Episode 6: 𝐉𝐮𝐝𝐠𝐞 𝐁𝐢𝐫𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐡𝐚𝐦

In this episode we explore the work of Judge Brandon Birmingham, the presiding judge of the 292nd Judicial District Court in Dallas County.

He reflects on his career, the realities of prosecuting serious crimes, and his perspective on justice, accountability, and reform.

Hosted by criminologists Dr. Rashaan DeShay and Dr. Katherine Polzer.

Edited and produced by Krystal Guerra.

Note: We have worked hard to ensure that all facts reported in this show are accurate. The views and opinions expressed by the individuals featured in this show are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the hosts.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:14

There was some people that said, get an attorney, but my way of thinking was, why? I'm innocent.

SPEAKER_03 0:30

On this episode of Voices of the Innocent, Stories of the Wrongfully Convicted, we have Judge Brandon Birmingham, judge for the 292nd District Court of Dallas County. He already has had a storied career, being named 2024 Jurist of the Year, and he was a vital part of the success behind the diversion program for young adults called AIM, Achieve, Inspire, Motivate, creating this program upon taking the bench in 2016. He has also led the Family Domestic Violence Court. Prior to taking the bench, he was the Chief Felony Prosecutor and the Cold Case Unit Chief. He also teaches at SMU Dedman School of Law. This is Brandon Birmingham's story. Well, thank you so much, Judge Brandon Birmingham, for being with us today.

SPEAKER_01 1:28

So yeah, I'm just a regular old district judge. I preside over one of the felony district courts over in Dallas. Okay. And before that, uh I was a prosecutor in the Dallas County DA's office. I did that ever since I got out of law school. Uh and at the DA's office in Dallas, I started out like all the prosecutors do and did misdemeanor cases and then worked up and was, you know, assigned felony cases after that. Uh and, you know, one of the good things about being in a city like Dallas, uh in any big city really, is that there's lots of experience for a criminal prosecutor. You know, we have lots of crimes. And uh so I got to handle some some cases uh very early on that were pretty violent, you know, uh murder cases and capital murder cases and whatnot. Uh and that's what I did. And when I left, I was a chief felony prosecutor. Um, I was the um chief of the cold case unit, and uh, and and that was my title before I left. But I will say, you know, the way that the all of this comes together is that um I was in Dallas at a very unique time in Dallas because uh, or in our criminal justice system, because we had all of these exonerations that were as a result of DNA evidence, really. That's kind of how it started. But I got to be sort of at the ground level and see it from the inner workings. Um, Craig Watkins was uh one of the first people in Texas, if not the first one, to have a conviction integrity unit to look at all those cases. And so as I was coming up, so was the conviction integrity movement. Um, and I got to see it firsthand and some and learn a lot from it.

SPEAKER_04 3:05

And and so that is that how you became aware of and interested in wrongful convictions, or did was this something that you knew about before? And if so, how?

