Lacy Boles Trial! Opening Statements! Trial Lawyer Breaks it Down!

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: a brand new trial just started today out of georgia the trial of lacy bowles now lacy is being represented by a high-profile defense attorney named brian steel who i have tremendous amount of respect for now you may remember brian steel because he represented young thug in the ysl trial and what happened in that case was very interesting and really showed you what a good attorney will do for you what happened there is that brian steel found out about an ex parte meeting between the judge the prosecutor and a witness in that case and he was not present for that meeting and what he found out from that meeting allegedly is that there was some level what he felt of was coercion of that witness and therefore he moved for a mistrial now the judge was not so happy about this and the judge asked brian and tried to bully him into telling him who told brian steel about this ex parte meeting and brian refused to tell the judge who his source was and the judge threatened him threatened to hold him in contempt and brian said go right ahead and the judge actually did held brian steel in contempt he was arrested and held in jail for a little while eventually the judge is removed the case and he was let out of contempt and that was it but that was such a defining moment i think for brian steel to really show you what this attorney is made of and what an attorney is really supposed to do how far the lengths that he's supposed to go in representing his client so we had the opening statements today it was a very interesting opening statement i felt so the prosecutor got up and the prosecutor's theory here is is that lacy killed her husband dan acres they were going out for many years and eventually they got married a couple months before the death of her husband and the prosecution's theory is that she actually killed him and then staged it to look like an unaliving sound familiar all right well the prosecutor started off the opening statement saying that this was a roller coaster type of relationship it was the type of relationship where they loved hard but they also fought hard and then you started talking about bonnie and clyde and there was an objection okay the jury was then let out of the room and brian steel objected to this and i think rightfully so i think this was a good objection that this isn't closing argument we start making comparisons and and uh examples and type it you're starting ready to lead towards argument really the opening statement is just to let the jury know what you expect the evidence to show not to start showing comparisons and and giving examples and like those those type of things that's already bordering an argument so brian steel made the objection so the prosecutor argued well that's not a legal objection of course it is a legal objection because you are you are constrained to certain limitations during your opening statement you're not allowed to argue and that is exactly what brian steel argued now for whatever reason i which i'm not quite exactly sure about the judge overruled that objection but there was one other issue that came up during this argument because the prosecutor said instead of objecting and then sending the jury out every time i may as well give you a little bit of a preview what i'm going to be talking about and that is that he said he's going to be talking about some of the defense's evidence that he expects the that he anticipates the defense is going to put on now you would think you would think that this is fair game because after all you're just talking about what you anticipate the evidence to show whether it's from the prosecutor or whether it's from the defense like if you're the prosecutor you anticipate the defense is going to put on certain evidence certain experts you would think that you can talk about this in opening statement however brian steel came ready with the case site which said that no prosecutor specifically in the criminal trial is not allowed to forecast and anticipate and talk to the jury uh about the evidence that the defense is expected to put up not allowed to do that and he's got a case site and it was very compelling and they argued about this and the prosecutor said he's never had this argument made in all the 20 whatever 25 years that he's been practicing but nevertheless if you got the case and this is a good lesson to all the attorneys out there if you got the case you've got it on hand and you can show it to the judge and say hey look this is a direct quote from the case the judge can look at it and say well i guess my hands are tied uh and that's exactly what happened he quoted this case called parker versus state he said he can't do it and therefore he sustained that objection so he did allow him to talk about these examples bonnie and clyde and he eventually actually started talking about sid and nancy which is another couple that what happened with sid and nancy is that nancy was found dead stabbed to death and sid doesn't remember anything happening that night so i think he was initially arrested he was let out on bond and then he od'd on heroin a little time later and that's the story of sin and nancy and again the prosecutor is trying to say that this is the type of relationship that these lacy and her husband dan shared this kind of crazy relationship you know very loving but then also had very rough times as well now the date of the murder was december 22nd 2019 right before covid really the covid hysteria really hit that was more like in march of 2020 so this was a few people were getting covid but it wasn't really becoming an epidemic yet and that's when this occurred for whatever reason the trial couldn't get get tried until now for reasons that are not relevant to the jury's consideration now who was dan acres dan was a local sheet metal union laborer he was working at that time at a hospital working on different metal or construction there and money was tight lacy was the stay-at-home mom they had a bunch of kids they actually had kids from different marriages as well and he used to coach his kids in baseball he coached his kids in football and um they did get into arguments and one time dan recorded one of their explosive arguments and you'll be able to hear that as the trial goes on they got married shortly before his death even though they were going out for a longer time before that and the day of his death he actually got a gift a pet pig for one of his kids and they fought about it that was something that lacy and dan fought about saying that it's not fair to the other kids and that they don't have so much money to pay for it so that was that