Suspect confesses to murder of missing teen; Prosecutors recharge Alec Baldwin — TCD Sidebar
In this episode of True Crime Daily The Sidebar Podcast
Donte Mills joins host Joshua Ritter to break down the biggest cases making headlines across the nation. They discuss Joran van der Sloot’s confession in Natalee Holloway’s slaying, an appeals court ruling in Alex Murdaugh’s favor, and a pending grand jury indictment for Alec Baldwin in the fatal “Rust” shooting.
Tweet your questions for future episodes to Joshua Ritter using the hashtag #TCDSidebar.
Joshua Ritter:
[00:00:10]
Hello and welcome to The Sidebar, presented by True Crime Daily, 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 LA County prosecutor for nearly a decade. You can find me on Instagram and Twitter at @JoshuaRitterESQ or at joshuaritter.com. We are recording this on Friday, October 20th, 2023.
In this week's episode, a remarkable victory for Alex Murdaugh's defense after a South Carolina appeals court rules the disgraced lawyer can move ahead with his petition to vacate the murder convictions for the slayings of his wife and son. Also, in a case we all thought was closed, prosecutors now indicate they intend to recharge actor Alec Baldwin for the fatal shooting that occurred on the set of the movie Rust, alleging new evidence ahead of a grand jury indictment. But first, nearly 20 years after her disappearance, the family of Natalee Holloway is offered some closure following a confession by her killer as part of a plea deal for extortion and wire fraud.
Today, we're excited to be joined by Donte Mills, an attorney specializing in civil litigation. Donte is also a founding partner at the Law Firm of Mills and Edwards LLP, and a legal analyst you can catch on multiple outlets, and I always enjoy hearing you. Donte, welcome to the show.
Donte Mills:
[00:01:42]
Thanks for having me.
Joshua Ritter:
[00:01:44]
I know that you also practice criminal law, so a lot of this is right in your wheelhouse. And I'm excited to hear some of your thoughts on these cases, especially the one that we're going to talk about first out of Birmingham, Alabama, where nearly 20 years after the disappearance of Natalee Holloway has captured the attention of documentarians, book authors, podcasters and true crime enthusiasts from around the world, this week, the mystery of her death was finally put to rest when prosecutors secured a confession for her slaying in a plea deal with her killer.
Joran van der Sloot, who has been linked to the murder, pleaded guilty to charges of extortion and wire fraud in exchange for his recorded, detailed admission and a 20-year sentence. In a confession which was viewed in real time by Holloway's parents, van der Sloot described an intimate and beach encounter between himself and the then 18-year-old Natalee Holloway.
According to van der Sloot, Holloway rejected his sexual advances, kicking him in the groin when he persisted. Van der Sloot responded by kicking Holloway in the face while she was on the ground, rendering her unconscious before bashing her head in with a cinderblock. He then claims he dragged her body into the ocean, pushing her body out to sea. We have some audio, actually, of his confession that has been released that we can play for you now.
Joran van der Sloot:
[00:03:22]
Yeah, she's laying down unconscious, possibly even dead, but definitely unconscious. And I see right next to her there's a there's a huge cinderblock laying on the beach.
Male:
[00:03:39]
And when you say cinderblock, looking at the walls of this place, is it like those?
Joran van der Sloot:
[00:03:45]
Exact same cinderblocks. I see a huge cinderblock laying on the beach. I take this and yeah, I smash her head in with it completely.
Joshua Ritter:
[00:03:58]
Really disturbing stuff. Despite this confession, van der Sloot will likely never be charged for Holloway's 2005 murder due to the 12-year statute of limitations for homicide in Aruba, where the murder occurred. Nevertheless, the confession was a bittersweet victory for Holloway's parents, who sought closure for 18 years after their daughter disappeared on a class trip. Van der Sloot, who attended, who attempted, pardon me, to extort the parents for information on the location of Natalee's body, will be returned to Peruvian custody, serving his US sentence concurrently with a 20-year sentence for the murder of another woman, Stephanie Flores, while he was in Peru.
