In criminal cases involving self-defense claims, the absence of evidence regarding provocation (such as racial slurs) and initial aggressor status in official charging documents can significantly strengthen a defendant's legal defense, as these elements are critical for prosecutors to prove beyond reasonable doubt to establish criminal liability.
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How Police Complaint Against Chud is WEAK SAUCE!Added:
Bam. Welcome everybody. Welcome to this episode of the Branka Show. I am of course attorney Andrew Branka and today we're going to take a look at the just released official affidavit of complaint against Dalton Chud the Builder Etherly in his attempted murder case. This affidavit has just been made public yesterday and as I review it, I see significant gaps in the state's prosecution strategy and argument. And those gaps could well be a turning point in the case against Dalton in his defense.
This affidavit shockingly fails to present an evidence-based criminal narrative, even though to date it's the most comprehensive sharing by the state of the facts they believe they have against Dalton. Notably absent is any mention of inflammatory language by Dalton. We'll talk about that more. Uh the document does describe a physical u verbal altercation and some other facts of the case and none of them are crimes and none of them are inconsistent with innocence or lawful self-defense. So we're going to break that all down with you today in that affidavit. Now today Chud Chud the builder Dalton is also having a bond hearing and I just looked to see if there was any updated information on that. I'm not seeing anything yet. He's currently got a bond of 1.25 25 million wi-i which is exceptionally high by the standards of the Montgomery County courthouse.
He has not made that bond. He's still being detained. But there's a new bond hearing today and we'll check in on that before we check out for uh the show and before we transition over to our membersonly show today which will be about why Thomas Massie lost. The real reason Tom Massie lost his primary. You need to be a member to join us for that second show, which we transition to right from here. 16 cents a day to be a member, folks. Five bucks on either YouTube or on locals. And I look forward to seeing a bunch of you there.
But in this show, we're here to talk about Dalton.
Dalton Etherly, Chud the Builer, who of course got into a confrontation a week or so ago with a Joshua Fox, ended up shooting Fox in the stomach and the shoulder, was arrested, charged with attempted murder, and a variety of other charges, aggravated assault, a use of a gun and a felony charge. And he's currently being held, as we say, $1.25 $25 million bail. Now, Dalton Etherly is best known for being a kind of social media provocator.
Goes out, talks with black people on the street. Sometimes those conversations go well. Sometimes they become antagonistic. At which point Etherly begins throwing out the n-word. The nword, not how I'm saying it, the whole nword. and uh at into black people's faces. Now, I know there are those of you out there who feel like, well, this is the First Amendment. This is how you drive change in society. A lot of the white population in America is suffering from race fatigue.
I get all that. I also know that most white Americans have been conditioned their entire lives to viscerally recoil when they see a white man calling a black man the n-word to their face. So this was a dynamic that many people are frankly surprised has not led to violence in the past that the use of an n-word to a black person's face would qualify as provocation provoking a violent response. And under Tennessee self-defense law, under the self-defense law of many states, if you provoke a violent confrontation, you lose the privilege to claim self-defense as a legal defense for your own use of force.
So, that had been a question here.
There's lots of video out there on YouTube of Dalton Eily calling black men the n-word. Did that happen here in this confrontation with Joshua Fox? If so, does it constitute the kind of provocation envisioned by the Tennessee self-defense statute? If it does, Dalton needly loses self-defense as a legal defense, in which case he simply unlawfully shot Joshua Fox in the belly and shoulder, and that would seem to warrant a charge of attempted murder.
Only attempted murder, of course, because Joshua Fox survived those uh gunshots.
Incidentally, Joshua Fox has not been charged.
I know I get a lot of comments from uh from double-digit, tripledigit accounts on X saying, "Well, Joshua Fox must clearly have been the innocent victim here. He hasn't been criminally charged.
If he had done something wrong, the prosecutor would have charged him, too."
No. No. That's not how it works. There's plenty of reasons Joshua Fox might not have been charged that have nothing to do with the legal merits or whether he could have been charged. the the prosecutors, for example, could simply have made the the tactical decision.
We're going to go after the guy who fired the shots. We're going to go after the guy with the contentious, provocative social media history. We're going to charge him with attempted murder. And once we've done that, we don't want to charge the other guy, too.
That would weaken our case. So, we're just not going to charge him. That's entirely within their discretion.
There's good reason to believe that Joshua Fox was actually the aggressor in this confrontation. the attacker in this confrontation ought to be charged in this confrontation, but he he hasn't been. The fact that he hasn't been has nothing to do with whether or not he could be or should be.
