Blind Plea - Deven’s Defense

Episode Date: June 14, 2023

Episode 6: Deven was afraid for her life the night she shot John, but the court denied her ability to use Alabama’s Stand Your Ground Law in her defense. Deven is then faced with the reality of a jury trial, limited defense options and more questions than answers.  Resources: If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic abuse, use a safe computer and contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at www.thehotline.org or call 1-800-799-7233. You can also search for a local domestic violence shelter at www.domesticshelters.org/. If you have experienced sexual assault and need support, visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) at www.rainn.org or call 1-800-656-HOPE Have questions about consent? Take a look at this guide from RAINN at www.rainn.org/articles/what-is-consent  Learn more about criminalized survival https://survivedandpunished.org/  This series is created with Evoke Media, a woman-founded company devoted to harnessing the power of storytelling to drive social change. https://weareevokemedia.com  This series is presented by Marguerite Casey Foundation. MCF supports leaders who work to shift the balance of power in their communities toward working people and families, and who have the vision and capacity for building a truly representative economy. Learn more at caseygrants.org or visit on social media @caseygrants. Follow host Liz Flock on Twitter @lizflock. For more stories of women and self-defense, check out her book “The Furies” from Harper Books, available for pre-order now. https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-furies-elizabeth-flock Interested in bonus content and behind the scenes material? Subscribe to Lemonada Premium right now in the Apple Podcasts app by clicking on our podcast logo and the "subscribe” button. Click this link for a list of current sponsors and discount codes for this and all other Lemonada series: lemonadamedia.com/sponsors.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Lemonado. This episode contains depictions of domestic abuse and sexual assault. All phone calls are subject to monitoring and recording. You have three minutes of their removal for this call. Hello. Hi. Hello. Hello. Hey, did I hear you?

How would you, I can hardly hear you? Hello. Where are you? They're not telling us anything or let us know what's going on or what we know or anything at all. Devon is talking to John's aunt Sheila. It's been three long sobering days since Devon was taken to Shelby County Jail, a squat-tan brick building in Columbiana, Alabama that can hold several hundred inmates. Devon thinks it looks like a fortress.

Most of the other women are in pods together, but Devon has been in a cell alone on mental health watch. She has stitches in her ear, two facial fractures, and her nose won't stop bleeding. She needs help. But instead, she is by herself and her bare cell, where she sleeps on a thin mat on top of a brick slab. She keeps thinking about her daughter and what happened. This is the first time Sheila will hear Devon's side of the story. She knows Devon's shot John, but not much more than that. She's telling Sheila about her injuries. I had to go to the hospital and I had to go to the hospital. I had to have my pictures all in my face. I was in the toilet.

I went in and said he's asked. Oh my goodness. He tried to kill me. Devon says, Well, that's what Henry said. It takes her to be really bad and she had to be scared to death. In another call, Sheila assures Devon that she and John's dad, Henry, It had to be really bad and she had to be scared to death to do this. In another call, Sheila assures Devon that she and John's dad Henry understand.

And the Inhinery have talked about it and unless you were afraid for your last, you would have never done that. That's just not in me to do something like that. Not at all. Devon sounds relieved that they see it her way, that she had to do it. No, we're not mad at you. We are not mad at you at all. Had we known out this was going on, we would have tried to help you and get you out

from over there, but you didn't let us know that. Sheila tells Devon that Alabama's child protective services took her daughter after her arrest. Devon can't believe it. She says she had spoken to the department directly and asked for She let to get custody until her father could get down to Alabama. Devon asked She let to call her family and friends, who she's barely talked to since leaving New York, ever since John isolated her from them and took away her phone.

When everyone hears what's happened, they immediately put money on her books for phone calls and emails and commissary. I listened to a few of these calls and it's clear everyone missed her a lot. Hello? Hello? Oh my god, that's so annoying. I only have like, different? Yeah, I only have different.

So, I've been searching for you for like, five years. That's Kira Elliott, Devon's best friend from high school. Kira spent years looking for Devon, and at some point, she started to wonder if Devon was dead. I am so glad you're okay. Yeah, I really not go like, days long for a short. point, she started to wonder if Devon was dead. Devon has been charged with murder. And a murder conviction in Alabama can lead to a life sentence. So yeah, she's really not okay.

