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Season Five: In the Wild, Wild...Witness Stand?
258 Plays3 months ago
In today’s episode, we discuss some judicial issues of recent trials.
While the whole referenced trial (second one mentioned) is worth a watch here is a link to the referenced video is here: https://www.youtube.com/live/ts6dAvE-eng?si=1cY-lNivAUc7nFLk
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Music in this episode was licensed for True Crime XS. Our theme song today is Indestructible by Noah Smith. Additional Music
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Sources:
Various News Sources Mentioned by Name
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Transcript
Podcast Introduction and Warnings
00:00:00
Speaker
This podcast may contain disturbing content for some listeners. It's intended for mature audiences. Listener discretion is advised.
Young Thug's Trial and Judicial Recusal Issues
00:00:39
Speaker
Okay. So I do have a piece of true crime news that we can talk about. We had talked about this and I, you know, I never know if these episodes are airing in the right order, but I think this one will, uh, definitely people can play catch up if not, cause we talked about this kind of weird thing happening down with judge Earl Glanville. He was covering young thugs trial down in Atlanta and The Superior Court judge, Rachel Krause, in Miller, July, she threw him off the case. So this was the guy, if you remember, he had demanded that the defense attorney tell him how he had gotten information that there had been a meeting between a witness, the prosecutor, and the judge.
00:01:30
Speaker
ex parte and he like he the the defense attorney basically said, I can't tell you at all, which ultimately what you and I sort of decided was it was probably that the defendant had told the defense attorney and therefore it was protected by privilege. He couldn't acknowledge it at all. But Judge Krause ended up hearing a recusal motion and It had gone before Glanville originally, and Judge Glanville said that he didn't think he needed to be removed. But ultimately, when Attorney Steele, do you remember this whole thing? He was held in contempt. I was going to say, the attorney was held in contempt. So yes, that creates a conflict of interest.
00:02:20
Speaker
Yeah, and he was gonna get like a long sentence where he was gonna be serving weekends and all this other crazy stuff. He was like, the next 10 weekends in jail, it was crazy. So did that get straightened out? Well, Judge Glanville got, he had refused to recuse himself from this crazy trial that has been going on for months and months and months. There's like, I think 29 defendants and it like started in May of 2022 as far as the arrest, but it's basically still going on in Atlanta now in summer 2024. But Judge Glanville got removed from his portion of the trial.
00:02:59
Speaker
And so this isn't like an all day, every day trial, right? No, they're having parts. So in in this instance, because there's so many people to get together, they bring all the remaining co-defendants and I think Young Thug was the one that we were talking about who was Steele's client. They bring them in and they have parts of the trial as they can get the witnesses together and then basically It takes time because you're then dealing with judges. and
00:03:32
Speaker
Like, there have been multiple ah motions. At one point, Brian Steele, the attorney held in contempt, he tried to motion for Rachel Krauss to recuse herself from deciding whether or not Judge Glanville should stay on the young slime life case. ah This is the rapper Jeffrey Williams and his people that have been accused of being part of this RICO action down there. I just thought it was an interesting piece of news. You don't see a lot of judges removed like that. Well, I'm not following this trial. I know we talked about the Ex parte meeting that essentially the judge really got onto the attorney about.
Georgia's Unique Judicial Challenges
00:04:17
Speaker
He refused to say who it was for whatever reason, whether it was attorney-client privilege, whether the judge should absolutely know who was there, whatever the reasoning. I do think that that i think that once a judge has held an attorney on a case in contempt for a controversial reason, because to me, this it was highly controversial to have an extra judiciary meeting, an ex parte meeting, the attorney called him out on it, and then he holds him in contempt. like That's a weird situation anyway, but it absolutely rises to the level for um the judge to- Rick Hughes themselves. To Rick Hughes themselves. and and you know I always find it interesting. so
00:05:06
Speaker
except for a frivolous attempt, right? And what I mean by that is like there's really no basis in fact. It's just a Hail Mary, I don't like the judge, I want him off my case. If you're sitting as a judge and you face a situation, especially one like I just explained, where you held one of the attorneys in contempt for something you did wrong, essentially, why wouldn't you recuse yourself? right? I feel like that's like the very that's like that would be like the judicial efficient thing to do would be say to say you know what you're absolutely right I am going to recuse myself because this has raised a conflict. I'm of the firm belief that
00:05:52
Speaker
Anytime you're not welcome in a situation, you're being asked to remove yourself from a situation, again, when it's not frivolous, right? You know as a judge if you've done something, right? You know if the request is frivolous. You know if it's merited. Anytime it's merited, I feel like that would be the time to to show your integrity and to take yourself off the case. Yeah, I mean, I i see recusals like pretty regularly. that's not So ah a motion to recuse basically says you want the judge to set down. That's not super unusual for it to be granted or denied and like for the reasoning to be laid out. What's unusual is for them to go to the step of having another judge hear a motion because they don't feel like they're getting the appropriate response. And I've seen situations where
00:06:48
Speaker
Judges leave a case and then a special judge is appointed or another judge comes in or ah I used to see more frequently where like a senior judge in that district would take over. But this case was it is a little unusual in them having like these sort of in this infighting going on between. That's crazy. Yeah. And they had 18 jurors in this case. They've been, they've lost a couple of alternates, but they had 18 jurors. That can just randomly show up whenever they have. No, yeah. that I don't know what they're doing there. I'm trying to read about it. I feel like I don't know anything about this trial except ah the one situation with the attorney and
00:07:32
Speaker
It sounds like there's quite a bit running amok here. There is. It looks like they've even lost of it. but The trial has gone on so long that at some point one of the jurors just moved away. To get out of being on the trial. I don't think that's the case. I think their lease had run out and they moved and where they moved they no longer live in that county. i I can't imagine, so the only reason you would have these like multiple defendants and like all this stuff occurring is in the interest of judicial efficiency. The fact that the trial has gone on for however long, two years or whatever, I feel like they have, that's a moot point at this point in time. I've seen, and I'm not knocking the state as a whole, but I've seen multiple cases in Georgia where
00:08:22
Speaker
They just make a disaster out of something that shouldn't have been a disaster. And I get turned around trying to follow those cases. Every once in a while, we'll have one on where we talk about a Georgia case or whatever. But like usually those cases, I've heard so many different pretrial things. By the time it gets to trial, I'm confused. And you and I sit down. We've tried to record a couple of them over the years. Most of them, we've got to go, eh. and you know, bail midway through trying to record it because it's such a disaster or we have a controversial, one um or the other has a controversial opinion. But it's weird because Georgia is the one place where if you and I get to talking about a case down there, we will end up in an argument. And I found that.
