Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
And welcome to another episode of the Llamas podcast.
[00:00:12] Speaker B: And so this summer we're going to kind of dive into some of the Netflix or other streaming services, documentaries that are out there. And so we're starting off that series and we're going to talk about one that I think is pretty popular and has been trending on Netflix, but it is called the Crash. And we both have recently watched this. We have not discussed it or talked about it before this. So this will be our first time discussing this with each other. But I hope you have all watched it. It's only about an hour and a half, so it's not, you know, hard to invest in. It's not a series. It's just like a movie type thing. But I guess we'll start it off with Lacy. And what do you want to start off with? This. What are your thoughts?
[00:00:56] Speaker A: Well, I guess we'll give a little background, you know, just briefly. So Mackenzie Shrilla was dating a guy named Dom, and they lived together. They've been dating a few years.
[00:01:09] Speaker B: Unless I take a minute to say she was only 17.
[00:01:13] Speaker A: Yes, she. She moved in with him pretty early. I think she was still in high school.
It was a toxic relationship, but it led to this night where she was driving a vehicle.
Dom was in the front seat. It was like 5:30am they'd had a party the night before. A mutual friend of theirs was in the back seat, and she crashed into a brick wall going a hundred miles an hour. 100 at least. I couldn't remember if it was over 100 miles per hour without ever breaking. And so she was charged, murdered, and convicted at a bench trial for murder. So that's kind of the brief synopsis, very brief synopsis of what happened in this case.
[00:01:59] Speaker B: And also the other friend, his name was Davion.
I just remember his name because there were 2D names and I kind of would get them confused.
And also one thing to note is in Ohio is where this happened, I believe. And she picked to have a trial by judge. She made that decision with her and her attorney. She could have had a trial by jury had she wanted. But they did make the decision themselves to have the trial by judge. And maybe that was the wrong decision, too.
[00:02:32] Speaker A: I absolutely think that was the wrong decision. And I think she was influenced by her lawyer. And that happens with a lot of situations. You know, just to get that out there, if one of my clients testifies, most likely it's because I've told them they should testify. When I tell my client not to Testify, it's because I told them they shouldn't testify. So while it is their decision, they're basing their decision making on my legal analysis of the case and what they've trusted. And I, I think that's what was done here. I don't think Mackenzie Shrilla knew about the legal system to come in and say, I want a bench trial, you know, attorney. It was definitely, in my opinion, based on what he stated.
I, he thought that this would be better for a bench troll. And I have no idea why.
[00:03:21] Speaker B: It was because of the legalities of it, honestly, like, right, let's take a step back, I guess. Let's talk about Mackenzie. She was a party girl. It seems like her parents knew she was smoking weed all the time and they didn't have any issues with it.
She became friends with a girl who had like a bunch of tik Tok viewers and McKenzie was doing these tik toks like, and she showed she was smoking pot while driving a car. So I think in a lot of ways, I think the attorney thought one, she's going to come off terrible to the jury and we as jurors will see her as like a trashy party girl where in hopes a judge has seen everything and we'll look at it from the law. And did she have the intent to murder?
Was it an accident? So I think there was, I think she was what we would just say would be an unlikable person as a juror. And that's sometimes something you can't avoid. People, whether you're likable or not shouldn't always determine, you know, if you're guilty or innocent. But we as humans do that. So I think because of who she was and honestly, she shows up in the documentary and talks and she's not likable.
[00:04:36] Speaker A: She, she's not. And you know, I get we. You can't completely blame parents, right? But not completely. You can't blame parents for certain situations. And yes, she had her own decision making power, we all do. But there are certain decisions we make, sometimes not even knowing we're making them because of past traumatic events.
It's scientific. I'm not going to get into it here, but it's just, it's been proven. It's how we, how we're made. We're human. We are, we reflect our past and sometimes it causes us to make better decisions. Right? So it's not always bad decisions. Sometimes we make better decisions because of the past. But you could definitely feel from her parents, they just let her get Away with everything. She had no boundaries, she had no consequences if she got in trouble. Oh, well, it was the principal, it was the teacher, it was my daughter didn't do anything wrong and so she felt invincible.
I kind of felt like she, Mackenzie Shilla was very narcissistic and her mom felt very narcissistic to me as well. Like, that they were detached from true emotions. And I don't know if that was a product of how she was raised by that, that mom or if it would have been in her nature to begin with, but I definitely felt like there was this disconnect with this is how I'm supposed to act and this is how I act because I actually am attached to feelings and have empathy.