This is Blind Plea, and I'm your host, Liz Flock. As Devon spent her first year in jail, adjusting to life behind bars and reconnecting with friends and family, she also obtained a lawyer who advised her to make a stand-your-ground claim. When the first stand-your-ground law was passed in 2005 in Florida, it seemed like it could help domestic abuse survivors survivors like Devon. Understand your ground, if someone attacked you, you no longer had to run away. You could stand your ground, as long as you were in a place you lawfully had the right to be, whether you were out in public or in your home, as long as you feared for your life. Dozens of states now have standard ground laws, including Alabama.

But advocates say those laws haven't been that helpful for women, because they make a bunch of masculine assumptions, like that it's a one-off fight between two people of equal strength, like say two men who got into it at a bar, not a woman who has faced sustained abuse over years. And critics say, Stannier ground was made with a very particular circumstance in mind, a white man defending his property. So it seemed like Devon didn't stand a chance. But at this point,

Stannier ground claim was her best option, a bad option, but her only option, her only chance at freedom before a potential trial. If Devon won her standard ground hearing, she wouldn't even have to go to trial. She'd walk free that very day. All phone callers are subject to monitoring and recording. Hi, Daddy. Hey sweetie, how you doing? I'm alright. I stopped in my club at the foundation. subject to monitoring and recording. Hi, Daddy. Hey, sweetie. How are you doing?

I'm alright. I stopped in my public defender's way. Okay. What was this story? Well, right now, the Asura Keith and the Like Keith, you think that will be really like a very good Keith for a spanger ground. It's kind of like self-defense, basically. Standard ground laws were seared into public memory back in 2012 when they came up during

the case of George Zimmerman, a white Hispanic man who shot and killed a 17-year-old black teenager named Trayvon Martin in Florida. George Zimmerman claimed self-defense and was found not guilty of murder or manslaughter in 2013. The verdict outraged people across the country. Shortly before Zimmerman got off, that same prosecutor was working on another case. The case of a black woman named Marissa Alexander, who was sentenced to 20 years for firing a warning shot at a wall near her abuse of husband during a fight. Alexander lost her stand-your-ground hearing.

Her warning shot wasn't seen as self-defense. Many other abused women who've claimed standter Ground lost their hearings, too. They didn't walk free, like Zimmerman did. The disparity in outcomes for these kinds of cases incensed activists. In 2017, after intense advocacy for her release, Marissa Alexander was finally freed. But then, that same year, Devon was locked up for shooting John, and the cycle of women getting arrested for self-defense continued. I always have my cook's hero with me, to the point that I get made fun of in the courthouse

because I always care around the cook's hero. This is Dan Alexander, Devon's defense attorney. He's a 40-something white guy, an Alabama native, and a bit disheveled in the way many public defenders are. And he has a few quirks, like that he loves Coke Zero. I get really irritated when the current machine is out of them, and I have to settle for Diet Coke or something else.

Dan started off as Devon's public defender. But after he moved to private practice, Devon's dad hired him on a $5,000 retainer, and Dan seemed to know what he was doing. He had been a prosecutor in Shelby County's first stand-your-ground hearing. He was friends with the judge. Devon was under the impression, at the time, that he might get her off. But Dan knew representing Devon wouldn't be an easy job, which he told her. For one thing, Shelby County and its courts have a reputation of being tough on crime,

especially for anyone charged with murder. All the lawyers knew it. The mindset in Shelby County, the mindset is, is, pro police, and if you wouldn't have been messing up doing what you would do you if you got arrested and you got this far you probably did it That's Eric fine an attorney in the owner of Patriot law firm in neighboring Pell city Alabama We sought out fine because even though he didn't handle Devon's case He has represented clients who've claimed standing. Your Ground, and he knows Shelby County well. The county is one of the whitest and reddest in Alabama, a deep red state.

Find fits right in. Because I'm a trumper, okay? I'm a libertarian, you can tell. I've got, I've got Trump on the wall there, I've got Trump on the wall there with all the Republicans, you know, I am. That's who I am and what I am. But a lot of my fellow brothers and sisters on the defense bar, they are left-wing.

Still, fine sees the problems in Shelby County. He has some pretty strong feelings about the criminal legal system from what he's seen. I live in Shelby County, okay. And the system sucks. It just does. And if you don't think there's rich man and poor man justice, you're wrong.

