transcript

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Speaker 3:
[01:05] Welcome to MK True Crime. I'm Ashleigh Merchant. I'm a criminal defense attorney from Atlanta, Georgia. Today, I am joined by my friend and co-host Phil Holloway. He's a former prosecutor, a former police officer, and currently a criminal defense lawyer. Hey, Phil, how are you?

Speaker 4:
[01:19] Ashleigh, I'm doing great. I'm always happy to be here with you. And this, by the way, is our last show before we officially change our name to the MK True Crime show next week.

Speaker 3:
[01:31] The the is very important. So let's go over what we have lined up today on the docket. Earlier this week, singer David was charged with first degree murder of the 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez. And now the autopsy results have finally been revealed. We'll bring you the details.

Speaker 4:
[01:47] And another Duggar son from the show 19 Kids and County is facing charges of inappropriate behavior with a minor. We'll discuss that. And we have in Georgia, a woman who is serving just 90 days in jail for attempting to murder her disabled teenage son. We will be joined later in the program by district attorney Parks White to analyze the controversial sentencing.

Speaker 3:
[02:13] Thanks, Phil, I'm excited about that. But first, let's talk about Celeste Rivas Hernandez and her autopsy results. They've finally been made public. And the results are pretty gruesome. I mean, just reading through this, I mean, there's a lot that we still don't know, but what we do know is pretty gruesome. She has decomposed, so they weren't able to actually figure a lot of things out because of the level of decomposition. They couldn't tell certain things about her, such as her race, her sex, things like that, because her body had decomposed so much. It was just really, really disturbing, and it was mutilated. Her body was mutilated. So I think this is going to be a really graphic case, but did you get a chance to look at those autopsy results?

Speaker 4:
[02:52] I did, and our friend Lauren Conlon, by the way, who's been a guest on the show with LA Magazine, has done such a great job reporting on this as well. It really helps all of us to keep up to speed. So there's multiple penetrating injuries, actually multiple penetrating injuries. And so there was some speculation that perhaps the body was so decomposed and otherwise so mutilated that cause and manner of death would not be something that could be determined. But the medical examiner was pretty clear that it was multiple penetrating injuries caused by objects. And he used the word plural. So apparently there were, you could see, for lack of a better word, and I hate to be so graphic, but you could see the slice wounds in her torso. And so we know there were probably lacerations to the liver and other vital organs and things like that. So it just sounds and seems like actually it's going to be a very painful and gruesome death that eventually a jury is going to hear about in that LA courtroom.

Speaker 3:
[03:54] I think it's just going to be awful. And the report is 26 pages. I wanted to talk a little bit about some of the things they actually did find. They said, like you said, the cause of death was multiple penetrating injuries caused by objects, which is just insane to me. But what it sounds like to me is with these wounds. So what the report actually says is two penetrating wounds to her torso that may represent sharp force injuries. So to me, and I know that you've had these cases as well, when there's bone injuries, they usually have to bring in forensic anthropologists, which is a really, to me, it's a really fascinating area of the law. It's a really fascinating issue. You know, for all of our true crime junkies, they've probably heard of the body lab, you know, the body farm in Tennessee. Forensic anthropologists are the ones that come in and look at when an injury actually goes through, the scan goes through the organs and actually permeates a bone, which is difficult to do, but they're able to do that. And so I wonder in this case if we, that's maybe where we're headed and maybe why it took so much time because bone remains are really difficult to actually figure out. I mean, it just takes a lot of time because, you know, they're essentially doing the work that, you know, brushing a certain level off and they have to wait for that time and decontamination. I mean, it's a very lengthy process. So I'm wondering if that may be something. But I mean, I can't even imagine this family hearing these results. I mean, the medical examiner said in his statement that it was unfathomable that they've had to wait this long. And he was grateful that he could at least give the information, give the family some information because they're just grieving this awful loss.

Speaker 4:
[05:27] Yeah. And we're hearing also, and speaking of the family, they would also have to hear that if this evidence is accurate, that apparently or allegedly D4vd had plied her with drugs and alcohol. You know, and there's all these allegations about sexual crimes that took place with her prior to her death. The initial drug screening suggested the possible presence of other drugs, including benzodiazepines, methamphetamines, which by the way are operating on two different ways. You know, benzos kind of bring you down, make you sleepy, then meth wires you up again. And then MDMA, which is commonly known as ecstasy, right? A party drug. There was also low levels of alcohol. So look, you know, this child just had all of these things in her system. And apparently, you know, the prosecutor says that they have evidence that he was lying in wait for her to come to his home so that he could go ahead and take her out and just eliminate her as a witness in this investigation into the child sex abuse.

Speaker 3:
[06:35] Right. And he was scheduled, actually, for a preliminary hearing earlier today. He came back in Thursday, you know, the day that we're taping this. And that was one year to the day since she was last seen arrived alive at the rented home that he had in Hollywood Hills. So I thought that was really compelling. It's been a whole year. But the reports show that he appeared stoic as his attorneys pushed the prosecutors to share evidence. Sounds like they don't have a whole lot of evidence that has been handed over yet. They seem to think that they should be getting this evidence. And so it sounds like it's some type of a cooperation where they're saying, you give us some discovery and we'll push this hearing back. So the reports that we've got is that his iCloud account alone had eight terabytes of information, which is, you know, that's significant. But the biggest thing was a significant amount of child sexual abuse images included in that data. Doesn't say whether those are of Celeste, but I mean, obviously, likely, there's a lot of images of Celeste. There could be images of other children, but those are really difficult when you're talking about discovery, as you know, Phil. We don't typically, when we get discovery, they send it to us. Well, child porn is not something that can be sent because that's re-victimizing the children.

Speaker 4:
[07:39] You gotta go look at it their place.

Speaker 3:
[07:40] Right, right, exactly. It can't be, I mean, the government can't distribute porn just like you or I can't distribute porn. So we have to go look at it.

