Case Highlight: Tragic Death Leads to Unjustified Involuntary Manslaughter Charge
This transcript captures the closing argument in a high-stakes criminal case where our client faced involuntary manslaughter charges after a tragic reaction to LSD. The focus was clear: the prosecution could not prove he caused the death or acted with callous disregard. We laid out the evidence, showing he was a responsible, caring friend throughout, and highlighted the gaps and assumptions in the Commonwealth’s case. The jury unanimously returned a not guilty verdict, vindicating our client.

 

Good afternoon. Also, I want to thank you for your service. This case has been pending for four years now. [THE DEFENDANT] sitting right there and he's been wondering for a long time, what's going to happen at his trial. So his day has finally come, and he doesn't get to have a jury trial unless people like you show up to answer the call to service. Pay close attention, and make sure that you're taking the process seriously. We all thank you for your time. I know [THE DEFENDANT] does, my co-counsel [CO-COUNSEL] does. Commonwealth certainly does as well, and so does [THE JUDGE]. I'm going to try to keep out as much overlap with the Commonwealth as I can, but we're in a position at the end here where you have jury instructions that kind of give you a roadmap of what to look for in this case. And [THE PROSECUTOR] put them on the PowerPoint. It's only two things that are required to be proven, but those two things are insurmountable hurdles for the Commonwealth, and I will unpack that for you right now.

 

The first requirement in order to even consider finding [THE DEFENDANT] guilty is that you have to find [THE DEFENDANT] killed [THE DECEDENT]. You have to find that. So we're talking about not only is there evidence, but this evidence is beyond a reasonable doubt. This is evidence that is so overwhelming that you're left in this state of near certainty that you don't have a single reasonable doubt that [THE DEFENDANT] killed [THE DECEDENT]. That's required. That's not up for debate. That is the jury instruction. That is the law. If you can't pass that hurdle, then the analysis is done. You don't need to go to the second step. But you see in those jury instructions, there's also an instruction that talks about being highly suspicious or thinking there's a high probability that [THE DEFENDANT] killed [THE DECEDENT]. You could say, you know, we saw a lot of evidence, there was a lot of medical jargon, I am highly suspicious that [THE DEFENDANT] killed [THE DECEDENT]. You could say that, and if that's as far as you get with it, the correct outcome is not guilty. You have to find him not guilty. You think there's a high probability, and that's as far as you get with it, you have to find him not guilty. That is what the law is.

 

This is a tragedy, nobody disputes that. This is a young man who had a family, he had a career path, he had a lot of people who cared deeply about him. Let's be clear, we are here in this trial for the same reason that you have any criminal trial, and that is to figure out is the person who's charged with the crime guilty of the crime they're charged with. He's not charged with possessing LSD. That would be a completely different trial. He admitted he used LSD, he did not hide that fact, extremely candid with the police. We're here for involuntary manslaughter. And I understand there might be a strong urge to come back with a guilty finding, to try to balance out the universe, or because you have remorse or feel sympathy for the family. And that's absolutely natural. But again, you swore under oath to listen to the facts, listen to the evidence, and make the proper determination. So in order to figure out the strength of the Commonwealth's case, we have to talk about the things that [THE DEFENDANT] did that night and also the things that he didn't do. Nobody disputes that [WITNESS 1] supplied the LSD. So [THE DEFENDANT] did not supply the LSD. There's no allegation that [THE DEFENDANT] is the ringleader of this group, and he's pressuring [THE DECEDENT] into doing something that he doesn't want to do. There's nothing like that in this case. There's absolutely no evidence of that. [THE DEFENDANT] is a participant, just like the other three individuals. They all take some acid, and then they're gonna watch movies. And in terms of using psychedelics or heavy drugs, I mean, this is about as wholesome as it gets. You got four friends sitting in a living room watching Wall-E, watching Penguins. These aren't people who are rolling around in the mud at a concert. These aren't people who are out at the bar trying to pick up women or anything like this. This is not some testosterone fueled night. They're just friends who are hanging out in the living room, trying to have a good time.

