Criminal defense attorney 'not entirely sure' why GWB suspect's charge was downgraded

Adam Conta joins us. He is a criminal defense attorney as well as a partner in Conta, Georgia's Mbuza, a law firm. Adam, thank you so much for being with us. Of course. Great to be back. So, Adam, the first thing I want to address and have you explain for us so we understand what's going on here is the charges. Initially, eyebrows were raised. He was charged with murder. There seemed to be no question really about whether it was his gun, whether it happened, whether it was actually him who pulled the trigger. And he was originally arrested for murder. And then the district attorney or whoever, it was downgraded to manslaughter. Can you explain that for us, what that process is? Well, I'm having trouble explaining why it happened, because I don't think it's necessarily in line with what a lot of clients in the same circumstance would see. But I'll tell you what I think the thought process is. In order to charge someone with murder, you have to show that they intended to cause death and then death occurred. You wanted to kill someone and you killed someone essentially. And that's what they originally charged him with, Officer Romero. Now they downgraded it to manslaughter. And manslaughter is essentially, it's an unintentional death. That you perhaps were trying to cause serious injury and then sort of death unintentionally occurred. You look at this case and I think what the DA's office will say, really what went into their thought process is that there just wasn't enough intent here to show that he wanted to commit a murder. And that he wasn't just trying to scare him, that he wasn't just trying to prove a point in some way. But when you have a DA who gets up in the arraignment and says this was a particularly senseless crime. And I mean, this is someone who is familiar with firearms, who pulled up next to a car, pulled out a gun, and shot through the rear passenger window that hit the driver, Mr. Irvine, in the shoulder that caused death. I'm not entirely sure how they went from murder to manslaughter so quickly. And then, so what's the next process? I mean, he was given a million dollars bail, Victor Romero, the ex-cop. He was given a million dollars bail. He made the bail over the weekend and then was released this was like a you know over the weekend saturday sunday type type of thing the victim's family was outraged uh they've spoken out about it uh his attorney spoken out about it as well that this was a very a really wonderful man that was killed well loved by his family his community his co-workers are very upset about this so what's the next step he's out of jail right now we're not sure if he's working or or what that situation is. But what is the next step in terms of the legal process? I mean, the legal process is gonna unfold sort of per usual, meaning the case will go in front of a grand jury to be indicted. And then it will head to a part that handles these types of cases. Motion practice will ensue, the DAs will have to turn over all the discovery. The defense will go through that discovery and try to sort of mount a defense. I mean, usually what would happen at this point, also let me just say by the way, the family's outraged also because you see a lot of what we talk about here is because the news is following it, right? Right. But for this guy, Romero, there's no perp walk. His image is essentially scrubbed from the internet. It's very difficult to find a picture of what this person looks like. It seems like he's being given every advantage. And listen, I say that as a defense attorney who's looking for every advantage for my client. Right. But he's being given a lot of consideration. I think it's impossible to sort of separate the fact that he's a retired officer with sort of the level of deferential treatment he's been given. Not necessarily in the analysis to downgrade the charges, but I'll tell you that I've got plenty of defendants who I've represented charged with homicide, charged with murder here in Manhattan. And I'm trying to get down to a manslaughter charge all the time because manslaughter is a flat sentence. Murder carries life on the back end. There's a massive difference in how those two charges are treated in the legal system and how they're punished. And so to be starting at manslaughter is just an incredibly advantageous position for someone who it doesn't really seem up for debate on who is responsible for this death or really the circumstances that led up to it. Right, because their initial explanation, whether official or not official, was that it appeared to be road rage and that that's what it was. There was nothing, never any alternative explanation or they, you know, they didn't know each other. And that was the case as well. And you talk about the circumstances. And I think that was, you know, that's something else that we've been talking about. My colleagues and I and in the journalism trade have been saying, you know, this is so unusual. There was no you know, the usual thing that would happen for a high profile case, as you've seen, is there would be some kind of official statement from some law enforcement entity of a basic timeline of what happened at such and such. This person was here at a certain time. This person came here. This is what we believe happened. We're investigating. And then, you know, and so on. And this in this in this case, there was none of that. There was there were no official early on explanations. The shooter, Mr. Romero, the ex-officer, he actually drove across the bridge, left the area from what we can gather because we don't