Khloé in Wonder Land - Defense Attorney Mark Geragos | Khloé In Wonder Land

Episode Date: October 7, 2026

Scott Peterson. Michael Jackson. Trial by media. And what happens when public opinion decides someone is guilty before a jury does? Khloé goes down the legal rabbit hole with legendary defense attorney Mark Geragos, who shares what he witnessed from inside some of the most infamous cases of our time, including the evidence he believes could change the story of the Scott Peterson case. Plus, Khloé gets candid about her own run-in with the law and what really happened during her brief time in jail.New episodes every Wednesday. Like and subscribe so you never miss an episode.Khloé in Wonder Land is produced by OpenMind, a PAVE Studios’ company, and is distributed by Dear Media.Episode Sponsors:Start your free trial at https://www.Shopify.com/khloeAll that's new and uniquely you. It's in the bag. https://www.Target.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

I am so beyond excited for today's interview on Chloe in Wonderland because I am sitting down with top defense attorney Mark Garagos, who has been defending people for decades. Michael Jackson, Scott Peterson, the Menendez brothers, just to name a few. He has such a long list of people that he's represented. He knows the system like the back of his hand. And I cannot wait to pick his brain a little bit. And I'm so excited for you guys to be along this episode with us and to learn a little bit and get a little nosy about some of these cases. It's a big deal. Is it? Okay.

I first met your sister many years ago at an Armenian event. They had corralled her in to be there just as she was starting out. And so I knew she was Armenian. Oh, for that long. We've kept in contact ever since, but I've never, somehow she's always kept you away from me. I know. And I'm the best one. Save the best for last. There is a constituency who lobbies for you as the best of the...

No, I was joking. I was watching the new evidence on A&E. Right. For maybe any of the younger listeners that don't know, we're talking about the Scott Peterson case. And I was watching it on the plane with Kim and I am dying. Like, I'm like, what? Like I... Did she tell you what she was doing?

Then... That text thread is one of the most... most hilarious text thread. No, so I'm like, wait. So, you know, you have the headphones and I'm like, da, da, da, da, da, like, how is the, I'm like getting into every point. And I just see her like this. And then I go, are you writing down everything I'm asking you?

She's like, oh, no, I'm just sending everything to Mark Garagos. And I'm like, wait, what do I go add me to the fucking thread? I need to be on this thread then. And she would not. But then she's like, don't you think you should be on your podcast? I'm like, yes, I could do this all day long. So better than a text. And that's exactly.

And she said, she pitched already. She's your booker. She is. So, Jen, you're losing your job, right? Yeah. Jen will gladly hand it off the Kim for a second. Did you watch the, did you watch this? I did.

Okay. So when you were, what year were you born? I was born in 84. Okay. So you would have been when the case was happening 20 years old. Yes. And. But I will say when the case was happening, I don't remember

being so invested in it, I remember. Right, because you weren't a professional white woman. Right. The target demographic, I told this story, it's absolutely true. I would be in the gym trying this case. And inevitably in the morning, a woman would come up to me. Inevitably, it was a professional white woman, a doctor, a lawyer, whatever it was. And she would say, well, what about this?

And I would say, well, that didn't happen. Or I debunked it. And what about this? And, you know, he was trying to flee to Mexico. And I said, well, it's an interesting way to flee. He was going north on the five freeway, which last I looked is Canada. And they say, well, he dyed his hair. And I said he was being stalked by reporters everywhere he went.

He was still selling fertilizer, believe it or not, and trying to make out a living. So it didn't matter because inevitably they would say, it's okay. I don't care what you tell me. I had a boyfriend who was just like him and I could see him doing. And how do you compete with that? How do you disabuse somebody of that? Even I think when I look back, I was like, oh, my gosh, for sure, guilty. I didn't even know about the trial.

So I'm saying this off of what I'm hearing everyone else say. Like, what is the point? Of course he killed her. And just because you have an affair with someone, it doesn't mean you're a murderer. Well, he never got past. There's a famous photo of him with his arm around Amber, the massage therapist from Fresno. Not, you know, denigrating that, but that's what it was. Yeah.

And that photo is just. post and all the tabloids with him, with Lacey, his wife, pregnant, very pregnant on the same day at a Christmas party sitting alone in a chair. I remember that father. You can't get, I mean, everybody remembers that. It was, it's kind of an archetype, but it, it taps into something. And it's hard to get past that. And I even said in an opening. I said, look, he's a cad. He's, had an affair. I get it, but that doesn't make him a murderer. Correct. Unfortunately, the problem was for him that he had, he was in Modesto. And I had represented a congressman in Modesto, like three years before that, by the name of

Gary Condit. Gary was having, at the time, an affair with Chandra Levy. And Chandra disappeared. And when it became apparent that Gary, the congressman, was having an affair, she was an intern, all bets were off. They, I remember marching him into the grand jury in D.C. Everybody thought he was guilty. He killed her because of the affair.

