Bomb threat halts murder trial; Father pleads not guilty to driving family off cliff – TCD Sidebar
In this episode of True Crime Daily The Sidebar Podcast
Charles Lew joins host Joshua Ritter to break down the biggest cases making headlines across the nation. They discuss an unexpected recess in Alex Murdaugh’s ongoing murder trial, a father charged with attempted murder after driving his family off a cliff, and Lindsay Clancy’s arraignment from a hospital bed after she was charged with strangling her three children.
Tweet your questions for future episodes to Joshua Ritter using the hashtag #TCDSidebar.
Joshua Ritter:
[00:00:10]
Hello and welcome to True Crime Daily's The Sidebar, taking you inside the courtrooms of high profile and notorious cases from across the country. I'm your host, Joshua Ritter. I'm a criminal defense lawyer based in Los Angeles and previously an L.A. County prosecutor for nearly a decade. You can find me at Joshuaritter.com. We are recording this on Friday, February 10th, 2023.
In this week's episode, the ongoing drama of former lawyer Alex Murdaugh's murder trial as a bomb threat temporarily halts court proceedings. Also, a father is charged with attempted murder after allegedly attempting to kill himself and his family by driving their Tesla off of a cliff. And finally, the mother accused of strangling her three children arraigned from a hospital bed after an attempt on her own life.
Today, we are joined by Charles Lew, attorney and founder of the Lew Firm, who is also a legal analyst and an educator on the Board of Directors at Loyola Law School. Charles, welcome back.
Charles Lew:
[00:01:10]
Josh, it's such a pleasure to be here. Thank you. Thanks for having me again.
Joshua Ritter:
[00:01:14]
Oh, it's our pleasure. For listeners who are not familiar with you from the times that you've been on before, tell us a little bit about your current practice and what you're up to lately.
Charles Lew:
[00:01:23]
Sure. So we are a small boutique law firm in Los Angeles, City of Los Angeles. We are actually expanding into Long Beach and we're looking at some other opportunities out of state, which we're very excited about, primarily in the business, small business, entrepreneurship genre or area. We do a lot with intellectual properties. We do a lot of company formation, startup fundraising.
And now, we have, fairly recently, in the last year and a half or two years, taking a real liking to and a real deep dive into Web3, Metaverse and virtual reality, augmented reality, culminating in myself having the opportunity last semester to teach at Loyola Law School at Class and Metaverse and the Law, which was extraordinarily exciting and very rewarding. And it looks like we will replicate that this year, even with a more expanded curriculum, perhaps including cryptocurrency, NFTs, deeper dive into intellectual property as it relates to virtual reality and other Web3 specific matters. So very, very exciting time for us.
Joshua Ritter:
[00:02:33]
Wow, that is exciting stuff. And I'm going to fully admit that a good 70 percent of that probably went over my head, but it sounds like it's really cutting edge stuff. And what I'd really love to do is have you back on when we're talking about more of the FTX stuff because it sounds like that's right up your alley.
Charles Lew:
[00:02:51]
Absolutely. I would love that. That would be incredible.
Joshua Ritter:
[00:02:55]
Well, we are really excited to hear your thoughts on these cases and lots to jump into here. And they're all cases that are really shocking, allegations of family violence, a really kind of sad trend that we're seeing lately. But let's jump right in.
First out of Walterboro, South Carolina, the ongoing murder trial of disgraced former lawyer Alex Murdaugh took an unexpected recess after the courtroom was evacuated by a bomb threat on Wednesday. The building was evacuated around 12:30 p.m. However, by 2:30, jurors and staff were allowed to return after the courthouse was cleared. That incident only added to the drama surrounding the trial of Murdaugh, who stands accused of killing his youngest son, Paul, and wife, Maggie.
Murdaugh, whose family has been a legal dynasty in the South Carolina low country for over 80 years, also faces a litany of charges related to financial fraud and embezzlement. The prosecution and Murdaugh's defense have sparred over how much of that evidence, the financial evidence related to Murdaugh's financial misdeeds should be allowed in the ongoing murder trial.
However, the judge ruled the financial fraud speaks to the motive that Murdaugh allegedly killed his wife and son for sympathy while trying to halt investigations surrounding his other crimes. Murdaugh's defense team has countered that the prosecution has far more evidence of his financial crimes than evidence connecting him to the deaths of his son and wife. If convicted on the murder charges, Murdaugh faces 30 years to life.
