim. That sounds crazy. Don West: It does sound crazy in the sense that most people that don't truly understand self-defense law and what it is that become the critical turning points in a self-defense case would think that all you really needed to know was that she went into the wrong house and shot an otherwise law-abiding citizen and that nothing else really matters. Well, in fact, that's not the case. That notwithstanding some of the things that we'll talk about that help shed some light on whether her actions ultimately were reasonable. Legally, you are allowed to make mistakes. It's really the perception of the threat more than the actual threat that becomes the critical issue. Shawn Vincent: Right. So if the jury- Don West: So the fact- Shawn Vincent: If the jury really believes that you've made that mistake in perception, then they're supposed to accept that as the reality or the perceived reality. And then under that set of realities then decide whether it was reasonable. So under your misperception, was your action reasonable? Even if you're wrong about that first assumption. Don West: That's exactly right. The threat doesn't... And the jury instructions say this, the threat doesn't have to be actual, it's the perception of the threat. So the prosecutor had to go much further than just showing the jury that in fact she had made a mistake, they had to show that the way this thing played out, her mistake was unreasonable and that there were lots of places along the way where she should have realized her mistake and you put all that stuff together overall the actions were unreasonable. And once the- Shawn Vincent: So let me- Don West: Go ahead. Shawn Vincent: Let me ask you about that. So if we're going to operate with the assumption that she thought it was her house and that the jury has to, if they believe that's true, judge her based on that, then let's make a more controversial scenario. You come home from a double shift, you're distracted, you're tired, it's dark, you walk in your front door and then there's a stranger there who gets up and starts moving towards you. You're a concealed carrier, you're in your own home, someone's obviously entered without your permission, are you justified in shooting them then? Don West: It may take a few more facts but the general sense is yes. Especially if you know there's no way they got in there by consent. Shawn Vincent: It's not potentially like a friend of your son's or it's not the bug guy. Don West: Well, I can tell you there are lots of cases. Tragic cases. You'll read about them regularly if you just pay attention -- about people being home asleep, hearing a noise, getting out of bed, taking a gun into the living room or to the kitchen and finding somebody and shooting that person dead, only to realize after the fact that it was a kid coming home from college or a relative that came into the house. So they were clearly no actual threat, but the fact that they entered, from your perspective without consent, essentially a breaking and entering idea, especially in your home, there are presumptions that if somebody enters the house without permission, there's a presumption that they're there and a threat. Shawn Vincent: Right. So she's got that on her side. Don West: The law is on her side, even if she's making a mistake. And I think that was somewhat controversial in this case because I think the judge ultimately agreed that she was entitled to the Castle Doctrine defense, even though she wasn't in her own apartment and obviously she was the in the wrong spot. So that was controversial and I think a lot of people were afraid the jury might use that as a technicality of some sort and acquit her, notwithstanding the clear indication that she was making a big mistake about the whole thing from beginning to end. Shawn Vincent: Right. So if the Castle Doctrine could have or should have applied to her in that case, then now I want to connect the dots about how she gets a guilty verdict because she was found guilty of murder in that case from shooting an intruder in her, quote on quote, her house. What she perceived to be her house. So one thing I look at is even though the law often allows you to assume that someone who is in your house uninvited is a threat, whether or not they actually are a threat from a perception point of view, still makes a difference. And we've talked recently about the idea... We were talking about Marissa Alexander. She left a confrontation in her house and went into her garage. She was not followed but she got a gun and then she went back into her house and re-engaged and that was a problem in her case. So if you walk in your front door and you have the option of turning around and leaving or going further into your house and confronting somebody who's there uninvited, does that change the scenario when you're looking at the Castle Doctrine and the duty to retreat that's waived by the Castle Doctrine? Don West: Well, I think the focus shifts that notwithstanding the legal right to take certain steps that the law would protect because of the Castle Doctrine, no legal duty to retreat. And in many jurisdictions, the presumption that someone who has entered the home uninvited is a threat and that your fear would be reasonable, that's not the end of the inquiry. And in this case, the prosecution focused on all of the little things that in combination and when put together the so-called totality of the circumstances test that we've talked about before, whether overall her actions were reasonable. And you can break that down into mistakes of fact and maybe mistakes that shouldn't have been made and why she didn't know where she was. Then you talk about the tactics or the strategy of the decision making and why she did what she did under those circumstances. And when you start stacking that one-on-one on top of it and then you compound that of course by the fact that she was wrong, that she shot an innocent person, I think the jury had a different perspective than you would have had it been in your own home where you made an innocent but tragic mistake shooting somebody that wasn't in fact there to harm you like a relative or a drunk neighbor that wandered in. Shawn Vincent: Sure. And you've coined the term forgivable subjectivity for situations like this. When it's your home or you're perceived to be in your home, or if you have the protection of the Castle Doctrine, the law affords you a few mistakes, even if you don't do everything perfect. There's this forgivable subjectivity. There were the deciders of fact can lean in your favor pretty easily, but I think the fact that it wasn't her house, even if legally the standard is Castle Doctrine applies, she's lost a whole bunch of that forgivable subjectivity, right? She's got a long road to claw back at and then you throw in the fact that he was unarmed, that she had an opportunity to just walk back out the door that she had just come in, the fact that she didn't attempt to render any raid after-the-fact; those are little things that push this forgivable subjectivity back to the point of no return. Don West: Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about some of the specifics that formed the basis of the prosecution argument that made her, in their view, the conduct unreasonable, which meant that she really shouldn't be given the benefit of the doubt. I think that's what we're talking about. Shawn Vincent: Right. Don West: To some degree the forgivable subjectivity notion is that if you do most things right and you do them in good faith and you do them consistent with the law, even if you are wrong about some things you'll get the benefit of that, especially if it's in your own home. So setting the stage just a little bit more, I think we had talked earlier that she had worked a double shift, that she was in uniform, she was coming home, there was a different color mat in front of her door. It's certainly and I guess a different apartment number, but it's certainly explainable. I'm satisfied that you could miss that stuff but- Shawn Vincent: I don't even know what our door mat looks like. Don West: Sure. Shawn Vincent: Don't tell my wife, but- Don West: But then the door is unlatched. So that should've been a real big clue. And I would think someone would want to look around a little bit more than not necessarily even thinking you're in the wrong place but looking for what else might be out of the ordinary or amiss. Shawn Vincent: So you come home and your door is open, you're going to look around like, "What's going on here?" You're going to be extra perceptive is what you're saying. Don West: I would think you'd be very vigilant at that point because now this is something that jolts you awake. Now, in your end of the day automaton response. How many times have you driven home and you certainly can't remember the route you took or those things. Shawn Vincent: So whatever is distracting you, now you're shocked out of that and now you're in the moment because your door's open. Don West: I would think so. I think that's a reasonable interpretation. Shawn Vincent: Especially if you're a cop. Yeah. Don West: So there were a couple of other things going on, too, as I remember some of the testimony and I watched quite a bit of it that first of all, she'd only been there a couple of months so she's not going to be as familiar with the layout as people that lived there a long time, but it was my understanding that she had a dog and that the dog was boarded or being kept somewhere because maintenance was supposed to come through at some point in time. I don't know if it was that day, but if you put your dog up, you would know two things. One, you would know your dog wasn't there, so the dog wasn't at any risk if that's what you were concerned about. And then the fact that you boarded the dog because maintenance was going to have to do some stuff, then you would maybe not be quite as surprised that the door was unlocked or open, but you would react to that, I would think. Shawn Vincent: Sure. Don West: Rather than think. So that would have been another opportunity to think that maybe if somebody is inside, they're specifically there to do harm or even to steal things. And the idea that... Well let me characterize it this way. She is trained and prepared to deal with threats and violence. At the same time she's also prepared and trained how to not do that without incurring greater risk and you call for backup. If you're in a situation that's not urgent, that you don't have to take immediate action and you don't know what's going on or how big the risk or the threat is, you call for help. So the prosecutor really harped on that. Why not just call for backup? The police station was only a few blocks away. You stay outside where you're safe, you call for people and then you go in and deal with it. So while it wasn't specifically said, what struck me about that is why would you go in there when there's nothing really to protect? It's just your stuff, there's no people in there, whoever it is that's in there is not there specifically to attack you because you're on the outside. So why specifically go inside knowing you have to confront whatever it is rather than just waiting outside and- Shawn Vincent: You're going from a place of relative safety to uncertain danger. Don West: Yeah. And how many times have we seen that? So she goes inside with the expectation of confronting whoever it is and she may not have known or even really suspected that it was an intruder at that point. I don't know what she really thought that wasn't clear, but she did make the decision to go on in. And I think the prosecutor pretty reasonably said how unreasonable that decision was. Shawn Vincent: We've talked over and over again in these cases that the decision to pull the trigger by definition has to be imminent fear, right? And if it's imminent, there's no time to think twice about that decision. It has to be done right now. Imminent means right now, you told me once, right? So we have this conversation that we've had a few times about the choice before the choice and almost all the cases we've found there's been escalation and the shooter makes some choices before that critical moment where they pull the trigger where they could have gone a different way. And in Guyger's case, that's clearly her decision to continue into the apartment after she knew that something was wrong. That was where she really had the most discretion to change how the scenario went. Don West: Yes, exactly right. So she would then, by making the decision to go in and confront whatever it was that was inside, cross that line where she had to do it. Now I'm not saying she had to shoot somebody but once she made that decision to go inside, she had basically decided she will handle whatever it is. Shawn Vincent: Yeah. Don West: And when she didn't really have to do that, she had lots of other options there. Shawn Vincent: So that decision was unreasonable from the deciders of fact point of view. Don West: I think so. You couple it with all of the other little things where the prosecutor reinforced the notion that she should have known she wasn't in her place. There are too many things going on for her not to have realized it. If she hadn't been distracted with text messaging, if she hadn't been tired,  perhaps -- but nonetheless the prosecutor exploited everything that they could to show that she wasn't focusing, that she was distracted, that she really wasn't paying attention, that any reasonable person would have given these situations. And then I suppose from my perspective, the decision to go in and confront is a one-way street at that point. You go in and you have to deal with it. Now, I think what's interesting maybe for our listeners is we have, excuse me, no doubt lots of listeners that if they hear a noise in their backyard are going to get their gun and go out and figure out what it is. And just like when Amber Guyger went into what she believed be her apartment with her gun, with the expectation that she would confront whatever it was that was inside, she wasn't breaking any law. She was completely allowed to do that as a citizen and certainly as an off-duty police officer. So it's not that she made a critical illegal decision. She simply made, I think in hindsight, what was a critically bad decision. A decision that she didn't have to make that had the risk of increasing her own danger but more or less, as we've talked about before, when you talk about the choice before the choice, you make the choice that forces your hand and you hope it's going to turn out okay, you hope that you're going to come up on the winning side of it but nonetheless, you make a choice that forces a hard choice. And in this case how much more wrong could it have gone? Her life is effectively ruined, Botham Jean is dead, a promising, universally loved young man, a young professional who had a loving family and peers, it's just- Shawn Vincent: Just the ultimate tragedy. Don West: Yep, sure is. Shawn Vincent: So there were other things that we got brought up in trial that yeah, if we're going to push this forgivable subjectivity, the prosecutor tried to make her look like a bad person. They tried to make her look like a racist. She was white, Botham Jean was black. Don West: I think that the prosecutor, knowing how delicate a balance all of this is in terms of the jury's perception of what happened, were taking the opportunities that they had to exploit the weaknesses in the character, weaknesses in the history, in the background, taking events in Ms. Guyger's life and, rightfully or wrongfully, I don't know enough about it to suggest that there was any real evidentiary value to this other than what seemed to be a pretty clear attempt to dirty her up. I don't think anybody could credibly claim that race played a part in this, even though the media focus was oftentimes race-based and only because another unarmed black man is killed at the hands of a police officer. So that's a narrative which percolates throughout the news these days. Shawn Vincent: That definitely grabs national headlines. Don West: Yeah. It's a round peg, square hole scenario. I don't know anybody would truly suggest race played a part of it, but it was an aspect of this that was exploited by the lawyers on behalf of the family and certainly the prosecutor appreciated whatever value some inference of that might have and took full advantage of it to the extent they could. Whatever lesson there is, there only is what we've said on and on and that