Closing arguments Fani Willis disqualification hearing | Full

Superior County certain n session the honorable Judge goty now please all right we are back on the record with 23sc 188 947 uh beginning with the state if I can have councel or today identify themselves for the record ad of body all right good afternoon your honor Steve St Jennifer little for president Trump pres flid understood thank you Mr St afternoon honor Richard Bry and chrisit from Mr all right on behalf of Mr juliani Alan Stockton on behalf of Mayor juliani white pres thank you on of Mr

Meadows honor Jim Durham on behalf of Mr Meadows he waves his appearance on behalf of Mr Clark Harry mdou your honor Mr Clark waves disappearance on behalf of Mr Roman good morning judge Ashley Merchant and John Merchant on behalf of Mr Roman and he W on behalf of Mr Schaefer good morning good afternoon your honor uh Craig Gillan Anthony Lake and Holly Pearson on behalf of David schaer and he weighs his presence on behalf of Mr Floyd do we have anyone joining us on zoom on behalf of Mr Floy all

right well seeing as uh Council had previously attended the prior hearings and this one has been noticed I'll find that they've waved their appearance for argument today uh anyone on behalf of Miss lean good afternoon you honor Bill Cromwell on behalf of Miss Le makes pres all right thank you Mr Cromwell all right so I been informed by uh Council collectively for the defendants that they were requesting a total of an hour and a half for for argument to be divided amongst themselves if they as th

ey've already agreed and so to effectuate that I have I'll have the uh time uh queued up and we'll start the clock running and you'all can see fit to divide that as you uh would like and obviously I've allowed uh the same amount of time for the state as well uh before we get into that I believe there may have been a few things just to clean up as part of the record uh specifically since we last convene uh Council on behalf of Mr Roman had submitted a defense exhibit 39 and uh if there are any ob

jections that wanted to be placed on the record on behalf of the state we can do that now uh but at a minimum I think the intention was that I would be admitting that uh collectively uh as an exhibit if nothing else just for uh pet purposes for the record Mr AB anything the state wants to add as it relates to exhibit 39 no objection from the state I have a copy for the court reporter I printed a copy out and then I sent all right if you've got that marked St we'll provide that to the court rep a

ll right and then as I indicated as well on Tuesday both parties since the close of the the evidence on the 16th had followed up uh now I think both sides have made requests to reopen the evidence on behalf of the defense there was some issues with cell phone records and the state has uh found an additional uh witness that they would like to present and the instruction I provided on Tuesday was that for today I think we reached the point where I'd like to hear more of how some of the legal argum

ents apply to what has already been presented and it may already be possible for me to make a decision uh without those needing to be material uh to that decision so that's why we're here today I wanted to make sure we held this time because it is a bit of a logistical challenge to get everyone in a room together uh so but recognizing that um again in the of efficiency if both parties want to reserve part of their time to argue as if those proferred uh exhibits have been admitted feel free to ma

ke whatever arguments you you would like and if in fact it turns out that I do need those to be part of the record to make a decision then we'd have to come back and we will do those in accordance with the Rules of Evidence Mr Gil we have a we have not filed anything but we also have a proper of witness that we would like to call in the event the court does open the evidence up I can make an oral profer as to who that witness is and what that witness would be saying and I could do it and I think

in a fairly brief manner uh if the court would permit me so the court would understand where I'm coming from and I believe also Mr Cromwell also has a brief proper uh for a witness that he has uh has has talked with and does have an oral problem so so are these we've got this is the first I've heard of it so are these things that have been discussed or shared with the state at all no your honor I literally uh my communication with this particular witness occurred uh this morning at about 1010 a

long with Mr uh Chris and know was on the call with me more than happy to to Enlighten the court as to what the witness would say who the witness is and and a brief brief summary of what this particular witness would testify to in the event the court allows for evidence to be reopened and on the record I would state that on behalf of my client Mr schaer we do want the record to be reopened so that the court could hear what they if they want to bring in someone from California let them bring them

in and we believe that the court uh might want to hear the proper and the evidence that we are uh prepared to at least profer today all right so Mr Gill on that point to to this and Mr cromwell's you know even additional evidence in my my mind uh in the interest of a fair notice to the other side uh I I wouldn't I wouldn't want that to be part of the argument today because the state has no idea what you're about to say and I think the the the purpose that a profer in large part in this role and

in this context is having them at least have the ability to make those initial counterarguments now um I don't think that would prevent you from after today's hearing if you want to file it make it part of the record then I think the both parties have already elected that they are willing to use that mechanism uh but just for today um kind of showing up now without hav't shown this other side at all even this morning uh I don't think that would be fair I did not intend to use the proper in the

legal argument sure I just wanted the court to be aware that we do have an normal proper we can file it we can supplement the record and file it for the Court's consideration but literally right hot off the press sure as we printed out and drove down uh to the okay all right well uh Mr crl is anything you want to add to that no you're onor okay Mr AB body anything you want to add to that I I don't know what it is I don't know how to add to it oh no all right just anything on though on a procedur

al perspective I mean from a procedural perspective I would submit to the court as you said multiple times evidence dis closed um this is beyond the scope of I guess your honor ruling I on Tuesday feel like weeks ago but Tuesday so um I guess we'd object at this point and go from there okay all right anything else by way of housekeeping Mr apparently the state filed two supplemental exhibits number two and number three about 15 minutes ago so to the extent that they came to work and use those in

their offer talking about the same notice requirement he actually did just got well understood so as it relates to that your honor um I believe you were very clear on Tuesday as well that in the proper we could argue rebuttal evidence as it relates to the uh evidence that was submitted by defense Council after the evidence was closed and that's merly what it is is rebuttal evidence as it relates to the cell phone records or analysis um that was done by the non-expert um filed by Mr s all right

Mr K as it relates to to the profer evidence our profer evidence would be in direct rebuttal to testimony given um uh in the courtroom particularly by Mr Bradley so we would have a direct rebuttal of that that's what our profer will be I understand the Court's ruling just want to put that on the record so we know the context is that similar for Mr Cromwell as well it is it just solely relates to Mr Bradley's testimony it does okay all right all right noted anything else then your honor the the p

roper evidence is basically would cooperate what been admitted in evidence is exhibit 39 but chronological attx okay all right uh then if there is nothing else I'll turn it over uh to Miss Merchant to begin onal of the defense sorry judge unfortunately you're stuck with me today understood may may it please the court your honor uh John merchin on behalf of Mr Roman uh just by way of road map to give you some idea about the allocation of time and what I'm going to be covering uh uh I've been char

ged with talking to your honor about the conflict issue and the appearance of the conflict uh and what we believe the evidence to show on that issue uh Mr sow um Mr Gillum will be talking more about the forensic misconduct piece of it uh Miss Willis's Church speech uh statements made to the media uh fraud on the court frankly and um the book that she gave several interviews for um so I won't be discussing any of those issues so if you if you'd like to ask me certainly I can try to address them b

ut that's that's going to be the focus of their uh presentation and then uh towards the end other folks may have issue specific type arguments um either in followup to mind or the forensic misconduct but those are the two lanes um that we're going to be covering but I'm going to do the conflict piece of it for you and on that issue uh your honor um this is a matter of first impression uh in Georgia uh I can't find a single case uh that's been published um by the court of appeals or the Supreme C

ourt that is based on the these facts um there are of course a number of different uh appell at court cases that deal with conflict related issues and more importantly appearance of conflict related issues and uh some of those are based in state law some of them are based on the ethical rules that govern lawyers um some of them are based on the Sixth Amendment right uh to do process that's implicit in all of what we're doing here today I want to remind the court that we're here today on this mot

ion to disqualify uh da Willis and her office because of her judgment um frankly uh she is supposed to be disinterested under the Sixth Amendment and she's anything but that uh the fact that these proceedings have taken this long uh and through through the convoluted way we've we've made it here today explain that um so as I present my arguments I want the court to understand that this court uh represents the guard rails for the sixth amendment in this context and Miss Willis has already been di

squalified once so I I would encourage the court to remember what judge MC Bernie did uh in his order disqualifying um the same argument was made in that case as to whether or not there needs to be an actual uh conflict of interest or whether or not the appearance of a conflict of interest might be sufficient uh under the facts I want to make clear to the court that I I the law in Georgia suggests and is very clear that we can demonstrate an appearance of a conflict of interest and that is suffi

cient uh there are there is I'm going to be CED with the court there is a Supreme Court decis from 1996 Lamb state and then there are two court of appeal decisions after that that deal uh and frankly in some dicta that suggests that an actual conflict um is required but the the Supreme Court of Georgia since those decisions uh came down has made quite clear that the appearance of a conflict standard still applies and the reason that's important is I think under the Sixth Amendment which is where

we're we're at um in order to preserve the defendants um rights under that uh under that provision and under Court provisions of Georgia law you've got you've got to consider the appearance of a conflict and the reason why the appearance of a conflict is so preent here um is because if if this court allows um this kind of behavior uh to go on um in and allows Das across the state um by its order to um engage in these kinds of activities the entire uh public confidence in the system will be shot

um and the Integrity of the system will be undermined uh and so with those sort of public policy and constitutional principles um I wanted to turn uh to the law in Georgia on disqualification and your honor I'm going to I'm going to give you the law and then I'm going to talk about the facts and how they apply the law at the end if you want to talk about the facts earlier Jump Right In and I'll I'll be happy to do that I'm sure your honor is very well prepared and probably knows uh all the law

that I'm going to site to you but to give the the skeleton outline um the the original seminal case that deals with conflict of interest from the Georgia Supreme Court is Williams V State that's 258 Georgia 305 and there are basically two methods by which you can disqualify um a district attorney one of them is a conflict of interest and I'll suggest to the court that doesn't mean an actual conflict that could mean an appearance of conflict as well and then forensic misconduct um importantly in

the Williams case though in footnote 4 and I think this is important for the Court's analysis about the facts and where the they which box it fits into the court said there is no clear demarcation line between conflict of interest and forensic misconduct and given a given ground for disqualification of the prosecutor might be classifiable as either and I think that's important because we have facts that fit in both boxes so if the state stands up and says well there's no actual conflict here jud

ge that doesn't mean necessarily that it doesn't apply to the forensic misconduct um typically forensic misconduct relates to statements of the prosecutor uh designed to uh impune the character of the defendant before trial uh and to affect the jury pool uh which we have here which I'm not going to discuss but the the facts that we have here very much relate um to that issue and they and there's crossover um importantly um and I think this is important for the Court's consideration of what what

effect the Court's ruling may have um is if If you deny this motion there's a good chance if it's reversed that that we would be granted a new trial so that means we're going to have to do this all over again um in uh Amusement sales uh versus State 316 Georgia pellet 727 um that's a case that cites Whitworth which is physical precedent only um the court said if the assigned prosecutor has acquired a personal interest or stake in the conviction the trial court abuses his discretion in denying a

motion to disqualify him and the defendant is entitled to a new trial new trial even without a showing of prejudice so that means if if if we show the court today and I think we have through the proceedings uh today and before that Miss Willis has developed a very personal interest in this case and you're honor denies this motion uh we're coming back all over again if the appell at court say say we you were wrong so what what is that personal interest so so the personal interest can be there's t

here's no definition of that under George law and it it could be a personal financial interest it could be a personal interest related to uh bias against a particular defendant which sort of falls into the forensic misconduct box uh but we have here a very personal financial interest that's been laid out uh in terms of uh money received by Miss Willis as a result of the the scheme that she set up um and um to to get to the issue of the of the personal interest in the context of an appearance I t

hink that's important I do want to suggest to the court that there are a number of cases um that uh postdate uh this actual conflict of interest language um that suggested in some of the cases from the 9s uh that that you have to pay attention to what this looks like to the public um and I I agree with uh all the law and I'm sure the state's going to stand up here and say it can't be a speculative uh or a conjectural um type of uh personal interest U we don't have that here we have something ver

y concrete and as as judge MC Bernie put it um actual and palpable not speculative and remote that's exactly what we have here we've demonstrated through the testimony of the witnesses uh some of whom impeach themselves uh that we have a very personal interest um in uh the the seminal um United States court case that deals with um prosecutorial impropriety um is Young vus that's a 481 us 787 case in that case it's the opportunity for conflicts to rise that created at least the appearance of impr

opriety and that's the case that requires that the prosecutor be disinterested since a te injecting a personal interest Financial or otherwise into the enforcement Pro process may bring irrelevant and impermissible factors into the prosecutorial decision now there are a number of Georgia cases that sort of repeat that theme uh Reeves V State 231 Georgia pallet 22 that's 1998 case stated a potential conflict of interest existed and the appearance of impropriety existed um Davenport vstate 157 Geo

rgia pellet 704 that's 1981 case that was decided 7 years before Williams when there is at least the appearance of impropriety a defendant is denied fun fundamental fairness in the state's prosecution of the charges against him or her there are also rules that govern um prosecutors um lawyers in general are bound to preserve and avoid even the appearance of impropriety that's brown B State 256 Georgia pellet uh 603202 2002 head V State um a prosecutor's close personal relationship with the victi

m in a case may create at least the appearance of a prosecution unfairly based on private interest rather than one properly based on Vindication of public interest uh uh ABA criminal justice standards for the prosecution function standard 3 uh 3- 1.2 C a prosecutor should avoid appearance of impropriety in performing the prosecution function 3- 1.7 F the prosecutor should not permit the prosecuted professional judgment or obligations to be affected by the prosecutor's personal political Financia

l professional business property or other interests or relationships so the rules that govern her in her own profession say that this is wrong because she's developed a financial interest in this case and at the very least uh created the appearance of unfairness towards these defendants by setting up a relationship uh a prosecutorial relationship with her boyfriend um that she'd been dating for 2 years according to the testimony so before before I move um your honor to the to the specific facts

