Time Sucks; The Prosecutors Podcast; and “Direct Examination”

Episode Notes

Transcript

Jared Correia: I’d like to take a moment to thank my mom for listening to every episode. Now, my mom is the real reason you’re listening to this show right now, but the sponsors have a little something to do with it as well. So, I’d like to thank our sponsors too. Clio, TimeSolv, Alert Communications and Scorpion. Now more than ever an effective marketing strategy is one of the most important things your law firm can have and Scorpion can help. With nearly 20 years of experience serving legal industry, Scorpion has proven methods to help you get the high-value cases you deserve. Join thousands of attorneys across the country or turn to Scorpion for effective marketing and technology solutions. For better way to grow your practice, visit scorpionlegal.com.

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Intro: It’s the Legal Toolkit with Jared Correia with guest from the Prosecutors Podcast Alice and Brett, around the direct examination, and then Jared becomes one with the universe. The division between cosmos and the man melt away and time itself becomes less a river than an ocean. His empathic connection with all living things becoming an unbridles cacophony of the full spectrum of feelings and experiences. The self, reducing into one imperceptible singularity encompassing the entirety of all that is, was and will be or as close as we can get to that with a shit ton of booze. But before all that, your corporeal host, Jared Correia.

Jared Correia: The Legal Toolkit podcast is live, right now. Well, actually I recorded it live and this is the edited version. A live recording. Never mind. As you know, we still call the Legal Toolkit even if I have not picked up an actual tool to fix an actual thing maybe ever. I’m your host Jared Correia. Tom Kennedy was unavailable because he was working on the script for the fake Tom Kennedy show. I’m the CEO of Red Cave Law Firm Consulting, a business management consulting service for attorneys and Bar associations. Find us online at www.redcavelegal.com. I’m the COO of Gideon Software, Inc. We built chatbots so law firms can convert more leads and conversational document assembly tools so law firms can build documents faster and more accurately. You can find out more about Gideon at www.gideon.legal.

Now, before we get to our interview today with Brett and Alice, the co-host of the Prosecutors Podcast, I want to discuss time management. Time can be a fickle bitch for sure. Although there are those who dedicate their entire lives to protecting the space-time continuum like the distinguished Dr. Emmett Brown and The Watcher and Owen Wilson from Loki in the Marvel Comics Universe. For most of us, time is the enemy. It makes us old and ultimately it kills us. And in the meantime, it means that we can’t get a damn thing done. Our guest today as I mentioned, podcasts hosts, full-time prosecutors with young families, how they manage all that? We’ll ask them. But really, how does anyone manage all that? It’s a fucking slog. Of course, short of building a situation which you’re pulling a light career Benjamin Button. There are things you can do to make the most of your time and ensure that you’re locking up maximum efficiency inside of your law practice, which is important because the most efficient lawyers make the most money.

The first thing to revisit is probably the utility of the nine to five regime. People have gotten sucked into in the Industrial Age. Probably you too, right? Seriously, is there any reason to work nine to five other than reliance on an outmoded notion of productivity that Henry Ford and some dudes came up with in the early 20th century. Probably not. I mean, you’re a knowledge worker. You’re not slinging in the factory, adding a singular piece to the same package time and time again, and use the computer which is the game changer of all work-based game changers. Turn it on anywhere you are, you had internet connection, you can work. So if you want to start working at 11 a.m. or start working at 8 p.m., or you want to take a nap in the middle of the day, fucking do it. What does it matter? As long as you get your work done. I sometimes take a nap in the middle of the day when I’m tired. I’m not afraid to admit it. My wife continually reminds me that she has a real job and says to me, it is kind of weird. And my response is always. “I’m tired and unproductive right now.”

(00:05:01)

I think it would be weird if I didn’t take a nap. She probably thinks I’m a lazy piece of shit which, yeah. But for real, sleeping in the middle of day is not just for the unemployed anymore. So, as you might have gathered from this small diatribe, I think that you should work when you’re at your most productive, especially when trying to accommodate those larger projects that you have to do, especially the ones you don’t want to do. And so, that might require a drastic change to your schedule. At the start of the pandemic, you all, remember the pandemic, right? I’ve been working at home by myself for like five or six years. It was truly amazing. I could watch a movie in the morning. I could drink a vanilla milkshake in the nude at three in the afternoon. All of a sudden, my idyllic life came crashing down around me. Here comes fucking COVID and now everyone’s home with me all the time. And whenever I had a free moment, my kids are on my ass about something. I was all of a sudden, the IT person for homeschool, managing projects when classes weren’t happening, and making lunch at lunchtime rather than doing so the night before and stuffing it into a bag. It really, really sucked.

