1

2
3
4
5
IN THE JUSTICE COURT OF THE
6
IN AND FOR THE COUNTY OF
7 THE HONORABLE PETER SFERRAZZA/ JUSTICE OF THE PEACE
8
--000--
9
STATE OF NEVADA/
Case No. RCR2011-063341
10
Plaintiff, Dept. No.2
11 vs.
12 ZACHARY BARKER COUGHLIN,
13 Defendant.
14
15
16
APPEARANCES:
17
For the Plaintiff:
18
19
20 For the Defendant:
21 Standby by Counsel
22
23
TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS
TRIAL
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2012
Zach Young, Esq.
Deputy District Attorney
One South Sierra Street
Reno, Nevada 89520
IN PRO PER
James Leslie, Esq.
Deputy Public Defender
350 S. Center Street, 5th Floor
Reno, Nevada 89520
24 (JAVS ELECTRONICALLY RECORDED)
Transcribed By: Cathy w.
1
1 I N D E X
2 DIRECT CROSS REDIRECT RECROSS
3 WITNESS FOR THE DEFENDANT:
Zachary Barker Coughlin
4
BY: MR. COUGHLIN 7 99
5
BY: MR. YOUNG 66
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
2
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
this
-000-
RENO, NEVADA, TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2012, 8:58 A.M.
-000-
MR. LESLIE: Judge, while you're looking for that,
is Jim Leslie.
THE COURT: I understood Mr. Young had a trial in 9,
is that correct?
MR. YOUNG:
THE COURT:
MR. YOUNG:
THE COURT:
MR. YOUNG:
Yep.
And did we ever get that changed or not?
It will have to wait.
We can make this later.
No, thank you, Your Honor.
10
11
12
13
14
15 THE COURT: All right. We will at least go to 10:00,
16 and then we can decide where we are at that point.
17 Mr. Coughlin, you were on the stand, but before we proceed
18 we need to know why you weren't here at 8:30?
19 MR. COUGHLIN: Yes, sir, Your Honor. I apologize.
20 was up all night working on this, and this morning, and looked
21 at the clock and tried to finish, and I didn't give myself
22 enough time to get here on time.
I
23 THE COURT: Mr. Young -- I'll excuse you, sir, you're
24 15 minutes late, but we will proceed, so come on up.
3
1
2
3
4
5
MR. YOUNG:
is 11-063341?
THE COURT:
MR. YOUNG:
THE COURT:
Your Honor, you are calling the case, this
I am calling that case, yes.
Thank you.
That's what I was trying to do at the
6 beginning when I couldn't find the case number.
7
8
9
10
MR. YOUNG: Thank you, Your Honor.
THE COURT:
Mr. Coughlin, you are on the stand, so if
you'll please come up.
MR. COUGHLIN: Yes, sir.
11 THE COURT: And I think we made it quite clear
12 yesterday -- come on up, sir -- that you were to testify as to
13 facts and not argue while you were on the stand.
14 MR. COUGHLIN: Yes, sir.
15 THE COURT: And please have a seat then.
16 And you are still under oath.
17 MR. YOUNG: Your Honor, while I get set up, just for
18 purposes of the record, Mr. Coughlin is out of custody, I know
19 when I left yesterday Your Honor had him taken into custody, I
20 just want to make sure the record's clear that at some point
21 between last night and this morning, he was released.
22 THE COURT: Shortly after you left I did bring him
23 back into the courtroom and ordered his release on condition
24 that he be here today, and further he represented to me that he
4
1 would--
2
3 clear.
4
MR. YOUNG: I just wanted to make sure the record was
THE COURT: Well, Mr. Coughlin promised today that he
5 would testify as to the facts and not argue the law while he was
6 a witness.
Mr. Coughlin?
7
8
9
MR. COUGHLIN: Yes, sir, Your Honor.
Your Honor, may I have a moment, please?
10
THE COURT: Why do you need that, Mr. Coughlin?
11 Mr. Coughlin.
12 MR. COUGHLIN: Oh, because I think there might be a
13 disk in it.
14
THE COURT: Are we ready, sir?
15 MR. COUGHLIN: Yes, sir. And the only thing I'd note
16 is it was working when I came in here and then it was like I
17 moved it wrong, and the whole my laptop, but I'll put up
18 another one here.
19 THE COURT: Sir, why don't you proceed with your
20 testimony.
21 MR. COUGHLIN: Okay. I just note that I believe I'm
22 functioning in a dual role at this point.
23 THE COURT: No, you're acting as a witness right now.
24 I thought we clarified that yesterday. You're not in a dual
5
1 role when you are on the stand, you are a witness.
2 I mean you if the district attorney objects, you will be
3 able to respond as an attorney to an objection, but other than
4 that you are a witness.
5 MR. COUGHLIN: Yes, sir. May I clarify? Am I able to
6 authenticate videos or audio --
7 THE COURT: Well, to the extent that you are permitted
8 as a matter of law to authenticate, yes.
9
MR. COUGHLIN: Will I present them to myself or in
10 that I'm -- you've told me I'm acting as a witness now.
11 MR. LESLIE: Your Honor, I'd like to interject and
12 remind the Court that I'm here as standby counsel, I can take
13 over any time the Court feels the need.
14 THE COURT: All right. Sir--
15 MR. YOUNG: This has been gone over yesterday ad
16 nauseam.
17 THE COURT: We need to proceed.
18 MR. YOUNG: You're wasting county assets.
19 MR. COUGHLIN: Your Honor, I've filmed some videos.
20 THE COURT: After the fact or on the day of?
21 MR. COUGHLIN: Both.
22 THE COURT: Okay. As to those on the day of, those I
23 believe I've indicated would be relevant to these proceedings.
24 As to those after the fact by and large they're not
6
1 relevant, unless you have some exception to the hearsay rule or
2 otherwise.
3 MR. COUGHLIN: Am I permitted to assert that now?
4 THE COURT: Well, let's go forward with your
5 testimony, sir. I told you we're not going to argue anymore.
6 MR. COUGHLIN: I understand. May I ask one clarifying
7
8
question?
MR. YOUNG: I object to any clarifying questions.
9 would object to him asking any clarifying questions, this is
10 beginning -- this is getting ridiculous. You took him into
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
custody
THE COURT: I will sustain the objection, go ahead,
sir, and testify.
ZACHARY BARKER COUGHLIN,
Having previously been sworn, testified as follows:
DIRECT EXAMINATION
THE WITNESS: Yes, sir.
Urn, urn, I do not believe that I was -- demonstrated any
21 lack of cooperation with the, urn, officer on the night in
I
22 question, Officer Duralde, or Officer Rosa, or Officer Alaksa.
23 Urn, I did film a video at the time of the arrest, which is
24 mostly audio, given it was placed in my pocket shortly after the
7
1 officer arrived.
2 Urn, I think the video demonstrates to some extent --
3
4
MR. YOUNG: Objection, argumentative.
THE WITNESS: I'm sorry. Urn, urn, my recollections of
5 my behavior during that time, urn, are that I was cooperative and
6 polite, calling them sir and officer, indicating I had a great
7 deal of respect for them.
8 I do recall Officer Duralde saying he had no respect -- he
9 didn't respect me whatsoever, I believe was his exact, urn,
10 statement, I think.
11 THE COURT: Go ahead, sir.
12 THE WITNESS: Urn, he didn't respect me whatsoever, and
13 then I believe he did ask me if I had the phone, and then I
14 indicated -- urn, or I asked him a question about what my rights
15 might be with respect to, urn, whether or not I could -- I don't
16 know, I'm a little unsure, if I can look at papers --
17 THE COURT: No, you can't unless you -- the only thing
18 you can do if you cannot remember you can refresh your
19 recollection with something that was made contemporaneously at
20 the time.
21 But I mean if you had a written statement made then, or
22 something like that, but not with notes you've prepared for this
23 trial.
24 THE WITNESS: Okay. Could I do the video?
8
1 THE COURT: Sir?
2 MR. YOUNG: If he's trying to play the video in
3 question of what he filmed that night, I will not object to
4 that, and he can just play the video. I think it's already been
5 played.
6 But if Mr. Coughlin wants to play -- for expedient
7 purposes, if he wants to play the video that he took, and if he
8 can authenticate that he's the one who took it during the actual
9 incident and arrest, I have no objection to him playing that.
10 THE COURT: All right, go ahead, sir, you can play the
11 video.
12 MR. YOUNG: So long as he can just inform us that this
13 is the video, who made it, and when it was made.
14 THE WITNESS: I made the video just prior to the
15 officer arriving.
16 THE COURT: I'm sorry?
17 THE WITNESS: So I can can I do that with the video
18 just prior to the officer arriving?
19 THE COURT: That's fine. But testify first what this
20
21
is.
THE WITNESS: Okay. This is a video that I took, sir,
22 just prior to the officer arriving.
23 If I can back up for a second. I would like to testify to
24 what I heard on the CD City Attorney Skau gave me.
9
1
2
3
MR. YOUNG: Objection.
THE COURT: That's sustained.
You can't testify to what you heard on the CD. But go
4 ahead, sir.
5 THE WITNESS: Can I authenticate the CD with the
6 dispatch recordings?
7 THE COURT: I think we already agreed you can play the
8 dispatch recordings yesterday.
9 THE WITNESS: Can I do that now?
10 THE COURT: Is there any objection?
11 MR. YOUNG: I made my objection yesterday, you
12 overruled it.
13 THE COURT: I overruled the objection, you may play it
14 and that's it, and then you can play the video of your --
15 MR. YOUNG: Your Honor, is what he's about to play
16 been marked?
17
18
19
20
21
THE COURT: I thought it was.
MR. COUGHLIN: Yes, sir. I believe this is Exhibit 2 .
THE COURT: All right.
MR. COUGHLIN: This is the
THE COURT: But it's only, let's just get this clear,
22 we already went through this yesterday, please have it ready to
23 go, sir.
24 THE WITNESS: I'm just demonstrating -- this is the
10
1 exact one Mr. Skau in the city attorney's office gave me.
2 THE COURT: What I ruled was admissible would be the
3 audio recording of the dispatch call relating to this incident.
4 THE WITNESS: It's a number of, I guess, calls or back
5 and forth excerpts.
6 THE COURT: Go ahead, sir.
7 THE WITNESS: Thank you.
8 I'll start the tape, it indicates the start time
9 August 20th, 2011, at 11:23 p.m. 55 seconds, so 11:23:55, on
10 8-20-11.
11 THE COURT: Did you get that, August 20th, 11:53.
12
13 calls.
14
15
16 there.
MR. YOUNG: So long as this disk contains only these
THE COURT: I don't know what else is on there.
MR. YOUNG: That should be the only thing that's on
17 MR. COUGHLIN: I wanted to bring that up, maybe --
18 THE COURT: Sir, you either play it, or we're done.
19 THE WITNESS: I just want --
20
21
THE COURT: Sir.
MR. YOUNG: Is the representation by Mr. Coughlin that
22 this disk that he is moving to admit only contains the E-com
23
24
calls.
THE COURT: I don't know that.
11
~
1 MR. YOUNG: Well, we need to find that out.
2 THE COURT: I'm not admitting the whole disk, that's
3 what I'm trying to say, I'm admitting the evidence, the
4 August 20, 11:53, assuming it is what it purports to be.
5
6
(CD played.)
THE COURT: Do you have the ability to play the disk
7 on that? Why don't you just pullout the disk and we will put
8 it on there. Give me what you intend to offer right now.
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
MR. COUGHLIN: It's the video.
THE COURT: Give me the videos as well.
Hurry up. If it's not done at 10:00 it will not be played.
Which one is it on that disk?
MR. COUGHLIN: It's everything on that disk, that's
exactly what Mr. Skau gave me.
all the
It's my understanding it's just
THE COURT: Play them all. Unless there's an
objection while they are playing, we will pause it.
You represented this was three minutes altogether, right?
MR. COUGHLIN: I don't recall specifically, I think
it's fairly short though, about three minutes, I would say.
THE COURT: Can you play it as loud as you can?
Well, maybe not.
(CD played) .
MR. COUGHLIN: I don't think that's the disk.
12
Is that
1 the disk I gave you? Does that have a red
2 Maybe that is on it, but I understood it was just the
3 dispatches talking to the officer, that was Mr. Goble's voice, I
4 believe.
5 MR. YOUNG: That was a dispatch call, which I believe
6 that call has been admitted.
7
8
THE COURT: Go ahead with it, please.
THE CLERK: I think that was admitted, do you want me
9 to continue, Judge?
10
11
12
THE COURT: Yes.
(CD played) .
THE COURT: That is what we heard yesterday, so skip
13 that one and go to the next one, if there is another one on
14 there.
15 Is there another one on there?
16 MR. COUGHLIN: Your Honor, if I may, that call is
17 fairly short, and I believe you can hear it better here, there's
18 a lot of background in that
19 THE COURT: Sir, I already heard it yesterday, so
20 we're moving on to the next one.
21 THE CLERK: I'm not sure where the next one is,
22 they're not labeled.
23
24
THE COURT: Just--
(CD played) .
13
1 THE COURT: Sir, whatever disk you have you need to
2 give to her right now, otherwise it's not going to be played.
3 (CD played) .
4 THE COURT: We're not going to play all of those, you
5 told me that specific -- you had a video that you took of the
6 arrest. Give that to the clerk.
7 Whatever one you want. So it's just a repetitious one?
8 Is there more on this one, Mr. Coughlin?
9 MR. COUGHLIN: This is talking to the police.
10 (CD played) .
11 THE COURT: I'm not going to play all of these, sir,
12 so you need to designate exactly what it is, and what it is that
13 you purport it to be that is relevant to this case.
14 MR. COUGHLIN: May I see?
15 THE COURT: You've already had them in your hands for
16 months. Tell us which one is
--
can you hand it back to him?
17 MR. COUGHLIN: Can we listen to this, because this --
18 I'm hearing nothing.
19 Your Honor, how long is this going to go
20
21 Till 10:00, and then we're done.
22 I guess the reason I'm asking is
23 not testifying, and that's what you put
24 him in custody for last night, you subsequently OR'd him, as I
14
1 understand it, because he agreed to testify to facts, and he's
2 sitting here messing around with disks, and we're not getting --
3 THE CLERK: Do you want me to continue to play this?
4 THE COURT: No, I don't. Because I'm hearing nothing,
5 I told him to que it up, so we're done with the tapes.
6 Go ahead and testify, and that's it, I gave you an
7 opportunity to present these numerous times and you're obviously
8 not prepared to present them, so go ahead and testify, sir.
9 THE WITNESS: Yes, sir.
10 I witnessed a man holding the iPhone, or a phone of some
11 sort. I think he said iPhone, aloft from the west side of the
12 skate plaza. I was on my bike, this would -- I estimate this
13 would have been very near to 11:20 at night on August 20th,
14 2011.
15 Um, I believe -- and I had ridden my bike up with my dog,
16 who I alternately carried or had run with me. And I stopped,
17 either to rest or for him to rest, right in the -- can I grab
18 the picture?
19 THE COURT: Just go ahead and testify, sir. I know --
20 I've seen it 20 times now, so I know what it is.
21 THE WITNESS: Okay. So right near the Virginia side
22 of the skate plaza my dog and I stopped, and all the way from
23 there -- the gentleman was -- I would estimate that he was at
24 the -- near that kind of shed thing in the skate plaza, which I
15
1 would say is on the northeasterly side of the plaza, urn, that is
2 between the river and city hall, and I could hear him from all
3 that way away, which I would estimate was perhaps a hundred
4 yards, maybe a bit less, so 300 feet for so, holding the phone
5 aloft and, urn, urn, saying "whose iPhone is this?"
6 At no time -- he said "whose iPhone is this? Whose iPhone
7 is this?"
8 I did hear him say that -- I believe just immediately prior
9 to that I heard him say whose, urn, urn -- when he said "whose
10 iPhone is this?" He was about 300 feet away, and then he said
11 "somebody claim it right now, or I'm going to throw it in the
12 river."
13 Urn, I had noticed about 20-feet from him was who I later
14 discovered was Nicole Watson, she's in her late teens, I
15 imagine. Urn, and her friend Lucy Byington, and a gentleman or
16 two standing next to him, who might have been Colton Templeton.
17 The gentleman did announce loudly, loud enough where I
18 could hear him all the way on the other side, pretty much on
19 opposite sides of the skate plaza, he loudly announced that he
20 was going to throw it in the river, the iPhone.
21 Urn, urn, sometime later I was accosted by three youths in a
22 group of three, who came up to me, and they came up to me kind
23 of in a rush and -- urn, were demanding things of me, and urn, I
24 felt somewhat threatened by them, I believe the one named
16
1 Mr. Goble, urn, indicated something to the effect that he
2 believed I had his phone, that he wasn't sure, but he believed I
3 had it.
4 Urn, he didn't provide any particularized information about
5 how his phone looked, or anything like that.