Speaker 4:
[07:46] By the way, it's, you know, it's the kind of thing, and you know what, I don't do that kind of work. And there's a lot of reasons for that. One of them is, you know, I can't really deal with going and looking at the evidence, right? Because you would have to go examine everything, and you would literally have to go to the prosecutor's office to see what they have on their, you know, secure machines there, right? I think they usually put it on air gapped computers and things that aren't even connected to the internet.

Speaker 5:
[08:14] So they have guidelines that they have to follow.

Speaker 3:
[08:15] Yes, they have, that's a good point. They have to be completely disconnected. So it's hard to find that.

Speaker 4:
[08:20] So they apparently did, you know, they arrested David, I guess they pulled his devices, right? And they started looking on his phone and they say that they've got that CSAM material on his phone. And so I think that what we will see, because that's not part of the charges in the case.

Speaker 3:
[08:38] Right, I know, I was noticing that.

Speaker 4:
[08:40] Yeah, they're going to charge him with all that stuff. There's going to be a superseded charge.

Speaker 3:
[08:43] And those are so easy to prove. I know. And the thing that whenever there's a crime like this and they've got what we call CCM, everyone, you know, people was using the acronym, it's child sexual, something material, if that's a good question. Abuse, good.

Speaker 4:
[08:55] Depends on each jurisdiction.

Speaker 3:
[08:55] Like I just used CCM, yeah. But anytime there's CCM, you know, there's that underlying crime that someone's arrested for, like David in this case, but then there can be hundreds of other counts and most of them carry significant prison time. So, you know, that may be ultimately the easier route if they have that, if their goal is just to lock them up. But I think that they want to have Celeste's story told in court and I think our family deserves that as well.

Speaker 4:
[09:17] Speaking of this preliminary hearing, so, look, I want to just go ahead and say I told you so. I told all y'all so. Because I posted on X a couple of times this week that I didn't think that there was actually going to be a prelim today. And you know, I got into a friendly debate with our friend Mark Geragos about this. He was like, okay, the defense is trying to, you know, call their bluff. And I'm like, you know what, I don't think they even want to go forward with a preliminary hearing. And I would, and that may be a decision that wasn't made until the defense found out that there was this, you know, CSAM material on his phone at the time of his arrest. That may have been new information, something that would have caused them to rethink their speed with which they wanted to proceed to a preliminary hearing, because apparently what's common in Los Angeles is the defense will, you know, they'll wave their time limit so that they can get all the discovery before they do the preliminary hearing. Right. But in this case, they were like, nope, we want to go forward. We want to have it now, now, now, now, now. Oh, wait a minute. Our client had one on his phone. In that case, judge, can we have just a little more time? Right. I kind of knew this was going to happen. I saw it coming. And I was right. A lot of times I'm not. In fact, maybe most of the time I'm not, but this time I was right.

Speaker 3:
[10:38] Well, it's an important hearing. I mean, the defense, you know, for the defense, they want to be able to get as much information as possible because, you know, in theory, they should be able to get information from their client, but that's not always the case. You know, sometimes people didn't do it. And so maybe they didn't have that information to give. And so, you know, they want to make sure that this, this is a fruitful hearing, but they are going to have it. I mean, it sounds like they're not going to, to not have it at all. They're just continuing a little bit of time so that he can prepare a little bit more so they can get that. But he is being held without bond. He's actually in the exact same facility, the same jail as Nick Reiner, which I thought was interesting. The Twin Towers Correctional Facility. It's the exact same one. He was just transferred there. He was moved there yesterday and he's being held there without bond.

Speaker 4:
[11:21] Guess what else we learn? We've also learned, even though this wasn't a true preliminary hearing, it was more like a status conference, right? And they just talked about, you know, things. But it did make news that the, in addition to the material found on the phone, somebody was wearing a wire actually.

Speaker 6:
[11:41] So I saw that.

Speaker 3:
[11:42] Yes. Yes. A wire testimony.

Speaker 4:
[11:44] So there's been, it's not really new information that the prosecutors were getting information from people in his orbit who are cooperating, but to wear a wire, that's like the ultimate in cooperation.

Speaker 3:
[12:00] So it says a wire tap too, which makes me wonder if not only was someone wearing a wire, but if maybe they had a phone tap and they were actually listening to people, which is just, I mean, a lot of people when they don't know they're being listened to say a lot of things. So I think that will be really, really interesting and I know that one of the most, they'll have to have a motion and seal that so that everybody can hear that, and also the grand jury testimony because all the witnesses testified. But I think we're going to see a lot more in the upcoming weeks about what exactly has been going on during this delay when the prosecutor was really getting their ducks in a row. I think it's also important to note Celeste's parents decided not to attend the hearing, which I do not blame them. They're just absolutely devastated. I can't even imagine what they're going through and getting this new information as it's coming out. So it doesn't surprise me that they certainly wanted to decline to hear that what was coming out. So we did hear from our friend who's been on our show, Steve Fisher, he even wrote on X. And just so everyone remembers, Steve was the PI, the homeowner. So this house where it happened, where David was living, was owned by a different person and David was actually renting it. So that homeowner hired Steve as a PI, and he actually is the one that reported on X that the preliminary hearing has been continued until May 1st. And he thinks that it's really just about discovery. One of the issues is all of the discovery, but that there were three separate investigatory grand juries that were convened in this case. So they definitely put some work in. They had one in November, December, both of 2025, and then one as recently as February. So there's probably going to be quite a bit of information coming up in the next couple of weeks, Phil.

Speaker 4:
[13:37] Yes, including the names of people perhaps who gave testimony to that grand jury, people that were cooperating witnesses. Remember, he had the one witness that didn't want to cooperate. Ashleigh, do you remember the guy's name?

Speaker 3:
[13:52] Yes, I do. I remember.

Speaker 4:
[13:53] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[13:54] It was another colleague of his.

