Content warning, this episode contains discussion of violence and murder, including the murder of two girls.

So sometimes when it's up to me to select the cases for an episode of the Cheat sheet, I try to look for some things around a general theme.

And today I think the theme that caught my eye was fairness.

Everybody always says it's very important that defendants receive a fair trial.

But what exactly does that mean? What happens to make a trial unfair? And is that

something that's clear to everybody or is it sometimes obscure and difficult to puzzle out?

Certainly in the abstract the idea is there's no such thing as a perfect trial.

Right, so a fair trial is not a perfect trial.

Exactly.

Human beings can't do anything perfectly. Yeah. That's just a fact of

life. So if there are mistakes made you have to look at them and say is this a

mistake that plausibly affected the outcome of the trial.

And the thing is even lawyers and attorneys can't always agree on the answer to that question.

It can get pretty complicated. So we're going to look at a couple of cases that illustrate

that this week on the cheat sheet. My name is Anya Kane. I'm a journalist. And I'm Kevin Greenley. I'm an attorney and this is the

murder sheet. We're a true crime podcast focused on original reporting,

interviews, and deep dives into murder cases.

We're the murder sheet.

And this is the cheat sheet.

Felons and fairness. So, So, So I want to start with a case that actually happened back in the late 90s in Oklahoma and after we talk about it a bit I will tell you why it's in the news this week. This is the story of the murder of a man named Barry Van Tries. He ran the best budget inn in Oklahoma City,

Oklahoma.

Now according to prosecutors,

...