6 Urn, I was somewhat taken back by how abrupt and aggressive
7 they were, and it made me think that if I did have their phone,
8 or a phone, it made me think if I did have a phone that I wasn't
9 so sure I would believe them that it was theirs, given the
10 aggressive and demanding nature, and the relative youth in the
11 way they were dressed, just based upon my training and
12 experience as a now suspended attorney, and that experience,
13 that training including three years of law school and four years
14 of college.
15 I got a Bachelor of Science, I started at the University of
16 Washington and finished at UNR, got a Bachelor of Science in
17 biology, and went directly into UNLV's newly opened law school,
18 and graduated in 2001, and passed the 2001 bar exam, and then
19 the United States patent and trademark office bar examination as
20 well, urn, whereupon sometime afterwards I was licensed as a
21 patent attorney.
22 Urn, but specifically in law school in taking courses such
23 as criminal law and evidence, urn, I was trained to notice
24 certain characteristics or evidence about situations and people
17
1 from which one might infer different motivations, and different,
2 um, indicators as to the veracity of what they might be
3 planning.
4 I was also trained with respect to property, and rights,
5 and negligence, and a fair amount of training in regards
6 specifically with respect to, um, how the law treats property
7 THE COURT: It sounds to me like you're arguing again,
8 so I'm going to warn you that you are to be testifying as to the
9 facts of this case, not your theories, or your legal arguments,
10 you can make those at the conclusion of the case.
THE WITNESS: Yes, sir. 11
12 Um, so I do recall being taken aback by their demeanor, and
13 their, um, rather quick rush to, um, hostility, and demanding,
14 physically imposing group aggression towards me.
15 Urn, I remember recalling that if I did have a phone and if,
16 urn -- that I remember if I did have a phone, and given that the
17 gentleman I believe asked me if I had his phone, and then I
18 immediately prior to that seen and heard from some distance
away --
THE COURT: You've already testified to this, sir.
go ahead, not backward.
So
19
20
21
22
23
24
THE WITNESS: Okay. I just was testifying given those
circumstances I didn't, urn, I thought there was a good
possibility that, urn, anybody who had heard that man hold the
18
1 iPhone aloft and announce that he was going to throw the iPhone
2 in the river, in downtown Reno, Saturday night, and the economy
3 had been really depressed, I remember thinking, well, if someone
4 claimed that iPhone, they'd probably have a bunch of other
5 people pretty soon thereafter making the same claim.
6 And when I heard that guy hold the phone aloft like that I
7 remember thinking that could become a free-for-all pretty quick
8 in downtown Reno, with a lot of people either claiming it, and
9 then thereafter arguing about whose it was, and whatnot.
10 Urn, I grew fearful upon their escalating their demands of
11 me and, urn, I recall thinking if I did have a phone
12 THE COURT: You already testified to this, sir, so go
13 forward. You've said this three times.
14 THE WITNESS: Well, okay.
15
16
17
THE COURT: I understand the essence.
THE WITNESS: Okay.
THE COURT: You had some doubts as to whether or not
18 it was their phone, so let's move forward.
19 THE WITNESS: Urn, I felt for my safety it would be
20 best for me to get going.
21 Urn, I received no indication from them that they were
22 demanding me to stay, or wanting me to stay. Urn, upon my
23 beginning to leave it seemed to me they did make some indication
24 they would appreciate it if I stayed.
19
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Urn, I immediately stopped and, urn, decided that it would be
appropriate to interact with them and address the concerns they
had.
I attempted to do that. I called the police once it became
clear that they were either trying to take my dog, an 18-pound
three-year old Pekinese dog, or -- and/or my bike.
Urn, this was confirmed when I listened to 911 tapes I was
given later.
Some I don't know if I can talk about this.
10 THE COURT: No, you can't, sir, just go ahead and
11 testify.
12
13
14
THE WITNESS: Okay. I do recall especially Austin
Lichty being one of the group of three who initially approached
me, in nearly and immediately hostile manner. In fact, I felt
15 some threat just how they were dressed. They were dressed in
16 late teens, early 20s, skateboarder type clothing and/or pierced
17 ears, frosted-tipped hair on the man I referred to -- well, I
18 guess he's called Peanut. I recall seeing Peanut be -- I recall
19 seeing him pass a phone to Mr. Goble during this time prior to
20 the police arriving, which I would estimate was between, urn,
21 11:22 to 11:27, so about five minutes. I saw Peanut pass a
22 phone to Mr. Goble, urn, Peanut was especially aggressive towards
23 me.
24 He said something to the effect of that he was taking my
20
1 bike, and in a manner to indicate he was teaching me a lesson
2
3
for something.
Urn, I don't recall anything about him holding saying he
4 was holding my bike, or perceiving him do anything wherein he
5 held my bike with the intent of keeping me there, rather I had
6 already stopped and proceeded to engage or interact with them.
7 And, urn, he and Mr. Lichty and Mr. Goble made lunging
8 movements towards either my bike or my dog. Peanut did attempt
9 to grab my bike, and I, while I had my dog in one hand, held on
10 to the bike, preventing him from taking it with the other.
11 Mr. Lichty did -- he was on my left, so from my left I
12 recall it was Mr. Lichty, Cory Goble, the man about 22-year old
13 with pinched ears, Nathan Zarate, Robert Dawson, and over to my
14 far right would be Colton Templeton, and they were all in front
15 of me.
16 Another youth who was Asian, named Tanner Chan, was kind of
17 walking to and fro behind, and he was on a phone.
18 Urn, upon things escalating to the point where I felt like I
19 should call the police just for everybody's safety, not only to
20 get the police to arrive, but to also maybe put it in the
21 youths' mind that this was not going to be a free-for-all, and
22 if they intended it to become some sort of street fight, it
23 would quickly be investigated by police who were fairly sure to
24 arrive upon me calling 911.
21
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
Urn, I believe Mr. Goble made a 911 call or two, urn, it's
just hard sometimes to separate my feelings and my subsequent
investigations.
Urn, I recall telling the 911 operator that I was feeling
threatened, and that someone was trying to steal my bike and my
dog, and that a group of youths were pushing me up on the bridge
into oncoming traffic on the -- I don't know if I said the
street name specifically, but we're on the Center Street bridge,
which is a one-way street, and that bridge is fairly short.
It's probably only, I'd say, three-feet high to where I would
have to kind of lean down about six inches to just to rest my
rear-end on it, which made me more fearful, because it just
seemed like there wasn't much between my back and oncoming
traffic, given how distracted I was by the youths, holding my
dog and all that, it felt like a rather tenuous situation.
Urn, I also recall somewhat off to the right seeing Nicole
Watson and Lucy Byington, who had joined the group who had
joined the initial three, I would say probably within 20 seconds
of the initial three, in pieces the group came over. That I, at
the time, I indicated to the 911 operator was about 20 -- 20
hostile youths.
Urn
THE COURT: Sir, I'm giving you great latitude, but I
understand you felt threatened, you didn't believe it was their
22
1 phone, so what happened then? The police arrived on the scene.
2 THE WITNESS: It's my understanding I said if I had a
3 phone, I didn't believe it was put forth to me much indication
4 that, urn, they --
5 THE COURT: If you had a phone, you didn't believe it
6 was theirs.
7 THE WITNESS: They hadn't given me much to go on.
8 THE COURT: Okay. Then what happened when the police
9 arrived?
10 THE WITNESS: Urn, the Officer Duralde arrived, and I
11 was polite with him at all times.
12 I've had difficulties with law enforcement in my life, and
13 I've kind of come to understand that it's likely a by-product of
14 my ADD, and unless apprised of any wrongdoing on law
15 enforcement's part or any -- any ill will on my part towards
16 them, it's more -- I've understood is a function, what their job
17 is to do and some of my difficulties pertaining to ADD, I call
18 it coloring in the lines.
19 Urn, urn, combined with I'm a little peculiar in that I
20 really have always been a fan of the Fourth Amendment, and I
21 guess you call it civil rights in general, with an emphasis on
22 privacy.
23 Urn, most of my life, and I think some of that goes back to
24 my childhood and having a stepfather who was, urn, pretty stern
23
1 and pretty -- not a lot of respect for my privacy, urn, or any
2 rights I might have thought I had.
3 Urn, urn, I recall thinking at the time that if I had the
4 phone, and I'm in the circumstances that as they occurred that
5 night, which to me seemed like it was starting to shape up to
6 sound like a law school fact pattern to me, some law school
7 professor said where there's a lot of ambiguity as to who might
8 own what, and who might have been negligent, I don't mean to
9 make argument, sir, I'm just trying to say what was going on in
10 my mind, urn, and what rights I might have if the officers say,
11 as he did, begin querying me pretty much immediately upon
12 arriving, I recall Mr. Zarate saying to Officer Duralde that he
13 saw everything. I believe his exact words were "1 was there, I
14 saw everything."
15 And that was it, that's all I heard him say to Officer
16 Duralde.
17 Officer Duralde then, urn -- it might have been Nicole
18 Watson said something to him, I can't recall exactly, just a
19 vague recollection.
20
21
22
23
24
MR. YOUNG: Objection, Your Honor, anything Ms. Watson
stated.
THE COURT: Sustained.
Go ahead.
THE WITNESS: I believe Officer Duralde then asked me
24
.------.
1 a question, and I responded by asking him a question in response
2 that sought to clarify what he was seeking from me, with
3 somewhat of a side issue to it of -- involving constitutional
4 rights.
5 I do believe specifically the Fourth Amendment.
6
And, urn, I recall at that time thinking that, urn, this may
7 be shaping up to be a situation where the only thing I had of
8 monetary value -- one of the few things I had of monetary value
9 in life at that point, might be jeopardized, were I to be
10 wrongfully accused of something, and I'm referring to my law
11 license.
12 And the general feeling I've always had about a law license
13 is that it's a rather tenuous thing, and it -- along with that
14 goes one's reputation for certain things. Specifically with
15 respect to moral character.
16 MR. YOUNG: Your Honor, I'm going to object. I've let
17 this go, but he's getting away from facts.
18 THE COURT: All right. Sustained.
19 THE WITNESS: Okay. Urn, I do recall, urn, after I
20 asked, urn, the officer, urn, a clarifying question about my
21 constitutional rights concerning the Fourth Amendment that he
22 indicated something to the effect that whether or not he had
23 enough, urn -- it seemed to me, I don't know if he specifically
24 indicated, but he said something that made me believe he
25
1 demonstrated an intent to search my pockets, whether or not he
2 had developed sufficient suspicion to justify him doing so.
3 Something I believe, if I was trying to put it verbatim as
4 best I could, it was something like, urn, look, if you give the
5 kid back, urn, the item, I can't remember what words he used
6 specifically, he'll probably be okay with it.
7 When he said that I recall thinking that there's, I've
8 heard, and I don't mean to impugn law enforcement, but that
9 there's, urn, a lot of people who are prosecuted based upon
10 things they might do. On a good faith belief that the probably
11 the officer was referring to would be something he could rely
12 on.
13 And I also recall thinking not too many lawyers would enter
14 contracts if you say we'll probably fulfill it. Most lawyers
15 would say please turn your probably -- I thought at the time
16 would say, say please turn your probably to a signature on a
17 contract, then I don't have to wonder.
18
19
20
Urn.
THE COURT: Did you say that, sir?
THE WITNESS: I did not say that to the officer, I
21 just thought it in generalized terms in my mind.
22 Urn, he, in response to my question about -- he asked me if
23 I had something in my pockets, I asked him a question in
24 response seeking clarification with somewhat of a focus on
26
1 asking about what constitutional rights I might have in a Fourth
2 Amendment context, and he, urn, he indicated that, I don't recall
3 exactly, but pretty much that I had very little in the way of an
4 expectation of privacy or Fourth Amendment rights or freedom
5 from him going through my pockets at that point.
6 Urn, and I do recall specifically I believe I said,
7 verbatim, perhaps you might be right, I might have said, sir, in
8 a genuine tone of voice, because I've honestly pretty much since
9 late ten years always been on guard when interacting with law
10 enforcement, urn, because I just noted that I had a tendency to
11 have difficulty with them and I don't want to.
12 So I try my best, and I'm not saying I always succeed, but
13 I try my best to be overly careful not to do or say anything
14 that would get me in trouble and disrespect towards them.
15 Urn, and that's combined with kind of a passion for Fourth
16 Amendment rights. It's a difficult line to walk.
17
18 he
Urn, urn, he -- I said perhaps you might be right, and then
he asked me to get off my bike, I believe, I asked him
19 if and I believe he kind of motioned me to step to the side
20 because he was going to search my pockets, or I think he
21 indicated he was, something to the effect that I needed to get
22 off my bike and stand over by the railing so he could undertake
23 some sort of search of some sort.
24 Urn, I am always on guard with my dog Jackson, because he's
27
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
a dog that will run away. He's run away a number of times. So
I asked the officer if I could tie him to the bike, and the
officer was polite and said pretty much polite, he seemed to be
a little exacerbated immediately after I asked him the question
about privacy rights, or clarifying questions in response to his
questions, he seemed to be a little exacerbated at that point,
and I recall thinking that's a little understandable, he's got a
crowd here of youths, and I think at that point some -- I just
think there was a crowd of youths, there was a couple of young
women, and I just recall thinking, you know, most all of us
males testosterone-wise, you know, we don't enjoy being
challenged or having anybody do much other than what we ask them
to do. Particularly when we're functioning in our official
14 capacity, such as that officer was.
15 And I recall having some understanding of his exacerbation
16 at that point, given his role in his official duties as a police
17 officer, in terms of keeping order, keeping people safe.
18 Um, combined with being a little bit leery of the extent to
19 which he had indicated he would be doing a search whether he
20 had, it seemed to me, whether he developed much in the way of
21 support or rationale for doing so.
22 It seemed to me he just kind of just announced what he was
23 going to do, and then indicated he would just either find some
24 facts later to support it, or perhaps make some up.
28
1 He didn't say anything like that, like he was going to make
2 something up, but it just kinda -- the inference to me was
3 there, or if not completely make something up, shade whatever he
4 had to work with.
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
Which I, urn, urn, urn
THE COURT: Do you have anything else, sir?
THE WITNESS: I do.
THE COURT: Go ahead.
THE WITNESS: Yes, sir.
Urn, he
I got off my bike, I tied up my dog, I tried to
demonstrate no sort of threat, I know I'm about six, four, and
at that time I was overweight, so I was about 250 pounds, and I
was dressed in a manner that didn't indicate I was -- I feel
didn't indicate I was a particularly threatening individual.
I was in almost pastel shade very thin T-shirt, it was late
August, so it was extremely hot most days, and I was in thinnish
white cotton shorts that went down to just above my knee.
They had kind of the typical pockets --
THE COURT: Do you have anything else to testify about
20 the purported facts and the elements of the offense? Not your
21 clothing or --
22 THE WITNESS: Yes, sir.
23 Urn, urn, he asked me to get off the bike, I did, and then,
24 urn, he asked me to turn around and face the bridge.
29
1 At that point I did, and put my hands on my head, and I
2 did, and he started patting me down, and then he started running
3 his hands along my waistline, I assume to check for weapons. I
4 had cut notches in my underwear, and I don't know if I --
5 THE COURT: You realize, sir, I already suppressed
6 this part of the officer's testimony, and further granted your
7 motion in respect to the pat-down search. You understand that?
8 MR. COUGHLIN: I'm a little unclear. If I wasn't up
9 here testifying I'd check my notes now.
10 THE COURT: Well, I granted the motion to suppress as
11 to anything that the officer discerned by the pat-down search.
12 Now you're testifying as to the pat-down search, you
13 understand that?
14 MR. COUGHLIN: Um, I'm a little afraid right now, I
15 just want to testify, and I don't want to upset anybody.
16 THE COURT: You're not upsetting me, but you're
17 possibly waiving any argument you might have with respect to the
18 pat-down search, but that's already been ruled on.
19 MR. COUGHLIN: I'm too afraid right now to make any
20 statements with the issue of the ruling on it.
21 THE COURT: Afraid of what?
22 MR. COUGHLIN: Of being told I'm not testifying, or
23 the Court finding I'm not testifying.
24 THE COURT: You can testify, I'm just saying you're
30
1 waiving any argument you might have with respect to the pat-down
2 search.
3 MR. COUGHLIN: Okay. But there might be things I say
4 right now that I think would probably be tantamount to legal
5 arguments, and I understand Mr. Young's displeasure with that.
6
THE COURT: Go ahead, sir. I'm sorry to interrupt
7 you, testify as to the facts, go ahead.
8
9
10
Urn
THE WITNESS: Yes, sir.
THE COURT: You said your hands were over your head,
11 and he was patting you down.
12
THE WITNESS: Yes, sir. And I had gained a bunch of
13 weight, I had an upsetting breakup that involved a lot of finger
14 pointing in my family, or just -- there's not a lot of family
15 support incident to the breakup, and the breakup involved
16
17 on.
