BARD - Inside the Lindsay Clancy & Lil Durk Trials: Mark Geragos + L.A. Mag Reporters Break It Down

**Mark Geragos** (0:00)
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**SPEAKER_2** (0:02)
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**SPEAKER_3** (0:05)
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**SPEAKER_2** (0:08)
Did the scratcher come to your house and hand you a check? No. How many scratchers did you hit to get that? I hit a button on carvana.com once.

**Mark Geragos** (0:15)
Okay, that's fair.

**SPEAKER_3** (0:17)
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**Mark Geragos** (0:20)
Not like the lottery at all, actually.

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**Taylor Parise** (0:25)
Offer's worth bragging about.

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Pick up Vee's May Apply. This is Beyond A Reasonable Doubt with your hosts, Mark Geragos and Gary Smith.

**Mark Geragos** (0:40)
Well, welcome to Reasonable Doubt. And just like I did with Tenny and Sitar a couple of weeks ago, we've had overwhelming interests this week from everywhere, at least in my world, on the East Coast, West Coast trials that are going on. Obviously, Clancy and Lauren Conlin, who's a friend of the show, who's been reporting on that and the jury's out. And then a newbie, but quite a keeper, Taylor from LA. Mag, who has been reporting on the Lil Durk trial here on the West Coast. And I thought, given the East Coast, West Coast ramifications of also the Tupac trial this week, it might be wonderful to have the two of them do a conversation and download on those two trials this week. So stay tuned for Lauren Conlin and her protege slash West Coast rapper extraordinaire, Taylor.

**Lauren Conlin** (1:37)
Taylor, hello.
Thank you for joining us and taking time out of your very busy schedule. I know you're at a music festival right now. It looks beautiful. Where are you, by the way?

**Taylor Parise** (1:49)
I am in Irvine, California, at the Daisy Chain Music Festival, which is very highly anticipated. All female performances happening today and sold out in minutes. So I'm excited. Excited to check it out after this.

**Lauren Conlin** (2:01)
Awesome. Well, I feel like a lot of people are curious about the Lil Durk trial, myself included. This is a federal murder for hire trial, and we can't see what's going on. Federal trials are not streamed, they're not recorded, and so Taylor from Los Angeles Magazine has been our eyes and our ears in the courtroom. So can you just first just give us an overview about what this trial is about?

**Taylor Parise** (2:27)
Yes. So I think there's some disagreements about what this trial is about as far as what the government's saying it's about, and what the defense is saying it's about. But overall, Lil Durk, who's a very famous well-known rapper, he is being tried for an alleged murder-for-hire plot against rapper Cuando Rondo. But instead of hitting Cuando Rondo, these shooters actually hit his cousin, Savaya Robinson. So both the defense and the prosecution have both said in their opening statements, this is a tragedy and no one's arguing that Savaya Robinson should never have been shot. This is a tragedy. But now we are trying to get to the bottom of, and the courtroom is Lil Durk responsible for this killing.

**Lauren Conlin** (3:10)
Right. And what have you observed in the courtroom so far? I mean, I remember earlier your coverage, watching it and reading it, the judge seemed to really admonish the prosecutors when they tried to, I think, supersede the indictment for maybe the third time. I mean, they weren't allowed to, which was a huge win for the defense. But it sounds like from your reporting, the defense is making waves here.

**Taylor Parise** (3:41)
Yeah. It's very interesting because you think the prosecution has a case and the prosecution has the phone records, not of Durk. That's very important to note is that they did not get access to Durk's phone, so that will not be used in trial. But we have a clear idea of who the shooters likely are based on. Two of them have pleading guilty as well as we have phone cell phone data. We have one of the rented cars that was used. We have that GPS tracker, so we know the location of allegedly all these people that were involved.
But yeah, then you bring in Brian Steele, the defense attorney, and he is really interesting to watch what he does. He can spin things, and he knows how to get the answers he's looking for, and he switches the way he speaks to each witness because he knows what he's doing. We also, like you said, we have a judge who's very no nonsense, he calls things out on both sides, but you definitely see him make sure the prosecution doesn't get away with anything. But then again, yesterday, we had Brian Steele objecting to everything the government said, and the judge overruling those objections, so it's been a very back and forth trial.