Guy Relford Joins!

**Nigel** (0:00)
My name is Nigel, Jason Hammer, right over there with a very special in-studio guest.

**Jason Hammer** (0:05)
Now, I know I've had a few beers, but I don't think it's Monday.

**Nigel** (0:08)
It ain't Monday, that's all right. So I'd like to see, I'd like it even better.

**Jason Hammer** (0:12)
I'm just wondering, what in the hell is Guy Relford doing in here on a beer sample Friday? What's up, brother?

**Guy Relford** (0:19)
Hey, man, I've had a good week.
I was in trial this week, had a murder case where our theory all along was that my client had acted completely in self-defense. Prosecutors were trying to put him in jail for up to 90 years as a 41 year old man. And here in Mary County, we went in, we had a jury trial. We proved it was self-defense. My client's name is Ryan Kozort. Good guy. I've gotten to know him well throughout the course of his trial. I've got to know his family. Good guy, good family. And we proved to the jury that he acted in self-defense. This is a guy who got shot.
Yeah, this is so crazy. My client was not carrying a gun. The other guy's carrying a gun. My client's not carrying a gun. They get in a fight outside a bar. The other guy shoots my guy in the chest. They then fight over the gun. My client gains control of the gun, shoots the other guy with his own gun, and Marion County charged my client with murder.

**Jason Hammer** (1:17)
So the guy that was shot and accosted first was fighting for his life, fired a shot to save his life, and they arrested your guy.

**Guy Relford** (1:28)
They did. Now, the theory of the prosecutors, the theory of the state was that my guy had started the fight. And there's a provision of Indiana law that says, you can't claim self-defense if you're the quote unquote initial aggressor. And there was a motion-activated camera that caught some of the fight, but it didn't catch the beginning of the fight.
And I had multiple PowerPoints on this. I had videos, I had blowups. It was about the initial four seconds when the start of the fight happened. There was no video, there was no evidence, there was no testimony on what happened to start the fight. They still contended my guy started the fight and therefore could not claim self-defense.

**Jason Hammer** (2:09)
And this was like a high-profile thing because I'm looking at these pictures of like, you know, you were doing the media rounds. I know Angela Gnote talked to you about this. This was like a well-known thing. And that's why you weren't with us on Monday.

**Guy Relford** (2:22)
It is, because I was in trial, man. And, you know, it's what I do for a living. I love radio, love hanging out with you guys. But yeah, when you're in a jury trial for a murder case, you can't show up to radio.

**Nigel** (2:37)
Did your client take the stand? He did.

**Guy Relford** (2:40)
That's a really, really interesting question. But yes, he did.

**Nigel** (2:43)
And does that usually happen in these types of things? When maybe specifically since it's a self-defense?

**Guy Relford** (2:51)
It's such an interesting and important question, Nigel. And in a typical criminal case, you're risking so much by putting your client on the stand. Because in this case, I had two very seasoned, very experienced prosecutors who were going to go after him. They're going to try to trip him up on every detail.

**Nigel** (3:14)
Right?

**Guy Relford** (3:14)
And anything, his memory is not perfect. Anything he gets wrong, you're a liar. They're going to go after him.

**Nigel** (3:21)
What a risk.

**Guy Relford** (3:21)
And it's such a risk. At the same time, the law of self-defense means that I have to establish that he had a reasonable belief that deadly force was necessary to prevent serious bodily injury. I mean, that's the standard, that's the legal issue. And how does the jury know what somebody's belief is, much less whether that belief is reasonable, unless he tells them what his belief was. He tells them what happened. And it's a huge risk. But at the same time, I've always believed and I've said for 40 years that the best witness you can have is a smart person telling the truth.
If you got a smart person telling the truth, then the risk diminishes dramatically, right? Because they can only trip him up on minutiae, they can only trip him up on an instant if you get details. He's telling the truth. And all the physical evidence was consistent with the story that he would tell. And so I put Ryan on the stand. It's a huge risk. And believe me, I lost a lot of sleep over this.