Chapter 1: What mysterious event occurs on Badger Lane?
I'm Craig Melvin. Cheers. Cheers.
Cheers.
I've always been a glass half full kind of guy. And now I'm talking to some people who look at the world that way too. Some really fascinating folks who share their defining moments, their triumphs, their challenges. Their stories are funny and quite candid. So I hope you'll join me each week. And who knows? You might just come away with your own glass half full.
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Who gets to be a citizen of the United States at birth? When it comes to sports in school, who gets to compete with the girls? And how much power does the president actually have to hire and fire at independent agencies? These are some of the key questions before the US Supreme Court this term.
And as any good lawyer knows, whether you win or lose in the highest court depends on the facts, the evidence, and how you frame your arguments. But that's not the only thing that matters. I'm Laura Jarrett, senior legal correspondent at NBC News.
And this month, in a new series for our Here's the Scoop podcast, I'm talking to legal experts and lawyers whose past legal victories are now the building blocks for the biggest cases still left to be decided. I want to know how they convinced the court they were right When the stakes were high, what special sauce locked it in? And what could be different this time around?
Join us for Here's the Scoop Supreme Court Edition. New episodes every Saturday. You can find Here's the Scoop from NBC News on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts.
He was coming towards me with his arms raised. I started pushing back. He grabbed me. I was shaking. I said, stop, stop. What are you doing? Stop.
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Chapter 2: What secrets are revealed about the Harper family?
She would say hi and get in her car and drive away really quick.
Like she was hiding from everybody.
Yeah.
But Jason...
He was part of the permanent landscape of our neighborhood. He was there every day. I mean, literally every day. A very hands-on father. Well, I look out my door to see if he's out there and wave, you know, then we walk over. Bring the kids over and walk on the driveway and the kids would start playing right when we got home from school.
And then it was an August morning in 2012.
You don't know what's happened, but you know it's not something good. Your stomach kind of sinks.
Didn't take a rocket scientist. Something was awfully wrong.
There was crime tape. My house is inside the crime tape. And there's a police officer stationed at the base of my driveway. And so I asked the police officer, is everything okay? And he said, no, no, it's not.
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Chapter 3: How does the community react to the shocking crime?
Did you worry about their kids?
Oh, that was the worst part. Absolutely. Absolutely. Their safety. Number one, their safety. Are they okay?
But the Carlsbad Police Department had one piece of information the neighbors lacked, which came in a strange phone call at 11 p.m. the night before. Sergeant Jeff Smith was the lead detective. The watch commander working that night got a phone call from an attorney asking him to go, or the police department to go do a welfare check at a residence. A welfare check? Seemed like an odd request.
Who was this lawyer who called? It was attorney Paul Finkst. That Paul Finkst? He just happened to be the ex-DA, and now criminal defense attorney, who knew the police department very well. He'd called an internal extension that, unlike a 911 call, was not recorded. The cops went to the house and they found Jason's body, but not Julie and the kids. They were gone.
So police talked to Paul Finkst again, who said not to worry, Julie and the kids were fine. Julie was not a victim. She was his newest client. He arranged the safe return of the children to a local children's hospital, and then, 15 hours after the cops discovered Jason's body, Finkst orchestrated Julie's surrender at her father's house. Did she talk to you? No.
But her attorney spoke with local reporters.
She's very upset. She's upset about her children. She's upset about her health. She's upset about seeing, basically, at this point, her life is in shambles. It's a catastrophe all the way around.
So it was. But what happened in the bedroom? Neither Julie nor Attorney Finkst would say. So the police launched an investigation to figure out what was Julie guilty of, if anything. To begin, they had specialists interview the two older children, ages 8 and 6, who said their day started out like a typical summer morning. And then sometime between 8 and 9 a.m.
When you... were watching cartoons yesterday morning and you heard the loud clunk?
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Chapter 4: What evidence do police find at the Harper residence?
And we would argue each point to where there was nothing conclusive. On the second day of deliberations, the judge called everyone back to the courtroom. You received a note from the jury this morning at 10.06 a.m. The note reads, we are unable to reach a verdict on some of the counts. We are deadlocked. Deadlocked on some of the counts.
But they had been able to reach a unanimous verdict on one count. Let's bring the jury. This was the moment of truth. Did the jury believe Julie?
I'll ask the clerk to read the verdict.
Verdict. First-degree murder. We, the jury, in the above entitled cause, find the defendant, Julie Harper, not guilty of the crime of murder in violation of... Yes, they did believe her.
She did not pre-plan and deliberately kill her husband, so it couldn't be first-degree murder. But was it second-degree, not premeditated, but still intentional? On that, the jury was hopelessly deadlocked. The judge declared a mistrial. Defense attorney Paul Finks.
Obviously, when there's a murder trial and you get any form of acquittal, that's a good thing. She would have hoped for total acquittal.
So, with a hung jury and bail already established, Julie walked out of the courthouse a free woman. Did she do it? Yeah, she did it.
Was it self-defense? It certainly was, after...
who knows how many years, of the toxic relationship they had and his incredible cruelty.
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