Although I previously read the “Letter of Banishment” from the Office of the State Public Defender, Colorado, signed by Jennifer L. Ahnstedt, Lead State Training Director, the previous reading involved the participation of some lawyer friends, and I’ve been told that it could be a bit more time-consuming and less easy to follow than would be a straight reading.
So in today’s show I provide a little background and events preceding the letter, and then read the letter straight through.
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Welcome folks to today’s episode of the Law of self-defense show. I am, of course, Attorney Andrew Braner for Law of self-defense. Thank you.
Thank you so very much. That’s always, always greatly appreciated. And today we’re here to do a second reading of the letter of banishment that I received from the office of the State Public Defender, Colorado.
I read this last week uh on a show but uh I had a bunch of other lawyer buddies as friends come on the show and we started telling jokes and I’ve been told it wasn’t as clean a reading and was more time consuming than necessary uh to get to the gist of the matter. So this is a cleaner reading of this letter. I do still have to, of course, provide backstory um how we got to the point of this letter. Uh And I’ll certainly do that as well to provide full context on uh on what led us to where we are today. Before I do that, I do want to mention of course, today’s show is sponsored by CC double UAE CCW safe, is a provider of legal defense coverage for the cost of a legal defense, if you’re involved in the use of force event, as well as civil coverage for civil suits.
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The backstory of how we got here. Whoops. That’s not how I wanted to start.
So where did all this begin? Uh Well, down in Colorado Springs, south of me, there was a Chokehold case. Uh an aggressor attacked a defender. The defender used a cross collar choke which induces unconsciousness and unfortunately, the aggress in the fight didn’t merely lose unconsciousness. Uh They died. Uh Now they, they, the aggressor had a very compromised phy physiology.
They were basically a homeless person, uh, lifelong alcoholic, apparently lots of physiological impairments and the choke, which I do all the time. So I study jiu-jitsu. We choke each other in the dojo all the time.
Uh Nobody ever dies as a result. So this joke was not expected to kill, but nevertheless, the aggressor died and the defender finds himself charged with second degree murder, reckless manslaughter, and negligent homicide. So he’s looking at now more than two decades in prison.
If he’s convicted, maybe much more. Now, it turns out that this defender had been a student at my jiu-jitsu gym, which is also in Colorado Springs. I’d never met him. I didn’t know him.
He wasn’t a student since I started practicing jiu jitsu there, but he had previously been a student there. So the Public Defender’s office interviews the B JJ owner, uh the Doo’s owner about the defender’s training and the owner tells them about me. Well, I have a new student here. He’s a lawyer. He does nothing but use of force law cases.
Maybe he could be helpful to you in your defense of your indigent client that was in um February. And, uh, and the B JJ owner texted me uh to let me know that he’d had this conversation with the public defender’s office and maybe they would reach out and sure enough they did in April, I’d forgotten all about this. But in April, the, an investigator from the public defender’s office working on this case, reached out to me, asked for my assistance. Uh I was connected with the lead counsel for the defense and I agreed to provide a pro bono meaning free legal consult on the case, partly because it was associated with my jiu-jitsu jam partly because I’m generally sympathetic to the public defender’s office. Uh I, my first job in the law was at a public defender office in Broome County, New York, not as a lawyer, but as an investigator myself.
And this is before I was a lawyer. So I agreed to provide the consult for free. Now, normally my consults are a minimum of $10,000 and they go up from there. So $10,000 worth of legal services I’m providing for free. Then the Public Defender’s office asked if in addition to this legal consult I’m providing, which I did provide, uh if I can also provide expert witness testimony. Well, if you don’t know when lawyers do this kind of consulting work as I do out of court time, uh may be very expensive, but it’s done at our leisure on our own schedule in our office when we have to travel and sit around in a courtroom, unable to work on other cases. Um And we have to be focused specifically on that one particular defendant.
We charge a lot more for that, a substantially higher billable rate. Ultimately, uh I ended up spending three days at the courthouse So one day I had to go to be qualified as an expert, even the state after lengthy cross examination, uh had to concede that I was clearly an expert, undeniably, an expert in use of force law. The judge agreed qualified me as an expert in that hearing. So I had to come back to actually testify in front of the jury that was scheduled for a few days later in the week on June 8th.
But of course, court ran long and sometimes happen so that I wasted my time in court. That day. I had to come back the next day, June 9th and provide a couple of hours of testimony before the jury. All those hours between the what they call a Shrek hearing to be qualified as an expert. The day I went to court and wasted my time and the day I went to court and provided expert witness testimony that would have been billed at $36,000 in my legal cost. But of course, I did it pro bono.
So now we’re looking at almost $50,000 in expert legal services I provided to the public defender’s office on this case and I neither asked them nor charged them for a penny. Wasn’t paid a penny, it was all done pro bono free, not complaining about that. I volunteered for that, but that’s the value of the services they received. Uh I’m going to skip over this particular part there was a point in the, um, just before I testified where the prosecution argued to the judge that a large section, a vital section of my testimony should be excluded from the jury. The defense didn’t have a very good counter argument. So the judge agreed that a very important part of my testimony, the jury wouldn’t hear, but I was able to very quickly send the uh defense lead counsel, the correct Colorado law on this.
The prosecutor’s argument was a misstatement of the law in effect. The judge was fooled. Uh So when we provided him with the correct law, the judge reversed his decision.
And that very important part of my testimony was allowed in this correction happened because I was sitting in the courtroom saw the error, the misstatement of law by the prosecution saw that the judge’s ruling would be a miscarriage of justice in this case and was able to hop on my own laptop, get on Lexus, find the actual correct Colorado law immediately email it to defense counsel who was sitting only a few feet from me who was immediately able then to show it to the judge and the judge appropriately reversed his ruling allowed that vital part of my testimony back in. If I had not been there, the stakes for this defendant, this indigent defendant would have been far worse than they already were. And if you’re on trial for murder folks, you’re at very, very great legal peril already. So frankly, a big save by law self defense for the public defender’s office. So remember these are the charges against that defendant, second degree murder, 24 years of convicted reckless manslaughter. Eight years, negligent homicide, three years. These are all the maximums.
Of course, that’s what he was looking at. What happened. Monday June 12th, the business day after my expert witness testimony, not guilty, not guilty, not guilty.
The jury returned acquittals on every charge against this defendant. A huge win. I got a very nice email from the lead counsel. Uh Thanking me showing appreciation for the valuable contribution I made to the defense.
Uh We also had a phone call with defense counsel. I got an opportunity to speak with him. A couple of days later, he told me that he had interviewed the jury after they returned their not guilty verdict. And the jury told him that my expert witness testimony was very important to their acquittal of this client. So another testament of the value I provided.
In fact, it was so valuable that the Public Defender’s office. That same day, I had that phone conversation with lead Council. The Public Defender office training department contacted me to invite me to speak at their annual meeting in September of that year. Uh Noting in particular, one of the reasons they were inviting me was the amazing outcome for the client that my consult helped achieve for the public Defender’s office.