now according to the prosecution the next thing was that dan went to the store to buy some things with his six-year-old kid and he was gone for four hours and when he returns lacy got very mad at him but you've gone for four hours what exactly were you doing for four hours in a dollar tree store or a dollar store you're supposed to like go there and come back what are you doing there and lacy is going to say or you're going to hear from lacy that they were got into a physical act it wasn't just a verbal argument they got into a physical argument at that point and she's going to say that he actually choked her and took her phone away and then she's going to say that she went to her dad's house to kind of get away from the situation now she didn't call the police and there are no choking marks or any physical markings on her body of injury from that alleged altercation now eventually she comes home and then dan comes home and she says that he was that she was startled when he came back home then at some point her father lacy's father came over with mcdonald's for the kids and lacy said that dan got very angry by the fact that his father-in-law was bringing over food for the kids kind of suggesting that he cannot take care of his own family cannot afford food for his family so he got very upset about it according to lacy so dan leaves he goes to his car to be alone and eventually he goes to a bar now at this bar a crazy coincidence happens and he bumps into an old friend of his and it's a friend that's a nurse she was working actually at the same hospital where he was working and she was working as a nurse and he was working as this metal worker that gets on the construction site and they knew each other for years they spoke at the bar and she's going to testify for you that this was the same old man that she always knew not someone who was in the throes of serious depression uh someone who was contemplating unaliving themselves this was the same old dan then after the bar dan goes to mcdonald's gets some food and he comes home shortly after 12 a.m now after 12 a.m he comes home and he encounters a booby trap what was the booby trap it was a swiffer mop that lacy seemed to put right behind the door so that when the door opens the mop will fall and alert her of dan being home so that's what happens she wakes up and he goes downstairs it's a split level you can go upstairs you can go downstairs he decided to go downstairs to the basement perhaps to eat his mcdonald's according to the prosecution she follows him downstairs he turns around she pulls out a gun and shoots him right in the face with one shot and it goes right by his nostril right into his nostril and he does now she calls 911 and she claims that she tried to do cpr on him and she got very bloody and therefore you're going to find some bloody tracks around the house and the door handle was bloody and she tells 911 that actually dan shot himself and when she was asked where are the guns she says that she picked it up and she threw it somewhere and then she said that she was going to be here now eventually the emt come and the police officers the first responders come and they see that she is hyperventilating she's she's going she's hysterical and therefore they suggest that she gets taken to the hospital well she goes to the hospital and at the hospital she throws away all of her clothing and she washes her hands very well from the blood her story begins to evolve according to the prosecution in the first interview she said that she watched him come home and according to the investigators it was impossible for her to actually from where she was saying she was to actually see him come home but okay so she comes home she says that she watches him come home in the first interview and and then she says that she watches him take out a gun and shoot himself that was according to the first interview but then she realized that there's more of a problem to that story because the bullet didn't exit his head and it had a weird kind of entry through his nostril so she decides to change the story according to the prosecution and then she says the story is the following that instead what happened was that he said to her that he's going to shoot himself there was some sort of discussion between the two of them and he says i'm going to shoot myself and they she screams that she's and he says nothing can help me at this point god can't help me no one can help me and she says no she screams no no no and then she tries to wrestle the gun away from him and that's when he ends up shooting himself in the nose through the nostril into his head that was the second version of the of her story now the prosecutor prosecutor brought out a jenga tower and said that this is what happens you have this jenga tower you start taking pieces off and try to fit in your narrative it starts to crumble and collapse so he used that actually as an illustrative aid although i thought there could have been some sort of objection there you know using jengos as to show that again that's i guess i think that's bordering an argument also but brian steel let it go okay then we have the medical examiner the medical examiner gets the body and here's the reports that this was an unaliving and has a lot of problems with it he's got some questions about how this can really be an unalive why well because he finds no sooting or stifling or stifling which would mean that would be sooting and stifling would be if the gun was at very close range then some of the soot or the stifling would you find it on the body but he didn't find that on the body so it was strange for him to conclude that this wasn't unaliving because he actually after all the medical examiner has to determine not only the cause of death but also the manner of death and whether it's a homicide suicide undetermined so um he's trying to figure this out and he says you know why is there no stifling or sooting so he starts making more asking more questions even sends the report for peer review and he decides that the manner of death is actually homicide now in the next interview that she has with the police they ask her if dan is right or left-handed and she says right-handed however the pistol that was found was found right next to his left hand so that's a little bit odd so then she changes her story according to the prosecution and says that actually he was ambidextrous it wasn't just a right-handed person he also used his left hand and maybe that's why the gun was found next to his left hand now the evidence is going to show you that actually he is right-handed all the friends co-workers are going to testify that he is right-handed and not ambidextrous you're going to see that he throws a