Could be or should be. Yes, of course, it's all become very contentious on on YouTube in particular. Let's see how we're doing here.
Quick check.
All right. No, no super chance. super chats or Rumble rants yet. Now, when I started covering this, of course, in the days after it first happened, there's a lot of ambiguity. We don't have a lot of facts. Mostly, we don't have facts because they're they're not being released by the state. The state is the one in possession of the evidence. Um, Dalton is locked up. So, any facts or evidence we're going to have are going to come from the state.
We we we weren't getting very much. We do of course know about Dalton's provocative social media content. So a question arises based on that social media content based on his practice of calling black people the nword to his face. Did that happen here? Did that happen in this confrontation with Joshua Fox? If it did, it arguably qualifies as having provoked a violent confrontation. And if you provoked a violent confrontation under Tennessee law, Dalton has no claim of self-defense. If he has no justification of self-defense, his shooting of Joshua Fox would simply be an unlawful shooting.
Did that kind of provocation here? Did that kind of racial slur play a role here? We we couldn't know, but we could discuss the consequences.
The consequence would be loss of self-defense as a legal justification.
Now, of course, if the provocation didn't occur, well, then that issue is off the table. We don't have to worry about Dalton Etherly losing self-defense on the basis of provocation. We didn't know. We didn't know. Maybe it happened.
That's one consequence. Loss of self-defense. Maybe it didn't happen.
And then we don't have to worry about it as a legal issue. But we didn't have definite facts to guide us there. We didn't know. We we we have no video that's useful. The the little clip of video I've seen is simply non-informative. Although I noticed that everyone who looks at it sees what they want to see in that video. People who are against Dalton see I don't I don't know what they see. People who are for for Dalton say, "Well, you can clearly see Joshua Fox doing this and that and the other thing."
I don't know what they see. I don't see that. That little video clip is not helpful. I've shared it with you before.
Um so provocation was a key issue here.
Was a racial slur used? Was that provocation? Did that lose Dalton self-defense? Another key issue here was um well, who was the initial aggressor in the fight? Being the initial aggressor is another way to lose self-defense. The initial aggressor cannot claim self-defense as a legal justification for the their use of force. Was Dalton the initial physical aggressor here? Another key question.
So, we now have this affidavit of complaint from the police sworn under oath. And so, what I'm looking for is what are the facts in this affidavit?
one that are consistent with the crimes charged and inconsistent with innocence of those crimes just on their merits. Have you met the legal elements of the crime? Are there facts being offered here to to support the criminal charge? And two, was there evidence of a racial slur, the kind of provocation that could lose Dalton self-defense? And and three, is there evidence that Dalton was the initial aggressor in this confrontation? Those are the big vulnerabilities to Dalton Etherly's legal defense. Provocation, uh, initial aggressor, and of course, in in addition to overcoming self-defense, the state simply has to prove the crimes beyond a reasonable doubt. Each and every element of the criminal charges against Dalton. And that's what I'm looking for in this in this affidavit of complaint. And I was shocked when I read it because literally none of that is in the affidavit of complaint. There's not a word about any of that. There's not a word about a racial slur.
There there's nothing that explicitly says Dalton was the initial aggressor. Much like the video, of course, people look at this affidavit and they seem to see what they want to see. They interpret the words in the way that's most favorable to how how they feel about this confrontation and this shooting. But when you look at this affidavit objectively, there's no explicit statement that Dalton Etherly was the initial aggressor in this confrontation. None.
And in fact, it's there's nothing in the affidavit that's inconsistent with Dalton Etherly simply not being guilty of these crimes. Completely independent of self-defense. And we're going to look through the affidavit. I'll show you all that. Now, something to keep in mind, probably the uh how could I put it? The the main criticism you'll hear of of my take on this affidavit of complaint is that it's just an affidavit of complaint. The the burden here is for the police to demonstrate that they have probable cause to bring charges, not to prove Dalton guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
That's not what their obligation is to do here. Later at trial, of course, they need to prove him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and disprove self-defense beyond any reasonable doubt. But here in this charging document, they just need to have probable cause. And probable cause is an extremely low burden.
I don't think it's this low. I I don't think this affidavit even shows probable cause, but probable cause is such a low burden that judges will sign off on basically anything and say it satisfies probable cause.
Let's pretend this affidavit meets that standard and establishes probable cause.
