Blake Lively's Legal Fees Ploy, and Mackenzie Shirilla's Shocking "Crash," with MK True Crime's Phil Holloway, Ashleigh Merchant, and Dave Aronberg | Ep. 1330

26:01Dave Aronberg:So tell me how you envisioned. And he says the case is over. So like, shouldn't this have been handled before I dismissed the case? So how did you envision this? You know, this would have gone down. How should this have gone down? In my opinion, if the case is dismissed on a different basis, it stops at that point where is dismissed and the procedural point and it went away and it should not continue after the case has been dismissed, the damages part. So if she wanted to file this motion, she should have done it in your view prior to the dismissal of the case. Well, she had used as a defense.

26:38She had used multiple defenses to my understanding. The first was the procedural one about where she spoke. The communication happened to be in a privileged place. And that's what she...

26:49Dave Aronberg:Filing a human rights campaign or complaint with the California HR. Right. And that defense does not include attorney fees. And her second defense was 47.1, which does include attorney fees, trouble, actual damages, and potential punitive. Punitive is not guaranteed, it's potential. So that would be... But my understanding, if he dismissed it under one completely and chose not to discuss it because Judge Lyman chose not to discuss it. Number two, he did not say I'm dismissing it for three reasons. He said, I'm dismissing it for one. So I thought we're one and done then. But then here we are. Do you think this is about her trying to look like the victor when, you know, clearly they settled for no money and people pointed that out and she took a bit of a PR black eye?

27:43Well, I have a bit of a concern that this bill is really meant to protect survivors who are having meritless cases brought against them when they don't have money to defend themselves. And it was supposed to make someone discouraged from bringing forward a meritless suit. And I do worry about my bill being misused and for, you know, just for PR and what it could be gained from that when it really matters so much to survivors to be able to have these protections that so many of her claims are dismissed. I'm just I might have lost her words. Mm-hmm.

28:23Dave Aronberg:Because my understanding was, the thinking behind 47.1 was a lot of these women have no resources, no power, no connections. And in so many circumstances, they're going after a man who has far more power, more resources, and more connections than they do. So it's almost like a David and Goliath situation. And this was an attempt by you to try to even that out a little bit so that women, it could be a man again, but like generally women wouldn't feel so scared to stand up for their rights. But in this situation, she is the one who has more power, more money, more connections, can afford lawyers way more easily than Justin Baldoni can.

29:07Dave Aronberg:And he managed to get her entire claim against him thrown out. So it's like, there is a real question about whether the fundamental purpose of 47.1 to allow the fees and the trouble damages and the punitives has any application here whatsoever. You nailed it, Megan, about the concern for most survivors is that these can be these. A lot of times they're weaponized defamation lawsuits used to silence them because when someone receives it, they realize it might take five, six or seven figures to defend in multiple years. And it's always cheaper to go quiet. So the concern was if you have to go forward and defend it and you prevail, then And only if you prevail to show that you did not have malice, you would recover your attorney fees.

29:55So at least you'd be made whole in any damages that you might have, like missing work or something to that effect. And also the purpose that I believed in was to incentivize attorneys to take these very difficult cases. And, you know, so that's been my main concern with the bill.

30:13Dave Aronberg:And when you say you prevail, I imagine her lawyers will say, well, she did prevail because she got the defamation case against her dismissed. Is that not good enough? For 47.1, it would not be. You would have to show malice in order to receive any attorney fees. That would have to be established. And right now we have not seen that. It would have to be argued or a whole new case. And I don't know how you make a lie of a case that was dead. Who would have to show malice by whom? In this circumstance, the plaintiff, Baldoni, would have to show that Blake was motivated by malice, did this with malice behind her sexual harassment lawsuit.

30:54So if he's able to show that she had a motivation other than her concerns for sexual harassment, if, you know, if he can't show, you know, she did this maliciously and she honestly believed this was happening to her, then she would potentially prevail. But if he is able to show that she had ulterior motives or some other definition of malice behind her wanting to go forward with this, you know, sexual harassment case, then he would prevail. Got it.

31:26Dave Aronberg:And this is back to the problem of they never had testimony. They never had it. They haven't had a hearing. They haven't had a trial. So it's like she just wants this reimbursement, my own belief is, to make it look like she won something from him, even though she walked away for not even$1. And she took a PR hit because everybody said it's basically an admission that she has no claim. She knows she's going to lose if she goes forward to trial. So last question, if the judge, in this case Judge Lyman, is listening to this, what do you want him to know? I would say use hesitation on awarding something that has not had fact proven of malice.

32:03You would still have to go forward and listen to that because that was the intention of the bill. And to do it in this case, I would suggest can undermine survivors as opposed to advance their cause. It is interesting. The whole purpose was to protect survivors that were in a place of being silenced because they had no power. Yeah.

32:24Dave Aronberg:And that's not Blake Lively. Well, I thank you for coming on and explaining your post. It's been fascinating. And I know we'll see. He didn't seem like he was getting ready to strike down the constitutionality of your bill. That's probably a challenge that some California judge will get to deal with on another day. But my own take on it was this judge does not seem inclined to let her go down this particular lane. Victoria, all the best. Thank you, Megan. Yeah, thanks for telling your story, too, and for doing something about it. Our friends from MK True Crime react next, and we take up the Henry Novak case as well.

32:57Dave Aronberg:Stand by. You're busy, but let me tell you about Daily Look. It is the number one highest rated premium personal styling service for women. Daily Look is a game changer, ladies. You get your own dedicated personal stylist to curate a box of clothes based on your body shape, preferences, and lifestyle. I mean a real personal stylist, not an algorithm. And you get the same stylist every time to build continuity. She knows what's already in the closet that the two of you are building together. So head to dailylook.com and use the code Megan to get 50 % off your first order. You can try on up to 12 premium pieces per box in the comfort of your home, saving you time and effort.

33:37Dave Aronberg:Whether you need something effortlessly chic for spring brunch or a polished look for the office or school drop-offs, Daily Look has got you covered. Buy what you love, send back the rest. You will get free shipping both ways. It's time to get your own personal stylist with Daily Look. Head to dailylook.com to take your style quiz and use the code MEGAN for 50 % off your first order. Once again, that's dailylook.com for 5-0 % off. And make sure you use our promo code MEGAN so that they know we sent you. One last time, dailylook.com, promo code MEGAN.

34:13Dave Aronberg:Here to react to the Baldoni and Lively Saga, plus all the other major legal news, including this Mackenzie Schirrilla case that it seems everyone is talking about. Our attorneys and hosts of the MK True Crime Show, Phil Holloway and Ashley Merchant, go and subscribe on YouTube and all podcast platforms at mktruecrime.com. They are fresh off a trip to CrimeCon in Las Vegas over the weekend. That's why we had to wait until Tuesday to get them on because Monday, everyone was in bed asleep. Oh, yes. Welcome, guys. Great to see you. So very interesting to have the architect of the law come out and say it's being misused by Blake Lively here.

34:50Dave Aronberg:She has no business bringing this Ashley. An interesting detail on how Blake Lively's team reached out to her. Oh, yeah. To try to work with with Blake, who wants to be the one to spearhead taking this national so she can bathe herself in stolen glory, which is my guests, not hers. This is exactly what we thought she was doing. She is using this for publicity. She wants this case to drag on and on so she can remain relevant. It's not shocking. And that's exactly what your last guest was telling us. You know, she wants to go on this public tour where she's taking over this law, this law that had a very good purpose.

35:29You know, a good basis was actually there to try to level the playing field. And that's really what attorney's fees do. You know, attorney's fees clauses in these statutes, they're really for one of two purposes. It's either to curb really, really bad conduct, which is why we see that malice language in this law, or it's to really make the level playing field. And that's what your last guest was talking about. You know, it's really hard for survivors to find lawyers to take these cases. And so they want to sort of level this playing field, give a little bit more incentive to lawyers to take these cases.

35:59That's not what we have here. We have Blake Lively, who is definitely misusing this law, trying to remain relevant, trying to remain in the headlines as desperately as she can. She just needs to walk away at this point.

36:12Dave Aronberg:You know, Phil, it becomes really clear if you think about something like the Duke lacrosse case, you know, where Crystal Mangum, the alleged victim in that case, made the whole thing up. And we know that she's admitted it. But she had these three lacrosse players very much in the crosshairs. They were charged criminally with rape. I mean, it was about as serious as a heart attack. And, you know, that's why the law is controversial that Victoria put through, because those guys would absolutely, in a civil matter, if she sued them, have said, we're 100 percent counterclaiming against you for defamation.

36:49Dave Aronberg:And they would have under her bill potentially recovered if they could prove she filed her claims against them with malice. Now, those guys would have had zero problem proving that because she made the whole thing up. What what what other motive could there be? Of course, it was malicious. Baldoni, if he's actually forced by this judge to have some sort of an evidentiary hearing or like post-trial trial, I don't even know what they're suggesting. The judge didn't either. He would have to prove that Blake brought this maliciously. I actually think he could do it too. You know, Megan, in law school, there's a class titled Annoying Cases and Annoying Litigants Should Just Go Away.

