Law&Crime Sidebar - Why Griner Pled Guilty, Tesla Crash Trial, Nipsey Hustle Verdict

Episode Date: July 8, 2022

Why did WBNA player Brittney Griner plead guilty to drug charges in Russia? Is this a way for her to get back to the U.S.? Foreign policy expert David Tafuri and Jesse Weber discuss. Elon Musk complicates jury selection in a trial centered on Tesla. Jury consultant Alan Turkheimer explains.  A verdict is reached in the murder trial of famed L.A. rapper Nipsey Hussle. Attorney Joe Richardson breaks down how the jury came to their decision.GUESTS:David Taufri, Foreign policy expertAlan Turkheimer, Jury consultant Joe Richardson, Attorney LAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokePodcasting - Sam GoldbergVideo Editing - Michael DeiningerGuest Booking - Alyssa FisherSocial Media Management - Kiera BronsonSUBSCRIBE TO OUR OTHER PODCASTS:Court JunkieThey Walk Among AmericaCoptales and CocktailsSpeaking 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.

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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. She's there and she knows that we are doing everything that we can and our own strength to, you know, ask to meet with the president and to, you know, request that, you know, they do everything they can to get her home. Brittany Griner pleads guilty to drug charges in Russia after she directly asked President Biden for help. What does this move mean?

Foreign policy expert David DeFurie explains. Plus, jury selection in a trial against Tesla gets complicated because of, yep, you guessed it, Elon Musk. Jury consultant Alan Turkheimer joins to discuss. And a verdict is reached in the murder trial of famed L.A. rapper Nipsey Hustle. Attorney Joe Richardson breaks down how the jury came to their decision. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by law and crime. I'm Jesse Weber.

Brittany Griner has pleaded guilty to drug possession and smuggling charges in Russia. The WNBA player has been locked away in a Russian jail for six months after she was arrested in February at a Moscow airport. where officials claim that they found vape cartridges containing hashish oil in her luggage. Griner faces up to 10 years behind bars. Now, this comes after Griner wrote a letter to President Biden directly asking for help. In the letter, she's quoted as saying, as I sit here in a Russian prison alone with my thoughts and without the protection of my wife, family, friends, Olympic Jersey, or any accomplishments, I'm terrified I might be here forever. Please don't forget about me and the other American detainees. Please do all you can to bring us home.

I voted for the first time in 2020, and I voted for you. I believe in you. Now, this guilty plea also comes after Griner's wife, Shirel, appeared on CBS mornings to bring more attention to the situation. It breaks my heart when I hear her say that because BG is probably the strongest person that I know. So she doesn't say words like that lightly. While at the time of this interview, Shirell indicated that the president hadn't reached out. It was reported that he did end up calling her to reassure her. that he is working to get Brittany Greiner released.

So let's break down what this guilty verdict could mean. I'm joined now by David to furry foreign policy contributor and international lawyer who actually served as an outside foreign policy advisor to President Obama's campaign. David, thanks so much for coming on. We really appreciate it. Of course. Thanks for having me. You got to tell me what this guilty verdict means. I mean, from the outset, it looks like that she felt she was not going to win in this

Russian courtroom, possibly plead guilty, get a lesser sense. sentence and maybe with the hopes of getting home? I mean, what do you make of this? So this came as a little bit of a surprise. I didn't expect that this was going to happen. I don't think many commentators did. But it also makes sense if she's getting closer to a deal. I'm sure she did not do this without advice of counsel and perhaps with with some urging or advice from the State Department that this might speed up her case. Probably part of what's going on here is if there's going to be a deal to exchange her for a Russian prisoner here in the U.S. or some other prisoner transfer, Russia may have said, well, we can't do that until we finish

the trial. And the trial itself is expected to take months. So she may have done this in order to accelerate the possibility of her being released through a prisoner swap or a prisoner transfer. Here's the weird thing, though, according to ESPN, this doesn't stop the trial. The trial still goes on, even with this guilty plea, the judge is going to continue to read the full case file into the record. This could last weeks or months. So if this is correct, from a practical point of view and a timing point of view, it doesn't change anything. Right. And that's one of the, you know, eccentricities of the legal process in Russia. It's, you know, very, very process oriented. And so it could go on. But my understanding is her having admitted fault should be

make it shorter and hopefully it will be shorter as a result of that notably she said that this was an accident and i think allegedly the the cannabis vapors that she allegedly had you know might have been legal here in the u.s where she was flying out of she didn't realize she had packed them and so she made a mistake she says but she's admitting at least that under russian law she may have technically violated the law i'm glad you mentioned that because griner said in open court i'd like to plead guilty your honor but there was no intent i didn't want to bring the law. I'd like to give my testimony later. I need time to prepare. So what does that mean? Why did she make that statement? And what kind of statement would she make? Probably wants to make sure