is that whatever you have out there in your past, whether it's social media, or text messages, or off-color jokes that are offensive, can and -- if there's any way for it to come back to haunt you -- it will. By all accounts, Amber Guyger was a decent person who had done a good job as a police officer, who had done good works in the community, was well-liked and well-respected but through this sequence of poor judgment, bad decisions, maybe being a little bit too gung-ho, dealing with whatever it was on her own, instead of getting the backup, set the stage for this tragedy. Shawn Vincent: Yeah. So she was convicted of murder, right? One of the options that the jury had along with acquittal would've been manslaughter. Were you surprised when you heard the murder conviction? Don West: I was a little surprised. Well, there was one other aspect about this case that the prosecution took full advantage of. And when I say taking full advantage of something, I'm not suggesting it's unethical or somehow even inappropriate, although I think there's some arguments to be made that the prosecutor is always supposed to take the high road and that their goal is serving justice not just getting a conviction, but I can tell you after many trials and lots of years of doing this, it's an adversarial process. There are egos on the line, everybody wants to win and if you see a chance, unless there's a clear prohibition against it, you're going to take it with a prosecutor or a defense lawyer. And they saw a chance and they took full advantage of it when during examination, Amber Guyger was asked about what was happening at the time that she shot Botham Jean. As we mentioned before, there were two shots, one that missed, one that went through his chest. And I believe it was cross-examination the prosecutor asked whether she was trying to kill him. And I believe she was nervous, being on the stand, no matter how seasoned you are is an imposing, intimidating thing and it's pretty easy to get rattled. Shawn Vincent: Yeah. Don West: So my guess is her answer was more a product of that than in fact what she was thinking but it might've been regardless when she was asked whether she was trying to kill him, she said yes. So the prosecutor had that little nugget when they wanted to argue about her state of mind and what she was really doing all along that she was there trying to kill him and shot him through the heart. Shawn Vincent: The right answer is she was trying to eliminate the immediate threat. That's the legal answer. Don West: Well, that's the true answer, I hope because that's the answer that her training would have been. There's no police department that I've ever heard of including a recent tour of an NYPD training facility where the officers are taught to kill in the face of a threat. Certainly death may be a consequence and it may be the only consequence if you truly have to incapacitate somebody, but it's never the goal. And the goal is exactly as you said, is to stop the threat. To neutralize the threat. And I think a lot of times these fatal wounds aren't by design. No reason to think that she was shooting Botham Jean in the heart for the purpose of killing him. The training would be to shoot in the larger mass of the torso and unfortunately that's where the heart and other vital organs are that often result in death but also fortunately, if you have to stop the threat and incapacitate someone, that's a pretty good place to hit him other than shooting somebody in the head, which from a training perspective is pretty hard to do. I don't claim to understand that fully but you shoot where you think you can hit somebody that's the threat and then you go from there. Shawn Vincent: Well, it's like the Sundance Kid says, aim for the middle and that way, in case you miss, you still hit something, Don West: So when she said, “I intended to kill him,” I think she misspoke. That was something that was one of those oh, oh, moments because it resonated in such an ugly way in the case. But I really questioned whether that was simply more misspeaking than that was, in fact, her intention. Shawn Vincent: But if you're a juror and you have to decide between murder and manslaughter, “I meant to kill him” is a tough obstacle to overcome. Don West: Hard for me to imagine. She had good lawyers, experienced lawyers. It's hard for me to imagine that they wouldn't have been through that with her in some way in the pre-trial preparation. But I don't know what statements she may have made before that she got locked in on something like that. But it came as a surprise to me. I think it probably came as a surprise to everybody that she answered that way and I think that was simply unfortunate. It doesn't really change anything except the observation you just now had. Shawn Vincent: Sure. But then you take a step further, now you have the guilty verdict and you talk about in Texas it's relatively unusual where that same jury gets to come up with the sentencing. And in this case for the murder conviction, it could've been anywhere between five and 99 years. I understand. And they chose- Don West: Yeah. Unusual in the sense that it doesn't happen very many places outside of Texas. Yes. It's common in Texas, that's how they do things. Shawn Vincent: Sure. In Florida, the judge is going to give you the sentence and- Don West: Exactly right. Shawn Vincent: And this jury, the same jury that convicted her of murder, went way low on that sentencing range. They gave her 10 years. Don West: Well, the trial and the sentencing are two distinct phases with different rules and different objectives. Of course it becomes pretty clear in a place like Texas, where the jury is actively involved in the sentencing, where there's actually a separate evidentiary proceeding. Typically in other jurisdictions, the jury will decide guilt or innocence and then there'll be a separate hearing but only with the judge or they hear additional evidence and aggravation to support a higher sentence based upon perhaps the background and character prior record, those things that would influence a judge and sentencing guidelines, calculations, that stuff. And much is the same in Texas but with the jury, witnesses testify, It's a much more formal process and then the jury retires to deliberate again and come up with a sentencing. Shawn Vincent: So what does it mean to hear that they come up with this 10 years instead of 99 years --  instead of 20 years? Don West: A sentencing hearing from a defendant's perspective is going to focus largely on mitigation. That's really the first time in most cases where the jury or the judge, depending on who the sentencer is, gets to hear about the person. There may be some stuff in the trial itself that comes out but how the person conducted themselves in the past, who their friends were, character references, employers, friends, that stuff is highly relevant. We have in the United States individualized sentencing. So there's virtually, unless it's a mandatory minimum, which I think is why there's so much condemnation of these mandatory minimum sentences and especially the high ones and for certain crimes is it takes the individuality away from the person being sentenced and also removes the discretion of the judge. Shawn Vincent: Sure. Every crime's committed within a very specific context and that context matters when it comes to punishment. Don West: And I think this case showed that dramatically, too. And while the jury sent a clear message that what she did was a crime and a serious crime, that there is value to her life, that as a public servant, as a police officer there's value to that. I think that... Of course, I don't know what they said in the jury room, but they obviously took it very seriously and after making a tough decision on guilt and innocence probably made even a tougher decision on sentencing because they had to decide basically whether to lock her up for the rest of her life or give her a chance at life. Shawn Vincent: Sure. Because she's a young woman, in 10 years, she still has life to live. Don West: Shawn, it's interesting about this case now that we've talked about the charge. If I'm not mistaken, she was first charged with manslaughter and then the case was taken to the grand jury. By charge I think probably the prosecutor's office was able to make that charge taken to the grand jury and the grand jury upped it to murder. Shawn Vincent: Okay. Don West: So then the trial jury instead of reducing it to manslaughter, as many thought it would if there was a conviction actually maintained the main charge, the murder charge . . . Shawn Vincent: But gave her a more “manslaughter” sentence for it. Don West: Yeah. As I understand it, a 10 year sentence, the one that she got there's going to be parole eligibility in about five years. It may not result in parole but I think that would be the earliest possible date that she could be released. The next five years are going to be pretty tough for her, not to focus so much on her as opposed to the suffering of Botham Jean's family and the tragic loss of his life. That's what's interesting about murder cases though, is that every murder case starts with someone that's been killed in some way. The starting point, not the ending point so it's really moving past that to how the system works with the focus on the accused. So the victim doesn't get lost along the way but from a jurisprudence standpoint, it's not about the victim. Shawn Vincent: So that's definitely just one of the remarkable parts of this case. And that is when the family of Botham Jean had an opportunity to give an impact statement, Botham's brother basically said he forgave Amber and didn't wish her any ill will and in fact asked the judge for permission to give her a hug. And there was a very dramatic moment where she goes and embraces him and she's in tears. Don West: I think that was so extraordinary in the normal course of affairs that everybody did a double take when he made that request and the judge hesitated. The knee jerk-reaction would be to say, "No, that's not permitted." And say, "Well, for security reasons or what have you." But this judge was very contemplative and very humanistic at the end especially. And she said yes. And Mr. Jean's brother got off the stand and walked toward counsel table where Ms. Guyger was seated and she stood up and they met in the middle of the courtroom and hugged. It was incredibly powerful and caught me completely by surprise. I hadn't seen such a thing. Shawn Vincent: I can’t pretend to think that this is actually true or know it in any way, but I got the impression that after this was all done and she got her sentence that she was ready to serve it. I felt that she was genuinely devastated and truly remorseful for what happened and you could see the pain of it on her face. And I think having the opportunity to pay for it, but still have a life afterwards was a good result for her. Don West: There may very well have been some relief. You're not allowed to show that thing during the process. The process is very rigid and formal and obviously adversarial as we've talked about. Can you imagine the uncertainty of not knowing whether you would receive a sentence that would allow you to have some life left or whether you would effectively be serving the rest of your life in prison. And she certainly has a sense of fairness and justice. She was a cop for a long time and she certainly wouldn't welcome spending 10 years in prison but I have to think knowing how badly she knows that she screwed up that she has to understand there's a sense of fairness in all of that. Shawn Vincent: I think that's right. Don West: Some of the evidence in sentencing was presented in court to the jury and then the jury went back to deliberate on the sentence and then there was an additional opportunity for family members or others, I suppose to speak more directly to the defendant. So there was a separate proceeding where family members, while they were in court and they were on the stand, the judge was in the courtroom, they were really talking more to Ms. Guyger. And that was the moment that Botham Jean's brother Brandt talked about forgiveness and the hug and that was outside the presence of the jury. So notwithstanding that the jury still gave- Shawn Vincent: Still went easy on her essentially. Well, we talked about looking for the lessons for concealed carriers so that they don't repeat those lessons. And in this case, I think the real takeaway for me is what we talk a little bit about at the beginning -- is just that very often in a stressful situation your perceptions about what's going on can be wrong. In this case, it's extraordinary unusual that she mistook someone else's home for her home. But what's not as uncommon is for someone to mistake an intruder for the wrong person. If someone that they know or someone who belongs there as an intruder or even more commonly to mistake someone who's unarmed for someone who's armed, right? We saw Drejka mistake someone who's intoxicated for someone who's making rational decisions. To me this just as a case that really underscores that when you get into these difficult decisions that you might not be right about your understanding of all the details. And while that doesn't necessarily matter if you're facing that imminent threat of death or great bodily harm, it should inform all those choices before the choice that you make. And sometimes we always emphasize avoiding the situation if you can at all, even if that means sometimes the bad guy gets away. But that's all in the service of making sure that you don't make mistakes that could cost you your freedom and the rest of your life. Don West: That's exactly on point. And it makes my mind start to turn again about this case. What was she thinking? Could she possibly have been going in to protect her stuff? Texas is one of the few States in the country that allows deadly force in some scenarios to protect property. I hope that's not what she was thinking. I hope she knew better than that just because legally you might be allowed to do something does not in any way make it a smart choice and certainly not a reasonable choice depending on the other circumstances. Did she not know that there was nothing that person could do inside that place that mattered a lot? The only thing that mattered was her safe. And of course what you're saying, wasn't there enough that was going on that seemed out of order that would have caused someone to just take a second and reflect and regroup and reassess before... Even if you are a trained police officer, even if you have a sidearm and if you're used to going to the threat as opposed to away from it, isn't there enough there that would cause you to say, "Wait a second, I am not in immediate danger. I don't have to make an immediate decision. What's the smart thing to do so that nobody gets hurt?" Shawn Vincent: Yup. And what I'm encouraging people to do is even if those signs aren't there, if you're in an escalating situation where the tension is getting high but before you reach a point of no return is make it a best practice. Our friend Bob O'Connor calls it the warrior mindset. I think that includes checking your assumptions before you take the next step and assume that you could be wrong about one of them before you commit to deadly force or putting yourself in the position where you won't have the choice to back away. Don West: Make no mistake that juries take firearm offenses, especially those involving serious injury or death very seriously. And the first thing I believe the prosecutor will look to even those prosecutors that are proponents of the second amendment and proponents of concealed carry will immediately focus on whether the concealed carrier is responsible. Is there anything we can look to show that they were being reckless or irresponsible or not exercising the high level judgment that you expect someone to have when they're carrying around an instrument with them that can cause immediate death. Shawn Vincent: Yeah. Don West: We have seen that theme over and over and over again as we look back at the cases we've talked about. Shawn Vincent: Well, that's a good point Don and as the psychiatrist says, I think our time's up. Don West: But we haven't even talked about mom yet. Shawn Vincent: Well, you may save that for a different day. As always, really enjoy talking with you about these things. Don West: Thanks Shawn. Look forward to the next time. I hope it's soon. Take care. Shawn Vincent: Alright. Take care.

