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State v. Barson
State v. Barson
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00:04
you asked me about the most highly
00:06
publicized case in my
00:08
early career where there were a couple
00:09
of them but the dianna barson case was
00:12
one of them
00:13
i had actually taken a leave from my
00:16
practice to go work for jimmy carter
00:18
on his campaign and in the transition
00:20
government
00:21
and then after he was sworn in i came
00:24
home
00:24
a few days after that and i started my
00:27
practice again that was 77
00:30
and it was rough uh coming back
00:32
restarting
00:33
i had already had a pretty successful go
00:35
of it but
00:36
the phone didn’t bring and then one day
00:40
i was sitting at a place here called the
00:42
avalon drug store
00:43
which is kind of a it’s it’s near a very
00:46
wealthy area called river oaks
00:48
it was my favorite place to go and i was
00:50
drinking a cup of coffee
00:52
and i got a call this is 1977
00:56
or 78 rather and i went into the phone
00:58
booth and it was my secretary
01:00
and she said that i’d gotten a call from
01:03
uh someone who’s uh wife ex-wife was
01:07
uh in big trouble and i didn’t know who
01:10
that was and we sat back down and
01:12
everybody was talking about this murder
01:14
case uh a woman had
01:17
shot killed and dismembered her her
01:19
husband
01:20
well i got to the office and and the man
01:23
came down
01:24
turned out to be the ex husband of the
01:27
woman
01:27
accused of the crime uh to be specific
01:31
she had taken
01:32
the body parts in five garbage bags out
01:35
to california
01:37
where her parents had a ranch and
01:40
she was so guilt-ridden she was going to
01:42
bury the body parts and instead she
01:44
started to kill herself
01:46
and at that moment the police arrived
01:49
and arrested her
01:51
well the entire city knew about the case
01:54
and they thought she was guilty and
01:56
you know the facts were pretty ugly and
01:58
then i talked to her
01:59
at great length about what had happened
02:02
so let me just tell you about the great
02:04
lesson i learned
02:06
about jury selection and winning the
02:08
case from the get-go
02:10
i started out my client was diminutive
02:12
about 411
02:14
and i started out in jury selection and
02:17
i asked if anybody knew her husband
02:20
he was 6’4 he was a weightlifter did you
02:23
see him at the gym
02:24
and so i i created the picture of the
02:26
disparate size
02:29
i decided that she was entitled to
02:31
self-defense
02:33
and had acted in self-defense although
02:35
she didn’t fit the
02:37
the definition perfectly the elements
02:39
perfectly
02:41
for instance self-defense requires you
02:43
to retreat
02:44
first to try to avoid using lethal in
02:48
this case
02:48
lethal force so then
02:52
i asked it wasn’t a given back then this
02:55
was a different time
02:56
i asked if anyone on that panel had
02:59
reservations about a woman
03:01
who would use lethal force against her
03:03
husband even in self-defense and
03:05
a bunch of hands shot up so i got a lot
03:08
of good information
03:09
and then there were a hundred panelists
03:12
there because it was so highly
03:13
publicized
03:15
and then i heard a voice in the back
03:18
way in the back someone crying sobbing a
03:21
woman loudly
03:23
and a guy on the on one end of the row
03:27
that this woman was on pointed toward
03:29
her
03:30
and i don’t know what it was good luck
03:32
or or my my mother telling me to show
03:34
good manners
03:35
i got a cup of water and this woman was
03:38
never going to get on the jury
03:40
so i got a cup of water and i took it
03:41
back to her
03:43
and i said are you all right and she
03:46
stood up and in a voice the entire panel
03:48
heard
03:49
said pointing to my client
03:52
she said if my daughter had done what
03:55
your client did
03:57
she’d be alive today
04:00
at that moment i had a psychological
04:02
change of venue
04:04
at that moment the jury was able through
04:07
this this
04:08
analogy to this woman’s case this
04:10
woman’s daughter’s case
04:12
understand there were two sides to that
04:14
kind of story
04:15
and create great empathy and what i
04:17
learned was
04:19
let the panelists talk during jury
04:22
selection
04:23
make them either the metaphor for your
04:26
case
04:27
mr jones have you ever been betrayed
04:30
stabbed in the back oh yes i have
04:32
uh and then he’s telling the story of
04:35
your client
04:36
who got cheated in a business deal it
04:38
was a very valuable lesson
04:40
the judge was piggy hughes judge piggy
04:43
hughes and i remember the jury went out
04:45
and he said they’re going to give her
04:46
probation because in texas the jury
04:49
sentences as well as
04:51
makes a finding the ultra innocence and
04:54
judge hughes said
04:55
they’re going to find her guilty and
04:56
they’re going to give her probation he
04:58
was wrong
04:59
and by the way so was my mentor race or
05:01
sains
05:02
whose injunction to me before the trial
05:05
was
05:05
david they’ll understand her killing him
05:08
but they don’t like in texas we don’t
05:10
like people
05:10
messing with a body and they came back
05:12
and acquitted her
05:14
and my career really took off
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In State v. Barson you used the battered wife defense for the first time in a Texas court. What happened in that case?