that people still stay on her side, right? And she's wanted to give a bit of an explanation for how this happened. She didn't intend to break Russian law. And I think that's that that sounds plausible to me. But, you know, again, there must be some in this chess match that is this Russian trial, which is very different from a U.S. criminal trial, there must be some advantage to admitting fault, but still giving some explanation for her. Yeah, so her next court appearance is July 14th, and we'll see what happens then, but before we do, do you think, I mean, it seemed, it seemed to me, I mean, you tell me, if she didn't plead guilty and she was convicted, was she going to get 10 years in prison? Does now her pleading guilty mean she could get something less and it would make it easier for

the Biden administration to work something out? Well, we talked about this previously. I mean, This really isn't just about her alleged legal offense in Russia. She's certainly being used as a pawn by Russia. That's why the U.S. has declared publicly they think she's been improperly detained by Russia, meaning at least the motives of Russia in detaining her for so long for this offense are, you know, are not completely valid. And therefore, I think it all depends on the political situation and the state of negotiations between Russia and the U.S. and it's influenced by the fact that tensions are very high between the U.S. and Russia because the U.S.

is rightfully supporting the Ukrainians, arming the Ukrainians in their resistance to the illegal Russian invasion. What could be a deal that would get her home that would make sense? Is it giving up a very strong Russian asset for Brittany Griner? Is it doing something more clandestine where we don't really know the circumstances of her release? This is just such a public situation and we are in the middle, while Russia's in the middle of a war with Ukraine, I just don't know what the next year or two years or three years is going to look like i think something could happen privately that we may not be informed about that would be a good solution it's also possible that there could be a prisoner transfer swap there is this this gentleman who's imprisoned here in the u.s he was convicted of you know

illegal supply of arms or attempting to supply arms to the columbian farc he could possibly be swapped russia and putin certainly want him back sergey laovraff the foreign minister of russia has talked about trying to get him back. So that's one idea that some people have. I would hope the U.S. isn't going to compromise its overall policy towards Russia. I don't expect they will. The U.S. is going to move forward with supplying and supporting the Ukrainian resistance. That's a much sort of more important overall foreign policy goal for the U.S. I don't expect that Biden administration would compromise that for one prisoner, no matter who he or she is. David Tafuri, thank you so much for coming on and breaking this down for us.

And if we have an update in the Brittany Griner situation, we'd love to have you back on. Sure, thanks. Elon Musk always seems to be in the news, but this time it is a little bit different because Tesla is being sued by a man named James Riley, and he's accusing the company of negligence after his son was killed after losing control of his car at 116 miles per hour and crashing into a wall. Riley claims that the company improperly removed a speed limiting device from Model 6 vehicles. Now, while Musk is not involved directly in this lawsuit, his name has already come up in this trial out of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. so much so that it's causing a major problem in jury selection. Joining me right now to discuss is jury consultant Alan Turkheimer. Alan, great to have you on.

Great to be on. So let's talk about this because in the middle of jury selection, a woman stands up and says that she's a big fan of Elon Musk. And then two other prospective jurors, one who ordered a Tesla and another one who's a technician who's looking to work at a local Tesla service center has said that they are fans of the billionaire, that they're fans of Musk. In fact, one said he's done a lot of improvement in technology. He seems to be very progressive to innovate.

And so you have these people who are standing up and saying that they're fans of Elon Musk. And I wonder, and I should tell you that a jury has been selected, but I'm wondering if that's a little flimsy right now considering you have people who are big fans of the billionaire. Sure. So impressions are usually on a continuum. And as you said, the woman who's a big fan said it, spoken in the process, worked the way it should have. If somebody has such strong feelings positive or negative, positive in this case, and that

juror will get excluded from serving, others can still compartmentalize. And so it sounds like jurors who say, yes, I'm a fan, but they don't constantly look at his Twitter page. They don't constantly follow the news. That type of juror could probably, even if not ideal, from the plaintiff's perspective, that type of juror could probably compartmentalize, focus on the law, the witnesses in the case without being too concerned about this is Elon Musk, and I'm a big fan of his. You mentioned Twitter. There were other jurors who said that they follow Musk on Twitter. There were two who actually said that they started Twitter accounts after Musk announced his intention to buy the company. That seems a little problematic. Yeah, if I was a plaintiff, I would be concerned about