 

Just kind of walking through the progression of the night, everything is going according to plan for [THE DEFENDANT]. He's taking the LSD, and he's sitting there on the couch, watching the movies. It sounds like [WITNESS 2] is also watching the movie, and at some point, you have [THE DECEDENT] and his girlfriend going upstairs because [THE DECEDENT]'s not feeling well. She's saying that he seems out of it, that he's having a bad reaction to this LSD. Then you have [WITNESS 1] going upstairs, and [WITNESS 1] comes up with the idea, let's try to feed this guy White Claws. Let's give him a lot of White Claws. Some of you know what White Claws are - alcohol seltzers. So [WITNESS 1] is coming up with this boneheaded idea. Let's try to get him drunk to the point where he passes out. [THE DEFENDANT] is not upstairs when any of this stuff happens. [THE DEFENDANT] has no reason to know that this is going on. He's still downstairs watching the movie. So after a little bit, you have [THE DECEDENT] and his girlfriend and [WITNESS 1] coming down the stairs, girlfriend leaves shortly thereafter, and then you have [THE DEFENDANT] realizing that something appears to be wrong with [THE DECEDENT]. You've got this sort of snoring, the agonal breathing has already started happening at that point. They go up the stairs and [THE DEFENDANT] sees that [THE DECEDENT]'s having trouble going up the stairs. He said he kind of stumbled a bit. So [THE DEFENDANT]'s going to assist in getting [THE DECEDENT] upstairs. When [THE DECEDENT]'s upstairs, he vomits.

 

And you got the Commonwealth trying to tell you that, you know, hey, they should have called 911 because he vomited. All these points, they should have called 911. You all come from different walks of life, but these are four people who are partying in the house using LSD. It's absurd to think that somebody vomits and we have to call 911. You've got [THE DECEDENT], who is having some form of reaction, he's having some twitches and some weird breathing at that point. And he's making statements, and he's sort of repeating himself, and he's not recognizing anybody. He keeps hitting his vape repeatedly and it gets to the point where [THE DEFENDANT] takes the vape away. He's exhibiting weird behavior, but that's exactly what they signed up to do. They signed up to do LSD together. So they're on acid, and he's having some strange reactions. So again, the idea that you're immediately calling 911 at that point in time is absurd. Of course, with hindsight being 20/20, with the ability to say that, hey, I wish we had done things different after the fact, yes, understood. But I think it's sleight of hand to say that at that point they should have called 911. I mean, you could also say they shouldn't have done LSD, and that's [THE DECEDENT], that's [THE DEFENDANT], that's [WITNESS 1], and that's [WITNESS 2] as well. But obviously, these are people who are grown adults, they decided to do this. They're young, they're reckless in taking the LSD. But most of the time, this would just be a scenario where these people take the LSD, they have some hallucinatory effects, watch the movies, and then they all wake up the next day, maybe feeling a little loopy, and compare notes about what the experience was. And that's typically what you'd expect to happen. So again, this hindsight 20/20 thing where they should have called 911 and they should have known that this person was going to pass away, I think that's what I would call it disingenuous.

 

But what is [THE DEFENDANT] doing? What is he doing in this scenario? You have [THE DECEDENT] vomiting. [THE DEFENDANT] is cleaning [THE DECEDENT] up, takes him to the shower, washes him off, places him in the bed. The plan at that point is to have him ride out this bad trip. So [THE DEFENDANT] is soothing him, the word cuddle came up. They're laying on the bed. And for some time, [THE DEFENDANT] is just trying to make sure that his friend is okay. You still have some issues with maybe the breathing, the vaping. We don't really have anything in evidence about how many White Claws that [THE DECEDENT] consumed, but [THE DEFENDANT] is doing all the things that you expect a good friend to do. He's trying to calm his friend down and let him ride out this bad trip. At some point, you have [THE DECEDENT] doing this almost like bucking motion or throwing elbows and things of that nature. It doesn't appear to be directed at anybody based on what testimony came in. But still, he's getting to the point where these people feel like they need to just kind of restrain him there and calm him down.