37:28And I think that's where this case is now. Now, this is now in the realm of utter ridiculousness. Lively is, as others have said, in my opinion, on a fake victory tour. You know, this whole thing about this treble damages statute, as Ashley kind of pointed out, it can overcomplicate things. And sometimes people commit sexual harassment and sometimes people falsely accuse others of it. And, you know, anytime you have these treble damages statutes, you just invite this kind of weaponization. But let me just say this about what I thought was a settlement. I heard our friends Matt Murphy and Mark Garagos doing a great segment on their program on the MK True Crime Channel about this settlement.

38:13And I thought, great, this case is over. But apparently it's not. Apparently we're going to have to have another trial about the settlement. So I was always taught that when you negotiate and draft a settlement, you're supposed to settle everything. It should be complete. You should have complete releases of all of these things so that these kinds of complicated questions would not remain. Because you don't really get the benefit of having a settlement if you still have to keep going back to court over and over again. And even as the trial judge has recently said to Lively's attorneys, they've said, look, he said, look, your client just has the power to just make this go away.

38:52And I think even the judge, quite frankly, is getting a little bit sick of this case. And I think we all are just ready for it to be over with. Maybe they can reach some kind of secondary compromise and this time get the settlement done right, sign a complete release, and just have these people who clearly hate each other just go their separate ways.

39:12Dave Aronberg:I know she doesn't have a claim and she knows that she's trying to turn a loss into a victory based on these exorbitant claims for attorney's fees times three. And the judge yesterday, Ashley, just reading the tea leaves here, does not seem inclined to give her what she wants. He first he asked what he was asking, like, well, what happens if the sexual harassment claim has been thrown out as as he as he did in this case? Like she she didn't prevail on her sexual harassment case. So like, how does that factor in? Then there was the question of he was saying, aren't the defendants entitled to a jury trial on the damages issue?

39:49Dave Aronberg:Like, you want me to just come in here and what is the judge supposed to treble? He's supposed to treble, meaning triple her actual damages from his defamation claim. Right. And what is that? Right. And the amount we have no idea. No, we don't. And we also have I mean, we've got a constitution that says it can't be excessive. And it sounds like what she's asking for is excessive. I think what you have with this judge is you have a judge that knows what he wants to do. And he literally left the court and told his law clerks, figure out how I can get rid of this. That is what he's doing because he knows he wants to make it right.

40:20He knows that this is ridiculous. He knows, like Phil said, all of the claims should have been settled. And, you know, they probably all imagined they were settled or close thereof. And he just wants it to go away because, quite frankly, there's other things that they need to do. And cases like this are why we can't have a good functioning legal system where we can have cases that actually go to court in a timely fashion. And he's probably just frustrated, like most of America is frustrated at Blake Lively continuing on this path when she needs to just walk away. And I think that's what we're going to see him do.

40:49I think we're going to see this judge try somehow to get, you know, say, hey, this needs to go to another court. This, you know, this isn't right. Something to get rid of this.

40:57Dave Aronberg:I agree with you. He did not seem inclined to indulge this nonsense at all. He was like, how isn't this a matter for the jury? There's no jury because you settled. The case is done. I already told you to go away. I dismissed her sexual harassment claim on a 12B6 motion, whatever. I dismissed her claim earlier. How is she supposed to prove damages now that we don't have a trial? Do you want me to have a mini trial after I've already dismissed the case? Wouldn't they be entitled to a jury and not a judge to hear? Like he's raising all these very practical concerns and also the question of, frankly, is this law even constitutional?

41:32Dave Aronberg:I mean, obviously, Victoria Burke argues for her law and I understand why. But there is a real question about whether you can muzzle defendants. Again, think about the Duke La Crosse defendants. Like, why would they have to prove malice in that case? Why? They would argue, what do you mean? She's a civilian. We're civilians. We're not public figures. That's not the standard set out by New York Times v. Sullivan. I should be able to bring a defamation. I should not be burdened or hampered or deterred from bringing a valid defamation case simply because the person who's defaming me, instead of saying like I'm a rude jerk who doesn't pay his bills, is saying something even worse, which is that I raped her.

42:11Dave Aronberg:Like, how does that make the burden on me higher in my cross claim for defamation? So that's going to play out at some point, but I don't think it's going to happen in front of this judge. I think some California judge or maybe some judge in one of these other states where she's getting the law spread will have to deal with that. I do predict Blake Lively is going to be severely disappointed on this one. And it's looking like yet another big loss for her. Okay, I want to keep going. Carmelo Anthony, the case I mentioned in our intro out of Texas, this young black teenager who goes to a track meet at another school and bumps into a young white teenager named Austin Metcalf.

42:51Dave Aronberg:There were something like between nine and 12 schools on site for this big track meet. And Carmelo Anthony, for one reason or another, it's still not clear to me what the reason was, winds up under the tent where the Austin Metcalfe school was hanging. And someone told him to leave. Certainly at some point, Austin said, leave. And he had a bag and he allegedly said to Austin, make me. And grabbed the bag. and Austin did place hands on him, allegedly, in some way to remove him. And he pulled out a knife and stabbed Austin Metcalf in the heart, killing him within minutes. He didn't even live to the hospital.

43:35Dave Aronberg:He died in the arms of his identical twin. He was a football star. He was on his way to college. He had his entire life in front of him and it was snuffed out in an incredibly stupid, pointless instant. And now they are picking a jury in Texasville, and it appears pretty clear from what little we've heard from the defense team for Carmelo Anthony that they are going to argue this was self-defense. Presumably because Austin Metcalf did apparently, we believe as of today, lay hands on Carmelo Anthony after Carmelo told him, make me? Yeah, well, the defendant in this case started setting up his defense pretty much immediately because the police reports quote him as saying things like, quote, I was protecting myself.

44:29And he said, quote, he put his hands on me. I told him not to. So yeah, he's setting up for some type of a justification or self-defense type of defense to the crime. But here's the problem for him. You can't be the person who instigates any type of a altercation or you can't provoke this type of confrontation and then legally or properly avail yourself of self-defense. You know, you can defend yourself clearly if someone wrongfully puts their hands on you, but you're not allowed to just use more force than is necessary anyway. But I do think that going back to what I believe are the facts of this case that show that Carmelo Anthony was the person who started this whole thing, I don't think he's legally going to be able to prevail on a claim of self-defense if we have a fair jury.

45:25And of course, that's something I know we're going to talk about because you've got people outside the courthouse now that are protesting in favor of both sides. And you've got to wonder, is this a case where you're going to have a jury that is pure and that can reach a proper decision?

45:42Dave Aronberg:Well, the particular jurisdiction where this is going to be held, Collin County, 2024 election results, interestingly, went 54 % for Trump, 43 % for Harris. It's 54 % white. It's 0.7 % black, 16 % Hispanic or Latino, 18 % Indian, it says. I don't know if they mean Asian or American, but it's predominantly white. And so, you know, you're probably going to have a jury that reflects that general makeup. Not sure exactly how that will play, but certainly should play better than the OJ trial played in Los Angeles for, you know, a jury that was predominantly minority and had a grudge against the cops.

46:28Dave Aronberg:Phil mentions the thing about provoking Ashley. The thing is, Carmelo Anthony could argue that he was provoked by potentially by Austin putting hands on him. Number one, Phil's right. The force you use after somebody lays hands on you cannot be disproportionate. Deadly force cannot be used just because somebody places hands on you. Even if it's a push or a shove or like a try to pushing you out of the tent, that's not going to work. But even let's say he's going to say, I thought he had a weapon or something like that. If you provoked him into laying those hands on you, you can't win on a self-defense defense.

47:07Dave Aronberg:Right. Right. It's going to be a very difficult case for the defense. I think we have a little bit of a hint as to what they're going to argue in some of the statements. He hasn't made a lot of statements, but the defense lawyer did make a statement that I've looked at a couple of times. He said something about the state's not going to be able to disprove beyond a reasonable doubt that this was self-defense. So I think even he has recognized that this isn't what we would call a perfect self-defense. It's a very messy self-defense, but I think he's going to put it up anyway. And honestly, I don't think he has a whole a lot of other options other than for him to present this to the prosecution and plea for mercy, which is what he should have done because he murdered this kid.

47:44I mean, he definitely murdered this this poor child who should be graduating high school and getting ready to go off to college, you know, should be enjoying his last summer before college. And instead, his parents are mourning his loss. I mean, it is murder. And I don't think a jury is going to cut him any sympathy. the fact that he walked up to this tent where, you know, this is you got to think about the situation. It's a it's a track meet where there's lots of different tents. Everybody is there under their own school's tent. We look at it through a race lens. But these are events where you don't really go up to, you know, your opponent and go hang out with them.

