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Legally Brunette: End of the Month Recap - Bryan Kohberger, Pamela Smart & The 16 Children in Ohio · Legally Brunette

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Hi, guys, Welcome to Legally Brunette. I'll be your host today,
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Emily Simpson with today. Welcome to our end of the
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: month recap, where we're going to talk about some of
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: our favorite cases that we went over this month. But
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: first of all, we're going to start with Brian Coberger,
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: who that's the Idaho murder college student case. We originally
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: weren't going to talk about him in the end of
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: month recap, but because there's been so much new information
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: coming up about him and we have done several episodes
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: on the Idaho murders in the past, that we thought
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: we would start with Brian Coberger. So he is a
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: former criminology PhD student who was arrested back in December
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: of twenty twenty two for the stabbing murders of four
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: University of Idaho students Ethan Shapin, Xana Kernodle, Madison Mogan,
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: and Kaylee Gonsalves. They were killed in their off campus
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: home in Moscow, Idaho. This is back in November of
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  Speaker 1: twenty twenty two. Brian Coberger was apprehended at his parents'
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: home in Pennsylvania after investigators linked him to the crime
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: through DNA evidence. And cell phone data. He had been
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: studying at nearby Washington State University at the time of
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  Speaker 1: the murders. After lengthy legal proceedings, Coburger pleaded guilty in
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty five and was sentenced to life in prison
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: without the possibility of parole. He avoided the death penalty.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: Now there's been new information that's just come out that
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: he is seeking to take back his guilty plea. Did
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: you see this?
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  Speaker 2: I only saw the headline that said he was it
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: was being considered. Is there any more details?
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: Well, I don't think it's being considered. It's just he
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: has made a I guess emotion if you will, that
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: he wants to rescind his guilty plea. So we're going
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: to get into that. About a year after Brian Coberger
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: pleaded guilty to the twenty twenty two murders of four
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: University of Idaho students, he is now seeking to withdraw
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: that plea. He changed his plea just one month before
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: jury's selection was set to begin by and he did
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: this to avoid the death penalty, and he received a
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: sentence of life without parole. When Judge Stephen Hipler directly
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: asked whether he was pleading guilty because he was guilty.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: Coberger answered yes in open court. Now, in this new
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: filing that he submitted, this is him submitting on his behalf.
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  Speaker 1: I don't believe he's represented by counsel because the motion
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: or the affidavit that he is that he's filed seeking
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  Speaker 1: to take back his guilty plea is handwritten in his
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: own handwriting.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, so it's not.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: It doesn't look as if he's represented by counsel that's
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: putting this out there.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: Okay, all right, unless he unless he just did that
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: on his own, without counsel's advice, like you, he submitted
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: it or something.
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: That's what I'm saying. I think he just I think he.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: He might still be represented. He just probably submitted this
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: on his own.
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: Cober.
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  Speaker 1: He submitted this filing on Monday, and is claiming that
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: his attorneys provided ineffective assistance and that his plea was
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: not made knowingly or voluntarily, and that it was secured
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: through what he describes as false promises and misinformation. Specifically,
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: he alleges that his legal team withheld potentially exculpatory evidence
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: during plea discussions assured him the plea didn't need to
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: be truthful despite his insistence of his innocence, and made
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: promises about privileges that he would receive in prison, including contact,
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: visits and freedom of movement, that were never honored. He
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: also claims they painted a misleading picture of what life
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: on death row would look like compared to his actual life.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: Since I've read before that he's having problems in prison,
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: I think he was under the assumption. No, I think
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: he was under the assumption that it wasn't going to
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: be as challenging for him. I think he thought that
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: he was going to, you know, be able to freely
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  Speaker 1: move about and basically have some type of nice life
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: life behind bars. And I think him wanting to rescind
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: this plea deal is because he's very unhappy with his.
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: New home.