Don West and Shawn Vincent continue their discussion of the Michale Drejka trial. Topics include Drejka’s statements to police, his decision not to testify, and what was learned from jurors who spoke to the Tampa Bay Times after the guilty verdict.   TRANSCRIPT:   Shawn Vincent: Hey, everybody, this is Shawn Vincent. Thanks for listening in. I'm excited about the podcast today. Today is the second part of my conversation with Don West, he's CCW Safe National Trial Council, on the Michael Drejka case. So if you remember Michael Drejka is the parking lot shooter out of Clearwater, Florida. He was getting into an argument with Brittany Jacobs over her parking in a handicapped parking spot, a disabled parking spot. Shawn Vincent: Markis McGlockton, that's Jacobs’ life partner, the father of her children, came out of this convenience store, saw this dude arguing with his girl. He walked up to Drejka quickly, without notice or warning, he pushed him to the ground violently. Drejka pulled his licensed concealed carry pistol, and he aimed at McGlockton, who was at this point standing over him in kind of an aggressive posture. He paused for a minute. Shawn Vincent: The video shows McGlockton take half-step back, a real slow retreat. And then he fired. That shot struck McGlockton in his heart. He stumbled back in the convenience store, fell to the ground, died at the feet of his five year old child. At first there wasn't an arrest. After some more details came out, the prosecutor charged him with manslaughter. A year and a half later, little over a year later, he goes to trial, convicted for manslaughter. Shawn Vincent: Don West and I watched that trial. We had a lot of things to say about it. And in today's podcast, we're going to talk more specifically about the statements that Drejka made to police, and why if you're ever approached after a self-defense shooting, you shouldn't say much without the advice of a lawyer. How those statements can be used against you, whether that means you have to testify or not at trial. And we're going to look at the jurors in this case. In full disclosure I helped, I contributed in a minor way in the jury selection of the Drejka case. I helped research the jurors, and vet them to make sure that they were qualified for trial. They spoke to the Tampa Bay Times, and they give us some pretty interesting insight into what happened behind closed doors in the jury room, and how they rendered that decision. There’s a lot of great lessons for concealed carriers from that. So, thanks again for listening in. Here's my conversation with Don west on the Michael Drejka trial. Shawn Vincent: Here's one thing that we tell CCW safe members all the time, and that's after a self-defense shooting. Don't make detailed statements to cops, without the presence and advice of a lawyer. Don West: Right, just as a quick refresher, generally speaking, if you're involved in a serious self-defense incident, there will be a responding officer, maybe in response to your own 911 call, which you should keep in mind is being recorded and available as evidence down the road. Shawn Vincent: Right. Don West: You'll be interacting with a responding officer, who will want you to tell him or her what just happened. You will likely be detained. Certainly, you'll be detained at the scene for officer safety. You may be detained and taken to the police station for further questioning. You may or may not actually be arrested at that point. We don't need to go into the nuances of that. But it's likely at some point, either that evening or shortly thereafter, a detective with the police agency, who has now been fairly recently assigned to the case and getting up to speed- Shawn Vincent: A homicide detective. Don West: A homicide detective, yes, will want to talk with you in detail about what happened. So the general advice is that you provide enough basic information to orient the responding officers, you clearly state that you acted in self-defense because you were attacked, telling them where any evidence that may not be obvious might be, if describing the attacker or attackers if they fled. Providing the basic information that helps the police officers know you're not a threat, that you are defending yourself. Don West: Then if being requested to provide further information, say you're happy to cooperate, but you want a counsel present. Same thing with the detective, where you ask for a counsel to be present during any sort of detailed debriefing, and there's lots of reasons for that. Part of it is legal: Why would you subject yourself to the questioning of a trained investigator, without having a trained professional helping you? You certainly are clearly at a disadvantage. Don West: Secondly, you may very well say things in a way that you don't intend to say, because you haven't thought it through, or you felt the need to come up with an answer instead of reflecting on it. Then the trauma of the event itself. You will have undergone a life threatening circumstance, which will affect your judgment and your decision making, it will affect your perception. And it's commonly said, police officers will get a couple of three days in between the use of force incident they're involved in, until they're asked to be fully debriefed. Don West: And that's the recognition of how difficult and how traumatic that experience is, and how it can make you unreliable when you're otherwise doing everything possible you can to tell the truth. Shawn Vincent: So you and I had a chance to talk to Steven Maddox, that was the CCW safe member who was charged and prosecuted. You were instrumental, I think in his defense, and I got a chance to help pick the jury on that. And Stephen told us that he was trying to answer questions honestly to the investigators there, but he got things wrong, like the number of children that he had, or his address, because he was so affected by the attacks that he had endured and the stress of the shooting itself. And he wasn't intentionally trying to deceive, but he got things wrong because he was in an unfamiliar emotional state. Don West: Keep in mind too, that the investigator has a very clear role in this. They may have already decided that you're guilty. So they may be just looking to confirm things they believe they already know, and getting you to try to incriminate yourself. Others may be more genuinely looking for information, without having sort of prejudged the situation, but the rules are different. Don West: The police can try to trick you and deceive you and lie to you about things during this interrogation process. So if you respond to that, if you become defensive, if you say things that can make you look guilty, that's going to be permanently recorded and available to use against you. I really believe that sometimes the hardest job of the defense lawyer representing an innocent person is to- Shawn Vincent: Undo what they did. Don West: Undo. Yes, yes. And I can think of several cases that I've been involved in, or worked on in some capacity, where it was an hour or two hours or longer into this extended interview, before the suspect even knew that the person they had shot had died. That's not a fact that's offered very often, certainly not very early, because they know how that changes the entire picture. And Maddox was one of those. Maddox didn't know for two or three hours that his attacker was dead. Shawn Vincent: We talked about the Michael Dunn case; the Michael Dunn interrogation tape is fascinating, because Michael Dunn felt like he was justified at first, although he knew he messed up by leaving the scene. But there's this point in the tape where he realizes how much trouble he is in, and he is being nice to these guys, these investigators. He's like, "All of a sudden I don't feel very good." And the homicide officer is like, "Yeah, I bet. Because you messed up dude.” Shawn Vincent: But it's that moment where... and I feel like a lot of self-defenders feel they're justified. They have no doubt to themselves, that they were justified, and see the law enforcement as their friends in this. That the criminal is the other guy that I had to shoot, and now I'm talking to you like we're bros here. Right? We're on the same side, because we're both against that bad guy. And then it sinks in potentially later that, "Wait. I'm the bad guy. Or they might be thinking of me as the bad guy." Because you in fact, committed a homicide. But let's look at it in terms of the Drejka case. Drejka gave pretty extensive video tape statements to law enforcement. Don West: That's right. And they became featured in the trial, of course. So during that interview, he recreated, reconstructed the events, even with a demonstration. He answered all of the questions. And if you look at that recording, it appears to me that he was genuinely trying to answer the questions, honestly, from his perspective, that he used some language that the prosecution made a lot to do with... that he said was kind of cop talk. Shawn Vincent: Cop talk like? Don West: I don't know if that was or not, whether he was trying to act like he was a police officer, but that certainly is a good example of how... or act like a police officer, or just being sure that he was clear in what he was saying. But nonetheless, the prosecution made a heyday out of that, looking for any tiny little thing that could be exploited and turned against him. And there were lots and lots of those examples. Shawn Vincent: When you say cop talk, you mean like this, he quotes this 21 foot rule? Don West: The 21 foot rule probably falls into that category. What I was referring to specifically, was he might answer a question that would call for a yes or no answer. And he would say, "Negative." As opposed to, "No." Shawn Vincent: I got you. Don West: That kind of talk. But since you mentioned the 21 foot rule, that of course, was also featured in the trial. His comment referenced the 21 foot rule, and the prosecution had a heyday with that, and featured an expert witness, whose primary purpose it seems to me, was to make Drejka look bad by talking about how Drejka was wrong, the way he talked about the so called 21 foot rule. Shawn Vincent: And the 21 foot rule is essentially, is mostly for law enforcement, right? It's how far away someone is, that they can still get to you, and the time it would take you to unholster your weapon, drop the safety, and aim and fire. Right? Don West: It's interesting, I imagine anybody who has taken any kind of self-defense class, or probably even a concealed carry class is going to hear about the 21 foot rule. And it's unlikely that they will understand clearly what the research actually was when it was done, how it was done, what you can draw from it and over time. And of course, through the mouths of different instructors in different circumstances, it becomes all sorts of things. Don West: One of the purposes of calling the expert at the trial against Drejka, was I think, to show that Drejka misunderstood what the significance of that is. And I think it's arguable, I think it's pretty clear, that the expert got it wrong, or at least the expert focused on some aspect of that, that wasn't completely accurate. It wasn't completely forthcoming. Don West: Let me just take a second, and I'm certainly no expert on this. I've gathered some information on, and I know generally, what you've said, Shawn, is correct. And that is, the notion is that if someone is attacking you, that by the time it would take someone to draw a weapon -- so this is someone that has some skills, and some training to draw a weapon, prepare it to fire, put it on target and fire it. The actual drill was two times. That person can easily cover about 21 feet. Don West: So that means basically, if somebody has an edged weapon, or a blunt instrument, a baseball bat of some sort, and they're 21 feet or closer in front of you, and they intend to seriously injure or kill you, they can cover that distance in about a second and a half. Shawn Vincent: So faster than you can get your gun out, the idea of, they're inside that circle. Don West: Yeah. Shawn Vincent: Your decision making is over at that point. Don West: So the value of knowing that is, generally speaking, someone can be a lot further away than you would think, and still get on top of you and kill you, before you have an opportunity to defend yourself. Shawn Vincent: Sure. Don West: So in general, that's the notion behind it. Shawn Vincent: And Drejka brings this up, because he's on the ground on his back and this guy is just a feet away from him. Don West: Yes, he's clearly less than 21 feet. And I think what Drejka was trying to illustrate is that, he was well within that zone of danger, that meant that, if McGlockton intended to come over and kick him in the ribs, kick him in the head, stamp him to death, continue the violence that he had initiated by shoving him to the ground, he was close enough that he could have done that before Drejka could defend himself. That's the sense of it. Shawn Vincent: Yeah. To get back to your cop talk conversation, you and I have both been involved in cases where the prosecutors have tried to use the defendant's knowledge of self-defense against them. Almost as in, you know these rules and you're trying to work around them to justify a homicide. Do you agree with that? Am I explaining that properly? Don West: Yeah. Let me back up just a little bit and say that, when someone is involved in a self-defense shooting, the jury is asked to look at that incident through the eyes of the shooter, of the defender. And that includes, knowing what the defender knew. And that necessarily incorporates what their training may have been as well, good or bad. It incorporates what they might have known about the attacker. Did they have information beforehand? Was this guy was violent and aggressive? Did they have a beef? Don West: All that kind of stuff is allowed to be looked at by the jury, in deciding, was there a fear of great bodily harm or death? And then ultimately, was that fear reasonable under all things known to the defender? So that's where this notion of there's the subjective view of the evidence, and that's through the defenders eyes, as the jury looks at what the defender saw, and knew, and then there's this objective view, and that's kind of this reasonable person test. The jury looks at, was it reasonable for him, knowing all that he knew and seeing it as he saw it to act the way that he did? Don West: And I think in large part, that's the jury saying, what would I have done if I had been in that situation? So the training is legitimate. The problem is, sometimes it gets exploited. And I think, by the prosecutor and I think that's what happened here. Drejka was basically accused by the expert of the state, the prosecutor, of not knowing what he was talking about, when he mentioned the 21 foot rule. Don West: The prosecutor's expert made a big deal, that this research that was done was based upon an edged weapon only, and that McGlockton didn't have an edged weapon. So nothing that Drejka said made sense. I think that's an overly restrictive view, because an edged weapon is a deadly weapon, but so would a baseball bat be at that point. And that doesn't change anything. Shawn Vincent: Yeah. Don West: Do you care, particularly if you're stabbed? Or hit in the head with a baseball bat? I think not. Both of them are going to do you harm. So I think that was frankly disingenuous. The background is, it's called the Tueller drill. The research was done by Dennis Tueller. I think it goes back to the '80s, trying to understand better what this dynamic was. And the research was duplicated over the years, that it became pretty much the standard. That's why it's called the 21 foot rule. Don West: That is, that it takes... that a person can cover the 21 feet in about a second and a half, which is about the time that it takes to draw and fire a weapon by a trained person. So the mindset is that, if the person is 21 feet or closer, that you're in big trouble at that point, because once they get their hands on you, if they have a knife then you're done. Shawn Vincent: I guess the lesson here is, if you rely on that rule and the police investigators are talking to you after a self-defense shooting that, that's something you want to save to talk about with your lawyer, as your lawyer can decide that, that's now one of your defenses, justifying the shooting. And I think anything that- Don West: I think that's right. I think Drejka was inarticulately trying to explain his thinking, trying to reconstruct the events in his mind. And he had heard that from a class or read about it and thought it might help him to throw it in. Just like he thought it might help him to talk to a police officer in cop talk, because that's who he was talking to. It wasn't like he was at a cocktail place. Shawn Vincent: Right. Don West: And those two things backfired in the sense that the prosecutor made hay, and unfortunately, I don't think that the defense lawyers were particularly effective at blunting that or explaining it further. So in a sense, the prosecutors went there and got away with it. And the jury had sort of a bad taste, I think about Drejka, and this whole, this picture of who he was. Don West: Now, we know that the only picture that the jury got of Drejka came from the witnesses that talked about the prior incident, when he had threatened a guy over a handicapped parking spot, the prior bad act stuff, the witnesses at the scene who described his manner after the fact as almost being matter of fact, which didn't help very much, and what he said on the statement. He didn't testify. Shawn Vincent: Yeah, they didn't put Drejka on the stand to explain to the jurors, what his mindset was. They ended up relying on this recorded testimony. Don West: And we could talk for an hour about what's involved in making that decision, as a criminal defense lawyer, if somebody testifies, why they don't. Let me say, first of all, that a defendant has the absolute right to testify if they choose. It is their choice and their choice alone. Of course, they would like the guidance of counsel to help them make that choice. But that's not a decision the lawyer can make for them, unlike other legal decisions. Shawn Vincent: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Don West: So the fact that Mr. Drejka did not testify was his decision with the counsel, and advice, obviously. Shawn Vincent: Was an informed decision. Yeah. Don West: Yes. In fact, I think in most cases, the judge will actually address the defendant outside the presence of the jury and ask him if he intends to testify, or if he had chosen not to at that point. Whether he understood he had the right to, whether it was his decision, whether he needed more time to talk about it for trying to protect the record, so that, if there's an appeal down the road that, the defendant doesn't come say, "Well, I didn't know I had the right to testify." Or, "My lawyer told me I wasn't allowed to." Those kinds of things, as a fundamental right. Don West: And Drejka elected not to testify. Now, keep in mind that, by the time he would have made that choice, the prosecutor had already decided to offer the recorded interview into evidence. They did that during their case, during the prosecution case, and that was their choice. They didn't have to do that. Shawn Vincent: Sure. In fact, in the Dunn case, they waited until the rebuttal argument to play the recording, after they Dunn testified. Don West: Because Mr. Drejka voluntarily gave that statement, and it was otherwise admissible, it gave the prosecution the choice to play it in their case or not. It was not a choice that the defense had. Shawn Vincent: Yeah, that's an interesting point. You need to emphasize, because you can't just offer pre recorded stuff about the defendant to testify, or I'd say evidence if you're the defendant. Don West: That's right. Mr. Drejka, in order to get his story in front of the jury, if the prosecution hadn't offered that recorded statement he gave to the police, Mr. Drejka would have had to take the stand. Now, that statement could have been used by the prosecution as cross examination, or as impeachment. All or parts of it may possibly have been introduced, but not by Mr. Drejka. He doesn't get the opportunity to offer a prior exculpatory statement, and evidence in lieu of his testimony. Don West: So a lot of the legal commentators wrestled, when they were looking at this case. Should the prosecution offer it? Or effectively, should they force Mr. Drejka to take the stand? And that was a strategy decision, based upon a number of things. Shawn Vincent: Sure. Don West: They would have had to evaluate their case, and decide whether they thought it helped them or hurt them. Shawn Vincent: And then when you look at the contents of that, there's one segment of it where he's recalling to the officer what happened. His perception was that, Markis McGlockton, after Drejka pulled out the gun, either stayed still or stepped towards him, in direct contrast with what the recording showed. So all of a sudden, you have the defendant making statements that, whether maliciously intended, are untrue, based on the evidence. Don West: They are inaccurate. Yeah. So it's clear that, his perception of that was wrong. It's a question I suppose, and the prosecutor gets to play with that too. Was he just wrong? And that makes it unreasonable. Or, was he lying about it? Which makes it evidence of guilt. So I assume they figured they could box him in that, since it was evident from the tape that McGlockton was backing up. I think that's a reasonable construction, when Dr. Drejka said he was actually coming forward to him, that puts the prosecutor having his cake, and eating it too. Because they get to make the reasonableness argument at the end, which they did over and over and over again. Don West: I thought it was interesting, too, the way that Drejka explained the situation, because when he was challenged a little bit by the interrogator, by the investigating detective about McGlockton coming toward him. He actually said to Drejka, "What if there was information that he wasn't coming towards you, that he might actually even be backing up?" And Drejka said, "Then I couldn't shoot him. I wouldn't shoot him. In fact, I wouldn't shoot him or I couldn't shoot him, even if he was just standing still, much less coming toward me." Don West: So in some respects, Drejka knew where the boundary was, that had he recognized that McGlockton had stopped or was retreating, he knew that he would not legally be allowed to use lethal force, because the attack was not imminent at that point. Shawn Vincent: So interesting, and he seemed to me credible, when he said that. I believed him. Don West: Yes, I didn't get the usual markers that you look for somebody that's lying about it, and trying to get away with something. No, I believe that's at least the way he was explaining it, what he thought and that was sincere. And of course, another interesting dynamic of self-defense is that the threat has to be perceived as real and actual. But it doesn't, in fact, have to be real. That you can be mistaken about certain things, as long as your perception of the threat is reasonable and that your response is reasonable. Don West: I think where the prosecutor kind of wove the way through this was that, they kept pounding on the idea that McGlockton had stopped, and he had actually taken a step back. So that not only was there not an actual threat at that moment, but Drejka's perception, even if you gave him the benefit of the doubt, was so wrong, that it was unreasonable