Tyler Axness 00:00

I'm having time off here after this next hour. One of the individuals that's making that possible is in the studio, because he's part of Bruce Ringstrom Jr. and Dane DeKrey, and it's Dane DeKrey filling in on a Friday, but Bruce Springstrom Jr., I wanna start with you.

Tyler Axness 00:13

Welcome back, man. How have you been?

Bruce Ringstrom Jr 00:14

I have been great, thank you for having me back.

Tyler Axness 00:17

Thanks for coming on back, Dane. Hi. It's okay seeing you as well.

Dane DeKrey 00:23

We're going to keep this forever, I hope.

Tyler Axness 00:25

There's gonna be no building each other up I'd said you know what we like to do on this show is build each other up and then tear each other down. We just keep on tearing though. But you're going to be be filling in on Friday, so thank you for doing that. Yeah, absolutely. Fellas, we got a number of things that people have been wanting every time when we broach a subject that's got something to do with You know somebody who has allegedly broken the law that hey ask the lawyers during Law talk on this. And there's a couple items this week alone that people did that to and one I just got reminded of 15 minutes ago in our text. "Tyler don't forget to ask about Ray Holmberg when the lawyers come in". So let me set the stage first for listeners that might not be aware of former state senator Ray Holmberg in Grand Forks Charged with child sex tourism he plans on pleading guilty to those charges in exchange with a plea deal that was saying "okay well remove that charge and  we'll settle for like 37 months." What the prosecution is asking  on Friday of last week in court documents show that there had been repeated violations of the agreement to keep him not in custody but at his own home that that stipulation was no alcohol, limited travel, limited use when it comes to the internet and cell phones, that sort of stuff and it turns out there's multiple violations. So people are wondering Bruce, Dane.

Tyler Axness 01:48

I'm not sure who wants to go Dane, I'll look at you. So since these frequent violations have now been submitted and the pretrial agreement there is those violations, what happens at tomorrow's hearing if anything when you've got his defense attorneys, you got him, you got the prosecution... They're gonna have to get in the courtroom, and I assume this is gonna get brought up?

Dane DeKrey 02:09

I would be shocked if it's not brought up. I will say in cases where I defend people who are coming in to change their plea and they've had these pretrial violations, one of the first things the judge does is ask about them because what's going to happen at the end of the plea agreement hearing is there's going to be a determination if Ray goes to jail that day while he's waiting to be sentenced. Or if he can stay out in the community until he's sentenced.

Dane DeKrey 02:41

And usually that's shaped by how well you've done up to that point. And as you point out, I think both sides may quibble about the severity of the violations, but depending on the way the judge reads it, it's a violation no less.

Dane DeKrey 02:58

And I've had many cases where the judge says, I don't care if I told you not to step over that line, and you did. You are flouting the court's orders and I'm going to put you in jail. So I don't know if that happens, but I was surprised to see this and it will be interesting to see how it plays out at the hearing.

Tyler Axness 03:18

One of the questions that got brought up when we brought this to people's attentions on Monday was, okay, there's repeated violations. And they stem back, you know, during the course of an extended period of time.

Tyler Axness 03:28

Is it normal for them not to, as those that are monitoring, pick Ray Homer, pick anybody else. For the individuals that are in charge of making sure they're abiding by the agreement. Do they just wait for them to pile up, then submit?

Tyler Axness 03:41

Do they do it on an individual? Cause this one, it seems like a piled up and then they submit it all at once on a Friday.

Bruce Ringstrom Jr 03:47

Well, we can't speak necessarily to what exactly happened here. But if there are alleged violations, sometimes if they're what lawyers would call de minimis, no big deal, they're going to let them slide.

Bruce Ringstrom Jr 03:59

But if it's a pattern of no big deal, no big deal, somebody's pushing the edge, maybe the pre -trial services officer, the probation agent, whomever is monitoring is going to say, okay, too much. A much more common example for the kinds of folks who are listening now, like if you are out on electronic alcohol monitoring for a DWI, if you have a small violation, the monitoring company or the monitoring agent may not sweat it too much.

Bruce Ringstrom Jr 04:24

But if you keep having small violations, they may file a notice and then you have problems.

Dane DeKrey 04:29

That's, in my opinion, the problem here, I understand that violations are likely going to happen in cases, small ones, people adjust, it's a different lifestyle, no one is used to being under this sort of monitoring, but there does become a point where if there's enough of a pattern, I almost always see either the probation officer or the prosecutor step in and say, okay, now we're done giving you the leeway or the leash that you've had.

