Law&Crime Sidebar - 5 Defendants Who Broke Down in Tears While Testifying at Trial

Episode Date: May 29, 2023

Defendants who chose to take the stand in their own defense face unfathomable pressure while testifying. Whether guilty or innocent, testifying in front of a jury that will decide their fate has proven to be an emotionally-charged act. The Law&Crime Network’s Angenette Levy and body language expert Susan Perfido review five defendants who broke down in tears while testifying in their trial.LAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokePodcasting - Sam GoldbergWriting & Video Editing - Michael DeiningerGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa Bein & Kiera BronsonSUBSCRIBE TO OUR OTHER PODCASTS:Court JunkieObjectionsThey Walk Among AmericaDevil In The DormThe Disturbing TruthSpeaking FreelyLAW&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.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondery app Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Agent Nate Russo returns in Oracle 3, Murder at the Grandview, the latest installment of the gripping Audible Original series. When a reunion at an abandoned island hotel turns deadly, Russo must untangle accident from murder. But beware, something sinister lurks in the grand. View Shadows. Joshua Jackson delivers a bone-chilling performance in this supernatural thriller 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. Thank you, please God, please. I hope it's not broken. Taking the stand is always a risk for defendants, but when they cry, does it help or hurt their case? we look at the body language of defendants who wept on the stand with an expert. I'm Anjanette Levy, and thanks for joining us for this special edition of Law and Crime Sidebar Podcast. You know, it's not very often that we get to see someone get up on the stand, a defendant in a case, to tell their stories. But recently, it feels like we've seen quite a few

people roll the dice in the hopes that a jury will either send them home and not to prison or find them not liable in a civil suit. Joining me to discuss these defendants who cried on the stand is Susan Constantine. She is an expert in human behavioral analysis. She teaches courses to everybody under the sun, law enforcement, the Department of Defense, and corporate America on how to spot a liar. So Susan, welcome to Sidebar. Thanks for coming on.

Thank you, Ann Jeanette. All right. Are you ready for this? We're going to take a look at our first defendant. Her name is Lynn Lee Renick. She was a spa owner in Columbia, Missouri. Her spa was losing money, and prosecutors said she had previously tried to kill her husband, Ben Renick,

by giving him a poisoned protein drink. When that didn't work, prosecutors said Lin Lee came up with a plan with her boyfriend, Michael Humphrey, and a friend to kill Ben Renick, who was a world-renowned snake breeder. Ben Renick died from multiple gunshot wounds on June 8th of 2017. Susan, let's take a look at a little bit of love. Lindley Rennick on the stand. They're looking for the real killer, correct?

Yes. And you're on your phone, social media, and you see everybody, all these people are suspecting Sam Rennick, his brother. Correct? Yes. And so you decide, all these people who don't know anything about the crime, don't know anything about the crime, aren't being interviewed by the police, but you are, correct?

I'm sorry, what was the question? All these people on social media that you see falsely implicating this guy in his brother's death, all these people, they don't know the facts of the crime. They weren't there, right? Great. They're speculating, they're guessing. Correct?

Yes. But deep down in that heart of yours and in that brain of yours, you know who killed him, correct? Yes. And instead of telling the police, Michael Humphrey, you tell him Sam Rennick. Yes. You throw the scent off of Michael Humphrey, correct?

Yes. You throw the scent off of Michael Humphrey by telling the police you, Ashley, and him, part of this conspiracy, were together just for stereo. Another effort to throw the scent off of Michael Humphrey. Yes. You are a willing participant in covering up Michael Humphrey killing Ben Renick, correct? Yes, I'm so sorry. And now, and now, those men sitting in the back that were seeking Johnson,

justice, who you lied to about the true killer, you now want these 12 people to believe you, correct? Yes. All right, Susan, you saw the scrunched up face, a little bit of the sniffling. What do you make of Lynn Len Renick's testimony? Well, first of all, let's start with the way she's dressed. She's in all black, right? Generally, not something I would put a defendant in because it looks, you look like a villain.

