The Young Thug Contempt BS Was Even Worse Than We Knew

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:45 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Opening Arguments. This is episode 1046. I'm your host, Thomas Smith. And oh boy, I am so excited. So So this is obviously a bit of a different week. Have enjoyed and strove to get that regular OA schedule going. But occasionally you want to depart and you want to depart for sometimes it's bad reasons. Sometimes it's good reasons. I think it's good reasons this week because I've got an absolute treat for you. Here's the thing.

You might recall back when we covered the Young Thug trial and the contempt hearing, a couple of weeks ago at this point, maybe mentioned that, oh, we'll do more detail on this. We'll go over the game film more over on Gavel Gavel, because that podcast is where we're doing more like in-depth courtroom stuff. Division has made sense. And was our plan, but what happened subsequently was while we had that scheduled, we were able to grab Ashley Merchant to come on the show.

If that name sounds familiar, from the Fani Willis motion to disqualify stuff. She was the one who, I think, was perhaps surprised by Nathan Wade's ex -friend, lawyer, who it seemed like was going to testify against him, but then froze up, and she had the phone messages and all that mess, just an absolute mess. And I'll confess, since she was representing not Donald Trump, but she was presenting someone on that side of things, I think I had maybe a little bias in how I was viewing Ashley Merchant.

Then Ashley Merchant makes another appearance, a surprise appearance in the, I don't know, OA Gavel Gavel extended universe, because as Young Thug's attorney, whose name is Brian Steele, as Brian Steele is being put in jail for contempt, all that stuff, in pops Ashley Merchant to represent Brian Steele in sort of the quick, you know, insane proceedings.

An interesting happenstance that that same person is there and is now in a role in which my biases are like, well, she's kind of the hero of that situation, or a hero of that situation. And it's interesting to a non -lawyer how that works. You know, lawyers represent clients for all kinds of reasons, and clients accept representation. That's just an interesting thing about it. But Ashley was willing to talk to us on Gavel Gavel.

Cut to us recording, and we knew that Ashley didn't have a ton of time, she had a certain time slot that she could fit us in, and we also knew that you and I, being Matt and I, if we're going to go through trial game film, it's going to take a while, so we figured, like, we weren't going to try to get her for all of a Gavel because that, that's a lot to put anyone through, but we're going to grab her for what we could.

I got to tell you, folks, recording was so fascinating and so interesting and different and cool, unlike anything that I've done, that I cannot keep this on Gavel Gavel. I have to bring it to you. Oh, a folk. And I, furthermore, I edited it right away. I couldn't wait to get this out to you. It was two hours raw, and I got it down to just under two hours.

I'm so excited to bring you this, because how fascinating is it to cover, to have someone who was involved. And then what we did was we put on some of the trial audio, some ofthe contempt hearing audio that Ashley had not even heard yet, because she hadn't gone back and heard some of the stuff that happened before she came on, and to get her reaction to what was going going on and to get her explanations and insight and all that.

If you were like me, and you're just thinking, like, oh, that's one of those attorneys defending someone in the Trump camp, like, might have written Ashley Merchant off in that way, like, like I did, incorrectly, because Ashley Merchant is an extremely cool, extremely brilliant attorney who made absolute mincemeat of this judge, in my opinion. It is, it was so amazing getting to hear. So this was intended to be Gavel, and there was no urgency to it.

This was kind of already a bit of old news, but this recording was so interesting, and right when we recorded this, I'm like, we have to get this out, and I want to put it on OA. I don't want to just keep it over on Gavel Gavel, which is still unfortunately behind kind of paywall. I'm working on that, but there's a lot to work on. Anyway, I wanted to get it to you as an OA episode. So here's what I'm doing.

I still want to make sure the Gavel Gavel patrons get a little bit of a reward. So if you are on Gavel Gavel here on patreon.com/gavelpod, you will get the full two -parter in one, and you can listen to the entire thing. As we speak, you could stop this one and hop on over there if you wanted to.

If you're an OA listener and aren't able to be a patron of Gavel Gavel, well, you're in luck, because you're still going to get the entire thing that was going to be behind a paywall, but I'm going to release part one today and then part two in about 24 hours. Gavel Gavel patrons still get that 24 hour headstart.

But the point is, everyone will get to hear this, because here's the other thing: there's so much Supreme Court news that I can't like push off the Friday episode instead of this, because we have to talk about the immunity decision. It's just outrageous, I'm so upset about it, we got to talk about it. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to push off T3B a week.

We're just going to take a week off a T3BE, and we'll come back to that answer in the next question next week. So that gives us the space to put out this two -parter on the OA feed and still get that Rapid Response Friday. A little bit different, but I think it is well worth it, I hope you'll agree, that's the plan. I know there was a little bit of a lot going on. I'm just, this is part one.

Now, part one, full disclosure, doesn't reach the Ashley Merchant part, because, like I said, this is about two hours. Ashley had about 40 minutes she was able to record with us, a little bit more, but it edited down to 40 minutes, so the first half isn't going to have Ashley in it, and then the second half is mostly Ashley, fair warning. But seriously, the first half is great setup, and it makes everything that Ashley Merchant tells us give it more context, it's irreplaceable context.

So here it is, part one of the Gavel Gavel that is now in OA, "The Contempt Order, It's Even Worse Than You Thought." It really is, I say that lightly. There's more details that I didn't know, Matt didn't know, that make it even worse than we thought it was. Here's part one. Part two will be, for 24 hours after this, if you're a patron on patreon.com/gavelpod, you can get it all in one episode, so consider doing that. But if not, no worries, I'm so glad everybody gets to hear this. After this break, we'll get to part one.

0:07:02 Matt: I know you can't maybe hear it in my voice, but I am thrilled. I am absolutely thrilled to be talking to Ashley Merchant today.

0:07:07 Thomas: Yeah, I was going to say, very weird to speak to somebody who is like, like there, it's a very different experience and it's super cool. So so we've already covered this and it's a little helter skelter, um, I won't make you go too basic, but we should just in case this is like someone's like first listen of any of our coverage of, of this event. Can you, uh, set up some basics for us.