He didn't want to found out. So everybody in Modesto knew that was the case. So there are tapes of Scott at the vigil. And he's telling her, I'm in the, you know, I'm in Paris and I can't be with you. And he's saying anything to just get her not to surface. Right. Little does he know Modesto PD is taping him. And those tapes were awful.

And that's the problem. But the bigger problem was, from my standpoint, they couldn't say when she was killed. They couldn't say how she was killed. They couldn't say where she was killed. All they know is that four months later, she showed up after a storm in the area where he had been fishing. Let's recap a little bit. Scott Peterson had a wife. They were cookie cutter, husband and wife.

She was pregnant, nine months pregnant. Correct. And she disappears. Disappears. And she. and is not found for roughly four months. And the disappearance happens from a Modesto neighborhood. The dog, they had a dog, I think, named McKenzie, who was found with the leash on.

It's a muddy leash. Don't get me started on that neighbor. But anyways, I have notes. Okay. Well, I'll let you ask the question. No, but go on. So anyway, she disappears. He does.

In fact, I had breakfast with Diane Sawyer not too long ago this year. And I said, you are like the axis of evil for criminal defendants in high-profile cases. If I had a nickel for every case I've ever had where my client, before I met them, had done an interview with Diane Sawyer that was played for me in a courtroom that I had to deal with. It's awful. Yeah. And his interview did not disappoint in terms of being awful. And also the power of the media. They were fixated on a story.

It was also probably very funneled by Modesto Police. and they weren't willing to veer off that. Understand. It's so fucked up. Well, remember, too. I, at that time, I was sitting doing the preliminary hearing for Scott. And back then, I would wear a pager. In the middle of the preliminary hearing, I get a page and it's from the 805 area code.

It was Neverland telling me that they were executing search warrants at Michael Jackson's. So I literally left Scott's preliminary. preliminary hearing, flew to Vegas to get Michael to turn him in in Santa Barbara. And interestingly, to put it in context, Michael Jackson being a search warrant's executed and then a criminal prosecution, you don't get much bigger than that. You would think conceptually. Scott Peterson was way bigger in terms of just the public fascination of it. And you never can predict. 10 weeks ago, if you had told me Lindsey Clancy was going to be kind of 60 minutes, wall-to-wall on mainstream media, I would have told you we're smoking something.

But here we are. I mean, it is a subject you can't. In my world, I can't even tell you the number of people who are fixated on that case. And 10 weeks ago, they wouldn't have known if that was their first or last name. But do you think that's because of now the TikTok detectives? Absolutely. Right. Look, I picked up, I don't know, three years ago, speaking of Kim, I picked up the Menendez brothers. Now, they had in 205 had pretty much lost their last appeal. And so Eric and Lyle were pretty much done. And they decided, they had a fork in the road. And I always say this. They decided we're going to, you know, you could turn left and become a degenerate and commit crime. And that's how you're going to live out your life with no hope. Or you could do good thing. And they decided to do good things.

Eric started a hospice program. If you go down and visit him, you will see inmates pushing around guys who were on their last legs, so to speak, and kind of an end-of-life hospice program. There's a giant courtyard where Lyle has started a green space program that's based on Norwegian concept of acclimating people once they get out. Because after all, 90-some-odd percent of all the prisoners are going to be out. and you want him to not re-offend, and that's what he's trying to do. So they had no hope.

They did that. I took the case. And then subsequent to that, the TikTokers, I'll remember, were really a force. And there was a documentary. And then, as you know, Kim and Ryan got involved. And then next thing, you know, they've been resentenced. And in March, they have a parole hearing, which I'm hopeful we'll get them out. Leslie Abramson, who tried the case.

said at the time that I took it or a little right around, no number of TikTokers is ever going to solve this case or ever going to do anything. I take exception to that. I love Leslie. I think she was one of the greatest defense lawyers ever, but she's wrong. TikTok did it.

That was essential. Do you think if the TikTok detectives were around during the era of Scott Peterson? Never would have been convicted. I agree. And especially the new evidence that got me. I was hanging on every word everyone was saying. It is almost to me, I can't, it scares me. I told Kim, I go, how frightening that this could happen to someone, how frightening that the police can just be like, oh, so there was a burglary across the street. We're going to just change the date of the burglary. Which, and mind you, I've talked to reporters who went on to become very good. friends. The police, Modesto's way to solve this was there was a burglary, the first reports,

December 24th. Same day, same time she goes missing right across the street. If you were in Modesto, the streets are not exactly wide. They're 45 feet from curb to curb on this particular street. They had a problem. Police had a problem. That was a lead. There was a van that was identified. There was a burglary. Okay. Now, so the police. the way to solve it is we've closed it. It was on December 26, not the 24. But also how good that happened with the media? Ted Rawlings, who's gone on to bigger and better things, used to say, I was broadcasting on December 25th and 26th directly in front of that house as a backdrop. If somebody was pulling out a six foot safe, the entire world would have seen it. It was ludicrous.

