do you really want this on video I'll pull it a man to pull it an all female jury decides a man's fate after a video of him fatally shooting his wife is played in court Carrie birmingham's attorneys are here to talk about the Texas father's defense strategy and the end result welcome to sidebar presented by law and crime I'm Jesse Weber a 60-year-old man is going to prison after he shot his wife in the head outside their home in Spring t Texas Carrie Birmingham was seen on video talking to his wife Patricia Birmingham who went
by the name Richie do you really want this on video I'll pull it I'm mad enough to pull it okay all right goodbye bre the Haring video which also shows Birmingham saying you're going to meet Jesus and I hope it was worth it and I'm done I'm effing done was shown to an all female jury last week according to birmingham's defense team the had been arguing after Birmingham reportedly discovered his wife was having an affair the argument Spilled Out into the driveway with Birmingham standing in his bathrobe and cocking a gun the jury ended up
sentencing Birmingham to 10 years in prison he's going to be up for parole in five years we have a lot of questions about this so I'm joined right now by Mr birmingham's defense attorneys Anthony Oso and Dan Cogdell great to have you both here thank you so much thanks for having us so the first thing I wanted to ask is how this works there was a decision for Birmingham to plead guilty to murder but um walk us through what the strategy was and once you make that decision what happened next sure so the way it
works in Texas Jesse is that it is a two- tiered um jury trial system the first tier is going to be guilt innocence and the second tier is going to be the punishment phase of trial um the unique thing about Texas is that a jury can decide both phases of a trial they can determine both guilt innocence and then punishment so here as if you've seen the video it's obviously very overwhelming evidence and so our strategy was to plead guilty directly to the jury and then have the jury assess punishment in this case and one
of the defenses the way that the law Works in Texas is that it allows for a reduction in punishment if the jury finds that the crime was committed out of sudden passion uh due to adequate cause and so we felt that based on the circumstances and facts in this case that surrounded Carrie birmingham's actions that day that that was the best way to argue on behalf of our client and Dan walk us through what the theory was about what happened he immediately confronted his wife he just found out what had happened because I think that
timing is important yeah so he had heard from a mutual friend of theirs who had come into town to visit with him that weekend that his wife had been unfaithful that she had been in an affair in a relationship with a fell uh out of out of out of the country and he didn't confront that was on Satur Sunday Sunday uh he didn't confront his wife until the following morning um and once she confirmed in essence that she had had this relationships that that's when he you know was was fully informed and sort of flew
off the handle for lacker description now you had an all female jury which is a rarity in itself but an all female jury come back and not even recommend because in Texas it's their decision sentence him to 10 years in prison what was your reaction to that well I mean I thought that was the appropriate result again as Anthony explained it is the defense burden at a punishment hearing to show by preponderance of the evidence that the conduct happened as a result of sudden passion arising from an adequate cause and we believed that the evidence
was pretty clear that that is what why what happened happened I mean our Focus was on why and not what and once the jury heard the facts not only from uh several of the arresting officers they heard an audio tape that REI had secretly recorded where she I mean this is a husband and wife saying the worst possible things about each other I mean just you name it they said it she attacked his ability to perform sexually she attacked his ability to provide financially which are the two best ways to upset any man I know
and um unfortunately this this this argument that was recorded on audio TP tape by rissi served as the foundation for the argument uh that it was sudden passion arising from an adequate cause so that's a long way of saying look I thought the evidence was clear I thought that was the right result for the jury to find Sudden passion and I wasn't really surprised by the verdict the state certainly was there were others in the courtroom that were but uh after my argument I felt very strongly that the jury was going to do what I
believe to be the right thing and they did and Anthony that's my question what is your response to the people who say he killed his wife he took a life he could be out in five years is that Justice is that fair what would be your response to those people well my response would be that the law provides in the state of Texas that if the evidence establishes that a crime was committed out of sudden passion it reduces the punishment range from five years to life in prison to a second degree and so the maximum
punishment that Carrie Birmingham was facing once the jury found he had acted in sudden passion was 20 years and so under the law it's the appropriate Verdict by the jury and it's exactly what Dan asked them to do he said look if you feel that he needs to be penalized then give him 10 years and that's what they did so we feel that they followed the law they applied the facts of the law and they came to the right result and how's your client Mr Birmingham feeling about this I mean look he knew the reality
