Bjorn Brunvand, a Tampa Bay defense attorney with three decades of experience, recounts defending Yuri Chakrag in a massive cocaine seizure and witnessing Oscar Bolin's execution, highlighting how the Panama Express often spares cartel leaders while imprisoning poor crew. He details a manipulative kidnapper who traded murder evidence for death row placement before dying of cancer, illustrating Brunvand's belief that most clients are decent people making bad decisions under trauma rather than inherent monsters. Ultimately, his work challenges the binary view of crime, arguing that listening to complex human stories reveals the gray areas behind incarceration. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, WAV2VEC2_ASR_BASE_960H, sat-12l-sm, script v26.04.01, and large-v3-turbo
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A Movie Sparked My Legal Career00:01:59
Bjorn Brunnvon, ladies and gentlemen, thanks for coming back on and giving us a second chance.
With sound this time.
With sound, we have audio now.
All right.
So thanks for coming on.
You're making us look good.
Hopefully.
So, for all the people out there who may not know, give me a little background on what you do.
Criminal defense lawyer, primarily in the Tampa Bay area, but doing business all over the United States and wherever the cases take me.
Been doing it for about 30 years.
And then, how did you start, or like, where did you originally get interested in law?
Like, what were you doing, or you know, where, what age were you, and where were you when you decided you wanted to become a lawyer?
So, I was probably about 14, and I'd just been to a movie with a buddy of mine, and it was about a trial lawyer.
I can't remember what the movie was, it was back in Norway.
And as we were walking out from the movie theater, I said, well, that looks like a cool thing to do for a living.
And he looked at me and said, Oh, that's way too difficult for you.
And I said, All right, well, I'm going to show you.
So that's really when I decided I was going to be a lawyer.
I mean, there's a lot more to it.
Yeah.
My dad was an oral surgeon, all his friends were doctors.
So the doctor route was out because I didn't want to do what my dad did and his friends did.
And at the time, it seemed like the logical thing to do.
Looking back, I probably should have gone into computers and software, but, you know, probably wasn't smart enough for that, anyways.
Definitely not as interesting as what you do.
And then how did you get.
Did you just kind of like fall into these interesting cases that you are in now?
Or did, was that kind of an interest, like, for instance, murder cases and big drug cases?
Were those like an interest when you started?
Or did you just kind of fall into that?
I think that the biggest interest when I started was probably capital murder cases.
Court Appointed for Russian Case00:15:27
When you say, what does capital murder mean?
Capital murder means cases where the state of Florida or the federal government are seeking the ultimate penalty, which is the death penalty.
And in college, I was fortunate enough during a time period when I was volunteering with an agency who represented people on death row to actually go on death row and meet someone who was sentenced to death and spend some time with him.
And that was probably the moment that I decided I wanted to do that kind of work and try to help people that were on death row.
Okay.
So walk me through the first big case, the Russian case.
How did that come about?
How did you fall into it?
Into that case, I don't know if that's the first big case, but it's a big case, right?
It's a big case, it's definitely one of your most famous cases, right?
It probably is.
I mean, it's the case that I was not supposed to be able to win, right?
Uh, my client was charged with being in possession of three and a half tons of cocaine on a freighter off the coast of Colombia.
Uh, he admittedly ordered the crew to take on the cocaine.
And he was the captain of the freighter.
And to be able to get a not guilty verdict in that case was.
I thought it was possible.
I don't think you could ever sell something to a jury unless you think it's possible, but it was a Hail Mary pass.
And fortunately for him, we succeeded.
And had you ever heard of any kind of case like this before that had been successfully beaten?
I don't know that I had heard of the captain of a freighter being found not guilty after ordering crew to take on that much cocaine.
I certainly had, there had been cases where crew members were found not guilty, you know, the defense being we didn't know, we didn't know what we were getting ourselves into, that type of thing.
But as far as the captain is concerned, I would say no.
You know, Yuri, who was my client, I was from the Ukraine.
He knew that it was very likely that he was going to be convicted.
And he was, because of that, willing to enter a guilty plea in return for a 10 year sentence.
The problem was, in order to be able to plead to a 10 year sentence, the government wanted him to testify that the other crew members knew that they were taking on cocaine before they left Panama.
And he looked at me and he said, I can't do that.
It's not the truth.
I just can't do it.
And knowing that.
He was likely going to then die in prison.
So, if convicted, he's facing what life sentence?
So, he was basically, it wouldn't be a life sentence because he was brought here from, well, actually, for him, it could have been a life sentence.
If he's extradited from Colombia, there's limitations.
You can get about, I think the max is 35 years.
Okay.
But for him, he could get a life sentence.
He probably would have received a sentence of about 30 years.
If he's convicted guilty for a trial.
Right.
And he was in his mid 50s.
So that's basically the remainder of most of his life.
Correct.
Yeah.
So the jury initially deliberated, and there were about 16 co defendants.
And so initially they deliberated, and they had reached a verdict as to everybody except for my client, the captain, and someone who was listed as the electrician on the boat.
And so then they said they were deadlocked on the captain and the electrician.
And so then the judge will read them what's called an Allen charge, which basically says go back, try your best to reach a verdict.
This has been a very costly trial.
It's costing taxpayers a lot of money.
If there's any way that you can reach a verdict, you know, please give it one other try.
And so they did, and they spent another day deliberating, and we came back, and then we were told that they had reached a verdict on one and that they were hung on the other one.
