Time to head out to the Rood guest hotline,

Rood, the most reliable heating and air conditioning products in the DMV.

We welcome in Ashley Garland, attorney and legal analyst.

She works for Annapole Weiss based in Philly.

She's covering the Brendan Banfield trial.

Ashley, thanks for the time this morning.

We appreciate it.

Absolutely.

Thank you for having me. Of course. This is just a crazy trial. Ashley, thanks for the time this morning. We appreciate it. Absolutely. Thank you for having me. Of course. This is just a crazy trial. It was obviously a huge local story, but now it's national. I mean, if you watch like the national news and I do, I watch, you know, NBC news at night. I mean, it's a top story around the country.

Well, and like nightline or date line or whatever, they're covering it, right?

I mean, this is going to be a movie. It's such a crazy story. But I guess my first question is,

what was your take on the fact that Brendan Banfield actually is taking the stand? I just think it's a huge risk.

You think that was his attorney's advice, or do you think Banfield said, you know what, Carol?

John Carroll is the defense attorney? I need to get up there and talk and tell my story. It's just very

risky. Absolutely. It's always very risky for a defendant to take the stand and to, you know,

be put under the pressure of the cross-examination, certainly under direct examination,

you prep for that with your, with your defense attorney, but, you know, you never know what's

going to come up on cross. So it's always a really risky strategy. I think that it was

Brendan's decision to do so. If you, you know, watched the, the cross examination, the prosecutor,

Jenna Sands, you know, asked him, you never told this story before. You never told your side of the story before.

And so I think what he was trying to do was I want a chance to try and, you know, explain what, you know, what I want to say happen so the jury can get some other type of explanation or narrative to fit the facts.

How do you think Jenna Sands handled it yesterday with her questioning?

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