Dane DeKrey 04:58

And so this one is curious to me that this wasn't brought up before, and maybe it was informally, but in my experience with clients who aren't Ray Holmberg, this sort of pattern would either have resulted in a violation or at least a hearing where the judge says, you better shape up before I ship you out.

Tyler Axness 05:19

When it comes to these types of filings, you know, there's some that'll say, well, was he really at, for example, romantixxx? So, you know, was the internet use, if it didn't have anything to do with, you know, the alleged crimes, that, okay, well, the probation officer might be a little too stringent on what are their thinking or violations versus what are actual violations.

Tyler Axness 05:42

What's the gray area? Is there any gray area in this?

Bruce Ringstrom Jr 05:45

Well, there's going to be, you know, when there's a violation of conditions of release in state or federal court, you have a right to notice in a hearing. So it's not a witch trial. You get to go to court and have a hearing.

Bruce Ringstrom Jr 05:57

It's not proof beyond a reasonable doubt, like when they, you know, if you're going to get convicted, but there is some burden of proof, there are some rules of evidence that apply, and your lawyer can try and raise doubt or even potentially prove innocence as to the allegations.

Dane DeKrey 06:12

If, if Ray says I didn't do that, he would have every opportunity to go to a hearing in front of the judge that released him and convince that judge that it didn't happen. So the probation officer can't just say it and it shall be done, like Bruce said.

Dane DeKrey 06:26

It's not a jury and there's some different rules, but you definitely have an opportunity if you can test it to say, no, no, I didn't do that. You think I was there, I was here. You say this or that. So there still is due process in the system.

Tyler Axness 06:40

One of the things that was in violation in this particular matter was the fact that prohibited from alcohol consumption and tested positive for it admitted to it. Now I want to focus on the last part saying, yep, I did do that.

Tyler Axness 06:53

Does that carry any weight in the situation saying, yep, I goofed?

Bruce Ringstrom Jr 06:57

Sure, in either conditions of release violations or probation violations, sometimes a parole or probation agent will have you sign an admission, which makes it a lot easier to prove in court that you did something you shouldn't have done.

Bruce Ringstrom Jr 07:11

And unlike a signed confession in a murder case, it often is accepted as the judge by true. But again, that's just one of the allegations. And alcohol use is not the most egregious violation in a case like this.

Tyler Axness 07:25

You have any comments, send them in to 35270. It is a lot of talk. Bruce Rinks from Jr. and Dane DeKrey in the studio here. I'm gonna ask you guys, as criminal defense attorneys who have had clients that might've found themselves in similar positions, when you see these violations come in, what type of reaction, what type of conversation do you have with your client?

Bruce Ringstrom Jr 07:45

Well, you use words that aren't said on the radio, that's what you do.

Tyler Axness 07:48

I assumed was the case and

Dane DeKrey 07:51

Particularly the one that is difficult here is the optics are just horrible on one of them. I don't know if it's 100% true. They didn't have a hearing about it. They're going to deal with it. But when you're going into plead guilty to the crime that he's pleading guilty to, and the judge has to look down and say, and you're also still frequenting places that sell adult conduct content, that's just a bad look.

Dane DeKrey 08:19

And so if I was his client, I'd be using the same words that Bruce would be using in addition and saying, you want us to go in with a straight face to this judge and be making an argument about how you're sorry, and you're not going to do it again, all these things.

Dane DeKrey 08:35

And then in the same breath, have to address that issue.

Dane DeKrey 08:38

He puts his lawyer in a tough spot.

Tyler Axness 08:39

Yeah, I imagine there was choice language that would not be allowed on this very much regulated KFGO signal. Final question that I have on this, because there's a lot of people that thought this was a sweetheart deal.

Tyler Axness 08:50

And I know you guys don't, you're not involved with the case, but just the optics of it again. Because you guys have been involved with cases that have high profile individuals. But there's a lot of people saying, hey, because of who he is, where are these charges brought that this is a sweetheart deal brought to you by the federal government into this case.

Tyler Axness 09:10

Does this, do these violations take any impact on that versus just this hearing that's going to be tomorrow? A pretrial hearing versus the sentencing later.

Bruce Ringstrom Jr 09:18

I can I can predict that part of the transcript of this hearing will include the prosecutors saying given the gravity of these charges giving the probable outcome we could have we could have pursued this all the way to trial and sent mr Holmberg for X amount of time and he is violating in this way.

