Detective Botched Teen’s Fatal Ride Investigation: Defense

[00:00:00] Speaker ?: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I have the opportunity to address you at this point in time. [00:00:10] Speaker 1: First of all, I want to thank you for taking time out of your busy lives and being here. The second thing I want to tell you is sympathy. I'm a father, I'm a grandfather, and I'm a human being. Of course, I have sympathy for Sophie and her family. One thing is indisputable. No one knew how serious Sophie's injuries were. No one. Not her mother, not Cooper, not her brother, not the brother's girlfriend. No one knew that. It's an indisputable fact. One thing I'm not going to do, which the state likes to do, is put words where they don't belong. Innuendo what we believe has no place in this courtroom. Detective Slavey had two roles in this case. His first role was as an investigator. His second role was an affiant on a 30-page arrest warrant. Those were his roles. Detective Slavey turned a tragic accident into a crime. Detective Slavey. That's what he tried to do. Slavey knew his first priority, even though he testified that he was only involved. He's been a cop for 19 years. But he was involved at Torrenton with motor vehicle accidents, serious motor vehicle accidents, and as a state policeman. So he's one month into his role as lead detective in this case. I believe the judge will tell you that inadequate police investigation started from minute one, when Slavey and two other officers came to that hospital. Whether it was 3 or 3.30, they knew they were coming here for an accident. Number one, they knew that there was a fatality. Number two, the first priority, not to put a state trooper to watch Cooper's truck. The first priority was to send one trooper to his house to confront him, ask him if he would take a test. Either urine, blood, or breath. The second task that he was to perform that he didn't, was to send a trooper to a judge of the Superior Court. These accidents, he didn't want to admit it, predominantly happened in the evening. So judges routinely get woken up, they sign what they signed, a search warrant to get his blood. They never did that. That was the most important thing that Slavey could do. He failed. That was an adequate police procedure. He failed in that. His second obligation, as I said, was to attempt to do everything necessary. not rely on children, days or weeks afterwards, to say how much Cooper will let from him, what was his condition. What was his condition at 11:30, not what was his condition at 9 o'clock or 10 o'clock. However, he chose not to do that, he sent an officer to guide and guard his truck, for what reason, I don't know. Now, as I said, he was not only the lead investigator, and I had him tell you what does an investigator have to do. So he has to gather all the evidence. Now, I asked him, you can judge his demeanor, in fact, he said this is the first time a defendant, or a defense, had to call me as a witness. Why didn't the state call him as a witness? I'm sure you could tell from his credibility or her in credibility on the witness stand, because when Sophie first left that vehicle, for 11 months, he thought that vehicle stopped on Route 72, by Reservoir 4, on Route 72, by Reservoir 4, and she got out of the vehicle. That's what he thought. Why did he call Nesbitt? Why did he call Mark Sanders? You heard him testify. In 700 prior investigations, Mark Sanders never used Life 360. Remember my question to him. Did you ever hear of anyone using Life 360, any police officer, to determine speed? But that's not why he was called, ladies and gentlemen. He was called, not to make an animation, he was called to tell Slady where locations were. And Life 360 can give you, it's a consumer app, it can give you a general location. We all agree to that. But it can't determine speed. Speed. And what they're trying to do in this case is have him do something he's never done. In all the years he's a police officer and no one has ever done. Speed. And speed, ladies and gentlemen, if a truck has pipes, loud pipes, that doesn't determine speed. And talking about that speed, think of what Detective Branson said. What did he say? He did a recreation of this accident. What did his recreation show? It showed through, I believe he called it Cyril's Law. He examined the scene and what did he say? Cyril's Law said my client was going 13 to 15 miles an hour when Sophie herself left the vehicle. What does Sanders say in his animation? I believe he says 20 miles an hour, 18 to 20. That's about 35 or 40 percent off. So all the speed they're talking about in this animation, ladies and gentlemen, is the product of Life 360. And Life 360 specifically says, and it's the disclaimer, if you go to its app it says what? It says don't use this to determine speed. It just shows general location. That's why. That's why. And they're using this for something and you hear the state referring to it many times as speeding. Loud pipes do not equate with speed. Slavey, instead of doing proper police procedure, as I said, does what? He uses the testimony of children. Now you've got to remember this, ladies