The court, when they're reading the verdict, the court first reads the verdict of the electrician, and the jury still hung on him.
They couldn't reach a verdict on the electrician.
And the concern at that point was all right, well, they probably found the captain guilty because they were hung on the electrician.
And so when the verdict was read of my client, Yuri Chakrag, it was not guilty.
Wow.
Interestingly, Yuri always said he was an atheist.
Growing up in the Soviet Union, it makes sense because there really wasn't religion, it wasn't part of his childhood.
But the interesting part about Yuri, when the verdict was reached, he stood up, put his hands together, and looked up towards the ceilings as if he figured there was some higher power that was involved in helping him out.
Right.
I think I had something to do with that.
Yeah, I was going to say, I think he should have looked at you.
Oh, he appreciated what I did very much.
Oh, I'm sure.
Wow.
And how long did this whole trial last?
It all lasted about a month.
One month.
Okay.
And why do most of these trials go, like big drug trials, like cases like this?
Why do you think they go to Tampa Bay versus another place?
Like, why do you think the trial was held in Tampa?
Was that the port that the ship was headed to?
No, no.
The ship was headed, well, according to the government, the ship was headed to Poland.
And when you say according to the government, what do you mean?
Well, it's their theory.
I mean, their belief was that.
It was a ship that was taking three and a half tons of cocaine from the Colombian cartels on this freighter to Gdansk, Poland, to the Russian cartel.
Wow.
And my argument was that everyone on the ship, including the captain, were mere pawns of the cartels.
And, you know, one of the interesting moments in the trial is when my client is on the witness stand.
And my guy was a big guy, and the prosecutor is questioning him about this other captain that had boarded the ship right before they left Panama, who was a Colombian and who was a witness for the government saying everybody knew that it was cocaine, everyone knew what they were doing.
And the prosecutor looked at my client and he said, You're not afraid of the Colombian captain.
And my client looked at the prosecutor and looked at the Colombian captain, and he said, Nah, I'm not afraid of the Colombian captain, but I am afraid of the organization behind the Colombian captain.
And that was basically his story.
I mean, that he'd been recruited by a legitimate shipping agency in the Ukraine.
They knew where his family was located, they knew where his wife, his kids, his parents, where everyone was.
And if he stepped out of the box and did something that The Russian mob didn't approve of, or the Colombian cartel didn't approve of, there would be consequences.
And so, because of that, he just felt like he didn't have a choice but to carry on with what he was told to do.
Wow.
And I mean, it seems like, just from what you're saying, is that most of the time, or however long this has been happening, the quote, war on drugs, it's like all of the guys like Yuri, the pawns, are the ones that are getting locked up and getting these really long sentences when the big guys, With all the money, the leaders are able to make deals and work their way out of it.
Right, right.
So, you were asking about how it is that Tampa is sort of the epicenter for these types of cases.
So, for about probably 20 years, there's been an organization or operation called the Panama Express, which is basically part of the war on drugs.
It's an effort to stop.
The flow of cocaine and other drugs from Colombia and Mexico into the United States.
And for some reason, the center for prosecution, or one of the biggest centers for prosecution of these cases, has been the Tampa Bay area.
Go fast boats, semi submersibles, submarines that are caught in the Pacific Ocean that you would think would end up going to San Diego end up coming to Tampa Bay.
Boats in the Caribbean, it's the same thing.
They end up coming to Tampa Bay.
And there has probably been thousands, not probably, there's been thousands of Colombians, Ecuadorians, Mexicans, who mostly are poor fishermen, people that are desperate to make some money, whether it's because they have a relative who is sick or kids that they're trying to put through school or they're just desperate to make a dollar.
And they're the ones that initially end up getting charged, they're the ones that end up doing the long sentences.
The idea is that by going after these submarines, go fast, and freighters and what have you, that sooner or later you will catch the big boys, the guys that are in charge of it all.
And in reality, you do.
At some point, you do get to the big boys.
Unfortunately, the big boys are smart enough to know that.
They want to cooperate from the get go.
And so they end up getting very, very light sentences.
In fact, some of them, in my opinion, are powerful enough and influential enough where they can sit in an American prison and pay someone in Colombia to load a boat full of drugs, pay some peasants to get on it, and then hand off the coordinates to the US government to make it look like they just happened to.
You know, find this go fast vessel, a semi submersible full of cocaine, and then they get a reduction in their sentence while these just have to pay a tax.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Were you court appointed for that case or they hired?
No, court appointed.
For the Russian, I was court appointed.
I've been retained by people out of Colombia, but on the Russian case, I was court appointed.
So since then, you've been hired in cases similar to this?
I've been hired by people that are being extradited from Colombia.
So, people that are actually operating out of Colombia, the people that they're really after, the people that they're trying to get to by going after all the little people are people that usually never step foot anywhere near cocaine, but they're orchestrating it all.
And I've been retained by some of those people to represent them.
From a result from the not guilty.
Sentence or whatever.
Who knows?
Who knows what the reason is?
How do these guys get a hold of you?
How do they get in touch with you?
You know, it's a variety of reasons.
I mean, it helps to be able to say that I had a client who was caught with three and a half tons of cocaine and he was found not guilty.
Right.
But the majority of the cases never go to trial.
They're being resolved and plea bargaining and cooperation.
You know, I think the.
Not, I think.
I know the reason that I started getting some of these cases is I was called for a court appointed case in Tampa.
And it was a gentleman who had been extradited from London.