All right, Donte, a lot to unpack here. A lot of moving parts. But my first question to you is, do you feel that justice was served here, given the circumstances?
Donte Mills:
[00:04:54]
The short answer is no. If he murdered someone, he should face charges and be found guilty for that murder and have a penalty associated directly with that murder. Taking someone's life should never be taken for granted. And I don't think it's something you kind of wrap into a plea deal for something else. The issue is that we're trying to be practical, right? We want to be practical.
And the biggest issue that was weighing on this family, who are the true victims here is they didn't know they had no closure. They still thought, and you hear her uncle giving interviews and her family members talking about, they heard of girls being rescued when they were kidnapped and held in houses, like what happened in Cleveland, Ohio and places like that. And every time that would happen, they would think to themselves, maybe Natalie is being held somewhere and one day we'll get her back. But now at least they have some kind of closure.
So I think practically that's what came out of this confession. The family can rest at night knowing that Natalie put up a fight, that she didn't just allow someone to take advantage of her. She tried to resist. And unfortunately, and because he's a horrible person, he decided to end her life. But the family has closure for that. And I think that's what came out of this confession, but definitely not justice when you think of it in the classical sense.
Joshua Ritter:
[00:06:18]
Yeah. No, I think you're absolutely right. I mean, bear in mind too, years went on when they weren't even sure she was dead. I mean, when you have these missing person cases and nobody shows up and there's no evidence that they've recovered, blood or obvious evidence that a murder took place, this poor family was tortured with the idea, like you said, that maybe they're going to find her someday. So then they come to terms with the idea that she's likely dead. Then they still don't know what happened. They've got this guy that they believe was involved.
So that torture, I think, was -- ending that torture, I think, was worth a lot to this family and worth a lot to the US government obviously. They're the ones who are able to facilitate this deal. But one question I'm hearing from a lot of folks is, wait a minute, this doesn't hold him responsible for murder. And will he ever be tried for murder? And the answer is essentially no, right?
Donte Mills:
[00:07:14]
No. This murder happened in Aruba. So you have to go by the laws of the place where the incident occurred. And they have a statute of limitations, which means after 12 years, which is their statute for murder, you can't bring charges against someone for a crime that past that 12-year mark. As many know, but in the United States, we do not have a statute of limitations for murder. I think that makes sense.
And a lot of times you hear, oh, what about those cold cases where 20 years later, some DNA evidence now that we have that has popped up and we're solving cases after 25, 30 years, the United States is a little different. So they do not have a statute of limitations for murder. You can always be charged with murder, no matter how long after the murder occurred. But in Aruba, it's 12 years. And we have to abide by their law.
Hopefully something like this makes them reevaluate that law. And they may look and say it doesn't make sense to say after a certain amount of time, you can literally get away with murder, right? You don't want that to be the case. So hopefully they reevaluate this after this high-profile case and get on board with things like the United States, where they say it doesn't matter how long, if you kill somebody, you can be held responsible.
Joshua Ritter:
[00:08:30]
Yeah, yeah. And 12 years too, that's not a long period of time. I mean, if we were talking 25, 50 years statute of limitation, maybe you could understand. But 12 years is just, I mean, we have crimes in the US for felonies where lives are not even lost that is longer than 12 years. So it's pretty incredible what we're learning, like you said, about the criminal justice system outside of the United States. Talk to us a little bit, too, though, about the idea that this is going to be a concurrent sentence and what that means for actual time he's going to serve.
Donte Mills:
[00:09:06]
He's been in prison for a long time. And he was convicted of killing someone else and received that 20-year sentence. This sentence lines up with that. And you're looking at the fact that he could be getting out of jail in a relatively short time. And you have to consider whether or not that factored into him confessing. And the issue is a lot of people are saying he's given varying details, some things that really didn't add up. This story may seem fabricated. To that, I would say let it go. It doesn't matter, right?
We don't want to take away this closure for the family by challenging whether or not this confession was actually true. But when you look at it and say he did have a reason and there was a benefit to him to confess to this murder because he had the opportunity to, as a result of confessing, and it had to come with a videotape confession, as a result of him confessing, he was able to make this plea deal with the sentence that kind of lines up with that other sentence. So he was incentivized to give that information. You hope that it was true information. He wasn't just making it up so he could get off or get that sentence that runs concurrent with the other one.