Charles, let's talk about this evidence of financial crimes. The judge is allowing it in under the argument that it provides a motive for the murders. I'll tell you, I'm going to reserve my thoughts on this, but I want to hear what you think about this connection between the financial crimes and a possible motive for murder. What are your thoughts?
Charles Lew:
[00:04:47]
So, Joshua, look, I think that's a fantastic question. I think the prejudicial effect to these allegations of fraud and embezzlement, not just one or two allegations of fraud and embezzlement, but obviously a litany of allegations of fraud and embezzlement. And the question is, what is the prejudicial effect of that? And I believe that it could be extremely damaging. And I think you've mentioned that there is much more evidence of these financial crimes than are of any. There's much more evidence pointing to these financial crimes than anything else. So really, what is the probative value? The question is what is the probative value of these financial crimes as to the committing of other crimes? And I think it's tenuous at best. I think it's a tenuous argument. And I don't know that the prosecution is going to be able to tie that in, tie it in well enough.
Joshua Ritter:
[00:05:53]
Yeah, I tend to agree with you. Listen, I understand that a judge doesn't want to present a defendant to the jurors in a vacuum and that it's important to understand what was going on in this man's life, a holistic kind of overview of what the trials and tribulations he was dealing with before these murders took place. For jurors to be able to appreciate it, is there somewhere a reason why he might do this?
But honestly, the argument that has been presented by the prosecution thus far, I agree with you, I find to be a little tenuous because to me, there's not a direct connection of dots when you're saying I was suffering a bunch of financial issues, I was embezzling a bunch of money, therefore I killed my wife and child. How does that solve his problem in other words? If there was a huge windfall of money for him in this, I could understand it. But just to say that somehow he wanted to garner sympathy out of it doesn't make a whole bunch of sense to me. Actually, the point that you made earlier probably makes more sense to me. The idea that, listen, this man's world was falling apart, who knows how somebody's going to behave when their entire world is falling apart around them. That actually makes a little bit more sense to me. But we'll see if the -- you know, the case is not over, and we'll see if the prosecution can kind of tie this all up in their closing arguments.
But I wanted to talk about this bomb threat with you for a moment. It's hard to understate the attention that this case is getting in this South Carolina low country. One, it's a huge media case. Two, there's national attention. This is an area that doesn't get a bunch of media attention that's all of a sudden overwhelmed with media attention. And his family for three generations basically controlled that area from a legal perspective or point of view at least.
Do you think that now, you know, jurors know all of this background and now with the bomb threat, is this going to prove to be too many distractions for the jurors? Is that something that might play a role I guess, in your view, in their deliberations?
Charles Lew:
[00:08:12]
Yeah, I think it would be incredibly difficult to expect a juror to be able to make really rational decisions and determinations and really appear and intake and process the data that they would have to, again, from just a neutral, cognizant perspective. I mean, one of the things I thought very interesting about this was, again, this legal dynasty.
And when I moved from Scotland -- a little bit of a back story. I went to a relatively small city in Florida outside of Daytona Beach. And I think any of us that have spent time, any appreciable time in the south, actually really anywhere in the country for that matter, especially the small towns again, I think we've all seen these legal dynasty families, these families whose history is indelibly etched into the history of the city. And they talk about the great, great grandfather who built this bridge and the great grandfather who built this speedway, and the father who owns the strip of commercial real estate that comprises 50 percent of the gross revenue of the commercial properties and the entire city.
So I think we've all heard those stories and we've got hundreds of examples, if we've been in those small cities of families that perhaps were treated a little lighter on account, again, of this very, very rich history in these cities. So I think you've got a very complex scenario here. I have no idea how a juror is supposed to sit and make, again, these intelligent or informed or cognizant determinations as to this case.
Joshua Ritter:
[00:09:55]
Yeah. Yeah. I tend to agree with a lot of what you're saying, but I hope you're wrong. I hope they are able to put this all aside because it is such an important case, not just because the country is watching, but also because you have the loss of life of these poor people. And if it truly is at this man's hands, then he needs to be held responsible for it.
One last point on this case. Recent testimony was heard from one of Murdaugh's best friends who testified how, despite the fact that he had a close relationship with Murdaugh, he had no idea about his alleged 20-year addiction to drugs. And this came out through testimony of him confronting Murdaugh and Murdaugh telling him how he had a 20-year long addiction. Talk to us about how this might play into the prosecution's theory that no, really no one really knew who this man was and is nice. As some people have described him to be a person who's able to hide that kind of addiction for that long of a period of time, you don't know what he's capable of. Tell me how the prosecution might exploit that.