and gentlemen. There was no problem with these kids after this incident. You heard testimony that a number of these kids went to comfort my client. They went to comfort him. Why? He had a three and a half year relationship with this girl since they were 13 and 14. You didn't hear anyone say that Cooper was ever abusive. And you heard Lynn talk. Lynn never said anything except they've had hundreds of interactions between them. And there's no evidence whatsoever to say that Cooper Ouellette ever did anything like push her out of the car. You know, push her against the car. Like, kick her. They tell you what happened that night and what they don't tell you or what you have to judge is the credibility of some of these people that came into this courtroom. And credibility and demeanor, you heard some of the language these same people are using. They're not my witnesses. They're their witnesses. You can tell somebody's demeanor about their respect, not only for me, not for them, not for you, but for a judge in a superior court. They have no respect. None. None. All of a sudden their stories changed. What do I mean by that? Devin. Devin Crowell. Who was he? He's 21 years old, hosting, remember his testimony, hosting parties for 17 year old kids and 18 year old kids. And when I asked him about it, he goes, "Well, I buy alcohol, but all these parties, I'm the only one who drinks alcohol." You never heard from this investigation, this lengthy investigation, you never heard the fact that his credit cards were run and how many parties he did at where he had all these kids over. And he goes to the prom, he's 21 years old, and when he comes from the prom, what does he do? He brings liquor and alcohol, alcoholic beverages. A 21 year old man, not a 17 year old kid, a 21 year old man, and he gives a statement over the telephone to Slaby that Slaby doesn't like. Now, he asks you to imagine things. Can you imagine when Slaby took him after he made a telephone statement that doesn't say anything about what he came in here and testified to? Can you imagine Slaby bringing him to Troupel and saying, "Listen, you're 21 years old. You know what risk of injury to minors, you know what that charge is, you know what you could face? How many counts of that did you face? So guess what? You better tell me what I want to hear." And remember, Slaby, for 11 months, had the wrong location and he met at least three times with the medical examiner. And at one time they had a three hour meeting. And at that three hour meeting, 11 months later, the medical examiner still had not ruled this a homicide. Still, after 11 months, after three or four meetings with Slaby. And remember one thing. Life 360 does not give you the speed of a vehicle. In that animation, it attempts to. And look at or listen to the testimony because you have a right to have a read back. Listen to what the accident reconstruction says about what he found the speed of the vehicle to be at the time Slaby left. And remember this. The road was wet. And I asked him, "What did you know about deceleration that it started at 15 and when Sophie tried to leave the vehicle, did it go down to 13?" There's not going to be, ladies and gentlemen, don't leave your common sense on the steps of this courtroom when you come in here. That's why we don't have professional jurors. We don't. And you've got to remember when you hear the laws that man gives you the law, you must follow it. And follow it when he talks about, if he gives you that charge, inadequate investigation by the police. Inadequate. Never mind what the state's attorney says, "Oh, they did a broad investigation. They looked over every route. They looked under everywhere." Just take his words, because those words are just his words. They're not what occurred here. And if that did happen, believe me, they would have called him as a witness. Remember, lead investigator. He investigated everything. And the affiant on the warrant. The reason why we're here is he swore the facts that were true in his eyes. And I'm going to tell you one thing. We have an expression in the law. You can indict a ham sandwich. And you can always arrest a ham sandwich. You know why? Because when Slavy makes those statements to a judge, there's no defense lawyer in there questioning him. There's no cross-examination of Slavy. You saw his demeanor. You saw he didn't even know how many pages were in the report that he didn't give me for months. I never got those notes. And I had to then go through all his notes, read it, and digest it in a short period of time. It's their burden of proof. It doesn't shift to the defense. We don't have to call any witnesses. Look who we had to call. We had to call a medical examiner. We had to call someone who is an expert. Worked for six years with the Michigan State Police. Testified why? Why can't you use Life360? Because there's too many variables. Remember what the testimony showed. That if you have GPS in a vehicle, that GPS would go directly to a satellite. And I asked the detective, I said, "Detective Bronson, what does that mean?" I said, "How many points does the satellite give you that tells you that the data is reliable?" I'll