Number two is she's trying to offset that by wearing a cross. So usually that is signifying, of course, that she's a Christian, but on the other hand, is trying to send a message that she's maybe innocent or that she's forgiven or what have you. But so that to me at the first glance, kind of set me off a little bit. The other thing is, is that when you're watching her expressions,

you see her sitting straight up, right? And then she's breathing in as like she's just waiting for the impact to hit. So she's ready for the impact. You see her facial expressions go inward. And then you see eyes closed, tighten, and seething. So seething is when you're seeing those bottom teeth that go down like this, this expression is very interesting

because I teach what expressions do you see as it morphs before an actual attack happens. Where she is at right there, is right before the actual bang, meaning that before the event happened. So right there is when a person sees that she's giving you insight of what he saw, what her husband saw just seconds before she was actually, before he was actually murdered. So the seething is an intense amount of anger. So it's sadness, but it's also anger combined together. So that is a very dangerous. cocktail and usually does not end up well at all. Well, let's tell the viewers and the listeners

how this ended up. Linley Renick ended up being convicted of second degree murder. The jury deliberated for about 11 and a half hours over two days. So crying may have helped her a little bit. She was facing a more serious homicide charge than the second degree. They found her murder. They found her guilty of the second degree murder. So she will be eligible for parole in in 2034. That doesn't mean she'll get it, but that's when she becomes eligible. Well, Susan, let's look at our next defendant. He really needs no introduction to our audience. This is one of our more recent trials. It's Alec Murdoch. You may recall that Alec Murdoch, his whole world came crumbling down in 2021. We covered his trial extensively

here on law and crime. And he was a member of a legal dynasty in the low country of South Carolina. He came from a long line of famous lawyers. And it came out that he was stealing from clients and his law firm. On June 7th, 2021, his wife Maggie and son Paul were shot to death on the family's hunting estate. It's called Moselle. Alex claimed to have nothing to do with the crime, but law enforcement suspected he was the shooter from day one. Murdoch said he left to visit his mother on the night of the murders. And Paul and Maggie were still alive when he left. But he said when he returned from that trip to his mom's house, he found them shot dead. Murdoch said he hadn't been to the kennels that night. That's where Paul and Maggie's bodies were found. But a video that

captured his voice on tape, minutes before the murders may have been his undoing. Murdoch cried frequently during the trial when they would show autopsy photos or photos of Paul and Maggie's bodies. And he also cried on the stand. So let's take a look at Alec Murdoch testifying and welling up with And it wouldn't stand up straight. And were you and Paul having a good time at that point? You could not be around Paul, Paul. You could not be around him and not have a good time. Were you close to Paul?

He couldn't be any closer, then Pawpaw and I, and Buster, and I, were in our. He's just wonderful, wonderful. And it's one of the things you enjoyed doing together with just riding the property? I love doing anything with Pawpaw. It was an absolute delight. But, yeah, one of the things, I mean, Paul's passion I mean Paul was passionate about a lot of things

but that property was really a passion of his I mean he'd love to do he'd love to work it he'd love to work with fields he'd love to work with food plots he loved to hunt I mean he'd work on the roads I mean he would

he would work on all of it I mean he would work on the structure and he would be he worked on the whole property it was it was his passion all right Susan did you think that Alec Murdoch's crying there was authentic what did you see I do this is the one part where I do think that his crime was authentic you can see that as he was describing his relationship with his son you could see the intensity of emotion flood over his

face so when you see that flushing That's high emotional stress. You saw the horizontal wrinkles in his forehead, deep stress, worry, sadness. There was a lot of stress that was in his forehead. Anytime you see those horizontal wrinkles. And then also this is one of the very few times where we didn't see him rubbing his nose, which is usually when he is trying to push his emotions that weren't authentic. But here's the ones who are actually seeing the drops, drop.

from his eyes, deep sadness in his mouth. You could see what we call a chin boss, where the chin pops up. You can see the wrinkling in his chin. What I'm looking at is are the top region of his expressions saying the same thing is as the bottom. So are they congruent?