Dan Devon's attorney was aware of the mindset in Shelby County. And he was worried about how Devon would be perceived. She was an unemployed black woman who shot and killed her white boyfriend. In the cramped trailer they lived in, on an overgrown, unkempt property. I mean, people living in those conditions don't get the same treatment from the police that people living

in the nice from neighborhoods might. And I don't even mean that as an indictment of the police. I mean, I think some extent that's just sort of human nature. Human nature? No. The police should be giving everybody equal treatment. Dan did worry about how Devon would be perceived as a woman and a black woman at that.

Women are twice as likely to be convicted than men when claiming standard ground in their homes. According to a study published in the journal, the social science quarterly. I do think that the court system in the South does have a tendency, or at least in my experience, obviously I can't speak for the whole South, but does have a tendency to treat men and women differently. On top of that, a Tampa Bay Times investigation found that black people who use the

standard ground law are almost 15% more likely to lose their hearings than their white peers. Well, I mean, I just think we have a Shelby County law enforcement, lawyers, judges, is all predominantly white. And, you know, just like everywhere else, in the South at least, I can't speak for the whole country. I'd say it's still a large percentage of the people arrested in Shelby County are black and there's seems to be, and this is just anecdotal now, but there seems to be disproportionate sentences

and treatment for the same thing. Dan says this is just anecdotal, but we know that's not true. It's well documented that Black defendants receive longer sentences than white defendants for the same crimes, especially in a case like Devons, where a Black woman shot and killed her white boyfriend. According to the Sentencing Project, a Black person who victimizes a white person is more likely to get a more severe sentence

than if they committed the crime against another black person. Despite all of these factors at play, Dan filed a standard ground claim and Devon got a hearing in front of the judge for December 2018. I didn't ever necessarily think that we were going to win the standard ground hearing. I mean, not that we didn't try to win it, but I didn't expect to win it. But what I did expect to do is kind of get that story out there. Dan wanted to get the story that Devon was defending herself from abuse in front of the prosecutor and judge. Because even if Devon lost her stand your ground, it could still help to have that narrative established for a later jury trial.

I mean, she had no driver's license, she had no vehicle, she had no friend, your family, nearby. She was very far away from the family she did have and had not had contact with them in a long time. So, I felt like she truly didn't feel like she had any options when this took place. Dan was confident the judge would see these details as important. If not at the Stainier ground, then at least at the jury trial, where she'd have the same judge. I mean, I thought, you know, this surely, they'll see that it's tough to think.

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The weather outside was cold, damp, and gray. It was raining and Devon was wearing her orange jail uniform and a thermal that had no jacket. It didn't help that she had a migraine and didn't sleep well the night before. I remember I was falling into a puddle and I was miserable and I was so fed. We didn't get like warm stuff to put on.

So you had to free. Devon says there were other cases on the court docket that day, but she was loaded up and transported to the court house alone. Since she was charged with a violent crime, she couldn't ride with anyone else. Devon shuffled into the court building for her hearing, both her ankles and wrists shackled. Did they keep the shackles on you while you were testify?

Oh yeah, they keep the money the whole time. Dan later told me he could have had Devon's shackles taken off, but he says he wanted to remind the judge that Devon was serving her time. She says she wasn't offered a change of clothes or even a hairbrush. In jury trials, a defendant has the right to appear in civilian clothing to preserve their presumption of innocence. But that's not required for a standard-grown hearing like Devons, where there is no jury, only a judge.

Hey, I'm taking these two ladies up to the Advocacy Program. Devon obviously comes over from jail, so they would have brought her in through these back doors. Devon gave me a tour of the courthouse, which is just across the street from his office. The building looks like it's from the early 1900s. There's lots of wood and marble and carpet. There's an elevator back there. It goes up from the transport.

So they would have come back there and they would have brought her in. It's gotten her here 30 or 45 minutes early so that I had time to talk to her. Devon's judge on the case was the Honorable Judge William Bostic, Dan knew the judge well. The judge actually helped Dan get a job when he was a younger lawyer. Judge Bostic is a former prosecutor and Devon got that vibe from him.

As the judge heard the cases before hers, she grew worried. He seemed stern and callous, like he wasn't taking much time to deliver his verdicts. Suddenly, it was Devon's turn, the state of Alabama versus Devon Gray. The defense was called to go first. Dan put Devon on the stand as the opening witness. Dan's strategy for the hearing was to focus on Devon's history of abuse. As he questioned her, Devon testified that John stopped her from seeing or speaking to anyone. And that as John drank more, he got more creative with his beatings,

even holding screwdri drivers to her neck. But soon after Dan got started, the assistant district attorney for the state, Daniel McBrayer got in the way. McBrayer was a young hotshot prosecutor in his early 30s at the time of the hearing. His dad had been a former assistant DA for Shelby County and a judge in Calirah.