SPEAKER_01 3:16

I think everybody kind of is, you know, maybe it's just because of what we're exposed to. And certainly when you're in law school, you know, everybody talks about that, at least in the criminal law circles. You know, what do you do when somebody is innocent and you have to defend them? And I think any defense attorney would tell you that those are the hardest cases in the world is when you really believe that your client is truly innocent of the crime. And so it's always been out there. Um, my time at the DA's office, you know, I saw uh a number of cases where when let me put it to you like this. I I I was hired by a uh a guy named Bill Hill, and at that time um we had heard about the quest that some people were on to get their cases retested and to test DNA evidence on some of those cases. Uh, and you know, I had heard I was not I was not involved in those. And from the outside, I had heard that, you know, there were some people that were standing in the way of that um testing, and they were sort of there was always this tension between a final conviction and the finality of the conviction, and you know, and and getting the right things done, I guess, and re-looking at cases. And so that tension at the time, I think, was tending more towards, hey, you had your trial, a jury heard the case and they found out that you were guilty, you know, or voted you to be guilty. And so it was really hard to overcome that. And it wasn't until um Craig Watkins came in that he sort of just said, I'm not fighting that, basically, you know, and if it's there, I'm gonna test it. And he tested everything, you know, or allowed it to be tested, didn't stand in the way of it. And as a result of that, uh, we had all these exonerations in Dallas. And that the reverberations from that were extraordinary. Um, you know, obviously the very first circle of the reverberations would be the person who was in prison for the for the something they didn't do. You know, outward from that though, you've got to look at at the the prosecution. Well, if you know that the person didn't do it, you know, what went wrong during the trial? You know, how how is it that 12 people could look uh could look at a case and and be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the person was guilty of a crime they didn't commit? And you know, where were the faults in that? And then, you know, I think where were the faults in the police investigations that led to that trial? And so once you have a once these cases started happening, I think two major things began, and that was number one, I think we began to realize that our system wasn't perfect, and therefore we were more likely within the system to agree to testing to make sure we got it right. So the finality of conviction sort of gave way to making sure you got it right whenever you got it right. And then I think the other thing is it made you know it put into perspective, proper perspective, the value of certain evidence like eyewitness testimony. Uh, and that that was a key component of a lot of the wrongful convictions, not all of them, but a lot of them. And so I think that was the the reverberating effect of those wrongful convictions. And I got to be sort of on the ground level of all that and see it happen, you know.

SPEAKER_03 6:23

Um will you will you tell us about the James Curtis Williams and Raymond Jackson cases?

SPEAKER_01 6:31

Sure. That that is um, those were two men that were convicted of uh what we called attempted capital murder. Um at the time it was called aggravated sexual assault and kidnapping, but basically, this is an abduction uh and a rape of a woman by two men in the mid-80s, and they took her to a desolate field uh and they perpetrated their crimes and they told her to leave. And as she left, they shot her and they left her for dead. She did not die. Um, but I'll I'll use that case as an example of what I was talking about. You know, when a crime like that happens, you know, obviously it's terrible. There's those two men, um, you know, the two men who perpetrated the crime were guilty of the crime, obviously. And what what the police started was with, you know, okay, what's a general description? Where were you taken from? And they took that general description and they said, Well, we're going to develop a lineup of people that we know in the area to be, you know, basically bad actors within the area. And they put the they put them in a lineup, and sure enough, she picked them out. And uh, you know, obviously from that, you know, you have a a woman who made it to trial, who testified and who said, you know, under oath, and she earnestly and honestly and truly believed that the people that she picked out of the lineup were the people that did this to her. And so you have a jury who's looking at her saying, okay, well, you know, she's very compelling, and everything she's saying seems to be true. They put her in the lineup and they, you know, and and the jurors were they believed her. Obviously, during a crime like that aggravated sexual assault, there tends to be DNA evidence. Um, and there can be DNA evidence in the form of semen and um buccal cells and that are left behind. Uh, and but the problem is we didn't have the ability to test it. So this is the classic case of eyewitness testimony in a case where there was DNA evidence, but we just didn't really have DNA evidence at the time, you know. And so the the two men that were convicted of that crime were you know, wanted that evidence to be tested. Uh, I'm sorry, the two men, yeah, who were convicted of it first wanted it to be tested. So ultimately we tested and realized they did not commit the crime. She was mistaken in her lineup. The two men who did do it had been convicted of other crimes, and so we knew who they were because of the CODIS database, which is sort of ground zero for all these exonerations, by the way. Uh, and we were able to prosecute the the people who really did it. Um and you know, that was a case that I, you know, to get, I guess the the the larger question was that is that is a good blueprint for those types of cases. You know, that's how a lot of them happened of those Dallas County exonerations. We saw the fallacies and the shortcomings of eyewitness testimony, we saw the strength of forensic evidence like DNA evidence, uh, and and the system worked, you know, because we Craig was willing to go back and test that evidence. Now, I personally was, you asked me how I was brought in. I was the chief of the cold case unit. So at the time, um, we you know, obviously we were trying to solve cases, and because DNA evidence was around, not only were we testing cases where people had been convicted, we were also testing cases where we knew there was DNA evidence, but we didn't have a conviction yet, to seeing if we had any CODIS hits. Um, and we I I was able to try some of those cases when when this case happens, um, when that case happened, they said, Well, we know who did it, and we, you know, Russell Wilson was the prosecutor at the time who asked me to help him out on the case. We know who did it now, so now we want to prosecute the people who really did it. Um, and you know, there was one really interesting legal question that had to be answered, and Russell did an excellent job, very, you know, very crafty and genius in his thinking. The statute of limitations had run on sexual assault, but it had not run on attempted capital murder. So we indicted those those two guys for attempted capital murder. Um, and we tried them for attempted capital murder to get over the statute of limitations, and a jury came back and and convicted both of them. But um, James Williams and Ray Jackson, they didn't, they were not guilty of that crime. But we we did prosecute the two guys who were who were guilty, and it was, you know, it was very it's like the you know, that's how this, you know. I will say, I from the outside, of course, I wasn't the one who spent all those years in prison, you know, from the outside looking in, I mean, you know, the system worked kind of, you know, we in the sense that we got the people responsible for the crime, it utterly failed in the sense that we got people who didn't commit the crime.