Noteworthy Trials and Media Involvement
00:09:06
Speaker
Well, i i don't I can't recall any cases specifically out of Georgia, but I just know the circumstance of not knowing anything about the trial that has just kind of been laid out
00:09:19
Speaker
They're weird. That's a weird situation. Well, that's where Justin Ross Harris was. And that's where the Ahmaud Aubrey case was. so We've got several episodes that' never that have never aired. They will never air because we weren't able to ah complete our analysis. Maybe one day and the blooper's real. Yeah, maybe. i So i have I have been watching something where There was a trial. There is no longer a trial. and I brought it up for us to talk about today because we're kind of in our in our summertime mode and and we're working on a ah much bigger case. But I did want to sit down and like talk to you about this because we're we just aired, like I think the way this will go down is Unsolved Mysteries will air and then there's an episode in there.
00:10:09
Speaker
um where we talk about a couple of different sort of news things kind of like we're doing here. But I watched ah something that I had never seen before and I wanted to talk about it and take some background, but I thought this is the ideal time to do it because it's not really multiple episodes, but it is something that was so shocking and newsworthy to me that I actually got on the phone with TMZ about it. and that's unheard of. I think that's happened once before, a very long time ago, maybe six years ago, or ah four years ago. I had something to talk to him about, but for the most part, I never do that because they're tabloid-esque.
00:10:46
Speaker
But this was a case they were covering and I was pretty positive the way this had gone down. They had missed a piece of what was happening and needed to play catch up because they weren't like they didn't seem to have anybody in the courtroom. And it turned out they did have somebody watching it. But I don't think that person understood what they were witnessing. I think that that was a theme here. yeah In fact, I was the one who said, hey, you need to look at this because I realized what was happening. And it took a little bit for me to catch up because I wasn't following it. I don't typically follow live trials until like halfway through and you're like, Hey, you
Alec Baldwin's Rust Shooting Incident
00:11:24
Speaker
need to watch this. And then I have to catch up and then I have to watch the rest of it. So this was just by happenstance.
00:11:31
Speaker
Yeah. And so if people don't know what we're about to talk about, I'm going to give you like the super quick nutshell and then we're going to talk about this, this interesting part. Uh, and I will say this from like a disclaimer perspective. I regularly work in the movie industry. and usually in pretty small roles, but I have been on sets most of my adult life. And ah this is about an incident that takes place on a movie set. In fact, it takes place October 21st, 2021 in a place called Bonanza City, New Mexico. While filming at the location that had been secured by production at the Bonanza Creek Ranch,
00:12:18
Speaker
A cinematographer named Helena Hutchins was fatally shot and a director named Joel Souza was injured during a scene in which actor Alec Baldwin was holding a gun, this is on the set of the movie or the film, Rust. And while the actor was holding this gun for close-up shots, A live round was discharged from a prop revolver gun that he was using. The incident is investigated by the Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office.
00:12:58
Speaker
And then that falls under the first judicial district in New Mexico. So the district attorney's office gets involved. It's also investigated by the OSHA Bureau of New Mexico and the ah New Mexico Occupational Health and Safety Bureau. And the FBI gets involved at one point. Now in multiple media releases and affidavits and legal documents. The Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office, they acknowledged that Alec Baldwin, who's the actor in the scene holding this gun that contained a live realm, and the first assistant director, who's a guy named David Halls, they'd acknowledged that the two of them had no idea that the gun that Alec Baldwin was holding
00:13:58
Speaker
was loaded. Definitely didn't know that it was loaded with a live round. Now there've been a couple of like different things that have happened with this case. January 31st, 2023. So a couple months later, the Santa Fe district attorney at the time, they decide they're going to move forward with charges in this case. Now they charge the armorer who she's I'm going to use that term loosely. The representative of the armourer, she has that title for this production. Hannah Gutierrez Reed. She gets charged with a single kind of involuntary manslaughter in the death of Lant Hutchins. They also decided to charge Alec Baldwin. Now, how they're charging him depends on like which story you believe. He is a producer on the production, so some responsibilities would fall to him. The overall
00:14:54
Speaker
safety, security, ah all the deadlines, and the the financial welfare of the production would fall to the producers. Right, but they sorted that in pre-trial. Right. David Hall, the first assistant director, he agrees that he's going to come in and plead guilty to a charge of the negligent use of a deadly weapon. And this happens right as these charges are coming down. Now, February 23rd, Alec Baldwin comes in. This is all in 2023. He pleads not guilty. It was reported that prosecutors had indicated that there were charges against them, that the charges against them were being dropped.
00:15:41
Speaker
ah Hannah Guttieras Reed ends up also getting charged with tampering with evidence. Fast forward a year later, March 6, 2024, Hannah Guttieras Reed gets found guilty of involuntary manslaughter. She is remanded into police custody, and on April 15th, she is sentenced to spend 18 months in prison. While her trial is has gone on and finished up in April, during the events of the pretrial, Alec Baldwin is again indicted on charges of involuntary manslaughter. He pleads not guilty. His trial begins July 9th of 2024, which sort of brings us to now and to today.
00:16:31
Speaker
The trial opens up and it looks like it's gonna be like a totally boring defense attorney versus a prosecutor trial. And I'm gonna pause there for a second and I'm gonna talk a little bit about like some of the ins and outs that have gone down here.
00:16:50
Speaker
the The whole thing here is this is a tiny movie. And when I say tiny, the the movie is basically gonna ah be completely put together for between five and six million dollars. ah Joel Susan is the writer-director who came up with the story with Alec Baldwin. It is a Western film. So the guns, the props, the locations are period locations. This movie was going to shoot for 21 days. It was basically going to start in this place that's like south of Santa Fe, New Mexico.
