WEBVTT - Ep. 8 - Shattering The System: "Difficult to Defend" 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:02.880 In this podcast, we're going to talk frankly but sensitively 0:00:02.920 --> 0:00:07.040 about issues some people might find disturbing, including rape and suicide. 0:00:07.640 --> 0:00:10.320 If you or someone you know is suicidal in the 0:00:10.480 --> 0:00:14.160 US Down nine eighty eight, check out this podcast notes 0:00:14.200 --> 0:00:17.959 page for information on LGBT plus mental health resources in 0:00:18.040 --> 0:00:20.200 your community. 0:00:20.239 --> 0:00:23.360 This is shattering the system. I'm Sinari and Glinton. 0:00:23.680 --> 0:00:26.360 This is the notebook that I brought to the trial. 0:00:26.600 --> 0:00:31.080 So these are all the pages from every single day 0:00:31.120 --> 0:00:35.400 while I was in the viewing room with family and 0:00:35.440 --> 0:00:36.879 friends of Jamel and Timothy. 0:00:37.280 --> 0:00:39.680 I recently sat down with Jonathan Hunger. He is one 0:00:39.720 --> 0:00:43.839 of the executive producers for this show. He attended every 0:00:43.920 --> 0:00:46.879 day of the trial. He'd never been to a federal 0:00:46.920 --> 0:00:50.280 court before. Jonathan would sit in the viewer section with 0:00:50.320 --> 0:00:53.040 the family and friends of the victims. I came along 0:00:53.080 --> 0:00:55.840 for some of the key moments, but Jonathan went every 0:00:55.920 --> 0:00:59.720 day and he kept an incredibly meticulous notebook that really 0:00:59.760 --> 0:01:02.440 gives you a sense of what the trial felt like. 0:01:02.920 --> 0:01:07.399 So just pages upon pages, so from everything to what 0:01:07.600 --> 0:01:11.280 was going on, from the jury selection to behind the 0:01:11.319 --> 0:01:13.840 scenes stuff before the procedings actually started. 0:01:14.160 --> 0:01:17.959 Because of COVID nineteen for this trial, the courtroom was divided. 0:01:18.240 --> 0:01:20.959 There was one room for where the principals gathered, you know, 0:01:21.040 --> 0:01:24.080 the lawyers, the judge, and ed Buck, and then in 0:01:24.120 --> 0:01:28.080 a completely different courtroom was the viewing section where spectators 0:01:28.120 --> 0:01:30.720 could watch the trial on closed circuit television. 0:01:31.080 --> 0:01:33.559 Every day was starting with me being in a line 0:01:33.560 --> 0:01:35.680 of folks that were there not only for the Buck trial, 0:01:35.760 --> 0:01:39.800 but also any case within that building. It's a huge 0:01:39.800 --> 0:01:42.319 building downtown, so when you walk up it, it kind 0:01:42.360 --> 0:01:46.080 of feels almost larger than life, like how you were 0:01:46.640 --> 0:01:47.320 describing it. 0:01:48.360 --> 0:01:51.120 The Federal Courthouse where ed Buck was stride was completed 0:01:51.200 --> 0:01:55.440 in twenty sixteen. The building's architects, Skid moll Owens and 0:01:55.480 --> 0:01:59.680 Meryl envisioned it as a floating cube with curtains of 0:01:59.680 --> 0:02:04.080 glass and enduring materials like limestone. It's kind of a 0:02:04.080 --> 0:02:13.760 secular temple to justice. A quick review of where we 0:02:13.800 --> 0:02:16.440 are in this story. Ed Buck shot up twenty six 0:02:16.560 --> 0:02:19.440 year old Jammel Moore with a lethal dose of meth 0:02:19.520 --> 0:02:23.639 in twenty seventeen. Buck wasn't arrested, and eighteen months later 0:02:24.080 --> 0:02:27.920 another man died the same way. His name was Timothy Dean. 0:02:28.600 --> 0:02:33.400 Timothy died on January seventh, twenty nineteen. Then a third 0:02:33.560 --> 0:02:38.200 man escaped Buck's apartment on September eleventh, twenty nineteen. He 0:02:38.320 --> 0:02:42.360 told a horrifying tale of being bound and injected with 0:02:42.480 --> 0:02:48.560 a dangerously large dose of meth. Finally, finally, ed Buck 0:02:48.680 --> 0:02:51.519 was arrested, and eventually he would be brought to trial 0:02:51.600 --> 0:02:55.000 by federal prosecutors. Today, we'll