Speaker 4:
[13:57] Yeah. He didn't want to come and was basically, they did what's called an attachment where it's an arrest warrant for a witness who is not honoring a grand jury subpoena. So you can drag them into the grand jury, kicking and screaming and change. But somehow, Neo, right, was the name and got to LA or so and they gave him a bond. They let him out, I guess, once they proved that they were serious. And I'm just curious to know who all actually from the orbit of David, people, friends, people that work with him, whatever, actually turned on him and testified at the grand jury.

Speaker 3:
[14:34] Right, it'll be really interesting. I also wonder if they videotaped that because they have the ability to. They don't have to, but they have the ability to. So that'll be interesting. But people always ask me this, so I was just going to throw this out a little tidbit. People ask if that testimony is admissible because it's in front of a grand jury, but it's not admissible at trial in and of itself. And just to sort of explain that to our viewers, testimony has to, the witness has to be available for cross-examination. So during a grand jury, there's no me, there's no you. We're not cross-examining these people. And so the testimony, it can be used if they change their story to what we call impeach them, but it can't just be admitted in and of itself. So we get excited about it because it gives us information about what they might testify to on the stand later on, but it doesn't just come in in and of itself. So I just wanted to kind of clear that up because I know there's a lot of questions about that.

Speaker 4:
[15:22] Now here's where it can come in. And I know you know this Ashleigh, but for the benefit of our audience, if a witness takes the stand in trial in front of a jury and they change their testimony, they testify differently, the prosecutor can pull out that transcript and say, haha, remember testifying on such and such date back in 2025, and you testified under oath, same oath that you swore today to tell the truth. And instead of saying what you said today, you said this, and then they can give the prior inconsistent statement. And you know, that's the jury can consider that like substantive evidence, like anything else in the case. So there's ways to get it in. And the big benefit to the prosecutor is locking that down under oath before anybody decides to change their testimony.

Speaker 5:
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Speaker 3:
[18:38] Well, so let's talk about Mr. Duggar. So let's see, 19 kids and counting. I mean, how many crimes do we have now?

Speaker 4:
[18:46] Joseph, Joseph. I keep, I keep, it's hard to keep these Duggar's.

Speaker 3:
[18:51] I know you think Josh, but this one's Joseph. So it's not Josh. But, you know, initially the show, just for some history, premiered back in 2008. It was canceled in 2015 when Josh, who is the oldest Duggar boy, had molested multiple minors, including his own sisters. The assaults were never prosecuted. The Duggar's never actually reported the incident. And by the time it reached the media, the statute of limitations had expired, which is really kind of surprising to me, honestly. I feel like they could have gotten around that. But in 2021, nonetheless, Josh was arrested and convicted, guess what? For none other child sexual abuse material.

Speaker 4:
[19:26] You know why, Ashley? A leopard cannot deny his spots.

Speaker 3:
[19:30] Yep.

Speaker 4:
[19:31] And so, this is why he didn't get prosecuted the first time around, but lo and behold, you got a few years later, he's got the same stuff on the phone.

Speaker 3:
[19:42] Yeah, so maybe he can share jail cell with Joseph because Josh got 12 1⁄2 years back in 2021 for downloading that child porn. And now we have Joseph who's got some allegations.

Speaker 4:
[19:55] Yeah, Joseph has a problem, a legal problem, I mean, just lots of problems. We've got, I don't think he's even denying it.

Speaker 3:
[20:08] Is he actually admitting it to at least two people? He admitted it to the police officers, he admitted it to one other person who had confronted him about it. So, I mean, he's not really denying this at all, but he's, so Josh is, he's 31 right now and he's the 7th of the 19 Duggar children, which yes, there really are 19. And he was recently arrested March 18th when a 14-year-old girl accused him of molesting her on vacation in Florida when she was nine years old. So she went for this thing called a forensic interview, which, you know, to our viewers, forensic interview is a term where someone who's got some specialized training interviews children and the whole goal of it is that, you know, you don't want a nine-year-old to go in with a big, scary cop.

Speaker 9:
[20:49] You want to?

Speaker 4:
[20:50] Let me pause you real quick. These forensic interviews, I know that you and I have some actual experience with this in real life, but that's going to be, I'm going to talk more about these forensic interviews in our closings at the end of the show. So stick around. But a lot of times that's in the nature of junk science, actually, as I'm sure you know, in this case, though, it doesn't seem to matter because regardless of whether or not the forensic interviews are done right, or if it's based on junk science, so to speak, he's admitted everything. And so he's hung himself really with his own words.

Speaker 3:
[21:30] Yeah, he has. I love that you're talking about that. That actually gives me an idea. I'm going to need multiple hours to go over it, but I want to go over the forensic interviews, too. It's crazy. But, you know, it's just one of those things that happens in these cases, and so the child did make this report. She said that Josh apparently asked her to sit on his lap several times, covered himself with a blanket one of these times, and then molested her under that blanket. She said that she felt uncomfortable. Josh then apologized to her, and the alleged victim's father confronted him, and that's what you were talking about earlier, Phil. She apparently, Duggar confessed to the dad, and that's when the investigation began. And then later on, there's a recorded call with law enforcement, where he admitted that his intentions were not pure. So we may see a legal battle over what exactly not pure intention is.

Speaker 4:
[22:15] Is there any other kind of intention when it comes to this kind of activity? There's no way for it to be a pure intention.

Speaker 3:
[22:21] No, there really isn't, especially, I mean, he's charged with lewd and lascivious. That's literally the definition of unpure. So he was extradited to Florida, and then he got a bond, and so now he is back in Arkansas, but he can't have contact with minors. I'm going to start a trial, and he is married with kids.

Speaker 4:
[22:40] Well, we got some jail calls, right? He's talking to his wife, Kendra, who is seemingly standing by her man, but she may have some legal problems herself. But anyway, let's listen to SOT1, which is Joseph Duggar describing jail life to Kendra. He's found some renewed religion.

Speaker 9:
[23:03] How are you?

Speaker 10:
[23:05] I'm all right. I mean, I've been spending a lot of time praying and reading the Bible. They got me a Bible in here, so I'm in solitary. So I'm only in the cell for 23 hours of the day.