00:17:31
Speaker
And it was going to wrap up in three weeks. Hannah Gutierrez Reed, she is a stepdaughter of a long time industry professional named Fel Reed. Fel Reed is sort of an expert in weapons that aren't real. He is literally an armorer. So her responsibility on the set was going to be to oversee all the weapons that would be coming in and going from the set on specified days. um And so the production had made her the quote, properties key, meaning she was the person who answered to the head of properties or the props department. Now she was designated to work as an armorer through October the 17th.
Rust Film Set and Legal Proceedings
00:18:25
Speaker
This incident took place on October the 21st.
00:18:29
Speaker
So in the day of the incident, on paper, she had no more responsibilities. She was only there to work as a props assistant, meaning things that you see in the scenes on the walls that move or that actors may be carrying. Russ was the second movie that Hannah had worked on serving as their sort of lead armorer, which is a part-time job on movie sets because you don't have guns on set every day. She had been complained about on the previous ah film, which was this movie called The Old Way, and it starred Nicholas Cage. There was an incident in which she pulled the trigger on a weapon without the appropriate warnings or safety protocols. And this caused ah Nicholas Cage to walk offset. David Halls, he was working as an assistant director on Rust.
00:19:30
Speaker
In the aftermath of all of this, it comes out that like he had been on multiple shows and movie sets where complaints had been made about him ignoring safety protocols. Most of them were related to ah What would I call fire marshal incidents? That's when doors are blocked or when a hydrant can't be reached or a fire lane is blocked with somebody's car. He had been fired from working on a movie in 2019 called Freedom's Path, which was a civil war drama, historical drama.
00:20:11
Speaker
He was fired after a firearm discharged unexpectedly and wounded a crew member. He was blamed for that. Other crew members had made like pretty valid complaints about David Hall's. And this happens a lot on movie sets where complaints are filed. They're generally not about things that are quite as serious as firearms discharging um or the death of a cinematographer. But when this happens, depending on what level movie you're on, different agencies and different unions come in to investigate what's happening here. That's sort of catching us up on how all of this like like came to be and who the players are. We know that David Hall's, he took a sentence that was basically ah the lowest thing that he could possibly take in terms of
00:21:07
Speaker
I think it was a misdemeanor, negligent use of a deadly weapon. He got six months unsupervised probation. He got a $500 fine and he had to do 24 hours of community service.
00:21:21
Speaker
When Hannah Gutierrez Reed goes through her process, she waived her rights to preliminary hearings to determine whether or not criminal charges could stand, which I feel like this was a mistake, but it looks like in this jurisdiction, it's pretty commonplace that they do this. So her trial got scheduled and goes through the process, but this back and forth had really occurred with Alec Baldwin and it takes place the whole time that this is going on in 2023. By August 21st, 2023, a new Mexico judge had already scheduled that Hannah was going to go to trial and that trial was going to last February 21st through March the 6th of 2024. October 2023, this is six months after the felony charges were first dropped against Alec Baldwin, prosecutors set it all up and said that they were going to ask the grand jury
00:22:19
Speaker
whether he should again be criminally charged in the death of Helene Adjes. January 19th, 2024, which is a year to the day that the involuntary manslaughter charges were first announced, he gets indicted again and he is basically recharged with involuntary manslaughter. He pleads not guilty. He gets conditions of release. He's not allowed to own a firearm, consume any alcohol, leave the country, or come into contact with anyone who is a witness in the case. And a judge in February of 2024 sets his trial to run July 9th through July 19th. March 6th comes along. The jury only took about two hours to find Hannah Gutierrez Reed guilty on the charge of involuntary manslaughter. They acquit her of tampering with evidence. Almost immediately after the verdict was read, they put her in cu you put her in jail. They held her in custody until her sentencing hearing
00:23:19
Speaker
March 29th, her lawyers file a motion for a new trial. It's denied by the judge, and she's sentenced in April. Now, May 24th, a judge ah there in Santa Fe named Mary Marlowe Sommer, she denies a motion that's filed by Alec Baldwin's defense team to dismiss the charges and to boot the trial off the schedule. And when she denies this motion, that clears the way for the trial to move forward. On the first day of trial, July 9th, 2024, they select 12 jurors and four alternative jurors. On July 10th, they have their opening statements. The prosecution basically said that the gun, which was assigned to Baldwin when the shooting took place, had been found to be a imperfect working order and a ah perfectly fine firearm, and that it was on Baldwin as an actor and producer
00:24:13
Speaker
to do a gun safety check because he knew that Hannah Gutierrez Reed was inexperienced. And they said that he pulled the trigger in reckless disregard for Ms. Hutchins' safety. So those are the main issues here. Like, did he pull the trigger? Or did it like discharge by accident? And is he responsible for that? Right, and so we're talking about a situation where a movie set is happening, right? So these people are all going to work that day, right? And they end up in criminal court over it, and someone dies.
00:24:52
Speaker
And so it's it is already on this sort of verge of the bizarro, right? Yes. Because um I do think that with Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, I feel like she she seems pretty young. And maybe you said she was inexperienced, and um i feel like I don't feel like there was any sort of intent behind her actions. It was just reckless, right? Yeah, this is not a big studio production. And I'll just say that like ah one of the things that happens on these smaller movies under $10 million dollars is people get jobs because they were standing there.
00:25:35
Speaker
Right. And so, like, yeah, you be the armor, right? Right. Like, you're, you're Fel Reeds, kid. You can be an armorer. So then after that, like, people think that you're an armorer and you get the next job on the next movie. But a lot of times people have no idea what they're doing on movie sets. Right. and And getting your foot in the door, like sometimes that's the way it happens. And that's kind of how I saw this. And, you know, I can definitely see where having, you know, whatever reason she got the job, it's, you know, tragic, but it's also kind of there is no way for a live round to end up on in a gun used as a prop in a movie without just
00:26:20
Speaker
a really big duh moment happening. Right? Yeah. Because it it doesn't make any sense. And it it di it to me, it said a lot that you know we're talking about Alec Baldwin is the actor handling the gun versus Hannah Gutierrez Reed, who is this inexperienced armor onset who ultimately hands the gun over to ah the safety person who calls it a cold gun and hands it to the actor, right? So you've got an experienced actor who's used to working with experienced people, right? Yes. Who are not going to hand him a cold gun that is not cold, right? Right. And so there's this big disconnect, right? And I think that that's kind of where it starts to fall apart. I don't, I think obviously, I don't, I mean, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed would go back in time in an instant and make sure
00:27:20
Speaker
that you know the guns were empty right oh absolutely like if they had any inkling this could happen like on this set at this time they would have fixed it everybody involved would have fixed it absolutely because they like i said they all went to work that day to shoot a movie and you know there's a lot that goes into the movies we end up seeing at the end of the day, that isn't glamorous and it isn't fun and it's hard work for people, right? Yeah. And this is like, this is a really good example if you want to like go down a rabbit hole in terms of like seeing different sides of like, ah this is a large independent film. I'm not going to like call it a small movie.