0:07:13 Matt: Yeah can't do better.

0:07:29 Matt: Sure. What we're talking about here is the RICO trial in Fulton County, Georgia, carried out by Fani Willis's office of YSL, which, depending on who you ask, is either the music label Young Stoner Life or the gang Young Slime Life. And the main defendant there is Young Thug, who is an internationally famous rapper out of Atlanta. And he's being represented by Brian Steele, a defense attorney that Ashley's going to tell us a little about. But Mr. Steele finds out that a key witness named Kenneth Copeland, who has just taken the fifth, and he was an important part of YSL and he's refusing to testify against even though he has immunity, just been taken in for a long ex parte hearing with the judge and the prosecution. So again, it starts out with the judge and the prosecution, and then they bring him in. But as we've discussed before, and I think as even people who aren't lawyers probably know, you can't just have a meeting with a judge and a DA and a witness. It's really bad.

0:08:19 Thomas: Yeah.

0:08:19 Matt: It just can't happen.

0:08:20 Thomas: Think I understand it now, but I think I've struggled to understand, especially in this day and age of Trump, where it's like, you can't do that. And then, but okay, but he did. And it doesn't matter. Like I'm, I'm starting to understand what level of you can do that this is. And this feels like a pretty severe level of, you can't do that, not like a, ah, it's a faux pas, you know, not, not quite like that. This feels every, attorney that I've talked to about this is like, no, that's insane.

0:08:30 Matt: Yeah, it is. Yeah. This is pissing do this kind of thing. What we're going to hear first is Brian Steele bringing to the court's attention This is Judge Glanville, the presiding judge. He's also the chief judge, I believe, of this courthouse, who's been presiding over this trial for the last 88 days as of the time of this hearing. This is the longest running criminal proceeding in Georgia history. And so let's hear what Steele has to say about what he's just learned.

0:09:04 Thomas: We already have covered this, but this is not like a new judge on day one, uh, this is not Judge Cannon, so

0:09:08 Matt: Not at all. Yeah, yeah,

0:09:10 Clip: Way I understand my constitutional obligations, Pursuant to the 6th and 14th Amendments to the United States Constitution, the corresponding sections of the Georgia Constitution, are required to make a full and complete statement to the court. Um, for the record, and if, God forbid, this goes up on appeal, for the appellate courts or another tribunal, no commission or administrative body. I was told, based on information and belief, that when we arrived at 8 30 9 o 'clock today, um, he did not come into your courtroom until almost 11, 11 30. And what I found out just recently, this is not waved, is that, um, supposedly in chambers, of some of the court, on the court reporter at times, recorded times, District Attorney or District Attorneys from the DA's office, as well as investigators, sheriff deputies, Mr. Copeland and his counsel, met together. Of the defense team, to my knowledge, was aware that this was going on. I, based upon information of belief, that it was told to the Attinees that Mr. Copeland intended to prove the Fifth Amendment.

I was told, based on information and belief, that Adrian Love, the lawyer for Mr. Copeland in this court, worked together, and Ms. Love made representations that John Melnick supposedly spoke with some attorneys for the accused and wrote an email to Ms., Ms. Love, to Adrian Love, um, stating that Ms. Nome does not represent the witness, and that Mr. Melnick wrote an email saying, "F you," and then somehow that email was cc'd

0:10:52 Clip: To

0:10:52 Matt: Let's stop for a second. The beginning part of this, obviously, is just Steele coming out and saying, I have an obligation. I have to raise this because I found out about this irregularity during trial. And he's starting with the fact... Now, I will say, we have the transcript now. It just dropped of the ex parte hearing. It's 56 pages. So we'll be able to draw from that a little bit while we're talking here. But the opening thing he's talking about is attorney Melnick, who is representing the witness Kenneth Copeland, who had just taken the fifth and refused to testify, even though he's under immunity.

0:11:19 Thomas: Again, if you get immunity, you can't plead the fifth and not testify because you're immune. So you can say, "Hey, I, this, this might incriminate me." And you're like, "Oh, not going to be incriminated." So you have to do it, which is really interesting.

0:11:29 Matt: You could just get elected president and be immune all the time, but we'll talk about that another time. Okay. So there is some concern about Mr. Melnick, who's not there at

0:11:32 Thomas: That's true. Yeah. That also works. Is this the guy who's on vacation?

0:11:40 Matt: Yeah, that's right. He's got somebody, Bumpus, the last name is Bumpus. It's a woman who's filling in for that day, basically. In the hearing, Kenneth Copeland is going to fire her on the stand very dramatically.

0:11:41 Thomas: Okay.

0:11:50 Thomas: Wow. Spoilers.

0:11:52 Matt: And so there's a back and forth about the fact that they think that the defense attorneys are conspiring essentially, and that they're trying to keep Mr. Copeland from testifying. That's kind of what they're getting at here.

0:12:02 Thomas: I'll go ahead and ask the dumb question. Are they not allowed to do that?

0:12:06 Matt: Allowed to communicate with the witness in advance of trial. That's why the witnesses are made available, but they're certainly not allowed to tell him not to testify or to take the fifth. That would be bad.

0:12:08 Thomas: Ah. Okay. But the conspiring part is what that's What I'm not getting, like,

0:12:16 Matt: So saying that he's divided loyalties at this point because it seems like he's more interested in Young Thug's defense than his client's defense. I think that's what they're trying to implicate.

0:12:23 Thomas: The Lawyer for this witness, can't, what would it mean to quote-unquote conspire? It would mean it would be not lawyers giving what should just be legal advice for his client, for like, and just for his clients, but maybe the allegation is, well, maybe this lawyer is doing that, uh, a, in way that's not just for the client, it's for Young Thug as well, kind

0:12:47 Matt: So it might help if I read. I've got the ex parte transcript here, so I may be able to help. So yeah, It's very conveniently timed. We didn't even know that we're going to get it when we scheduled this. Ms. Love is the prosecutor, and she's bringing the court's attention about this email that she mentioned that we just heard her talking about. I don't know if he intentionally copied Mr. Steele and Mr. Scharf, who are the other defense attorneys, obviously Brian Steele representing Young Thug. I don't know if she unintentionally put my name on it. It seems like maybe she wasn't supposed to receive this as the DA talking. But he sent an email to Mr. Steele and Mr.'s Shart with me and Simone copied where he said, this is the communication that I received from Isla regarding Mr. Copeland. And so passed along essentially something that she had sent to him about the witness. It gets a little complicated, but she

0:12:51 Thomas: That's nice. Now Oh.