And not to mention the 20-plus eyewitnesses that saw Lacey walking the dog after Scott Peterson went with the boat. And also saying that he would have had to meticulously have cleaned up four different crime scenes, some amateur murderer. I mean, I am an amazing cleaner and I love to clean. You don't know how to do that to do it to that level. There's no way he could have done it. Look, somebody says, how do you know? How do you know? And I will tell you, this is how I know. I have represented, for whatever reason, more privately retained murder cases than I think anybody walking around. I just, for whatever reason. I don't want that on my tombstone, but that's where it is.

At a certain point, you get to know a person or a type. You know who's capable. And I will tell you, after 10,000 reps, this guy is not capable of it. It's the first case I've ever called as a character witness a nun. The nun said he never showed. anything. She was in school. They never showed a thing. But going back to the van. So they changed the date and say it was the 26th, which was ludicrous. But anyway, on the day that he's convicted, they hand me a report. And the report is a lieutenant. I think his name was a Ponte. And he is

working at Chino. And he overhears a recorded prison conversation of an inmate talking to one of the burglars. And they start talking about Lacey and then they realize we're on tape. And Aponte thought enough of it that he wrote a report. He seized the tape and he sent it to Modestopi who conveniently... What did they do? Nothing. Didn't they destroy it? They destroyed the tape. They got Aponte to say, oh, maybe I was mistaken, even though he'd written a report. And best of all, I didn't know this until recently. They did recover a van. The van with the mattress.

This gets me going. Please tell the story. They find within two days of Lacey missing, there's an area in Modesto called the airport district, which is a seedy kind of area of town, not too far from Lacey and Scott's house. And they find the van. They find it with a mattress that has fluids in the back,

and somebody lit it on. And they know that it had something to do with this because they then have all of the information sent to the State Department of Justice to be analyzed. But guess what? They never, ever told us. Only after the analyst retired a couple of years ago from the Department of Justice, did he feel so guilty about letting them suppress it that he came forward? and said, wait a second here, we knew about this in real time. We had this. We tested it.

But Modesto police would not give you that information. Decades later. Right. Then you get it. Not to mention there were three cadaver dogs, right? And one of them went after getting Lacey sent, went to the airplane district, where the van was that they didn't disclose to you. Isn't that just unbelievable? Like, what are we talking about?

And make it even worse, and I've said this before. I, when they're doing the hearing on testing it, the innocence project says we want to test it. And they're fighting tooth and nail. I said, I publicly said, I will pay for the testing. Yeah. Shut me up. Tell me I'm wrong. You'll pay for the testing of the mattress.

Of the mattress. What are we doing here? Why are we? And what's their reason? Like, how do they tell you no? They just, we don't want to, we don't want the victims to relive this. Well, by the way, if he's innocent, do a thought experiment. Who's a bigger victim than he is?

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of your first sale today, head over to Shopify.com slash Chloe to start your free trial today. That's right. Start your free trial at Shopify.com slash Chloe. That's Shopify.com slash Chloe. All of this, why would they do this? Just so the community feels safe and they pin it on someone and for Modesto police to look like they're tough, big guys that got this under wraps? It is, look, I tried this case to their credit. They got a conviction. I think of an innocent man.

But it was one of the most keystone cops that I'm probably dating myself by using that expression. Bumbling, bumbling horrible detective work, if you could even call it that. I remember the opening statement. The opening statement, I have all kinds of reports. that say that the reason that she was killed on the 23rd is Scott, when he was interviewed, said the morning of the 24th, Lacey was alive watching Martha Stewart on the Today Show. And that was in the affidavit sworn under penalty of perjury. We reviewed the Today Show tapes and Martha was on the 23rd,

not the 24th. Well, guess what? I went and got to Today's Show tapes. She was on the 24th. I played it for the jury in opening. Guess what else? By the time we got to closing, We'd established, they didn't establish this, they put on a forensic computer expert. And I started asking him questions. I said, well, did you look at the computer that they used in the house on the morning of the 24th? And he said, yes. And I said, did you see some use at whatever it was, 8 to 10 a.m.?

Yes. Whose password was used? And he said, Lacey's. What was she looking for? She was looking for sunflower related items. She had a tattoo of a sunflower. I said, do you have a conclusion as an expert who's been put on by the prosecution as to who was using that computer on the morning of the 24th? And he said, yes, Lacey Peterson. And I said, did the prosecution ever ask you that question? They did not. And how are these things legal? They aren't. But they unfortunately, one of the one of the kind of things that happens in the criminal justice system is once you get filed on, it takes literally an act of Congress.

to get something reverse. How hard is it for you where you fully believe that Scott Peterson is innocent? It's, I used to say back when I drank, I had more alcohol therapy than any human alive because, and people often ask, they say, how do you, how do you sleep at night? I had a nickel for every time somebody said, and I, you probably went through this with your dad. I mean, how many, you got pilloried, he got pillared. I remember at the time, he was absolutely hammered over the, that case. And because he stood by him. And the system doesn't work if you have somebody who

doesn't stand by their client. But I don't worry about the clients who are guilty. I worry about the ones that I think are innocent. That's what keeps me up at night. But again, watching that, that's why it scares me so much, because this could be anyone. Like how all of these things are even talking about. 10 at the time of OJ. Okay. So my daughter was, was 10 at the 10y, was 10 at the time of Scott. Okay. And she used to come to court with me. You went to court a couple of times if I remember.