48:17Like you don't do that.

48:18Dave Aronberg:You don't say get out like that. I mean, that's not going to a Giants game and sitting on the wrong side. This happens at every sporting event. That's exactly what I'm thinking. It's like you're going in the locker room of your opponent and being like, hey, let's hang out. What do you expect? And so, you know, if this guy laid hands on him, so? I mean, laying hands on him does not mean that this kid was in reasonable fear of an immediate bodily injury, a serious bodily injury. You can't just be scared that you're going to get pushed. You have to be scared that you're going to die or you're literally going to lose your limbs or something super, super significant.

48:52And, you know, the law, all the different reasonable doubt laws in all the different states are always debated and they have little nuances. You know, do we use the word reasonable? Do we use objective stuff like that? Juries don't care. They don't care about that. They know what self-defense is and they know what it's not. And, you know, they're going to apply their common sense and they're going to know that this kid did not need to be under this tent. And they're going to know that he did not need to pull out a knife when it, whether or not this guy put hands on him or not, that did not warrant him pulling out a knife.

49:18Why did he have a knife in the first place? I mean, that's, if I was on the jury, that's what I would want to know. What did his parents teach him to bring a knife to a track meet, a high school track meet. He went there looking for trouble.

49:28Dave Aronberg:And how could Austin Metcalfe have ever anticipated that? These kids are anticipating at most a fist bite or like some shoving, but like not a knife in the heart immediately. A black eye, maybe. And that's what they said. Here's what the police report says. Police officer Cortez Eduardo, I gave the suspect, meaning Carmelo Anthony, instructions to keep his hands in the air. During this time, the suspect said verbally out loud, I was protecting myself. While the suspect sat on the ground, I advised that I had the alleged suspect. The suspect then responds and says, I'm not alleged. I did it. As we were walking to the squad car, the suspect was emotional and said, he put his hands on me.

50:06Dave Aronberg:I told him not to. It should also be noted that the suspect asked me, is he going to be okay? While he was in the back seat, the suspect was crying hysterically, says another police officer. And one other police officer writes that a witness told him, Austin had told Anthony he needed to move out from under the team's tent. Anthony grabbed his bag, opened it, reached inside and proceeded to tell Austin, touch me and see what happens. No one really thought Anthony really had any weapons in his bag. And Austin proceeded to touch Anthony. Then Anthony told Austin to punch him and see what happens.

50:44Dave Aronberg:A short time later, Austin grabbed Anthony to tell him to move. Anthony pulled out what the witness recalled as a black knife and stabbed Austin once in the chest and then ran. Austin began grabbing his chest and telling everyone to get help. He was dead shortly thereafter. There's more. I want to tell you about an allegation already of jury tampering because they're in the midst of selecting the jury by the defendant's team or its supporters. We'll explore that right after this break. Don't go away. Missed calls and slow follow-ups are silent killers. That is how businesses leave money on the table without even realizing it.

51:25Dave Aronberg:That's why today's episode is brought to you by Quo, spelled Q-U-O, the business communications system built so that you never miss a call. Your entire team can handle calls and texts from one shared number, meaning no more dropped conversations. Everyone sees the full thread, replies are faster, and your customers actually feel prioritized. Quo works wherever you are, on your phone or computer. You keep your existing number, you add teammates in minutes, and sync your CRM effortlessly. It's currently the number one rated business phone system on G2, trusted by over 90 ,000 businesses to stay professional and reachable.

52:03Dave Aronberg:Everything you need is in one clean view. It gives your team the full context needed to provide a personalized experience every single time. Money's on the line. Say hello with Quo. Try Quo for free, plus get 20 % off your first six months when you go to quo.com slash MK. That's Q-U-O.com slash MK.

52:26Dave Aronberg:Back with me now, Phil Holloway and Ashley Merchant, And joining all of us is the third co-host over at the MK True Crime show that Ashley and Phil host, Dave Ehrenberg. You can go and subscribe and listen to all their great legal content at mktruecrime.com. Dave, welcome to the party. So we are in the midst of talking about Carmelo Anthony and this case against him. What we've seen so far is the defendant, again, who is black, the victim is white, is not him directly, but through his surrogates trying to make this about race. There is a pernicious man connected to the Carmelo Anthony family whose name is, stand by, I have it here, Dominique Alexander.

53:14Dave Aronberg:And Dominique Alexander has been making irresponsible statements all along about race in this case. And now Dominique is under the same gag order the rest of the witnesses, parties, lawyers, etc. are, but does not seem to be abiding by it. Last June, just as a reminder, this guy, Carmelo Anthony's spokesperson, that's how he describes himself, Dominique Alexander, of the Next Generation Action Network. His name is Dominique, but he's a man. Last June, he asked supporters to stand with Carmelo Anthony and family in the fight against white supremacy after Carmelo Anthony was indicted. There is zero evidence that this has to do with race.

53:59Dave Aronberg:Zero. And now let me give you guys a flavor for what he's doing this week. Monday, this guy who's under the gag order tweets out on his X feed as the trial begins. It's imperative that the public receives facts and not incomplete narratives, etc. For months, many media outlets and commentators have repeatedly described this case as an altercation between Carmelo Anthony and Austin Metcalf. However, public statements and reporting following the incident have indicated that there were three individuals involved in the encounter. Carmelo Anthony, Austin Metcalf, and Hunter Metcalf. Well, that's new that the identical twin was somehow involved in the altercation.

54:42Dave Aronberg:Why does that matter, he writes? Because facts matter. Accuracy matters. Context matters. In America, every person is entitled to a fair trial, and that requires the public to understand the facts as they're presented. not as they're simplified for headlines. I mean, the question I have, Dave, is if Hunter was involved, why didn't Carmelo Anthony mention that at any point? Why isn't that in the police report from any independent witness? And they spoke with a lot of them. Nobody said that Austin, the identical twin, was anywhere near this actual altercation, though he was there in time to hold his dying twin brother in his arms.

55:18Such a tragedy, Megan. And what you can say in the court of public opinion is a lot broader than what you can say in court. So they're not going to be able to use that as a defense. But there is a gag order, as you correctly said. And because there's a gag order, I think this guy could be sanctioned because the gag order applies to the family and to those who speak for the family. So he's in a slight gray area. He's going to probably say that he is totally independent. He has First Amendment rights. But it does seem like he has some connection to the family. If that's the case, then he could be sanctioned by the court.

55:51Dave Aronberg:Yeah, we did look it up. And per the local CBS outlet, they write that this gag order does explicitly extend to family members and those who speak on behalf of families. And that's how this guy has been describing him all along himself. He also went on on Monday to say the following, write the following. As the trial approaches, we know there will be falsehoods, misconceptions, misinformation and outside noise surrounding this case. Yes, we do know that because you're doing it, Dominique. But the Next Generation Action Network remains focused on one truth. Rights are not just for some. They're for everyone.

56:28Dave Aronberg:Due process is not just for certain people. A fair trial is not just for certain communities. Phil, they are getting ready to play the race card, and they're going to play it hard. Well, they're not getting ready to. They already are. And here's the thing. He's not wrong. I mean, everybody has a right to a fair trial. Of course, the defendant, the accused person, always has a right to a fair trial. But as we've talked about on our show, Megan, the public at large has rights, too, when it comes to trials. And the public, the community, the citizens of any jurisdiction or a state, they are always themselves collectively victims any time a crime is committed.

57:11That's why indictments end with the language such as these actions are against the good order, peace, and dignity of the state and things like that. So the public has a right to a fair trial. And so that means you have a right to a jury that is not tampered with. You have a right to a jury that can walk into and out of a courthouse every day without being blasted by protesters with agendas. And I'm talking about protesters for either side. The jury is unfortunately going to have to be sequestered in this case because otherwise, honestly, I think that you have the real risk of the jurors themselves being intimidated.

57:50They may feel that if they don't vote a certain way that somehow they can be threatened or otherwise put in some type of jeopardy. So we've got to make sure this judge protects the jury. And I think he will because the judge seems to be no nonsense. He's reminding the jurors, for example, that if they talk about the case, if they research the case, they can be fined, held in contempt. And he's warning them, do not violate my orders. And the same, I think, can be held true for the judge's warning to those who violate his order to not tamper with this jury. Megan, I want to follow up on that.

58:26Dave Aronberg:There's an allegation of tampering. I'm going to give you the floor, but let me just fill that out because I teased it. There's an independent journalist named Sarah Fields, who weirdly was targeted by Carmelo's and Anthony's family early on. In this case, they didn't like her reporting on it as like she's entitled to report on it. We're all entitled to report. That's how this works. In any event, she was in the courtroom for the first day of jury selection yesterday, and she reported the following, quote, I witnessed sheriff deputies escorting an African-American woman out of the courthouse hallway.