0:13:26 Matt: Responds and says, whose interests are you protecting, yours or Mr. Steele's? Which client are you protecting? Whose client, yours or Mr. Steele's or Mr. Scharf's? He wrote back and said, you are going to get him killed. You have made him, you're making him a target. Fuck you, is what he wrote in the email. Yeah, pretty dramatic. At this point, we talked about in the Young Thug episode, it seems like this is just scorpions in a bottle. Everybody really just does not like each other on both sides here more than usual.

0:13:53 Thomas: Wow, so And the "you're gonna get him killed," can said that, and who, who are they saying that to? But was forcing him to testify, the prosecution? Okay.

0:13:58 Matt: Writes back and says killed because you're forcing him to testify, essentially.

0:14:05 Matt: This is the interest that he is protecting, Mr. Copeland's freedom, he did not convey it and by asking us what exposure does he face in testifying. In fact, if he's concerned that testifying will get Mr. Copeland killed and he is not communicating with us, he's communicating with counsel for defendants, it would seem to think he knows a thing or something that we don't know. So again, they're saying that there's improper communication between this witness's attorney and defense counsel, and she wants the judge to look into it. So you can understand upfront, at least, why this would call for potentially an ex parte hearing. And I'm not enough of an expert in Georgia law to know if that's appropriate or not. But you can see how, because we know from the record that Ms. Love, the prosecutor, asked for the ex parte hearing, and Glenville took her up on it. So let's a little further, because it'll start to make more sense as he explains.

0:14:46 Clip: Me, that, yeah, Mr. Steele, Mr., can I, can I ask you just a second, I'm kind of disturbed, that's ex parte, all that was an ex parte conversation, how did you find out about any of that? Well, I might be disturbed too, and I'm asking you a question, I didn't find out about it. I'm going to ask you a question. Okay. Scudder, if you look at S-C-U-D-D-E-R versus state, which is 298 Georgia, 438, it's division two, 72 southeast, 2B638, 2016. Our highest court says when the court meets, because Mr. Copeland comes in, meets with the court, the court supposedly made statements, which I'm assuming is somehow more accurate than what you just said.

We're entitled, Mr. Williams and every other person on the charge here is entitled under the Georgia constitution to be present on stage, it's just like when you meet with me and you know Mr. Adams and others have met with me, it's it's those who act party for a lot of different other reasons, but I will, I will certainly note that for purposes of record, while I'm going forward, what I was told was that Mr. Copeland said, have you ever answered my question yet? I'm not, how did you answer that question? No, I will not answer. Why would you not answer?

That Because I want to make sure that what I say is accurate, and I'm not trying to, I'm asking you how did you get this information, not telling the court, what I'm saying is based on information. Okay, well listen, if you don't tell me how you got this information, then you and I are going to have some problems. We can have this, I have problems right now. Okay, I know, I don't know, what's your problems? Okay, at this point in time, all I'm asking you, at this point in times, is how did come upon

0:16:21 Clip: This information. Look, if the case gets reviewed, the record is going to be available for our appellate court, and for whatever reason, but it's disturbing that somehow you have surreptitiously gotten information in regards to the court's private esporte conversation with the party. I mean, I'm a witness who was sworn in Friday. The court's telling, this is what I was told, if it's not true, not true. This court's understanding. And that's going to cope with me. Tell me how you got the information. Listen, tell me how I got the info. I'm not going to give you that information when we can go home and go forward. I'm not going to say that. What I'm going to say is this. I was told, and I hope this concerns the court. It concerns me that you have proprietary information. Why is it proprietary information that you

0:16:20 Thomas: So good, proprietary Yeah.

0:17:10 Clip: Should not be having that was ex parte? Why? You're the party. Why? State of Georgia. How about the witness? How about Mr. Copeland who supposedly announced he's not testifying and he'll sit for two years and then supposedly that's dishonorable court. Excuse me. And then he refers that this court supposedly said, I can hold you until the end of this trial. And the sentence supposedly said actually all of the defendants and then all 26 people are disposed of. If that's true, what this is, is coercion, witness intimidation, ex parte communications that we have a constitutional right to be present for.

So I understand that you're upset towards me. I do want to acknowledge you. How did you come upon this information? Who told you? What I want to know is why wasn't I there? Why, sir? I'm here to hold you in contempt if you don't tell me who this information is coming from. I don't want to be held in contempt. Well, then answer that question. That's attorney-client privilege information. I am not in contempt of it. Attorney-client privilege. Unless you're in my chambers, that's the only way you can figure out. I am telling you, I'm going to give you five minutes. If you don't tell me where it is,

0:17:30 Matt: Wow.

0:17:51 Thomas: It's

0:18:15 Clip: I'm going to put you in, I am going to, I'm going to put in contempt because that is not attorney - client privilege. Attorney work product privilege. I am not How did you get that information supposedly from my chambers? Did somebody tell you? I am NOT You should have told me You got 5 minutes I don't need it I want to continue This is what I was told Mr.

0:18:36 Thomas: So good. I know we've done this before, but

0:18:38 Clip: Cope says Mr .Cope made statements that he admitted to killing Donovan Thomas Don't take my notes No, no, no Sorry,

0:18:40 Matt: It's so good.

0:18:38 Thomas: I'm enjoying it still. Oh, Shit. Oh, wow, bailiff, just like did

0:18:50 Matt: Very dramatic. Yeah. So a couple of things here. Just tone, like the bullying tone. Mean, I've heard judges certainly get into this kind of tone before, but usually they have some kind of point. I mean he's just absolutely in the wrong here.

