Law&Crime Sidebar - 3 Crucial Alec Baldwin ‘Rust’ Movie Shooting Developments Ahead of Armorer's Trial

Episode Date: February 15, 2024

The woman in charge of guns and ammunition on the set of the movie “Rust” goes to trial next week. Attorneys for armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed want to keep certain information, like her alleged drug use, away from the jury. Gutierrez-Reed is charged with involuntary manslaughter and tampering with evidence after a gun held by actor Alec Baldwin fired a live round on set, killing cinematographer Halyna Hutchins in 2021. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber takes an in-depth look at pre-trial motions with Dan Morgan, managing partner of powerhouse law firm Morgan & Morgan.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: If you’re ever injured in an accident, you can check out Morgan & Morgan. You can submit a claim in 8 clicks or less without having to leave your couch. To start your claim, visit: https://www.forthepeople.com/LCSidebarFOLLOW DAN MORGAN ON INSTAGRAM:https://www.instagram.com/danmorganesq/HOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokePodcasting - Sam GoldbergVideo Editing - Michael DeiningerScript Writing & Producing - Savannah WilliamsonGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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that will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. They want the jury to assume that at some point in time prior to going to work on October 21st, 2021, that Ms. Gutierrez-Reed ingested cocaine. The woman in charge of guns and ammunition on the set of the movie Rust will soon head to trial, and her attorneys are trying to keep certain information like her alleged drug use away from the jury. We're taking an in-depth look at pretrial motions for Hannah Gutierrez-Reed with Dan Morgan, managing partner of Powerhouse Law Firm Morgan and Morgan.

Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber. The trial of Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the armorer at the center of a movie set shooting in New Mexico, will soon get underway after multiple delays. This week, a hearing was held to discuss what can and can't be talked about in court, and at the same time, a judge heard arguments in a civil lawsuit tied to the shooting. So let's do a little background on this. We remember that Gutierrez-Reed was the person in charge of weapons and ammunition on the set of the upcoming film Rust, which stars actor Alec Baldwin. Now, the allegation had been that Dave Halls, the assistant director, had got this 1880s-era-prop gun from Gutierrez-Reed, and then he handed it over to Baldwin. That's one version of the story.

And then Baldwin was handling the gun and preparing to shoot this scene outside of Santa Fe, New Mexico in October of 2021, when the gun went off. and instead of being loaded with blanks or something similar, it was loaded with live ammunition. And that shot ended up hitting cinematographer Helena Hutchins killing her, and it also hit the director, Joel Sousa, who was also injured, but he survived. And after a long investigation, involuntary manslaughter charges were filed against Baldwin and Reed in January of 2023. Baldwin's charges were actually dismissed, but then refiled in January of 24. The prosecutor said that they got a new analysis of the weapon from experts and ballistics and forensic testing. So I want to talk about these new updates and what we can expect in this

trial. And to do that, let me bring back on Dan Morgan, personal injury attorney with powerhouse law firm Morgan and Morgan to talk about all of this with us. Morgan and Morgan is the largest personal injury law firm in the country and a proud sponsor of ours here on sidebar. Dan, good to have you back. Good to be back. Thanks for having me on this morning. Just what are your overall thoughts on this case? We haven't talked about it. I mean, it provides a lot of implications in terms of the safety on movie sets, responsibility, both civil and criminal.

What's your overall take on it? I mean, really, it's so tragic. It's clearly preventable that there's have live ammunition on this set. I mean, that's from everything I've read and it's often with other people. I'm actually no one the attorney that's closely on this case, Brian Panish. But the fact that there's even live ammunition on that set, just for starters, is just show you how reckless it is, but very preventable. The way that it's played out in court, there's obviously been some sloppiness and laziness done by other lawyers that I think we'll talk about

today that have obviously now the clients are having to deal with the lawyer's actions on stuff they should or didn't do. But no, it's definitely one that's watched out. I think again, it's one that's going to set the standard on. Hopefully it will implement some future changes and safeguards and double checking. There'll be triple checking and quadruple checking now to make sure this doesn't happen again. And by the way, let's all keep this in mind as we go through this, we still don't know how that live ammunition got onto the set. We've never gotten a clear answer that one of the most disturbing aspects of this. But okay, I got Dan Morgan here. Let's talk the civil suit first. Okay, so in 2022, Sherilyn Schaefer filed a lawsuit against Russ

movie productions LLC and multiple other co-defendants, including Gutierrez Reed. And Schaefer, she was a medic who worked on the film set. Her lawsuit claimed that the co-defendants were negligent. In her complaint, Schaefer said that she fought desperately to save Hutchins's life, but she died from her wounds. The complaint says, quote, Sheffer has suffered tremendous shock, trauma, and severe emotional distress as a result of the actions and inactions of all defendants. Before working on the Rust production, Cherylyn Schaefer was regularly employed on film sets as a medic.

