Latest / Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott / Charlie Adelson Trial Day 6 - Charlie Takes The Stand
Transcript
- 0:00It's the Morning Show with Preston Scott thirty five almost thirty six minutes past the
- 0:08hour here on the Morning Show. Great to be with you this morning,
- 0:13and of course big Stories in the press box brought to you by Custom Care
- 0:15Dry Cleaning and big story we are following to its conclusion is the trial of
- 0:22Charlie Adelson. Day six took place yesterday with Charlie Adelson himself on the witness
- 0:29stand and joining me to talk about is Carl Steinbeck, former prosecutor, Military
- 0:35Defense Council, State public defender and now a private practicing attorney in McKinney,
- 0:40Texas. Carl, Good morning, Charlie taking the stand. We knew he
- 0:45had to do it. It's is this kind of from a defense perspective,
- 0:50when the defendant takes the stand, is it usually kind of a hail Mary?
- 0:56Well, I wouldn't necessarily say that. I mean a hail Mary like
- 1:00it's a desperation move. A lot of times I've had clients that want to
- 1:03get on the stand because they've been falsely accused, and so they're eager to
- 1:07get on the stand and be able to explain what happened and help prove their
- 1:11innocence in this case, though, I think it is a hail Mary type
- 1:15of thing because it's just so preposterous a defense story. And what was really
- 1:19weird President is that this thing was dragged out by the defense attorney with very
- 1:23slow questioning, long pauses and whatnot. It's like he's trying to all this
- 1:30thing as long as he possibly can. It was really evident from so many
- 1:33jurors, and most of the court will wound up clearing out by the end
- 1:37of the day because they just got tired of hearing this dribble all day long
- 1:40of the same kind of slow process of asking questions. I know that attorneys
- 1:46don't necessarily like to pick on other attorneys, but give me your critique of
- 1:51Charlie Edelson's council and the decision to at times almost play to the jury and
- 1:59to do this of literally countering every piece of evidence with Charlie's interpretation of it.
- 2:07Right, Well, I think as a defense attorney's there's not a problem
- 2:12with going after every detail that the prosecution brought up that has a strong point
- 2:17against your theory of the case. But to go over every little detail and
- 2:23go over it's so slow. That's what I have a problem with because you
- 2:25lose the credibility of your defense. The jury's checked out, they don't want
- 2:30to hear anymore. You can just tell by the body language. So what
- 2:32I foresee is that this jury sees that the defense knows that they don't have
- 2:38a case, and so it's actually going to make I think jury deliberations go
- 2:43that much quicker. What about the cross first, is this going to I
- 2:47didn't see the conclusion of yesterday. Is this going to carry over today?
- 2:52Is he still speaking on his own behalf today or is it strictly cross day?
- 2:57Well, great is defense counsel's representation of the court. He's got at
- 3:00least another hour. So whether it's an hour or more, who knows.
- 3:04But I would say, if you're the prosecutor, normal cross examination probably has
- 3:08to be funneled down to disc go over the key points. And I would
- 3:12say, don't even go. You don't even have to go more than an
- 3:15hour or ninety minutes, just just to wrap this up because the jury is,
- 3:19like I say, they're loose. The defense has lost the jury.
- 3:22I think the way they're dragging this out now, the prosecution doesn't need to
- 3:25add to that. And go over all these same details again, your sense
- 3:30of sensibility, communicator of common sense amplified. It's the Morning Show with Preston
- 3:36Scott, day six of the trial of Charlie Aedelson, and we're expecting perhaps
- 3:47everything to wrap up today and talking about it with me is private practice attorney
- 3:53Carl Steinbeck from McKinney Texas, and Carl, I wrote so many notes about
- 3:59what I what I heard yesterday. They just continue to make the claim because
- 4:03they have to. It's where they've cast their lot that this was an extortion
- 4:09attempt and that all the payments, all the secret calls, all the code,
- 4:13all of it is because they were being extorted. But yet he's having
- 4:17all of these incredible, lengthy meetings and conversations with the person that somehow is
- 4:24involved in the extortion and they never call police. It doesn't make sense in
- 4:29any way, shape or form. You're right, I mean, it's just
- 4:32so far fetched. It's just absolute nonsense. And the jury's not going to
- 4:38believe anything like this. So they're really graspsmen of straws here. And so
- 4:44it's so ludicrous to think that Charlie gave up all his cash one hundred thirty
- 4:48thousand, eight dollars cash he had in his safe at the mir requests of
- 4:53hey, somebody that I'm not going to tell you who's given this threat,
- 4:56but they're threatening your life and your family members if you don't give one hundred
- 5:00and thirty three thousand dollars. So there's no knife involved, there's no gun
- 5:03involved, there's no name involved in who's communicating this threat. And for Charlie
- 5:06to say, oh, yeah, here it is, and oh and because
- 5:10I don't have any more on hand right now, I can make payments out
- 5:13over a couple of years of three thousand a month. So it's just so
- 5:15preposterous. And there's no exclamation, there's no emotion, there's no what,
- 5:23there's no you know, pushback to the to the requests for money at all,
- 5:29there's there's okay, what do we need to do to work this out?
