It said, "She, he was more focused on his grief and his guilt as a father, and then wanted to take out an officer." Lance, if you're the defense here, what would be your response to that? What's your line of questioning? What do you make of that?

Well, the first part of the sentence makes out reckless.

You know, he was so caught up with grief that he wanted to kill himself.

That's why he ran into the pole.

That's ...

And then the officer got hit.

And I think the court, um, they're going to address that if they're gonna allow the jury to decide on that.

Uh, Lance, while I have you, uh, can Hill's legal team challenge or appeal the civil verdict at this point?

Lance, if you're the defense here, what would be your response to that? What's your line of questioning? What do you make of that?

Well, the first part of the sentence makes out reckless.

You know, he was so caught up with grief that he wanted to kill himself.

That's why he ran into the pole, and then the officer got hit.

And I think the court, they're going to address that if they're going to allow the jury to decide on that.

But with reckless, and, you know, the prosecutor would agree, that negates now the willfulness.

That makes it that you should have known better.

How do you come back at that from a defense standpoint?

So you wouldn't want your client speaking because it can be attributed, of course, in a court of law, as opposed to if it's the defense attorney, you can't use what I say against my client.

That's, yes, that's the textbook when you want to say, but let's be for real.

If we're going to a jury, maybe I want to throw some things out there that you may hear because that bell can never be unrung.

So I don't know what the strategy is for those lawyers or what they're doing, but the advice is not to speak, but sometimes it does work to your benefit.

I want to ask you, what do you think about this

How will that benefit them? Will it benefit

them, you think? It can, but whatever mental health that preceded what occurred could have been exasperated by what did happen.

So if I'm existing, you know, I have a history of mental health and then my son is murdered.

Mm

... which has been coming for quite so long.

And why I say that's so important, because when you're dealing with academia, these institutions are vast.

They're cities onto themselves, sometimes countries onto themselves, their own, you know, security department, health department.

They pretty much control themselves.

And then when you're dealing with an institution that possibly funds the, the lifeblood of the city, of the town, of the state that it's in, it, it behooves in an investigation like this that you have outside lines, you have outside eyes that are looking into this.

And I think what the governor did was on par for what should have been done.

Uh, in, in this case, where does the law end and morality begin or end in this case? Because it, it would seem like to the, to the average reasonable person, it seems like the university could have done more, the police department could have done more, the DA could have done more.

Let's say it that way.

You can withdraw a lawsuit, but you can't withdraw the damage, right? My wife heard this.

My children heard this.

My business partners heard this.

Potential clients? Everyone.

And these are the type of allegations that are, when unfounded, are horrible.

Horrible for any man, any father to have to defend.

So that's going to be the strong part

How many times have you done that? Give me some examples here.

It's fact-specific.

So you'll have some 12-year-olds that...

There are situations where there are blatant mistruths, and there are situations where you don't know.

And you also have to tailor it to the jury.

And if the jury is already not believing the testimony as it's coming, you sort of have to play to that as well.

But if you have a sympathetic person on the stand, even if that sympathetic person you know is not telling the truth, there's a very, very, very thin line you have to go.

Lance, what do you make of what the juror had to say there and just the fact that he decided to say something?

now in this kind of case when you're the lawyer representing a family this kind of case and and and these are the kinds of charges allegations if found even not guilty could still live with them in in your early conversations do you talk about that like how do we begin to rehab when this is over or are all eyes are focused on the first task at hand

what did brian stevenson say you know everyone's more than the sum of themselves on their worst day so a lot of times you know You have to work backwards.

You have to look at the person and look at what the facts are of the case.

And a lot of times, when you go and you do that deep dive, that's where the mitigation is.

Because a lot of us are more than what we present to the world.

And it's the layers of the onion that you have to peel and peel.

And it takes time.

I want to see if someone picks up that secondary case.

I'm not traumatizing this person, but I'm also representing my client to the fullest extent, I'm gonna try to walk that tightrope.

But, but, but that's, there's, there are two separate questions.

It's a- attacking, uh, the person on cross-examination and attacking the credibility.

You know, you, you ...

They're not going to allow you the credibility of was this person promiscuous? Was this person, you know, was it that? You, you're not going to be allowed to do that, uh, more likely than not.

But the defense attorney is going to have to be the defense attorney.

So if the, if the witness takes the stand You have to ...

They didn't prove that it was someone else." Or they may take up the weight and say, "You know what? We're gonna prove just a little that someone else did commit this crime, just to raise reasonable doubt." I wanna see if someone picks up that secondary case.