But I also don't think that we need to really go down that aisle because we want the family to rest with their closure. We don't want to second guess whether or not these details are in fact accurate or what actually happened. Let's just take him at his word. Despite the fact that we know there was some benefit to him confessing to this murder.
Joshua Ritter:
[00:10:44]
No, I think you're absolutely right. And 20 years later, how is anybody going to corroborate anything he has to say anyways? I mean none of that evidence existed. Even if you wanted to try to poke holes in some of the things he was saying, it's probably best that we just kind of move on from this and allow the family to hopefully start to heal a little bit more.
Last point on this, and it doesn't play as big a role in this case given that statute of limitations problem, but I was hoping you could explain for our listeners this was done, his confession was done during what's called a proffer. And I thought it would be a good opportunity to just kind of explain what that is, how that works, and why it's a valuable tool for law enforcement.
Donte Mills:
[00:11:27]
So proffer is very valuable for law enforcement. What it does is it gives a defendant or someone who's being investigated the opportunity to come in. You hear the term sometimes queen for a day, what you get is the opportunity to come in and be absolutely truthful and honest but talk about information that you know.
Now, the catch to that is whatever you say during that proffer can't be used against you. But if they investigate some other way and find out some of these facts and they can use that, but what you tell them in that room is essentially saying you have short-term immunity. Whatever you tell us, we're not going to use it to charge you or investigate you further. But when you go in for a proffer, they're usually getting information about a particular crime or furtherance for an investigation.
But in order for them to know that you're being honest with them, you have to tell them things about yourself. And a lot of times, they want to ask some incriminating things to make sure that you are being upfront, you're being honest, and you're being truthful. They'll then go and verify some of that information that you've given them about yourself. And once that's verified, it's almost like, okay, now you have the green light for us to believe that you're telling the truth about other people.
So when you hear defendants or people being investigated going in for a proffer, normally they go in and say, okay, I'm going to give up information on somebody else. But the most important part of that, and I tell my clients this, the most important part of that is being truthful about the information related to crimes you may have committed, because they're not going to charge you or go after you when you tell them you committed a crime inside of that proffer, but they are going to verify it to make sure that you're being truthful and honest with them.
It's their way of really knowing that they can trust you and trust the information that you're giving. And once they confirm that, because the thought is if you're honest about telling on yourself, then you will continue that on and be honest when you're telling what other people did. So that's really what a proffer is. And that's what happened in this case. They wanted some information on another investigation. And as a part of that, I'm certain that they brought up this particular case and said, all right, if we're going to believe you on this other stuff, you got to be honest and tell us what happened here. And that's what led to this confession.
Joshua Ritter:
[00:13:50]
Yeah, yeah. And for people to understand if they're thinking to themselves, well, why would you give someone immunity to talk about everything they've done if you can't then use it. It's because one, can further that investigation and two, perhaps expose the investigators to information about other cases. To give you a really good example. We all know about the Varsity Blue investigation with the college admissions scandal where wealthy parents were paying off all of these college administrators to get their kids in. That broke because an individual was doing a proffer about an entirely unrelated financial crime, I believe it was.
And during that proffer, he said, they asked him essentially, you know anything else that might be helpful to us? And he says, have you guys heard about this guy out in California who's paying off college admissions people to get their kids in? And that just broke this entirely huge case. So that's why it's an incredibly powerful tool for law enforcement.
Donte Mills:
[00:14:52]
And we know, just with the FBI, if I can just put this in.
Joshua Ritter:
[00:14:55]
Yeah.
Donte Mills:
[00:14:56]
That's how they investigate. It's the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Right. So when you're talking about federal cases, their job is to investigate and they go from one case to another. So they'll do an investigation on a case. They'll bring someone in, get information on that case, but at the same time, they're probing for information on them and other cases so that when this case is wrapped up, they have something to move forward to. Right. They have the next case that they can investigate. And that's really how they conduct their business. They go from one case to another, getting information from people involved with this one, and then using that information and expanding it to other investigations.