Speaker 9:
[23:22] Really?

Speaker 10:
[23:23] Yeah. So it's like a 8 by 10 area, pretty small area. But I've been able to read a lot. I've actually been resting some, but I'm not sleeping great through the night. But anyway, it's good to hear your voice.

Speaker 9:
[23:42] Yeah, it's good to hear from you.

Speaker 3:
[23:45] I don't know, resting and reading sounds pretty good, but...

Speaker 4:
[23:48] Well, maybe when you're sipping a margarita by the pool, in Florida, but not in a Florida jail.

Speaker 3:
[23:56] Definitely not in jail.

Speaker 4:
[23:57] And then, well, and then we got Sattu, where he's complaining, though, about the conditions in jail. He doesn't like his... This guy who admitted to these things with this child doesn't like the vulgar neighbor in the cell next door, Sattu.

Speaker 10:
[24:14] How have you been? Have you been feeling good?

Speaker 9:
[24:18] Yeah, it's been pretty intense. Yesterday was a really rough day, but I'm doing okay. I'm here with Jed and we're at John Abbe's, and I'm trying to get some business stuff worked out. Okay. So if you have any questions, we're going to try to send them through Travis.

Speaker 10:
[24:35] Yeah, just send them through Travis and I'll tell you where they can.

Speaker 9:
[24:40] Yeah. No, it's awesome. Yeah. I don't know if you've been sleeping much. Have you been sleeping much?

Speaker 10:
[24:49] Um, last night, they actually turned off... Most of the nights, they have, like, a light on in my room the whole night. So it's hard to see. Oh, wow. So I found this guy in one of the cells next door in the holding cell, like, he was supposed to get checked in and stuff. He's been throwing tantrum all day.

Speaker 7:
[25:08] Oh, wow.

Speaker 10:
[25:09] It's almost entertaining, except for he's pretty vulgar. Oh, man. I'm just going to focus on my Bible reading.

Speaker 7:
[25:18] Wow.

Speaker 4:
[25:18] He doesn't like it.

Speaker 3:
[25:19] He does not like it. Well, up next, though, we've got district attorney of the Northern Judicial Circuit, Parks White. He is joining us to discuss the case of a Georgia woman who is convicted of trying to murder her teenage son, who was autistic, by slitting his throat with a box cutter. Our guest prosecuted, personally prosecuted this case, and he has some thoughts on the shocking sentence that the judge handed down just last week. Stay tuned.

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Speaker 2:
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Speaker 4:
[27:54] Welcome back to MK True Crime. I'm Phil Holloway along with my co-host, Ashleigh Merchant. Joining us now on the program is district attorney for the Northern Judicial Circuit in Georgia, Mr. Parks White. Welcome to the show, Parks. How are you today?

Speaker 11:
[28:10] Good afternoon. Thank you. I'm well. Thank you for having me.

Speaker 4:
[28:13] Thank you so much for joining us here on the program to talk about this Sykes case. Look, just to set this up for context, this was a trial that occurred earlier this year in Oglethorpe County, Georgia. The defendant, her name was Diane Sykes, 52 years old, and the jury convicted her for a crime that took place back in August of 2021, where she attempted apparently to kill her autistic son, who was 15 years old, by luring him outside to look at the moon. And while he was distracted, she used a box cutter to cut across his neck from ear to ear. He survived, fortunately, and fast forward to the trial, and I'll let you talk to us, Parks, about the verdict. But suffice it to say, the jury found her guilty, and the evidence, by the way, is compelling, and it is very graphic. We do have some photographs that we can show you that are on the graphic side, but we're not going to show you the face of the victim, but suffice it to say, it's terrible. And, you know, this is the kind of thing where she was facing decades and decades in prison, and the judge gave a sentence of only 90 days in jail, and therein lies the controversy. What did I get wrong or right, Parks? And what do you want to add to that?

Speaker 11:
[29:40] That's correct. And for context and clarification, the photographs that I believe are in your possession are ones that were introduced at trial and shown to the jury. In this case, the defendant had an evaluation vote, for competency and for criminal responsibility. And an evaluator assessed that she was competent at sand trial but also returned to finding, stating that she was not guilty by reason of insanity. And Georgia, there's a presumption of sound mind. Every person is presumed to be competent and to be sane. And so knowing that we elected, instead of relying upon this evaluation, we rely upon the presumption of sound mind, of sanity. Excuse me. And took the matter to trial in a case in which in an insanity defense, the defense has the burden to prove it. We don't disprove it in a sanity defense. They have the burden of proving insanity. So we tried our case, allowed the expert psychologist to testify regarding their opinion, cross-examined that expert. And the jury had the option of finding the accused not guilty, not guilty by reason of sanity, guilty but mentally ill, or guilty. And the jury returned a guilty verdict as to criminal attempt to commit murder, aggravated battery, aggravated assault, cruelty to children in the first degree, and three counts of cruelty to children in the third degree.

Speaker 4:
[31:07] Is that every count in the indictment?

Speaker 11:
[31:09] Yes.

Speaker 3:
[31:11] Parks, I was just curious about, so the evaluator that did it, was it a state-appointed evaluator or was it a defense-hired evaluator?

Speaker 11:
[31:17] It was the evaluator from the State Department of Behavioral Health. However, once again, we're not bound by any evaluator, nor is the jury bound by an evaluator's determination. And reviewing the objective facts of the case, I believe that the evaluator had ignored relevant facts demonstrating cognizance of guilt on the part of the accused.

Speaker 4:
[31:40] Such as what?

Speaker 11:
[31:43] Well, the fact she seemed to discount the fact that the defendant slashed her wrists and tried to kill herself after slicing her son's throat. And during cross-examination, I said, Doctor, you would agree, wouldn't you, that trying to kill yourself after committing an act shows consciousness of guilt? And she said, well, I suppose in some circumstances it might. I said, well, doctor, can you give me an example in the history of the world where anyone has tried to kill themselves after and on account of something they thought was good or right? And she said, no, I don't suppose I can. I was like, thank you.