I I I you asked you know what's personal interest and I think frankly um as I was trying to figured this out I think you know it when you see it it's just like um in the concurrence in jackob Bellis versus state of Ohio Supreme Court case from 1964 Justice Stewart in his concurrent opinion said I know it when I see it talking about obscenity I think you know it when you see it I think I think there's uh enough facts in front of you um that you you know it when you see it and um so I think that t

hat that governing principle um helps Enlighten uh some of the facts here um and also I think it's not just financial and mlin be State I think the Court's very familiar with that case 295 Georgia 609 uh 2014 the Supreme Court essentially said that because the the acting da had become a witness in the case and developed a personal uh interest in the case due to his daughter's relationship uh with the victim um that he was was disqualified uh and not and because he was disqualified his entire off

ice was disqualified um so turning to the facts of the case honor um I think I've got my my role is 20 minutes so I've got about eight minutes left um so why why the relationship why did we spend so much time on a relationship um between these two people we frankly couldn't care less if they had a personal relationship outside of work that that is not what the issue is here the issue is that began this relationship in 2019 they were dating for 2 years and then she awarded him a contract where pu

blic money either from fton County or the state of Georgia ended up in his pockets that decision alone was improper but what's even what's even more improper is that then she she and he used that money to go on personal vacations and trips um if your honor will remember exhibits 9 11 and 12 dealt with the expenditures um by Wade um on trips um if you if you do the math on that if you look at what what he spent and then you look at the testimony about what was paid back um by Willis because the c

ash reimbursement Theory I'll talk about in a second but he if you if you do the math on what he actually paid for it and what they testified she paid back in cash you still have uh over $9,200 $9,200 and 9247 to be exact is is the amount of money they cannot account for in their testimony and as your honor Ru will remember um there was no mention of cash in Mr Wade's affidavit when uh the best and first opportunity to to raise that issue would have come up is when the state filed their response

in his affidavit that is nowhere to be found in there the first time we heard about cash um was here in this courtroom uh and so I think um she had a so she's received a personal financial benefit of over $9,200 in this case that she can't account for and the state can't account for and the reason we can't account for it is because they they came up with a cash Theory cash Theory only only ra before we get into that let me ask you this um let's say they couldn't have let's say the theory wasn't

even there that they had paid it back or that there had been any exchange is should there first be a consideration of a materiality requirement no seen that in this jurisdiction or well not not in this jurisdiction have you seen that in any other jurisdiction I haven't seen that judge and if it was $6 that would still be improper would it be improper where it's a per se disqualification if someone you know buys their boss a stick of gum is that per se disqualifying because there's no materialit

y requirement it it well no I I I don't don't disagree that it may not meet a materiality requirement but it's a personal benefit I won't say that getting a back of gum is is just justification for disqualifying a dis return I think that's part of the issue judge I think it's a fact-based inquiry by you so there's a Continuum involved here yeah I I but I think I think the Continuum involves you looking at whether or not um on the grand sche in the grand scheme of things it violates the Constitut

ion and whether or not would there's an appearance uh of a conflict and and the appearance suggests that she actually received a benefit and we know that she did they admitted it we don't have to speculate about that they said that they she said she got a benefit and she said she paid back certain amounts it so in that regard your honor I don't know would $100 be enough would $200 be enough I think you have to look at it um globally and and consider all of the witnesses consider all of the facts

consider consider The credibility of the witnesses frankly I mean your honor sat here and watched everybody so I haven't spent a lot of time going into the specific testimony because your honor is well aware of it but you get to evaluate the credibility of the witnesses as a FactFinder and um you know just just from a legal perspective though you're saying we can't just say amount look no further there has to be a totality of the circumstances analysis I think I think it's fact specific Judge I

I don't really want you to pin me down on that because I there's no law in it I can't give you a straight answer because I haven't seen anything like that I don't and I think if we build a materiality requirement um into into the case law then you're down you're down a slippery slope then because then then it's going to be very the appell courts are going to be deciding well is $50 enough is $100 enough so I think um it's not necessarily the am of the money it's the fact that she received it an

d it's it's not insignificant um and I don't think your order has to say because she received $9,200 she's disqualified I think if we go back to the 20,000 foot level where's the what's the appearance here is this fairness to the defendants um is does it does it appear that she is interested in this prosecution or does it appear that she's disinterested she took the stand You Can Tell She's Not A disinterested person uh when it comes to this proceeding but we also argue she's not a disinterested

person uh when it comes to the prosec ution as a whole um I'm going to leave for um I'll resist the temptation uh to defend my wife um and who I believe to be an excellent lawyer and a member of the bar for 20 years um and good standing but I will say this judge you don't just evaluate the credibility of the witnesses you evaluate the credibility of the lawyers um and Mr body stood up here in open court in front of national news and then the national public and called her life um I need to addr

ess that for one minute um the tech text messages that are now part of the record which now are substantive evidence for you to consider um uh prove everything that she put in that motion everything that she tried to elicit um for Mr Bradley was absolutely 100% true and Not only was it true she verified through the witness himself that the motion was accurate before it was filed so for the state to get up here and impune her credibility um it it's not only improper it violates Burger versus Unit

ed States which is a case that says the state can't just get up here and make any argument it wants and I encourage the court to call him out on it when he when he steps up here you we have to have cander towards a tribunal you cannot lie to the court cannot lie to the public cannot lie to the jury and I think that's what he did so there's other cooperation uh of our view that uh she she was in this relationship I I think frankly based on Mr Bradley's testimony your honor can separate the wheat

from the chaff when it comes to credibility but he Mr Bradley had two chances um to correct information that he suddenly developed Amnesia about uh but and he just didn't do it um how does the timing of the relationship impact financial interest because it's part of the scheme she created intentionally um in order to give benefits to her boyfriend so they had there's a reason why they fought so hard on this judge I mean there's a reason there's a reason that every single subpoena was objected to

every single question we asked Mr Bradley was objected to uh jumping up and down all of the all of the obfuscation there's a reason for that they know that if your honor finds that that relationship started in 2019 that the appointment of weight itself was improper and if that was improper then he had no business as a average citizen uh along with the fact that he didn't have approval from they didn't have approval from fton County to appoint him in the first place that undermines the IND creat

es a structural impairment in the indictment um because he he had no more business being in the in the Grand Jury Room than than I did um so that's what they're worried about and the reason why it's important for the financial peace Judge is it's how the money ended up going back to her she put her boyfriend in the spot paid him and then reap the benefits from it um that she created the system and then didn't tell anybody about it um she didn't even tell her dad about it so I think if in the gra

nd scheme of things if you're looking at the totality of the facts um and I've got to sit down here in about two minutes to make room for my co-counsel uh if you look at it everything put together judges they tried they did this they knew it was wrong they hit it and they didn't they even when they were called out on it they tried to create an excuse for it by saying it happened after the fact um we know now from the testimony Mr YY confirmed uh that Mr Bradley uh his text messages were accurate

not his not testimony but um but that that that fact was accurate the motion is accurate and so um uh also I I do want to point out um there's no paper trail here uh for the cash um I know that this was a I know she she and her father both testified um both testified that they kept cash on hand um which I mean keeping cash on hand in it in and of itself is not a problem when you're a public official and you're required to keep track of gifts that you receive uh then you need to keep track of it

but there's no paper trail there's no deposit history there's no withdrawal history there's no receipts none of that so even even assuming their testimony could be credible and we don't think that it is you still don't have enough information to to keep to track all that money that she received and this is just does the lack of evidence fall on the state is is does the lack of evidence fall in the state isn't isn't that where burdens come in yet it it to yes I think they had an obligation to te

ll your honor hey this is where the money went and they certain had the ability to do that if they could do it since they didn't do it we have to assume they can't and if they can't uh I just want to remind the court of very important piece of testimony from Miss Willis um that I think goes to credibility of all of the officers of the court and testified she met with Wade and they developed in 10 minutes after talking about the financial piece I believe this cash Theory um that could not be rebu

tted we have no ability to do that um they did um and they chose not to do it um so with that your honor unless your honor has more questions for me I'm going to sit down and turn uh the podium over uh to my distinguished colleague um Mr sow thank you Mr mer appreciate the Court's time good afterno in your honor I'm going to speak to what I would call a subset of forensic misconduct and I'm going to assume that all the law that's been provided to you in pleadings as well as emails you know you d

on't need me to tell you what the law is so I want to just set up how the disqualification and then dismissal of the indictment should take place under the subset of forensic misconduct Roman Council this Merchant filed on January 8th her pleading her motion to dismiss and to disqualify we were in court that Friday of that week in which I made it known that we that is President Trump May adopt that motion I waited to see wanted to see what is going to happen before I did so that Sunday which wou

ld be January the 14th 20124 EA Willis took it upon herself to go to a historic black church in Atlanta having not responded at all to the motion of Miss Merchant's client Roman and she made what we now called The Church speech and your honor has reference to that you didn't necessarily want evidence on that but you know what the church spe Church speech was it was videoed it was clear that Miss uh Willis had notes she was reading from notes that she had prepared it was a calculated determinatio

n by Miss Wills to Prejudice the defendant and their counsel how so by making an issue out of the fact that the person that was challenged in the Roman motion was black without telling the public or the church members or anyone for that matter that the reason that Mr uh Wade was being challenged was not because he was black had nothing to do with race it had to do with the relationship that had been alleged and later admitted to by Miss Merchant Miss Willis took full opportunity to Prejudice the

defendant and then comes along later in a pleading and says it wasn't designed or intended to be at the defendants at all or the defense Council which with all due respect is just nonsense the purpose of that was to get public sympathy public empathy for what Miss Merchant had already alleged in her motion now that was a violation of the professional rules of conduct it was a violation of 3.8 G there's no question about it it wasn't in response to anything that was said it was a public statemen

t extrajudicial for the purpose of making a comment upon the defendant what would it would be in response to a motion that was filed but it wasn't filed in a response in a pleading it was filed in response to a motion and the motion were allegations made as I if Miss Willis wanted to respond at that point she could have said the facts of the matter instead she misstated what the the situation was took advantage of the opportunity an ethical violation and the ethical violation makes it clear that

you must refrain from making extra judicial comments that have a substantial likelihood of heightening public condemnation of the accused can you think of anything more that would heighten public condemnation of the defendants than alleging that defense Council and the defendants were making their motion based on race and religion that's as bad as it gets in Folton County with all due respect that's exactly that's exactly what Miss Willis wanted done and remember the state still had not respond

ed so then what we get from the state is we get an affidavit filed as part of their response and that affidavit says specifically and the affidavit is Mr Wade says specifically in paragraph 26 and 27 that the relationship did not begin until 2022 it acknowledges the relationship and says it didn't begin until 2022 and the pleading that's filed the state's pleading of response indicates not exactly that but it says there was no relationship as of November 1 of 2021 and that's on page seven so now

we know that timing is the issue because Miss Merchant made it clear that we alleged and had evidence that that indicated the timing was before Mr Wade was hired not after so the state now has has filed an affidavit and a pleading that claims post hiring into 2022 and then Mr Wade will is testify to the same thing under oath now miss yti says it began in 2019 why would she know well she would know because she was a former friend I know the state's going to get up here and say you can't believe

essentially what they're going to say is you can't believe any defense witness because they're defense Witnesses and only people that would tell the truth would be Wade and Willis I suggest to you that that's not accurate I suggest that the testimony that M Mr Wade gave and M Willis gave and I'm specifically dealing now with the timing issue without getting into anything else that that brought forth a true concern about their truthfulness and being what is required of a lawyer in this state whic

h is cander toward the Tribunal and that's 3.3 of the professional rules specifically um small A1 make a false statement of material fact or law to a tribunal so that's as I posit to the court that's the second ethical violation and then you also have 8.4 of professional rules it says it's a violation of the Georgia rules of professional conduct for a lawyer to and that's A4 engaged in a professional conduct involving dishonesty fraud deceit or misrepresentation now do you have to find that Wade

and Willis lied no what you need to be able to find is that there is a concern a legitimate concern based on the evidence in this case about their truthfulness a legitimate concern about the truthfulness which equates to an appearance of impropriety because once you have the appearance of impropriety under forensic misconduct the law in Georgia is clear that's enough to disqualify so why should you find there's a concern with their truthfulness ERT is the first one you have that testimony but t

hen we go to what is the most obvious indication that Willis and Wade were not truthful on the point of timing and that's sadly defense exhibit 26 came into evidence defense exhibit 26 comes in and says and you know I went into this the last hearing it says that on January the 5th 2024 at approximately 9:49 a.m. there's text messages that are exchanged between Miss Merchant and Mr Bradley and the the text messages go like just date and that's for Miss Merchant Miss Merchant says do you think it

started before she hired him Bradley who we now know from defense exhibit 39 has been texting with Miss Merchant for a number of months this is not the first time this is months within the the communications between the two Mr Bradley says absolutely now absolutely is not a speculative word that's not speculation that's a definitive statement and Bradley then unprompted says this and unprompted is important it started when she left the DA's office and was a judge in South Fulton it goes on Miss

Merchant says are he she liked it started when she left left the DA's office with the appropriate um Emoji or whatever one would call it to say it was like and then Miss Bradley Mr Bradley said they met at the Municipal Court CL conference again unprompted he's now definitively telling Miss Merchant when this relationship started Miss Merchant says that's what I figured when he was married and then this Merchant says we're now talking up a about a couple hours later she texts and says upon infor

mation and relief Willis and Wade met while both were serving as magistrate judges and began a romantic relationship at that time and Mr Bradley responds no Municipal Court thank you doesn't say it didn't start then he doesn't suggest that she's wrong other than Magistrate Court Municipal now we have that and it's inevidence and what is gladly do he knows that he's put himself in a position that if he testifies truthfully on the witness stand your honor is in a position to be able to find if you

choose to they both Wes and weade line so what does Bradley do look you were an assistant us attorney you know how this works when you have witnesses in this situation Mr Bradley did everything he could possibly do to evade answering questions no recollection couldn't remember it was speculation anything he could possibly say that would cause your honor not to believe that Bradley knew when this relationship started I suggest they were clearcut lies and the truth is in defense exhibit 26 and so

if we take that view that he thoroughly impeached himself that he did not give truthful conduct uh you know what's left standing generally you would see someone who's impeached perhaps we have some kind of core that you could point back to and say that's the time he was telling the truth in these text messages is it ever definitively shown how he knew this and that he actually did know it other than in just a assertion outright absolutely usually if a state has a witness that goes sideways they

