Josh Mankiewicz

To the point, I mean, this story ran at the beginning of this season of Dateline.

It was supposed to run last season sometime.

And it couldn't because we didn't have the final story.

disposition of the case.

You know, we want to be able to say in a story, this is how it ended.

I mean, look, if I had committed some terrible crime, Lisa DeMaria is about one of the last people I'd want coming after me.

Because she was relentless.

And she lived and breathed that thing for years and years and years.

And then she got the conviction that she had worked so hard for.

And then...

Because of the judge's remark, the convictions were all stricken, all reversed.

They had to have four new trials.

And

They did not let her do the retrial.

There is no official reason why that was.

I never got the full story out of her for that.

But ultimately, I think justice was served by Rob Hightower, who prosecuted the case and got the convictions.

You know, they definitely thought

harder, longer, and more effectively than a lot of the defendants that we see on Dateline.

And of course, one of these defendants was themselves a lawyer and the others were practiced con men who sort of knew how to take advantage of every loophole in the law.