 

And when we talk about this restraint, I think the defense and the Commonwealth are miles apart on what the evidence actually shows. You know, you've got this idea that, [MEDICAL EXAMINER 1] had talked about somebody being on top of [THE DECEDENT], like on his back. That did not come in through anything in this case. There was no evidence of that. There was no statement by [THE DEFENDANT], no witnesses that said that somebody was on top of somebody else. And then you've got this theory that, well, they must have shoved [THE DECEDENT]'s face into the pillow. That never came up. I mean, you had [THE DEFENDANT] on the stand, he's testifying pretty point blank about this whole smothering idea, and he explained what happened. And it sounds maybe fairly reasonable that it could be misconstrued, because you have a pillow that has blood on it, and then you have [THE DEFENDANT] making a statement about how he has oriented him toward the pillow. The picture that's being painted by the Commonwealth appears to be that somebody is shoving his face in this pillow, and that's just not something that ever came in as evidence. It's just a theory. You can pluck many theories out of the sky, and hope one of them sticks, and that seems to be what the Commonwealth is resorting to in this case. But they're holding him there until he calms down. He sort of has this dance where he's getting better, doing okay, riding out the bad trip, and then he starts having some form of reaction, and then they try to calm him down again. It seems to happen a few times. It's important to be very clear, though, restraint is not the cause of death. That was asked point blank to the medical examiners.

 

It's very important that you read that ME report, medical examiner's report, autopsy report. Read it for what it is. The Commonwealth wants you to think that this is something where they found definitively, that this person was smothered to death. And that is not what the report says. In fact, when the medical examiner was asked point blank, the question of hey, if you didn't get any statements from an investigator in this case, from the police, and this body was on your table, and you were asked to do your thorough examination of the body, would you be able to come to any sort of medical conclusion or have any cause of death? And she said, no. Both [MEDICAL EXAMINER 1] and [MEDICAL EXAMINER 2] said the exact same thing. I would not be able to come to a conclusion. So when you look at that medical report, you know, you have notes in there that talk about, according to the witness statement, that basically this person's head was in the pillow. And I can see how that could be misconstrued, but that's not what [THE DEFENDANT] said. So unless there's some phantom statement from some phantom witness that was not produced, brought to court, subject to cross examination, then where are they getting this from? And I'm not necessarily blaming [MEDICAL EXAMINER 2] or [MEDICAL EXAMINER 1], and I applaud them for being candid about the facts, for how they came to their conclusions, their methodology, because they essentially said, this is our best guess, based on what an investigator told us. So, we're not disputing that this possibly was some form of asphyxiation. But you're hearing throughout this night, there are signs of respiratory distress. You have the snoring happening early in this process when things start getting sort of crazy, going off the rails. Early on, while [THE DECEDENT]'s still downstairs, he's beginning to make the snoring noise. He's having some trouble. And this is where [MEDICAL EXAMINER 1] very candidly said, the twitching, that could be seizure activity, and that's something that people don't realize a lot. The snoring, that can be agonal breathing. We hear about that all the time for people. They describe it the same way, they describe it exactly how [THE DEFENDANT] described it, which is it sounded like a very exaggerated snore. So really read that autopsy report carefully because it's not saying that we know what happened. In fact, it's saying the exact opposite.

 

And there are portions that say diagnosis of asphyxia due to smothering cannot be definitively established by autopsy procedures. There were no autopsy findings that would appear significant in death. Investigation was suggestive, but not definitive. The cause of death is therefore given as probable asphyxia due to smothering. And I know the Commonwealth is doing their best interpretation of what the report actually says, but you have probable asphyxia due to smothering. The only reason the smothering word comes up is because apparently some investigators somewhere either said that that's their theory or they said that somebody else had said a thing, but we don't have any evidence about that. Keep in mind, it's the government's job to produce the evidence required to come to a conclusion in this case. So if you're missing pieces of the puzzle, that's not on the defense, that's on the Commonwealth. So we ask you to hold them to their burden in producing adequate evidence for you guys to make your determinations. One of the statements that was made by [MEDICAL EXAMINER 1], you rarely see petechiae of the eyes in a pillow smothering. This is an alleged pillow smothering. There was petechiae in the eyes. She also said this was not, I guess maybe a classic strangulation case where you have hands around the neck or anything like that, excluded that possibility. But ultimately, what you have is a theory that appears to have been produced by law enforcement. And then you have these medical examiners, just kind of saying, you know, we did all these tests, and we can't exclude that so maybe you're right. That's not very compelling stuff when we're talking about beyond a reasonable doubt. Again, this is an essential element of the crime, is that you have to find that [THE DEFENDANT] killed [THE DECEDENT], and there is absolutely nothing to back that up.

