Forfeiture By Wrongdoing News Today

Listen, you cant prove the case against me because there are no witnesses to testify. that is the doctrine of forfeiture by wrongdoing, and the supreme court said you cant get away with that. thats exactly what donald trump is trying to do. so these witnesses, the boltons, the mulvaneys, the pompeos, need to be subpoenaed. the motions that are going to be made by the house managers, the prosecutors, to chief justice roberts for subpoenas for these witnesses, those motions must be granted. then t...

And yet we all know donald trump has prohibited the witnesses with relevant and incriminating information from providing testimony that could sink him. theres a mechanism in the criminal law to address this exact scenario. its called forfeiture by wrongdoing. unfortunately when i was a prosecutor, from time to time, we would have a witness killed, killed because they could provide incriminating information. if we could prove by a fairly low standard, a preponderance of the evidence, 51%, that th...

Law. all right? and the theory of forfeiture by wrongdoing allows the prosecution to do it -- this case is whittled down over and over again. >> gregg: you know what else may be troubling to people, to vigorous defense lawyers, i used to be one, the jurors admitted afterwards, yeah, we did have some knowledge that the fourth wife had vanished. >> so what? every on the planet knew that. i mean, look, gregg, here is the thing, when i was a judge, i would say to the jurors, look, even if you heard ...

Wouldnt have to pay her divorce money, that i should be able to get away with the murder on the grounds of hearsay? there is something called forfeiture by wrongdoing. you forfeit the right to claim hearsay when you kill the witness in order to stop her from testifying. >> gregg: the defense still has a shot of getting this conviction thrown out by going up on appeal. there was a motion before the trial ever occurred in which they challenged this hearsay evidence. it wasnt all the way through th...

Then expect to be able to go forward after you killed the person who you made the statement about. its called forfeiture by wrongdoing. you can not benefit from the fact that you killed your fourth wife to get her to not say something about the third wife, and you killed the third wife to not testify in the financial settlement. there is good basis for this. on my show, well have all these people. >> gregg: all right. then this was also astonishing. a priest takes the witness stand. i always thi...

Their own client? >> that is the question. and ive got this attorney on my show tonight. it will be the first time that hes spoke publicly other than in court about this. so im going to ask him, what were they thinking when they called you to the stand and greg, make no mistake, they knew what he was going to say. >> gregg: i dont get it. the judge didnt get it. the judge thought it was an unusual -- >> you know what i think? i think that drew peterson is so convinced that these women are evil, ...

That savio allegedly drowned. but isnt that double hearsay? >> you know, it is what the defendant said to a victim who is dead. but you see, there is something from the common law called forfeiture by wrongdoing. where if you silence someone so they cant testify in a divorce settlement or cant testify in a murder trial, then you can not benefit by that and say that its hearsay. thats when the courts say wrong. it comes in now. >> gregg: the judge is not going to allow this? >> the judge is not g...