Podcasts about george zimmerman trayvon martin

BOND Sunday Service, March 25, 2012: Jesse Lee Peterson invites people to comment on the George Zimmerman-Trayvon Martin incident in Sanford, Florida. Many black leaders are protesting, calling the "white Hispanic" neighborhood watchman "racist." There were rumors and speculation (later debunked) about Zimmerman saying a "racial slur" on the 911 call. (Zimmerman would later be exonerated for the self-defense shooting of the 17-year-old black male.) Jesse talks about how thoughts deceive, leaders don't care, parents fail, and black Americans fall for lies and anger. At the end we read Romans 8: 28-39. BLOG POST and VIDEO: https://rebuildingtheman.com/03-25-12-george-zimmerman-trayvon-martin-archive/ TIME STAMPS 0:00 Welcome to Church 0:50 Spiritual battle 1:21 GZ white Hispanic 3:51 Feedback: Racist? 18:07 Racial slur? 22:27 No gun? 26:27 More feedback 27:50 Witness? 31:00 On black youth 35:54 Politics 40:34 Jesse: thoughts deceive 44:30 JLP: More lives 48:05 Roland Martin, "leaders" 52:16 White kid set afire 54:23 Leaders don't care 58:37 Romans 8: 28-39 1:00:28 Support BOND Throwback Sunday Services premiere on BOND YouTube channel Wednesdays at 4 PM US Pacific Time (7 PM ET). Church with Jesse Lee Peterson is live every Sunday 11 AM U.S. Pacific Time at BOND in Los Angeles. Watch/listen online or join us in-person. Doors open at 10:30 AM. Church streams 11 AM through 12:30, Pacific Time. https://rebuildingtheman.com/church Contact BOND to schedule counseling, set up monthly donation, order books, or join our mailing list: Call 800-411-BOND (1-800-411-2663) or office 323-782-1980, hours Mon-Fri 9-4 PT (Los Angeles). https://rebuildingtheman.com/contact

The death of Ahmaud Arbery is a powder keg, lit to detonate in the conciousness of America and the world. Like Trayvon Martin before him, will Arbery's death reverberate through public discourse for years to come, or is this just a flash in the pan? Topics discussed: 1) Impressions & investigation of the viral video 2) Further details 3) Public reaction 4) Similarities with the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin case 5) Shaun King 6) KKK https://www.youtube.com/user/TheSLMTube https://twitter.com/cave_time

  In this second look at the Marissa Alexander case, Don West and Shawn Vincent look at their long legal fight Alexander faced in defense of the warning shot she fired during a 2010 confrontation with her estranged husband.   TRANSCRIPT: Shawn Vincent: Well, hey Don, how's it going? Don West: Great Shawn, good to talk with you. Shawn Vincent: Last time we spoke, we were talking about the Marissa Alexander case. We had a great opportunity where Mike Darter and Stan Campbell had a chance to talk to Marissa Alexander. She was the defender in the famous warning shot case where she fired a single shot at her estranged, now ex-husband after he had just assaulted her in their shared marital home, and she made the mistake of not calling the police. He called the police. They came and questioned her, ultimately arrested her for this discharge of the firearm at her husband. It was ultimately, it ended up being a case of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Shawn Vincent: And in our last podcast, if our listeners haven't listened to it, they should go online and pick that one up. First, we talk about how the whole event unfolded, how she had the violent encounter with him in the bathroom. She retreated to the garage, couldn't get out, got her gun, came back inside. He saw the gun, he threatened to kill her. She fired a shot. He left, called the police. Police came, they had to call her, tell her to come out of the house with her hands up, asked her some questions and then all of a sudden she who, at first felt like she had done nothing wrong because she was defending herself and her own home, was now wrapped up in the criminal justice system. Don West: Yes, that's exactly right. She certainly was wrapped up in it. And as we'll discuss as we go on here, how much the laws in place ... not the laws in place always drive the case. Obviously those are the rules and the guidelines and they outline not just the elements of whatever offense is charged, but in many instances potential penalties as well. And more than most cases, Marissa Alexander found herself right in the middle of this legal quagmire where her fate was largely driven by what the legislature had done some years before in reference to mandatory minimum sentences. Shawn Vincent: Yeah. So just to give a taste of what she was in for and what she had no idea about. I'm going to play a quick segment from her podcast with Mike and Stan. Marissa Alexand: I literally was, so I'm naive. I'm thinking, okay, it's going to be like Law and Order or the Heat of the Night. I'll go to a little room, I'll tell them what happened and be like, everything is good. And it was not the case and it really feels it's a situation where you are guilty. You're not innocent until proven guilty. You're already guilty. You got to prove your way innocent. Shawn Vincent: So not unlike the understanding that most people have about the criminal justice system, Marissa Alexander's expectations of what she was in for were set by television --in particular, Law and Order. And we talked about this a little bit in the podcast last time. It's a great place to start up. Now, this idea that she went into that little room with investigators. She told her side of the story and thought that that would be it okay, and they'd figure out the truth from her point of view, and then she gets to go on living her life. And instead she ended up getting booked that day in jail, given a prison uniform and a bologna sandwich and told to walk a line to a jail cell. Don West: I think in her situation it's so much a parallel with other self-defense cases that we've seen or experienced even where because you don't feel like you've really done anything wrong. It's the urgency of trying to explain it. We touched upon that in an earlier podcast, but the idea that she's desperately trying to explain why she's not guilty and there she is in custody or certainly being detained at the time. And as we've seen, and I suspect in her case as well, just continue to dig the hole. And genuinely is surprised and at the end of this interview isn't a send on home because the police finally realized how wrong they were to suspect her all along. As she said, naive. I think that's a perfect word to explain her mindset and the mindset of many people that wind up in her situation. Shawn Vincent: Well, I mean and it perfectly until you see it actually work you don't know. The first real interaction with the criminal justice system that I ever had is when I had a chance to work with you on the big famous case. And the first trial I ever saw was the Zimmerman trial but I got an inside look to see how everything works. And since then I've been lucky to call myself a litigation consultant. I've worked on all sorts of types of cases, both on the criminal side and on the civil plaintiff side. And a lot of what I ended up doing when I interact either with a defendant or with a plaintiff is helping communicate to them in non-legalese terms, just what's going on with the justice system and why, Don, everything takes so long. Shawn Vincent: And Marissa Alexander's case, yeah, we're looking at the shooting itself happening on August, 1st of 2010. It was essentially, gosh, May 11th of 2012 when she finally had a two day trial and was found guilty. So that's was better than a year and a half later. And then she files an appeal and that appeal in terms of how quickly appeals are done, pretty quick, September of 2013. So another year and a half goes by and then during that time she ended up incarcerated for 1,065 days. She ends up at the end, not exonerated, but pleading to a lesser sentence with a threat of serving three times what her original sentence was. Don West: Sure. Shawn Vincent: So, like, nearly four years, she was lucky that the case was high-profile and that some people had some sympathy for a victim of domestic abuse using a firearm to defend herself. So she had some pro bono legal services, which most people would not have the benefit of. And so there she is at a time when her kids were entering, at least, her twins were entering their teenage years. She's gone for 1,065 days in a fight for her life where she doesn't know that she's not going to spend the rest of her life in jail. Don West: So Shawn, let me ask you this question. You've studied the case, you were watching it in the news while it was unfolding along the way. Why do you think the case got such media attention and why people were going on television programs, news programs, internet and saying what an outrage this whole case was, that it was just a warning shot. And the fact that she was not just exposed to 20 years but sentenced to 20 years is outside the realm of belief. How could anybody be treated like that by the system? Shawn Vincent: Yeah. Well, I don't think that you can ignore the fact that this happened, this overlapped the Zimmerman case when he looks at the cultural context that this falls under. So the big cultural issue underlying the Zimmerman defense was that here's a guy who shot an unarmed black man and looked to get the benefit of the Stand Your Ground law in a time where the justice system is perceived to be, and I believe is, disproportionately stacked against African American people. And then in the midst of that outrage, then you look at this other case where now you have a black woman who defended herself and didn't even kill anybody, didn't even hurt anybody. And she's looking at that time, 20 years in prison for it. And it just seemed a disproportionate and patently unfair. Do you think that's a fair assessment? Don West: I do. So if you take the 20 years out of it and you talk about a year or two or probation or even three or four years for shooting a gun at somebody that was a close call and put other people at risk, if you assume for the moment that it wasn't legally justified and someone who does that get prosecuted and sent to prison for two or three years, is that as outrageous or is that just people understand sometimes bad things happen to good people or that domestic situations are chaotic and bad things happen that wouldn't typically happen in a person's life, but for the 20 years. It was the 20 years that was so outrageous and looks so disproportional that it became the flag that people wave to point out why she was treated so unfairly. Shawn Vincent: Yeah, it feels wrong in your heart. I think that's when we talk about the Zimmerman case, I talk a lot about the truth with a big “T” and truth of the little “T.” And we know all the evidence in that case inside and out, and those little facts that weren't necessarily known to the public until the trial and then nobody, not everyone watched the trial beginning to end, and that they don't know those little facts. We know they added up to a justifiable use of force incident. And those are the little “Ts” and you can argue those until you're blue in the face. But what didn't change was the big “T,” the big truth that was sparked by the case, but not necessarily supported by the facts of the case, which is that there is an inequity in how people of different races are treated in the justice system. Shawn Vincent: And so then you look at another case where all the little details, the little “Ts” make it difficult, but the big “T” is no one was hurt. And it was a woman defending herself from an abusive husband that she had a restraining order against. And to think that she's going to face a large minimum mandatory sentence just doesn't pass the feel test. Don West: All right. If you take that to the next step, and I think we should try to drill into this a little bit. I know this area of the law quite well. I've handled a number of cases, firearms cases that have involved mandatory minimums. I'm familiar with prosecutorial discretion, I'm familiar with claims of an abuse of that discretion. I'm familiar with plea negotiations. I'm familiar with overcharging to use as a weapon to sort of bully away into a settlement and this is sort of my wheelhouse when it comes certainly to Florida law. Don West: So I feel like I have a unique understanding of the dynamics of how cases like this play out and I think it might be a good illustration for how people can get caught up in a system over which they have no control and frankly the judge has virtually no control. The prosecutor has some control, the most discretion and the defense lawyers have really no control over how a case is pursued and ultimately how to manage risks. That's what these cases turn out to be from a lawyer standpoint is managing risk so that the worst possible thing doesn't happen. Shawn Vincent: Your description of that makes me think of a runaway train, in that you get a case like this, you have laws built the way they're built. You have an action like this discharge of the weapon that triggers a criminal investigation and then it's almost like this train let loose