00:28:02
Speaker
It is small financially, but it's a big, like there's a lot of players involved. In fact, it's spawned so many civil lawsuits. So starting in November of 2021, the Gaffer, Gaffer's are electric workers on the set moving cables and plugs and lights, whose name is Serge Svetnoy. He files a lawsuit against the production for Negligence. And then by the next day, Mamie Mitchell, who is the script supervisor, she calls for a lawsuit saying she couldn't do her job. And she wants to point out to everybody that the script did not call for a firearm to ever be discharged on the screen. By January of 2022, Hannah Gutierrez Reed had filed a lawsuit against the armor, Seth Kinney, who runs PDQ and Prop for bringing
00:28:57
Speaker
these live rounds on set and this is related to the box of ammunition that the round would have come from. It allegedly arrived the day of the shooting by January 23rd You've got Alec Baldwin in court basically asking California judges to dismiss the lawsuit with Mamie Mitchell. And then that case gets paused. They outright reject the request to dismiss some of the other suits, but you have all of these different ah lawsuits happening. So it develops tons of paperwork that you can go and read where people are giving their sides of things. There are medics filing lawsuits.
00:29:41
Speaker
you've got the family of um Helena Hudson's filing lawsuits, and they're naming like all these different people i that we haven't heard about before. I saw that the prop master gets named in there. um They settle parts of these lawsuits. But ultimately, what they're really waiting for is this last ah court action where Alec Baldwin will go on trial, and it should put things to bed. So they've seated the jurors. They've had their opening arguments. They go through a day of witnesses. Did you watch some of this?
00:30:13
Speaker
the trial itself. It's kind of boring. It was very boring. Well, they get all the way through the day on July the 11th. And at the end of the day, a motion gets filed and sort of in between the time court adjourns before we come back the next morning. Out Baldwin's lawyers, they file a motion to dismiss the case because they say that they have discovered that the prosecution has had some evidence about the source of the bullets that are loaded into the gun.
00:30:49
Speaker
so So... And why did it get unboring really fast? ah Yeah, like the the motion does no justice to the insanity. But they basically say that a witness has walked into a local sheriff's office, the Santa Fe Sheriff's Office, and they have handed bullets over related to the rust case and that these bullets were filed under a different new case number by a crime scene technician.
00:31:23
Speaker
and that the defense were not informed that they were in the possession of the Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office. So the judge looks at this and she says, we got to have a hearing on this.
Evidence Mishandling in Alec Baldwin's Trial
00:31:33
Speaker
She sends the jurors out um and says, we're going to hear this motion to dismiss because this is serious. And what unfolds is absolute batshit insanity. First up, they bring a corporal in who is listed as the lead agent on this case. For those of you who don't know what a corporal is, it is very, very low rank on the totem pole. And I pulled up in the course of this trial, I was curious about her and how this has gone down. She gets on the stand and becomes the lead agent here because she's called about this and does nothing.
00:32:13
Speaker
I looked up the chain of command at the Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office. There are at least three dozen people in this office above her in rank, and none of them seemed any we're close to taking any responsibility for these bullets that had come in. Doesn't it tell you something about the case overall when you put it that way? um This is a situation where you're it's a crime that occurred on the outskirts of acting.
00:32:50
Speaker
Right. Right. Okay. So you've got somebody surprising that is the lead on the case. But like you said, there's like 36 people that are outrank her and, um, that should tell you the, and I'm not trying to demean the death that occurred. It occurred. Nor are we disparaging the corporal herself. No, not at all. it's just well And i feel like I feel like the actions and outcomes speak for themselves here, um as far as what we're saying with regard to ah ah this case wasn't of a lot of import. I don't know how to say it. um it It didn't take like priority.
00:33:41
Speaker
No, this case was so far down the totem pole that like the sheriff's office and the is not delivering on what the prosecutor is saying in terms of the seriousness of all of this. In fact, I was shocked at this. If you don't watch true crime trials, but you want to see something insane, watch the Alec Baldwin trial, wherever you want to pull it up. Court TV has a YouTube channel. Law and crime has a YouTube channel. They covered things kind of gavel to gavel. Go on there. and watch the July 9th, July 10th, July 11th trial that leads up to the July 12th motion hearing that we're about to tell you more about. It is the best thing that you could watch in the shortest amount of time if you just want to know what should never happen in criminal trials ever. They put this corporal on. Her story doesn't really hold water for the judge and she doesn't understand what the corporal is trying to say because the corporal has been thrown under the bus by the prosecutor.
00:34:39
Speaker
And the sheriff didn't understand this like the magnitude of the defense's motion. So they bring this lieutenant in, who looks like he's, I don't know, maybe 13, 14. He's a baby-faced lieutenant. He is in the chain of command, but he's also a witness. And they have a lapel camera on this lieutenant that they give you on this July 12th hearing day. And this lapel camera shows these bullets coming into the Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office and a crime scene evidence that comes and receives these bullets into evidence. And they call several people and try and figure out what to do with these bullets. And this very polite former law enforcement officer sits down and explains
00:35:27
Speaker
how he came to be in possession of these bullets, how they're related to the rust case overall, and that he has to take these bullets somewhere, and that he's not sure if he's supposed to give them to the defense attorneys or the prosecutor's attorneys. This is happening during the Hannah Gutierrez Reed trial, so he has attempted to reach the defense attorneys related to this. and They're not sure what to do with it or if they can use it. He thinks they don't want them. so He wants to deliver these bullets into evidence for the sheriff. and this Keep in mind, this guy is a former law enforcement officer who has collected these bullets in order to make sure all the evidence in this case is available. The bullets have actually come from Arizona.
