Law&Crime Sidebar - Woman Records Husband Shooting Her After Learning of Affair: 'You're Going to Meet Jesus'

Episode Date: March 17, 2024

Carey Birmingham, 60, will be eligible for parole in Texas in just five years, after he was convicted of shooting his wife multiple times. The victim, Patricia “Rici” Birmingham, was recording on her cell phone when she was killed in 2021. Birmingham says he shot her in the heat of passion after he found out she was unfaithful. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber discusses the unique case with Birmingham’s defense team, Anthony Osso and Dan Cogdell.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: If you’ve ever been 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: www.forthepeople.com/YouTubeTakeoverHOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo 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.

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. You really want this on video? I pull it. I'm mad enough to this pull it. An all-female jury decides a man's fate after video of him fatally shooting his wife is played in court. Carrie Birmingham's attorneys are here to talk about the Texas father's defense strategy and the end result. Welcome to Sidebar. Presented by Law and Crime, I'm Jesse Weber. A 60-year-old man is going to prison after he shot his wife in the head outside their home in

Spring, Texas. Carrie Birmingham was seen on video talking to his wife Patricia Birmingham, who went by the name Richie. You really want this on video? I pull it. I'm mad enough to have to pull it. All right, goodbye, Breeze. The harrowing video, which also shows Birmingham saying, You're going to meet Jesus, and I hope it was worth it, and I'm done, I'm effing done, was shown to an all-female jury last week.

According to Birmingham's defense team, the couple had been arguing after Birmingham reportedly discovered his wife as having an affair. The argument spilled out into the driveway with Birmingham standing in his bathrobe and cocking a gun. The jury ended up sentencing. Birmingham to 10 years in prison. He's going to be up for parole in five years. We have a lot of questions about this. So I'm joined right now by Mr. Birmingham's defense attorneys, Anthony Oso and Dan

Cogdell. Great to have you both here. Thank you so much. Thank you for having us. So the first thing I wanted to ask is how this works. There was a decision for Birmingham to plead guilty to murder, but walk us through what the strategy was. And once you make that decision, what happens?

happen next? Sure. So the way it works in Texas, Jesse, is that it is a two-tiered jury trial system. The first tier is going to be guilt innocence, and the second tier is going to be the punishment phase of trial. The unique thing about Texas is that a jury can decide both phases of a trial. They can determine both guilt innocence and then punishment. So here, if you see in the video, it's obviously very overwhelming evidence. And so our strategy was to plead guilty directly to the jury and then have the jury assessed punishment in this case. And one of the defenses or the way that the law works in Texas is that it allows for a reduction in punishment if the jury finds that the crime was committed out of sudden passion due to adequate

cause. And so we felt that based on the circumstances and facts in this case that surrounded Kerry Birmingham's actions that day, that that was the best way to argue on behalf of our client. And Dan, walk us through what the theory was about what happened. He immediately confronted his wife. He just found out what had happened because I think that timing is important. Yeah, so he had heard from a mutual friend of theirs who would come into town to visit with him that weekend that his wife had been unfaithful that she had been in an affair in a relationship with a fellow out of out of the country. and he didn't confront that was on Saturday Sunday Sunday he didn't confront his wife

until the following morning and once she confirmed in essence that she had had this relationships that that's when he you know was was fully informed and sort of flew off the handle for lack of a better description now you had an all female jury which is a rarity in itself, but an all-female jury come back and not even recommend because in Texas, it's their decision, sentence him to 10 years in prison. What was your reaction to that? Well, I mean, I thought that was the appropriate result. Again, as Anthony explained, it is the defense burden at a punishment hearing to show by preponderance of the evidence that the conduct happened as a result of sudden passion arising from an adequate cause.

And we believe that the evidence was pretty clear that that is why what happened. happen. I mean, our focus was on why and not what. And once the jury heard the facts, not only from several of the arresting officers, they heard an audio tape that Recy had secretly recorded where, I mean, this is a husband and wife saying the worst possible things about each other. I mean, just you name it. They said it. She attacked his ability to perform sexually. She attacked his ability to provide financially, which are the two best ways to upset any man I know. And unfortunately, this argument that was recorded on audio tape by Reesey served as the foundation for the argument that it was sudden passion arising from an adequate

cause. So that's a long way of saying, look, I thought the evidence was clear. I thought that was the right result for the jury to find sudden passion. And I wasn't really surprised by the verdict. The state certainly was. There were others in the courtroom that were. But after my argument. I felt very strongly that the jury was going to do what I believe to be the right thing. And they did. And Anthony, that's my question. What is your response to the people who say he killed his wife? He took a life. He could be out in five years. Is that justice? Is that fair? What would be your response to those people? Well, my response would be that the law provides in the state of Texas that if the evidence establishes that a crime was committed out of sudden passion, it reduces the

punishment range from five years to life in prison to a second degree. And so the maximum punishment that Kerry Birmingham was facing once the jury found he'd acted in sudden passion was 20 years. And so under the law, it's the appropriate verdict by the jury. And it's exactly what Dan asked them to do. He said, look, if you feel that he needs to be penalized, then give him 10 years. And that's what they did. So we feel that they followed the law. They applied the facts of the law. And they came to the right result. And how's your client, Mr. Birmingham, feeling about this? I mean, look, he knew the reality of the situation going into it. He's the only client I've ever had in 42 years where I told him, look, you're going to prison. It's not a question of if it's a question of when.

