Phil Holloway

This case is effectively over. It's dead. It's dying. It's not going to be revived by the Prosecuting Attorneys Council of Georgia, in my view.

Yeah. Look, and I remember very clearly because I was posting on X or Twitter about it, whatever it was at the time and other media, we were talking about it here and, and we, we got just a lot of people just dismissed. Oh, well there's, you know, there's no evidence and all this, but I knew better. Okay. I knew there was evidence.

And even if I didn't know maybe what exactly some of that evidence was, I know Ashley Merchant. We're co-counsel together on certain cases, even right now. And if Ashley Merchant says she's got evidence, she has evidence. And there is no doubt about that in my mind. And so we fast forward to the hearing. And of course, lo and behold, it all became public record.

We saw a lot of what her evidence was. And we saw that this thing does have legs. And to be honest with you, Some of the best evidence for Ashley and her client in this case was the testimony of Willis, right?

Because if she had not testified the way that she did and made this whole thing into such an outrageous spectacle, it probably would not have caught the attention of the Georgia Court of Appeals the way that it did. Because they pointed out in this opinion, guys, they said, look, normally the mere appearance

Well, the conflict of interest is not going to be enough, but this is the exceptional case. That may be the rule, but this is the exception, and it's the exception because it's so egregious. How did it get so egregious? It got so egregious because of the way she marched herself into that courtroom and for the whole world to see displayed that she has a personal interest in this case.

It's personal to her. It's a vendetta almost. And as the Court of Appeals pointed out in this opinion, prosecutors are supposed to serve the public interest, not their own interests, not even their personal egos, if that's what it was.

But in this case, there's this odor that all these other things exist in terms of a personal interest, whether it's with her paramour or the fancy trips that he takes her home or the fact that he gets paid more and more and more the longer this case goes on. All of these things piled up together against Willis And here we are today.

And it's worth noting that Ashley's client, of course, as she mentioned, props to him for having the tenacity to allow her to do this. But all the other defendants in the case, even if they didn't participate in her motion, and a lot of them did not join in this motion, this ruling applies to all of them, every single defendant in the case, whether they joined in her motion or not.

They benefited from what she has pulled off here, and it's quite remarkable, and it's historic, and it's something that kind of restores a little bit of faith in the Georgia justice system today.

Yeah, I don't see it because each district attorney's office in the state of Georgia, they've got their own problems. They've got their own crime issues. They got murders. They got assaults. They got organized retail theft. They've got all the things that plague the citizens of the state of Georgia and elsewhere around the country, of course. But this is the business of what local prosecutors do.

They don't have the time nor the inclination to go back and clean up Willis's mess. Because they would have to start over from the very beginning because she has so tainted this case that even if there were any evidence that anybody committed a crime, it's just not a viable indictment. It will not work. And it's going to have to start over from scratch.

And oh, by the way, even if a prosecutor wanted to take it, they would still have to bring it in first. Fulton County. So if you're the DA in some other county, you're going to have to pick up your show and take it on the road down to Fulton County for all the proceedings.

So for all the reasons that we've been talking about, I just don't see the Prosecuting Attorneys Council of Georgia even wanting to transfer it to somebody else. And even if they did, no rational prosecutor, no sane prosecutor in their right mind would want to get involved in this fiasco.

So it's a discretionary appeal, and so they don't have to take it. I predict that they won't. Normally, they won't grant certiorari to pull up a case where they agree with the lower court's ruling. It's just like any other appeal that we've seen even out of the U.S. Supreme Court. The same sort of scenario applies. So I don't see them taking the case. It's a very well worded opinion.

I think it's strong. I don't think it's the kind of thing that the Georgia Court of Appeals would reverse. The only reason they might take it is if they, too, wanted to underscore to all prosecutors throughout the state. Do not comport yourself this way. Do not conduct business in the state this way. Conduct your affairs in the public interest and not your own interest.

Now, that would be a message that I could see the Georgia Supreme Court pulling this case up just to make that message right there.

Merry Christmas. Thank you. Happy New Year, everybody.