Case Highlight: He Faced Two Felonies and Up to 25 Years for Someone Else’s Bad Decisions. The Commonwealth came into trial insisting they would prove my client strangled the complaining witness and then, with malice, caused her skull fracture. After a full trial, their theory collapsed. There were no injuries, no corroborating witnesses, no motive, and a story that immediately fell apart once tested against the physical evidence, and against her own drunken decisions. The jury saw what the evidence actually showed: he wasn’t the aggressor. He was the designated driver trapped between two intoxicated adults fighting in the backseat.

Verdict: Not guilty on both felonies.

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First off I would like to thank every one of you for being here. In a lot of cities, especially in the age of Covid, people aren't showing up for jury duty. None of this works without people like you. You can't have a functioning criminal justice system unless people answer the call and do their duty. So I genuinely appreciate you being here. [The defendant] has been waiting a long time for this day, and it's only possible because you've shown up. So thank you. At the beginning of this case, the government promised to present evidence so compelling that you would be left in a state of near certainty that [the defendant] strangled [the complaining witness] to the point of almost unconsciousness and then in cold blood, he deliberately, maliciously, and with the intent to permanently maim, disfigure, disable, or kill broke her skull. Well, we're at the stage now where all of their evidence has come and it has gone and it has failed. It has failed completely at every level.

 

Before we even get into the evidence, I did want to touch on one thing that you didn't hear today. You didn't hear from [the defendant]. You're going to get a piece of paper that says that you can't consider him not testifying at all in your deliberation. But I've done enough trials and talked to enough jurors to know that a piece of paper is no match for human nature. And it's human nature to want to hear from the man who is accused. You're probably familiar with the 5th amendment, the right to not testify. The framers obviously thought it was important. So important that they put it in the Bill of Rights. And they put it in the Constitution because of situations exactly like this. If he testifies, it does nothing. If he testifies, it's he's trying to save his own skin. If he doesn't testify, it's what is he hiding. He already pled not guilty. He already told the detective that he had no intent to hurt [the complaining witness]. That hasn't stopped him from finding himself in this courtroom charged and fighting for his freedom. [The defendant] doesn't have legal training. So we talked it over and we said let's make this a little more of a fair fight. Let me stand up to talk for him since I do have legal training. And why should he testify when quite frankly, the government has so thoroughly and completely failed to prove their case.

 

The simple fact is that this case is about the drunken choices made by [the complaining witness]. She drunkenly grabbed onto a moving vehicle and not surprisingly she fell off that vehicle and hurt herself severely. It's an extremely unfortunate situation. I have sympathy for her. It's clear that she made a terrible drunken decision. But it was her decision that resulted in that harm. And my sympathy for her doesn't extend so far as to say that we should blame her decisions on another person. Which is what the prosecution is asking you to do in this case. There are two charges before you. Strangulation and Malicious Wounding. I'll start with the strangulation charge. There is not a single shred of evidence to support that charge. My law partner [co-counsel] told you at the outset of this case that you would see no physical evidence to support a strangulation, and he was proven absolutely correct. But in fact, it was even worse than that. Not only is there no physical evidence. The evidence actually completely contradicts [the complaining witness's] story.

 

Her testimony was that she was violently strangled by [the defendant] for 10-15 seconds. A grown man squeezing her throat so hard that she had to pry his hand off her throat to stop him as she was slipping into unconsciousness. As she describes it, she was fighting for her life. Well let's talk about the facts. When we're dealing with a case like this that rises or falls based on the credibility of [the complaining witness's] story, it's absolutely critical to talk about facts. That's what proof beyond a reasonable doubt is all about. It's about cold, hard, objective evidence. In this case, when we look at the cold hard facts, not a single one supports her story.

 

Fact #1: There are absolutely no injuries in this case. No injuries to her throat. Not so much as a single minor bruise. Needless to say, that is wildly inconsistent with [the complaining witness's] story. She claims that a grown man choked her into near unconsciousness. He was gripping so hard that she had to pry his fingers off of her throat. I can't believe that I even have to say this, but that would leave marks. You don't grab a person's throat and choke them out to near unconsciousness and not leave so much as a single blemish on their throat. That's common sense. There would be marks on her neck and very likely she would have burst blood vessels in her eyes. We don't need a medical expert to tell us that. The government has asked you to check your common sense at the door. The prosecution hasn't even attempted to address the complete lack of injuries because they have no explanation for it. So we're relying on you to be the first people involved in this case to use your common sense. The lack of injuries is wildly inconsistent with her story. The lack of injuries is by itself more than enough reasonable doubt that the only proper verdict is not guilty. But the problems with [the complaining witness's] story run significantly deeper.