never forget it. He said, "One million." You know how many points of data that's not even correct data that was given by Mr. Sanders when he did that animation? Seven hundred. One million points of data. Seven hundred. So they use Life 360 when they want in their animation. They use it when they want. It's important for you to understand that. They use it to plot location, a general location. Locust Road. They find out 12 months because they go to Nesbun. Nesbun says this didn't happen on Route 72. It happened on Locust Road. The state wants you to think there's no evidence, no evidence whatsoever. That man gets up here and says to you they were arguing. How does he know they were arguing? How does he possibly know that? Was he in the car? The only person who we can say was legally intoxicated on that evening, unfortunately, was the decedent. Because we know she was twice the level of intoxication by the taxology that's taken by the medical examiner. And look at the ring footage. Look at the ring footage in the house of the decedent. It shows my client going down the driveway. What does he do when he goes down the driveway? He attempts to get Sophie out of the car. He can't. It'll show him running up into the house to get her mother. What does her mother say? Her mother says a number of things. And I hated to ask, and I apologize before I cross-examined her. So I have really deep sympathy for her. I really do believe me. I had to ask her a number of things. Relevant things are this. Did you believe Sophie was seriously injured? No. Did you try to get an ambulance? We did. But we thought maybe she just had to get her stomach pumped. And then the state wants to bring up text messages. They didn't ask Lynn at 8:38 in the evening, that evening we're talking about, did you text your daughter? And she said, yeah, I texted my daughter. And I asked her, what did you text your daughter? Remember what she said? Try to control your drinking this evening. Why would she say that? Why would she say that? She didn't say, tell Cooper to control his drinking. She knew Cooper was going to be driving the car. She knew Cooper for three and a half years. There's never been any kind of incident like this. The mother, Lynn, testified there's been hundreds of encounters with these people. They loved each other. Whether it be, this is a tragedy. A tragedy. If I were to talk about what kind of tragedy, think of Romeo and Juliet. Because Julie is dead. And when he finds out she is dead, look at their exhibit. They don't come in and say, they may talk to the mother, they don't come and say to Cooper, oh sorry your girlfriend is dead. They begin to start questioning and they got body cans on. So you'll see that. And then at some point in time they say, sit down. And what does Cooper do? He's in disbelief. He's in disbelief because when she went to the hospital, when he texted her mom, is she okay? The mother first said, yeah, okay. She's okay. And then there's another conversation. And the mother says, and correct, it's your memory that controls. And what does the mother say? Well, she's having x-rays and people are putting lines in her. What does that indicate to you? I don't know if you've ever been involved in a fall or an accident. If you think it's so unusual that an emergency room would take x-rays or take blood. It's not unusual. That happens every day. She didn't say, Cooper, she's in intensive care. We don't think she's going to make it. That was never said. In fact, she basically said at the end of the conversation, go home and get some rest. That's my understanding. I may be wrong, but that was what my notes showed me. Now, let's talk about Locust Road. On Locust Road, you'll look, because Life 360 is good for one thing, location. Life 360 shows, I believe it's 451, Locust Road. He says they were arguing. I have no idea. I could never say that to you. Because I'd be imagining something that didn't exist. There's nothing in the evidence that shows that. But there's evidence that she's drunk. She says, let me out. I have to get out. What does he do? Does he go fast? No. You're going to hear, you're going to see on that map, location. And it shows zero, zero, zero for speed, I believe. And you'll hear the ring. That's her opening the door. You'll hear her saying out. Well, ladies and gentlemen, from the top of that seat, we already heard through the detectives, to the ground in that area, it's wooded and rugged. [00:22:10] Speaker ?: She goes down. [00:22:11] Speaker 1: She goes down. Whether she twisted her ankle, I don't know. Because I'd be making it up. But she says out. And then, Cooper then takes off. There's no indication he hit her with the car. There's no indication. And what did Sanders tell us? Well, she was at that location. And I asked Slavy, was she in the woods? I must have asked him ten questions before he admitted, yes, on that animation, she's in the woods. And she's in the woods for two minutes. And remember, she doesn't have a bloody nose until this girl, who's under the influence, is walking in the woods where there's trees and sticks and branches. And she comes. What does she say? He said, she says, I'm