SPEAKER_04 11:15

So um, and just a follow-up to that question, if you can answer it, did the um did the victim testify in this in that second prosecution as well?

SPEAKER_01 11:26

Yeah, we had her testify to talk about what happened. And, you know, we decided going into it. You know, we we were not going to hide from what happened. You couldn't, you know. Obviously, if you're the defense in that case, you're gonna be saying something like, you know, either either they got it right the first time or something like they don't know what they're doing. They got some people before, now they got my guy, you know, how they they attacked the DNA evidence the whole time. But, you know, you we we did call her as a witness, and she was an excellent witness. And she, you know, recounted the horrifying details for the jurors and it made it real, even though it was 35 years before, you know, and she made it real for them. So you have to have that. And she talked about in the trial, you know, a little bit about how she, you know, during the course of her investigation, picked out two people that she earnestly truly believed. I mean, I think it's fair to say that nobody doubts that she was operating in good faith, you know, an honest mistake is the is the phrase that comes to mind. I don't think she, I I mean, I know that she did not, you know, operate from a place where she was just trying to get somebody, you know, and hold somebody accountable. You know, she was she felt terrible for it. So we we should we told the jury the whole story, you know, every bit of it. Um how the investigation led in a certain way, how we knew it was wrong, and how we we know it's right now, and we had the science to back it up. All right.

SPEAKER_04 12:52

And how did those exonerations impact your view on our justice system?

SPEAKER_01 12:59

I think it recalibrated it. You know, I think before it it it properly valued types of evidence, and I know that it's hard if you're like a numbers person, you know, you know, beyond a reasonable doubt is not a formula. I mean, you know, saying you've got the right guy, it's not a formula. And I wish it sometimes I wish it was because it'd be easy to deal with, but we are forced to reconcile how much value we put on eyewitness testimony in the 80s and 90s. We put a lot of value on eyewitness testimony. As a matter of fact, a lot of prosecutions were that and that alone. But we saw after those exonerations, and and you know, this is that reverberations I was talking about before, you know, once you realize that, you know, once you begin studying the process of what went wrong, you you know, with a known fact that you have the right people, and therefore you can look at what went wrong, you can start to properly put into place what the value of eyewitness testimony is and how you could even begin to rely on it. And what we see is it's not the end-all-be-all, it's more of a way to confirm or not, or even to um to to to lead an investigation in the right way, but it's not uh uh it's not enough to with nothing more, and even though the law says that it is, it's not enough with by itself to to go forward really and be confident in your verdict. And I think that's the biggest one, you know, there's a tension there under our law. You know, you can if a pertinent person comes in and they say, I believe, you know, and I the person I saw is the man in court, and if the jury believes them beyond a reasonable doubt, then that then the law will allow that conviction to stand. But there's also the tension between what is allowed under our law and what we've learned and how much prosecutorial discretion can be used. And maybe that's Craig Watkins' greatest legacy is to increase the bar of what prosecutorial discretion means and how sure are you. You know, yes, you could be right, and yes, you could win your case, but you might lose because the person didn't do it. And so I think that the police and the prosecution, they re their their view of the value of eyewitness testimony was totally recalibrated from that of a hundred percent certainty to that of a tool as one small piece of a larger puzzle.