But I realized that I had to somehow recapture the three to four hours I used to have but lost during the middle of the day and that’s when I became addicted to cocaine, just kidding, instead of trying the hardcore drugs like a modern-day Rick James, I started waking up earlier like at 4 a.m. I meant that I had an uninterrupted three-hour block every morning to work on the big projects for that day. I can work out and then I can handle the rest of the day as it came to me. And I don’t wake up that early every day, but most days I do, and I find that I’m very productive in the early morning hours. Maybe you are too, or maybe you’re not. Maybe you’re a night owl if you work better in the afternoon when I’m napping. That’s cool. Just start experimenting to see when you’re at your most productive and try to build your work schedule around that. Set aside distraction-free power hours so you can focus. Use a Pomodoro or tomato timer to schedule short breaks. Find a procrastination buddy to help kick your ass when you’re slacking. Whatever your jam ends up being, now is a great time to view your routine. Time as it turns out is on your side.

Now, before we take some of that time to talk to our guests Alice and Brett from the Prosecutors Podcast about the ongoing true crime boom, let’s see what kind of a resting stats Joshua Lenon has for us this week. That’s right boys and girls, it’s the Clio Legal Trends Report Minute.

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Joshua Lenon: Did you know that 42% of solo law firms operate without commercial office space. In fact, 9% of solo law firms gave up their office space in the last year alone. I’m Joshua Lenon, lawyer and residence at Clio. We are seeing an overwhelming number of solo attorneys migrating their legal practices to internet-based cloud technologies, giving them the freedom to practice from anywhere. New research based on data from tens of thousands of legal professionals show that with the right technologies, solo lawyers can make $50,000 more revenue than other law firms on a per lawyer basis. This is because cloud solutions like online payments, client portals and client intake software create the types of efficient legal experiences that today’s clients look for. Learn more about these opportunities and much more for free. Download Clio’s Legal Trends Report for solo law firms at clio.com/solo.  That’s Clio spelled C-L-I-O.

Jared Correia: So, let’s get to the fava beans and chianti of this podcast. It’s time to interview our guests. My guests today are Alice and Brett, the co-host of the Prosecutors Podcast. Alice, Brett, welcome to the show.

Brett: Thanks for having us.

Alice: Thanks for having us.

Jared Correia: Yeah, this is cool. So, I actually like — I listen to a decent amount at True Crime stuff and I came across your podcast and I thought it was really good and I thought this angle that you had where you’re actually prosecutors in real life was pretty cool. Like I thought the analysis was pretty in-depth. So, I know you run this podcast yourself and I’m impressed with what you’ve been able to pull off here. So, can you tell folks listening a little bit about the podcast and why you decided to start it, and Alice, maybe we can start with you.

Alice: Yeah, absolutely. Thanks so much for having us on. Like you said, we’re full-time prosecutors. Brett and I work together. We’ve known each other for years, and our life is really just talking about True Crime all the time. Whether it’s other podcasts or shows and also our work

Jared Correia: Brett, is that about right?

Brett: Yeah, that’s about right. I mean, Alice and I talked about True Crime all the time so at some point we decided, “let’s just do a show on it.” And then the pandemic happened.

(00:10:00)

We had literally recorded one episode. We recorded that episode together in the same room and then like the next day, it was the pandemic. So, from that point on we record separately. Alice is in her closet. I’m in my little office I’ve got here. And yeah, I mean, we just sort of ran with it and really wanted to bring that sort of evidence-based approach and answer questions people have because a lot of people don’t understand how the legal system works or how the justice system works or why the judges make certain decisions or why prosecutors make certain decisions. And that opportunity to educate people — we actually thought people might find that boring. We were kind of surprised but we’ve just gotten an overwhelmingly positive response. People want more of it. They want more legal nerd talk as we call it. So, that’s been good to see.