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  Speaker 1: Right, he says in this handwritten plea, my actual innocence
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  Speaker 1: is my truth, and the plea, hinged on by false
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  Speaker 1: promises and blatant dis information, must be withdrawn. This is
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: a statement. Oh, he also did an interview with The
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: New York Times. So once he submitted this new this
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: new filing on his behalf, he did do an interview
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: with the New York Times, and that was a statement
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: that he gave them Coberger has signed a questionnaire. Oh also,
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: this was interesting, I read this, so before he can enter,
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  Speaker 1: Remember he didn't. He was all set to go to
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  Speaker 1: trial and there were jury selections going on, and then
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden, it was the news came out
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: that he pled guilty so that he could avoid trial,
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: and he also avoided the des sentence at the same time. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: in order for him to plead guilty in open court,
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: they made him and I'm sure this is with any plead,
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: they make sure that you're voluntarily pleading guilty. So he
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: had to go through a lengthy questionnaire and answer all
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: the questions of basically like is this you know what
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  Speaker 1: I mean? Like are you answering this freely? Do you understand?
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  Speaker 3: Do you know this?
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  Speaker 1: Do you understand this? And he had to go through
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: and answer all these questions on a questionnaire so that
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: he could exhibit that he was openly and willingly admitting.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: To his guilty. Right stress.
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  Speaker 1: Under Idaho law, withdrawing a guilty plea becomes significantly harder
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: once a sentence has already been handed down.
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  Speaker 2: That's really tough. It's like, yeah, oh wait I didn't, okay,
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  Speaker 2: wait I didn't do it. I'm going to change my story.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, sorry, I'm just kidding.
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  Speaker 1: I just signed that because I thought I was going
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  Speaker 1: to get to freely move about and have good meals
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: and you know, be able to do whatever I wanted.
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  Speaker 1: And it's not really happening that way.
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  Speaker 2: I'd like to go back to I didn't kill anyone. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: can we come back to that.
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  Speaker 1: Prior to sentencing. The Idaho Rule of Criminal Procedure this
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: is thirty three c uses a lenient, fair and just
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  Speaker 1: reason standard, but post sentencing, the bar rises to manifest injustice,
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: which is a much higher threshold. In order to meet
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: that standard, Coberger would need to demonstrate that his plea
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: was not entered voluntarily. So this is the standard of
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: him being able to rescind this plea.
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: Right. He has to.
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  Speaker 1: Prove that the plea was not entered voluntarily and that
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: he wasn't properly informed of the consequences or that he
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: otherwise lacked informed consent. And also he has to prove
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: that he had ineffective legal counsel at the time as well.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: So he has like a huge threshold to be able.
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: To Yeah, that's a good luck to him.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, So anyway I want to read.
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  Speaker 2: And it's likely if the courts followed the regular procedures.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, they do all that. They ask them all
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  Speaker 2: the questions, they have them know what the penalties that
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: he's facing. They have them know everything and know all
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: his rights, so that way someone doesn't come back and
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: then say, oh, I didn't know right. So they do
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: do all that a lot. I've seen it. So if
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: they followed the procedures to ensure that he was aware
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  Speaker 2: of everything before accepting or before pleading guilty, he's got
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: a tough road to battle.
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  Speaker 1: I do have a copy of his actual handwritten filing.
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  Speaker 1: He says council's failure to inform petitioner of exculpatory discovery
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  Speaker 1: received during plea discussions, namely clumps of unknown hair found
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  Speaker 1: in Ethan Chapin's hands, as well as a failure of
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  Speaker 1: further inquiry, that's interesting. I don't know if that's true,
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  Speaker 1: but I do know that there was a book that
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: came out recently that seems to lean towards Brian Koberger
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: being innocent. So I don't know that unknown hair. I
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: believe that might have been part of the book, but
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: I don't know if this if he read the book,
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  Speaker 1: or if this is something he learned after the fact.
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  Speaker 1: Petitioner was convinced that actual guilt was not an important
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: factor in considering plea acceptance, death row was eminence and
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  Speaker 1: advise to lie. He claims that they told him to lie,
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  Speaker 1: that he had been saying all along he was innocent,
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  Speaker 1: but he just lied and said that he was guilty.
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  Speaker 1: And then a gross misrepresentation of and promises regarding what
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  Speaker 1: a life sentence would immediately afford petitioner, and a gross
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  Speaker 1: misrepresentation of death row in Idaho, including an elaborate fabricated
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  Speaker 1: story of council's horrific experience touring an actual eight y
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  Speaker 1: eight death row cell, all communicated to petitioner and his
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  Speaker 1: family through counsel, thus constituting threats and promises made to
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: induce a plea agreement. So basically, he's saying that they
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: told him that death row was horrible, which would be
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  Speaker 1: a possibility if he goes to trial, and that he
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  Speaker 1: would be in an eight y eight death row cell.