- 5:31And and you're right, it's unbelievable. But is any of it resonating?
- 5:36Is there any part of the defense that resonates in your mind? No,
- 5:43not a single shred. I would say that you have to have something
- 5:47credible as a jury to have them even think about it, because the jury's
- 5:50not predetermined to think that the person is guilty necessarily, and they've selected the
- 5:56jury that they think is the best suited for this. So it's not going
- 5:59to be something that the jury's going to find when they're looking for a defense,
- 6:02They're not going to find anything there. Everything the defense is doing is
- 6:06indicating that they also know that Charlie's guilty. You know, as I listen
- 6:11to his attorney kind of set up, which is what you do? I
- 6:14mean, they've had some time to rehearse this. As the attorney setting up
- 6:17is questioning did you hire somebody to kill Dan Markel? And he says absolutely
- 6:24not or no. The fact of the matter is, I mean, from
- 6:27a technical standpoint, he's being a legalist, he probably didn't. Katie did.
- 6:30He just provided the money for it, right, right, But it
- 6:35was pre arranged ahead of time. So if you ask somebody to kill somebody
- 6:40else and then offer money once it's completed, right that you are a co
- 6:44principal under any state or federal theory, you'd be a co principal to the
- 6:47murder, just as guilty as a trigger puller. So when this comes back
- 6:53to Georgia Kapelman and she begins across are what would your advice be, I
- 6:59mean, what what do you think she ought to focus in and drill down
- 7:01on and take what thirty minutes and a half forty five an hour? Yeah,
- 7:06I mean I really do believe that if she just said no questions and
- 7:11sat down, the jury would probably be very happy to see that. But
- 7:16I think it's a prospet. You're automatically going to go into the cross examination
- 7:19mode. And so if you just hit your main highlights, maybe the top
- 7:24five, and go after those like this, like we're just talking now about,
- 7:28there was no credible thread against you, and so it's just so ridiculous.
- 7:32And I think the other issues that we have are think about compare and
- 7:38contrast how he acted when the law enforcement bump happened and they were trying to
- 7:43do this fake extortion just to get them talking, which worked beautifully by the
- 7:46way. And then Charlie's willing to have this undercover bump guy be killed and
- 7:54they're talking about fleeing the country. So innocent people don't talk in code.
- 7:58We heard hours and hours of code talk yep in this trial. Innocent people
- 8:01don't talk and code. The only people are talking code are criminals. In
- 8:05this case, murderers who are trying to evade the cops. Do you expect
- 8:09this to go to the jury today. I do think it could go to
- 8:13the jury today. It all remains on how much the defense really is going
- 8:18to commit to their one hour or not. So I would hope it goes
- 8:22to defense, and I think we could possibly have a verdict today, but
- 8:26not sure it could go into Monday. So either either by the end of
- 8:30today or for sure Monday, I think we'll have a verdict. Well,
- 8:33we will talk Monday regardless and then play it by here from there. But
- 8:37Carl, thank you for your expertise. I appreciate it very much. Yes,
- 8:41sir, thank you. Carl Steinbeck with us this morning. Could have
- 8:45a set of summary statements today, maybe a verdict that would be That would
- 8:54be like epic if Georgia Kappelman says, yeah, we have no h we
- 9:00have no questions, your honor, and then just tackle it in the in
- 9:05the closing statement. Forty six minutes after the outs The Morning Show with Preston
- 9:09Scott m hm hm hm