Jared Correia: So most people if they pick up a hobby might be like, “Hey, I see this stuff all the time at work. I’m going to do something different.” But you guys double downed. Does it ever get boring for you? Do you ever get sick of talking about this stuff.?

Brett: No. No, I don’t think so.

Alice: Brett is like my best friend.

Brett: Alice is so sweet. Alice is my best friend too. So we get do this.

Jared Correia: Oh man, this is beautiful.

Brett: We share a wall at the office. So we do see each other a lot. I actually told Alice I have trouble talking to her in person now because I’m so used to talking to her over the podcast. So it’s kind of weird when I actually have to see her.

Jared Correia: This is a beautiful story, best friends in True Crime. But you both have like real jobs. You’re a full-time prosecutors. You got families. You’re trying to podcast one episode a week after flaming out at two a week which is really hard by the way. So Alice, I’ll start with you. Like, how do you balance all this stuff? That’s hard to do.

Alice: That’s a great question and all of the lawyers know that being a litigator, your schedule is not your own. You have to hold into the court schedule to trial schedules to right speedy trial, constitutional rights, those sorts of things and not to sugar coat it, it’s just what all lawyers know to do. A lot of sleepless nights and you prioritize. This is my only hobby. It’s very helpful that my one hobby corresponds with my one friend in my town which is Brett. So there’s just not a lot of margin. But you know when you’re doing something you love and I feel lucky that I’m a lawyer who enjoys what I do, I really love my job and I really love the podcast and I love my kids. So that’s kind of all of my time, 120% of my time is spent doing those three things. And I say that because I think other lawyers will recognize and appreciate that we are not trying to say, “oh we have so much time. It’s so easy.” It’s not easy. We work all day, go home, feed our children, put them to bed and pretty much as soon as we tuck our kids into bed, we text each other and say, “Are you ready to record?” And we record late into the night and then often times I’m plugging back in to finish work and after we record.

Brett: We have spouses as well and we’ll leave them out because they definitely help make sure we have time to do this and some of us just planning ahead. Alice and I are trying a case together next year and we know when it is and we know how much time it’s going to take and so we’re making sure to build ahead and have a bunch of stuff recorded so we’re not missing any anything when we’re in trial prep and in trial. So far, cross your fingers, we’ve been able to do that balance. Like you said, we started off doing two episodes a week and that was impossible. So we had to go to one episode and I think one episode so far has worked really well.

Jared Correia: Way to thank the spouses. You get to sleep in the bed not on the couch tonight Brett. So, let me ask you a follow-up question about Alice was talking about. So like you’re just not tossing off shows like I’m doing here. Like, you got to look into these cases, right? At least refresh them because you’re covering some of these popular cases and there’s a lot of these true crime people out there who are like obsessive over these cases. So, there’s some research component or preparation component that goes in here as well. So you’re not just hitting the button to press record, right? So how do you build that into your schedule?

Brett: Well, that’s what the weekend is for, and also, we record — the good thing about being, with somebody that you’re really good friends with and you connect really well with, Alice and I, when we sit down to record, if we’re doing an hour-long episode, we might record an hour and 10 minutes. I mean, we’re really good at doing it together. We always have a plan and we’re able to not waste a lot of time on the actual recording. So, we’re using one night a week to do that. And then the rest of our free time is doing that research and basically, you going to have some cases that require a ton of research, I mean there are cases where we have read the entire transcript of a trial to get ready for. it’s got Peterson and that was a six-episode story and we read basically the entire trial transcript so we could really go into the evidence and tell people things they had never heard before about that case.

(00:15:10)

And then there are cases that it’s a little bit easier to do the research on where you don’t necessarily have to do that kind of depth, but your 100% right. The True Crime community and the people who are consuming this, they are smart and they know the cases. And if you mess something up or if you skip something, people are going to complain and we’ve been pretty fortunate up to this point that we’ve been able to cover these cases in a lot of depth.

Jared Correia: Well, yeah, I wanted to ask you that. Are people complaining? Like, “well, it was actually the left tail light on the car that was out and not the right tail light.” I would imagine that gets pretty granular, right?

Brett: 100%. They absolutely do and it’s fine. I mean, it’s funny but they do. Or if we use a word wrong, like in one of our recent episodes, we said spendthrift, but we meant like skinflint, right? And we just got all these comments about, “You used spendthrift incorrectly. It doesn’t mean what you said.” It’s like, “Okay. Thank you.”

