Dec. 15, 2025
The Brian Walshe Verdict: “We Find the Defendant Guilty of Murder in the First Degree”
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RSS Feed Criminal Defense Attorney Alison Triessl joins Amy and T.J. to discuss today’s sooner than expected guilty verdict in the Brian Walshe trial. Triessl talks about how the defense overplayed its hand, and already had an uphill battle with those devastating and gruesome searches Brian made shortly after his wife Ana’s death. Despite the prosecution’s lackluster presentation, and the lack of a body or known cause of death, it took the jury less than 6 hours to return a guilty verdict.
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00:00:02
Speaker 1: Welcome everyone to this episode of Amy and TJ Presents. It is Monday, December fifteenth, and wow, we certainly got a verdict today.
00:00:13
Speaker 2: Quicker than expected, at.
00:00:16
Speaker 1: Least on where we stood, and not the verdict that you and I predicted. TJ.
00:00:23
Speaker 3: No, I was a little surprised how quick it was and what they finally came back with, given that they had another option. But we have been itching Alison Driesol. She's been with us the last couple of weeks. Are our defense attorney, our expert. Let's get your reaction. And I mean that for the past week. Every time something happens, we want ooh, I wonder what she thinks. Oh, I wonder what Allison thinks. And we were texting, we were actually texting you and you were in the middle of a case and I said.
00:00:48
Speaker 2: Please was of a murder case.
00:00:49
Speaker 3: I was like, go focus, this is nothing one case at a time. But I was a good to see you again.
00:00:54
Speaker 2: Just first, your.
00:00:55
Speaker 3: Reaction to the Walsh verdict.
00:00:57
Speaker 2: Okay, as we started, when we started this, I said, this case is a stinker. This case is a stinker. Okay, So we started from a place where I said this is a slam dunk for the prosecution. Then we get this very surprising defense in opening, and the defense was essentially, yes, he lied to the police, he dismembered his own wife, but he didn't kill her, and there is no body, so they will not have a manner and cause of death. Okay. So they took a nothing and turned it into something for the defense to present to the jury. It was an all or nothing essentially, because you either believe that he killed her you didn't. They didn't say, and they could have said that he learned that night they had an argument, things went away and he didn't mean to kill her. They were getting in to it and they were shooting for a second degree murder. They didn't do that. They went all or nothing. They and even know there was a jury instruction, and I know that we went over this. I said, look, they're going to add things at the end, and they did include a second degree well at the end of the day, and because the prosecution's closing was not that powerful, but at the end of the day, they had the facts and they had the law on their side, and it is nearly impossible to get over those kinds of searches, those kinds of searches, and I think Tipton did the very best with what he had, with the cards he was dealt without folding, right, I mean, he did the best that he could. But I took a look at what no matter how strong their closing was, this is the people. They had, the facts, they had these horrible searches, they had a motive. I did believe that they proved that he knew about it. I did believe. I found it shocking that the prosecution didn't spend more time. I think her closing was thirty eight minutes, that she didn't spend more time on the fact that Brian Walsh. Absolutely, I would have argued he absolutely knew about the affair.
00:03:22
Speaker 1: How do you think he proved that? How do you think, sorry, how do you think the prosecution proved that.
00:03:26
Speaker 2: I'm curious the fact that Brian Walsh called him looking for his wife after she allegedly disappeared. It would have been very weird to me, and I would have made it a central theme that why this guy, why would he call this guy who if he didn't know anything, you know, oh they knew they had a crush. Well, I think there was much more to that. I think that he was well aware, and it took common sense, and they kept getting back to common sense, common sense. He called him, He called him and said, where is my wife? You call people close to her, very close to her. So I thought that that was pretty compelling. I really did. And she had talked about it with her friends. And I don't believe that whole idea that the mother, the mother apparently had hired this PI and oh, you know, my mom had this dream or she went to somebody to talk about it. That wasn't believable. That just wasn't believable. And when you're talking about life circumstances, even though you tell a jury, you know, leave it at the door. Just listen to the facts of the case. I think that that friend that testified at the end was very, very compelling, and she said, look, my friend was upset and there were problems in this marriage and he owed a lot of money. So they don't have to prove motiva amy. They don't have to, but they certainly she was having an affair, there was marital strife. I mean, for Tipton to get up there and say this loving couple, this loving couple, I think he sold it a bit too hard. I think he sold it too hard. But I also I also loved the part where they talked about him purchasing the antibiotic ointment and the band aids before he goes to buy the cleaning supplies. That was that hit for me, That resonated for me. It means that he was injured before the dismemberment.