SPEAKER_03 15:19

So under Texas law, are experts allowed to testify about the problems with eyewitness testimony?

SPEAKER_01 15:26

Yeah, and they they sure are. Um, as long as it's applicable to some of the issues in the case, you know, I think uh, you know, broadly speaking, you can have like if somebody says, I have an eyewitness identification uh of a person who's not my race, and uh I stranger on stranger, never seen them before, and the lighting was, you know, X, you know, maybe it was dark out or whatever, you could have an expert come and testify about how those factors might not be so reliable. I don't think you're you'll never have an expert be under our law to come in and say, you know, the eyewitness is always wrong, because there would be quite as quite frankly, they're not always wrong, you know. I think that um it does allow it, but you got to put it in the proper perspective, you know. And and and I think maybe back then, if you went forward on a case where there really was one eyewitness and then you had an expert from the other side say the eyewitness testimony could be wrong for these reasons, that might create reasonable doubt. But I guess maybe what I'm saying is that I think that we are as uh prosecutors, uh at least when I was coming up, way more hesitant to go forward on a one eyewitness case because of what we learned in those exonerations, you see. So um the law does allow for it though, that's for sure.

unknown 16:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 16:45

And have you ever been on the bench and had a case that you presided over and then it later came to light that the jury got it wrong?

SPEAKER_01 16:54

No, I haven't. Um, and I'm I'm glad to say that too. And you know, a lot of obviously the what happened in Dallas with the exonerations was a tremendous impact. And I'm fortunate, I guess, that I haven't had to deal with that or haven't seen it. I haven't had a case where at the end of the trial I thought, you know, the jurors got it wrong, and you know, that everybody got it wrong and this person is innocent. You know, it it's uh it hasn't happened. Maybe it's because of where we are as uh, you know, sort of a prosecutorial society or criminal justice society now, what we've learned from the past. Or maybe I just haven't been, you know, it just hasn't happened yet. I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_03 17:33

Okay. So as a judge, what do you see your responsibilities are overall? But then also to maybe a defendant who maybe their legal representation isn't very good. Um or is there or is there no responsibility to the to a defendant?

