it was my pleasure to represent her in this case this is the only delta blues case to go to trial out of the seventy defendants but we appreciate your willingness to accept this i'm and i when i'm won't comment on there not having you up any i guess you beer another and the district court website showed him as of monday and also there's a glittering typo on the map i thought i was being so cute by including the map in color but up here it says on the upper right it should say upper left how that typo got by me i'll never know but the map shows the route in the lower right corner is where the mississippi river bridges then they follow forty nine around to the upper left marlene cab was a police officer for twenty seven years and helen of west helena some of the time she was with phillips county as a narcotic soft serve and she worked a spider injuries if you see the videotape she's missing some teeth she testified that she had to wrestle suspects she got punched in the face that's how she lost her teeth but she stayed on the job until this case got her arrested and the case was under investigation for probably a year there were a couple of wire taps the government had the information they needed about the place where the drug trafficking was going on and they had poll cameras set up they ran wire taps and then while they were finalizing the details about how to arrest all these people and get them indicted they enlisted mr coleman c c is referred to in the government's brief he was a well known local criminal they ended up paying him fifty thousand dollars to be the snitch in this case and they decided well let's see what else we could get so they listed him to call the police officers and see what they could get none of the police officers say one one was somehow involved in the drug trafficking and he was charged with them a guy but the other four officers were charged completely separate indictments except my client was indicted wouldn't just rogers and they were literally collateral to the original investigation that the investigation was complete by first of september and then they started on this part in early september while they were getting the mechanics together about how to make the arrest go down they literally had seven hundred police officers come in to sweep into town to arrest the seventy people in the dark at night they had to use the national guard armory as a booking place it was a fiasco that day to do it and the police officers testified at trial we came over there at midnight getting ready to go in and arrest people at five am they spent the night up getting ready for it but in cc's case what he did was he went to the police station and the testimony in this is really clear he asked about is there a warrant out for my arrest and he talked to his cab a lieutenant at the time been promoted and talked to her about it she said well i don't know and then she put it off to somebody and dispatcher checked the computers that we don't see any warrant for you he thought it was a failure to pay child support which led to his not having a valid driver's license but nevertheless his license is ok but his excuse was the police bother me when i'm going through town can you follow me she asked him directly at one time and and i think this is on one of the videos of one of the recordings if you cleaned up your act if you stop being the criminal that you are in this guy had a huge list of prior offenses it was the sort of a folk hero with or something i don't think so i mean he seems to be getting by with it well the irony of all this is that everybody who gets arrested in that county if it's not for aggravated robbery or murder completed out to like five years of spending it was amazing to me one of his prior convictions was for  son he threw a firebomb at his girlfriend's front door set the house on fire luckily the fire didn't do a whole lot of damage but he was convicted of arson he constantly pled to probation over and over and over again but that's not limited to him it was sort of how it works over there unless you commit a really bad crime in which case then you might have a trial and you might get real jail time but he was able to dodge the bullet on so many things and in fact committed a crime after he became the government's next while the indictment was pending he gets arrested in against my client he gets arrested and phillips county possessing a stolen trailer with two commercial lawnmowers on it that was taken or to cross the river in mississippi and i went to mississippi and got the prior arrest or that arrest not that it wasn't a conviction at that point and the government agreed we could cross examine him on it but they had the videos and they thought that's all they really needed was the video of the car in transit the  the airplane overhead the videos of him recording her and when the money is actually trance he asked her to take it she won't take it and then finally just sort of throws it at her and said well give this to christi christie's a mutual friend of theirs christie was a one time girlfriend to his who we may or may not have owed money to but he said we'll give it to christie and she did in fact give it a cursory christie testified to that but it was not in exchange for what it is that she was falling for she said i was following him because he said he was being hassled by the police she was not in interior and i'm like two vehicles driving from the mexican border into the country one is a following trying to mislead the police as to what's what she was following him in several cops get behind me and they pull me over ok i will follow you through town but don't exceed the speed limit do what you're supposed to do and go on about your business well was it wasn't there some evidence that she knew that he was transporting cocaine yes he