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  Speaker 1: And I guess he's claiming that they misrepresented did and
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  Speaker 1: scared him to death. And basically he just said, okay, fine,
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  Speaker 1: I'll plead guilty so that I can avoid death row.
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  Speaker 1: It's this my interpretation of what he's saying. All right,
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  Speaker 1: So we'll keep following Brian Coberger and see what happens
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  Speaker 1: with that case.
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  Speaker 2: America Gay that was pursuing criminal justice as masters. Yes,
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  Speaker 2: so all of a sudden he doesn't know what he's
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  Speaker 2: up against.
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  Speaker 3: That's true. That's a good point.
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  Speaker 1: All right.
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  Speaker 3: Let's move on.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: Another case that we did this month was the sixteen
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  Speaker 1: children in the House of whoorors And, Ohio. This happened
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  Speaker 1: back in late June twenty twenty six. There were sixteen
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  Speaker 1: children ages eighteen months to eighteen years that were discovered
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  Speaker 1: living in horrible conditions inside that small home in Hampden, Ohio.
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  Speaker 1: They were largely confined to a single twelve by twelve room,
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: which is bigger than that we just talked about. The
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  Speaker 1: cell that you would have on death row is eight
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  Speaker 1: by eight. They were surrounded by filth and human feces
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: and had none of them were enrolled in school. Four
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  Speaker 1: parents were arrested and charged with child in daygermant. That
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  Speaker 1: was Gary the father, Christina the mother. Gary Sider's seventy three,
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  Speaker 1: who is the grandfather Christina Siders sixty six, who is
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  Speaker 1: the grandmother. Gary Siders the second, who is thirty six,
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  Speaker 1: and the dad, well, allegedly the dad. I guess we
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: still haven't done I don't know if we've done DNA
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: testing on a last kid. You don't do any DNA testing.
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  Speaker 1: And Elizabeth Siders the mother thirty three. Here's some updates
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: on this case since we did the last episode. Elizabeth
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  Speaker 1: and Gary Siders are both being held at Southeastern Ohio
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  Speaker 1: Regional Jail on three hundred thousands dollar bond, each facing
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: sixteen counts of child neglect. Gary the second, this is
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: the dad. His booking sheet noted that he was under
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: the influence of alcohol and or drugs at the time
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  Speaker 1: that he was booked, and Elizabeth's booking sheet revealed that
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: she is not currently pregnant. A gag order is now
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: in place, restricting law enforcement and orneys from commenting on
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: the case. Why do you think there's a gag order now?
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  Speaker 1: Because everybody was commenting on it, The attorneys were talking
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: and they were doing press content. It's on the attorneys
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: and law enforcement, so they can't talk about.
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  Speaker 3: The case now.
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  Speaker 2: Maybe it has to do with miners and stuff, so
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  Speaker 2: it was just easier to have a blanket like gag
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: order instead of monitoring everything that's being said.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: Gary, this is the father. Gary's attorney has filed emotion
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: requesting a mental competency evaluation to determine if he's fit
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: to stand trial. Additionally, Gary the second, who is the
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: dad or allegedly is the dad, faces separate misdemeanor public
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  Speaker 1: and decency charges tied to four incidents in May, though
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: he has yet to enter a plea. And this other
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: separate case. That's can you imagine four separate indecent exposure charges?
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  Speaker 1: That means he's just out there like like pulling his
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  Speaker 1: pants down in front of people.
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  Speaker 2: That's only four times he's been caught.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: Right, four times he's been caught. That means he's probably
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: doing it all the time. So and he has children, oh,
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: on a daily basis, Elizabeth Siders attorney, he.
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: Doesn't wear a belt, he has elastic pants.
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  Speaker 1: Probably, well, you would have to to get four at
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  Speaker 1: least four in decent charges in decent.
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: Saw a body cam vide the other day. It was
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: like this hotel, like this guy that is like sixty.