for him to think there was a threat. Shawn Vincent: That's right. So if you're going to be wrong about a detail, if you're going to misperceive, the jury has to believe that you misperceived it. Don West: And that it was reasonable. Shawn Vincent: Yeah. Don West: I really think that's where they put themselves in the case, where they look at it through your eyes as the defender, but then they also step back and say, "What would I have done in that situation?" This is an interesting case because there were some jurors... well, it was interesting because you had the video, and rarely do you have the video that shows the crucial moments leading up to and after shooting, but then there was media coverage. So you could see it gavel to gavel, and see how the lawyers presented this case, their strengths and their weaknesses. Don West: I like to armchair quarterback and second guess. So I'm sitting there saying, "Wow, that was pretty good. I'm not sure I could have done it that way." Or, "Wow, that was terrible. I wish that I was there to ask those questions." Or where I thought evidence was available that wasn't sufficiently developed, especially knowing that he wasn't going to testify. Shawn Vincent: We'll be right back with more of my conversation with Don west, to include a look inside the jurors’ minds. And the conversation about whether concealed carriers are compatible with vigilante justice. Don West: We write a lot about... we talk a lot about self-defense. I write for CCW Safe, a lot about self-defense, and sometimes I get people who are angry at me, or challenge my point of view on some aspect of self-defense and what's justifiable, what's not justifiable. My answer always is, "I'm not telling you what I think. I'm telling you what my experience has been with what juries think." And in the end, if you're a self-defender, if you're a self-defense shooter, it doesn't necessarily matter what you think about whether or not you're justified. It's going to be in the hands of the six to 12 people, who come from all walks of life, and what they think. Shawn Vincent: And in the Drejka case, a number of the jurors spoke to reporters afterwards. And that's going to give us a little bit of insight into what they were thinking. And obviously, we haven't mentioned this yet, but Drejka was convicted of manslaughter after a six and a half hour jury deliberation. And in my experience, six and a half hours is not bad. That means that they gave it some real thought. Don West: I think that's a good comment. I think that, while there were a handful of witnesses that testified, and certainly a handful of physical exhibits that were on their way in it, this was not a particularly complicated case to unravel. It wasn't a document case, where there are thousands of documents to sort through or tons and tons of expert testimony that really mattered much in the scheme of things. So for this jury to deliberate, to just sort through the information and then the no doubt, sometimes agonizing process of trying to figure out what's right, what's lawful, what's fair. Six hours is certainly a tribute to the system working, I think. Shawn Vincent: Yeah. And so an article from the Tampa Bay Times that covered the trial extensively, when they spoke to some jurors, said that, it was about 45 minutes to an hour in, that they took their first poll. And they said that the jurors were split between guilty and not guilty at that point. Don West: I don't think that's uncommon and a difficult or a close case, and certainly there's nothing wrong with it. It's encouraged that one of the things the foreperson, once chosen, would do, and once they get settled down and have everything with them, and they're ready to start, there's no reason not to take a sort of a preliminary look at how people feel. And then they can start the hard work of people explaining it, and people having enough of an open mind that they're willing to re-look at things or reconsider, and -- only to comment that, sometimes the hardest thing to figure out is how to apply the law to the facts. Don West: Once you've got the facts sorted out, the jury is supposed to do that, figure out which witness is believable, what evidence is reliable, and sort of get a handle on what happened. After they do that, they still have to then apply that to the law and figure out whether a crime was committed. And if so, what crime? In a self-defense case, it's not an issue of who committed the crime, but rather was a crime at all committed? And then they've got to dive into the deep end of the law, and as hard as the Supreme Court who drafted the instructions and the trial judge who conformed them to the trial itself, that's no easy task. Those instructions are often very difficult to truly understand, and to apply to a challenging situation. Shawn Vincent: Sure, for the case in point, there is one jury question that came out to the judge and to the lawyers. And that was the jury asking for clarification on what reasonable doubt meant. And reasonable doubt, that's the fundamental thing a juror needs to know when they're deciding guilty or innocent, or guilty or not guilty, right? Don West: Yeah, that's kind of the bottom line, isn't it? Shawn Vincent: Yeah. Shawn Vincent: It's always funny. You and I talked about, how we felt about this case and we put ourselves in the jurors shoes. And we know an awful lot about the law of self-defense. And you mentioned something that's in the instruction for reasonable doubt. And that's this idea of a vacillating conviction. You know what I'm talking about? Don West: Yeah, let's back up a little bit. Now, this was a criminal trial in Florida, which means that, whatever the rules are in Florida are the rules that apply to this case, as opposed to a federal case that could take place in any federal court around the country, where the rules are basically the same. So what I'm saying is, every state in their state criminal courts would have their own set of jury instructions, that have been crafted over the years by their courts. Shawn Vincent: Yeah. Don West: So they are different from state to state. The concept is the same, the reasonable doubt standard is the same, but the language that's used to try to explain it changes. Some is better than others, frankly. The courts, the trial judges, are really, really hesitant to change the language of those core instructions. They basically just read it the way it is, and don't deviate from it. And if the jury doesn't quite get it, it's really hard for the judges to do much about that, other than just read it again. Shawn Vincent: Yeah, that's what happened here. They said, "Listen, it's written down." He has got to go figure it out. Don West: So from the reasonable doubt standpoint, I don't have it in front of me just sort of by memory. Having heard it a few times, is that a reasonable doubt is explained in the jury instructions more what it isn't than what it actually is, because how do you actually define it? And there's no easy, clear way of doing it. So one of the instructions that's given is that, it's not a forced doubt or a speculative doubt. It's not a possible doubt. The prosecutors love to latch on to “it's not a possible doubt,” meaning it's possible that you could wake up tomorrow and there could be six feet of snow in Florida. Don West: Well, yeah, we understand that. But the instructions go on to say, even if you have no reason -- let's say, if you have an abiding conviction of guilt, and that's kind of old language, I think. Who uses abiding these days? Shawn Vincent: The Dude. Don West: But nonetheless- Shawn Vincent: The Dude abides. The Big Lebowski. But yeah, I get your point. Don West: That's Jeff Bridge's moment in the sun, isn't it? Of course, he has a few. Shawn Vincent: Sure, but that's our favorite by far. Yeah. An abiding conviction. Don West: An abiding conviction of guilt is as close to the instructions as you get them saying, "If you believe there is no reasonable doubt." So meaning, if you have an abiding conviction of guilt, but one that waivers or vacillates. Shawn Vincent: Yeah. Don West: Again, pretty old language, the waiver not so much but vacillates. So if you have an abiding conviction of guilt, but it wavers or vacillates, then you don't have an abiding conviction. Shawn Vincent: Sure. And it takes- Don West: That's another way of saying that, if that's a reasonable doubt, then we know the standard is, if there is a reasonable doubt... some places say, "A doubt to which you can assign a reason," which is kind of the tail wagging the dog. Shawn Vincent: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Don West: Then the jury has this sort of mash, kind of a mash up of stuff they take in there and try to figure out what that means, and how to apply it to the case. Shawn Vincent: Well, here's how the jury approached that problem. They had that first poll at 45 minutes to an hour in. That meant, for the next five and a half hours, they were hashing it out. One juror said that -- this 11 seconds of surveillance video, in this case, they said they re-watched that 11 seconds hundreds and hundreds of times. It was the key piece of evidence obviously. Don West: Sure, it was. Whatever that was, for better or for worse, that's what drove the decision, don't you guess? Shawn Vincent: I do. We talked earlier about the motions in limine, and how the prosecution won the right to show that video in slow motion. But one of the jurors actually says that, one of the witnesses talked about how that's not a accurate representation of what happened. So the video they watched over and over again was the full speed video. So I'd give the jurors a lot of credit for that. Don West: You should. That they just didn't sign on to one side or the other from the beginning and run it through. Certainly, the prosecution showed it to them, because they were allowed to, in slow motion, but that the jury was so conscientious that they realized, maybe that wasn't the fair thing to do. Maybe that was not the due process that Michael Drejka deserved. They didn't succumb to that in the jury deliberation room. That's powerful stuff to me that the system works. Shawn Vincent: But here's a quote here: “It really came down to the fact that once the gun was drawn, he the victim retreated. The defendant had enough time to make the decision, that once he saw the victim retreating, that he did not have to pull the trigger.” Is there any statement that you can think of, that defines this case much better than that? Don West: No, that's right on the money. That's the moment of truth, so to speak. Shawn Vincent: Gosh, that kind of takes your breath away, I think, if you're a concealed carrier. And you come to terms with life or death and freedom and prison. Right? That it comes down to this pause. Right? The sheriff of Pinellas County said, "That pause gives me pause." That's what kept him from charging, or making the arrest originally. But then, you get this juror that watches that hundreds of times. I don't know how many times you watched it. I've watched it at least 40 times in my analysis of this. There is that moment. There's that moment of reflection. Maybe, if he hadn't paused, he has a different case. Don West: How incredible is that? If he had actually fired sooner, nothing else changing, if he had fired sooner, the jury may have felt that he didn't appreciate that McGlockton was retreating at that point. Now, of course, they may very well have said, that he didn't have to fire so fast. He had the situation under control by virtue of displaying the firearm. And then you start getting into the nuances of this so called 21 foot rule, right? Or, how quickly could McGlockton react to that? Shawn Vincent: Yeah. Here's another juror -- a quote from them that I think is interesting, "I think he had the opportunity not to kill him." And that's an interesting thing to think about. Right. And that speaks kind of like it's a duty to retreat, or an ability to retreat. The juror says there's an option not to use deadly force here. What they were saying is that they didn't think that the threat to Drejka was imminent, or reached the level of force that would justify lethal force, right? Don West: That's a beautiful, beautiful assessment of the case by the juror. It touches on all of these elements of self-defense in a way that is particularly human, if you think about it. It's in our genes to preserve human life. You preserve your own, but you preserve everyone else's too, as long as you can. That he didn't have to do it. And if you heard the prosecutor say, unreasonable, or it wasn't reasonable, one time, it was said 50 times. And that's this notion that he didn't have to do it. Because he did, it was unreasonable. Shawn Vincent: Sure. And another part of that is, we're looking at it from the law, but we're also putting ourselves in the shoes of the defender, right? Don West: I feel bad for McGlockton. I mean, what a tragedy. A guy, not quite 30 years old, I think, who was shot and killed and no longer on this earth. He has young children. He was in a long term relationship with Brittany Jacobs. He did some stupid things. He exercised really bad judgment. He was high. But in his mind, he was coming to her rescue. He did it illegally and wrong. Shawn Vincent: But of course battery is never punished with executions, right? We don't execute people for battery charges. Don West: Exactly. I also feel bad for Drejka, of course. Because he made equally bad decisions. He stuck his nose in something that wasn't really his business, at least not in a confrontational way. He could have handled it very differently and still made his point. Shawn, I was struck by the testimony that Brittany Jacobs told Drejka, when he said, "You don't have a parking permit. What are you doing in this parking spot for handicapped?" There were no other people using that spot. There was another one available, I think. And her response was, "My guy or my husband is in the store. As soon as he comes out, we will move. There are a couple of young kids." Don West: So she wasn't agreeing, but she wasn't being particularly defiant either. She just was saying, "Look, it's just not a big deal, because I'm going to move as soon as he comes out." It wasn't like she parked there and left. And there wasn't any immediate use for it. And Drejka, that wasn't good enough for him. He didn't say, "Whatever," and walk away. He continued to escalate it. And of course, that's the problem. Don West: You get two confrontational, aggressive guys in something, one that's not hesitant at all to be physical and the other who's armed. And by the Williams rule, I guess the prior bad acts stuff we were talking about, arguably, is looking for a reason, itching for something. Man, you've got the makings of a bad outcome, and that's what we had here. Shawn Vincent: Yeah. We have a quote I want to talk about from another juror. That the law says... we have this one who said that, she didn't think that it was necessary. He had the opportunity not to shoot, right? And that's not necessarily the legal stuff standard. But, we ask a jury to put themselves in the shoes of the defender, right? Don West: Yes. Shawn Vincent: Even if we know that he misperceived it. You've talked about before, legally, you're allowed to misperceive it, as long as you are honest about that, and you are still reasonable under that perception to act, right? Don West: Well, I guess, rather than perception, you should use the threat. The perception of the threat. The threat itself does not have to be real. So in other words, you're allowed to make certain mistakes. Part of that, if you fast forward to the Amber Guyger trial in Dallas, where she's went- Shawn Vincent: She is the one who went to the wrong house and shot the occupant, thinking he was a burglar? Don West: That's right. She made a huge mistake. Her perception of the threat was wrong. But that does not prevent her from melting an effective self-defense claim. There were other problems in that case, but- Shawn Vincent: Which I can't wait to talk to you about, by the way, on another day. Don West: Yeah, that's going to be interesting stuff. The threat doesn't have to be real. The perception of the threat has to be reasonable. So in other words, other people are going to have to say, "Yeah, I would have seen it like that too." Shawn Vincent: And here's what this juror said. He said, "I had a hard time seeing what he saw." So here's a juror who watched this 11 second video hundreds of times. And even though Drejka gave statements to the police that were recorded and shown to the jury, saying that from his point of view, he was moving forward, that this juror said, "I just didn't see it. I had a hard time seeing what he saw." It's tough to overcome. Don West: It is. Yes. And I think that juror was being honest with- Shawn Vincent: When he said something like, "I had a hard time seeing what he saw," meant that he tried. Right? Don West: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Shawn Vincent: He tried to see it the way he did, and just couldn't, when it came down to it, when he had to make the decision. Don West: In some ways that gives Drejka the benefit of the doubt. That's kind of what this whole notion is, with the prosecution burden having to disprove self-defense beyond a reasonable doubt. When the juror says, "I tried to see it the way Drejka did, but I couldn't," that tells me that he was genuine and sincere in his role as a juror. Shawn Vincent: Yeah. So going back… the lessons for the concealed carrier, there's a ton of them in this case, but the ultimate lesson that we always come down to is, I think this one juror said it best, "If you have the opportunity not to use lethal force, you got to take it." Legally, you should take it. Because that's going to... if the jury thinks you had an opportunity to avoid it, whether the law says it or not, they may hold that against you. Don West: Yes, that's a fundamental and a valuable lesson to learn. That's a direct window into how jurors look at these hard cases. And that's a valuable lesson. There are of course, lots of other lessons too. And the obvious lesson is, if you're the guy with the gun, you may just want to mind your own business. Shawn Vincent: Well, isn't that a huge lesson in this? Because, they made hay in the... like, although that spot was painted handicapped, it wasn't an official city designated handicapped spot, that she wouldn't have gotten a ticket for parking in that spot. We talked over and over again that, if you are armed, if you choose to carry a concealed, then you sort of have an obligation to avoid unnecessary confrontations. Don West: One of the arguments that the prosecutor made and I thought he made it effectively is that, Drejka was the guy with the final solution. So he didn't have to care about putting his nose in other people's business, or how far he took this thing, because he knew he was equipped with the final solution. That scares the hell out of most jurors, don't you think? Shawn Vincent: I think so. We talked a little bit about doing his recorded statements with cops. He had this quote unquote “cop talk.” And we encountered this in Zimmerman. I've seen it before. It gets brought up in some self-defense cases, where they project a law enforcement mentality on the defendant. Right? If you're defending your home, that's one thing, but if you're out, seeming to be enforcing parking permit law, or somehow patrolling the neighborhood, if that was the suggestion. Shawn Vincent: Cops are trained to be armed, and to approach people who are breaking the law, and citizens are not. So I think, if you're armed and a private citizen and you put yourself in a position where you're encountering a would be criminal or some code violator, then you're not trained like a cop necessarily. And you don't have the legal standing. You're just putting yourself in a potentially no-win scenario. Don West: There's certain hot button descriptions that, words that are just thrown out there because people know the kind of reaction that they cause. And in a firearm incident of some sort, if you throw the word “vigilante” out there, you've just pushed all those hot buttons that makes everybody- Shawn Vincent: Bristle. Don West: Yes, yes. And that was the word that was used for Zimmerman of course, and that's the word that comes to mind with Drejka. It's easy to paint him as the parking lot vigilante. Shawn Vincent: Yeah. Don West: That's a lot of ground you have to make up, if you're trying to defend that guy, if that name gets associated with him and sticks. And just like any other scenario where you're having to overcome a negative perception right from the beginning, associated with somebody who arms themselves, goes out and sticks their nose into other people's business. Don West: By the way, let me say, Drejka did nothing illegal, except when the jury determined that he committed the crime of manslaughter. Up to that point, he didn't commit any crimes. He just exercised questionable judgment. And it's not against the law to go up to somebody and express your displeasure at the fact that they are parking where they're not supposed to be. You can raise your voice and call them names as long as you're not threatening in some way. Don West: But that's all protected by the First Amendment. The first crime in this scenario was committed by Markis McGlockton, when he shoved Drejka to the ground. But that would not have happened, and no way justifying what Markis McGlockton did. But that would not have happened had Drejka just let it go and backed away, anyway. Shawn Vincent: But that's what we talked about, when you are armed and you enter a conflict, you can't control what the other person is going to do. We see these dominoes fall to so many scenarios, where the shooting becomes almost inevitable. Don West: This is an expression that one of the guys at CCW Safe used just offhand. I don't know where it came from. We were just talking about some self-defense scenario. I don't remember if it was even one of the ones in the news, but something that he knew about, and we talked about. He just kind of shook his head and said, "When assholes collide." Shawn Vincent: Right. Don West: It's a little descriptive or overly descriptive, but at the same time, man, does it say it all. Shawn Vincent: Yeah. And you and I have talked about before that, when you carry a concealed, then you give up your right to be an asshole. If you want to be an asshole, don’t bring your gun, right? Don West: Good enough. Shawn Vincent: I think that's the final word, Don. Don West: One of my favorites, one of my favorites. Shawn Vincent: All right. Thanks again for taking the time to talk. Don West: Enjoyed it, Shawn. This has been a fascinating discussion. It's a fascinating case. It's as you point out, one that you can come at from many different perspectives and learn so much about it. I greatly enjoy talking with you about these cases. It makes me think about stuff I haven't thought about in a long time, or thought about in a particular way. And I think whether you're visualizing yourself in a restaurant and wondering who could be coming through the door, and how you might react if somebody approaches you in a parking lot, trying to figure out what their intentions are. Don West: Anytime you see something in your mind and discuss it from beginning to end, you're going to come out at the other side, better prepared to deal with it if it actually happens. Shawn Vincent: I agree, Don. So thanks again for going through that exercise with me. Don West: Thank you Shawn. Look forward to the next time. Bye, bye! Shawn Vincent: Bye.