Jared Correia: And then you’re like, “Why am I doing this again?” Go ahead Alice.

Alice: I was going to say that yes, the true crime community, there’s a lot of attention to detail and it’s wonderful, but I do have to say, we’re really lucky. The people who listen to our show and we encourage people to criticize us, we encourage people to write in for the most part, they don’t focus on those tiny details. I think because if they listen to an entire episode of our, you really have to be committed to listen because like I said, our episodes are more than an hour long and we kind of give our entire way of thinking as lawyers to our audience. We are not jumping to conclusions. We are showing our work, so to speak. We are showing them how we get places and I think our listeners respect that and see how we arrived at the decisions and we’ve kind of told our audiences there are important facts and are facts that are not that important. They don’t change the outcome and that being a good lawyer and being a good detective is knowing what’s important and what’s not? And so, I think by building that almost response in is sometimes cuts off those arguments to us which is nice.

Jared Correia: Ah, that’s an old lawyer trick. Let me ask you one more question on the like subject to the podcast itself and I want to talk a little bit about like the True Crime boom which still seems to be going on. So, I’ll start with Alice here. Like, what case did you have the hardest time getting through either in terms of like the research or the subject matter because some of the stuff can get pretty gnarly.

Alice: Yeah, absolutely. That’s such a good question. I think the true crime community constantly has this battle that it is entertainment. It would be disingenuous to say it isn’t entertainment, but on the other hand, it’s really wanted to get justice for victims as well. And one of the cases that just struck me to my core, one of the first cases I would just say that struck me to my core was the Delphi Murders. Murders of two young girls in rural Indiana on a daytime hike that they were on and it happened quickly. And one of the girls was able to capture the killer both on video and audio. She had that foresight to turn on her camera, start recording and the killer still at large. No one knows who he it is and that’s really shocking to a lot of people. I know a lot of people are very committed to this case, but I think it was really difficult for me because their childhood is not unlike the childhood I hope to give my kids. It’s not unlike the childhood that I had. Spending a lot of time outdoors in nature and for something so horrendous to happen in a sleepy, quiet town, really strikes home that this could happen anywhere to anyone. And I think the added having children, pretty young children and I want to protect them from the world. Even though we are prosecutors, we kind of see a lot of things, it’s still a shock when you realize maybe you can’t control everything and protect your kids forever.

Jared Correia: Yeah, that’s a really sad story. And I think that’s the first episode of yours that I listened to, but I thought you both did a really nice job like really thinking through the set of facts. Like, what happened on the bridge? What happened under the bridge? What happened around the bridge? That’s the case I think that a lot of people are interested in. Brett, is that answer different for you? Like, is there another case that you would spotlight? 

Brett: No, I mean I’ll say this sort of generally. I mean, I never thought this stuff would get to me. I’ve been listening to true crime and reading true crime books for forever since I read In Cold Blood like fifteen years ago, 20 years ago. And its so cliché to say that your perspective changes when you have kids, but my perspective completely changed when I had kids. And there was a point where Alice and I had done like three or four cases in a row. They were all about the murder of children. And finally, I would start to have nightmares about it and I was like, “Look, we can’t do kids anymore. We’ve got to take a break.”

(00:20:01)

And it can’t be a permanent break because those cases are the cases you want to solve more than any other, right? So whether it’s Delphi or the Evansdale girls, I mean these are cases that that cry out for justice and we really believe the more attention on these cases, the more likely somebody’s going to say, “Huh, I remember that. And I know something” and you know, the whole case breaks open. So, we definitely want to cover them but they’re tough. I mean those are tough cases.

Jared Correia: Yeah, the kid stuff is hard. Now, let me ask you a related question that I didn’t have in mind in advance. But like have you been able to get a tip that solved the case at this point yet?

Brett: No. Well, not that we know of. People do give us tips and we got a lot of tips on Delphi and we sort of either directed those people if they felt comfortable with doing it talking directly to the FBI and the police in Indiana on the tip line, or if they didn’t, and it’s always funny the people who are like, “I will tell you this and you can give it to them but I don’t want to be involved.” And we were just sort of forward that on. But yeah, no, we haven’t broken any cases yet, but that’s always the hope is that somebody out there is going to hear something and I think there was a case recently and I forget the exact details where somebody was listening to a true crime podcast and it was about a body that had been found that nobody knew who it was and they put two and two together and realized it was their teacher who’d gone missing like 20 years ago, and that person was identified. So, it does happen.