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: He looked young, and he looked fit and everything. He
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: gets in the jacuzzie of the spa. I shouldn't say
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: Jauzie JACUZI you know it's the last name. I know,
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: it's a last name spa in the hot spa. And
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: apparently he takes his his little swim trunks off in
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: the hot top underneath. Yeah, and then he floats up
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: to the top on his back, you know. Yeah, he
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: closes himself and the girls get out and run. Teenage
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: girls and I'm not making light of it is bad.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: But then the young girls reports to the mom. The
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: mom reports to the police, like they're adamant, like this
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: is wrong, and we saw what we saw and it
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: was deliberate, so good because they're trying to prevent it
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: from becoming a bigger issue.
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: Right.
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  Speaker 2: But when he approached the guy, he's just like, oh,
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: there was air bubbles in my swim trunks and so
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: I just took my pants. I didn't No one could
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: see anything. There's there's bubbles everywhere. You can't see like
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: that was his defense was, you can't see my penis,
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: it's underwater.
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: But it wasn't.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: They they did, and he was denying and then he
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: was apologizing and he does it's more comfortable if he
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: just takes his pants off and then but get this.
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: Then it was female cops, so they were happy to
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: bust this creep, right, And there were some male cops
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: there too, and they're happy to bust them two. But
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: those female cops wanted to go tell the mom and
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: the adult kids what he was being arrested for. They
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: were very happy to report because they were like, you
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: want to tell them, let's go, let's go tell. Let's
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: go tell us. They like knock on the door and
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: they're like, yeah, your husband is being arrested for indecent
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: exposure of blah blah blah.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: They were embarrassed, Oh, I didn't understand what you were
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: saying earlier.
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  Speaker 3: They were happy to go tell.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: His wife, his family, his family, Yeah.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: Because they were kind of like, let's go tell, let's
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: go tell he's being arrested. Usually they're like, you know,
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: you can go to the station figure it out. Yeah,
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: this screeps on vacation with his wife. Yeah, and he
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: chooses to go to the hot tub.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: With teenage girls in it and take his pants off
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: and then float to the top right with.
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: His ding dong up in the air.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: Yes, this is Gary Siders probably doesn't even wear pants
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: at this point, how do you get four indecent?
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: Well, how is he not? Yea?
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: How was he still charges? Yeah, I have.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: I have been in a public indecency situation. It was
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: at Target and your pants fall off.
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: No, it was not me. I saw a man.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: A man pulled up next to me in the parking
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: lot and I was getting at an suv. I think
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: I drove Escalade at the time, so it was up high.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: And when I looked over my shoulder to back out
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: of the space at Target, the car next to me
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: he was. He had his pants off and he was,
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: you know, doing his thing in the car. And I
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: went in and told security or whatever, because I thought,
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: I don't know, some kids going to like walk next
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: to him or near him or something. Anyway, there's some creepy,
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: weird people out there. They're in Ohio. Carrie Siders is
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: in Ohio, and there's some of them are at Target
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: in the parking lot. Be careful in the parking lot
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: or Walmart. Elizabeth Sider's attorney, Tommy Stoley, is pushing back
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: on the characterization that the children are almost feral, a
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: description that was used by the Ohio attorney General Andy
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: Wilson following the June thirtieth raid at their home. We've
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: already debunked to the myth that these kids were almost feral.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: He pointed out that the older children had active social
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: media pages and that these kids could talk. They spoke
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: when the police came in. Her attorney also added that
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: he's uncertain Wilson was ever present at the scene. The attorney.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: Her attorney paints a different picture and provides detail that
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: if we're talking about feral children, those are children who
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: do not understand the world. If the kids can speak,
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: I think that changes the analysis. I don't know, you're
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: talking about sixteen kids cramped into a twelve by twelve
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: room in the middle of nowhere that don't go to
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: school and are living with bugs and feces.
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: So I don't know.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: How much more feral you could get. And I don't know,
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: I mean, do these kids really have social media? What
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: are you talking about? They live in a twelve by
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: twelve room with dirt and filth and trash and feces everywhere,
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: but they have phones. I mean, that doesn't make any
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: sense on the broader conditions of the home. Her attorney
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: framed the situation as one of poverty rather than neglect. Well,
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: we talked about that before. There is a difference between
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: being poor and being filthy. You cannot have the means
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: to have a big home and have nice furniture and
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: all the things, but it doesn't mean that your children
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: have to live in fills, right in a twelve by
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: twelve room and not attend school, and that's right.
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: I remember a family court case I was there for,
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: but I wasn't a part of the family court case.