Joshua Ritter:
[00:15:32]
Yeah. Absolutely. Right. And they're incredibly successful at it. Let's move now to Walterboro, South Carolina, where just when you thought it was all over, we learned this week that the South Carolina Court of Appeals has granted a motion suspending Alex Murdaugh's murder conviction appeal, sending the case back to the circuit court, where a hearing will be conducted surrounding allegations of juror tampering.
This comes just over a month after claims the county clerk, Rebecca Hill, influenced jurors to convict Murdaugh. Even allegedly telling them to disregard evidence and Murdaugh's own testimony. The defense alleges that Hill was motivated by financial gain in order to generate interest for her book on the highly publicized trial entitled Behind the Doors of Justice. While this opens the door for Murdaugh to seek a retrial, he would not be out of prison. Even if successful, he is awaiting federal sentencing after pleading guilty for a litany of financial crimes related to stealing millions of dollars from clients.
All right, Donte, walk us through this. Is this action taken by the appellate court, essentially saying, okay, let's pause everything and allow this kind of motion for a retrial or motion on jury misconduct to take place. Is this all kind of procedural, or do you think this is actually a huge development for the defense?
Donte Mills:
[00:17:03]
I think this is a huge development, and there's a lot of things that play here, including those other charges that he pled guilty to, but we'll get to that in a second. I think this is a huge development for the defense because they took their time to investigate. You had the ability. Just so everybody knows, you cannot speak to a jury while the trial is in motion.
And in fact, whenever I pick a jury, I tell them in jury selection when you can speak to them, I say, once this trial starts, I can't talk to you at all, other than presenting things to you in court. So if we get on the same elevator, if we see each other in the hallway, you know, we could be on the same case for three weeks seeing each other every day. But if I see you in the hallway or an elevator, I'm going to turn my head. I'm going to get off that elevator because I don't want there to be anyone looking out. If the jury asks me what time it is, and I tell them the time someone down the hall can think we're talking about the case, and then we have to go in front of the judge and explain that.
Joshua Ritter:
[00:18:01]
I don't want to interrupt you. I don't want to interrupt you, but you make me laugh because only trial attorneys understand how kind of paranoid, we are about this. I've literally had that moment that you're talking about where someone, a juror of mine will come up to me and ask, where's the restroom? And I put my hands up and go and start pointing towards a bailiff or something, because I can't, you're right, even the appearance of misconduct. So I didn't mean to interrupt you, but I just want to drive home that point of it is like a cardinal rule that you never contact the jurors. Please continue though.
Donte Mills:
[00:18:38]
Yeah. So that background is good for everybody to understand. The court takes communication with jurors very seriously because they do not want their decision impacted by any outside influences. If this court clerk, who has a position in the court and the presumption is a juror will look at that person and say she knows what she's talking about, right? Because somehow, she's tied into this court. If there was communication with that person, that court clerk and this juror, it's a problem.
And I don't think it's just a problem for this case. I think it should be a problem overall for any court clerk or anyone involved with the court to be trying to influence the opinion of the jury, it shouldn't happen. So I do think it's a serious issue here. So you can't talk to a jury during the trial, but afterwards you can. And what Murdaugh's defense team did is after the trial was over, they took the time to interview all of the jurors and asked if there was anything that went on.
Of course, they were fishing, I'm sure, but they turned up some evidence and had jurors say this comment was made. They don't even have to say whether or not they believed the comment or if the comment actually influenced them. But for that comment to be made, it's presumed that it had some kind of an impact. So when the defense team was talking to this jury afterwards, they got these statements saying that this comment was made, those statements were presented to the court. And I think the court is doing the right thing by taking this very serious and saying, hold on a second, we have to fully investigate and have a hearing on exactly what happened. And if this happened at all, as they're saying it did, I truly believe that case will be overturned.
Joshua Ritter:
[00:20:24]
Wow. Yeah, yeah. And by the way, what the defense has is not a bunch of gossip and second-hand accounts. They've got sworn affidavits from jurors saying this is the stuff she was telling us. This is how she was commenting on the evidence. I mean, it just blows your mind when you understand, like you've laid out how seriously this is all taken by everyone in court.