And the whole trial, even though I was 10, I remember like all of it. As much as I was exposed to, I remember so vividly because it was so. Well, I used to take her back into the lockup. So she knew Scott and she was there. She's now a criminal defense lawyer. And interestingly, when you see that kind of interoperable, at that age, it really has an impact. You start to see. I mean, I would imagine you still think about that to this day. I do. And I remember just such pivotal moments. I think of it from a different angle and experience, obviously, but yeah, it's very impactful.

Right. How do you choose your clients? You know, originally, I quote Justice Scalia by whoever can pay me. And that was his thing. He says when he was talking about criminal defense lawyers. Now I've gotten to the point where it's what interests me, who's getting bullied. I remember 10 years ago. In fact, I was just thinking about it last night. Colin Kaepernick is out with his book, The Periless Fight, and he's doing the rounds. And I remember when I met Colin the first time in New York 10 years ago, and I represented him. And I thought, this guy is, I remember seeing him play in one particular playoff game before I had ever met him and saying, what a stud of a player he was. And then it was obvious to me that he had taken a stand and got blackballed and

and he stood tough. And I figured if he was going to stand tough, why could I? The case that really kind of changed the course of my career was a woman back in the 90s named Susan McDougal. And she was the erstwhile business partner of Bill and Hillary Clinton in Whitewater. And Susan was amazing. I mean, she was not going to lie for the independent counsel in order to get Bill and Hillary Clinton. She just said, I'd rather go to jail.

And she stood tough. And three trials later, she, you know, was vindicated. Don't you get nervous sometimes to take on? There's nothing more nerve-wracking than, I mean, first of all, even if there's nobody who's around, you know, Johnny used to say, who was a mentor, Johnny used to say OJ and OJs, yeah, Johnny Cochran. And I used to think, I used to not really quite understand that in the 90s. I've come to learn what that means. But you still, you've got a person. It's like I imagine all of my surgeon friends said the same thing. Once they're under anesthesia, because the clients basically when they're in court

are under their own form of anesthesia, they have no idea what's going on. Right. You might as well drop them in by drone. I mean, how many times I've had a client tell me, he's lying, he's lying. I said, I know, just let me get the cross. Let me get there. Let's just say, I committed a bad crime and I did it. Do you want me to tell you that? You know, it's an interesting subject. Even though we're trying to plead my innocence. Correct. Yeah. So I generally will tell the client, don't tell me yet what your side of this is. Okay. First, I want to see what the prosecution has.

I want to analyze it. I don't want you to start locking yourself into something because you may not know. I've had clients who've told me a story and I've sat with them and said, that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. I couldn't sell that to anybody. And then they'll tell me the second story. And I'll say, that's even worse. I don't want to hear.

And then by the time I get to the third story, it's the truth, but it's so mortifyingly embarrassing that they never want to admit it. It's actually in some cases they'd rather go down for the crime they're charged with than what the truth is. And what really happened. There's always something. And until you know what the prosecution has, prosecutors got a different duty than a defense lawyer. Prosecutor is supposed to see the truth is done. They're not supposed to convict just because they bring a case.

They're supposed to do what's right. a defense lawyer is supposed to do what's right, but within the confines of advocating for their client and to make sure that they're doing everything possible zealously for their client. And that's, there's a, there's a difference there. There's a tension there. But you would rather not know until you need to know. I would absolutely rather not know. Plus, I'll take murder as an example. We have made a decision as a society that if you kill someone, then there are, you have to examine it.

If you premeditated did it intentionally with a kind of a bad mindset that you wanted to collect money, financial gain, or you laid in weight, we say that's the worst thing that you can do. That's a special circumstance that exposes you to capital to the death penalty. if you did this almost kind of impulsively but didn't have sufficient justification, that could be second degree. If you had justification, if you caught somebody, I won't give you examples, but you caught somebody cheating on you who you loved. And you decided in Texas, we used to say you get one free shot, but you decided in a rage to kill your paramour or their paramour. We generally will reduce that to a manslaughter. Okay. If you're crazy and you're driving drunk, for instance, and you know the consequences,

we have now come to terms in as policy that that can be elevated, even though you had no intent whatsoever, but if you've killed somebody, that can be murdered. That can be what's called implied malice murders. So, no, I'm not here to judge you. I mean, I did at one point think about becoming a priest. but I was talked out of it by the Archbishop, the Armenian Archbishop. But if you're charged with something, you want somebody who's going to deal with it, tell you these are the options that guide you through it.

Because there's nothing. You know, somebody close to you dies. You get a ritual. You get a funeral. You get to bereave. You get 40 days. You get a year. If you're charged with a crime,

as somebody once famously said, you can beat the rap but not the ride. And that is true. It's the system chews you up. Do you even feel like that in today's day and age, I know you're supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, but do you feel like that even happens? No, of course not.