Well, that's reason to arrest. That's reason to um put this before a grand jury or get an information, however Tennessee does that, uh to get to get Dalton Etherly into trial, but I I don't really care about probable cause because I know it's a low standard. I know it's always met. There was never any question that some judge was going to approve probable cause here if the prosecutor wanted it and clearly the prosecutor does. That's not the question that that that merely leads to a arrest in a trial. The the real legal question here is will Dalter and Ethan spend 60 years in a cage? Will he be found guilty? Will he be convicted on the legal merits beyond any reasonable doubt? That's what I care about. So, what I'm looking for is facts that support that proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, that disproves self-defense beyond a reasonable doubt. And and I don't believe that if the prosecution had evidence to support those arguments that they would leave him out of this affidavit.
That doesn't make any sense to me. I I I simply don't believe it. Now, is it possible that later the state would say, "Oh, yeah. We had that evidence all along. We had evidence of a racial slur.
We had evidence that he was the initial aggressor. We just we forgot. We didn't bother. We didn't think it should be in the affidavit of complaint. I I guess that could happen.
But I don't believe it. I don't believe it. I believe if the state had evidence that Dalton Neil was hurling racial slurs at Joshua Fox and that's what provoked this violent confrontation, that would be in the affidavit of complaint if they had it. And I believe that if the state had explicit evidence that Daltton Eily was the initial physical aggressor in this confrontation, that would be in this affidavit if they had it. So when I don't see that stuff in the affidavit, I have to ask myself, are we really supposed to believe the state has evidence like that and they just chose not to include it? That they're they wouldn't be shouting it from the rooftops if they had a video or a witness willing to testify under oath that Dr. underneath was shouting the n-word at Joshua Fox. They're they're just going to leave that on the table.
I simply don't believe it.
So, let's get ready. Let's get ready to Rumble. Well, we're not just on Rumble, of course. We're on YouTube and we're also Oh.
Sorry, just checking one of my feeds here.
Well, this is Give me one second, folks.
technical issue. This is how we do things. You see the nuts and bolts.
All right. I'm supposed to be stream Okay. I'm supposed to be streaming to our membership at Law Self-Defense and it doesn't seem to be working.
Very frustrating.
Very frustrating. Let me redirect that community so they can catch it on YouTube or Rumble if they prefer.
Let's see.
All right, back on. Hey, let's hit a couple of these uh super chats and rumble rants that have now come in. Oh, no. Rumble rants.
Hello.
No, my stream to uh law self-defense is not working. Could you take a look at that, please? Thank you. Bye.
Okay, we'll see if we can get a fix in.
All right. Uh, no Rumble Rants, but we do have some super chats here. Let's take a look. Uh, Jeffrey says, "You forgot to start the law of self-defense blog." I didn't forget. I didn't forget.
I did what I was supposed to do. It just It just didn't work. We're working on it now. Uh, Glenn Miller, hello everyone. Happy Thursday. Whoops.
I forgot to put my earbuds in.
Indeed, a happy Thursday to every Well, maybe not everybody. I don't think it's a happy Thursday for uh for Thomas Massie. We'll talk about that.
Okay. Hopefully the audio is still good.
And Azie Crosby, five bucks.
Thank you. How dare you call me a name that I and my hood brothers call each other all day every day. I I know I understand that that I understand that take, but I can assure you that a normal normie jury of which two to three members statistically would be African-Amean in the trial of Dalter and Etherly. Uh they're going to feel differently about it. $5 super sticker from my mama. Mama, thank you very much. and Chris Middleton five bucks.
If Chud is the provocator, how does he defend himself if he's no longer has a claim to self-defense? If he uses his fist, you say that's a lethal weapon.
Well, fists can be a lethal weapon. It depends on the manner of the fist. It's not always a lethal weapon. Normally, it's not unless there's some aggravating factor. Fists are not normally considered deadly force. Force readily capable of causing death or serious bodily injury. But aggravating factors can occur. There can be disparity of numbers, disparity of strength. It could be a a sucker punch attack. So, you're attacking someone who's unaware that they need to be defending themselves. It could be a sustained beating. Uh it could be a lucky blow that particularly stuns the victim of the punch. All that is possible. Um if you lose self-defense, how do you defend yourself? Well, we have to distinguish between self-defense as a physical act and self-defense as a legal justification for a use of force. Those are two different things. So if you provoke a violent confrontation and are attacked, you can still physically defend yourself. You don't have to let yourself die. You can physically defend yourself from that attack. That's self-defense, but you can't then raise the legal defense of self-defense at trial to justify your use of force. So, you provoke a violent confrontation, you defend yourself, survive the physical fight, and you get convicted because you don't have a legal defense for your use of force. The law does not want you provoking violent confrontations, and that's how they hold you accountable. If you do that, you lose the legal privilege of claiming self-defense as a justification.