ball with his right hand you're going to see that he does everything with his right hand then she claims that she puts the holster in the gun safe shortly after he shoots himself she just grabs the gun grabs the holster there's also a holster and she puts it into her gun sick now the gun also happens to be lacy's gun it's lacy's gun now the prosecution points out that dan actually was not wearing a belt and it was a belt holster so he did not have a belt how exactly was he wearing that holster now she also claims that she did not wash her hands at home at all there she was asked did you wash your hands at home she said no but if you look at the sink the sink is going to show you that there is blood all over the sink so then she decides well that was really from her period that's where that blood is from all right well when you also know it that there was no blood on the safe where she put the gun afterwards allegedly and there is no blood on the holster even though she claimed that she did cpr and was filled with blood when she grabbed the holster she also says that she doesn't have a key to the gun safe so when the police comes to investigate and they ask her hey do you have a key to this gun safe she says no i have no idea i don't even know how to get into that gun safe but there was a bunch of keys that she had that she was going to take with her when the police were saying we're going to take you to the station for yet another interview so she grabs her keys and the police say no it's okay we're going to drive you you don't have to take your keys but on that key ring that's where the detective notices something very odd notices a key that looks like it could be to the gun safe and she's saying well i don't have a i'm going to have a key to the gun safe so he takes the keys and what do you know he looks at that key that he seems to him like it opens the gun safe and what do you know it does open the gun safe another very interesting part of this case now friends and co-workers are also going to tell you that he never owned a gun he never had a gun he never carried a gun and she actually had a gun and she would use it and bring it out all the time in fact he was on probation and he couldn't even have a gun on him that would be a violation of his probation also just one of the facts the prosecutor wanted them to know is that he actually scheduled an eye doctor appointment for himself on monday now usually people that are unaliving themselves do not schedule appointments for themselves shortly after they plan on unaliving themselves and he did there's also coincidentally no unaliving note so that is how the prosecutor ended their opening statement and then we moved on to brian steel so brian started off with the following that dan was actually not acting himself i'm going to play for you a clip of what he said at some point which is i thought a great clip but dan said that he i'm sorry brian said that dan was not acting himself he was distant and he separated himself from his family just a couple days leading up to this death his death that night actually as the prosecutor said he leaves at night and she texts him some very disturbing texts she texts him don't come home i blocked you on facebook messenger i'm going to get a lawyer and divorce you you're not going to see your kids we are done that's what she texted him that night when he went to the bar now lacy was sleeping in her room with her two of her kids and she did put the swiffer against the door in case he comes home since he knows she knows that she doesn't he does have a key and she wanted to know because she just sent him that very you know troubling text nasty text and of course he does come in as we've heard and he wakes her up because the swiffer because the booby trap and he walks downstairs and lacy comes downstairs after him and she does not have a gun he is holding a gun with his left hand saying you can't help me no one can help she screams no no no charges and lunges for his hand and while fighting for the gun it goes off through his nostril into his brain lacy falls on top of her on top of him starts to do cpr and screaming she runs upstairs leaving a blood trail into her room where her kids are there she kids wake up she calls 911 she's on the phone with them for nine minutes and she says you're going to be able to hear he says you'll be able to hear this 911 call you'll be able to decide for yourself whether this is someone who is faking or acting or whether this is actually um an honest person going hysterical because of what just happened now the 911 operator tells her to make sure that the gun is safe so she goes down at the direction of the 911 operator and goes and picks up the gun but she gets so nervous that she throws it away or she throws it down and then she goes and opens the door for the emt and the police but there's no body cam you're not going to see any body cam in this case so the police tell her because they see her sorry state that she's so hysterical that she needs to go to the hospital because she was so hysterical the detective according to brian did not take her clothing from the hospital you think she's supposed to be the one that's collecting the evidence or if she takes off all of her bloody clothing at the hospital she wants to get rid of them the detective has the business of collecting her clothing and yet the detective is the one that didn't collect her clothing it's not her fault and what do you expect of course you're going to clean up at the hospital she's supposed to stay there with bloody hands now also that interview at the hospital he did not record so he didn't record the interview with her at the hospital then she spends the next eight days planning dan's funeral then goes to the police for an interview eight days later gives another interview and of course everyone's going to agree that sometimes when somebody goes through a traumatic event they could very easily forget things and different details and they can come to them a little bit later so that's something that's a story evolving it's just a person having trouble because they just went through an extremely traumatic event now january 7th there's an interview where they give her a piece of paper and they tell her hey write out everything that happened and that's exactly what she does she does sit down there and writes down the narrative without stopping to think just writes down exactly how she remembers you can watch that video and you'll see that she was continuing to write out the whole story not stopping to think for a moment march 5th the sheriff again interviews her and then they're talking about how the gun goes right into the right nostril before shooting and what he said is that