that, even though they're told that he's not going to be in court. It's not about him. There's subconscious bias that seeps in. And so much depends on the judge's willingness to decide whether or not a juror can be fair and impartial. During voir dire, the jurors are going to be asked about what they think of a whole range of attitudes about companies, cars. There's contributory negligence here with 116 miles per hour speeding. And it's just going to come back. to whether or not the judge believes every juror that's going to be seated or could be seated can remain fair and impartial and not start off giving one side favoritism. Here's my concern. So currently six jurors have been selected, two alternates have been selected. We know that the attorney for Tesla has

made a statement in open court. He says we've heard a bunch of stuff about Elon Musk. This case is not about Elon Musk. He's not walking into the courtroom. My question is Elon Musk is quite active every day. he's in the news every day. Is this jury going to last this trial? Are they going to remain impartial? And that's the concern. Correct. They might need a few more than two alternate. So it might be statutorily defined. But yes, when a judge says to jurors, don't Google anything, you have to make decisions based here in the courtroom that to some jurors mean. So let me just pick up my phone on a break and look something up. So that could be a challenge moving forward. The judge has to remind the jurors that you need to make the decisions based on the evidence you see here in court and

nothing else. And the hope is that six jurors abide by those rules and make the decisions based on what's presented in court. I did find it a little curious, and I wanted your opinion that they asked this jury panel, the prospective jurors, if anyone hated Elon Musk and there was complete silence. Were you surprised by that? I think maybe that was just asked to get a sense of fairness. Sometimes when lawyers ask questions of jurors, it's so clear that they're trying to flesh out bias and whether or not a juror is going to be biased against their party that maybe it was asked just to say, okay, I want to know extreme opinions. Do you love Elon Musk? Do you hate Elon Musk?

When in reality, they're just looking for one angle. But yeah, it was an unusual question and not that surprising that nobody raised her hands. Although you ask enough people about somebody such as Elon Musk was such a big public following and who's contributed so much to so many things, you probably could get somebody who might raise her hand and say, well, maybe it hates a strong word, but you want to see jurors reactions to those kinds of questions. Alan Turkheimer, thanks so much for coming on. Thanks for having me, Jesse.

A verdict has been reached in the Nipsey Hustle case. Eric Holder was on trial for shooting the famed L.A. rapper, whose real name was Ermius Ashgadon on March 31st, 2019, out in Los Angeles, outside of the Marathon Clothing Store, which Hustle opened in 2017. Now, here's what's really interesting about this case. Both the prosecution and the defense both agreed that Holder shot Hustle. They also agreed that two bystanders were shot during the gunfire. The legal question and the legal distinction between the prosecution and the defense was, was this murder or was it voluntary manslaughter?

Holder and Hustle, they knew each other, they grew up on the same streets, they were in the same gang at one point, and Holder was an aspiring rapper. But according to the prosecution, Holder was jealous of the rapper and the killing was premeditated. But in never telling Ms. Nicholson that he knows Nipsy Hustle, especially when she points out that she's excited to me, It may be no comment once he got back into the car. It's saying you're through right before shooting him and shooting him the number of times that he did. And then kicking him in the head after he's already shot him 10 or 11 times as person. That wasn't based on some conversation about some good rumor. According to the defense, though, this shooting occurred because Hustle insulted Holder,

that they were having a conversation when Hustle allegedly told Holder there were rumors he was a snitch. Now, according to the defense, Holder lost it, and he shot Hustle in a fit of rage, shot him 10 times. We told you that was voluntary manslaughter, and that he acted in a heat of passion. We told you what that heat of passion that he acted on consisted of. It consisted of being called publicly a snitch by someone as famous as Nipsy Hustle. And we believe that that is what the evidence should. So while under that heat of passion, from that provocation from Nipsey Hustle is serious accusation done in this matter, a mere nine minutes later, he shot and killed Nipsey Hustle.

Nine minutes is a very short period of time for such a serious, life-threatening provocation and accusation like this. Nine minutes. Clearly, emotions did not have time to clear in that short amount of time. So what did the jury decide? Well, after six hours of deliberations, the jury came back with their verdict. We, the jury, in the above-entitled action, find a jury. the defendant, Eric Ronald Holder Jr., guilty of the crime of first-degree murder of Ermius Ashgadong in violation of Penal Code Section 187 subsection A of felony as charged in count one of the

indictment. Now, while the jury convicted holder of first-degree murder of Nipsey Hustle, they actually found him guilty of two counts of attempted voluntary manslaughter, not attempted first-degree murder for the two bystanders that were shot. And he now faces up to life in prison with his sentencing set for September 15. I'm here with civil rights attorney Joe Richardson, who's a frequent guest on the Long Crime Network. Joe, it's great to see you. You and I were covering this case together. And first, let's just start off and let everybody know you grew up in this area. You know where all of this occurred. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. You know, right there along Slosson

Avenue, just west of Crenshaw Boulevard, what people refer to as South Central LA, grew up there, still have occasion to get there. It's a great place called Woody's Barbecue that's right next door at the next shopping center. And so like I said on the show all that time ago, shout out to Woody's, but boy, you hate the reason and the occasion. But this is something that we hate to see, particularly with someone who has, you know, quote, made it, done so well and still is connected to the community. You know, the idea that he wouldn't be safe there at a place where he's invested in a business and that type of thing. It's very, it's tragic. Yeah, no one was expecting this to go down that day.