0:18:53 Thomas: Is insane, yeah. I... Also, this lawyer, you know how for us normal people, we have the argument and then like the next day we're like, "Oh, I should have said this. This would have been so good. The jerk store called, they're running out of you." But then this guy is just like, he... And it's funny to this lawyer because there is like a one second delay where he'll be like, "Well, I don't," and then perfect line. Like, it's so funny.

0:19:25 Thomas: It's amazing that he's able to do that. Like, It's really sharp.

0:19:24 Matt: Yeah, he's great, just that little burn when he's like, "This honorable," I mean, this court, it's so good.

0:19:31 Thomas: Yeah. He's "You got five minutes." He's like, "I don't need it." Here, amazing. Well,

0:19:37 Matt: Yeah, and again, these are people who have been stuck in a courtroom together for 88 days and

0:19:43 Thomas: Also, this is outrageous and I'm sure he's he's also having to, like, deal with not only what has happened but the judge's like, I dunno, what, denial and like attempt to bully his way out of this, this problem, this constitutional violation.

0:19:44 Matt: Yeah, of course, Yeah. That's all he's got. So Glenville's giving him time to think about what he's going to do, right? If he's gonna actually release the name or if he's not. I should mention also, there's an interesting slip at the beginning with Stilset's attorney-client privilege that does leave the possibility open that the witness had told him because they're being held in lockup together.

0:20:13 Thomas: So his client is Young Thug and it's possible. That's interesting. So he, so he said attorney work product, which I, does that make sense either?

0:20:22 Matt: I don't really know why he would raise that, But I guess

0:20:23 Thomas: Yeah. No, I think that makes sense. Well, I don't, I think what you're saying is plausible, that that might've been a bit of a possibly, could a bit of a reveal, and then he's trying to cover it up real fast. Um, interesting. Okay. Yeah.

0:20:34 Matt: Arguably, it may be a work product in the sense that if it was the other attorney that you're conferring with, another attorney about your case and preparing something. I mean, certainly it's pretty loose, but it's a good on-the-fly privilege argument. So we're going to come back now. Glenville does this thing I've noticed over and over again where he says he's going to take five and then takes a very long time, pretty much consistently throughout this.

0:20:51 Thomas: Yeah.

0:20:52 Matt: I will say not just Glenville. All judges do this. Judges love taking breaks.

0:20:55 Thomas: And then they come back with a Starbucks cup and, oh wow.

0:20:58 Matt: There's also something that happened the day before. Maybe we'll incorporate it later if we have time. We probably won't. Steele lost it on Glenville the day before on an unrelated thing. It just chewed him out on the record about how this is the worst trial he's ever been in and this is the worst kind of proceedings. So now we're going to come back in. Given him time to think, and he's not needed to do any more thinking about it. He is ready to go at

0:21:07 Thomas: Really? I

0:21:22 Clip: Steele, before I recessed, I asked you how did you get this information, and it is not covered by... There's only one way you could have gotten it. So, I'm going to ask you again, and I respect that. It gives me no joy, but as you know, Georgia will have professional conduct. Please check me for 1.6 comment 5 reasons what I have.

0:21:35 Thomas: Then why does he need to tell him

0:21:52 Clip: 1.6. I know I don't have the little sense, but here's the thing. But you've got, but you, you need to, please tell me who you got it from. I'm not asking you to sell me substance and everything, but I need you to tell me how you got the information. If you don't tell me how you get the information, then I'll hold you in contempt. I don't want to hold you in contempt, but this is so sacrosanct, to have a conversation in my chambers parodied to you and others, it is that serious. Yeah, and that's why I raised it, it's that serious that we should have been there and it shouldn't have happened. So that's a whole separate issue and that is why ex parte conversations are recorded. Why wouldn't the ex -parte?

0:22:32 Thomas: The

0:22:46 Clip: It's ex -party because that's what the state asked me to do. It's just like when you asked me. You've never asked a son of a court or any court to be with me in a witness.

0:23:00 Clip: So, you're straying off the issue. I'm not. The issue is, how did you get this information? I understand the issue, I promise you I understand it. But what I'm trying to ask you is, if you look at comment 5, this is how I understand the law, you can't violate something and then use privilege, okay? I mean, that's why I'm saying, how did you get the information? But just listen to what I am trying to tell you.

Okay, but see, the privilege in 1.6 would occur if you were in the right place, right time to begin with. You weren't. Let me tell you, I'm just reading from it. But if I'm reading wrong, I'm not trying to, it says 1.6 applies not merely to matters communicated in confidence by the client, but also to all information gained in the professional relationship, whatever its source. So you're asking me to break your letter? Now, maybe.

Yes, maybe I'm not saying it well, but to give you information and just say it's not some substance, but I'm telling Under the ballroom, all right, I'm gonna hold you in contempt, and um, you can, you can think about it, and five o'clock today, we'll see, we'll stand on that point, because, no, that's not what I, that's not what I understand the rule to be. I've, I've not asked you some substance of what was said. I asked you how you got it. You can't do that. Yes, you can, because I have an idea how you got it, but your idea, how do you got your idea, may be wrong, and you're asking me to

0:24:40 Clip: I don't want to hold you in contempt, but this is that serious. Judge, you cannot eavesdrop and get information that was not meant for you to hear at that particular point. Judge, listen, and listen, I'll do whatever you want, to 5 o'clock or thereafter, but what I'm trying to tell you is, this is so serious to me, we need a hearing, and I'm moving for a mistrial.

Now, it is my understanding based upon information and belief from whom I have written, from whom, well, I'd like to get the substance first, and then we can talk about what we do, then custody, until then. Because you need to tell me how you got the information. I'm not asking you what was said. You've already kind of given us some snippets of what you said. That tells me that somebody parroted that information to you. So, did you assume something because I told you?

Well, then, other than this, if you were sitting in there with a recorder, or Ms. Love, or Ms. Hilton, or one of the deputies gave you that information, or Mrs. Weaver shot you a rough copy of the transcript, there's only one other person that's left. And

0:25:55 Clip: If that person gave you the information or shared that information with you, she'd probably be violating privilege.