And as he's speaking, you can see that he is reflecting. It's called a feeder memory. He's reflecting on those good times he had with his son, but also, the catastrophe of what happened I do believe with his son that after that act happened actor that act happened I think that he realized the capacity of what he did and I think that he was remorse I do think he loved his son why he did what

he did we know was money related and we don't know exactly what happened at that moment but right there I do think that those emotions were authentic compared to his hysteria pushed emotions we often saw in court which were not which were not authentic that's interesting because you think in other instances that alec Murdoch's body language and his behavior showed he was not authentic but in this instance when he's remembering Paul and that time right before Paul would have been murdered you think he was telling the truth yes I think that at this point in time he was feeling the emotion what I'm looking at his facial expressions and does it sync with what he's saying

So he is going back into, you think about what he's doing. He's not talking about the act. He's talking about the relationship that he had was a past tense. So he could pull in some really good feeder memories, right? Because he's actually talking about things that were of the past that were actually good and happy. And they had a great relationship. So that created the emotion that he had because he was talking about the good times. it created that emotion.

So, and other times, it's not so because he is what we call pushing emotions. He is hyperventilating. He is constructing emotions. That's where we saw a lot of this, you know, the snot and everything else kind of dripping from his mouth. And so those are those, those are those expressions where he is trying to force out an emotion. And it's not. And then that's when you see him really rocking, rocking, rocking.

So a lot of that was more performing. more than anything but I think there was a moment here I do think that he did feel those emotions and he did have positive feelings about his son and he was expressing that in past tense not future tense because now we know he's gone but probably if there was a question that was asked after that after you know he had found his son our son was there with his head blown open you probably would have seen a whole different set of emotions but when you're reading emotions you have to sink it with

what is being asked what's that stimulus and then the reaction from it at that exact moment now five seconds later there might be a new stimulus but at this point yes i do think he was feeling those emotions very interesting well the jury in alec murdoch's case deliberated for about three hours before returning the guilty verdicts on the two first-degree murder charges so the crying didn't really help him that much and you know susan i interviewed one of the jurors who felt like yes, Alec Murdoch did feel probably some remorse or sadness, but still found him guilty. They believe he did the crime. Alec Murdoch is now serving two life sentences without parole and protective custody.

And he also faces about a hundred or so, maybe a little more financial charges. And this week we learned also that he was indicted by the feds for money laundering and conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud for several schemes, including the one related to. to his late housekeeper, Gloria Satterfield, and we think that he is going to probably plead guilty. He's been cooperating with the feds on this for some time, according to his lawyers Dick Harputlian and Jim Griffin. Well, Susan, our next defendant that we are going to look at on the stand was not really accused of a crime. She was accused of defamation. It's Amber Hurd, and this was really the trial of the century last year. It was huge. Everybody was watching it,

coming to law and crime to watch it as Johnny Depp, her ex-husband, sued her for defamation, claiming that in a 2018 Washington Post op-ed, she defamed him when she accused him of not only physical abuse but sexual abuse, heard countersued Depp for comments made by his lawyer, Adam Waldman. And it was really a case that people watched around the world. It just became this phenomenon. Depp and Herd are both actors, of course. So the jurors had to watch each one and decide who was telling the truth. And in the end, it probably came down to who did they believe, Depp or Heard, along with all the other witnesses.

Here's Amber Heard crying, as she described how she claimed Johnny Depp sexually assaulted her with a bottle in Australia, and some may find this disturbing. So we just want to give you a little warning about that. I don't remember what I say. I just remember being really still, not wanting to move. I remember looking around the room. I remember looking at all the broken bottles, broken glass.

And I remember that it's just not wanting to move. because I didn't know if it was broken. I didn't know if the bottle that he had inside me was broken. I couldn't feel it. I couldn't feel it. I didn't feel pain. I didn't feel pain.