  Don West and Shawn Vincent use the Michael Drejka parking lot shooting case as a vehicle to explore the different phases of a self-defense trial. It’s important for concealed carriers to understand how the justice system works, should they ever be prosecuted for a self-defense shooting.   TRANSCRIPT: Shawn Vincent: Hey everybody, this is Shawn Vincent. We've got a little something different for you on today's podcast, In Self-Defense. Usually our podcasts are focused on conversations about high profile self-defense cases, and Don West and I look for the lessons learned for concealed carriers. The whole idea is to have you guys learn from the mistakes that other people made in their self-defense cases so that you can avoid the tedious fight that comes after the first fight. That's the legal ramifications of a self-defense homicide. Shawn Vincent: Don West, if you don't know, is National Trial Counsel for CCW Safe. He's been a criminal defense attorney for more than 30 years. I worked with him first on the George Zimmerman case. He is an amazing attorney. He is super diligent. He's hard-nosed. If I were ever in trouble with the law, I'd want Don West on my side. And as CCW Safe member, you're lucky enough to have him on your side too, because should you ever be involved in a self-defense shooting and have to call CCW Safe, there's a real strong chance that Don West would be a part of your defense. He's an amazing guy. I love talking to him about these cases. Shawn Vincent: Recently we sat down to talk about the Michael Drejka case. You might remember the Michael Drejka case is the parking lot shooter from Clearwater, Florida. He was arguing with a woman named Britany Jacobs over a handicapped parking spot. He didn't think she should be parked there so he was giving her the business. Her man, the father of her children, came out of the store, saw Michael Drejka arguing with his girl. He came up to him, in fact, real quickly. He pushed him to the ground rather violently. He tumbled backwards. Shawn Vincent: Markis McGlockton moved in, he lorded over Michael Drejka’s prone position. He hiked up his shorts in an aggressive manner. Michael Drejka, a concealed carrier, a licensed concealed carrier, pulled his pistol from his waistband. He pointed it. He aimed. He paused for a second. There's a surveillance that shows Markis McGlockton back up a little bit, but it's not a dramatic back up. And then there's a single shot fired. McGlockton stumbles back into the convenience store, and video from inside the store shows him fall, clutching his chest, and he dies at the foot of his five year old son. Shawn Vincent: That's the case that we were talking about. And before we got into talking about the lessons learned, like we usually do, we went off on about a one hour tear about how the trial unfolded. We had a chance to watch this, Don and I, on Court TV. Once upon a time Court TV was a cable channel, but now it's a website that is constantly streaming, sometimes very interesting, trials. They streamed the Drejka trial gavel to gavel as they say. Don and I in our respective home offices watched a lot of it, some of it at the same time. We texted each other like school children when we saw something that particularly got our attention, and knew that we'd have a lot to talk about once the trial was over. Shawn Vincent: But we also, while we were watching it realized that it's a great opportunity ... If you've never seen a trial from beginning to end you might be surprised to see how justice in America, in the American criminal court systems works itself out. And we thought that the course of this trial might be a great example for concealed carriers who might not ever have been inside a courtroom, certainly not as a criminal defendant, to have an inside look at what the process of being prosecuted would look like from the arrest to the charging to pre-trial motions and hearings, and then the anatomy of a trial straight through to the verdict, and then potentially even the appeal that comes afterwards. Shawn Vincent: So our next podcast is going to be about the lessons learned from the Michael Drejka case. But today we have sort of a nerdy inside baseball look at the anatomy of a trial, featuring national trial counsel for CCW Safe, veteran criminal defense attorney Don West. So I hope you'll forgive us a little shop talk. I think you'll find this informative, and here's our conversation. Shawn Vincent: You and I were talking about how the average defendant, the average client that we interact with isn't versed in just what the sequence of a trial is, or how a trial unfolds. And I think we watched this happen on Court TV, and we're going to talk about the different stages of this trial and how they're important. Maybe it's worth talking real quick about what those phases are. Don West: Well I think that's a good idea. Chances are this is the first time, certainly our members or anyone who is in a self-defense case of some sort is going to have been in court. Maybe a traffic ticket, but those don't even result in court typically. So let's take a minute from the top and I'll run through the stages of a criminal trial quickly. Touch upon a couple of the key aspects of each, and that'll sort of set the stage and paint a picture of how this Drejka case went, but frankly how every criminal case is going to go for the most part. Don West: In every jurisdiction that I know of, except for the smallest kinds of infractions, the police can't formally charge anyone. It's always the district attorney or the state attorney. The prosecuting authority reviews the investigation and then makes a formal charging decision. So when you talk about being charged, that's what I'm talking about, a formal charging decision by way of indictment or information is also a valid charging instrument in many jurisdictions. Don West: The police can place charges. In other words, that's what you get arrested for. You'll be told at the first appearance what you've been arrested for. The bail will be set or not set based upon what you've been arrested for. But those are not formal charges. That case is to be reviewed and then the formal charges will be determined, if any, by the elected or appointed prosecutor, not the police department. Don West: From arrest and formal prosecution sets the stage for the investigation phase, it's discovery it's often called where police reports are provided, witness statements. The guts of the case from an information standpoint is exchanged. The defense typically has some reciprocal obligations. It sets the stage for evidentiary issues pre-trial. Maybe there is a statement that was made by the accused that the defense thinks was improperly given, maybe without Miranda rights, or under circumstances that make it suspect. So there could be a motion to suppress the statement. There could be a motion to suppress evidence that the claim was it was illegally obtained, without a warrant, or with a defective warrant. Don West: There are often motions in limine. Limine basically means just to limit certain kinds of evidence. And that's pretty common, especially in self-defense cases where there may be information that one side or the other wants to offer because they know that it's going to flavor or color the way other evidence is taken. And frankly because they know it will be prejudicial. They know it will impact the accused or the prosecution's case. So it could be in favor of the prosecution, against the defendant, what have you. So the parties will sort through that. One of- Shawn Vincent: And just to add color to it. In this particular case the surveillance video that we talked about, it shows the shooting itself, but then it actually shows Markis McGlockton come back into the store. And there's video that shows him fall to the ground clutching his chest, capsizing over, and dying while his five year old little boy watched. And the prosecution, when they wanted to show the surveillance video wanted to show that part. And the defense argued vehemently against it, saying that it doesn't have anything to do with whether or not he shot him justifiable, and it's just going to be tugging at the heart strings of the jury and be prejudicial. Don West: That's an excellent example, and it explains fully why certain evidence is attractive, because the impact of it is pretty obvious. But also why a criminal case shouldn't be decided on emotion, sympathy or anger. And that would be an example of how the prejudice was far greater than the probative value. That's sort of a test that the judge is required before admitting all evidence, even if it's otherwise admissible. If it's otherwise relevant, whether the probative value, meaning the importance to the case, outweighs the prejudice. Don West: So if in balance the judge decides that even though the video in the store provides information, it shows for example where Markis McGlockton was, where other people were in the store at that moment. It obviously doesn't impact directly on that moment around the shooting, it's clearly after the fact. But it has high prejudicial value because it's a human being in agony shot, and in the last moments of their life. It's very hard for anyone to disregard something as powerful as that in their deliberation. So there was a motion in limine filed. The judge ruled appropriately, that that video would not be presented to the jury, so that's a very good example of it. Don West: There are other motions in limine, which are pretty typical in a case involving self-defense where a picture of the accused is painted by the prosecution that extends far back or even forward of the event itself. And frankly that could be of the victim of a shooting, of the deceased. Shawn Vincent: And when you say a picture, you mean not a literal picture but showing other acts, character evidence of things that they've done in the past, right? Don West: Right. Who is this person and what do we know about them? How do they present themselves to the world? And we know Facebook is out there. We know Instagram is out there. We know neighbors and relatives and coworkers are out there that know this person, know how they present, and may know of actual incidents in their past that helps paint this picture that we're talking about. Shawn Vincent: And that's relevant in the Drejka case because we know that he had a confrontation where he allegedly brandished his gun and threatened to shoot a guy who drove a septic tank truck in that exact same parking space at that exact same convenience store some months before. And in pre-trial hearings they argued that point, and the judge decided that that was so similar to the actual event where Markis McGlockton was shot that he was going to allow that in. Where there are other alleged road rage incidents in Drejka's past that weren't similar enough and the judge chose to not allow those in. Don West: Yes. The judge had to examine each of them individually, look at the legal standard for admissibility, weigh the prejudice against the probative value. And the relevance, that's part of the issue there when we're talking about situations that occurred before or after that the prosecution typically wants to offer. And the explanation offered by the prosecution, why is this relevant? It's because it helps the jury understand something. Sometimes it's identity, is there an M.O., an identity of the people? We don't have an identity issue in this case, but we may have an intent issue. We may have a question was it an accident that all of this happened. Don West: And frankly in a self-defense case there's this overriding umbrella of reasonableness. And for the jury to understand whether Drejka's actions were reasonable the prosecutor wanted to use this prior incident to basically show that he was- Shawn Vincent: Well you have to get into his mind. Don West: Yes. Exactly right. So that was an incident occurred a few months before, as you said, with Richard Kelly. He was driving a septic truck I think and Drejka confronted him, approached him. But I think probably where it crossed the line, Drejka apparently said, "I could've," or, "I should've shot you," as part of that conversation. Shawn Vincent: Yeah he called the guy's boss on the how's my driving number and said, "Your employee's lucky I didn't blow his head off." Don West: Yeah. So that, in virtually anyone's mind, is pretty outrageous conduct. It certainly may suggest an irresponsibility, hotheadedness, lack of reasonableness, especially for someone that we now know carries a gun and would've been more than capable of doing such a thing. Shawn Vincent: But all this illustrates, the lesson here is that so much ... You can win or lose a trial before you even get to the courthouse on the first day of trial if you didn't play these pre-trial hearings right. Don West: Well you know this is a perfect example of what looks exactly like that path. Here's the sheriff, based upon the limited information at the time of the event, doesn't think there is probable cause. And then pretty soon after that as this information rolls in, the prosecutor decides to file charges. And now on top of all of that there is this, we call it in Florida, William's Rule, or it's under the evidence code 404B section, 90.404B. Shawn Vincent: The prior bad acts law. Don West: The prior bad acts. And I tell you as I read the news and I've talked to colleagues, as we followed the progression of this case, once that stuff came out and then once the judge decided to let it in, knowing the jury would hear it, it became a completely different case in my mind. Shawn Vincent: Yeah. And you know it was when the judge decided that the prosecutor would be allowed to play the surveillance tape in slow motion, which changes the whole perception on the intent and his time to reflect and the immense. The key to self-defense is the imminent threat. Well, you play an imminent threat in slow motion, it doesn't look nearly as threatening anymore. I thought that was prejudicial to the point where that was the trigger that caused me to call the lawyer and say, "I'm willing to help you help pick a jury in this." Don West: That's another example of a motion in limine. It was clear that the videotape was coming in, or at least the central parts of it. And then the question became how would it be presented to the jury. Would it be presented in a way that would add information to help them make their decision? Or would it be, again, prejudicial and inflammatory. The argument was, as you just laid it out, that if it's played in slow motion it distorts reality. Don West: It makes it less fair for Drejka if the jury is trying to evaluate his split second decisions when they have all the time in the world to look at it in slow motion. And they lost. The judge said, "No, it's coming in like that." So the jury got both the bad act of the prior incident at the parking spot, and then they also had the opportunity to look at the video in slow motion repeatedly. Shawn Vincent: Right. And I know if that were your case and you had the resources, and Drejka wasn't injured in defense and only so many resources. But you'd want to get an expert that could talk about ... You might want to be able to qualify a video expert to talk about what the difference between slow motion and real time is, potentially. That didn't happen in this case. I guess what I'm trying to illustrate for the listeners is just how much goes, every little fight that goes into just what's going to come into the court, how it's going to be seen. And then what you can actually say about that evidence, because now you have to mitigate the slow motion video for the jury. Don West: You know people shake their head when I tell them ... I'm representing someone or I'm involved in consulting on a self-defense case, yes, it's going to take a year, a year and a half, maybe two years on a serious shooting to get the case in court. And they say, "What are you guys doing all the time? You playing golf and working on this in your spare time?" And just touching on some of these evidentiary issues, the consultation with experts, the investigation, the assessment and strategy, and then ultimately getting it into the court prior to the trial even starting to get this all sorted out takes a lot of time. It can be a full-time job almost for a year. Shawn Vincent: For just one case. Well case in point we started out to talk about the phases of a trial and for the last 10 minutes we've been talking about pre-trial. So let's get us up to the day of trial. We've gone through all the pre-trial hearings. Sort of the week before trial I reached out to the lawyers and offered to help vet the jury, which is using public records and social media. I have a team that I work with for lots of trials to go look and see what do these folks reveal about themselves online, so that the trial team can make smarter decisions during jury selection and perhaps find evidence that would either confirm or contradict what they learn about these jurors in open court. Shawn Vincent: They agreed, were happy to have my help. And I told them that afterwards that I still plan to continue to talk about this case. So they didn't give me any insight into what their defense strategy was. I don't know anything really that the public doesn't know about this, but I thought it'd be fair to disclose that, for the sake of due process, we were involved in this one. Don West: Well I think that's a good disclosure, but it also ... An appropriate one, but at the same time it is a very interesting line of conversation for us because in your work, not necessarily on this case, but you have been able to find, through social media and other public available information sources, clear information that directly contradicts what someone says in court. And in some instances the juror can be confronted with it, and disqualified as a result. Don West: Other information that you find is perhaps more subtle and not so much contradictory, but it compliments the lawyer's efforts to figure out who this juror is, how strongly they feel about certain things. And from my sort of devious mind as a trial lawyer, you find out things about jurors that unless the prosecution is doing the same thing, doesn't necessarily know. So you may very well have a more complete picture of a juror than what's being said in court, a complete enough picture that it helps the lawyers decide whether they think an individual juror is going to be favorable. Shawn Vincent: Well case in point, in a self-defense case, if we find evidence that somebody is a gun rights advocate or a concealed carrier or a member of an organization like CCW Safe or the NRA, and the prosecutor doesn't think to ask that question, well we're certainly not going to ask it in open court. We're just going to file that as good to know, and that's an advantage. Don West: So, without too much of a detour, thanks Shawn. I think that's valuable insight and your role in this Drejka case, while it was limited as you described, no doubt I guess was similar in that you've had in other cases, where you did learn information. You were able to communicate that information to the trial lawyers, and they factored it in as to ultimately who was on the jury. Don West: I guess one more quick detour, and that is in jury selection, the lawyers do not get to choose the jurors they want. The system is designed to eliminate the jurors they don't want. And it's usually two stages, one is cause challenges. So if there's some part of the juror's picture that disqualifies them because they're obviously biased or they might know some of the participants or it's clear they can't be fair, they can be challenged for cause. And the judge would strike them without any limit on the number of jurors that can be