He's now deceased, but he had been extradited from London.
It was about 10 years ago.
And I was called to court to accept an appointment.
When I arrived outside the courthouse, I received a phone call from the court saying, you know, he already has a lawyer.
You don't, you know, we don't need you.
And instead of just saying, okay, well, I'm out of here, I asked a simple question.
I said, Are you guys, do you know if the lawyer is here?
And they said, No, the lawyer's in Houston, Texas.
So I said, well, why don't I just come up, you know, as a friend of the court?
I'll talk to the gentleman, I'll help him out, I'll help him get in touch with his lawyer who is in Houston, Texas.
And so it turned out by me doing that, without any expectation that I was going to get anything out of it, I ended up being hired as local counsel along with the Houston, Texas lawyer.
And that lawyer already had a strong connection to Columbia.
And so he would then.
Introduce me to people and bring me in on cases where people were actually hiring us or considering hiring us out of Colombia.
Wow.
I mean, do you ever fear for your safety when you're doing this kind of stuff?
I mean, obviously, these guys are pretty dangerous, potential to be pretty dangerous.
Potentially, potentially.
I don't know.
I mean, you have to be careful anywhere you go in the world, but I don't fear for my safety.
I make sure that I don't lie.
I make sure that I don't suggest that I can do something that I can't do.
You can't guarantee.
You can never guarantee anything.
But if I think that maybe I can get a 10 year sentence, I may say I could probably get a 15 year sentence.
Because I'd rather have a client that's going to be happy about the 10 year sentence than disappointed he got 15.
Exactly.
And quite frankly, with those guys, if they play their cards right, They usually get below 10 years, which is kind of crazy because they deal in hundreds of thousands of kilos of cocaine and hundreds of millions of dollars.
And, you know, net profits for some of those guys is in the billions of dollars.
The Day of the Pending Execution00:16:39
It's like huge corporations.
Wow.
And these corporations that are run out of these countries like Colombia, like.
Out of Colombia, out of, you know, I mean, out of Russia.
I mean, it's.
Throughout the world, there are organizations you know that that are criminal organizations that that you know have a lot of money, a lot of a lot of uh they just send you a jet and fly to.
Well, no, no, no, I know I fly down there, we meet down there, you know.
Um, and uh, I met with clients in Colombia, I've met with clients and agents in Panama, um, and uh, it's you know, it's there's definitely a security aspect to it, um.
But, you know, you just, I've never been concerned.
I never felt that it wasn't safe.
And when we meet with agents, you know, they're very careful.
You know, we may be told that, you know, go to such and such a hotel, wait in the lobby for further instructions.
We'll sit in the lobby and wait.
And then we'll be told, okay, come up to such and such a room.
And then we'll have meetings.
And you won't be by yourself.
You'll have.
No, no.
There'll be other.
Usually, another lawyer there, investigators, agents.
Okay.
Yeah.
That's a little bit more comforting, at least.
Sure.
So, I mean, like we were saying before, when we were talking about how a lot of these trials go to Tampa, do they get a lot more convictions out of Tampa?
I think so.
It's more conservative.
I think so.
A lot of old people down here.
Right.
I think we're definitely more conservative, more likely to convict, I think, than California, San Diego, even Miami.
This is still a very conservative area.
And, you know, it's to what degree prejudice is part of the equation.
I think prejudice is always part of the equation, unfortunately.
And so, you know, did it help that the Russians all look like Midwestern farmers?
You know, they didn't look like people from south of the border.
They didn't look like, they just looked like regular American farmers.
Right.
And unfortunately, that probably helped them.
The ones that, you know, the peasants from Columbia who look like, they don't look like the average American juror that's going on the side of that.
They're not white skinned.
They're not white skinned.
They're dark skinned.
They speak a different language.
Is Jarvis still working with you?
He is.
He is.
Yeah.
We're starting a five week capital murder trial in Polk County on the second week of January.
Really?
Yeah.
Capital murder, you said?
Wow.
Yeah.
How long do those usually go on for, like a capital murder case?
Three to five weeks.
Yeah.
If you're taking it to trial.
Right.
That's what I meant.
The trial, three to five.
The trial takes three to five years.
The preparation part?
Yeah.
How long?
That could go on for a really long time.
Three to five years, sometimes more.
And they're usually sitting in custody during that time?
Yes.
Serving time during the preparation for the trial.
Right.
It's very, very unusual for someone charged with first degree murder to have a bond.
To have a bail, yeah.
Yeah.
Sometimes.
Right.
It happens.
But it's very unusual.
So, if you're sitting in there, say, for three to five years and you get found not guilty, do you get compensated?
Sure.
Do you get compensated for anything at all?
No.
Unless you can prove that you're innocent.
And not only that, you had to prove that you're innocent and you had to prove that the prosecutor and the agents knew it.
Oh, okay.
It's crazy.
It's crazy.
I mean, they really should.
We really should compensate people that are found not guilty.
That's a lot of time to sit in jail to be not guilty for something.
Right.
Yeah.
I mean, I've had people that were sentenced to death.
Right.
Sitting on death row.
So they're sitting, first they're sitting to wait for their trial.
Then they're convicted.
Then they're sentenced to death.
Then they're sitting on death row for several years.
And then we win the appeal.
And then so they walk out of a prison free, you know, not guilty.
Right.
Their lives are destroyed.
Right.
And we give them, plus years.
And we give them nothing.
Right, you probably, your name's ruined after that.
You can't go back to your normal job.