And then you make the excellent point. She's a person that they would believe. This isn't some random individual in the court. This is the court clerk. This is the person who essentially is shepherding them to and from court from their deliberation room. If she's saying, commenting on the evidence or commenting on his guilt.
Donte Mills:
[00:21:11]
Why wouldn't you believe it? Right? You think she has some kind of inside scoop because she's a part of the process and that's very dangerous. But there's another part to this that you talked about in the beginning, these other federal charges that he pled guilty to. I was interested when he pled guilty so early on because there were talk of there was talk of him actually trying those cases as well.
And he pled guilty pretty quickly to those charges. And I'm wondering why. I'm wondering if his defense attorneys knew that this information was out there, and this was going to give him the ability to have a retrial in this case. And they wanted to wrap up those federal cases while everybody thought he was already going to be in jail for the rest of his life and really wouldn't harp on a sentence for those cases.
It may sound a little bit of confusing, but let me explain it. So in those federal charges, he pled guilty to all of them and got a truncated or reduced sentence. A lot of that, he said he pled guilty because he didn't want the court to have to go through the expense and the cost of trying all of these cases individually. So what the district attorney or the US attorney did was allowed him to plead guilty to those charges and combined all of the sentences to a reduced sentence.
If this murder charge gets overturned and somehow he finds a way to get out of the murder charge or get a not guilty verdict, then all of the rest of those financial charges are now wrapped up in a way that he can finish that reduced sentence and be out of jail. Whereas if he waited for this, he knows that the United States attorney would not have given him a reduced sentence, because they would have wanted to make sure that he was in jail for as long as possible. But for him to plead guilty to those things before this information about the court clerk ruining the jury came up, I believe part of the negotiation was, listen, he's going to be in jail for the rest of his life anyway.
So why we're not going to fight you on this. We're going to plead guilty. Let's just wrap it up. We'll plead guilty to a reduced sentence. And now, if that murder charge is overturned, all of those financial issues are wrapped up in a way that he can serve that sentence and be out before he's old enough to die in jail.
Joshua Ritter:
[00:23:42]
You might be absolutely right. I mean, it sounds clever enough, and it explains kind of the actions that he took. But you're absolutely right. If the feds felt this man is going to rot for the rest of his life in prison anyways, we don't need to pound our fists on the table regarding our sentencing. And they wrap up. And by the way, that's locked in. No takesies-backsies now if he gets some new trial on this murder case. So he's locked in on those federal charges.
And you're right, if he's able to pull off a miracle, if he's granted a second trial, that may be given him an opportunity to see the light of day someday. That's incredible. Last point on this. We've talked about we think that there's actually a puncher's chance here of him getting perhaps a new trial. Walk me through. Do you think that's what the remedy the court would grant? And then where does that put him?
Donte Mills:
[00:24:43]
I think it's more than a puncher's chance. I think if it turns out that these affidavits were, in fact signed by the jurors, which there's no reason to believe they were not, I think he has to get a new trial. He cannot have a trial verdict stand where the jury was influenced by personnel for the court. You can't have that. That means our system isn't working. So I think he has to get a new trial. And that means he now has the benefit of, again, speaking to those jurors. And I'm certain that his defense attorneys asked him, well, what worked? What made you think he was guilty? What made you believe he may not have been?
So now, if he gets this new trial, he has the benefit of playing Monday morning quarterback for his own case. And they've had the conversations. They know exactly what was said that convinced the jury he did it. They know what was said that left questions in the jury mind. So I always believe when a retrial, the defendants are in a better position because they don't have to prove anything, right. The state has to prove that he's guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. All the defendant has to do is present doubt. That's it.
And if I'm talking to a juror who said on this case the entire time who came up with the verdict, and I'm asking them what would have caused you to doubt. In that interview, I'm asking them that. And if I get another chance at a trial, that's all I'm focusing on because I know that it impacted or could have impacted this jury. And if I really hone in on that point, it may impact the next jury. And if any one of those jurors, it works on any one of those jurors, you have either a not guilty or a hung jury, and he's off.