SPEAKER_01 17:54

Oh no. I mean, we we've talked a lot about a lot of uh you know the impact of eyewitness testimony. There's another constellation of cases that happened around here because of the lack of a proper defense, and through no fault of the defense attorney, you know, there's there's always those high-profile like attention-grabbing things where the lawyer fell asleep in the courtroom, you know, and that I mean that happened. That is a fact, it did happen, but that's such a small percentage of you know the reality. Those I I handled not only these exoneration cases, but you know, other cases were being reversed, and some of them were being reversed, not because the person was innocent, but because they're they didn't get a fair trial. And how do you know they didn't? Well, it's because they weren't properly funded. And so, in the example that we just talked about, you know, in 1985, I bet you that if there was a one eyewitness case and the defense attorney went and said, Hey, we want to hire an eyewitness expert, the the court would have said, No, we're not doing it. It's too expensive, you know, we're just not gonna do it. Now we know that boy, we need to have a second set of eyes on these, all these cases, you know, and so now we routinely allow hiring of experts. It's it's it's expensive, don't get me wrong. And certainly I'll let the budget people figure out how to do that, you know, but it's cheaper both ethically and literally than having somebody be convicted of something they didn't do. Um, but that that the there was cases where like one of the my first death penalty cases was one where the guy was the lawyer was given a budget of like a couple thousand dollars to defend himself, you know, and that means that you know, if you're the defense attorney, you have to pick and choose where you can pursue evidence that might save your client's life. And I don't think we need to give everybody a blank check, you know. Obviously, we couldn't afford to do that, but man, you know, having them try to guess at well, I can pursue this and it'd be valuable to a jury, but I can't pursue that, it's that's a tough spot to put a lawyer in. And so we do have that. We got to make sure that the their the defense is properly funded. We got to make sure that the lawyers are properly trained and perform. Um, so there's been uh in uh what do you call it? How do I want to say it? We've we've we've made sure that the lawyers who qualify to handle indigent defense cases are qualified, you know, when we have a review process in place and you know the standards for them to handle those cases have increased. Uh if if they're found ineffective, they can't represent people anymore, at least in Dallas, and I'm sure other jurisdictions are the same. So there has been measures like that. And I think, you know, like I tell my students at SMU, you know, when I'm teaching evidence, like the most important rule of evidence is whether or not the judge believes it, you know. And it's kind of like in it's kind of the same way. And I think that the impact of the exonerations in Dallas has tempered the way that the judges view whether they should or should not give the defense or grant a request for an expert, or grant their request for an investigator, grant their request for a second set of lies somehow, you see. And I think that that's important too.

SPEAKER_04 20:55

And so that is at the judge's discretion in terms of granting, if a defense attorney makes that request to for funding for an expert witness or certain testing, it's at the discretion of the judge as to whether or not they're going to allow that to happen.

SPEAKER_01 21:10

Yeah, that's exactly right. And, you know, we're all shaped by our experiences, you know. And I think that at least from me in my perspective, man, I saw those cases where those people didn't get the chance to have investigation independently or experts to review the work of the experts called by the state. So yeah, it and it is discretionary.

SPEAKER_04 21:31

Oh and so kind of along those lines, maybe you've answered it already. But if there's anything else you can think of, is there anything you think judges can do to try and prevent wrongful convictions?

SPEAKER_01 21:42

Well, yeah, I I mean I think there's that. I think that we can really two things immediately come to mind. Number one is uh answering the call when our our friends at the legislature have ideas for what could or could not be law in the future, you know, and um And I know that some of the legislators call on some of the judges, you know, obviously it depends on who's in power at the time, but I think the judges have and should have more of a voice than they used to about some of those things. Uh and then the other thing is is to be um vigilant about how the trial is conducted. I know that uh you know it's not easy to undo a trial because you you feel like the lawyers are not doing the job or that the state has not turned over everything, but you know, you have to appreciate that you have the power to stop something before it gets way out of control. And uh the judge can make that call. And I think we we are more likely to do that now than we were, let's say, 30 years ago, because of what we've learned.

unknown 22:49

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 22:50

So we know that Dallas County has been ground zero for wrongful convictions because of the founding of the conviction integrity unit. So, what has changed since it was founded? Um, and kind of what are we doing to prevent these from happening in the future?