You might go for two years, which is the minimum under the sudden passion scheme up to life or 99 under murder. I said, you're going to prison. So you best acknowledge that. When we started the trial, honestly, I thought best case was in the 20-year-ish range. But once I saw the evidence as it unfolded in front of the jury, I felt very good that they would give him less than 20 years. Look, this was a tragedy that we certainly recognized. It's also a tragedy that can't be undone. All that having been said, Mr. Birmingham's father was murdered many years ago in a very, very high profile case here in Texas back in the 70s. His son had committed suicide while he was awaiting trial. In this case, there's a lot of psychological and harrowing

things that happened to him and his family that are just tragic. All that having been said, he doesn't have any criminal record. He has no acts of violence. There were no prior altercations between he and his wife. And because of all those things that the jury was able to take into consideration. I don't apologize for this verdict at all. I think it was the right one. It was a courageous jury that did the right thing. But I absolutely think that it was the right verdict. Hey, so we want to thank Morgan and Morgan for sponsoring today's Law and Crime YouTube Takeover. If you've seen our videos, you know Morgan and Morgan is a very proud sponsor of ours. Look, I think it's clear to see from our content that the world is not always the safest place,

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verdicts of $12 million in Florida, $6.8 million in New York, and $26 million in Philadelphia. All of these, by the way, were significantly higher than the highest insurance offers. So if you're injured, you can start by easily submitting a claim at forthepeople.com slash YouTube takeover or by dialing pound law. That's pound 529 on your phone. Dan and Anthony, that brings me to something else that you mentioned, the family, because I'd like to talk to you about Olivia. This is Carrie and Patricia's daughter. My understanding was she was at school when the shooting happened. She reportedly said that while she never observed her father physically attacking her mother, she did accuse him of emotional and financial abuse. She questioned the defense, quote, she said, I don't know, sudden passion. You have to have something. You have to have made that decision within you for a while. I feel like to do something, to do that to someone you really love. love. No matter what was said in this trial, you know what type of woman she was and you know what you did and how he took away my favorite person in this world. I lost both of my parents that day. My dad died that day too because the person who did that to my mom and my father

aren't the same person. What's your reaction to that? So I think in that answer lies the sudden passion defense. There is no way to get around the fact that Olivia is going to hate her father and rightfully so. But in that statement, she states that the man on December 6th that killed my mother is not the man that I knew growing up. And that's what we argued the entirety of this case, is that the actions that Carrie Birmingham took that day are not who he was. And the only reason he acted that way is because he was responding to what we believed was adequate cause. So there was nothing in evidence to establish that this was premeditated. They had done a cell phone extraction on Reesey, Birmingham's phone. There was no evidence that she had been complaining about any form of emotional or physical abuse. Nobody had ever seen him be physically abusive with her before. And there had never been any prior police reports to the home. There's just no evidence in place in this case to show that there was prior violence. You know, I think it's, I want to say it's contested whether she was financially abused. I mean, I just don't see the evidence there. She had a job. She had access to funds. and she was allowed to travel in and out of Houston at her leisure with the daughter Olivia. And another thing that I think the jurors took into consideration is that Olivia and Patricia were planning to leave together. And so that's also a daughter that's going to be straight from her father. And so I just, I think a lot of what was said through Olivia's interviews has a lot to do with her feelings that have built up since her father's, since her mother's past.

but I don't think it is indicative of what was going on leading up to Patricia Birmingham's murder. Gentlemen, before I let you go, one last quick question. Do you think your client's going to get out in five years? No. He's eligible to be considered for parole after he serves half the sentence, but the parole scheme in Texas, particularly in a crime that involves violence, much less death. He's not going to make parole in five years.

That's not going to happen. My guess, he's going to serve the majority of that 10-year sentence simply because it is highly unlikely in Texas that you make first parole on anything. It's extremely unlikely that you make parole, first parole, on a murder case. It just doesn't happen. Anthony Oso, Dan Cogdell, thank you both so much for coming on. Appreciate you explaining the particularities of the case. Thank you. Thanks for having us.

All right, everybody, that's all we have for you here on this episode of Sidebar. Thank you so much for joining us. As always, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jesse Weber. We'll speak to you next time.