Now he was an assistant DA himself and he objected arguing that the court shouldn't learn about John's prior abuse. Judge, I'm gonna ask that the witness be restrained to violent behavior concerning this event. Sustained, just if you will, answer the question instead of a narrative. I guess we had our ups and downs. There isn't any tape of the hearing, but we had actors read parts of the court transcript,

which you'll hear throughout this episode. I was surprised the first time I learned as a journalist that prior actions and behaviors sometimes aren't admissible in court, because they might prejudice the judge or jury against someone. I understand why. It could be unfair to bring in a person's entire history of mistakes or misdeeds. But in domestic violence, the history of abuse in a relationship is so crucial to understanding the night a woman fought back. Still, the criminal legal system doesn't get it.

So all that history of abuse by John that we know of, Devon couldn't talk about it. And neither could Aunt Sheila, who Dan brought in as a witness next. Aunt Sheila testified that John was evasive before Mick Breyer cut her off. She said Devon, who she called the doding and dutiful mother, once needed a ride to the dentist because her front tooth went missing. But Mick Breyer objected before Sheila could tell the full story. Before Dan could make clear

that John was the one who knocked it out. So the defense was hamstrung. They could only talk about the abuse on the night of the shooting, which meant Dan was able to show photos to the court of Devin's injuries from that evening. And they're pretty gruesome. It's hard to see how the judge wouldn't take notice of these. Here's Dan asking Devin about her injuries from that night. Can you tell me what injuries are pictured there in the pictures? I have bruising on my arms, my ears all busted up.

I have a gash on my neck, and then this is just another picture of my ear all busted up. Do you know how that injury to your ear was sustained? Yes, I was hit repeatedly with the gun. When McBrayer got a chance to cross examine Devon, he tried to cast out on her injuries. He asked Devon about a text to John from the day before the shooting, about an injury to her ear.

Devon told McBrayer that John had hit her a second time in the same ear with the gun the night of the shooting. This is an unusual. According to the Department of Justice, it is common for women who deal with domestic abuse to get repeat injuries to the head. Well then, McBray are reasoned.

If Devon was abused, maybe she had premeditated killing John while suffering his abuse. Then you go on, after describing what his cause is bruised on your arm and you say, this is from the gun itself, like he had it pressed up against me at one point and that is when I got it, you know, in my head,

I had to do something about it. Yes, Russell did away from him. I would have never shot him if I didn't feel like I was afraid. I loved him very much. I never would have hurt him." A well-known prosecutorial trick is to trip up a witness on the stand. To make Devon seem less trustworthy to the judge.

So McBrayer also grilled Devon on why she was sharing more details about the abuse now than she did right after the shooting. Devon said she'd been in shock at the time. Don't you think that your recollection at the time of the interview would be a little clearer than your recollection today? Not really. I had spent hours in the hospital. They gave me pain medication. I was still really in shock. Let me ask this a different way. Do you remember what you ate for lunch yesterday? I didn't eat lunch yesterday. Do you remember if you ate anything lunch yesterday? I didn't eat lunch yesterday. Do you remember if you ate anything yesterday? We had chili for dinner.

If I asked you six months ago what you ate. Do you remember what you ate six months ago? It would have been chili because they don't change the menu. Let me ask you two years ago what you ate. I don't remember that. So your memory is a little better closer to the time of the events. Right. Then as you get further away, is that not correct?

Yes, but I also didn't suffer a dramatic incident. I do remember telling the detectives that I had said if he had woken up, he was going to finish what he started. As I have more time to think about it, he did threaten. If I didn't have his phone, he would have finished what he started waking up regardless without his phone or otherwise. People who have undergone trauma often struggle with blurry or muddled recollections.

And Devon spent hours in the hospital that night on pain killers and without sleep before she gave her statement to police. Yes, a lot of it is blurry to me. I don't understand how you wouldn't understand that, but a lot of it is blurry to me. There was a point where we had fought for the gun. I do remember getting punched,

and I remember getting punched in the face repeatedly. That is where I had fractures in my face from him hitting me in my face when I was just trying to get the gun away from him. Devon tried to explain this to McBrayer, but she says he didn't get it. I think that he understood that it wasn't his job to understand. It was his job to find the appeal. It was his job to find fall in my testimony. According to the prosecution, Devon was a liar trying to cover her tracks after a murder.