18
19
20
21
22
23
is I
THE COURT: You testified to this yesterday, so move
THE WITNESS: But the reason I'm getting back to this
gained a lot of weight.
THE COURT: You testified to that yesterday.
THE WITNESS: The underwear
--
THE COURT: You testified to that as well.
THE WITNESS: When he was searching my waistband his
24 hands were run along, and I said "I'm a lawyer" and it seemed to
31
1 startle him, and his hands I believe slipped forward and touched
2 my private part.
3 THE COURT: You testified to that yesterday also.
4 THE WITNESS: And then I recall he withdrew it in a
5 startled way. So as though he was startled, and went forward,
6 touched private, and quickly withdrew it, urn -- and I might, if
7 it's all right if I refresh my recollection with the video of
8 that incident to see
9 THE COURT: No, it's not all right. I've given you
10 plenty of opportunity to refresh your memory, to play the
11 exhibits, to mark them at the spot you wanted to play them, to
12 arrange with the clerk to do so, you didn't do any of that, so,
13 no, you may not. Go ahead.
14 THE WITNESS: I somewhat at the time recall hearing
15 the waistband comment, urn, it's a little difficult to separate
16 that from my
it's a little difficult to discern my
17 recollection at that time from what I subsequently discovered in
18 my investigations.
19 Urn, at that time, right after I said I was a lawyer, it
20 seemed to be off-putting to him. I didn't mean it to be
21 off-putting to him, and urn, I recall thinking at the time that
22 might not have been the smartest thing to do. I wasn't
23 trying -- I recall thinking I wasn't trying -- he might perceive
24 it as I was trying to say I'm a lawyer, I deserve special
32
1 treatment, or I'm a lawyer you better not watch -- you better
2 not mess with me being a lawyer, and I recall thinking oh,
3 shoot, that's not what I meant at all. What I meant is I'm like
4 you, I make my living in a law enforcement setting. We're held
5 to a high standard, urn, and we both have to constantly be on
6 guard of doing that which exhibits the highest standards of
7 morality and fidelity to the law.
8 Urn, because I'm aware through a lot of independent research
9 and exposure I've had throughout my life a lot of professional
10 issues and stuff like that, and moral character, moral turpitude
11
12
13
type --
MR. YOUNG: Objection, Your Honor.
THE COURT: Sustained. I've already told you
14 yesterday this is not a trial about your morality, but whether
15 or not you violated the law.
16 THE WITNESS: Yes, sir.
17 THE COURT: Specifically, whether you at this point
18 are guilty of the offense as charged, and the elements of that
19 offense, which I've told you many times what those elements are.
20
21
THE WITNESS: Yes, sir.
THE COURT: And one of them is not morality.
22 THE WITNESS: Yes, sir.
23 And I had no intent at any time that night to steal
24 anything from anybody, urn, and, urn, I did not move to retrieve
33
.-----
1 the iPhone being held aloft upon the still unidentified man's
2 holding it aloft, urn, between the point when he held it aloft
3 and the point where he said he was going to throw it in the
4 river, during that interval of time I had no intent to go
5 retrieve that phone specifically, and I had, urn, urn, and I
6 undertook no action to do that.
7
8 time.
THE COURT: I'm going to relieve Mr. Leslie at this
9 MR. LESLIE: Your Honor, actually, if I may, the
10 situation is that I can probably stay longer than I originally
11 indicated, but I wonder if we took a five minute break, I know
12 Mr. Young has a case that he needs to talk to opposing counsel
13 about. I can talk to the lawyers that need me for their
14 hearing, and we can come back and may be able to finish this
15 case today.
16
17
THE COURT: That's fine.
MR. LESLIE: Is that okay?
18 THE COURT: We'll take a five minute recess, if that's
19 all right with Mr. Young.
20 Mr. Young?
21
22
MR. YOUNG: I'm sorry, I wasn't listening.
THE COURT: He had suggested that you had a case that
23 you needed possibly to resolve, and if we took a five minute
24 recess you might be able to do that, and then we can continue
34
,,,..---.. ..
1 Mr. Leslie will probably be free.
2 MR. YOUNG: I'd appreciate a five minute recess.
3
THE COURT: We will take it.
4 You can step down.
5 I will allow you during the recess to find the lone DVD
6 that you mentioned that you made of the arrest incident.
7 MR. COUGHLIN: Okay. And the grabbing --
8 THE COURT: Whatever it was that was your DVD
9 contemporaneous with the arrest before
10 MR. COUGHLIN: That's how we set it up.
11 THE COURT: I don't know how it's set up, but get it
12 ready to run and you can work with the clerk to get it done.
13
14
MR. COUGHLIN: Yes, sir.
THE COURT: That would do it on her desktop, or up
15 here. It may -- so you present the one or two disks that you
16 have to the Court, but if it's not ready when we reconvene that
17 will be the end of it.
18 MR. COUGHLIN: Yes, sir.
19 (Recess taken.)
20 THE COURT: Before we do anything else, I told you --
21 and we're back on the record, right?
22 THE CLERK: Yes, sir.
23 THE COURT: I told you earlier that I would allow you
24 to play the DVD of the arrest incident. And you ended up giving
35
1 the clerk five -- six CDs or DVDs, one of those is the same call
2 we've heard twice now, and I'm not going to listen to it again.
3 So you need to designate right now, I'll give you
4 30 seconds to do it, which is the DVD. You said you filmed or
5 audiotaped the arrest?
6 MR. COUGHLIN: Yes, sir.
7 THE COURT: And these are not that.
8 MR. COUGHLIN: When you referenced the call you heard,
9 do you say that because it says 911 call? Because there's three
10 that I know of.
11 THE COURT: I told you what I was willing to play and
12 that's it.
13 MR. COUGHLIN: I'm a little unclear.
14 THE COURT: You're not playing any games, get back on
15 the stand, let's finish.
16 MR. COUGHLIN: Yes, sir.
17 THE COURT: I'm going to give you today one half hour
18 to get your testimony done. And you're going to have about five
19 minutes right now, and then we're going to continue it this
20 afternoon at 2:30, because Mr. Young has a prelim, but he
21 anticipates he'll be done at 2 :30, and you need to be here.
22 MR. YOUNG: Your Honor, I'm not available at 2:30.
23 THE COURT: I understand. I'm going to relieve
24 Mr. Leslie, after this morning, from any further responsibility
36
1 in this case, and any liability as to what happens from this
2 point forward.
3 MR. LESLIE: As of now, or as of -- right now?
4 THE COURT: As of right now.
5 MR. LESLIE: Is the public defender's office hereby
6 relieved as standby counsel?
7 THE COURT: Yes. And let me state this on the record.
8 I do find that a good part of the delay in this case was caused
9 by Mr. Coughlin up until this point, with the exception of the
10 time from 10:30 to approximately 11:30 -- well, 10:07 to 11:30
11 when he was otherwise occupied by the hearing in Judge Clifton's
12 courtroom.
13 All right. So we will proceed now, and you're free to go.
14 MR. LESLIE: Thank you, and I have no obligation to
15 return for any --
16 THE COURT: No obligation, because we're going to
17 finish this today.
18 MR. LESLIE: I just wanted to clarify. We'll close
19 our file, thank you.
20 THE COURT: Okay. Go ahead where we left off, sir.
21 MR. COUGHLIN: Yes, sir. Would it be possible to --
22 that's my
23 THE COURT: Well, you had indicated you were polite
24 with Officer Duralde at all times, I remember that, and you
37
1 were -- you had testified about being patted down, and then I
2 had asked you to address the arrest, and --
3 MR. COUGHLIN: Your Honor, I know I testified, but
4 it's the rule of exclusion, are there any witnesses here?
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
THE COURT: There's no witness here that I'm aware of.
Would you identify yourself?
UNIDENTIFIED SPECTATOR: (Indecipherable) . Judge
Pearson is my mentor.
THE COURT: It's a public hearing, and she's appearing
simply to learn about cases.
THE WITNESS: Urn, urn, so Officer Duralde -- I did not
yell anything about any inappropriate touching. I might have
13 testified to this a bit already, but I just wanted to make it
14 clear that I did make a comment upon it. I think Officer
15 Duralde was -- my recollection, I probably shouldn't say it,
16 just say what I know, right?
17 My recollection is that I didn't yell, but I didn't -- I
18 don't believe I said "don't touch me there."
19 I believe what I said was "you touched me" and a term for a
20 private part in somewhat of a, you know, wow, that's unexpected,
21 not necessarily welcome type tone.
22 And then I do recall I heard this verbatim, I think I then
23 did say "I would appreciate it if you would not touch me," and I
24 used a pretty benign term for a -- I probably should have used a
38
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
more clinical term for private part.
Urn, urn, it was a completely legitimate response. It was --
it startled me, and surprised me, it was not done for any
manipulative purpose.
Urn, it was just something that happened, because the
underwear waistband was cut that way, in connection with
announcing I was a lawyer.
It's not an icebreaker to tell
somebody you're a lawyer, or tell somebody you're a police
officer or law enforcement. In my opinion it can put people on
guard a little bit, and sometimes make them just not like you, I
find lots of times.
Urn, urn, I recall I believe it was Austin Lichty saying
13 "give us the phone, faggot," and -- but I can't say who said it
14 specifically, I guess, if I can't hear the voices and compare
15 'em with my, urn, computer and stuff, and I -- I'm too afraid to
16 have my computers and stuff in here right now. Urn, so I put
17 them in an offsite location, urn, because I'm afraid, and I can
18 say this later, sir, I know I'm not testifying, so --
19 THE COURT: You can testify as to what happened to the
20 best of your recollection, sir.
21 THE WITNESS: And I was just saying if you'll allow
22 me, why I'm worried about my computer, but --
23 THE COURT: No, I think it's irrelevant.
24
THE WITNESS: Okay. But urn, urn, I recall, urn, some
39
1 background noise, radio traffic, or a call I believe it was,
2 Mr. Goble's voice saying, urn -- I think he said, but I'm not
3 totally sure, I know he said something like this, I just can't
4 remember which side he said, but I think he said if it's not in
5 the left side pocket, or something like that, maybe he switched
6 it to the other one, but he might have said if it's not in the
7 right, or visa versa, but I know he said something like that.
8 I know -- I believe what I would call the pat-down I said,
9 urn, do you have a right to be searching my pockets right now?
10 Urn, it was my understanding at that point that because I
11 had asked the officers I believe at several points during what
12 seemed to me to be a stop, whether or not I was under arrest at
13 that point, I believe it was Officer Rosa and Duralde, but
14 Officer Alaksa may have made some statement in this regard too,
15 but they had seemed as a group they indicated no, I was not
16 under arrest at the point where I said do you have a right to be
17 searching my pockets right now, and near the time to where
18 Mr. Goble, I'm fairly certain it was his voice, I'm certain
19 somebody said it, it was not out there, but a person saying if
20 it's not in their pocket
21 THE COURT: You've said that, now this is the second
22 time.
23 THE WITNESS: Okay.
24 Urn, urn -- sir, I apologize if you've ruled on this, but may
40
1 I authenticate a reference on video?
2 THE COURT: I've already ruled none of them are coming
3 in. I've given you every opportunity. I gave you during the
4 break to identify which ones you wanted specifically.
5 The one I said you could still put in was the video of the
6 actual arrest and you said you made it, was stipulated by
7 Mr. Young you could do that. You've yet to identify which one
8 that is.
9 MR. COUGHLIN: I was a bit unclear on that.
10 THE COURT: It's very clear.
11 MR. COUGHLIN: Okay, sir, to the extent you only said
12 one, I placed -- if you were only going to select one I placed
13 it on the top I made some indications to the Court officers in
14 that respect.
15 THE COURT: I'm going to have to continue anyhow,
16 we're going to continue this, as I said, you be back at 2:15.
17 Are you going to be covering this afternoon, or somebody
18 else?
19 THE CLERK: I'll be here.
20 THE COURT: I will let you in at 2:15 and you can play
21 those, whatever it is, and identify the one that you claim is
22 this DVD of the arrest.
23
24
MR. COUGHLIN: Yes, sir.
THE COURT: And in addition to that I will give you
41
lone half hour to testify, and then we're done. And it will be
2 approximately around 2:30, but we don't even know that for
3 certain, so you'll have to be here at 2:15, and ready to
4 identify what it is you want.
In fact, maybe I should say 2:00.
5
Is there any possibility we could be done at 2:15?
6
MR. YOUNG: The prelim starts at 1:30, I don't know.
7 As soon as I'm done with the prelim I'll be available to
8 continue this.
9
MR. COUGHLIN: Sir, can I ask, sir
10
THE COURT: Go ahead.
11
MR. COUGHLIN: And I -- I've referenced to the
12 bailiff, I believe, the dispatch between the dispatch and the
13 officer is kind of quiet audio that we tried playing here and
14 played on the Court system. It had the red City of Reno warning
15 on it. I believe it's on my desk over there now, that would be
16 heard into the record so it should be an exhibit in the
17 Court's
18 THE COURT: You already picked it up.
19 MR. COUGHLIN: Okay. And then the only other thing
20 is, sir, I believe I did indicate this, and now I just want to
21 make sure I'm not doing anything amiss, that had a lot of stuff
22 on it, and, urn, I believe it was the same thing that I had
23 attached to what I gave the Court and Mr. Young.
24 THE COURT: I'm going to say this one more time, sir,
42
1 THE COURT: We are, and the case is recalled.
2 Case Number RCR2011-063341, it is State versus Zachary
3 Coughlin, and I've already indicated on the record that we did
4 previously indicate that Mr. Coughlin would have the opportunity
5 to have a DVD ready to go at 2:15, and then we would hear the
6 case at 2:30.
7
And it was now 2:37, I was here at 2:15, Mr. Young was here
8 at 2:15.
9 MR. COUGHLIN: I did not understand that the Court
10 THE COURT: I wasn't intending for me to listen to the
11 DVD, it was to have the opportunity for you to review the DVD
12 and determine that that was the one.
13
MR. COUGHLIN: I understood I gave the Court a number
14 of exhibits earlier in the day, they left my possession, they
15 were in the Court --
16 THE COURT: Sir, at 2:15 we were available for you.
17 It is now, like I said, 2: 38.
18 THE WITNESS: I was here at 2:30.
19 THE COURT: Okay. Well, I'm not holding you in
20 contempt for not being here at 2:30, I'm just saying that we are
21 not going to listen to a tape that was not ready.
22 MR. COUGHLIN: The tape was ready when I gave it to
23 the clerk.
24 THE COURT: Okay. Which tape is it?
45
1
2
3
4
Honor.
MR. COUGHLIN: It's this one on top of the stack, Your
THE COURT: And how long is it, sir?
MR. COUGHLIN: Well, the portion I would like the
5 Court to hear is only about 20 seconds long.
6 THE COURT: Is this the one, the DVD that Mr. Young
7 stipulated to be admitted?
8 MR. COUGHLIN: I'm not sure which one --
9
THE COURT: He stipulated to admit the DVD which was
10 your video of the arrest incident.
MR. COUGHLIN: No, this is a different one.
THE COURT: Then that's not the one we talked about.
11
12
13
14
What is this one?
MR. COUGHLIN: This is where Nicole Watson admits she
15 heard--
16 THE COURT: Okay. That's not admissible, I've already
17 ruled on that, so we don't need to waste time on that.
18 The only one that I said you would be able to play was the
19 DVD recording that you made on your cellphone of the arrest
20 incident, which Mr. Young stipulated to.
21 The one with Ms. Watson was objected to and the Court ruled
22 on that, and it is not admissible.
23 MR. COUGHLIN: I'm sorry, Your Honor. It's just a
24 simple -- it's hearsay.
46
1
THE COURT: I'm not going to go back over that, I've
2 already ruled on that. A motion once made and denied is not
3 reviewable under our rules.
4
MR. COUGHLIN: I'm not trying to review it, Your
5 Honor, I'm sorry --
6 THE COURT: Don't be sorry, proceed with your
7 testimony, sir.
8 MR. COUGHLIN: Just to make the record clear --
9 THE COURT: The record is clear.
10
11
12
MR. COUGHLIN: Hearsay or relevancy?
MR. YOUNG: Both.
THE COURT: The record is clear, we are not going to
13 go through it again. You may proceed with your testimony.
14 MR. COUGHLIN: But I can't say anything more about it
15 now?
16
THE COURT: You are done. I'm going to hold you in
17 contempt again.
18 MR. YOUNG: Your Honor, before the break you had
19 indicated that you were going to hold the balance of
20 Mr. Coughlin's direct examination to thirty minutes, is that
21 still the Court's intention?
22 THE COURT: It is. And five minutes are up.
23 MR. YOUNG: Thank you.
24 MR. COUGHLIN: Can I use that how I choose?
47
1 THE COURT: You can use it as you choose.
2 MR. COUGHLIN: Can I play some videos?
3 THE COURT: No. I said subject to objection by the
4 district attorney.