have an official account of step by step there. And on a bridge, that's one of the top 10 terror targets in the United States. So it's like under massive surveillance. And then nobody knows where he is. And then the next day he shows up at work and then the police grab him there. But it just there just were a lot of questions about this that just didn't make sense. And it simply wasn't done the way that the whole official process. And I'm not singling out any organization or entity, but there were just there were just a lot of the question marks about this and answers weren't forthcoming. So I think that's raised a lot of questions for people about how is the legal process going to go. So now if it goes to the grand jury as manslaughter, we definitely know it's going to go to a grand jury. Right. That's for sure. So when it goes to the grand jury, does it go in as manslaughter and they try to get a grand jury to hand down an indictment on that? Or does it go in as that, but the grand jury could come back and say, no, no, no, this was second degree murder or whatever? Well, the grand jury can't up the charges, but the DA's office between now and when it is presented could sort of reverse course and supersede with murder charges and put those in front of the grand jury as well. What the grand jury does, they get together, they hear only from the district attorney's office unless the defendant chooses to testify, which they have the right to do. But even if the defendant chooses to testify, the lawyer just sits there, a defense attorney just sits there. You can't ask questions, you can't present evidence really. And so it's a very advantageous process for the prosecution. There's like a saying, the prosecution can indict a ham sandwich, and they essentially can. And so I don't think the prosecution is gonna have any trouble indicting him on manslaughter. But again, they're going to have to, I think the DA's office is going to have to answer to the public in some regard why this was downgraded. I mean, I have clients right now charged with depraved indifference murder. And that is where you are charged with murder, not manslaughter, because you essentially acted recklessly, unaware sort of that this grave risk of death you were creating around you would lead to death and does. I don't see how this isn't that. He pulled out a gun, he fired recklessly on the George Washington Bridge at 7 p.m. to a guy he was definitely angry at. It's frustrating. I feel like I'm playing two sides of the same coin here because as a defense attorney, I'm thrilled for a defense attorney to start in this position and kind of have these opportunities. But as someone who doesn't represent just cops, I'd like to see that treatment be extended to a lot more defendants. Well, the other thing too is other follow-up actions that we would have seen in a case after a shooting that we've seen in other, there's no similar, exactly similar case with a similar a type of alleged shooter but there would be there would be he would have been stopped on the bridge he would have they would have you know taken the gun right there to be tested they would have tested his him for alcohol you know for for whatever and it's just there there was like a big piece of isn't that going to hurt the prosecution that they don't have any of that well sure that's going to hurt the prosecution but i think they've got enough video and and you know they're going to be able to trace that bullet to his service weapon, it sounds like, the weapon he was allowed to keep after he retired. But they're gonna have to answer for all the things that he didn't do, essentially, even though they will be prosecuting him. I mean, not only did he just drive home, he didn't even stop to call 911. He didn't do the basic things, and he didn't tell anybody about it. So he didn't do the basic things that would tell you that someone is really, really concerned after they make a horrible, horrible, accidental mistake that could have led to a potential injury. He drove off, and so I think both sides are gonna have to do sort of a lot of explaining and apologizing to both the public and ultimately a jury if it gets down that path. But again, because he's charged with manslaughter, there are a lot more plea options available to him that none of which have a life sentence attached to it. And probably may not be agreeable to the family at all. Adam, thank you so much for joining us. One last quick thing. So in terms of the grand jury, about how all this happened last week, is there kind of a usual time frame for when the grand jury in a case like this would be heard in Manhattan? Because you're in that Manhattan criminal courthouse all the time. Yeah, I mean, you have 180 hours, essentially, which is about five days. Now, a lot of times that's not realistic, and you can get extensions for it. But it is essentially scheduled to go in of the grand jury tomorrow. It's on in part F in Manhattan, which is the upfront part for unindicted felonies tomorrow. And so my guess, again, especially since this is now a manslaughter case and not a murder case, is that his attorney could waive time, meaning that he won't hold the prosecution necessarily to that timeline of indicting. So they can push that off to either try to work something out, get some critical evidence that they think will be helpful. There's a number of reasons why you would kind of want to wait on that process. But the DA's office may just say, listen, this is a very serious case. We feel like we have enough to indict. This is our obligation. And it could happen as early as tomorrow. Okay. All right. Adam Conta, thank you so much.