0:25:54 Thomas: The witness oh

0:26:02 Clip: Well, two

0:26:02 Thomas: She wait I thought he was talking about the witness. Oh.

0:26:05 Matt: He's talking about the attorney.

0:26:06 Thomas: Well, did he forget to name the witness? Because I feel like if he's process of elimination and he named a bunch of people but not the witness, I'm actually wondering, no, that is a possibility, or

0:26:16 Matt: The witness wouldn't have a chance to tell him directly. Exactly. Witnesses in lockup.

0:26:18 Thomas: I thought you just speculated that the witness told Young Thug who told him

0:26:22 Matt: But then that would be clearly attorney -client privilege Young Thug told him.

0:26:23 Thomas: Right What the judge was doing there was essentially kind of process of elimination, how this information could get out. I was noting, he didn't the mention witness who you were speculating might be the source of information. And that's all I'm noting. So it's weird that he didn't say that, or

0:26:41 Matt: It is weird. I think he's... Because he's so hung up on the idea that it was the attorney. I think he's really single-minded here.

0:26:45 Thomas: And then he said, oh, if she did that, then she violated da da da. And she is That substitute attorney that's like filling in, gotcha, uh

0:26:48 Matt: Yeah. Yeah, right. Caleb Umpis.

0:26:55 Clip: Things. One, I don't know how that is a privileged communication and shouldn't be discussed. Well, it's because she has a client she's supposed to represent. Who are you talking about? But anyways, I'm not going to have it, but I got this information. I'm going to not have any further conversation with y'all about this. I want to know, the question still remains, I want know how, who gave you the information? I'd like to know what information happened outside her home. That's really it.

If we really go into custody, I think the court needs to again declare a mistrial based upon it. And I'm going to deny your motion. I'm a denier of motion. I understand that you spoke with a witness outside of our custody. Yes, I had an ex parte conversation, which is appropriate. And you influenced the witness based on information, I believe, and I'd like to have that all on the record. Now, I don't know why that's so hard to do. If nothing happened bad, that's fine.

But you're acting like, tell me who it is and don't talk about the substance. Why can't we have an issue that was outside our presence and should not have been? Because you got some information that you shouldn't have gotten. Why? Well, that's for another day. But why then? That's for the first place. I didn't know about the stuff. I raised it another day, so I raised as soon as we found out about it. Well, I gave you the case on the lie on.

I assume you read it. If you didn't read it, you should read it. It's a material part, a critical part of the case. When a judge speaks with a witness outside the premise of the accused, the court has said it's right there in Division 2. That is a material or critical part in the case, and it's an automatic error also. Mr. Steele, that is not the case when somebody discloses information in an ex parte conversation that one of the parties lawfully asked them to hold.

You're not supposed to have communication with a witness who's been sworn. I'm not telling you, I'm just saying if you read the case, I assume you read it, that's what it says.

And you did it, as opposed to the same receiver, you said it supposedly, and what I'm trying to get to is why does that happen outside our presence, and I need to add a respectful question, the transcript that you mentioned to be given to us so we can really understand it, and then anything that is not on the transcript, if anything, that we understand what happened outside our presents.

Okay, and now you, you have put it where somehow I have to reveal, and I told you, I told you the first time, I do breaching 1 .6 and I know you're assuming something, I don't take your vision 1 .66 you can't hide behind 1 .60 Yeah, but the thing is, I think you've got this information, um, somebody

0:29:45 Clip: Disclosed it to you, and that's the only way you could have gotten what I got, because unless you're sitting there, unless you sit in there, you're eavesdropping, so... So you you can't use something ordinarily that you had no business getting to begin with, and then stand on, "Well, hey, we didn't give you the information," or that a party didn't get the information. So, Your Honor, that's the issue, isn't it? Well, I don't know. We all know. That's an issue. At least we told. But right now, we don't now why we were excluded from that. Mr. Steele, Mr. Williams, Constitutional Rights. This is Georgia Constitution, just stop it this one time, because Article 1, you already said that, this is Georgia Constitution and we have the right to be present, we are not waiving anything. Yes. Madam? Yes, sir?

0:30:36 Clip: Excuse me. Excuse me, sir. Um, and I know I said this previously, but we are NOT accepting any profit for us to sell. Okay, okay, excuse me. Okay.

0:30:52 Thomas: Does that mean we're not accepting any proffer? Sorry.

0:30:54 Matt: Whatever she's going to say about what happened in the meeting is not enough. We need the transcript. We have to find out what actually happened. So before she goes on, I want to read a couple of things from the transcript, which we now have because it's pretty instructive. Couple of moments had jumped out. As part of this 56 -page transcript, there's a lot of Ms. Love who's about to talk and Ms. Hilton, another DA, talking to Mr. Copeland, the witness, and reminding him how important it is he testifies because he is immunized and he's going to testify, and that's the end of it.

0:31:22 Thomas: This feels like two levels of wrong because Witness is, yeah, a witness is sworn in and prosecution is like, "We need to talk to him privately." Mean, I guess the witnesses council is present, but like that, that weird? That's weird. And then for the judge to also be a part of that is weird.

0:31:25 Matt: At least.

0:31:38 Matt: Yeah. It's all weird. Is very strange, that they're doing this all in front of the judge. So here, I'll just read this part. Order, I don't know if you kept your copy of the order, but this order says you are immune from prosecution, any of it, literally. Judge, you might want to close your ears.

0:31:58 Matt: So you know it's going to be good, whatever she's about to say. You're not even ready for this. Literally, judge, you might wanna close your years. If you confess to a murder on the stand, we don't have any other independent evidence outside of what you say in the stand, you are immune from prosecution from what you're saying in this court. So she's just casually suggesting that he could go ahead and admit to a murderer on the stands, and that would be fine.

Prosecution says, "If you didn't do it, I can't charge you with something you didn't do because I don't have any other evidence but you saying it." Copeland kind of argues back, and his attorney points out, you could charge him with false statements and he'll be back in jail. That's what I'm trying to say. And then the prosecution says, "But if I know that you're lying about that, I do not intend to do that.