So I responded immediately said, sure, I’m amenable. I speak at these things quite often. Uh, I did ask for one thing. I had one condition, would I be able to get a recording of my talk? And I said, if you’re not going to record it, just let me know and I’ll make my own accord, recording arrangements because I wanted a recording of my talk and they responded to me very kindly.
Absolutely. We can audio and video record you and they tell me they were going to do that anyway for their own purposes and they’d be happy to provide me with a copy of it. We’re going to see when we get to the letter that Jennifer Anstead, the head of the Training Council is going to suggest going to suggest that I was only entitled to the recording if they decided to keep it for their own purposes, that this was a condition of my getting the recording. And because in fact, they decided to destroy the recording that, that cleared them of their obligation to provide me with a copy of the recording of my talk that they promised me here. By the way, this folks is called a contract, a contract. I agreed to speak. They agreed to provide me with a recording of my talk.
There’s nothing in here about unless we decide to re destroy it because we’ve decided we don’t like you personally. So Jennifer Aniston in violation of contract between the public defender’s office and law of self defense. She’s the head of training for the public defender’s office for the State of Colorado and this is how we’ll see in her letter. She conducts herself. Uh I’ve blanked out the name here of the conference person who I had this exchange with because I don’t want to embarrass her personally.
She did not write this letter. She did not renege on this agreement. This is not her fault. She’s a subordinate to Jennifer Anstead who made this call purportedly Jennifer Anstead made this call with senior management at the public defender’s office. Oh, she, although she doesn’t specify how senior. So anyway, they asked me to speak at the conference again for free pro bono.
So I didn’t ask for a penny. They didn’t offer a penny. They offered nothing but that recording of the talk. So I’m the first speaker of the morning. So I arrived at the conference the day prior and I stay overnight because the conference was being held north of Denver.
I’m south of Denver. I didn’t want traffic to interfere with my ability to get to the talk on time. So I stayed at the hotel overnight. $500 again, not complaining.
I volunteered to do that. No one asked me to stay there. Uh, but $500 at my own expense and they did give me a t-shirt at the end of my talk, which was whatever, fine, I guess of course, I didn’t give the talk for the T shirt. That was not our agreement. That was just a gift they gave me afterwards.
The agreement for the talk was the recording of my talk. They promised to provide me. And then, then a couple days after the, the postage date on this I think is September 21st, but it came to our, our mail drop and we don’t check the mail there very often. I mean, who uses physical mail anymore? Um Then, um, I went to check our mail a few days after September 21st, just last week, early, last week, midweek. Um, and I found the letter from Jennifer Jennifer Anstead. So now let’s go ahead and dive into that. Why don’t we? So this is a, um, a PDF scan of the letter because if I just hold up the letter, you wouldn’t be able to, to see it.
Um, but this letter she sent me folks is four pages, four pages, 12, 34 pages, single space. And you’ll notice that although it’s sent by Jennifer Anstead, it’s on the letterhead of the actual appointed director of the office of the State Public Defender for Colorado Megan Ring. Now, I don’t know if she’s appointed by the governor to run the Public Defender’s office.
I don’t know Megan Ring. I’ve never met her. I actually don’t know if she has any knowledge of this letter or not if this was done with her authority or not. It’s, it’s on her letterhead.
So one would think it was with her authority. But, but I know that there’s nobody, there’s nobody c c’d on this letter. And if you were writing this under your boss’s authority, the head, the director of the public Defender’s office, would, wouldn’t you cc a copy to her office? I don’t know. Maybe that’s not their procedure. We’ll see. She mentions Jennifer does that she’s made her decision here in this letter, this letter of banishment, um collectively with other senior management of the public defender’s office, but she never tells us who and they’re not CC either, which certainly raises questions in my mind. All right.
So now let’s dive into the letter. I’m gonna read it more or less straight through. Um, except where I think there’s a need for clarification or to hear the other side of the story, my side of the story, uh, to clarify what’s being referenced here, I will note, by the way, Jennifer ante never reached out to me to ask me my perspective on the events described here she drafted and mailed this letter to me without ever hearing or asking to hear. There was no email communication, there was no phone communication, there was no physical mailed communication from anybody in the public defender’s office about anything described in this letter until I received this letter of banishment due process. Indeed.
All right. Let me see if I can make this more reasonable, make it a little bigger. I think we’ll go with that. So, from Jennifer LM Anstead number 28733.
I presume that’s her bar number here in Colorado. Lead State training director office of the state public defender, Colorado. And that’s just her public work email there mailed on September 21st 2023 2. Andrew Branca Esquire 200 South Wilcox Street.
Suite 1 86 Castle Rock, Colorado 80109. That’s just our, our mail drop business address except the zip code is wrong. The correct zip code would be 80104. Mr Branca.
Not dear Mr Branca, not dear attorney Branca, Mr Branca. I did not have the opportunity to meet you when you’re presented at our annual conference last week. My name is Jennifer Ante and I am the lead state training director for the Colorado Public Defenders office.
We recognize that you volunteered your time to testify as an expert from one of our clients who is facing charges in Colorado Springs and to present at our conference at this point in the letter. I’m thinking this is going to be a letter of thanks for having helped save one of their indigent clients from a murder conviction and having volunteered to speak at their conference. All pro bono, approaching $50,000 worth of legal services, plus the talk at my own expense. All pro bono.
So I thought maybe they were writing to. Thank me. Whoops.
Unfortunately, she continues. I feel compelled to write you in my role as the lead training director on behalf of the Colorado Public Defender system, including senior management and the training department. So purportedly that’s who’s in support of this letter. Now, she does not say Megan Ring. I don’t know who senior management is. She purports Jennifer purports to be speaking for the entire Colorado Public Defender system.
I would presume before you sent out a letter like this, that you would have consulted with Megan Ring, the director appointed by the governor of the entire Colorado public defender system, but there’s no indication of that in this letter, but she’s writing on behalf of the Colorado Public Defender system, including senior management and the training department to alert you to the racial and gendered harm, your direct interaction with some of our defenders and your lecture caused our colleagues who are black indigenous people of color by Pock and female. Since the conference, we have had an opportunity to look at your website and your Twitter feed. In hindsight, it was a mistake not to do that prior to bringing you in to present. Well, I don’t know whose fault that is. Instead, we acted on the mistaken belief that because you testified gratis as an expert on behalf of a public defender client. And we’re open to presenting at our conference that your views on equity and inclusion were aligned with our agency’s values. Why, why would you presume that? Had we seen that material? She never specifies what material, what material, the website and the Twitter feed.