58:58Dave Aronberg:She was wearing a pink shirt with lace sleeves. Carmelo's supporters were wearing purple and pink. Deputies were accusing her of jury tampering. I later learned she was allegedly connected to the Anthony family and had reportedly been caught recording members of the jury pool. pool. We haven't seen any more reporting on it than that, Ashley, but that that would be hard. No, to be videotaping members of the jury pool to possibly what follow up with them later to see, you know, to pressure them to do something else. Who knows? Right. And that's going to backfire. I mean, if there if it's members of Anthony's family or his supporters that are doing this to the jurors, the jurors are going to feel uncomfortable.

59:38And that's definitely going to translate back in that jury room. They're going to all feel that. I wanted to follow up on Phil's point, because I think it's one of the best points about these people that are really tampering and really violating the gag order, it's going to result in sequestration. That's what the judge is going to end up having to do. The more that we have these falsehoods that are tweeted out, and we have people trying to make this about white supremacy when it's not, and trying to just really ignite anger and violence on the street there and infect the jury with that, what's the result?

1:00:07The result's going to be sequestration. And what happens when we have sequestration? We have a jury that is much more likely to convict. There's tons of studies on that. You sequester a jury. Oh, really? Yes, you sequester a jury, and they work stronger together as a block, and there's a lot less likelihood of any dissent. So if you had a holdout, for example, they're going to be much more likely to all work together because they start working as a unit. They get up in the morning as a unit. They eat together as a unit, all their meals. So they become more of a unit. And there's a lot of studies that that is way more pro-prosecution than pro-defense.

1:00:39So as the defense, we always argue against that. We don't want sequestration. Yeah.

1:00:43Dave Aronberg:Dave is the former prosecutor's like, what's wrong with that? Well, the other part of it is that the jurors want to go home. So they're likely to say, okay, fine. I'll go along with the group with the majority. Just go, let me go home to my family. What would you do, Dave, if you, if you walked into a courthouse for an explosive case like this? I mean, for sure, this is a very, very hot case where they've already injected race. I I mean, I mentioned this guy, Dominic Alexander, because he's been all over the place. The family hired him. He's not just like some, you know, friend who's like piping off on his own.

1:01:14Dave Aronberg:The family hired him. This is early on in this case. I'm going to play this and I'm going to show you what's happening outside the courthouse this week. He got out there on April 17th, 2025. This is right after it happened and gave a presser. And Carmelo Anthony's mom is right behind him as he's doing this nonsense. Watch and listen to SOT 10. Black people in America, while the current occupant sits at 1600 Pennsylvania, black people in America don't have to pull the race card. It's what we live as a reality every day. It's what we have to teach our children. We don't want to, but we have to. We don't like to, but if we want to sleep at night, we got to.

1:02:04I ain't pulling no race card. I live it. I'm reminded all the time that I'm a black man in America.

1:02:12Dave Aronberg:Oh, Lord. All right. So we had that. And there's a bunch of those, by the way, we could spend the next half an hour of me playing Dominique Alexander and his racial grievances. On behalf of the family, for listening audience, the mom and the dad of Carmelo Anthony are holding each other behind him, listening to all of that. Obviously fine with it. Now you show up to be a jury. And of course, it starts as a jury pool. Everybody's been there. You get the summons to appear for jury service and you show up your potential juror until you're actually selected. And that's what they're doing this week.

1:02:40Dave Aronberg:And this is what they see. Here's thought five.

1:02:57Dave Aronberg:OK, there's that. There's protesters, well, supporters for Austin Metcalfe as well. We've got video here of their outside where they have a large banner and their banner reads Justin for Austin Metcalfe, which seems pretty benign. But I declare I decree Carmelo Anthony is free. Not even sure what that means. But this is what the jury is going to have to walk through. All the jury pool members understanding this is like the gauntlet that's going to await them. And to telegraphing, there's extra scrutiny on this case. You're going to get it. You're going to get it either way. So what do you do as the prosecutor or the defense attorney in that situation?

1:03:35Well, the judge issued the gag order, but you can only do so much because people have the First Amendment right. But you want to at least keep the protesters far enough away from the courthouse where they don't intimidate the jurors. You know, you saw this also in the Karen Reed case. You had all these people wearing pink in solidarity with Karen Reed. And it's hard to argue that it doesn't affect the jurors. Those jurors have to go home to that community and they're going to have to answer to their neighbors why they found the beloved defendant guilty. And so that's why it is tough. It's intimidating.

1:04:05And judges can only do so much with gag orders and orders of removing people from the courthouse a certain number of feet. But ultimately, because we have the First Amendment, it is something that prosecutors fear so much. Jury nullification. I think that's what the defense is hoping for here, that even though the evidence here is really strong and really there's such a weak claim of self-defense. You can't take out a knife and stab someone to death for pushing you. And you can't be the instigator and then claim self-defense. But you still have the prospect of jury nullification. We may have seen it in the O.J.

1:04:36Simpson case, and we could see it here. The saying, the little chants always remind me of back in, I think it was 2011.

1:04:45Dave Aronberg:They sent me down to Texas to cover the indictment of Tom DeLay, who was in the Republican majority leadership. and he got indicted for, I think, money laundering around his campaign fund, something involving finances. And they were protesting and they were chanting behind me. And I remember the anchor, I think it was Shep Smith, said, what are they chanting behind you, Megan? And I was very serious back then and not at all really in touch with my sense of humor, but I remember repeating, they are chanting, Tom DeLay is a stinker. He'll be headed to the clinker. Back to you, Shep. and he he was convicted so they weren't they weren't wrong the power of a local d.a so are we all in it yeah it's yeah the power of a local district or no you took down the powerful speaker of the house yeah that that's true yeah well so are we all in agreement that carmelo anthony's got a very difficult task in front of him that lawyer like the odds are overwhelming like that he's going to be convicted.

1:05:45Dave Aronberg:I don't know. I'm concerned about a stealth juror. That's what I'm afraid of. You know, the judge asked the lady who got them on tape. Well, see, the judge asked the entire panel an interesting question. The judge says, despite our flaws, we are the greatest country in the world. Do you agree? Several jurors apparently disagreed. Reporting is that a few potential jurors say that we are not the only great country. And one juror says our country has a long and complicated history. And so this is a relatively small community. And so what I wonder, I don't think there's going to be jury nullification.

1:06:22I don't think there's going to be an acquittal. But I think the more likely scenario would be a hung jury if you have one or two people that intentionally sort of work their way on to that jury by not answering questions truthfully just so that they can engineer a certain outcome. If you have one or two stealth jurors, we could see potentially a hung jury.

1:06:44Dave Aronberg:By the way, what did you make of that? Yeah, go ahead. I would argue that would also still be jury nullification, because even if you have one juror who's hung on this, it's hard to ignore the evidence. The evidence is what it is. And the only way in my mind that you would find him not to be to be not guilty or to be hung as a hung juror would be saying that I'm going to ignore the evidence. I'm going to ignore the law and self-defense. And I'm going to refuse to go along with the conviction because I don't like the direction our country is going. I don't like the fact that you have a defendant who is in a position of being really in a state in their mind where they are the victim, not the other way around.

1:07:25Dave Aronberg:Do we have – I am interested in that judge's question and where did that come from? That seems like an odd jury question to me, but I could be wrong. But what did you make, what do you think the, this is an important question, Ashley, and I just lost it, about the self-defense claim and how he's going to argue that he had a reasonable fear that somebody was coming for him. He's got, oh, I know what it was. Doesn't Carmelo Anthony have to testify? Oh, yeah. I mean, he doesn't have to have to, but he, I mean, if I were his lawyer, I would tell him you got, you can't have a self-defense claim without testifying.

1:08:05I mean, technically he doesn't have to, but he's never going to be able to be successful on self-defense if he doesn't testify. And I think a lot of the, you know, the things that we're seeing about this being white supremacy or this being racist is really going to backfire, even if we have a stealth juror. because these people, if they're walking past all of these signs and they're seeing all this protesting on a daily basis as the jurors, they're expecting something significant to come out in that courtroom. And, you know, jurors, Megan, always think that we're hiding something from them. That's every single juror I've ever had has always said, we feel like we didn't get the whole story.

1:08:35Right. We are. I mean, we're hiding unreliable evidence. And so if they see that and then they go in and they don't hear a single word about racism where there's no evidence of racism, they're going to be left remaining thinking where you know where is that why are we not hearing that and I think they're going to hold that against the defense if the defense because the defense does there if they present an evidence present a defense they've got to present some evidence of that defense even if they do it through questioning the state's witnesses and the jury's going to want to hear something you know they're going to want to hear some proof that this is racist or that this really was self-defense so I think they've got a really uphill battle.