I didn't feel anything. I just didn't want it. I looked around and I saw so much broken glass that I didn't know if he would know if he would know I didn't know if he would know if it was broken or not

and I just remember thinking, please God, please I hope it's not broken I don't know how that ended I don't know how I got off the countertop All right Susan so Johnny Depp vehemently

denied this claim that he sectioned assaulted his then wife. So what are you seeing from Amber Heard on the stand? Do you believe she was being truthful? No. And this could take an entire day of training to break down literally everything she said both in her voice, her statements, and her body language. So one of the things that we did here at the Human Behavior Academy, we broke her statement down into three segments. One is we did voice stress analysis on her and her accounting of what she allegedly said happened. Number two is we analyzed all of her language, how she proffered her words, the selection of her words, and then I did the behavioral analysis. And when we brought all of those reports together,

they were so far off the charts in deception that it was literally was is a test case because I don't understand how she felt that that was considered being good acting because that was probably her worst performance of her of her career and so what did I really see this is she was trying to hyperventilate and she was trying to induce this type of hysteria But it wasn't coming across because she really didn't feel it. So this is an example of somebody is trying to construct emotions of sadness and she was fearful. There was no fear in her face, none whatsoever. And you didn't see any sort.

She's doing all of this stuff. That's that hyperinduced kind of fake hysteria that she's trying to perform and she's doing a very bad acting job of it. Then she's talking about that she was lying there very still. Now, I got to tell you, you know, Johnny Depp is not a big guy. So how he was able to do that, and I mean, just, it doesn't even make sense that she would lie there and still. And then she felt like he was, you know, penetrating her with this bottle.

So, and then she would state that, that she felt pressure. She said, I felt pressure. I felt pressure. Anytime you're hearing somebody, you're repeating, it's called repeated assertion, they're trying to convince you rather than convey information. So the thing is, she also uses the word, I think. First of all, she didn't know,

because she's kind of trying to construct it. So the right answer would be, he tried to push this inside me, or he pushed this in front of me, not that he tried, just tried as an attempted failure, right? So it's her selection of her words that betrayed her. Her body language betrayed her because her facial expressions were not showing genuine fear or sadness.

Okay, well, it didn't help her. The crying didn't because she lost pretty badly in this case. The jury didn't believe her. The jurors found her liable on all three counts of defamation and awarded debt $15 million in damages. The jury found debt liable on one count for the words of his lawyer and awarded her $2 million. dollars. They settled this once both sides said they would appeal and her decree to pay debt $1 million, which he said he would donate to charity. Now, our next defendant is Kyle Rittenhouse, and he was the teenager who was charged back in 2020 in the summer with killing two men and

wounding a third during protests and riots in Kenosha, Wisconsin, following the police shooting of Jacob Blake. Jacob Blake was shot by a Kenosha police officer. seven times. He survived, but was left paralyzed. Police believed he was reaching for a weapon when they fired at him. Rittenhouse was in Kenosha with a friend that night, carrying an AR-15 that his friend had purchased for him with his money. He shot and killed Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber and wounded Gage Groskroids. Rittenhouse claimed he acted in self-defense when he fired, and he spent several hours on the stand and was cross-examined by the prosecution. Let's listen Susan, to a little bit of what Kyle Rittenhouse testified to on the stand.

When you step back from Mr. Ziminski, what's your plan? My plan is to get out of that situation and go back north on Sheridan Road to where the car store slot number two was. And did you get back? Were you able to go in a northerly direction? I wasn't. Describe what happens? I, once I take that step back, I look over my shoulder and Mr. Rosenbaum, Mr. Rosenbaum was now running from my right side.