It's the narrative the investigator Mike Melhoff had presented to them. Did you still consider it being self-defense because she... No, I never considered self-defense. It was straight up murder. You heard from Melhoff in episode two. Now I never considered it self-defense, and it was straight up murder. You heard from Melhoff in episode two. Even though, because I know she had those injuries on her. Now, she claims he beat her, but I don't have any proof of that. There was never any evidence that John inflicted that injury on her. Assuming like, let's say Devin was telling the truth that she was severely abused by him

for a really long time, would that have, would that make a difference in this case? No, because you've got to look at the, you've got to look at the evidence surrounding the moment that she actually killed him. One, he went to sleep. Two, while he was sleeping, I mean, he was shot in the back of the head. It's unclear if John was actually asleep, but Devon did tell police that he'd been lying down for five minutes when she grabbed the gun

and took her chance at survival. Even if she was abused, and I'm not, you know, like I said, I don't want to get into that portion of it because it had no bearing on her actually shooting him that night. It was a nice self-defense case. Melhoff didn't understand that domestic violence escalates over time. Melhoff didn't understand that domestic violence escalates over time. That survivors like Devon can feel fear over the course of years. And then of course we've got other evidence from Alexa and her mother that Devon was actually had was in possession of the gun prior to all this and shooting it off and John's presence and him

telling Alexa I'm fearful she's gonna kill me. Melhoff was so convinced by Alexis' story but he couldn't remember her name when we talked. Sure it was five years later but didn't he have the files handy? The evidence that Melhoff feels so strongly about is a second-hand story from Alexis, who was on the phone, and a third-hand story from her mom. He relies on this evidence over actual documentation of Devin's injuries to her face, arms, ears, and neck to come to the conclusion that John was killed in cold blood. Faulty as it was, that's the story the assistant district attorney McBrayer got from detective Melhoff, and he ran with it. At the standard ground hearing, McBrayer interrogated Devon about if she had the gun and if she threatened John with it, But she said no. There was never an official forensic report to determine who handled and shot the gun.

Crime scene photos indicate about a dozen bullet holes in the trailer. Devon said in her police interview that John shot all of them. From the interviews the defense team obtained, even with John's own father, we know that John had a habit of shooting in the trailer. Henry said John had previously shot at Devon and at him, so it's possible some of the bullet holes were from past incidents. Despite John's history of violence, the prosecution went with Alexis' story instead, because John's prior actions couldn't be included and he was the victim now

I've worked hundreds of cases. I've worked cases where you know drug addicts or you know drug dealers had been ripped off. I mean when I say ripped off I'm talking legitimately robbed They're still a victim and you still have to see justice for that now. Am I going to be more sympathetic towards the blue hair grandmother? They get robbed, of course, but even somebody that's been wronged, I mean they still deserve justice and you still, you know, seek justice for that person. I got stuck on that phrase, blue haired grandmother that Melhoff said. He was basically saying he was more likely to be sympathetic to an old white

lady than anyone else. Studies show that many police officers are biased against black people. Melhoff has no good reason to trust Alexis over Devon. Alexis wasn't even physically present for the shooting. Obviously, John had the gun at least long enough to pistol whip Devon with it, so it doesn't make any sense that Devon would have had it. Devon's lawyer, Dan, noticed the holes in Alexis' story pretty quickly.

And she didn't seem remotely concerned about all this. I mean, she relays a story where Devon has a gun to John Sedg, certain to kill him, but she doesn't go over there. She doesn't call the police. She even at one point said she told him that he didn't have anything to worry about that she would never, the Devon would never hurt him.

So her story was self-serving and didn't make a lot of sense, but I guess she did have enough of a relationship with the parties that some people, including the investigating officer, seemed to find her so somewhat credible. That relationship Dan is talking about is the threesome between John, Alexis, and Devin, and of course the prosecution brought that up. Devin testified that she didn't know much about John and Alexis' relationship. Only that Alexis was John's girlfriend on the side.

That wasn't really the whole story, but it's not like she wanted to tell the court about having a threesome her boyfriend had pushed her into. McBrayor seized on that. He slowed his questions for Devon about John and Alexis trying to catch her in a lie. Let me ask that then. In October of 17, did you know that they were having sex? Yes, I did. I found out they were having sex.