1:09:11Dave Aronberg:What do you make of that question, Phil, that you just told us about that the judge asked the jurors? It's an odd question. You know, I wonder if it was something that the parties agreed upon to have the judge to ask them. Normally, judges, if they're going to ask questions, it's going to be very basic things. And then you're going to let the individual lawyers do their own questioning during the voir dire, the jury selection process. I don't understand, quite frankly, where it came from. I agree with you, Megan. It is odd, but it did do one thing. It elicited people's opinions sort of about the state of the nation.

1:09:54And I think if the judge is trying to flesh out whether there's any racial bias on behalf of any of the jurors, because jury selection is supposed to weed out all bias, including racial bias. If that was the purpose of the question, I think maybe he did get at some of it, but it's a little bit vague. I think it was a strange question. I would not have wanted it asked if I were the prosecutor or the defense counsel in this case because I really don't understand what it means. And I think in order to get to what it means, you're going to have to ask too many follow-up questions. To me, it's like a proxy for are you a Republican or a Democrat.

1:10:30Dave Aronberg:Exactly. I feel like – but are you allowed to ask that flat out, Dave? Like when you do what here, can you say what's your party registration? If a judge allows you to do so. Judges get more discretion in the party. So this won't be overturned on appeal based on the judge's question. But it is surprising when the judge asks for it. I like to push it as far as until the judge reigns us back in where you ask, like, what news outlets do you watch? Knowing that if you are a consumer of Fox News or the Megyn Kelly show, you probably think differently than someone who's watching MS now. And so that's a way to get at it.

1:11:04But the judge did the work for the parties because that that question will elicit those kinds of answers. My big concern is not really what the judge asked. I just want to make sure I hope that the judge allowed the parties to use their for cause challenges, meaning that when the lawyers try to knock off jurors, they have a certain amount of of what are called peremptory challenges, which means I can get a jury out for any reason as long as it's not a bad reason. It's not because of race, et cetera. I hope that the judge would allow the parties to invoke what's called a for cause challenge. I mean, I'm going to strike that juror because there's a good reason for it based on their answer to the judge's question.

1:11:46As long as that was done properly, I don't think that an appeals court will overturn a conviction here.

1:11:52Dave Aronberg:I think if you really wanted to get to somebody's party affiliation, I mean, you could do so much. You could you could be like, how do you feel about the following like four things? The color orange, gold, McDonald's, and the ballroom. You can look it up. We used to just ask people what kind of bumper stickers they had on their car. I don't think people really drive around with bumper stickers nearly as much as they used to, but that was a good way because it seems like people who are inclined to use bumper stickers, they're either going to be on the far left or the far right. And so I think that's a good way.

1:12:31But I think the judge is honestly, to me, I think he's trying to weed out the possibility of people who have ulterior motives for trying to get on that jury. That's what I think. Yeah.

1:12:43Dave Aronberg:My favorite bumper sticker ever is it read, I want to die quietly in my sleep like my grandpa, not kicking and screaming like the passengers in his car. Oh, no. I've seen that. You know, Megan, nowadays when you do jury selection, you go online immediately and you look for their social media posts. So you may not even need to ask them questions. Yeah, you go on their Facebook and you see, oh, this person likes. True. It's not hard to figure it out. That's gold. God, yeah, I was practicing dark in the back in the dark ages when we didn't have social media. So, yeah, that's you're right. What a great tool.

1:13:19Dave Aronberg:We can see how often they vote. I mean, all those things. That is so helpful. Let's talk about this twit, Mackenzie Shirilla. Have you guys watched this movie yet on Netflix? Oh, yeah. We did a show on it last week. It's nuts. It's called The Crash, and it's about this young woman, Mackenzie Shirilla, from Strongsville, Ohio. And she was dating, she was in high school. She was dating this young man, and he was in her car, and so was his friend. Her boyfriend was Dominic Russo. The friend was Davian Flanagan. And she crashed her car. She was driving it. She was the only one wearing a seatbelt. The car had been going 100 miles an hour in the early morning hours one day, and she crashed it into some structure.

1:14:17Dave Aronberg:Both boys died. She was the only one who lived. And again, the only one with this, with the seatbelt, the car is, I mean, in tatters, there's like nothing left to it. And the, this new Netflix show, the crash shows a bit about how things got very complicated around this, you know, seemingly just awful car crash very quickly. Here's a bit from the trailer 24A. That split second changed all of our lives forever.

1:14:53It didn't add up. It was hard to comprehend that she could just drive into a wall.

1:15:02Dave Aronberg:I would never see her purposely wanting to hurt them. This was clearly a toxic relationship. we needed to get a full picture of who mackenzie shirrilla was you can go yourself the most significant piece of evidence there was no breaking this was not an accident

1:15:35what took place inside that car

1:15:44Dave Aronberg:and on top of all that it's come out that she was extremely abusive toward her boyfriend verbally abusive and possibly more than that. She was ultimately convicted. It was murder, right? She was convicted of murder of both of these boys. And she went away to jail where she's been for over a year. And now we get reports that, first of all, one appeal has failed, but she's pursuing a separate appeal now that is going to go up to the Ohio Supreme Court. there is a question about whether she was adequately assisted by counsel in meeting a filing deadline for among other things and she's only what 17 years old she was at 17 when she did this so she's been sentenced to life in prison but with a minimum of 15 years before she can be considered for parole so she could get parole but the news is not only is she inching closer to an appeal or actually having an appeal heard.

1:16:47Dave Aronberg:But the latest drop shows that her behavior in jail, you guys, has been absolutely awful. Law and crime was reporting on this and she has been violating the rules in jail seemingly every other day. It varies from more minor things like cinching or like somehow tailoring her jail issued sweatshirt so that it's tight and kind of saucy looking on her, which is not allowed, to having video calls with a woman in which they show each other their breasts and sex toys, to provocative behavior with the guards, raising her voice to the guards, being extremely nasty to the guards, according to the guards.

1:17:37Dave Aronberg:and I guess just generally behaving badly and stealing things. She's accused of stealing things like from the commissary and so on. She denies that. But Law and Crime and Anjanette Levy was interviewing a guy who advises people who are going to jail on how to behave. And his number one takeaway was, don't do that. That stuff will all factor into whether or not you're going to get parole as I think she and her family are convinced, Ashley, that she will. Like they think she's in there wrongly. they maintain this was an accident she's got some disorder relating to her blood pressure that causes her to black out and that's what happened here and that she's really just this sweet misunderstood teenager you hit the nail on the head dave and i had a psychologist on last week and we got to ask that psychologist to kind of analyze um mckenzie and it was interesting because she had actually listened to hundreds of hours of jail calls and so especially between the family between her parents and her.

1:18:33And it was really interesting because she really blamed the family and said that this girl, I mean, obviously Mackenzie is to blame, but that the parents had never taught her consequences and that she really didn't understand consequences. And I think that's what we're seeing now. Even in jail, she doesn't get it. She doesn't get consequences. She can't follow the rules. She can't conform to behavior. And it's really gonna hurt her when she does go up for parole because I don't think anybody's letting her out anytime soon. Although I have my opinion on whether or not she did have good trial counsel.

1:19:03I think she didn't because they had what's called a bench trial instead of a jury trial. And, you know, you never waive that. You don't waive a jury trial. I mean, unless you have some really, really, really good reasons to do that. And so, you know. She wasn't likable. She was not likable. But at least you can maybe get a holdout. Like Phil was talking about earlier, maybe you got a stealth jury. At least it's a chance where, you know, this judge, I mean, she wasn't likable to the judge. She wasn't going to be likable to a jury. And then they had this POTS defense you mentioned, you know, this blood pressure thing, which was just crap, honestly.

1:19:32And it was like, she'd come up with it last minute and whispered it to her mom. Hey, you know, maybe I can get off if I say I had, you know, a pots episode where it made no sense. Cause if you had pots, you wouldn't have the gas pedal fully depressed. And to go a hundred miles an hour, you had to literally have the gas pedal all the way down. So, I mean, it's just a hot mess. It is literally, this girl is just a hot mess and two kids lost their lives. And it is awful because she clearly drove them into a wall.

1:19:58Dave Aronberg:I have to say, Phil, to me, this person is a sociopath. She killed two innocent boys, didn't have any guilt over it from what anyone could see. And that's exactly the kind of person I never want to be released. It's one thing if you're a sociopath who somehow has learned to manage your absolute lack of empathy or emotion and you're not running around hurting people. But if you're a sociopath and you've murdered two people, you should stay in jail forever because you cannot be trusted. You what's going to stop you from murdering the next couple? So my scientific wild ass guess is that she probably does have some sociopathic tendencies, maybe an outright disorder.

1:20:37I also see a healthy dose of narcissism. You can see that in the social media posts. You can see that in the reporting by our friends at law and crime related to what she is doing while she's incarcerated, not obeying the rules. It's all about her, her, her. But there's also another piece of this that we see oftentimes. I know the three of us see it in our practices with young people. Sometimes they, well, oftentimes, if not always, they don't understand or they can't comprehend risk, the element of risk or the idea of it until the human brain is like 25 or 26 years old. And when you see young people abusing substances and things like we've seen in this case, it can actually delay that development of the brain and the ability to understand risk.