If I know right now he's lying, I know he's laying, I'm not going to charge you because I don't know your reason for doing that." She's saying, "I'm going to let you perjure yourself." Basically, I'll just let you lie. I am not going charge you when I know you didn't do what you're trying to say you did now. And that could be part of this. I know

0:32:00 Thomas: Yikes.

0:32:55 Matt: To do that, the witness points out.

0:32:58 Thomas: The witness points out.

0:32:59 Matt: And she reminds him it's true. It's up to the state to bring the charges. And the court says, I don't have anything to do with that. But yeah, it's just kind of funny that he's involved in this conversation. So yeah, just a little taste of the kind of thing that's going on. Again, he's

0:33:02 Thomas: Yeah. Is it that this guy, did he try to take the fall for someone else or something? The what the crimes are and what he's confessing to to or not is confusing.

0:33:20 Matt: One of the top guys he was at one point in YSL. All. So there's a number of things I think they could have pinned on him. Will say actually the conclusion of how this ended here, this little section I'm talking about, his attorney says, but what if he says he doesn't recall everything? Will it be okay? Prosecution says, I'm not advising that, but so long as he answers the question, that's fine. The witness breaks in and says ,I did these crimes. I'm telling you that.

0:33:42 Matt: So again, he's confessing potentially to crimes. We don't know which ones, but this is an immunized witness who's prepared to testify. And this is all just happening outside the presence of defense counsel. And defense needs to be able to cross -examine on that statement when he says, I did these crimes, right? That's really quite a lot of cross opened up right there. Yeah, again, not going to go through the entire transcript. It's an interesting read that might make its own gavel gavel someday, but it's quite a transcript. I wasn't sure what to expect when I started reading this.

0:33:43 Thomas: Wow. Yeah.

0:34:09 Matt: Honestly, I thought there was a decent chance it might be innocent stuff. And I was expecting maybe the judge would just remind him, you have an obligation to testify, you're immunized, it's fine, whatever. He still shouldn't have done that outside the presence of counsel. But there's a lot more that's going on here. So let's go on now. I just wanted you to hear that before we hear what the prosecution has to say for herself here.

0:34:12 Thomas: So

0:34:25 Clip: Honor, I am disturbed by Mr. Steele's representations to the court. The court has inquired. We have no way of knowing what it is, who it was that disclosed information that was contained within ex parte conversation. Conversation, not only was there an ex parte communication between that we requested as a state to be on record with the court, but there was communication made, I believe, to a person and his lawyer. I don't know that the reason that counsel's took the podium was to address that particular issue so much as it was to try and assert an inaccurate what he calls fact and put it out there in the open as if it were true. But we certainly have the right to request ex parte communications. That's why we ask that the court report be present. This is a matter that the defendants did not have a right to be a part of, as this was a matter regarding a civil contempt that the court imposed upon a person for not obeying the court's directive.

0:36:07 Clip: The

0:36:06 Matt: Okay, so nice try.

0:36:08 Thomas: What is she trying to say there? Just,

0:36:09 Matt: Trying to say because it's just a civil contempt, it doesn't involve the defense because it's just between the judge and the witness, not about about something unrelated to the trial, that the civil contempt is directly on point.

0:36:19 Thomas: So she's trying to saying, nah, you don't need the, you know, you you don't need the defense to be there because this is just like separate issue of this witness being held in contempt, you know, and that, that doesn't sound plausible. Yeah.

0:36:31 Matt: And we're discussing that. Yeah. And they weren't just discussing that, of course, but she's trying to make some kind of argument, whether she knows the law or not, or whether she's just trying to defend the judge. I don't know what's going on here, but she's just trying to say that it's totally fine. Defense didn't have to be there because we're only talking about the civil contempt matter and the fact that he's going to be held in contempt. But the reason you're talking about civil contempt is because he's refusing to testify. So that's something directly on-point. And then you're going to go on and have a recorded conversation outside the presence of defense.

0:36:56 Thomas: The recorded part matter? It seems like it'd be better if it was recorded than not recorded, but

0:37:01 Matt: Even more aware at that point when he's bringing the court reporter in that this is still part of the official proceeding with this foreign witness.

0:37:05 Thomas: See how that makes sense.

0:37:07 Matt: Just

0:37:08 Clip: State read the case that Mr. Steele cited, it does not stand for the proposition he asserts that it does, and regarding further legal support for our position, we would provide that to the court, but we are more concerned that information that is disclosed in an ex parte setting gets relayed to the parties who are not privy to that. The whole purpose of the ex parte request was so that that did not happen, and we expressed on the record that our concerns and our reasons for concern regarding that without

0:37:28 Thomas: Don't have any.

0:37:50 Matt: Saying it out loud.

0:37:51 Thomas: Yeah, wait, wait. So she just said they said on the record record reasons for concern about, like, they're essentially their excuses for being ex parte. Does she mean the record, the transcript you now finally have, like, released? Oh,

0:38:09 Matt: Transcript, don't what advice counsel may have offered or may be offering that is the right in their business as it relates to testifying however, I do not believe that criminal exposure is a concern that is an interest which is being spoken about and protected." So then she gets into Melnick's email that we talked about before, and how there seems to be this communication between the attorneys.

0:38:27 Thomas: Mm.

0:38:28 Matt: And again, it's also she's saying, which is very strange to me, she's, saying, I don't think this witness has any criminal exposure, which I if she gets to say that, but yeah.

0:38:34 Thomas: Not reassuring, though, I think, if I were the witness. Like, oh, you're pretty sure?

0:38:36 Matt: Yeah. Yeah. Thanks. Let's keep going.

0:38:43 Clip: More information about how that information got relayed to the defendants, we cannot make the kind of assertion I'd be inclined to make, so before making the next set of assertions, I would need to know how that information was made pretty to them, to counsels for the defendant.

0:39:07 Thomas: I need to know who narked. Why?