Right.
I mean, people you know aren't looking at you the same anymore.
Right, right.
You think about it.
You go to apply for a job and they say, you ever been charged with a crime?
And say, well, I was charged with murder, but I was found not guilty.
Probably not going to get hired.
Right, right.
Just for being involved, just for being even a suspect, right?
Right.
And you can be completely innocent.
Right, because people basically, you know, I had a case years ago with a judge who I love.
It was early on in my career.
And my client, we had gone to trial on the case.
He was found not guilty.
He gets released from jail.
He's out for less than a month.
He gets rearrested.
He comes back in.
We'll go to trial again.
This time he's found guilty.
And the judge was going to hammer him.
And so he goes through his prior record and he would name off an offense, like possession of cocaine.
And I would say, Judge, he was found not guilty of that.
All right.
So he got away with that one.
You know what I mean?
It's like they don't really.
They don't look at it the way they should.
No, I mean, it should be looked at because you go into the trial and the jury is told you're supposed to presume the person innocent.
Can you presume the person innocent?
Everyone is like, sure, we can do that.
But we really don't presume anyone innocent.
No.
I mean, in my opinion, we don't.
Right.
It's supposed to be innocent until proven guilty.
Right.
And then you would.
It just seems the opposite.
Right.
And you would think, okay, well, so if you're presumed innocent, then you go to trial.
And you're found not guilty, shouldn't that mean that you're innocent?
Shouldn't that end it?
But it doesn't.
No, it doesn't.
I mean, that sticks on your name forever.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, because people make up their own minds and people think they know everything, they know they have all the answers.
Yeah.
Everything is black and white instead of shades of gray.
Wow.
Do you think it could possibly change from being like that one day?
Being looked at like that or maybe being more on the track of innocent until proven guilty?
I think it's something to strive for.
Yeah.
But if social media is a reflection of our society, there's an awful lot of black and white on social media and very little open mind, you know, I would consider and listen to everything.
It's sort of like, this is how it is.
Right.
This is it.
And this is it.
Right.
Yep.
And so I would hope that that's not necessarily a reflection of our society, but it probably is.
Because otherwise, I think we wouldn't have any issue saying if you've been falsely accused and acquitted, you ought to be compensated, at least give you the basics that you would have made during that time period.
Maybe what you were making before.
Give you a chance of starting your life over.
Right.
For a sec, let's talk about the.
Oscar Bolin case for a second.
That was a pretty insane experience for me in particular because I got to go with you to that town, Stark, in mid Florida during the time when he was executed.
And we got to capture a lot of it and kind of like interview a lot of people there, like victims' families and a lot of the people who were against the death penalty.
We met a lot of people who had been on death row.
And then got exonerated from death row.
Talk to me a little bit about your experience with that case and with the Oscar Boland case.
He had been on death row for about 30 years, right?
And, or he was.
About 20 years.
Okay, about 20 years.
And basically, the day we were there, it was really intense because the whole time you were communicating back and forth with the Supreme Court, Trying to determine if they were going to have a stay on his execution.
So nobody knew whether he was going to actually get executed that day or not.
Could you walk me through that day and kind of your experience with that case?
Sure.
So, I mean, first of all, leading up to that, you know, all the way from early on in college.
And through my career, I had dealt with people facing the prospect of being sentenced to death.
I had clients that were sentenced to death.
I had clients who were facing the death penalty but avoided the death penalty.
And so, certainly, I had dealt with that aspect of it.
So, this was definitely not anywhere near your first case like this.
No, but it was my first case where.
There was a pending execution.
Okay.
And so, what happens, I had been assigned to or asked if I would represent Oscar by his wife, Rosalie, probably about two years before his execution.
So, at this point, he had gone through his trials, he had been found guilty.
Some of the cases he had gone through, all the appeals.
And I agreed to.
To try to help.
And knowing that at some point the governor was probably going to sign his death warrant, which usually, when the death warrant is signed, there's about a 60 to 75 day window from the time it's signed until the scheduled execution date.
And during that time period, you're basically working nonstop.
You know, it's myself.
Jervis.
We had two other lawyers from a Capital Resource Center that was helping us out, and we were basically working nonstop, filing appeals, doing everything we possibly could to get relief.
We filed in the state trial court.
We filed, we appealed the denial in the state trial court to the Florida Supreme Court.
We appealed denial in the Florida Supreme Court.
Supreme Court to the United States Supreme Court.
We filed in the federal district court at the trial level.
We appealed that to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.
When that's denied, then we appealed it to the United States Supreme Court.
We also sought relief from the governor.
And so basically, you're doing everything you possibly can.
It's sort of like being, I guess, for a doctor, being in surgery trying to save someone's life.
Right.
And so the day of the execution, all this stuff has been going on for.
75 days, and I spent a lot of time with Oscar Bolin and with Rosalie, um, visiting at the prison, getting to know him better.
How much time would you say you spent with him personally?
Nowhere near as much time as Rosalie did.
Rosalie would see him every single day, I mean, every single week, two days a week for like 20 years.
But I saw him a lot.
I mean, I saw I spent several days with him during that time period, um, combined, you know, um.
And, you know, regardless of guilt or innocence, he realized that he, you know, whether or not he was the person that he was accused of being and convicted of being or not, he was someone at this point that obviously cared for his wife.
And there was nothing wrong with him from a health standpoint.
I mean, he wasn't.
