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Should you bear in mind the early days of memeworthy viral movies, chances are you’ll bear in mind Kai, a free-spirited hitchhiker who saved a lady on the streets from a one other man’s violent assault.
The girl was in peril, “so I f- – -ing ran up behind him with a hatchet. Smash, smash, smash!” mentioned the person, whose actual title is Caleb Lawrence McGillvary, in a 2013 news clip that went viral.
On the time, he was seen as an excellent Samaritan, and over the subsequent 100 days or so, he shortly took the world by storm. With appearances on Jimmy Kimmel Live! and presents for a actuality collection, the drifter with no final title had discovered fame.
However that fame shortly turned to infamy. Netflix’s The Hatchet Wielding Hitchhiker tells the story of a person experiencing homelessness, whose rise and fall overshadowed what could have been telltale indicators of somebody affected by psychological well being points.
Kai was upfront and pleased with his nomadic existence. His nonconventional life-style lent much more credence to the enjoyment that many noticed in his speedy success. The success, although, was short-lived.
Turning of the tables
Though usually clueless, The Workplace’s Michael Scott put it finest—generally conditions can flip within the blink of an eye fixed, and Kai skilled that on each spectrums. Inside three months of his newfound fame, he was arrested for murdering Joseph Galfy, a 73-year-old lawyer in New Jersey.
Galfy’s physique was present in his bed room, severely overwhelmed, sporting solely socks and underwear.
Kai was shortly named a suspect. In spite of everything, a be aware in Galfy’s residence with Kai’s title and quantity on it, together with a receipt for a prepare ticket, was discovered. Though not conclusive, the be aware and receipt turned more and more probative when surveillance footage from one of many native prepare stations confirmed Galfey shopping for Kai a ticket, with the 2 exchanging an embrace shortly earlier than departing off-screen.
A manhunt was initiated, and Kai was subsequently discovered at a Greyhound station after a Philadelphia-area Starbucks barista acknowledged him and contacted police. As soon as arrested, Kai claimed that he had met Galfy, who invited him in and gave him a spot to remain, solely to drug and rape him.
Kai’s account was corroborated by a Fb replace that he posted as regulation enforcement was trying to find him, which read in part: “What would you do in the event you awoke with a groggy head, metallic style in your mouth, in a strangers home … realizing that somebody had drugged [and] raped [you] … what would you do?”
Kai reiterated the sexual assault whereas talking with regulation enforcement after he was captured and brought into custody.
The double normal of felony investigations
I’ve beforehand written in regards to the tunnel imaginative and prescient that regulation enforcement generally suffers. I’ve famous the way it’s human nature to turn out to be invested in your case and need to see a profitable end result primarily based in your onerous work and dedication.
Is that the suitable strategy for that career? No. Is it comprehensible from a human psychology perspective? Sure.
What needs to be defined, although, is the double normal that regulation enforcement usually applies to attain that end result. I’ve had loads of circumstances by which regulation enforcement, throughout their testimony and the prosecution, in closing arguments proclaim {that a} witness’s statements or social media posts describing their victimhood is powerful proof that the “sufferer” is being trustworthy.
Nonetheless, Kai didn’t get the identical remedy. By all accounts, Kai stood by his model of occasions, particularly that Galfy drugged and raped him, and he beat Galfy in self-defense.
Furthermore, The Hatchet Wielding Hitchhiker closes with one regulation enforcement officer’s commentary that: “Kai was making an attempt to say self-defense, however that’s not what the crime scene instructed us.” He additionally famous that Kai lacked defensive wounds or testimony from anybody who noticed scratches, bruises, cuts or the like.
Oblique data
I can’t depend the variety of instances that I’ve cross-examined regulation enforcement relating to a witness who claims that my shopper raped them, not having my shopper’s DNA underneath their fingers or exhibiting bruises, cuts, scratches or scrapes—solely to be instructed that rape victims not often exhibit seen defensive wounds.
However that’s the place you’re compelled to take when proof doesn’t embody a confession or an goal firsthand witness immediately tying the crime in query to the particular person you’re accusing. That brings up an attention-grabbing dialogue about direct and circumstantial proof.
Whether or not it’s a present shopper complaining in regards to the prosecution’s case or a possible shopper promoting their account throughout consumption, it by no means fails: “All they’ve is circumstantial proof.” I hear it not less than as soon as per thirty days, if not as soon as per week.
Once I ask individuals to distinction the proof that they’re referencing with the direct proof that they suppose is important, it turns into clear that circumstantial proof is usually a buzzword. In all honesty, most can’t outline both. Right here’s a fast and soiled primer I inform shoppers: Direct proof immediately proves a truth with out requiring an inference, and circumstantial proof infers that one thing occurred however doesn’t essentially show it.
I’ve defined in a number of installments how, at Oklahoma jury trials, the choose instructs the jury that the regulation makes no distinction between direct and circumstantial proof. Nonetheless, I’ve by no means defined how I deal with that at trial.
Prosecutors like to concentrate on circumstantial proof throughout jury choice and convey it again up when the time for closing arguments comes. Nonetheless, in the event that they focus their arguments on this specific instruction, and even in the event you suppose that it could be a central matter of their final shut, you’ll be able to head it off by reminding the jury that saying one thing isn’t the identical as proving it.
Circumstantial proof might be compelling, if there may be sufficient of it and it truly creates a hyperlink to the accused. As such, I remind the jury that it takes quite a lot of crumbs to reconstruct a cookie.
In spite of everything, proof might be deceptive, and motive isn’t one thing {that a} defendant leaves behind on the crime scene. Proper, flawed or detached, that’s all that Kai has to carry onto as of late.
At jury trial, he was convicted of Galfy’s homicide and sentenced to 57 years in jail in 2019.
Adam Banner
Adam R. Banner is the founder and lead lawyer of the Oklahoma Legal Group, a felony protection regulation agency in Oklahoma Metropolis. His apply focuses solely on state and federal felony protection. He represents the accused towards allegations of intercourse crimes, violent crimes, drug crimes and white-collar crimes.
The examine of regulation isn’t for everybody, but its apply and process appears to permeate popular culture at an growing fee. This column is in regards to the intersection of regulation and popular culture in an try to separate the true from the ridiculous.
This column displays the opinions of the writer and never essentially the views of the ABA Journal—or the American Bar Affiliation.
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