TRANSCRIPT
Happy Thursday Premium Members, EB here. I hope everybody is starting to have a really good holiday season and enjoying the brisk cold weather, getting your Christmas shopping or your Hanukkah shopping done. We are having our last night of Hanukkah tonight and we’re looking forward to the Christmas holidays. This time of year, it gets a little slow in the court system, very difficult to get judges to schedule motions. It’s usually just status conferences. Most judges don’t hold court after the first week of December. I just got out of a bond hearing this afternoon. Last week, my partner and I were retained on a double murder case that happened here in Lexington County. It’s an extremely sad situation all the way around. We represent a father and son who are farmers who have lifelong roots in our county here. And they’re charged with the murder of a 36-year-old man that had gone on the son’s property with a pit bull that was not leashed and a machete and in a mask. I usually don’t do a lot of criminal law, but I can really identify with the sadness of this case. Obviously, whenever life is lost it’s tragic. But in this case, there are some interesting legal rights as to defense of others, defense for your property. Although the murders that are charged took place off of my client’s property, it all started on my client’s property.
The d is a man who walked the streets by account of 13 or 14 people for the last three or four years carrying a machete. This is in very rural rural Lexington County. And it’s not legal to carry a machete, it’s also not legal to go on people’s property that is posted and this was posted farmland where my client and his son were building a house for the son, a 26-year-old son who was about to get engaged. And the gentleman who was shot and killed had gone a number of times on many of the nearby properties with his dogs without a leash and with a machete in his hand. And when people come to your property with a machete in their hand, they’re not coming to trim your shrubs. He also was wearing a mask and that could really unnerve people. And what ended up happening is my client’s father went to his property because he knew the father of the man who was shot to talk to him and tell him look, you gotta keep your son off our property. You know, there’d been electrical wiring stolen from the house and I’m not saying that he did it but this area of West Lexington County is a very dangerous area in this one pocket called Selita Circle where there’s been a high crime area, a lot of meth labs and there’s been shootings. And believe me, it’s in this idyllic farmland. And so it’s just a sad situation and it’s going to come down to whether my clients who were threatened, my one client was cut with the machete when he tried to take it away from the man who was ultimately shot and he was bleeding from the hand and so the son in defense of his father shot, unfortunately, and killed a man.
I feel that my clients were overcharged and did not commit murder. And so we had the bond hearing today and what was really stunning to me, I’ve never seen it in my almost 36 years practicing law, there were over 500 people from the community who came in support of my clients to get bond and usually you don’t get bond for murder. But I would be really surprised, given the arguments that we made and the turnout and the fact that my clients have zero criminal record, zero. Never anything other than, I think, a speeding ticket. And they’re full time farmers. And the community said, look, they supply hay to us and it’s a very sad situation, we’re not condoning what happened, but we want them out. We want them home. And so we’ll see what the judge does. But I’m kind of excited about defending this case. And it’s something that I don’t do a lot of, but I’m very committed to my clients that justice will be served.
So, I know Mandy continues to have book signings, and we’re going to have an event that we’re going to announce at the end of December that’s going to take place in Hilton Head and EB’s going to come down for that. It’s going to be fun and Premium members are going to be invited.
Next Thursday, I’m going to be doing a happy hour with my partner Ronnie Richter. I can’t wait to interview him, been dying to interview him. I mean, I’m going to ask him whether he wears Boxers or briefs and, you know, does he do eggs or cereal for breakfast? All the questions I’ve always wanted to ask him and he’s a pretty private guy. So, I’m pretty good at getting information out from people so looking forward to it. I hope you guys tune in next Thursday night for that.
And I just really want everybody to focus on the ones that you love, focus on your family, focus on being charitable at this time of the year. And, you know, at least for a month we let our guard down a little bit, we let a little bit of the anger go and we want to be happy and we want to just enjoy ourselves and that’s what the holiday festivities are all about and parties that we have in our neighborhoods or friend’s house. And you know, there’ll be time for us to get angry again and focus on Alex after the first of the year and different stuff because I’m sure his sentencing is going to be scheduled, but for now let’s just all love each other and enjoy the holiday season. So, EB out.
Please sign into your Premium account then refresh this page to view this content.