A danger to anyone because he was never going to be released from prison unless, you know, at some point we learned that he was actually innocent.
And so that day was probably one of the most difficult days of my life.
I arrived at Stark about 1 p.m., I believe it is.
Everything's on lockdown.
I remember you had asked me if you could fly your drone over the prison.
I said, probably not a good idea.
Yeah.
Unless you wanted to be shot down.
Right.
That was one of the most unforgettable days of my life, too.
Right.
That was just like.
So then we're waiting.
And you know, in the prison, you can't have your phones with you.
And so, first, I'm sitting in the lobby outside the warden's office and waiting, myself and his spiritual advisor.
And then we go into the chapel, which is this really nice chapel in the middle of Florida State Prison, which is where people are who are facing the death penalty.
The people that just can't get along with others.
I mean, it's a high security prison.
And it looks like an actual church inside of there?
Yes, it's a church.
It's a church inside of there.
I mean, it looks just like a church, except it's smack in the middle of a prison.
And so we're there, myself and the spiritual advisor, and everyone else who's there are victims, families, law enforcement, some prosecutors, and they were all just sort of congregating there waiting to hear.
Obviously, I'm hoping that the Supreme Court's going to grant a stay of execution.
At this point, I can't, I have no access to my client.
Where is he at this time?
So he is in a special cell awaiting the announcement to then go into the death chamber.
Okay.
So the only one that I think there's two people that have contacts with them the warden and then the first assistant, I think he's called.
Okay.
No one else has contact with him, and they were wonderful.
I mean, the warden was wonderful.
Um, um, but we're sitting there, and it's kind of awkward, you know, because I'm, I guess, from the victim's family standpoint, I'm the bad guy.
Yeah, they probably don't like you.
They were all in there in this little chapel with you, sure, sure.
And they were all kind, but I mean, you just feel that there's a little bit of tension, you know.
Yeah, probably wish I wasn't there, yeah.
So then, then we get the ward that that.
The Supreme Court has not granted a stay, and then we are escorted into the viewing area in the death chamber.
And it's a small room.
There's about four rows, four or five rows of chairs.
It fits probably about 20 people to be seated.
And then there's in the back row news reporters are allowed in the back and other special guests, I guess.
Watching Death in the Chamber00:03:17
And so I'm sitting right on the front row along with the spiritual advisor.
Looking through the window, and Oscar is being placed on the gurney.
You know, his arms are strapped down.
He's laying on his back.
He's able to lift his head.
He's able to see me and the spiritual advisor.
You know, he mouths thank you to both of us.
Didn't have any last words.
I think he was, you know, he was ready.
He was tired of being incarcerated, and I think he was just ready to go.
But to me, to then see a perfectly healthy human being being executed with this cocktail of drugs is just grotesque, in my opinion.
I mean, it just makes no sense.
And was that the first execution you witnessed?
That's the first one I witnessed, and I'm hoping it's the last one that I witnessed.
It's not something I wish for anyone.
I mean,.
I'll do it again just to support the client.
But that would be the only reason I would do it again.
Are you obligated to be there and watch that?
He asks you to?
Does he want you to be there?
Or do you just feel like he is allowed to have two people there?
Okay.
One member of the legal team and one spiritual advisor.
And that's it.
No family, no nothing.
That's it.
And so.
You know, I asked the warden before, he told me, I didn't.
He said, My clients said, if you want to be there, you know, I'd like for you to be there.
If you don't want to be there, don't worry about it.
And so I asked the warden, I said, Can he see me?
If I'm there, can he see me?
Will he be able to see that I'm there and know you're there?
And he said, Yes.
And so I was like, Okay, you know, I'll be one of two friendly faces, right?
So that he feels like he has.
Some comfort and someone who cares.
And is this room, is it like set up like a theater?
Like there's seats and like fucking window?
There's glass and you're sitting right up.
I mean, his feet are probably right here.
I mean, the glass is right here.
I'm sitting right here.
Yeah.
His feet are probably there and then his head.
So he's like five feet in front of you.
Yeah.
That has to be an intense moment.
It's just like.
To think that they actually have that a theater set up for human beings to watch somebody die is just like so barbaric, right?
Right?
I mean, and I mean, doctors will not participate in doing this because they're oath they're not supposed to help someone die or kill someone, it's not just helping someone die either.
Barbaric Theater of State Killing00:15:38
You're killing them.
I understand if if if you know if if I'm very sick and a lot of pain and you want to go and and I'm just You know, I want to go.
I don't really have an issue with that.
But for someone who's healthy and there's nothing wrong with them, and for us to just premeditatedly kill that person, it just sends all kinds of wrong messages.
It sends a message that it's okay to kill people under certain circumstances.
And, you know, in barbaric societies, I mean, yeah, that's what happened.
But the problem is, if you don't control that, I mean, then we end up killing each other out, you know, because you just keep.
Going back and forth, and everyone gets killed.
So, the whole idea is society is supposed to sort of put some brakes on that type of behavior.
I mean, a lot of countries have banned the death penalty.
Most civilized countries have banned the death penalty.
We're one of the few.
Right, right.
I think we're the only civilized, when you know, civilized in that sense, the only Western country that still has the death penalty.
You know, I mean, right up along with China and Russia, it seems to be like the big.
Yeah.
They still have them?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, in China, they have like mobile execution units.
They kill people for drug offenses.
You know, we had, I represented a guy named Tam Phuk Yuk, who's a Chinese guy from Hong Kong, and he was caught with about three tons of cocaine.