right is that there's no dna testing on the gun by the hammer or the trigger and if they would have done dna testing there and they would have discovered dan's dna there or his fingerprints they didn't do fingerprint either then they would have they would have been able to get that evidence in the case would have been very helpful for the case but they did not do that so poking some holes in the investigation now he says that this is not really a gun safe that we're talking about or this is just a little bit of a safe that people have in the house not really a gun safe and she did put the holster in the gun safe and the first time there was a test so they did the luminol testing there was a faint trace of the presence of blood all right now she um talking about the the keys but she said that she put the holster in there in the safe and uh we don't know that she actually knew that the safe key was on the kitchen how do we know that maybe somebody put it there maybe somebody after the death of dan put dan's safe key on her kitchen without even knowing about it so that's what he suggested that could have been the reason and maybe she didn't realize or remember that the key was actually in her key chain also very interesting is that when lacy was asked was dan suicidal this would be her point this would be your time to say yes he was incredibly depressed his whole life and he was getting suicidal she could have said that yet she said that he wasn't if this was all type of a way to stage it that she should have said that he was then we get to this point where i'm going to play for you uh dan talking about the medical examiner here we go and whether this was an unaliving or how depressing was his life at the time when he [00:22:54] Speaker 2: but dr lehman ancelon enforcement was mr acres depressed he had troubles was he unhandled and the detective his name is detective hardy h-a-r-d-y he and others tell the tech medical examiner dr lehman no he was really happy he was just promoted at work you will learn that's not true he was just furloughed it's about to be furloughed furloughed means laid off he just bought a pig as a christmas gift for the children and the pig's food and you're going to see this it's an email between the detective and the milk examiner and the detective writes who buys a pig or food for the pig whatever it says you go by the others and then buys the farm meaning and then kills themselves you will learn that mistakers never bought the pig he did return the food for the pig you'll see the receipt the receipt shows that he returned the food for the pig he couldn't afford what he wanted to do for his family he's a man of pride this was really haunting the prosecutor told you they're barely making it they're making it living like a lot of us it was broke they are broke on the 21st day of december 2019 that evening mr acres went to withdraw 40 dollars from his bank account two different occasions insufficient funds they don't have any money there's nothing wrong with not having money but to say he's happy-go-lucky he's buying a pig he's buying food for the pig he's got a great job he's looking forward to at the airport none of that's true you will see the evidence it may not be a lot to you all you may be stronger but to mr acres he didn't want this he didn't want it for lacy and the children he didn't want this stress you heard the prosecutor tell you that mr acres was on probation there was a felony sentence from 2009 for 15 years from douglas county you'll see the convictions he was on probation until 2024 it's 2019 he has five more years of probation you will learn you will learn that he knew that he was looking at going to prison in december of 2019 for not complying with the orders of the court for probation he wrote that it's on his phone so he's broke it's christmas time he's looking at going to prison for years he's losing his job and that night the very night going into morning lacy she did not know that he was contemplating suicide she wrote that she wrote to him you will see it there's curse words in it she never thought it would be publicly displayed but it says in essence going to my lawyer you're done you're done don't come home you'll lose your job you're gonna lose your kids i'm divorcing you so the happy-go-lucky guy i don't know many happy-go-lucky guys with all that so the medical examiner was not told accurately by the detective [00:28:26] Speaker 1: so that's just a little bit of the taste how he is framing that great job of course by brian he's a greater lawyer uh we'll see if it actually works the defense you know um but uh crime of framing it that this was not a person who's just happy to look he's had a lot of troubles he doesn't even have forty dollars in his account he's losing his job he's about to be put away for violating his probation uh you know drawing a completely different picture than the prosecution here so he also says that the medical examiner may have actually agreed he the medical examiner agreed that he may have washed away the sooty you know so that lack of something by cleaning up his face because it was filled with blood he may have washed away the actual sitting that he was looking for also he said there was an abrasion on the outside of dan's nose how did that abrasion get there another abrasion get there and he according to the defense going to brian steel it makes sense that the gun that they were fighting about must have knocked into his nose at some point and caused that evasion before he ended up pulling the trigger consistent with the cylinder on the gun now he also said the problem that the medical examiner could have taken some samplings of the inside of the nose to see whether they're soot or sibling but he didn't remove the inside of the nose and in fact how did he look at it he looked at it with his own naked eye and a flashlight and what do you know that that's not even in his report that he did that so some interesting points by brian and finally he says that the bullet somehow went perfectly up his nose in his nostril that would have been one heck of a shot for her for lacy to come down the stairs and just point the gun at her and him straight and somehow for it to go up his nostril that would be quite quite a feat so that was how brian ended up the prosecution and then they got into the witnesses so the next video will probably be breaking down the witnesses testimony but i thought a very interesting opening statements by both and we'll see where this trial goes so that's going to be it for today if you haven't yet please hit the like hit the subscribe button share the video if you can really much very much appreciate helps the channel and we will see you next time take care everybody