Had we seen that material prior to your lecture? We would not have brought you in to speak because of the likelihood that we would have a situation precisely like the one that arose the values you espouse in the public domain, which she doesn’t specify while protected by this first amendment are repugnant to our agency’s core values. They are in direct conflict with our mission and the work we do in the state to ensure our colleagues and clients who are members of minoritized groups are treated with equity and inclusivity. Well, you know, it’s interesting because I actually took a look at the website for the Office of the Colorado Public Defenders, which is, which is here, this is it Office of the Colorado State Public Defender. And if you scroll down, it says the mission of the Office of, of the State Public Defender is to defend and protect the rights liberties and dignity of those accused of crimes who cannot afford to retain counsel.
We do so by providing constitutionally and statutorily mandated representation that is effective, zealous, inspired and compassionate, that seems like that’s supposed to be the priority, effective representation of clients. What I get from this letter is that Jennifer Austen appears to think but actually the priority mission of the Public Defender’s Office is not the effective representation of their clients, but rather equity and inclusivity. So if those two values come into conflict, effective representation of clients, which I’ve demonstrably done with my pro bono work for the murder defendant client, who’s my work was vital in getting acquitted of murder, manslaughter, and negligent homicide as attested to by the public defender’s office themselves, by the jury, by the judge who qualified me as an expert who reversed rulings harmful to the defense based on my personal and professional input in real time in the courtroom. When those conflicts come into play between effective representation and the public defenders purported mission and the work we do in the state to ensure our colleagues and clients who are members of minoritized groups are treated with equity and inclusivity. Which one do they place the greater weight on? Do they place the greater weight, the public defender’s office? Do they place the greater weight on the interest of their clients or the feelings of their minoritized members? What should they place the greater value on the feelings of their public defenders? The lawyers who work for the office or the legal interests of their clients? They’re indigent clients who have no alternative for legal representation. That’s why they have a public defender.
They can’t afford to hire their own lawyer. And what they’re being given here is a lawyer who’s trained by Jennifer Anstead to prioritize political ideology over effective representation of their clients is this what the taxpayers of Colorado are paying for when they fund the Public Defender’s office. A set of lawyers trained to prioritize politics over zealous advocacy for their clients. Is that consistent with simple attorney ethics, much less the mission in the public defender’s office. We continue with Jennifer’s letter, your public media presence aside, I am hopeful that by sharing with you the negative impact your behavior outside of session and during your presentation had on our staff, you will take affirmative steps to avoid inflicting such racial, racial and misogynistic harm on our future audiences.
So before we get to the next paragraph, let me provide some background because she’s going to talk about uh my interaction uh with uh a person inside the conference room before my talk started. So as I mentioned, I stayed overnight at the hotel $500 my own tab, not complaining. No one asked me to do that. I volunteered because I’m conscientious and I wanted to make sure I wouldn’t have trouble with traffic interfering with my ability to get to my talk on time. So in the morning of the talk, I wake up in the hotel, go downstairs and I look for conference personnel to ask where I’ll be speaking. Uh I guess it’s early enough that no one’s there yet. Uh There was nobody at the counter, they have set up for administrative purposes.
So I find a schedule and I find out the name of the room, I’ll be speaking in and I locate the room and I walk in and it’s a very large ballroom set up for a presentation, maybe 300 seats in the room, large stage, large stage, maybe 30 ft by 40 ft with a lectern on it. Um, and uh, set up for recording and at the lectern there’s an audio visual tech messing with stuff and in the back of the room in the corner, I see uh another audio video tech working on a large soundboard to control all the recording and all the audio and all that stuff, projectors and so forth. So I go over to the A V tech at the sound board and I say, hey, I’m gonna be your first speaker here this morning, 8:30 a.m. in the morning, first speaker of the day in that room. Um Would this be a good time for us to set up my laptop for the powerpoint presentation to check the lapel mic to make sure that’s all good. Uh And he says, sure, let’s do that.
So we do that, we plug in my laptop, we make sure it’s projecting correctly. He gives me a lapel mic, we do the test, test, test thing. It’s all working great and that’s it. I’m ready from a technical perspective, the A V technical perspective for my talk. Now, I do notice in the far side of the ballroom there’s a small group of maybe eight women.
I think they’re women, eight people who have set up some of the conference chairs in kind of a circle facing each other and they’re doing some kind of exercise routine on the conference chairs. Um, I don’t think anything of it. It’s a very large room.
There’s plenty of space for everybody. It’s just two A V text me and, and that group of women in a room large enough for 300 people to sit and listen to it talk. They cer certainly weren’t bothering me. Um I wasn’t going to bother them to me. It was completely inconsequential. Notably, there was no signs anywhere like in the doors into the room that there’s some kind of private exercise thing going on that should not be interrupted, that the room was exclusive to them.
Indeed, the A V techs were already in the room working when I came in and when those women were exercising, so they didn’t have the room to themselves already. So with that background, let’s get back to the letter. She continues. Jennifer does while you did not openly verbalize the racist misogynist, anti L BT GQ plus views you post on the internet at our conference. Uh Zero examples of those, by the way, you did treat black women and women generally with disrespect and disregard, consistent with those views you arrived at the space where you were scheduled to present. Well, before your presentation was scheduled to begin, I would call that being conscientious and found that the room was already in use for yoga by several women, including female bipoc defenders and a bipoc mental health expert associated with our agency.
Again, folks, this is a room big enough for 300 people. They were a group of eight off to the side, the opposite side of the room from where the A V techs were any indication, any reasonable expectation I should have that that room is exclusively for the use of those A people when the A B techs were already working in there. But again, Jennifer never asked me for my perspective on any of this. Jennifer continues rather than reacting with professionalism by leaving the space until your presentation. Again, the space was already also occupied by the A B tech setting up for my talk. You continued into the room making noise, disrupting the session and turning what was a sanctuary space for those defenders into a harmful and toxic space when a black female defender attempted to bring your disruptive behavior to your attention. Um And she did, she approached me just before my talk.
Well, after they were exercising, that was all done. No one came to me and said, uh sir, we’re exercising. This is a sanctuary space. Could you defer your audio visual checks until we’re done? I would have been more than happy to comply. Nothing like that was ever said to me. I never knew any of this was at all an issue until the exercise was all done. So, telling me it was a problem at that point was rather pointless, I think, unless they were just trying to make me feel bad about something, it was no longer possible for me to correct or mitigate.
Uh, let’s see, um, continuing with Jennifer’s letter when a black female defender, I don’t know why that matters. Why would it matter what, what, what color the person is? But apparently it matters to Jennifer. When a black female defender attempted to bring your disruptive behavior to your attention, you behaved as if the problem was her reaction to your conduct rather than your conduct. Your response was a gendered racist micro aggression against the very defenders for whom the conference was being offered and who you signed on to educate.
Why, why, why would I sign on if I signed on to educate for free at my own expense? Doesn’t that suggest I’m trying to help the conference attendees is not inconsistent with any intent to cause a microaggression. But again, Jennifer never asked me. She just went ahead and wrote this letter.