0:39:09 Matt: If I can argue this. Yeah, yeah,

0:39:12 Clip: We did not act inappropriately or outside of the rules of professional responsibility. And if need be, we will reach out to the State Bar ourselves and ask what the appropriate remedy is for everything that has happened over the last two days, over the two last work days. Because we are extremely concerned. We have observed a number of actions on the parts of a number people that I am not comfortable stating publicly at this time, but that would appear to call for being addressed in some other way.

0:40:02 Thomas: All right. This is... The way she's talking is impossible for me to process. It's too slow. And and it just again, want to go all like, oh, we've got a body language expert in here. But like the way she's conducting herself and the judges connecting themselves feels so sketchy where it's like she's just this feels bullshitty. Whereas I'm not saying that like, again, because Trump sounds more confident and says more stuff, but it's complete lies. Lies and Biden in the debate is very confused and slow, but says stuff that's close to the truth. So I'm not saying that's the only indication. It's also the content in addition to like how clearly she's struggling to come up with justifications here. Like that just, as a person sets alarm bells for me, like this seems very bullshitty.

0:40:04 Matt: Yeah.

0:40:47 Matt: Really seems like they're both spinning their wheels, she and the judge, at this point, because they know that something has gone wrong.

0:40:52 Clip: As to Mr. Seale's request, I guess it was for mistrial, I'm not even certain what all that was. I think it was probably more to make inaccurate assertions on the record public to whomever was within listening shy of his voice. And we would ask that the court strike everything that he said from the time he stood up and started talking after the court asked him. And here it was, that he obtained the information that was made pretty in counsel for this court.

0:41:14 Thomas: Wow.

0:41:25 Thomas: That's Convenient, yeah.

0:41:39 Clip: And regarding Rule 1.6, Your Honor, we read 1.16 in the standing there. 1.60 in no way shields Mr. Steele's answer that the court requested he give. Rule 1-6 has to do with attorney-client privilege. And that is information that Mr. Steele obtained from his client regarding whatever matters. I don't know if the information was leaked to his client from someone who was in chambers, or if the info was leaked directly to Mr. Mr. Steele. In either event, it is concerning and in no way falls under the protections of Rule 1.6. If the Court would allow me a moment. Regarding appropriate remedies, Your Honor, we would ask the Court for an opportunity to further look into appropriate remedies for circumstances such as this, apart from what the court has already said, because it's great enough when information is leaked from the third court's chambers regarding a matter that has been requested as ex parte, and we

0:42:30 Matt: Mean, if his attorney told him, it literally does. Excuse

0:43:10 Clip: Would ask for the opportunity to present to the court additional appropriate remedies that that we believe are available.

0:43:15 Matt: Lock him up. Yeah.

0:43:16 Clip: All right. Thank you, Your Honor.

0:43:19 Thomas: What additional, what more could you do in

0:43:21 Matt: She really wants him locked up. I don't know.

0:43:21 Clip: Okay. And Your Honor, also, unless it's Mr. Adams representing Mr. Steele in the capacity of someone who has been held in contempt, Mr. Steele just argued whatever it is that they are trying to argue based on information illegally obtained from the court chambers. I

0:43:49 Matt: So now Keith is going to walk up. This is the other attorney for Jeffrey Williams, young thug. He's going to explain the position he's now in with his co -counsel being held in contempt.

0:43:59 Clip: I represent Mr. Williams, and my statement regards to my representation of Mr. Williams. He has two attorneys. Okay, yeah, he does. But the court, now having found Mr. Steele in contempt, that the court continues in that position, that leaves Mr. William represented, at least at this juncture, by myself. That puts me in a position of making sure the court is aware that I may receive the same information that Mr. Steele received. I'm of the same opinion that the Court is engaged in behavior that I believe compromises and corrupts, uh, the continuation of this trial. I do believe that we are, um, entitled to and should receive a copy of the transcript so that a full investigation can be made.

That's what we believe has occurred here, um, and so I take the same position as Mr. Steel, um, I am asking for a mixed trial, um, as he did previously, and I'm telling the court that, uh, we, I do not believe that we can proceed at this point based on the information we've received. And frankly, I don't, I don't believe the state has any say in that. My state, Mr. Henry Gloss, my representation, Mr. Williams, and if Mr. Steele's gonna be held in contempt, I have exactly the same position. I also, you know, I asked him, so I didn't ask you. So, I'll

0:44:30 Thomas: Some nonsense, how

0:45:17 Clip: Leave it at that, okay? Thank you, Your Honor. Mr.

0:45:24 Thomas: Does it resolve anything they just said?

0:45:25 Matt: He just doesn't want to put both attorneys in contempt.

0:45:27 Clip: Short.

0:45:29 Matt: And then we've got another one.

0:45:27 Thomas: Yeah. I

0:45:30 Clip: Thank you Your Honor, as you know I represent Shannon Stilwell.

0:45:32 Thomas: Too, M. Spartacus.

0:45:34 Clip: On behalf of Shannon Stelwell, I am going to be moving for a mistrial. Wow. First and foremost, I just want to clear up a few things that have been said.

0:45:33 Matt: Yeah that's

0:45:38 Thomas: Who is that?

0:45:46 Clip: Today, we were instructed to come 8:30 for a 9 o'clock start. I would not be honest with the court if I said I was here at 8:30, but I was probably here at about 8:40.

0:45:57 Matt: Real.

0:45:57 Thomas: This is me.

0:45:58 Clip: We did not start until approximately, I'm estimating, 11 o'clock.

0:45:58 Matt: Yeah me too.

0:46:07 Clip: Clearly, we figured something was going on. We were given no information about any meeting, who was meeting, what the meeting was about, or whether the meeting is ex parte or not ex parte, who requested the meeting, who was in the meeting. We were completely in the dark, and quite frankly, we kind of remained in the dark.