Bruce Ringstrom Jr 09:35

This is unacceptable and we want him to you know to be held Pending sentencing no matter what something like that is likely to be said

Dane DeKrey 09:45

I think I think that will be a good marker in terms of of what you're getting at. I would say in a lot of cases that I've had, if my client went into his change of plea hearing with these violations, I would fully expect the government to say he's lost his right to be out in society.

Dane DeKrey 10:03

We gave him a chance. He's messed up, your honor. Put him in jail until he sentenced. And if they do that, that may answer some of your questions. And if they don't, I'm sure there's going to be reasons on the record why not.

Tyler Axness 10:14

Well, and that hearing is tomorrow, I have no doubt that KFJ's news team will be a part of those hearings that do take place. Again, this is a law talk. If you've got a comment or question, you send them in, I'll get to those when we come back here.

Tyler Axness 10:25

You can join the conversation at 35270. If you want to call in, ask a question, and you have a comment yourself, call in, visit with Bruce Ringstrom Jr., visit with Dane DeKrey at 237 -5948. This is a law talk here on Afternoon's Live.

Tyler Axness 10:38

The attorneys are in the studio, it's 35270, you send them in, we'll ask them. It's Law Talk. Bruce Ringstrom Jr., Dane DeKrey in the studio. Just got done visiting about the Ray Holmberg situation in which the violations, repeated violations, the pretrial agreement, that hearing is going to be taking place tomorrow morning.

Tyler Axness 10:56

So yeah, have more clarity on that. But there was another situation fellas that people said, Tyler, ask the attorneys when they're in. And this reporting credit where it's due, Tasha Carvell in the Fargo Forum, there was a woman that was murdered.

Tyler Axness 11:08

And this really played out as the individual who allegedly did this said, yeah, this is why I did this. And then friends of that victim coming out and said, no, that's not true. Here's the real story.

Tyler Axness 11:22

This reporting goes into that. But in this situation, Bruce, the documents that the police were called multiple times on the situation between these two individuals, domestic disturbance, whatever it might be.

Tyler Axness 11:34

Cass County of where these situations were happening for a long time, chose not to press charges eventually after, I think, repeated visits by the cops, they decided to press charges and they got it negotiated down to a misdemeanor.

Tyler Axness 11:48

I'm curious how that process works when it comes to those negotiations, because you guys as criminal defense attorneys are looking and you see the same thing that police have been repeatedly called prosecution finally after those calls multiple times, said, yeah, we better bring charges here.

Tyler Axness 12:03

And then those charges were reduced down way down. In my opinion, how does that process work, though?

Bruce Ringstrom Jr 12:09

Well, for better or worse, there's efficiency in the criminal justice system. There should not be. And I don't know whether my retired officer friend is listening or not. If he is, he can certainly text me to correct me.

Bruce Ringstrom Jr 12:22

But police officers, when they work in a specific community, they know the players. Think about the principle of the power factor, sparsity factor, where you've got 80% of crime is committed by 20% of people.

Bruce Ringstrom Jr 12:36

Law enforcement is interacting with lots of the same people all the time. And if they know that a certain domestic is kind of mutual combat, or if they know that when this case gets charged out, the alleged victim isn't gonna show up, or they're gonna disappear, or whatever, and that gets passed on to the prosecutor, the state's attorney, a lot of times these cases don't even get charged because it feels like a waste of resources.

Bruce Ringstrom Jr 12:59

And it's not until things get bigger, louder, scarier that they do. Now, there's blowback to that because we have situations like this where stuff doesn't get charged out. If it had, and if justice included a conviction, for example, then the person would be in custody, or it'd be under more monitoring, or whatever the case may be.

Tyler Axness 13:19

Well, I think, again, given this tragic situation, you know, the repeated attempts, the fact that the calls are made, I think called police to have them removed, which is this is unusual. And I know you guys are criminal defense attorneys, but the fact that if I were to invite Bruce you over to my house, because maybe you're down on your luck, say, you know, I got a spare room, get back on your feet after a certain period,

Tyler Axness 13:41

you can just stay there. And me as the owner of the property, I can't get the cops to come get you removed. Isn't that unusual, guys? Again, I know you're a criminal defense attorney, but that was one that stood out as unusual.