00:36:15
Speaker
And he is a million percent credible. He's not only credible, he's also a judge. Right. And I actually had to listen again because I thought that's what he said. I hit rewind as well. I was like, wait, this is during the dash, of the lapel ah video, the body cam. I was like, did he just say he's a judge? Right. And the crime scene tech that's taking the evidence is the one that testifies in this trial. um She's very familiar with the case. I didn't watch the Hannah Gutierrez Reed trial, so I don't know if she was involved in that as well, but I'm going to go with probably.
00:36:54
Speaker
but it it And at that point, like what what kind of got my attention, because this trial is very dry up until this um motion to dismiss hearing. right and I'm watching it kind of plugging along. But the tone of the judge's voice changes. Yeah. As soon as this lapel camera video actually happens, she says to like, well, it sort of changed during the corporal's testimony, right? Um, because she got like firm about it. She wasn't mean, but the judge, when you hear a judge start asking questions, right? yeah Um, and it was the nature of the motion to just dismiss because clearly you've got Alec Baldwin's defense attorney asking questions. The prosecution is involved in
00:37:48
Speaker
the circumstances leading up to this motion to dismiss. And so really the only thing to happen would be for the judge to question it, right? Because the prosecutor is involved. And so my ears perk up when the corporal is on the stand. um She's clearly, she's an inadequate witness to dispel the motion to just dismiss, right? yeah um if She's not, ah she's not, giving any sort of indication that this motion is frivolous or should be ignored or should not be granted even. And so they move on because in order to introduce the lapel cam, they've got to call the person who authenticates it and says, yes, this is me, this is it. And she says to the the officer with the lapel cam, why do you walk out of the room at that point? And and that's when I was really like, oh my goodness,
00:38:46
Speaker
What is about to happen? Because the lapel cam ends abruptly? Yes, and the explanation was that he was calling to find out what to do here. Right. Exactly. But that's where I sort of like perked up and stopped like just sort of mundanely absorbing the trial. Right. Yeah. And to preface all of this, the prosecutor has basically promised the judge that between these two witnesses, she's going to find everything that the judge is going to find everything she needs.
00:39:17
Speaker
To just dismiss this and move on with the trial and this is all about judicial efficiency that that she's only using these two people So you're right the judge during the first testimony here she's Starting to question like why are we going to drag this out? But by the time the second witness is involved the lieutenant the judge is like incredulous not at the witness at the prosecutor And they're being short and sharp, as you described, with the witness on the stand because it it's not making sense anymore. So the prosecutor, perceive the defense comes and they cross and then the judge says, you know, what else do we have here? The prosecutor is trying to tell a story about how these bullets weren't the same bullets and they didn't look similar to any of this. And the judge wants to know where is this information going to come from in terms of witnesses?
00:40:14
Speaker
They take a ah recess here, a bathroom break. It's a quick recess. And when they come back, the prosecutor decides that the only remedy here is she's going to put herself under oath and she's going to be the one to tell all of this. Now, I'm not sure about you, but there was a bright red neon flashing sign over this situation for me. Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer is so polite about it. She asked, did you guys decide that that's that's how you want to get this in to the defense attorney and the prosecution? And Alec Baldwin's attorney looked at the judge like, we have no idea what's happening right now, but we're going to roll with this.
00:41:03
Speaker
And he says, no, we we we don't think it's necessary. And the judge says, yeah, I don't think it's necessary. And the prosecutor insists that it is necessary that she swear herself in and that she tell this side of the story so that the judge will understand that this is just an innocent mistake. She then clarifies that these bullets did arrive in the lapel camera that is cut short. and that they were classified under a different case number. She doesn't know why because she's not at the sheriff's office. And proceeds to swear herself in, ask herself questions, and narrate.
00:41:43
Speaker
everything she thinks the judge needs to hear to excuse what has now in that neon red flashing sign that Meg saw, it changed from, you've never seen a prosecutor do this before, to the words Brady violation. And she literally explains her Brady violation. on the stand under oath. That it's just a little Brady violation on the stand under oath in front of this judge. I don't know. So, okay, I have to believe as a logical thinking person that she had somehow justified her actions in her head and that she was going to fix this. I do not believe that she could have
00:42:38
Speaker
thought anything except that and got on the stand. Well, yeah okay, so here's my thinking on the prosecutor side of things. By the way, while this is happening, the co-counsel for the prosecutor, the first chair or second chair, she resigns while this is going up. She literally quits the prosecutor's office as this hearing takes place. I don't blame her. So here's what I think was, I think this is what the prosecutor is trying to say. And you should watch this for yourself because you will not see many incidents like this in criminal trials in America ever. um Most prosecutors are smart enough to avoid this. It is a bad idea.
00:43:24
Speaker
No, it it is the worst idea you do not do this period ever when you've put yourself in this position You just defer to the judge's discretion on the ruling and you don't you just be quiet. Yeah, so This is a situation where Personally if I were this prosecutor this was happening all around me my reaction is not gonna be to swear myself out of talk in front of the judge who's trying this case. I would join the defense's motion and dismiss with the hopes of getting a third bite of the apple, meaning re-indicting Alec Baldwin if I really thought that was a thing.
00:44:06
Speaker
You and I have gone back and forth on that. Like, I felt like as a producer, he had some responsibility. You sort of felt like this was a non-case. I agreed with it not being a case in terms of manslaughter or murder, because that was bandied about early. um I feel like if this had been a no-name actor, he would never have been charged. I kind of think that's what would happen too. And this prosecutor's testimony sort of takes us down that path. So here's what I think her thinking is. Her thinking is an innocent mistake has occurred. And this is on paper what I think happened. They were too dumb to realize in the sheriff's office that this all needs the same case number and it needs a continuing number and this evidence needs to be linked to Mr. Baldwin's prosecution.
00:44:53
Speaker
So they put a supplemental report number on it, and they tell no one. I think it made um ah a multi-part error. I think they know that they have it. They discover it at the last minute. The problem is Hannah Gutierrez reads trials already happened, and the big trials come in. It's Alec Baldwin's trial. So someone, probably the prosecutor that's sitting on the stand under oath, given that that all tracks for me, has made the decision that they are not going to tell the defense this has happened. it's It's an innocent mistake. And we're just going to let it slide. And if they find out, I'll have a story to tell them. Well, in the moment where she had her story to tell, she certainly tells a story on the stand. But nothing about that this is like an innocent mistake, like right?