said i had a huge amount of cocaine this time he said that once he did in fact say that but she said i thought he was kidding because she prior asked him if you cleaned up your act you stop doing drugs and he said yes and that part's not a sort of it but they have him on video saying that yes or that jury question as to who to believe that's correct but even so was she assume that she knew that the jury believed that she knew why isn't for escorting him through town for the purpose of protecting him from other officers and sort of being right behind him why isn't that enough to create possession on her part because she would know exactly what he had she had no right to control his cars assume she knew it was cocaine because he said it was cocaine she didn't have any way to control his car she was just tailing him she didn't have access to the car she didn't know exactly what he had how much he had he just mentioned that he was loaded down at one time he just said i'm loaded down he didn't say it was drugs i'm just loaded down he didn't he should have been more explicit since it was all being recorded and it was for the benefit of the recording he was saying but he did one time i agree he said cocaine i had a a load of cocaine but he never said how much just a load and hurts her testimony was all he was into racing motorcycles which was true and he was had motorcycle parts in the truck it was in the back of a pickup truck but again there was no drugs but this  case about her having control over drugs that don't even exist because there never was any it's not a crime of a possibility but how can you because they charge it is attempted right correct so they don't have to malfunction and they had to go into the bathroom a state police officer follow him in there to get the recording off of him and get it going to me it is your argument that there wasn't sufficient evidence for her to know that there were drugs in the car or is your argument that even if she knew there was insufficient evidence that she had possession it's really both but i stress the latter that he was not explicitly clear that he had it but even if you assume that he had it was her actions anough to have any control over his car she was just tailing him from one side of town to the other just so another police officer wouldn't pull it because he's out on behalf of my other police officers and that corroborates that he's being hassled because of being pulled over for not having a license which turned out not to be true and the government tried to suppress the trial she's the one that checked and the testimony was no she didn't even check she just passed it off to somebody else th month of september so there was there were other three other police officers too and they pled and as a side like of this of the government relied on the ten year imposition of a sentence for the conspiracy when they detain all these police officers pending trial after the first three pled and i got their plea agreements i have imposed upon the court to these people pled to eighteen to twenty four month sentences that sort of sets the bar now i think she should be released pending trial she got released pending trial after serving seven months then she was out until the trial and then when the jury convicted her she was taken back into custody she served twenty two months on the thirty month correct all four of them well there's a there's a fifth one that was involved in the conspiracy itself he was actually handling drugs when they got him but the other four were and again the main delta blues investigation was done and that was an indictment that ends in two or not and then they added that that was done by the first of september while they were getting the paperwork together amassing the paper for the wiretaps to tell everybody making copies of everything then they continued on to see what they would get on the police officer and that was in september of two thousand and eleven so none of the police officers except that one were a focus that just happened they were never a focus they had nothing on marlene cab before this started and nothing on that we've sort of said evidence of concerted action plus some evidence of dominion and control is going to be sufficient to show possession and here don't we have that we certainly have concerted action and at least with her escorting to protect from other police officers that sort of thing isn't that enough dominion and control to show possession i agree she was following him so others wouldn't hassle his board and but if somebody was going to legitimately arrest him if you would have let him go i'm sure but that was never never came up because her following him was because he would be arbitrarily pulled over for no reason that was his claim she wasn't running interference like there was a case of little rock that was coming on its way up here were full police officer was tail like a thousand pound load he knew exactly what it was and in fact passed other cars going the other direction to emerge as he ignored an emergency to keep the tail go and that's back to your argument that she didn't know and to me that's a fact question for the jury but it doesn't rise  dominion and control and had dominion and control she was just tail in the car sheet and if somebody wanted to pull over she was going to stop them but that was just to create an illusion i guess there is no proof that she asked for money she didn't do anything they asked for the money he volunteered it and she rejected it on the video the first video she's rejecting it outright and then he just sort of tosses it at her and said will split this with christie or give it to  christie and she did in fact give it to christie because christie was his girlfriend and marlene knew critics are in this new christie and christie testified for