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All that's new and uniquely you, it's in the bag. I know at one point you were sort of against having cameras in the courtroom. Do you now have a different perspective on that? Absolutely. You would never have seen anything that happened. I'll give you the last example, Lindsay Clancy, if you didn't see it in the courtroom. I now think if the case is big enough that people have that kind of interest, you have to have cameras in the board.

Because I used to say about Michael Jackson and Scott Peterson, both of those cases were not televised. In both of those cases, diametrically opposite results. Michael was acquitted. Scott was convicted. Scott would not have been convicted if there were cameras in the courtroom, in my humble opinion, because the jury was not sequestered. Michael was acquitted but lived the rest of his days under the cloud of having gone to trial. People thought he just got off.

You had fancy lawyer, blah, blah, blah. So sad. It is sad. I knew Michael with my family work, close. to the Jackson's and it's just so sad. How was he for you? By the time I got to Michael, I always say,

I never thought he'd make it through trial. I really did not. In fact, I tell this joke, but it's true. I had Ben Broffman. Johnny had brought Ben Broffman in because I thought when they indicted Michael, the first count I thought was directed at me, that it was me and my investigators

investigating the family who ended up making the accusation. Then I brought Ben in, and there's that famous scene where Michael, after the arraignment, in one fell swoop is on top of the SUV. Yes. And I just saw this in the verdict, which was on Netflix. Yes. And I, they showed the picture. I'm there with Ben.

And Ben is kind of a legendary criminal defense lawyer in New York. And he looks at me and says, if we don't get this guy under control, he's going to come to court in his pajamas. And that's exactly what happened. And he did. Yes. I never thought for a million years, kudos to Mesiro because I never thought he would get through trial. But I testified because of that first count, not once but twice in his trial. Oh, did you?

I remember Ron Zonan, who was the prosecutor cross-examining me. And he did something and I made some quip. And that jury was laughing so hard. And as I walked out, I told Michael, you're never going to lose this case. This jury loves you. And mind you, they brought that case in Santa Maria. Well, that's where Neverland is. Right.

He has probably employed and was very generous at the time. 500 people in that community. Nobody wanted to convict him. Have you ever taken a case thinking one thing about your client and then believing something totally different, whether that be innocent or guilty at the beginning? Both ways. Both ways. How do you deal with that?

It's tougher. I've got a partner, Tina, and I won't mention too much of the facts as to not identify the case. She believed these two guys, desperately believed in the thought they were innocent. She was a new lawyer, also in Armenian. And Tina Glendian went to the well for these two guys. And then I had subpoenaed for her a videotape that the prosecution didn't know about. And you found out differently. Yeah, found out differently.

I showed her that tape. I've never seen the heartbreak in a human being as she had been so. And I said that's the name of the game. I also had the exact opposite position where I didn't really believe. I thought I could win the case, but I didn't really believe the person. And I remember sitting and discovering halfway through the case that my client not only was not telling me the truth, but was innocent and was covering up for his cousin. And I turned to him and I, because I stumbled upon it during cross-examination of a witness.

And I turned to him, I said, when are you going to tell me that you're covering for your cousin? Because you're facing life. Do you understand what you're doing here? Your cousin's not going to, he's not going to take life for you. Right. And he just said, that's what we do or something to that effect. Damn. That was a flip. And in that case, don't you sometimes think maybe the government doesn't care, they just want to pin someone?

Oh, the government, I hate to say this. I'll say it again. If I, you don't have enough time for me to tell you horror stories about the criminal justice system. It's a nightmare. You know, I think about the Reiner case. And they just famously announced last week they're not going to seek the death penalty for Nick Reiner. Well, understand something. Rob Reiner was very good to me in the 90s on a case that I had that I won't talk about,

but I'll just say he was wonderful. The client had no money. He wanted to take care of the client. He did. I helped out the last person that Rob Reiner would want prosecuted and given the death penalty, even for the person who killed his son, who killed him and his wife, is Rob Reiner. Rob Reiner never. And so this idea that somehow were contemplating the death penalty,

what are you talking about? This is not somebody who would ever in a million years. And I assume that the family came and said the same thing to the DA. Why are you doing here? In a case like that where it's known that the son killed his parents, what is the trial for? Mental state. Mental state. Same as Lindsay Clancy. Contrary to the TikTokers who, you know, I'll mention this also, there were unbelievable numbers of people, women, under 35 who were absolutely positive that Patrick Clancy had something to do with the death of the three babies, convinced of it. I mean, I would talk to people who otherwise were seemingly very well educated, very smart, but were convinced of it and could make compelling arguments. The one reason I think that they could do that is because only the jury and those in the courtroom heard the 911 tape of him discover. the kids. And anybody who was in that courtroom told me it was the most bone-chilling, guttural, primal, awful thing they'd ever heard. And they'll never unhear that. And the jurors, when they

came out, said the same thing. And so when you think about it that way, and he forgave his wife. And I remember telling somebody eight weeks ago, who said, the jury's going to hate her. So the jury's not going to hate that woman. That woman, obviously, was a very good mother. They hadn't they're not going to put anybody on who's going to say anything otherwise. She strangled, brutally strangled these kids and then tried to kill herself. And she's sitting there paralyzed. You have to understand humanity. I mean, humanity is not, I want to hang her, you know, or inject her with lethal injection.