Sherilyn Schaefer's trauma and severe emotional distress has affected all aspects of her life and has medically prevented her from returning to her chosen profession. Then we go to 2023, where a New Mexico judge approved a $1.15 million settlement between Schaefer and Sarah Zachary, this is the film's prop master, this was a default judgment. This came after Zachary and attorneys failed to file responses within court deadlines, meaning she automatically lost. But now, Zachary has a new legal team, and she wants that default judgment thrown out. And they placed the blame squarely at the feet of Zachary's former attorney, William Wagoner.

They also argued that since Zachary wasn't the person who gave Baldwin the gun, there was reason to believe that she wasn't at fault. So let's play a clip of this and see what we're talking about. As stated the evidence and as set forth in plaintiff's complaint, Ms. Zachary was not the armor in this case. Ms. Zachary did not bring the live ammunition onto set in this case. Ms. Zachary did not load the gun in question on that day. Ms. Zachary was not the one who fired the gun.

Ms. Zachary was not somebody who alleged or called out that it was a cold gun. Therefore, she had no involvement in the chain of actions that took place and went around the accidental shooting of Ms. Hutchins. So the evidence will show that she was not negligent in the matter or any of the actions giving rise to plaintiff's complaints. So because there is a good meritorious defense as well as good cause has been shown, we ask that this court set aside the default. Dan, before we even get to the ruling by the judge, talk to me about the idea of the default judgment

here and the argument that you just heard from this new council well the default judgment is pretty much means the prior attorney didn't do anything he didn't you know i believe this stemmed from discovery that wasn't done you know obviously when a court proceeding happens both sides have to have to play ball even if you're the defendant or the plaintiff the things you have to do that are requested upon and if you do not do those things well guess what before a jury even gets seated you might have a judge saying you you've already lost because you didn't play by the rules of civil procedure so that's pretty much what happened in this case that it seems like the previous attorney just let deadlines run and it's not this isn't a school paper where if you're late on your assignment you get a

letter grade off this is you get a zero on that assignment so this person got a zero on that grade they then hired a new attorney to come in the new attorney came in and did the work it sounds like it has some really good evidence laid out but again it sounds like it's probably a little too good too late you know if you burn that paper in four days after the assignment and you should have got an a on it that teacher still has the authority to give you a zero. But if you say, hey, it was my prior attorney's a fault. And by the way, if they would have done their homework, we would have shown you, there was a valid defense here.

I mean, is that, have you ever seen that being effective in reversing a default judgment? Oh, I've seen it. Yeah, I mean, even at our own firm sometimes, you know, there could be things that happen where a judgment either is inter, rightly or wrongly, but there is good cause that happened. There is a paralegal, you know, maybe didn't schedule the right day correctly. and it was one day off and you can go back and show the judge, listen, this is a leap year. She scheduled this last year.

We did an account for the secretary day in February. The judge might still say no, but they can say, hey, you know, it really comes out of the judges. Is this good cause? This is not good cause? And they have that discretion as a judge to decide. Yes, in this case, it seems like, you know, from the clip I just heard, the attorney laid out all the reasons they should have laid out prior the discovery delay.

What that attorney didn't talk about is why did that prior attorney? not do it. You know, they talked about all the reasons why their client would be found not guilty and why they should throw this whole thing out with it. And the real reason that I think the judge is looking for is that's all good. And why did the prior attorney do nothing on it? And they could say, they said, hey, my attorney hired this attorney. And it turned out he was a derelict. And he checked into rehab. And here's a rehab paper. And he was in there for two months. A judge might say, hey, that's a great cause. You get a redo. But there's no good cause from what I heard presented there. Okay, well, the judge looked over some prior case law and ultimately gave her ruling.