And we went to trial, and they were on the vessel, it was called Tam Phuk Yuk.
He was the owner of the vessel.
That vessel was his name?
That vessel was his name.
I like it.
A little difficult to claim that he didn't know anything about it.
He was just bugging around.
Yeah.
And so we went to trial, and my client and his brother in law, who was the captain, they were both convicted, and then all the others were found not guilty.
So I remember going down to Chrome, where they detain people before they get sent back to.
In their case, it would be back to China.
And they all had a legitimate concern that they expressed to me that, yeah, we were found not guilty, which is wonderful, but we're afraid that we're going to go back to China and we're going to get executed.
Even though they were found not guilty.
Right, right.
Is that the country would still do that?
Potentially, that was their concern.
Yeah.
You know, because, I mean, they execute people over there for drug offenses.
And, I mean, these guys were on a boat that was.
Supposedly bringing tons of cocaine back to Hong Kong.
Right.
Holy shit.
So, and the process.
I don't know.
I don't know what happened.
If anything happened, I hope nothing happened to him.
But, yeah.
Wow.
And the process is way different in China, obviously, than here.
I mean, obviously, you don't get the same kind of trial.
I mean, you know, I haven't studied it, but if you Google like China and mobile execution units, you know.
Mobile execution units.
Right.
Right.
So, what does that mean?
They come to you and execute you?
Google it.
Yeah.
Like an uber execution.
Yeah.
Right.
God damn.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, and I would think that we as a society should be better than that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
What do you think?
Like, what do you think the, like, do you see in the future us ever evolving away from that?
Like, how, how do you see a change coming anytime soon?
Or so, yeah, I'm always hopeful.
You know, a lot of the northern states don't have the death penalty.
Okay.
But the federal government does.
Right.
And then the southern states, most of the southern states do.
You know, I'm always hopeful.
I think that it's going to change.
But then when I do jury selection in these types of cases, and at the beginning of a jury selection, we do what's called death qualification.
It basically means that the jurors that either are automatic death penalty jurors or automatic life jurors get excluded.
Okay.
And so the people.
That have strong issues, one, I mean, or strong opinions one way or the other.
Either if you're guilty of premeditated murder, you should always get the death penalty.
Right.
Or if I'm so opposed to the death penalty, I would never impose the death penalty.
Right.
Those people are excluded.
And it's scary that I would say about 50% of the potential jurors fall in that category and probably fairly equal.
Well, let's say 25 say always the death penalty, 25 says never the death penalty, and so then you have the other 50 percent.
Yeah.
And the other 50%, they don't seem too bothered with considering the death penalty as a penalty.
So I don't see it being abolished in the South anytime soon.
I wish it was.
I mean, I'd rather do something else.
I'd rather work on other types of cases.
Not that I don't enjoy it, but I just, I mean, I'd rather not have the death penalty as part of the equation.
And Rosalie.
Married, she got married to Oscar while he was on death row.
That's correct.
Right before he went there.
That just like blows my mind.
How, I mean, obviously, there's a, it's common, right?
That people will marry other people that are on death row when they're free.
Sure.
Why do you, how does that happen?
How, why do you, why do people, you probably should ask Rosalie that question.
Probably should ask her.
I mean, but in your opinion, like, what is your, You know, because you get closer to these people than I would think that I would say that they're they are.
I mean, Rosalie is a very loving, caring individual, yeah.
And and and um, Rosalie genuinely, sincerely, um, has always believed and will always believe until the day she dies that Oscar was innocent.
So that's just part of the equation as to why.
I mean, you know, just because you believe someone's innocent and because you're caring and loving doesn't mean that you had to marry someone on death row.
But the rest of the story, you'll have to ask Rosalie.
As far as the others, I mean, there's a lot of people, women from all over the world that will marry people on death row.
And I don't know, I don't really know why that is.
But it's definitely a phenomenon.
I mean, it happens.
It's.
People will send money to people on death row.
You actually get a higher status if you're on death row than if you're doing a life sentence.
Right.
I mean, it's like you're somebody.
Right.
Because you're going to be executed.
Because you're on death row.
And I think maybe part of it is that other societies, Western European societies, it's so strange and so foreign to them the concept that this human being is going to be executed and killed that maybe that's why they step out.
And there may be things going on in their lives, you know, and maybe, you know, their way of telling some ex husband, fuck you, or something like that.
You know, I mean, I don't know.
I don't know what the.
You had to ask those women that, but I mean, but the ones that I have met, and I've met a few, all very nice, very kind.
A few people who have married somebody else.
Sure.
Okay.
That was locked up.
That was on death row.
On death row.
On death row.
Specifically.
Okay.
Right.
And the interest in people on death row is just much greater than the interest of people that are just doing a life sentence.
Unless you somehow gain notoriety during your trial, then you may still have that same thing.
But most people who were sentenced to life in prison, you never hear about.
Right.
So, just like Stark in general, I just had this eerie feeling just being there the whole time.
The town.
Obviously, it has a long history of executing notorious murderers, right?
Like Ted Bundy was.
It's where it happens in Florida.
I mean, in Florida, yeah.
Right.
The only place it has to be.
Right.
That's where that throw is.
Yeah.
But that shouldn't reflect on the people that live in Star.
No, right.
No, but it had a vibe.
It just had a vibe.
It probably had a vibe in part because you were there in the middle of a house.
And that's the reason why you're there.
Right, right.
And the protesters from both sides were there.