I was not made aware of your insulting mistreatment. What was, what was the insult Jennifer? What did I say that was insulting? She, she can’t say I would suggest because it wasn’t insulting. I mean, the person, I don’t know if they were insulted inside their head. I mean, there’s a lot of emotion going on here.
Obviously, you’re insulting mistreatment of the public defenders until after you gave your presentation or I would have canceled your session and avoided additional harm. Think about what Jennifer is saying here. So I’m an attorney who is pivotal in securing an acquittal of one of the public defenders offices, indigent clients charged with murder. Looking at spending much of the rest of his life in the cage if convicted, I was pivotal in securing his acquittal and also volunteering to speak for free at their annual conference to educate the public defenders generally on ways to be more effective in arguing self defense cases. Jennifer Anstead would have canceled my talk, the talk of that expert, that guy, that lawyer me, she would have canceled that talk denied her public defenders that level of expertise because someone running an exercise class in the meeting room was offended. What is she valuing here more? What’s the primary mission of the Public Defender’s office? Does anybody remember? Is it to provide constitutionally and statutorily mandated representation that is effective or is it to preserve the feelings of people running a early morning exercise on Cher’s Ring at the annual meeting in the public Defender’s office.
When those two values come into conflict, the feelings of the exercise woman or the effective representation of the public defender’s clients, which of those values does Jennifer Anstead place the higher value on the greater importance? The priority was she prioritizes the feelings of the exercise woman, not the effective representation of the indigent clients of the public defender’s office. I think it’s contemptible. I really do. And I feel bad for man. If you are a client criminally charged, being defended by the public defender’s office or a family member of an indigent client of the public defender’s office.
It must make you sick to hear this. It must make you sick to know that the lawyers defending you or your family member prioritize the feelings of the exercise woman over the effective representation of you or your family member. That’s horrible. That’s what the taxpayers of Colorado are paying for. I don’t know if Megan ring the director of the Colorado Public Defender office is knows what’s going on here. I don’t know.
I’d, I’d like to think she doesn’t. But if she does, if she knows that her public defenders are being trained to prioritize the feelings of the exercise woman over the effective representation of the public defender’s clients. I, I think Governor Polis ought to have a talk with her about that because that is not in fact the primary mission of the public Defender’s office to protect the feelings of the exercise woman says. So right on their website, back to the letter, I did not attend your session. I have since reviewed the recording and I’m familiar with the content, both your words and the images you put on the screen. All right.
So this is a good opportunity for another interjection because I want to show you the slides that she’s about to object to, to put her objections in context. So I was there, I was invited to speak at the conference about the law of self defense, self defense law. Um In Colorado, self defense law is made up of four elements. It, it could be made up of five elements, but one of those five elements is the element of avoidance.
And Colorado does not apply that the element of avoidance in an otherwise lawful use of force and self defense. It’s a stand your ground state. So without avoidance, we’re left with these four elements, innocence, imminence, proportionality and reasonableness. And I covered all of them in detail during my talk. One of them, of course, is this final one reasonableness and part of reasonableness is that you have to have the requirement is that you have a reasonable perception, decision, making actions in self defense.
And part of that is that your perception of the threat you’re defending against is a reasonable perception. We see that here in the Colorado statute, when it says reasonably believes reasonably believes, in fact, this is the non deadly force section. Here’s the deadly force section of that statute, which is what I would be speaking to in just a moment, deadly physical force may be used only if a person reasonably believes a lesser degree of force is inadequate and the defender has reasonable ground to believe and does believe that he is in imminent danger of being killed or receiving great bodily injury. You know what the statute doesn’t say, it doesn’t say that you actually have to be in imminent danger of being killed. It says you have to reasonably believe, have reasonable ground to believe that you’re in danger of being killed. So the law does not require that you be correct in that perception, you can be mistaken in self defense. And it’s still lawful self defense.
So long as your mistake was a reasonable mistake, self defense is allowed against reasonably perceived threats. And I illustrated this with some examples, um because it’s always nice to be able to take the abstract legal doctrine like I’m discussing here and illustrate it with concrete examples from the real world. And one of the examples I chose was there’s, there’s many cases in which the police find themselves being threatened with an apparent gun. They use deadly force to defend themselves. They kill that criminal suspect as a result of their use of deadly defensive force. And it turns out the suspect’s gun was not a real firearm.
It was a fake, it was a replica, it was a BB gun. It was a facsimile of some kind. The legal question is not whether or not it was a real gun, it doesn’t have to be a real gun in order for the officers use of deadly defensive force to be justified. What’s required is that the officers reasonably perceived it as a real gun. That’s the test, that’s the legal test. So I then illustrated this with some examples of actual suspects with their actual guns that they pointed at police and juxtaposed a photo of their not real gun with a photo of the real version of that gun to show how similar they are, to show how easy it would be in the heat of the moment.
The moment of crisis for an officer to perceive the fissile fissile gun as a real gun. Uh I chose this example because it had happened in uh Denver just a few months before speaking at the Colorado Public Defender’s office. So both in time and geography, it would be particularly relevant to the Colorado Public Defender’s office. I picked another one out of California because it was even more recent than the Colorado one. And also because the fissile gun here on the left is really indistinguishable, completely indistinguishable from the real version of that gun on the right.
And then I picked a case that was not recent or local but had been very high profile Tamir Rice in Cleveland, Ohio, uh almost almost 10 years prior. Um again, the same issue, his facsimile gun, the one here at the top indistinguishable. Indeed, the African American police chief at the time after this shooting, when giving a press conference about the shooting himself, told the media uh that the Tamir’s apparent gun was indistinguishable from a real firearm. So just another example and I I use this one again because the case had been very high profile. So I was certain I was confident it was likely that the public defenders in the room, although most on average, much, much younger than me may have heard of this case. Again, all of this to make the abstract legal concept more concrete and therefore hopefully actionable for them, for the public defenders, the lawyers in representing zealously representing the indigent clients of the public defender’s office to make them more effective at their job, consistent with the actual mission of the public defender’s office. And that’s when we get back to the letter.
So let’s jump back into the letter and we can see Jennifer’s complaint. I did not attend your session. I have since reviewed the recording and I’m familiar with the content, both your words and the images you put on the screen from your website, social media presence and your email exchange with Miss Chalmers. It seems that you offer this training frequently. That’s true. I imagine that your audiences include members of the bipoc community as ours did. Yeah, that’s true.
I got plenty of various women, minorities, I don’t ask about sexual preference, so I wouldn’t know about that. But everyone’s welcome to be become a well educated law abiding citizen at law self defense so they can make better educated, better informed, more confident decisions in lawful self defense of themselves, their family and their property. We don’t turn anybody away. Uh Let’s see, in the event, you are not aware of how aspects of your presentation cause racial harm to the biak community. I’m sharing this information with you in the hopes that once alerted, you will choose to avoid inflicting the same harm again.