And I was cornered from in front of me with Mr. Ziminski. there were people right there all right susan kyle writtenhouse was he faking it or was that real real real so here's one of the things i want you to see is when emotion begins you're going to see a revving up of it, you know, their emotions do fleet, but they also sustain themselves. Most people, when they're going into an emotional state, don't recover very quick. We see that oftentimes with Murdoch. Murdoch would go in and out of emotion. And here's where it's actually moving towards a deeper, more intense emotion. And you could see his whole body movement almost shattered.

shutter. In that, you see the chin boss coming up, really strong indicator of sadness. He was breathing. Now, this is one where the breathing is where somebody would kind of lose their breath because they're almost hyperventiling. This is a true form of pre-hyperventilation. You could see it. Now, the other thing is I'd like you to also note is it moved me, and I'm sure it moved, you and other people to feel that same emotion. Because humans naturally can pick up instinctively when something is off or whether it's genuine. So when you're watching him, more than likely,

the people that were in the gallery were almost morphing that same expression because they actually felt the same thing. I thought it was genuine. I thought it was believable. And I think that it really, and we know the outcome of it, I mean, he was found not guilty, but truly he, when he experienced it, and you could see too that as he was leading up to when the occurrence happened,

he actually went into a visual stake of recall. And as he was morphing through that, you could see it kind of slowly, he started to get emotional because he knew he was leading up to what happened. And then he had a visual impact recall of what happened, and that's what caused him to break. So that was very good.

genuine, very believable, truth told all the, all of the expressions, there was no red flags there. Very interesting. Well, you hit the nail on the head because Rittenhouse was acquitted of all charges after the jury deliberated for a little more than three days. So it appears that the tears helped in his case. And Susan, you think they were authentic. He's being sued by Gage Grosskroyce, though. His legal troubles are not over. Anthony Huber's parents are also suing him. Kim Potter is our next defendant. She was a police officer in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota in the spring of 2021. And this incident involving her and a man named Dante Wright was captured by body camera. She shot and killed Dante Wright during a traffic stop. And this happened right in the

middle of the trial for Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who killed George Floyd during that incident in May of 2020. So Potter had pulled over or was a assisting other officers with this traffic stop. She reached for her taser, but pulled her handgun instead. And then she stood trial after being charged with manslaughter in 2021. Here she is testifying about the moment that she shot Dante Wright. They're still struggling and I can see Sergeant Johnson and the driver struggling over the gear shifts because I can see Johnson's hand. And then I I can see his face. And you knew Johnson from many years before this, is that right?

Yes. And by looking at his face at that point in kind, what did you interpret it to mean? He had a look of fear in his face. It's nothing I'd seen before. Did you say anything when you saw this? What did you do? We were struggling, we were trying to keep him from driving away. It just went chaotic.

And then I remember yelling, taser, taser, taser, taser. And nothing happened. And then he told me I shot him. all right susan your take was she authentic there or was she faking it i think that at the end there she was remorseful she couldn't believe what she did especially when she covered both of her face she was doing facial blocking like i can't believe disengaging from the event then you heard the different tonality in your cry um and her voice her voice inflection got very very high that is a form of anxiety and stress.

I mean, she did feel that. I think that prior to that, she was very stoic. She didn't show a lot of emotion. I didn't see genuine sadness. Now she, I didn't see the actual movements that would have been consistent with sadness. I saw more horizontal movements with her mouth and not a lot of emotion there.

She was very detached. But at that one moment when she broke, I think that would, that was genuine, leading up to it was disingenuine. So there was a combination of emotions there. Very interesting. Well, it was all caught on camera. So you knew she was more than likely going to be convicted of something. And she was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to two years in prison.

She was recently released after serving about 85% of her sentence. That's how it works in Minnesota under the sentencing guidelines. Susan Constantine, thank you so much for joining us. This was great. We really appreciate it. You're welcome. Thanks so much. And that's it for this edition of Law and Crime Sidebar podcast.

You can listen to and download Sidebar on Apple, Spotify, Google, and wherever else you get your podcast. And, of course, you can always watch us on Law and Crimes YouTube channel. I'm Ann Jeanette Levy, and we will see you next time. You can binge all episodes of this Law and Crime series. Add free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.