Lawyer REACTS to WI v. Mccandless Case #courttv

Joining me tonight outside the courthouse in Wisconsin, criminal defense attorney Matthew Kirkpatrick. In studio, prosecutor Jen Stevenson, criminal and civil attorney Kirby Clemens, and former magistrate court judge Quinton Washington. Welcome to you all. Fire in her eyes. Is that ammunition for the prosecution? Good for the state. Definitely. It is absolutely great for the state. It is. It’s horrible that juries to see this now um for the defense. But the it seems to me the words are very revealing because you’ve got Jason Mangle, the man in the middle of all of this, right? And he’s the one who’s concerned about Ezra. Mhm. That I mean that I think that’s what makes it very that’s why the jury’s engaging because you’re seeing this and you’re understanding that you know something’s about to happen and when you see this you’re like all right we now know what happened. We’re seeing it beforehand and it’s just eerie that we’re seeing this in real time almost and of course the tape cuts off when they leave the scene but at the same time all the jurors know why they’re there and they’re there to decide guilt or innocence in this case. Matthew, what do you think the impact is of this dash cam video that the jury saw and the words that they heard from all the parties involved in this love triangle? Um definitely from the uh the criminal defense perspective, uh this is the first opportunity for the jury to hear um Ezra McCandless’s voice. Um obviously from the opening, they know that they’re eventually going to hear her testify. Um with the um discussion today, there’s going to be Officer Reeves interview that’s going to happen tomorrow. It’s going to again experience her in a different in that disheveled agitated state that was that was about today. So I think it really it’s going to give them perspective of of how disheveled she was um her her uh her sense of uh mind at the time and her from the uh time she gets to the farm till the time she gets to the hospital when she’s being interviewed. Did any of you hear or see anything in that video from the defendant or the victim in this case that would indicate that what is about to happen happened? You know, I’m going to say the no. And that that’s to me is the positive side for the defense. I mean, I think knowing what’s going to happen, that’s the negative. But the reality is if you listen to her voice and how she sounded, she didn’t sound when I heard it agitated and angry or upset. So, I think the defense would argue that this is this was not a volcano getting ready to erupt. The victim or the deedant didn’t sound in fear. He he they sounded fine like they’re going to take a trip together and everything was fine. So, from the defense perspective, I would argue that to the extent that there’s fire in her eyes, there’s not fire in her voice and you can’t display two emotions simultaneously. So, really her voice is the controlling factor. Jen, what did you hear? So, I think that that’s a very interesting perspective, but I also think here that the police are an impediment from the prosecution’s theory. The police are an impediment. She has to get rid of them so she can continue with this plan. She’s driven down from a different location with a knife. She’s angry at the at Mr. Woodworth. Um, so she has to get rid of them. So, she’s playing a playing a role in and and in being able to transform into, oh, everything’s fine here. Nothing to see here. Well, she’s very comfortable with police officers. She made that statement um to Alex before saying if she had a problem with her car, she knew every police officer on the road on the way down. Judge, do do you think this is a a case of premeditation of what happened in that car? Do you think this was all part of a plan or was this something that happened in the moment, whether it was murder or self-defense? I think you have to go with premeditation on this. And the reason why I think that is because you’re looking at her now, right? And then you see her afterwards, which is that same day, for it to escalate to where they’re taking a casual car ride and all of this apparently tragically happens. I don’t know how you don’t have any indication that there’s so much discord before you get in the car. Like, if I’m arguing with somebody that much to where it escalates that much in the car, I I don’t know whether that happens when we’re in when we’re taking a car ride. I think that you knew what was happening beforehand and then you knew that you were going to because of what you were about to do, you were going to have some level of self-defense that you were going to try to claim. But you couldn’t do that because the the film is one of the things that shows what she’s doing.