down a hill, it is just going to go and that maybe the only control is the prosecutor in the caboose with the break back there, they can decide how fast or slow it goes. Don West: And Miss Alexander's case is a wonderful example of that analogy and also how certain cases can have an impact. And I think her case had a direct demonstrable impact on how future cases were handled or can be handled. And I think that it's probably fair that her case had resulted in changes in the law since 2010 when she was prosecuted through 2012, 2013 and then when her new trial and ultimately the case was resolved, the law has changed specifically with regard to the minimum mandatory for aggravated assault. Don West: And that's a life-changer for people that are involved in a similar situation as to what she found herself in. Shawn Vincent: So where's a good place to start talking about that Don, and maybe it's this idea that minimum mandatory and how ... so you and I both know that the vast, vast majority of criminal prosecutions don't end in a trial; they end up in some sort of plea settlement. A few of them probably get non-billed eventually, but yeah, most of them end up with the defendant agreeing to some plea and some compromise sentence. Is that right? Don West: The vast majority, I don't know what the numbers are. I think it's 90% probably. Maybe somewhere in the high 80s of cases that are resolved without a trial. Frankly, the system would come crashing down if all criminal defendants insisted on a jury trial. The system would collapse. Shawn Vincent: Right. Don West: And there's lots of reasons why cases resolve without a trial. And some of them are honest and forthright and based upon a better understanding of what happened after investigation and discovery and discussion. And the end result is a negotiated resolution that both sides are reasonably happy with. Shawn Vincent: So what you're saying is that sometimes a prosecutor will see some evidence come out, listen to some argument and testimony and say maybe you're right, we don't have a real assault charge here. We're going to find a misdemeanor, and plea it out to that. And here's something that everyone can live with. Don West: Yeah, that's right. The facts may be tweaked or changed. There may be assumptions that the prosecutor made based upon certain witness statements or evidence that when further investigation are done shown not to be exactly as that impression was. And frankly, a good defense lawyer will spend some time helping the prosecutor better understand who the defendant is, of course, if that's favorable. And why maybe their discretion should be exercised in favor of the accused. The prosecutor has all the cards, they make the charging decision, they involve are involved in any plea discussions which could result in one or two directions. Don West: One direction could be that since every crime has a relative range of punishment with it, by offering a plea to a lesser crime, you've resulted necessarily in a different sentencing range typically. So the prosecutor may conclude at the end of the day, let's talk about a serious crime that could be a murder charge. And there are several lesser included charges. A first degree murder charge might carry a mandatory life sentence without parole. A second degree murder charge of the firearm could carry a life sentence. And then there's manslaughter, that is a lesser included offense of murder, but does not have mandatory minimum sentences typically. And the sentencing ranges considerably less on that. Don West: So after investigation, the prosecutor may believe that the defendant committed a criminal act and the evidence may show it pretty convincingly, but be satisfied that it's more in the context of manslaughter rather than murder. So a defendant that's looking at a lengthy lengthy sentence may be life could wind up with a five year or 10 year sentence, which is still a lot of time, but it may in fact be a good and fair resolution of the case. Shawn Vincent: Yeah, but all that said, you and I have seen cases where we think they're overcharged. And maybe a prosecutor might think, this could be manslaughter, but they're not going to talk you down the manslaughter if they start there. So they might start somewhere like it's second degree murder or first degree murder. And you talked about they hold all the cards. Now it's the defendant that has to call that bet. And going to trial is an all or nothing proposition. So you get in a situation where you're going to face this maximum prosecution that the DA wants to pursue, or you get this offer, which is a guarantee of less time or maybe a lesser charge that is easier for you to live with afterwards. Or you have the option to roll the dice, see what a jury thinks and either spend way more time in prison or none at all. That's the bet. Don West: It is the bet and that's a calculation based upon your knowledge of the evidence of what you think the strengths of the prosecution case is, the strengths of your defenses, the intangibles, how certain evidence might resonate with a jury. We talked about several cases in prior podcasts including the Gerald Strebendt case where there was a guy who had a pretty good self-defense claim but was simply not willing to take the chance that at the end of the day, because of some prior events in his life and the fact that an AR-15 style weapon was used, and the deceased was unarmed, you put all that stuff together, and he made a decision that he would rather serve a relatively short prison sentence to avoid the risk of a lengthy -- if not life sentence --  and they entered into a plea and that happens every day in the criminal justice system. Shawn Vincent: Yeah. And add onto that, that Strebendt had been in jail long enough to where he was already starting to become institutionalized. It's your perception of what's acceptable for the rest of your life changes, the deeper that you get into it. And you've seen this with clients who come at first, convinced of their innocence, and they're not going to serve a day in prison for this crime. They're never going to plead guilty to, after sometimes years, certainly months and months and months of prosecution with their savings drained,  and probably their relationship shattered, and they've lost their job. Now they're a broken person and any light that gives them a way out of this prosecution now takes on a new luster, doesn't it? Don West: Certainly does. Why don't we circle back and let me take a minute and explain some of the legal issues that Marissa Alexander found herself facing once she was arrested and then ultimately charged. Shawn Vincent: Okay. Don West: Then we can parse through that a little bit and better understand the decisions that were made by her lawyers and by her. And I think we can see a pretty clear trajectory as to how she wound up where she is now. And then we can actually talk a little bit about some of the changes, her advocacy and maybe some about the real effect of some of the advocacy. Shawn Vincent: Great. So do you want to start? Don West: Well, let's go back to the beginning and let me set the stage. This was in Jacksonville, Florida. The elected State Attorney was Angela Corey. She's pretty controversial. She's no longer the State Attorney. She was appointed by the governor, Rick Scott to handle the George Zimmerman / Trayvon Martin case. So I have a lot of firsthand experience with her and the lawyers that work for her, that are assigned to various serious high profile cases. And I can tell you that most of my experiences with her are not favorable. Well, without going into all of that, I can tell you that I'm no fan of hers, but at the same time I want to talk about the way her office handled this case as objectively as possible. So I'm going to give her office the benefit of the doubt, even though personally I don't feel that way. Shawn Vincent: Fair enough. Don West: So the case that the police got with Marissa Alexander was, as we've talked about at some length, she shoots a gun inside the house in the general direction of her husband. There's a bullet in the wall. It goes into the ceiling in the general vicinity of where he was standing. She claimed that she was attacked and he threatened to kill her and that she had no choice but to use deadly force. So the prosecutor had a wide range of charging options at that point. There were the attempted homicide or criminal homicide charges. There was certainly attempted first degree murder if they thought she fully intended to kill him, but just was unsuccessful. Attempted second degree, which is a reckless, wanton disregard for the safety of people. They could have charged even an attempted manslaughter, which is kind of a weird charge these days, but it would be on the books. Don West: But they chose to file her with a specific intent crime of aggravated assault, meaning that she intended to threaten but did not necessarily have the intent to kill. It's typically a third degree felony punishable by up to five years. If you put a deadly weapon involved, specifically a firearm, then you have a three-year mandatory sentence that the judge has no discretion but to impose on a conviction. Don West: Here's where the prosecutor has some discretion. They had discretion not to charge an attempted murder of some sort. They also had the discretion what level of aggravated assault to charge. They charged the enhanced crime under Florida's “10-20-Life” provision that was in effect at the time, which basically says that if you are committing a crime and you use a firearm, depending on the circumstances, you will receive a mandatory minimum sentence upon conviction at a certain level. With aggravated assault if you use a firearm and discharge it as opposed to just using it to point. If you discharge it, the mandatory minimum becomes 20 years. Shawn Vincent: Just for context, like a manslaughter conviction, you could realistically be sentenced for much less than 20 years. Don West: Interestingly enough, in Florida, if you use a firearm to commit the crime of manslaughter, there is no mandatory minimum associated with using a firearm for manslaughter because it's in a sense a crime of a gross negligence. It does not have the enhancement. So for example, while a firearm increases the potential maximum penalty, it does not impose a minimum penalty. So Michael Drejka, the Clearwater handicapped parking spot case that we've talked about- Shawn Vincent: Sure. Don West: ... he was charged with manslaughter, but he clearly used a firearm and then he was facing a maximum 30 years because of using a firearm, but there was no minimum. Interestingly enough, a different kind of crime could have resulted in a higher sentence, even if it didn't result in a death. So back to Marissa Alexander for a second, the prosecutor chose to charge her with aggravated assault with the discharge and that would apply to Rico Gray and also to the kids in the house if the prosecutor chose to charge her with that. Don West: So going into it, she would have known after meeting with her defense lawyers and seeing the prosecution documents, that if she were convicted, she would face a mandatory minimum of 20 years, which means that the judge has no control over it. The judge cannot impose one day less than the 20 years upon a conviction. Shawn Vincent: Sure. And the jury would have no idea what the minimum was if they chose to. Don West: That's a really important part. I've been watching the Amber Guyger case in Texas where Texas juries actually impose the sentence after finding an individual accused of a particular crime. And unlike Texas, Florida juries and most juries around the country have absolutely no idea what the range of sentences will be on a conviction, whether there's a mandatory minimum, if so, how much. They're looking at the evidence and whether the evidence supports the elements of the particular crime. Don West: And frankly, if you have a hole in the wall from a bullet and you have a person saying they fired the gun, it's kind of a no brainer to conclude that the person discharged the gun. So from a factual standpoint, if the jury rejected self-defense, Marissa Alexander was in big trouble. And you're right, the jury would not have known the actual effect of the conviction. So when I said before, I'm no fan of Angela Corey, I do want to point out that in the plea discussions, in the negotiations of the case, right at the very beginning, Ms. Alexander had a plea offer. The prosecutor agreed that upon a guilty plea or no contest plea, whatever the terms were, that they would amend the charge from the aggravated assault with a discharge to an aggravated assault with the possession of a deadly weapon, specifically a firearm. Don West: And what that would have done is taken the mandatory minimum from 20 years down to three. Again, no discretion if she pleads to it, the judge has to impose a sentence of at least three years. So she would have been looking at a maximum of five years, a minimum of three. And I think the deal was she would just serve the three years and be done with it. Shawn Vincent: So now the gambling bet given to Alexander at this point is a guaranteed three years or roll the dice and it's either 20 years or nothing. There's nothing really in between here. Don West: There's not going to be much in between because like we were saying, the facts clearly showed she pulled the trigger, clearly showed she fired the gun, and if the jury didn't buy self-defense then there was no reason for them not to convict her of the aggravated assault with a discharge. So that was the decision she made with the benefit of counsel. I'm sure they agonized over it, and I imagine she knew what the risk was, but interestingly- Shawn Vincent: She said, "I'm innocent, I'm going to go for it.” Don West: Yeah, but I think what's really interesting about this case too, is Florida, in 2005 when they passed this Stand Your Ground, wide ranging comprehensive statute included the self-defense immunity provision that allowed people charged in a criminal offense who claimed self-defense to take it before the judge, prior to the criminal trial and present their case. And if the judge believed there was a sufficient showing that it was in self-defense, then the judge could dismiss the case. The law has changed since then. Under the law in effect during Ms. Alexander's case, the defense files a petition with the court and then at the hearing has to show by a preponderance of the evidence, like 51%, that she acted in self-defense. Shawn Vincent: So in the immunity hearing back then, the defense has the burden of proof, to prove that it, in fact, was self-defense. Don West: That it was self-defense. Yeah. So she had that opportunity and they took advantage of it and they had the hearing and at the end of the hearing, which it's an evidentiary hearing. I mean, they would call witnesses and make arguments. You can call experts. Shawn Vincent: It's like a mini-trial. It's essentially a trial. Don West: It is. I've been involved in one and you as well, that lasted a full five days. There was 30 or 40 hours of testimony and argument. Shawn Vincent: Which was three days longer than Marissa Alexander's ultimate trial. Yeah. Don West: That's right. So somebody walking into the courtroom would see this going on and have no reason to think, it wasn't a full blown trial. Shawn Vincent: Except there is no jury there. Don West: Exactly right. So Marissa Alexander lost the hearing. The judge ruled against her and concluded that she'd not made the necessary showing and refused to dismiss the case. I would have thought that's a pretty good indication to me that self-defense was not clear, which in my mind would have heightened the risk of going to a jury trial. Shawn Vincent: Sure. Don West: But however it sorted out, she still rejected the plea offer and decided to take her chances with a jury. Unfortunately, as we know, not only did the jury convict her of aggravated assault, but they also convicted her of the aggravated assault with the discharge of the firearm, which triggered the mandatory minimum. They didn't give her the lesser charge. Shawn Vincent: Go straight to jail, do not pass “Go.” Don West: Yeah, and the judge had no choice but to sentence her to 20 years. So if I look back on it, I can't say that the prosecutor's office was completely outrageous or irresponsible. They made from their perspective a pretty decent offer in that they were convinced they had the evidence to prove that she was not justified, that she in fact committed a crime. They clearly could have gone for attempted murder if they wanted to really overcharge. They charged the aggravated assault with the discharge, which is pretty consistent, although extremely punitive as we know because of the mandatory minimum and then to avoid the risk of trial and to exercise their discretion, they offered a plea that while it would have meant a prison sentence would have been capped at three years and that would have been the end of the case. Shawn Vincent: But it was not the end of the case. Don West: So we can criticize prosecutors all the time and point to them and I think Ms. Corey certainly had the fingers pointed at her. She became the person that was vilified in all of this, when the case got characterized as just a warning shot and all of that. But in my experience, I have a hard time concluding that it was outrageous. Three years, people may think was outrageous, but I've seen too much in the system to think that if the self-defense claim was rejected and the 20 years may have been a bit of a bludgeoning tool, but they did make the offer that would have allowed her to resolve the case in three years. So it's rejected. She's convicted, she sentenced to 20 years. I imagine her mind is blown at that point. This was the worst possible outcome for her under the circumstances. Shawn Vincent: Well, she says in the podcast with Mike and Stan that she said immediately, “All right, round two. What's next?” She was still convinced of her innocence and was going to exhaust the procedural opportunities that she had. Don West: Well for a jury to convict somebody -- unless they are a complete rogue jury that's operating out of bias or prejudice or emotion or something that's not supposed to factor in -- if a jury convicts you, they have to be unanimous. They have to have concluded that the prosecutor proved the crime beyond a reasonable doubt, and also convinced that in self-defense that the state proved beyond a reasonable doubt that it was not lawful self-defense, in some ways an extension of what the judge said that Marissa hadn't established in the immunity hearing. Don West: So I don't know what Marissa was thinking, whether she was somewhat diluted or confused about what the evidentiary standard was or what the power of the evidence was. But for someone on the outside, once you lose the immunity hearing and once you get convicted by a jury, I think the writing is pretty much on the wall at that point. So the next step procedurally is an appeal. Shawn Vincent: Right. And we've talked about appeals before. Not everyone understands what an appeal is. Sometimes people think it's a second shot at the trial with judges from a different court, but in fact, you can't appeal the result of a trial, you can only appeal specific errors that perhaps the judge made. Don West: Legal errors typically. Sometimes if the prosecution commits ethical mistakes or if they comment on the right to remain silent, if they appeal solely to emotion, if they make it unfair, that can be a subject of an appeal. But usually it boils down to decisions the judge made and whether or not those are consistent with the law or there's been some sort of fatal mistake. Sometimes mistakes can be real but found not to have an impact on the outcome. So it's no harm no foul kind of thing, but what appeals are not, and I think this is the area of the greatest misunderstanding, is a reevaluation of the credibility of the witnesses. Don West: For Marissa Alexander to have been convicted, the jury would have had to accept the testimony of Rico Gray or the kids or some combination of that and reject her testimony and conclude that either he didn't threaten her, and that she sort of made that up to justify shooting at him, or that the threat didn't rise to the level of an imminent threat of serious bodily harm or death or some part of that, that satisfied the jury; that she was not allowed to act in the manner that she did and that it wasn't self-defense. So the appeal court doesn't go back and decide who they believe more than the jury did. Shawn Vincent: Right. And then in this case, the appeal was granted based upon the jury instruction that was given, the defence felt, errantly. Don West: At the end of all of the evidence, meaning whatever the prosecution puts on, whatever the defense puts on before the final arguments, there is a meeting with the lawyers outside the presence of the jury and the judge to decide what instructions the jury will receive. A lot of them are boilerplate rules for deliberation and definition of reasonable doubt and that sort of stuff. But then there's a number of them that are case specific and in self-defense cases making it clear whose job it is to prove what and if the judge decides to give certain instructions, a certain instruction specifically as to which side has to prove what element or by what standard, then those become the guidance for the jury to apply when they're trying to evaluate the evidence and decide whether the laws were broken and if so if the defenses are sustained and that sort of thing. So it'd becomes- Shawn Vincent: So if the jury was given the wrong instruction, like in the Gyrell Lee case that we talked about, than it's pretty easy to make an argument to the appellate courts at least, that had they been given the proper instruction, the jury could have come up with a different result. Don West: Exactly right. And we have a parallel to that case here where on appeal, the appeals court decided that the jury was miss-instructed on a couple of key aspects of the law of self-defense, and that it was important enough that it may have affected the jury's verdict, and as a result, reversed the conviction and ordered a new trial. So that's how Marissa Alexander wound up basically with a do-over because the appellate court found that the first jury really didn't have the right instructions. Shawn Vincent: But get this. So in this particular case, the do-over is a triple or nothing do-over because, in the intervening time, there had been some controversy over how the 20-year minimum mandatory would be applied. And Angela Corey's office made the case that there were three of them, there was Rico Gray and then his two children who are in the vicinity and that aggravated assault applied to all three of them. And a higher court ruled, that 20 year minimum would be now consecutive instead of concurrent. So instead of it all running in one 20 year sentence, she was facing in the second trial, a minimum mandatory of 60 years if convicted. Don West: I don't know Shawn, whether frankly from my standpoint as a criminal defense lawyer looking at this case and looking at the history, I don't know if that would have made a difference to me because 20 years is a hell of a long time, and I'm not sure adding more on top of that would have made a difference in whether given the history of the case and the lack of success at the various stages before would have convinced me not to go to trial when I was otherwise going to go to trial. Shawn Vincent: So it's a big enough number where 20 and 60 is still essentially the best part of the rest of your life? Don West: It depends on how the choice was presented. The prosecutor, like we said, holds all the cards, assuming they decided to raise the stakes for a trial. I think it depends on what they do as well and their discretion to offset that. We know that first time around they had offered a reduced charge to the three year mandatory minimum and then this time from what you described, they raised the stakes from 20 to 60. Now if I'm looking at serving 20 versus 60 I don't know if I would opt at my age, I may not make the 20 so what difference does the extra 40 make? Don West: On the other hand, if I'm a lot younger, I may decide that if I've got no choice and I'm convinced I'm going to lose, I may opt for 20 to avoid the risk of facing 60, that's not what she was facing though. Shawn Vincent: Right. But then you get the offer again for three years and you've already served a thousand days of that. Don West: So I think realistically the analysis has to be three versus 20 and to me 63 versus 20 given the history of this case doesn't make that much difference to me. Marissa Alexander with her lawyers opted, and I think this is where the prosecutor deserves some credit, I think for ... They do not have to make any plea offer whatsoever. There is no requirement that they offer any reduced plea or any reduced sentence. They may have felt the pressure of the media. They may have felt that they couldn't withstand the onslaught of what would happen, no doubt if they insisted on going forward and she wound up with 20 years again or God forbid, 60 years. But I think to their credit, regardless of whether the motives were sincere, they made the plea offer that they'd made before, which is plead aggravated assault, get a three year sentence and be done with it. Shawn Vincent: Well, let's wrap it up. Let's listen real quick to what Marissa Alexander had to say about contemplating that plea. Don West: Okay. Marissa Alexand: And I have to make a decision not only for myself but for people who also have to be called to be witnessed. And these are teenagers, there was a lot of decision making to make that process. And like he mentioned, it's an easy one for some but for me it was not because I had that to consider plus the fact that she was trying to give me 60 years this time. So if I've gone to trial again, then I wasn't facing 20, it was 60 years. Speaker 1: Wow. Shawn Vincent: So she mentions the 60 years and they're thinking there, but she also has to kind of think about what another trial is going to do to her family