Now, I would disagree with Jennifer’s representation here. Um What she states is her mission here is reasonable enough. She’s trying to make me aware that uh maybe I caused the harm inadvertently and she wants to make me aware. That’s fine. I have no objection to this.
That’s not how this letter ends. However, this is not a letter merely to inform me of how to avoid inadvertently harming others in the future. This is a letter to banish me from any involvement in the public defender’s representation of their indigent clients. Ever again, even if I were to offer it for free, she continues the portion of your presentation that is racially offensive is the section in which you show pictures of fake and real guns.
Despite being asked to provide your presentation in advance of the conference, I did provide it in advance of the conference. But when I provided it, I said, I caution that it’s my practice to be updating my slides often up to the evening before the talk because I think of new things I wanna say or, or there’s new maybe more recent examples, illustrating real world examples, illustrating the legal principles that I would add in as I did here. So the draft of the presentation I sent the Public Defender’s office did not have the photos of the guns.
I thought of adding that later to make to make the point more concrete. Um Despite being asked to provide your presentation in advance of the conference, you told Miss Charles that you’d be fine tuning your presentation. I provided her with the draft and no one asked me to send in a copy for final approval prior to my talk that was never requested. Nobody objected to my fine tuning of the presentation.
The slides that you inserted exceed what could reasonably be construed as fine tuning. That’s personal opinion. The slides you added without our consent, no one told me I needed consent for any slides are racially insensitive and perpetuate a narrative of police murders of Children like Tamir Rice, Jorel Richardson and the police shooting of a 15 year old as yet unnamed Hispanic child in Fresno that we cate categorically reject as false. Well, first of all, Jennifer, uh you’re supposed to, I think you’re a lawyer. Uh Murder is a legal determination. There needs to be a legal process.
Nobody who shot any of these three people was adjudicated to be a murderer. These were unquestionably killings. These three people were killed but not every killing is a murder, Jennifer. Some killings are a manslaughter. Some killings are reckless.
Some killings are negligent. Some killings are lawful and justified. So it’s not murder until it’s been adjudicated a murder and none of these cases have been adjudicated a murder. You’re essentially saying the police officers who shot these three people are murderers, that’s defamatory, especially sent by a lawyer.
They’re, they’re by definition not murderers, they’ve not been convicted of murder and none of them were even to my knowledge were even charged or prosecuted for murder. Four reasons of the legal doctrine, I set out when you point a apparently real gun at anybody in an aggressive, unlawful manner and they reasonably perceive it to be a real gun. The law says they can defend against it based on their reasonable perception. Bye. She continues the timing of your insertion of the slides raises troubling questions about whether your decision to hide them from us was intentional. Well, it doesn’t have to be a question without an answer, Jennifer, you could have asked me and I wasn’t hiding anything.
I was not required to submit my slides for approval. Never had you shown us these slides in advance. Well, you could have seen them in advance, Jennifer if you had asked, I never denied you the ability to see my slides in advance. Had you shown us these slides in advance? We would have asked you to remove them and I would have or not allowed you to present. We were not given the opportunity to do either. Yes, you were.
I was in that, I was in that room for my talk at least 30 minutes before the talk. You had opportunity. If you’d only come and asked me, you knew I was going to be in the room, you are your staff. We were not given the opportunity to do either. That’s just, that’s a lie. Your decision to include these slides did real harm to our black and brown defenders, all of whom have a right to expect conference will be a safe and inclusive environment for them to learn that they weren’t in danger from slides.
Jennifer, the slides are actual real world cases chosen, not for reasons of race chosen because one is geographically relevant to the Colorado Public Defender’s office and having occurred in Denver one because it was temporarily recent and one because it was high profile, the race of the people involved was completely inconsequential to me. She continues here. Your position that the police murders of Tamir Rice and Jordell Richardson and the shooting of an unarmed Hispanic child were justified because these Children were holding toy guns is not just offensive. It’s legally and morally untenable. Now, keep in mind, Jennifer Anstead is not just a lawyer, she’s not just a lawyer that works for the public defender’s office. She’s the head of training for the entirety of the Colorado Public Defender’s office and she’s grossly misstating the law here.
Now, she says my position that these killings were justified because the people killed, uh, pointed toy guns at the police is offensive. Well, that’s a personal judgment. Um, legally and morally untenable. Well, I don’t do morals.
I’m not a minister or a pastor. I, I do the law. I’m a defense attorney. Is it legally untenable that these shootings were justified because the people shot, were pointing apparently real guns at police. No, Jennifer. that’s the actual law in Colorado, which I’m surprised you don’t know being a lawyer in Colorado, being a public defender. So a criminal defense lawyer for the public defender’s office in Colorado and being the head of training for the state of Colorado.
Let’s see if I have and I can demonstrate that by showing actual Colorado law, I think I have it handy. Let’s see. Um Yes. So this is just that paragraph here o of the same letter where Jennifer is telling me that my position that the police murders, they’re not murders, they’ve not been adjudicated to be murders. They were killings. Um, the killings of Tamir Rice and Jorel Richardson and the shooting of an unnamed Hispanic child were justified because these Children were holding toy guns is not just offensive, it is legally and morally untenable.
Well, of course, they were not merely holding toy guns, they were presenting toy guns in a threatening manner to police officers pointing or reaching for the gun when being told not to reach for the gun. So that’s j this is Jennifer’s legal opinion. Let’s look at the actual law in Colorado. Here’s the Colorado Supreme Court. Young V people. Quote, it is fundamental that the law of self defense, which is emphatically a law of necessity involves the question of one’s right to act upon appearances, not actual threats.
Jennifer appearances, even though such appearances may prove to have been deceptive. Also the question of whether the danger is actual or only apparent and as well the fact that actual danger is not necessary in order to justify one in acting in self defense, apparent necessity if well grounded and of such a character as to appeal to a reasonable person under like conditions and circumstances as being sufficient to require action justifies the application of the doctrine of self defense to the same extent as actual or real necessity. That’s the Colorado Supreme Court, Jennifer. And I would suggest that anyone looking at these two guns in a threatening manner would be unable in the crisis of the moment to differentiate between the BB gun on the left held by the criminal suspect shot by police and the actual lethal glock pistol on the right. But there’s more even more recent Colorado Supreme Court case law on this question, people, the LaVoy quote, person assailed may act on appearances when a person is reasonable, reasonable grounds for believing and does in fact actually believe that danger of his being killed of receiving great bodily harm is imminent. He may act on such appearances and defend himself even to the extent of taking human life when necessary.
Although it may turn out that the appearances were false or although he may have been mistaken as to the extent of the real or actual danger. Close quote, that’s the actual law in Colorado Jennifer ante head of training of the Colorado Public Defender’s office. I don’t know what you’re teaching your public defenders.