Jared Correia: That’s crazy. Yeah. So there’s a public service element here for sure. Let me ask you more generally. The true crime thing has been crazy for years. Probably ever since cereal when it hit the mainstream. What do you guys think motivates that and how long do you think this will last?

Alice: That’s a great question. I think we need the answer to that we’d be able to shed a lot more light. But, you know, I think at least for me and a lot of true crime listeners are women, I think for me it’s a lot of sense of justice that we all have, right? We want to see those who do bad things be punished and victims have some justice to them. But I also think that it’s a way to process our deepest fears as a society both personally and on a more global stage through other people’s stories, right? That’s how parables work. That’s how stories work that there’s a way to process what is going on in our own lives and in our own society through another lens. It does sometimes seem like there’s a lot of chaos in the world and I wonder if focused on a specific case can help us feel somewhat in control of that chaos and hopefully bring some justice to individuals that you don’t have to making massive changes in order to make a difference in the world.

Jared Correia: I think that was a pretty eloquent answer. I could see you being very successful in a course situation. So, one thing you brought up there that I think is really interesting and I’ve heard this is well. I don’t know the stats but like most of the true crime listening audience or watching audience is female. I know you said part of that is related to a sense of justice, making sure the bad people get punished. Are there other reasons you think why this is so heavily dominated by a female listenership?

Alice: That’s a great question and I had heard that statistic from others but we also know that from our own podcast, right? We can see the demographics generally through listeners and we do see that it heavily skews towards woman. I don’t know. I mean, I guess as a woman here in the room, I think everyone is interested because I will say, my husband may not start out watching a true crime documentary but get sucked in pretty quickly. But I think throughout history, women are communicators. We like to spread knowledge. Based on my household, I tend to be the social planner and I want people to know when things are happening. But I think that’s a skill, right?

Jared Correia: My wife always says if I wasn’t here, we would literally do nothing and it’s true.

Alice: Yeah, absolutely. And that’s a over generalization but I do think that is a strength that many women have that they could be community builders and kind of at its core the true crime community because we now have the internet and podcasts and Reddit and social media.  We are able to create community much wider than we ever were before, right? Men can be just as good communicators. I don’t think they can’t be. But I wonder if that might have something to do with just — I know my inner drive to build community.

Jared Correia: Yeah, I think that’s really interesting perspective. But from what I understand, most men are terrible communicators, myself included. I don’t know if Brett would lump himself in there as well. But before we finish this segment, I want to turn back to Brett for a second so he can communicate a little bit here. I don’t want to leave you out of this conversation.  Any thoughts in terms of what has given rise to the true crime boom and why is it still so popular?

Brett: Well, I guess I’m a minority when it comes to the true crime listenership because I love True Crime and I’m not a woman.

(00:25:04)

Jared Correia: I do too man, it’s all right. It’s okay.

Brett:  For me, and actually, I don’t know if this is a distinction or not. Like I like mystery. I like unsolved things, right? Those are my favorite and I know there are a lot of people who listen to true crime who don’t like the unsolved cases. They like solved cases. They like to hear about the solved cases and I always think that’s weird because that seems more boring to me because it solved and we do a mix of unsolved and solved on ours. But for me, I really like mystery. I like cases that haven’t been solved. I like to try and figure out what happened and sort of get to the bottom of these enduring mystery. So I know that’s what always brought me in and I think people have always loved mysteries before the true crime podcast came along, you had Law and Order or you know Murder She Wrote or whatever, and those are always really popular. And I think everything Alice said is true and you take all of that and you combine it with just our love for mystery and our love for those kinds of subjects. And I think true crime podcaster just kind of perfect. They give you everything you want in an hour. You don’t have to commit a couple weeks to reading a book. You listen to a show for an hour and you’re getting all that and that one package.