and a particular her teenage twins and other people she loves and cares that would be called to testify and go through that whole ordeal again. Don West: Oh my goodness, imagine for a minute what it would be like to be in that situation, believing that you really didn't do anything wrong, but at every opportunity along the way for someone on the outside to evaluate that I'm rejecting your claim and now you've got the biggest decision of your life. Am I going to roll the dice facing 20 years, 40 years, 60 years, knowing that that would effectively not only be the end of her life and freedom, but how it would impact her children. It's just gut-wrenching. Shawn Vincent: Well, it's also a great lesson that the prosecution itself is a punishment. Set aside any jail time that you might serve. Just the ongoing nightmare of being accused and facing a criminal prosecution is difficult to explain. And I've known people well as they've gone through that process and yeah, I can't even understand it the way that somebody who's been through it can understand it, of course. Don West: I've been involved in cases where the client gets so desperate, so frustrated, exasperated and fearful of what their future will bring that they just want it over. They lose perspective and proportionality and they get to the point they don't care as long as it's over. And that's because of what you're talking about. The fear of waking up every morning and not knowing. Shawn Vincent: Go ahead. Don West: Also, keep in mind that, after losing the first trial, the time that the case was on appeal, Marissa Alexander was in prison. So she suffered the consequences of being in prison, not knowing whether she was going to have to serve the rest of that sentence, but by the time she got the second opportunity, the new trial and the opportunity to make this decision how to resolve it, she'd already accumulated the better part of three years. Now, while she can't get that back, if she went to trial and were acquitted, and it's not like you can store it up and get a refund for the time that you've been in prison, at the same time, she is required by law to get credit for any time served against any new sentence. Shawn Vincent: And so she had already spent $2.80 out of that three bucks. Don West: All right, so let's say then that she's looking at a deal for three years versus the risk of 20, 40 or 60 years and the three years now is- Shawn Vincent: 64 days. Don West: 64 days. She's a convicted felon. As a result of it, she has to deal with that the rest of her life. She entered a plea which acknowledged guilt in some way, but on the other hand, it had to make so much sense to her to serve another month or two, effectively. Now there may have been some after supervision, some other conditions, but the bottom line is she could effectively, at that point, trade two months for the risk of 60 years. Shawn Vincent: And just the relief of having it behind you and resolved must be a huge weight off, knowing that the uncertainty is over, and now you know how you can go forward with your life. Don West: So this is a fascinating story because it touches on so many things, including idealism, knowing you didn't do anything wrong ultimately to a compromise that everyone would have to agree was in her best interest. Why would she possibly take the chance on being away from her children's life for the next 20, 40 60 years? At the same time, it doesn't sit well with her. She feels like she was victimized by the very system that she respected and believed in all those years of her life. So it's a really really interesting dynamic. Shawn Vincent: Let me play a little clip real quick. That I think encapsulates how she felt about the experience going through that prosecution. Marissa Alexand: Very dark, very hard, very difficult times. There were a lot of very difficult decisions to make. There was a lot of very difficult conversations to have, and so when I explained to people as you are doing on your show, is  if you get yourself in this system, it's like an octopus. It's just wrapping itself around you, and it's so difficult, once you're in, it is so very difficult to get out of it. Shawn Vincent: I was struck by that metaphor of the octopus, and that's really why we talk. We spent this whole almost an hour now talking about this complicated legal path that Marissa Alexander went down. But we talked at the beginning about that being a runaway train and the initiation of that was her decision to pull the trigger and- Don West: I think more than any one thing, it was her decision to pull the trigger. Her decision to go out to the garage to get the gun, I think was a bad one. Her decision to go in the house with it was a bad one. Probably setting the stage for the illegality at that point, regardless of how it's settled out. But pulling the trigger is what turned it from something relatively little to something that nobody could ignore and put her on this path. So how many times have we told people if there is any possible way to avoid it, take every ... no matter how legally right you are, know how justified or angry or offended or how much you want to show that you can't be treated like that, no matter what part of that surging through the brain. The only smart choice is to avoid it. Shawn Vincent: If you possibly can. And let me play this. You talked at the beginning about how the law changed and some things changed after this case, and I want to play what she said about the 10-20-life minimum mandatory. And I think that's a great way to segue into what the bigger resolution of this case was beyond just her, Marissa Alexand: The intent of 10-20-life was for habitual violent offenders. It was just not used, just the willingly they throw around. But in addition to that, prostitutes absolutely like everything else have the right to be able to say, well no, we're not going to use the enhancement, incident enhancement. And they had discretion. Shawn Vincent: So that goes said, to the discretion that you talked about. Now you had mentioned that some things changed after this case. Don West: The big thing that changed relates specifically to aggravated assault as being one of those enumerated crimes on this list of crimes for which the use of a firearm triggers the enhancement. The 10-20-life enhancement under Florida law applies to a number of specific crimes, and she is exactly right. I think in terms of the legislative intent, somebody commits a robbery and uses a gun, shoots the gun, hurts somebody. All of those have higher and higher mandatory minimum sentences. Kidnapping, sexual assault, that kind of stuff, burglary makes perfect sense why it would be on that list. Even degrees of murder. However, aggravated assault was on the list as well. And that's what triggered in her case, the 20 year mandatory for the discharge of her firearm. Don West: Well following her case, and the attention that her case brought to this, the legislature sort of revisited and around 2014 didn't eliminate it, but they gave the judge some discretion finally. So if you are convicted of aggravated assault under one of these 10-20-life enhancements and the judge felt that the circumstances were mitigated, that whether it was cause of a self-defense scenario, but not necessarily completely legal, but there was some reasonable explanation for how this was transpired. The judge would have the authority to mitigate and impose a sentence less than the mandatory minimum. Don West: And then finally, a couple of years later in 2016, the legislature simply removed aggravated assault from that list of enumerated felonies triggering the 10-20-life. So at this point you can commit the crime of aggravated assault, you can still go to prison for it, and you'd still go to prison for at least three years under most circumstances, but no longer are you facing the 20-year mandatory if the gun is discharged. Shawn Vincent: Which changes the bets you make as a defendant, it puts a couple of cards back into your hand, when you- Don West: It may have changed. Yeah. It could have changed the entire direction this case went. Now whether it ... I'm a bit cynical, I'm a bit jaded from having done this for so long, and I expressed my frustration about Angela Corey early on, and I'll digress for a moment. One of the things that really made me mad was we were in the Zimmerman case and I'd pulled into the courthouse, I think it was a Saturday in fact, and the jury was out deliberating and we had to show up. We'd been trying the case for about a month and I pulled into a parking place, parked, went inside and about 20 minutes later the deputies came in to find me and said, you're parking in Ms. Corey's space and she wants you to move the car. Don West: I didn't need any more aggravation so I wound up doing it. But just that kind of ego driven pettiness just and of course subject about an entirely different conversation would be some of the ethics and some of the shenanigans that were pulled in that case. Not by her specifically but- Shawn Vincent: Just by the team. Don West: Well, I have enough stuff there that we could talk about. Shawn Vincent: I'm thrilled that after all these years there are still stories about that time that I haven't heard. Don West: I wonder what would have happened in this case if the prosecutor couldn't use that enhanced aggravated assault charge on her. Would they have charged her in this sort of overcharging bullying context with an attempted murder of some sort, but assuming not, then she would have had a much more reasonable, realistic way to address the charges, make an informed decision whether to roll the dice. Shawn Vincent: And had she been convicted, there would've been a much broader sentencing range and it almost certainly wouldn't have been 20 years. Don West: Agreed. Shawn Vincent: We have like a minute left here. I want to play something real quick that Marissa Alexander said about self-defense in the legal process that follows that I think encapsulates everything that we've ever talked about. So hold on. Marissa Alexand: And your options are life and death or prison and freedom. I mean, essentially at the end of the day, that's what it's going to be. You either have to choose between life or death, depending on how bad it is. If you could leave, then you have your life and you have your freedom. If not, then you risk, ultimately in the end, which would be something tragic as death. And if you survive it, then you could be prison, which was my case. So these are your options in these things. Shawn Vincent: She says, when you choose to carry and when you've committed to using a gun for self-defense, then you may one day face a choice that is life, death, freedom, or prison and what she buries in there is the final lesson that we touched on earlier that if you can leave with your life then you'll leave with your freedom, too. Don West: Profound, insightful and coming from a person who certainly knows what she's saying. Shawn Vincent: Yep. I think that does it, Don, that was ... I think there's ... often we want to talk about the legal minutiae, and I know for non lawyers and non-litigation consultants that can get a little dry, but in the context of this case, I think it was a great case to walk through that. So I hope it gives our listeners some better perspective at what that fight after the fight looks at. Don West: And I'm going to I'm going to hold us up one more minute and finish our brief discussion since you brought it up about the legal minutiae and Marissa Alexander's fate. Shawn Vincent: Sure, please. Don West: She lost her self-defense immunity hearing when the law required her to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that she acted in self-defense. Another area of the law that she had complained about was having to prove that when at trial the prosecutor had to prove that it wasn't self-defense. There was a concerted effort and movement and the legislature changed that statute as well. So now in a self-defense immunity hearing in Florida instead of the defendant having to prove by a preponderance that they acted in self-defense. Now when you claim immunity and you file your petition and have your hearing with the judge, the judge applies the standard of whether the prosecutor has shown by clear and convincing evidence a high standard, not quite beyond a reasonable doubt, but getting up there has to prove by clear and convincing evidence that you did not act in self-defense, much closer to the standard used at the jury trial. Don West: And I don't know how much credit Ms. Alexander gets for that, but it's something that she talks about and there has been a clear change in the law in Florida, in the defenders' favor when it comes to the self-defense immunity, and I think to some degree, that's a byproduct of her case as well. Shawn Vincent: All right, everybody, that's it for today. Thanks for listening. I hope you get some new insights into the complexities and difficulties of the legal fight that can ensue after a self-defense shooting even when nobody's hurt. This is Shawn Vincent. Until next time, stay safe out there.