SPEAKER_01 23:13

I think the it's Dallas County, man, it's I'm so lucky to have sort of come up when I came up. Um so I think if you were to say what has happened or how do you prevent these in the future from a legal perspective, I think transparency and accountability needs to be present in our laws. And if you look at the way that they've done that through the big one, which is the Michael Morton Act, which is Article 3914, they are sort of doing we're I don't know, man. I just see a lot of Dallas County and what they and what they wrote down. You know, Dallas County was very lucky in the sense that long ago in the in the mid uh early 80s, actually, there was a doctor that was uh saving biological samples. Uh now this is all like uh I've never met her before. I've heard about her, but I couldn't even remember her name. She went by Dr. G, I think. But anyway, she's the one who saved all this this biological samples because she knew that on the horizon someday there would be DNA testing that would be very discriminatory in nature. Well, what they used to call DNA fingerprinting and what we just call DNA now. But the idea was that she preserved everything in Article 3914. You've got to preserve everything. Um you know, that's written in there. I think uh you back then the the rules of discovery were such that you know that you didn't have to turn over witness statements until the witness testified. Uh and now you've got to turn them over beforehand because we saw from some of those exoneration cases that you know sometimes that that we do best not only with information, but with time to develop and investigate the information. So and when I say literally they were required to turn over the witness statement after the person testified, I mean like we pass the witness and let the record reflect I'm giving to the defense now this written statement. I mean, you know, that's crazy. And that could be the first time they saw it, you know. But you know, there's maybe things in there that the person will want to investigate. So that so that's written in now. You've got to turn over things in a certain amount of time, and if you don't, then you can't use it. So in other words, I see that the experience of Dallas, I just see it echoed in the way that the laws are written, uh the the uh discovery laws written now. And you know, now that Article 3914 came out probably in 2012 or 14, I'd have to go check, but it came out in every legislative session, you know, they sort of sharpen it, but the legacy is there, um, and it's all designed to make sure that uh all the facts and circumstances are known and at least to the defense before we go to a trial. Uh and that's a really important thing. And I think I just keep talking about this stuff, but like to go in a circle, okay. You had asked before have I ever had one, you know, in my courtroom? And I gotta tell you, I I don't know that I can't say this for sure, but because they're sharing so much information and because they're doing that ahead of time, and because we have the open file policies, and because stuff is getting retested, you know, and there's an independent investigation going on, the lawyers have a much better idea about the strengths and weaknesses of their case, such that they usually will resolve them short of having a trial. We we have way fewer trials, and I'm convinced it's because of number one, the 3914, but also because of the the the vast uh forensic evidence that we can we can pull from now, you know, ring cameras and cell phone and whatnot. So I just think that the change in the law has really helped make things transparent to a degree that trials are becoming less necessary uh and more about what the appropriate punishment is and not about whether the person committed the crime. Doesn't mean that there's not the the who done it, you know. I'm not saying that, but I am saying that these trials tend to be more like what's the appropriate outcome. The prosecutor's offering 20 years, the defendant's willing to take five or whatever. He's not really saying he didn't do it, but they just are unable to agree on the punishment. And that's you know, that's not a bad, it's a better spot to be in than we were before when we're sort of guessing at whether or not he did it or not.

SPEAKER_04 27:25

Okay, and so you mentioned the Michael Morton Act. I know after that the Richard Miles Act was passed. Um, have you seen a difference or improvement in terms of, if you can answer this, in terms of law enforcement handing over the evidence in a more timely manner, since they're required to do so under the Richard Miles Act?

SPEAKER_01 27:46

Yeah, that it it it it is a definite improvement because there's teeth to it, you know. Before, if you didn't turn something over, the question was, well, what's the harm? And was it exculpatory? And if so, so what? You know, it's like you know, okay, well you know, would it have impacted the trial? Um But now, you know, there's the possibility that the evidence can't be used. And that's one of the sanctions, you know, if you don't turn something over, obviously, then it can't be used in the court and trial. And so depending on what it is, you know, it's a big deal. Um, and so we've maybe maybe one way to look at it is there's the process has to be followed, and if it's not, then the consequences are spelled out. Um, and if you can't, you know, those consequences having been spelled out sort of spur on the police and the VAs to comply with those timelines because there's consequences if they don't. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 28:49

And if you can answer this, um I just thought of another question. One of the things people always talk about is how so many people try to find a way to get out of jury duty.

SPEAKER_01 29:00

I know, it's terrible.