Bruce Ringstrom Jr 13:53

You know, I would I would imagine that North Dakota is actually better about Evicting trespassers or squatters than than other states, but if there is a potential significant romantic or sexual relationship or if that's what law enforcement believes they're gonna take the position. "Look, I don't see any documentation here".

Bruce Ringstrom Jr 14:14

I presume if you're here you're entitled to be here ma 'am If you don't like it, you can file a suit Well, these people sometimes are not illiterate but less literate. They don't have resources, they don't understand how the court process works and nothing gets fixed .

Tyler Axness 14:28

And there's something to add to this too about domestic abuse situations in which, you know, the victim being afraid, Dane, to actually make that call. I imagine calling the cops in the first place is that it's gotten so far, but then the fear of retaliation.

Tyler Axness 14:44

I mean, you have background in some other areas besides criminal defense where these situations have been brought up before as well.

Dane DeKrey 14:51

Yeah, I actually talked to Tasha Carvell for this story. And so I want to, you know, be a friend about that. And I told her the same thing, I'll say now, you know, there's a difference between my criminal defense hat and my criminal defense not hat, meaning, these situations are a soft spot in our criminal justice system, where we are not doing enough, we're probably not doing the right thing.

Dane DeKrey 15:13

These stories have existed for 30 years. We've had Supreme Court cases about these stories. The police are not doing a good enough job. Defense lawyers help their clients find leverage and positions.

Dane DeKrey 15:26

So this is a messy area that I really think we as a community and as a society need to try to rethink because every year you hear a story where they've called the cops, and this happens, and we only find out when the person dies.

Dane DeKrey 15:38

So this is a tough, tough story.

Tyler Axness 15:41

It is. And you know the story just kind of keeps like you say tugging at the heart here It's like what could we have done better, and I think different in law not necessarily a conduct of law enforcement But change in law is what's necessary.

Tyler Axness 15:53

It's a lot of talk here on KFGO join the conversation. We'll ask the boys next. Every first Wednesday of the month. We've been joined by Bruce Ringstrom jr.. And Dane DeKrey. Bruce Ringstrom and Dane DeKrey of course this is Ringstrom DeKrey Law.  Jeez.

Tyler Axness 16:09

I almost got that right fellas my apologies You can ask your questions, and they can provide you some answers here. It's a lot of talk here on a kfgo We're having a great conversation off there I don't hope you don't mind to bring it up on air because we're talking about the domestic abuse situation the domestic charges and just how tricky it can be as far as you know when you read these stories you look at okay?

Tyler Axness 16:31

Well the cops were repeatedly called charges eventually came after a few you know repeated calls. I mean after several then finally it seems like Cass County said we better do something here. That's my interpretation as the layman here, but you guys are talking about just how how wide of a variety these

Tyler Axness 16:50

Tragic situations can be I don't know how when we're talking about things that could be done better to prevent this. What you even do? I don't know if it's law or if it's "hey there's organizations out here like the rape and abuse crisis center." But you guys are put in such a difficult situation in my opinion right because you're you're seeing these things and of course what gets painted as such isn't always the case sometimes it is worse. I don't know how you guys handle these these cases when it comes to criminal defense attorney cases is this like the bottom of the list of things that you'd ever want to take or what's the thing that you you?

Tyler Axness 17:27

You don't want to take as far as

Bruce Ringstrom Jr 17:29

Well, as it relates to domestic assaults, we defend a number of people charged with domestic assaults. Very early in my career, when I was a law clerk, I was mentored by three female public defenders.

Bruce Ringstrom Jr 17:43

And I remember one of them, a top -notch attorney down in the cities who's really, really a big deal now, I saw a prosecutor come up to her and the other attorney and say, I don't know how you two can represent these guys.

Bruce Ringstrom Jr 18:00

And these female public defenders just sort of responded with almost disgust, like you don't get it. You don't get that sometimes people are innocent and you don't get that the Constitution is always innocent and due process always needs to be protected.

Bruce Ringstrom Jr 18:15

Domestic assaults are just really, really hard. They're hard for the police because people will recant. They're hard because the investigation needs to be very comprehensive to sort of lock in the proof.

Bruce Ringstrom Jr 18:26

They're hard for the alleged victim. They're hard for the defendant. They're hard for the prosecutors to build out the case. And yeah, they can be hard for the defense side as well. I've represented people on extremely ugly domestic assaults and some of them have pleaded guilty.

Bruce Ringstrom Jr 18:43

But the reality is that this is where tragedy hits most people. The most common would be DUIs. The second most common are domestics.