What about before that? No. I had no prior knowledge to them having sex. You didn't remember an incident in late September, say September 26th, where the three of you were engaged in sexual intercourse? Yes, I do remember that actually happening, but I don't remember the time, so if you said late September then yes, that is when it happened. A video of the threesome was submitted into evidence. It was salacious, but that seemed to be the point.

To show that Devon was lying and wasn't in decent woman. When my supervising producer, Kristen and I visited Dan and Alabama, we asked him about the threesome and how much of a role it played in the standard ground hearing. Um, does, I mean, this is a weird question to ask, but like, is everyone friendly? No, it's not a weird question to ask. Obviously, it's not something that anybody was going to show to the jury, so nobody was going to see it, but they were going to hear about it.

And I'll tell you, and I haven't watched a lot of 3-Sync videos, but I'll tell you, it's weird. I mean, it's almost like neither one of the girls really want to be there. And it's kind of clear that neither one of them is real happy about the situation. Alexis probably more said than Devon in terms of like being happy to be there. I mean, there's a weird dynamic, but it's not hostility, but I mean, it's not, it's not like Devon and Alexis are buddy-bothered or into each other or anything like that. Instead, in a one-by-side, she was like, of course, being there by John, I see. Oh, and there's no doubt about that.

But, of course, isn't what the prosecution was saying. Instead, McBrayer asked Devon if she and John were fighting about Alexis the night of the shooting. He was creating another motive for Devon, that she wanted to kill John for running around with Alexis. Looking back at the hearing, it's obvious what the focus on the threesome was intended to do. Even if the threesome wasn't Devon's idea, and it was John's fantasy,

it was meant to sexualize Devon in a way black women have often been sexualized. I know this is a classic theater. We kinda try to put it that way, but it just seems kinda ridiculous to me that we would even go that way about it because it happened two months before I actually ended up shooting him. Devon was trying to say it wasn't an act of passion,

but the prosecution was trying to paint Devon as a juzbel. The thing is, Devon doesn't sound like a wrathful, scorned lover. In her texts, she just sounds sad that John isn't around more for their daughter. And if all of this wasn't bad enough for the case against Devon, the real nail in the coffin was the amount of time that elapsed between her picking up the gun and shooting it. And Mick Breyer knew it. He lays there like that headed for sleep for, I think you said, five minutes, right?

Uh-huh. It is after he has been laying there for five minutes that you shoot him in the back of the head, right? Uh-huh. Five minutes passed between when John went to lie down and Devon shot him. Even I struggled to wrap my mind around that length of time, so I asked Devon about it. What did time feel like for you? Or I don't even know how to ask that. I mean, I really tried hard to give them a time frame because it really didn't feel like any time I passed, but I tried to give them a time frame just so I could maybe wrap my head around it too.

So maybe it was less than five minutes, maybe more. It is common for trauma survivors to have a hard time remembering exact time frames. Earlier in the hearing, Dan had asked Evan what was going through her mind when she shot John. She testified, I just didn't want it to be me. That line from the transcript sticks with me. Because covering these cases, that's what so many women say, that they just didn't want to die. I have reported several stories where women didn't fight back right as they were being assaulted. One story was about a woman who killed her rapist hours after the fact when he still wouldn't

leave her home. Another woman shot her severely abusive ex-husband as he was walking towards her on a boat dock because she feared he'd kill her. Courts ruled that those weren't examples of self-defense. They said these women weren't in imminent danger. But as domestic violence experts argue, when you have an abusive partner, you are always in imminent danger. You are always at risk of being hurt or killed.

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end and out ups and downs of the human condition, and looking forward to getting to know you. Devons hearing lasted just a couple hours. I was surprised. Another standard ground hearing I covered for the case of a white woman in Alabama who killed her rapist went on for two days. But that case got a lot of attention, unlike Devons. Before Devon knew it, it was time for the verdict from Judge Bostic. They said he'd deliberately to know whatever,

but it was literally like five minutes. I've not found that the defendant has sustained her burden of proof, proven by a preponderance of the evidence that she is entitled to immunity. The judge denied Devin's immunity on the grounds of self-defense. In his verdict, Judge Bostic pointed out that Devin wasn't being assailed at the time she used deadly force. He said that, if you're afraid for your life in a future moment, standard ground doesn't

cover that. That is not what the law is, he said. It struck me that Judge Bostick said this, because I knew about his ruling on another case, the case of Cat West. It was a very high profile case in Calira, in which a white man killed his white wife, Cat West in 2018.