scared. Ladies and gentlemen, she texts her girlfriend and says this. As Cooper is coming back to pick her up, she says, I'm saved. You know what texts are. They don't say everything. The next text said, scared. Did she say, I was scared? Maybe that's what she meant. She saw him coming back. She says, now I'm saved. She was out in a dark, desolate area. It shows his car moving away. Then it shows his car coming back and stopping. And what occurs then? She voluntarily, she gets into his vehicle. She's scared of him. He wants you to think she's afraid. She's scared. And it's important to listen to Detective Bronson. I didn't have to call an accident reconstructionist to refute what his findings were. He told you what his findings was. What he used is Cyril's law. It's what every reconstructionist uses. And guess who makes the animation? Sanders. And guess who puts the speed of the vehicles in? Sanders. He does exactly what he told us that he's never done before. And 700 investigations by Nesbitt. He's never done it before. So he's going to do it now. He's going to make an animation where he doesn't know the speed. He fills it in. He fills it in. Is that objective? Or is it subjective? He wants you to rely on that. He wants you to say that my client exercised an extreme indifference. Now she exits the vehicle. Sanders tells you that she goes 12 feet down the road. He finds biological material. He finds some clothing. He finds that. He also, my client, is 50 some feet past where she is. So they talk about eight minutes. What do you think he's doing? Sitting there for eight minutes? They know the slope of that hill. They know that. Slayton knows it better than anybody. Sanders doesn't know it because he's never been there. How does he do this animation and never ever go to the site? He never does. What does that mean to you? He's just doing an animation on a map where he's never been there. That makes a lot of sense. And he had how many years, even before this trial? Even after he testified in a preliminary hearing? He doesn't ever go back there. He can't justify that animation. What he can do, legally do, is show you a general location of the phones. Remember this, ladies and gentlemen. He does not, he does not attempt to tell you speed because he can. What he does is put it on a map speed. And remember, that's based on nothing except Life 360, exactly what the disclaimer in Life 360 says you can't do. He does, and if his investigation is incorrect, that animation is incorrect. Now, they want you to believe that animation. They want you to think that eight minutes, when he's 54 feet away from her body, that it takes him eight minutes to go where he is to pick her up. And remember the other testimony, she was heavy. They had trouble picking her up. So she's on the road, he picks her up, and what does he do? He puts her in his truck. Now, all this baloney about, she's seven minutes late from curfew, ten minutes late for curfew. Do you think that means anything? After this girl, he knows, goes out of the car, do you think they're talking about that? Or he's thinking that? And I want to say one more thing about that. He's driving a truck that's 21 feet long. For him, he's facing down that road, field view. For him to go down there and turn, make two or three turns of that truck, and drive back to her house, is going to take a hell of a lot longer than going around and getting to her house. And maybe it was 15, 20 seconds longer. You didn't hear anything. Because you've got to remember one thing. We don't have to do anything. We don't have to prove anything. He makes it sound like we've got to prove his case. His case is based on Slaby. Slaby and the information that Slaby gets. And you would have never heard Slaby, or his incredibility, or his testimony, unless I called him. And I can tell you right now, after 50 years of being a lawyer, I've never called the main investigator on a case, or the affiant on a warrant. And he told you he's never been called. And I'm going to tell you, I took no pleasure when I crossed the exam in Lynn. Her testimony, I told you what it was, but what else did Lynn say? Lynn never talked about an abusive relationship. Lynn, to give her credit, didn't exaggerate, didn't stretch the truth. She could have, and she could have a number of times. Once her poor daughter had passed away, she corroborates what Cooper had said when he got there. That she had to vomit. She had to throw up. It's corroborated. One hour after her daughter was pronounced dead. And what else did she say? She said Cooper didn't smell like alcohol. She was in close proximity to him, I asked. He did not smell like alcohol. They want to do what they should have done correctly and follow the law. They didn't do it. Slavy, after all his bumbling, then comes 6:10 in the morning with two other troopers with body cams. As I said before, they come. You have the film. You can see how they come and ask him questions before they tell him she passed away. And he's trying to tell you in the six and a half minutes that he talked to his mother, he's trying to tell you that that's where he made up some kind of story. You have the body cam. You