Tyler Axness 18:53

When it comes to some of these conversations, because we had an agreement in this case, and I know that, again, this case is just this case. Every case is different here, but the power of judges in some of this, right, because you guys have evidence of perhaps an altercation, a physical evidence of a bruise, whatever it might be.

Tyler Axness 19:12

The power of judges in this case seems like it carries a little bit more when I go, okay, well, you can start asking the questions of the individual that's making the accusations. Is it just that observation for me?

Tyler Axness 19:26

I mean, that when I hear about some other situation in Western North Dakota, I know there was another high -profile one where a judge had a comment on, yeah, well, do they carry more weight in this situation of having that ability to just kind of find that gray area and then use that to a defense advantage?

Dane DeKrey 19:43

I would say in my opinion in my experience it's more the power of prosecutors to make the decision on if they're going to say look we have some issues with this case whether it's the recantation, whether it's a he said she said without any sort of corroboration and therefore instead of get nothing and possibly lose at trial we're going to cut it down and get something um and give them a better deal In North Dakota uh judges don't have to accept plea agreements as much as in my experience in Minnesota and so there is some flexibility there where let's say it's either an unusually harsh plea agreement or an unusually lenient North Dakota judges in my experience add their two cents more. A Minnesota judge can just say i'm not going to accept that and it goes back to the drawing board. In in North Dakota you go in there not knowing what's going to happen and then it ends that day. But i would push back and tell you that the real power in these decisions if it's not at a trial in front of a jury, is a prosecutor assessing the quality of the case and what they believe is their chance to find that person guilt.

Bruce Ringstrom Jr 20:54

Tyler, prosecutors are always the most powerful people in the room, and judges try to lean on things a little bit, and they can. They do have a fair amount of power, but they are not dispositive. The prosecutor can dump a case at any time.

Tyler Axness 21:08

35270 question for the lawyer as well with officer -worn cameras or DUIs easier to enforce or defend?

Bruce Ringstrom Jr 21:18

Well, for as long as my career, as long as I've been a lawyer, there have been squad videos, the body cameras add some more detail, but one of the most important parts of a DWI is the HGN, the Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus.

Bruce Ringstrom Jr 21:33

That's when the cop puts the pen in front of you and he tells you to track it with your eyes because when you're impaired at a 45 degree angle, if you're looking far to the right or far to the left, your eyes will vibrate.

Bruce Ringstrom Jr 21:44

And I was hoping with these body cams, we'd be able to see it, but they're not at the right height and they're not sufficiently high definition. So I don't know whether it makes it easier to prosecute or easier to defend.

Bruce Ringstrom Jr 21:55

There's a lot more to fight about. I'll say that.

Dane DeKrey 21:57

I think that increases in technology are only as good as how we use them. There's new things that are happening in both North Dakota and Minnesota where the police are turning off their body cameras when they're talking to each other, at least the audio portion, and then turning it back on when they're talking to the defendant.

Dane DeKrey 22:19

And they take the position that they can do that. This is a thing that we've been fighting. And so the point of that is we think of as laymen or as the public, oh, body cameras solve it all. It's just a, it's the eye in the sky.

Dane DeKrey 22:32

Well, it's only the eye in the sky if someone else other than them are maintaining it. So they get to videotape themselves and they get to turn it off and on when they want, and they get to put it in angles that they want.

Dane DeKrey 22:44

And so for us, I think it actually lulls the public into believing that they are one thing when really they are a totally different thing. And I actually have begun to kind of hate body cameras because they give you that false sense of security as the public, but they're ripe for manipulation.

Tyler Axness 23:01

When it comes to that decision, say, hey, man, we got a right to, uh, to black out already. If I'm talking to a colleague here, I mean, is that, is that just the jurisdiction and the, the opinion of that department as there were, are they making the case?

Tyler Axness 23:12

Look under code, blah, blah, blah. This is why we have the ability.

Bruce Ringstrom Jr 23:17

I would have to take a closer look at the law, but I suspect that they're arguing, probably in good faith, that they believe if we are making decisions about our next move, that is not relevant to the evidence in the case.

Bruce Ringstrom Jr 23:31

What did you hear? What did I hear? Do we want to arrest this person, for example? Do we believe there's probable cause? Ultimately, whether a police officer believes there's probable cause is not supposed to determine whether there is, a judge is supposed to determine it.