But if you’re not teaching this, you’re not teaching them the actual Colorado law on use of force in self defense. And of course, this is reflected in the Colorado self defense statute. This is just the, the deadly defense of force portion of that statute. It doesn’t require actual threat. It requires reasonable ground to believe that there’s a deadly force threat. And that’s reflected in the jury instruction.
The jury instruction is the instruction given to the jury when they go into deliberations. Are they told that they cannot acquit a defendant charged with the use of force crime unless he was facing an actual threat. Or is the jury instructed by the judge that they are to acquit that criminal defendant in the use of force case, if all he had was reasonable ground to believe and did believe it’s the latter Jennifer, no actual threat is required and it’s a shame. It’s a shame that the head of training of the Colorado Public Defender office who presumably is training all the public defenders in the state of Colorado believes that an actual threat is required that a reasonable perception of a threat is not sufficient that a re a mere reasonable perception of a threat is legally untenable as a basis for the justified use of defensive force.
Is that what the public defenders in Colorado are being taught? If you, if you are an indigent client of the Colorado Public Defender’s office, and you’re raising as a legal defense, perhaps to a charge of murder, the legal defense of self defense, because you thought reasonably thought you were being threatened with deadly force turned out you were mistaken, but you reasonably thought you were being threatened with imminent deadly force. The Colorado Public Defender’s office believes you’re guilty under the law. Colorado law says you’re not guilty, but the Colorado Public Defender’s office might not know that because their head of training is teaching them that a reasonable perception of threat is insufficient that a toy gun is not enough under any circumstances, legally untenable to argue that a toy gun held manipulated in a threatening manner could be the legal basis for the use of deadly force and self defense legally untenable. According to the head of training of the Colorado Public Defender’s office, Jennifer continues your assertion that these officers actions were legally justified self defense because they had formed a mistaken but reasonable belief the three Children posed a lethal threat to them, period.
And that’s not a grammatical sentence. I, I guess she’s trying to say my assertion is mistaken. That’s, that’s the only logical interpretation of, of this paragraph in its totality. Uh Yes, it is my assertion that the officer’s actions were legally justified in self defense because they had formed a mistaken but reasonable belief.
The three Children posed a lethal threat to them. Yes, that is my assertion. And that assertion is consistent with the Colorado law I just shared. But in doing so, you ignored the structural systemic racism woven into the fabric of this country. The historical encouragement of government, private and police abuses against the bo community and the dehumanization of minoritized people that continues unabated in this country.
How does any of that Jennifer change actual Colorado law on use of force in self defense? I understand you, you feel strongly about all those things that’s fine. It’s a free country mostly, maybe not for your clients the way you’re training your public defenders. But none of what you just described, none of these structural systemic racism woven into the fabric of this country. None of the historical encouragement of governmental, private and police abuses against the bipoc community, none of the dehumanization of minoritized people that continues unabated. I’m not even contesting that all that’s true. Jennifer stipulating all that’s true. How does that change the actual Colorado law on the justified use of deadly force in self defense? Are you a lawyer training lawyers to defend indigent clients from the power of the state or, or, or, or, or, or is this some kind of political religious ideology that you’re placing above the actual stated mission of the Colorado Public Defender’s Office, which is to provide effective representation to indigent clients criminally charged by the state often with use of force crimes against which they will often raise the legal defense of self defense.
Ma’am. II, I suggest you Jennifer are unfit for purpose as the head of training of the Colorado Public Defender’s office, I would suggest that you, you, you’d be better suited to some kind of political science position in a in a college or university based on this letter, a community college at best. Certainly not someone who’s teaching other lawyers how to defend their clients from use of force charges. On the basis of self defense law.
Jennifer continues with her ideological rant. This history and current environment are the reasons those officers were not held li we have a legally sound basis for those officers not to have been held liable for their actions, but you instead wish to ignore or misrepresent or misunderstand. Maybe you’re just ignorant of, of the actual law you’re discussing here that appears to be the case. And you’d prefer to believe there’s some kind of ideological reason for this because I, I don’t know, maybe that’s emotionally satisfying. We don’t need to seek out an ideological reason when the officer’s conduct was in fact consistent with the black letter law, not just of Colorado by the way of California, where one of the other examples I used was end of Ohio where the third example was in calling Jennifer continues in calling the shootings a justified use of force. You inflicted racial harm on the black and brown defendant defenders present as well as the broader bioc community by perpetuating that narrative.
I wasn’t perpetuating a narrative. I wasn’t sharing a narrative. I never spoke to a narrative. A narrative was no part of my talk, Jennifer. You’re injecting some kind of weird narrative that you have interest in.
But that’s you Jennifer, that’s not me. There was no narrative. I was taking actual real world cases, applying actual Colorado law and the law in every other state in America by the way and District of Columbia and Guam and Puerto Rico. Everywhere that American use of force laws applied, this would be the same analysis. So I’m applying very standard traditional use of force law to these real world examples to show your public defenders how they can argue effectively in defense of their clients who may have used deadly defense of force in the reasonable but mistaken belief that they were facing a deadly force threat. But Jennifer apparently does not. And and apparently that truthful legal analysis illustrated with real world examples is what Jennifer feels inflicted racial harm on the defense lawyers of the public defender’s office who listened to that correct legal analysis applied to real world cases.
How are these unbelievably fragile people supposed to supposed to defend criminal defendants from the power of the state? The state a beast in criminal court? Are they, are they gonna start getting weepy in court representing their clients? They’re gonna be triggered by the arguments of the prosecutor that doesn’t sound like effective representation of indigent clients. Jennifer continues, I say that your presentation caused harm not rhetorically, but because one of our African American defenders, I don’t know why that would matter. But apparently the Jennifer, it does.
One of our African American defenders refused to continue to listen to your skewed description of these murders. He could have factually contested my description and they’re not murders. None of these was adjudicated to murder, refused to continue to listen to your skewed description of the murders as reasonable self defense and walked out of your presentation. By the way, folks, at the end of my talk, I took questions from the audience until there were no more questions. So I didn’t leave anybody’s questions unanswered and I, I could have stayed even longer. I would have stayed longer if I’d had any indication that someone wanted to ask a question, contest, the part of the, of the presentation. That’s what I’m there for.
But so everybody in that room had an opportunity to ask questions or contest anything I said, but this guy this guy just walked out. Well, that’s, that’s if what I was saying was so racially horrible, why wouldn’t he challenge it in the moment? Or at least during the Q and A period of my talk? It was so bad. He was compelled to leave the room. Is that, is that brave? When you see racism? What you believe to be racism in action, you leave the room instead of challenging that racism head on. I would not have left the room if Jennifer had been giving this talk and made those misstatements of Colorado law that she’s made in this letter. I absolutely would have asked her about it in public during the Q and A period and pointed out that she was in fact mistaken to avoid miscarriages of justice of the indigent clients of the public defender’s office because I care about those clients. So this lawyer, a public defender lawyer, if you are one of your loved ones are being represented by the public defenders office of Colorado.