Charles Lew:
[00:11:04]
Yeah. Well, I think, Joshua, exactly to your point, the prosecution says this individual was able to fool or pull the wool over their eyes or deceive or in a duplicitous manner mislead someone who's known them for the better part of their life or certainly a significant part of their life. So I think that's a very compelling and a very strong argument. I think the counter to that, interestingly enough, might be that and again, this is somewhat anecdotal, but I think we can all point to the instances and individuals that we know within our own lives, sometimes very, very close to us who have these alter egos or these separate lives or the second lives that we don't know about.
And I think we've all heard these stories where you hear the utterance or you hear the individual saying, I can't believe she did that, or he did that, or that is so out of character. So I think as much as I certainly agree with what you're saying that the prosecution can point to that and say, look, how would anybody know this individual when one of their closest friends doesn't know them? I think we're all acutely aware of the fact that all of us are capable of having a side that perhaps doesn't see the light of day as often as what we all expect or see or know of that individual.
Joshua Ritter:
[00:12:32]
Yeah. And sometimes to a chilling revelation as we're seeing in this case. Well, it's a tragedy. It's a fascinating case. And we will continue to keep our eyes on it as it develops. All right. Moving on now to San Mateo County, California, where Dharmesh Patel, a father from Pasadena, has been charged with attempted murder for intentionally driving his Tesla off a cliff with his wife and two children inside.
The family members who survived the 250-foot crash along a stretch of the Pacific Coast Highway known as Devil's Slide all had to be cut out of the vehicle by emergency responders. As paramedics responded, Patel's wife, Neha, repeatedly screamed that her husband had "intentionally tried to kill us". An investigation ensued with evidence from highway cameras and witnesses' testimony allegedly corroborating Patel's intent. Authorities reviewed video, which allegedly depicts Patel making a sharp right turn over the cliff while no brake marks were seen at the site of the crash and other motorists repeatedly never saw Patel's brake lights.
California Highway Patrol has stated that they don't believe that the Tesla self-driving feature was a factor in the crash, though investigators are still evaluating circumstances that could have contributed to the plummet. It's funny to me how nowadays any time we hear about a Tesla involved crash, we're always wondering about that driver assist, self-driving feature. Patel has pled not guilty to three counts of attempted murder and is currently being held without bond with a preliminary hearing scheduled for March 20th.
Charles, let's first talk about the statements made by Patel's wife. She said that he intentionally tried to kill us. Incredibly powerful evidence, we would all agree, if it's allowed at trial. And this would come in under that idea of the excited utterance exception to hearsay. Could you talk to us a little bit about that and how that works?
Charles Lew:
[00:14:43]
Yeah. So I completely agree, Joshua. I think should that be allowed and should there not be some type of spousal exclusion or --
Joshua Ritter:
[00:14:53]
That's a very good point.
Charles Lew:
[00:14:54]
Yeah. But should that be allowed, incredibly compelling. I mean, how would you argue with that type of evidence being presented that they try, especially a husband, a spouse say they tried to kill me. It actually made me think of a dying declaration exemption, which I always thought was very interesting and quite compelling also that the person prior to "meeting their maker", had uttered something that should be much more likely to have veracity on account of the fact that the person believed themselves to be inches or moments from death. So they would not lie prior to again meeting their maker.
So I think this type of evidence has historically and I think there's obviously a much more, deeper conversation here about the dying declaration and some of these other arguments and their relevance or application to a modern world. But I think this specific one, as you mentioned, extremely compelling. I mean, someone that is at the scene of the accident, others or remarks something. And still obviously we've all unfortunately, the majority of us been in a car accident so I think we all understand that that adrenaline and that excitement, it doesn't subside after 30 seconds or a minute or 45 minutes or an hour. You're still feeling that surge of emotions and a surge of energy and invigoration from those actions. So I think there has to be a high degree of value placed on any type of statement that would be made, especially, again, one that could be so damaging to her spouse.
Joshua Ritter:
[00:16:54]
Yeah. Yeah. And this is a little bit of just kind of a scholastic review of all of this because she's likely going to testify, I imagine, at a prelim in a trial if that becomes necessary to what she believed took place, her having survived. But I just thought from a legal perspective, it was interesting to talk about that exception to hearsay. And you did an excellent job of explaining why it is allowed, because it goes towards the veracity of the statement. So much of this hearsay common law has to do with reliability. And that if you're talking about a statement that somebody made out of court and you want that to be admitted for its truth, that's not going to be allowed for the most part, unless there's some sort of exception that shows an inherent reliability or veracity, as you say, in the statement.