take a closer look at 0:02:55.200 --> 0:02:58.760 Edbuck's trial, as well as the defense strategy his lawyers 0:02:58.800 --> 0:03:02.560 put forth. I wanted to talk to someone who could 0:03:02.560 --> 0:03:05.160 give a sense of what the trial felt like. 0:03:09.840 --> 0:03:12.200 So from the very beginning, he was always coming from 0:03:12.200 --> 0:03:14.320 a place of anger of like, how was this man 0:03:15.639 --> 0:03:17.880 able to live on the streets and do all this evil? 0:03:18.000 --> 0:03:21.200 And really, you know, maybe it's now after hearing all 0:03:21.200 --> 0:03:23.800 the things from the trial that I say so openly 0:03:23.880 --> 0:03:32.200 evil because there's no other way to describe it. Disgusting, evil, horrific, 0:03:34.680 --> 0:03:37.640 the things you would never want to either see again 0:03:37.960 --> 0:03:39.080 or hear about again. 0:03:40.280 --> 0:03:43.880 Finally ed Buck would have his day in court. Letitia Nixon, 0:03:43.960 --> 0:03:47.240 Jamelmore's mother would now have at least the chance to 0:03:47.280 --> 0:03:50.240 get a measure of justice for her son. Buck was 0:03:50.320 --> 0:03:53.360 arrested in late twenty nineteen, and while waiting for his trial, 0:03:53.720 --> 0:03:56.600 the world would stop because of COVID nineteen and the 0:03:56.640 --> 0:04:00.000 Black Lives Matter movement would bring renewed scrutiny to this case. 0:04:03.600 --> 0:04:07.320 This is shattering the system. I'm your host scenario Glinton. 0:04:07.760 --> 0:04:10.520 In the last episode, we heard about the investigation and 0:04:10.560 --> 0:04:14.440 what made federal prosecutors take up the ed Buck case. 0:04:14.880 --> 0:04:17.520 In this episode, we'll hear about the struggle to get 0:04:17.600 --> 0:04:20.800 Buck into an actual courtroom, and we'll hear from one 0:04:20.800 --> 0:04:22.279 of Buck's defence lawyers. 0:04:22.680 --> 0:04:26.560 If I was white, no one would have questioned my integrity, 0:04:26.920 --> 0:04:29.760 no one would have dragged me. And if I won 0:04:29.880 --> 0:04:33.440 or lost as a lawyer, as a white lawyer, nobody 0:04:33.480 --> 0:04:34.560 would have had. 0:04:34.400 --> 0:04:35.680 Any issue with me. 0:04:36.360 --> 0:04:40.720 The United States versus ed Buck after this break Wow. 0:04:48.200 --> 0:04:52.400 After he was arrested in September. On October two, twenty nineteen, 0:04:53.040 --> 0:04:56.279 Nick Hannah, the US attorney, filed an indictment against Buck, 0:04:56.680 --> 0:05:00.320 charging him with five counts. The delays from COVID make 0:05:00.400 --> 0:05:02.880 many wonder if ed Buck would ever get a trial. 0:05:03.520 --> 0:05:06.760 Those the ladies gave prosecutors that much more time to 0:05:06.800 --> 0:05:11.359 go over evidence and hone their arguments. For many people involved, 0:05:11.440 --> 0:05:14.800 it was emotional, not just the victims' families, but all 0:05:14.880 --> 0:05:19.479 those involved. Here's the federal prosecutor, Chelsea Norrel, on the 0:05:19.560 --> 0:05:21.400 stakes she felt during the trial. 0:05:22.279 --> 0:05:26.160 When we brought our criminal complaint our first day and 0:05:26.279 --> 0:05:30.160 magistrate court, when Buck was appearing on our charges, one 0:05:30.160 --> 0:05:32.560 of Jamal Moore's friends came up to me with his 0:05:33.200 --> 0:05:35.760 urn of ashes and put my hand on it and said, 0:05:36.120 --> 0:05:39.159 you're fighting for my best friend. And from that moment on, 0:05:40.200 --> 0:05:44.040 this was just the most important part of my life. 0:05:44.560 --> 0:05:47.280 Ed Buck wouldn't go on trial until July twenty twenty one, 0:05:47.640 --> 0:05:50.080 but when he did, the government was ready. 0:05:50.800 --> 0:05:52.400 We tried to come out of the gates swinging. 