 

[MEDICAL EXAMINER 1] talked about somebody being on [THE DECEDENT], but wasn't able to pinpoint that there was evidence of that, because again, if they didn't have somebody else's theory to work off of, they can't come to a conclusion. So we can talk all day about edema and scant frothy secretions and all this medical terminology and jargon. And in the end, just ask the direct question, could you come up with a diagnosis if somebody didn't tell you what their theory is? And the answer is no, they don't have enough evidence. So we can use all the big medical words we want. That's your answer. We don't need to do this whole thing with all the big words, because that's not, at the end of the day, that's not what's important. What's important is the conclusion, which is that we have no idea exactly what caused this.

 

A little thought exercise again on [THE DEFENDANT] killing [THE DECEDENT]. Let's remove [THE DEFENDANT] from that night. So now you've got [THE DECEDENT] and [WITNESS 1] and [WITNESS 2]. If you do that, what are you left with? You still have [WITNESS 1] supplying the LSD. You still have [THE DECEDENT] voluntarily choosing to ingest the LSD. You still have [THE DECEDENT] having a bad reaction to the LSD. You still have [WITNESS 1] making these boneheaded decisions, like, let's give him a whole bunch of White Claw, try to see if we can solve the problem that way. You still have [WITNESS 1] punching [THE DECEDENT] in the face, and all the blood that comes with it. You still have all those things. So how on earth are we saying that [THE DEFENDANT] killed [THE DECEDENT]? I mean, let's add on to that. Let's just do a different thought exercise. Let's put [THE DEFENDANT] back in the mix and then add a hypothetical fifth person. So now Joe Smith is there. He's there, and he's present, and he goes upstairs to see what's going on. And he's kind of there, and he's also kind of putting hands on [THE DECEDENT] a little bit, just to calm him down. Did Joe Smith kill [THE DECEDENT] also? So you kind of see that it's an absurd result that you end up with to say that this causal connection between [THE DEFENDANT] and [THE DECEDENT] is what caused [THE DECEDENT]'s death is absolutely not true. And that's only one part of this case. That is one insurmountable hurdle.

 

There's a second one, this idea that [THE DEFENDANT] had callous disregard for the life of [THE DECEDENT]. If you think about callous, you're thinking about cold, insensitive, you think about cruel, heartless. Those are the types of words associated with callous. These people were friends, not only friends, they were very good friends. And what are [THE DEFENDANT]'s actions throughout that night? He's trying to calm, he's trying to soothe, he's trying to help. You've got him cleaning up vomit. You have him cuddling on the bed with [THE DECEDENT], and you do see these moments of lucidity from [THE DECEDENT], where it would be understandable that you might think this is just a bad trip that he's gonna ride out. And then they're cuddling in bed and [THE DECEDENT] gets up and says, hey, that's gay is what he says. And I know it might be offensive to some people to hear that, but what you're getting is [THE DECEDENT]'s laughing while he's saying these things. He's making a joke. And he's saying, hey, get off me, bro. That's a normal thing. And you're seeing this, maybe the promise that they can ride out this bad trip and move on. But this is not callousness. There's nothing callous about [THE DEFENDANT]'s actions. I want to talk callous, I'll give you an example. Somebody who does heroin, and they are on the ground and they have some white foam coming out of their mouth and you look down, and you say, you know what? That's your problem. Just leave them alone. That's callous. [THE DEFENDANT] is not callous. He is the opposite of callous. He's extremely careful in helping a friend. You could also think about a scenario where [THE DEFENDANT] actually was callous that night. Let's say they figure out that [THE DECEDENT] stopped breathing. Oh, my God, we have military careers. We don't want to get in trouble with the military. They're gonna know we've used these drugs. We don't want to get in trouble with the police. We might get arrested. So what maybe would they do if these were callous people? What would callous people do? Leave [THE DECEDENT] in the bed upstairs, wait for the drugs to get out of your system. In the morning, call 911 and say, "Hey, our friend didn't wake up." And guess what? I think he uses drugs. You might want to check. They could have done that. That's not what they did at all. I'm giving you these hypotheticals just to illustrate that we're miles apart on this idea of what callousness is.