  Not long ago Stan Campbell and Mike Darter spoke with Marissa Alexander about the warning shot she fired that triggered a long legal battle and some substantial prison time. In this episode Don West and Shawn Vincent draw upon the conversation with Alexander to identify the lessons learned for concealed carriers.   TRANSCRIPT:  Shawn Vincent: All right. Don, what's happening. Don West: Hey, Shawn. Good to talk with you again. Shawn Vincent: Yeah. So, it was a couple of months ago that Stan Campbell and Mike Darter, founders of the CCW Safe, had a chance to talk with Marissa Alexander, who is actually someone who survived a self-defense encounter, and was prosecuted, and actually served time in prison, and is now out and she's an advocate that goes around talking about domestic violence, and gun rights, and educating people about self-defense. Don West: That's right. People may not immediately know the name Marissa Alexander, but this is one of those handful of cases coming out of Florida several years ago that get known nationwide by some other name. We know the Loud Music Case: Michael Dunn in Jacksonville. I think Marissa Alexander also was a Jacksonville, Florida case. Shawn Vincent: She was. Don West: It's known as the warning shot case. It got lots of publicity at various stages. Shawn Vincent: Yeah. Part of the reason that it became so well-known is this idea that it was a warning shot. Here's a self-defense case where nobody's killed. In fact, nobody's even harmed by the discharge of the weapon. A single shot was fired, nobody was hurt, and then you have Marissa Alexander looking at a very lengthy prison sentence for what she claimed was defending herself against an abusive husband, who she had a type of restraining order against, a contact with no violence order. Don West: Marissa had just had a baby, who's in the hospital. I think when this happened, the baby may still have been in the hospital, and she was going back to her residence for the first time in a while where her husband and her husband's children were there, sort of setting the stage for the argument that then led up to this. Shawn Vincent: Sure. She was actually nine days after giving birth to her premature baby. The baby is in the hospital. She's staying with her mother because she's got this problem with her husband, the father of that new baby. She was going back to that marital home to get some stuff that she needed, and that's where Rico Gray, that's the name of her husband at the time, now ex-husband, and his two kids encountered her there. Don West: As I recall, there was an interesting lead-in to the argument. That's not the purpose of our podcast, but as I remember, some of the discussion that Ms. Alexander was showing Mr. Gray pictures of the baby, and actually handed him phone to him to look through the pictures, and while she was in the bathroom either collecting things or washing her face or what have you, he wound up scrolling through the phone and came upon some text messages, which apparently were between Ms. Alexander and a prior husband or someone with whom he was then accusing her of ... I guess Mr. Gray was then accusing her of some infidelity and maybe even questioning the father of the child. Don West: So, one innocent step maybe even that was a nice gesture on her part. Foolish. Can you think about how these things just go from zero to 100 in a half a second? All of a sudden, Rico Gray is angry because he questions if he's the father of this child. Oh, my goodness! Shawn Vincent: Alexander described it as a “jealous rage.” Yeah. I think what she said, part of it, is that some suggestion that the child that he thought they shared might not be his or some suggestion of that. So, he went off the handle. Now, clearly, with this restraining order, this contact with no violence order, Alexander had convinced the court that there was some cause for concern here to support her allegations that this was an abusive relationship. She actually claims to Mike and Stan in her podcast with them that her premature birth was induced by some of that violence. Shawn Vincent: So, he goes into his jealous rage, and she tells the story. She's in the bathroom. He goes in, approaches her there, and chokes her or attempts to choke her in the bathroom. She struggles against him, and is able to get away. She goes out to the garage. She claims to try to escape, but she can't get out. She doesn't have her keys. The garage door won't open. She ends up getting her gun coming back inside and that's where she confronts him in the kitchen of their house. Don West: Yes. I think that she had perhaps parked the car in the garage, but then when she went back out, she couldn't get the garage door to open, but she did have a firearm in the car, a firearm for which she was issued a lawful permit to carry concealed in Florida, and then she made that fateful decision to grab the gun, and instead of coming up with some other way to get out, she elected to go back into the house, which I would have to think she would expect there to be some verbal confrontation, if nothing else, but in any event, that's exactly as described it. Don West: She went back inside, where Mr. Gray was and then go ahead and describe how she saw these things unfold. Shawn Vincent: Well, I'd say since we have the benefit of Mike and Stan's podcast, let's let her tell this part of the story from her own words. Don West: Great. Shawn Vincent: I'll play this clip. Marissa: So, let me be clear. When I left out the room, it was to get into my truck and leave. It was not to go and come. He was parked out front, and came in through the front door. My vehicle was in the garage. So, in order for me leave, I needed to go to the garage where my vehicle was parked. When I got there, not only did I not have a key, the garage door would not go up. Marissa: So, at that point because I knew that I had no other way out other than to stay in the garage, which locks from the inside out, what I needed to go do is go back in the house and I couldn't go back in in the state that I was in with the assault that took place prior to in the bathroom and not be able to protect myself. Shawn Vincent: So, that's what Marissa has to say about this. So, we'll talk about in a minute the problems that had caused her in her case when she actually left a place of relative safety or she left a place of danger to a place of more relative safety, and then reengaged. We described ourselves into the kitchen. So, she fires this shot. Shawn Vincent: Well, here's another clip where she talks about encountering him there in the kitchen. Marissa: Right. So, that was in the kitchen where he came and he confronted me. He saw me with my firearm, threatened me, and then that's when I fired my warning, my shot. He didn't see my gun and run. He didn't do that. He saw it and decided he will threaten to kill me. Shawn Vincent: She says that after he saw the gun that he wasn't initially perturbed by this that he threatened to kill her, and that's when she fires the warning shot. So, here's a couple of questions for you, Don. How about this whole idea that a threat, a verbal threat to kill somebody? Does that open a door for reasonable fear of imminent great bodily harm or death? Don West: Well, sometimes it can if they have the immediate ability to carry through. So, for example, if someone's carrying a weapon of some sort, and you're not quite sure what they intend, and then they announce their intent by stating, "I'm going to kill you," and they had the immediate present ability to carry that out. If it's a gun, it can be almost at any distance. If it's a knife, it's relative close proximity. Then, sure, I would think so that they have by their own action and ability to carry it out put you in jeopardy and you would have the right to defend yourself up to and including lethal force if you reasonably and sincerely believed that the threat to your safety of great bodily harm or death was imminent. That would seem to fit. Don West: It's a little fussy and a lot more difficult to assess when the person does not apparently have a weapon. The analysis is the same even without a weapon. I'm assuming here that Mr. Gray did not have a weapon. No one's ever said that he did. He maybe physically imposing, and we know that he has a history of violence. I don't think anyone has disputed that, that there has been physical violence caused by him in the past sufficient to get a restraining order, and Ms. Alexander knew that. She knew he was capable of physical violence, but she would have to assess, and then ultimately, the police and the prosecutor and to some degree, the judge if you have an immunity hearing, and then as she did, we can talk about that later. Don West: Then a jury, whether he in fact imposed an imminent threat of great bodily harm or death and was capable at that moment and intended at that moment to carry it out. So, in roundabout way to get to your question, just because somebody says, "I'm going to kill you," even if you accept that to be true, that is not from my perspective in and of itself enough for you to pull out a gun and shoot somebody. Shawn Vincent: In most of the cases that we've looked at, the real controversial cases usually involved armed defender who shoots an unarmed attacker. Don West: Yes, and then all of that analysis comes in to play the relative physical capacities, the knowledge of the history, the abilities of the individuals to defend themselves. There are several notable self-defense cases where juries have concluded that the armed defender was legally justified in using deadly force against an unarmed attacker. There is absolutely no requirement that the attacker be armed. Don West: However, the other analysis doesn't change. There still has to be that imminent threat of great bodily harm or death, and from ultimately the jury's perspective, all of that had to be reasonable. There's this overriding analysis that looks at the totality of the circumstances. That's a common phrase you hear in legal circles, the totality of the circumstances taking everything into account. Was the response to the threat reasonable? If so, then the jury should properly acquit. If they conclude it was not, even though there may have been a real threat, then they can justify a conviction. Shawn Vincent: Sure. On this idea of the reasonableness of the fear in the imminence of that reasonable fear, this is where we get back to what we talked about the controversy about her going into the garage and then choosing to come back into the main area of the house with the gun, right? I think that went a long way to convincing a judge in the immunity hearing, and then subsequently a jury in the trial that she wasn't that afraid of him if she's willing to go back to where he was, where she had been attacked by him before. Don West: There's that perspective how afraid was she, and I think equally important what happened in the house was effectively over at that point. There's nothing to suggest that she wasn't safe from him in the garage, at least to the extent he wasn't in the garage. She was there, she had a gun. I don't know if there was another door. I can't remember having been in a garage that didn't have a door- Shawn Vincent: A side door or something. Don West: ... as well as the garage door, a side door of some sort, but notwithstanding that had she gone out to the garage and armed herself and then tried to figure out where to go and what to do and reassess. Had he come in to the garage still angry toward her, I think that completely changes the dynamic of this. For her to arm herself, go back inside expecting to confront the person that she claimed had just threatened to kill her or was capable of and intended to harm her in some serious way, I think that changes the perspective and it puts her at a great disadvantage when the jury is trying to assess whether her actions were reasonable. Don West: There's an interesting conversation to have at some point. We should get a law enforcement officer to talk with about this, but in this use of force continuum that law enforcement are taught and to some degree a civilian use of force continuum that Mike and Stan have developed, it's an interesting notion of when you introduce a firearm into an escalating event is the introduction of the firearm an escalation or is it a deescalation? Don West: I think that it's such an interesting issue that law enforcement probably considers it a deescalation because the attempt is by- Shawn Vincent: When an officer does it? Don West: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Mm-hmm (affirmative). The goal at that point is not to shoot somebody, but simply to demonstrate that they have the superior force and the capability and hope that that modifies the behavior of the person that they're confronting. It might, but as we will know from other cases that we've had, it may be the very thing that causes the other person to go off. We can talk about other cases because we've had them where somebody displays a firearm expecting to deescalate, thinking the other person will back off, and it encourages them to get even more violent. Shawn Vincent: Sure. In the cases that we looked at, we've seen a couple where the