She was a cam girl and stay at home mom, and she died from a bottle blow to the head in injury that her husband inflicted. When Bostic later sentenced Cat West's husband to 16 years, he said, quote, domestic violence always follows according to a pattern, and that Cat's death could have been foreseen because domestic abuse happens over a period of time. So he understood that Cat West had been in danger, but with Devon's case, he couldn't see it, not even in the photos of her injuries.

Or maybe he did see it, but he was saying that self-defense laws didn't. And guess who prosecuted Cat West's husband for killing her? The same prosecutor on Devon's case, Daniel McBrayer. It was like they could only see the abuse when the woman was the one who was dead. Reading and rereading the transcript of Devon's hearing, I think a little bit about Judge Bostic, but mostly I think about the prosecutor, Mick Breyer. Because he had access to Devon's text with John, which proved the abuse had gone on for years.

He had evidence that Devon was in danger of being killed. He didn't have to prosecute Devon for murder. He could have dropped the charges, but he went after her anyway. I got in touch with McBrayer to ask him about Devon's case. I got in touch with McBrayer to ask him about Devon's case. I got in touch with McBrayer to ask him about Devon's case. I got in touch with McBrayer to ask him about Devon's case. I got in touch with McBrayer to ask him about Devon's case. I got in touch with McBrayer to ask him about Devon's case. I got in touch with McBrayer to ask him about Devon's case. I got in touch with McBrayer to ask him about Devon's case. I got in touch with McBrayer to ask him about Devon's case. I got in touch with McBrayer to ask him about Devon's case. I got in touch with McBrayer to ask him about Devon's case. I got in touch with McBrayer to ask him about Devon's case. I got in touch with McBrayer to ask him about Devon's case. I got in touch with McBrayer to ask him about Devon's case. I got in touch with McBrayer to ask him about Devon's case. I got in touch with McBrayer to ask him about Devon's case. I got in touch with McBrayer to ask him about Devon's case. I got in touch with McBrayer to ask him about Devon's case. I got in touch with McBrayer to ask him about Devon's case. I got in touch with McBrayer to ask him about Devon's case. I got in touch with McBrayer to ask him about Devon's case. I got in touch with McBrayer to ask him about Devon Yeah, hi, is this Dan McBrayer? Speaking. Hey, Dan, my name is Liz Flock, and I'm a journalist who is trying to get in touch with you

for a podcast I was doing on Devon Grey's case. Do you have a few minutes? I'm not interested in speaking about it. Oh, okay. Could you just tell me why you're not interested? No, I'm not interested. Sorry. Okay. I just feel like it's always really helpful to have the prosecution's perspective.

And young up. Go figure. Something I've thought about a lot reporting on these stories is that a court always wants a quote, perfect victim. Make innocent and usually white. Often, black women can't be perfect victims because did they express anger? That's Maryam Kaba, an advocate, organizer, and prison abolitionist. She's one of the most respected people working in this field.

And does that then mean that they can't be victimized because they were angry and they may be fought back? If you fought back, are you, quote unquote, a good victim, probably not? A perfect victim usually doesn't know her perpetrator either. It's better if it's a stranger who came out of the dark, not an abuser who the woman stayed with for years. Everybody says, I would leave

and I would do everything I can to get out. And then when a person does that, then they're severely punished for it. When a person does try to get out, when a woman defends herself to save her life, she often goes to prison. Mariam Kaba has helped dozens of people who have been criminalized for fighting back. Through an organization she founded called Survived and Punished.

She's helped women get out of prison after they lost their self-defense cases, but she had never heard of Devon's story. There are just too many devents. When I told her about Devon's case during our interview, she made an argument I didn't expect. Stand your ground laws are not the point because those laws are always going to be limited in terms of who is going to be able to make a claim

under those laws. Plus, it's too far down the line of the problem. By the time you get to the point where you might try to invoke standard ground, all the tragedies have happened prior to that. And to me, laws are not going to, quote, protect people. That's not the point of them. They're there to either punish or they're there to

show a community's to pose its standards, which they never actually live up to. And so we're going to have to do that hard slog work of change. We're going to have to do that hard work of providing people with the resources they need to survive and thrive. We're going to have to do that hard work of providing people with the resources they need to survive and thrive. We're going to have to do a lot of other things before the quote-unquote laws make the difference. For a long time as a journalist, I often asked what could make the laws better. But Miriam, Caba and other advocates have changed my thinking. The standard ground law wasn't made to protect the devins of the world, and it's probably not going to.