And we even went to eat.
Most of the people that we met out in the town worked at the prison.
They were somehow involved with the prison.
Sure.
So the town is fed off that prison.
That's the primary.
You know, reason for survival up there.
Yeah.
Right.
It's just kind of dark.
It's just kind of dark, man.
Well, and, and, and, but throughout this country, you'll find prison towns.
And, and, and, um, it's a big business.
Prison is a big business in this country.
I mean, that's probably, you know, I'm hopeful that.
That's a whole other podcast.
Right.
It's a whole other podcast.
But, uh, I'm hoping that, that this, the, um, The US legislature and Senate that they're going to come up with some new legislation here before the end of the year that's going to give us some relief.
I mean, that what they won't be run for like profit?
No, that's going to give more discretion to like, you know, reduce some of these outrageous sentences.
I mean, we've been in this, you know, really almost the entire time that I've been practicing criminal defense law, we've been in this, you know, let's lock them up, you know.
Throw away the key and warehouse people's attitude.
And so, I mean, we have a lot of people that are doing life sentences for drug offenses that are just like that aren't that big.
Didn't harm anyone.
I mean, they didn't, you know, yeah, they provided drugs to people.
And unfortunately, there's a huge demand for drugs, and they will always be there until we fix the.
The addiction aspect of it, if it can be fixed.
So, but instead, we just keep locking people up.
And so, families, you know, don't have fathers and mothers.
And I mean, it's just been crazy.
And so, they're finally starting to realize wait a minute, we need to like maybe come up with some sort of a escape valve of sorts that's going to, you know, give some discretion to let some of these people out a little earlier.
Right.
Now, when you describe to me, The first time you went to death row, the guy that you saw who gave you a certain stare that made you feel it like penetrated you, pierced your soul.
Can you explain to me the difference between certain kinds of people that you meet on death row on murder, capital murder?
Right.
Like the difference between people like that guy who you saw that was staring at you, or people like maybe, for instance, Oscar Boland.
Right.
So.
First of all, the person that I actually visited with was a wonderful, wonderful guy.
He was a father, had two children that he left behind when he was sentenced to death.
And he had found purpose on death row.
I mean, he was able to interact to some degree with other inmates, younger inmates, and was able to convey a message of when you get out, stay out of trouble and try to have a better life.
But there was a guy.
And I'm not going to name them because, you know, no need for that.
But there was a guy that was sitting across from him, and he did have.
And understand, I was 22.
I was 22 years old at the time, a skinny little college kid.
And he had a piercing look.
I mean, he, and knowing his history, probably as close to the psychopath, if not a psychopath, that you come.
And basically, when I say psychopath, it's someone.
Who doesn't have any feelings, or they're lost way, way inside of him somewhere.
They don't realize right from wrong.
I don't know if they realize right from wrong, but they just don't have it.
It's like no one's home.
It's like.
There's a disconnect or something.
There's a complete disconnect.
At the time, it was the first time I'd really ever seen anything like that.
I've dealt with a few clients, not many, less than a handful, who were similar in the sense that there was no feelings, no empathy.
The majority of people on death row and in prison are people that have empathy, that have feelings.
One of my clients who.
Was probably of similar nature, although he never had that piercing stare that I so vividly remember from Death Row.
He was a person who was an admitted serial killer.
And I specifically remember sitting in court with him when one of the women who fortunately was able to escape.
And survive his attack was telling the jury about her experience on I 4 and how she was initially tied up, sitting in the car, watching families on their way to Disney World, you know, kids happy.
Surviving Horror on Interstate 400:02:06
And she talks about how she basically.
Was certain that she was about to get, you know, killed and maybe raped and that this was the end.
And as he's describing what happened, and she was a petite woman and she had convinced my client to allow her to be untied and to sit next to him.
Because I don't know if you remember the story about Ted Bundy where the door handle is broken and the window crank, but this is before they had the.
Power windows.
Okay.
The window was not working.
So basically, she was trapped.
She couldn't get out.
Right.
And so she's describing all of this.
And he had it set up like that.
He had it set up.
It was set up like that.
I mean, that was his.
I mean, admittedly, I mean, he's the one that came forward later on and brought the authorities to some of his victims and what have you.
But I remember her telling the story.
One point she says, and then he stabbed me in the leg with his knife.
And my client got all upset and said some derogatory words about her to me and says to me, I didn't stab her, I cut her.
And it's, you know, basically, you're completely missing the whole point.
Right, right.
No, it doesn't really matter.
But the sad thing about someone like him is that he had a horrific childhood.
And, you know, I don't believe it's genetic.
I think it's.
It is behavior that repeats itself, and then some people are just so horrifically abused that they can't feel.
They're incapable of loving and showing emotions and caring because they've just been.
Abuse Repeating Itself Forever00:05:31
Nobody ever gave it to them.
They never had anything.
They never had the safety of a home.
They never had the safety of parents that would provide for them.
They were abused by the people that were supposed to love them.
You know, so I don't like to think that we're all born as decent human beings, and unfortunately, some of us get a real bad hand, and sometimes it turns us into people that just don't have feelings.
But those are few and far between.
Like I said, I represented thousands of individuals, mostly on very serious crimes, and the The vast majority of them are good people who had a bad day or a bad week and made a bad decision.
Made a bad decision, yeah.
And certainly not someone that should be locked up and have the key thrown away.
Wow.
And what happened eventually when this guy gave up a bunch of evidence towards a bunch of other crimes?