the government at this case and i cross examine her about that and the same it was on the nine from then on the twenty six again and he she rejected it me threw it into the car and he took off and the government's own brief said between when he tossed it and when he was driving it was ten seconds she didn't ask for the money ever he just gave a tour and fi regretfully kept it but they had an ongoing perth the relationship even though she'd arrested him before not as many times not all his arrest but she to rest there before count first and foremost i want to point the court to something that has not been discussed yet this morning after miscavige arrested on october eleventh she gave a confession to officers that she would accept a five hundred dollars on two separate occasions a fortune for escort have access to the car and you know i don't need there's any evidence she had the key to the car or had been inside the car and that sort of thing that absolutely and i do understand wilson fits and but here that the difference would be that this is a police officer who is in a and she also has either a reasonable belief or actually probable cause to believe that there's drugs in that car so she doesn't need again that's fine rushes just need a key but how does she have dominion and control because of her because she can stop a car without a key she's there's a belief that there's drugs in the car and that's more than enough under the supreme court precedent concerning automobile stops and traffic stops and here she's happy to be a participant in the conspiracy to try to to bring those drugs but she she has a knowledge that type know your honor a we've we've searched for cases and so far we haven't found one that's that applies it in this particular circumstance but in looking at the facts and also in this from a fundamental fairness standpoint where she accepted a benefit that she was not entitled to receive by her office in exchange for can for either doing or not doing an official act and here her confession meets that particular step and your honors in addition to miss miss coleman miss capps confession there's also other evidence that was in the record that the jury considered one there was a comment that she made concerning a gentleman by the name of the jackson he is another officer who was corrupt and w a target in the delta police investigation he was an individual who was known to shake down drug dealers there was a variety of different types of corruption schemes are going on there were dirty cops who were shaking down trying to listen and not bring in legitimate prosecutions than they were legitimate officers who were doing what this cop was doing which was protecting drug dealers from the police either by giving them advance notice or by escorting them through town and this cop was warning mr coleman about a particular dirty cop who was on  patrol the day that the second escorted heard what happened to the leadership of the police department you know on a i'm not sure about the specific pacific officers all involved but i do know that a quite a few quite a few  car told the officer who took her confession that the she was aware that the person who referred her had done previous escorts and she assumed that he'd been paid for doing that work and so that that again speaks to the the i'll try to answer judge murphy's question which is a good one a new police chief came into town and he knew there was some problems in the department plus the city generally and i don't know whether whether he went to the f b i or the f b i came to him but he was a new administration and this bill the blues investigation opened under a new chief although the federal government controlled it and when they actually did the arrest they enlisted a whole numbers of state officers as well but it was a fair f b i investigation primarily on the wilson case which the judge grounder cited in that case wilson was convicted of possession or control over a vehicle with the guy pulled up outside he was well known to be a drug dealer and there were drugs in the house but he wasn't in control of the drugs in the car that he did not go out to to to deal with the car was pulled up outside and everybody knew what was in the car because that's what he did for a living but they said that wasn't oh you guys said that wasn't enough to convict him of what was in the car now in the house that's different but in the car  and there was one time i recall it now mr creep brought it up she looked in the truck in the vehicle and didn't see anything and that was after the run was over she looked in the car didn't see any earth vehicle didn't see anything and but didn't search it she just looked in the window didn't physically get in the car look around to see you know your client was acquitted on a number of counts or she she was acquitted of two money laundering counts on taking the money and my argument the jury was the statute doesn't make any sense to me and if the jury instruction doesn't make any sense to you then you can't convict her and i think that's what they did foundered your only because of these other thing because you must be guilty of something well this use want it and he said i'll give it to christie so she took it gave it to christie and let her depressions and well confessions are confessions of a little rock police officer took her confession and l r p t policy is you have to record the confessions arkansas law requires you don't have to you should but he said well i was not doing it under the f b i s auspices so we didn't record it so there was no record ation of this confession and we cross examined about that you know how that goes ye well thank you both sides for the arguments and the cases submitted we will take it under consideration we'll be in recess until eight thirty tomorrow morning