Speaker 3:
[32:20] So it's pretty rare, though, for the state. I know as a state evaluator to actually find someone meets the standard. I know it's pretty high standard. I mean, it's I'm trying to think back when I've had one case where the state expert actually found my client met that standard. Do you agree it's pretty rare?

Speaker 11:
[32:37] Everyone's presumed to be competent and sane and meeting the standard for not guilty, but reasonable insanity requires a person suffers from a mental disease or defect that renders them incapable of distinguishing between right and wrong, or suffers from a delusional compulsion that overmasters their will to resist committing the act. It is a high standard. Georgia still has the delusional compulsion component of insanity, which was eliminated under federal law after President Reagan was shot. But there is rarely a return by evaluators of the determination of the sanity. But still, objectively, it is for the jury to determine. And the objective fact supported, in this case, she tried to cut her wrist, she tried to drown herself, and she left the scene. She fled from where she had cut herself.

Speaker 4:
[33:26] Flight is always, and that's the classic consciousness of guilt. Because the idea is that if you weren't aware that you had done something wrong or criminal, why would you flee? And so, juries tend to look at that, in my experience, as pretty strong evidence that somebody knew what they were doing. But one of the jury options in this case was guilty but mentally ill. Ashleigh and I probably know what that is pretty well, but for the benefit of our audience, can you explain to us what that would have meant had the jury found her guilty but mentally ill, which is very different from insanity?

Speaker 11:
[34:05] Sure. If I could just touch on what you were saying about flight. As the Bible says, the wicked flee where no man pursueth, but the righteous are as bold as a lion, which is a line we have to use in closing argument when flight is present. But the jury had the option of finding the accused not guilty for a reason of insanity, in which case the judge would have committed the defendant to the Department of Behavioral Health for annual assessment and determination of whether or not she posed a danger to herself or others. It wouldn't be incarceration, but it would be in the custody of the Department of Behavioral Health. For guilty but mentally ill, the standard is that they suffer from a mental disease that has some sort of effect on the action, but doesn't rise to the level of being insanity, meaning rendering them incapable of distinguishing right and wrong. In that circumstance, if they had returned that verdict, she would have been sent into the Department of Corrections to be evaluated and for a treatment plan to be assessed and created during the course of incarceration. In this case, her total term, she was not found guilty but mentally ill, she would be just guilty and even then, her term of incarceration was just 90 days.

Speaker 4:
[35:20] On the specific facts of this case, I thought it was compelling that the jury found her straight guilty and did not choose because I've seen the verdict form, they could have put a check mark right there on guilty but mentally ill, but they didn't, they checked straight guilty. And so, you know, she objectively looks like somebody who does have mental health issues, but the jury just said it doesn't rise to that level.

Speaker 11:
[35:46] That's right. And speaking with afterwards, they, after pointing out the discrepancies between the investigation and the evaluation by the state evaluator, I think they discounted heavily her opinion because of the objective facts that she ignored, not only that cutting her own wrists, consciousness of guilt through trying to kill herself, but her statements afterwards where she said that she was trying to kill her son and they kill her herself, and she was doing so to unburden the family of her son.

Speaker 3:
[36:16] I had a question about you were mentioning the civil commitment. I know a lot of our listeners don't really understand what that means. So if she was civilly committed, she would go to a state hospital, and it's a lockdown facility. And then she could potentially stay there longer than a sentence though, right?

Speaker 11:
[36:32] Potentially. An annual review would have to be done by the judge based upon a report provided by the Department of Behavioral Health to determine whether she still posed a danger to herself or others.

Speaker 3:
[36:43] Right. I remember because the one case I ever had that was NGRI, it pained me that he was found NGRI because he ended up staying in the state hospital much longer than the offer was, but it was there. And so it became painfully obvious that you could actually end up staying in custody. I know it's different. It's in a mental hospital, but staying in custody longer if you are civilly committed. I think that's interesting for our listeners to understand the difference between the two.

Speaker 11:
[37:10] It's a rare occurrence, but yes, it can happen.

Speaker 4:
[37:13] I have a question for you. So normally, and I've tried a lot of cases, I know we all three have, normally what happens certainly in these serious violent or serious felonies, if a jury finds somebody guilty and they're out on bond, that bond typically evaporates. And even if they're not sentenced on the spot, which sometimes they are, but oftentimes sentencing is delayed, but judges usually take the defendant into custody prior to or pending the sentencing hearing. That didn't happen in this case. Tell me about that.

Speaker 11:
[37:48] That was surprising because you're right, the bond is a guarantee to appear at all court hearings and issued for a person to be allowed to be released from custody during the pendency of a criminal case. But upon a jury's return of a verdict, whatever the verdict is, the bond is no longer valid. So upon the return of the guilty verdict, I moved to have her taken into custody because she no longer had a valid bond. Before the defense attorney could even ask, the judge announced he was going to grant her an appeal bond. It's not the appellate stage, but that's how he described it. He immediately released her on a $25,000 bond.

Speaker 4:
[38:25] Let's take it from there. If she's released on an appeal bond, there's no appeal that's been filed. She hadn't been sentenced at this point, I take it, right?

Speaker 11:
[38:35] No.

Speaker 4:
[38:36] So, the sentencing happened. How much, how far after that did the sentencing happen?

Speaker 11:
[38:42] The case was tried at the beginning of February, starting on the second and went through the end of the week. The verdict was turned on Friday. The jury did not deliberate long after the full presentation of the case with both sides. Then she was scheduled to be sentenced in mid-March. The judge, however, was otherwise occupied with another jury trial, and so the sentencing was delayed until April 15th, at which point she was sentenced in the afternoon of that day. In Oglethorpe County, the judge had some civil matters scheduled before that. There was also a criminal calendar that morning that Diane Sykes appeared on, but she was not reached until the afternoon, and then he took up the civil matters first, and then the sentencing of the accused occurred.