0:05:53.000 --> 0:05:55.600 Chelsea Norrel is a federal prosecutor. She was on the 0:05:55.680 --> 0:05:57.240 team that tried ed Buck. 0:06:00.640 --> 0:06:04.960 So we tried to make the testimony compelling throughout. And 0:06:05.120 --> 0:06:09.120 one of our earliest witnesses was a neighbor of Bucks 0:06:09.279 --> 0:06:13.320 who had asked Buck about all of the men cycling 0:06:13.360 --> 0:06:16.360 through his apartment who came out looking like they were 0:06:16.360 --> 0:06:21.159 in a stupor. And the neighbor testified that Buck said 0:06:21.320 --> 0:06:25.680 they were his social work clients and painted himself as 0:06:25.920 --> 0:06:30.120 this social worker who was attempting to help the victims 0:06:30.160 --> 0:06:32.840 and I think that was a good prism through which 0:06:32.880 --> 0:06:36.720 to then see victims come forward and say, far from 0:06:36.800 --> 0:06:42.080 getting the help I needed, Buck was creating or amplifying 0:06:42.160 --> 0:06:48.440 drug addictions in that apartment by monetizing and incentivizing us 0:06:48.560 --> 0:06:52.279 to take more drugs, by dangling another fifty dollars to 0:06:52.360 --> 0:06:54.840 inject a bigger dose of methamphetamine. 0:06:56.640 --> 0:06:59.200 Part of the delay in Buck going to trial was 0:06:59.279 --> 0:07:01.719 the court system essentially had to figure out how we 0:07:01.760 --> 0:07:04.880 would do court with the onset of the global pandemic. 0:07:05.200 --> 0:07:08.200 Buck's attorneys would argue he was at a greater risk 0:07:08.279 --> 0:07:10.720 of COVID and should be returned to his apartment on 0:07:10.800 --> 0:07:14.160 Laurel Avenue in West Hollywood on bail a rating trial. 0:07:14.720 --> 0:07:18.720 Nana Giamfi, a lawyer working with Letitia Nixon. Jamel Moore's mother, 0:07:19.120 --> 0:07:22.920 responded to Buck's attempt to be let out of jail, saying, quote, 0:07:23.240 --> 0:07:25.920 when these people say they want him on house arrest, 0:07:26.280 --> 0:07:29.440 I don't know if they're paying attention. That's where he 0:07:29.560 --> 0:07:36.560 kills people. End quote. Buck was considered an increased flight risk, 0:07:36.800 --> 0:07:39.000 and a judge would refuse to send Buck back to 0:07:39.040 --> 0:07:41.120 the apartment. Was Jamel and Timothy died. 0:07:41.800 --> 0:07:46.040 Judge Schnyder was very by the book. From the very jump, 0:07:46.080 --> 0:07:47.720 you knew that she was meaning business. 0:07:47.960 --> 0:07:51.040 That's Jonathan Unger. He's one of the producers of this podcast. 0:07:51.200 --> 0:07:53.600 She knew immediately right when the trial started, from the 0:07:53.640 --> 0:07:55.720 jury selection down to the very end, that she was 0:07:55.760 --> 0:07:58.800 not going to either cut corners or take any bullshit. 0:07:59.120 --> 0:08:02.160 The no nonsense judge Jonathan is referring to is Christina 0:08:02.240 --> 0:08:05.760 and Schneider. She's a senior United States District judge. She 0:08:05.880 --> 0:08:08.320 was nominated to the federal bench by Bill Clinton in 0:08:08.360 --> 0:08:09.440 nineteen ninety seven. 0:08:09.880 --> 0:08:12.360 Well, the elephant in the room is Christopher Darden, And 0:08:12.440 --> 0:08:15.440 like I feel like, especially maybe this is the kid 0:08:15.520 --> 0:08:18.280 from Virginia and me, but knowing that someone of that 0:08:18.920 --> 0:08:22.840 profile was defending Buck, I think there was just a 0:08:22.880 --> 0:08:24.239 lot of eyeballs on this case. 0:08:26.720 --> 0:08:31.320 Christopher Darden. For those who remember, is that Chris Darden. 0:08:31.680 --> 0:08:34.839 That Chris Darden had been a prosecutor in the nineties 0:08:35.040 --> 0:08:37.480 when oj Simpson was on trial for the murder of 0:08:37.559 --> 0:08:41.400 Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. Since that landmark trial, 0:08:41.679 --> 0:08:45.320 Darden would switch sides and become a highly paid defense lawyer. 0:08:45.600 --> 0:08:48.360 He would be joined at the defense table by Ludlow 0:08:48.360 --> 0:08:52.040 be Query. We asked to speak to Darden, but he declined. 