released that way. Don West: And then there's a number of what's called peremptory challenges. Those are the discretionary challenges that each side has to eliminate a juror for almost any reason, as long as it's not based on race or religion or something that would violate the Constitution. There's no reason why you can't get rid of somebody because you have a bad feeling or you don't like the way they matched their clothes that day, or the way they looked around the room when you were asking them about certain things. So yes, those are the peremptories, but at the end of the day you are not choosing the ones you want, you're getting rid of the ones you don't. And then you wind up with those that are on the jury. Shawn Vincent: Yeah. Your jury can't be any better than the panel of folks who come in at the beginning of the day. And you're going to pick the ones you don't like. The other side's going to knock off the ones they don't like, which may very well be your favorites. And then what you're left with are, in Florida usually six folks, often 12 folks who are going to sit in judgment. Don West: Well if the jury investigation, and if the voir dire it's called. It's pronounced many different ways, V-O-I-R D-I-R-E, French term. Basically the process of questioning the jurors. If that goes the way it's supposed to, then each side is going to eliminate the jurors that they think favor the other side. And that's what's so remarkable, if at the end of this process if there are good lawyers with good information you look up and you see the people that are left that- Shawn Vincent: Nobody's happy. Don West: That nobody wants, that's right. Obviously the goal is finding fair minded jurors that can follow the law. But obviously if you can find somebody that you think favors your defense, as a defense lawyer you want to do everything you can to try to keep them. In a shooting case the firearm possession, self-defense itself are all big hot buttons. And then if you add some other components, a race issue. Is there a race difference between the shooter and the deceased? That enters into it. In fact, you have to use the jury selection process to cull through all of that. Don West: And at the end of the day you want people at a minimum that are going to be able to make their decision based upon the law and the facts without being influenced to the point of it affecting their verdict on those other extraneous things. And people are people. People are the sum of their experiences. So a lot of the jury selection is trying to divine what those experiences are and how we think they may impact their ability to make a decision. Don West: And you also start looking at the dynamics of the individuals. You look for the people you think may be the leaders, may be the person that is the foreperson of the jury because they can affect the vote as well. They can perhaps persuade weaker or less convinced jurors to go one way or the other. That in and of itself is maybe the single most important part of the trial, the more I do this I think. Shawn Vincent: The jury selection? Don West: Yes. In terms of the ultimate outcome. Shawn Vincent: Yeah. And I've seen focus groups. I've got to participate in focus groups where you're behind the one way glass and they're there and they talk about the case that was presented. And very quickly a dominant personality or two rise up, and they run the show sometimes. And their impressions become difficult to overcome, so that's fascinating. Shawn Vincent: So okay, so we've picked a jury. And in the Drejka case, the whole case was done ... It started on a Monday morning and ended late in the evening Friday night when they had a verdict. It took a week, and they spent half of it, two and a half days just doing jury selection, rooting through people because it was a high profile case. Making sure that they were honest about what they knew about the case and that they could- Don West: As well, in a high profile case where there's a substantial percentage of the venire, of the group out there that's going to be questioned to select the jury panel. When there's a lot of those folks that know about the case, often there has to be individual, sequestered questioning, individual sequestered voir dire. And that just takes a lot of time. That's where all of the other jurors are removed from the courtroom and the juror being questioned is there asking questions from the judge and the lawyers, especially on the issue of publicity. Because their answers, if they know a lot about the case, may very well otherwise taint jurors that hadn't known that much. So you just have to go through all those steps to be sure that the jurors don't impact each other, and that you get honest straightforward answers in the individual ones that you question. Don West: So I can go through the next phases pretty quickly, I think, without as much discussion. And the next phase after jury selection is opening statement. For the defense, and frankly for the prosecution it's optional. It's almost always done, not by the prosecution, and not always by the defense. I'll explain that in a minute. But that's the opportunity- Shawn Vincent: And we know from experience they can go from a couple minutes to a couple hours. Don West: Exactly right. So the goal there is to give the jurors a preview of the evidence, and to some limited degree maybe touch upon some of the legal framework of the case. It's clearly not the opportunity to argue the case. It's really to introduce them, almost a roadmap of where they think the case is going to go. The defense typically has the opportunity to follow the prosecutor with their opening statement. And in a lot of places they can reserve that, saying that we're not going to argue now, we'll wait until we're ready to offer our case and then we'll give our opening statement. I've done that a few times. Don West: In a self-defense case, though, I don't think I would ever consider that. A self-defense case means, as we've talked about, you did what they accused you of in that you defended yourself by using force against another individual, but you were justified in doing it. So I think you have to get that out there right up front and explain in detail why that's the case, keeping in mind that the prosecution goes first because they have the burden. And they carry that burden beyond a reasonable doubt throughout the case, which is why they then put on their evidence first. Don West: The defense has the opportunity to cross-examine witnesses, but in the prosecution case doesn't call witnesses. After the prosecution rests its case, meaning they're announcing to the judge, to the jury that that's all the evidence they're going to offer. Evidence could be witness testimony. It could be physical exhibits, pictures, photographs. It could be opinion testimony by experts, experts are the only people allowed to offer opinions about certain things, that the judge determines will be of value to the jury. And then they rest. Typically the judge at that point is allowed to dismiss the case if he or she is convinced there's just not enough evidence there to move forward, that doesn't happen very often. Shawn Vincent: Hold on a second there. So two things is my experience, especially in criminal defense, is that most of your real heavy lifting is going to be done during cross-examination, during the prosecutor's case. Am I wrong at that? Don West: That's the first opportunity that the defense has to get evidence before the jury. Now I know technically the defense isn't offering evidence because they aren't calling the witness, but it is evidence in the record. So it is evidence the jury can consider. And I've certainly seen cases won or lost, no doubt I've won or lost cases by the effectiveness of cross-examining the state's witnesses. Yes I think that's the heavy lifting because ... Well it's the heavy lifting in that your job as a defense lawyer is to be vigilant. And you are allowed by court procedure to ask leading questions. You are allowed to be probing and confrontational. Shawn Vincent: When you say a leading question, that's when you say, "Isn't it true, Doctor, that the drug in his system was seven times the limit?" You can ask a question where the answer is built into it, and they have to say yes or no. Whereas the prosecution has to ask direct questions that are more open, and give them a chance to testify more freely. Is that the difference? Don West: Yes, on direct examination, that's the questioning offered by the party who calls the witness, is supposed to be open ended, so that the answer to the question isn't suggested by the question itself. And the purpose is so that the lawyer isn't telling the witness what to say. On cross-examination, its adversarial. This is a witness who has offered evidence that is against the accused, so there's an opportunity to challenge those statements. And I think maybe as importantly that people don't always think about in cross-examination when you're challenging facts, is that's the opportunity for the cross-examiner to expose bias or prejudice, or motive, or some reason that the witness may have to favor one side. Don West: For example, it's common ... well I'll take an obvious example. If there's an expert witness called to offer testimony that turns out to be in favor of the prosecution, the defense will explore what that relationship is. Shawn Vincent: How much you're getting paid. Don West: How much you're getting paid. They'll explore how many times have you testified for the prosecution and not for the defense, obvious stuff. But bias and prejudice is pretty much open season. If you can show a prior relationship with the witness and some other party, if you can show some motive. I had a witness in a case who was an expert witness who was talking about this process, this analysis that he did. And it turned out during cross-examination that we learned that this process that he was expounding on as being reliable and valid and accurate, happened to be a process that he sold and got paid for. So talk about a guy who's biased. Shawn Vincent: Right. He's marketing his product while he's testifying. Don West: Another example of exposing bias or prejudice is virtually everywhere if a witness has a prior felony conviction. And sometimes even for misdemeanors the existence of that felony, and sometimes the circumstances surrounding it can be revealed. The idea is if someone is a convicted felon they have ... What? I don't know how you'd explain it, some lesser moral standard, some lesser abidance to the truth, but nonetheless the jury is allowed to know if one of the witnesses is a convicted felon. Shawn Vincent: Because they're going to decide how much credibility to give to his or her testimony. Don West: That's what the judge will tell the jurors at the end. They get to decide who to believe, and they don't have to believe everything a witness says. They can believe parts of it and not parts of it. It's an enormous, enormous task for the juror to sort through all of that stuff in a setting that they're typically not familiar with, to figure out who's telling the truth. Shawn Vincent: So you're about to get us to where the defense takes over and presents their case. But you talked about ... you didn't use these words, but this is where the defense can give a judgment of acquittal argument, right? Don West: At the end of the prosecution case the defense would make a motion to the judge asking for the judge to dismiss the case on various legal grounds, primarily that there isn't enough evidence to support a conviction. Shawn Vincent: Hey Judge, they didn't meet their burden. Don West: Right. And the burden isn't at that stage to satisfy the judge beyond a reasonable doubt, but that there is sufficient evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution. So if it could go either way the prosecution gets the benefit of the doubt at that stage. And the judge rarely will dismiss cases, but I've also- Shawn Vincent: Have you ever seen that happen? Have you ever seen a judge grant a judgment of acquittal? Don West: Yes I have. It's not the usual thing. I will tell you though, Shawn, a number of years ago I tried, as a defense lawyer, a first degree murder case. There were two guys on trial, first degree murder. And at the end of the state's case I made a motion for judgment of acquittal, and the judge courageously I think, because it takes a lot of guts to do this. He said, "I am not satisfied that the evidence against your client is sufficient to support a conviction," and dismissed the charges. Shawn Vincent: Which meant that your guy is a free man at that instant. Don West: He went from facing a mandatory life sentence to walking out the door, yes. Shawn Vincent: That's incredible. Don West: It's a comment on how bad the case was, frankly, but also how courageous the judge is. Very few judges ... And frankly, especially in a high profile case. The one I'm talking about, nobody cared about particularly, I don't think. And I don't mean that in- Shawn Vincent: There wasn't a lot of public pressure on the judge in this case. Don West: Correct. I don't mean disrespect to anybody involved in it, and certainly not to the family of the deceased. But it wasn't a case with cameras in the courtroom, and there was going to be no ripple effect in the media because of it. Shawn Vincent: Right. To speak to the point of how rarely they're granted, we were watching the trial coverage and talking on the phone a lot while it was happening. They didn't even show the argument for judgment of acquittal. I think the commentators were talking about the case. It happened real quickly and wasn't even talked about on television. They just skipped right over it and got right to the defense presentation. Don West: I'll tell you one more quick war story about that stage of the case, the judgment of acquittal. Prosecutors are sometimes accused of overcharging. And what I mean by that is that with the facts and the law that would apply to a given incident, the prosecution has a wide variety typically of charges to file. Commonly, they file the highest charge they feel like they can support. But sometimes charges are filed for which the evidence might be somewhat questionable, even though there might be a more solid charge for a lesser offense. Shawn Vincent: Sure. I've been involved in murder cases where the charge was first degree murder, and our whole argument to a jury was just that, "No, this is second degree murder." Don West: Yes, exactly. Shawn Vincent: That was the whole case we're trying to make. Don West: Mm-hmm.. And without going into those details now, there's a huge difference to the accused whether he or she is convicted of second degree as opposed to first degree, in terms of sentencing discretion and such. Well this self-defense case I was trying was a serious case, it was a lethal self-defense shooting. My client was on trial, he had been charged with second degree murder. And at the end of the state's case I argued, very aggressively, because I really believed that even in the light most favorable to the state, meaning most favorable to the prosecution, second degree murder wasn't established. Don West: And the judge was very serious about it, listened to the arguments, reflected on it, reviewed the cases. And we spent quite a while at it, and at the end of all of that the judge agreed and didn't dismiss the case, but dismissed the murder count and essentially reduced it to manslaughter. So when the case went to the jury, instead of having second degree murder, manslaughter, or not guilty to consider, they had manslaughter or not guilty. So you could imagine how that might affect the way I presented the defense in the case. All of a sudden the murder charge was off the table, now we would focus on manslaughter or nothing, as opposed to hoping that the jury wouldn't convict him of second degree murder, but maybe compromise if they wouldn't acquit him of manslaughter. We took that away. So I was able- Shawn Vincent: Yeah it's a much different case. Don West: Much, much different case. And this was a nice guy involved in a terrible situation. Had to shoot a guy who was unarmed, frankly, who was very violent and attacked him. So we had that built in argument, brought a gun to a fist fight kind of thing. And without belaboring the point or going into much detail, at the end of that process the jury acquitted him. So he went from second degree murder, which would have most likely resulted in a life sentence or most of his life, to walking out the door and going home. Shawn Vincent: Yeah, extraordinary. All right. So judgment of acquittal, it works, it doesn't work, you get charges reduced, you get it dismissed, or more likely the judge says, "No, keep going." As a defense attorney you can decide whether or not you need to make a defense presentation. And very often I've found the defense presentation is shorter than the prosecution's presentation. Don West: Well as we've touched on before and we'll emphasize here now, in a criminal case the prosecution has the burden of proof. They have to convince the jury of guilt, which means on each and every element of the crime charged that there's enough evidence of guilt to establish proof of that guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. And a very valid and commonly employed argument by the defense is, "Sure there's some evidence, but there's just not enough evidence to eliminate reasonable doubt." So the argument is the evidence is insufficient. Don West: So at the end of the prosecution case, when the defense decides what to put on, assuming they have evidence to put on. They are in no way legally required to offer any evidence whatsoever. And without any evidence by the defense the jury's role is the same, to decide if the prosecution has proven the case beyond a reasonable doubt. I've tried lots of cases where I put on no evidence at all, and that means I didn't offer the accused's testimony either. Shawn Vincent: Sure. The only time in a criminal defense trial that the defendant would testify would be during the defense presentation, and only if the defendant chooses to do so. He's not required to do so. Don West: Absolutely right. Not ever compelled, that's the Fifth Amendment at play. So gauging how well the prosecution case was presented, the defense will evaluate their case. It happens very quickly of course, because you can't control the witnesses the prosecution puts on. You certainly hope you are effective in cross-examination, but you can't truly control that. And then you start looking for holes to plug and better arguments to make. And I've been involved in cases where we had, shoot, 30 or 40 potential witnesses that we could call, and for reasons that were developed during the trial pared that down to half a dozen. Sometimes that might include an expert witness to respond to an expert that the prosecution called. It might be other eye witnesses or ear witnesses. Sometimes it can be character witnesses. And in many instances it's the accused, the defendant himself or herself. Don West: So that next phase is when all of that happens. And then when the defense rests, that's when all of the evidence has been introduced in the case. That's the sum total of what the jury has to consider. So what happens typically between the end of the evidence, when the defense rests, and the actual closing arguments themselves, is a meeting with the judge. And that's to review the proposed jury instructions. It's often called a charge conference, and a lot of the times much of the work is done even before the trial starts. But there will be a meeting where there's an agreement on which instructions are to be read. Each side can propose individual instructions that may not be