[00:06:07] Speaker B: I mean, yeah, I think like her parents did not set boundaries for her. Like, I'm not going to blame the parents for every. Because there are times you just can't like, control your child. Like you can have a child do bad things even though you've done everything perfect as a parent. Like, but in this situation, the parents definitely didn't parent to me. Like, I don't know what 16 or 17 year old girl is mature enough to move in with her boyfriend who was three years older than her at the time. Like, I think he was like 21, 22. And she's 17, so am I. Like, I know once she turns 18, the parents can't stop her from doing anything. But it was like they said, oh, she's mature, she can handle this.
No, even at 18, you typically, most of us are not going to be mature enough.
I'm not saying there's not some, there are some people, but that is a rare situation where you are that mature. She was in high school. This all happened like right after her high school graduation.
And she'd been dating Dom since she was like 14, when he would have been like 17. So I definitely think like the parents didn't parent in this situation.
And now would she have turned out the same if they'd been, you know, better parents? I can't tell you that. But we'll never have no consequences in her own personal life.
[00:07:29] Speaker A: Right? Agreed.
And so we. I haven't watched the Hulu documentary, so I guess I can just kind of go through things I've heard. And like I said, I don't know how true these are, but. So one of the things the documentary says was that this had just happened, that she had gone really fast in her car. Dom was in the car and he was texting or calling his mom that Mackenzie Was going very, very fast. He couldn't get her to stop, asked for help and it was like his uncle or somebody called her to try to get her to slow down.
But at the end of the, the documentary you hear from the mom and she's got text messages and it seemed very opposite that there was some fault in that incident from Dominic and she was scared. And so like I would love to know the truth. Like why weren't those, were those texts introduced as evidence?
Did they talk about the prior in the trial? I don't know because some things you may not be admissible, but you could talk about it in a documentary. Right?
So all those things have those like did it.
[00:08:38] Speaker B: It seemed this trial moved relatively fast.
So like, and I think because it was a bench trial, it probably moved faster than had it been a jury trial. And maybe they like, I know it's really hard to subpoena cell phone records sometimes. And so like were there outstanding subpoenas that they didn't get back till after this was over?
Because the way she said it was new evidence. So is there a chance like they didn't have this going into trial and then they got it after the fact.
[00:09:07] Speaker A: So but I'll say in South Carolina, new evidence is new evidence. It is not evidence that you could have had at the time, but you just did it.
So okay, Ohio could be different. But like if I know there are text messages that may disprove something and I just don't get them, that's not going to be considered new evidence of under our law.
[00:09:25] Speaker B: What if you subpoenaed them and you have done everything in your power to get them and they will not grant you a continuance on your trial, then
[00:09:33] Speaker A: I think it's an issue for appeal.
[00:09:39] Speaker B: But because this was a bench trial and I will say from that judges, I don't think McKenzie got a fair trial from that judge, if you want to know. Like, because.
So I feel like the judge was biased from the get go. I really do. I felt like she, I think a lot of times you think a judge is going to put their first personal feelings aside.
And I don't feel she did. I feel she was very biased. And even at the end after she said McKenzie was guilty, she made comments about like, well, I'm sentencing her 15 to life, but I know she'll be in there longer than the 15 because she's, you know, it seemed like a bad person.
[00:10:19] Speaker A: She said she'll never get out. She's like, I don't think you'll Ever get out.
[00:10:22] Speaker B: And when the mom got up there to give her statement on sentencing, typically you're not talking about the victim there. She's talking on behalf of her daughter. And the judge was like, what about the victims? And I'm like, opportunity to talk about her daughter. And you're not giving her that. And this is a statement that you're making as a character statement on your daughter to get a lesser sentence. Like, the judge just, I felt, was very biased. So I don't know if she got a fair trial. But the evidence they brought out was that she was going 100 miles. It was five seconds of, like, the black box or whatever that said she was going 100 miles an hour and she wasn't putting the brake on. She comes in and says she has what's known as pots, which makes her blackout. And that is a real condition.
And they didn't go into a lot of. Did they bring in a doctor? Was this testified? It was in her medical records.
And then there was something about, like, while she was driving that somebody looked like somebody yanked the wheel.
And they're saying, oh, they were trying to yank it away from her.
But could it have been she was truly passed out, so they were trying to get the wheel? I don't know.