Joshua Ritter:
[00:26:25]
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When I first heard that they were filing a motion for a retrial, okay, whatever, kind of par for the course. Oh, it's regarding jury misconduct. Again, I was kind of nonplussed. I thought, oh, they're going to say that the jurors, I don't know, they saw news article they shouldn't have seen or something.
Donte Mills:
[00:26:49]
Yeah. Lot of times you hear like, oh, the jury had a previous experience with something, and they didn't say it in jury selection, something like that.
Joshua Ritter:
[00:26:55]
A big nothing burger. But then you hear it's this and it just blows your mind. So that hearing will be soon. I imagine we will continue to watch this case.
Let's finally move to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where in a case full of seemingly endless twists and turns of its own, another bombshell was dropped this week as prosecutors say they intend to recharge Alec Baldwin with involuntary manslaughter for the fatal on-set shooting of Halyna Hutchins. Charges against Baldwin, who allegedly pulled the trigger in the Rust cinematographer's 2021 death, were previously dismissed without prejudice after a prosecution fraught with blunders. Reportedly, prosecutors and Baldwin's attorneys engaged in talks for a potential plea to a petty misdemeanor. However, the plea was retracted.
The case is expected to face a grand jury next month, with prosecutors claiming to have discovered "new" facts in the case, while attorneys for Baldwin indicate they will answer any charges in court should the actor be indicted. The film's armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, also charged with involuntary manslaughter in the shooting, is scheduled to face trial in February of next year.
Donte, what the heck is going on here? This case, these prosecutors from almost the get go have had problems with the way that they have been handling this. But my first question, if you remember, this shooting took place, and they took months to investigate. They involved the FBI. They involved in a tremendous amount of researches -- a tremendous amount of resources, pardon me. And now all this time later, we're saying we've discovered new evidence. What's going on? What could this new evidence be that would possibly change their mind on this thing?
Donte Mills:
[00:28:49]
Well, from my understanding, and let's make this clear, they botched this from the beginning. I don't know if it was because it was high profile. And a lot of times you see investigations -- I handled high profile cases. And a lot of times you'll see the investigations kind of take a weird turn once they know it's high profile, one, because they don't want to do anything wrong, they know it's going to be scrutinized. And two, some people, look for an opportunity to shine or to get some exposure. So there may be some people who thought, if we hold in Alec Baldwin, that may make this bigger.
But I think this ultimately comes down to whether or not he pulled the trigger. You remember he said he didn't. There were people who said he didn't. And initially he was charged. And then it was some confusion about who they spoke to and what the statements were. Ultimately, the charges were dropped, but they dropped them with the ability to re-bring the charges, to bring the charges again. And when they dropped the charges, they said they were going to complete the investigation. They felt like they weren't ready to proceed and that there were questions that were still looming.
From my understanding or in the way it looks, it seems as if they have some kind of conclusive evidence that shows he pulled that trigger. That's what I'm understanding that new evidence to be. And if it is that they may be giving him the opportunity because they blundered it so much to take a plea deal, to accept responsibility even to a lesser degree, with them not bringing the charges for the second time. But if they're only offering something that's significant and he's saying I want something petty or something that's not going to land me in any trouble, they may be at an impasse. And that's why we're back at this moment.
But I think ultimately it comes down to whether or not they can prove that he, in fact pulled that trigger, because if he didn't, it would be hard to hold him in for any charge that they have for reckless endangerment, for any type of homicide, for anything. If he didn't pull that trigger, it would be hard case to prove.
Joshua Ritter:
[00:30:55]
Yeah, I want to get to that point about him pulling the trigger. But my other thought on this is, listen, I know that prosecutors, I was a prosecutor, should not be making decisions based upon things outside of the law and outside of the facts. But this has taken on a life of its own. And there's a certain element of politics involved in all of this, and just a PR perspective and how they look, they look awful.
Donte Mills:
[00:31:23]
Awful.