've got them locked in if sat down with a detective and got a full statement we don't have that here but what you have is a text message which is a prior statement of Bradley that he did on his own that was not given to him by someone else the only thing that the court has just noted is how do we know he wasn't speculating because you don't have to accept the fact that he wasn't speculating the cases that I provided I think by email yesterday the first first um dealing with that you can disbelie

ve that testimony and draw a negative inference that's the Ferguson case on Lee the other case you can simply take the prior inconsistent statement as substantive evidence it has the same value and that's what I'm asking you to do to take what was the unprompted statement in defense exhibit 26 of Bradley and take that on its face face value that that is an indication that Bradley in fact knew and had said he did if you accept that you have to have concerns about the truthfulness of Willis and Wa

de on the timing issue and and I don't know if this is something maybe one of your co-counsel were going to address as well we heard about kind of the law that applies how we're we're outside kind of the orbit of of the core of cases we're used to dealing with here where it deals with side switching or uh where someone is in the relationship the client relationship the proposition you're putting forward now is that if a representative of the state a lead prosecutor of the district attorney thems

elves um says something that's untruthful on the record that is something that immediately has to be proactively policed by the trial court is basically what I'm getting at is where in the law do we find the remedy to an untruthful statement generally we send you down the street to the bar right and that's why I gave you the cases of registe and Edwards yesterday while those aren't prosecutorial cases or dealing with prosecutors they deal with counsel and in both those cases the trial judge foun

d ethical violations on the part of Defense counsel or potential ethical violations went through the ethical violations and said based on that you're disqualified you cannot be the attorney of record in this case it's good for the goose it's good for the gander if defense Council can be kicked off of a case because of ethical violations I suggest the same thing can happen for prosecutors when ethical violations deal with truthfulness cander to the court extrajudicial statements uh those are the

things that this court can rely upon and say based on those again I find an appearance of impropriety where where would be the limiting principle U the district attorney signs every indictment assigned to this courtroom does that mean she's every case no it would be when that if I found that she's untruthful is that what you're kind of suggesting though you don't have to find again I'm not saying you have to find she was untruthful or the Wade was untruthful you don't have to make a finding a fa

ct that they lie all you have to do is make a finding the fact that you have genuine legitimate concerns about their credibility about their truthfulness and once you find that then you can apply registe and and uh Edwards well but it's the same principle though if I had genuine concerns about her truthfulness on a particular occasion how do those not spill over into every criminal case a district attorney brings well it's because she testified under oath and so did Mr Wade they didn't have to t

estify falsely they could have testified truthfully they could have indicated that the relationship the timing was in fact before Mr Wade was hired they chose not to and in that sense that dishonesty that constitutes a violation of the ethical responsibilities this is not signing an indictment this is not filing a pleading in which both sides have their own positions this is a requirement that every witness has to tell the truth under oath and if they don't tell the truth under oath or there's a

significant concern about their credibility then they're violating their ethical rules and as anyone will tell you as your honor already knew from when you were a prosecutor prosecutors are held to a higher standard they're the ones that are supposed to be Seeking Justice they don't have a particular they're supposed to be disinterested when you have the lead prosecutor and the DA giving what I suggest to you is uh untruthful testimony based on what yti has said based on what Bradley said in hi

s text based on the whole way it was presented to you Bradley didn't want to testify he first came up with his attorney privilege thing on that and your honor was fortunately went into that and then when Bradley knew he had to testify about it you saw what happened you can draw the inference as I've suggested on Bradley that what he said in the text message defense exh 26 is true the relationship in fact started prior to November 1st of 2021 that y says that and now without getting into any deta

il the cell phone records the cell phone records show that during that period of time from let's say April 1 of 2021 to November 1st I'm sorry November 30th of 2021 that there was a number a considerable number of 35 or more um occasions where it appeared that based on the records that Mr Wade was down in the area where Miss Willis was staying in the air te department but more important is there are two occas and the state has not challenged those there are two occasions where the records reflec

t that it appears Mr Wade spent the night at that apartment state may say we don't accept that but they didn't challenge it and even when they brought forth what they brought forth today supplemental 2 and three they didn't challenge it again so what does that suggest that's corroborating evidence of what yere had said of what bradle said in his text message it's also impeachment evidence as to what Wade and Willis said about how many times is that a significant in terms of just the the times di

dn't Mr Wade testify that he was there at least 10 times during that time frame you've now found 35 well minimum of 35 okay but never overnight he said he never spent overnight put that to the side though just in terms of the fact that he did say he'd been over there that he'd visited the place uh and presume he wasn't obviously keeping a very good accounting of it but he that wasn't something that was entirely denied I if you're asking me do we win on the point that he said more than 10 or arou

nd 10 and we say 35 do we win on that point no okay it's not determined the overnight rate might raise some more concerns I understand yeah it does and that's the reason why we highlighted it in the Affidavit of Mr middl stat because that is suggestive that they were not being honest to the court so then how much time have I used too much have I I'm letting them use the hook so uh suggestive again raising issues I'm wondering about burden uh is it we're dealing with a preponderant standard we ar

e dealing with a preponderant standard and it's our burden no question about that so do suggestive get us there no but it is corroborating evidence of evidence that we did put up and that's what the purpose of the cell phone records they corroborate what yti says they corroborate what Bradley said in defensing C 26 and they impeach to that extent way in Willis's testimony so if you find by a preponderance of the evidence so I can finish this up if you find by a preponderance of the evidence that

my what I call subset of forensic misconduct ethical violations has been shown and that there is a significant and legitimate concern about the truthfulness of Wade and Willis they're disqualified now obviously factual findings are yours but the law allows you to do that you don't have to do it through an actual conflict that's the other side of the equation and that's what I've argued and I think that's what Mr G's going to argue before I let you go though uh this is an interesting classificat

ion you're saying forensic conduct isn't just P com commenting publicly about the case indicating guilt you're saying forensic conduct is just anything a district attorney says falls into that box no I'm I'm saying thater forensic misconduct as a subset of that would include violations ethical violations which impact the ability of the defendant to get a fair trial as well as impact the Court's ability to have faith that the prosecutors these two prosecutors are acting in good faith in their own

conduct same idea dealing with as I said defense counsel in the two case as I mentioned ethical violations can give rise to disqualification and I suggest we have that here all right thank you Mr s thank you where's the shot clock when you need it right there uh you honor I I want to address very directly here what we have is a a systematic continuous pattern a calculated plan evidence a designed to Prejudice the defendants in this case in the minds of the jurors this this is what we have seen

this isn't an uh the problem that the the uh district attorney has it's not that the district attorney had some sort of a brief uh off-the-cuff statement in an interaction with a reporter like in Williams that's not what we have here we have someone who sat down wrote out her speech wrote out her plan man who wrote sat down for uh whether it's two three or six times with the editors of find me the votes and told and got her message out about this case before it was supposed to be tried in this c

ourtroom and so that is the problem that we have we have a pattern of forensic misconduct on behalf of Miss Willis so I mean we have a pattern of public statements being made I take get you or your team has has dived in and read read the book I know she was asked about specific portions in it the only case that I can find actually talking about when someone crosses the line on public comments is that Williams case and it talks about there has to be an implication of uh saying the defendant a par

ticular defendant is guilty and it even denied it right so have you found any case in Georgia where they actually said that a prosecutor had gone too far in their public comments does one exist well number one thank goodness it doesn't happen off sadly it's already happened here now in Williams the uh the prosecutor had one response to an inquiry the court found it was improper but did not have this pattern now it do doesn't necessarily mean uh a comment about uh the the the the quote guilt or i

nnocence although that was the pattern in in Williams it's the improper comment by a prosecutor for example in Williams they site the nature and cons quences of forensic misconduct in prosecution of criminal case a 1955 uh law Columbia Law School uh article and how prophetic that was when they when Williams cites that case in that law school article they talk about an an an awful lot more than simply a comments about about uh specific guilt references to guilt what you have here your honor is a

comment and we can't look at in the in it it doesn't apply only if a prosecutor said I think the defendant is guilty and my mind no it's more pernicious than that what we have here is someone who sat down and and Drew up a plan for two reasons Drew up a plan for two reasons and what she did uh reminds me of what the court in STV Texas talks about uh and that is that pre-trial can create major problems for defendant indeed more harmful than publicity during a trial for it may set the community op

inion as to guilt or innocence that's what we have here that's exactly what we have and the court inesss talks about the power of the television camera so what uh what do we have and what did the what did this prosecutor do what she chose to do is sort of what was criticized by the Supreme Court and Shephard B Maxwell legal trials are like are not like elections to be won through the use of meeting Halls the radio or the or the newspaper that's exactly what we have here what we have is a deflect

ion what this is all about is it's is more Insidious than just making the comments that she's made it's a deflection what she chose to do was to say the okay I have done my best to hide the relationship with Nathan Wade and Nathan Wade has done his very best uh in by filing false documents in his divorce case to hide his relationship with Miss Willis now and so what what did they do well when Miss Merchant filed the motion to disqualify now the game plan has to change the game plan I call the de

flection uh begins to take place the deflection is when when the when the district attorney sat down and wrote out look at the look at I'm sure the court has when you look at that video it's in evidence of her speech at church she has written out everything and she's reading from it she chooses to deflect the court asked earlier wasn't she really responding to the motion that had been filed against her would that she had because if she had she would have looked the members of that church in the

face and say I have been there's been an allegation that I had a romantic relationship with Mr Wade and ladies and gentlemen of this congregation it's true she didn't do that she chose to deflect and to do two things that are reprehensible for any lawyer but particularly for prosecutor she chose to pull out the race car and the God card that's what she did and she wrote it out she went went on to to deflect away from the allegations in the Wade motion and she she's saying why in her in her talk

public discussion with God why uh are they only attacking one in reference to Mr uh to Mr Wade uh and then she goes on to say God isn't them playing the race card when they only question one now if she had been truthful with that congregation truthful with with the with the community she would have said I had a relationship with him good bad forgive me whatever that's what she should have said but she chose to deflect and say the the them the reference to them and the others and they it's obviou

sly a reference to the motion filed by by Miss Merchant they uh choose to go after uh the the black man uh and she then goes on again deflecting away and deflecting to the what I call the third rail in American society accusing somebody on the other side of being a racist so and so is a racist they're racist she was the one playing the race card in a way to try to deflect from her own conduct uh she goes on to say in her in discussions with the Lord God is that uh is it that some uh that some wi

ll never see a black man as qualified no matter his achievements again the deflection what is what is she saying The Listener is not necessarily in that audience in that church The Listener is in at Fulton County the potential jurors who will come into a courtroom and say whether or not they can fairly judge the evidence or judge the uh the defense in this case she chose to inject race into the minds of the listeners and virtually everybody in this community and literally everybody in this count

ry has reviewed and and analyzed Her speech that she made in a premeditated way and in in bringing in not only the race card but also in in in in in bringing in the religious matter this is exactly what Hammond V State and our Supreme Court talks about uh condemning as an inflammatory appeal to the juror's private religious beliefs why would she do that to deflect but now not only is she deflecting but she is then going forward and in a way telling the community telling the congregation that God

is on her side not on the side of these people God she said uh and when she's talking uh and she's saying God pray for their souls I meaning God qualified you I qualified your imperfect flawed self I see you in every hour do my work as though she's telling the folks in her very very very uh implicit way injecting into the minds of the jurors God wants me to win this case God wants me to prosecute this case and why is he going and why are these others going after the black man well the answer is

very simple as we said in our brief we didn't mention Mrs cross Mr Cross the white female or Mr Floyd the white male because there was absolutely no evidence and is no evidence of a personal romantic relationship with them in which he obtain uh these benefits that's the reason why we uh uh we did not uh uh do that so the she goes forward with her uh with the with the deflections that's exactly what she does uh when she goes forward and she talks about a planned interviews time and time again ag

ain with authors of a book find me the votes where she's talking about a case that's going to be tried in this courtroom it's reprehensible so in that specific excuse me instance uh setting aside the fact that she was willing to go on the record before a case had even reached the jury uh what specific statements from that book do you contend cross the line well for example she's saying oh you know she goes on to talk about all the calls that she's get she gets from people calling her racial term

s uh and you know all the calls are racist what she's trying to do and I think there's a reference in there to Maga people whatever in that what she's really saying is that those people calling me up and making those uh those claims or those those horrible uh racial slurs to me are really people on their side of the fence that's what she's doing and there's no reason your honor ever for a prosecutor to to to uh sit sit down and go forward with this uh this kind of interview she did it in in find

the votes but then they then they they what really happened here is this hiding of the relationship because in hiding in the relationship they have done such a good job Mr Wade filed false documents in his divorce case when uh on on on May the 23rd May of 2023 talking about have you ever had sexual relations with a person uh during the course of the marriage or including the period of Separation he's still married he doesn't have a divorce decree but his answer is none then he's asked whether n

ot on any occasion she's entertained or been entertained by uh uh by someone a woman a member of the opposite section in this case a woman from the date of the marriage to the present talking about place and time uh and all that what is the answer none why does he do that he does that because he doesn't want to tell about the relation relationship that he has with Miss Willis and the benefits that he has gotten and that he gave to her uh that's exact and what what these answers are are absolutel

y reprehensible that a member of the State Bar of Georgia would file these these answers that are that are that are inaccurate what does uh what does Miss W do Excuse Me Miss uh Miss Willis do Miss Willis on her financial report uh on whether or not she has gotten anything of a $100 or more uh in value from uh a a a prohibited Source the court asked earlier about what a threshold might be well for the financial report it's $100 that's it she doesn't report any of all of the benefits that uh that

that she received from Mr Wade all the trips all the entertainment all the uh the C the uh the three nights in the luxury Suite uh in in Aruba all all of that none of that is here and they say oh well maybe it all balanced out even though I can't prove it with the cash well that's like saying did I give the court a Christmas present well maybe I gave the court a Christmas present and the court gave me one back the court has to fill out a form whether you got a Christmas present from anybody you

say I got one from Mr Gillan you don't say nah well I gave him one back so it really evens out they're false reports and because they're false what they had to do is they had to say uhoh Miss Merchant has caught us and so what we're going to do is we're going to get uh in our response we're going to get Mr Wade to file a false declaration which he does his declaration in this case is false and the evidence showing that that is false as it relates to the timing you know and the court asked earli

er why does it matter uh you know if the relationship was before or after November 1 uh 2021 the answer is they think it's important and frankly I do too because when she's hiring somebody and she's not telling the people are going to be paying the tab up to $700,000 hey I just hired my boyfriend who's taking me on trip to the Caribbean and taking me down to Aruba and taking me to California hope you don't mind no disclosure whatsoever and the money flows off but because they got caught they the

n commit what I think is forens an additional component of forensic misconduct and that is fraud on this court when they when when they uh filed that affidavit and now it's been proven I think Beyond virtually any doubt any doubt that the relationship occurred prior to November 1 2021 and the benefits that that uh were there and we don't have to run around and I love the you know the you know we've got all the records showing from from from from Mr Wade about the payment for these trips for the

cruises for the flights all this stuff what's the only way as they sat around and met together before they testified and came up with their story which the only way that they can save themselves pay no attention to the records pay no attention to the to the Airlines and to the flights and vacations and the cruises uh I paid them back in cash show us your receipts where did you take cash out of the bank ever I I don't have any well show us the deposits that he had well uh never we don't have any