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: But the mother, which doesn't matter if it's a mother father,
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: but the one parent was arguing that the other parent
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: didn't have adequate bedrooms for the two children, that they
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: were sleeping on the floor, and I think I came
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: late to this case. And the judges orders were that
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: some of the best times he's had with his father
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: was camping in a sleeping bag and just nothing around them,
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: and so he was telling him that they don't need
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: a fancy bed have quality time with their parent, and
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: so then he didn't consider whether the parent could provide
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: a bedroom or not, but rather just whether the parent
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: was caring for them and having good, meaningful interaction with
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: them and providing for them and that was always an
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: example of it. It didn't matter how the house was
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: set up for the children. It was more of how
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: the parent is parenting. Well, it's about safety. Yeah, that
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: wasn't about money, right, It's.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: About safety and taking care of your kids. And this
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: comes down to not so much that they were poor,
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: but that the hygiene and the state of the house
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: was right.
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: And in this case, that's what the judge considered. It
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: had nothing to do with any with a bed or
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: a mattress. I had to do with the home atmosphere
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: for these children.
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: This month we also did an episode on Pamela Smart.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: Pamela Smart was a twenty two year old school media
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: coordinator in New Hampshire who in nineteen ninety manipulated her
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: fifteen year old student lover Billy Flynn, into killing her husband,
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: Greg Smart. Flynn and three teenage accomplices carried out the
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: murder in May of nineteen ninety, staging it to look
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: like a robbery that had gone wrong. Smart was convicted
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety one of being an accomplice to first
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: degree murder, and she was sentenced to life in prison
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: without the possibility of parole, the first such sentence handed
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: down to a woman in New Hampshire. Flynn, Billy Flynn
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: and the others received lesser sentences and have since been released.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: The case drew massive national attention and is widely credited
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: with helping launch the era of TV courtroom coverage. Smart
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: has maintained her innocence and continues to seek a new
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: trial from prison. To this day, there's a couple updates
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: on this. She is seeking a new trial, so attorneys
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: for Pamela Smart appeared before a Merrimac County Superior Court
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: judge last Monday, urging him to let her latest petition
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: for a new trial move forward. Judge James Kennedy took
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: the matter under advisement and is expected to rule within
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: thirty to sixty days. Smart filed a habeas corpus petition
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: in January. What habeas corpus.
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: Isn't that you have to bring charges.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: It's basically saying you're someone yeah, alleging several constitutional violations.
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: The body, I think is what it translates to show
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: the body, show me the proof before you just show
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: me the crime, before you just hold me right.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: It means you're being unjustly detained. The centerpiece of her
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: argument involves transcripts of secretly recorded conversation used at trial.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: Her lawyers contend the transcripts included words, among them like killed, busted,
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: and murder that were not actually audible on the recordings.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: Do you remember talking about this earlier when we talked
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: about this case. That was one of the arguments. There's
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: two things that I took away from this. First of all,
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: Billy Flynn did pull the trigger. Billy Flynn is now
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: out of prison. Right, She never She wasn't there when
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: the murder took place. She claims her innocence, that she
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: had nothing to do with it. She claims that, you know,
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: he was a jealous fifteen year old that was you know,
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: in love with her and you know, obsessed with her,
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: and so he wanted to get rid of her husband,
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: so he shot him, you know, of his own free will,
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: free will. Right, She's still in prison. Everyone involved in
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: the actual murder are now out.
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: Is she in for life?
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: But she claims we also talked about those recordings because remember,
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: because you made a joke. I remember when you talk
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: about those recordings back in the nineties, when they put
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: like they attached like a recorder onto her.
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: You were like, it had to.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: Have been huge, because we're talking about like nineteen ninety, right,
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: it's not like some small.
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: A big handbag.
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, right.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: And then the audio goes in and out, and then
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: someone you know, transcribed what they were listening to and
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: the audio into court transcripts that were entered into you know,
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: as evidence. But her attorney and her you know, her
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: position is that you couldn't actually hear a lot of
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: the conversation, so someone used their own discretion to add
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: words in which weren't accurate. So you know, her conviction
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: shouldn't be based on someone just sitting in an office
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: with you know, their walkman on.
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: Interpret gets lost in translation, right, And not to bring religion,
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: but that's where the Bible comes in thousands of years
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: they didn't have photo copies. They'd have someone to write it.