00:05:34
Speaker 3: You know, you just made a point about them overplaying their hand on the love part, being a loving couple. It was something we talked about Alison that he said in the closing argument that there's the only things there's evidence of is love? Right, talking about there were the only evidence.
00:06:00
Speaker 1: Love? That was a huge overstep.
00:06:02
Speaker 2: I thought that was a good He went too long. And what he did is he he really fed into the prosecution's hand. And I've been a Tippton fan because I mean, they took a nothing case and and he had this really bold defense. Of course, the problem was that and he did kind of tapdance on that line a little bit. Their client didn't testify, so there was nobody to say that I found her in the bed right. There was no one to say it. They didn't call their own medical expert, and there the medical expert for the prosecution did go to places like, yes, this happens, and I did feel that the prosecution should have hammered home how rare it was. I wanted numbers. I wanted so in your fifteen hundred autopsies, how many people died of this sudden, unexplained death. I wanted that. But they gave the problem. They gave the jury enough to use their common sense. And those videos of him disposing and really doing all he could to Crouver's tracks. The phone being off was a big deal to me, telling people the phone was off that like eighteen digit code that no child, I would never remember that password code, right, So that that whole unlocking the phone with that long are you two looking at each other because you agree, Yes, we agree. I mean, yes, children are great, are really way more techy than people our age. But that code was not one, two, three four, I mean it was you know, it was like an entire state ZIP code plus a phone number plus I mean it was too much. So you knew it was him that was unlocking the phone. And like I said in the beginning, premeditation does not need days, months, hours to form. It can be formed very quickly, and so it was I mean, And the searches, the searches were so bad. And he used the word murder and used the word crime, and I did think I didn't her tone, the prosecutor's tone. It was a little too monotone for me. I would have been hitting harder. I would have been more, you know, really saying this man has lied repeatedly to you. He's lied throughout his life. He lied about the case, the forgery case. He lied to the police. Why wouldn't he lie to you. Of course he's lying to you, But maybe that's more dramatic style. But she did hit the key points. She did hit the key points.
00:08:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, Allison. We were scratching our heads the whole time, wondering why she wasn't choosing to be more effective, because she certainly it was almost as if she was making a choice to be monotone. She was making a choice to be unemotional, She was making a choice not to follow through and actually helped the jury connect the dots. I was frustrated watching what she left.
00:09:05
Speaker 2: On the table.
00:09:06
Speaker 1: It was funny even at the closing arguments, and we were looking at each other when Larry Tipton said the only evidence here is love.
00:09:12
Speaker 2: When she got up.
00:09:13
Speaker 1: The first thing, I would have said, evidence of love, if this is what love looks like, and then start reading the searches again. I mean I would have taken what he left right there and just ran with it. I was surprised she didn't.
00:09:28
Speaker 2: I wanted more visuals from her. I wanted like a chart that walk through every search bolded. I wanted a chart that said he hacked his wife up into pieces like I wanted that kind of visual But at the end of the day, they had a very good case. They had a very good case aiming most people do not search for how do you just remember a body? And if you're a juror and you're hearing that, now what what was interesting was the rulings that the judge made. And I don't think they're going to get very far on appeal, but I want to. I'm going to talk about that in the second is she made the decision that the jury would not hear that. He already pled to it, that the jury would not hear it, and I we had talked about the only way it was really going to come in is if he testified, right, So on appeal and we get let's talk a little bit about the sentencing. This is an automatic what we call an l WOPS life in prison without the possibility of parole. She's going to add time to it. She's going to add time to it, to the accounts that he has already pled to, which from my understanding is somewhere, because she's going to find all the enhancements, you know, lying to the police when you know they're investigating a murder. So she's going to add on as much as thirty years to the life and vision without the possibility of parole. And your listeners are saying, well, if you're getting life in prison without the possibility of parole, why on earth are you adding more time plus you know, plus the time in the federal case. And here's the reason. If for whatever reason, this case gets overturned on appeal, he's still going to be in custody. It is very very difficult to overturn a charges that you pled guilty to. It's very very difficult. So, for whatever reason, and his appellate attorneys, who are not going to be a trial attorneys, the trial attorneys will probably do a motion for a new trial, and they'll argue things like, you know, improper rulings that the judge made on the bench. They're going to argue that think certain things were present prejudicial, but for his appeal on the case, you always see an ineffective assistance of council claim. And so you're the people that try the case who are really trial attorneys and not apolit attorneys. Anyway, you don't want to preclude any potential issues that they have on appeal. So normally it's another set of attorneys that are going to be the ones to file an actual appeal as opposed to a motion for a new trial, which this trial team would probably do. But I they came up with something, They came up with something for us to talk about. They came up with something for the jury to talk about. In Massachusetts, it's very interesting, and you guys talked about how quickly this verdict was reached in Massachusetts as opposed to a state like California, they do not take a straw pole before. They do not take a straw pole right when they go in to deliberate in other states they do. Here they're specifically instructed go through the evidence, talk about the evidence before you take a poll, knowing where everybody else stands.
00:13:14
Speaker 3: Is that why? Because I want to ask you about the timing. It's not an exact science or a science at all really trying to predict what the jury is going to do. But what did you make of it being six hours that they came back and then knowing that it was first degree? Now, what do you make of the time of at all?
00:13:32
Speaker 2: Well? I think that part of it is the way that Massachusetts instruct juries not to take a straw pole beforehand, so they have to actually deliberate because in a lot of cases, you take a straw pole, right, they say guilty, guilty, guilty, and that's when you get those jury you know, those those verdicts back in. You know, in less than an hour, I've had a jury deliberate where it was in Orange County. I hadn't even made it to the five freeway yet, and there was a verdict on a murder case. You know. So I'm like, wait a minute, you didn't even have time to hand out the pencils and we're getting a verdict. So the only thing I make of it is they had a weekend. They had a weekend, and even know, none of them were allowed to talk about the case. Certainly they thought about it, right. Each of them thought about the case. And it wasn't a lot of time that they spent deliberating. It was a shorter trial than we all predicted, than the judge predicted. But the key witnesses there said what they had to say, right, They said what they had to say. And that jury thought all weekend about the searches and him going to Low's, and him going and buying fifty pounds of baking soda so and the idea that at the end he didn't even give them a place to go and visit their mother. He chopped her up. He chopped this woman up. God, that's tough evidence to overcome, really tough. Yeah.
00:15:06
Speaker 1: Is there anything the defense missed? Is there anything? As a criminal defense attorney?
00:15:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, he overstated his He overplayed his hand at the end. He should have said nobody, no manner a death, no cause of death. We are left with a question of how did this woman die? He overplayed his hand. I would have stayed away from the love, love, love, not so much. She had told at least two people that testified that there were marital problems she was having an affair. I would have let that go. I would not have used it as a central theme of the.
00:15:45
Speaker 1: Closing, should they have called any witnesses.
00:15:51
Speaker 2: I wanted to hear from their medical examiner. I wanted to hear from their medical examiner, I mean the prosecution's medical examiner. They felt, And that's one of the things I think that they're going to argue on appeal is he They can't argue about him not testifying, right, they really can't, because the judge specifically asked him, is this your decision? Is this your decision not to testify? But they over promised at during their opening, they over promised, and when he didn't testify, there was no one to say what actually happened to her? What actually happened to her? And now he would have been TJ, You're like, he cannot testify. We talked about this because the first thing I would ask is, well, where's her body? Where's her body? And then it would have gone on from there. Right, so when you were hacking her up, okay, in your home with your children home. And by the way, it also resonated when she said he used his children to lie to the police. Things like that get you, They get you, that affects yours.
00:17:10
Speaker 3: The line is this something that I mean, you can't avoid. I'm trying to remember his line. He said, you cannot passion, sympathy and anger for him.
00:17:24
Speaker 2: Right, he uses that, I'm sure in every case.
00:17:27
Speaker 3: But he seems like he knew what he was up against. Do you think a juror can't help but bring anger and sympathy and emotion and passion and whatever else after what they just sat through and heard for two weeks.
00:17:38
Speaker 2: That's why he said it, and that's why the judge repeats it, and that's why it's a very it's a very important jury instruction because you need to be able to put that aside and focus on the evidence that you heard in the case. But we all know that people bring their own thoughts and passion and prejudices and real life experiences to every single event that they're experiencing. So you can't ask them to check all that at the door, because that's not human nature.
00:18:14
Speaker 1: Allison, I want to ask you what you're expecting to hear on Wednesday. So Brian sentencing hearing is on Wednesday. But the judge made it very clear she would rearrange what she needed to to make sure she got those victim impact statements that part of sentencing and that part of the trial. What are you anticipating. I was trying to imagine if I mean, we haven't seen any emotion from Brian Walsh whatsoever when the verdict was read.
00:18:40
Speaker 2: Never I was watching his reaction when they when the VERTICU came in. Nothing. Nothing, But he was stone cold when he was talking to the police. He was stone cold when he was buying less supplies. So but you know what's interesting is normally you hear from family members, right, you hear from family members. Are we going to hear from Anna Walsh's family? I don't know. I don't know. We know that her mother has been ill and lives out of the country and the children through DCF or whatever. That's uh. You know that that Massiss Juicus has is going to issue a They're going to have a statement from them. But they're young, They're very, very young. We're going to hear from I'm sure we may hear from mister Falstow, we may hear from her best friend, we may hear from mister Matt Tou And they're going to be impactful. They're going to be impactful. But what we're not going to hear. Is the statements from the children and what they have lived and what they have been going through, and that's going to move the judge for sure.
00:19:52
Speaker 1: Could Brian, judge, could Brian speak at this?
00:19:55
Speaker 2: We were teaching, we were talking.
00:19:56
Speaker 1: We thought he could.
00:19:57
Speaker 2: Right, absolutely, Here's his problem with speaking. He can't own it. He can't accept responsibility because he closes the door to his appeal.
00:20:10
Speaker 3: All but at this nothing the judge is going to hear. The sentences are pretty much set, are they not arst Green murder?
00:20:19
Speaker 2: It's set. It is life emparism without the possibility of parole.
00:20:24
Speaker 3: Remind people why this is always, even though we know he's going to spend the rest of his life in prison if the sentence goes through, why this is always an important moment and an important day to have victims, friends, family be able to speak in court like this.
00:20:42
Speaker 2: It reminds first of all, it's very therapeutic for them, very very therapeutic for the victims. They should have a say, you know, it's it's the state that's prosecuting you, not the individual person. So it's their moment to face in this case Brian Welsh and tell them what he took from them what their life has been like without her, and say things like I want you to understand that for the rest of your life, you get to live. You're going to be alive. She will never celebrate another Christmas, she will never see her children again, we will never get to laugh with her, call her, and the pain that his actions have caused. That is a that is that is very very important if there's to be any healing for friends and family, that this was more than just a murder case. There's a real person behind this, there's a real victim and the ripple effect that it had on the community and the people close to her. That's always so incredibly important. So the judge knows that this isn't just like any other case. This is a case that someone who they loved and adore it has been taken from them. So that is extremely important, and in many states it's a requirement. It's a requirement that you know, like Varci's Law, where victims have a chance and an opportunity to be heard. So it's extremely important part of our system that the victims get a voice, they get to have their own voice.
00:22:25
Speaker 3: All right, Allison, we we actually thought we'd be talking to you longer for the next couple of weeks.
00:22:31
Speaker 2: You know, and we thought, look, we thought the case would would be much longer. I was surprised at how quickly the prosecution was was sort of ripping through their case. And then we hear that the defense is going to present no defense at all, which, by the way, I'll talk a little bit about that, and that is that if Brian Walsh is going to attack any of it, he may say, well, they my my attorneys choose not to call any witness. Yes, it was on me that I didn't, but that was a decision that they made. So I'm going to attack that. They're going to attack the judges ruling. They're going to attack that evidence didn't come in. I am curious whether they believed that the judge was going to tell the jury that he had already fled to the dismemberment or you know, the the body and the line to the police, and did they think that that would change the verdict. And then ultimately, what are we going to hear from the jurors and is there anything that the defense is going to be able to pick apart in what in their.
00:23:38
Speaker 1: Deliberations Morticam, It's always so fascinating to hear the jurors and their mindset and what it was like during those deliberations and state to state. As you pointed out, it's very different what that looks like. But how's your Verder trial going? By the way it's going on.
00:23:58
Speaker 2: I love analyzing other people's cases. I have lots and lots to say, I never talk about my own.
00:24:08
Speaker 1: Very smart, that's why you're a great criminal defense attorney, one of the best.
00:24:12
Speaker 2: Wonderful a happy holidays, Alison.
00:24:18
Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
00:24:19
Speaker 2: We appreciate you absolutely, you all too. Bye.
Speaker 1: Welcome everyone to this episode of Amy and TJ Presents. It is Monday, December fifteenth, and wow, we certainly got a verdict today.
00:00:13
Speaker 2: Quicker than expected, at.
00:00:16
Speaker 1: Least on where we stood, and not the verdict that you and I predicted. TJ.
00:00:23
Speaker 3: No, I was a little surprised how quick it was and what they finally came back with, given that they had another option. But we have been itching Alison Driesol. She's been with us the last couple of weeks. Are our defense attorney, our expert. Let's get your reaction. And I mean that for the past week. Every time something happens, we want ooh, I wonder what she thinks. Oh, I wonder what Allison thinks. And we were texting, we were actually texting you and you were in the middle of a case and I said.
00:00:48
Speaker 2: Please was of a murder case.
00:00:49
Speaker 3: I was like, go focus, this is nothing one case at a time. But I was a good to see you again.
00:00:54
Speaker 2: Just first, your.
00:00:55
Speaker 3: Reaction to the Walsh verdict.
00:00:57
Speaker 2: Okay, as we started, when we started this, I said, this case is a stinker. This case is a stinker. Okay, So we started from a place where I said this is a slam dunk for the prosecution. Then we get this very surprising defense in opening, and the defense was essentially, yes, he lied to the police, he dismembered his own wife, but he didn't kill her, and there is no body, so they will not have a manner and cause of death. Okay. So they took a nothing and turned it into something for the defense to present to the jury. It was an all or nothing essentially, because you either believe that he killed her you didn't. They didn't say, and they could have said that he learned that night they had an argument, things went away and he didn't mean to kill her. They were getting in to it and they were shooting for a second degree murder. They didn't do that. They went all or nothing. They and even know there was a jury instruction, and I know that we went over this. I said, look, they're going to add things at the end, and they did include a second degree well at the end of the day, and because the prosecution's closing was not that powerful, but at the end of the day, they had the facts and they had the law on their side, and it is nearly impossible to get over those kinds of searches, those kinds of searches, and I think Tipton did the very best with what he had, with the cards he was dealt without folding, right, I mean, he did the best that he could. But I took a look at what no matter how strong their closing was, this is the people. They had, the facts, they had these horrible searches, they had a motive. I did believe that they proved that he knew about it. I did believe. I found it shocking that the prosecution didn't spend more time. I think her closing was thirty eight minutes, that she didn't spend more time on the fact that Brian Walsh. Absolutely, I would have argued he absolutely knew about the affair.
00:03:22
Speaker 1: How do you think he proved that? How do you think, sorry, how do you think the prosecution proved that.
00:03:26
Speaker 2: I'm curious the fact that Brian Walsh called him looking for his wife after she allegedly disappeared. It would have been very weird to me, and I would have made it a central theme that why this guy, why would he call this guy who if he didn't know anything, you know, oh they knew they had a crush. Well, I think there was much more to that. I think that he was well aware, and it took common sense, and they kept getting back to common sense, common sense. He called him, He called him and said, where is my wife? You call people close to her, very close to her. So I thought that that was pretty compelling. I really did. And she had talked about it with her friends. And I don't believe that whole idea that the mother, the mother apparently had hired this PI and oh, you know, my mom had this dream or she went to somebody to talk about it. That wasn't believable. That just wasn't believable. And when you're talking about life circumstances, even though you tell a jury, you know, leave it at the door. Just listen to the facts of the case. I think that that friend that testified at the end was very, very compelling, and she said, look, my friend was upset and there were problems in this marriage and he owed a lot of money. So they don't have to prove motiva amy. They don't have to, but they certainly she was having an affair, there was marital strife. I mean, for Tipton to get up there and say this loving couple, this loving couple, I think he sold it a bit too hard. I think he sold it too hard. But I also I also loved the part where they talked about him purchasing the antibiotic ointment and the band aids before he goes to buy the cleaning supplies. That was that hit for me, That resonated for me. It means that he was injured before the dismemberment.
00:05:34
Speaker 3: You know, you just made a point about them overplaying their hand on the love part, being a loving couple. It was something we talked about Alison that he said in the closing argument that there's the only things there's evidence of is love? Right, talking about there were the only evidence.
00:06:00
Speaker 1: Love? That was a huge overstep.
00:06:02
Speaker 2: I thought that was a good He went too long. And what he did is he he really fed into the prosecution's hand. And I've been a Tippton fan because I mean, they took a nothing case and and he had this really bold defense. Of course, the problem was that and he did kind of tapdance on that line a little bit. Their client didn't testify, so there was nobody to say that I found her in the bed right. There was no one to say it. They didn't call their own medical expert, and there the medical expert for the prosecution did go to places like, yes, this happens, and I did feel that the prosecution should have hammered home how rare it was. I wanted numbers. I wanted so in your fifteen hundred autopsies, how many people died of this sudden, unexplained death. I wanted that. But they gave the problem. They gave the jury enough to use their common sense. And those videos of him disposing and really doing all he could to Crouver's tracks. The phone being off was a big deal to me, telling people the phone was off that like eighteen digit code that no child, I would never remember that password code, right, So that that whole unlocking the phone with that long are you two looking at each other because you agree, Yes, we agree. I mean, yes, children are great, are really way more techy than people our age. But that code was not one, two, three four, I mean it was you know, it was like an entire state ZIP code plus a phone number plus I mean it was too much. So you knew it was him that was unlocking the phone. And like I said in the beginning, premeditation does not need days, months, hours to form. It can be formed very quickly, and so it was I mean, And the searches, the searches were so bad. And he used the word murder and used the word crime, and I did think I didn't her tone, the prosecutor's tone. It was a little too monotone for me. I would have been hitting harder. I would have been more, you know, really saying this man has lied repeatedly to you. He's lied throughout his life. He lied about the case, the forgery case. He lied to the police. Why wouldn't he lie to you. Of course he's lying to you, But maybe that's more dramatic style. But she did hit the key points. She did hit the key points.
00:08:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, Allison. We were scratching our heads the whole time, wondering why she wasn't choosing to be more effective, because she certainly it was almost as if she was making a choice to be monotone. She was making a choice to be unemotional, She was making a choice not to follow through and actually helped the jury connect the dots. I was frustrated watching what she left.
00:09:05
Speaker 2: On the table.
00:09:06
Speaker 1: It was funny even at the closing arguments, and we were looking at each other when Larry Tipton said the only evidence here is love.
00:09:12
Speaker 2: When she got up.
00:09:13
Speaker 1: The first thing, I would have said, evidence of love, if this is what love looks like, and then start reading the searches again. I mean I would have taken what he left right there and just ran with it. I was surprised she didn't.
00:09:28
Speaker 2: I wanted more visuals from her. I wanted like a chart that walk through every search bolded. I wanted a chart that said he hacked his wife up into pieces like I wanted that kind of visual But at the end of the day, they had a very good case. They had a very good case aiming most people do not search for how do you just remember a body? And if you're a juror and you're hearing that, now what what was interesting was the rulings that the judge made. And I don't think they're going to get very far on appeal, but I want to. I'm going to talk about that in the second is she made the decision that the jury would not hear that. He already pled to it, that the jury would not hear it, and I we had talked about the only way it was really going to come in is if he testified, right, So on appeal and we get let's talk a little bit about the sentencing. This is an automatic what we call an l WOPS life in prison without the possibility of parole. She's going to add time to it. She's going to add time to it, to the accounts that he has already pled to, which from my understanding is somewhere, because she's going to find all the enhancements, you know, lying to the police when you know they're investigating a murder. So she's going to add on as much as thirty years to the life and vision without the possibility of parole. And your listeners are saying, well, if you're getting life in prison without the possibility of parole, why on earth are you adding more time plus you know, plus the time in the federal case. And here's the reason. If for whatever reason, this case gets overturned on appeal, he's still going to be in custody. It is very very difficult to overturn a charges that you pled guilty to. It's very very difficult. So, for whatever reason, and his appellate attorneys, who are not going to be a trial attorneys, the trial attorneys will probably do a motion for a new trial, and they'll argue things like, you know, improper rulings that the judge made on the bench. They're going to argue that think certain things were present prejudicial, but for his appeal on the case, you always see an ineffective assistance of council claim. And so you're the people that try the case who are really trial attorneys and not apolit attorneys. Anyway, you don't want to preclude any potential issues that they have on appeal. So normally it's another set of attorneys that are going to be the ones to file an actual appeal as opposed to a motion for a new trial, which this trial team would probably do. But I they came up with something, They came up with something for us to talk about. They came up with something for the jury to talk about. In Massachusetts, it's very interesting, and you guys talked about how quickly this verdict was reached in Massachusetts as opposed to a state like California, they do not take a straw pole before. They do not take a straw pole right when they go in to deliberate in other states they do. Here they're specifically instructed go through the evidence, talk about the evidence before you take a poll, knowing where everybody else stands.
00:13:14
Speaker 3: Is that why? Because I want to ask you about the timing. It's not an exact science or a science at all really trying to predict what the jury is going to do. But what did you make of it being six hours that they came back and then knowing that it was first degree? Now, what do you make of the time of at all?
00:13:32
Speaker 2: Well? I think that part of it is the way that Massachusetts instruct juries not to take a straw pole beforehand, so they have to actually deliberate because in a lot of cases, you take a straw pole, right, they say guilty, guilty, guilty, and that's when you get those jury you know, those those verdicts back in. You know, in less than an hour, I've had a jury deliberate where it was in Orange County. I hadn't even made it to the five freeway yet, and there was a verdict on a murder case. You know. So I'm like, wait a minute, you didn't even have time to hand out the pencils and we're getting a verdict. So the only thing I make of it is they had a weekend. They had a weekend, and even know, none of them were allowed to talk about the case. Certainly they thought about it, right. Each of them thought about the case. And it wasn't a lot of time that they spent deliberating. It was a shorter trial than we all predicted, than the judge predicted. But the key witnesses there said what they had to say, right, They said what they had to say. And that jury thought all weekend about the searches and him going to Low's, and him going and buying fifty pounds of baking soda so and the idea that at the end he didn't even give them a place to go and visit their mother. He chopped her up. He chopped this woman up. God, that's tough evidence to overcome, really tough. Yeah.
00:15:06
Speaker 1: Is there anything the defense missed? Is there anything? As a criminal defense attorney?
00:15:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, he overstated his He overplayed his hand at the end. He should have said nobody, no manner a death, no cause of death. We are left with a question of how did this woman die? He overplayed his hand. I would have stayed away from the love, love, love, not so much. She had told at least two people that testified that there were marital problems she was having an affair. I would have let that go. I would not have used it as a central theme of the.
00:15:45
Speaker 1: Closing, should they have called any witnesses.
00:15:51
Speaker 2: I wanted to hear from their medical examiner. I wanted to hear from their medical examiner, I mean the prosecution's medical examiner. They felt, And that's one of the things I think that they're going to argue on appeal is he They can't argue about him not testifying, right, they really can't, because the judge specifically asked him, is this your decision? Is this your decision not to testify? But they over promised at during their opening, they over promised, and when he didn't testify, there was no one to say what actually happened to her? What actually happened to her? And now he would have been TJ, You're like, he cannot testify. We talked about this because the first thing I would ask is, well, where's her body? Where's her body? And then it would have gone on from there. Right, so when you were hacking her up, okay, in your home with your children home. And by the way, it also resonated when she said he used his children to lie to the police. Things like that get you, They get you, that affects yours.
00:17:10
Speaker 3: The line is this something that I mean, you can't avoid. I'm trying to remember his line. He said, you cannot passion, sympathy and anger for him.
00:17:24
Speaker 2: Right, he uses that, I'm sure in every case.
00:17:27
Speaker 3: But he seems like he knew what he was up against. Do you think a juror can't help but bring anger and sympathy and emotion and passion and whatever else after what they just sat through and heard for two weeks.
00:17:38
Speaker 2: That's why he said it, and that's why the judge repeats it, and that's why it's a very it's a very important jury instruction because you need to be able to put that aside and focus on the evidence that you heard in the case. But we all know that people bring their own thoughts and passion and prejudices and real life experiences to every single event that they're experiencing. So you can't ask them to check all that at the door, because that's not human nature.
00:18:14
Speaker 1: Allison, I want to ask you what you're expecting to hear on Wednesday. So Brian sentencing hearing is on Wednesday. But the judge made it very clear she would rearrange what she needed to to make sure she got those victim impact statements that part of sentencing and that part of the trial. What are you anticipating. I was trying to imagine if I mean, we haven't seen any emotion from Brian Walsh whatsoever when the verdict was read.
00:18:40
Speaker 2: Never I was watching his reaction when they when the VERTICU came in. Nothing. Nothing, But he was stone cold when he was talking to the police. He was stone cold when he was buying less supplies. So but you know what's interesting is normally you hear from family members, right, you hear from family members. Are we going to hear from Anna Walsh's family? I don't know. I don't know. We know that her mother has been ill and lives out of the country and the children through DCF or whatever. That's uh. You know that that Massiss Juicus has is going to issue a They're going to have a statement from them. But they're young, They're very, very young. We're going to hear from I'm sure we may hear from mister Falstow, we may hear from her best friend, we may hear from mister Matt Tou And they're going to be impactful. They're going to be impactful. But what we're not going to hear. Is the statements from the children and what they have lived and what they have been going through, and that's going to move the judge for sure.
00:19:52
Speaker 1: Could Brian, judge, could Brian speak at this?
00:19:55
Speaker 2: We were teaching, we were talking.
00:19:56
Speaker 1: We thought he could.
00:19:57
Speaker 2: Right, absolutely, Here's his problem with speaking. He can't own it. He can't accept responsibility because he closes the door to his appeal.
00:20:10
Speaker 3: All but at this nothing the judge is going to hear. The sentences are pretty much set, are they not arst Green murder?
00:20:19
Speaker 2: It's set. It is life emparism without the possibility of parole.
00:20:24
Speaker 3: Remind people why this is always, even though we know he's going to spend the rest of his life in prison if the sentence goes through, why this is always an important moment and an important day to have victims, friends, family be able to speak in court like this.
00:20:42
Speaker 2: It reminds first of all, it's very therapeutic for them, very very therapeutic for the victims. They should have a say, you know, it's it's the state that's prosecuting you, not the individual person. So it's their moment to face in this case Brian Welsh and tell them what he took from them what their life has been like without her, and say things like I want you to understand that for the rest of your life, you get to live. You're going to be alive. She will never celebrate another Christmas, she will never see her children again, we will never get to laugh with her, call her, and the pain that his actions have caused. That is a that is that is very very important if there's to be any healing for friends and family, that this was more than just a murder case. There's a real person behind this, there's a real victim and the ripple effect that it had on the community and the people close to her. That's always so incredibly important. So the judge knows that this isn't just like any other case. This is a case that someone who they loved and adore it has been taken from them. So that is extremely important, and in many states it's a requirement. It's a requirement that you know, like Varci's Law, where victims have a chance and an opportunity to be heard. So it's extremely important part of our system that the victims get a voice, they get to have their own voice.
00:22:25
Speaker 3: All right, Allison, we we actually thought we'd be talking to you longer for the next couple of weeks.
00:22:31
Speaker 2: You know, and we thought, look, we thought the case would would be much longer. I was surprised at how quickly the prosecution was was sort of ripping through their case. And then we hear that the defense is going to present no defense at all, which, by the way, I'll talk a little bit about that, and that is that if Brian Walsh is going to attack any of it, he may say, well, they my my attorneys choose not to call any witness. Yes, it was on me that I didn't, but that was a decision that they made. So I'm going to attack that. They're going to attack the judges ruling. They're going to attack that evidence didn't come in. I am curious whether they believed that the judge was going to tell the jury that he had already fled to the dismemberment or you know, the the body and the line to the police, and did they think that that would change the verdict. And then ultimately, what are we going to hear from the jurors and is there anything that the defense is going to be able to pick apart in what in their.
00:23:38
Speaker 1: Deliberations Morticam, It's always so fascinating to hear the jurors and their mindset and what it was like during those deliberations and state to state. As you pointed out, it's very different what that looks like. But how's your Verder trial going? By the way it's going on.
00:23:58
Speaker 2: I love analyzing other people's cases. I have lots and lots to say, I never talk about my own.
00:24:08
Speaker 1: Very smart, that's why you're a great criminal defense attorney, one of the best.
00:24:12
Speaker 2: Wonderful a happy holidays, Alison.
00:24:18
Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
00:24:19
Speaker 2: We appreciate you absolutely, you all too. Bye.