 

The Commonwealth's giving you their bullet points, but none of those show callousness. I mean, they're making their best possible argument, but it is not convincing based on what the evidence actually is. [THE DEFENDANT] is not only cleaning up vomit, not only trying to soothe and make sure this person is safe, but when they realize that [THE DECEDENT]'s not breathing, they immediately call 911. They call 911 because they realize, okay, this is out of our hands now. This is not just a bad trip that might wash over, and they call 911. You have [THE DEFENDANT] on the phone with the dispatcher, and he's doing CPR. He's trying to save his friend. He does it until the EMT arrives. Every single person that interacted with [THE DEFENDANT] that night after the 911 call, they also said the exact same thing. [THE DEFENDANT] was distraught. [DETECTIVE 1] said that [THE DEFENDANT] was crying. You had [OFFICER 1] saying that, yes, he was very distraught. The medic who didn't really know exactly who was who, but said, yes, there was an African American male there, and he was crying. Probably was [THE DEFENDANT]. They gave full statements to the police. They waited on scene. Police show up, they don't lawyer up. These people are all separated and giving individual statements. And after that, they're taken to the detective bureau, they're interviewed again, they're read Miranda, they're told you can ask for a lawyer, you have the right to remain silent. Anything you tell me can and will be used against you in a court of law. And in a detective bureau interview, you have NCIS there, you have the military investigative branch there. What is [THE DEFENDANT] doing at that point? He's not minimizing his involvement at all. He's not hiding from any fact in this case. He's not saying, "Oh, I didn't use drugs." "Oh, it was my very first time, I just didn't know what would happen." "Oh, I'm not really sure where the drugs came from." He's not saying any of that stuff. He's not worrying about, is he stepping on the toes of his friends who gave separate statements in separate rooms? He's not worried about that. He's worried about [THE DECEDENT]. He feels awful about this. And it's human nature for [THE DEFENDANT] to think, God, I wish I had done more. Yes, I wish I called 911 sooner. That is absolutely an appropriate response in this situation. But again, he's extremely candid. There's absolutely no ums or ahs or "what had happened was" type of response. He is answering every question, and not only that, he's asked about prior drug use. He says yes, [WITNESS 1] provided those drugs. Here's where I was when I used those drugs. It was in an LSD situation. I was there. And these officers are asking details. And he's giving them the details. And after that first part of the interview's done, [THE DEFENDANT]'s sitting there for a little bit, and he gets up, and he goes and knocks on the door because he wants the detectives to come back in. The detectives come back in the room, and he says, "Hey, you had asked me this question about who was present at this one situation where drugs were used. And I forgot to tell you, there was another guy, I don't really know him. His name's [WITNESS 3], appeared to be a civilian, but I just wanted you guys to have that information to make sure that I am not giving anything less than the most absolute 100% truth I can give." And then after that part is done, [THE DEFENDANT] is asking these detectives, "Is there anything else you want to ask me? Is there anything else you guys need?" And that's important. He's not there trying to duck the situation or avoid these interviews in hopes that, oh, geez, maybe they're going to ask a question about the pillow that I'm going to get wrong. He's not doing any of that. He's facing this head on. He's giving honest answers and there was no discrepancy between his testimony and the interview on the videos, from any earlier interview at the crime scene and what he testified to in court. It's all consistent. And it's all the same demeanor.