contained within what are called the standard instructions. If there are disagreements and objections, then the judge can rule. And ultimately there are a set of instructions that each side knows will be the ones read to the jury. Shawn Vincent: Sure. And in a self-defense case in a state like Florida, the stand your ground language, all the language from the self-defense statute becomes very important. And we've seen some cases that were appealed because this jury charge wasn't given properly. Don West: It's critically important in a self-defense case that the jury knows whose job it is to prove the case. You would think that in a self-defense case you have to prove self-defense. And in a very limited degree it's correct in that during the course of the evidence, it could be during the prosecution case or it could be in the defense case, there has to be enough evidence in the record to establish a possible claim of self-defense. And when that happens, the burden shifts right back to the prosecution to prove that it was not self-defense. Shawn Vincent: That absolutely could not have happened. Don West: Yeah. So it's critically important for the jury to know, when they're making their decision about the guilt or innocence of the accused, that they have to look at whether the prosecution has convinced them beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused did not act in self-defense. And any jury instruction that might shift the burden to the defense or confuse the roles that each side play in this could very well be enough to make the trial unfair. And as a result, if the person is convicted, it's not uncommon for the appellate court to reverse the trial and provide a new trial, claiming only that the instructions were inadequate or misleading or in some way shifted the burden. We've seen that ourselves in some of the cases we've talked about. Shawn Vincent: Sure. Yeah we talked about that in the Gyrell Lee case. Don West: Exactly. So back to the point. Once the jury instructions have been settled on, in some cases the judge now reads the instructions to the jury prior to the arguments themselves. That might be a better practice, I don't know. It gives the jurors the framework from which to hear the arguments. Traditionally most of my experience though the arguments take place after some very preliminary instructions prior to closing. And then at the end of the instructions the jury is charged they call it, they charge the jury by reading the instructions. Don West: In closing argument, it is called argument for a reason, as opposed to opening statement, which is a statement of the case, and not an argument. In the closing argument the lawyers are allowed to argue their case and implore any reasonable inference to be drawn from the evidence to the jury. So they can argue how certain evidence should be viewed by the jury, the meaning of it, how they should put it in context. Shawn Vincent: So we talked earlier about how the judge tells the jury how much credibility to give to each witness and what to believe. And this is a chance for the lawyers on each side to say, "Hey, here's the evidence I think is important. Here's why it's credible and why I think you should believe it and give it weight." Don West: Yes. And of course an effective argument ties some of the evidence into some aspect of the jury instructions. So if the jury is told this is the way you should view this and the lawyer points out that evidence, and it's consistent, then obviously that's more persuasive than if it's just a naked, standalone argument that's not connected directly to one of the legal instructions they're going to get. Don West: So the prosecution's argument typically has to be comprehensive, because they have to convince the jury that they did prove each of the elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. The defense argument typically can be much more focused. It could be focused on one aspect of one element. Because if the prosecutor hasn't proven the case, as to each element, beyond a reasonable doubt, then the jury's only lawful verdict is not guilty. So never does the jury decide the person is innocent, they might believe that, but that's not part of the verdict. If they aren't satisfied that all of the elements are proven beyond a reasonable doubt, then they check not guilty, even if they suspect the person might be guilty or they're even pretty sure of it, but not convinced. Shawn Vincent: He just didn't prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. Don West: So here's an interesting dynamic of that. It kind of puts it on its head, especially if you look at a self-defense case from the perspective of say one of CCW Safe's partners, Andrew Branca, who has written extensively about the law of self-defense. He blogs and has an excellent video course, a live stream course, not about tactics and operation of a firearm, not that kind of stuff, but the law of self-defense, the parameters, the legal boundaries. And he breaks down self-defense into five elements. Don West: And what he points out is if your claim of self-defense fails on any one of those elements, then your entire claim of self-defense fails, which means that a guilty verdict would be proper. So the prosecution's job in a self-defense case is not to disprove self-defense across the board, but it frankly is ... To disprove rather, to disprove only one aspect of the self-defense case, sufficiently that the jury is satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that it did not occur ... that it was not a self-defense shooting because of one aspect of it that fails. Shawn Vincent: It wasn't imminent enough or he wasn't reasonable enough or he had malice. Don West: Yes. Or for example, that the person who was the attacker did not have the ability to inflict serious bodily harm or death, or didn't intend to. So, that's one of those disproportional things when you shoot an unarmed person the jury is going to focus on. Was this guy a real threat? Even if he intended to hit him, even if he had the ability and the opportunity to do all of those things, was it really a life threatening attack? In other words, was the use of deadly force disproportionate? Shawn Vincent: I'm thinking about, if it's not a self-defense claim, if it's a robbery, right. If it's a robbery than you might argue that this is just the wrong guy and then there's just one thing you have to win on, was it him or not, right. But if you're a defendant in a self-defense case, now you've got five fronts that all have to be satisfied. Any one of them comes down and you're going to jail. So it's kind of a precarious defense. Don West: Yes. Not only do you have to have all of those elements, and sometimes one of those elements is avoidance. There are duty to retreat states. So even if you were attacked by someone who intended to seriously hurt you or kill you and you had the legal right to use deadly force, if you're in a duty to retreat state and you don't first take the opportunity to get away if you safely can, but resort to deadly force, then you're guilty. I'm involved in a case right now, consulting, where that was the issue. Was that it happened in a duty to retreat state, the person drew the gun in the face of an attack, and did not retreat first. And the argument is, could have, could have avoided the whole thing. Don West: So anyway, we're at that closing argument phase of our discussion where all of that stuff comes into play. And then at the end of that either the jury will be further instructed, if they weren't completely instructed before. Or, once that's done they'll be sent off to deliberate. So that's the last part of the trial phase itself -- is the jury deliberations. Shawn Vincent: Would you agree, Don, that for the lawyer, is perhaps the hardest part of trial. Because there is nothing more you can do, and you're not allowed to go more than 10 minutes away from the courthouse. You have to be there to be called back for any questions that the jury might have. And all you have to do is to sit, in a probably uncomfortable chair and think about whether you've done enough. Don West: Well, yes. In my personal experience there's sort of two opposing emotions at that point. One of the emotions is a great sense of relief in that you've been living in a pressure cooker for up to a year. You have been on stage, I'm talking about me personally as a defense lawyer, not the accused who has his own set of issues to deal with because he just went through the most traumatic experience of his life without any ability to control it. He wasn't even getting to ask the questions and stuff. Shawn Vincent: And any moment he could be given news that he's either free, or going to jail for a little bit of time, or going to jail for a very long time. And to be in that crosshairs, it's tedious. Don West: Exactly. So from my selfish perspective as a lawyer I've been through that ordeal too. I've lived with the case the whole time. I have stressed and lost sleep about how to ask questions, what witnesses to call. More importantly probably, what not to ask, not to undo something that went well. And then at the end, once it's done, it's done. So there is a sense of relief there, but it doesn't last very long because that's when the hand wringing and more importantly I suppose, in terms of the impact, is the second guessing. Don West: So now you're sitting there, it's all behind you and you're looking back saying to yourself, "Oh my goodness, I could've done this differently. I could have done this better." Shawn Vincent: And then all of a sudden the court lets you know that the jury has a question about some piece of evidence. Or as in the case of the Drejka trial that we're looking at, the jury wanted to know what is reasonable doubt. Something so fundamental all of a sudden you get some insight into maybe what the jury's thinking or what they understand and what they don't understand. Don West: And then you wonder yourself, you start second guessing and say, "How could they ask that question? What didn't I do that I could have that might've made it so clear, because it seems so obvious." Now keep in mind there's going to be at least six people, and most cases 12 people back in there deliberating. And if they are acting responsibly they're going to review those jury instructions again in detail, because they're most likely going to have a written set of them. Don West: They probably will have the physical evidence. They may or may not have the firearm, but they would have the physical evidence to review. And in this case the video of the Drejka incident to review as many times as they wanted. And it's entirely common for questions to come up during this process. Maybe one juror is stuck on something and just can't get past it. Now juries they have to be unanimous. So everybody has to decide guilty or not guilty. Shawn Vincent: So sometimes the jury will say, "Hey Judge, we can't decide," and the judge will declare a mistrial, or what is it -- an Allen charge where he says, "Go back and try harder." Don West: If a jury comes out ... Well, you're right. A jury has to be unanimous. If it gets to the point that a jury has concluded that they cannot reach a unanimous decision then that would be called a hung jury. As a result of a hung jury, since they can't go forward without a unanimous verdict the judge would grant a mistrial, which basically means everything they've done is over. The jury is dismissed and the prosecution can decide whether to try the case all over again with a different jury, and call the same witnesses and such. Shawn Vincent: Sure. We saw that in the Michael Dunn case, the loud music case. That first jury, they convicted him of some lesser charges, but they actually told the judge we can't make up our minds unanimously on the murder charge. Don West: Mm-hmm. And that's true, they can take a split verdict, a mixed verdict of guilty, not guilty, where they are unanimous on some counts, and then miss try some of the others. Shawn Vincent: Then we had the Gyrell case, the Gyrell Lee case the jury late at night went to the judge and said, "We can't decide," and the judge said, "No. Go back and try harder." And then they came out an hour and a half later with a guilty conviction. Don West: That's what you're alluding to when you use the term Allen charge. An Allen charge is based upon the name of a court case. And that's considered somewhat drastic. It's not uncommon, but because of the power of influence that a judge has there are legitimate questions about whether it unduly influences a jury to go back and reach a decision when they really shouldn't. But the Allen charge, as you said, is when a jury has announced that it isn't unanimous, that they're hung. And the judge reads the jury an instruction, implores them, makes them concerned about their civic duty. I think probably even includes a comment that if they can't reach a verdict then the case will be mistried, variations of that. Shawn Vincent: Really tries to, "Figure it out if you can." But what I'd love to talk about really quickly here though is that there's so many factors that go into what motivates a jury to keep trying harder and how hard they're going to try to come up with a verdict. You get a case that goes to verdict on a Friday afternoon, everybody wants to go home that weekend, the judge wants this trial over, and there's pressure to get a verdict tonight. Whereas a trial that goes to verdict on a Wednesday morning, right, that means that jury has business hours and there's not as much pressure. Shawn Vincent: When we talk about the members, all the little nuances that can effect whether they were considered justified or not. Imagine just the time of day or week that a case follows up, could make an impact on the verdict I think. Don West: Imagine if you are the lone juror who disagrees with the majority, and you want to hang in there because you firmly believe that the case has been proven or you believe that the case hasn't been proven. And everybody's ganging up on you and you dig in and say, "No. It would be wrong for me to vote otherwise." And then all of a sudden it gets to be late at night and- Shawn Vincent: You're on the eve of a holiday weekend or something. Don West: And then you're worried about being blamed for the mistrial that follows. I tell you, Shawn, what I think happens more often than that scenario where somebody really digs in and mistries it, or sometimes just caves in. Now we've both seen jurors come back and render verdicts where one or more jurors were crying, so it was a huge emotional experience for them. But what I'm referring to now is I think what happens pretty often in a case that's perhaps even high publicity, controversial, even a close case sometimes where there's plenty of evidence, but as one of the jury instructions often says before you can convict somebody you have to have this abiding conviction of guilt that doesn't waver or vacillate. So I think there's cases where people are pretty well convinced the evidence is solid, but there's just a little bit of reservation, just wavering and vacillating. Don West: What I'm getting to is I think what happens are what I call compromised verdicts. And that might be where some of the jurors are adamant about the main charge. Some other jurors may be almost as adamant, maybe not quite as adamant about not guilty, and there's some middle ground, a lesser charge where they'll say, "Well we don't want to miss try this case, we think that he's probably guilty of something," so they'll reach a unanimous decision on a lesser charge. Don West: Of course rarely does the jury actually know what the range of sentences are. They wouldn't know typically if there's a mandatory minimum sentence. So they would be placing their faith in the judge to impose the right sentence in a very difficult case. And we can have this conversation another day, a lot of times the judge's hands are tied. They have absolutely no choice but to impose a mandatory minimum sentence that the legislature creates in the law. Don West: Every once in a while the jury itself imposes the sentence. That's what Texas does. So interesting, fascinating, complicated process. Shawn Vincent: So then it's late at night usually, in my experience any way. Don West: I've had juries deliberate for only a few minutes. I had one jury that came back in four minutes. Shawn Vincent: And you're like: this is either really good news or really bad news. Don West: And I had another jury that came back in about seven. And frankly, one was guilty one was not guilty in that amount of time. And then on the other extreme I've had a jury that has deliberated for a week that came back six days in deliberation. Shawn Vincent: Holy cow. Don West: Yeah. And you just really can't predict, although I think typically in state court as, opposed to federal court, the trials themselves are shorter. And I think the deliberations are shorter. A few hours. Shawn Vincent: Yeah, about 4-6 hours. Don West: A few hours is common. So anywhere from two hours or more, I think, would suggest the jury was wrestling with it, they really gave it serious thought and went through all of the evidence. That takes time, just to go through it. Shawn Vincent: So this whole exercise in exploring the phases of trial ... We talked loosely here about the Drejka trial as the example for it, is just what goes into ... You're going to make a split second decision in self-defense. And you're either justified or not, and it's going to take perhaps a year, perhaps longer. It's going to take multiple pre-trial hearings, and then this whole trial process we discussed to get to a handful of people who are going to, over the course of a few to several hours, make the ultimate determination of whether or not your use of deadly force was justified. Don West: And just like you pointed out earlier, in some cases the goal of the trial is to get a conviction to a lesser charge than what's been filed. And that's not uncommon, a claim that it wasn't a robbery it was a theft. Or it wasn't a burglary it was a trespass. But in a self-defense case it's typically all or nothing. The claim of self-defense, the law of self-defense applies to the main charge and all lesser charges. So in my experience, more than any other kind of criminal case, is the person sitting in that defendant's chair facing what may very well be life in prison versus not guilty across the board. Shawn Vincent: It's an all-in poker hand. Don West: It is. It's all-in. All-in. Shawn Vincent: All right Don. Well I think that's a great cross section of what the legal defense looks like for someone whose charged with a homicide in a self-defense claim. Don West: Well good. I enjoyed it. I love this stuff, it's been my entire professional life and it gets a little nerdy from time to time, but the idea of being able to dissect this process and help show what the framework is I think is really valuable. We've talked about that next fight. You know the first fight being the one you're in to save your life in the face of a life-threatening attack. But the second fight, the one when you're navigating the legal system- Shawn Vincent: The nerdy fight, for soft-handed people who don't have calluses. Don West: Well you know nobody likes criminal defense lawyers until they need one. Shawn Vincent: Until they need one, yeah. Don West: And when you need one you really, really do. Shawn Vincent: All right guys. That's it. You made it through all the phases of the trial. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you learned something. I hope you never have to experience it firsthand. Next week we're going to dive into the lessons learned for concealed carriers from the Drejka trial. But until then, stay safe out there.