Right.
So this guy, you know, he was serving life.
For the kidnapping of the woman who survived.
And he had been on serving life for about 10 years.
Should we say this guy's name or no?
No, I prefer not.
I prefer not.
So he ends up contacting law enforcement to basically say, I want to help you guys solve some murders.
And the reason he wanted it was twofold.
He wanted to go on field trips with law enforcement.
You know, he was a manipulator for sure.
He wanted to go on field trips with law enforcement, so he'd get stuff to McDonald's and get a burger and, you know, what have you.
But also, he was tired of being in general population.
He was tired of being, you know, in prison, serving time with a bunch of other people serving a life sentence.
And so, his statement was that he wanted to be on death row.
To go to death row.
Right.
Now, Initially, they didn't really believe him.
Then, on one of the victims, he basically told him about a newspaper article that was 20 years earlier or 15 years earlier about a skull that was found in a particular river here in central Florida.
He said, You go to the FDLE evidence locker, you get that skull, you take a DNA sample from the skull, and you go to this woman in North Carolina and you get her DNA, and you'll find out that the woman in North Carolina is the mother of the victim.
And sure enough, that's what it was.
This guy was, I mean, he would remove all the teeth, he would remove the jaw, and everything would be dispersed in different areas.
So, very difficult to make an identification.
Usually, you do identifications from dental.
Yeah.
And so, you couldn't do it because they were all missing, they were all extracted.
So, our only real argument to keep him from going on death row.
At that point, and by that time, he was kind of wishy washy about where he wanted to go, but was that he had provided information to help them solve these other murders.
But the woman who testified about her experience on I 4 was so powerful that he ended up on death row.
And he lived there a few years.
Until I received a phone call on a Saturday morning from the chaplain at the Florida State Prison, basically telling me that he had died during the night.
He had died from execution or from natural causes during the night.
He had cancer.
Okay.
And I remember saying to him, So, what, you know, why are you calling me?
Why are you calling me?
I mean, you know, and evidently he had put me down as the person to contact in case of an emergency.
You were the only one he put in.
I was the only one.
I was the only one he had.
There was no one else.
And I said, Well, what does that mean?
And he said, Well, if you do nothing, we're going to bury him on the prison grounds.
But if you're willing to pay for his cremation, which was like $300 or something like that, then you can get his ashes and take him off the prison grounds.
And so I paid for his cremation and got him out of prison.
Wow.
That's insane.
So, you still have this guy's ashes?
No.
A Catholic priest who knew him gave him a proper burial.
And so he's been buried somewhere in the Jacksonville area.
Incredible story.
Defending People with Stories00:05:11
Do you ever get any kind of criticism for the humanism you display with the people that you associate with, the people you defend?
I mean, big time.
A lot of people, I'm sure, don't understand it.
I've received hate mail.
I've received threatening phone calls.
I've had to shut down my Facebook page because of angry people who don't really understand.
You know, I don't endorse criminal activity, I don't endorse killing people.
I don't.
You know, I wouldn't want to experience the pain of having lost a loved one.
You know, but I recognize that, as I said earlier, life is a bunch of different shades of gray.
It's not black and white.
And we're all fellow human beings.
And so I have no problems doing what I do.
And I have no problems trying to humanize someone who.
At first, reflection may appear to be a monster.
I mean, that's my job in those types of cases, and I think I'm good at it, and I'll keep doing it.
So, what do you think the biggest thing in your career, representing these drug cases, these murder cases, what is the biggest thing that you've learned that you've taken away from all of it?
Whether it be a personal thing or something like a message to project out into society.
Is there one thing that you could point out that's like, yes, that's the one thing that I've learned from all these people and from all these experiences?
Yeah.
I think probably the biggest thing that I've learned, and I thought about that a little bit, and I'm going back and forth on it.
But so when I first became a defense lawyer, I thought that my biggest problem as a defense lawyer would be to represent people who were charged with DY manslaughter or people who had done something because they were under the influence.
And the reason for that was that my dad struggled with alcohol and drug addiction.
And I had this incredibly strong belief that it was a choice and that it was no excuse.
And what I've learned over the years is we all have struggles.
And I have no problems representing people that, because the majority of the people that I represent, Do stupid stuff when they're under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
And they're generally good people.
They're people that have a story that may have a reason why they ended up being addicted.
I mean, I have represented wonderful veterans who did incredible deeds for the United States, but with the PTSD, and it's a struggle.
Life has become a struggle.
One of the things that I tried to talk to potential jurors about, especially in criminal cases, is the fact that we're all different and we all deal with adversity in different ways.
And some of us are better at it and some of us are not so good at it, but we're all still the same.
And so I think the biggest thing that I've learned from it is I think I have a better understanding of.
People and people that you know commit crimes, um, and uh, and I think the biggest message I think that I would you know tell young lawyers or people that would be involved in doing what I do is to learn to listen you know,
to learn to listen to your client, their families, their stories, and then help convey that to show you know that they're decent people.
Misunderstood and made some bad decisions.
Right.
All right.
Wow.
Heavy shit.
Good enough for tonight?
Pretty good.
Awesome, man.
Anything for the future?
Anything now in the near future exciting you got going on?
I got a bunch of stuff going on, but don't really want to talk about ongoing cases, but I'm going to keep doing this for a long time.
Yeah.
That's awesome.
Well, thank you so much for coming on today.
We've learned a lot and some pretty incredible stories.