Speaker 4:
[39:32] So even though there was an appeal bond, she was sentenced and she was taken into custody on that sentence, but...

Speaker 11:
[39:39] It wasn't an appeal bond. He just, I think it was just, he misdescribed it, but it was a bond with pending sentencing.

Speaker 4:
[39:46] Okay, that makes more sense. But then let's talk about the sentence. What was the sentence? And first off, what did you ask for?

Speaker 11:
[39:55] Based upon the charges upon which the defendant was found guilty, she faced a maximum of 73 years in custody. I did not ask for the maximum in this case, even though it was a very egregious and gruesome crime. I think the jury was horrified by the images they saw of this childhood, had his neck cut so significantly by his own mother. I asked for a 50-year sentence with the first 25 to be served in custody. Even while asking for that, I said, Your Honor, she has the ability to file for a remold within one year. She can be resentenced within a year. I'd ask that you impose that 25-year sentence, allow her to file for that and see if she doesn't come back expressing some remorse or contrition because she never did. She never apologized, which is one of those dumbfounding things about this case is that there wasn't, there didn't seem to be any remorse.

Speaker 4:
[40:57] Well, then what did the defense asked for for sentencing? What was their proposed sentence?

Speaker 11:
[41:04] Probation.

Speaker 4:
[41:05] So they wanted straight probation. All right. What did the judge do?

Speaker 11:
[41:11] The judge imposed a 70-year sentence for the offenses of attempted murder, aggravated battery, aggravated assault, merged, and then curled the children in the first degree, and concurrent 12-month sentences for the curled the children in third degree counts about only 90 days in jail, the rest on probation.

Speaker 3:
[41:33] So this is not, the victim is one of her sons, but she has a couple other children, right? How many kids does she have?

Speaker 11:
[41:39] She has four children in total.

Speaker 3:
[41:40] Okay, including the boy and her husband, right?

Speaker 11:
[41:44] Yes.

Speaker 3:
[41:44] And then all of them, they all came to court and spoke at the sentencing hearing though, I assume?

Speaker 11:
[41:48] They did.

Speaker 3:
[41:49] Okay. And did they want the sentence that you were asking for? Did they want her to come home?

Speaker 11:
[41:56] They did not want to see her go to prison. However, as a point, actually, the judge during the course of the sentencing, there's a good reason we don't allow family members to sentence defendants, otherwise there wouldn't be a prison in the state of Georgia, and that the family members never want to see another family member punished or almost never. And in family violence situations, we often have to arrest victims and bring them to court when they are refused to cooperate with our prosecution of somebody because the victims are not parties to the controversy. State versus the accused.

Speaker 3:
[42:31] So was she on bond throughout the whole case? Because I see the case, what? It started in 2021, right?

Speaker 11:
[42:38] Not at first. She did some custody at the beginning. She also was evaluated for competency, but she was out on bond for the majority of the pendency of the case. It came out during the course of sentencing that she had been violating her bond for the last nine months, which limited the amount of time that she was allowed to see the victim. She was not permitted to stay overnight per the bond, but she had been living in the family household for nine months prior to sentencing.

Speaker 4:
[43:11] Look, I've been doing this a long time. I've been on both sides of this, and I could not even conceive of a case where a parent is accused of slicing their child's throat from ear to ear, and then being allowed to have any contact whatsoever with that child. I can't imagine them really being out on bond where I practice, but I can't imagine certainly if they are, that they would be allowed to have any contact. But then what you're saying now is that she not only violated the bond, but she was having all the contact she wanted while she was violating the bond prior to the trial.

Speaker 11:
[43:49] Yes. She was permitted to have supervised contact during a window of time with her family and the victim. But the defects also was involved in the case, but she was not permitted to stay overnight according to the bond, but she had moved back into the house and living there for nine months, which the judge was not aware of until the sentencing hearing.

Speaker 3:
[44:15] Did she have any, I know you said that she violated by living with him. Did she try to attack him again while she was on bond for those years?

Speaker 11:
[44:22] No.

Speaker 3:
[44:22] Okay. Did you have any violence at all while she was on bond?

Speaker 11:
[44:25] There was an arrest for aggravated stalking during that time period.

Speaker 3:
[44:29] Okay.

Speaker 4:
[44:30] Hold on. There was an arrest for that?

Speaker 11:
[44:33] Yes.

Speaker 4:
[44:34] So aggravated stalking is based on the violation of the court order and basically a pattern of doing it over and over again. What happened with that aggravated stalking charge? Because in Georgia, you can get a couple of decades in prison just for that.

Speaker 11:
[44:48] I can't really discuss the case right now.

Speaker 4:
[44:51] Fair enough.

Speaker 3:
[44:52] We understand. But she did have a mental illness, right? Even though you didn't think that she rose to a level of insanity, you do agree that she did have some mental illness?

Speaker 11:
[45:00] The evaluator concluded so and she has been treated for mental illness, but I believe that it was a condition that pre-existed this act. I know she's under a physician's care or she has prescriptions that she's now following.

Speaker 3:
[45:19] Oh, good. And since she's been following though, she hasn't had any other violence. She hasn't taken a box, got her doors on or anything violent since she's been on those prescriptions?

Speaker 11:
[45:28] No, she hasn't.

Speaker 4:
[45:31] Well, this highlights something that I talked about earlier or a couple of days ago on the show, which was the fact that in Georgia, well, all over, judges have very wide latitude in sentencing, and sometimes judges sentence too harshly, and sometimes they don't sentence harshly enough. Then sometimes they make other mistakes, but this also highlights, there's another case that highlights this sentencing disparity, if you will, or contrast from even one county to another. This is another case out of your office that I see was reported. I was looking from the Central Georgian back on April 16th, which is just the day after the Sykes sentencing. And I think you mentioned this also on a Facebook post. This involves the sentencing of a 34-year-old woman in Hart County who pled guilty to repeatedly sexually abusing a 13-year-old victim over the course of two years. She got a sentence that was life in prison followed by 20 years. This is just next door to Oglethorpe County, is that right? Yes.