Simply stated it states that the defendant must demonstrate there was good cause for failing to answer as well as the existence of a meritorious defense. The court did not get to even look at whether or not the meritorious defense was met because the court does not find that there was good cause. Clearly, there was a lack of communication between Mr. Wagner and Rust and the insurance company. Mr. Wagner at that point should have been sure that either an answer or a. motion to extend time to file an answer was filed to protect his client's rights, and he failed to do so. I do, I can't put out of my mind the fact that new counsel has come in front of this court numerous times and indicated that this investigation took place and there was no good cause. And so there, and there's also nothing from the insurance company or Rust counsel to

support any Mr. Wagner's allegations in his affidavit. So for all those reasons, I'm going to deny. Dan, your reaction. Yeah, I mean, it sounds like. the judge used kind of the same train of thought there that she wasn't even going to get to the second part of the argument that the attorney spent all their time arguing because that good calls wasn't met. It seems like there was some communications that she did that the judge was able to review between the prior attorney and not. But I think a key thing there too, as you mentioned, there was not even an extension filed or request for relief, meaning that prior attorney could have saw, hey, we're about to run out of time. I'm going to file this just to stay, just to save the clock and get an extra 15 days, four weeks. I'll show the the judge, hey, there's more time I can get this to you, but the fact that that even wasn't done, it pretty much just shows a wanton disregard for judges and court orders. There's one way to get it on the judge's bad side is by disregarding the court orders. Yep, it's called the Alex Jones case. Remember when we covered that one a couple of days ago?

So, yeah, that was a prime example of that. All right, so we talked a little civil. Let's talk a little criminal. Let's get into the Hannah Gutierrez-Reed case. There was a pretrial hearing that was held in this criminal case. And when Baldwin's charges were dropped, I believe last April, Gutierrez-Reed was hit with this new charge of hampering with evidence. Prosecutors had claimed that they found a witness who said that the armorer was hungover on set,

that she was drinking and using marijuana and cocaine, and that she even handed over the drugs to someone on the day of the shooting to impede the police investigation or prevent her arrest. And by the way, as I mentioned, we still don't even know how the live ammunition gone on that set, but prosecutors have been putting that focus on Gutierrez-Reed saying she may have more answers. So Gutierrez-Reed's legal team, they filed several motions for evidence that they want excluded at trial, and the judge made some rulings. Now, her attorneys wanted to sever the tampering count from the involuntary manslaughter charge, and they wanted any mention of alleged

drug possession, drug use, or intoxication to be kept out. Here's what attorney Todd Bullion had to say. We filed our initial motion to sever this tampering charge, and we challenged the state to come forth with some theory of admissibility. In their response, they spell out how they believe these acts are connected, and those arguments are based solely and completely on speculation. For instance, in the state's motion, in the state's response, they indicate that Hannah was nervous in the presence of police officers. and they attribute that to potential cocaine use. That's not supported by anything. And they identify a plausible alternative explanation as they're discussing it, saying that she could be under the excitement or stress of the event.

There's case law that we cited in our reply that says that when there are multiple plausible explanations for something, that's not probative evidence. That's speculation that runs afoul of the jury instruction to only decide a case based on its facts. instead of making speculation guess. In essence, what the state is seeking to do is they want the jury to assume that at some point in time, prior to going to work on October 21, 2021, that Ms. Gutierrez-Reed, ingested cocaine. They have no evidence as to whether that actually happened.

They have no evidence as to when that would have happened. They have no evidence as to how much cocaine would have been consumed or how it would affect Ms. Gutierrez-Reed's body or her mental perception and acuity. Those are all very critical assumptions that the government wants to take as a first step. Following that, they want to speculate further that this assumed drug use would be affecting Ms. Gutier's Reed while she's at work. They have no expert testimony to support this, but really more importantly, they have no facts. okay let's talk about that dan so really interesting argument here they're saying

that it should be separated they don't well they say let's first of all the drug use that the jury shouldn't hear this this is all speculative it's inappropriate um what do you make of it well i you know i understand where his arguments are coming from the whole prejudicial probative value you know if if something's being injected into a case just to make the jury feel a certain way about a plaintiff uh or or a defendant is entirely improper meaning take a car crash case, say the defendant, had a cocaine problem 20 years ago, got clean and sober. Well, there's no room for that fact of that person was a prior cocaine addict to come into that trial that happened 20 years down the road. Unfortunately, what it sounds like in this is that they're dealing with an issue that took place hours before this fatal incident took place in their chain that it's all based on speculation and there's no proof to say she did cocaine or didn't do cocaine on the job.