00:45:46
Speaker
Well, up until that moment, no. I mean, it it was it was kind of an innocent mistake to not give it to Hannah Gutierrez's attorneys. It was out and out corruption to not give it to Alec Baldwin's attorneys, because the consequences of that would have been Hannah Gutierrez gets a new trial. And she's actually filed for one, by the way. She should get one. She should be released. The charges should be dismissed and with prejudice.
Judicial Decisions and Evidence Integrity
00:46:22
Speaker
And the case should be expunged because of what happened when the prosecutors understand. The prosecutor decides that rather than saying, hey, we made a mistake.
00:46:30
Speaker
and we're going to fix that. She goes through this 30-minute long complicated narrative of how they compared those bullets to the bullets from Rust, and they didn't match, and it didn't matter. Which makes it worse. Yeah. She essentially tells her whole story, and she, quote, rests her own testimony that she's been narrating, and then the defense attorneys and the judge get a hold The defense attorneys simply say who did the comparison, how, and they go through the motions of what you would do with any witness that you're cross-examining. The prosecutor thinks that like she's going to get away with it being the prosecutor. She doesn't. In fact, the defense attorney's questions are so simple.
00:47:18
Speaker
He ends up asking, don't you think those bullets and those bullets look just alike? And she has to acknowledge on the on the stand under oath that the evidence she said was irrelevant is strikingly similar to the evidence she was using.
00:47:37
Speaker
you would think she would stop, but instead she doubles down. And the defense attorney, because he is not local public defender, which I know people jump on them, but I'm saying this is a guy who is incredibly sharp and at the top of his game. He gets her to admit not only to having an issue with Alec Baldwin's case, but to having an issue with the evidence in Hannah Gutierrez Reed's case. And the judge hears her out, lets the story continue, and the defense attorney lets her talk. They try to help her out of the situation at first, but by the time she has admitted that she had something, which were moving beyond Brady violation at that point, okay, you're under oath. You cannot lie about these things in front of this judge because you're going to have to see them next week on a different thing.
00:48:38
Speaker
And it's perjury, but we'll throw that out there. So she just keeps on telling the truth. And she works herself to the point that I think she shocks the judge because the judge, like it doesn't take her very long to put things together. She has a few questions that she asked, but she comes back very short order. She comes back and she says that the authorities had unilaterally withheld the supplemental information related to these bullets that the Santa Fe County Sheriff's officer had made this decision and apparently was in working in cahoots with the prosecutor that the evidence was of no value. They disconnected the evidence from the case.
00:49:25
Speaker
and they made it impossible to determine if the evidence had any evidentiary value to the defense. She further opined that the authorities willful withholding of this information was intentional and it was collaborative and deliberate. And that, she said, if this conduct does not rise to the level of bad faith, it comes so near to bad faith as to show signs of scorching prejudice.
00:49:56
Speaker
You have to watch this. If this is the only thing you do this year, guys, I'm telling you, this is one of the wildest, and I'll put it in the show notes so people can see it. This is one of the wildest, it's like eight hours long. That's the other thing. it This whole thing takes eight hours on this one day. Really, but I feel like just even if if you don't want to spend that long watching it, just watch the prosecutor's testimony. Yeah, you can so if you get the law and crime link that I'm going to put in here and that's someone you want to go with, it's like eight hours and 49 minutes long. if you just If you just go to the marker, it's six hours and 58 minutes. The next thing that will happen will be the prosecutor talking as he wraps up that witness and the judge.
00:50:41
Speaker
A little break's going to come along and fast forward with the, I don't know what off time I had the time code part. But once they come back, the judge is going to try and talk the prosecutor out of testifying. And she's going to be very polite about it. But from that point, watch the rest of it. It's fascinating. And it's very telling to me that, um because you you know, if you think about the broader implications of like not just this case, but any circumstance where you have ah sort of, you know, this
00:51:15
Speaker
Well, he has ex law enforcement and and I don't know if he was an ex judge or a current judge or what, but you've got a person bringing evidence in that he says very specifically it has to do with the rest case, right? yeah um You hear it on the lapel camera, so he's and he has taken time to drive from Arizona to New Mexico to come to the sheriff's office to turn it in. He's talking to these people. um There's no notes on the interview, I don't think. The only thing they have really is a lapel camera, which somebody decided to turn on, right which gives you the first hint that they were realizing that it could be a value. right yeah They don't just walk around with those things on all the time.
00:52:01
Speaker
Correct. They have a problem with the audio versus the video. and like There's some some implication that like they should have been a little bit more lapel camera footage than there was on the front and the back end. Oh, right. And so you know that just makes it even sketchier, really. But the fact that it existed, it eight it kind of goes against what they're being they're saying in court later. But if you think about it in like a broader scheme, you know you can't have law enforcement taking perfectly relevant information, evidence,
00:52:42
Speaker
whatever it is coming in and unilaterally deciding that it doesn't pertain to the case at hand, right? correct correct um When you have that happen, think about all the excavating evidence that would just disappear, right? Which is the whole point of what like why there's why Brady violations are a thing and why there's a very specific path to be taken that ends in charges being dismissed with prejudice, which means they can never be filed again, right? yeah And it's because it's so bad. And sometimes
00:53:21
Speaker
When you look at situations and like this was a very clear Brady violation situation, there was no question. ah I was surprised that like you said, the prosecution didn't like immediately recognize it having not recognized it when they were doing it. Once it's presented sort of in court in a different light to a judge, like why wasn't it clicking then, right? yeah And because to me, there's absolutely no justification actually given. this is a This is somebody that has tunnel vision. And I'm talking about the prosecutor. The prosecutor has tunnel vision because the very last thing she should have ever done was got up there and explained it because oh absolutely she literally gave
00:54:15
Speaker
them like the narrative of the Brady violation, right? This is how we hid the evidence, right? yeah Essentially that's what happened. And and i I really feel like in this type of situation, just like when we were talking earlier about the judge, sit and when I said like, you know, you should, it would be great if the judge had recognized the conflict and said, yeah, I should probably recuse myself, right? because That's a clear conflict of interest. And here, it would have been nice to have the prosecutor say, you know what? Even as I'm talking right now, I realize how wrong I am, right? yeah And that's just not what happens in these types of situations. Now, she she didn't have to put herself on the stand. I feel like that's an extra little something that I feel like it would be a really great idea for that prosecutor, who I think is a special prosecutor, right?