what we have here is a fraud on this court which has been shown I think overwhelmingly by the evidence and overwhelmingly through not only the testimony of YY the testimony of the of uh of the emails and the text from uh from uh Mr Bradley to Miss Merchant as well as all the documents that they had no answer to other than the just trust me I gave them money it evaporated I don't know where it came from and he doesn't know what he did with it just please trust us and believe us because it's our o

nly way out of the Trap that they set for themselves these people sadly and I'm and I hate to say I was a for I as the court knows I was a I was a prosecutor for about three and a half million years it seems uh in the federal building and I was an assistant DA beforehand prosecutors don't act like this lawyers don't act like this these people your honor is a systematic misconduct and they need to go thank you your honor I'm going to cover a few factual details details um without overly rehashing

what has already been said during the pendency of this investigation in this case Mr Wade and M Willis basically lived Robin leech's lifestyle of the Rich and Famous and they did this writing on the backs of the defendants in this case funded by the taxpayers of Fulton County and the state of Georgia with the money that was paid to Mr Wade through the contract that Miss Willis got him that money flow that is the personal interest that you asked about she was personally benefiting from the posit

ion from the job from the scope of the investigation from the scope of the indictment and how they conducted it um and we know this we know from the records that have been submitted before the court that Mr Wade paid at least $7,950 towards this relationship um that does not even include the various dinners the day trips that both Wade and Willis admitted to so that number is likely even higher we know from the documents that Miss Willis only paid $1,394 for an airline to um we know from Miss YY

who was pretty much uncontested there was no evidence presented by the state disputing her time frame that that relationship started in 2019 she saw them kissing she saw them hugging now whether or not they had sex before January of 2022 I do not know um they admitted sometime in early 2022 and I found it curious that they both Wade and Willis just went straight to the sex so maybe that's when they started having sex I do not know but the relationship predated that and they're combined and over

ly suggestive um focus on that is a red herring to this court and to the defense that that's what they want you to focus on they want you to ignore all the evidence that the relationship predated that the relationship started in 2019 the relationship continued through 2020 the relationship continued through 2021 um looking at the cell phone Communications just in the first 11 months of 2021 over 2,000 calls almost 9,800 text you know I don't even think Love Struck teenagers communicate that much

um the November 29th and November 30th escade phone call from Miss Willis between Mr Willis and Mr Wade 11:32 that night um shortly after midnight the phone starts traveling down from where Mr Wade lives and ends up where Miss Willis is staying and he's there until roughly 4:55 a.m. um none of the excuses none of the explanations that Mr Wade gave going to the Porsche experience going to dinner um going to the airport none of that explains that I'm pretty sure the Porsche experience isn't open

in the middle of the night I'm pretty sure that there weren't any restaurants that he drove 30 to 45 minutes to go eat at in the middle of the night right after he talked to Miss Willis um teenagers have a name for those kind of calls and those kind of xades I won't go into it um but the documentary evidence the objective evidence undercuts everything that both Wade and Willis said um when you look at Miss YY again she unequivocally said that relationship began in 2019 she saw physical evidence

of a romantic relationship Mr Bradley in the text messages which are substant of evidence said that that relationship began in 2019 again his January you know temporary Amnesia that somehow was triggered temporarily after gab Banks called him we can question that but we do have statements from him that specifically said that relationship predated Mr Wade's appointment by Miss Willis um you asked well in Mr Wade you asked what the materiality would be how much is enough well clearly 177,000 is en

ough um but fton county has told us has told Mrs Willis what the materiality is it's $100 in a year she twice signed declarations certifications that she did not receive any gifts and even under her strain her strained explanation um there were monies there were gifts there were dinners there were excess contributions flowing her way that exceeded $100 um her excuse or I'm sorry her explanation well I just paid it in cash that just does not stand a reason it does not hold up to the light of Trut

h um anyone that has ever been in a money laundering trial a forfeiture trial if that's the explanation we give the state they laugh oh I just gave cash I have no records for it I have no source for it the only thing that she could say that was a source for the money cuz at times she said she was down to $500 to $1,000 the only explanation she have is well sometimes I go to Publix and I may get an extra $50 that shows up on your debit card or your credit card did they bring those records in no t

hey bring her bank accounts in no did they bring any documentary documentary evidence in no they did not and why is that important judge yes the burden is ours but under ocga ocga 24-14 d22 if a party has evidence in such party's power and within such Pary reach uh by which he or she may repel a claim and they had that power Miss Willis had that power Mr Wade had that power that they can repel the claim that we have made against them but they admit to produce it or if they produce weaker evidenc

e then you as the FactFinder judge it is in your power to disregard that and a presumption arises that that documentary evidence that is in their possession that they fail to produce supports our claim um and that is something that the state relies on regularly in Criminal trials and that is something that the court should rely on in this case when formulating um its factual findings and we know that both Mr Wade and Miss Willis have some difficulty expressing the truth when it comes to their re

lationship in these cases we know Mr Wade lied in his interrogatories multiple times we know Miss Willis falsely certified that she hadn't received any gifts from anybody and Mr Wade clearly was a prohibit Source he was someone doing business with Fulton County anything over $100 any year she had to put down and she put zero um and it defies imagination that she could somehow forget about all these trips all these dinners all these day trips and not put that money down um you would asked I think

it was Mr Gillan did she say in that church speech or anywhere else that the defendants were guilty and I think she did in that church speech she said in that church speech and she was talking about a conversation that she apparently had with God talking about herself she said this leader has a trial conviction rate of 95% she said the trial team this leader put together has a conviction rate of 95% I do not see how anyone and I think that was purposefully intended by Miss Willis I do not see h

ow anyone can listen to those two statements and not take that Miss Willis is telling everyone in that church and everyone that's going to hear that in the media afterwards that these defendants are guilty that is what she was saying she is a prosecutor she's familiar with the US V Burger every single Pro every single attorney that's ever been a prosecutor is familiar with the dictates dictates of that US Supreme Court case that is a foul blow that is improper and she violated pretty much every

tenant a prosecutor must buyby to seek truth and Justice in a particular case so judge when you're looking at this the uncontroverted evidence shows that they had a relationship prior the uncontroverted evidence shows that Mr Wade lavishly spent on Miss Willis the uncontroverted evidence shows that the money that he was spending on Miss Willis came from this contract that he had and I'm not just talking about the contract as a special prosecutor but there's also those other questionable contract

s that no matter whom his partner seemed to be they also got um there is a direct Financial benefit that Miss Willis received from this um and judge looking back at what miss judge mcer said if merely hosting a fundraiser for a political opponent of a putative defendant creates not only the appearance but an actual conflict then what Miss Willis has done since then in this case creates an actual conflict but again as prior Council has stated we only need to show the appearance of the conflict an

d we have done that by propon of the evidence in fact I believe we've shown an actual conflict but nonetheless the result should be that Miss Willis and her office should be disqualified for this case we still have a few more minutes I think Mr cromo may have something to say um thank you thank you good afternoon your honor Harry mdou for Mr Clark I'm going to talk further about conflicts and I'm going to assume the most difficult standard for us to meet which is actual conflict but before I beg

in that I want to add just a little bit to what has already been said about the standards that apply to prosecutors our appell at courts have said often the administration of the law and especially that of the criminal law should like Caesar's wife be above suspicion and should be free from all temptation bias or Prejudice so far as it is possible for our courts to accomplish it the first occurrence of that that I can find is Nichols Feast State more than 100 years ago 1915 the most recent reist

a state in the Supreme Court in 2010 although they don't refer to Caesar's wife that requirement is also embedded in the prosecutor's statutory oath 15-18 two which requires impartially and without fear or favor discharge my duties as district attorney and take only my lawful compensation so help me guide the general rule on conflicts of interest for lawyers is in rule of professional conduct 1.7 and we all know it's all drummed into us that we cannot have a conflict of interest and if we do we

have to withdra law or we will be disqualified the basic idea is that a conflict of interest impairs the lawyers independent professional judgment that's the test of a conflict and whether it can be waved and whether it's disqualifying and that conflict is not just Financial it can be any conflict that impairs your independent professional judgment and you see that in mlac V pay the court asked what was a personal interest for p purposes of disqualification it's anything that impairs profession

al judgment that's reflected in the ABA standards that were quoted uh by Mr Merchant which lists uh the prosecutor's personal political Financial professional business property or other interests or relationships and that's really embedded in the prosecutor's oath to act impartially and the earlier disqualification order by judge MC Bernie was based on political interests not Financial what my colleagues have described as forensic misconduct is also cognizable as a conflict of interests based on

that footnote in Williams case the root of all of the problems that we see in this court right now is a conflict of interest arising from their individual ual personal interests in perpetuating and concealing their relationship that's the original sin from which all of the other problems flow there are six different actual conflicts of interest in this case any one of which warrants disqualification but collectively practically compelling first the financial conflict that's already been covered

second the personal ambition political ambition there third there is a dovetailed or complimentary pattern of Deceit and concealment of the relationship and the money fourth the speech at the church fifth the motion for protective order that the da filed in Mr Wade's divorce case sixth the way the state has conducted the defense of this motion to disqualify especially the hearing on the financial piece the court asked for a limiting principle and asked about materiality the limiting principle i

s whatever impairs the independent professional Judgment of the lawyer that is applied routinely we have a county code section that flatly prohibits gifts from contractors period we have by analogy the federal bribery statute which has a threshold of $5,000 18 USC 666 the court asked about burdens and inferences the court can draw a negative inference from the state's failure to produce evidence to support the Invisible Magic cash balancing Theory based on state V Thomas 311 Georgia 407 particul

arly footnote 19 as to the timing question that the court asked about there were two contracts for Mr Wade executed after they acknowledged the relationship began each one of them Afflicted or conflicted under County and common law the second conflict is her political ambition for which she was previously chastised by judgment Bernie and that's also present in this book the inside flap of this book says that they were given quote exclusive access to thousands of secret documents emails text mess

ages and audio recordings the court has twice denied defense motions to unseal special purpose grandury materials she helped herself to get the glory of this book I introduced certified copies of a number of county code sections I'm not going to walk through those but I'll tell you why they they matter the stack of law from the state constitution down to the county ordinances imposes a regime on the da under which she has three obligations she has to go to the County Commission to get approval t

o pay him like she did she cannot accept gifts from a prohibited Source she has to disclose the gifts that she received she evaded all of those requirements section 269 of the county code prohibits gifts from prohibited sources which he was there is no boyfriend exception the disclosure forms the evidence is sufficient for you to find that her disclosure form for 2022 is false and that it is a false writing that's an actual conflict of interest between her Duty legal duty of disclosure her legal

duty of cander and as a prosecutor and her private and personal interests in concealing the relationship concealing the gifts and keeping the gravy train rolling for as long as possible his part in the pattern of concealment is a story you see in many divorce cases the husband is hiding things from his wife how much money he's making the other woman and what he's spending on The Other Woman and he got on that stand lied in his interrogatories and he got on the stand and he lied about lying in t

he interrogatories and the lawyers for the da the DA's office they just sat there and let him do it they did nothing to correct obviously perjured testimony in of itself that warrants disqualification of every one of them the reason they lied and covered it up was to avoid the trouble they're in right now that served their personal interests to the detriment of their public duties as prosecutors the speech at the church I want to focus on why she did that Mr Gillan talked about that she did it t

o deflect attention from her own misconduct and that of Mr Wade she violated her public duty as a prosecutor to serve her personal interests and the personal interests of her boyfriend that is a disqualifying conflict between her personal interest and her public duty that is actual operational and M materialized and it rests on Undisputed facts the next thing that she did that was a disqualifying conflict of interests was the emergency motion for protective order that she filed in the divorce I

filed a certified copy of that as exhibit 37 she sought a protective order under the aex Doctrine on the grounds that she's the da the whole filing is expressly predicated on her status as da in fact she never lets you forget it she says it 27 times in 12 pages in that filing speaking as da she said the circumstances quote suggest that defendant Joyce and Wade is using the legal process to harass and embarrass district attorney Willis and in doing so is obstruct Ing and interfering with an ongoi

ng criminal investigation in the prayer for Relief on page 11 she asked for six months to quote complete a review of the filings in the instant case investigate and depose relevant Witnesses with regard to the interference and obstruction this motion contends there's no sugar coating it that's a clear violation of rule of professional conduct 3.4 which prohibits lawyers from making threats of criminal prosecution to gain advantage in a civil case she abused her power she abused her position to t

hreaten her boyfriend's wife with criminal prosecution to gain Advantage for herself and her boyfriend in her boyfriend's divorce she violated her public duties not to make us that kind of a threat in order to serve her private personal interests and those of Mr way another actual operational conflict the last category is the conduct of the defense of this hearing there are a lot of objections made based on attorney client privilege during Mr Bradley's testimony most of those objections were mad

e by the state but the privilege being asserted does not belong to the state it belongs to Mr Wade that shows that the DA's office is serving the personal interests of The Da and Mr Wade in carrying out further concealment and cover up of their relationship and not the cause of Justice they are sworn to serve that is a conflict of interest it's a continuation of the wrongful pattern of concealment and cover up that they've engaged in since the beginning but now they've Enlisted the entire office

in the Enterprise in the written response to the motion to disqualify they said this and I quote to be absolutely clear there is no evidence that da Willis derived any Financial benefit from Mr Wade that's on page 15 flat outfalls 10 lawyers in this case put their name on that starting with the da so Throw Another Log on the bonfire of conflicts of interest the problem here is the da cannot distinguish between her personal interests and Ambitions on the one hand and her public duties as a prose

cutor on the other and apparently neither can neither can anyone else in their office of the six conflicts I've identified only one is subject to a conflict in the evidence this is a case study and what happens when you operate under a conflict of interest let put an irreparable stain on the case think of the message that would be sent if they were not disqualified if this is tolerated we'll get more of it this office is a global laughing stock because of their conduct they should be disqualifie

d and the case should be dismissed honor there's not much oxygen left in the room um we we we uh delineated the times based on the whole presentation is would would your honor consider some time for us in rebuttal no okay well then can I reserve what I had five minutes for sure that's fine all right thank youon all right uh let's take a quick five and we'll be back at 24ish to be here from this day thank [Music] you you [Music] see was who [Music] together e e okay good for you got a long time [