Jared Correia: Yeah. I think that’s interesting that you bring that up. Like, I feel like a lot of times men tend to be fixers. So the notion that like there’s an unsolved crime and you can participate in that and maybe be the one who breaks it or helps with that. I think there’s some appeal to that in my personal opinion. Thank you both. That was really interesting conversation. Again, that’s Alice and Brett from the Prosecutors Podcast. But don’t worry because Alice and Brett will be right back. So hang on for our final segment. We’ll take one final sponsor break so you can hear more about what our sponsors can do for your law practice. Then stay tuned for the Rump Roast. It’s even more supple than the roast beast.

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Welcome back everybody. It’s the rear end of the Legal Toolkit the Rump Roast. It’s a grab bag of short-form topics of my choosing. Why do I get to pick? Well, because I’m the host. Brett, Alice, thanks for coming back. You’re prosecutors so I’m calling this segment Direct Examination because I have some more questions for you. You will not have an opportunity for cross-examination mostly because we don’t have time for that and you would probably take me to school if I did that. You don’t know any questions I’m going to ask, but are you nevertheless ready to proceed?

Alice: Can’t wait.

Jared Correia: All right. So, I am not a real lawyer by any stretch of the imagination. I haven’t practiced law in anger since 2006. And when I did, I was in private practice. So, I once interviewed for an assistant DA position and this is how it went. So I went into an office and the person who is interviewing me showed me a bunch of decapitated people and said to me, “You see this kind of shit here every day.” And I said, “Someone’s decapitated in your city every day? I’m not sure if I want to work here.” And then I was asked to leave the interview. So they didn’t like me very much. So I want to ask you because you have experience in this, you’re prosecutors. You think regardless of that, I might have made a decent prosecutor or no?

Brett: Fantastic.

Alice: I have to agree. You have the voice on an angel. So yes.

Jared Correia: Oh, wow! Wow! I wasn’t even —

Brett: You obviously are fearless.

Alice: And you say it like it is. I will say the Jerry loves it when you say it like it is and if you walk in for a case of decapitation with that comment, you get some laughs.

Jared Correia: Oh man. I think I might have missed my call and I’m depressed. Okay, I got to move on to the next question because this to make me sad. Okay, Alice, this one’s for you. I was reading up on your bio on the Prosecutors Podcast website which everybody should check out. You’re a fiddle player, right?

Alice: I am a fiddle player, yes.

Jared Correia: Now, I wanted to know that in the earlier part of the show, you said you only had one hobby, but apparently you have at least two.

(00:30:01)

So, first thing I want to ask you, is it true that people who think the violin is fancier than the fiddle are just pretentious assholes like I suspect they are?

Alice: Yes, they’re the exact same thing. A fiddle is a violin and a violin is a fiddle. It is just the way you play it.

Jared Correia: Good, all right. I thought I was on the right track there. All right. So let me ask you, I asked you before like what was the toughest case you had to do on the podcast, what’s the hardest song that you’ve tried to play on the fiddle, but have had trouble with?

Alice: Oh, that’s a good one. I mean, Devil Went Down to Georgia is super fun because the point of playing it is like you’re supposed to play the devil out of your violin, or your fiddle and your fingers kind kept burning and there’s calluses and blisters come off. So, it’s the most fun to play because the audience appreciates when you are literally losing your mind and like strings are popping and your bow hairs are flying all over the place. So, it’s kind of a corporal experience.

Brett: I just want to say that Alice is so much cooler than I am.

Jared Correia: Oh don’t worry Brett, we’ll get there. So a friend of my friend is a great fiddle player and I actually like have sat down one on one with somebody and watch him play that song. It is like a really phonetic experience. It’s kind of crazy. And how many songs actually feature a fiddle but Alice, I want to let you know that in honor of your fiddle playing, we’re going to do a Spotify playlist for this podcast all with songs about fiddles. So, people may be thinking like, “Can I find 20 songs about fiddles?” I sure can. So, if you have any recommendations on that, you just let me know and I’ll add them to the playlist.

Alice: They’re may be the only 20 songs that Spotify features, but I like where you’re heads at.

Brett: Hey, the fiddle is in vogue these days. Alice could be making a lot of money playing for like Mumford & Sons or something.

Jared Correia: In a multiverse, I’m probably a prosecutor getting laughs from the jury and Alice is like a famous fiddle player.

Brett: There you go.