Speaker 11:
[46:42] Hart County is also in the circuit. It was a blind plea and the sentence was imposed by Judge Neesmith, who's our newest Superior Court Judge. The fact pattern, I'm reluctant to describe it because I don't want to identify the victim in any way, but it was a horrific crime and the sentence was appropriate considering the conduct.

Speaker 4:
[47:05] I think you can say they're both horrific, you know, maybe in different ways, but if you got someone getting life plus 20 for a crime against a 13-year-old and then you get 90 days in jail for trying to take the life of a teenager in the next county, that's a big difference.

Speaker 3:
[47:25] So that other case, that was repeated conduct, so I'm guessing that was a little bit different since it was repeated and did the victims family in that case, I'm guessing they were not there asking for leniency?

Speaker 11:
[47:35] They were not there asking for leniency, but also shows the difference between judicial temperament and Judge Neesmith has in his background, has experience being on the side of the state. He was a former prosecutor years ago, worked as an assistant district attorney. Judge Wasserman in Oglethorpe County, spent his career as a defense attorney and as the public defender. I think it's important to be a balanced judge and have some experience on both sides, which Judge Neesmith has. He's been on the side of a defense attorney as well as a prosecutor. While Judge Wasserman spent his entire career practicing on the defense side.

Speaker 4:
[48:18] A lot of times judges come to the bench with no criminal law experience either, and then suddenly they're presiding over criminal cases. But what we would want, I think, in a perfect world or a perfect justice system is that judges irrespective of where they came from in terms of their practice before being a judge that they moved to basically being an umpire who's calling balls and strikes objectively without the thumb on the scale for either side. But look, we're going to leave it there with Parks White, the DA and the Northern Judicial Market of Georgia. Before we let you go, can you tell us, is there any appeal going on in this case? What do you expect to happen if anything with regard to this case?

Speaker 11:
[49:03] Every criminal case that goes to trial, we normally expect an appeal to occur. That will be beginning with the motion for new trial, which we filed 30 days after the signed sentence is filed or the notice of appeal. We expect that to happen. It may not happen because the penalty was so minor that there's a chance that the defense attorney might see that there's not any value to retrying the case or seeking to have the conviction reversed. So we'll have to wait and see, but we always anticipate appeals after jury trials.

Speaker 4:
[49:37] All right. Well, David there, thank you so much for your time. We'll continue to follow this case and may welcome you back here anytime. Okay. All right, guys. Up next, we have our closing arguments and your questions from the Mailbag. Stay tuned.

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Speaker 3:
[52:23] Welcome back to MK True Crime. Before we get to our legal mailbag and our closing arguments, we want to let all of you, our listeners, know that starting next week, we'll be transforming into the MK True Crime show. Dave, me, and Phil, we're not going anywhere. We're just switching to dropping new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday. We're happy to report that our friends and True Crime contributors Mark Iglarz and Jonas Bilbor, will start their own show, Positively Legal next week, along with In the Well with Mark Garagos and Matt Murphy. Big things happening next week, so make sure you're subscribed to our YouTube channel and follow us on social media. Now, it's time for our legal mailbag. So listener Selena asks, I read that in the sentencing phase of the Athena strand trial, jurors broke down in tears when hearing some of the last words Athena uttered before she was killed. How incredibly heartbreaking it was to hear this. It made me think of what jurors are exposed to when selected for cases, especially for highly emotional or intense cases. It seems unfair that jurors are forced to take in such emotionally disturbing information. Can a juror refuse to listen or view images that count a terrible crime? Could a juror ever sue the courts for emotional distress, stemming from having to serve on a jury and be exposed to horrific testimony and images? I will give you my two cents on this and then we can see Phil's opinion on it. But this is one of the things I call vicarious trauma. I think everybody, including prosecutors, I rag on prosecutors, but everybody in the system feels this. This is something that is not just jurors. I feel it, prosecutors feel it, police officers feel it and jurors definitely feel it. It's a great question, everybody has it. Death penalty is definitely worse because the whole point is you're having the worst of the worst. But unfortunately jurors can't check out and that's one of the things that we always ask jurors during jury selection, their ability to actually sit and be human because a human would have a problem with this type of evidence and this type of testimony. And that's where we really are able to talk to jurors. And I can tell you personally, I've had jurors break down and cry and recount certain things in their lives that made me know that they were not emotionally able to handle jury duty and they were very happy for me to relieve them of that duty. And I think most lawyers are able to do that and do that regularly.

Speaker 4:
[54:43] You know, Ashleigh, this Tanner Horner sentencing trial out there in Tarrant County, Texas, this is, that's probably one of the most horrifying trials that I've ever discussed or known about or had any connection with whatsoever, media or otherwise in my career. And, you know, we had jurors that, you know, I guess they were sobbing, right? And the, there was just literally that wailing in court. And what they were having to listen to was the audio of the torture and murder of seven-year-old Athena Strand. And, you know, I tell you, I don't know that I could have, if I were on the jury, I don't know that I could have sat there and listened to that. But, the answer, honestly, the short answer to the question is, do they have to? Well, yeah, they do. I mean, and if they don't, if they refuse to participate, well, then it could listen to, I mean, that can lead to a mistrial. And that's not what prosecutors or judges want to do. Now, you do have alternates and things like that, but if you have problems with juries to the point that they can't participate and they can't deliberate, I had a woman one time during jury deliberations, she was so upset that she just busted out of the jury room and ran down the hall and laid in the hallway just sobbing uncontrollably. And we almost had to do a mistrial because we were out of alternates at that point. So, but the emotions are real and they're humans. We don't expect people to leave their humanity at the door of the courtroom. We expect them to bring it with them, but it is truly a challenge sometimes. And that's why it's truly called jury service because it is a service to society for people to sit and listen to and see things that oftentimes are just terrible things to look and see.