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: So someone didn't want to spell it a certain way,
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: or if they saw an animal, they might change the animal,
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: or they might just be tired, and they write and
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: over and over and over and over again and it
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: gets lost in translation.
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: So same with the audio recording. He had someone who
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: wasn't trained or or there was no guidelines and they
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: just arbitrarily create their own transcript good for them the
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: dis science.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: The defense also challenged the jury instructions and argued that
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: Smart was improperly given a mandatory life sentence for an
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: accompliced charge that doesn't legally require it. Prosecutors have pushed back,
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: saying that most of Smart's claims were already resolved on
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: appeal or could have been raised earlier, and accused her
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: of using the habeas process as a workaround for a
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: standard appeal. Her legal options have narrowed considerably over the years.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: New Hampshire Governor Kelly Ayote rejected her requests for a
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: council hearing last year, and the state Supreme Court dismissed
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: a prior petition in twenty twenty three. In twenty twenty four,
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: Pamela Smart publicly accepted responsibility for the general situation of
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: her husband's murder and her wrongful behavior, saying she had
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: spent years deflecting blame, almost as if it was a
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: coping mechanism. I would assume that she's probably accepting blame
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: at this point because they're like, you're never going to
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: get out on any kind of I don't know if
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: she's eligible for parole because she's eligible for parole. Someone's
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: probably saying, You're never even going to get out on
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: parole unless you take some responsibility for this crime. So
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: maybe that's why now after all these years, she's finally saying, well, I.
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: Learned that about was it Terrelle when he said he
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: was wrongfully committed? He was an ex hoonnery he was released,
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: and then he part of his release program. I think
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: is didn't you have to go to some meetings? Yes,
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: and if he wasn't going to take ownership of the
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: crime that he didn't commit, Yeah, they're kind of like, well,
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: then you should go back to jail, yeah, or something
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: along those lines. So then he's like thinking, like, yeah,
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: I have to pretend I committed this crime for the
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: rest of my life.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: Right in order to go through the tape, the red
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: tape of through these mandatory meetings.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: Now good, he wouldn't give.
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: In Yeah, all right.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: Do you have any final thoughts on any of these cases?
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: On Brian Coberger or on Pamela Smart or the sixteen
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: kids in Ohio. We will continue to follow the cases
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: and give updates as we get them, but do you
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: have any final thoughts.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: The Shelby in prison.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: They're all crooksh Is that your for the kids? Except
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: for the kids. The kids are the innocent victims, you know.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: Just to talk about the kids, because you brought those up.
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: We talked about that before. First of all, how difficult
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: is it on the state or just the resources to
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: play sixteen siblings somewhere? I mean, first of all, you
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: can't play them all together, because there's no one that
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: would have the ability to take on sixteen kids.
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: Nessily wouldn't be the best thing either.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: And I don't know because obviously when they did the
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: press conference, the district attorney called them feral and said
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: that basically, you know that they were, you know, like
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: like feral to me means like wild.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: They weren't. They didn't have I'd say they weren't civilized,
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: but I mean they probably didn't have the basic manners
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: and understandings of day to day operations. That's what it is, right.
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: So then not only are there sixteen of them, but.
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: Then how do you find caring for themselves being sanitary?
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: You know, I don't even know if they're interacting with people.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: Her attorney did say that the older ones could talk,
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: but I don't know what that means. Do they talk coherently.
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: At a lower educated level.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: So you know, it's sad to think that they have
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: to find placement for these children and if people are
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: equipped to be able to care properly for children like this.
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: So anyway, there's a gag order. So I assume it
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: has to do with them being minors. They just don't
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: want them out there talking about these kids. They're probably
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: trying to make sure that they're taken care of and
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: that hopefully there's some happy ending for these sixteen children
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: at some point, that they have some type of quality
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: of life and find some type of home or situation
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: where they can thrive and grow into functioning, happy adults
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: would be my hope for them. All right, thank you
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: so much for listening to our end of the month recap.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: We appreciate it. As always, you can find Legally Brunette
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: wherever you listen to podcasts, and be sure to tell
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: your friends and family. Also, if you have any recommendations
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: of cases that you would like us to discuss, please
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: find me on Instagram and let me know. I love
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: to read your feedback and hear about recommendations of cases
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: that you have for us. Thank you so much for listening.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: We appreciate it.