5 MR. COUGHLIN: Okay. Can I -- when he has a stack of
6 exhibits and he goes this, this, this, and we go each one
7 one-by-one, can we do that?
8 THE COURT: Sir, I have already ruled for many reasons
9 why we're not going to go through the audios and videos any
10 longer. The primary one was you were not ready to go.
11 I had given you many opportunities to que it up and have it
12 ready and I've wasted --
13
MR. COUGHLIN: I still have 20 minutes, right, can I
14 use it to put on my case as I wish?
15 THE COURT: You can put on your case as you wish
16 subject to relevant objections by the -- or legal objections by
17 the district attorney.
18 MR. COUGHLIN: I'm sorry, Your Honor, but if I wish to
19 admit, and I think --
20
21
22
sir.
THE COURT: I decide whether it's admitted, not you,
MR. COUGHLIN: Or seek admission, sir, of a video
23 taken that night of the arrest prior to the police arriving.
24 THE COURT: I already said that would have been
48
1 admissible.
2 MR. COUGHLIN: And now
3 THE COURT: As part of your time, yes, I will allow
4 you to do it. You can approach the bench if you have it.
5 And, sir, you have more than 20 minutes, you have 25,
6 roughly 24 now.
7 MR. COUGHLIN: Starting from now?
8 THE COURT: Well, no yes, starting from right now.
9 MR. COUGHLIN: Okay.
10 THE COURT: Because we started the clock at --
II MR. COUGHLIN: 2:42.
12 Your Honor, I'd like to move to admit in evidence a 911
13 call by Cory Goble.
14 THE COURT: We already heard that one.
15 MR. COUGHLIN: I don't believe you heard this one.
16 You heard the one where the dispatch operator was talking to
17 police. This is the one where she's talking to Ms.
18 (indecipherable), I believe is the name.
19 THE COURT: All right. We'll let you play it, just so
20 there's no confusion it was not 2:42 when we started, it was
21 2:35, so your time is running from 2:35, so at five after 3:00
22 we will be done. All right?
23 MR. COUGHLIN: Yes, sir.
24 There's no objection?
49
1 MR. YOUNG: I don't know what -- I need to hear the
2 call, I have no idea what you're talking about.
3
MR. COUGHLIN: You've been provided this call.
4 MR. YOUNG: I've been provided a lot of calls.
5 THE COURT: You do not direct him, if he wants to make
6 an objection, he can, and I'll rule on it, but in the meantime,
7 you let him start.
8 Do you have it?
9 THE CLERK: Yes, I have it, I just want to make sure
10 it's the one--
II THE COURT: Okay.
12
13
MR. COUGHLIN: I'll play it.
THE COURT: If you have anymore, Mr. Coughlin, I would
14 suggest you bring them up now, because you're using up your
15 time.
16 MR. COUGHLIN: Yes, Your Honor.
17 THE CLERK: Do you want me to start this?
18 MR. COUGHLIN: The format mark is what I'd like the
19 Judge to hear, yes.
20 MR. YOUNG: Well, if he's playing a call, the whole
21 call should be played. He can't say I want two seconds of a
22 call to be played.
23 MR. COUGHLIN: Do you have any support for that?
24 THE COURT: He has the right to have the whole call,
50
1 but how long is the call?
2 MR. COUGHLIN: Oh, wait, okay. If this is the call,
3 it's short enough, play the whole thing. I'm sorry, I'm still
4 stuck on the whole philosophy.
5 (CD played) .
6 MR. COUGHLIN: Some noise like that, but that's not
7 it, Your Honor .
8 THE COURT: I didn't quite get that.
9 MR. YOUNG: I'll address that, Your Honor, I don't
10 know the relevance, but for purposes of clarity I will not
11 object to the admission of that call.
12 MR. COUGHLIN: Can I address the relevancy?
13 THE COURT: He's not objecting.
14
MR. COUGHLIN: Okay. I believe this is it. I know we
15 played the arrest video, but I don't think we've ever admitted
16 it into evidence.
17 If I may seek to admit this now, I don't necessarily -- it
18 would be nice to know for sure that that's what this is.
19 THE COURT: It's your time, you use it.
20 MR. COUGHLIN: Yes, sir.
21 THE COURT: But the problem is I don't know how to
22 I'm going to ask -- I'm going to ask the clerk if it's the
23 arrest video.
24 MR. YOUNG: Your Honor, my concern is this: We're
51
1 admitting a whole -- we're admitting several disks that are
2 being provided by Mr. Coughlin. I don't know if there's more
3 content than what he's purporting them to be, just so we're
4 clear, only the part if there are other parts
5
THE COURT: The only parts that are admitted is what
6 is actually on the audio recording of this proceeding.
7
MR. YOUNG: I understand, but there might be ten other
8 clips on that disk that I'm not aware of.
9
THE COURT: Okay. But what I'm saying is the disk
10 itself is -- what is admitted is limited to what was actually
11 played in court.
12
13
MR. YOUNG: Thank you.
THE CLERK: And I wrote down the first call, the 911
14 on that disk, that's all we heard.
15
16
17
18
19
20
that went.
MR. YOUNG: Thank you. On that last disk?
THE CLERK: That's what we heard.
MR. YOUNG: Is it the first or second one?
THE CLERK: As soon as I played it that's the call
MR. COUGHLIN: Right, but he made two calls. You
21 don't know whether it was the one at 11:22 or 11:30?
22
23 disk.
24
THE CLERK: I'm just saying it's the first calIon the
THE COURT: You heard it, sir.
52
1 MR. COUGHLIN: I have the dispatch log.
2 THE COURT: I understand, sir, but you're the one
3 that's proffering the evidence, so I can only go by what you're
4 asking to be admitted.
5 We'll have to listen to the audio. Play it, just start it.
6 (CD played) .
7 MR. COUGHLIN: I'll just move on, Your Honor, that is
8 the one you watched.
9 THE COURT: Wait a second, I want to hear a few more
10 sentences to confirm what you're saying.
11 MR. COUGHLIN: I hope you can see it too, is it a
12 video?
13 THE CLERK: It's a video.
14 MR. COUGHLIN: It is, okay. And there's only video
15 before it goes in the pocket for probably 20 seconds, and then
16 it's dark.
17
18
19
THE COURT: Let me see it.
(Videotape played) .
MR. YOUNG: I'm going to object to this. This is not
20 the night in question.
21
MR. COUGHLIN: That's the arrest, the officer shows up
22 in a second.
23 THE COURT: Go a little further.
24 (Audiotape played) .
53
1 THE COURT: That is admitted.
2 MR. COUGHLIN: Thank you.
3 I'd like to move to admit the 911 ECOMM dispatch logs from
4 all relevant periods in question that night.
5 MR. YOUNG: Can I see them first, please?
6 MR. COUGHLIN: Yes, sir.
7 THE COURT: That one's admitted, so if you can -- just
8 the first video.
9 Mr. Coughlin, just to be clear, it's the first video on
10 Exhibit 4 that is --
11
12
THE CLERK: 9.
THE COURT: Exhibit 9, that is admitted.
13 MR. COUGHLIN: Yes, sir.
14 MR. YOUNG: Your Honor, again, while I could object to
15 this, for purposes of clarity I will not object to this
16 two-page, I would ask that it be marked on, but the two-page
17 documentation from dispatch.
18 They're not stapled, if we could staple them so we know
19 it's one document.
20
21
22
THE COURT: I think it's stapled together.
Since they are admitted I will review them.
MR. COUGHLIN: Your Honor, I'd also like to testify
23 that that night --
24 THE COURT: You need to come back up here if you're
54
1 going to testify.
2 MR. COUGHLIN: I'm going to be running back and forth.
3 Can I bring any materials with me?
4 THE COURT: If there's no objection, he can sit at
5 counsel table.
6 MR. YOUNG: He had his papers up there with him the
7
8
9
10
whole time.
DIRECT EXAMINATION (CONTINUED)
THE WITNESS: Your Honor, that night Officer Duralde,
11 and this is indicated on the video, he said he was going to
12 search pockets one way or another, something like that, but
13 later on Officer Rosa, I think, asked me my name, I gave them my
14 name and bar number, and I believe I demonstrated
15 THE COURT: Wait. I don't want him to have the
16 documents that are admitted, but he needs
17 THE WITNESS: I didn't fail to follow any other
18 commands or anything like that, there's no command or directions
19 I failed to follow, I didn't distribute any lack of cooperation
20 or noncompliance with any demands.
21 However, Officer Rosa indicated displeasure or something
22 about me, and indicated if I didn't do something, I can't recall
23 right now, that he was going to call the Nevada bar and tell 'em
24 how you cooperated with our investigation, "how's that running
55
1 for you," was the quote.
2 Urn, that despite Officer Duralde, from what I remember,
3 saying he didn't remember hearing anything like that, that
4 "how's that" became a catchphrase, because shortly at the point
5 where Officer Duralde decided to make an arrest, he goes, "now I
6 can search you incident to arrest."
7 Urn, I think he said "now you're under arrest, now I can
8 search you incident to arrest, how's that," using the same kind
9 of catchphrase that Office Rosa said "how's that running for
10 you," about calling the bar.
11
12
13
14
15
MR. YOUNG: Objection, argumentative.
THE COURT: That is.
THE WITNESS: I'm testifying now.
THE COURT: You can testify now, but you can't argue.
MR. YOUNG: I'll to object to the last part when he
16 started saying what that suggests.
17 MR. COUGHLIN: I apologize, Mr. Young, I understand
18 how you feel --
19 THE COURT: It's more than how he feels, it's the law.
20 The objection is sustained.
21 MR. COUGHLIN: Yes, sir, I apologize, Your Honor, I'm
22 trying not to do that.
23 THE WITNESS: I would like to testify that, urn, I was
24 given discovery initially, I believe soon enough to where it was
56
1 appropriate, urn, or as far as I know, but then at some point --
2 MR. YOUNG: Objection, Your Honor. One is not -- he's
3 not testifying when he's talking about discovery, two,
4 relevance.
5 MR. COUGHLIN: I'm testifying about when I got this
6 new narrative three months after the arrest all of a sudden.
7 MR. YOUNG: It's not testimony, objection.
8 MR. COUGHLIN: And then I'll speak to the new
9 narrative.
10 THE COURT: Why don't you first, just to expedite
11 this, show it to Mr. Young and see if there's an objection to
12 what you're trying to admit.
13 MR. COUGHLIN: Yes, sir. Urn, it is right here.
14 THE COURT: And just so we're clear on this, identify
15 to him exactly what it is, not to the Court, but to Mr. Young,
16 what it is that you're
17 MR. COUGHLIN: It's the police report that you guys
18 had from day one.
19
MR. YOUNG: No, it isn't. I got a supplemental dec to
20 what was originally provided.
21 MR. COUGHLIN: That's your argument, but all I know
22 when I got it, it was three months after the arrest.
23 MR. YOUNG: Okay.
24 MR. COUGHLIN: And it seemed to coincide to the
57
1
2
3
YouTube video.
THE COURT:
MR. YOUNG:
4 I would obj ect.
You're not going to show --
If he's moving to admit the police report,
5 MR. COUGHLIN: I'm moving to admit a narrative by
6 Officer Duralde.
7
8
MR. YOUNG: Which is the police report, I object.
THE COURT: All right. You can have it marked. As I
9 indicated previously, I'm going to sustain the objection to
10 the--
11 MR. COUGHLIN: The police report that encompasses -- I
12 don't know if that's a counter (indecipherable) -- that's not
13 the police report, can I move to have Mr. Young taken into
14 custody for a lack of candor to the tribunal now?
15 MR. YOUNG: Your Honor, what he showed me was not the
16 full police report, but the narrative of Officer Duralde's
17 police report.
18 THE COURT: I understand, the objection is sustained,
19 and you have made your record, it is offered.
20 MR. COUGHLIN: Not to this, Your Honor. This is not
21 what was provided to me as the police report initially.
22 This was provided as some sort of supplemental or something
23 three months later, and I think it goes to motive or some sort
24 of--
58
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
MR. YOUNG: Objection.
MR. COUGHLIN: Because I feel --
THE COURT: Motive is your motive for taking the phone
or not --
MR. COUGHLIN: I'm sorry if I don't understand an
offer of proof.
because I think
I'm trying to say why I think this is relevant,
THE COURT: I will let you say it, you're down to ten
minutes.
MR. COUGHLIN: Okay. I think it's relevant because I
11 think perhaps the Reno Police Department officers didn't know
12 there was a recording, and it's possible, I don't know, I don't
13 know, it's possible once they found out they decided to -- I
14 don't know when this was produced. Mr. Young's able to provide
15 evidence, but it has a printed date, and I know I received it
16 about three months after the arrest, and that's all I know.
17 And it contains materials about the inappropriate touching
18 and all this stuff, that I do not believe indicates -- I went
19 into this in detail, really specific detail in my brief, but I
20 do not believe that it was indicated in the initial offering by
21 police department.
22 So to me it implies, oh, we've seen the video now, oh,
23 yeah, that's out there, we should probably put that in the
24 original supplemental declaration, but we didn't, so now we'll
59
1 have this narrative.
2 THE COURT: Except, sir, your argument, since the
3 police report was never admissible to begin with, the fact that
4 they are supplementing it is nonadmissible as well, and it
5 should never have come to the Court's attention, so your
6 argument that somehow they're trying to change the record of
7 something which has never come to the attention of the Court,
8 doesn't make much sense.
9 MR. COUGHLIN: Yes, just saw the police report being
10 admissible, I just want to submit that I do believe there is a
11 theory to admit at least parts of the police reports.
12 MR. YOUNG: Your Honor, for the record, this is what
13 Mr. Coughlin is trying to admit is the original, it's not a
14 supplement, it's the original police report.
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
THE COURT: Well, in any event, the objection is
sustained. I think you made a record, but if you want to
continue to make a record, that's fine, you have seven minutes
left. It's your time.
MR. COUGHLIN:
I was trying to get a foundation what
Mr. Young was saying right now, to the extent -- that's
argument, never mind.
I'd like to move to admit what I believe was initially
provided to me in the materials deemed the police report, or the
discovery.
60
1 THE COURT: Show it to Mr. Young.
2 MR. YOUNG: I will object, Your Honor, this is the
3 declaration of probable cause. It's effectively a report.
4 THE COURT: Okay. We will have it marked, and this is
5 the PC sheet?
6 MR. YOUNG: Correct, which is inadmissible in a trial.
7 MR. COUGHLIN: I don't know -- PC sheet?
8 THE COURT: I'm going to uphold the objection at this
9 point.
10 MR. COUGHLIN: You're going to what?
11 THE COURT: I am going to sustain the objection.
12
13
THE CLERK: Is it admitted?
THE COURT: No, it's denied.
14 MR. COUGHLIN: May I provide an exception? Is it past
15 that point that I can do that?
16 THE COURT: You can make it for the record, but to the
17 extent that it is a PC sheet, or a police report, it is not
18 admissible.
19
MR. COUGHLIN: It does not say "PC sheet" on it, it
20 says "declaration supplement," and further, the police report
21 has to be in somewhere, it doesn't include everything in the
22 world, I don't think, so --
23 THE COURT: It's still a hearsay document.
24 MR. COUGHLIN: Business record exception.
61
1
2
THE COURT: No.
MR. COUGHLIN: Authoritative
3 THE COURT: I have ruled on it.
4 MR. COUGHLIN: Yes, sir.
I don't think that --
5 Um, um, I would like to move to admit into the record, Your
6 Honor, I'll show it to Mr. Young first, but the witness
7 statements of Cory Goble and Nathan Zarate as filled out that
8 night.
9 THE COURT: Well, again, sir, you did have them
10 testify, they were available under oath, you could have
11 confronted them with their statement, the extent that they were
12 inconsistent, you would have been able to
13 MR. COUGHLIN: Some people I guess
14 THE COURT: have them read from it, or you read
15 from it.
16 THE CLERK: Do you want these marked individually?
17 MR. COUGHLIN: Individually, please.
18 MR. YOUNG: And I would object.
19
THE COURT: The objection is sustained.
20 As I indicated earlier, both witnesses were here and
21 testified under oath and could have been confronted under
22 cross-examination as to their prior statements to the extent
23 they were inconsistent, sir, I don't even know they were
24 inconsistent, but they're not admissible.
62
1 MR. COUGHLIN: I spelled out, I completely worked
2 unbelievably hard spelling out in my brief why they are
3 inconsistent, and if you're going to say that is --
4 THE COURT: What I'm trying to say is your brief is
5 not the trial.
6
7
8
that on
MR. COUGHLIN: I understand. Mr. Young was provided
THE COURT: I understand all that, sir, but you had
9 the opportunity to confront the witnesses while they were here
lOin court under oath.