Is that the lawyer you want for your, you or your family member, a lawyer who will become so emotionally disturbed at a legal argument that they’re compelled to walk out of the room. You think that you think that works in court, that’s the lawyer you want. Do they not know what they’re going to have to do in court that they’re not gonna have to argue against the prosecutor’s case zealously, fearlessly intelligently effectively. But this lawyer of the public defender’s office, hearing the words out of my mouth and seeing powerpoint slides on a wall with no client’s interest at stake, felt compelled. Nevertheless, he couldn’t, he couldn’t bear to stay.
He had to walk out of the room. Jennifer continues. He approached me and thankfully was willing to talk with me about his experience in your presentation so that we could address it as an agency. He was visibly angry and upset. I was right there in the room. I was still talking. He could have been visibly angry and upset with me and I would have answered his questions or entertained his argument.
This lawyer described to me what you said in your presentation, which I’ve already shown all of you um and explained to me superficially, some of the negative emotions your presentation triggered in him. Look how we again, Jennifer. At least I don’t, I don’t know if it for, if in fact, she’s speaking for the entire Colorado Public Defender’s office. I hope to God she’s not because that would mean that the public defender’s office in Colorado, their lawyers prioritized triggered negative emotions over acquiring the legal expertise necessary to effectively represent their engines and clients. That’s, that’s what Jennifer is doing here, compounding the harm Jennifer continues when this defender tried to get your attention during the presentation to address the distorted narrative, you refused to recognize him.
I never saw him. So he wasn’t trying to get my attention very hard. Um Or I suppose it’s theoretically possible I might have seen him. But if I’d, if I’d seen him, I would have simply, sometimes I do ask that questions be held to the end because I often have a lot of stuff to cover in a very limited time.
And if I’m, if questions are interjected throughout the talk, I, I can’t get to the end of my talk. But at worst, I would have said, let’s, can we please defer what you need to say until the Q and A period? In which case, I’m happy to entertain every question. But I don’t remember seeing anybody trying to get my attention during my talk. I certainly didn’t refuse to recognize him. Jennifer would know that I didn’t intentionally refuse to recognize anybody if she had only asked me before writing this letter.
But of course, Jennifer didn’t do that. Jennifer just went right to this letter. What kind of lawyer comes to a conclusion? After hearing one side of the story? I can tell you not a very good lawyer. How do you engage in critical thinking, critical decision making? If you’ve only heard one side of the story, I can tell you the answer again.
You don’t. This is not, this letter is not the result of critical consideration or decision making. It’s obviously an emotional. Well, Jennifer continues, we are aware you have no obligation to change your behavior or your presentation and given your web presence, we may also have, you may also have no such inclination. At the same time, I know I have inflicted racial and gendered harm without intending to and sometimes without recognizing I had, I write in the hope that by bringing these negative impacts of your conduct to your attention, you will take this opportunity to reflect on and not repeat them.
So now Jennifer is suggesting recognizing that whatever harm I might have caused may have been inadvertent. Well, that’s very kind of her and it’s also in utter conflict with the remainder of this letter. If someone causes harm inadvertently and you’re bringing it to their attention to make them aware what would be the appropriate next step. Well, that person might apologize and say, well, you know, I didn’t know I was causing that harm. I’m sorry I did. And I’ll be more careful not to do it in the future.
If Jennifer had contacted me to talk about this, that would have been the conversation, but she didn’t, she didn’t do that. What did she do? She sent this letter of banishment. And as we’ll see in this paragraph, she violated the contract between me and the Colorado Public Defenders office to provide me with a copy of my recording and she’s going to justify that violation of our written contract right here, Jennifer writes, I know that we agreed to provide a copy of the recording we made of your session, we agreed to do so based on your agreement that we could maintain a copy of the recording for our staff to review. Is that what happened folks? Is that what happened? Was there retaining of a recording? A condition of me getting my copy? Let’s take a look. I accepted their invitation to speak and all I asked for was a recording of my talk. In fact, I said, if you’re not going to be recording, let me know and I’ll make my own arrangements to record the talk, I would have brought my own camera person to record the talk. They assured me I did not need to do that.
Absolutely. We can audio and video record you. In fact, as an aside, we’re hoping to record as many lectures as we can. So our employees have access.
We would be happy to provide you a copy of it. Did the Public Defender’s office say we will provide you with a copy of the recording of your talk only if we choose to retain a copy. No, Jennifer, that is a false reading of this contract of this agreement between law of self defense and the public defender’s office.
I suspect it’s deliberate misleading to falsely justify your violation of this agreement. But your independent decision on whether or not to retain your own copy of the recording had nothing to do with your obligation to provide me with the copy. You had agreed to provide contemptible but may maybe Jennifer doesn’t know how to understand contractual terms and obligations. I don’t know she’s supposed to be a lawyer. I think.
So this this claim that their, their decision on whether or not to retain a copy had anything to do with their obligation to provide me with a copy is utter utter falsity. Jennifer writes. We are not keeping a copy of the video instead it will be destroyed and not disseminated further by this agency as such. We will not provide a copy, clear violation of our contractual agreement.
Jennifer really contemptible. Now, this is rich. Remember just a paragraph before she was trying to suggest that, you know, perhaps, perhaps the harm you caused was unintentional and we want to make you aware of this so you can maybe take steps in the future not to do it again as if this letter was written with good intent. Let’s correct things. Let’s improve and move forward from here. But that’s not what Jennifer does.
Jennifer says our agency, the whole agency, not the training department, the entire agency of the office of the state Public Defender, who’s director Megan Ring is on this letterhead appointed by the governor to oversee the office of the State Public Defender. Jennifer writes, our agency is severing ties with you as retained for free or for fee expert on any future Colorado State public defender cases. So Jennifer is prioritizing what my interaction with the exercise woman, my accurate application of actual Colorado law to real world use of force cases. She’s prioritizing hurt feelings over those over the ability of indigent clients of the Colorado Public Defender’s office to get what I would.
Some justification would argue is the nation’s leading expert on use of force law. You think the injured clients of the Colorado Public Defender’s office find themselves charged with use of force crimes from time to time. Maybe often you think in defending against those use of force criminal charges, they’re raising the legal defense of self defense.
You think it might be helpful to have world class expertise on the law of self defense available so that the Public Defender’s office can achieve its mission of providing effective legal counsel to those indigent defendants. Well, that’s not gonna happen anymore. Calling according to Jennifer Anstead because the Public Defender Agency, the entire agency is severing ties with me. The nation’s leading expert on use of force law, even if I were to offer my services again for free. On any future Colorado State public defender cases, no future indigent criminal defendant, perhaps looking at murder and the rest of their life in prison will have the benefit of my services if they’re represented by the Public Defender’s Office of the State of Colorado, because of Jennifer’s decision here. If you or someone you love is being represented by this office, is that what you want for your legal defense? Is that what you want for your client’s legal defense.