0:08:52.360 --> 0:08:55.800 I did have an extensive conversation with his co counsel, 0:08:56.200 --> 0:08:59.200 Ludlow be Query. I had to ask him, given all 0:08:59.200 --> 0:09:02.280 the evidence that we've just heard in this podcast, why 0:09:02.320 --> 0:09:04.760 would a black lawyer who had been head of the 0:09:04.800 --> 0:09:08.760 Black Students Association in law school, why would he agree 0:09:09.080 --> 0:09:11.439 to defend that buck let's take a lesson. 0:09:12.520 --> 0:09:15.800 Well, it was going to be a challenge. It had 0:09:15.880 --> 0:09:20.880 some very intriguing elements to it. I mean, basically the 0:09:21.040 --> 0:09:26.320 racial components were intriguing to me, you know, because to me, 0:09:27.240 --> 0:09:29.600 as a criminal defense lawyer, I've had a lot of 0:09:29.600 --> 0:09:36.160 cases dealing with people distributing and using methamphetamine, and it 0:09:36.200 --> 0:09:41.080 didn't seem like something that I couldn't tackle. It seemed 0:09:41.120 --> 0:09:45.160 pretty straightforward, at least as the allegations went. I do 0:09:45.400 --> 0:09:49.440 like the challenge of federal court, and I found it 0:09:49.520 --> 0:09:54.680 fascinating because to me, case wasn't what it was being 0:09:54.720 --> 0:09:59.120 blown up to be for political purposes, you know, from 0:09:59.160 --> 0:10:03.319 the media's perspect you know, how the public was viewing it. 0:10:03.320 --> 0:10:06.240 It was just not what it was being portrayed as 0:10:06.360 --> 0:10:10.840 it was just to me, meth distribution case, and unfortunately, 0:10:10.880 --> 0:10:15.240 two of the individuals that mister Buck was partying with died. 0:10:16.000 --> 0:10:17.920 I didn't see it as, oh, he was doing this 0:10:17.960 --> 0:10:19.880 because he hates black men, you know. 0:10:19.960 --> 0:10:20.400 I didn't. 0:10:20.720 --> 0:10:22.200 That's not what I saw in this case, that he 0:10:22.240 --> 0:10:24.920 hates black men, so he's trying to kill them, which. 0:10:24.720 --> 0:10:27.320 Is what was the public perception. 0:10:28.160 --> 0:10:34.400 So I found that intriguing and I found that a challenge. 0:10:34.840 --> 0:10:37.360 You said multiple times that the court of public opinion 0:10:37.960 --> 0:10:42.160 believed that had Buck murdered Jimmel Moore and timything Dean 0:10:42.640 --> 0:10:44.560 like that was the court of public opinion. Yeah, so 0:10:44.559 --> 0:10:47.000 it helped me understand. How do you argue for a 0:10:47.080 --> 0:10:50.960 client when you understand that the court of public opinion 0:10:51.320 --> 0:10:52.040 things they're wrong. 0:10:52.120 --> 0:10:52.839 You have to ignore it. 0:10:53.080 --> 0:10:55.280 You have to ignore the court of public opinion because 0:10:55.320 --> 0:10:58.000 the court of a public opinion is not due process. 0:10:58.040 --> 0:11:00.920 The court of public opinion is the very thing that 0:11:01.000 --> 0:11:05.520 the Constitution of the United States of America protects the 0:11:05.559 --> 0:11:06.839 individual from. 0:11:07.160 --> 0:11:10.599 Can you help me understand, then, what was your strategy 0:11:10.679 --> 0:11:12.439 to defend mister Buck. 0:11:13.480 --> 0:11:18.839 Our expert found that Jammel was suffering from AIDS if 0:11:18.840 --> 0:11:25.320 I recall correctly, and Timothy Dean. He had heart disease, 0:11:26.400 --> 0:11:30.200 he had advanced heart disease, and he's also intoxicated. He 0:11:30.240 --> 0:11:34.200 at a very high blood alcohol level, and I believe 0:11:34.280 --> 0:11:38.040 he might have done methamfetmine prior to going to mister 0:11:38.120 --> 0:11:44.439 Buck's residence, if I recall. So, those were the factors 0:11:44.640 --> 0:11:49.600 that our expert opined were the main causes of these 0:11:49.640 --> 0:11:56.280 gentlemen's deaths, not the ingestion, not acute methamphetamine intoxication, and 0:11:56.559 --> 0:12:01.120 obviously the government's experts disagree. 