11 MR. COUGHLIN: I would -- I'm trying not to argue, or
12 make argument, but that also would have helped them make sure
13 what they said was consistent with their police report, and I
14 prefer to let them say what they think now, and then let the
15 record be reflective of the mass discrepancies.
16 THE COURT: That's one of the problems with
17 representing yourself, sir.
18
19
MR. COUGHLIN: I'm sorry, Your Honor?
THE COURT: I said that's one of the problems with
20 representing yourself.
21 MR. COUGHLIN: Urn, just to confirm, Your Honor, the
22 record we have admitted what E-com provided me
23 THE COURT: That has been admitted. The police
24 reports, the PC sheet, the prior statements of witnesses have
63
1 not been admitted.
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
MR. COUGHLIN: Yes, sir.
Urn, I'm sorry, some of this is kind of fine points, and
it's difficult to remember if you've ruled on it, but I would
like to testify that I saw Nathan Zarate attempt to shush or
shut up Nicole Watson
THE COURT: I think you've tried to do that, but I'll
allow you to try to testify again, sit down and testify, to the
extent it's objected to, I will rule on that objection.
THE WITNESS: And I was, I guess you might call it
interviewing these youths after being released from jail. I
asked the youths did any of you see this unidentified man, who
to me it appeared -- I don't know if I personally saw him pick
up anything -- I don't know if I saw him exactly where he was
located, I might have, but I don't have camera surveillance, I
don't have a rock solid recollection of that.
But I can't say I didn't either, I kinda have a dim -- a
hazy memory of it. But he was nowhere near a ledge as
demonstrated in this photograph. He was nowhere near this is
northern, this is Cal-Neva, he was nowhere near this northern
part here .
This man was right about -- not smack dab in the middle of
the park, but closer to this ice skating hut rink thing on the
easterly side, but not even that close to that. He was about --
64
1 he would be on like the 20-yard line if this was a football
2 field.
3 I think I might have seen him pick something up there, but
4 to the extent I didn't, I remember -- or I try not to make
5 argument, but I don't believe he picked something up way over by
6 this ledge, and then walked all the way out to the 20-yard line
7 of the easterly side of the skate plaza, and then asked loudly,
8
9
10
is this anybody's
never mind.
I remember at the time -- that's argument,
Urn, urn, I recall telling Officer Duralde that I had felt
11 I believe I told him I called 911, and urn, if I may move to
12 admit that into evidence, sir, my 911 call.
13 THE COURT: Any objection?
14 MR. YOUNG: Didn't we --
15 THE CLERK: What exhibit is it?
16
17
18
19
MR. COUGHLIN: This is Exhibit 11.
THE COURT: We never ruled on this.
MR. YOUNG: I'll have to listen to it again.
THE COURT: This is the last thing, because your time
20 is up, we'll listen to it.
21 THE WITNESS: As far as testimony, I looked up and I
22 never heard any buzzing that night, or anything of that sort.
23 And I have, urn, researched and verified that iPhone G3s can be
24 set for an ap that might be involved getting an ap for it, but
65
1 can be set the screen lights up to indicate an incoming call or
2 something and nothing happens. So you can set it so that's the
3 only indicator of a call, and so that it might be on silent but
4 it's not on vibrate, urn, but I didn't hear any vibrating from
5 anywhere that night.
6 And can I -- I can't argue yet?
7 THE COURT: No, you're going to be able to argue in a
8 couple of minutes.
9 But you're going to have to sit down because you're done
10 with your testimony, and we're going to listen to the --
11
12
13
14
15 done.
THE WITNESS: Yes, sir, thank you.
(Audiotape played.)
MR. YOUNG: No objection.
THE COURT: That's admitted into evidence, so we're
16 MR. YOUNG: I'm not objecting to that particular call.
17 THE COURT: That call is admitted.
18 You will need to come back up here, sir, for
19 cross-examination.
20 MR. COUGHLIN: Yes, sir.
21 MR. YOUNG: May I proceed?
22
23
24
THE COURT: Oh, yes, sorry.
CROSS-EXAMINATION
66
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
BY MR. YOUNG:
Q Sir, you said many times on your direct examination if
you had a phone, do you recall repeating that line several
times?
A I've gotten so little sleep lately that --
Q Fair enough. Did you have a phone on your possession
on August 20th, 2011 in the late hours down at the skate rink
8 that was not yours?
9 MR. COUGHLIN: I believe that exceeds -- objection, I
10 believe that exceeds the scope of the direct testimony, and
11 transactional immunity.
12
13
14
15
of --
THE COURT: You don't have any immunity, sir.
MR. COUGHLIN: Not immunity, but it exceeds the scope
THE COURT: Okay. I'm going to overrule the
16 objection.
17 THE WITNESS: Can you ask the question again?
18 BY MR. YOUNG:
19
20
21
22
23
24
Q Sure.
August 20th, 2011, you agree that that is the night
that all of this happened, correct?
A Yes.
Q You being, in your testimony, accosted by juveniles or
youths, right?
67
1
2
A
Q
Yes.
Okay. During that incident, did you have on your
3 person a cellphone that was not yours?
4
5
A
Q
I'm not sure.
Good enough.
6 MR. YOUNG: Could I see Exhibits A and B, please.
7 THE WITNESS: Isn't that --
8 BY MR. YOUNG:
9
10
11
Q
12 seen them.
There's no question before you, sir.
MR. COUGHLIN: Well, I'm going to object.
THE COURT: You have the right to object once you've
13 BY MR. YOUNG:
Q I'm showing you, sir, what has been admitted as
Exhibit A and B.
14
15
16
17
18
MR. COUGHLIN: Objection, this is a police report.
THE COURT: It's not a police report.
THE WITNESS: It was provided with the police report
19 t o me.
20 THE COURT: It was also admitted in evidence during
21 the trial based on testimony of the witness that owned the
22 phone.
23 So anyhow, your objection is overruled.
24 BY MR. YOUNG:
68
1 Q Sir, do you recognize A, B to be photos of the
2 cellphone?
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
A
Q
phone?
A
Q
A
Q
The photos from the police report?
Do you recognize those to be photos of a cellular
Um.
Do you know what a cellphone looks like?
It looks more like a Smart Phone to me.
Are those pictures of some Smart Phone or cellular
10 phone device? Yes or no?
11
12
A
Q
I would -- it appears as though they are.
Okay. Great. Your testimony that that phone was
13 taken from your pocket on the night of August 20th, do you
14 recall that testimony?
15 MR. COUGHLIN: Objection, relevancy.
16 THE COURT: Overruled.
17 BY MR. YOUNG:
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
Q
A
Q
A
Do you recall that testimony?
Can you repeat the question?
No. You heard the question.
I --
THE COURT: I will ask you to repeat the question.
BY MR. YOUNG:
Q You heard testimony that that phone was recovered from
69
.'---....,.
1 your shorts pocket, do you recall that testimony?
2 A By who?
3
4
5
Q
A
Q
By Officer Duralde.
No.
You don't recall Officer Duralde testifying that that
6 phone was removed from your pocket?
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
A
Q
He testified for hours.
Sir, you're under oath, and I'm asking you a simple
yes or no question. Do you recall, yes or no, Officer Duralde
testifying that that phone was removed from your shorts pocket?
A I recall him -- specifically this exact phone? Urn, my
memory is not that sharp on that.
Q Okay. So let me go back to my initial question which
you refused to answer.
MR. COUGHLIN: Objection, misstates the testimony.
MR. YOUNG: I haven't even asked the question yet.
MR. COUGHLIN: You said I refused to answer, I don't
believe I refused to answer anything today.
BY MS. YOUNG:
Q On August 20, 2011 t ~ night where you were at the
skate park in downtown Reno, correct?
A Yes, August 20th, 2011.
Q I asked you if you had any cellphones or Smart Phones,
24 or whatever you want to call it, on your person other than your
70
1 own? Did you?
2 A To help me understand, you said I refused to answer
3 when I said I wasn't sure?
4
Q Mr. Coughlin, we can do this one way or the other.
5 Will you answer my questions, since I'm now asking you
6 questions?
7
8
9
A
Q
A
I'm trying to understand what your question --
What don't you understand about my question, sir?
You were prefacing your question by saying you had
10 asked previously and I refused, and I'm saying I didn't refuse
11 anything, and I think I know what you mean now when I said I
12 wasn't sure, which goes to a lot of things -- when I said I
13 wasn't sure --
14 THE COURT: Sir, answer the question now.
15 question is not whether you refused the question --
16 BY MR. YOUNG:
The
17
Q Did you have, on the night of August 20th, 2011, have
18 in your possession a cellphone or a Smart Phone that was not
19 yours?
20
21
22
23
24 BY MR.
MR.
THE
THE
THE
YOUNG:
COUGHLIN:
COURT: You
WITNESS: I
COURT: So
Objection, asked and answered.
never answered it.
did, I said I'm not sure.
that's your answer now, that's fine.
71
1 Q So you don't know if you had somebody else's
2 cellphone?
3 MR. COUGHLIN: Objection, calls for a legal
4 conclusion.
5
6
THE COURT: Overruled.
THE WITNESS: I think it's the same answer, I'm not
7 sure. I don't think -- I didn't think I was stealing I
8 didn't think I was doing anything that was tantamount to
9 stealing, I didn't have any felonious intent.
10
11
12
BY MR. YOUNG:
Q I get your position,
Let me ask you this:
I'm not asking you that.
Upon your contact with Officer
13 Duralde, did he remove a cellphone from your pocket?
14
15
A
Q
Are you --
Yes or no, sir? Did Officer Duralde remove a
16 cellphone from your shorts pocket during this night?
17
18
19
20
21
A
Q
please.
A
Q
Prior to the point of arrest?
You don't get to ask questions, sir, answer mine,
Okay. Yes, sir. Um, I'm not sure.
You don't know if Officer Duralde removed a cellphone
22 from your pocket?
23 A Well, if he did, he didn't give it to me to look at it
24 and verify exactly what it was.
72
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Q You heard a lot of these calls that you had admitted,
right, 911 calls and the like, and your video, and you heard
these youths, if you will, yelling at you and asking to give
their cellphone back, do you recall those parts of the
recordings that you played?
MR. COUGHLIN: Objection, hearsay.
THE COURT: Overruled.
THE WITNESS: Urn, do I -- I recall playing recordings
9 today, yes.
10 BY MR. YOUNG:
11
12
13
14
15
16
Q
A
hearsay.
Okay.
The ones that were admitted. Not the ones that were
Q Right. Do you recall hearing on those calls that had
been admitted that you moved into evidence, these kids or
youths, or however you want to describe them, asking you for
17 their cellphone back? Do you remember that, yes or no?
18 That's okay, it's in evidence, sir, I strike that
19 question.
20
21
A
Q
It seems as though they made statements
Your direct examination, sir
22 MR. COUGHLIN: Objection, he's not letting the witness
23 answer the question.
24 BY MR. YOUNG:
73
1 Q Sir, when you were testifying, you stated
2 MR. COUGHLIN: I'm sorry, Your Honor.
3 THE COURT: I said overruled.
4 MR. COUGHLIN: I'm sorry, Your Honor, I didn't hear.
5 THE COURT: You had the opportunity to answer. You
6 didn't, so he moved on.
7
8
9
10
THE WITNESS: I started to answer.
BY MR. YOUNG:
Q Mr. Coughlin, although you're currently temporarily
suspended, you did pass the state bar, correct?
11 MR. COUGHLIN: Objection, argument, facts not in
12 evidence.
BY MR. YOUNG: 13
14
15
Q Did you pass the state bar, sir?
MR. COUGHLIN: Objection, relevancy.
16 BY MR. YOUNG:
17
18
Q Well, I'm trying to ask you --
THE COURT: The objection is overruled. You did, sir,
19 testify earlier that you passed the state bar.
20 THE WITNESS: Okay.
21 THE COURT: And it is
22 MR. COUGHLIN: Then my objection is overruled. I
23 would just like the district attorney to show the proper
24 deference to the Court, and let the Court rule on the
74
1 obj ections.
2 THE COURT: Okay.
3 BY MR. YOUNG:
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Q My question is this, sir: You understand when a
witness is on the witness stand they need to answer the
attorney's questions, correct?
A When they're someone not functioning in a dual role
and they're just up here as a witness? I think generally that's
somewhat of an accurate statement.
Q Okay. So do your best to answer my questions, can you
11 do that for me?
12 MR. COUGHLIN: Urn, objection, relevancy.
13 BY MR. YOUNG:
14 Q Well, you fought me nonstop, so I'm asking you to just
15 answer my questions.
16
17
MR. COUGHLIN: Sorry, Mr. Young, I objected to --
THE COURT: Sir, the objection is overruled. You will
18 answer his questions unless you pose a proper legal objection.
19 And the Court will rule on it, and that's it.
20
21
22
me --
MR. COUGHLIN: I objected to relevancy. He's asking
THE COURT: I overruled that, and I have instructed
23 you to answer the questions, unless you pose a legal objection
24 that I sustain.
75
1 BY MR. YOUNG:
2 Q Sir, the question, I believe it was will you answer my
3 questions?
4
5
6
7
8
9
A That's your question?
Q Sure.
A Urn, to the extent it is required by law, yes.
Q Fantastic, thank you.
Do you recall your direct examination when you were
testifying you stated that you observed a man holding up an
10 iPhone about 11:20 p.m. saying "whose iPhone is this," do you
11 recall that testimony?
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
A
Q
A
Q
A
Q
A
Q
Urn, I don't know if it was verbatim that --
Something along those lines?
Urn, generally, yes.
Okay. That was your testimony, right?
You said about 11:20?
That's what you said.
Urn, yes.
Okay. And then you right after that said the same
20 person said something along the lines of "somebody claim it
21 right now or I'll throw it in the river," do you recall
22 testifying to that?
23 MR. COUGHLIN: Objection, hearsay.
24 BY MR. YOUNG:
76
1
2
Q
3 question.
4
You said it, sir.
THE COURT: Your objection is overruled, so answer the
MR. COUGHLIN: He didn't make that proper hearsay
5 exception argument.
6
7
THE COURT: You testified to it.
MR. COUGHLIN: He said part of an admission. If he's
8 having to do everything I have to do which is respond
9
10
THE COURT:
MR. YOUNG:
He's not a party opponent.
Your Honor, at this time I would be
11 remiss, Mr. Coughlin is being obstructionist, I would submit. I
12 would ask that you consider holding him in contempt, or at least
13 monitor his future conduct while on the stand, and hold him in
14 contempt if he does not start participating as a witness in a
15 criminal case.
16 MR. COUGHLIN: May I respond to that request?
17 THE COURT: Yes.
18 MR. COUGHLIN: Mr. Young wants to play eight on five,
19 he doesn't want to play five on five full-court.
20 When he has to play five on five full-court, he starts
21 asking the Court to throw somebody in jail so they don't have a
22 computer and they don't have a law library, and he doesn't have
23 to compete.
24 THE COURT: Okay. I have heard that, but you will be,
77
1 and I'll tell you for the final time, you will answer the
2 question unless you pose an objection that is sustained by the
3 Court. That's pretty clear.
4 THE WITNESS: Yes, sir, Your Honor.
5 THE COURT: Let's go forward then.
6 BY MR. YOUNG:
7
8
9
Q You said that you recall testifying that the man asked
whose phone it is, then my question was do you recall your
testimony that the same man said something along the lines of
10 "somebody claim it right now, or I'll throw it in the river," do
11 you recall testifying to that?
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
A I recall testifying about a man saying, yeah, somebody
claim it right now, or it's going in the river.
Q Great. Do you recall the very next thing that you
testified to after that was you being accosted by three youths,
in your words, they rushed up on you?
A I don't recall exactly what the record will reflect
maybe, because the record is what it is, and not say much.
Q That's fair. After this man held up the phone and
said something to the effect of "somebody claim it or it's going
in the river," did you take that phone from that man?
MR. COUGHLIN: Objection, calls for a legal
conclusion.
THE COURT: Overruled.
78
1 MR. COUGHLIN: If I just may offer a little
2 clarification on that, I'm not sure what he means by "take."
3 BY MR. YOUNG:
4
5
6
Q Did you receive it is all I'm asking?
MR. COUGHLIN: Calls for a legal conclusion.
THE COURT: Overruled.
7 MR. COUGHLIN: Received is one of the elements here,
8 it's a term of legal art. I think he probably means it in a
9 more general sense, but I can't be sure.
10
11
12
13 one more
THE COURT: The objection is overruled, sir.
MR. COUGHLIN: Yes, sir.
THE WITNESS: Urn, Mr. Young, would you mind saying it
14 BY MR. YOUNG:
15
16
17
Q
A
Q
No, answer my question, please.
I can't remember exactly what you asked.
My question, sir, it's very simple: When the man held
18 up the phone and said "someone claim it or I'll throw it in the
19 river," did you come into possession of that phone from that
20 man?