SPEAKER_04 29:02

I heard it all. I'm sure yes, you probably have some interesting tour stories to tell about people coming up with very interesting excuses about trying to get out of it. But what is your kind of viewpoint on that if you can speak to it from the perspective of a judge in terms of why people should show up for jury duty and not try to get out of it?

SPEAKER_01 29:27

They are, and I don't mean to sound dramatic or grandiose, but jurors are literally the voice and the pulse of the public and how the lawyers and the judges view these cases. It's absolutely true. It's it from a perspective of a quantity or quality of proof, and it's also from a perspective of a punishment. You know, when we have these trials, you know, the lawyers and everybody talk about what what the what's going on in the case and what you know what kind of evidence there is. And you know, if if there's a verdict of not guilty or a verdict of life, you know, they always ask kind of like, well, what's the deal? And what happened in the case? You know, the courthouse talks. And when we see that jurors are rejecting one-eyewitness cases, for example, which they started to do, uh, when we see that the jurors were having um, you know, trust issues with uh police officers, like like especially in Dallas, if y'all remember uh the fake drug scandal. Um you know, that was in 2000 probably four, something like that, 2005, 6. That was at its that caused police to uh fall down in the eyes of members of the jury. And you could see that in the reflection of the jury verdicts. Uh obviously, you know, when exonerations were happening, you know, that was we we would see that. And yeah, on the other end, boy, if DNA evidence was there, jurors just believed it. You know, it was never really contested that it was accurate. It might change the the outcome of, I'm sorry, it may change sort of the defenses and everything, but but basically, we all are required on a daily basis as practitioners and judges to sort of predict what we think would happen in a future given this set of circumstances that we're confronted with. That's where plea bargaining comes from. That's where the decision to drop a case to a lower charge comes from. You know, that's where we're on the other end, that's where if you're the prosecutor, you you you say, I want my trial. And, you know, it's all constantly calibrated by jurors. And the only way that that works well is when we have a cross-section of the community come in and and judge it. And and it's hard, you know, especially when you're asking people to not get paid for a week, you know, or which is what the usual felony case is, or you're asking them to uh look at things that they don't that aren't pleasant to look at, I guess is the best way to say it, you know. And you're asking them to make a decision about somebody else's life, and that is a tremendous ask. And so it's not for everybody, but there's great power in jury verdicts, and judges listen to them, lawyers listen to them, and they they constantly measure their cases against what they predict jurors will do, and that prediction comes from jury verdicts.

SPEAKER_03 32:09

Do you have a favorite excuse that someone gave you at some point that you just will never forget because it was so over the top or off the wall?

SPEAKER_01 32:21

Well, the I don't let's see, over the top, off the wall, I'm not sure, but I gotta tell you, my favorite juror of all time was Dion Sanders. And he was straight, I mean, he came in. This was right before he left to go coach at Jackson State, you know, but he had and he came, he showed up for jury service. It was a he was like juror number 18, he was well within the strike zone. He was, I mean, primed to to sort of make a pun. He was primed and ready to go, you know, and and he was hilarious. He was gave very thoughtful answers. Um, he but he ultimately just said, I, you know, basically, I can't. Well, his exact words were prime, don't do no murder case. That's what he said. Prime don't do murder. He he said, he said, is this a murder case? And I said, Yes, and he said, murder, murder, and I said, Yes, murder, murder case. I think I know what you mean, but he said, Okay, prime, don't do no murder case. And and I I just thought that was great. He came in the next, he actually came back the next day and uh and wanted to thank me for the experience, you know. And I thought that was one of the coolest things ever. Um, but that was definitely my favorite. Um, I I think people are, you know, you can just tell. I say at the beginning, like, okay, does anybody have any any conflicts for this week? And there's no hands go up. And I say, okay, we're here on a murder case, or we're here on a child abuse case, or this is going to take all week. Now the hands come up, you know, and like, oh, I gotta this and that and the other. So it's pretty obvious when they try to get out of it.