0:12:04.080 --> 0:12:05.640 I want to step away from the idea to talk 0:12:05.679 --> 0:12:09.559 about the defense. That expert opinion was that the main 0:12:09.679 --> 0:12:11.920 reason for the death of Jamel was that he was 0:12:11.960 --> 0:12:14.520 sick with aids and that Timothy died of a heart 0:12:14.520 --> 0:12:17.199 attack as opposed to being injected with a legal amount 0:12:17.200 --> 0:12:21.560 of drugs. The visitors area was filled with friends of 0:12:21.600 --> 0:12:24.760 the victims and you could hear audible groans when the 0:12:24.800 --> 0:12:28.640 defense took that tack. The strategy was essentially to attack 0:12:28.720 --> 0:12:32.520 the credibility of the witnesses, men who had already admitted 0:12:32.600 --> 0:12:34.959 to doing sex work and taking drugs. 0:12:35.600 --> 0:12:37.680 That difference is not that uncommon. 0:12:38.360 --> 0:12:41.560 That's April Prayer. She's a defense attorney without ties to 0:12:41.600 --> 0:12:42.280 the case. 0:12:42.280 --> 0:12:45.720 As despicable as it sounds, is basically, the victim wasn't 0:12:45.760 --> 0:12:49.480 worth you caring about. The victim isn't worth this trial. 0:12:49.840 --> 0:12:54.079 The victim isn't worth the jurors being concerned about them 0:12:54.120 --> 0:12:57.120 no longer being on this planet. It's not that uncommon. 0:12:57.160 --> 0:13:00.480 As despicable and awful as it sounds, it's kind of 0:13:00.520 --> 0:13:04.000 a form of jury nullification, kind of saying, yeah, if 0:13:04.000 --> 0:13:06.080 you did it, so what is that such a bad thing? 0:13:06.920 --> 0:13:08.880 It is such a bad thing if you wipe these 0:13:09.720 --> 0:13:12.080 low lives off the face of the earth. I don't 0:13:12.080 --> 0:13:14.720 think it's a very sophisticated defense, but you don't necessarily 0:13:14.760 --> 0:13:16.800 need your defense to be sophisticated to win. 0:13:17.559 --> 0:13:20.800 The team of dardening Query didn't appear sophisticated, at least 0:13:20.840 --> 0:13:24.320 not in the courtroom. During the trial. The defense seemed disorganized, 0:13:24.360 --> 0:13:26.960 to say the least. That didn't keep them, though, from 0:13:27.000 --> 0:13:30.960 going hard against the witnesses. The prosecutors, like Chelsea Morrel, 0:13:31.200 --> 0:13:34.839 weren't surprised by the defense strategy. They were surprised by 0:13:34.840 --> 0:13:38.640 the defense's doggedness, especially on cross examination. 0:13:39.280 --> 0:13:45.800 They cross examined on every aspect of their testimony and 0:13:47.280 --> 0:13:52.120 presented false choices to the jury, making it seem like 0:13:53.080 --> 0:13:57.800 everyone was there willingly and that none of the conduct 0:13:58.240 --> 0:14:05.880 was surreptitious or non consensual, and sort of lost over 0:14:06.080 --> 0:14:10.720 all of the evidence that we presented showing that there 0:14:10.760 --> 0:14:16.479 were non consensual sexual encounters, that there were non consensual 0:14:16.720 --> 0:14:23.280 distributions of drugs, and there were surreptitious distributions of drugs 0:14:23.320 --> 0:14:29.080 where Buck would drug someone's drink to give them a 0:14:29.080 --> 0:14:32.720 CNS depressant, so like a klonipin or a GHB, to 0:14:32.880 --> 0:14:40.200 then reduce their ability to resist injections of methamphetamine. So 0:14:40.280 --> 0:14:43.960 they kind of they tried to discredit all of those 0:14:44.000 --> 0:14:50.920 accounts and really paint these as consensual encounters, and tried 0:14:50.920 --> 0:14:55.960 to paint the victims as wanting their fifteen minutes of fame, 0:14:56.160 --> 0:14:59.240 As if anyone wants to be famous for being injected 0:14:59.280 --> 0:15:02.320 by ed drugs, it. 0:15:02.280 --> 0:15:04.640 Seems cynical, to say the least, that Buck, who was 0:15:04.680 --> 0:15:08.560 accused of killing two black men, would pick two black lawyers. 