presenting of a firearm stops the conflict cold, but more often than not, it inevitably triggers a gunfight in which somebody or both people get shot and killed. Don West: Yeah. You've just introduced fear and rage in the same mix. You're going to have a fight or flight reaction, I suspect. You're hoping for the flight of the other person, but you may very well wind up getting the fight instead. Is that what Ms. Alexander is basically saying that she made the decision. In hindsight, we can say we think it was a bad decision to go inside with the firearm. Is she saying then that once the firearm was presented, then he knew that she had it, that instead of backing off and just letting her leave as she claim was her intent, that he got further agitated and escalated his aggression toward her? Shawn Vincent: Yeah. She says that he threatens to kill her after he saw her back in the house in the kitchen with the gun. It's clear to her that he saw she was armed, and then he threatened to kill her afterwards. That's when she decides to fire the warning shot. Something I want to talk about on this point, though, that I think is going to be relevant to the CCW Safe members is: some states are stand your ground states, and some are duty to retreat states, but what we know is that in every state, there's a version of the castle doctrine, which means that in your home, there is no duty to retreat. Shawn Vincent: I think what an interesting thing comes up here is that even if you don't have a duty to retreat, if you do retreat, then leave the house or leave the immediate area of where the threat is, and then you decide to return to it with a weapon and reengage. Does that change the calculus on this a little bit? Shawn Vincent: Marissa Alexander, when she talks to Mike and Stan, argues that she never left her house. The garage was still the house. It's not a detached garage, but on the same hand, I think if the garage is different from the house, it's further away from where her attacker was. Shawn Vincent: If we look at the Zach Peters case, where the kid encountered the invaders in the kitchen, and then after he shoots them once, he goes back to his room, locks the door, and calls the police. If he had gone back out into the house and reengaged those guys, we might have a different scenario. So, what's your take on that, Don? If you've retreated from your home already, do you have a problem if you go back in to reengage? Don West: You know it's interesting. We have a partnership with Andrew Branca who wrote the book Law of Self-Defense and regularly produces video and live content on the legal aspects of self-defense, understanding what the law is and the various jurisdictions and also the basic rules of what you should do, and what you should really avoid at all cost. Don West: To distill this into a very simple statement, Andrew would say there's a huge difference between the fight coming to you and you going to the fight. He would say that if you go to the fight, you have changed the dynamic of everything, and you have put yourself in a legally vulnerable position, and that of those things to avoid, you should never go to the fight unless there's some other circumstance or factual need or other reasons why you had to do that to increase your own safety or to protect others. Don West: The notion of her from a relative position of safety to going to the fight I think puts her at a great disadvantage. Whether she would lose the right to self-defense at that point, I think that's almost a discussion that lawyers would have sitting around a coffee table or in a cocktail lounge, but the lawyers don't make the decisions of whether Marissa Alexander is guilty. The jury does. Don West: They do that by putting themselves in the position of the accused. Self-defense is pretty different than virtually any other kind of criminal defense where you are encouraging asking the jury to see what happened from the very perspective through the eyes of the person on trial, and through those eyes considering what they knew, what their background was, what their experience with this person, then all of that stuff seeing whether what happened was reasonable. Don West: I think what that really means is when a juror looks at a case like that, they're probably saying to themselves, "I get it. I understand what she was going through. Had I been in her situation, what would I have done?" If the juror says to himself or herself, "I sure wouldn't have done that," then there's an easy way for them say, "That's just not reasonable. I can believe everything she says, but I can still find that she violated a law because it's just not a reasonable for a person to act under the circumstances.” Shawn Vincent: Something that came up in the conversation with Marissa Alexander between Stan, Mike on their podcast was how often people who own a gun, they're concealed carriers or interested in home defense have a thought in their mind that they're reasonable people, and that should they ever be involved in a self-defense incident that it's going to be pretty cotton-dried, all the scenarios that they might pain for themselves and their mind of when they would need to use deadly force are clear, right? Shawn Vincent: We found in all the cases that we looked at that there are all these weird little factors whether you've misperceived a detail or you've mistaken an identity or there's these scenarios you can't imagine that complicated, right? So, here's- Don West: Right. The analysis of that is done after the fact like people in a somewhat sterile environment with all the time in the world to assess the reasonableness of the defender's conduct that probably took place in a half a second. This case, I think, more than any that we've talked about really turns on some of these little details that got lost in the media discussion that the public perception of this case is very different than what the actual facts demonstrated. Don West: We're calling this the warning shot case, for example. It's clear that Mr. Gray was not killed, and injured as you said earlier, but we also know from the physical evidence that the shot was pretty close to his head. It was shot in the room where he was in his direction. I think it went through a wall, and then ultimately into a ceiling where the claim was that it post a danger to his children, keeping in mind not her children. It was his children. So, when she went back in the house, she wasn't there to protect her children from him. Shawn Vincent: Right. They weren't there. Don West: He was there with his children. So, defense of others was not an issue. So, the people that called it a warning shot felt that it was in a sense an attempt to deescalate, to prevent him from being able to fulfill his threat to kill her. Others look at it as a miss, that this was an attempted murder and a miss, which is a completely different legal context than a warning shot. Don West: So, when I talk about little details, for example, you take a look at where the shot was fired from, where the bullet landed, and what the immediate risk was. Had that shot been 90 degrees, had it been fired into the floor of the kitchen or even into the refrigerator or someway where it was absolutely clear that it was not intended to hit him, then we have a true warning shot situation. Don West: Frankly, I think the analysis of the case changes. Certainly, the emotional impact of the case changes. Angela Corey who was the elected prosecutor in Jacksonville at the time would be far less able to stand behind a microphone and say that Marissa Alexander fired out of anger, not fear. Shawn Vincent: Yeah. Before we wrap up this section, this segment of our conversation, so she claims that she absolutely could have hit him if she wanted to. She was a licensed concealed carrier, she had trained with a gun. Her father was in the service for 27 years, and was a concealed carrier I believe in gun rights and self-defense. So, she's pretty adamant that it was a warning shot, but to your point, as a warning shot a few inches above and a few inches to the right of his head. So, there's some ambiguity there. Shawn Vincent: We talked earlier about you don't brandish your weapon. You don't defensively display a weapon unless you had been justified in using the deadly force. I think we got close enough to this where we think at that particular moment deadly force was not justified. Would you say that's right? Don West: Not to go on a side trip, but brandish is the notion of waving a gun around in a threatening way. Displaying it may be quite different than that if it's done for defensive purposes. Brandishing is a question of degree, frankly, whether it's a lawful display given the context or whether it's a crime of recklessness and threatening behavior. All of that stuff has to be analyzed exactly under the circumstances under which it arose. Don West: People that claim they displayed the gun in self-defense could wind up being arrested and prosecuted for a brandishing type offense because the prosecutor didn't buy the story or that sort of thing, but separate and apart from that, when you draw a gun and you point it in the direction of somebody, and you fire the gun, you have committed a crime right then, a very serious crime unless you have the legal justification to do that. Firing a gun is the use of deadly force. It may be arguable that displaying a gun isn't necessarily using deadly force, but certainly, there's no doubt that firing one is. Don West: Now, is there any legal difference between firing an obvious warning shot and shooting in the direction of somebody and missing? Not necessarily. The prosecutor in Ms. Alexander's case chose not to charge her with attempted murder, but they charged her with aggravated assault with the discharge of a firearm. Don West: Under Florida law, when you commit the crime of aggravated assault and pulled the trigger, you have taken a crime that is a serious crime, nonetheless, it's punished by a maximum of five years in prison. There's a three-year mandatory minimum for the aggravated assault, but when you pull the trigger and discharge it in that kind of threatening way even without the intent to kill, you now have a 20-year mandatory minimum. That's in fact what she was prosecuted for, and ultimately what she was convicted of. That's how she got the 20-year sentence, a sentence that the judge had no discretion, could not impose one day less than 20 years. Don West: Well, we'll talk more about that. I think the legal context of this case is really fascinating. I'm sorry I didn't really respond to your question, specifically, but- Shawn Vincent: Well, this wasn't a cross-examination, so you have the discretion to go off on a tangent, but to bring it around, I think we can argue and, obviously, because this is controversial, that at that moment after coming back in and reengaging with him across the kitchen unarmed that she was unjustified in shooting him at that point. Don West: Yeah. I think that's fair. That's certainly what the judge decided, and then ultimately what the jury decided. Shawn Vincent: Right, and our general rule here is that if you're unjustified in shooting someone using deadly force, you're also unjustified in either displaying the weapon in an aggressive way or firing a warning shot. Don West: Certainly, firing, and what we don't know for sure is whether the jury concluded that he didn't post an imminent threat to great bodily harm, that her claim that he was trying to kill her wasn't supported by the record. That's a possibility or that they didn't ... For all we know, they didn't agree that it was in fact a warning shot. They may very well have concluded that they thought that she just missed. The sanctity and security of the jury deliberation process unless they come forward and want to explain their thinking, they're certainly not required to. You may never know what it was that was important that pushed this thing one way or another. Shawn Vincent: Fascinating. Well, now, let's take a quick break. I want to talk next about her post-incident actions and some things that occurred immediately after this warning shot that caused her troubling her legal defense. Don West: Sounds good. Thanks, Shawn. Talk to you soon. Shawn Vincent: All right. Shawn Vincent: All right. Don, so we're talking about the Marissa Alexander case, the so-called Warning Shot Case. In our last segment, we had talked and gotten ourselves right up to the point where she fired the warning shot and Rico Gray leaves the premises. He was with his two children. They were, as Marissa Alexander explains it, at the threshold of the house on their way out when she encountered Rico Gray in her kitchen. He saw that she had a gun. She said that he threatened to kill her. She fires this so-called warning shot that was just a little above his head, and a little bit to the right, and then he leaves. Shawn Vincent: So, then here's part of it that's amazing to me, and it's a piece of her mindset perhaps. After this happens, she doesn't call the police to report it. She figured that she fired a warning shot, he left, and that was the end of it. I'm going to play a quick clip of what she said to Mike Darter and Stan Campbell in her podcast with them. Don