D4vd to go to trial for murder. Here's the latest

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Murder case against singer David will go to trial. David Burke is accused of killing 14 year old Celeste Rivas Hernandez. Her body was discovered last year stabbed and dismembered in a car owned by Burke. Prosecutors contend that Burke initiated sex with her when she was 13 and that she threatened to expose their relationship and derail his career. Burke has pleaded not guilty to the charges and his attorney has denied the allegations. Joining us to break down the judge's decision and what this trial could look like is attorney Rachel Fassay. Thank you so much for being with us again this morning. The judge found there is enough [00:00:29] Rachel Fassay: evidence to proceed. Can you talk about how significant that ruling is? That is a very unsurprising ruling, a preliminary hearing. Remember they're only establishing probable cause, not anything beyond a reasonable doubt, not even more likely than not. So we're around a 20 to 40% chance that he did it in the ways that the prosecution has alleged with the special circumstances that they have alleged and they have said all of that. I think there is a 20 to 40% chance that a jury will find that he is guilty if this trial goes forward and he's letting the trial go forward. So it's significant in that we reach a jury. We're going to the next step, but it is in no way surprising given the evidence we have seen over the course of the last week. And we have seen so much evidence over the last week with really emotional and graphic testimony at times. How much of what we've heard there is likely to make it before the jury? Almost all of it. I think that we will. hear all of this again in front of a jury. It may be more fleshed out. It may have more detail and the defense will likely challenge it much harder in front of a jury. Some of it may be excluded. The defense is going to work hard to exclude specific evidence. They will rely on how it was collected. The procedure of how it was provided from one person to the next, which is called chain of custody. So there are going to make arguments that this evidence shouldn't come in but if it's up to the prosecution all of what we have seen and much much more will all come back to us again during the trial well that's [00:02:12] Speaker 3: prosecutors presented dna evidence digital evidence financial records tax messages as we're talking about just a substantial amount of evidence here which pieces are typically going to receive the [00:02:22] Rachel Fassay: most scrutiny when it comes to the defense i think there's a few things the defense will absolutely use to try to prove his innocence and one is the chainsaw there was not blood found on the chainsaws that came into evidence that's a huge deal given the fact that she was dismembered now there may be a missing chainsaw so that the da would have to focus there or say that it was cleaned well but the no blood on the chainsaws is a really big deal in a dismemberment case where they are saying he ordered chainsaws essentially to dismember her so that that's a really big deal we don't have a murder weapon we don't know the timing of her death anything relating to her body um is is really subject to debate and subject to a lot of questioning because there is no way that an expert will be able to conclude her timing of death the exact manner of death and establish that timeline so that's really i think where the defense is going to hone in uh they there's no doubt he covered a lot up there's no doubt they had a relationship so i think the defense is going to focus on the exact cause timing manner of death and show that there is only circumstantial evidence and the direct evidence isn't necessarily [00:03:49] Speaker 1: there for that yeah there's so much going on in this case and you have to remember she's only 14 years old we've talked about her parents being in the courtroom i thought it was interesting a lot of the testimony yesterday focused on her parents that they apparently knew the two of them had a relationship because they signed a consent waiver at some point for her to travel with him allegedly he had gone to church with her family and other outings how does that play into his liability in this case and of course they're not on trial but is there any legal precedent for them being held accountable in some [00:04:16] Rachel Fassay: way i don't think that's going to happen in this case there could be an argument made that there would be some sort of liability for what they were allowing to happen if they showed they were allowing a sexual relationship to happen um i think that the da will likely try to exclude some of that evidence going forward uh if they're trying to blame the parents these are parents that have now been through far too much and they are also victims they're mourning the loss of their daughter so i don't think that that will play well at trial um and it really does actually just establish further the relationship that they were having so i don't see that as a huge deal um but it's it's so painful for the parents it's painful to hear and watch it's a it it there's a lot of judgment that would be associated with that but i don't think that lessons how this played out with him got it okay rachel thank you so much for [00:05:24] Speaker 3: for being with us this morning and breaking all that down. We appreciate it. Thank you.