Bruce Ringstrom Jr 23:46

The problem is that when, in my experience, when we hear those things, we will often find nuggets that either raise reasonable doubt, or in some instances, actually build a case stronger against the defendant.

Bruce Ringstrom Jr 23:59

I think it's all relevant, and I predict in the next 10 years, we're going to have multiple cameras and we're going to have storage so immense that there are going to be multiple cameras running all the time and officers on duty.

Dane DeKrey 24:11

it's the Fargo policy too. I don't know what they're basing it off of but the Fargo Police Department's policy is that they can do this. And I disagree with that and I'm waiting for the right case to challenge it. But it is happening and it's happening in other jurisdictions as well.

Tyler Axness 24:28

See, when I was taking this for a walk, just in my mind for a moment here, you know, when you're having a conversation with a colleague and you're trying to walk through whether or not you're going to arrest an individual, to me it shows that good faith effort saying, hey, look, we don't want to necessarily if the intent isn't, hey, I've been scoping this guy out, I want to get him.

Tyler Axness 24:45

And that would build the case, look, we thought we talked it out that that wouldn't weigh as much. It actually shows good faith on behalf of law enforcement.

Bruce Ringstrom Jr 24:52

Well, there could be other situations where, and I presume that most law enforcement officers are good, upstanding people, but there could be a rare exception where they're actually conspiring to manufacture evidence.

Bruce Ringstrom Jr 25:02

We know that's happened in other places, in Baltimore, for example, where we hear interactions on body cam, where they're literally making up a story or planting evidence.

Dane DeKrey 25:12

And when your client sees it when they're looking at the video, even if it's not true, it's pretty bad optics. And it's a pretty easy question of if nothing bad is going on, why are you muting the microphone?

Dane DeKrey 25:24

And so it's just an overall officer trust thing as well. Even if there's some technical loophole, which I still don't believe there is. It's just one of those hard things to understand as to why they do it.

Tyler Axness 25:37

Comments come in on this. Bruce Ringstrom Jr.  Dane DeKrey in studio. It's been my understanding that it's difficult for the cops because they have to actually see the violation. Pretty difficult situation.

Bruce Ringstrom Jr 25:48

I'm not sure I understand what that means, but if a police officer is going to arrest someone, they either have to have probable cause that they've observed something or they would have to have a warrant.

Bruce Ringstrom Jr 26:02

There would have to be some reason, so I kind of understand what the texter is asking, but I'm not quite sure.

Tyler Axness 26:10

Dane, anything to add? It's not, we'll get a weather update and we'll come back, wrap up a lot of talk. Weather update. Weather update, he said. He wants to hear what the weather's gonna be for the remainder of this week. When we come back.

Tyler Axness 26:21

We'll wrap up a lot of talk with Ringstrom DeKrey next. I'm working for that weeked you guys have a few more days. I don't play the music, by the way. I wanna make that clear. I'm not a humble guy.

Tyler Axness 26:32

I do like to brag, but not in this moment. I wanna head to Atlanta, Georgia with the boys who are criminal defense attorneys because I see a headline in the Associated Press that reads as follows. Defense attorney for rapper Young Thug found and contempt ordered to spend 10 weekends in jail.

Tyler Axness 26:49

I've only read the headline. That's all I cared about. Have you guys, never been in front of a judge that got reprimanded, got threatened with contempt and yelled at?

Bruce Ringstrom Jr 26:59

I've been yelled at plenty times. I've been threatened with contempt. I've never pushed across the edge. My father, Bruce Ringstrom Sr., made it a career goal to be thrown in jail by a judge. And by God, about three months ago, Dane and I saw him almost make it.

Bruce Ringstrom Jr 27:15

It was one of the most intense moments I've ever seen in court. This particular- That's kind of a weird goal. The point of the goal, it's not to be masochistic. The point of the goal is to advocate so vociferously for your client in good faith about your client's rights that a judge not understanding or respecting those rights is gonna put the lawyer in jail.

Bruce Ringstrom Jr 27:37

That's the point, and that's what happened here.

Dane DeKrey 27:40

Yeah, the crazy part about this story is the defense lawyer was held in contempt. And then he got that reversed. He got out of contempt. And he got the judge thrown off the case for being so wrong in his ruling.

Dane DeKrey 28:01

And when he got thrown in contempt, which is my personal favorite, he asked to spend his weekends with his client, Young Thug, so they could continue to prepare for his trial. So when he got thrown in jail.