0:15:08.920 --> 0:15:11.680 Darden and Query were criticized by activists and people on 0:15:11.720 --> 0:15:14.080 the side of the victims. A good amount of the 0:15:14.200 --> 0:15:18.520 interview was Query and I discussing race and his sensitivity 0:15:18.560 --> 0:15:21.280 to claims by activists that he was a pawn in 0:15:21.440 --> 0:15:24.120 ed Buck's game, or that he was an Uncle Tom 0:15:24.200 --> 0:15:25.120 for defending Buck. 0:15:25.480 --> 0:15:29.160 You know, at some point, as a lawyer, I've got 0:15:29.200 --> 0:15:31.960 to look at myself as a lawyer and not just 0:15:32.040 --> 0:15:36.920 as a black lawyer, because then I'm being ghetto wised, 0:15:37.400 --> 0:15:39.720 you know, as a lawyer, as I am as a 0:15:39.760 --> 0:15:42.880 black man. If I'm told I can only take certain 0:15:42.920 --> 0:15:45.520 types of cases, I can only represent certain types of 0:15:45.560 --> 0:15:50.200 people because I'm black, What does that say about our society? 0:15:50.240 --> 0:15:54.160 If I was white, no one would have questioned my integrity, 0:15:54.560 --> 0:15:57.240 no one would have tried to cancel me, no one 0:15:57.240 --> 0:15:59.200 would have tried to drag me. 0:16:00.240 --> 0:16:01.680 And if I won or lost. 0:16:02.160 --> 0:16:05.760 As a white lawyer, nobody would have had any issue 0:16:05.800 --> 0:16:06.120 with me. 0:16:07.520 --> 0:16:08.840 I'm just doing my job. 0:16:09.360 --> 0:16:12.760 But as a black lawyer, there's only certain I can't 0:16:12.800 --> 0:16:16.480 take ed Buck because the alleged victims are black. So 0:16:16.520 --> 0:16:19.560 as a black lawyer, that's off limits to me. So 0:16:19.800 --> 0:16:22.720 that was one of the biggest cases of the year 0:16:23.440 --> 0:16:25.560 when it was filed twenty nineteen. It was one of 0:16:25.560 --> 0:16:30.280 the biggest trials of the summer of twenty one. Yet me, 0:16:30.320 --> 0:16:34.440 as a black lawyer, I should have prevented myself from 0:16:34.680 --> 0:16:40.040 representing this criminal defendant because I'm black and because of 0:16:40.080 --> 0:16:43.440 the nature of the allegations. But if I'm white, it's okay. 0:16:44.680 --> 0:16:47.040 I have a problem with that. I have a problem 0:16:47.040 --> 0:16:47.280 with that. 0:16:51.080 --> 0:16:54.240 This is shattering the system. The True Crime podcast that's 0:16:54.280 --> 0:16:57.520 about more than crime. We'll hear more from my conversation 0:16:57.600 --> 0:17:01.600 with low b Query the lawyer Fred Buck after this break. 0:17:14.800 --> 0:17:18.000 I'm a black man, Yes, I understand, yes, that you 0:17:18.080 --> 0:17:20.280 have to defend people because you know the criment. I 0:17:20.320 --> 0:17:23.880 live in West Sullywood. Yes, no one is like this 0:17:23.920 --> 0:17:25.600 is not this is not a show that's on the 0:17:25.640 --> 0:17:27.640 side of the police, whatever that means. 0:17:27.840 --> 0:17:28.040 Right. 0:17:28.560 --> 0:17:32.719 As a gay black man who followed this case, I 0:17:32.920 --> 0:17:37.879 was offended by the way that the people who were 0:17:37.880 --> 0:17:40.840 in his apartment, the people who testified, the ways in 0:17:40.880 --> 0:17:44.640 which they were cross examined. It seemed for me, from 0:17:44.680 --> 0:17:49.920 my ears, it seemed like a defense out of a 0:17:50.040 --> 0:17:51.840 Law and Order episode from the nineties. 0:17:53.720 --> 0:17:56.680 That is I mean, that is it like we don't. 0:17:56.520 --> 0:17:59.399 Understand that there's you know that you can get treated 0:17:59.480 --> 0:18:02.080 for a that most black men have. Hearts of these 0:18:02.119 --> 0:18:04.440 are high high blood pressure, but they're not also slamming 0:18:04.480 --> 0:18:05.800 that nfetomin. 0:18:05.560 --> 0:18:10.080 Well, yes, and I understand your point, but obviously we're 0:18:10.119 --> 0:18:13.760 not the medical experts. Those were the statements of our expert. 0:18:14.720 --> 0:18:19.640 Those were the statements of the doctor who examined the 0:18:19.680 --> 0:18:26.200 autopsy reports and the lab reports, and that was his summation, 0:18:26.800 --> 0:18:31.080 and that's what he testified. We didn't make that up. 0:18:31.720 --> 0:18:34.720 That's what he said, and so of course what our 0:18:34.760 --> 0:18:38.080 expert says is what we're going to go off of. 0:18:38.840 --> 0:18:42.280 So that's where that came from. It came from our expert. 