Joshua Ritter:
[00:31:24]
I'm thinking to myself, you guys walked away from it, kind of put your tail between your legs and keep on walking because it's not this -- I don't see the upside in this for them. What if this falls apart again? And I think there's that's getting to the point about pulling the trigger. I think there's a real chance this falls apart again, because you make a point. and I think it's excellent that if he lied about pulling that trigger and he actually did pull that trigger, that is a significant thing.
My push back on that is this man has been acting for decades. He has probably been handed a gun on set hundreds of times, and it has never, ever entered his mind that that thing was ever loaded with live ammunition. And let's say he did pull that trigger. Does that go from the realm of civil negligence to now criminal liability that you're going to ask to answer for an involuntary manslaughter?
To me, you are asking -- you are stretching the bounds of criminal liability way too far here. It was a novel theory to begin with. And I don't know if jurors are going to buy it, I don't know with that argument I just gave, are they going to buy that this man should be held responsible for her death, when all he's doing is acting like he has thousands of times before?
Donte Mills:
[00:32:47]
You're absolutely right. And you make a fantastic point that, realistically, right, if we want to look at this, should he be held responsible as an actor who's handed a gun on set where you wouldn't even imagine or can't even fathom that a real bullet would be in there? Like, why? Should he be held responsible for that criminally? I think this should be is an easy no. The issue that we have, though is the law. Right?
And there's parts of the law where it's mens rea. You don't have to actually intend to do something. If you do it, you did it. And that's what he's facing. And that's why this is so dangerous and tough. And if I was him, I would be looking to take a relatively minor penalty plea agreement because he does have exposure. The fact of the matter is if he pulled that trigger, he pulled the trigger of a gun and killed someone, whether he intended to or not, whether he believed that would be the outcome to a certain degree, that may not be the difference maker. And that's where we run into the problem here. I don't think he did anything intentionally criminal at all, but intent may not be required for some of the charges that he could be facing.
Joshua Ritter:
[00:34:11]
Yeah. And I think you're right, too, that this may be more for the prosecution to put a squeeze on him for a plea deal that they feel like they were able to save a little bit of face or perhaps they get some cooperation out of him. There is still the trial against the armorer who I do see a far kind of cleaner nexus between her conduct and the actual tragic deaths here. And maybe they want his cooperation. They don't have any way of securing it without criminal charges pending. Maybe all of that is at play.
Donte Mills:
[00:34:46]
And part of what you want is you want people to do the right thing and on both sides. So a prosecutor can say, listen, we know you didn't mean to kill anyone. We know that you're an actor. You took a gun. We know you didn't mean to do it, but we can't just let you walk away. Right?
And on the other side saying, listen, I didn't believe there was a live bullet in there, but I understand this happened. I understand that I was involved with it. So how can we come to some kind of agreement where we both accept some responsibility of the situation and allow this to be resolved in a way that nobody is put in a position that they should not be, because clearly this was an accident.
Joshua Ritter:
[00:35:21]
Yeah. Well, it will be a question for the grand jury, which is going to convene on that according to the New Mexico prosecutors in the next month or so here. So we'll see if they're able to secure an indictment. But in the meantime, that's our show. Donte, thank you so much. This was a pleasure. Thank you for coming on this week.
Donte Mills:
[00:35:41]
Yes. Enjoyed it. Thank you for having me.
Joshua Ritter:
[00:35:42]
Where can people find out more about you?
Donte Mills:
[00:35:46]
So you can look us up. Our website is www.melaw.com, M-E-L-A-W.com. My name is Donte Mills. I'm on Instagram, all social media. I do a lot of commentary on legal cases, and I enjoy it. I think that these are things that people are interested in. They should be because it really shows us how our country is run. And ultimately, I think it's a great system, but it needs to be talked about. So I appreciate you having this platform and inviting me on to talk about it.
Joshua Ritter:
[00:36:20]
Well, thank you again. And everyone, do yourselves a favor and check out Donte's social media and follow him. He has always excellent thoughts on these cases. I'm your host, Josh Ritter. You can find me on Instagram and Twitter at @JoshuaRitterESQ or 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.
