What happened to Tory Lanez' total acquittal I was promised?
An experienced criminal defense attorney runs through the facts of the trial and gives you the answers to the Tory Lanez question.
What happened to Tory Lanez’ total acquittal? Two things.
One The defense team thought that Kelsey, the prosecution star witness was gonna stay mute on everything, and therefore provide minimal evidence and
Two, they had a star witness who was going to say he saw two girls fighting, including one who may have shot the gun and a shorter man break up the fight.
Neither of those waves broke out the way the defense needed- for Tory Lanez to win his charges.
My name is Marcus Landsberg. Been a criminal defense Atty for close to 20 years, on sabbatical right now, but ether way you cannot hire me for your employment law cases.
I said that on purpose.
Let’s start by talking about with Tory Lanez actually thought he had when the trial started. I would bet money that the defense had a better understanding than the prosecution that Kelsey was going to do everything she could to not testify or to testify to as little as possible. I don’t think they thought Kelsey was gonna fall on her sword and take responsibility when she got immunity. That’s wishing for too much, but I’m certain they knew that she was not happy with Meg and that she was going to - at a minimum obfuscate if not tell a story that painted Tory in a positive light.
When a judge allowed the recorded statement from September, that was made in the prosecutors office as substantive evidence, that was the first huge flip in the trial that was a gift to the prosecution. That statement had all the information they needed to make their case and once it came in, she’s uncrossable, because already testified she doesn’t remember much. The Defense was on their hind legs.
The second big ball drop was the defense to promise to star witness who is an uninvested neighbor, who simply happened to be looking out his window. What Sean Kelly was going to add depends on the effect of which blog site you’re reading that witness was going to either not Incriminate Tori, or was going to incriminate Kelsey instead.
I don’t know to what degree Kelly cooperated with Prosecutors earlier - but he clearly corroborated the prosecutors case. he clearly said what he saw, including the shorter man fire “ into the air” for five times no, he didn’t see it. Sean is talking about a muzzle flash, but you can’t have a muzzle flash without a gun, so that’s a pretty obvious connection,. the important things line up.
And as far as the fire into the air goes, depending on who you follow with the trial, it doesn’t sound as though he was, shooting straight up in the air it sounded as though he meant the difference between shooting at point blank assassination to the back of the head versus shooting Into the air leaving that you’re not right in front of the target.
AS ALWAYS - We’re not in the court, we’re reading blogs or tweets from people interpreting what THEY say, and they have a different seat than a juror - this is part of why there is such a gulf of understanding in this case - Who you’re getting your news from.
So, to help people discuss a case like this intelligently, let me give you an overview of how an experienced defense attorney would assess the case.
There’s been a lot of talk about all sorts of conspiracies, but how you assess by looking at:
1. What are the elements of the charge - what does the prosecutor NEED to prove beyond a reasonable doubt.
2. What facts are unassailable. What can’t be denied.
What other factual accusations are going to be made - and then
What competing facts will there be that I can get a jury to believe, or my opponent will ask a jury to believe.
I’m going to gloss over the elements for this video, because close textual analysis is COMPLICATED, and let’s do this in generalities. If you WANT that, let me know in the comments down below.
What CAN’T we change: the foot surgeon took bullets out of the foot of Megan Thee Stallion. Those bullets got in their somehow, no evidence He’s lying.
So There’s bullets, in Megan, at the time the police arrive.
If there’s bullets, there’s gunfire, if there’s gunfire there’s a shooter
There’s audio of five gunshots, and bullet casings are later found.
There’s four people in the car. Two test positive for gunfire residue on the hands. A third is shot a fourth is clean.
Remember about gunfire residue, DNA, and fingerprints: If it’s there, you have to deal with it, if it’s NOT there doesn’t exonerate a person - it doesn’t HAVE to be there. Often it’s not. Here two people DO have it so we have to deal with it.
-NOW, there still could be accident, self-defense, self-inflicted, a stranger, any number of things, so it’s not a done deal.
Basically, Tori needed a break in this case any kind of break and he got nothing.
Not here, so a jury would break down what happened
So what are the factual accusations that come in:
Megan Thee Stallion says Tory Lanez shot her. Kelsey says in court she didn’t see Tory shoot but was ADAMANT that she, Kelsey, never shot the gun. The September statement that came in clearly made Tory the shooter. The Text from Kelsey also pegged Tory as the shooter.
Then Defense eyewitness Sean Kelly, who’s looking from his apartment he’s not invested in any of the argument, and we already discussed what he said, but he said that he believed the female not Meg, but Kelsey there was one muzzle flash near her hand, and he said 4 or 5 Muzzle flashes near the other person, the shorter guy - was the way he described Tory.
So this is where it gets tricky,
we don’t except we don’t expect stories to match 100%. Think about where do you have two friends who broke up with each other doesn’t tell the story the same way it went down. They’re still broken up, but who and why?
This one’s better, Think about when you have four friends who went to a club on Friday night had a good time and they all tell you a story that has some overlap. They were all at the club. They all got drunk so One guy danced with a girl but there’s a difference - For example Maybe the one guy says the girl approached but the other three guys they may say he’s the one who approached her- for example, so it’s not uncommon for stories to mismatch and part which is what these did, and what we do as humans on a daily basis every day is sift through different pieces of information and decide based on our reason and common sense life experiences what is true.
So when all three witnesses differ on certain things, but the thing they all do is put the firing gun in Tory’s hand, what’s the only reasonable conclusion to come from that - it is NOT that Kelsey is the one who shot.
The OTHER interesting thing to notice is that NO ONE said Kelsey is the one who shot - no one who testified, blog reporters did though - NOW, Sean Kelly did say he saw the first muzzle flash near Kelsey but this is the thing, more than one person could have shot at Megan and both could be guilty - Caesar was stabbed by the whole senate. Kelsey being guilty first doesn’t make Tory any less guilty - “She shot first, I just wanted to do it too” is not any type of defense.
In Court when Kelsey was asked if Tory offered her a million dollars to stay quiet, her response was something like “not in those words”. That’s not testimony you want from the person who just testified she doesn’t remember you shooting even though the text, the recording, all say she saw it clear.
So the three things they all agree upon is that the short guy shot a gun and it’s already accepted the Meg has bullets in her foot so the only real question so that’s two of the three charges right - If he pulled the trigger and she got injured that’s the negligent charge, if he pulled the trigger he had possession, so that’s the possession charge. But the hard one is the assault, and the issue is the intent. The jury asked, could you please defined willful for us - and that’s a question that is consistently asked in many trials.
LOOK, Tory needed ONE piece of luck to break his way in the trial, and when Kelsey didn’t remember anything and got immunity, he thought maybe it would. He just really needed one molehill to turn into a mountain - anything.
He didn’t get that, instead he got one major ruling allowing in evidence he didn’t one, he had a witness he liked testify to something he didn’t foresee, that’s Kelly, and he got a second unfavorable ruling - which was that if he testified, all of his priors, his comments, the subsequent assaults, his statements and the video purportedly of him rapping and cutting “horsemeat”, it appeared all of those things were coming in.
Any of that would have convicted him worse.
So if he cannot testify, so there’s no reasonable self-defense. There’s no testimony that I could’ve been self-defense. There’s no testimony that, the gun went off accidentally none of those things were testified to. No one said “I saw the gun in Kelsey’s hand. I saw her shoot Meg”. When you have at least two people, Kelsey and Meg, say “no, that did not happen.”
And that’s the case - hopefully that helps. If you have any other questions or I left anything out, please let me know.