SPEAKER_03 33:53

And and last, before um before we let you go, tell us about your podcast.

SPEAKER_01 34:00

Yes, it's a documentary podcast. So this it's a little bit unlike what we're doing it um, but it's a podcast called A Murderous Design. And uh what I do is take a deep dive based on authentic trial transcripts of some really fascinating and famous cases. Um, the first one I did was Tex Watson. Most people know Charlie Manson, but they don't know that Tex Watson was the one who actually did the case, did the did the killings of the La Biancas and um Sharon Tate and her friends and colleagues. Uh, there was a trial about that back in early 1970, and you know, so we got the transcripts for that, and I did that one, um, sort of a look at how they tried the case and what the evidence was. Uh, we did Timothy McVeigh. That one, man, that one has really taken off. It's like a hundred thousand people have clicked on that, listened to it. And that's really surprising to me because I mean, you know, it's an interesting case to me, but I didn't know like the law students that I teach, most of them don't know who Timothy McVeigh is, you know. Um, but uh they know about the Oklahoma City bombing, but the name doesn't ring a bell. I did one on um Jack Ruby. Uh of course, every you and I know who Jack Ruby is. Most people uh that are probably under 25 don't, um, but you know, and that's a funny thing. I did one on um the eyeball killer, which is not a like a nationally famous case, but it was a guy named Charles Albright, who's one of the most interesting, morbidly interesting people. Uh, and he was a serial killer in the early 90s in Dallas. So I did one on those and uh did the Trinity River Massacre, which was uh three uh let's see, three officer law enforcement officers were killed by some people on the Trinity River banks that were escaping from being arrested, basically. Um and that was in the early 70s. And the one I'm working on right now is on the Birmingham church bombing um that happened in September of 1963. Um and uh how they it's called Dynamite Bob and the Cahaba River Bridge Boys, because Dynamite Bob was the uh the guy who was convicted. I mean, with a guy with a name like Dynamite Bob, like he had to have been suspect number one. He had the name before the dynamite, by the way. Oh the crime. So it's like okay. But that one I'm I've just almost finished writing it, and and it's a joy to, I mean, I get to it's a joy to write it, it's a joy to create it, it's a joy to look at how those excellent lawyers and those judges handle those big cases. I do the music for it too, and so I get that creative outlet, and it's just been a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_03 36:24

Well, awesome! I am excited to listen. I listened to the Timothy McBay one because I also am interested um in that. So I'm excited to listen to the other ones as well.

SPEAKER_01 36:37

Well, that's good. Usually I I did get to talk to uh Stephen Jones in that episode or one of the episodes on that little documentary deal, and um Larry Mackey, and that was the lead prosecutor and the lead defense attorney, and they were nice enough to talk to me about it, and I just I thought that was great. Um, so thanks to them for doing that. Hopefully you got to listen to those episodes too.

SPEAKER_03 37:00

Yeah. All right. Well, thank you so much, Judge Birmingham, for your time.

SPEAKER_04 37:07

In his first year as a judge, Dallas County Judge Brandon Birmingham taped a note to his bench that said, Be humble. This bench does not belong to you. It belongs to the people. He has acknowledged that this note is still there and that this is still something that is important to him to this day. As we discussed in this episode, Judge Birmingham was an assistant district attorney in Dallas County, Texas, at a time when exonerations in that county were receiving statewide as well as national attention. He also noted that this impacted his view of the justice system. As an example, he was able to help right or wrong by prosecuting a case that had originally resulted in two people being wrongfully convicted and incarcerated. While he wasn't involved with the original case, he was able to prosecute and secure convictions against the actual perpetrators. In addition, Judge Birmingham has taken the time to speak at events honoring International Wrongful Conviction Day at universities in the Dallas Fort Worth area. Special thanks to Judge Brandon Birmingham and our producer, Crystal Guerra.