0:46:32 Clip: I'm not a false accuser, okay? I do not just willy-nilly accuse people, so I'm not going to throw out spurious allegations like the ones that have been thrown at me over the past couple days that are absurd. But I will say, Your Honor, just based on what we've heard over the last 20 minutes, it appears there was a meeting, um, that I know knew nothing about that involved Your Honor, the district attorneys, um, and a witness who had been sworn in. My client was not given an opportunity to be present at this critical stage. This was a critical stage in this trial. That error is a foundational structural error in this case, and it is the cause for an immediate mistrial.

Additionally, Your Honor, I believe that this meeting, again, I'm going to ask for the transcript. I'm gonna ask for the recordings as well, should they exist, but I believe that this may have also, this meeting with a witness without us present, may have made the district attorneys and or Your Honor a witness to this, in this case, a material witness in this case.

And finally, Your Honor, I'm going to ask for, as soon as possible, I'm gonna ask that these, these proceedings be halted until we can obtain an accurate final transcript for what occurred where none of the defendants or defense counsel were present for, and also recordings of that meeting so we can see where we are. Again, I'm not going to sit up here and make false accusations or spurious allegations, but I do think we need to figure out what happened. We need to be in the know and not in the dark about what happened when a meeting occurs with a witness that has been sworn in. And

0:48:46 Clip: Um, we're not invited to the party, so those are my requests, Your Honor, um, I think it's, I think it's necessary at this time to put a halt to these proceedings. I am moving for a mistrial. I have not waived anything. I just found out about this information. It is timely, and, and that's our stand strong. Thank you. I've noted your motion from the strong tonight. Okay, I'll, um, same thing. Okay.

0:49:36 Clip: And when the court did come out, we were not being there, but there had been an ex-parte communication that was had, that was on the record, just letting the court know that there had, in this particular case, not had my suspicions that that was likely what was going on. But I could not produce that to the fact of when the court came out of court.

0:50:04 Clip: That based upon, again, ex parte, we don't have to know the substance all the time, just the fact that there was, uh, that meeting, Your Honor, we would at least put us on some notice of this, something that was going on even before, uh, I thought that would have been appropriate.

0:50:24 Clip: I'm asking the court for Ms. Child. I believe it is supposed to be even under these facts and circumstances. Thank you. Motion for Ms. Child denied. Um, Mr. Williams? Motion's denied. Mr. Garner? Okay, so noted. Okay, Mr. Steele, last time. Who told you? All right, Mr Steeles is in custody. And once he clears the area, we're going to get started.

0:51:13 Clip: We're going to continue. I'm not caught in nothing. I don't want to participate in a trial without a superior... You don't have that luxury at this point in time, so you don't. You don't. You don't have that quality of dressing. You don't have luxury at that point in time. You don't. Without the quality of dress in the issue, we really just run into... Sir, you all are really getting yourselves cross-purposes at this moment in time. I don't believe so. Sir, I'm telling you, you are at this one time. Time you made some things out of nothing. I think that you, I think you're, um, very precarious from this point in time, so I'm telling you this one time, he's in custody, we're gonna go ahead and start. You can represent Mr. Williams. That's okay. That's fine. I'll take up the other stuff as, uh, as needed, but I'm not going to take it up right now.

0:52:06 Clip: Sir, you have to do the best you can at this point in time because you don't get to extort the court. That's what you're attempting to do at this part in time.

0:52:18 Thomas: What?

0:52:19 Clip: Sir, yes, you are. What you're trying to do is I'm not going forward if I don't do this. It doesn't work that way, Mr. Adams. And I'm telling you at this point in time, I would just kind of govern yourself accordingly. So I'm telling you, as the court, under these particular circumstances, everything will come out as it should. I don't think, I don't think, so I don't have enough information at this point in to address it. I don't. But I'm I'm telling you at this point in time, there is nothing that was given, said, whatever, this morning.

0:53:05 Clip: But sir, I don't even know, your co-counsel won't even tell me who said whatever, okay? Okay, and the challenge I'm having with your circumstances, that is such a violation of the sacrosanctness of the court's chambers in an ex parte conversation. You're just glossing over that. You're glossing over that in it's entirety! No! It's not, sir, sir. That's not what, that's, that, that is not what happened. That's, that's not what happened. That's not what happened. I'm just telling you that's not what happened.

0:53:49 Clip: Okay, well then you, you made it, you MADE it. No, we're not doing that at this point in time. So, you'll have a choice to make. Take Mr. Steele into custody, please.

0:54:09 Matt: Was gripping listening. So just to note a couple of things here, the attorney is one after another standing ending up and saying, we all agree this is a structural error at a critical stage in the proceedings. And notice they kept using that expression, critical stage, because the has the right to be present. The defendant has the right to be President every critical stage in the proceeding, and it's a structural error and an automatic mistrial if he's not. So they're on pretty good ground here. I was actually looking while I was listening to this, Georgia law, just to kind of get a sense of what it takes to have a critical stage be violated.

And there is a case, Sammons v. State, just that I just grabbed at random, from 2005, Supreme Court of Georgia, in which a juror met with the judge ex parte without either party present. And the juror explained to the judge that she had issues with the way that race and sex were being treated. I guess for some reason, in this case, the judge thanked her and excused her and replaced her with another juror without having the parties be involved. And that ex parte meeting was enough to be structural error.

This is enough to reverse and get a new trial. Because Sammons was absent from a critical part of the trial and she did not acquiesce in the removal of the juror outside her presence, the judgment must be reversed. Now, again, we're talking about a member of the jury. That's obviously very critical stuff, but we're also talking about one of the main witnesses against you in this

0:54:19 Thomas: This is some bullshit. Yeah. Yeah, was Yeah?

0:55:23 Matt: Case. So I can't see how this is too much different. It's pretty bad.

0:55:23 Thomas: Yeah. Wow. All right, that's where we're going to cut it in half for part part one. Again, didn't get to Ashley yet, but in part two, do a little more of the background, and then we get Ashley Merchant on to give us her perspective and to go over some of the game film. And man, is it fun. It is so cool. I'm so glad we were able to do this. And

0:55:50 Clip: This podcast is a production of Opening Arguments Media, LLC, All Rights Reserved. It is produced and edited by Thomas Smith, who also provided the fabulous intro and outro music used with permission.