Jared Correia: So Brett, I want to turn to you. I was reading your bio as well. You described yourself as a southern gentleman which I can see that. I can get that vibe. What’s the most southern thing you’ve done today? Like, did you have grits for breakfast? Are you wearing a seersucker suit right now?

Brett: No, that’s — Oh man, the most southern thing I’ve done today.

Jared Correia: Do you have a seersucker suit. I hope you do.

Brett: I mean, I do have a seersucker suit. I love it. It’s fantastic. It’s the best. And white patent leather shoes and the light ribbon belt, oh yeah man. Can’t wear it now though cause it’s not a Labor Day.

Jared Correia: I’ve always wanted like a white seersucker suit, but being like a northerner, I don’t know if I could pull it off. I just don’t have that in me.

Brett: You got to get just go for it.

Alice: I’m going to jump from for a second. but Brett definitely wears his cowboy boots with every outfit. It’s formal, it’s for hardware. He commands his presence when he walks in font of a jury with his boots on.

Jared Correia: Spurs or no spurs?

Brett: No spurs for trial.

Jared Correia: All right. I want to ask you guys one more question and I want to hit a true crime topic but like one of the moment and this came out like a few days ago. I’m sure you saw that there’s this investigative team because says they’ve identified the Zodiac Killer as somebody named Gary Francis Post. I think I’m pronouncing that right, but this could be another shoo-loo situation. Brett, we’ll keep it with you. Do you think this is real?

Brett: I mean, the guy has three names and his first name is Gary. So he’s definitely in the realm of being the Zodiac Killer. I think that’s the best evidence for him being the Zodiac Killer, but unfortunately —

Jared Correia: Wait, wait, wait, is that a real thing? I’m laughing but is that like — is there?

Brett: Oh, the three-name thing? Absolutely. Yeah.

Jared Correia: The three-name thing I get, but is that like a specific reference to Zodiac, or no?

Brett: No, no. It’s just if you’re going to be a serial killer and having three names is an automatic, and Gary.

Alice: This is just a tip.

Brett: The Green River Killer, his name was Gary.

Jared Correia: So this is a tip for naming for naming your children.

Brett: And apologies to any Gary’s out there. I have friends who are named Gary but as long as you don’t have three names in your name Gary, you’re fine.

Jared Correia: All right. there’s some potential.

Brett: I think that’s the best evidence. I thought the other evidence was kind of weak but the fact that his name was Gary, it’s pretty powerful.

Jared Correia: Are you feeling the same way about this Alice?

Alice: I’m not going to make such a wide-ranging rename or people named Gary, my childhood friend Gary you’re fine, don’t worry about it. But I think this happens a lot and it’s not necessarily good or bad. I think it’s always good when an unsolved case gets renewed attention especially after a long time has passed. But yeah, sometimes people cross the line of theory to solve the case. I don’t know. We try to stay away from jumping to conclusions, but we haven’t booked at the primary sources ourselves. Yeah, that’s why on our podcast and in our real life, we look at the police report directly. We will get the DNA results.

(00:35:00)

So, I don’t have any comments on that except that I’m glad there’s attention on the case as I would be on any case, but whether it’s actually solved, theory doesn’t equal solved. So we’ll see.

Jared Correia: Have you done an episode on Zodiac yet or no?

Alice: Not yet.

Brett: We have not.

Jared Correia: Oh, all right. So that might be coming down the pipe. No pressure. Hey, thanks for this. You guys are great. I appreciate you’re playing along.

Alice: Thank you.

Brett: Always happy to.

Alice: This is so great.

Jared Correia: Thanks Brett and Alice. That was amazing. You can hear more from Alice and Brett on the Prosecutors Podcast where they review true crime cases from a prosecutor’s point of view. Check it out, it really is awesome and consider supporting their efforts through Patreon.

[Music]

Now, for those of you who are listening in Burnt Corn, Alabama, we’ve got a great Spotify playlist for you all this week. In honor of Alice’s love for the fiddle, we’ve got fiddle songs. And yeah, you’re goddamn right, I can make an entire playlist of songs featuring fiddles. Now, Sadly, we’ve run out of time for me to reach a state of oneness with the universe but I am drunk as fuck so there’s that. That’ll do it for another episode of the Legal Toolkit podcast where we rent a corn and nuts but definitely not corn nuts.

[Music]

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