1:21:25And to follow up on something Ashley said about whether or not there's going to be a new trial that should be based on what we call ineffective assistance of counsel, I agree that waiving a jury trial is always a gamble because you only have to then, if you're the prosecutor, you only have to prove it to one person versus 12. But there's another piece of this. If you're going to present a medical defense, which is what apparently this was, they did not have a medical expert. So I don't know how you could effectively try to present such a defense without having an expert. And so I think that if there is going to be a new trial, it would have to be a ruling by the appeals courts based on whether or not the trial counsel was effective.

1:22:12And if she has ineffective assistance of counsel, that violates her Sixth Amendment. But on the facts of the case, I think the evidence is very clear the conviction should stand. Yeah.

1:22:24Dave Aronberg:And here's what they were trying to avoid. She's she can do the I'm sweet. I'm innocent. I'm only 17 act for a while. And then you see some of the tapes that they had thanks to the social media recordings and also just recordings on her boyfriend's phone. Here's a sample of how that would have gone over. It's that 24B. Dom, open the door. kenzie i can't open the door i can't sit here and fight like we gotta go to dinner if i can see my grandparents like i can't i can't sit you're not going to dinner if you don't open the door i'm gonna let you know that right now you're gonna come open this door right now or there's gonna be a serious fucking problem okay ready i'm gonna count to 10 the door is gonna open okay you're gonna open the door and stop hiding behind the door like a little fucking bitch Stop waiting for the door.

1:23:12Maybe I can come outside and talk first.

1:23:13Dave Aronberg:No, we're not fighting outside. You're going to open the door right now. Why are we fighting outside? You have one minute now, actually. Look, wait, now my mom's trying to calm me. I got it. No, if you hang up on me, we're done. I'm leaving. Kenzie, there's nothing I can do. Like, I can't... There is. Stop being a little bitch open. I can't let you in my house with how you're acting. Like, it's as simple as that. Okay, I'm going to break into your house, then. Dude, what the actual time? If you do not let me in the house that I sleep in every night, we are done. Some of the text messages that were introduced in the trial were her writing to Dom, I told you it's my way or the highway.

1:23:54Dave Aronberg:I would watch your back from now on and your house and your car and your life and any of your friends. And Dom responds, Kenzie, this isn't right and you know it. just two, three days ago, they released additional texts. This is from March 2022, in which the boyfriend allegedly texted that Mackenzie, quote, hit me and, quote, tried to throw a rock at me. Later that month, he also warned her that she was, quote, driving like a maniac, according to the documents. I mean, they had this girl dead to rights, Dave. That's, I think, why they decided to go for the judge and maybe just throw themselves on the mercy of like an older man who might have mercy on this 17-year-old girl in the way juries probably wouldn't.

1:24:45Dave Aronberg:I don't know. That's my guess, that they thought this older male judge might feel some speck of empathy for her or might bite on the blood pressure thing. But her bad behavior in the prison dovetails perfectly with her bad behavior in life. And I would be remiss if I didn't point out it's her parents fault. Yes, it is. The mother is a complete enabler. If you watch this show on Netflix, the mother and the father, the father, I mean, the only ones who came out to the only ones who came off worse than Mackenzie in that show were her parents who just enabled her, explained away all of her issues.

1:25:21They came across so terribly and they're still standing by their daughter claiming that she is innocent and that the system is rigged against her because apparently the boyfriend's family are well connected. It's awful. One small correction. The trial judge was an older woman, and perhaps she thought that she would get a better shake from her. But, you know, although the trial judge was tough and she dressed down Mackenzie's mother when Mackenzie's mother tried to explain it all away, she still only gave her 15 years to life concurrent. She could have given him given her consecutive, but she did a concurrent for the two deaths.

1:25:57And that means she could still conceivably get out on parole after 15 years in, although the way she has been acting, she's trying to be an influencer behind bars. I think that means she's going to stay in.

1:26:10Dave Aronberg:Yeah, I mean, she could be out in her young 30s, which is shocking, having taken two innocent lives. If she behaved. All right. Want to keep going? If she behaved. Yeah, if she behaved, which is just she can't do that. incapable of. I want to do Henry Novak next. Actually, we'll take a quick break and then we'll come back and we'll discuss that case in which the family's now speaking out. And finally, finally, we have the video of his last moments viewer warning. It's coming up next. If you are heading into summer without a medical emergency kit, you are taking a risk most people don't even think about until it's too late.

1:26:44Dave Aronberg:Summer colds linger and can turn into sinus infections that last for weeks. Getting sick right before vacation can derail everything. And when you are traveling, finding a doctor and pharmacy is stressful. But let me tell you about the medical emergency kit from the wellness company. It's like an urgent care and a pharmacy right at home. It includes essential prescriptions like amoxicillin and generic Z-Pak to treat a wide range of common and serious illnesses. No waiting for your doctor, no hours at urgent care, no pharmacy lines, no co-pays. Just match your symptoms to the right prescription in your guidebook or call their telemedicine doctor standing by.

1:27:22Dave Aronberg:Start on your med sooner and feel better faster. Order yours online in minutes and it's shipped right to your door. And save 45 bucks with our promo code MK at urgentcarekit.com slash MK. That's promo code MK at urgentcarekit.com slash MK. Geico presents a 30-second podcast between your podcast. Today's story is shared by one of our listeners. It's called Betrayed by Bill. It was in that moment I caught who was staring back at me in betrayal, or more like what? My insurance bill. With trembling hands, I grabbed my phone and switched to Geico, saving about$900 in the process and never to be betrayed again.

1:28:08Now that was bloody riveting. It feels good when the story ends with savings. It feels good to Geico.

1:28:43Dave Aronberg:by a man who happens to be Sikh. And it is relevant because he's walking around London with an enormous sword or three on him. We have video that we released exclusively last week or before the verdict that showed him on another day walking with a sword that was as long as most people's leg just casually affixed to his hip walking down the streets of London. And, you know, it's this is a lot to allow somebody in the name of religion. And this guy had multiple weapons on him where you're not allowed to conceal carry or otherwise carry a gun. This is the video showing now he's got like a sword, like like an like one of the swords that you use when you're sword fighting in in college athletics.

1:29:29Dave Aronberg:And he's casually just sort of walking around London with it. The we now have a picture of the actual sword that he used to stab Henry. but they had some sort of, I don't know, a confrontation. Henry said something to him, something like, you're a bad man, aren't you? And it turns out that this guy, the defendant, was saying, his name is Vikram Digwa, I'm a bad man. Like he was asserting it affirmatively. And he stabbed Henry. He stabbed him five times. He stabbed him in the lung and he stabbed him in his legs as he was running away. So this poor kid tried to run and eventually they called 911, which is 999 over in Great Britain.

1:30:13Dave Aronberg:And a witness said that this kid had been stabbed. When they got there, they treated Henry like he was the assailant. And this victim, who was fine because Henry hadn't laid a hand on him, said he was the victim of a racial crime. There'd been profiling and he was hurt and didn't say I stabbed him. Henry, while dying, said, I've been stabbed. And these police officers refused to believe him. Within minutes, he'd be dead, drowning on his own blood in his lungs. It's despicable. Every single cop on that scene should be fired. Vikram Digwa has been found guilty, thank God, of murdering Henry. and all along they have not shown us the videotape.

1:30:58Dave Aronberg:There's videotape because Henry was videotaping it and then there's also body cam tape. They have refused to release it. Henry's dad, Mark, right before they released the tape, came out with some scathing comments. Here's a flavor of that in SOT 6. Henry had been stabbed multiple times and as his chest filled with blood, he tried to escape. He was chased, abused and filmed by Vikram Digwa and others. With his final words he told officers that he could not breathe. He told them he had been stabbed. In fact, Henry told officers that he could not breathe nine times. He told them he had been stabbed four times.

1:31:45The response from one officer was, I don't think you have mate. The police have said they were misled by the murderer and that the scene when they arrived was complex. Unfortunately it seems to us the truth is much simpler. The police were told by our son himself and by a member of the public who called 999 that they heard someone shout that they had been stabbed. But the police did not believe them. Henry was pulled across the gravel, his hands forced behind his back and he was placed in handcuffs. Instead of being treated as a dying victim, police formally arrested Henry for assault and read him his rights.

1:32:34That was the last thing he heard. Henry did not die with dignity. He did not die with the care he deserved. He lost consciousness before anyone believed him. The way he was treated was inhumane and degrading.