of the situation going into it um he's the only client I've ever had in 42 years where I told him look you're going to prison it's not a question of if it's a question of when you you might go for two years which is the minimum under the sudden passion uh scheme up to life for 99 under Murder I said you're you're going uh to prison so you best acknowledge that when when we started the trial honestly I thought best case was in the 20y year is range but once I saw the evidence as it
unfolded in front of the jury I felt very good that they would give him less than 20 years look this was a tragedy that that that we certainly recognized it's also a tragedy that can't be undone all that having been said Mr birmingham's father was murdered uh many years ago in a very very high-profile case here in Texas back in the 70s his son had committed suicide while he was awaiting trial in this case uh there's a lot of psychological uh and harrowing things that happened to him and his family that that are just tragic
all that having been said he doesn't have any criminal record he has no acts of violence there were no prior altercations between he and his wife uh and because of all those things that the jury was able to take into consideration I don't apologize for this verdict at all I think it was the right one it was a courageous jury that did the right thing um but I absolutely think think that that it was the right verdict hey so we want to thank Morgan and Morgan for sponsoring today's law crime YouTube takeover if you've seen
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can start by easily submitting a claim at forthepeople.com youube takeover or by dialing pound law that's pound 529 on your phone Dan and Anthony that that brings me to something else that you mentioned the family because I'd like to talk to you about Olivia this is Carri and Patricia's daughter my understanding was she was at school when the shooting happened she reportedly said that while she never observed her father physically attacking her mother she did accuse him of emotional and financial abuse she questioned the defense quote she said I don't know sudden passion you have
to have something you have to have made that decision within you for a while I feel like to do something to do that to someone you really love no matter what was said in this trial you know what type of woman she was and you know what you did and how he took away my f person in this world I lost both of my parents that day my dad died that day too because the person who did that to my mom and my father aren't the same person what's your uh reaction to that so so
I think in that answer lies the sudden passion defense um there's no way to get around the fact that Olivia is going to hate her father and rightfully so but in that statement she states that the man on December 6th that killed my mother is not the man that I knew growing up and that's what we argued the entirety of this case is that the actions that Carrie Birmingham took that day are not who he was and the only reason he acted that way is because he was responding to what we believed was adequate cause
so there was nothing in evidence to established that this was premeditated they had uh done a cell phone extraction on REI birmingham's phone there was no evidence that she had been complaining about any form of emotional or physical abuse nobody had ever seen him be physically abusive with her before um and there had never been any prior police reports to the home there's just no evidence in place in this case to show that there was Prior violence uh you know I think it's I I I don't I want to say it's contested whether she was
financially abused uh I mean I just don't see the evidence there she had a job she had access to funds and she was allowed to travel um in and out of Houston at her Leisure with the daughter Olivia and and another thing that I think jurors took into consideration is that Olivia and Patricia were planning to leave together and so that's also a daughter that's going to be stripped from her father and so um I just I think a lot of what was said through Olivia's interviews has a lot to do with her feelings that
have built up since her father's since her mother's passing but I don't think it is indicative of what was going on leading up to um Patricia birmingham's murder uh gentlemen before I let you go uh one last quick question do you think your client's going to get out in five years no uh he's he's eligible for uh to be considered for parole after he serves half the sentence but the the parole scheme in Texas particularly in a crime that involves violence much less death he's not going to make parole in five years that's not going
to happen I I my guess is he's he's going to serve the majority of that 10year sentence simply because uh it is highly unlikely in Texas that that you make first parole on anything it's extremely unlikely that you make parole first parole on a murder case it just doesn't happen Anthony Oso Dan cogdal thank you both so much for coming on appreciate you explaining the particularities of the case thank you thanks for having us all right everybody that's all we have for you here on this episode of sidebar thank you so much for joining us
as always please subscribe on Apple podcast Spotify YouTube wherever you get your podcast I'm Jesse Weber I'll speak to you next time [Music]