 

Again, he's not hiding from anything. [THE PROSECUTOR] asked him some pretty tough questions. Not once does he minimize his involvement. He says yes, you're correct. Yes, you're absolutely right. I agree with that. I agree with that. This guy is a very nice person, and I think that's very obvious. He did not have callous disregard for [THE DECEDENT]. He's risking his military career by violating their drug policy and admitting his involvement. He is not prioritizing his friends [WITNESS 1] and [WITNESS 2]. He's prioritizing [THE DECEDENT] the entire time. He wants these people to have the right information, so if there are bad drugs somewhere and they need to investigate that, they can get them off the streets. And the fact that [THE DEFENDANT] would subject himself to possibly not only a felony LSD drug charge and offer that up when he really doesn't have to, the fact that he would do that just shows how much he cares about [THE DECEDENT].

 

And again, this is clearly a tragedy, nobody's saying it's not. And I'm asking you to follow the law, as faithfully as you possibly can. And again, there's these two very, very difficult elements for the Commonwealth to overcome based on the evidence. We're talking about beyond a reasonable doubt. We're not, again, not highly suspicious, not highly probable. And I've heard an attorney once making an argument. I thought it was really good about beyond a reasonable doubt to illustrate what that means or how important that is. So right now we're in circuit court, and this is a criminal trial court. But sometimes you have trials that are about other things, about money, civil disputes, it's about your children, about child custody issues. The standard in a civil case to take away your money, the standard in a custody case to take away your children is lower than beyond a reasonable doubt. Beyond a reasonable doubt is the highest legal standard you can have in any courtroom, whether that's Virginia, whether that's Alaska, whether it's federal court, anywhere you go, beyond a reasonable doubt will always be the highest legal standard, and the reason for that is because we take these things extremely seriously. We don't guess people into convictions. We don't guess people into prison. We demand that the government present overwhelming evidence in order to prove their case. And you know the rules. You presume [THE DEFENDANT] innocent, and he carries that protection of innocence unless and until the Commonwealth proves their case with this overwhelming evidence. You know, as I said, it's also their burden.

 

I'm wrapping up pretty soon here. I also said it's their burden to be presenting you with the evidence. So if you're back there deliberating and there's certain aspects of the case that you can't really make heads or tails of, that's squarely on the prosecution. And at that point, you'd ask yourself, well, if they can't make heads or tails of this, is that causing me doubt? Is that doubt reasonable? And at that point, if you have reasonable doubt about the offense, your analysis is over. It's not guilty. You have to find [THE DEFENDANT] not guilty. Obviously, [THE PROSECUTOR] gave a closing argument. I've just given mine and I'm almost done. It's very annoying, but they get to give one more argument, and I don't get to give an argument in response to their next argument. So I have to sit there at this seat and I might just be clenching my teeth, like, ooh, you really misconstrued what the evidence was or pulled a fast one, or maybe you guys see why you saved that argument for last because I don't get to respond to it, and it's very annoying, but those are the rules that we have to follow. Just because they say it last does not make it so. And just because they're saying it last, it doesn't mean they get the last word. You all get the last word.

 

Each of you has a very important voice in this case, because there cannot be a conviction for [THE DEFENDANT], unless all, there's 13 of you now, one of you is gonna be removed as an alternate, just keep that in mind. But all 12 of you would have to unanimously agree that [THE DEFENDANT] is guilty in order for him to be found guilty. So if you're sitting there and you're thinking, absolutely not, then stand up, let your voice be heard, because it's very, very, very important. You can't hide behind other jurors. There's absolutely no honor in convicting somebody for a crime that they did not commit. The only appropriate outcome in this case is not guilty. So you go back to deliberate, and you come back and give that not guilty verdict, you can hold your heads up high, because you will have proven a number of things. One, that we take the presumption of innocence very seriously in this country. This is not China or Iran or North Korea where the government says, we're accusing you, and game over, you're done. Demanding evidence is extremely important, showing we're not going to do the government's bidding. Cases are based on evidence, and it's evidence that is, again, overwhelming, and that's what's required. You need overwhelming evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. So I'm asking you to come back with a not guilty verdict and I definitely appreciate your time. Thank you for listening.