And as you pointed out, when somebody is under the stress of something just having taken place or under the stress of perhaps something they're saying just before they're about to die lends itself to being reliable enough for it to be admitted in court. And I imagine this statement will be and I imagine, like you said, it will be incredibly damaging to his defense if this ever gets to trial.
Talk to us, though, Charles, a little bit about the difficulty of proving a case of attempted murder. And this kind of goes through all the cases we're talking about today. Attempted murder of one's family when there's no clear motive that exists and maybe that will be developed in this case. But we talked about that a little bit in the Murdaugh case. Here, so far, nothing has been shared with the press about why he did it. And I think that jurors in situations like this, there's already that big question, why would somebody take their family's life? And do you think that the prosecution is going to need to provide them with that answer, the why?
Charles Lew:
[00:19:01]
Yeah, I think interestingly enough, Joshua, and I didn't get a chance to talk about this. I'm also on the board, very honored to be in the Board of Directors for an institution or a group called Mental Health America Los Angeles. We're the largest mental health organization, oldest in the country, just getting ready to celebrate our centennial anniversary. Incredible, incredible organization. I could speak volumes about how wonderful it's been for myself and others and the work and the charity and the giving that this organization has accomplished.
But I think to your point, unfortunately, I think we understand that we're dealing with this mental health or mental illness endemic right now. And I think even just the cases that we're seeing, and I hate to think this, but I do believe that we're seeing more and more of these. And I think we're going to see more and more of these. And I think there's going to be more and more confusion and head scratching as to the reason for this or the trying to find an explanation for these just loathsome and vile and seemingly, well, not seemingly, insane acts.
And I think what we're going to see is just a lot more of these acts being viewed as insane and insanity, which is going to prompt insanity defenses and which is then going to turn these cases, these matters into probably battles of expert witnesses as to the sanity or the lack of sanity of the defendants in these matters. I don't know that with the exception of certain situations where they can show clear economic hardship and they could say, tie it into saying this person wanted life insurance policies and they can clearly show that which they do. And we've all seen the TV shows, and any shows where they say the person took out life insurance policy right before this individual was killed or murdered or died under suspicious circumstances. But I think outside of those, we're going to see more and more of these just clearly unexplainable scenarios and situations unfortunately.
Joshua Ritter:
[00:21:29]
No.
Charles Lew:
[00:21:29]
Well, I think this, you know, and then that brings me to attempted murder in general. In California, I believe there's first degree attempted murder and second degree attempted murder. Is that correct, Joshua?
Joshua Ritter:
[00:21:43]
Yeah. You can have a premeditated attempted murder. Yeah.
Charles Lew:
[00:21:47]
Yeah. So I think that's going to be very, very interesting to see how that unfolds as to what the consideration for premeditated is. Because I remember from law school the debate as to premeditation and the amount of time that would be required for something to be premeditated, which obviously you can speak much more articulately to. But what is premeditation and what is required for that person to have essentially planned that attempted murder?
Joshua Ritter:
[00:22:22]
Yeah. Well, a famous example that they use, and prosecutors oftentimes, argue to jurors is that if you're coming towards a traffic light and it goes from green to yellow and you decide in that second, are you going to stomp on the gas or are you going to hit the brakes? That's some deliberation that you've taken. It may be in an instant, but you've made a decision and decided what you're going to do. Will that argument carry the day in this type of a case? Who knows? But at least that gives you an example of how quickly it can be argued that premeditation is taking place.
But to your larger point, it is a sad state of affairs that it does seem that we have this, like you say, endemic of mental illness. And it's a segway into our last case here that is probably the most tragic to me of all that we've talked about today. Out of Duxbury, Massachusetts, Lindsay Clancy, the mother and former nurse accused of strangling her three children, was arraigned from a hospital bed after an attempt on her own life, allegedly left her paralyzed. Clancy, who was reportedly suffering from severe postpartum depression, allegedly murdered her three children with exercise ropes before throwing herself out of a second story window while her husband was running errands.
In the arraignment, prosecutors alleged that Clancy was of sound mind at the time of the murders and had even planned their deaths before her suicide attempt. Prosecutors argued that Clancy researched how long the trip would take her husband, husband, pardon me, knowing the amount of time in which she could commit the alleged acts. Meanwhile, Clancy's defense has argued that she was overmedicated at the time of the tragedy, taking as many as 12 different medications for postpartum psychosis. According to her defense, her husband was instructed not to leave Lindsay alone with the children due to her state of mind at the time of the alleged murder.