[00:11:43] Speaker A: I don't either. And, you know, with murder, there's premeditated malice. And now you can have malice within seconds. Malice, and you could have. Premeditation is not timed either. This isn't like you have to plan it two weeks in advance. Right. But I just didn't think they proved premeditation or malice, because the testimony you heard from the party the night before was nothing abnormal. And if they got into an argument in the car, to me, that would lead me more towards a manslaughter conviction. A heat of the moment, killing within in passion is what we say. Essentially, I think Ohio has degrees of murder. We don't in South Carolina, but I think in a lot of states in, like, New York, with law and order svu, you'll hear it refer to as murder, too.
But in South Carolina, murder two is the equivalent of voluntary manslaughter. So I. I think that would have been the stronger argument. I don't see murder in this case, though.
[00:12:47] Speaker B: Well, here's the thing. Like they said, they didn't have to prove she was suicidal, because here's the thing. She wrecked this car going 100 miles an hour. Realistically, she should have died, too. I mean, if you were intentionally wrecking this car, you were committing suicide and killing these Two other people and the whole prosecution, which he didn't come across the brightest in the world either. I mean he kind seemed lazy, I guess, I don't know. But his thing was. Well, I don't have to prove she was suicidal, but she had to have been suicidal if she was going to do this because she. The fact she survived and the other
[00:13:23] Speaker A: two didn't, it's just a miracle. It's not that she could have. It's not like she hit the wall in some type of way that was going to leave her alive.
[00:13:33] Speaker B: No, the whole car was destroyed. She just was lucky she didn't die because realistically, yeah, you're right. There wasn't like she could go, oh, I'm going to slam it on this side. The whole front end went into a wall.
[00:13:45] Speaker A: I think.
[00:13:47] Speaker B: Yeah, she didn't die is just pure luck, miracle, whatever you want to call it. But going into this, she would. If she did this on purpose, she was killing herself too. Correct.
[00:13:58] Speaker A: And going back to what I was saying with her being a narcissist, she did come across very narcissistic and think very highly of herself. Very disconnected from reality. And because of that I don't think she would do anything to try to hurt herself.
[00:14:15] Speaker B: I didn't think she seemed like the type person.
So yeah, her and Dom had like this up and down relationship. Toxic.
But I don't think they'd ever like been physical with each other. It seemed like there were no like prior warrants for like domestic abuse. Anything from the documentary? I've not done my own research, but I think they just were like your basic teenage young couple, like I hate you, I love you kind of thing. Young love, jealousy.
Nothing about her made me think. And now granted, we never know when somebody is suicidal. We could have had a client this week. Her husband had committed suicide and she never expected it. So like we don't always know but there wasn't anything out there. It didn't seem like she was, I mean we don't know. But then, then they brought up stuff like after the fact she was back to making tick tocks and wasn't remorseful.
Okay, well if she didn't intentionally do it, I mean she does have to get on with her life. Like I don't feel like you can go her after how she act meant she did or didn't do it because she was a tik tocker.
[00:15:31] Speaker A: That's what bothers me too. People judge so much. Like what was she supp. And she was in the hospital at least A month, I feel, if not more so. Like I mentioned on a prior. Prior episode, I've had two deaths this year, right? One was our Nana Nancy, and then one was my uncle. And last year, my mom's dad died.
Nana Nancy passed, and it was very hard. We had the funeral that morning. We all went to weco and drank beer and played games.
If you'd walked by our table, you would not have known we had had a funeral that morning.
But we just wanted to be together. We just wanted to be together, sit down outside, get some fresh air. I don't think we talked about Nana, you know, talked about the kids and sports. And I got into a sports argument with Sawyer, and I think that led to a bet I may regret after this football season.
That's what we did.
It was the first step in just moving forward with life, as normal as it can be at that point. And I don't think there's anything wrong with it. But would you have judged us for sitting there throwing back beers, laughing, cackling when we had a funeral that morning? I mean, some. Some people probably would, but, like, what else are we. Were we just all supposed to go home individually and sit by ourselves with our feelings?
What's that gonna accomplish?
[00:16:55] Speaker B: That's kind of. I feel like her. Like she probably was sad, but also, she does say what you put on social media is not you as well. So, like, just because she's sitting there making tick tocks, that's what she did. I don't think that led to guilt or innocence. I think she just was keeping up her online Persona, because what else are you supposed to. To do during that time? I mean, she's 19 at this point. I think she's got to move on with her life. And they said. Because she. Like a skeleton face, but it was Halloween, so I don't. I felt like that was a stretch to me. Like, it was.
[00:17:33] Speaker A: And her best friend. Okay, so her best friend was also best friends with these guys too. So I give her a lot of credibility because, like, if she. I think she would know at this point if there is any bad intent with the Halloween costume or something, because while she loved Mackenzie, she equally loved the other guys too. And she was around them.