Dane DeKrey 28:13

It's such a power play. Yes. And what happened here is that the judge and the prosecutor were meeting with witnesses behind the defense lawyer's back. And the defense lawyer found out, and instead of the judge saying why he was doing it, the judge said, how did you find out?

Dane DeKrey 28:34

Who told you? And the defense lawyer said, that's not the question. Why are you doing it?

Dane DeKrey 28:42

Roll reversal by the way and when you watch it

Dane DeKrey 28:45

And that's what like this is some rockstar said this man has been catapulted to the Mount Rushmore of criminal defense. He was great before. Yeah, this is unheard of. We talked about this because not only did it happen to him, he was vindicated and now he has I mean, it's it is an insane story

Tyler Axness 29:06

Does it happen like it shows in movies where the judge is yelling order in the court like banging the gavel down? Is that how it worked out when your old man was getting yelled at?

Bruce Ringstrom Jr 29:14

Well, no, actually, sort of. There was no gavel banging, but it was, Mr. Ringstrom, sir, I have, the hearing is over. The hearing is over. And I'm not going to recount everything else, but that person is no longer a judge as it happens.

Bruce Ringstrom Jr 29:28

Interesting little codicil there. No, to talk about this, this was about compelling a witness to testify against Young Thug, probably to give him immunity. I have been in court when this exchange has happened in the right way.

Bruce Ringstrom Jr 29:43

That is to say, a witness goes up on the stand and says, no, I'm not talking, I'm pleading the fifth. And the prosecutor then says, may we approach, gives the witness immunity for the testimony. You can plead the fifth until you get your immunity, right?

Bruce Ringstrom Jr 29:59

And then the judge says, all right, Mr. So -and -so, you've received your immunity. You're now required to testify. And then either the witness testifies or says, I'm still not talking, in which case the judge may be able to put that person in jail to be held in contempt.

Bruce Ringstrom Jr 30:13

But the whole exchange happens in the presence of the defense attorney. There's nothing fishy going on. The idea that a judge is trying to persuade a witness behind closed doors away from the defense attorney to testify is disgusting.

Tyler Axness 30:28

So they're going to get a new judge in this case. Does this start everything all over again as far as, hey, you've got to have a jury selection or is it not still the same jury? Because you think about if you have to start all over because rightfully so, the way this is being handled by the prosecution of the judge working as a team with witnesses here.

Tyler Axness 30:48

So what's the next step here? They get a new judge and then, okay, let's proceed as was.

Dane DeKrey 30:53

My understanding is they asked for a new trial and the new judge denied that part of it because the witness did not end up testifying and so they didn't think there was prejudice to the case and because the old judge was the one who was conspiring or you know coordinating with the prosecutor. This judge has made it abundantly clear that she is not going to and so they've made their appeal record so if they lose the case that will be one of the things they appeal on but my understanding and this trial is very very long it's been going on for months so I think just from an efficiency standpoint they're not starting this trial over.

Tyler Axness 31:30

Folks, if they need to get a hold of you guys because, well, they found themselves on the wrong side of a dash cam or a body cam video, where do they get a hold of you?

Bruce Ringstrom Jr 31:39

Well, you can go online to ringstromdecray .com, or you can call us 218 -284 -0484, 218 -284 -0484.

Bruce Ringstrom Jr 31:48

Fellas, I was appreciative, this is a fast hour. Get it all over again next month, all right? Like lightning. That's Bruce Ringstrom Jr., he's Dane DeKrey. Dane, you're gonna be back in on Friday.

Dane DeKrey 31:58

I have I am one guest away from another full segment. And so I've learned the hard way that that time you need guests. Whenever I hear you do a full show with no guests, like my wife says, oh, you should try do that.

Dane DeKrey 32:12

And no, no, I will be a lawyer. Yeah, you you do talk radio. I'm going to have five guests like I always do. And I'm going to bully Eric into playing some music that I like.

Tyler Axness 32:23

Very good. That's Dan DeCray. He's going to fill in on Friday. We've got State Senator Rob Kupak tomorrow, Jim Shaw Monday, Fargo City Commissioner Denise Kolpek on Tuesday, then Ben Hanson, former state legislator on North Dakota side next week.

 Tyler Axness 32:36

Folks, that means I'm looking at the clock and this is it for me. I'm Tyler Aksis, your host here on Afternoon's Live. Until we chat again, you take care of yourself and I'll check in right here on KFGO.