look at his reaction when he found out she was dead. This was the love of his life. Whether he's 18, 19, 30 or 40. This is a person he spent every day with. Every day with. You look at how he reacted. You ask yourself, are those crocodile tears or is that real remorse? Not for anything he did, but now knowing that his love was dead. It's the state's obligation and duty to present all the evidence. It's the duty to present all the evidence. For him to even tell you that I'm going to ask this, tell you this. Listen, I've never been an officer in this court for 52 years. I've never lied to a judge, a jury, or a client. I've never done that. He talks about extreme indifference to human life. You know what that is? That is, if this incident happened on Fieldwood and he got in his truck and just left her in the road like a dog. And ladies and gentlemen, it happens. That's reality. That's what reckless indifference is when you don't care about the person. You're trying to tell me that when he goes back to the house and Lynn doesn't have her phone, he backs out of the driveway. You've been told it's a long driveway. He backs out of it. And what does he do? He finds her phone. And what does he do? He brings her phone back to her mother and gives it to their mother. But he wants to take that eight minutes and wants you to draw an innuendo or an unfair inference. You know what happened on that roadway with that 21-foot truck. Well, ladies and gentlemen, by the way, that truck weighs 7,400 pounds. You heard that in the testimony. And you heard our medical examiner, what he said. And our medical examiner agrees with their accident reconstructionist. Do you think that's just a coincidence? It's far from a coincidence. You take your common knowledge and sense. If a 7,400-pound truck brings over a 130-pound young girl, what is going to be the result of that on the human body? Now, they want to talk about the inside of the shirt. Listen, they had plenty of chances to send that to the FBI lab and do what they call forensic testing. They can do that. This is not 1923. This is 2023. They do that stuff. They can find it microscopically. They can use lasers. They can do it. And I asked Slavy, do you remember that? Do you remember this woman? What she told you from the lab? And first of all, he didn't know who I was talking about. He acted like I was making something up. I had to go refresh his recollection. He looks at it for like two minutes. Oh, yeah, yeah. That happened. That happened. Listen, it's not an easy job you have. I'm not saying it is. But what I'm saying is this. Sympathy is the biggest factor that I feel that I have to cure in this case. And like I said, I have sympathy. I have sympathy. I don't enjoy asking her, have you filed a lawsuit against six other people that you're blaming for the death of your daughter? I didn't enjoy that. I didn't enjoy reciting some of the things she said. And she basically said she didn't read it. But she's been a paralegal for 30 years. She had plenty of time to read that lawsuit. I wish on many occasions that I could come into that jury room and answer some of the questions you may have for me. Unfortunately, I've never had that opportunity and I probably never will. But what I'm saying to you is this. Consider the judge's charge if he gives it to you about the investigation by the police. The investigation that this man says is thorough. It's complete. Remember, they didn't even have the right location on Route 72. And when I asked him, he like beat around the bush. And then I said, did you get a vape? Did you find the vape there that you claim was part of this case? What do you think? I made that up? He didn't want to answer that. His credibility, in this case, is far from what I would call a normal witness. Even a normal witness. Never mind a witness who's the head of this investigation. And remember, this is one month after he joins Major Crime. That was probably Major Crime's biggest mistake. I don't know because I'd be doing what he did when he talks about arguing. I don't know what slave he is now. I only hope he's out of Major Crime. I hope he's sitting somewhere in an office taking fingerprints. His credibility is zero. His complete investigation as the lead investigator means nothing. He tried to take a tragic accident and incident and turned it into a crime. That's what took 12 months to get a warrant. That's what took 12 months, ladies and gentlemen. Putting all the pieces together. You know, lawyers, I try it when people say, "Well, what does a lawyer do?" Well, a lawyer or even a prosecutor, what do we do? We're like waiters in a restaurant. The cops are the cooks. They make it. They do the investigation. They give us what evidence they've recovered and we have to present it. So I don't blame them. But I do blame slavery and I do blame the investigation. And I would ask you, please examine, take as long as you need to decide this case. Because one person is lost. We could never bring her back. But I don't want the second half of that tragedy to occur. I don't want my client to be lost forever. I don't want my client to be lost forever. [00:37:56] Speaker ?: Thank you.