Yaffee tells you why he agrees with the Drejka verdict, but still thinks some of the reaction was BEYOND REASON!

On this edition of PM Orlando Yaffee talks about the latest news! President Trump now says China wants to make a deal on trade and the markets react positively to the news.AND Latest on Tropical Storm Dorian. ALSO Local lawmakers react to possibility of immigrant center coming to Central Florida. PLUS Yaffee gives his take on the Drejka trial verdict! You can listen to the latest podcast here now!

On this edition of Good Morning Orlando Bud, Alan, Yaffee, and Melissa talk about the latest news! Drejka found guilty of manslaughter. Did the jury get it right? AND Trump gets primary challenge from conservative Joe Walsh. ALSO Biden's Blunders - The Vermont gaffe! PLUS Monopoly's new "Socialism" game released! BONUS! Bud takes calls on ANY TOPIC for Open Mind Monday!

Osama Bin Wyllie to visit GOP, Snitker crashes the candidate forum in storytime, the Amazon predictably burns again this year, The Chosen One will save us from cheap consumer goods, Overstock CEO is a spook, Drejka jury gets the verdict right, and NBC gets the electoral college wrong. 

Former Federal prosecutor and Senior Attorney at Theodora Oringher, George Newhouse discusses the manslaughter trial of Michael Drejka. Drejka is accused of fatally shooting Markeis McGlockton and the case ignited a national debate over Florida’s stand your ground law. He speaks to Bloomberg’s June Grasso.

Former Federal prosecutor and Senior Attorney at Theodora Oringher, George Newhouse discusses the manslaughter trial of Michael Drejka. Drejka is accused of fatally shooting Markeis McGlockton and the case ignited a national debate over Florida's stand your ground law. He speaks to Bloomberg's June Grasso. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

Ryan Gorman and NewsRadio WFLA legal correspondent Felix Vega discuss updates on the Nicole Nachtman trial, the Michael Drejka case and the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein.

This weeks topic is on the stand your ground laws which seem to favor whites who have shot unarmed men, and were later acquitted. Mcglockton was inside the corner store when Drejka approached his girlfriend yelling at her about a parking space. Glockton pushed Drejka to the ground and was shot --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/prosandcons/support

This week on The Home Defense Show, Skip discusses in detail the Michael Drejka/Michael Glockton homicide that occurred in Tallahassee Florida as it relates to the Stand Your Ground law. Special guests, John Correia from Active Self Protection, and Terry Johnson from Firearms Legal Protection, will give the tactical and legal analysis of this controversial shooting.

Michael Drejka, 47, has been charged with the July 19 death of Markeis McGlockton outside a Clearwater convenience store, Pinellas County State Attorney Bernie McCabe said. Drejka was being held at the county jail on $100,000 bail. It is unknown if he has an attorney. This podcast is a follow up discussion on the topic since charges have been filed.  Don and Shawn discuss the case, and also introduce Mike Darter, co-founder and CEO of CCW Safe.  

Paul Manafort declines to testify, and his defense rests after calling no witnesses on day 11 of his trial. Closing arguments in the case begin tomorrow. Manafort faces over 300 years in prison on tax fraud charges; nine charges of bank fraud and bank fraud conspiracy, which each carry a maximum sentence of 30 years; and 15 to 20 years if convicted of conspiracy charges and foreign lobbying violations.Michael Drejka, 47, has been charged in the July 19 death of Markeis McGlockton outside a Clearwater convenience store in Pinellas County, Florida. Drejka shot and killed McGlockton, but Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri declined to charge Drejka, saying one day after the shooting that Drejka was protected by Florida's stand-your-ground law. The sheriff passed the case to prosecutors for a final decision. Now Pinellas County State Attorney Bernie McCabe has charged Drejka with manslaughter. In court documents, McCabe and Pinellas sheriff's Detective George Moffett cited three other drivers who said Drejka threatened them during confrontations that preceded his run-in with McGlockton. Two of them said he displayed a gun.Over the past few weeks, US President Donald Trump and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey have been embroiled in a pretty fierce back-and-forth. Over the weekend, the US imposed sanctions against Turkey for continuing to hold the American pastor Andrew Brunson on espionage charges in Turkey. Trump doubled sanctions on Turkish steel and aluminum as officials complained that Turkey's move to shift Brunson from prison to house arrest had failed to meet Washington's demand for his full release and return to the US. So, what's really at the core of this conflict?When Facebook decides to censor, there is absolutely nothing to stop them. For the second time since January, Latin American news network TeleSur has had one of its Facebook pages removed, with no explanation given. According to Sputnik News, Facebook removed the page of TeleSur English, the English language media outlet primarily funded by Venezuela, on August 13. The move follows a coordinated ban between Apple, Facebook and YouTube against far-right fringe media outlet InfoWars and Facebook's temporary unpublishing of independent, pro-Bolivarian outlet Venezuela Analysis. GUESTS:Colin Kalmbacher - Law & Times editor and contributor to Mediate.John Burris - Lead Attorney and Founder of Law Office of John L. Burris. He is primarily known for his work in the areas of Civil Rights with an emphasis on police misconduct and excessive force casesJames Carey - Journalist and editor at Geopolitics Alert. He specializes in the Middle East and Asian affairs. Alex Rubinstein - Journalist and writer at Sputnik News.

This episode of "In Self Defense" features Don and Shawn talking about the recent shooting in Clearwater, FL over a handicapped parking spot at a convenience store.  On Thursday, July 19th, Markeis McGlockton parked in a handicap spot with his girlfriend and three young kids before going inside a convenience store with his five-year-old son to buy snacks. Outside, Michael Drejka approached McGlockton's girlfriend, Britany Jacobs. Jacobs says Drejka yelled at her for parking in a handicapped spot without a permit. Surveillance footage shows McGlockton then walked out of the store and shoved Drejka to the ground. Seconds later, Drejka pulled out his gun and fired a single shot at McGlockton in the chest. The 28-year-old stumbled back into the store and collapsed in front of his son. Drejka has a concealed weapons permit and told police he shot McGlockton because he feared for his life. Don and Shawn talk about the case in relation to Florida's self defense laws, and the "Stand Your Ground" law.   Below are a couple of news links to the case: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/clearwater-florida-stand-your-ground-shooting-markeis-mcglockton-parking-spot/ https://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/crime/No-arrest-in-fatal-shooting-during-argument-over-handicap-parking-space_170174041  

This week we discuss Stand Your Ground laws. Markeis McGlockton (a black man) was murdered by Michael Drejka (a white man) in a convenience store parking lot over a parking dispute. Markeis' girlfriend Brittany Jacobs and their children were waiting in their car, parked in a handicapped parking spot when Drejkas approached them. Drejka started harassing Brittany. The commotion caught Markeis' attention, who came to Brittany's defense by shoving Drejka who appeared to be a threat to his family. After being shoved to the ground Drejka pulled out a gun and shot Markeis in his chest. Markeis was pronounced dead 30 minutes later. The Pinellas County Sheriff's Department refused to arrest Michael Drejka because of Florida's lax Stand Your Ground laws. (0:00) BTS: If Dan were a person of power (scary). (1:22) Introduction. (2:56) Nia Wilson. (4:53) Maurice Rucker. (6:31) Markeis McGlockton. (10:05) Did Markeis do anything wrong? (16:38) Was Drejka the aggressor? (17:34) Could someone have legally killed Drejka? (19:59) Is it illegal to initiate conflict while carrying? (24:01) Ideally what should've happened? (28:51) Our Predictions. (30:11) Louisiana vs. Florida's Stand Your Ground. (35:46) No right to be there. (37:35) Shifting the Burden. (40:17) Mental Health & Owning a Firearm. (43:34) Common Sense Gun Laws. (50:38) Stand Your Ground States. (52:21) White Birthright. (58:11) Dan's Ask an Attorney. (59:51) Stand Your Ground vs. Self-Defense (62:03) Normalizing Negative Police Interaction. (66:05) Ask an Attorney. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/blacklawpodcast/support

The Context of White Supremacy hosts the weekly Compensatory Call-In. We encourage non-white listeners to dial in with their codified concepts, new terms, observations, research findings, workplace problems or triumphs, and/or suggestions on how best to Replace White Supremacy With Justice ASAP. We’ll use these sessions to hone our use of words as tools to reveal truth, neutralize White people. We’ll examine news reports from the past seven days and – hopefully – promote a constructive dialog.  #ANTIBLACKNESS This mid-summer week brought a full moon, reports of an underground water system on Mars, and estimations that rising sea levels have already dropped values by billions of dollars. The scientific marvels and notations were accompanied by allegations that Amazon's sparkling new facial recognition software branded Congressmen John Lewis and Bobby Rush (both black males) as convicted criminals. In California's East Bay, a black female was stabbed to death on a BART platform by a random White Terrorist. 18-year-old Nia Wilson was killed Sunday by John Lee Cowell, who's been arrested and is facing murder charges. Oakland's KTVU was accused of practicing White Supremacy by displaying an image of Wilson where she's holding an object that resembles a firearm. Across the continent in Florida, anger continues a week after a White man, Michael Drejka, fatally shot a black male, Markeis McGlockton, during an argument over a parking spot. Florida enforcement officials didn't even arrest Drejka, deciding that the White Man lawfully stood his ground. #RacismIsTerrorism INVEST in The COWS - http://paypal.me/GusTRenegade CALL IN NUMBER: 641.715.3640 CODE 564943#

On today's episode of Loud & Clear, Brian Becker and John Kiriakou are joined by Stephanie Kelton, a prominent economist who advised Bernie Sanders’ 2016 campaign, professor of public policy and economics at Stony Brook University, and former chief economist on the U.S. Senate Budget Committee, and Jim Kavanagh, editor of thepolemicist.net.Mainstream capitalist economic theory has increasingly been called into question since the global economic crisis of 2008 exposed the gaping holes in neoliberal orthodoxy. One new school of thought that’s emerged in recent years is modern monetary theory. The hosts talk with experts on the theory. This is part one of two interviews. Millions of Pakistanis went to the polls today to elect a new government. And as usually happens there during elections, dozens of people were killed in related violence, including three in a bombing attack on a polling station in Quetta. Opinion polls show that the two frontrunners are former international cricket star Imran Khan and disgraced former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. And international observers say they are seeing blatant attempts to manipulate the polls. Marvin Weinbaum, the Scholar-in-Residence and director of the Middle East Institute’s Center for Pakistan and Afghanistan Studies, joins the show. Beyond Nuclear with Kevin Kamps is Loud & Clear’s regular Wednesday segment, which looks at nuclear issues, including weapons, energy, waste, and the future of nuclear technology in the United States. Today the hosts go back to basics on nuclear weapons. Brian and John speak with Kevin Kamps, the Radioactive Waste Watchdog at the organization Beyond Nuclear, and Sputnik news analyst and producer Nicole Roussell. Markies McGlockton, a father of three, was shot and killed by Michael Drejka in front of a convenience store in Clearwater, Florida last week. Drejka was causing a disturbance—something he has been fined for in the past—and McGlockton had gotten out of his car to confront him when Drejka pulled a gun and began firing. Now the Sheriff of Pinellas County has said his hands are tied because of the state’s stand your ground law, and that he won’t make an arrest. This is part one of this story. , joins the show. Part two finishes the story about Markies McGlockton’s murder and the stand your ground defense in Florida. Markies McGlockton, a father of three, was shot and killed by Michael Drejka in front of a convenience store in Clearwater, Florida last week. Drejka was causing a disturbance—something he has been fined for in the past—and McGlockton had gotten out of his car to confront him when Drejka pulled a gun and began firing. Now the Sheriff of Pinellas County has said his hands are tied because of the state’s stand your ground law, and that he won’t make an arrest. Brad Schlesinger, an appellate attorney licensed to practice in the Supreme Court, and Michele Rayner, the attorney who is representing the family of Markies McGlockton, join Brian and John. ISIS fighters carried out a major suicide bombing and initiated subsequent fighting in the southern Syrian town of Sweida this morning, killed at least 150 people. Sweida is controlled by the Assad government, which only recently dislodged ISIS fighters from it. Meanwhile, Israeli forces went on alert today—and air raid sirens sounded—for fear that the fighting could approach the Golan Heights, Syrian territory occupied by Israel since 1967. Sputnik News analyst and producer Walter Smolarek joins the show.Maria Butina, the Russian graduate student being accused of failing to register as an agent of a foreign government appeared in court in Washington today to schedule a trial date and associated hearings. Brian and John speak with Alex Rubinstein, a Sputnik news analyst and journalist who is on twitter at @RealAlexRubi and attended today’s hearing.The European Union is preparing to impose $20 billion in new tariffs on American cars in response to President Trump’s tariffs on European goods two weeks ago. The EU’s trade chief said in advance of a meeting with Trump that the EU does not want a trade war, but would match US tariffs dollar for dollar. Meanwhile, Trump said the he was willing to provide midwestern farmers hit by the EU tariffs with $12 billion in cash assistance. Dr. Jack Rasmus, a professor of economics at Saint Mary's College of California and author of a recent article in the World Review of Political Economy titled “Trump’s Déjà vu China Trade War,” joins the show.