21
22
23
A
Q
If I may --
No, answer the question.
MR. COUGHLIN: Actually, I'm going to make a quick
24 objection, Your Honor.
79
1 THE COURT: You may object.
2 MR. COUGHLIN: Your Honor, um, I believe it was
3 from -- I believe it was on the fifth um, um, somewhere around,
4 um, 3:40, I'm not totally positive though wherein, and again on
5 October 22nd --
6 THE COURT: I'm sorry, that is not a legal objection,
7 it's overruled, go ahead and answer the question.
8 THE WITNESS: Okay, sir.
9 THE COURT: You are instructed to answer the question.
10 MR. COUGHLIN: You had just told me --
II THE COURT: A legal objection.
12 MR. COUGHLIN: -- that the suppression was not a
13 closed door, you had not finally ruled on it, it was still up
14 for--
15 THE COURT: This is nothing to do with suppression, it
16 has to do with whether or not you claimed that phone when he
17 offered it, it's simple.
18 MR. COUGHLIN: Okay. Maybe I don't understand
19 suppression. That maybe goes to why people don't testify that
20 much in suppression hearings or something.
21 THE WITNESS: Mr. Young, I'll answer that, from what I
22 recall about your answer -- or your question, you asked me did I
23 get a phone? Was I given a phone?
24 BY MR. YOUNG:
80
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Q Nope, that's not what I asked.
Would you like me to
repeat it again, Mr. Coughlin?
A
I don't mean to upset you, sir.
Q You're not upsetting me, you're just wasting
everyone's time, sir.
A
Q
You said some sort of verb indicating the phone --
Listen very carefully, I'll repeat it.
When the man, per your testimony, held up the phone
9 and said something along the lines of "someone claim it, or it's
10 going in the river," do you recall that happening?
11 A I recall him saying that. Something like that. I
12 don't know verbatim.
13 Q I'm not making you say verbatim.
14 A Okay.
15 Q After he said something like that, was he holding a
16 phone? Or when he said that was he holding a phone?
17 A Urn, you're asking me at that point did I know he was
18 holding a phone?
19 Q No. I'm asking you when he said that, you said he
20 held the phone aloft, was he holding a phone?
21 A Well, I was about a hundred yards from him, so I
22 couldn't discern exactly what he had in his hand was what he
23 purported it to be.
24 Q Okay. Did you approach him, or did somehow you two
81
1 come into close proximity to one another?
2 MR. COUGHLIN: Objection, relevancy.
3 THE COURT: Overruled. It's very relevant.
4 THE WITNESS: Yeah, okay. Yes.
5 BY MR. YOUNG:
6 Q Okay. And did you take anything from this man? And
7 I'm not saying take it by force, I'm just saying did you receive
8 anything from him?
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
A
Q
A
Q
A
Q
Urn, I believe he gave me something.
What do you belief that something to be, sir?
Urn, I'm not totally positive.
No? You're not certain that he gave you the phone?
Urn, I'm not sure when you say "the phone."
A phone.
A Urn, I'm not totally positive what it was, I would have
needed more of an opportunity to inspect it.
Q
Well, whatever it was that he gave you, it was
18 something, right?
19
20
21
22
23
24
A
Q
pocket?
A
Q
A
Yes.
Okay. Did you put that something in your front shorts
Urn, are you -- if I may ask a --
Nope.
Urn, I think so.
82
1
2
3
Q When you think you put that something in your front
shorts pocket, was it yours?
MR. COUGHLIN: Objection, calls for a legal
4 conclusion.
5 THE COURT: Well--
6 MR. YOUNG: You know what, I'll rephrase that.
7 MR. COUGHLIN: I think that kind of goes to the
8 ultimate issue.
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
MR. YOUNG: I'll rephrase it, Your Honor .
THE COURT: All right.
BY MR. YOUNG:
Q When you put that, or when you think you put something
in your pocket, was that something that you had arrived at the
skate park area with?
A Well, I put a few things I think in my pocket.
Q Uh-huh.
A
Q
A
Q
Can you be more specific?
I'm being as specific as you are being, sir.
Well, I had some headphones --
Did the man give you headphones?
A No.
Q The man gave you something which you know to be a
phone, right?
MR. COUGHLIN: Objection, asked and answered.
83
1 BY MR. YOUNG:
2
3
Q Do you know it to be a phone, sir?
MR. COUGHLIN: When I object --
4 THE COURT: First of all, the objection is overruled,
5 so go ahead. I mean, it's --
6 THE WITNESS: I did answer that already.
7 THE COURT: No, actually you didn't. You said you
8 didn't know what it was.
9
MR. COUGHLIN: That's an answer. It might not be the
10 answer he wants, but I got three full days of that, and I
11 managed to act like a professional.
12 THE COURT: Sir, you're not going to argue now.
13 And if you don't know it was a phone, and you don't know
14 you got a phone from this man, I don't know what your defense
15 is, but you can argue it later. But as I understood your
16 defense was this was given to you, found property or something.
17 MR. COUGHLIN: I don't believe I ever made affirmative
18 statements in that respect.
19 THE COURT: Never mind, just go ahead and answer the
20 question.
21 THE WITNESS: I honestly cannot remember the question
22 exactly right now.
23
24
BY MR. YOUNG:
Q The question is
84
1
THE COURT: You said you knew it was a phone.
2 BY MR. YOUNG:
3
Q
In fact, you know what you received from this man to
4 be a phone, correct?
5
6
7
8
A
And as I testified earlier, I believe what I said was
I was not sure, or I didn't know.
Q So you're telling this Court that you received an
unknown item from some man that you don't know, and you put it
9 in your pocket, is that your testimony?
10 A Um --
11 MR. YOUNG: May I sit down, Your Honor, this may take
12 a while.
13 THE WITNESS: My testimony reflected the difference
14 between the degrees of certainty, you're asking me if I had and
15 do I felt I could reasonably testify to.
16 You asked me if I was certain of this and certain of that,
17 and I was indicating the lack of certainty which I think goes to
18 the ultimate legal conclusion here.
19 BY MR. YOUNG:
20 Q Sir, I have not used the word "certainty" once.
21 My question, I'll repeat it, is it your testimony, yes
22 or no, you told me that you took an unknown item from an unknown
23 person and stuck it in your pocket, is that your testimony to
24 this Court?
85
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
A No, that wasn't my testimony.
It was way less black
and white than you're putting it out.
Q Okay. So
A Just like the ownership of certain things is less
black and white, just like whether or not somebody abandoned
something or not, or lost it, or mislaid it, which is really
legally distinct characterizations that all have different case
law that I researched thoroughly.
Q
A
Q
Are you done, sir?
Yes, sir.
Okay.
Is there a reason why you're not answering my
12 questions?
13 MR. COUGHLIN: Objection, misstates prior testimony,
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
and it's argumentative too, and it's badgering the witness.
THE COURT: They'll all be overruled, your objections
will be overruled.
BY MR. YOUNG:
Q Is there a reason you're not answering my questions?
A I don't know that I'm not. I feel I am answering your
questions, sir.
Q Okay. Fair enough.
22 You claimed in your testimony that this man held up a
23 phone and you said anybody could claim it, it could have been a
24 free-for-all, do you recall your testimony, those exact words
86
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
"free-for-all"?
A Urn, I don't know if in the setting what appeared to be
a quotation that you were making, the phrase free-for-all was
set up with the words surrounding it that you put, but I think
it's possible that phrase, the exact quotation "free-for-all"
might have come up at some point in my testimony.
But if you're asking me is what you just said verbatim
what I said, I would say I -- I barely gotten any sleep over the
last month preparing for my bar hearing --
Q You've made that perfectly clear, sir.
A which was on the 14th.
Q So you don't remember testifying to that?
A
Q
A
Q
A
Q
A
Q
You're saying did I verbatim say what you quoted off?
Yes. Do you remember saying that, yes or no?
Can you repeat the quotation?
No, Mr. Coughlin.
I can't
If you don't remember, let me know.
I don't recall what your quotation is.
Okay, fine.
You don't remember what my quotation is?
A Are you asking me was that verbatim said, or generally
was that sentiment expressed?
Q Do you remember saying something along the lines of
87
1
2
3
4
5
6
anyone could have claimed that phone, it could have been a
free-for-all? Do you recall that?
A Actually, it's only one line, so that helps me.
That's different from verbatim.
Q Do you recall that?
A Urn, it seems I said something in the neighborhood of,
7 urn, part of a suspicion, as to the youths' conduct, apart from
8 just their aggression and air of entitlement, and apparent lack
9 of, urn, taking their part in something that seemed to have
10 happened that they were unhappy with, and claim some ownership
11 for the consequences of what appeared to be a negligent act they
12 described, urn, apart from that and your question went to, urn,
13 the topic of your question went to something about do I
14 recall--
MR. YOUNG: I strike the question, Your Honor.
15
16 BY MR. YOUNG:
17 Q Mr. Coughlin, you told us in your testimony that you
18 felt that due to the threat for your safety it was best to go,
19 right? That's why you got on your bike and began riding away
20 from the skate park and ultimately made it to the Center Street
21 bridge, right?
22
MR. COUGHLIN: Urn, I don't know that -- objection,
23 that misstates prior testimony, and compound too.
24 THE COURT: The objection will be overruled.
88
1 THE WITNESS: It seems as though you made a lot of
2 statements of things you wish I had said.
3 BY MR. YOUNG:
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
Q I don't wish you had said it, you said it. I'll break
it down.
Could you? It would help. A
Q
A
Yes or no, did you feel threatened that night?
Yes.
Q Okay. Yes or no, because you felt threatened did you
get on your bike and try to leave?
A Um, I don't recall -- I don't believe I got on my
bike, I'm not sure.
Q Yes or no, did you make it over to the Center Street
bridge where you were ultimately surrounded by a group of
youths?
A Well, um, it's a little hard to separate my
17 recollections from what Mr. Templeton said about --
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
Q
A
bridge.
I want your recollections.
He said approaching me when I was already at the
Q I want your recollections. Did you leave the skate
area and make it onto the bridge, yes or no?
A
Q
Um, at some point that night I was in the skate area.
Right.
89
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
A
Q
And then at some point I was on the bridge.
Okay. So the logical leap would be that you did in
fact go from the skate area to the bridge, would you agree with
me on that?
A Well, I recall kinda meandering around the skate area,
and not demonstrating any mad dash to get out of there, or any
felonious intent, just kinda -- I recall seeing some girls that
I thought were halfway cute, I couldn't see that far, so I
didn't know, you know, but I recall meandering around, and
taking a few laps, I had my dog with me, so I get him to walk.
Q And so all these kids that ultimately surrounded you,
had you ever met any of them prior to August 20th, 2011?
A No, I don't believe so.
Q You did not know them from Adam, correct?
A
Q
That's correct, sir.
Okay. Did you give the phone that Officer Duralde
17 pulled out of your pocket to the kids at any time?
18 MR. COUGHLIN: Um, just to the extent, Judge, I think
19 he's misstating facts not necessarily in evidence.
20
21
Um
THE COURT: Well, sir, the objection is overruled.
22 It's in evidence that the phone was taken out of your
23 pocket. It's up to the Court to determine whether or not that
24 that was true, but it is clearly evidence that the phone was
90
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
taken out of your pocket, there was testimony to that effect.
THE WITNESS: Mr. Young, you're asking me did I give
an item to Mr.
BY MR. YOUNG:
Q Prior to Officer Duralde pulling that phone out of
your pocket, did you at any time give that same phone, or offer
that same phone, to any of the youths?
A Are you indicating he took something out of my pocket
prior to the point of arrest?
Q
A
Am I not making sense to you, sir?
I don't believe I gave them anything that night.
THE COURT: Did you give it to them?
13 BY MR. YOUNG:
14
15
16
17
18
Q
A
Q
You did not give them anything, right?
Officer Duralde?
No, the youths, Mr. Coughlin.
A No, sir. They were trying to take my dog, my bike,
and I didn't want to give those away.
19 Q Okay. And you likewise did not give Officer Duralde,
20 or any of the other officers, that phone that was ultimately
21 taken from your person from Officer Duralde, right?
22 A I can't testify as to why exactly what you feel he
23 took from me.
24 Q
Well, his testimony is he recovered a phone from your
91
1 pocket, right, do you recall that testimony?
2
3
4
5
6
A
Q
A
Q
Urn, it sounds like something he said.
Okay.
But the record will reflect what he said.
I'm sure it will, sir.
This item, this phone that Officer Duralde testified
7 he recovered, at any time did you offer to give that same item,
8 that phone, to the police?
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
A
Urn, I don't recall offering to give any police
anything pretty much ever
well, I'm not sure about that, but
it would seem it would be an impermissible benefit to give the
police any gifts or anything, and I don't recall giving them
anything that night.
Q And in fact, you admitted a recording of your entire
interaction with the police, from the point of their first
contact until your arrest, and at no time in that recording did
we hear you say, "officers, here's the phone," right?
A That doesn't sound like anything I heard in that
recording.
Q All right.
MR. COUGHLIN: Objection, can you clarify which
recording you're referring to?
THE COURT: Any of them.
THE WITNESS: Well, I only recall one recording from
92
1 that night where there was police. So maybe I didn't hear your
2 question. Did you say "any recording"?
3 BY MR. YOUNG:
4
5
6
Q
A
Q
Are you purposefully being an obstructionist?
No, sir. No, sir, I'm not.
Just checking.
Do you at any time recall on the night
7 in question having a cellphone, which was not yours, light up in
8 your pocket?
9 A Urn
10
11
12
Q
A
Yes or no, do you recall that?
I'm not sure --
MR. COUGHLIN: Objection, calls for a legal conclusion
13 as to ownership.
14 THE COURT: Lighting of a cellphone is not a legal
15 conclusion, so I overrule that.
16 MR. COUGHLIN: Your part of it is a legal conclusion,
17 it goes to the ultimate issue of fact in this case.
18 Like I said, I worked really hard setting that out in my
19 I don't -- it sounds like you might have ruled on this, Your
20 Honor, but I'm not sure, Your Honor.
21
22
23
24
THE COURT: I was saying I did not sustain the
objection, I overruled the objection.
THE WITNESS: Yes, sir. Just to be sure it seemed you
asked me it dealt with your ownership and lighting up.
93
1
2
3
4
5
6
BY MR. YOUNG:
Q At any time on the night in question, did a phone that
was in your pocket, a phone, any phone that was in your pocket,
light up when you were with all these kids?
A
Q
I can't be sure.
Okay. At any time on this night, while you were with
7 these kids, did you flip a phone over so that a screen which
8 would light up when being called was now pressed against your
9 leg?
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
A I don't recall.
Q Okay. When you testified the other day, you stated
that you were just finishing a four and a half year
relationship, correct?
A Urn
Q Or a four and a half year relationship had recently
ended, or something like those words?
MR. COUGHLIN: Objection, relevance.
THE COURT: Overruled.
BY MR. YOUNG:
20 Q Do you recall that testimony?
21 A I recall testifying about an end of a relationship
22 that was fairly close in time to the August 20th arrest.
23 Q Right. And you stated that you were having some
24 financial issues around the same time, correct?
94
1 A
Urn, I recall talking about a summary eviction, and
2 some issues about the, urn, former domestic partner somewhat
3 absconding with a couple months of my rental contributions
4 without telling me she hadn't forwarded them to the landlord,
5 and then there becoming sort of a sudden note from the landlord,
6 who was kind of prone to going to Thailand for three to six
7 months at a time, and not really hawking you about the rent, you
8 know, if it was late, getting some sort of communication from
9 him.
10 Q And finances were a bit of an issue during that time,
11 right? You recall testifying to that?
12 A Urn, well, I had --
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
Q I don't need details, sir, just was finances tight at
the beginning of August, consistent with your testimony from
yesterday?
A I think it was -- I think the reason why yesterday I
talked about when I ceased taking the medications
Q I was not bringing that up, sir.
A It was a medication holiday, but then also --
20 sometimes when you're taking medications --
21 Q Sir, you're not answering my question.
22 A I answered, it goes to the finances. I've reviewed
23 this in great detail, and kinda my own recollection, did I stop
24 taking -- and a lot of communications --
95
1 THE COURT: Sir, you will answer the question, were
2 finances tight or not, it's a yes or no answer. That's it.
3 THE WITNESS: Um--
4 THE COURT: I'm not going to let you give these
5 narrative answers any longer.
6 THE WITNESS: I think
7
8
9 sure.
THE COURT: Were they tight or not? Simple.
THE WITNESS: Not as tight as they are now, that's for
10
11
BY MR. YOUNG:
Q You're aware, sir,
that items such as cellphones can
12 be pawned for money, right?
13
14
15
A
Q
A
It sounds plausible.
Are you aware --
Actually, I didn't know that because they have IME
16 numbers that can easily --
17
18
19
Q
A
I'll ask the questions.
So I'm not sure about that.