While the prosecution argued for Lindsay to be held without bail, a judge ordered her to remain hospitalized until she was cleared to be moved to a rehabilitation facility for 24/7 care. Such a tragic case. If the defense, Charles, can prove that Clancy was in fact overmedicated as they argue, do you think this will prove difficult for the prosecution to get around. In other words, is that something that may negate some of her criminal intent, in your view?
Charles Lew:
[00:25:04]
Yeah, I think I believe so. I think the Massachusetts' standard is that the person is not guilty of the crime if they lack the criminal responsibility, is the standard. I think that, again, a compelling argument will be made that she lacked the criminal responsibility when she committed this particular crime. And I think you read about the Googling of the amount of time or the Waze or the Google Maps, whatever to commit, I think that could certainly be explained away by her wanting to know the amount of time that it would take her to commit suicide, which she arguably would, or you would argue that she clearly intended to do.
So I think one of the things I thought was interesting about this case, Joshua, was obviously just a very quick search, and certainly I'm no expert, would show that the postpartum psychosis is an extremely grave condition, very, very. It seemed again, this is, let me make the statement that disclosure I have absolutely no expertise in anything relating to it. So just some research describing the gravity, again of this situation, but also talking about the rarity of it. The statistics that I read said that between 0.089 and 2.6 out of every 1000 births, the individual would experience this postpartum psychosis.
So I'm curious as to not necessarily the arguing of, I think this is going to be a very strong argument to make to say that she lacked the criminal responsibility. I think this may turn to some degree into the diagnosis of the postpartum psychosis and also perhaps even an expert witness battle as to who made that diagnosis and what were the drugs that were prescribed to her and why. And just again, almost an expert witness battle as to that rather than the criminal responsibility, which I think they will be able to find that she lacked the criminal responsibility, should she indeed be suffering from postpartum psychosis.
Joshua Ritter:
[00:27:41]
Now, just to kind of dovetail off of those comments you just made, there were some allegations made by her defense team that her husband was instructed not to leave her alone with the children. If assuming this is true or assuming they're able to prove that, assuming that she was suffering from this postpartum psychosis to the extent that she was told not to be left alone, not to place blame on the husband, suffering in this case. But do you think that her defense may use that to their benefit to some extent, that there's others to be blamed here for leaving her alone with those children?
Charles Lew:
[00:28:26]
Wow. You know, that's such a concerning question or thought, because now we have to sit and say, what was the degree of care that he would have undertaken or accepted the responsibility of undertaking as it relates to her. And then actually my mind didn't go there, Joshua. My mind went to his being subjected to or potentially culpable of child endangerment or being exposed to a charge of child endangerment, not to the mitigating of her particular crime on account of him not acting in a judicious or a responsible manner by leaving her. I really didn't even think about the mitigation of her particular crime on account of him leaving her as a steward for the children.
I thought more about it as him being subjected to potential charge of child endangerment. I would think that just a spur of the moment response to your question, I would imagine that a smart and creative defense counsel would make that argument. And I imagine that it could be impactful and effective. This would be more a non-legal consideration or non-legal statement that it just a would be a sad testimony or a sad state of affairs when that is utilized, which again probably would be and probably should be.
Joshua Ritter:
[00:30:18]
Yeah. We'll see. Again, they haven't made that argument, but it sounds like they may be hinting towards that at least being part of their defense if it has to go as far as the trial. Really, really tragic cases this week. Charles, thank you so much for helping guide us through these difficult questions. Where can people find out more about you?
Charles Lew:
[00:30:42]
Yeah. So I'm very active on Twitter, very active on Instagram. It's @charleslew.eth. And of course, I have a website, CharlesLew.com. And also The Lew Firm, T-H-E L-E-W F-I-R-M, TheLewFirm.com.
Joshua Ritter:
[00:31:01]
Fantastic. We will definitely check you out. And I'm your host, Josh Ritter. You can find me on Instagram and Twitter, @JoshuaRitterESQ. And check out my website at JoshuaRitter.com. And you can find our Sidebar episodes wherever you get your podcasts. And we want to hear from you. If you've got questions or comments you'd like us to address, tweet us your questions with the hashtag #TCDSidebar. And thank you for joining us at the True Crime Daily Sidebar.