Humanity is, it had to be a mental state. Nick Reiner. I mean, he's got documented problems. Unfortunately, the. criminal justice system, you know, Lee Baca used to say this, who was the former sheriff, says, I run the biggest mental institution in the world, L.A. County Jail. And it's true. It's 80%. Sit in the criminal courts building sometime. 80% of the calendar call are people with either drug problems, addiction problems, mental health problems, and they're self-medicating.

Go and walk around downtown L.A. See what's happening. It's awful. My office is smack dabbed. Wilshire and Figueroa. I go out into, I call Lebanon alley. I now call it fentanyl. It's awful. When someone like a Nick Reiner or Lindsay Clancy, when would those people with mental illness, do they go to a jail type of? It's an interesting. It's a great question. So the Twin Towers downtown is basically for people with mental health challenges. Oh, okay. So that's where they house them. The problem is they aren't equipped. And the sheriff does a Herculean job trying to deal with it. But Atascadero, some of the other mental health places, really are better equipped.

And what ends up happening in these cases where somebody is just in the throes of mental illnesses, you will declare a doubtist to their competency. They get sent out to one of these facilities. They're in a lockdown mental health facility. They get kind of, they get back to as close to normal as they can. Well, when they get normal, then the prosecutor says, okay, now it's time. to prosecute them. We bring them back downtown. They get held there. They disintegrate. They declare a doubt and they go back out to the mental health facility. Wow. So it's just a vicious cycle

that we go through. Wow. Have you ever committed like getting any tickets or anything? Yes. You have? Yes, I have. Do you not get out of them? I usually will try the case. Yes. I won't get into it, but I'll either have that or I'll have somebody try the case. About you? Have you ever been? Well, you famously had some run-ins. Yes. I had a DUI and I had to go to jail for it. How long did you go? Well, I was ordered to go 30 days, which was extreme Sean Hawley. I know Sean. Yeah, Sean was my lawyer. And I did first, this judge sort of had it out for me. It was my first offense. Drunk driving is horrible and I was stupid for sure. It was 0.08. So you were right on the limit. I was right on the limit. I was right on the limit. I knew where I was, I told them, I was like, I'm trying to go to Jack in the Box because I'm hungry. It was definitely drinking. Yeah. And then they took me in.

I think it was a Friday night I had to stay. And then my mom called Bob Shapiro. They got me out on a Sunday. My mom, she would have thought she was going to a funeral in all black, big black glasses, comes to see me. I failed as a parent. Yeah. She's like, I can't believe you're doing this, but I knew it was going to be you if it was any of my kids. I'm like, oh, my God, leave me in here.

And then then I had probation AA which... Who's your judge? Do you remember? I don't remember. It was so...

I was 22 or 21. I don't remember. Sean might know. Then they gave me X amount of community service. Then I had to go see an autopsy being performed on someone...

Right. They call that the HAM program. Is that what they... Ham is hospital and morgue program where you have to go either to the hospital or to the

morgue and watch. I had to watch. It's hard. After you see an autopsy, I remember mine, it was, it's chilling. Them sawing the chest open. I'll never forget the smell. Well, and then you watch the pathologists eat their lunch. No, it's in the same room.

They sat. I remember sitting with Henry Lee and Cyril Wecht, who were two of the most famous pathologists in the world, and we were doing an autopsy. And they both had brought bagged lunches. and they were eating. And all I wanted to do was go throw up. And I was just like, how are you eating your lunch in the middle of this? No, it's crazy.

So I did all that. So how did you have to do jail? You said 30 days. So I did all that. And then when we went back to court, I guess she just was still upset with me. I don't know. There was something where she says, I think it was something wasn't completed all the way. And Sean was saying, no, it was.

But the judge, she took me right then. Remanda joined the custody. And you went in, you scared straight, right? I was like, oh, well, once they took my shoelaces, I was like, oh, this is real. At first I was like, it's okay, mom's. Because my mom's like, what? I was like, it's fine. When they took me in the back and took my shoelaces, I was like, oh, okay, this is serious.

Took me to an all-girls prison, I think. Probably, Long Beach or something. Would it have been the- I got taken in Van Nuys. Right. Because they have a woman's holding facility. Yes, and then they transferred me. Right, though.

And it wasn't down in Linwood. Maybe. Yeah, probably was Linwood. Yes. Because when I met Susan McDougal the first time, she was in a place called Sybil Brand. And Sybil Brand was still a leg. Linwood is probably where you were. They took me.

I bet you're the queen of Linwood, would you? No, they were going, Kardashian. And I was like, oh, what's happening? They said I had to be put in solitary because it was too dangerous to put me. me. They just put me in a holding cell just by myself. They said it's too dangerous. A suspicious package came. The prison was on lockdown. They ended up letting me go after like four and a half hours. I think I was such an inconvenience to everyone. And I was nonviolent first time offender, really nothing else on my record. Before or after Paris? After and that's what she mentioned.