It seems like they at least know that she had cocaine on the set. She talked to a witness. She gave the witness to cocaine and also made statements to the witness. I guess that she had marijuana and was hung over from the night before. All of that is extremely relative to the case at issue. You know, it's almost be tough to separate those two and put those in a vacuum together to say, hey, here's a case about a lady that gave a cocaine bag during an investigation. We're not going to talk about the investigation that was about yada yada.

that's one case. Here's another case dealing with a shooting on a armorer and they don't, you know, they're so convoluted together that you have to present into the jury the way it happened, especially if you're trying to get to the root of the issue, who knows the most about where this live ammunition came from? She did. What else did she have on her that day? Well, we know she had cocaine on her because she gave that to someone else on set. Wait, what's going on here? You know, that's critical evidence that a jury needs to hear. So I think it's a good effort on the attorney to say, hey, this is prejudicial versus probative. This has no thing. But if that same accident i gave you that example about earlier the defendant driver had a bag of cocaine in his pocket

you know they they could say all we want hey you don't know if he was using before the accident that bag of cocaine is getting injected in that trial i love having dan morgan on talking about all these different kinds of cases i mean dan is part of the largest personal injury law firm in the whole country morgan and morgan so it's not that surprising he knows what he's talking about but morgan and morgan is a great partner and sponsor of ours and the reason i like talking about them is because they are so unique. For starters, they have completely modernized the process for their clients. From submitting your claim to signing contracts, to uploading documents, to talking to your

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or click the link in the description and pinned in the comments. Now, Carrie Morrissey, who is the special prosecutor in charge of this case clearly pushed back on this and wanted to know it seemed to me why the defense was able to lump in the request to exclude the drug use

in with the request to sever the tampering charge. Let's listen to this for ourselves. So in your response, you identified, not just a conversation about the cocaine after the death, you went through all these text messages that you intended to introduce. And you intended, you said that these all, showed that she was working impaired. So it does go to the severance motion. It's

basically in the severance motion, but you also noticed it in the prior in the prior of that axe. But we have to address it in the severance motion because that's you're maintaining that her being under the influence offset, because all these texts are offset, offset is a series of acts connected to the manslaughter. And so you also state in your response, a couple of things. Number one, and I think this goes to Mr. Bullion's response, that the jury's going to be able to conclude all this. This is not, you have no expert witness, to my knowledge, that's going to say, you do alcohol, marijuana, and cocaine. And I don't know when this expert's going to be able to know, other than the

marijuana the night before, and not knowing any of the amounts, that she worked in. impaired on October 21st. So you also say that you have many people. You have extensive texts, which I think we have the extent of them. And then you also say you have many eyewitnesses to her using drugs on the set of filming. Rust. And the big question for the court, and what I would like you to address is the nexus between your allegations of her drug use and her impairment on October 21, because at this point, I agree with Mr. Bullion. It's completely speculative. So until you can, I'm hopeful that your statement is what is the nexus for you, because you're going to have to identify what the nexus is. So, Your Honor, one of the primary issues in this case

is that the negligent act is not limited to October 21st. There were a. series of negligent acts that we have very concrete evidence of that Ms. Gutierrez was engaging in these negligent acts as she moves through the filming of the movie during all of those days. Okay, so let's be clear there. You first heard from the judge and you heard from one of the prosecutors and in the end, the judge chose to deny the motion to sever the manslaughter charge and the evidence tampering charge. But in terms of the... actual material regarding the drug use, I'll be clear, the judge said that some of the tasks, the text messages could be prejudicial, but said that the prosecutors could present

other text messages that were achieved from Gutierrez's phone, allegedly showing that she was smoking marijuana during production. But they, and they could also bring in after the fact tax messages that allegedly show Gutierrez handed off the cocaine to someone else the night of the shooting, and then she wanted it back a few days later. So it's kind of almost like a split decision in a way there, Dan. What do you make of the judge's decision? I think following her logic, it makes a lot of sense. You know, you definitely need to have that next, like she talked about, to really make it relevant.