 

Fact #2: Not a single witness corroborates [the complaining witness's] story. You haven't heard from anyone who backs up her version of the story. You did hear from [defense witness]. [Defense witness] told you that this claim of being choked is a total fabrication. [Defense witness] told you that she and [the complaining witness] were in a heated argument and [the defendant] pushed them apart and that was it. Unlike [the complaining witness's] story, [defense witness's] testimony is completely consistent with the lack of medical findings. And yet the prosecution is asking you to simply ignore her testimony and instead rely on the version with no medical evidence to support it. It's astonishing.

 

Fact #3: [The complaining witness's] version of events makes no sense. This one is really a series of facts. She has testified that she was on good terms with [the defendant]. They were friends. No bad blood between them. In fact, she was friends with everyone in the car. And then out of the blue, for no apparent reason, in front of two witnesses, [the defendant] reaches into the back of the vehicle and starts to choke her into unconsciousness. That makes no sense. And then her story is that as [the defendant] is literally trying to kill her, the two other people in the car do absolutely nothing to intervene. That makes no sense. She then claims that she manages to repel his attack and get out of the car. Miraculously, there is not a single mark left from his attack. That makes no sense. Within minutes of being strangled, [the complaining witness] says that she decided that she wanted to get back into the vehicle to get a ride home from [the defendant]. The man who just choked her into near unconsciousness. You have to be kidding. I'm sorry, but her story makes absolutely no sense. And it doesn't make sense for a simple reason. It's not true. And it's coming from the memory of a person who was falling down drunk.

 

Which leads to Fact #4: [The complaining witness] has tried to minimize how much she had to drink that night at every turn. The problem is that she has inadvertently told on herself by changing her story over and over. It is abundantly clear that she was highly intoxicated. She told the detective that she had shots at some point. She testifies today that she didn't have shots. She tells the military police that she only had a few drinks before the party, but didn't drink at the party. She admits today that she had 4 mojitos at the party. This is the reality. We know based on her own different statements that she drank before the party, during the party, and took shots. She was extremely drunk. That is obvious. Nobody else involved in this investigation wants to use their common sense. That's why we're counting on you. [The complaining witness] has the audacity to take the stand today and say, oh I wasn't drunk at all, I only had 4 mojitos. It's very clear that she had a lot more than that. You don't get into fights in the backseat of a car if you're sober. You don't have no clue where you are when you're one block from your own house if you're sober. You don't grab onto a moving car if you're sober. It is abundantly clear that [the complaining witness] was extremely intoxicated. And again we have [defense witness] who told you that [the complaining witness] was falling down drunk. And the prosecution's only feeble response is to ask you to just ignore all of it. For the prosecution to get up here and make the argument that she wasn't intoxicated, I'm completely dumbfounded. After making that argument, I don't know how you can take anything they say seriously.

 

This is probably a good moment to pause and talk about what the legal standards are in a criminal case. [The defendant] is presumed innocent. We're all familiar that in America, a man is presumed innocent. Right now, [the defendant] is sitting there as an innocent man. And he remains an innocent man unless the prosecution can prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The defense has no burden whatsoever in a criminal case. So what is beyond a reasonable doubt. Beyond a reasonable doubt is the highest burden that exists in any kind of case in this country. We're not always here for criminal cases. Some cases involve disputes over money or custody of children. The standard in this case is higher than the burden required to take your money away from you. It's even higher than the burden required to take your children away from you. The most precious thing that you can have. The burden the prosecution has here today is even higher than that. It is the highest standard that exists in any courtroom in this country. It is the gold standard, the platinum standard. Whatever you want to call it. And the standard is that high in a criminal case because convicting people and taking away their freedom and locking them in cages is a big deal. We take freedom and liberty seriously in this country. It's what we were founded on. We don't guess people into prison in this country. So when we're talking about the highest burden of evidence that exists in this country, it only makes sense that it demands the highest quality of investigation and evidence. Ask yourself: has that kind of high quality investigation and evidence been presented in this case? No evidence of injuries whatsoever. The only witness telling you that [the complaining witness's] story is not true. The fact that [the complaining witness's] story makes no sense. The prosecution has given you nothing. Less than nothing. The prosecution is asking you with literally zero evidence to find this man guilty. It's actually worse than zero evidence. Because the actual evidence contradicts [the complaining witness]. There are no injuries, her story makes no sense, she has lied about her drinking, and the one eyewitness says that she's lying. With less than zero evidence, they are asking you to put blind faith in [the complaining witness].