It seemed like a good bit. It kind of seemed like they were just a big group. Kind of like we had the group that we were in, Lauren, you know, our core friends back in high school, it seemed like that. That they were just this tight knit. Click. And so, you know, the fact that she's even saying why this was her costume. And so they're trying to make something out of. Out of not thing.
[00:18:19] Speaker B: Realistically, at the end of the day, I think she should have been found guilty of manslaughter because no matter what she did, it was reckless.
And if she did pass out while driving from pots and she knew she had pots, I still think that's reckless because you shouldn't be driving. Like, people who. Well, if you're a diabetic and you went into diabetic comas, they take your license away. Like if, you know, you have. Like I had a family member who was epileptic, couldn't drive. Like, if you have a situation and she had it as bad as she acted, like she did that it happened all the time.
You shouldn't be driving because you're putting yourself at risk and others.
[00:18:59] Speaker A: Yeah, I teeter on that. I'm with you. The first for. For sure she acted.
If she did not pass out, she acted in reckless disregard of others intentionally.
I guess for me, it would be more involuntary manslaughter if it were from POTS instead of voluntary. Because I don't think it's hard for me to say there. There's a men raya there. If. And. And I would be curious, like you said, I'll be curious if it happened before when you were diagnosed, how often I would. I have questions on if I could get there. It's possible, but I would need some more information on POTS to get there because, like, you know, I remember Leslie Jordan died.
I think he had a heart attack or something and died and crashed his car and he died and it broke my heart. But no one else but, you know, if he had a. Like, my uncle's had two heart attacks.
[00:19:55] Speaker B: But I think there's a difference between something that rare and random versus if it's pots to where you're saying it happens anywhere. She said at the end, oh, it can happen anywhere, anytime, out of nowhere, all the time kind of thing. So, like, if, you know, it's the same thing as being, like having seizures. When you know you have seizures, they don't let you have a license. I feel like a heart attack.
You're not typically going to have routines of those or you're going to just completely die.
[00:20:24] Speaker A: But I can accept those now. Right. At 38 years old, if something like that were happening to me, I would surrender my license or say, you need to take my license, because I would never want to hurt someone because my brain is fully formed. If you had told me at 17, I can't get my license.
[00:20:42] Speaker B: But that's where the parenting comes in.
[00:20:44] Speaker A: I agree. Yes,
[00:20:47] Speaker B: they did ask the mama on the stand, if you knew she had pots this bad, why did you take her to get her license?
[00:20:54] Speaker A: Yeah, I can put some blame on mom. I don't know that you can charge her. You know, I think it would be this complex theory of charging her like we did the dad who was told, you know, his son didn't need to be around guns, but it would be complicated.
But, yes, I don't know if I can blame McKenzie at that age for not understanding the risk of her diagnosis with society. I would put more blame on the parents there for sure, too.
[00:21:22] Speaker B: And I think even if she did intentionally wreck the car there at the end, it was not premeditated murder. She also was high as a kite. I mean, she was smoking pot. So, I mean, that would once again be voluntary manslaughter because you made the decision to smoke pot, but you didn't have the intent to actually kill somebody. You know, we don't know what happened in that car, but I do feel like premeditated murder was not it.
[00:21:51] Speaker A: No, I agree.
And I think sometimes in society that we just get so wrapped up with somebody needing to be blamed and at fault and also criminally at fault. And I. I hate that we're there. Right. Like, sometimes things are at fault. It doesn't mean they're guilty of just the most high charge. You can hate them. You can hate them for the rest of your life, but it doesn't mean that they should be in prison for the rest of their lives. And I think sometimes it's just hard to separate those emotions from our legal system and what the law actually is, and it's designed to punish. You know, I see it a lot more in my field, but, like, you know, I see Susan Smith. She is in prison for the rest of her life, as she should be. Are we saying Mackenzie Shrilla is the same as Susan Smith?
No.
[00:22:45] Speaker B: With this, I feel like she sucked as a person, and I feel that played into it more than the legal side of it. I think this is one situation where they thought doing the judge was taking the safe side of it because she's going to look at the mens rea, the intent, and look at the law and not look at the person, because there are judges who can do that. And I promise you, there are a lot of good judges who look at the law and understand people just can suck but still not be guilty.
[00:23:17] Speaker A: Same for years.
There are some jurors that do that on very hard cases.