Music] very right what's that yeah or don't so this again right just me just me see all right we're back on the record St ready yes judge I just been trying to get to where I can share my screen we need to add you as a host then what's your uh profile name on the zoom your your screen name on the zoom Adam just making sure bear with us do you need it right away um no I can start without all right floor is yours so good afternoon your honor um I want to start with um some of the things that were

addressed over the last hour and a half uh First beginning with um something Mr uh Merchant referenced as it related to uh the comments that the state made in regards to the good faith basis uh in which was uh submitted to to the court uh in which defense Council claimed the evidence uh would show and I would strongly bring to the Court's attention that the claims that were made were material misrepresentations and what I will tell to or what I will say to the court um and why I say that to the

court is because the representations that were made by Council was that Miss DEA young Miss Sonia Allen Mr Dexter bonds uh investigator Hill investigator green uh investigator um Ricks all of these people would be called and Mr Bradley would be able to impeach their knowledge by saying that they he specifically in their in his presence or to him said that Miss Willis and uh Mr Wade were in a romantic relationship and that Miss Willis and Mr Wade were cohabitating that they all knew that and I wo

uld submit to the court we didn't hear from any of those individuals Mr Bradley impeached no one and I say no one because he did not impeach Mr Wade in order to properly impeach a witness you have to confront the witness with the specific statements Mr Wade and you can look back at the YouTube of the entire uh hearings over the last couple couple days Mr Wade wasn't once confronted with a statement that he claimed or said or that is claimed that he said to Mr br sadly the way you properly impeac

h somebody you have to get you have to confront the witness here would be Mr Wade and once he makes a statement that you believe to be inconsistent and you have a witness who can prove that inconsistent inconsistency that's when you call that witness and when Mr Wade was on the stand not once was he asked did you tell Mr Bradley this in a confidential um conversation in your in your um conf room that was not covered under Atty client privilege that was not asked the specifics of that conversatio

n was not asked so any testimony that Mr Bradley testified to is impermissible it is improper impeachment because they did not confront Mr Wade with it so that's where the state would would begin with the comments that Mr Merchant made about me um referencing his wife as as lying I never called Miss Merchant a liar never used those words I don't know why she made the material misrepresentations it could be because Mr Bradley lied to her I don't know the reason so but I can submit to the court th

at those were material misrepresentations that were made to this court uh on the day uh a few Mondays ago as everyone was arguing uh the Motions to quash certain subpoenas I'd also bring to the Court's attention that during that motion to quash subpoenas uh certain subpoenas uh Miss y's attorney uh appeared Mr Partridge and he made very clear on that Zoom that Miss uh YY had absolutely no knowledge of a romantic relationship and absolutely no knowledge of cohabitation those are those were the sp

ecific references that he made so what I would submit to the court is those are those are considered adoptive omissions um that uh his client has made based on the statements he made uh because of the representations she made to him so I know that sounds convoluted but what I would say to the court is Miss YY told Mr Partridge because Mr Partridge told the court that she had absolutely no information about romantic relationship and she had absolutely no information as in regards to so but wait a

re you making an argument I should make inferences based now these would be attorney client privileges or Communications then she's communicating with Mr Partridge about what her upcoming testimony is that's why she's hired him and you're telling me I should infer things based on her Communications to him absolutely because they're not attorney client Communications anymore when he discloses them to the court and everybody else um as they watch the zoom and attend the hearing the difference is i

s there was no request to go in camera there was no request um to go uh or to have a private conversation with you uh as was done with Mr uh Bradley that would have been the proper procedure so yes I'm asking you to infer that 100% I'm asking you to infer that her testim was at best inconsistent because the testimony of Miss um YY when she testified was vague very little description when uh asked uh in a very leading manner uh is is it true or or uh do you know that Miss uh Willis and Miss uh Mr

Wade were in a relationship from 2019 uh into uh the time you were fired or excuse me you were for to resign uh from the District Attorney's Office in March of 2022 U she said yes and then uh further when pressed uh by Mr seow uh he talks about why she believed they were in a relationship and uh what was interesting um from Miss y's testimony that they were uh pretty close friends up until um she left the DA's office that she asserted to the court that on a yearly basis uh Miss Willis said I'm

in a relation ship with Mr Wade in 2019 oh by the way I want to tell you again in 2020 because we're in a New Year I'm still in a relationship with Mr Wade and again in 2021 uh the assertion is uh Miss Willis then went back to miss YY and confirmed hey I just want to reconfirm uh me and Mr Wade are still in a relationship it's absurd it's absolutely absurd more importantly uh when Mr seal asked her about um why she believed that uh uh they were in a romantic relationship based on her own observa

tions she said something he said he actually asked her did you see him kissing or hugging she said yes but there was no description or qualification about when it occurred um what she actually saw or saw excuse me was it a kiss on the cheek things of that nature so I would ask you to um frame her testimony from that standpoint when you're uh addressing her credibility as the court is going to do with each and every witness that you heard um during the testimony of um all the witnesses during the

hearing I'm going to see if my screen will share now I want to talk a little bit about the the standard uh and the burden um here in this instance as it relates to uh defense Council and the claims that they have made in the motion to disqualify and as I was doing a whole lot of research I Came Upon I Came Upon This law review article uh from Cornell a scholarship uh reading or uh publication and they made very clear that courts have been relatively reluctant to exercise their power to disquali

fy prosecutors for any reason and um that goes along with the standard um what state would um submit to the court is that the defense has to show an actual conflict and in this instance they have to show an the actual conflict would be that Miss Willis uh received a financial benefit or gain and did it based or got it based upon the the outcome of the case it doesn't make any sense it makes absolutely no sense and during the three days days of the extensive test testimony of all of the witnesses

and the prolonged U examinations um of the witnesses by multiple the defense Council they still got nowhere we're in the same position we were in on Monday the same assertions that were made uh on Monday have no answers today as we before your honor they were not able to provide any evidence as to uh or to the contrary of Miss Willis and Miss Wade's assertions of when their relationship began there's absolutely no evidence that contradicts that the relationship did not begin later than around M

arch of 2022 your honor I'd further uh submit to the court because of this failure that their assertion or their request that one the indictment be dismissed there's absolutely no evidence that the defendants in this case their due process rights have been harmed in absolutely any way there was Zero evidence not not a single shred of evidence was produced through any of the exhibits or the witness testimony showing how their constitutional rights their due process rights were all were at all aff

ected by the relationship that began in March of 2022 with Miss uh Willis and Mr Wade and because of that the motion to disqualify should be uh denied and Miss Willis as the district attorney of Fulton County and Mr Wade um as the special prosecutor assigned in this case should be allowed to remain on this case and continue and continue to prosecute uh the case uh to the end your honor until the trial is set by the court and is uh to begin now the issues obviously um you've heard a lot from defe

nse counsil as to uh what the issues are for you to um I guess determine and here it would be the state's contention is that you must find that there's an actual conflict if you uh were or are you come to the conclusion uh that you should disqualify Miss Willis and the District Attorney's office and um and looking at uh and what I think you're talking about is this bentura it's u mlen v State MCG l y NN B State 342 Georgia appeal uh 170 um it's a 2017 case in that case is it talks about the stan

dard of proof um that the defense or the burden that the defense must uh show and go to show an actual conflict is they say it's a high standard of proof which is definitely not a preponderance of the evidence which is a much lower uh burden uh for any party who's trying to meet uh that standard of preponderance but it's very it's uh clear that what it the standard is is that is a high standard of proof um for both um when determining whether there's an actual conflict and when there's forensic

misconduct um that is found your honor and I want to go through some of the cases uh that um defense Council has um referenced that they argued um here today and in their filings um and I guess the bright line standard or um the standard and the grounds for which um disqualification um is appropriate uh for your honor to be determining um in all of the cases as it relates to disqualifying the elect the elected district attorney as you either find that um there's a conflict of interest or that th

ere's been some sort of forensic misconduct those are I guess the two areas that your honor um that is in your purview when you are looking to um resolve an issue uh regarding disqualification now in a recent case Ley state which is uh 224 Georgia I'm sorry Lexus uh 31 um it's a Fe feary um of 2024 um case I'm here out of our pellet courts and uh in that um case U Justice Pinson wrote that a trial court did not abuse its discretion by failing to disqualify an assistant district attorney absent a

n actual conflict of interests and that is a case that um was uh ruled on by the Georgia court of appeals um about a month ago your honor now uh the case the cases in which um defense Council um has relied on in their briefs and here today um I would submit to the court uh the sites are misleading um are in inapplicable and some of them actually support uh the state's position and what I would say to you is that the defendants uh in many instances combine language from uh the multiple cases and

kind of what I would say is misstates the law as it relates to what the law uh or what is required in order for an elected district attorney uh and their office to be disqualified and what I would submit to the court is let's go let's go back to that show me how yes show you how so I think the first one they cited was Battle versus the state certainly a conflict of interest or the appearance of impropriety maybe the grounds disqualification well there were a number of these cases that seem to ex

clusively rely on the appearance of impropriety right they they acknowledge that there's some ambiguity here that sometimes Whitworth and Whitworth gets sided to venture and we've got this quote that comes up where it's just they only sight to an actual conflict that must be involved they they acknowledge the ambiguity you're saying there's no ambiguity whatso ever I I am saying that and why why I am saying that why I would submit that to the court is in all of those cases they do reference the

appearance of an impropriety but they reference that because they also find There's an actual conflict in each one of those cases so your position would be your review of the case law there's never been an appell at opinion that relied only on an appearance of propriety as it relates to a prosecutor or district attorney yes that that is what I'm saying what I would say is in those cases they do reference the fact that there is an appearance of impropriety but they reference that fact because whe

n you have an actual conflict there's always an an appearance of impropriety and those are what those cases stand for and th I guess that is the main example of um what I reference as they kind of combine uh the language from separate different cases and tell you that the standard is an appearance of impropriety and I would submit to the court that is not the standard and um in uh my first reading I'm like uh your honor I I did notice that the cases each um reference the appearance of impropriet

y but also that that appearance arose from the fact the court found an actual conflict in each one of those cases um so I won't belabor the point uh in going through um all of the cases that the defense had cited but what I wouldi to the court and and reading those cases is that um I found um that there they kind of fell into five categories that some that didn't concern disqualification at all some that determined or uh that we about um I call it divided loyalty which is um a conflict that aris

es from uh representing a um becoming a a prosecutor and then having represented um the defendant U prior to becoming a prosecutor and then whether there's an actual personal interest in the outcome and then uh others talk about U whether the defendant was denied a fundamentally Fair trial um at the conclusion and and the of the case after conviction and these are some of the cases that uh defense Council had cited um within their brief that had absolutely no application um to um the issue that

we're here before your honor today uh the first mcber state has nothing to do or is has nothing related to the disqualification of anyone I think some of these are just relating to kind of aspiring for broad language of God's standards to prosecutors so point taken there but if they're more all right keep going so um as it relates to U one of the cases that was referenced here earlier um and is is also referenced in uh some of the briefing by defense council is um the rejected B state which 287

Georgia uh 542 and all all of the cases um that fall under this what I would uh call category is about a attorney who formerly prosecuted a defendant uh in uh I guess the same type of case or the same case um or similar charges and that would be why uh the courts were excuse me the courts found that disqualification uh would be necessary because of the relationship that existed between um the former client and um the now person who's being prosecuted your honor the the next series of slides uh j

ust goes through uh what has been U addressed uh as it relates to the standard um that is required uh when dealing with um the issue of disqualification uh and um the state would contend and submit to the court that the defense must show an actual U conflict in order to uh have the district attorney disqualified and that actual conflict has to be in the form of showing that Miss Willis in this instance uh received a financial benefit or gain in relation to uh the outcome of the case like any of

the cases that are involve personal interests uh your honor it's all based on the contingency um where um how much they're paid or a bonus for example um is dependent on upon the outcome of the case that's how it one is to show that there's a personal interest in the case we have none of that here and I submit to the court we have absolutely no evidence that Miss Willis received any financial gain or benefit um the testimony was that Miss Willis paid um all of the money back in cashes related to

the trips and if didn't pay back in cash it was um right let me let me let me let me explore this one a little bit so in addition to you know you're saying it's only an actual conflict you're are you also saying that it's only if a financial interest is affecting uh the final result the outcome that's the only one we should be worried about or is it that the prosecution as a whole is what we should be looking at in terms of a stake so what I'm thinking of I'm just going to try and come up with

some hypos here what if Adas are given a bonus for every motion to suppress they win $1,000 per Fourth Amendment claim they win well now they've got an incentive if one of their officers is lying not to tell you about it cuz they want to win that motion to suppress maybe that doesn't affect the outcome because you can win a motion to suppress or lose it that doesn't decide whether you know it's going to be a guilty or not guilty verdict but doesn't that affect the prosecution of the case if not

the outcome yes I would I would definitely agree that that would be an instance where disqualification would um it's be necessary and appropriate because it's it's a situation that involves a contingency and I was submit to the court that it actually does end up affecting it could based on how important the motion to suppress is right but if it's some immaterial you know I don't know um but I guess so you're saying it's maybe not so much just the whether it's a guilty or not guilty dismissal n p

roc at the end of the day it is actually the conduct of the prosecution that should be looked at throughout the course of the prosecution correct as it relates to how it affects the prosecution which I would subit the court ultimately is going to affect the the end outcome of the case if you have a contingency fee based on winning or how you know if you win a a motion to suppress and uh it's you know if you win you get you know a certain a bonus as you're onor referen I think that that is ultima

tely going to affect the end outcome of the case because as your honor just said if there's an instance where an officer is lying or that where there isn't a good faith to go forward with that motion the prosecutor would go forward regardless because of the contingency Fe which not only affects the the prosecution at that point of the proceedings but ultimately it's going to affect the entire case because if um they were to win a motion to suppress or I guess the motion would be denied and the e

vidence wasn't suppressed knowing that they didn't have a good faith basis to go forward affects the ultimate outcome of the case um so I think it's twofold uh as your honor has referenced um I think it it's at that part of the is the procedure of the proceedings um would definitely qualify for reason um necessary to disqualify um a Prosecuting agency but ultimately that action during the procedure will lead to um the ultimate outcome of the case uh being are hinging upon a contingency fee uh li

ke the ones uh in the cases referenced by Council and uh the state that are on the screen so and so getting into the language again what you just had up there with greater amusements and amusement sales greater amusements is one of those you refer to the appearance of conflict as dicted why do you why do you think that's that's dicted I think the quote from that one is it guarantees at least the appearance of a conflict of interest why is that dicted seems very Central to the holding in the case