00:55:14
Speaker
because yeah they went through several prosecutors for various reasons. And they they demonstrate and hurt but because they have her on the stand, because she put herself on the stand. she They demonstrate that this was a targeted prosecution sort of, right? yeah And Alec Baldwin was targeted, and that has been alleged in some of the other prosecutors that had ah were initially on the case, but not in trial with the case. But, you know, there's no question. Like, there are certain things that you could, that could be extra judiciary, extra judicial. Correct.
00:55:57
Speaker
in prosecuting a a movie star, a TV star, whatever you would call him, ah an actor, right a famous actor. and They you know they kind of hone in on that just kind of momentarily. There can be some motives here that aren't necessarily genuine. and ice All the time, I think to myself, you get these prosecutors that are that have tunnel vision one way or the other, and they end up on these cases that make absolutely no sense. and this is one of those you I never thought it made sense to charge um Alec Baldwin.
00:56:35
Speaker
i felt late it didn't pertain to the particular statute that they were following. i ah Whenever it happened, it was a very sad ah you know news break or whatever. and I read and then I read sort of the follow-up on it. and I didn't feel like what had happened warranted criminal charges in any way. and It just kept being ah reinforced that it didn't they weren't looking at it in an unbiased way because remember when they tried to do the firearms enhancement but that didn't apply to this case yu yeah and so there was a ah lot of stuff happening right and it it would have been very
00:57:21
Speaker
I don't know you know. There's been a lot of crazy stuff happening in court cases here recently. And sometimes I wonder like, well, what am I doing? Because honestly, I was i didn't expect this to come out of the Baldwin trial at all. Um, I, it was very boring and it, but I wanted to see what happened, right? And I wanted to see it from like the, I don't want to read like, you know, a paragraph about it. I wanted to know what was actually going on. And it ended up being like, I think that prosecutor probably made history by putting herself on the stand and testifying a detailed account of her Brady violation in defense of it, which
00:58:03
Speaker
There was no defense to be had. um she If I were her, I would seriously reconsider my perspective on things before I prosecuted another case, because I don't see how, while she's sitting on the stand, she feels like she's helping herself. yeah Literally everything she's saying is just saying, yes, I did this. And everybody else in the room realized that, right? They did. And at that point, i I don't really know what to do, but it was one of the most bizarre things I've ever seen happen because she just kept talking. And I'm like, she she must believe this. And knowing that there's a prosecutor that believes things like this,
00:58:54
Speaker
It's horrifying. I mean, I get they have to be zealous for the victims in these cases. I totally do believe that. I believe they have to be like zealous in in prosecuting people. But sometimes you just miss the boat. And in this instance, they miss the boat so hard. like I didn't even understand. like I don't think she and I would be in the same ocean. Well, and that was part of it, because like you kind of expect to hear something that, especially under these particular circumstances, right? There's a break, she gets on stand anyway after everybody's told her not. Even the defense attorney was like, I'm not asking. I don't need her, yeah. And it's ah they both waived their closing argument, right? Because the defense attorney says,
00:59:46
Speaker
ah Yeah, I don't really think that I need to close. I think this is pretty obvious. And then the prosecutor is like, yeah, I don't need a closing argument. And at that point, she starts to seem like maybe it's registering that she's a little
Impact on Justice System and Reflections
00:59:59
Speaker
defeated. I don't know for certain, but I know that it was very alarming to me expecting some, some, and substance indicating, judge, this is not a Brady vo violation and here's why, right? Expecting that to come out of her mouth when she literally was just saying, I absolutely committed a Brady violation. I told, I was in on it with the law enforcement that were involved. We have all this evidence that we did it. I mean, she wasn't saying those words, but the word she was saying was saying that, right?
01:00:35
Speaker
And I'm going, yeah, that just tanked really fast. And so hopefully she gets her head on straight. And I i guess there was something ah that they thought was worthwhile in pursuing charges against Alec Baldwin. and It is now completely over. Yeah, there's nothing they can do. This was dismissed with prejudice. They made a mess out of this. ah the The idea that like anything here anything good could come from this was... I don't know what they were thinking. But I can tell you that they did put out a statement afterwards that they were not going to be talking about this in in the news.
01:01:26
Speaker
Well, they really shouldn't. They should never talk about this again. um This is a very, very bad, bad prosecution. I mean, this is just it was really terrible. um Every single defendant and defense team should have the opportunity to examine all the evidence available for the case and do whatever they feel is relevant to the defense of the case, right? um a It flies in the face of our justice system and our criminal trial process to have any law enforcement unilaterally ah segmenting off evidence and saying,
01:02:10
Speaker
you know this doesn't this doesn't pertain to the case when very clearly it does, right? yeah um it it It's a really bad, um it's a really bad example that's just sort of marched right out there for everyone to see.
Helena Hutchins' Legacy and Family's Perspective
01:02:30
Speaker
Yeah, it is. And unfortunately, like you know while it is a highly entertaining piece of, and this is honestly judicial history and people don't won't realize that for a while. um It does come on the heels of a major tragedy here because we lost Elena Hutchins in this um horrible incident on a movie set. Far too young. I think she was 41 or 42 years old when she passed away. um And this this is a woman who grew up on
01:02:59
Speaker
ah Soviet military base whose father had served in the Soviet Navy. um She was a Ukrainian cinematographer because that's where she landed and and was educated. and you know That's a different time when you go back and look at the 70s and early 80s for someone from the Ukraine. It's a huge tragedy that she has passed away and she left behind a husband and a ah child. And, you know, she's gone. it's It's one of those things where, yes, you're seeing some amazing piece of judicial history, but we've also had this terrible, terrible tragedy that didn't have to take place either. Right. And to some extent, I don't know exactly how the family feels about it. um I know Gloria Allred is representing them in some capacity. I don't think that her parents speak English.