MR. COUGHLIN: And you asked the questions, objection,
20 you need to let me --
21 THE COURT: Sir, you answer yes or no from now on,
22 unless it calls for a narrative answer.
23 THE WITNESS: Yes, sir.
24 THE COURT: Or you pose a proper objection.
96
1 MR. COUGHLIN: Yes, sir, Your Honor.
2 BY MR. YOUNG:
3 Q Sir, are you aware that items such as cellphones may
4 be traded on the streets for money, or other profit?
5
6
A
Q
I'm not sure about that.
Okay. Is it still your testimony, sir, that you don't
7 know whether the item in your pocket was a cellphone or a Smart
8 Phone?
9 A If you're referring to the one that was recorded in
10 the arrest --
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
on
Q
A
Q
A
Q
That was your phone, right?
The one that was recorded in the arrest.
That was your phone?
Was a phone of mine.
Right. My question is: Did you have any other phones
your person that night?
A Urn, I'm not sure.
Q Okay.
A
Q
And I'm not sure entirely what you mean by "phone."
You've already answered the question, sir.
MR. YOUNG: You know what, Your Honor, I have no
22 further questions.
23 THE COURT: I will give you a brief opportunity on
24 redirect to testify, sir.
97
1
MR. COUGHLIN: Was I -- it was my understanding I
2 wasn't permitted to take anything up here, or make any notes in
3 my dual role to understand exactly what he brought up on cross.
4 THE COURT: Well, sir, you'll have to do the best you
5 can. You chose to represent yourself in this matter, and you
6 are a witness right now.
7 MR. COUGHLIN: Yes, sir, Your Honor.
8 And while I appreciate you not making everything I
9 represented sworn testimony, I suppose I take the good with the
10 bad, and I understand that, Your Honor.
11 Urn, but I'll certainly take any help in remembering what
12 the cross
you say I'm limited to what was new on cross, sir?
13 THE COURT: I'm saying you're limited to what was on
14 cross, and without reiterating your prior testimony, and
15 basically the cross dealt with whether or not you took a
16 cellphone from the gentleman, which I do believe you testified
17 earlier that he did hold up a cellphone. And whether or not you
18 offered to give the cellphone to the kids or the police. Those
19 are--
20 THE WITNESS: Thank you, sir, I appreciate that, that
21 helps me, that's bringing it back to me.
22 THE COURT: That was in essence the core of what was
23 testified to.
24 MR. COUGHLIN: Yes, sir, now I'm recalling.
98
1
2
REDIRECT EXAMINATION
3 THE WITNESS: Urn, urn, I did not grab anything or --
4 I'm in the narrative, I can proceed, sir?
5 THE COURT: You may, but it's basically limited to
6 what your interaction with the gentleman who held up the
7 cellphone, your interaction with the kids, and the police, is
8 all relevant to the cellphone.
9 THE WITNESS: Maybe I'll ask the Court to give a
10 little of a response, did you take or grab or steal anything
11 that night?
12 The answer would be, urn, I did not, to the extent "take" is
13 meant to sound --
14 MR. YOUNG: Objection, argumentative.
15 THE COURT: All right. I you argued earlier, sir,
16 that "take" was a legal conclusion, so I'm going to sustain the
17 objection to the extent that you are arguing.
18 MR. COUGHLIN: You overruled my objection.
19 THE COURT: I did not. I said you objected to the
20 ultimate factual conclusion, and I think Mr. Young rephrased the
21 question, and in essence he asked did you ever come into
22 possession of a cellphone from the gentleman.
23 And you said you didn't know what you came into possession
24 of, but you did get something from the gentleman.
99
1 THE WITNESS: May I just say with respect to the
2 extent my testimony is being reiterated to me, I'd prefer just
3 my testimony.
4 I'm neither confirming nor denying that what's being said
5 to me is consistent with what I testified, I'll let my testimony
6 speak for the record.
7 Urn, urn, but I didn't -- I didn't grab anything from
8 anybody, I didn't dash off with anything, I didn't -- I didn't
9 lie to anybody. I didn't attack anybody. I didn't break any
10 laws.
11 Urn, I didn't -- I didn't -- some other questions related to
12 giving, I didn't give the officer anything. Urn, except maybe
13 respect. I believe I showed him respect.
14 Urn, I don't know when he told me to shut up, or don't talk
15 anymore, and then he specifically said I don't respect me at
16 all, I don't know if he was doing that to -- this maybe is
17 getting into argument, and I don't know if he was showing me
18 much respect.
19
20
21
22
23
24
MR. YOUNG: Objection, that is argument.
THE COURT: Sustained.
THE WITNESS: Do you believe the officer showed you
respect that night, would be my question.
THE COURT: You're not asking any questions.
THE WITNESS: If I may, sir, I prefer to --
100
1
2 respect.
3
THE COURT: That was not one of the issues on cross,
MR. COUGHLIN: My objection exceeds the scope of
4 cross, I understand that now.
5
THE COURT: I don't know how crystal clear to make it,
6 we're just talking about possession of a cellphone, and whether
7 whatever was in your pocket, whether you offered to give it up
8
9
10
11
12
to anybody at
THE
THE
THE
THE
any point in time.
WITNESS: He's talking
COURT: That's what he
WITNESS: But you said
COURT: We are talking
about
asked about.
we're, and
--
about it right now, meaning
13 you, me, and the district attorney.
14
THE WITNESS: So I was just trying to clarify some of
15 these rules more like proceeding to ask myself questions to give
16 Mr. Young an opportunity to make an objection.
17
THE COURT: I allowed you to proceed in narrative
18 questions and not to ask yourself questions.
19
20
21
22
THE WITNESS: May I ask myself questions?
THE COURT: No.
THE WITNESS: Yes, sir.
I don't know, Your Honor, that I have too much to offer
23 that is limited to the scope of cross.
24 THE COURT: That's fine, unless Mr. Young has --
101
1
2
MR. YOUNG: No further questions.
THE COURT: You can step down.
3 I'll allow ten minutes per side for argument, and we'll
4 rule at that time. If you want to divide your arguments and
5 reserve part of it, that's fine.
6 MR. YOUNG: Your Honor, did Mr. Coughlin -- I know he
7 has finished testifying, did he rest his case?
8
9
THE COURT: Do you have any other witnesses, sir.
MR. COUGHLIN: I'm sorry, Your Honor, I don't mean to
10 ask something you ruled on. I would like to call Officer
11 Duralde, Rosa -- I just can't recall it, or Nicole Watson
12 THE COURT: I already denied a continuance, sir.
13 MR. COUGHLIN: I don't -- well, I would like to call
14 those individuals.
15 THE COURT: Okay. Call them. Are they here?
16 MR. COUGHLIN: I don't know. I'm a little unfamiliar
17 if I can go out in the hallway.
18 THE COURT: They would have checked in with the
19 bailiff. They're not here. So do you have any other witnesses
20
21
22
23
24
in the courtroom to testify?
MR. COUGHLIN: Urn, I don't think so, sir. I might
have some more evidence to put on my case in chief if I am
permitted to.
THE COURT: I've already given you opportunity to
102
1 present any evidence you wanted to, and so that request is
2 denied.
3 In any event, I will, at this time, rule that the defense
4 case has closed, and does the prosecution have any further
5 witnesses?
6 MR. YOUNG: No rebuttal, Your Honor.
7 THE COURT: All right. Then I will allow argument of
8 ten minutes per side.
9 MR. COUGHLIN:
I'm sorry, Your Honor, I don't know if
10 these were taken, like Mr. Young's photos from the police
11 report, but I offered these, these witness statements.
12 THE COURT: They were supposed to be marked. Do you
13 have them?
14 MR. COUGHLIN: These are just my copies.
15 THE COURT: They have been marked, but I denied their
16 admission. They are part of the record.
17 MR. COUGHLIN: But the pictures of the phone are in
18 the record?
19 THE COURT: Pictures of the phone were admitted, yes.
20 MR. COUGHLIN: And the ones from the police report
21 stapled to these?
22 THE COURT: I'm sorry?
23 MR. COUGHLIN: The pictures
24 THE COURT: The pictures were admitted, yes.
103
1 The police report, the statements of the witnesses, were
2 not.
3 MR. COUGHLIN: Okay.
4 MR. YOUNG: Your Honor, I will try to be brief.
5 I would submit it's relatively that the evidence pretty
6 straightforward and consistent in the sense if you look at
7 Counts One and Two, it's Mr. Coughlin stole, took, carried away
8 a cellphone of Mr. Goble's, and if you see there with the intent
9 to permanently deprive the owner thereof, I concede that's an
10 element of Count One.
11 Count Two pertains, which is in possession of property,
12 again the iPhone of Mr. Goble, and if you look at the language
13 there, knowing that the property was obtained by essentially
14 theft, or under circumstances a reasonable person should have
15 known.
16 The evidence is pretty powerful in that Mr. Goble put his
17 phone down, was skateboarding nearby, you have the photo of the
18 skate rink, if you'll call it, that Mr. Coughlin came in
19 possession of that phone, took off, by the witness testimony and
20 by even the defendant's own exhibits that he put in of certain
21 recordings, it was very clear that the kids, or youths,
22 consistently and continually asked for the phone back.
23 The defendant denied having the phone.
24 And if you recall Mr. Goble's testimony yesterday in
104
1 response to, I believe, Mr. Coughlin's question, he even at one
2 point said "it's only a 3G, what does it matter to you," or
3 something of the sort.
4 The fact that Mr. Goble ultimately got his phone back does
5 not defeat the charges.
6 Because it's not Mr. Coughlin returning the phone, it is
7 Officer Duralde after an arrest recovering the phone.
8 So the fact that Mr. Goble got the phone back in no way is
9 a defense in this case.
10 The case law jury instructions are real clear.
11 Any slight movement with the requisite intent.
12 And we know that Mr. Coughlin had the intent to permanently
13 deprive, because he denies having the phone, he does not turn
14 the phone over to the youths once they say, hey, you got our
15 phone.
16 Mr. Coughlin does not turn the phone over to the police
17 when they show up, and are trying -- and even start out, we
18 heard it, from the exhibit that Mr. Coughlin admitted, the
19 officer saying something along the lines of, you know what, you
20 just give us the phone back probably no big deal.
21 And he doesn't do it.
22 We know he's trying to get away because he's leaving the
23 area. He's in the skate rink where the phone is obtained by
24 Mr. Coughlin, and he ends up being on the bridge with his bike
105
~
1 and his dog, and we heard one of the witnesses say the only
2 reason he stopped was his chain broke.
3 The other reason we know that he had the intent to
4 permanently deprive, was because he flipped the phone over in
5 his pocket to hide the screen.
6 And again, we hear this on the recordings that Mr. Coughlin
7 himself admitted.
8 We see it lighting up in the screen, we see it lighting up
9 in the screen, and Mr. Coughlin flips it over.
10 Why does he do that?
11 Because he's trying to hide it.
12 That is an affirmative action, sir, Your Honor, to conceal
13 the phone.
14 Police are in uniform, they show up, they ask for the
15 phone, his testimony is he was cooperative, you heard the
16 recording, I would submit it's less than, but in any event, he
17 doesn't return the phone. He was given multiple opportunities
18 to give the phone back, and he'refused to do so.
19 As to Count Two being that he knows it was stolen or reason
20 to believe it was stolen, after he was told by Cory Goble you
21 have my phone, he refuses to give it back, after the police say
22 give him his phone back, and this all kind of goes away, he
23 refuses to give the phone back. Not to mention all the facts
24 that I previously set forth for Your Honor as Count One.
106
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
The larceny from the person is a felony offense. That
requires taking from the person, so pick-pocketing, or something
like that.
What's charged here does not require that the theft be from
the person of Mr. Goble. If that's the case, we're talking
felony, we're talking a whole different crime.
But the fact that Mr. Coughlin takes this phone, leaves the
area, refuses to give it back, flips it over, at one point says
"it's only a 3G, what do you care," and for the rest denies
having it, and then when the police contact him, still refuses
to give it back, and only upon the police recovering it after
his arrest, that's how we know clearly, and very easily beyond a
reasonable doubt, that Mr. Coughlin is guilty.
THE COURT:
MR. YOUNG:
I do have one question.
Certainly.
THE COURT: The complaint, as framed, it says "did
unlawfully steal, take, and carry away the property of another."
Is it all three? Or can it be unlawfully steal, or
unlawfully take, or unlawfully carry away the personal property
of another?
MR. YOUNG: I'd have to look at the statute, Your
Honor, but as charged all three apply in this case.
In other words, you could steal something, you don't need
to be the first person to steal. In other words, it if you walk
107
1 into an AM/PM with another person and they steal a candy bar,
2 and halfway out of the store you take it from them and walk out
3 of the store, you're still taking, you're still stealing, you're
4 still carrying away. So frankly, it doesn't really matter.
5 Then you go onto Count Two, and very clearly he's in
6 possession of this, he knows -- or at a very minimum as a
7 reasonable person should know, but he knows, that it's not his
8 phone.
9 The other thing, Your Honor, as the trier of fact you judge
10 the credibility of the witnesses.
11 If you think back to Mr. Goble, Mr. Templeton, Mr. Zarate,
12 I've forgotten the other name, but you listen to those
13 witnesses, and they're weren't all the State's witnesses, some
14 of them were the defense witnesses. They don't know
15 Mr. Coughlin, Mr. Coughlin confirmed that today, I've never met
16 these people before. They're trying to get their phone back,
17 that's all they're trying to do.
18 Compare that to Mr. Coughlin's testimony, and you saw what
19 it was like when I was cross-examining him, he didn't want to
20 give me either, he didn't even want to admit that he had a phone
21 in his pocket, despite not too much before saying a man was
22 holding up a phone, and I saved it, if you will.
23 That's the credibility that you get to consider when
24 deciding this case.
108
1 THE COURT: Mr. Coughlin, I said I'll give you ten
2 minutes, it's to a quarter after.
3 MR. COUGHLIN: Yes, Your Honor, so it's 4:05 now, and
4 I appreciate it.
5 Your Honor, urn, I would estimate, I'm sorry, sir, I'm
6 just -- I would estimate that I spent 950 hours since this
7 arrest working on this defense of this case.
S True, a lot of that time was spent learning things I would
9 have learned if I could have held a job consistently since
10 passing law school, but I couldn't, so I didn't get a lot of the
11 training and in-court experience that Mr. Young benefitted from,
12 urn, so I was learning basic things, but I was learning some
13 fairly eloquent points of law and details too.
14 And let's start from learning very basic things, I think
15 anyone could have read the 230 page motion for mistrial
16 memorandum of law that Mr. Young has had since October 18th, I
17 believe, well over 30 days prior to today. Well, if today's the
18 20th.
19 But I see a lot of growth was there relevant to the issues
20 here, Staab v State, all this case law I cited herein, urn, is
21 extremely applicable to things like the amended charge.
22 And I don't want to misstate it now by citing the wrong
23 case, but I will just say there is cases, and I set them out,
24 and there is, I believe, mandatory authority in Nevada that if
109
1 the prosecutor does not plead from another --
2
THE COURT: Sir, it does say from another.
3 MR. COUGHLIN: I'm sorry, sir, I meant specify.
4 I believe in my -- it needs to specify from who, or provide
5 facts in support thereof.
6
THE COURT: In looking at the complaint, it says the
7 property of Cory Goble in Count One and Count Two --
8 MR. COUGHLIN: Sir, I'm trying to use my time to argue
9 Mr. Young
10 THE COURT: I understand, okay, go ahead.
11 MR. COUGHLIN: I should follow your prompts.
12
THE COURT: Just try to focus your attention on what
13 the complaint actually says.
14 MR. COUGHLIN: I probably spent 12 hours one day
15 reading exactly what the complaint says and breaking it down.
16 THE COURT: Go ahead. I don't mean to interrupt you,
17
18
I'll give you an extra minute, go ahead.
MR. COUGHLIN: That's what I was saying. I would ask
19 the Court, with all due respect, to not issue a finding today,
20 but to take it under advisement, and after having the
21 opportunity to hear all this testimony and hear these tapes, and
22 have these exhibits, to just take, you know, take sometime. I
23 know the Court's spent a lot of time on this, but take it under
24 advisement, read the materials, and the mandatory case law here,
110
1 because I think it might help the Court save the cost of a
2 transcript, for one, because, as I found out in my other cases,
3 under NRS 189.030, even -- if someone's indigent in a criminal
4 case, as opposed to a civil case, the Court has to pay, the
5 Court has to order the transcript prepared, and so there's a lot
6 of case law here that I believe is mandatory authority that
7 disposes of all these charges.