because in I don't disagree with your honor but in that case an actual conflict was found and the appearance they didn't they didn't find that I would I would disagree with your own I I would my reading of the case is that an actual conflict was found but because of that actual conflict an appearance of impropriety was seen um and and that's that's the reference um or why the state referenced that case um in relation to the argument that an actual conflict is required and the series of cases um

young that was referenced by defense Council as well as Nichols be state are both instances where there's a personal interest in the case due to um the situation and where at one point they were opposing parties and of course there's a personal interest or stake uh as it relates to Prosecuting um an opposing party in a civil claim um which are what both of those cases reference which um shows that There's an actual conflict um of interest that relates to the personal gain of the specific uh Pro

secuting agency and and what do you make of nichels reference to you know it's an older case sometimes the language can be uh we're not accustomed to seeing that there's you know they they they refer to the metaphor of of Caesar's wife and generally when that's used as a ethical standard uh that's something that goes beyond an just an actual conflict right isn't the Beyond reproach getting more into appearance world is it getting Beyond no is isn't isn't getting into uh the appearance aspect of

things when we're talking about Caesar's wife but I think it goes beyond that based on the language of of of the holding in that case where it literally says that the individual had a personal interest in obtaining a fee by forcing the settlement uh in the civil case and using the criminal case as leverage so that's not an that's not an appearance of of impropriety that is an actual conflict of interests and which arises because of the individual's personal stake in the in the end outcome um of

the case your honor so that's that's how I would differentiate um I guess the representations of Defense Council as it relates to the the standard um or the burden that must be shown um and why the state would submit to the court uh and uh the most uh recent ruling out of the Georgia um uh appell courts that an actual conflict uh is required to be shown so I'm going to skip through these series of slides you've heard all about Woodworth so I go back to uh what we referenced um earlier what's bee

n referenced by all parties that the grounds in which um a district attorney can meet uh disqualified is where a conflict of interest um is found and uh where there's a forensic misconduct that is that is found those are the two grounds uh that are to uh be I guess are within the purview of the Court as it relates to the issues here um and again I I go back to uh the most recent case um that U was Justice Pinson uh wrote about and that it there must be by failing to disqualify the assistant dist

rict attorney um absent in actual conflict of interests I think the language there uh is very clear and I think it's very controlling and I I think it's purposeful uh I would submit to the court because an actual conflict of interest is what is required in order for a district attorney um to be disqualified um because uh the cases um make very clear um and through the precedent um relating to this issue that a disqualification of a district attorney is the is the last for a lack better words dis

ditch effort uh that should be exercised as it relates to the the court and curing uh certain conflicts that may arise um I think the case law is very clear that every effort is supposed to be made uh instead of or I guess in lie of um disqualifying the district attorney unless an actual conflict of interest is what's found your honor and it can't be cured so um what I would reference to the court um as uh was brought up um earlier in Lions B State 271 Georgia 639 um a 199 1999 case where it ta

lks about a theoretical or speculative conflict um will not impune a conviction uh meaning that speculation conjecture things of that nature assumptions are not enough uh for anything to arise to an actual conflict and what I would submit to the court as well that that goes to the fact that what has to be shown is an actual conflict um if it's speculation is there any qualifier there though that that's in a postconviction context we're talking about you know competent evidence we're in obviously

in a pre-trial phase here I've wondered how much important to give that sentence when we're in a pre-trial realm that's that's that's assessing whether to overturn a conviction and usually that's you know kind of an entirely different standard where we assess as a totality was there Fair trial is there harmless err I know there's no harmless error when it comes to disqualifications but just a thought if you have any reactions well I think uh what your honor said is pretty um on point in the sen

se that um if a it's found that um if the the trial court either applied the wrong standard or should have disqualified the district attorney it uh leads to an automatic reversal like you said and it goes back to the trial court and I think that is um very enlightening in the sense that that's only done if an actual conflict is shown and the fact that it can't just be theoretical speculative or assumptions that would lead to the appearance of impri impropriety the appearance of a conflict that w

ould lead to um I mean I guess I'm I'm borrowing kind of from as we've been doing the other pre-trial motion special demurs seem to get different treatment pre-trial and post trial post trial they get more of a pass unless you can show some issues and I'm wondering if that same principle applies here with disqualification well and I but I don't have the answer to that well what I would um also say and I I don't remember the exact line but I know um there in judge MC Bernie's order he does addres

s some of the concerns that as it relates to um the standard um as it's applied post conviction versus pre-trial um in during pre-trial issues and what I would say to the court is that uh so you sign that in support because I didn't think the state was all that pleased with what the you know the analysis you well what I'm cting legal analysis well I'm I'm citing what you specifically reference as to the standard that is to be applied pre-trial uh and post- trial whether it makes a difference and

what I would say to the court is the answer is no as it relates to the speculative nature of um the allegations or the claims made by defense Council um as it relates to um whether a conflict actually exists your honor what I can't do at the moment is point exactly to the page um at the end of the state's argument I can give you the page number as it relates to judgment Bernie's order I think I know what you're talking the footnote really references the appearance standard all right um further

uh in Lamb B State 267 Georgia 41 um uh on page 42 it's a 1996 case um where the court says nevertheless the conflict must be palpable and have a substantial basis in fact a theoretic or speculative conflict will not impune a conviction which is supported by confident evidence now I understand uh as it relates to uh the postconviction factor um the status of the case being in postconviction um based on your honors earlier inquiry but I would uh submit to the court that as it relates to the issue

of disqualification that the standard is the same whether it's post conviction or pre-trial um in uh blomfeld B Bornstein which is 247 Georgia 406 the 1981 case in that case it says the appelles have not shown us a case where a per se rule was applied to disqualify an attorney on the basis of an appearance of impropriety alone the Georgia cases cited by the appell do not stand for the proposition that a trial judge is authorized in Georgia to disqualify an attorney solely on the basis of an app

earance of propriety which uh further goes to the state's um submission to the court that the standard is uh that an actual conflict must be shown and that conflict um that arises shows there's a personal stake of the district attorney um as it relates to um their P their personal uh financial gain um that's being alleged so in uh the case that's been referenced uh by all parties here today Whitworth the state 275 Georgia um uh appeal 790 to 2005 case in that case it says witw Worth's complaints

are largely based on speculation and conjecture applying any evidence standard to the record it is clear that the trial court did not abuse its discretion and denying whitworth's motion to disqualify Morgan based upon his personal interest uh in his conviction aren't we past the speculation and conjecture aspect of this though I mean the the original and the core of the financial allegation was that there is a relationship and that money has changed hands there's maybe still an open question of

Where The Ledger stands but I think it was conceded that that balance could run in one way or in in the District Attorney's favor is that contested yes what's what's not contested is that a relationship did develop um between and that and that purchases were made back and forth that's the state's position that is the state's position but they were made back and forth the purchases were made back and forth um either to uh equal the money that was spent by one party or the other and if that wasn'

t done cash was exchanged in order to um equal the costs that were paid by either one of the parties right but that's that's a facted issue whether it was you know split even or whether it goes a little bit one way or another or whether it's all the way $110,000 one way or another that's that's a fact and issue as a result of the hearing but it's no longer just the theory that money chain stand is no longer speculation or conjecture well I I agree that money actually changed hands is not um spec

ulation and conjecture but whether that money that changed hands had any um Financial benefit or gain to the district attorney that is all speculation and conjecture I would submit to the court absolutely all speculation and conjecture to um harass and honestly embarrass the district attorney based on some of the questions that were asked that had absolutely nothing to do with the proceedings that we were here for example the lean on her alleged house that that was highly irrelevant had nothing

to do with the proceedings and the exchange of money between uh the district attorney and um uh Mr Wade uh and the point of that line of questioning was to again embarrass and harass the district attorney in a way uh that was very public uh and in a way um that was to um impune her character as it relates to um that line of questioning in front of the court uh in front of uh anyone watching uh the proceedings as it unfolded and the language in um witw worth I would again submit to the court requ

ires that an actual conflict must be shown which is why the reference to speculation and conjecture is again a reference um because speculation and conjecture leads to or equals uh an appearance of impropriety not necessarily an actual conflict uh which I submit to the court is what is required based on the case law so in uh State be Southerland which is 190 Georgia appe 606 it's a 1989 case um and it says while the prosecuting officers should see that no unfair Advantage is taken of the accused

yet he is not a Judicial officer those who are required to exercise judicial function in the case are the judge and the jury the public prosecutor is necessarily a partisan in the case if we were compelled to proceed with the same uh circumspection as the judge and jury there would be an end to the conviction of criminals uh which goes to the premise that the uh appearance of impropriety is to apply to uh judges not prosecutors because if that standard was to be applied uh in the manner in whic

h uh the Southerland case is referencing then there would never be a criminal prosecution because the state is always going to appear biased as it relates to um getting Justice for the victims or writing uh the wrong as it relates to uh the the crimes in which uh the defendant is um been indicted or accused of so I want to move into um I guess the evidence uh that your honor um saw and heard uh during the last couple of days um three total days of testimony um as it relates to the witness the wi

tnesses you heard from um Miss YY who the state would contend as a disgruntled for former employee you heard from Terrence Bradley also um someone who uh is a disgruntled former partner um the text messages in the state's uh opinion show that he is vengeful you heard from his own um testimony here uh sitting before the court that he all he did was speculate and uh any information that he had or and garnered and then passed on to Miss Merchant was pure uh mere speculation um I believe he said tha

t over and over again when asked um if he had personal knowledge um my recollection is uh around 15 times he said he had absolutely no personal knowledge of a romantic relationship uh between the da uh and Mr Wade you also heard from um the special prosecutor U Mr Wade a former judge um you heard uh from the 80th Governor uh of the state of Georgia um Roy Barnes uh you heard from the first female uh elected district attorney of fton County and you heard from her father who was a a 40 plus year p

racticing attorney um and good standing when he um left the practice of Law and what I would submit to the court is that Miss Gertie's um testimony was nothing more than inconsistent at best uh based on what I referenced to the court um earlier as it relates to the representations that were made by her Council prior to are those in evidence would would his responses during a motion to quash which weren't subject to cross-examination by defense attorneys weren't even part of the evidentiary recor

d of the hearing again I'm I'm just kind of puzzled by that you didn't ask the question of Missi what did you tell your attorney before coming here and then we could have dealt with privilege issues and whatever else I would I mean I would agree with the court is not an Evidence but it was a a a statement by um an officer of this court to the court during a hearing related to her testimony and um how we were to proceed with her testimony in this hearing um but I would it's clear that what was re

presented as to why she um would not uh have I guess be an appropriate person to testify was that she had absolutely no knowledge of the Romantic relationship that was the basis of why her Council was saying that she shouldn't have to testify that she so under that theory if accepted where did the incentive arise between Monday and Thursday for her to completely change things around where did the incentive AR she was she was fighting so hard to avoid the if we're going down that road you propose

she was fighting to have not to come in here and testify at all and then she comes in here and testifies why would you have testified the way she did if she didn't want to testify so strongly if we're if we're going down this road of trying to just gauge her interests and and these kind of things I don't know if I'm quite following that theory and I can appreciate that but I would say the reason she didn't want to testify but submit to the court is because this is an incredibly public uh Forum

um where she would have to testify against a former friend and a former boss um and I think the change I wouldn't qualify as an as an incentive what I would qualify is is ultimately when she was forced to testify right a motive um and a bias as to why she testified in the manner in which she did um when uh asked by Miss Merchant as to the reasons for her leaving um she kind of danced around the issue and then as Miss uh uh cross asked her about whether she uh resigned or forced to leave she was

fired um she uh came out and said she was given the choice you can either resign but either way you're leaving you're fired or you can uh resign uh in a manner in which um you know she wouldn't be officially fired uh you know when she's trying to get future employment and things of that nature um so I would submit to the court that there's abely no incentive an incentive is not why um Miss y's testimony changed or the state would contend her testimony changed but it was the reason she testified

the way she did was because of her bias uh towards the da which gave her motive to um what the state would contend is be less than honest before the court and I but if we're going to draw inferences based on her fighting The subpoena why would she have fought it if she had such a bias and wanted to say these untruths because she didn't want to come on national television and have to uh be exposed to the things um that well I I don't know anybody who wants to testify uh before a court in a normal

trial a normal proceeding but one of what I would qualify in this high-profile the nature where um Everybody uh would be able to um watch and learn as what she has to say as it unfolds uh in the courtroom and I'd further submit to the court there is reference to she left the DA's office in the text messag that were submitted in I believe what is a uh defense exibit 39 that it's because she released confidential information [Music] in the DA's office from the DA's office that led to her firing t

hat she wasn't and I know I'm um just because it's it's more conversational which I appreciate I know might be getting you off script so I don't want to use up all your time if you need to get through some other things um next Terence Bradley and um I believe the one thing that um the state and defense Council can agree on that he was uh less than honest at at at times during uh the proceeding and during um his testimony um he went uh pressed or asked by Mr seow why he was fired he basically um

choed it up to a dispute between partners um in a business um but when pressed by Miss cross it was uh clear that that wasn't the reason and um what I would submit to the court what has been referenced by um defense Council um as baffling as to why the state would go into to such a topic area the state as all uh Council has when appearing before the court at a duty of cander and uh when Miss cross um knew she was going to have to cross uh Mr Bradley she knew he lied and uh she had a duty of cand

er to the court uh in the state's opinion to expose that um more importantly it goes to his credibility and uh the statements that um had been represented by defense Council that he allegedly had made in the past um so it was important to um bring that to the Court's attention because when a witness is testifying the court is assessing their credibility and determined to whether to believe um the U veracity of the statements made by uh the witness or or not um so that is uh that is the most impo

rtant factor uh when uh determining whether somebody is telling the truth or or a lie furthermore he U reluctantly um when press finally admitted that he uh paid off the assault victim um you know eventually got started with an escrow account led to uh he did pay off uh the the victim in that case he testified over a span of three days and like I referenced to the court he must have said 15 times that he had no personal firsthand knowledge as it relates to um the relationship uh between Miss Wil

lis and U Mr Wade more importantly um when pressed by uh Council he could not pinpoint um a time in which he knew that the relationship occurred um there were many instances in which he described that very well could have fallen within the time frame that that was testified and um by both U Miss will Miss Willis and Mr Wade as it relates to the relationship beginning uh or or transitioning into dating uh in March of 2022 and into um uh the end of the relationship in August or the summer of uh 20