West: Okay. Mike: So, what happened? Did somebody else call the police? Did he call the police? How did that transpire after that? Marissa: After that, he called the police. He called the police. Stan: Yeah. We talked to our members about this all the time being the first one to call 911. Us being police officers, we always state that usually the way we look at it, the one who called 911 is the victim. Is that pretty much what happened where you had the opportunity to do so or you felt that the warning shot would be enough to back him off, and you didn't need to call the police on it? Marissa: Right. So, that's basically what happened. To be honest with you, I didn't think I did anything wrong. I was in my home and nothing happened. So, I thought that that would be enough, and if he had come back, then I probably would have to, but at that point, that was my thinking. So, like you said the first one to call is apparently the victim. Shawn Vincent: So, she says, "To be honest with you, I didn't think I did anything wrong." What are your thoughts about that, Don? Don West: There's so much to unpack on that. I have to take her comment to mean that she was expressing that she indeed felt threatened, that he had expressed the intent to harm her, and that by firing the shot, she was completely legally and factually justified. So, in other words, she felt that she needed to do it in order to save herself, and that she hadn't broken any laws when she did it. I don't know how else you want to interpret a comment like that except I can offer that in many, if not most self-defense cases, certainly in all plausible self-defense cases, the person who defended and used force to defend themselves believes they didn't do anything wrong. They felt justified. That's the crux of the whole thing. That doesn't necessarily mean that you've stayed with, painted within the lines or that you're within the legal parameters and boundaries, but I think it's a common feeling that you didn't do anything wrong. You had to do what you had to do. Don West: Shawn, I think what we're leading up to, though, is the fact that she didn't call the police. So, even if she didn't feel that she did anything wrong doesn't make sense if you accept her at her word, doesn't make sense that she wouldn't call the police to explain that she was attacked in her home, that she had to display a weapon, and ultimately fire it to prevent this guy with a history of violence from making good on his threat. Go ahead. Shawn Vincent: I was going to ask, have you ever seen the show The Office, the American show with Steve Carell? Don West: Oh, sure. Shawn Vincent: Yeah. Do you remember the episode where we found out Michael Scott's in terrible debt, and somebody talks to him about the option to declare a bankruptcy and convinces him that he needs to declare bankruptcy? Then he decides that, yes, he's going to and he walks into the office and just yells out, "I declare bankruptcy." Someone has to explain to him that he can't just declare it, that it's actually a legal process. This is what I think about when I hear Marissa Alexander saying she didn't think she did anything wrong. It's like she just declared to the sky that that was self-defense. Shawn Vincent: Listening to you talk about the ramifications of that, in that feeling that you were justified, I have to look at it like this, and maybe we'll do a thought experiment. Anytime a gun is displaying in a threatening manner, discharged in a threatening manner or used to shoot somebody, I think we should assume a crime has been committed. Now, it's a question of whether that crime was justifiable or not, right? Don West: I think that's fair. Yes. We live in a community of very strict laws on the possession, ownership, and certainly the discharge of firearms. The presumption is if a gun is fired, something bad happened. Shawn Vincent: Yeah, and a self-defense claim is a legal claim. You can't just say it to make it self-defense. It makes me think. We talked about the Michael Dunn case, talked about Jacksonville, the loud music trial that Michael Dunn somehow in his mind, he tells his fiance Rhonda Rouer, "Don't worry. It was legal. It was justified. It was self-defense," as some excuse of why they would speed away from the scene of the shooting and not report it. Don West: Some of the materials in another podcasts and video series we did a while back, we talk about the aftermath of a shooting, and we talk about the reasonable responsible way to interact with law enforcement. We also talk about the importance of declaring, declaring that you acted in self-defense, that, sure, you were the person with the handgun, yes, you were the person that fired it, but that you were legally justified in doing it. Don West: Let me digress for just a moment to put this in context. When you get to trial, the prosecutor has to prove it was not self-defense, and that's true all across the country. However, until there is evidence in the record, it doesn't take a lot and it doesn't have to be all of that persuasive, but there has to be evidence in the record in support of a claim of self-defense before the judge will recognize it and give an instruction on self-defense, which allows the jury to consider it. Don West: Unless you get some of that evidence in the record, then the judge is not obliged to instruct the jury and the jury may not even be able to consider self-defense as a legal affirmative defense. So, there is a responsibility on the part of the accused to have some evidence, whether it's their statement about what happened or a witness' statement about what happened or some physical evidence that's compelling, that shows that the force that was used was in response to a threat, and therefore, there's evidence of self-defense. Don West: So, for Ms. Alexander to say, "I didn't call the police because I didn't do anything wrong," in no way puts her in a position of carrying that initial burden to demonstrate ultimately at whatever stage this case got to that she acted in self-defense. Shawn Vincent: Sure. Stan Campbell brings this up in that conversation from a police officer's perspective, whoever calls 911 first is the victim, right? So, the police come to this discharge of a firearm with only Rico Gray's side of the story. Let me play another clip from this conversation. This is from Marissa Alexander. Marissa: Well, you know somebody at some point they were contacting me on my phone, but I did not have my phone. So, once they were able to get a hold of me, and let me know that ... I believe he told them that I had barricaded myself in the house. So, that was the time from what I understand it was a call for SWAT to come out. I had no idea because I did not know where my phone was, but when I did find my phone and my sister was like, "Hey, down here," and I was like, "Okay." I took the officer's call and he asked me where I was. I told him. I told him I was going to come out. I told him I have my hands up, one hand on the black cellphone, and one up, and just don't shoot me. Shawn Vincent: So, the big thing I take out of this is that she believed Rico Gray told the cops that she had barricaded herself in the house, and that the police had considered calling the SWAT team to come. So, not only is there not a self-defense claim filed here, the police are acting as if they've got an armed deranged individual inside of this house, and they're attempting multiple times to call her on her cellphone to bring a peaceful resolution to this. That is the wrong foot to start off on when you're making a self-defense claim. Don West: Yes, I agree. I think that Ms. Alexander was probably agonizing over this for a minute even though she didn't think that she had done anything wrong. Legally, she had to have know this was messed up, and that maybe she was taking that risk like when you go to Vegas and you put everything on red or you pick on number out of 30, what is it? 36. Shawn Vincent: I don't know that. I'm a terrible gambler. Don West: Not a roulette player. You just hope that your number comes up or you hope in someways your number doesn't. I suspect that in her mind, her best outcome was probably if nobody calls the police under these circumstances and maybe she thought that because of Mr. Gray's prior history with the law and violent history with her that maybe he wouldn't either, and hope upon hope that this thing would just go away. If that's what her thinking was, then she miscalculated. Shawn Vincent: She made a bad bet. Don West: Yeah, she did. As I remember, though, some of the materials, this is a very convoluted and complicated case to sort out factually because Mr. Gray gave extensive interviews and statements. In Florida, you can do depositions in criminal cases on felony. He changed his story a lot. He was against her, and then he was in favor of her. So, factually, it was really hard to get a clear handle on it. Let's not forget that his two children were there, and I think they were both old enough to be competent witnesses, whether they were good witnesses or not, I don't know, but competent meaning that they know the difference between right and wrong. They are able to know the difference between a lie and not, that they were old enough that they could testify. Don West: I didn't read their statements exactly, but if they told the police that their dad didn't threaten to kill her, that when she came back in with the gun, the first thing she did was point it at him and fire it, and there was no actual threat, then there's a big problem with the case factually from a self-defense standpoint notwithstanding all the stuff that you and I have talked about so far. Don West: So, without her explicitly saying what her thinking was other than, "I didn't do anything wrong," I'm going to speculate and say that she thought that maybe directly involving the police wasn't in her favor and she would hope that he didn't either. As it turns out, he gave his phone to one of his kids and it was one of the kids, I think, that called 911 to initially report it. Shawn Vincent: That might be the case, but in what Alexander told Mike and Stan in their podcast was that essentially the father gave the statement to the police in the presence of the kids, then the oldest gave his statement, which essentially echoed what the father had said, and then the youngest was too young for them to really take that statement, so they didn't. They just did what the eldest son had said. Anyways, he had- Don West: Well, we've had cases and I've counseled people in cases whether they should call the police under the unique facts of their circumstances. It's not as clear as you would want it to be because sometimes you have no reason to think that the other person involved is going to call the police, no injuries, maybe no shots fired, that it happened very quickly, and that you're not sure that you want to involve the police either and start admitting that you had a gun and that you displayed it under questionable circumstances. That's a very difficult thing. Don West: On occasion, maybe from a strategic standpoint, the decision can be supported that you don't. That's pretty rare in my mind and I don't know that it's ever happened in experience when shots were actually fired at other human beings I would think. Our advice has always been get on top of that, get ahead of this because like you say, the first person to the phone is often identified by the police as the victim, and in this case, the story that the police got was the one most favorable to Mr. Gray, and then that was compounded by the lack of communication with Ms. Alexander, this notion that she was barricaded, and then by the time they actually had contact with her, this whole narrative of her being violent and armed and all of that was out there. So, she probably in some ways didn't get a fair shake in telling her side of the story. The snowball was already going down the hill at that point. Shawn Vincent: Let me play another clip, if you don't mind, from this conversation. She talks about once she surrendered to the police with her cellphone in the air walking out with her hands up what she experienced. Marissa: They "detained" me, and we just came out doing a proceeding, but they detained me and put me in a car, in the back of the car seat. I did not know that I was going to be arrested. I thought, "Well, okay. He was telling the truth. What happened?" The truth was not very helpful for me. So, yeah, I ended up ... Once I let him know I had a restraining order in place, I said, "Listen. This happened. Look it up." He did. He verified it, but essentially, it was their word against mine. Shawn Vincent: Right? So, she talks about now that she's surrendering to the police, and we've just been discussing how she surrendered to the police who have the other side's version of the story that's not kind to her, she starts talking to the police about what happened. She said, "Tell them the truth," but the truth wasn't on her side. When she says that the police detained her, she says in the way that has air quotes around it, where she feels in retrospect that she was under arrest from the beginning, even though they didn't tell her that she was. At a certain point, she realized