And I think the prosecutor did a good job of saying, you know, we're not talking about just one isolated incident one day. We're talking about a history, a pattern of negligence that was going on on this set. If she's regularly smoking or drinking or doing recreational drugs in the set, and it's known and the producer or director is kind of just letting it happen, well, that's a big problem and that's going to add on to the damages aspect of the case. If it's, she has a vape pin in her pocket and no one knows about it and the director never knew, but she did it in her car secretly, well, that doesn't really raise the same awareness of just a wantonly reckless

movie set. So I think the judge allowing some of the texts that are obviously closely related to the incident and to what happened showing one, she is smoking on set. So hey, if you're smoking on set. That's establishing a pattern of kind of a reckless set. Hey, they know that there was drugs, she handed off drugs the night of the shooting or the early morning of the shooting. And we know that, you know, she clearly wanted the drugs back. So they were hers. It wasn't that she had somebody else's thing. And I need to get rid of this. So it looks bad. It's no, I want this back now. So I think that the way it's going to play out, the jury's going to be able to hear the evidence as presented. It's whatever those bad texts were, the prejudicial text,

those might have been something that weren't even related to the movie set that had been going out to a party or a club and doing drugs there that has nothing to do with that so that should be kept out but i think in the end important information the jurors can be able to hear well and and also was a win for the defense because apparently this text message exchange between two other people on the on the on the set about Gutierrez read being blackout drunk that's not coming in either so that's a win for the defense there okay as we continue talking about the Hannah Gutierrez read trial another big issue came up and that was where Gutierrez defense team they brought up an 11th our expert witness that they wanted to call to the stand during trial.

Let's take a listen to that. Lenny Callis is a female armor on the East Coast who contacted us very recently within the last 10 days. We didn't know anything about her. She reached out to me by email and said she felt like she had very material information, including with regard to union and requirements of union, which Ms. Gutierrez-Reed was not. her experience as an armor and expert testimony generally related to that. We had to call her and vet her as to what she would say, get her a CV, and then we sent that to the state.

Now, this was not something we didn't know about her until within the last 10 days. So that's why this came out late, Your Honor. We immediately, by email, said she would do a pretrial interview any day on an hour's notice. She's indicated she's available any day, including the weekend. she will do a pretrial interview. Alternatively, I mean, and no one wants to continue the trial, but we would agree to that as a remedy instead of exclusion of a witness who just came to us. And the other thing that's been hard, Your Honor, we don't have the resources of the state.

Ms. Gutierrez-Reed doesn't have a special appropriation. We've had to find experts who have agreed to assist without compensation. And that's been another very, very difficult thing in the defense of Ms. Gutierrez-Reed. And she came forward in the last 10 days. That's what happened. What is she going to testify to? She's going to testify that as a union, armorer, you are trained in certain requirements. You are also certified in certain things.

Ms. Gutierius Reed was not union. She had applied to the union, but she was not yet union. And so she cannot be held to the standard of some of the things that the prosecution is mentioning because she's not union. She's also going to testify with regard to placing the rounds in the firearm, then on a very busy movie set that this is a mistake that could be made. especially because dummies and live rounds, they look like each other. They can be confused. And when you're rushed and you're being yelled into your ear to get something done,

this is a mistake that can happen. She's also going to testify to, in general, you should not have two roles as an armor on a gun-heavy set, which the state's expert was going to testify to, too. Carpenter said the same thing. She was a props assistant and an armor. So she's going to reiterate that. This was a situation where Ms. Gutierrez-Reed did not have the adequate resources was required to do two jobs and mistakes can happen. That's essentially what she would testify to you.

So, Dan, you have a witness, a potential witness that would help to the defense say that negate criminal liability, the responsibility of Hannah Gutierrez-Reed. What's your quick reaction to that argument? Too little too late would be the quick reaction. I mean, obviously I understand the points he's making that it's a financial burden for her to pay for these experts. So they're trying to find experts to do it for free, which, unfortunately, good luck in America, find anyone to do anything for free, especially, you know, giving these valuable times. It's like a charity she's asking for almost for her defense. Granted that, you know, there are different ways to go about it.

But I think really what it came down to is the crux of the information that that witness was going to provide wasn't that much of a game changer. It wasn't, you know, you see this cap cap caput all the time. Sometimes it's really just delay strategy. It's people out there fishing to get that continuance to then, you know, you get an extra three, four months of preparation or you can see how everything shakes out. So we see a bunch in civil trials. I know this is a criminal trial, but we see those bunch of civil trials. Hey, we have a new expert that's going to come in and testify about, you know, billing expert or, you know, just certain things that aren't that important into a case.