1:32:53Dave Aronberg:Wow, that dad's got superhero strength to stand there and be able to say all of that. The mom is standing next to him crying. Henry's little sister standing there upset next to him. I mean, I just it's it's the worst nightmare. Then they did release the footage and it is it is disturbing. I found this genuinely disturbing. You can hear his his pleas for help and this like completely callous police force that just refuses to take it seriously for for no reason we can discern other than my judgment, their presumptions about the respective races and who must be evil and who isn't. And they had it exactly wrong.

1:33:35Dave Aronberg:So viewer warning on Sot 8 here. What's your name mate? Up here. Huh? Has anyone been hurt other than him? Yeah me. He's grabbed my brother. He's took my turban off. So I grabbed him my head. Are you injured? Yeah yeah I've got swollen eye, little bruises. Alright just step back a little bit for me. Someone flagged these down. Fuck this dad. Alright let's get you out of there shall we? I was in bed for sleep. This is dad. Grab his other arm.

1:34:14What's happened to you, right? You've been stabbed. You've been stabbed? Whereabouts? I don't think you have, mate. I don't think you have, mate. You're cupping him. Hand.

1:34:32Put the hand in the cuff, mate.

1:34:37Dave Aronberg:I can't breathe. I can't breathe! I can't breathe! I can't breathe! I can't breathe! I can't breathe! Sanny's been stabbed so let's just check him. Where do you think he's been stabbed? In the face? Oh no, but we have to check don't we? No. In the face? No, he's got that. Keep you on your side mate. You've got to read Reef then. I'm saying to him, keeping him on his side We were sat up when we had him here But he didn't like it What's your name mate? By the moment you are under arrest That's for assault So you do not have to say anything May harm and defence If you do not make your own questions So I'll switch you later in line of court Anything you do say may be given an evidence It's alright It's going to be sick I think Yeah

1:35:35I just want you to call it. Yeah, we've got this male, he's been beat up. Are we able to get an ambulance please? His pupils aren't even reacting.

1:35:55Dave Aronberg:that's so awful he was he was dying and now finally finally there is a question about what should happen to the police officers the case has been referred to the police watchdog the independent office for police conduct uh the temporary deputy chief constable robert france has apologized saying, I'm sorry that Henry couldn't be saved that night. I'm sorry that he was handcuffed and arrested in the moments before he lost consciousness. When his killer made that call to police and he called the police, not the ambulance service, he lied on that call. He lied when police attended the scene. He continued to lie as Henry's condition deteriorated.

1:36:40Dave Aronberg:that's not good enough phil that this is a known risk when you approach a crime scene like this that possibly you know is a stabbing that someone could be lying to you yeah and and one you used to be a cop and your mind has to be open to the fact that it might be the one with the brown skin and the one with the white skin might just happen in this circumstance to be the victim You know, when I put my ex-cop hat on, Megan, a couple of things come to mind. First off, knives obviously can kill, but so can the woke mind virus. And that seems to be what has infected certainly the police officers that I think we saw on that video, if not many others.

1:37:23Not only in the UK, but elsewhere across the globe and even here in the United States. There's no reason, in my view, to handcuff that man that way. Even had he not been stabbed, he's complaining of injuries. He's not presenting any kind of threat. And I think the first duty of law enforcement on the scene is to render aid where it needs to be rendered and not to just sort of make snap decisions on who may or may not be telling the truth. If you arrive on scene and someone's injured or complaining of an injury, you need to go ahead and deal with that in a responsible way. And honestly, someone that I know who's in law enforcement in the UK shares with me that their belief, and I agree with it, is that those officers are guilty also of a crime.

1:38:13I think they're guilty of some type of negligent homicide, and I think they should be prosecuted. They should be sitting in a jail cell alongside the defendant who is guilty of an absolute brutal murder with that knife. The whole thing is just, it's unspeakable. It's indefensible, and I'm sorry. I'm glad they apologized, but that's not enough. There's not enough. There needs to be, we need vengeance here. We need some type of accountability for those police officers because that man's death is on their hands.

1:38:48Dave Aronberg:Actually, imagine if the races were reversed. There would be riots in the street. There were. Keir Starmer, who only said one word about this yesterday, I think, he said nothing, nothing after the tape was or the incident became public while they were on trial. Nothing. Well, finally, he says something about it. But he was quick to kneel for George Floyd. They had protests in London after George Floyd. But but here, because the races were what they were, they did nothing. Here's a political commentator, Carol Malone on GB News, making similar points. We should call this out for what it was. If Henry Novak had had a brown or a black skin, there would have been uproar about this.

1:39:33If it had been a white person that killed a black or a brown person, there would have been national uproar. Every member of this government would have been screaming about it from the rooftops. Look what they did with George Floyd. The last thing, it's interesting, Henry's last words, why I can't breathe. They were George Floyd's last words. He couldn't breathe either. It's the media as well. Every other TV station bar this one has ignored this. Almost every paper has ignored this. The only political party that has actually acknowledged what is going on here is reform.

1:40:03Dave Aronberg:Nobody. My thoughts are that the police knew this man was dying. You could see in the video that you showed his hands. I mean, they had to know that. And so it doesn't matter the color of his skin. It doesn't matter what the other person is saying. He is clearly dying. And I think the problem with the police is that they are quick to cuff someone when they don't need to cuff someone and they're quick to just rush to judgment. this man was not fighting. He wasn't trying. I mean, originally he was trying to get away, but when the police were there, he was completely compliant. You don't see him doing anything.

1:40:37So absent officer safety reasons, there was absolutely no reason for the police to put this man in custody. And I think we just jumped to that because they immediately believed this guy. They immediately believed him. And I mean, he's not even carrying the type of weapon that's allowed. You know, there's a law in Britain that you're allowed to carry a weapon if it's for religious purposes. But the weapon that he had was not even the right type of weapon. I mean, it's essentially a knife that he was carrying. The police should have seen that and should have taken that into account. And then maybe this poor kid, this child, because he was a child, would not have died in police custody with the last thing he heard being that you're being arrested.

1:41:14It's just it's awful. What do you think, Dave?

1:41:16Dave Aronberg:Should the cops face charges? Yeah, yes, yes. This was absolutely disgraceful. And I have to give some responsibility here to Keir Starmer. This is Keir Starmer's Britain. He is Neville Chamberlain 2.0. I mean, this is just an extension of how he treats those who march in the streets every week, calling for jihad, who call for violence against Jews. And now, as a result, Jewish students are told to hide their identities on university campus in Britain. Jewish schools have to close periodically for security. MPs are given bodyguards because of the threats from these radical groups. And what does Keir Starmer do?

1:41:56He appeases. And I got to believe that the police officers here took their cues from the leader because they were more concerned.

1:42:04Dave Aronberg:Can you guys stay just for a couple of extra minutes? I know you have to run, but if you can stay, I want to continue. I got to go hard break in 10 seconds. I promise I'll only keep you like three to five minutes max on the opposite end. Don't go away. This is too important. Hey, everyone. It's me, Megan Kelly. I've got some exciting news. I now have my very own channel on Sirius XM. It's called the Megyn Kelly Channel, and it is where you will hear the truth, unfiltered, with no agenda and no apologies. Along with the Megyn Kelly Show, you're going to hear from people like Mark Halperin, Link Lauren, Maureen Callahan, Emily Drushinsky, Jesse Kelly, Real Clear Politics, and many more.

1:42:37Dave Aronberg:It's bold, no BS news, only on the Megyn Kelly Channel, Sirius XM 111, and on the Sirius XM app.

1:42:49His murderer, however, was afforded decency. He was believed. He was not handcuffed when arrested. He was not handcuffed when transported to the police station. As far as we understand, he was never handcuffed at all. And as Vikram Digwa himself told the court, whilst under arrest for Henry's murder, police even took him to the kitchen so he could choose his food.

1:43:16Dave Aronberg:That's the father of victim Henry Novak, who was murdered by Vikram Digwa, who's been found guilty. The father, in an extraordinary display of dignity, calling out the police and Keir Starmer's government, to some extent, on their cold, callous behavior toward his dying son. Welcome back to The Megyn Kelly Show. We're back with the hosts of MK True Crime, Ashley Merchant, Dave Ehrenberg, and Phil Holloway. Dave, pick it up where you left off on the subject of Keir Starmer, because just to remind the audience now, there is a picture here of him kneeling, kneeling post-George Floyd. So he felt totally fine getting down on one knee and stirring up racial controversy after that death of somebody who wasn't even his constituent.

1:44:02Dave Aronberg:But when Henry gets murdered back in December of 2025, from that day to yesterday, he said nothing. He didn't even do the pablum of we're deeply sorry for his family's loss and we'll let the legal process play out. You know, the benign we're sorry for what's happened here. Stand by. Nothing. He waited until the whole thing was over and then came out and said, this is an awful, shocking case. Henry's loved ones have gone through the trauma of a long trial and endured Henry's killer making up appalling claims about their son, who was thoughtful, kind and deeply loved. That's really not the trauma.