she was in trouble. Shawn Vincent: She's not doing a great job now. She's behind the ball at getting her narrative out there once Rico Gray and his kids have already told their side of the story. Don West: I agree with that assessment. At that point, I think that probably from the very beginning that she should have taken the initiative and obviously in hindsight it's very easy when you see what this case turned out to be an absolute nightmare for her. We'll talk in another segment, I hope, about some of the legal process that she found herself in, and what was driving that, and how very, very quickly she was completely out of having any control over her life. She didn't write the laws that impacted her to the extent that she could have handled it differently at the beginning. She didn't. Don West: Then pretty soon, she was at the mercy of a very aggressive prosecutor. This became a political case. It was in the midst of other things happening in the media. This was going to trial around the time of the George Zimmerman-Trayvon Martin case that had started with the shooting in 2012. Don West: This turned out to be a really big deal. When we sit here at our kitchen tables or wherever we happen to be at the moment and look back on it, it's easy for us to say what might have been different. I'm not criticizing Ms. Alexander. What I'm trying to do is point out at those moments when a different decision from our perspective may have resulted in her being treated differently, the case being viewed differently and possibly even a different outcome. Shawn Vincent: Sure. That criticism is an opportunity to learn lessons from her mistakes. Before we wrap up this segment and start talking about what her legal challenge looked like, which we'll do in our next podcast episode, one thing I think is fascinating about the self-defense cases is this first encounter with law enforcement because we say that we want you to be helpful and courteous to the police. We want you to make yourself defense claim, but we also don't want you to talk about a lot of details about the case or about what your experience was before you have a chance to meet with a lawyer, and do so only with their council, right? Shawn Vincent: That's easy to say, but you and I sat with Stephen Maddox, who gave in-depth recorded testimony, interviews with police about his experience and he knew intellectually that you shouldn't talk to police, but he also felt that he was absolutely justified. He was the one who called the cops, originally, and felt like he was making his claim and supporting his decision. Shawn Vincent: So, it's one thing to say don't talk to police, but a whole other thing to now have been part of the shooting to believe you're correct to feel now the weight of law enforcement coming on you and wanting to seem like the good guy. Don West: Being in that position having been involved in a self-defense incident whether it meets the high standard ultimately, checks off all the boxes that it was legal self-defense, we're talking about those especially using deadly force where shots are fired. I think when a shot is fired, whether it's characterized as a warning shot or a miss or something in between, it fundamentally changes the nature of the case. Don West: We've had lots of cases where guns were displayed, threats may have been made, but it's a whole different category when somebody pulls the trigger. I think law enforcement looks at it differently. I think the entire criminal justice system looks at it differently because when the bullet leaves the barrel of a gun, it's death in the air. If it hits somebody, there's a high probability they will die as a result of it. Don West: When you are involved in a situation like that, you can expect that you will be considered a suspect, truly a suspect. The police don't know what happened. They're working on limited information when they respond. If you weren't the one that called the police, they have some misinformation, no doubt. Certainly, they have one-sided information and for an individual to subject themselves to the investigative process on their own without the benefit of council is a highly risky and, in my view, a foolish thing, not just because of you don't understand how the system works. People that are friendly aren't necessarily your friends, and you won't understand the meaning, the real meaning of the questions. You won't know how to modulate your answers to say what's true without saying things also that could be construed or misconstrued as harmful. Don West: Plus, you've got the trauma that you've just gone through destroying your perception and making you perhaps feel that you really, really, really need to explain yourself, but we know in the Maddox case is the perfect example that you're not going to be very good at it. Shawn Vincent: So, he is in accurate about simple things like where did he live and how many children does he have- Don West: Yes. Here's a guy- Shawn Vincent: ... that you couldn’t possibly get wrong. Don West: Super professional guy, highly educated, lots of life experience, and you wouldn't know that he's so wrong when you listen to the recording. You would think this is a guy who's telling it like it is and yet when you go back through it, and you pick out some of these things, you'll realize just how much of what his statement was was a byproduct of that traumatic experience he'd been through. Frankly, some of it was simply unreliable. The most obvious being when he got that kind of stuff wrong. Don West: So, if we're going to take Ms. Alexander's situation and try to get some lessons from it, she should have called the police. I think that's pretty evident, and maybe said as little as, "I was attacked by my husband. He threatened to kill me." Shawn Vincent: "I have a restraining order." Don West: Yes. "I had to fire a shot to keep him from killing me. Fortunately, nobody was injured, but I wanted you to know that," or what have you. Then once the investigators and the detectives get there to conduct a formal interview, you do as we've always said which you provide the basic information enough to stake your claim of self-defense, and then you acknowledge that you will continue to cooperate, but you'd like the benefit of council before a formal interview. Shawn Vincent: Law enforcement will understand that. Don West: Well, that's the law, and they do understand it. They will acknowledge or respect it. If for some reason they don't and they try to trick you or come at you a different way, then what you say should not be admitted in the court against you. That's the whole notion of Miranda Rights. Don West: Secondly, you cannot be compelled to make a statement against yourself or you can't even be compelled without court process to make any statement at all. The idea is that you have the right to make a statement or not at your choosing, and if you want to make a statement, you certainly should have the benefit of council in such a high stakes circumstance. Shawn Vincent: It's a really difficult position to be in, but I think the lesson from all this is that you have to, and this is from the first segment, too, where Marissa Alexander said she didn't really think she had done anything wrong. If there's a discharge in the firearm in self-defense, you have to assume that you've committed a crime until it can be demonstrated that it was self-defense, and that you have to interact with a police as if you're the suspect of a serious crime or else I think in our case, nine times out of 10 it's going to blow up in your face and cause you trouble down the line. Don West: I think that's fair and good advice. In this case, it wouldn't have taken much of an investigator to walk inside the house and take a look at where the bullet entered the wall and positioned the people, and immediately conclude that she fired at him. He may have been or she may have been wrong about that, but the physical evidence becomes an incredibly important part of this. Don West: Having been through a traumatic situation, self-defense shooting, you're simply not going to be presently aware of all of the things that are important, the things that you may very well need to think through carefully to be able to explain convincingly when it's time to do that. It's so easy if you decide to give a detailed statement before you've processed it and digested it and better understood what the legal issues are, what's important and what isn't for you to make a statement that you simply can't recover from. Don West: I've said this before. I'll repeat it that I've tried a lot of self-defense cases. Frankly, the ones that are the hardest to try are the ones when we have to explain what the client said to the police and why that isn't accurate or why it wasn't complete or why, frankly, it wasn't lying if it was inconsistent. Shawn Vincent: Yeah, a nightmare. Well, that's a great preface for the long legal road that Marissa Alexander faced after the shooting. So, let's call that quits for today, and our next podcast is going to be dedicated to the torturous, twisted legal odyssey that she went through after that day. Don West: Thanks, Shawn. Looking forward to it. Talk to you soon. Shawn Vincent: All right, Don.

Andy and Mo discuss the death of Fidel Castro and revisit George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin. Andy shares a fight story from Fantasyfest in Key West, FL.

Join your favorite sports roundtable as we discuss the biggest sports stories of the week!   We'll discuss more player movement in the NBA, MLB at the All-Star Break, Jaws' QB rankings prior to NFL training camp, and more! We'll also discuss the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin verdict and its polarizing effect on the country as well as the sports world. DO NOT MISS THIS EPISODE!!!

In the aftermath of the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin saga, we take some time to dissect Social Media as a platform for response and replacement for activism, how sports figures play a role, and what to expect in future judicial cases like that of Aaron Hernandez. This is Sports Without Borders. http://twitter.com/Section357 Search: The Section 357 Show (On iTunes, Stitcher, and Apple Podcasts) Show Tags: Trayvon Martin, George Zimmerman, Dwayne Wade, Miami Heat, Florida, Los Angeles, Miami, Aaron Hernandez, Google

Cody Heitschmidt has guest Joe Stierwalt in studio today. Cody talks about his personal current event has he went on a fishing expedition with his son and the other current event they talk about for most of the show is the verdict in the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin trial. Air Date: 07/14/13

The Trayvon Martin case is getting ready to go to trial, and it has already invoked lots of emotions from a variety of perspectives. Questions are being asked all over the United States about the racial element of this case and also the importance of "Stand Your Ground" statutes throughout the country. Marshall, the Host of MarshallTalk said, "I believe the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin case brings out the worst of many Americans. It's not horrible because we need to deal with these issues and hopefully make some corrections to the Justice System and if possible get rid of the so-called "Stand Your Ground" laws/statutes. As shameful as it may seem, in my opinion this case is really just about racism, which is the main purpose for the "Stand Your Ground" laws in the first place." Marshall also believes at some point the Good People of all ethnicities will stand up and fight for what is right, instead of ridiculous emotional, political, and historical biases. What do you think? Join in on the conversation, whether you agree or disagree with Marshall.

The Trayvon Martin case is getting ready to go to trial, and it has already invoked lots of emotions from a variety of perspectives. Questions are being asked all over the United States about the racial element of this case and also the importance of "Stand Your Ground" statutes throughout the country. Marshall, the Host of MarshallTalk said, "I believe the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin case brings out the worst of many Americans. It's not horrible because we need to deal with these issues and hopefully make some corrections to the Justice System and if possible get rid of the so-called "Stand Your Ground" laws/statutes. As shameful as it may seem, in my opinion this case is really just about racism, which is the main purpose for the "Stand Your Ground" laws in the first place." Marshall also believes at some point the Good People of all ethnicities will stand up and fight for what is right, instead of ridiculous emotional, political, and historical biases. What do you think? Join in on the conversation, whether you agree or disagree with Marshall.

Samhita has a cold and Amanda is recovering from laryingitis, giving her voice a one time only huskiness, special for devoted listeners. Your hosts believe the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin case is a pretty obvious travesty of justice. Samhita offers some background on the Dharun Ravi conviction. Plus, more questions from listeners directed at #femquery, including one about CATS.