0:18:43.320 --> 0:18:47.440 I mean, if you ed Buck was convicted, yes, the 0:18:47.800 --> 0:18:48.760 jury did not agree. 0:18:48.840 --> 0:18:50.600 If you just didn't agree that your jury did not 0:18:50.640 --> 0:18:52.480 agree exactly, if you had to. 0:18:52.400 --> 0:18:54.480 Do it over again, would you have chosen the same strategy? 0:18:55.320 --> 0:19:01.240 You know, I still don't see that there was another strategy, 0:19:01.960 --> 0:19:03.880 at least in terms of dealing with. 0:19:04.160 --> 0:19:05.119 The cause of death. 0:19:05.680 --> 0:19:08.679 The whole case was really about cause of death because 0:19:08.680 --> 0:19:13.000 the distribution you have video of them doing what appears 0:19:13.000 --> 0:19:17.360 to be meth amphetamine. You have you know, officer satisfying 0:19:17.359 --> 0:19:20.040 that they found meth amphetamine, they found paraphernalia. 0:19:20.480 --> 0:19:24.320 You know, the distribution charges were really. 0:19:24.080 --> 0:19:27.119 Difficult to defend because you had all this evidence that 0:19:27.600 --> 0:19:31.760 pretty much spoke to the charges of distribution. What this 0:19:31.880 --> 0:19:34.840 case really was about, in a nutshell, was about cause 0:19:34.840 --> 0:19:39.119 of death, because the causing death part was really the 0:19:39.160 --> 0:19:42.560 most important part of the case in regards to what 0:19:42.640 --> 0:19:46.000 mister Buck's exposure was. So that's where the fight was, 0:19:46.720 --> 0:19:50.520 and so we had to get a medical expert. We 0:19:50.560 --> 0:19:53.399 had to get an expert to examine the reports and 0:19:53.520 --> 0:19:57.359 examine the medical history and all the things they needed 0:19:57.400 --> 0:20:01.480 to do and give us an appear on well, what do 0:20:01.520 --> 0:20:04.960 you think kill these two men? They're really I mean, 0:20:05.000 --> 0:20:07.520 there's no other strategy than that, at least in regards 0:20:07.560 --> 0:20:08.520 to that part of the case. 0:20:13.080 --> 0:20:17.320 The trial was genuinely emotional. The testimony and the exhibits 0:20:17.560 --> 0:20:21.080 were truly disturbing and triggering, not just for the friends 0:20:21.080 --> 0:20:23.840 and family of Jamel Moore and Timothy Dean, but for 0:20:23.920 --> 0:20:27.840 the lawyers and everyone in the courtroom. One potent part 0:20:27.840 --> 0:20:31.680 of the trial was even for this moment, hearing these 0:20:31.800 --> 0:20:35.840 men who don't usually have a voice speaking out loud 0:20:36.000 --> 0:20:40.440 in a federal court. The testimony of victims captivated the courtroom. 0:20:41.400 --> 0:20:47.960 Here's the prosecutor, Chelsea irrelegant when victim dB testified that. 0:20:49.840 --> 0:20:54.399 He was in Buck's apartment overdosing for the second time 0:20:54.760 --> 0:20:58.359 after Jamel Moore and Timothy Dean had died. He was 0:20:58.560 --> 0:21:01.160 lying in the same spot where he knew the men 0:21:01.359 --> 0:21:05.200 before him had perished, and he felt himself slowly slipping 0:21:05.240 --> 0:21:09.359 away as well. He talked about hearing his deceased mother 0:21:09.960 --> 0:21:14.080 call out for him and say his name, and get 0:21:14.080 --> 0:21:18.720 yourself off the floor, get help, get out of there, 0:21:18.920 --> 0:21:22.919 or you're going to die, and hearing that account and 0:21:23.000 --> 0:21:30.280 knowing that that was the jolt that saved his life. 0:21:30.840 --> 0:21:36.119 To this day, it gives me chills because dB saved 0:21:36.200 --> 0:21:37.240 himself in that moment. 