1:44:42Dave Aronberg:Like the trauma is that Henry's dead, but okay, he took a shot. It's right that the police are being investigated and we must end the cycle of tragedy by tackling the horror of knife crime. Henry's family, friends, and New Year's University and the city of Southampton will continue to feel his loss. Our thoughts will always be with them. Okay, keep going. Megan, most of the police officers are still on duty. They're still on the job. I mean, that's crazy. All but one, I think. Right. I wonder if it's the one who said, you know, mate, about the stabbing, didn't believe him. When it comes to – I don't know.

1:45:17Yeah, but that's crazy. I do think – I agree with Phil and Ashley that, yeah, you could charge them possibly with culpable negligence, manslaughter. There are things you can charge them with, just like the officers in the George Floyd case were charged with crimes, even the ones who were there stopping the crowd from moving in and assisting the main guy. You know, appeasement is what I was talking about when it comes to Keir Starmer. That's a political strategy, and it's not a victimless one. Neville Chamberlain appeased Hitler, and that led to war. And when it comes to Keir Starmer, he has domestic appeasement.

1:45:51You could argue that that type of appeasement, that culture he's created, helped lead to an innocent 18-year-old dying in the streets in handcuffs, gassing for air while the police were coddling his murderer. It really is disgraceful.

1:46:08Dave Aronberg:Dave, we just were in contact with our friend Lawrence Fox, who's been on the program many times, and he, along with two others, were going to go to the Oxford Union in London and debate the now head of their, I think, of the debate team. The one guy got ejected because he was so insensitive. But this woman is a Muslim Palestinian who she wanted to have the debate of Islam's role in the UK. You know, is it too big? Is it consistent with the values of a Western democracy? She wanted to have that debate and was, of course, going to be arguing. Yes, it is. It's fine. You know, it is consistent. And these guys were going to argue the opposite.

1:46:52Dave Aronberg:And they were going to have this debate at Oxford Union like they have so many other debates. And it was shut down by police. The police wouldn't allow Oxford to have it. And Oxford, of course, folded like a cheap tent because they won't even let them debate it. You can't even have the debate, even when it's introduced by a Muslim woman. P.S. We are working on hosting that debate for them right here in America, where you're still allowed to have these back and forth. Thank God. But imagine, especially in the wake of this murder, you can't we can't even have the debate. You're not in the UK. We just saw Cenk Uyghur and his cousin.

1:47:32Dave Aronberg:Their visas were allowed or not allowed. They couldn't enter the UK to go on with Piers Morgan. They were going to discuss not even it wasn't even about like Israel, Palestine. It was because of their prior statements about that conflict that they weren't allowed in. I mean, like, this is crazy, the crackdown on free speech in Great Britain. And that's what you see seeping into that confrontation between an innocent, yes, happens to be white kid and a guilty, happens to be brown man. Yeah, yeah. Well, they don't have the First Amendment in Great Britain. It's always easier to sue someone for defamation there than it is in this country.

1:48:11But I agree with you that when you stop people from having conversations, that leads elsewhere, because where is that going to go? That's not going to end the debate. It's just going to lead to violence because there's no way to talk it out. I'd much rather talk it out. And when you do have that conversation here on your show, I'd love to come on and be a participant in some of these conversations.

1:48:32Dave Aronberg:Oh, yeah, we'll have you. It's like well underway and we're going to have the debate here that they banned in the UK, which is just disgraceful. It's disgraceful. I mean, honestly, I was saying to Pierce Morgan yesterday, like we're about to celebrate our 250th over here. It's almost like the UK would like to create another spinoff, right? Like there's going to be some folks over there who are like, we're out to like what no one wants to live like this, where you can you have to shut down all discussions that help people connect or get their arms around these difficult issues. and to the point where you shut down a dying man's pleas for help because you can't get it in your head that he might actually be the victim and the Sikh guy standing over there might be the perp.

1:49:15Dave Aronberg:And in fact, they were asked, this police officer, this deputy I mentioned, Deputy Chief Constable Robert France, who spoke finally, he was asked whether he believed his officers had been scared of being accused of racism in that moment. You know, that's why they behaved the way they did. And he said they had been deceived by Digwa's repeated lies about what had taken place. But again, you know, Phil, that's so infuriating. It's your job as a police officer to understand that no one on a scene at a scene like that has a presumption of honesty. They were deceived, obviously, by a killer and a liar, but they were also deceived by suicidal empathy and the consequences of unchecked mass migration.

1:50:00Because what you see, if you take one society and move it to another geographic location on the globe, then you displace another society and another culture and people's national heritage goes with it. And that's kind of what we're seeing take place in Great Britain and other places around Europe and even in certain parts of the United States. And so law enforcement, I think, if you take it back to the 10 ,000-foot level, law enforcement has to make sure that they play it straight. They call balls and they call strikes. They cannot be influenced by cultural pressures. They can't be influenced by wokeism and the woke mind virus.

1:50:46When they roll up on a scene, somebody calls for help, they need to call balls and call strikes objectively and without favor or presumptions towards either side. And when you've got somebody who is complaining and telling you they've been stabbed, then you damn well better take them seriously. Because if not, you may wind up sharing the cell with the person who did, in fact, stab them. Because I think what they did was a crime. I think it was criminal negligence. I think every single one of them involved should be sitting in a British prison.

1:51:19Dave Aronberg:Yeah, they accepted the responsibility. Then they showed up as fiduciaries and they let Henry die. All hell is breaking loose in the UK as we have this discussion. They're, what, five hours ahead of us? Depends on the time of year, whether it's five or six. And I want to show you what's happening. There are protests starting now outside of the police headquarters in Southampton, where these officers are, protesters demanding justice. And they say it's over a thousand so far who are there to demand action following the murder of Henry Novak. They began around 6 p.m. this evening, British time to hold a moment of silence for the teenager with shouts of shame on you also being heard.

1:51:59Dave Aronberg:They are reporting at GP News. There's a strong police presence at the protest as well monitoring. Let's take a look at how that is. Then I'll tell you the latest news about the cops.

1:52:23I'm feeling why we're standing in the wrong position here.

1:52:33Dave Aronberg:I just jammed that leg smacks our beams outside of this police station. They can barely move.

1:52:46Dave Aronberg:People are angry.

1:52:55They've got to make more room for this crowd.

1:53:00Dave Aronberg:Somebody's going to get trampled. Shoving them down, look. Police are trying to create a perimeter that includes these stairs, but the people need the room.

1:53:23They're trying to prevent a breaching of the police station, I assume.

1:53:28Dave Aronberg:That's what we're seeing there, Ashley. And now we get word that per Sky News, another one of the police officers involved in the arrest of Henry Novak has resigned, according to Hampshire police. We already had news that one was allowed to, quote, retire. That was the word used. Now this is another one, we believe, though they have an identified name, so we can't be sure, that another one has been allowed to, quote, resign. This is not right. They should all be fired. Why should they be given the dignity of a peaceful exit with a resignation or retirement? You know, you cuffs is one thing, but the dignity of a resigning as opposed to your ass is fired and you should be praying that you don't get arrested or some type of a public tribunal where their conduct is actually examined.

1:54:13They have to answer for it. I mean, I think that would be something that the people deserve to see these cops actually having to answer publicly for what they've done. But I also blame the media in the UK because they really have not covered this. And, you know, this has been something that's sort of been allowed to go unnoticed to a lot of folks until now. You know, it's being brought out, but we're having to bring it out. I mean, where's the British press? Where is their outrage? It's just it's more recent, you know, but that's another person that's to blame.

1:54:41Dave Aronberg:Yeah. As we heard that one commentator pointed out. And if you don't, as the press, give voice to what everyone is feeling, you create more rage. You create just more unbridled anger. Right. It's unfair. It's biased. It's completely biased. That's clearly deprioritizing white lives. That's really, I mean, we all got mocked with the white lives matter thing. Like that made you racist if you said that. And it's like, if you went out there and chanted that right now, they'd still turn on you. They'd still call you a racist. Well, guess what they do? They do matter. Henry Novak's life mattered. And those cops need to be fired and charged.

1:55:21Dave Aronberg:And there has to be absolutely no quarter spared for Vikram Degra and his disgusting mother who hid the murder weapon and was also found guilty. Thank you for sticking around late. I know Phil and Dave just had a piece out and you got to go too, but it's been great. No, it's good to see you. Thank you for all the great work over at MK True Crime. All right. Well, thank you for having me. All right. To be continued. Wow. We're taking your thoughts on the Henry Novak case. Email me. It's Megan at MeganKelley.com. My God. We'll stay on it. Tomorrow we are back with the results. Maybe. They take forever.

1:55:56Dave Aronberg:They are like a third world country in California. So we may have some indication of how the vote went at the L.A. mayor's race and the gubernatorial level. And our guest is perfect. it's Adam Carolla. So no matter what's in the news, we have the perfect guest and we'll see all then. Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.