Yeah. It was Paris and Lindsay. For people who don't remember, Paris was a phenomenon. Because I remember her lawyer was a good friend. He's passed away, Rich Hutton. And Rich, I'll never forget all of the ins and outs of that case. Because that was down at Metro. And it was the biggest deal in the world. It was kind of. It was.

And I remember her saying, I know your friends with Paris and Lindsay and you think you're going to get away with this. And I'm like, what are you talking about? That's my sister. I was like, but okay. So she sort of had it out for our little circle of people. which I get I would too. God, I wish I remembered who that judge was. I have to ask, Sean.

I'll actually text her later and ask her. I'm sure Sean wants to forget that too. But it was, I think I was in... Sean's gone on to bigger and better things than D.E. Yes. Yeah, Sean's fine. Oh, my gosh, the thing Sean has dealt with with me and my family. But yeah, that was my one and only jail stint for the whole family.

And you were only in for four and a half hours? Yeah. My holding cell for the... DUI, like being drunk. And when I was drunk, like just being there hungover. 0.08 is not exactly lit. No, but I was way drunker earlier in the night. Like I remember driving. So you're on your way down. Yes, I was on, like I was shocked. It was only 0.08. Really? Well, wait, do you take breath, blood or urine? Back then you could take your breath. And I, I know I probably shouldn't have done anything, but I did.

So if you know, because if you do that, sometimes that comes back to haunt you. If you're on your way down, blood because by the time they take you to the hospital, take it. But, you know, it's a different era now with Lyft and Uber and those things. There's no excuse. It's really no excuse to drive if you're under the influence. Just drop your keys and go somewhere else. Yeah, no excuse. I remember when I first started, we were doing nothing but DUIs. And it was people were panicked because you'd lose your license. You couldn't get around in L.A. It was a nightmare. So what piqued your interest? What about Scott. I'm always fascinated. What about Scott got you going? Well, like I said, from the beginning,

I didn't know much about the case, but to me, it was open and shut, just based off of everything I heard. When the Innocence Project wanted to look into it and then the new evidence, I love documentaries. I am open to hearing everything. I'm never too adamant that I know, how do I know everything? And then when I watched that, probably five minutes in, I completely was open to what the, like, how horrible is this? And I, I mean, every piece of evidence from the witnesses to the robbery across the street to he would have to have cleaned up four different crime scenes to all of these things that kept snowballing.

I just kept saying, and what I'll go to my grave with is, how in the world does somebody who has never, has nothing in their background whatsoever? And you know as well as I do that if somebody is. going to commit that crime, you have some telltale sign. You look back and you say, oh, I should have seen that. There was nobody who ever said that. Nobody ever said, this is a guy who tortured animals. This is a guy who, where you slap me or had domestic violence. None of it. There was nothing there. Do you know, and maybe you don't want to say it, maybe it's not your place, which we don't have to say. Do you know how her parents feel about him? Not happy.

Really? Yeah. Originally, Sharon, Lacey. mom was supportive until they told her about the affair. And then she turned. Which I get, but still an affair does not equate murderer. And it's, you know, she was pregnant, very pregnant at the time. And who knows what went on in their relationship? I mean, I'll just leave it at that. Right.

I don't know who anybody else is to impose it on that. But I would have a much better kind of viewpoint of this if somebody explained to me why he would go to all of this trouble. I mean, I've heard so many idiotic explanations. None of them comport with the evidence. I mean, you have to remember, at first they said he did it for the insurance. Well, and it turned out he didn't want the insurance. Lacey wanted the insurance in case something happened to him. And so then they said, well, it's for another woman.

Well, when I cross-examined Amber, he had never told her that he loved her. They'd see each other, seen each other a grand total of eight times. They'd probably slept with each other each time. And it was a, I'll show my age. Wham, bam, thank you, ma'am, that was it. This was not some torrid love affair where he was trying, because he didn't want to get married. The whole thing was kind of a tortured prosecution. But, and I still hold myself responsible.

for it. Until he's freed, I just don't think there's justice has been done. Do you regret not having some of your witnesses take the stand? You know, in retrospect, maybe, but at the time, they had wedded themselves to the 23rd. And we so thoroughly debunked it that even the DA, who's now a judge, to Rick DeSaso, said in his closing, it doesn't matter when she died. And it was like, what? What do you mean it doesn't matter when she died? I just tried this case.

I spent the last year of my life. What do you mean? It doesn't matter when she died. And they had these crazy theories. She was wearing khaki pants. If I told you how much of that trial revolved around her khaki pants and nobody ever bothered to look in the hamper, there was a photo of the hamper. And you could see the khaki pants.

So obviously she had worn them, yes, on the 23rd, but they were in the hamper because as the computer forensic guy said, she was alive in the 24th. So it's infuriating. It's just, and I will tell you, nobody knew the evidence back them in real time better than me. I lived there.