No one. And here's, when you look at the verdict, first let's just start with the murder conviction for hustle shooting. Were you surprised by that? Why do you think the jury came to that decision? I wasn't surprised at all. I mean, because basically what they said is the defense said, yeah, he shot him, but it was, it was heat of the moment. And he would be so hot because he was accused of being a snitch. And in gang culture, if you're accused of being a snitch, there's nothing worse.

And therefore, he had to be hot. Now, step back. First of all, not all of us are in gang culture, even if we have no someone that is or related to someone that is or whatever else. But what the jury had to believe that was for 10 minutes after having this conversation, he has this conversation with Nipsey Hustle. He shakes his hand. He gets something to eat. He eats it. He goes back to his car. He pulls out two guns. This is nine to ten minutes. That he's suddenly still in the heat of the moment. Well, that would be a really long moment. And so that was very unlikely to begin with, I think. And the jury basically agreed. This couldn't be heated at the moment. He had a whole lot of time to get cool as it were. And therefore, it was not hot and heated thatching. It was cold-blooded. It was premeditated.

Maybe he was jealous of him. And he just walked out and gave him Tim Bullets like he was giving him candy or something. And then went back and got in the car and acted just as regular as he could have. Yeah, that was something the prosecution said. They said, well, we can't definitively say what his motive was and we don't have to prove motive. They believe this is an aspiring rapper. he was jealous of all the success that nipsy hustle was having that nobody in nipsy hustle's crew had listened to his music that it wasn't so much about being called a snitch but just that he wanted to kill him uh and they you know they even presented testimony that the woman that he was with holder when they pulled up and she said oh look it's nipsy hustle he didn't even acknowledge to her that he knows it so that was something too right yeah exactly and so you know a lot of things figure in in that moment i mean you know nipsy hustle was super successful and a lot of people with that kind of success, you know, would move out of the hood or be away or not be accessible. And so,

you know, he was perhaps an icon or something that a lot of people, including perhaps Mr. Holder, wanted to be. And then the person that Mr. Holder was with was really, you know, deviating, you know, gravitating toward Nipsey Hustle the same way. Wanted to take a picture with him and all those types of things. And, you know, it might have got under his skin. There's no good reason, right? motive oh okay this all makes sense you know there's no motive that way there may have been some reasons but certainly no excuses and certainly nothing they took him out of the realm of being criminally liable in the first degree what about the fact that the jury didn't come back with attempted first degree murder for the two bystanders that were shot but attempted voluntary manslaughter

we've had experts say that could be a compromise verdict and that happened with the jury what do you make of it could be a compromise verdict i mean perhaps some people on the jury may be thinking well my gosh if there are two other people that are standing close by, he has to know that if he mows, tries to mow Nipsey Hustle down in a barrage of bullets, that other people that are close by would be shot, and therefore he should be equally liable for first degree there. Others may have said, well, it's clear it was about Nipsey Hustle because Nipsey Hustle is the one that got most of the bullets. He got 10 of them. And so, you know, so that might have been the compromise. I think that it was true that he probably did not intend to shoot those others.

incidental and collateral. He intended to shoot Nancy Hustle and he was successful that way. So it might have been a compromise verdict just because the intent was not as clear. And you have to think about it like this, too, that Eric Holder, as we reported, was attacked in prison last week. So this is a guy who not only shot Nipsey Hustle. He was accused of being a snitch. He was attacked in prison. Now, as I said, his sentencing is going to be for September 15th. He might spend the rest of his life in prison. So his state his future is not looking so great but you know just moving aside from eric holder uh we have to remember that this is a monumental day for the family of nipsy hustle his loved ones and of course his many many fans joe richardson thank you so much for coming on we really appreciate it thanks

for having us appreciate it jessie and thanks for joining us here on sidebar please subscribe on apple podcast spotify youtube or wherever you get your podcast sidebar is produced by sam goldberg YouTube manager, Robert Zoki, and Alyssa Fisher as our booking producer. I'm Jesse Weber. Speak to you next time.