0:21:39.119 --> 0:21:41.919 Jonathan Unger, one of our producers, says it was hearing 0:21:42.000 --> 0:21:45.439 the way the witnesses describe what they went through in 0:21:45.600 --> 0:21:48.959 ed Buck's apartment that left the lasting impact. He describes 0:21:49.000 --> 0:21:52.240 the damning details that the court heard from Cody Hoffman, 0:21:52.600 --> 0:21:55.240 one of the witnesses who testified against that book. 0:21:56.760 --> 0:22:00.199 Cody Hoffman, the evidence that was brought up was not 0:22:00.240 --> 0:22:03.160 only correspondence that he had had with a Buck way 0:22:03.200 --> 0:22:09.000 back in twenty eighteen and beyond, but also a particular 0:22:09.800 --> 0:22:13.160 incident where Cody went into detail about how Ed would 0:22:13.240 --> 0:22:16.359 put gas masks on Cody and when we talk about 0:22:16.359 --> 0:22:20.040 gas masks, these are masks that you would find really 0:22:20.119 --> 0:22:24.440 your rituals. I mean, these were devilish type masks, red 0:22:26.400 --> 0:22:29.840 kind of what you would find at carnivals, but at 0:22:29.840 --> 0:22:33.120 the same time, in the very dark, again evil way. 0:22:34.280 --> 0:22:39.119 He went into detail about how it would take a 0:22:39.160 --> 0:22:42.080 long tube blowing meth smoke down it with one end 0:22:42.119 --> 0:22:44.560 of the tube and Cody's underwear, and then on the 0:22:44.600 --> 0:22:47.200 other end of the tube, Ed was smoking the math 0:22:47.600 --> 0:22:51.640 and essentially shotgunning it into Cody's mouth. He would talk 0:22:51.680 --> 0:22:55.399 about the gas masks again, the sexual devices that Ed 0:22:55.440 --> 0:22:58.200 would use, but also the gates of hell. That's how 0:22:58.240 --> 0:23:02.720 he referred AT's place, particularly the doorway into ed Buck's apartment. 0:23:03.040 --> 0:23:04.800 And so as these were going on, as you could 0:23:04.800 --> 0:23:09.160 tell that Cody had a lot of details to his story. 0:23:09.680 --> 0:23:13.720 When Dardan was cross examining him, he just immediately went 0:23:13.760 --> 0:23:16.159 into how he was in escort and was trying to 0:23:16.440 --> 0:23:18.320 nullify anything that Cody had said. 0:23:18.880 --> 0:23:22.240 Donata says, listening to the cross examination of witnesses, he 0:23:22.320 --> 0:23:24.760 kind of felt like he wasn't witnessing a scene from 0:23:24.880 --> 0:23:28.879 twenty twenty one, but from a whole other century. 0:23:28.960 --> 0:23:32.760 It felt like an old eighties or nineties episode of 0:23:32.840 --> 0:23:36.920 a after school special where AIDS and HIV were brought 0:23:37.000 --> 0:23:41.199 up to the point where it sounded like AIDS was 0:23:41.240 --> 0:23:44.439 a death sentence, which I don't know about you, but 0:23:45.640 --> 0:23:47.560 within the queer community, I'm pretty sure we all know 0:23:47.640 --> 0:23:52.480 that it's not anymore. And it was pretty clear from 0:23:52.480 --> 0:23:55.560 the jump that Darden and Ludlow were hanging their entire 0:23:55.760 --> 0:23:58.520 argument on the fact that anyone with AIDS or HIV 0:23:58.760 --> 0:24:00.080 you could tell that they were sick and. 0:24:00.080 --> 0:24:02.840 This is why they died. How did it make you 0:24:02.880 --> 0:24:04.400 feel sick? 0:24:04.400 --> 0:24:06.600 To my stomach? And that is the lightest way I 0:24:06.600 --> 0:24:08.840 could put it. I'm shaking right now even thinking about it, 0:24:08.880 --> 0:24:13.640 because it felt like we were going back three decades 0:24:15.280 --> 0:24:21.359 within that trial, and ironically enough, a trial that had 0:24:21.480 --> 0:24:27.200 a gay man who was doing this to other men 0:24:27.320 --> 0:24:31.560 as well, And so it just I don't really, I 0:24:31.560 --> 0:24:34.080 don't really know how to like fully put in towards 0:24:34.080 --> 0:24:38.240 how it felt, because you know, I have friends who 0:24:39.320 --> 0:24:41.359 not only have struggled with HIV and AIDS but also 0:24:41.359 --> 0:24:46.159 are thriving. Now it's so irresponsible. 0:24:46.600 --> 0:24:48.200 How didn't land in the room? 0:24:48.520 --> 0:24:51.560 Oh, it didn't land. It didn't land One bit if anything, 0:24:51.600 --> 0:24:54.320 everyone would groan every single time they would bring it up, 0:24:54.359 --> 0:24:57.919