If you’re a taxpayer of Colorado paying for these legal services, wouldn’t you at least want the legal services to be as effective as possible to make use of every affordable resource? But that’s not happening anymore. Residents of Colorado, that’s not happening anymore. Indigent clients of the Colorado Public Defender’s office because the head of training of the Colorado Public Defender’s office purportedly in Cooper operation with the entire agency, none of whom she c C’d on this letter has decided to banish my services so that their imaging clients can no longer access my legal expertise, legal expertise attested to by the acquittal, I helped the chief for a Colorado Public Defender client legal expertise attested to by the fact that a Colorado State trial judge overseeing a murder trial without hesitation, qualified me as an expert witness in a trial where even the state prosecutors readily conceded that clearly, I was an expert on use of force law, a trial in which my legal consult powerpoint slides were integrated into the lead council’s closing argument, a legal expert, which the jury that returned the acquittal in that trial told defense counsel that my expert witness testimony was very important to them in arriving at their acquittal.
That level of expertise. This legal expert who speaks at the FBI Academy, this legal expert who’s consulted on use of force cases all over the country who’s accredited to teach use of force continuing legal education, the defense attorneys, prosecutors, judges in 38 states never been denied cle accreditation in any state in which we applied. This legal expert is going to be denied to the indigent criminal defendants in the state of Colorado. Even if I offer my services for free as I always have for those indigent defendants here in Colorado because Jennifer Anstead things, I heard her feelings and the feelings of other people in that conference room. And perhaps I did. But are there hurt feelings of more importance than the effective representation of indigent criminal defendants by the Colorado State Public Defender? I would suggest that Jennifer Anstead has her prioritize priorities exactly reversed. And I think it’s contemptible and I feel bad.
I feel bad for those indigent defendants, some of whom will now be convicted unjustly because of lack of this level of legal expertise that I would have offered for free. But now I can’t, I’m prohibited from doing that. II, I guess I can offer it, but I have been assured by Jennifer Anstead head of training of the Colorado Public Defenders office, no matter how much I offer, no matter how free I make it, they’re not interested. They are severing ties. She continues because of your racist and gendered behavior towards female and BPO defenders and your decision which she’s already conceded may well have been inadvertent and I will assure you was inadvertent.
I’m never looking to hurt anybody’s feelings but even Jennifer in her own letter in the previous paragraph notes that, that she has sometimes inflicted harm without recognizing she had. And she writes in the hope of bringing these impacts to my conduct, implicitly communicating that this may all have been completely unintentional, which she would know if she had simply called me. Despite that, despite that, because of your racist and gendered behavior towards female and BPO defenders, which she concedes could well have been unintentional and your decision to include racially charged slides in your talk without presenting to them to us for review. You do not have permission.
I do not have Jennifer’s permission to claim in any way tacit or express that our agency endorses or supports you as an expert, including but not limited to posting on your website or any other social media platforms that you presented at the office of the State Public Defender conference. Jennifer believes that she has the legal authority to deny me the right to say I spoke at that conference, Jennifer. I don’t know what kind of law you were taught or what kind of law you ever practiced. But in fact, madam, you lack the legal authority to prohibit me from truthfully saying that I presented at your conference and I will continue to say that I presented at your conference and then she gets the, the, the unbelievably most this is perhaps the most petty paragraph I’ve ever seen in a letter written by a purported professional to another professional. Jennifer writes lastly, prior to your presentation, prior to reviewing your social media presence and prior to learning as a leadership and training team about your interactions with our staff. You were given a public defender t-shirt, a t-shirt folks, I provided almost $50,000 worth of legal representation for free, but they gave me a t-shirt as a symbol of our gratitude. Please either return the shirt to me at our agency at the above address, I guess at, at my inconvenience and expense or destroy it, given the variance between the views you promote and the ones we pursue.
You do not have our permission to post images of the shirt on your various social media accounts. I don’t need your permission, Jennifer, it’s my property that t-shirt was my property. It was a gift, an unconditioned gift I can do with that shirt, anything I want. And I will continue. I have shown it on social media. I don’t have it here only because I left it home my bad.
But I’ve shown it on social media before. I will show it on social media again. In fact, Jennifer, you know what I’m going to do. I am going to find one of the largest social media accounts and I’m friends with many of them that I can find I’m going to do yet another reading and critique of this letter to as many tens of thousands of people as I can reach and I am going to publicly raffle off that t-shirt to the highest bidder, take the raised funds and contribute them to a 501 C three charitable organization that supports the US Constitution specifically that is pro second Amendment and opposes gun control legislation. That’s where your t-shirt is going, Jennifer. And I hope the highest bidder who wins, it contributes a lot of money to defend the second amendment and I hope they enjoy the t-shirt a great deal. All right, folks that is that, I guess not as clean a reading as I thought it would be an hour and 20 minutes.
Holy cow. But there it is folks. No guests this time, no jokes and laughter. Just my clean reading of the letter from Jennifer Anstead on the letterhead of Megan Ring, the head of the Colorado Public Defenders office, Jennifer signed it. She says here that she’s writing on behalf of the Colorado public defender system including senior management.
I don’t know if that includes Megan Ring or not. I don’t know if Megan Ring knows her agency is prioritizing this political ideology and the emotional sentiments of their public defenders over the legal interests of their clients. I hope she doesn’t know yet. I hope she finds out. And if Megan Ring does already know and she’s allowing this circumstance to exist to the detriment of the legal interest of the clients, indigent clients of the public defender’s office. Poor people who have no alternative, they don’t have their own money to hire a lawyer themselves. That’s why they’re with the public defender’s office.
If Megan Ring knows that this is the state of her office, prioritizing politics over the legal interests of her indigent clients. I think the governor has an obligation to have a talk with Megan Ring and find out what, what’s going on because political ideology is not the mission of the public Defender’s office. Effective representation of their clients is the mission of the public defender’s office. And Jennifer ante in placing ideology over the interest of the public defender clients should be ashamed of herself. It’s contemptible regardless of what she may think of me personally, she owes me nothing but she owes a lot to the indigent clients of the public defender’s office as the head of training of every public defender in that in that office. What is she teaching them how to be effective litigators for their clients? It would seem not, it would seem not all right folks.
That’s all I have for you right now. I will just remind all of you and I feel so sorry for those, the public defender clients. I really do.
And the the family members of those clients who are gonna see who are gonna be convicted, see their family members convicted because of because of nonsense like this. I remind all of you if you carry a gun. So your hard to kill if you carry pepper spray. So your hard to kill if you study jiu-jitsu. So you’re hard to kill.
I do all those things so that I’m hard to kill. So my family is hard to kill. Then you also owe it to yourself and your family to make sure, you know, the law, not like Jennifer Anston doesn’t know the law but you know, the actual law. So you’re hard to convict as well. Until next time I remain attorney Andrew Braner for law of self defense. Stay safe.