But now that they need this factor, let's delay it another four months, when judges come in and say, well, why wasn't this billing expert provided? during the expert disclosure period nine months ago. And they kind of just stimmer and stammer, and we didn't know. Now, if there are times, though, where you have a fact witness, you know, I think sometimes you see the shows like SVU and the law shows where the witness pops in at the last minute, and it's a game-changing moment, and the person found not guilty or guilty because of this person's witness. In real court, that never happens because of the discovery and the expert disclosures and things like that. now there are rare times if you have a fact witness that came forward on it he said she said red light collision or

this person they couldn't find them and now they're back from there their summer abroad and they finally got a judge might say that information is so important we're going to have unfortunately we're going to have to continue it I think that's what the judge was trying to inquire what is they going to say it's changing and all this guy said was they're going to say that sometimes fake bullets look like real bullets and she wasn't fully trained and the judge's like she can say that herself well I'll tell you what let's listen now to the prosecution's response to that and ultimately the judge's decision we have a professional armorer who has been on the witness list since day one the defense has always understood that what they needed to do was try to get their own expert it's absolutely not fair for them to spring an

expert on us a week before trial when they've been on notice that they needed to do this the entire time. And look, I'm not unsympathetic to the fact that Ms. Gutierrez has limited resources, but I also understand that if you have limited resources, you go to the public defender and they have the resources to hire all of those experts. So the fact that she hired lawyers who are without resources to do this just means that they should have told her, you need to go to the public defender's office, because we don't have resources. This is crazy that for two years, they act like we didn't know this lady existed. She just called us. They knew that having a professional armorer as an expert witness was something they probably should have done. And they just didn't do it for years. And now here we are

a week before trial. In order for any of this to work, she has to be interviewed. Her interview has to be transcribed. We have to sit with our expert and go through it. There's all kinds of preparation that has to take place and we simply don't have the time to do it. We're getting ready to do a trial where we're calling like 30 witnesses. We can't carve out the next week to try to solve the mistake and the problem that Mr. Bowles and Mr. Bullion made when they didn't go look for an expert for years. It's absolutely outrageous. We would absolutely ask the court, to exclude this person. This person needed to be there, I mean, at least six months ago.

I'm denying the motion on this basis. Number one, it's late. It's too late. I'm not going to continue the trial. Do not ask me. No one asked me for a motion. I'm telling you right now, I'm not continuing the trial. Secondly, this thing about the only difference that she's going to do is about the union duties.

Fine. They can stipulate that she's not union. You know, you can cross-examine about what, you know, do you know what union does? And the fact that she reached out to you is tells me that this is not prejudicial to you. You didn't go seek her out. You didn't think that she reached out to you. And the other thing is, is it is unfair to the state. Exactly what Ms. Morrissey said, they'd have to do this.

They'd have to do that. And there may be a continuance. There may have been a continuance because they would have needed more time. But they're not going to need more time because I'm denying that expert. Well, Dan, based on what you said before, it seems like you might agree with the prosecutor and the judge's decision. Yeah, exactly. I mean, she hit it. I mean, I think the prosecutor did a good job of kind of saying exactly what I was saying to is just,

especially the fact they had that same category of witness listed on their expert to closure. I mean, that's the first thing you do when those disclosures come in, at least the competent lawyers do, is you flip to that page and say, who the other side get? What am I up against? Did they get a radiologist? Do they not think my films are up to snuff? That means I need to go get a radiologist and make sure what's going on is going. on and then you lie out your trial outline and you get to work but yeah I mean they had two

years they knew this the armor on theirs on the prosecution side was going to be the key witness that's what you need to dispute anything and they're gonna kind of just dragged feet and then before trial raise their hand and say we got one we're gonna go take their depositions the state's probably like what and they have the opportunity you know what we do sometimes is you take that that witness and you turn it into your witness if you really think that that union issues are big you start grilling that you know wouldn't you agree that being union trains a lot different than not being union trained and that you would prefer to have a union train and they're going to be more prepared you lay them down that trail and you tell

that witness would you know that she's not union trained and you kind of make that point to their witnesses when you're behind the eighth ball like that well i'll tell you look dan i i think it's a fascinating case um it's going to have a big implication moving forward we're going to continue to cover it here and see where it goes but dan morgan from morgan and morgan thank you so much for coming on really appreciate it sir thanks for having me look forward to being back on all right everybody that is all we have for you right now here on sidebar. Thank you so much for joining us. And please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time.