And there was nothing in that evidence ever that compelled anybody to think that he did it. And, you know, I always thought maybe the one regret I do have, there was a movie that was made. Do you ever watch Gone Girl? Oh, yeah.

Okay, so that was a movie. It was loosely based on the visual. The author, as I remember, said she attended part of the trial. I don't know if that's true or an apocryful story. I do know, though, that I was tempted at one point to tell the jury, you know, Scott didn't do it, and I'm going to show you who did do it, and he's going to walk through the door right now. And that's an old Jerry Spence line. And then if they turned to look, I was going to say, that's reasonable doubt. And I have often thought that if you really, if you were to do a podcast with one or two of these detectives, they have that look on them. Like, they're always waiting for the other shoe to drop. I don't think in their heart of hearts, they believe it. I really don't. I mean, how could they sleep at night?

I think, Ed, there's a certain mentality that prosecutors and investigators have in order, they have to, they fight against this idea of convicting an innocent person. They, they, they can't, you can't, it's human nature. You can't get your head around it. The idea of prosecuting somebody who's innocent. There are people, though, who say, and I've heard this, jurors included. Well, if they didn't do this, they did something else. So it's psychic payback.

That's crazy. Do you still talk to Scott? Not recently, but he's written me some really nice letters. And I feel guilty that I've not written back. What do you think is going to happen with his case? I still believe that at some point, a appellate court will order some relief, which they did before. Mind you, his death penalty conviction was reversed, the death penalty sentence.

Because during the, to your point, the prejudgment rate in this case was crazy. I mean, people thought, I used to say, even the illiterate people could write Gitti on it. The Buddhists said they'd make an exception for Scott Peterson for the death penalty. I mean, he was that hated. Wow. And I always thought that given the amount of time that an appellate court would do something, and they did. The Supreme Court unanimously reversed his death penalty sentence, saying that when I was yelling at the judge and literally yelling,

you can't just keep kicking off people who are against the death penalty. You have to ask them the second question, which is, okay, you're against it. But can you follow the laws? I give it to you. And he wouldn't do that. And they reversed the penalty because of that. And I always thought that tainted the conviction. And that alone should have given a new trial. But that ship is sailed. So now it's going to have to be get the evidence tested and find out that if her DNA or anything related to her or somebody else is in the back of that van, game over. Do you even trust that the DNA is properly being tested? No. Right. No. In fact, one of the great kind of criminal justice issues has been when they do enough of the DNA testing to destroy it so I can't get what's called a split sample. There's a whole legion of cases about that that they shouldn't do that. No, I always think. I just read something and I sent it to Kim. It's not about one case. It's about one. Forensic analyst. Yes, a forensic analyst. I've had cases. There was one up north in San Francisco. She was.

she was falsifying the forensic results. It might be this. I just read about it. Yeah. It happens across the country. There's one in Colorado recently. How is that even? Like, who would think

that all these people just would be a part of something like this? So now she's going to jail for... Right. And for what? 20 years or something. Because she just wanted to take money to give whoever,

whatever verdict they want on the DNA. Exactly. That's horrible. It's infuriating. Didn't even know that these were things. Why is your sister on the law track and not you. Oh, I don't know.

I don't want to be a lawyer. I love all you guys, but that's too much school for me. But I'm fascinated. I could be a private investigator. Yeah, you've got that. I'm fascinated. And I love researching and being immersed in that,

but some of the stuff that she's, I help her study. I do flashcards with her. I'm like, girl, this is a lot. How did it feel at the time? You being representing Scott Peterson, also Michael Jackson, then they're happening at the same time these trials, right?

And I will never forget telling Michael because I had met with Tom Sneddon, who was the then-San-Barber D.A. has passed away. And I kept telling him, you can't win this case. It's the dumbest case of all time. I've spent 18 months of my life investigating this family. They didn't go to the same lawyer just because they saw a billboard or something. It was another accuser.

I mean, it just made no sense. None of that case made any sense. And I said, but Scott, I said, needs me. And I'm not going to abandon him. As I said, I was doing, I had already done the preliminary hearing. I was invested in it. And I thought I could do more good there than I could with Michael. He was in great hands with Tom.

And Tom got him acquitted. And I thought I could do more for Michael by testifying, which is what I did. And I said at the time, I said, anybody who would believe that Michael Jackson that I knew was guilty of. a conspiracy to obstruct, as the count one indictment was, was smoking crack, because Michael Jackson had no more capability at that point in his life of being guilty of that count than you did. Yeah. Thank you. I think that also just shows what an incredible lawyer you are, because you're not doing it just for this notoriety. Let me go to the Michael Jackson case. You're going to where you can benefit and help the most without leaving someone high and dry.

But that says so much about you. I tell clients that they don't believe it. In fact, sometimes I regret it when I tell them. They say, they'll tell me, well, you told me you weren't going to leave me high and dry. I said, that doesn't mean you don't have to finish making your payments. Exactly. Thank you. Oh, my God.

Thank you. I think we're gone. Thank you. That was the best.