[Music]
welcome back 921 right now this week in
the courts a retrial for a woman
previously convicted and sentenced to 70
years in prison in the 2010 murder for
hire plot against her own boyfriend
Samuel Johnson's body was found in an
Eastside Cemetery almost a decade ago
after he was shot to death
Vanessa Cameron's on trial accused of
hiring someone to kill him this is a
trial resulting the trial rather is a
result of camera winning an appeal for a
new one
Paul bennewitz Petrak in this case and
here's a clip from his story in 2014 her
conviction was tossed out on the legal
technicality and a new trial the one
that's now under wait was ordered
Johnson's girlfriend at the time of his
murder was the state's first witness the
last time she saw him Erica Hinton
testified was when he left to collect
money from Cameron's sister I strongly
suggested for him not to get the money
when he failed to return she said she
became concerned and Paul venom Oh joins
us now to debrief this case good morning
morning Weiss this is such a bizarre
case first of all let's talk about this
technicality so odd I've never heard of
this before well it's it's a pretty
clear violation of her sixth amendment
rights namely your guaranteed right to a
public trial and the courtroom at the
time when they picked the jury for that
first trial was full and so the bailiff
didn't allow anybody in spectators in
you're allowed to have people in there
so that they appealed that based on that
people in there well it was full of
prospective jurors there was no room for
the for the for anybody else yeah so
anyway they appeal to the fourth quarter
fourth court in a split decision
agreed and kicked it onto the Court of
Criminal Appeals it went back and forth
through these courts a lot of legal get
lost in the weeds kind of situation and
bottom line is the forth of the Court of
Criminal Appeals finally agreed with the
problem of the appeals court the fourth
Court of Appeals that she was deserved a
new trial and here we are
and here we are so now that we know the
path to this new trial let's talk about
why the judge is so insistent about this
jury and instructions basically saying
you're never going to hear about this I
mean hasn't told them that but basically
doesn't want them to hear anything about
that right and and she's clear made it
very very clear to lawyers that both
side do not under any circumstances
refer to that first trial simply because
it would obviously prejudice the jury
they having found out that she was
already convicted it would sure be a a
very high hill for the defense to climb
so they're they're being very cautious
about that but I'm sure we covered the
first trial so wouldn't it be knowledge
out there anyway and that's what they
asked the perspective jurors when during
jury selection two days ago to have you
do any of you know anything about this
case either from the media or personal
knowledge or whatever yeah they're very
they're very make that very clear when
they pick you this year to make sure
nobody knows about it and they'll make
every effort to make sure during the
trial but there's a concern there
sometimes because if say during this
trial a witness testifies to something
and her testimony doesn't track what she
said during the first trial the lawyers
have a right to say no you at one time
you said this so they got to kind of
dance around surround it and now say
under what circumstance does you say
this is something else interesting there
were no opening arguments no and that's
that's a rare movie I've never seen it
before but there's no way it normally
does the prosecution gives their opening
argument gives the jury if you will a
roadmap to what they expect to prove and
then the defense gets an opportunity to
sit do that either then or when they
begin their case-in-chief and this time
the prosecution opted not to make an
opening statement and if they don't then
the defense don't so we go instead of
going starting a trial with opening
statements from at least the prosecution
we went straight into the first witness
and in essence you said you basically
described it to me as this ensures
essentially a clean slate exactly
exactly so the jury has no other
information one side or the other to
base any thoughts on so they've just got
to start with the first witness and and
run it from there and her plea is just
not guilty her plea and her plea is not
guilty all right all right if you
haven't seen the story you can always go
to koat.com
view it and its entirety I'm sure you
gotta get to court I'm no way thank you
Paul