01:03:55
Speaker
Um, and she was, but she talked some outside of the courtroom and, uh, like, you know, where the court TV and everybody congregates, um, before, uh, the actual. The press poll session. Yeah. Before the session starts, she made some comments and I think that, um, it can be construed to like Because Alec Baldwin was charged um in but like taking all of the like innocent until proven guilty and all of the rights that we have as U.S. citizens under the Constitution, I think that there's some implied culpability right when charges are made in cases like this.
01:04:48
Speaker
right yeah yeah And I feel like it can skew the narrative because it is entirely possible that somebody said, oh, well, they wouldn't have charged him if he hadn't have done something wrong, right? yeah And that's just not the case. um He really didn't do anything wrong. He shouldn't have been charged. Usually, these garbage type situations, they take care of themselves because they end up with these ridiculous things happening, right? yeah Which is is this case all around. I hated that Alec Baldwin went... through it. But I do agree with Hannah Gutierrez-Reed being held accountable for her role in this situation. um I also believe that if the if it's found that a Brady violation was committed in her case, which obviously it was, right, that she should also ah have her charges dismissed without prejudice.
01:05:46
Speaker
I don't know that the family likes Helena Hutchins' parents. I don't know that they're going to appreciate that because of it being sort of a technicality, right? Yeah. But you know if we were to know that um the ammunition that fired had all the markings of ammunition that wouldn't fire, then whose fault is it? Right. Yeah. That's an impossible situation to like go through and figure that all out because everything was handled so much in the days right afterwards by an agency that you ultimately can't trust in this matter.
01:06:27
Speaker
Right, exactly. And so I feel like the attempt to obtain justice for the victim in the case where it is just an accident or at the worst negligence, because I don't think there's an argument that there was no intent behind any of this. um I feel like if that's pretty obvious, right? Yeah. but But in
Closing Remarks and Sponsor Messages
01:06:50
Speaker
the event that you start charging people and you have somebody plea and then like you have this dismissal and you there is no recourse because it was such a bad mess up that that they can't bring the charges again, I feel like that can be um just as bad as not getting justice at all. 100% agree. I 100% agree with that idea. Well,
01:07:19
Speaker
and don't have much more on this one do you no i and i feel like it's it's actually really done um i did look to see if carrie morthy was still employed and I didn't see any change in that. ah She did say that she respected the court's decision after in like, I think again in the press poll, it was her statement, but um it probably won't come back up again. Hopefully um Alec Baldwin will get to not be stressed out about criminal charges for a while. Yeah.
01:07:55
Speaker
i hope I hope that some i so i hope somehow the Hodgins family has made a hole from all this. I don't think that you really can be, but um oh I hope that, you know, consideration is given to them and the the rest of their life they're able to remember her and to to move on in their own way. Thank you so much for listening today. We'll see you next time.
01:08:48
Speaker
All right, so I'm gonna tell you guys a a few things about some of the folks who are helping sponsor our show. Now, Labradi Creations sponsors our show, and you can always use the the crime excess code there. um You can also just message them at Labradi Creations, and they will generally do something for the people who come from true crime excess. They were our very first sponsor, they've done a lot for the show, and that code is crime excess at labradicreations.com.
01:09:21
Speaker
The first new advertisers that we have, and i've I've selected all of these guys, I've selected all of these advertisers. So the very first one is Cure. Now, I'm gonna tell you guys about this about Cure as being one of our sponsors.
01:09:38
Speaker
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01:10:33
Speaker
Cure hydration is an oral rehydration solution that contains the perfect balance of electrolytes and glucose to help your body absorb water and rehydrate quickly. Whether I'm building things or or' putting the podcast together or chasing these dogs that you sometimes hear in my studio up and down the trails to get them worn out. Cure hydration is the way that I choose to go. Cure hydration is an oral rehydration solution or an ORS that contains the perfect balance of electrolytes and glucose to help your body absorb water and to rehydrate quickly.
01:11:08
Speaker
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01:12:03
Speaker
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01:12:53
Speaker
Now, I've fallen off recently, but one of the big things that I've done since the beginning of our relationship is she used to go and get a Starbucks every morning. I have substituted that out by always trying to make her coffee. It's not gonna be every single day of time from when I met her, but for the most part, almost every day, I make her coffee. I put her creamers together and I make sure that she has a good way to start her day. So with Laird, he started experimenting with his morning ritual almost two decades ago. He found that when he started adding fats to his morning cup, like coconut oil, he had amazing energy throughout the rest of his day. He gradually perfected this recipe for an epic cup of fuel. And he began sharing it with his friends in the surf community. I'm an ocean guy, so I saw this item and I was like, okay, we're gonna try this one out.
01:13:50
Speaker
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01:14:27
Speaker
And the last sponsor I want to tell you about is Zencaster. We're part of Zencaster's creative network. We've been using Zencaster since about midway into our first season. Meg and I experimented with a lot of different ways to put the podcast together. And the truth is Zencaster, an integral ingredient to us being able to bring you this show. It's so easy. It's now super easy. You can record a podcast with Zincaster. You can log in using your browser and you start recording a high quality podcast right away. You can record studio quality sound and up to 4k video with your guests.
01:15:08
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Speaker
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01:16:26
Speaker
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01:16:43
Speaker
ah We are also adding New Era as a sponsor for the show. New Era Cap is a headwear and apparel brand founded in 1920 in Buffalo, New York. Now, I actually have some experience with New Era caps. My dad and I have been through multiple iterations of baseball caps through the years. We collect different styles, different eras, and then my teenager has started his own cap collection and has several new eras as the centerpieces. Our favorite teams may not be the same, but our outfits are all topped with the same new era ball caps. ah We love the quality and the ability to wear what the players are wearing, not to mention new era is the leading headwear manufacturer with quality licensed products. You can support your favorite college or pro team in style from
01:17:31
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The official headwear provider for the MLB, NFL, and NBA, you can get a stylus accessory for your everyday ensemble and support True Crime XS. Just shop the official headwear and get 15% off when you go to NewEraCap.com. That's N-E-W-E-R-A-C-A-P dot.com slash True Crime XS. You can also use the code TRUECRIMEXS at checkout. That's it. That's all you have to do. And that's 15% off your order using the promo code TRUECRIMEXS.