[00:23:22] Speaker B: I feel like judges are just better at it than us a lot of times because they're saying it. And I think a lot of us are just take it at face value kind of thing. But I think this truly backfired on her. And this judge just looked at her and goes, she sucks. She's an awful person. She posts these terrible tiktoks. And some of the tiktoks she posted were trends. Like nothing was abnormal. It was trend music.
But I think it backfired on her. And I think realistically who she was as a person brought her sentence out, not the law.
[00:23:56] Speaker A: Agreed 100%.
And we can't let that happen because when things like that happen, that's how that leads to people getting convicted who are innocent and didn't do anything, you know, but yeah, I can't put my head around her, get it, her being in prison for life or murder when I know what premeditated murder is. And it is, like I said, Susan Smith, it's cases like that.
O.J. simpson, I believe he is guilty. He was found not guilty. But that, that's murder, y'. All. I mean, we see it, we see it on TV shows off.
[00:24:34] Speaker B: And he went and killed his wife, but. Because the prosecution sucked, right?
[00:24:41] Speaker A: Yeah. And.
But we hear about murders on true crime podcasts all the time. You know, I'm listening to one right now that took kids out of their tents when they were camping, you know, that's, you know, and then killed them. We hear stories all the time of what murder is, and this just doesn't fit those facts. And the reason I think it's important too is the sentencing is the sentencing. We need to sentence people appropriately. The sentence is different from involuntary manslaughter than murder. And I think the sentencing would have been justice and way more appropriate in this case.
[00:25:13] Speaker B: Yeah, I think she deserves time no matter what, but I don't think she actually intentionally went out there to kill them. Let us know your thoughts, though. What do you think? I know this is a hot topic, so let me know what you think about her.
[00:25:28] Speaker A: And you know what I would have done, Lauren? I would have tried to find something that would have suspended her license indefinitely if there was something that would have some type of charge that would have carried that as a collateral consequence. Because with certain driving penalties, even if it was like an add on charge. Right. I would have tried to find something to where she could never operate a motor vehicle again as part of her sentence, because I think that's justice too.
[00:25:55] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:25:56] Speaker A: And sometimes we don't think out of the box on those things.
[00:26:00] Speaker B: Nope. It was just, let's get a conviction.
[00:26:03] Speaker A: Yep.
So she is going through the appeal process. I believe she will see what happens there after the appeal process. If she is denied a new trial, then she will go for post conviction relief, which is where she can, you know, claim ineffective assistance of counsel, which also the text messages could go there. If they did have the text messages or could have had the text messages and they don't find it grounds for appeal, it will be grounds for post conviction relief on the attorney for not trying to get them and getting them or producing them.
And I definitely think it's going to be an issue him advising her on a bench trial rather than a jury trial. So as we see her case play out in the legal system, we'll definitely keep y' all updated and posted on what's going on and our thoughts on it.
[00:26:51] Speaker B: But also, just because he counseled, it's not malpractice what he did or neglect. He did what he thought in that moment was best. And also that's the same thing. When attorneys get PCRs, a lot. The criminal world, a lot of them are going to get them, but it doesn't mean that you did anything malpracticeable. They just did not do the most effective thing. But hindsight's always 20 20, so we're not throwing shame at the attorney there.
[00:27:19] Speaker A: Yeah, no. Sometimes we make strategic decisions and sometimes it's for the best and sometimes it backfires.
And, you know, what I've always said to other criminal defense attorneys is if I did mess up and I'm wrong, I'm going to take ownership of it. You know, if there's a. I know I can. I know if one case I told my client to PC army, I don't think he did. I haven't gotten any notice, but there was something I should have objected to with sentencing and came back and I didn't, strategically, because I had heard good things about the judge.
I messed up. It's not malpractice because I had, you know, but I, I didn't know what to do. Like, I just never been in that position, honestly. And so while I had reasons at the same time, I just hadn't been in the position. I didn't know what the remedy was until afterwards and talking to another attorney. So I messed. I messed up. And that is one thing I said, listen, pcr, I, you know, could have done this. I didn't. And I. If you want to try to get a new trial.
I will testify to that. We're human. We all make mistakes. We're not perfect. But like you were saying, Lauren, I'm not going to get malpractice for that. That's not. I didn't. You know, this was, you know, we all. It's human error, you know, for pcr.
[00:28:31] Speaker B: Well, let us know your thoughts. And we're going to continue with some more documentaries. If there's certain ones you want us to address, just let us know. We'd love to hear from you.
[00:28:40] Speaker A: All right, we'll see y' all next week. Bye.