 

You can't do that. All of you are adults. And something that you've learned by now is that no intelligent person blindly accepts every word that comes out of a person's mouth. I don't know [the complaining witness]. Neither do any of you. But as a juror and a reasonably intelligent adult, you have a duty to be skeptical. You're not doing your job as a juror if you blindly and naively accept any testimony. Your job is to poke and prod and determine if real actual evidence corroborates and supports her testimony. Because human beings are complicated. They misremember. They misperceive. Sometimes they exaggerate. Sometimes they're drunk. Sometimes they lie. What kind of evidence doesn't lie? What kind of evidence isn't biased? Medical evidence. Physical evidence. Real evidence is evidence based on facts. There is not a single fact to support that [the complaining witness] was strangled. Not one shred. Once even basic questions are asked, her story dissolves into wet mush. The strangulation charge is absurd and your deliberations should take about 30 seconds on that charge.

 

Moving onto the malicious wounding charge. You will get a jury instruction that tells you exactly what the government has to prove in a malicious wounding case. It's broken down into what lawyers call elements. One of the elements is that the prosecution has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that [the defendant] acted with the intent to permanently maim, disfigure, disable, or kill [the complaining witness]. They have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that is what was going through his mind. They haven't proven that. And it wasn't even close. You heard from the detective that [the defendant] told him that he didn't have the intent to hurt anyone. Of course he didn't. Why would he want to intentionally harm [the complaining witness]. There was no bad blood between the two of them. They were friends. He didn't want to hurt her. Far from being the bad guy, [the defendant] was trying to be the responsible guy. He was the one guy who everybody agrees wasn't drinking so that he could get people home safely. He was the designated driver. He was doing it because he was being a responsible friend. But his reward for being a responsible friend was two drunk people fighting in the backseat. Many of us have been put in the position of being the only sober person around a bunch of drunk people. It's not fun. Drunk people act like idiots. We all know this from life experience. Drunk people get in fights, they get in arguments, they do stupid things. It's only fun to be around a drunk person if you're drunk too. Otherwise, it's a pretty awful experience.

 

As the driver, he did the right thing. He pulled over and he separated them. At that point, [the complaining witness] is a block from her residence. There is no reason for her to get back into the car. And as [the defendant] started to leave, she made the drunken decision to grab onto a moving vehicle. And predictably, she injured herself. Here is a very simple thought exercise. Let's reverse the roles here. What if [the complaining witness] was the driver. And an angry, belligerent, completely drunk man was fighting in her car. And then clutching onto her car and chasing her and trying to force his way into the car. Do you think she would have been charged in that situation? The answer is very obviously no. The prosecution's entire argument has revolved around the argument that he should have stopped the vehicle to check on her well being. Looking back with 20/20 vision, should he have stopped? Yes, he probably should have stopped. I don't think that anyone in his position would have realized how badly she was hurt. She stood up and walked away. But in hindsight, everybody wishes he had stopped. But they're arguing something that has nothing to do with this case. He's not charged with hit and run. This case has nothing to do with whether he should have stopped. The question before you for the malicious wounding charge is whether [the defendant] had the intent to permanently maim, disfigure, disable or kill [the complaining witness]. And it is very clear that the government has not proven that.

 

The reason [the defendant] drove away was very simple. He wanted to get away from drunk people acting like buffoons. Fighting, grabbing onto his car. He just wanted to go home. That was his intent. To get away and go home. It's not complicated. So don't let the government distract you with an argument that has nothing to do with this case. This case is about [the complaining witness's] choices. As adults, we all have to accept responsibility for our decisions. She chose to drink heavily. She chose to fight in the backseat of the vehicle. She chose to chase and grab onto a moving vehicle. Sadly, her drunken decisions resulted in her being injured. But she doesn't get to transfer her bad decisions to other people. The prosecution talks about this jury instruction that says a person intends the natural and probable consequences of their actions. Well guess what? A natural and probable consequence of grabbing onto a moving vehicle is that you will get hurt, and that's exactly what happened. There is no evidence to support that [the defendant] had any intent to harm her. None. He was the designated driver giving a ride home to drunk people who was caught up in a situation that was not of his choosing and beyond his control. Drunken people fighting and clutching onto moving cars. But it's clear that he had no intent to harm anyone. He just wanted to go home.