Speaker 3:
[56:35] It is, it is definitely a service. And before we get to your closing argument, Phil, one thing I did want to mention is I've actually talked with a lot of jurors that have served on juries where I've been one of the advocates and they've become friends. And so they do actually find solace with each other because they've gone through a similar experience. I've had them reach out to me because sometimes maybe they found my client guilty or didn't find them guilty. And either way, something awful happened. And so they want to talk about it and sort of process it. So they do help each other. So that has been one of the good sides of humanity that I've seen where people are actually going through this experience together and then helping each other on the other side. So Phil, you want to take it away with your closing argument?

Speaker 4:
[57:11] All right. So I mentioned earlier in the show that I wanted to talk to you about forensic child interviews. And I've talked in other closings here on this program about what I would call and other people call junk science, right? And how junk science, if it infects the criminal justice system, can lead to horrible and horrifying results. But often these things, these forensic child interviews, they are presented in court as if they are reliable science. This is not just an interview between a police officer or an investigator and a witness. This is people that they go and they get trained in these techniques and they're referred to as forensic interviews, as if they have some more weight that they should be given than just an, I guess, a garden variety interview. But they are presented as if they have the weight of like solid science behind them. But they really don't in many cases, and they can be fundamentally flawed. And these things can fall into the bucket that we call junk science. Research reveals that there are five major problems with these types of interviews. Number one, there's very high suggestibility in young children who will readily incorporate false details from leading questions into their memories. Famed memory expert, Dr. Elizabeth Loftus, who I have interviewed, and she's a, it was a great interview and I learned so much. In fact, I even studied her work in law school. She has conducted research with startling results. False memories can and are oftentimes implanted in the minds of witnesses by the way, the manner in which they are questioned. So false memories can be implanted. And number two, interviewer bias and confirmation bias. Interviewers oftentimes enter with preconceived beliefs and steer the child towards those conclusions. Have you ever heard the phrase? If you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail. That's what I'm talking about. If the person who's doing these interviews is steeped personally in their philosophy in terms of being an advocate for one side or the other, they're no longer objective and they're not calling the balls and strikes. The third big problem that studies have identified is, well, problematic question types, overuse of yes or no questions, forced choices, and repeated suggestive questions. These things contaminate the responses, and it reduces the accuracy or the validity of the end product. Fourth, we have memory and developmental limitations. Children of all ages can struggle with source monitoring, time concepts, and distinguishing reality from suggestion. Yet they will report false accounts with confidence Number five, external contamination and procedural issues. These include parental coaching, which we see a lot by the way, and inadequate video recording, which we also see a lot. These well-documented defects mean many interviews that are produced by this method, they produce unreliable testimony at trials, and guess what happens when you have unreliable testimony at trial? Well, you've got wrongful convictions, and wrongful convictions destroy people's lives, it destroys confidence in the justice system. So courts must treat this. In fact, prosecutors and juries must treat this evidence with extreme caution, demand full video review and expert scrutiny. This is not solid science. Despite what some say, it just simply is not. It is psychological vulnerability, oftentimes disguised as justice. Ashleigh, that's it. That's my rant. That's my close. Back to you.

Speaker 3:
[61:08] Thank you, Phil. That was great. All right. So I'm going to talk about one of the cases we talked about here today a little bit. So let me get this straight. In this one case, there is a state-appointed evaluator, not a defense handpicked expert. Not that we do that. But this one says that this woman meets a very, very high legal burden of insanity. Talking about Diane Sykes. This expert says that she meets that standard, not even close meets it. And it's very high. We just heard our guests say it's very high standard. I've been practicing 24 years and I've only had one client that the state evaluator said met that standard. It's hard. Okay, fine. The state says they disagree. They call it consciousness of guilt. They say she was fleeing. They say she tried to commit suicide. Jury goes with it. That's fine. It happens. State usually gets the benefit of the doubt at the jury trial. And it is a very high burden. To prove insanity, you have to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, which is hard for a defendant to do. So, then we get to sentencing. And that's when suddenly, all of a sudden, reality shows up. So this lady's husband, her kids, her four kids, even the victim come to court, and they tell the judge, let her come home. We want her home. She's been out on bond for years. No violence. She actually has been doing well. She's been taking her medicine. No violence, no reoffense, nothing like that. So what, when a judge is determining sentencing, what are they supposed to think about? What protects society? What protects the public? Sounds like treatment, medication, stability. Sounds like that's working, not a prison cell. We have enough of those. Every single day we see situations, every state, every country where people are dying in our prisons. So what does the judge do? He gives her a short sentence, a long probation sentence, and tells her she's got to stay on her medicine. And now that's not justice. That's an injustice. Because this is really interesting. The state usually gets its way, and a judge usually leans hard on the defense. But now we're calling the system unfair. So it actually looks like mercy to me. Sort of fascinating to me when a prosecutor discovers this concept of fairness and unfairness, the moment a judge does not do what they want. Because where's that energy every other day in court? Criminal defense lawyers, we live in a world where fair is more of a suggestion than a standard. We file motions, they get denied. We don't even get a hearing half the time. We argue issues clearly on our side and we lose. We watch the state get continuance after continuance, get the benefit of the doubt, get the max sentence, get these draconian sentences every single day. You know what? We adjust. We just keep going. We just keep going. But the second the tables turn, it's outrage. It's not right. It's not fair. How could the court do this? Something's wrong with the judge. Welcome to our world. Welcome to criminal defense where unfair isn't shocking. It's just every other Tuesday. The difference is we don't stand up and complain. We just take it, take the hit, adjust, and just keep on fighting. Thank you all for joining us. We hope that you all will follow us on this new show that we're doing, and we thank our guest, Parks White, and thank you so much to my co-host, Phil Holloway, and thank you for joining us. I hope everyone has a great weekend.

Speaker 2:
[64:32] Listen to Work Getting Done with monday.com. Relax, as AI does the manual work. Thank you.