8 Particularly with respect, once applying all the evidence
9 taken and testimony made and exhibits introduced into evidence,
10 that provides more than one -- provides a multitude of bases
11 for -- urn, for -- for finding -- not finding guilty or finding
12 innocence or otherwise, acquitting the accused of the charge,
13 and I don't see why the Court, urn, should be burdened anymore
14 with case like this that has used up an enormous amount of this
15 Court's resources.
16 That's, you know, I can't say this case alone wrecked my
17 life, because I have to take ownership in various things in my
18 life that went wrong, but this -- certainly getting arrested and
19 then spending six days in jail, and in the interim coming back
20 to an eviction notice, instead of, you know, who knows, could
21 have worked something out with that landlord in that time, or
22 if, urn, you know, I missed a couple court hearings during that
23 six days in jail, I had to tell the deputies, well, please tell
24 Judge Weller I won't be there for that custody hearing, and I
111
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
was practicing law already at that time, I was getting clients,
and that was some of the difficulty with respect to, urn,
answering whether finances were tight, because I was starting to
make money. I had my law office at that location, 121 River
Rock, so it was my former home law office, and I'm just trying
to -- I'll try to make legal argument, but to the extent I'm
pretty much dead on my feet at this point, Your Honor, and it's
difficult to recall that clearly, but luckily I spent 950 hours
this year boiling this down to admittedly a real long piece of
work, but it's pretty interesting stuff really. You know, I
wish Mr. Young would read it. It doesn't appear he's read it.
I don't believe he's read it one time.
read it one time.
I don't believe he's
And I'll submit that even my February 15 filing a lot of
work went into that. Yeah, it was long, I believe it was 80
pages, but a lot of work went into it. It had a long attachment
that made it appear longer than it was, Your Honor.
So it appeared like it was about 250 pages, but it was
about 80 pages, and it boiled down that search and seizure law,
it went into that. I really enjoyed reading Mr. Hanes' Nevada
Fourth Amendment law in a nutshell, and I had an interaction
with Mr. Hanes in law school that I particularly appreciated.
He was a prosecutor, I'm fond of down there in Las Vegas.
And I recognized his name when I was reading it, it's like a
112
1 hundred page basically treatise, I guess, on Nevada's Fourth
2 Amendment law in a nutshell.
3 And it spoke to a lot of the stuff in this case, but I
4 don't want to go into quite the interaction I had with
5 Mr. Hanes, but it was -- there are some prosecutors I do like a
6 lot. And Zach Young is one of 'em too, and I know this has
7 become a contentious case, but I have a lot of respect for
8 Mr. Young.
9 Urn, but I think it's clear that one in Nevada it's
10 mandatory authority, if you found that I got the phone, or took
11 the phone, or anything of that sort, if you don't find that I
12 had felonious intent at that time, at that time, this mandatory
13 authority in Nevada says that that is not larceny, or, urn,
14 receiving, or possession of stolen property.
15 And it's a kind of quirky thing about Nevada law that legal
16 commentators have noted, but it's definitely exciting, and I
17 don't believe it's worth costing the Court, you know, a bunch
18 more resources, or the appellate court, or anything of that
19 regard, particularly when there's mandatory authority in Nevada
20 law that easily disposes of this, where I believe the facts are
21 very, very clear that, urn, the accused did not -- did not show
22 up and get anything, urn, upon someone just offering a phone up.
23 There's no testimony today that someone offered a phone up,
24 and the accused ran up and got it.
113
1 In fact, there's tons of inconsistent testimony, and I
2 really savaged the skateboard use in this brief, I typed out the
3 12 pages of hours of transcripts.
4 THE COURT: Are you referring to Staab v State, or are
5 you referring to something else?
6 MR. COUGHLIN: That's a big one.
7 I believe State v Clifford is the one that deals with, urn,
8 conversely as of the time of the taking, the taker -- it deals
9 with a -- well, that's an Arkansas one, but there's Nevada law,
10 State v Clifford:
11 "If such intent does not exist at the time of finding, but
12 instead the finder intends to restore the property to the owner,
13 a subsequent concealment or fraudulent appropriation does not
14 constitute larceny."
15 It might sound like larceny, people might not be proud of
16 their actions, other people might be upset, but that's mandatory
17 law in Nevada.
18
And it's -- that's my understanding. Mr. Young was
19 certainly able to brief this and respond, and, urn, he's had this
20 for quite sometime now, and I don't have my February filing
21 here, but I believe, Your Honor, the exhibits which you may have
22 stricken, some of those filings earlier, I believe they should
23 be put back in the record because Mr. Young, his opposition to
24 that stuff should be stricken because it itself was a fugitive
114
1 document and that while it was a stay during the pendency of the
2 competency evaluation.
3 So his document wherein he opposed my position to appear
4 as
5 MR. YOUNG: I've been trying not to object, but I'm
6 going to object at this point, he's not arguing the case.
7 THE COURT: If you would, just focus on your argument
8 with respect to the law in this case. And--
9 MR. COUGHLIN: Further, um, I mean what I did was I
10 got deep into the ALRs and CJS, into the indexes and found the
11 exact sections that were exactly applicable to the law and the
12 charge and the particularized facts that arose in this case, and
13 the intense investigation I did afterwards immediately upon
14 being released from jail.
15 I don't think someone who knows they're guilty grabs every
16 recording device they have and goes out and finds these late
17 teen, early 20 skateboard users --
18 MR. YOUNG: Objection, misstates things not in
19 evidence.
20 MR. COUGHLIN: I believe everything I said is in
21 evidence.
22
23
24
THE COURT: Well, go ahead, I'm going to overrule the
objection, go ahead.
MR. COUGHLIN: Okay. I don't think somebody does that
115
1 who knows they're guilty.
2 I don't think somebody who knows they're guilty seeks to
3 admit just a ton of media and files, a ton of stuff.
4 Urn, I don't believe somebody -- an inference of guilt
5 should by inferred from somebody refusing to testify, but we
6 don't even need to think about that here, because the accused
7 clearly testified, and urn, urn, actually welcomed the opportunity
8 to be cross-examined, and to the extent to which Mr. Young, this
9 was pretty telling to me, he indicated that -- normally at a
10 crime I would think you'd say, this would sure be easy to have a
11 video with audio of the crime?
12 Man, would that make this clear. That would help clear up
13 this case.
14 And ah, we have that here.
15 We have that.
16 And today, a year into this, and how many thousands of
17 dollars, and however much savagery to my life, and my parents'
18 life and my career spewed from this, Mr. Young did not recognize
19 that video.
20
21
22
I rest my case, thank you, Your Honor.
THE COURT: All right.
MR. YOUNG: Very brief, Your Honor.
23 Again, there is no need for the State to prove that the
24 larceny was, in Mr. Coughlin's words, from the person of
116
1 another, that's a total different crime, that's a felony.
2 The audio/video that Mr. Coughlin are just brought up, I
3 wasn't really inclined to admit it, but since it was, I think
4 that only bolsters the State's case, all you hear on that is
5 ki ds yelling at Mr. Coughlin, again, who they have never met
6 before, they have no prior dealings with, just asking for their
7 phone back, getting increasingly upset, the dispatcher from what
8 he's hearing, yeah, there's some sort of disturbance, and I
9 believe that's in the dispatch recording that's been admitted, I
10 didn't object to that, shows exactly what this c ase is.
11 One of the jury instructions in felony cases, Your Honor,
12 in addition to the credibility of the witnesses, is that the
13 trier of fact has to determine, is allow the juries to -- allows
14 them to use their common sense as reasonable men and women, and
15 that certainly applies here.
16 You're able to use your common sense in conjunction with
17 the evidence that's been presented.
18 And I would submit the standard of proof beyond a
19 reasonable doubt has been sufficiently met with respect to what
20 this case, a fairly simple case, is. Taking a cellphone and
21 trying to leave and all the subsequent actions showing why he's
22 trying to hold on to that, including flipping it over, denying
23 that he has it, and everything else that you've heard over the
24 couple days of testimony that we've had.
117
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
THE COURT: I am prepared to rule at this time, and
although I don't believe I'm required to explain my decision, I
am going to indicate that I have reviewed State v Clifford, and
also the other case cited by Mr. Coughlin, Staab v State, and
from that State v Clifford, it does indicate that the mere fact
of a person's converting to his own use goods found by him does
not, as a matter of law, make him guilty of theft.
Conversely, if at the time of the taking the taker knows or
has means of discovering the owner, it is his legal and moral
duty to hold and restore the goods to him, and if under such
11 circumstances he absolutely appropriates them to his own use,
12 excluding the dominion of the owner, it is larceny.
13 And that's State v Clifford, 14 Nevada 72, 1879 case.
14 And then Staab v State provides that:
15 "It is the fact of possession," and that's 90 Nevada 347,
16 1974, "it is the fact of possession that provides the inference
17 of guilt. The inference which is founded on manifest reason
18 that when goods have been taken from one person and are quickly
19 thereafter found in the possession of another, there is a strong
20 probability that they were taken by the latter."
21 And based upon the law of the statute, the case law in
22 Clifford and Staab, which were cited by the defendant, the Court
23 finds beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant in this case
24 is guilty of petty larceny, and in Count Two, the Court finds
118
1 beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty of
2 possession of stolen property.
3 And with respect to sentencing, we'll hear from the State
4 at this time, and then we'll hear from the defendant.
S MR. YOUNG: Your Honor, with respect to sentencing I
6 believe the case law is clear that essentially Counts One and
7 Two merge, so I'm only going to be asking for effectively one
8 sentence.
9 What I ask for is 180 days in jail.
10 If Mr. Coughlin is willing to provide this Court with
11 monthly updates as to any sort of mental health counseling,
12 pursuant to a qualified evaluation, abstain from all alcohol and
13 non-prescribed drugs, and take his drugs as prescribed, and obey
14 all laws, I'm willing to suspend the sentence.
15 I did not know Mr. Coughlin prior to this case.
16 My take on him is he's a fairly intelligent person, but for
17 whatever reason he has some issue that he needs to iron out so
18 that he can get back to doing what he probably could do pretty
19 well, and that's practice law.
20
He's not doing it now because, as you saw in his
21 cross-examination, he's being completely obstructionist, he is
22 not grasping all of this is what I would submit.
23 But if you just go and do counseling, if you would just
24 take medications as prescribed, I have no doubt that he can
119
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
straighten things out.
So if he's willing to do all that, and I'm not asking for a
fine, I'm not asking for community service, as far as DAS I'll
leave that to the Court, that may actually help Mr. Coughlin,
but I'll leave that to the Court, but if he just does counseling
and takes meds, I'd ask that you suspend 180 days, and give him
as opportunity.
If he doesn't want to do it, then just impose 180 days.
THE COURT: Mr. Coughlin.
MR. COUGHLIN: Yes, Your Honor.
Your Honor, there was this is a charge of petty larceny,
um, I believe the standard fine is $500, according to the
municipal court bail schedule, I believe that it's important not
to set a precedent that would say if you attempted to defend
yourself in Washoe County we will punish you by imposing more of
a sentence than is typically imposed.
Um, I attempted to defend myself here, um, with legitimate
organic fidelity to the law, and the principles that
it's built upon. Not to be obstructionist, not to be
disrespectful to the Court.
that
21 I appreciate the extent to which this Court, um, has given
22 me a forum to do that. And I felt glad that you were on this
23 case, Your Honor.
24 Um, but I believe it was six and a half, which typically is
120
1
2
3
4
counted as seven days in jail, was served.
Um, typical fine is 5.
THE COURT: I'm sorry?
MR. COUGHLIN: The typical -- well, typically, as I
5 understand it, it's a hundred dollars per day credit, there was
6 five days served in jail, so it would be more than the typical
7 fines and/or incarceration has been served here.
8 I believe it may also be permissible to consider the fact
9 that I spent 46 days in jail since this arrest pertaining to
10 various things.
11 One time it was when I asked a question about my HIPAA
12 rights, when Judge Elliott wanted to know what medications I
13 took, and being a legal professional, being very sensitive about
14 that, and appearances, and some of the discrimination I faced
15 throughout my life with respect to various issues related to
16 one's mental health, how one treats one's mental health, what
17 people want to abstain from, um, various issues like that, I
18 asked a HIPAA question, I'm protecting my rights.
19 Mr. Young wanted me and got me thrown in jail for eight
20 days, it caused substantial devastation to my life.
21 MR. YOUNG: I object to this, that goes to a different
22 case.
23 MR. COUGHLIN: Um, it was during the stay, and
24 MR. YOUNG: No, sir. Yes, sir, Your Honor.
121
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
THE COURT: Go ahead.
MR. COUGHLIN: I would just say my jaw just drops that
he's asking for more of a punishment be directed my way.
been arrested ten times this year.
Once for jaywalking.
I've
Once for a completely made up disturbing the peace charge
because the Reno PD wanted to help somebody evict me who didn't
want to follow the lawful process of eviction.
Urn, another time for misuse of 911, where I got two
protection orders from Master Edmondson, she certainly found a
bases for my fear.
I find Mr. Young's entireties to helping me get mental
health, or some urn, it sounded like some sort of treatment to
be in authenticate at best.
Urn, I, urn, rebuilding my life and it's proceeding fairly
well. Urn, I think it's in authenticate at best when you -- and
I come from a domestic violence attorney background. And one
thing you learn in the power control wheel, which is kind of
this hallmark Duluth model in that field, and it's pretty much
rock bottom of the legal profession. I don't mean to disparage
21 it, but I couldn't get a job anywhere when I got a job there,
22 and part of that is probably because Paul Townsend is a very
23 special person, and I really appreciate him, and he gave me a
24 job, and I don't mean to disparage, I think you'll find
122
1 attorneys there who are very, very talented, but it's --
2 THE COURT: Sir, if you want to say something, do so.
3 MR. COUGHLIN: I do. What you learn in the power of
4 control wheel is that abusers, and people who are obsessed with
5 power and control, one of the first things they attempt to
6 leverage is mental healthcare. In telling somebody who doesn't
7 see the world their way, you need to seek mental health, mental
8 health, you're crazy, you need help. If you would just see
9 things my way, I'll back off you, but until then I'm going to
10 ask to have you thrown in jail, I'm going to ask for 180 days in
11 jail for what's typically five days, and I would just submit
12 that, while I have respect for Mr. Young, he might consider that
13 the culture in which he operates in at this point is one that,
14 urn, urn, might by in gendering some requests on his part I do not
15 believe, I'll respectfully submit, are reasonable. Um--
16 THE COURT: All right. Sir, I'm going to impose
17 sentence.
18 I'm not punishing you for going through a trial, but I do
19 agree with the district attorney in this case that this is not a
20 run of the mill petty larceny case, I am going to sentence you
21 to the 180 days, which will be suspended, and you will get
22 credit for the time you served, which you indicated was seven
23 and a half days, I'll give you credit for eight days on this
24 case.
123
1 I will suspend it on condition that you are supervised by
2 DAS, and I will waive -- instruct DAS to waive any cost for the
3 supervision, normally defendants are required to pay the cost of
4 their supervision.
5 MR. COUGHLIN: What is DAS?
6 THE COURT: Department of Alternative Sentencing.
7 MR. COUGHLIN: Thank you.
8 THE COURT: You'll need to check in no later than
9 tomorrow with them.
10 You'll need to sign an order to attend up front before you
11 leave.
12 I will not impose any fine, but there will be a condition
13 you abstain from use of alcohol and illegal drugs, and that you
14 take medications as prescribed.
15 And that you get a mental health evaluation within 30 days
16 from today, and follow the recommendations, that will need to be
17 presented to the Court no later than 30 days from today.
18 And if you do all that, you will not go to jail, and you
19 will your sentence is suspended for a minimum of one to two
20 years.
21 And I do not want to see you back in court again, but I
22 don't believe your problems with the law are being caused by
23 Mr. Young, he doesn't go out in the streets and find you and
24 accuse you of offenses, that is the police, and it is
124
1 independent of Mr. Young, it is independent from me, it is
2 independent of the landlords you've had problems with, or the
3 other attorneys, prosecuting attorneys, and the judges, you've
4 had a variety of judges consider your cases.
5 I think you've had an opportunity to present your case, and
6 I do find that this is a reasonable sentence in light of
7 everything that's happened.
8 And you do have the right to appeal if you disagree.
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
(Proceedings Concluded, 2:35 p.m.)
--000--
125
1 STATE OF NEVADA
2
COUNTY OF WASHOE
3
4
) ss.
)
5 I, CATHY W, do hereby state:
6 That I am not a relative, employee or independent
7 contractor of counsel to any of the parties, or a relative,
8 employee or independent contractor of the parties involved in
9 the proceeding, or a person financially interested in the
10 proceedings:
11 That I was NOT present in Department No. 2 of the
12 above-entitled Court on November 20, 2012, but transcribed the
13 proceedings had and the testimony given upon the matter
14 captioned within from the JAVS electronically recorded audio
15 media;
16 That the foregoing transcript, consisting of pages 1
17 through 125, is a full, true and correct transcription of said
18 JAVS electronically recorded audi o media.
19 eno, Nevada, this 24th day of April, 2013.
20
21
22
23
24
126