 

I've already told you that beyond a reasonable doubt is the highest legal standard in any courtroom in this country. You will get a piece of paper saying that a probability of guilt is not enough. A suspicion no matter how strong is not enough. I have my own personal concept that I think of to help me conceptualize beyond a reasonable doubt. And it's a little cheesy, but stick with me for a moment. I think of beyond a reasonable doubt as being a boat crossing a large body of water. Your boat is starting at the presumption of innocence and the boat has to get all the way across the ocean to beyond a reasonable doubt. The boat has to be strong, sturdy, and airtight enough to get across without sinking. Maybe it can survive some small holes and minor imperfections, but if there are enough holes and it starts taking on water, it sinks to the bottom. So picture this case with that imagery. Our boat is pulling out of port, and we're starting our journey trying to get to the government proving beyond a reasonable doubt that [the defendant] intended to permanently maim, disfigure, disable or kill [the complaining witness]. 1. There was no bad blood at all between [the defendant] and [the complaining witness], he had no motive to hurt her; that's a gash in the hull of the boat, it's starting to take on some water; 2. [The defendant] is completely sober and trying to help her get home. That's another hole in the boat, it's taking on more water; 3. [The defendant] tells the police that he had no intention to hurt her. Another hole, the boat is taking on a lot of water; 4. [The complaining witness] herself drunkenly grabbed onto the moving vehicle, a decision that had nothing to do with [the defendant]. That's a big hole. The boat is flooded, it's sinking, it's underwater. We're nowhere close to beyond a reasonable doubt. We didn't get anywhere close.

 

I'm going to be wrapping up soon. I'm getting close. One thing that I haven't mentioned is that the government also has to prove malice as an element of the case. I would suggest to you that it's not even necessary for you to have a conversation about malice because the evidence has so clearly not proven the intent to permanently main, disfigure, disable, or kill. But if you get to discussing malice. The prosecution hasn't proven malice either. There is a jury instruction that defines malice: Malice may result from any unlawful or unjustifiable motive including anger, hatred, or revenge. [The defendant] didn't have anger, hatred, or revenge in his heart. He was trying to be the good guy. He was the designated driver trying to get Navy friends home safely. The theory that he saw [the complaining witness] clutching the car and in that moment, he decides out of anger, hatred, and revenge that I'm going to injure this person is ridiculous. It all happened in a matter of seconds. He starts to drive away, she grabs onto the car and she falls off. Again, this wasn't malice. This wasn't any sort of deliberate act to injure her. I'm beating a dead horse, but she is the one who chose to grab onto the car. [The defendant] had nothing to do with that. I'm not even going to bother continuing to discuss malice because it is so obvious on this evidence that there was no malice.

 

In just a moment, I promise you that I'm going to be done. This is the last opportunity that I have to speak to you. The Commonwealth gets one more chance to make a rebuttal as they call it. That's very painful as the defense attorney because I always want to jump up and make a counter argument. And I'm sure that I'm going to be itching to jump up and say something, but I can't. I have to sit there and be quiet. But just because they say it last doesn't make it so. They don't the final word. You get the final word. When you go back into that jury room to deliberate, your verdict has to be unanimous. Every single one of you has to agree on the verdict. I think that there is a way of putting that which makes it a little more meaningful. Each and every one of you is individually responsible for the outcome in this case. Each and every one of you is holding the outcome of this case in your hands. Any single one of you can and in fact has an obligation to stand up and speak for yourself. Every single one of you individually has the responsibility to prevent a man from being convicted of a crime that he didn't commit. And you should feel good about standing up and saying not guilty in this case. If our rights as citizens are going to mean anything, it requires people like you standing up and holding the government to their burdens. It means demanding actual evidence before we throw people in jail. Your duty today is to uphold the value of men and women being presumed innocent. It's your duty to uphold the requirement that overwhelming evidence is required before a man's freedom is taken from him. You should walk out of this courtroom with your head held high and feeling good about yourself by returning a not guilty verdict because you will have proven that the criminal justice system in this country works. You will have proven that we don't throw people in jail in this country without any evidence. Not guilty is the only proper verdict in this case. And by finding [the defendant] not guilty, you will have done the job that you swore to do. Thank you for your time, your attention, and your service.