We have to fill in the gaps where the laws fail. We have to reimagine how we see domestic abuse, how we see gender and race. We have to pay attention to the people in our lives who need help, and we have to hold the legal system accountable. Can you think about right now, a time when you heard about a domestic abuse situation, from a friend or on the news, and thought something like,

how could she stay? Or, I would never take that. Or you just made a joke. How different would it be if, instead of being dismissive, we asked questions about how to help them instead? After the hearing, Devon returned to the pod at Shelby County jail with the other women. The cold, gloomy weather was the perfect metaphor for how she felt afterwards. She was utterly dejected.

She said she cried uncontrollably that day. She could feel herself slipping into a depression. I felt really like Chris Baller, just like the life got drained out of me. And I just remember folding in here. And then they all expanded my layer. And I just remember holding in here and then theologs and my lawyer when I saw him and when I broke down, I tried to be strong the whole time. I figured that I was going to be let go even though there was a little bit of me that was like, man, it was some of me that was like, well, I could very well get out of here.

But her lawyer, Dan, had always worried that Devon was a little too honest for law and order Shelby County. She obviously told the truth, maybe to a fault, but you know, she basically just told the truth, so, and despite what we like to say, the truth doesn't always set you free in these sorts of cases. He's right, the courts aren't ready for the truth, especially when it comes to domestic violence. Judges and prosecutors don't want to hear the messy reality that abuse victims don't fight back at convenient times. Instead of considering crime in a vacuum, they should be looking at the history of an abuse dynamic, to see who is really the perpetrator and who was the victim. And sometimes, that answer is right in front of them.

Mick Breyer had the truth. Right there in the texts and Henry's interviews, he just chose not to see it. Next time on Blind Plea, why Devon took a bad deal? I was told by an attorney that a black person doesn't have a chance and she had to count. The jury's selection seems like it just fell off when it comes to African Americans. After losing her standard ground hearing, Devon and her attorney Dan had to consider their next move. At first, they prepared for a jury trial, but then they suddenly changed their plan.

If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic abuse, use a safe computer and contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at thehotline.org, or call 1-800-799-7233. There's more blind plea with Lemonada Premium. Subscribers get exclusive access to bonus content, like an interview with Alabama investigative journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner Ashley Remp kiss about how we cover standard ground laws.

Subscribe now in Apple Podcasts. Blind Plei is a production of Lemonada Media. I'm your host, Liz Flock. This episode was produced by Rachel Pilgrim. Hannah Boomershine is also our producer. Kristen Lapor is our senior producer. Tony Williams is our associate producer. Story editing by Martina Abraham's Alunga.

Mix, music and sound design by Andy Kristen's daughter with additional mixing and engineering from Ivan Kureia. Special thanks to voiceover actors, Valerie Ward Anthony, Joel Schultz, Jay Kasal, and Monk Amarisa, who played the roles of Devin Gray, Daniel McGrayer, Dan Alexander, and Judge William Bostic respectively. Naomi Barr is our fact checker. Jaila Everett is our production intern, reporting help from Priscilla Alibi. Jackie Danziger is our vice president

of narrative content. Executive producers are Stephanie Widdle's wax, Jessica Cordova Kramer, Yvoke Media, and Sabrina Marage Naim, and myself Liz Flok. This series was co-created with a Voke Media and presented Mirage Naim and myself Liz Flak. This series was co-created with evoke media and presented by Margaret Casey Foundation. Help others find our show by leaving us a rating and writing a review.

Follow me at Liz Flak and for more stories of women and self-defense, check out my book The Furies from Harper Books, available for pre-ordered now. Find Lamanata at Lamanata Media across all social platforms and follow BlindPlee wherever you get your podcasts or listen ad-free on Amazon Music with your Prime Membership. Thanks so much for listening. Join me, V-Spir, here podcasting Bestie on V-Interesting from Lemonada Media. We'll tackle today's chaotic world with optimism as we go beyond the headlines. From politics to human rights to business and tech, we'll break down what you need to know to become the most interesting person in any room.

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I'm a lady who has many tabs open, and they all have cards filled with things. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha