Jay Thomas Show: "Guest Host, Blake Hankey" 8-13-26

Hey, the J. Thomas Show podcast is coming up. It's brought to you by Hot Springs Spas and Pool Tables, too, and I'm hanging out with my buddy. Everybody knows them as Hot Tub, Vinny. Vinny, you got more than just hot tubs and sanas, and of course the splash super pools. You've got the gaming. We're talking pool tables, air hockey, foosball. The list goes on and on. But you also in your stores have all the supplies people need, whether it's the chemicals to keep your outdoor toys going, or it's... pool cues, balls. You have it all in your store. It's a one-stop shop for fun. Yeah, it is. And we're open seven days a week because we know when you own a hot tub or a swimming pool, especially you want it to be easy. You want it to be ready to use when you're going to use it. And that's what we do. We try to make this an easy. great experience for you and to keep it easy as you use it month to month. And then we, like you said, we have all the products for your game room needs and everything. Grilling needs. Big green egg. Big green egg. Everything is in stock. And like I said, we're open seven days a week because you never know when you're going to be in town and you need some water care. assistance or care for your you know food ball table or a pool table or whatever it might be and and your staff is very well trained they can answer questions don't ever feel like well i don't know if i'm going to get the answer they'll give you the answer and you don't have to be a customer of hot spring spas for them to help you out nope anybody we want to the word travels fast so if you're having a good experience with your hot tub or your pool wherever you bought it You'll tell other people you should get one. There you go. Hot Springs spas and pool tables, too. Where are you located, Viti? We're in West Fargo, Bismarck and Grand Forks. Hot Springs spas and pool tables too. All right now, the J. Thomas Show podcast. Ronnie, good to be back. How are you? Not too bad. Not too bad. I, by the way, forgot to mention before we started, you may or may not have heard we're doing a big gridiron getaway trip to Vegas, watch our favorite green and gold team play UNLV. So sometime during this hour, we will be taking a qualifier for that contest. Perfect. Can I enter Ronnie or is it too late? Well, yeah. I'd like to go. I got, sure. Who wouldn't? I should ask about that if there's a gray area if you're only guest hosting. Yeah, there you go. Because I'm sure the normal legal rules apply you being a lawyer and all, you know, families of subsidiaries and commercial advertisers, not eligible, all this kind of stuff. So. But I will ask. Well, Ronnie, busy day for me. I started today at the Midwest Technology Summit. How was that? It was informative. It was interesting. It was really not prepared to speak in front of about 500 people today. But there I was. Well, you and I both know, tech is making a lot of news in North Dakota.

Yeah, absolutely. So I want to introduce my guests right now. We're down one guest. So I did have Jeff Bradel. You know Jeff with the hockey guys. I do, yes. We were talking about having co-branded hockey guys merchandise. That's right. And when my guests and I both thought, we'll have Jeff on the show. We'll hardly talk for the two hours, right? He'll just cover the whole segment. He kind of does that. If, you know, Jeff, well, then he bails on us. So I do have the other two guests here. We'll have to try to fill some time here. Nicole Braydall. She is the owner of the Barkas Law firm a little bit confusing, but when she got better Braydall. The better brain healthy, yes? The better looking one for sure. There's no question about that. And so Nicole would be Jeff's daughter. Nicole worked for me for a period of time in law school. That's how old I am. She was a clerk of mine. And next to her, we have Tracy Reams. Tracy's another attorney. She is in Nicole's or was in Nicole's law school class. They used to be worked together for a period of time. And now they're kind of doing their separate things. So. What I would like to do is kind of we're going to have two hours of this segment. I'd like to turn it over to Nicole and then to Tracy to kind of just give a little bit of a background. And we are going to talk about some more stories and also take some call-ins if you have questions. So Nicole, I'll turn it to you. Thanks, Blake. My name is Nicole. I'm the owner of Barkus Law Firm. I've been a practicing attorney in the criminal defense field for the past 10 plus years. I handle cases in North Dakota State and Federal Court, Minnesota State and Federal Court. I've handled cases from DUSs, DUIs, all the way up to murder cases, tried them all. I've actually won both of them. And so that's what I practice, primarily violent criminal defense cases. Great, Tracy. Hello, my name's Tracy Reams. I, in the beginning of my career, was in a city and then state prosecution. I was a prosecutor in the Cass County State's Attorney's Office. I handled mostly towards the last part of my time there, I guess, crimes of violence. I tried murder cases to jury, to verdict, other... serious felonies. And then Nicole talked me into becoming a defense attorney at her law firm. We joined forces and tried some serious cases, some murders, got some not guilty verdicts, got a lot of experience. And now I work for the court system as a staff attorney, but I also have 10 plus years of experience as an attorney. So Ronnie, these guys are kind of a big deal. Let me tell you why. These guys have won murder trials. That's a big deal. I don't know. I don't not know many attorneys that have won murder trials. And Tracy on the end, she's wanted a murder trial as a prosecutor and a defense attorney. Okay. So that's impressive. And Nicole, her dad's won murder trials and she's won murder trials, right? So we have a kind of a esteemed panel up here.

Yeah, I would have been even asked if Jeff was here because there was one time when we tried our last murder case that Tracy and I had it the first week. The week after ours, my dad, Jeff, tried his murder case in the exact same courtroom. We had got a not guilty verdict. Then the week later, my dad, or literally ours, I think, ended on a Monday. We got our verdict and did his start right away on Tuesday. I think so. I think so, yeah. And then he tried in the exact same courtroom, got a not guilty verdict back to back. Very cool. So here's one thing that I know that I learned kind of before the show. You guys have tried a case against each other back in the day. We did. I want to hear about that, and I want to hear about who won. So maybe that's what made Tracy decide to become a defense attorney. I was that persuasive. I handed Tracy her first loss as a prosecutor. Love it. What kind of case? What were the facts? Tell us about it. Well, leading up to this, so I was prosecuting economic and driving offenses at that point because I was earlier in my career, but I had had several. several trials at that point and I had taken them to jury and gotten guilty verdicts on them all. And so I was undefeated at that point. Yeah, well, and I know the defense bar was wanting to be the one to hand me the loss. So then in comes Nicole. I'll let her tell more. Yeah, so tell us about the case and the facts. Yeah, it was a DUI case. My client. had a litany of pain medication in his system. He had a pain contract. So if anyone who's familiar with that, you get X amount of pills. They count them. You don't give any more. You don't get any less. And he was driving on the interstate, got pulled over, had signs of impairment, went through the field sobriety tests, eventually was placed under arrest. Then at that point, I think there was a blood test. I think it was a blood test. It was a blood test. It was blood or urine. And it came out with a, it was a urine test. It was urine analysis. And so he came out with positive for certain drugs in his system. Okay. And we tried it. He said he wasn't under the influence. We tried it. Their crime lab didn't do them much favors. And, yeah. So, okay, so I get this straight. So lawfully prescribed controlled substance, because you've done pain management. Yep. All right. And as I understand the statute, and you guys correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think I am. So as long as you're taking your medication as prescribed or cautioned, that would be a defense as well to controlled substance DUI. Correct. And there was some more in there. So ultimately, I guess I didn't really talk to the jurors afterwards. They left pretty quickly. I don't know what it came down to. We did receive one jury question. I thought that was the weirdest thing is that they asked when the last time it took is anxiety med. Right? Yeah, that is interesting. And it was not like an adivant or an addicting med. But that was their question. But anywho, going back to...

There was a few substance in his system when your body starts to metabolize. substances, you get metabolites. And so there was some metabolites in his system, and the state had thought that those were new drugs, not metabolites. So I was able to get that from the state crime lab. I had him draw a nice little picture out for demonstrative purposes and walk the jury right through it. And then at the end, I decided to slap an exhibit sticker on it so it could go back to the jury. And there was no objection, so it went back to the jury. Love it. So... Also with controlled substance crimes, especially if they're lawfully prescribed, you have to show that the operator could not operate their motor vehicle safely, correct? Correct. Right. So in DUI law, and I've talked about this in the show before, but, you know, it seems to be that the line of work that I'm in, that's probably, I don't know, 70% of the work is DUI work. So hopefully it's interesting to people. But there's no line. You can't take your marijuana test and go, okay, you're over the legal limit. They don't, that doesn't exist for controlled substance crimes. And so what they do is you have to be impaired to the point where you cannot operate a motor vehicle safely. And then that gives the defense side of the bar kind of a lot to argue unless the guy's swerving all over the road. crashing into cars, right? And so it gives the defense kind of something to argue. Ladies, am I correct on that? Yeah, and sometimes you'll see cases where... you know, they blow at the scene and do have alcohol in their system. And then, you know, it's suspected, I guess, that there's substances as well. I mean, those are different. But yeah, when someone blows at the scene and blows zero, but is exhibiting, you know, behaviors that law enforcement thinks is, you know, that of someone being under the influence, yeah, that's when it gets dicier. Sure. So, I mean, law enforcement will do the standard field sobriety testing, right? So for the listeners, the National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration has three standardized tests, right? At quiz time, what are they? The walk-in turn, the one-legs stand, and the HGN. Got it. Horizontal gaze and a stigma. It's just like you're my clerk again, Nicole. It is. It's quiz time. I just say HDN because it's too hard to say it all the way out. Right. Unless they, though, think there might be drugs in your system, then it gives a whole other. Right. Then they call a DRE expert, which stands for drug recognition expert, right? I like to call it a drug recognition examiner. I don't believe they should get the term expert. That's fair. And I will be honest, I don't have a ton of those. So I have to pull my cheat sheet and look at what they look for. Do you guys know at the top of your head everything they're looking for?

Yeah, they look for the pulse. They do a modified Romberg where you, similar to counting. You tip your head back. They'll do a counting test because it's a way to tell if people are on stimulants. They'll count quicker. They'll do the vertical gaze test, which is similar. All right, Nicole, I'm going to hold you there. We have Dean here. Tell me we got good news. I'm going to the lake this weekend. Tell me mid-80s, sunny. Well. Hmm, let's see what we can do for you. Mid-80s and sunny would be nice, wouldn't it? I'll even take 90. It's fine. I will say we will have a halfway decent weekend. Probably not as nice as the previous couple of weekends, but all in all, we do have a pretty decent weekend in store. Now, today, not a bad day out there. We've got partly cloudy skies. It's a little on the humid side with temperatures in the 80s. We'll top out in the mid-80s today. And then as we head into tonight, we're looking at partly cloudy skies. It should be a dry night with lows in the low 60s. for your Friday. We'll see more cloud cover around. In fact, we'll see sky's becoming mostly cloudy. It looks like low to mid-80s tomorrow. I'm really decreasing the chance of rain as we head into Friday night. We could see a few isolated showers, but don't look for any really appreciable rainfall. Not much at all. And then Saturday, we'll see a decrease in clouds throughout the day and highs right around 80, 81, and then more sunshine on Sunday. Sunday looks much better with highs in the low to mid-day. So Sunday the pick day of the weekend if you're going to be out on the lakes. Okay. All right. Love it. And you probably talked about this quite a bit, but we need some moisture, right? We do. And we got quite a bit right along that 94 corridor the other night. But areas just, I mean, literally, the airport didn't get squat and we had over an inch here. So that just tells you what those summertime thunderstorms can do. Now, we do have more rain in the forecast next week. We've got three chances, Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday. So hang tight if your areas didn't get it. There is more rain in the forecast as we head into next week. That's the good news. Okay. Beautiful. All right. All right. Thanks, you know. All right. And while we've got a brief break here, if you want to participate in the discussion as well, 701-2939-9,000, that is the Thor Building Studio line, if you've got a question for our panel of legal experts. Or you can email us, Red Wing Shoes and Boots, email as Studio at W-D-A-Y-Radio.com. And the weather brought to you by Moving Team 6. Moving you and all your stuff and keeping it safe is their mission. Moving Team 6. So before we get into Nicole's comments again, Dino, we should, not Dino, I'm sorry. Ronnie, we should have you do some field sobriety tests. We can judge you and see how you do. Completely sober. What do you think? Yeah, sure. I mean, I don't know about the backwards alphabet, but I could probably do some of the other stuff. You know, they're hard to pass sober. And that's what I tell every jury. I'm like, go back. When you're in the jury room, you try this, right? And you don't need much to fail. So on the walk and turn, it's only, they call them clues. It's only two clues, right? Well, walk a straight line, nine heel to toe steps, a proper turning sequence. You're being investigated for DUI. Good luck passing that.

you're sober, right? And so just for what it's worth, I've said this on the show before, but you were under no obligation at all to do what I call the monkey tests. You have to blow into the device. They say blow into this machine, yep, you got to do it. But if they say, hey, you know, finger dexterity, backwards count, walk the line, one leg stand, Rosenteges, Na Segmus, you can say, Nicole? No. That's right. That's, that's my advice, Nicole? I would agree. Yep. And Tracy, can you give advice since you work for the courts? I cannot, but I'm just going to sit here while you guys talk about that. Well, she's nodding for what it's worth. So there you go. All right. So Nicole, sir, you were talking about the drug recognition examiner. Examiner, yes. And so I think we left off with the vertical gaze, asthmus. Similar to the horizontal, it just goes upward and downward. They look for jerking of the eyes. Then they'll do a lack of convergence with the eyes to see. And then the modified Romberg test, which is you tip your head back and. Close your eyes and count. Okay. And so maybe I'm jumping a gun a little bit. We're talking about your trial. So since Nicole, you won, then are you the better attorney? Is that kind of how it works? Or Tracy Lakes remind me a broken clock can be right twice in a day. All right. That's fair. That's fair. Was that the only trial you guys had against each other? Yeah. I think, yeah, I think that was. I can't recall any other. No, I think you came over. What about maybe, gosh, 18 months after that? And Tracy, before the show, I went and looked, I don't think I ever had any cases against you. I went and looked at my email for your maiden name because it would have been your maiden name at the time. And I didn't see any emails that came up. So I don't think we ever had anything. Do you remember? Yeah, I don't remember really having anything us against each other. Okay. Well, that would have been a fun experience, but maybe in the future. Who knows? Yeah, I stayed away from Nicole after that trial. Yeah. Well, good. Well, here's what I want to talk about. You guys were very involved in, and again, I think this, I don't know if it was new case law, but it was argued very, very successfully on a murder case and a self, in a self-defense claim. Is that fair? It was a shooting outside of a gas station? Yes. So when we, yes, it is fair. So here's what, Ronnie, five minutes before break here? Yeah, roughly about five, five and a half. Let's set the stage. If you can just kind of tell factually kind of what happened and then talk about when we get back, talk about the trial itself and the self-defense claim. So it was two gentlemen outside a liquor establishment in North Fargo that shares kind of a parking lot with a gas station. Some words were exchanged and Tracy filled me if I'm missing anything. They had some words and it was all on video so you could see it. There was what appeared to be a knife that was shown on the deceased individual. And you can see him kind of showing my client or our client the knife. Then they have some words around a vehicle in front of the parking lot. The deceased individual then chased our client around a car with our client.

running away from him. Our client also had his firearm on him and he was legally allowed to carry it. Okay, just so I understand the facts, correct. He had a knife on him. Was he brandishing the knife or don't we know when he was chasing your client around the parking lot? So when they were engaging with some words with each other on the backside of the bar, he did brandish the knife to my client. Let him see it, but not in a threatening matter at that point, I would say. I agree with that, yeah. Okay, so let him know. I got a knife, but he's not pointing it at him or waving it around. No, and definitely not in any way where I think where anyone would interpret it at that point. Okay, fair enough. Go ahead. Thank you. And then our client decided to run around the car with this guy chasing him. At that point, I believe, and I think the videos show, because there was lots of news coverage on, and I think the photos show it, but that was for the jury to determine if that was the knife in his hand. and was chasing our client with a knife above his head in like a stabbing motion. Then our client fell backwards, on his running backwards, fell down. The guy was still charging our client at that point. And only at that point did our client engage. and returned fire then at that point when he was laying on the ground and had nowhere else to go. Okay. So when your clients land on the ground, where is this guy in proximity to your clients? You're standing over him? Is he by his feet? Is it a little bit of a gray area? I'm trying to remember. It was a few years ago. It was a little bit of a gray area. He was still, he wasn't over him, but he was still charging towards him. So the threat was still ongoing. Okay. And when your client was on the ground, was the knife being brandished at that time? Yes. I believe the knife was being brandished before that when he was running around. Okay. All right. So I can kind of see where this is going. He said it happened at a gas station with an attached parking lot. I mean, we don't need to say where it is, but security footage. Did you guys get anything? So there is security footage. And what did that show? That was what Nicole was, you know, referencing. There was no sound on it. And so it was really important to look at, you know, the gestures and the movements that the individuals were making because there wasn't sound, you know. And so that's what we had. The lead up interaction and the event itself, basically. Okay. But that's what we had. All right. So you were a prosecutor, right? So here's a question for you. And I just, just so I don't want to jump the gun here, but those are the facts of the case. There's nothing else that's critical that we're leaving out. Nothing? I don't believe so. Okay. And I don't know. So that's why I'm asking. Okay. So Trace, you were a prosecutor. When you were a prosecutor and you tried in one of murder case as a prosecutor. So you're very well experienced. Okay. So this lands on your lap as a prosecutor. Boy, oh boy, right away, I got red flags going off self-defense. Some guys got a knife. They're chasing me around a parking lot. I pinned. I can't get anywhere else. They're near me brandishing the knife. Right. Prosecutor hat on. What do you do?

Well, I mean, in the beginning of a case, you know that there's always going to be subsequent discovery and videos potentially found or additional evidence. And so sometimes you are able to watch something or listen to, you know, audio or... and whatnot. And it's pretty clear. Other cases, you know, you get some information, but, you know, you have lots of questions. And that's where either you are talking to the detective and they're letting you know that they are following up, you know, already on X, Y, and Z, or that they're seeking additional footage or, you know, interviews with witnesses. Because some cases don't have video, you know, like a lot of cases don't, you know. And so it just... These are very serious decisions that, you know, you want to be able to, you know, have as much in front of you as you can. But sometimes you know that there's, it's not going to be always available right away. So. Right. Compared to some murder cases, this one seems to be, if I'm, if I'm the prosecutor, I'm going to give this a little pause, right? Maybe, maybe relook at it again and again and again just to determine what, if anything, should be brought. I know we're going to break right now. We'll have more after the break. Custom truck and auto shine time check is 237, the J. Thomas Show guest hosted by Harwood Mayor and lawyer Blake Henke, along with many other guests. And before we continue on with the show, I should probably do this. So I don't forget, as I did yesterday. Caller 9 is what we're looking for. 701-29-39-9,000 gives you an opportunity to get qualified and the party is at Kingpin September 14th. Someone is going to enjoy that fantastic game and all the amenities in Las Vegas. I will take the qualifier as you guys continue with the show. Wow, look at those phone lines light up. Where is that for our interview? Yes, yes. And if you have legal questions after you qualify, stay around for the rest of the show. There you go. There you go. Phone lines. We're dead, Ronnie. You make that announce it. They're all lit up right now. It's crazy. Anyways, back to the show. Again, if you're just joining us, I'm here with Nicole Bradale and Tracy Reams, both a very accomplished attorneys. They're discussing the murder trial that they tried successfully here in Cass County. And off air, we were discussing a couple more facts of the case. If you guys want to fill in, I guess fill the listeners in. Yeah, so one of the facts that I forgot. So before. my client started running away from the deceased individual. There was a scuffle where I think my client may have struck, or I should say not may have. He did strike the deceased individual with his firearm. And then at that point in time, the deceased individual started chasing our client with the knife. All right. Which I think is important. So after he already was.

right try to defend himself and then back away well i i don't know if i would say try to defend himself with that one that may have been a stretch if we're being honest okay no that's that's fair so okay well well good so This case happens in Fargo. For the listeners that don't know, what happens next? What's the process? So there's someone's dead in Fargo, right? I'm not making light of that. Someone did die. So someone lost her life in Fargo. The prosecutor has decided to charge this as a murder case. What happens? How do you guys get involved? Well, so it happened. So Tracy joined our office July 1st. and she was a former prosecutor had tried murder cases. I had not had a murder case up until that point. And so that was, I really wanted to try a big murder case. During that time... Tracy read this incident report. So we knew what happened like everybody else does. We see the police reports. Well, what the public doesn't know is we get what's called the incident report, which establishes probable cause for the state to try that. The judge signs off on the probable cause. Tracy had read it and goes, this is it. We're going to try it. That's right. Okay. It is true. Love it. So kind of what I said earlier, which was, boy, oh boy, if you're going to try a murder case, this one seems like it's winnable. Right? Seems like there's issues there. You can make some claims because the worst thing about for me being a defense attorney is when I look at something and I go, oh, what am I going to argue? This is not a good case for me, right? So you look at this one and what do you think? Well, I mean, at that point, so I want to be clear like that, the instrument report we're looking at, you know, it's very short. Y'all, a couple paragraphs maybe at that. And you never know, obviously like what you're going to get later in discovery. But, you know, Nicole. And I both had public defender contracts. And we, you know, wanted to do a trial together. And Nicole wanted to try, you know, to learn how to try murder cases. And so we saw that incident report. And, you know, we were, we were qualified to take that level of case. And so, you know, we. We asked the commission very nicely if we could be assigned that case. Yeah, which I'm sure there's not much feedback or pushback. Who wants to take on that kind of caseloader work, right? Not many people. No, no. And so just so the listeners know here, so in Fargo, we have a public defender's office. They're staffed by, I think, three attorneys there. Four. Four attorneys there. And then that's not nearly enough attorneys to take the volume of cases in Cass County, especially with conflicts and everything else that are involved in cases. And so there are contracts that private attorneys have that where you're assigned so many cases per month. So, Nicole, your contract right now is how many cases a month? So mine is 10 cases a month out of Stutzman. Okay.

All right. So in Cass County, when you had Cass County, what was it? When I had Cass County, it was 25 cases approximately a month. Okay. So for the listeners, that's a lot. That is a lot of cases, right? And you're not dealing with, as public defenders, you're not necessarily dealing always with the cream of the crop. Would you guys agree? Not all bad, but sometimes you have very, very difficult clients that have been through five, six, seven, eight attorneys. You get a variety of cases. And also I want to be clear, when you get 25 a month, it doesn't mean like that month you're going to complete all 25. Like you still have cases. from the last several months. I mean, even like the last year, potentially depending on what the charges, you know, what the circumstances with your client, you know, whether you're trying to do some stuff pretrial or not. So, I mean, you can have a caseload that, you know, becomes quite large. Sure. So you're taking 3,000 cases a year under that contract. My math is right. 300. Sorry. That's why you went to law school. We all went to law school because we were told there'd be no math. Objection, math relevance. Clearly me, right? So, yeah. So, okay, sorry, 300, 300 a year, but that is still an insane amount of cases. And that's just, you know, and I don't want to say just a public. So if you're doing, if you're in private practice like Nicole and I were and like Nicole is now, you're taking. a public defender contract, but typically you're also doing like federal work, potentially private clients. And you may also, and because we're on the border of Minnesota, a lot of attorneys in Fargo are also licensed in Minnesota. So you may have a docket in Clay County and potentially even more out west in North Dakota. So, I mean, you can have, you know, it can get. Quite large. And I'm going to speak right now directly to the guy that runs the commission of indigent defense. Travis Fink, pay these people more. I just got rid of my contract. I know I know that I was a public defender in Trellandstale County for 20 years. And it, $400 a case or I guess about what it is, right, $400 a case? I think it's a little bit more than that, but. If you got good attorneys, my high horse, if you have good attorneys like this that are willing to work for you and successfully try murder cases and volunteer for murder cases, pay them more money. Anyways, I digress. So most attorneys are running the other direction. You two say, yep, we want this murder case. That's exactly what happened. Okay, take it from there. And when you say that, it makes me kind of question my judgment. Well, you married Trent, so. I did. And after sitting with my dad in a month-long murder trial up in my not, I thought it was a good idea to now go to law school. So I don't know why I was thinking that. Well, you knew what you wanted to do. I like it. I did. So we got the case, got the discovery.

prepared the case. Okay. So, and I'm just breaking it down to what the listeners might not know. When we talk about discovery, as defense attorneys, we are entitled to get everything that is in the prosecutions file, right? Yep. Any and all reports that any law enforcement officer writes regarding the case. Any and all, you know, like if they download, take cell phones, if they capture video footage from, you know, nearby businesses, things like that, any interviews they do, basically anything they do to investigate the case, basically, that we are entitled to. review. Right. So there's no, what I would call prosecution by ambush. That can't happen. You're entitled to know everything that's in their case file, so they can't come in there and say, oh, look at this video and you've never seen the video, right? You're entitled as a defense attorney to everything the prosecutor has, including exculpatory evidence. Yes, and sometimes in cases, especially larger cases, there are several batches of discovery that come in. So in the beginning of a case, you'll get the first batch of discovery. But, you know, we all know that there's going to be additional stuff because there's always additional, you know, like if things have to be sent to the crime lab or there's toxicology being performed. Those things take time. But yes, you are. entitled though to review any and everything that the state has and so yeah they can't surprise you at trial and say here's this video that we've had for a year and you know we've never told you about Okay. And I've had this happen before where a prosecutor doesn't turn over evidence. Judges will do one of two things, right? They'll either continue with the case, which they don't like to do, or if it's really an egregious violation where they don't turn something over, they'll just stop the prosecution from admitting it. I won a case I should have lost. It was a distribution case. And the police report made reference of text messages of buying and selling methods. In this case, it was methamphetamine. And I'm like, All right, well, I don't have any videos or anything. So, okay, prosecutor's getting ready for trial and all of a sudden he submits his exhibits. And what do you think those exhibits were? text messages of my the actual text messages and i and again i had reached out saying hey i'd like these if you if they exist i'd like them they're in the report and never turned him over so he went and tried a case with no evidence of well not the text messages the officer was able to testify to a few things and whatnot but we want it so you know you never you never know sometimes how that's going to work out so sorry going back to Nicole so we have the discovery we know what that is now what happens next

Tracy and I, along with our client, reviewed the discovery in depth, very, very in depth. In all felony-level cases in North Dakota, defendants have the right to us called a preliminary hearing where the state has to prove that there was probably a crime committed, and the defendant was probably the one that committed it. In this case, Tracy and I looked at that approach and knew we weren't going to necessarily win that preliminary hearing, but there was a lot of... evidence out in the newspaper and things like that, media that was covering it, that was painting a completely different light on this case. And so Tracy and I took a step back, we're like, we can't have this. We know what the evidence is, and it's not what is being said. And so when we had a contested preliminary hearing, and I think it lasted half a day, all day. Yeah, I can't quite remember. It was a while. I mean, it was at least half a day. Yeah. And you have to remember at this point what the public has access to and like the media and everything are what's publicly accessible in the court file. Okay. So it's the charging document, incident report, if it's a case where a detective did a charging summary. But that's it. The exhibits that would be used at trial down the road, all of that stuff is not in the file. So the public that's looking at it or the media, they're operating on a limited, limited information, but obviously the state files what they need to to establish at minimum probable cause. So it usually doesn't look good at that point ever for the defendant because they're not going to file something questioning their charging decision. It's a low burden, right? It's a low burden. If you can win a prelim, that is, I mean. Back when I had a heavy case load, I'd maybe win one a year, right? I mean, it's not very, very often. If the prosecutor is going to bring a case, you better believe or hope you have probable cause, correct? Oh, 100%. And I think what Tracy and I did on that one is we knew at that point, we didn't think we were going to win a preliminary hearing, right? The issue of a self-defense claim is a factual issue for a jury to determine a judge can't make that decision at a preliminary hearing. The judge can't rule on facts. That's the job of the jury, not the judge. But our hope was that the state would maybe take a step back after viewing the evidence and cross-examining their witnesses, that maybe they would take a step back and say, maybe we have some issues with this case. Sure. Right. And the goal on that is to get them to reconsider the charge, maybe a lesser charge, maybe like an assault as opposed to a murder, something like that. Is that kind of the idea? It is. And you can also, you know, make a bond argument at that hearing to try to get your clients bond lowered, you know. And so I think we felt that if we additionally, you know, went through with our contested preliminary hearing, we would have some arguments at that point to lower, attempt to lower our client's bond so that, you know, he'd be able to be potentially released pending trial because at that point he was in custody. And he was being held, I think, on a million dollar bond on a murder case. And I don't fault the judge. I mean, that's...

A felony, the highest level criminal case in North Dakota. There's a firearm use. There's minimum mandatories. So I don't fault the judge for setting that bond. And quite frankly, that's pretty standard across the state on a murder case. But after the preliminary hearing and after hearing that evidence, I think the judge in that case amended the bond to $100,000. Okay. So definitely a positive for your client to be able to get his bond by what, let's see my math, 90% reduction? From a million to 100,000? That sounds correct. I mean, that sounds good to me. I don't know. I'm trying to redeem myself after my 3,000 caseload a year comments. So, okay, so we have three minutes. So just keep going and then we'll continue after break. So then Tracy and I started preparing for trial. Okay, so, okay, so you have the prelimin successful. You get some good information out of there. Your client's bond lowered. Is he able to get out? He's not able to get out. Okay, so he's still sitting in custody. And we're getting there. So for a trial this size, were you given a date certain? We were, but I'll say given our client's preference, so this alleged or this offense occurred on in end of July of 2021. We tried the case in March of 2022. which is, I mean, Tracy, you've tried more, you were in the prosecutor's office, pretty unheard of to take a case of this level to trial in such a quick amount of time. Sure. For the people that don't know, I mean, these trials are backed up. Sometimes they're 20 plus trials deep. especially in Cass County, I've been 20 something on the list for on the trial list, right? And so for the people that don't know you, and if you ever have a pet of charge yourself, have one pending, hopefully you don't. But if you do, hey, you get your trial date, you think this is my day in court and you could be 25 on the list. So you might be bumped multiple times until you actually get your trial date. That's why I asked about the date certain. So you guys get a date certain. This is pretty quick. What happens next? You had a prep for trial. How does that look? Well, and because of the faster turnaround time, you know, you have to ensure, obviously, that as, you know, representing someone, you're able to review everything and file any and all motions that fast. Typically cases of this level, I would say, take about a year about maybe even a little more to go to trial just because of the volume of materials. But when, you know, when your client is, you know, wanting to go to trial sooner, you're kind of weighing several things. You're weighing your client's wishes, but then you also have to look at, you know, are you able to be prepared to thoroughly represent them that quickly? Yeah, getting it rushed through, but getting a guilty verdict does not serve well for your client, right?

Yeah, I mean, you don't want to be hearing again, yeah, things that the state has possession of for the first time a week before trial because you, you know, rushed your trial date. But you also want to, you know, respect your client's wishes. So you're kind of balancing those things. But we felt, you know, we would be able to be ready. All right. Good. Well, after break, we'll continue on. Custom truck and auto shine time check 306, the Jay Thomas Show, guest hosted by Blake Henke today. I think we have achieved a Jay Thomas show first. You know, and this was clearly not our request, Ronnie. This was Nicole and Tracy 100%. I couldn't say no when they asked. Yeah. I don't know about that, Blake. They are your esteemed panel. I do know the words, Ronnie. Ready? Oops, I did it. Come on, ladies, let's go. Okay, now. I stand with Team Brittany. See, now, okay, now I know why I think you guys, you guys are all lawyers. The title of the song is, oops, I did it again. That's why you played it. Is that why? I'm really glad you put the two and two together now. Defense attorney, right? Sorry, did it again. It just took a little bit, but you got there. Yeah, right. All right, apologize. Discovery. Oh, there we go. I apologize for my bad singing. I was trying to get these guys to sing with me. They wouldn't do it. All right. Moving on to murder cases, Ronnie. There's a transition for you. One thing that we left off that I was going to bring up last time was that Nicole and Tracy's client after the shooting went and went into the gas station, went in and got napkins and rendered aid to the victim until law enforcement got there, correct? That's correct. It's not a necessary element of the offense, but it was definitely a factor we used in our argument to show that it was in self-defense. All right. And so let's continue once. We were talking about the trial prep, right? And we were kind of just kind of getting it, kind of getting into that. And we were kind of talking about what motions need to be filed. And I think I wanted to explore that a little more. So trial's coming up. Okay. What do you look for as a defense attorney trying to murder case? What are you trying to do? I think it depends on the case. And when you start viewing the evidence in one of my... other murder cases, we filed a motion to suppress evidence for violations of Miranda. So our client made incriminating statements without being read Miranda. In this case, I don't think we filed any general motions to suppress in this one. But just generally speaking, you review the evidence, you see what is there and what may need to be filed. In this case, any motions? Just the standards, I think we had some motions in limine to prohibit referring to the deceased individual as a victim. Okay. That was a big one that we didn't want him to be seen as a victim, right? To us, he was a perpetrator. Sure. Right? I mean, without him chasing our client, this crime wouldn't have happened. So he wasn't a victim to us. I think some of the other ones we filed were playing clothes for our client, so he didn't show up in his jail uniform.

Okay, right, which obviously you don't want to prejudice the jury, right? So that makes sense. So you're getting ready for trial. You've done the motion process. Besides just knowing the case like the back of your hand, what else are you doing? I'm going to lead here, right? Jury instructions, very important. Let's talk about that. So the jury, yeah, the jury process, it's very important. And there's a couple different things with it. First, before a trial, you get the names from the clerk of court of everybody that has been summoned as prospective jurors on your case. And you don't really get a ton of information about them, but you get names. I think. addresses because they have to be living within you know the county and sometimes it's helpful to well i mean it is helpful to look into you know What are people posting on, you know, online? Oh, we become creeps. Yeah, I mean. Sure. I mean, we do. Right. With social media, that's, I mean, you guys know, you got a man's life in your hands, right? If he gets convicted, he's going for the rest of his life. Yeah, you want to see if, I mean, a lot of people have their stuff set to private. But, I mean, you want to Google people, see what people are posting on Facebook, if people have written letters to the editor, things like that. And again, I mean, it. You can usually see, okay, this is the person on this list, but sometimes there's common names, right? So like you get someone with a common last name and Google results come up and it might not be them. But at least it gives you kind of a template to work off of for jury selection of questions you may want to ask that person, you know, and have them expand on it further. It also gives you... an idea of you know what people do for potentially their careers jobs things like that what their interests are because you can gather a lot of information before jury selection itself which can be helpful. Oh, absolutely. So you compile what you can about the jurors. Then when you try a case, right, one of the things that the judge will do is so read opening and closing instructions at different parts of the trial. And those can have a very key impact in the trial itself. Would you guys agree? Yes, it's the blueprint that goes back with the jury to the jury deliberation room that says, this is the law and this is how you have to follow it. Yep. So what I do, right? So the jury's heard in your case, what was this like? Was this a week long trial, two week long trial?

A week long. A week long. And then I think the jury continued to deliberate, well, they go home on a Friday. So they were off on the weekend. And then they came back on that following Monday morning and deliberated. And I believe we got the verdict around like 1.30 or so. It was right after lunch because I remember we were sitting in a room and we're like, well, I guess they're not going to go. You went out to your car, I think, to grab a cell phone charger. And then all of a sudden you left and I got the call. And I was like, oh my gosh, what do I do? Yeah, because I remember I had court on another case that morning, just some general appearances. And, you know, you kind of linger around the courthouse because, you know, you don't know when you're going to get called. The jury could have questions and things like that. And you're trying, like, not to, I mean, you'll sit there and go crazy, you know, wondering what. I'm trying to remember. I think did like the new season of Bridgerton come out or something? I think it came out before the trial and we waited to watch it until after. I think we like rewarded ourselves with like the first episode or something like that. I think we did. I think it was the second season. Yeah. Yeah. What I think I'm going to get back to the jury instructions, but I think it's interesting. So this jury has heard a whole week's worth of testimony, a whole week's worth. And you're going to tell them, okay. You're going to look at the essential elements of the crime, which are part of the jury instructions, right? And you're going to, it's going to have to fit in that little box, right? The statement has proved beyond a reasonable doubt. The defendant caused a human being's death either intentionally, knowingly, or under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to human life. Right. So I'm kind of paraphrasing here, but you hear all this testimony, and then you're going to have to fit it within this jury instruction, right? So explain if you can the jury instruction process, what you try to get in as a defense attorney potentially. When you were state's attorney, Tracy, what you'd like to get in as a state attorney and how that works. So in this case, you know, we wanted obviously a self-defense instruction because that was our defense. And it. I think it was pretty clear from the case onset that that was, it was going to be allowed. There are some cases that the defense might be asserting self-defense, but it's not as clear, and the trial has to evolve a bit, and then there has to be more argument kind of after the state presents their case as to whether that's going to be allowed. We obviously wanted a self-defense instruction, but additionally, we get to what are called lesser included, which is a huge part of high-level felony trials because in this case, our client was charged with murder. He was not charged with manslaughter or negligent homicide, nothing like that. And so... the state as their case went on, when we argued about jury instructions, they then tried to argue that they should be able to include those in the jury instructions. So the jury essentially could consider a conviction on one of those. And that's a big part of trial preparation.

Right. So for the listeners, right, just to summarize this. So, okay, you know, don't find the defendant guilty of murder. Find him guilty of manslaughter or aggravated assault or something else. Right. So if you don't think we've proved murder, right? Maybe we've proved one of these other ones. So at least they get a conviction. Is that, is that fair? I think it's fair. As defense attorneys, we call like a compromise verdict, right? That maybe, you know, we don't think it's murder, but something happened. And it is tough as a juror, right? Somebody died. And that is something that as defense attorneys, we have to overcome to say, look, we know that he was shot. We know who killed him, right? However, it's okay that her client did that. And that's not an easy thing for people to realize. Sure. And it's tough as defense attorneys to have a jury. And we had a juror that cried during it during the verdict reading because somebody did die. He had kids. He had a wife, right? And say, it's okay that he died. And it's tough. In this case, because we raise the self-defense issue, it becomes an additional element that the state has to meet that our client was not acting in self-defense. Yeah, and I think that's very important. And Nicole, I'm glad I brought that, you brought that up. So we take a look at the essential elements. The prosecution has to prove each and every one of them, right? Right that there was, and I kind of read it a little bit of it before. So, you know, the defendant caused the death. It was intentional. It was knowing. And then I'm not going to continue to read that again. But the prosecutor then has to show the defendant did not act in self-defense. The prosecutor has to then make. prove that as well. So very, very key part to get that into the jury instruction. Yes. And this is North Dakota, Pacific. Minnesota is different than ours, right? So North Dakota, it's an essential element that the state has to prove. In addition to that, right before this case, there was a, oh gosh, was it? I'm trying to think. So back in the legislature session, they rewrote our self-defense statute. So as attorneys, they have pattern jury instructions. Goes to a committee, the committee writes the jury instructions. It's kind of adopted by all the attorneys and judges throughout the state. This case was the first case that tested that new statute. There was no jury instruction. And so Tracy and I... We had to file, as attorneys, we all filed, proposed jury instructions that we want the judge to use. We had to craft our own and come up with our own jury instruction to present to the court, and so we had to take that statute and make our own jury instruction.

And so that was, we had a, you know. Very unique. And most attorneys don't get that experience. No, and it was a very unique in eye-opening experience for that. In addition to that, we did include a different jury instruction because a lot of jurors, and it kind of clears it up. And this is kind of getting into the weeds. So I'm sorry. Sorry to the listeners. However, not guilty is not the same as innocent. Right. I use that in my closing all the time. Yes. And so we were able to get a jury instruction outside the pattern jury instructions that went back to the jury that explained that to them. And not every judge in this jurisdiction allows it. But this judge in this case did allow that. So we had a special instruction that, you know, told the jury just because you think somebody, you know. did it, maybe the state did improve it. Right. Right. And maybe, Nicole, maybe you use this too, but I absolutely say that. I said, you could find my client innocent, but you don't have to. All you need to do is find I'm not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Yeah. There's a difference, right? So Tracy, go ahead. And I think, yeah, the argument mostly that we made for that instruction was that because this case, the length of the trial, the seriousness of the charge, the complexity. of everything that the jury was needing to look at, including it within the instructions that this instruction served as a clarification, basically, to help the jury do their job to assure a fair trial for not only the state, but also our client. That was like the argument that we made. Sure. Yeah, and the judge allowed it. And so it became part of the final instructions that were read to the jury before they took the case back for deliberation. So, okay, thanks for clarifying that and the jury instructions and how important those are. So you've gotten through that process. You have all the facts, right? So I'm going to just tell the jury, or sorry, the jury, where my mind goes. I'm going to tell the listeners. Ronnie, I'm in trial mode. Don't get me started. Yeah. So when a trial starts, you do jury selection first. Then you go on to opening statements. After that, the prosecution, they have the burden of proof. So then they present their evidence. Okay, they're called the case in chief. I should back up. The defense can either choose to do their opening statement right after the prosecution or they can reserve it until the prosecution arrest their case. That's a defense strategy, I guess. Then after the prosecution arrest their case. The defense gets to call their evidence, if any. The defense doesn't have to do anything if they don't want to. After that, the prosecution can do what's called rebuttal evidence where they rebut some of the defense's information. Why? Because they have the burden of proof. They get that ability. And then after that, it would go into closing arguments. The prosecution goes first, then the defense attorney goes again, and then the prosecution gets to go again because of that burden of proof that they carry. So with that roadmap, explain how you guys. broke up the trial. Who did what? How did you prepare? How did that look like?

So in Cass County, we have a pretty good rapport with the prosecutors. It's not like that in a lot of jurisdictions. And for trial efficiency, they gave us their proposed witness list that they kind of narrowed it down. So Tracy and I took that witness list and I said, I'll take this witness. And she just said, I'll take this witness. We kind of went back and forth. A lot of that is sometimes strategic. And I say that because... As attorneys, we all have our own strengths. We also have our own weaknesses. I on cross-examination can kind of get maybe more loud. I don't do well with victim, so that was or lay witnesses. Sure. And so Tracy, we always joke that I never got to cross-examine a victim victim's families. Tracy's shaking her head adamantly here. Okay, yes. Nicole sits down and it's quiet during that point. And so we kind of, you know, split it up based upon that, knowing our own strengths, their own weaknesses. Tracy did the void ear in the opening. So I can let her talk about her thought process behind that. Yeah, go ahead, Tracy. Yeah, I mean, I guess it was from my time, I guess, in the prosecutor's office. I had just picked a lot of juries. And so I... was comfortable doing that. I like getting up and, you know, having conversations with perspective jurors. Not that Nicole couldn't do it, but I had done it more. And I think that that was something I was comfortable doing. And so I took that part. And then additionally, I took opening in this case. I don't really fully, I guess, remember why. I think we just decided that jury selection and opening kind of went well together for this case, maybe with like the witness list we were provided, but it allows you to set the scene, set the tone, because it's before any evidence is presented. But, I mean, the state goes, but then, I mean, you get to get up there and set the tone as to what you want the jury to be thinking of in the back of their minds. during the case. So I set the scene for the jury. I think we used a phrase like our client was like a dog on his back with his legs in the air, like helpless, you know? Sure. And what was he supposed to do? Something like that. Right. Because you want to give, you know, a lot of people are visual learners and you want to give them something to be thinking about in their minds. But you want to get up there and take charge of your case. then. Right. You know, right. That's right. So I think it's a huge mistake of a defense attorney reserves their opening statement because otherwise it's just all prosecution and they don't have, they don't have any idea of what the defense's case is, right? I mean, from, yeah, you build your relationship with the jurors, whether you're on the state or the defense through jury selection. You know, you're building rapport with prospective jurors with citizens. You know, you're having conversations. Jury selection in this case lasted an entire day. And that's pretty typical for a murder case. I mean, sometimes it lasts longer than that. So then after you build your rapport, you know, then we decided that we would do our opening.

then, you know, after the state did so that the jurors weren't just hearing the state's version of events, but they were hearing ours. Yeah. And so that's what we decided to do. And with the facts of your case and during one of the breaks, I saw the video of this incident. And you're right, like a dog on his back, right? Helpless, right? That's a picture you want the jury to think about when the prosecution's bringing their evidence in, right? Right, because we were setting the scene for the self-defense arguments, you know, that we are going to be making. Yeah. All right. So we're going to go, there is no script today, clearly, but we have a call from an anonymous. I do not know what it's about or who it is. So let's roll the dice here. Ronnie, if you want to put the caller through. You're on the J. Thomas show. Hey, I was just wondering. I had a situation. A couple friends got into an altercation. One guy got the worst of it. A police get called. The guy wants to press charges. Okay, well, then some lawyers get involved and there's some restitution. They discuss restitution. Okay, we're good with that. We want to drop charges. And the DA continues to... proceed to go after a felony. Have you ever heard of something so like that? Yes, all the time. So once it gets to that level, and we have a prosecutor on the panel if you've been listening here, and she was one of the likable ones back in the day, though. Oh, that's really nice. I don't know she started out that way. That is so rude. So once you get to that point in time, it's not the victim or the alleged victim say at that point in time. It is 100% the state's attorney or the city attorney who's ever prosecuting that case. Their decision, it's their decision whether to bring a charge and it's her decision whether they're going to dismiss a charge. Tracy? Yeah, I understand. I just see it's odd. Then why would anybody pick the restitution? And depending on where the case is charged out in North Dakota, there is what's called Marcy's law where the state needs to reach out to the victim and take their wishes into consideration. Now, that doesn't mean that they have to honor them and dismiss the case. But certainly, you know. it's enshrined in our Constitution. So certainly the state has to reach out to them regarding any potential cases, potential resolutions, or get their take on what they'd like for potential resolution. That's right. And this happens a lot in domestic cases, right? And I think of the right circumstance, we can say, hey, that's a good thing the state has the charge, right? You got the typical case that I see is like, you know, a battered woman, right, where she's been beat up by her boyfriend husband multiple times. And then, of course, retracts for whatever, for whatever reason, right? Can't pay the bills, you know. forgives them, whatever the case is. And then the cycle discontinues, it continues, it continues. So the state's attorney's office then has that discretion to say, no, I don't really care if you want to withdraw these charges. You did get beat up. This was an assault. And I'm going to continue to prosecute. Tracy? Yeah, I mean, I guess in that situation, like that, yeah, the state would look at what evidence, you know, do they have a lot of times. I mean, you always hope in cases that there are.

if you're the state photos, videos, but if you have, you know, admissible evidence that you can get in without necessarily, you know, the victim participating, I think that's things sometimes the prosecutors consider as to whether they're going to go forward. Obviously, if you have no admissible evidence other than the victim, I mean, then you will be, you know, having a different conversation potentially. But those, every case is different, and that's what, that's what the... the state would be like considering you know what can they get in front of the jury even if I don't have the victim yep good good point caller thank you for calling in we are what about a minute Ronnie yeah we're about roughly 20 seconds away from okay well we'll go to this then any request for music when we come back on the air what do you guys want to hear next time We've already done Britney Spears. It can't get any lower. So my trial pump up song, the song that I play every time before I go to a jury trial is save a horse red a cowboy. Don't ask me why. Jay Thomas Show, custom truck and auto shine time check 337, the show this afternoon, guest hosted by Blake Hanky. It is a, I know, a shocker to no one. Tomorrow is Friday, and it is a best of program. Jay is not here tomorrow. So he will return Monday. I believe he is doing some filming for his TV show in Blue Earth, Minnesota. Interesting. Some stuff going on there. By the way, if you're looking to wake your weekends, great. One stop, you might want to consider hot springs, pools, spas. They've got all the great stuff, the pools, the saunas, the, you know, I mean, anything you could think of, hot springs, spas, and pool tables, too. I believe Fargo, Grand Forks, Bismarck, you can visit them for all the fun stuff. There you go. I love my hot tub, Ronnie. Did you get it from hot springs, pools, and spas? It came from there originally. I got it second hand. I got a second hand, but it originally came there. There you go. It's great. It's great. So we had a question here, and I will ask the ladies. I know what it is obviously. One of the questions is, what's a sidebar? You hear that in trials, right? Like, Your Honor, sidebar. Well, and it's interesting, too, because Tracy, I believe, was bringing up a situation earlier about voir dire and all that. Immediately my mind went to the very famous My Cousin Vinny scene where he has to have the lawyer sidebar. And then it's, you know, now I'm sure that he said that was a lucid, well-thought-out objection overruled. Yep, absolutely. Yep. So what is that? You're in trial and all of a sudden, you know, sidebar, your honor. What happens? And why? So sidebar is typically where if an objection is made or there's something that needs to be discussed between the attorneys and the judge, either.

the judge may not, or the court or the attorneys may not know exactly where the conversation is going to go, or if there needs to be certain argument made on an objection, if it's going to mention something that could potentially lead to a mistrial or issues, basically something that the jury at that point can't hear, or it could potentially go that way. a sidebar is held where the attorneys and judges confer at the bench. A lot of times I know in Minnesota, and I think now in some of the courtrooms in North Dakota, there's a white noise button the clerk can hit too where it drowns it out so that the judge and attorneys can have whatever discussion about whatever issue, whether it's an objection or an issue that came up that the jury can't hear. So that's what sidebar is. Okay. All right. So let's get back into this trial. So we've done opening statements. You've painted the picture in the jury's mind that you want them to think about, you know, the helpless individual or the dog laying on their back helpless, right? So prosecution goes next, right? Correct. Yep, the prosecution has the burden of proof. They go first. So they have to call their witnesses to prove each element. And in this case, we don't need to go into detail. I really want to get into closings and jury deliberation and how that all works. But who do they call, roughly? I think they called 15. Yeah, I mean, you always call, like, obviously, law enforcement that responds to a scene. You know, you got to call them. The medical examiner. Yeah, medical examiner. if sometimes other medical personnel, like if statements are made, lay witnesses, you know, who may have been at the scene and observed. Sure. So that's, and for the listeners, I don't know if that sounds like a lot or not, but that's a lot. That's a lot of witnesses to get up on the stand, to get examined and cross-examined. Okay, so the prosecution calls 50 witnesses to try to prove their case. Correct. Correct. Okay. Then it's the defense's turn. Who do you guys call? We did not call anybody. We had a long discussion with our client. There were some developments that were had, and he ultimately decided to assert his constitutional right to remain silent. All right. And this is obviously case specific. Do you guys have an opinion as to what you think? Do you like your clients to testify or not to testify? You know, I think it depends on the case. So when Tracy and I were preparing for this case, there was right before this, there was a very big, very public self-defense case. And I'm sure every listener here knows the Colorado Rittenhouse case. And so when we were preparing for ours, that had just happened. And we were researching what those attorneys did. Obviously, they were successful in that case. They ran some mock trials. One were the... Kyle Rittenhouse testified one where he didn't. And in that case, when they tried it, when Kyle Rittenhouse didn't testify, they found him guilty. When he did testify, they found him not guilty. So, you know, it depends. But, you know, we knew that heading into it. Ultimately, my client, our client, that's one of the choices they have as a defendant, whether or not that they want to testify.

Our client decided he did not want to testify, so no inference can get made upon him not testify. Right. And for the listeners, too, that is a jury instruction. So the jury is to make no determination whether the defendant does or doesn't testify. Or, sorry, does not testify. And the prosecution can't bring that up. So the prosecutor can't say, in their closing argument, if the defendant was so innocent, why didn't you hear for Mr. We'll call him Mr. Smith. Why didn't you hear from Mr. Smith? And that's something even in jury selection that we talk about. Because if you're doing jury selection, and whether you're the prosecutor or the defense attorney, if you're a prospective juror that says, well, unless the defendant testifies, I'm finding him either guilty or not guilty, whatever. You know, you want to know that. So that's something that comes up even like right away. So we're a week into trial. We're at the end, the closing argument, right? The last chance to address the jury from the defense perspective. Well, from both perspectives, right? So walk me through that. Who gives the closing? How do you prepare? What do you focus on? So I was the one who gave the closing. It very nerve-wracking. I mean, you know, we had a conversation with our client right before, and I think he told me, well, don't blow it because my life is on the line. Oh, man. Yeah, there's extra pressure. Yeah. And so, you know, my main thing was to raise all the doubts that we had kind of accumulated throughout trial. Our client was in the back of a squad car, so this is how I ended it. So I had given an hour-long presentation to the jury, you know, just highlighting everything. Like he, you know, showed the video. I had blown up pictures of the guy with the decedent with the knife above his head, you know, chasing my client, pictures with my client on his back with his legs and his arms in the air. instructed the jury that, and anything you say in closing arguments, I should add, is not evidence. So it's all argument. And so I argued that, you know, he didn't fire at any point in time until he was on his back. Because his gun was drawn while he was backing away and it kept getting advanced on, only when he had nowhere to go to defire. But my client sat in the back of a squad car for about an hour. And he kept talking to himself in the back of the squat car, sitting, God, he kept coming at me. What was I supposed to do? What was I supposed to do? I had nothing else to do. I was scared. It was coming out with me with a knife. So I ended my closing argument, and I gave one hour long, and then I sat down, I clicked play, and I didn't move. And I played for, I think it was, what, three minutes? Three minutes, maybe a little bit longer than that. And I took out of the back of the squad car and I clipped it. every single time that he said, what was I supposed to do? I didn't want to kill him. And I played that for the jury with 10 second pauses in between each statement. And it was very, very impactful. And I just rested it at that point. Okay. So we're going to get into what happens next. But for the people that's sitting out there, this is how you want your attorney to be prepared. If you're not going to hire me, hire Nicole.

Okay. I'm very impressed as I'm listening to this. This is the length. And Tracy, I would say hire you too, but you don't work privately anymore. You work for the state, right? So in any event, this is how prepared you want your attorney, right? As we're listening to this, you guys both prepared immensely and obviously it was a very good result, but your client must have been extremely happy, but we're getting there. So closing's done. The judge, it depends on what judge, whether they read the closing instructions before or after your arguments. I usually have them do it before so I can reference them in my closing. But in any event. So then they go back to deliberate. Explain the feeling once they walk it out of their chairs, walk back to deliberate. How are you feeling? So unless you're an attorney, I don't, and besides maybe the defendant themselves, I don't know if you can honestly explain it. I mean, even the trial itself, I tell people that is the most tired you'll ever be for doing nothing and sitting. I mean, the day at the end of trial, the way your mind is going and the way you have to intently listen, so tired. And then you get to the jury and there's nothing else you can do, right? I mean, I always joke that the, you know, there's... two different versions or three different versions of the closing argument you have. The one you wrote ahead of time, the one you give, and the one you wish you would have given when you're sitting in that jury room or sitting and waiting for that jury to come back and you're sitting there saying, I should have said this or I should have said this and you didn't do enough and your mind doesn't stop racing. Oh yeah. You're thinking through, I mean, even like every witness or oh, I should have on cross done this or I should, you know. Yeah, it's just a never-ending kind of cycle, honestly, replaying in your mind as you wait. I'm with you, right? Any other attorneys that are listening to trial attorneys that do criminal work? No, oh man, I should have said this. This maybe would have been a little bit different. But in the moment, like Nicole, you said, you prepare, but you don't want to be reading notes up there. That's not impactful, right? You want to be talking directly with the jury making eye contact trying to get your main points in, right? I think when I was preparing my... Closing argument. I think I timed it just to see, you know, there's a fine line of do you talk too long? Do you lose the jury? I think I timed mine. It was like 30 minutes. By the time I sat down, I think it was an hour, if not over an hour. And I was like, oh, what did I say during that time? Yeah, and judges will cut you off after an hour, right? Because I think there's a statute that says closing arguments are to be no longer than 60 minutes, unless you get approval from the judge, I believe. There is. And I think that is true, yes. I have not experienced a judge not giving attorney some leeway. Yeah. Oh, I have. Judge Clevin, love Judge Cleven up in Grand Forks, but oh, I have. Mr. Hanky, I'm like, oh, boy, it was attempted murder case, which I won, Ronnie. But in any event, she did, she did. She's like, you better wrap it up and wrap it up real quick. And I was probably, but I probably was an hour and 15 into it. So I did wrap it up pretty quick. But, yeah. But so then when we were waiting, so we had to wait over a weekend. And that was. Oh, no. Because I think it was like Friday morning that both closings, right, happened, I think. Yeah, we were done, I think, by 10.30. Yeah. And then they got the case. And so then.

Yeah, you have the rest of the day Friday. Then you're in mental gymnastics. What are they thinking about? What are they talking about? Well, then you get a jury question and you're like, well, what are they thinking about now? You know, they want it. I think ours, they asked for a magnifying glass. And then they asked us to, I think, to find something. And I was just like, well, why do they want that? So then you're, you know, you're even, I mean, as attorneys, that we overanalyze anything and everything. And so what Nicole's talking about about jury questions are is after the jury goes back and starts deliberating, they're able to write on a piece of paper. I mean, they can write, I guess, as many questions as they want, but they can write questions that are then given to the judge, and then the jury is brought back in. You know, like for instance, if they want to try, they want to ask to rehear a portion of testimony, they want, yeah, like a magnifying glass, or they need, they want something further to find. Yep. And I think, oh, and I should back up, before the jury is brought in, the attorneys are told there's a question. The attorneys are brought into the courtroom with the judge. And then our client is there obviously as well. We discuss generally, you know, what the answer will be. I mean, and the judge is the final decider of it. But sometimes they are, you know, very, they're questions that, like, there's no, like, necessary statute guiding the answer. You know, we kind of come up with, like, what. Because we all want to help the jury figure this out, right? Right, absolutely. So then the jury's brought in and the judge addresses the jury, you know, and gives them whatever information, you know, they give them, and then they go back. And this can happen, you know, honestly, as many times as they need. And all three of us have been in that situation, you're thinking, why are they asking that question? Where are their minds going, right? So it's odd. Some of these questions are so in the left field you're thinking, why are, why would they ask that, right? So, okay. So you are, I mean, is it fair to say that you just, during that period of time of deliberation, you're always thinking about it, you're not sleeping well, you're wondering what they're thinking. Anxiety level 10. Right. Waiting for the phone call on your phone from the clerks. And then, you know, every time your phone dings. Yeah, you know. I'd be guilty to this. I look at my phone. I'm like, oh, it's like thinking it's been a while. I'm like, oh, it's been two minutes. Uh-oh. Yeah. Crazy and I, as she mentioned earlier, we tried to watch Bridgerton. Yeah. We'd waited. I don't think we maybe got through the first episode. I mean, I think we both were just so. You know, just, yeah, anxiety. I needed to move. I couldn't just stay at still. I mean, I was glad on Monday morning I had a master calendar docket that I needed to go into court and do because it, I mean, obviously, like.

It made me I had to focus on something else, focus on other clients, focus on those cases. And they were just master calendar like dispositional conferences or something like that. Yeah. Nothing, no, you know, no motion hearing arguments. But it gave me, I was able to like go kill some time doing that where then I'm not like sitting in the conference room at the courthouse, you know, wondering what's going on. And so, right. And so the jury deliberates Friday, the majority of the day Friday. The judge give them the weekend off? Yes. Okay. So they come back Monday morning, eight, nine o'clock, whatever time. They deliberate all day Monday. Until we got the verdict back right after lunch. Right for lunch. For a murder case, that's not very long. Okay. I think it was about it was either eight or nine hours of deliberation. So we have maybe three, four minutes here. And I want to know the feeling from your guys' perspective. The clerk calls and says, we have a verdict, get to the courthouse. So we were at the courthouse. Oh, you were already there? We were at the courthouse. We were hidden in a conference room that the sheriff deputies were so nice to give us. So Tracy had stepped out, I think to go drop something off at her car, grab a laptop charger. She left the, she went out to her car. I get the call. And so I'm sitting in the room by myself. And so then I'm like, oh my gosh, what do I do? And so I quickly bolt out of the courtroom or out of the, out of the. conference room and i'm trying to get her in i'm like we have a verdict we have a verdict yes then you have to compose yourself right so once the verdict is in they have to wait for the media to get there i think they give them 20 minutes or something like that for the media to get there so now you know you have a verdict so you thought you were nervous beforehand now you know you have and you don't get to know it right okay that's even worse yep i'm pretty sure if i had my apple watch on i would have been getting alerts about a heart attack i'm sure or yeah and So then we know that. Okay, so we get in the courtroom with our client. Say we have a verdict. Our client told us on Monday that he packed up his cell because he knew he was going home. Wow. And Tracy and I were like, oh, no. You feel the weight of the world. So running, we brought a minute here, Ronnie? Okay, so don't arrest you guys. But the verdict's in, your client packs up a cell, wait for the media to get there. We know we have the verdicts. We sit. And then as a defense attorney, I think, or any attorney who tries cases, you wait for the jury to come in, right? Because if they look at your client, you say, oh, yeah, not guilty. They don't look at us. I go to trace. They said, we lost. Like, they're not looking at us. One of the jurors is crying. And we lost. That's what I thought. Yep, we lost. Well, then they read it. 30 seconds to call. We read it. They read it. All of a sudden, you know, it was amazing. Everybody leaves the courtroom. We sit there with our client for a while. The deputies were very nice. We sat there with him and were like, oh my gosh. And our client, to this day, we still talk to him every year. And we have a picture with him afterwards in the court holding cell. That's awesome. Running. Nice job with the music. It wasn't me. It wasn't me. Jay Thomas Show, the custom truck and auto shine time check 406 show guest hosted by Blake Henke today. Incredible legal panel. Great discussion over the last, what was it, hour and a half, two hours. Two hours. We're in the final hour of the show now. Yeah, I thought it was interesting. You know, one of the things that I think hopefully the listeners glean from it is that.

there is a lot of work when you try a case there is so much that goes into it it is not just kind of what you see or expect there is so much more Yeah, and, you know, I've been watching a fair amount of these documentaries recently, and you see a lot of shots that I don't think people appreciate defense lawyers going out to car with a dolly, a hand dolly, and it's legal box after legal, but, yeah, I mean, just files upon files, upon files of things. And all of that is things they need to be preparing to. cross any or, you know, counter any prosecution arguments, things of that nature. You're right. It gets voluminous, right? It gets very voluminous. And we have your guest on the line as well, but I do want to take a moment and tell folks that you can get authentic Mexican food like I was able to have from Casa Mexico. Things like the Changa Flota, the enchilada deluxe, nachos Locos, typical lunch,uevos cancherizo, and many, many more. I had a beef burrito, I believe it was, if memory serves that day. And it was absolutely terrific. They've got lunch specials. They've got a terrific menu. You can find out more information by going to Casa, Mexico, Fargo. and take a look at their menu. They've got a loyalty rewards program and all of that kind of stuff. Oh, Ronnie, very good pronunciation. You fluent? Move on Las Pilotes? Yeah, I wish. I wish I could say that. I mean, it just kind of rolls off the tongue a little bit after you do a lot of advertisements for restaurants. There you go. All right. Well, no, and I think they have a, they used to have a location in Grand Forks, I believe. Yeah. Same people I'm thinking of, excellent Mexican food. Yes, yes. And I can, we're lucky. I mean, in Fargo, we've got some places that actually have authentic Mexican food. Oh, absolutely. I could eat Mexican for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Yes. No problem. Seven days a week, 365. No problem. But I don't think the listeners care about that. Tara, you there? I'm here. Hello. Hello. How's life in Bismarck? You know, same as usual. All right. Great. Tara, I know we just got you on the phone. We got KVY breaking in with a news story here, just kind of an update for tonight's news. So hold one second. We're going to get Jessica on here. Yeah. And of course, the Warehouse Wonders V&L Roundup Valley News Live airing on WDAY at 5, 530 and 6. And Jessica joins us with the stories that KVY is working on for tonight.

Yeah, hi guys. Hello. Blake meet Jessica, Jessica, meet Blake. Jessica, nice to meet you. Yeah, nice to meet you by voice. Well, what have you got going on the Kipper this evening, so to speak, Jessica? Well, unfortunately, some not so. Great news. Really horrific story. Honestly, it's the Minnesota father accused of killing his wife and seven-year-old daughter inside a home daycare. There's new unsealed search warrants released today talking about how the weapon he used. A screwdriver. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, it's a really difficult case, but we do have those new details as well as another case that's just interesting. You as were talking a little bit about court proceedings, what it takes to try a case, so a little case focused here. Yeah, Blake happens to be, besides being the mayor of Harwood, also happens to be a lawyer himself. Correct. Well, then, yeah, you've got the inside track here. This one, though, out of North Dakota, two Washburn suspects facing felony theft charges for stealing historical artifacts worth more than 22,000. This is from the McLean County Historical Museum. But some of those items were a Nazi flag and pistol along with Native American relics. Oh. So just the items that were taken. Kind of interesting. Yeah, kind of wondering, it seems lately. And, you know, you, I don't remember, if you remember, Jessica, the story about the, the bell that was taken from a small town very near here as well. I mean, these are stories that, I don't know why, but seem to be happening a lot lately. So.

Was that for Jessica? Sorry, I didn't. Oh, yes. Yeah. I, uh, it looks like we lost her. We lost her. Okay. She cut out. But again, you can hear Valley News Live 5, 530 and 6 tonight right here on WDAY. But yeah, that particular case where I believe someone cut up the bell intending to meld it down or something to that effect. Yeah. I think it was scrap metal, right? Yeah. Just try to sell and get money, right? So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know why that stuff is happening. I mean. And in those cases, it's tragic because you have historical one-of-a-kind artifacts in the case of the bell that are irreplaceable. You can't get that stuff back. Absolutely not. Yep, you're right. All right. Terry, are you still with us? I am. Okay, sorry about all the interruptions there. So we have Tara Harding here, Simply You Wellness. If the listeners remember from about a month ago, I had Tara on and she was talking about her clinic in Fargo that was opening up. Give us an update on that. Yeah, so we are excited. We, the two providers are in training and we will be welcoming people in August 24th so they can start booking now, no need to wait. For anyone whom we had a little bit of a whole issue, as Blake knows, we day one walked in on August 3rd and floor as the middle of our waiting room dug up with a dirt pile. to put some plumbing in. But I'm told as of today by the contractors that will be taken care of and we can welcome people in person on August 24th. So really exciting, especially with all the services we're going to bring, including which there's a theme here, mental health services are needed now more than ever and we're looking forward to being able to provide that and have some new therapies and new resources available for the Fargo area. If you just want to just kind of maybe a refresher from your on last time, how is your clinic maybe a little bit different than traditional? I'm going to, I'm not, I'm not criticizing any local health care. I go to them. But how is your facility maybe a little bit different than a Sanford or Sensia? Yeah, so as private practice, we're able to do things a little bit different. The number one thing being time. We spend over an hour with our patients on that first visit, follow-ups or 45 minutes. We just are able to give more time than what the traditional healthcare system is just allowed for whatever reason. We also tip, we see all men. We talked a lot about men's health at times. So we do specialize in. men's health, mental health, women's health, infertility, but we also kind of can do things outside the box. We're a nice blend of Eastern and Western.

So we let the patient choose. That's the other big thing is whatever route the patient wants, we go down that. We also tend to see the theme of, if you've been told everything's normal, your labs are normal, not sure what's going on here and want a second opinion or a third or fourth opinion, that's what we also specialize. And we really have a different eye, different approach, different training, all evidence-based, but just kind of a different approach to health care that really puts that patient back in control of their health. All right. So I think this is kind of a hot topic a little bit right now. But there's that Lindsay Clancy case going on. Yes. Right. Yes, yes. Let's keep the legal topic going, right? Yeah, let's go. We're talking about a murder case for the last two hours. Let's keep this going, right? So, you know, if you can explain to the listeners, you know, well, male and female listeners, because males generally have to live with the females that have the postpartum depression, right? So if you can explain warning signs and just kind of explain what to look for for postpartum depression. Yeah, absolutely. So the topic that's kind of going around with that and even the Mandan case on the tragedy that happened last week, there's an overarching commonality here and it's postpartum mental health crises. And that's one thing that we specialize in. Our providers also have advanced training in what's called postpartum international. It's PSI. And what postpartum is, it affects one and eight. Just a postpartum depression alone affects one and eight women. But perinatal mental health includes much more than just depression. There's anxiety, OCD, bipolar, PTSD, psychosis, which is what they're talking about with the Lindsay case here. And I feel a big reason that this gets missed is because we all think this is someone who's sitting in crying and they can't get out of bed when really this individual might be working. showering, breastfeeding, caring for multiple children, smiling in pictures, but yet severely struggling. So what we think it looks like and what it really is is where the mishap happened. We know there's a huge weight to get into mental health services. symptoms might develop during pregnancy or month after or even a year after, there really isn't just this immediate thing. It happens after birth. It's either there or it's not. That's not what it is. It really looks different on every female. We also know women might hide these symptoms because of shame or fear if I tell someone, that equals I'm a bad mom. If I tell someone, I'm going to lose my other children. So what we really need to do, I think the takeaway here is normalize. talking to moms about this, talking in our friend and family group, our coworkers about this, repeated. Not just one time. Are you okay? You're doing good? How's it going? We have to keep these conversations open because I really believe a woman's ability to perform in motherhood is not a good reflection of what her mental health might be.

Sure. So I guess to circle back a little bit to you are the husband. You are, you know, maybe a grandmother of the newly born child or grandfather. And you notice, you know, that the mother is, well, some of the warning signs here. And tell me if I'm correct on these and they should be right since you texted them to me. So, you're right? So rage, anxiety, intrusive thoughts, inability to sleep, not acting like herself. Right. And so you see somebody experiencing those type of symptoms, you know, and I should ask you this, how soon after the delivery of a baby does postpartum start and these symptoms maybe start? Yeah, that's a great question. I think we all think it's going to happen right away or in those first few weeks and the reality that can happen months later. I forget what Lindsay's is here because quite frankly, I just can't watch it with my heart. But nine months, you know, to a year, it can go beyond one year. And so it's really when that mom feels it or when someone tells you they're feeling it, don't judge when it is, take it serious. Because it could be, again, it could be that first week. It could be days, but it could be. weeks to months later and even beyond that first year, unfortunately. All right. And she touched on this a little bit, but you are that partner, that family member, you notice those signs. What do you do? Yeah, I think you immediately get them in. So if there's ever any risk to themselves, or to harming others, the ER. We've got to get them into the ER right away. I think in the perfect world, there would be this situation where we would be developing a plan of care before it even happens, kind of like a birth plan. If everyone's familiar thought, those are usually laughed at because they usually don't go as plan. But I think having our postpartum plan in with that birth plan is really important. Who is our mental health go to? Having those appointments set before, you can always cancel them. having those check-ins and screens right away. We look at the first week and just as important as six weeks. So six weeks is traditionally when that female is going to go into the OBGYN. But yet that baby's being seen, you know, two days in, the first weekend, two weeks in. So we've even gone as far as training our pediatric provider to be trained by PSI and have postpartum training. I really think having that mom have checkups. the same time baby has checkups should be a new standard of care. But having a call list, you know, who is our go-to, who's our call list, who's our therapy, who manages medications, who's checking on sleep, when are her follow-ups, making sure she has follow-ups and kind of stepping in as a team for her. I know we're kind of talking about husbands and grandparents and spouses and friends and coworkers, but just having somebody that they can identify to go to ahead of time before they need it and having that plan in place. Yeah, one thing that, and Ronnie, I'm curious of your opinion on this too, but one thing that really struck me there, Tara, was to have a plan in place, knowing this is a very real thing. And so have things kind of lined up before the delivery of a baby, right? I mean, why not be proactive on it? Like you said, Terry, you can always cancel, right? And so I don't want to put words into your mouth, but is that where your clinic would maybe be a little bit different than traditional medicine or you kind of have a game plan like that?

Yeah, absolutely. We believe, like I said, I may, I'll take full confession. I made up, I call it the six-day appointment, not the six week, and I picked six days because I like the number six, my birthday is February 6. But it's like, who makes this stuff up, right? Who said six weeks is where it should be? And so that's a really question that narrative. Many women are struggling far before the six weeks, but that's when they're told, you know, here's your checkout instructions from the hospital, see you in six weeks. You know, if you need a sooner word there, I can't tell you how many women have told us. They go in for their child's pediatric appointments. They fill out what's called a PHQ9. They test positive on it and no one does anything about it. So that is where we are different is that we're taking those PHQ-9s or we're taking the baby in the mom at the same time. Can I stop? Because I don't know what that is. I'm sure a lot of people listen and don't. What is that? What is that? PHQ-9, if I got that right? It's called the pH-Q-9. It's probably the most common screener for anxiety and depression that is used in any traditional pediatric office, primary care office, OB-GYN office. It's a very generic screener. to screen for signs of anxiety and depression. Okay. So many women are seeing that when they go to their PCP or their pediatric provider's office, but nothing's being done when they test positive on it. And so we really got to take those serious. And I think as health care providers in general, this should all just be awake for all of us that we really need to start stepping in sooner. And is that, is that, and so your approach is obviously treating the patient individually, right? So there's this kind of standard where this is kind of what we do and these are the timeframes. And for your practice, it is just treating the patient and their needs each individually. Is that fair? And if you can explain how you do that. I would say that's a good way to put it. We don't have these strict timelines on it. It's if you don't feel like yourself. That's when you come in. And if you have been struggling to feel like yourself for some time, you get in now. Like don't wait no more. Don't put yourself off anymore. I wouldn't have add here, too, if there's a female with a history of anxiety, depression, OCD, or any mental health before getting pregnant, that is really important to note too. And those individuals especially should have a whole team and those appointments made ahead of time. Or if they start having those symptoms during pregnancy. Make those appointments for postpartum sooner and right away and not waiting just because society or whoever made these guidelines back in 1995 said wait six weeks. We don't need to do that anymore. We need to get you in sooner and get, you know, if you're not feeling like yourself, that's the day you make the appointment. All right. And anything else in postpartum? Otherwise, my next question to you is what other things are you seeing that would be valuable to the listeners? A postpartum is great. Schedule appointments before you deliver. Be cognizant of it. Don't wait six weeks, especially if you don't feel right. Anything else that you could share that you think is a good screening tool or a good treatment tool?

Yeah, I think just having conversations, the thing we do, we also encourage patients. What do you see on social media? You know, like TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, like what's trending for health topics out there? We're very up to date with those things. In fact, I'm out there on the socials. We talked about that last time, too. I kind of blew up on TikTok. But I think the overall arching thing, too, is symptoms that once were like... overall, you know, insomnia, weight gain. This is for men and women. I'm trying to speak to probably all of them now. But like, if you have concerns about your health hormones, you know, there's a lot of advancements on hormones and up-to-date research saying, hey, these, you know, bioidentical hormones are safe. And you really should have conversations about being on them and not be scared of them anymore. There was a lot of studies that. came out saying, oops, we made a mistake, hormones are actually safe for you. So rehashing some of these conversations that no matter what age you are, if you're even 60s, 70s, honestly, I put my 90-year-old grandma on hormones. I think I shared that last time too, but it's not too late. to re-approach your health, no matter what age you might be. If you wake up everything, you're just not feeling well, no matter your gender, your age, I think that is the new health care model is saying, hey, let's take a look at what options might be available for you. You don't need to just keep going back the same thing that maybe hasn't been working. No, that's a very good point. And I know one of your, you have many specialties, but one of your specialties is very clearly hormones, correct, Tara? It is, yes, most certainly men, women, fertility, you know, whatever it might be. Yes, hormones is our specialty. So how do you, how do you test for that? How do you test somebody to be like, okay, your hormones are off? Is it a simple blood test? How do you know what's going on? Yeah, great question. So yes, we do a combination approach of hormones and testing them, but also I say we treat people in that paper. And so we talk to you. We do a head to toe. I will commonly hear or have. patients crying and say no one has ever asked me this question no one's ever given me this time no one's ever talked about why i've had a runny nose you know for five years along with no libido and i'm losing hair right like we go over every single system in your body on that first visit and that's also really different but hormones literally impact every organ in your body there's not one organ that's not impacted by a hormone so that's why we do that So it's very, it's a different approach. It's very, you know, like I said, we treat the people not paper. We're talking about your symptoms and adjusting a lot of our treatments based on how you are feeling. And then we also use lab work beside that. It's not just lab work. That's just a piece of the puzzle. All right. And running, just so I can balance up my next questions here. How long? About two minutes here? Okay. So, Tara, so the hormone component, great, the postpartum, great. Anything else you think is a hot topic that you'd like to inform the listeners on?

Oh, gosh. I mean, I just really feel mental health in general has been consuming our souls. If anyone's on, I can't get onto the Internet without seeing something about that. I think, you know, and that goes, you know, for men, too, man. I come from the German land. I think Ronnie's from down by where I'm from. Oh, yeah. Iron Curtain Land, right? We don't talk about our feelings. We don't talk about this. A big reason that I started this practice was because I was also seen being traditional or ways that we were trained kind of fail my farmers and fail my family and friends down there to young people committing suicide. And I just think that we need to start normalizing talking, hey, I'm not feeling good. And you don't have to know what to do for that person, but just know where to point them. And I'm not saying that's just us, just really normalizing the mental health care conversation for men and women for teens. High schoolers, there's so much pressure on them too. Getting them help sooner than later. Tara, last minute, peptides. What do you think? Yes, good, bad, otherwise? Yes, good. You know what? Don't be getting them out of your fitness trainer's trunk. They're going to be coming soon and do it the right way. We love peptides. All right, perfect. Thank you for coming on. And for those that have listened to her last time, listen to her today, you like what she has to say. You like her approach to traditional medicine. Simply you wellness. Right here in Fargo and also in Bismarck. Yes, thanks for having me. All right. Thanks, Sarah. Custom truck and auto shine time check is 437. The final segment of the Jay Thomas show for a Thursday and best of the Jay Thomas show tomorrow. Jay will return live on Monday. A reminder, by the way, show guest hosted by Blake Hanky today. And Blake, I know you've got one there at Harwood. There is a Petro Serve USA near you. Boy, do we like their tax money, Ronnie. Yes. And it's so busy there. And I, but not to get your segment off, but the food is good. Yeah. Very great home-cooked meals, especially if you're in an area where there's a lot of construction going on. You got home-cooked meals all the time. I'm told by our station down the... Hall Scott Hennon that he raves about their caramel rolls. I've had them. They're good. And don't forget free Car Wash Fridays. Yes, yes. And make sure you sign up for PetroServe rewards. It can save you money on things like fuel and other stuff. I mean, it's a great place to stop if you need to get fuel or just grab and go stuff or otherwise. There is one near you, PetroServe USA, helping America fuel better. Perfect. All right. Well, our next guest, we have Haley Wilmer here, correct? Yes. Hi. All right. And Haley is with Red River Dance. And the reason Haley's on is I didn't realize, Ronnie, and I'll be real honest. I can't dance. And I don't have a kid that dances. Isn't it Blake Hanky Lord of the Dance? Yeah, no, I can't sing more dance. We found out the singing part earlier in the show. My friend Brady Woodard Listing told me to keep going because I think he wants to make fun of me later. But in any event.

What I found out through Nicole, who was on earlier, was that Red River danced as a couple of really nice things for the community through a nonprofit. And Haley, I'd like you to touch on that if you would. Yeah. So at Red River Dance, we are a nonprofit. So we offer classes through our outreach program. Right now, actually, we are accepting scholarships for families with low income. So they can apply for a scholarship to help pay for tuition during the year. We also have our beyond. dance program that we started a few years ago and that provides free dance classes to dancers with disabilities which has been really cool it's it's been fun to see that really grow and flourish um And we have community sponsors for that as well. And then we also provide free dance classes for children through Head Start also. So there are school buses them to Red River Dance and then we teach them dance in the mornings. And it's really fun to watch those kids come in too. Right, right. So in like any kind of extracurricular activity, I don't even want to tell you what we pay in hockey for my son, right? Yes, expensive. Yeah, yeah. I don't think my wife even knows half of what we pay. But anyways, it's a lot of money, right? And so dance, dance I understand. is also for the average family, still pretty expensive, not criticizing it comes with the territory, good product, you pay for what you get, right? Yes, absolutely. And so this gives kids that do not have the same benefits that other kids might still have the ability to dance. Yes. And truly, like when you see kids come into the dance studio, I mean, their whole demeanor. It changes. It affects their daily life. You know, they're going home and they're showing their parents what they're learning and even going to school and showing their friends what they're learning. And it gives them good camaraderie, working on even just like regular daily life skills dance helps with so much of that too. And so let's talk about then the beyond dance. And so again, program for children with disabilities. And how do you guys work with that, right? I mean, obviously when I think of dance, I don't think of, and maybe this is my neuromindedness, but I don't think of a child with a disability, you know, because that's not what you see on. TV really, right? I mean, at least not what I see. So how do you work with that individual and give them, you know, confidence and the ability to dance? Yeah, so it's really cool. Our instructors that work with our Beyond Dance program get trained within RhythmWorks. So our teachers are trained to work with dancers with disabilities. And Rhythm Works is a program that provides choreography, class, you know, lesson plans, things to do with individuals, even specific to Down syndrome, autism, cerebral pulmonary. We have dancers that come in with, you know, they can't, they're in a wheelchair or a walker, another place that we partner with this Hope Inc. So like they come into and it's really cool to see.

them light up, especially for recital because they get to participate in recital and just see the end product of them on stage. The audience is cheering for them. They're just having the time of their lives. And truly at Red River Dance, we believe that dance is for everyone. Whether you're an elite dancer, you're doing it for fun rec or you're a dancer with disabilities. So truly watching those dancers shine is... is what it's all about. So obviously that sounds. As we're talking here, I'm getting kind of some goosebumps as you're talking. It seems like incredible to have a child that maybe, you know, maybe didn't think they'd be able to dance or couldn't afford to dance, right? And then they get to through your programming. How does somebody help? help a disabled child or a child, a low-income child? Yeah, so we're always taking donations throughout the year. Another big thing for us is Giving Hearts Day. I know that's still kind of a ways away. We're actually gearing up for the kickoff for that, which is crazy. End of August, they have their kickoff for places in the area. But yeah, Giving Hearts Day is a big one. You can even, when you give money through that, you can earmark it for what you would like it to go towards as well, which is really special as well. But really, like, anyone can just donate. get checks in the mail from people or people will reach out and ask if they can give for specific things too which is awesome we also have families that will give like donations through Amazon because we have like our daily products so we like you know toilet paper paper towels cleaning supplies all that stuff you know it adds up after a while so So when you give a donation, just want to make it clear if someone's listening that wants to help. And so do they just mail the check to your address? Yeah, they can do that. If they want to reach out first, they can email info at red riverdance.com or our executive director who is more in charge of our scholarships and stuff like that. She's kind of more the finance person. It's Alexis at red riverdance.com. Okay. And you can kind of. get more information that way. You can also just go to our website and you can kind of look around at all the different things that we offer and all the different things that you can kind of give towards and our sponsors page lists, you know, donors in our area that are already giving to us too. Okay, I'm looking right now. So you're red riverdance.com. Yes. All right. No, I've got that. So let's transition here, but out of maybe the nonprofit sector or what I was talking about into. Other programs you guys offer. I know obviously Nicole was here, Nicole Braddell. I know her daughter's active in dance. I know her and her husband were in Wisconsin. Yes. I believe. So if you can explain some of the programming that you have. Yeah. So we have a couple different areas. that make Red River Dance what it is. So we have our, obviously, our Outreach and Beyond Dance program, which we already talked about. We have our recreational program, which is, it's more for fun. Dancers come and they take a weekly class, and then they perform in the recital. And then we have our competition programs. So we have our gem lines, which is also more fun-based. You kind of don't have to audition for it. You can just sign up and do it, and it gives kids that opportunity to experience the competitive world without.

the time commitment without the huge financial commitment that what next is our red lines so our red lines is our more elite competitive team um you actually have to audition to be on that team um and they just do more competitions uh like you said they just came back from wisconsin dell's um nationals where they placed first which was really exciting for them too yeah so it was it was a good year for them but um yeah so i mean like i said there's There's kind of a little bit of everything. We even have adult classes too. So adults come on Wednesday nights to dance. I was just going to ask if Ronnie and I can attend a class. You can come take a tap class and adult ballet lyrical. This old duffer could still learn how to dance. Wow. You sure can. Yeah. So probably not this kind of dance. But. So Ronnie, I'd like to learn how to Crip Walk at some point in time. You know, 90s rap guy. I was going to say, what is that? Yeah. You know, we do offer private lessons. Okay, if you ever want to get a group in, I've got instructors that can probably teach you how to do that. Perfect. What about what the other kind of dance I'd like to do is I'd like to learn how to like two-step country dance. Yeah, it's so funny. We actually get a lot of people that ask for that. Yeah. We don't have anyone who's like, yeah, I do two-step. I teach that. But we have an instructor who does ballroom dance. So, yeah, yeah. But we kind of, yeah, we kind of do a little bit of everything. Wedding dances, you name it. All right. So just so I get this straight, all the different programming you guys offer, we talked about Beyond danced and then the Head Start program. We talked about some of the competitive programs and also adult dance. Yes, yes. Okay. That's all of it. Wow. We're kind of a melting pot of everything. Absolutely. So you guys are busy over there. Is it seven days a week kind of for you guys? Yeah. So typically we have Friday, Saturday. There's not much going on besides private lessons. Sundays our competitive dancers come and dance. And then throughout the week we have a recreational and our competitive dancers dancing. Okay. Great. Haley, hold on here. I'm going to get. Who do we have running with Kathy on? Kathy Deegman, yes, Chahinka Bazoo, and I apologize, Kathy. I thought you were back from Down Under, but you're still down under. I'm still down under. Having a great time in Australia. Again, we talked about this last time, but Tom, my husband gifted me with a trip to Australia, so we're having a good time. We're with friends. who live here. And so they're showing us everything. And it's just glorious. Fantastic. And of course, Chahinka Bazoo, always a great place to go. The summer, I know I hate to say this, we're on August 13th, but summer's going to wrap up eventually. But there's still plenty of time to go to Chahinkabazoo. Yes, and it's talking about Don Under. You need not come to Australia to see the kangaroos, and there's still plenty of opportunity to get that behind the scenes walk about with the roos. So you can have that special event for your family, experience for your family or work organization. Yes, we do stay open through most of October, but after Labor Day are hours and days changed. So make sure you check that out.

And we're still open, you know, the Friday, Saturday, Sunday, but our hours shorten a little bit. And but we're here. And don't forget we're here also what we would consider the off season. We're here for everybody groups, special events, outreach. And don't, you know, we do a lot of that education. And so we just want to remember. To remind folks to keep the zoo in mind year round, not just for the summer season. Yeah, get yourself a pass, and then you can support the zoo and the great animals and go any time you want. Exactly. Fantastic. Kathy, thank you so much for talking to us to us from Diananda. You bet. Thank you so much. Have a great weekend. You bet. Kathy Deekman, Chahinkapazoo, live. She is still visiting Australia, Blake. Wow. Did I hear that right? You can do like a private tour and get behind the scenes of the animals? You can with you just need to set it up with Kathy. But yeah, they show you the enclosures and how feeding the animals work. And you can interact with obviously some of the animals that don't have like long fangs. Sure. Well, I was going to ask that. Could I sign up some of my enemies for the tiger exhibit? Is that for the lion exhibit? Well, the tiger and lion are not in there when you tour the enclosure for obvious insurance reasons. But yeah, I don't know. I mean, call Kathy. Who knows? Yeah. Perfect. All right. Well, Haley, back to you. Thanks for being patient there. So the question I've got for you, what you're talking about sounds great. How does someone register? They want to register for when does the season start? How does long does it go? Kind of explain that if you would. Yep. So our, we're actually accepting enrollments right now. Our session starts on September 8th, so coming up here really soon. So you can enroll now. You can go to our website, Red Riverdance.com and just click on the register. I think it says register now. Yeah, I'm on it right now. It does. Top right corner register here. Yep. And so then you just fill out that form. And then. You can go into your parent portal and select whatever class you want to sign up for. The full session runs through December. We have a recital set for December 12th, which is exciting. That's when all of our rec classes and some of our competitive teams will perform. And yeah, we're going into our 49th season, which is kind of crazy to say. Wow. And so is there, I know we talked to some of the programming, but if you wanted to do any kind of dance, you could do that either as a group or private, right? There's certain dances that maybe you guys. don't offer in a group but would offer privately. Yeah. So we offer like pretty much any style you can you can imagine under the sun. But if you're if you're looking for something more specific, you can always email and reach out. And what we do on our end is we kind of connect you with somebody and set up lessons in that sense. But as far as like our program, we have ballet, tap, lyrical, jazz, contemporary, hip hop, acro. I could go on point. Wow. Okay. And so of those, my dance knowledge is zero. No samba or meringuei. Not for me, Ronnie. We do have a teacher who teaches ballet, or not ballet, ballroom. Not on the schedule currently, but she does know how to do it. She's pretty cool.

Yeah, absolutely. That's something I, and I don't know, hopefully my wife is, that's something I would love to surprise my wife with. Be a cute date night thing, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. That's what I was thinking two-step, right? Just show up at a country bar and be like, oh, I know how to dance. Right. Surprise. Exactly. Isn't that a good idea? Yeah, it is. Yeah. So that's why I asked about the two-step. Yeah. That's one of my ideas, right, Ronnie? Yeah. Just kind of surprise her, and then all of a sudden I'm spinning around the dance floor. Oh, she'll love that. Yes, absolutely. Just throw a little ch- Shoes in Texas on and get out on the hardwood there. There you go. So impressive. Yeah. So you can help me with that. You can get me in there with the right people. Yes, I can. Okay. Well, we're going to talk after the show. Sounds good. So what does it look like for the family that wants to make this commitment? And I think we're, I think we have two, three minutes left. So the family that wants to make this commitment, they say, yes, we want to do this. Yeah. How many days per week? How many hours per week? What's the travel like? Yeah. So we're located in South Fargo kind of just off the interstate kind of by like the mall, West Acres. It's the opposite direction we were getting off of. the interstate. So really, really nice location for people, easy to get to. And it kind of depends on the age of your child. Younger children usually come once a week for one class. Older kids will kind of take multiple classes. What's nice about the way our schedule works is you could come take multiple classes on one day, which I know gets tricky for people because there's a lot of other stuff going on and kids are involved in a lot of activities. You could do that. You could come multiple days a week. A lot of our tiny and petite classes are 40 minutes, which is great time for them. It's not too long. It's not too short. And then we have a lot of 55 minute classes too. Okay. Well, great. And I, this is going to the way back machine, but I used to teach tennis and I used to teach youth tennis here in Fargo. And I will tell you, if you can just explain, because I've got personal perspective, but when you take a student and they've got, I mean, ability zero, right? And then you see them, you know, develop and flourish. How does that make you feel as an instructor? Yeah. So one of my favorite classes to teach is actually our creative movement, which is our two and three year olds. Okay. Come in fresh. Never being in a class before, never having a teacher, not knowing what direction means, all of those things. And watching them come from like. day one coming in and potentially not being able to like leave their mom or dad whoever's dropping them off to then going into the room independently doing all the songs with us performing on stage like it is truly like the greatest joy to see that happen yeah absolutely i think that's our our

I'm hearing the music. One minute. I'm hearing our music for the final minutes. So just want to recap. Sounds like a great organization. If you want your child to get in dance. And if you, the programming they have, the Beyond Dance programming, the low income program. And if you want to donate, sounds like they would great things over at Red River Dance. Yes. Thank you so much for having me. All right. Thank you. Yes.