23 and as I referenced uh to the court uh the statements that Mr Bradley made uh the state would contend are inadmissible hearsay as it relates to the statements um that uh he was pressed and asked about um what Mr Wade told him because Mr Wade was never confronted with those statements and in order for impeachment to be proper he must be confronted with the specific statements um that are alleged to have made in order to impeach him again um Mr uh Bradley had every motive to lie um I believe th

e text messages are are kind of clear are very clear as it relates to his disdain towards uh Mr Wade um which uh due to the fact that you know he was uh expelled or exiled from a a thriving law practice um and um it was clear the practice and Mr Wade sided with the alleged um sexual assault victim which is clear um he assaulted her due to the fact that he paid her off uh and as I referenced earlier um you know Mr Miss uh Merchant represented to the court that Mr Bradley had personal firstand kno

wledge basically of of of it all of everything and that he would be able to basically be an impeaching machine I think your honor referenced him as the star witness um when you were addressing uh the claims that were made uh by um Miss cross in relations to um Miss uh Merchant's representations to the court and what I would submit to the court is that all Mr uh Bradley's representations as it relates to uh whether when and the relationship between Miss Willis and Mr Wade began and um whether the

y cohabitated but that was a promise that was also made that he would be able to impeach um the investigators as it relates to cohabitation was mere speculation gossip and innuendo um and this is your honor the impression I got the impression I got and we can correct this while we're all here together is that they Mr Bradley directly overheard a statement from each of these individuals that they could be impeached with M mer is that accurate directly overheard which ones are we talking about spe

cific well essentially they kind of seem to be all of them you had said Allan Bon young and then the investigators Hill green and rxs could all be directly impeached by statements overheard by Mr Bradley yes in reference to your question the unequivocal answer was yes and uh when your honor is looking through the text messages I would uh submit to the court that the text messages don't even um say or indicate uh what was represented to the court in relation to uh the good faith basis um for this

motion to disqualify as it relates to uh the testimony of and the ability to uh impeach Witnesses through uh Mr Bradley um what's been referenced uh by all council is Mr Bradley's assertion of uh absolutely as it relates to uh whether um the relationship existed prior to uh Mr Way's hiring and the question in itself involves speculation cuz it asked do you think it started before she hired him and he says absolutely he doesn't say he know he doesn't provide any context as to how he knows and in

these text messages and through his testimony with the court his the source of his information um was unclear clear uh what I would what is what I would say to the court um as to a lot of things um other than the the one conversation that allegedly occurred uh between um Mr Wade and Mr Bradley and I would submit to the court that conversation never occurred that that would be the state's contention um and how do we know that we know that because that conversation um was not confronted or Mr Wad

e was not confronted with that conversation and that is evidence circumstantially um and I'd even say direct as to that conversation nonexistent because based on the representation made by defense Council it would be clear that that would be a conversation that would have been relay to because it wasn't privileged um as your honor found um that would have been relay to Miss Merchant and if that conversation happened you better believe that would have been a conversation that defense Council woul

d have confronted Mr Wade uh with and against and the reason they didn't do that was because it didn't exist again uh you heard from U Mr John Steve Floyd third um the District Attorney's father um as your honor heard he was a well-respected u member of uh the legal Community for over 40 years um but the importance of his testimony was to provide the court with coroporation as it relates to um the years leading up to the relationship uh that uh transitioned into uh dating between uh the district

attorney and Mr Wade what he testified to is that he moved into her South pton home in 2019 the evidence of uh his moving into that home at that time was his uh Georgia driver's license um a government official government document um he further testified that not only did uh it wasn't that just Miss Willis and um himself live at the South fton um home but that he often would see on uh numerous occasions uh the significant other of uh Miss Willis that was not Mr Wade he referenced that that pers

on had a nickname of Deuce and that he kept a lot of his belongings in the garage of Miss Willis um he specifically said he kept a lot of his uh uh disc jockey equipment is as he is how he referred to it um uh when before the court he uh made very clear that he had never seen Mr Wade at the South Fulton home uh that is owned by Miss Willis uh he made clear that um he lived uh in that home with Miss Willis and Miss Willis alone other than um her two daughters um that who would occasionally visit

that home until um after February of 2021 but what uh precipitated um the uh soon move of Miss Willis to uh what I would reference as safe houses U for her protection was a a protest that occurred before her home in February of 2021 um he then uh expressed to the court that Miss Willis moved in the spring of 2021 and that due to these threats that uh were taken very seriously he had only seen his child uh 13 times um he said uh in reference to uh the questions uh by defense Council that um were

in a and I'm just going to be uh straight up at the court it was they were trying to make Miss Willis a liar um what is how I would submit to the court in the sense that uh she testified that she was concerned for her safety and her family safety which included her father and um her daughters and that um Mr Floyd remaining in that home kind of uh rebutted all of that made it so it wasn't true but he testified that he stayed in the home because it was the home that she had uh put her Blood Sweat

and Tears uh in and was able to buy and that he stayed in the home because there were uh there was constant officer presence he told the court that he bought extra security equipment he even went as far to tell the court that he slept in different rooms on different nights because he because he felt his safety was in such a a concern uh so I would submit to the court that line of questioning was uh done in an attempt to uh discredit Miss Willis but failed um would be the uh what the state how th

e state would characterize it um then he testified about um the first time that he did meet Mr Wade which is in uh 2023 uh here uh at the District Attorney's office and uh he talked about um how he kept cash in his home and why Miss Willis kept cash in his home and what I would uh what the court should take note of is uh the state didn't ask Mr um Floyd about the cash in his home that came out through the cross examination of Defense Council um so there was a I guess an implication um that Mr Fl

oyd only did so due through his preparation with the state and his U hearing and seeing um news articles uh and uh Clips uh related to the testimony that had occurred prior to him but I I would submit to the court that it's telling that that information came out through uh questions that were asked by defense Council which gives credibility uh to the statements that uh were made and he further explained as to why he um taught his daughter to keep cash uh in the home as it relates to financial In

dependence and having a safety net um it was further testified that he had multiple safes um and that he gave Miss Willis uh his first lock box or her first lock box um for uh situations uh as she described um when she was testifying and what I want to make clear is during Miss Willis's testimony it was pressed about the cash and where she kept it did it follow her where she laid her head um and things of that nature trying to further discredit uh the practice uh that she had as it relates to ke

eping cash in her home and why she was had the ability to pay cash to um Mr Wade and other people and for other uh situations and uh what I I would what the court should take note of is that there was no evidence that controverted that at all where where was the evidence that controverted Miss Willis's claim and practice of keeping cash in her home there was none in fact the only evidence was is it was uh substantiated through the testimony of her father Mr Floyd furthermore I you heard from uh

Governor uh former Governor Roy Barnes um and uh his testimony was significant and important because what I would how I would PR your honor is it debunks let me let me on this point and I think you might have had a more recent opportunity to review his testimony that I have you say on the slide that she was the first choice to lead the prosecution was that actually his testimony or was he just was his testimony that he was asked to come aboard did he use the words that he was asked to lead yes i

t would be that that's my recollection that he was asked to to lead the prosecution he was asked to um take or he was asked to fill the position that Mr Wade is currently in which is the lead prosecutor um it was said in that way as well as it relates to the testimony of Mr Barnes so I think it be very clear my recollection is that he said lead but what I can submit to the court that I I know he also said that he was asked to fill the position that Mr Wade is currently uh filling uh for the stat

e of Georgia which is as special grand jury prosecutor right yeah the special I guess yeah as the special prosecutor lead the investigation which um led to the ultimate prosecution um that were here before your honor today um he also indicated that the reason he turned that job down was because it didn't pay enough he said he had mouths to feed uh at his law firm and that he also didn't want uh to uh lived the rest of his life with bodyguards cuz he had lived that for the the years in which he w

as uh the governor of Georgia uh furthermore um he confirmed the qualifications uh of Mr Wade um which I still find it quite interesting and confusing as to attacking uh Mr Wade's qualifications in that it's it's almost as if Miss uh uh Mr Roman's council is asking that the state put a prosecutor on the case that she sees to be more qualified to attempt to convict her client um it it's an interesting uh argument and it's one that makes no sense furthermore um if you were to believe the claims an

d allegations um as it relates to miss Willis's personal stake in the prosecution the receiving of financial uh uh benefits uh in gains then you'd have to believe that she was also dating Roy Barnes the former Governor and gay Banks uh in addition to Mr Wade um if she has this grand plan scheme in order to um a profit off of the prosecution of this case because that's what they're saying or they're saying that she's uh she telepathically or uh prophetically was able to um know that Mr Barnes and

Mr Banks would turn down the position so she could then hire Mr way it's ridiculous it's absurd and it it it is it's desperate it's a desperate attempt to remove a prosecutor from a case with for absolutely no reason uh your honor other than harassment and embarrassment um this slide and we've been through a lot of the testimony and I should be clear there it was not introducing evidence that Mr Banks turned her down right that's not is that part how's that part of the record well uh I'd asked

the court to take judicial notices um has been asked uh repeated unless the district attorney had testify to that I don't recall off hand I will be frank with the court I don't recall if uh uh Miss Willis testified to that exact fact but I know that Mr Banks represented that to the court uh during uh Monday's hearing as it relates to the allegations that were made I understand your Honor's position as it relates make sure we we know exactly what can is in the evidence and is not but uh regardles

s uh I think your your point is made I think it's an Evidence of of the record as it relates to um I guess the issues uh that led up to uh the actual hearing of this case so I understand your Honor's position um but uh it did come out dur several Pro or during a proceeding um uh that was prior to uh the actual hearing um this slide um is just a chart showing kind of the testimony of both um uh the district attorney Miss Willis and Mr Wade as it relates to how they met um how um when Mr Wade beca

me the special prosecutor when their relationship evolved into romantic one um uh talking about the trips uh in which they took uh after uh their relationship evolved into one uh that uh became romantic and um when it ended and what again I would submit to the court is that those facts um were consistent and uh the only uh person who contradicted that um the when the relationship started was uh Miss Y and what I would bring to the Court's attention is that it was represented to the court that Mi

ss YY was a witness other than Mr Bradley who could um bring to the Forefront this issue of cohabitation and when pressed and when asked about it Miss YY had absolutely no information as it relates to this alleged cohabitation it was false she said she had no information she was asked about trips she said she had no information about the trips yet she's such a good friend that uh Miss will confirmed each year uh that Mr Wade and her continue to be in a relationship 2019 2020 2021 until um their

relationship um ended due to her forth resignation and um splintering of their friendship your honor you uh I guess several exhibits obviously were tendered in U most of them were um exhibits that came from uh the seal uh divorce of U Mr Wade and um Miss Joselyn Wade um contracts for Legal Services trip by tenares and um the text messages um and I would specifically reference prior to today the only text messages that were before your honor were uh uh defense exhibits 26 and 27 uh which um it's

the assertion of Defense Council that um what those show is that Mr Bradley was in informate or was uh had information as it relates to the relationship starting prior to um March of 2022 and that's just false those text messages do not contain that it does not pinpoint just as Mr uh Bradley couldn't when the relationship actually started and furthermore you have the testimony and the evidence of the text messages that it was mere speculation if you as your honor reviews uh the full chain of tex

t messages it is clearly um Miss Merchant and Mr Bradley um going through what I can describe as nothing else other than a mere fishing Expedition uh between the two of them at first because it's asked about certain members of the DA's office who would had have information um as it relates just specifically for one Miss Young it is asked whether she would have information and he had no idea he said he assumed he was speculating and that is the same as as each person that was subpoenaed uh in ref

erence uh in the text messages um all of that was speculation and you know it was speculation because not a single one of them testified that's telling because if it wasn't mere speculation if it wasn't mere gossip and if it wasn't mere conjecture each one of those people who were uh subpoenaed would have been called to testify like uh district attorney Willis was like uh Mr Wade was in order to be confronted and then impeach by Mr Bradley um you've heard obviously about uh the phone records and

I have a maybe because uh whether it comes uh into the purview of your honor as it relates to um the determination your honor is to make um as it relates to U the disqualification of the distri district attorney you also have the affidavit um from uh the employee who worked at the winery who confirmed that Miss Willis uh did in fact pay uh in cash um but UPS to more than $400 um and I understand that this is part of the profer of the state but it's important because that is a witness who the st

ate didn't go find the state that is a witness who went uh to CNN in order to confirm what Miss Willis um testified to further giving uh her her statements credibility and Credence um before the court you heard about uh before we move on from that one other than the foundational concerns uh would you have a a response to the profer of the cell phone record records I have I'll get to that now it's going to get to it later but I have several foundational concerns as it relates to the cell phone re

cords um I don't think I've ever as Mr sow's uh Motion makes very clear the state uses cell phone records routinely and I would agree with that we use them routinely but we use them with an expert and they're always challenged right so like I said in the interest of time setting aside the foundational concerns I thought you were asking about no no no focusing on the substance I'm assuming it would be admissible in the guys that he's proferred would what's maybe you have that further up but what'

s what's the reaction to that so what I would say initially is that um due to the fact that they were analyzed by someone who was a non-expert um the analyzation of those cell phone records um were not properly peer-reviewed they were not U it's clear um from uh the State's reviewed that the the normal uh practices that are used to check um the use of which kind of data is being used um in reference to the two specific dates um I believe it's September 10th and 11th and November 29th and 30th uh

the affidavit that is used to say that Mr Wade remains at Miss Willis's or in the area of hatefield um because again during the hearing the address um for the um YY uh condo never came out it was just it was the hate Bill condo uh the actual phone number for Mr Wade was never established and the documents that were provided to the state as that were certified business records did not have a sub a subscriber page so we have no idea that the number belongs to Mr wa and I understand your honor wan

ts to look past the foundational issues and I I can appreciate that but the foundational uh stuff is very important as it relates to the Miss ability of the record no no doubt about that but if if somewhere how they were able to survive those foundational concerns do you have any any reaction yes I I do and I can I will skip forward so I don't um so what's interesting is that the records um that were provided uh were for they start in January of 2021 and they go uh I believe it's to uh November

30th I think is what the of 2021 the span of the record and you heard from all of the witnesses including Miss YY that Miss Willis did not move into uh the hate Bill address until um April of 2021 that was the testimony from all of the witnesses April of 2021 and that she lived in her South Fulton home uh from uh when she met Mr Wade in October of 2019 up until when she had to move and the assertion by defense council is that Mr Wade and Miss Willis began a relationship right after they met in O

ctober of 2019 what's interesting and what's telling is that Mr Wade's handset doesn't once up in anywhere near the area of her South Fulton home but they're dating but they're in a serious relationship and if you were to believe what the defense Council says that they have been in a relationship from October of 2019 up until she moves uh April of 2021 so you know a year and a half or so but he never once enters the area of her home but they want you to believe that that's a lie which is why uh

Council uh for defense continued to press uh district attorney Willis and Mr Wade as to whether he had ever been to that South Fulton home well this corroborates that that was not a lie that he had never been to that home and uh it's more than suspect if you've been in a relationship as they claim for all this time but never once for once went to the house so I think that's telling um what I would also bring to the Court's attention ention uh in the state's uh initial review of the records that

uh from January of 2021 to March of 2021 uh those times when Miss Willis did not live again at the hatef address um she didn't move there until April of 2021 that his handset appears in that area 23 times sure how do you reconcile that with his testimony that was alluded to I think by opposing Council the reasons he gave for being in the area well did the those line up to 23 times I think you know it didn't too many reasons for being there right well that's well I think that's the point I would

say yes that is the point he referenced that that's an area that he um it was not uncommon for him to be in and it clearly that is the case because Miss Willis didn't live in that area so again it's further corroboration as to what Mr Wade indicated to the court and uh when I guess after Miss Willis U moved into the conf in April of 2021 they appeared 35 times now I want to make clear to the court uh both Miss Willis and Mr Wade never denied that he had been to that condo before um the the speci

fic testimony that was uh elicited by Miss Willis and Mr Wade was that he never he had never laid his head uh was the direct quote um at at that condo which these records don't prove that he laid his head anywhere if you were to believe uh the uh the anoun is or if you were to um if you were to give Credence to what the non-expert says as it relates to um Mr Wade's handset on uh in September and November for the 3 to four hours that the phone uh is alleged to have remained um that doesn't dispro

ve anything that that was testified by both um Mr Wade and district attorney Willis it was that he visited there the specific hours of his of their visits with was not something that uh was uh pursued during the questioning of both of the parties so um what I would also submit to the court is that if you look at the days um as it relates to uh SE in September and November the use uh the I guess the type of information that is used to make uh the plots for the longitude and latitude of the handse

t is U data records it's not voice records it's not SMS or text messages it's data records and uh it is not uncommon for an expert to testify as it relates specifically to AT&T records that that actual data record is uh unreliable as it relates to the location of the handset due to the type of information that it is that it's data it's not the voice and the SMS which I know you're honor as has been referenced as um was a prosecutor not only here in this County but um for uh the federal governmen

t where this kind of information is commonly used so um in the comments that were made by the court it was clear that you uh understood and understand the use of cell phone records as it relates to put somebody uh in an area and again not in a specific location um I'd also bring to the Court's attention as it relates to the validity of the affidavit and the analysis done by um the expert uh that was hired by um Mr sow is that not once doesn't reference uh the uh fact that AT&T records commonly h

ave duplicate and triplicate entries uh within the call detail records um that is something that is commonly seen and that is that is something that is seen uh in in these records and that is something that leads to um the incorrect number of times that has been alleged that um Miss uh Willis and Mr Wade were in communication um through text and voicemail and I'd also sub to the court that that number doesn't prove anything again doesn't prove that anybody's in a relationship um it it proves tha

t they were in communication with each other and um I think your honor can use your own life experience as it relates to people you work with or friends uh that you are close with uh and the number of times that you um make calls um to uh any of those people I can submit to the court that um I have a friend who I've been friends with for 15 years and she worked uh in in the office previously with me and based on our professional relationship and our personal relationship the friendship that we h

ad uh had and still have that we talk 30 times a day so there's that doesn't mean we're in a relationship so the the assertion that the number of times that uh Miss uh Willis and Mr Wade have uh spoken to each other whether it's through text message or um phone it it's has no validity as it relates to them being in a relationship what I would submit to the court is that what was shown through all of the evidence was that um there's been a true cost to Miss Willis as it relates to her life that s

he had additional expenses that she had to uh endure uh because of her position in the sense that she told the court that she had a mortgage but on top of that mortgage that and house she didn't live in anymore she had to pay uh for a safe house um that her home was vandalized uh and um there were racial epithets and uh sexual bigotry that were spray painted onto her house the uh concern of her safety in her life is something that that was testified to and the fact that this job has led to um th

e isolation and separation of her from her family and friends which was um given Credence and The credibility of those statements were provided by her father um Mr Floyd that he had only seen um his daughter 13 times since all of these instances occurred um the the state R nature of the statements and the falsehoods that for example in these text messages that were purposely leaked to the media as it relates to miss Willis's daughter subjecting her uh her uh position uh in school that she flunke

d out of of college which isn't true uh which in fact she has graduated from HBCU but what's been leaked to the media is the fact that she um flunked at a school and someone other than her father moved her which again the Validia of which was never um shown um and all the while um Miss Willis facing these costs has been able to continue to do the work unrelated to this case uh which is shown in the fact that um Atlanta's murder rate and violent crime rats have decreased while she has been in off

ice what was shown through the testimony of all of the witnesses and through the evidence um that your honor heard was that there wasn't an actual conflict that the defense failed to provide any sort of actual conflict uh in relation to uh Miss Wade's uh I guess the relationship uh that transpired um from the relationship between her in Mr Wade and that there was absolutely no evidence of a financial benefit that she gained as it relates to the prosecution um of this case and the ultimate outcom

e of the case um the coroporation of all of that is the things that your honor is very much aware um that she could have uh I guess financially benefited from U stretching out the case uh for lack of better words by the grand the special grand jury recommended that 39 individuals be indicted but uh through her sifting through uh the special Grand jury's report and all of the evidence with uh the the team uh that indicted the case uh they only went with uh 19 of the defendants which had she gone

to 30 gone with all 39 there's there based on the defense council's assertions um would have given her the opportunity to certainly uh find these uh Financial gains uh that are claimed uh through the allegations of Defense Council more importantly um why would Miss Willis repeatedly ask this court to set a trial date as soon as possible if her motive um in Prosecuting this case was to continue to um financially gain as alleged um from the prosecution of this case it doesn't line up it doesn't ma

ke sense and it doesn't make sense for a reason because it doesn't exist more importantly um this office has several multiple Reco and as well as large scale cases like this one and much larger um and they also have there's a lot of high-profile prosecutions if Miss Wade's or Excuse Me Miss Willis's ultimate goal by hiring Mr Wade was for her financial benefit then she would put Mr Wade on every single one of those cases though she could uh certainly a revel in the um uh riches uh and lavish lif

estyle um that has been referred to by defense Council um which there's been absolutely no evidence of the evidence was she stayed at a Double Tree in Napa a Double Tree I don't know that to be a a lavish Hotel um most people when they go to Napa if they want to lavishly experience uh Nappa stay at the Ritz Carlton the Four Seasons things of that nature not a Double Tree so the allegations and assertions that Miss Willis was living the lifestyle of the rich and the famous is a joke absolute joke

uh as it relates to um what you heard uh and the the secondary issue uh is the forensic misconduct and um for a lack of better words uh what has to be shown is that the statements that were made by here Miss Willis related to the prosecution of the case and ultimately the guilt or innocence of um the defendants and we have none of those statements there's been no evidence nothing has provided to your been provided to your honor as it relates to Miss Willis specific statements made about any of

the defendants and in relation to the guilt or innocence of any of the defendants I forget which defense Council referenced the fact that she said she had a 95% conviction rate well what Miss Willis's job is to instill confidence uh in the community as to how how well she is doing as it relates to her constitutional duties and that was exactly what was done when she referenced that she had a 95% conviction rate in the previous year um that she was serving as the district attorney more importantl

y um it's been the allegations about race and religion being being uh imputed in uh Her speech uh and um that that those comments were directed at the defendants at this table and if you listen to the speech those comments are directed at two uh elected or political officials I believe it was Marjorie Taylor green and um Miss Bridget Thorne who is uh uh a member of the Fon County Board of Commissioners here she specifically used their names I don't I don't know the they uh and my knowledge is th

ey're not supposed to be sitting at the table and I haven't seen them uh in my um work as it relates to uh this case uh your honor so uh those allegations that Miss Willis committed a forensic misconduct are again there's no validity to them there's no evidence of them um as it relates to any of those comments uh which um is this is an issue that judge MC Burney has previously ruled on when these same allegations were uh alleged as as it relates to extrajudicial statements made by U Miss Willis

um and it it involved a statement that uh the words fake electors uh were said by Miss Willis and he found there was absolutely no conduct that was imperm impermissible as it relates to uh forensic this conduct and I guess to drive home the point um at no point in any of the statements that were made uh and that were that were that are alleged uh here as it relates to the speech um that she made um at the church um at no point did she mention the guilt or innocence of any of the defendants um sh

e again was merely responding to comments made by margorie Taylor green and Bridget Thorne uh two other political officials therefore making her comments not even been close in the realm of any sort of forensic misconduct what I find interesting is that defense Council um wants to make these allegations that Miss Willis committed this forensic misconduct by the statements that she made uh in her defense as to unrelated in this case public officials um criticized the job that she was doing and uh

I find the hypocrisy interesting in the sense that we've had video propers released to the media by defense Council emails between Council released um to the media by defense Council statements have been made uh by defense Council in relation to this case we had the unredacted version of the cell phone records of Mr Wade released to the media by defense counsil with his private and personal information um causing um the threat of harm to both Miss Willis and Mr Wade uh to increase we uh the mos

t recent uh instance was the text messages that your honor hadn't ruled on their admissibility um prior to their uh release and it was uh made clear during the hearings that the ability to uh get those uh the full chain was something that uh they were unable to do um but they figured away and the minute they figured away uh they released it uh the information to uh the media simultaneously with turning it over to uh the state and the court for all the reasons obviously stated uh before your hono

r um that this motion should be not be should be denied um because the legal requirements by U that are required in order for the district attorney to be disqualified have not been satisfied the defendants have failed to raise any issue legally or factually to satisfy the legal standard um for disqualification they must show an actual conflict they've been unable to show that the prosecution of this case was at all result of political bias which has been um accused or accusations have been made

as well as demonstrated that the prosecution of this case was motivated by any means or any way because of malicious prosecution and they haven't been able to prove that this case was one of selected prosecution for political benefit or gain all allegations that have been made during the course um of uh different hearings and the procedures uh as it relates to this case um what I would leave uh the court with and how uh the state started the argument is that courts have uh been generally unrecep

tive if not hostile to attempts to disqualify prosecutors based on pervasive and institutional conflicts which makes clear that the uh burden that the standard is very very high that must be met in order for uh a district an elected district attorney to be disqualified and that burden that standard has not been met an actual conflict has not been shown and more importantly in conjunction with that there's been absolutely no evidence that the district attorney has benefited financially at all but

benefited financially in conjunction with any um outcome whether it be now or ultimately as it relates to the prosecution of this case uh and because of all those reasons your honor we respected request to deny defense council's uh motion uh to disqualify uh the elected attorney miss all right thank you Mr V I think we have 5 minutes and 44 seconds that's what it says Mr cwell oh you okay handing it understood Mr say all yours thank [Music] you I'm going to do rebuttal specific rebuttal one Sta

te somehow makes an argument that we should have asked Mr Wade questions about his relationship and his Communications with Mr Bradley when they objected over and over and over and Aid's Council objected over and over and over claiming that everything that Bradley was told by Wade was attorney client privilege your honor made determin thereafter to Bradley we didn't get the opportunity to call Mr wade back to the stand so to claim that you can't impeach him because you didn't ask him when they o

bjected to us asking him is a obviously is a false position to take as disingenuous as it can be now if the court wants to open it up we'll be more than happy to call Mr wade back to the stand but as the record stands there could be no um confrontation of Mr Wade when both his Council and the state are arguing arguing that it shouldn't be done second let's let's use a little Common Sense here forensic misconduct uh received about 2 minutes worth of discussion uh the rest of it is all on conflict

forensic misconduct dealing with the way the state wants you to have it is if you don't accuse someone or you don't say that someone's guilty yeah assuming you can impune someone's character the degree the con forensic misconduct why is that I'm sorry assuming you can impune someone's character to the degree that it constitutes forensic misconduct uh I think that I guess the state's primary position was that they weren't talking about you at the church right and if you go listen to it and watch

it it starts off by saying why does commissioner Bridget Thorne and so many others and then it refers to they attack him for being black they attack him not anyone else just to attack the black man they're not talking about Miss Thorne or Marjorie Taylor green they're talking about us and you know how everybody knows that because not a single story from the media reported anything other than fonny Willis accused the defense and defendants of being racist now here's the Common Sense part of this

if you follow the state's position on Forensic misconduct Bonnie Willis could all day long talk about race she could say the defendants I'm not saying they're guilty or not guilty but they're racist they're racist they're racist and according to the state's position on Forensic misconduct that wouldn't be a problem obviously that makes no sense whatsoever the issue here that we've dealt with on Forensic misconduct it's not simply the church speech it's why she did it how she did it calculated a

nd all the other things that we talked about with the testimony of Wade and Willis in this case let's go to the relationship issues in the cell phones Bri briefly no one knew that there was a relationship between Wade and Willis according to Wade and Willis not a soul was ever told that they were dating or that there was an intimate relationship ever they concealed it from all parties from daddy daddy didn't even know they had a relationship suggest that somehow in the beginning of uh 2021 Janua

ry to uh whatever it was in into April that they couldn't have met in Hapeville they didn't meet anywhere that would allow the public to see them that's the reason why they were meeting at y because no one else was ever there remember the testimony who else was there besides Mr w and Miss Willis both of them agreed no one no one ever went there except them they didn't go to where daddy was in in Miss Willis's house because Daddy was there and daddy would know no other prosecutors knew no one kno

ws except who the one person that knew was Bradley and Y YY was best friend at that time of Miss Willis and Bradley was the partner of Wade now the only way that Wade can walk I'm sorry the only way that Bradley can walk away from the very little time so I'll skip that let's go to something motive that's a an issue whose motive in this case is the strongest Bonnie Willis Nathan Wade because if they if they testify truthfully on every Point what happens if the relationship started before November

1st they get disqualified who has the best motive of anyone to lie they do who has the most at stake to lie they do who wants to stay on this case for whatever the financial reason may be they do in thank you Mr s there it is all right thank you everybody uh I think has been very much made clear by the argument and the uh made today is that there are several legal issues to sort through several factual determinations that I have to make uh and those aren't ones I can make at this moment and so

I will be taking uh the time to make sure that I give this case the full consideration it's due I hope to have an answer for everyone within the next two weeks uh until that point um if there are any other issues that come up Council can reach out and uh we'll have an order posted on the docket thank you all we're off the [Music] Record thank you to