I don't make those rules. I'm only explaining the rules made in this case by the Tennessee legislature. Uh, Tread 1775, five gifted memberships on YouTube.
Zakuza on Rumble Rant. We got a Rumble Rant coming in.
Says, "No Rumble Ranch, you say. I say liar. $5. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. I have such a kind and generous generous audience. Got a $1, wrong one. Um, a $1 a $1 contribution.
Thank you. I appreciate that.
And I think that catches up all on that.
Okay. So, I'm going to pull up the affidavit of complaint. And what are we looking for? What are the big vulnerabilities for Dalton Etherly here?
The biggest vulnerability is the hurling of a racial slur. If that happened, I I think any normal jury, normie jury, certainly the African-Americans on the jury would perceive that as being the kind of provocation that the Tennessee self-defense statute says loses you self-defense. You may disagree with that. That's fine. But that's the biggest vulnerability to Dalton Ely's legal defense here, the racial slur. So, we're looking for that.
Any evidence of that in this affidavit of complaint? We're looking for any evidence that explicitly can label Dalton Netherly as the initial physical aggressor here.
The meaning the first person to use or threaten to use force.
Either of those makes you the initial physical aggressor. Then you lose the element of innocence. You lose self-defense. So we're looking for evidence in the affidavit of complaint that Dr. Neily was the initial physical aggressor. And of course, we're looking for evidence that's consistent with having committed one of the crimes charged, particularly the attempted murder charge. That's good for up to 60 years in prison if it's attempted firstdegree murder. That's what we're looking for. So, with that in mind, let's pull this document up.
And it's very short. The the the relevant portion is very short. It's only a single page document and uh only a couple of paragraphs are really relevant here.
See if I can make it even bigger.
Okay. So, Dalton Levi Etherly committed the offense according to this complaint of uh Oh, it is first-degree attempted murder. So, that's the one good that's the first I've seen where they clarified what degree it was. Um, attempted murder in the second degree is is more like 15 to 30 years in prison. Attempted murder in the first degree is good for 60 years in prison. Employing a firearm during a dangerous felony. That's an add-on gun offense. So, that only applies if you have the conviction on the underlying felony. Aggravated assault with serious bodily injury. Uh, again, neither of these are a crime if the use of force meets the conditions for lawful self-defense. And then reckless endangerment with a deadly weapon. So, this is based on the shots that missed Joshua Fox that ricocheted off a wall.
Um, reckless endangerment is a real charge and a serious felony, but it only applies if there's evidence of recklessness. In other words, an unjustified creation of a risk of death or serious bodily injury and then and then uh you do you do it anyway. The classic example of uh reckless endangerment is drunk driving. So, you go to a bar, you get drunk, you get behind the wheel of your car. You're not trying to run anybody over. You don't have any criminal intent to hurt anybody. You're just trying to get home.
But we all know that if you're driving drunk, you're creating an unjustified risk of death or serious bodily injury to others. That's recklessness. And therefore, if you do hit somebody and kill or injure them, that death or injury was reckless. And reckless is sufficient for criminal liability. It's a step above negligence. which is only good for civil liability. Negligence is when you should have known you were creating a risk, but you didn't.
You're civily liable for the damages that result. Recklessness is when you know you're creating the risk and you do it anyway. And that's sufficient for a felony conviction. But here's the thing.
Recklessness is the unjustified disregard of a danger and doing it anyway. What that means is if you acted in self-defense, self-defense is by definition not reckless. Self-defense is by definition reasonable. But what about the shots that went flying around the community outside the courthouse? Yeah, that happens in self-defense. Missed shots happen. It happens with police who are supposed to be professionally trained in the use of handguns.
When police are engaged in a gunfight with a suspect, roughly twothirds of the shots they fire miss and go racing around the community.
And of course, bullets don't really miss. I mean, they miss the intended target, but they keep going until they hit something. But if the firing of the shots was reasonable self-defense, it's not reckless by definition as a matter of law and therefore cannot be the basis for reckless endangerment.
So, we're looking for claims of recklessness here, too. Is there evidence to support recklessness? What we really mean is, you know, there there would be no there would be no way to interpret these facts as supporting self-defense because if it's self-defense, it's not reckless.
So on March, sorry, May 13, 2026 in the afternoon, Dalton Etherly, the defendant here, and Joshua Fox engaged in a verbal altercation in front of the Montgomery County courthouse. All right, let's just look at this first sentence.
A verbal altercation.
Is a verbal altercation attempted murder? No. Is it aggravated assault with serious bodily injury? No.
Is it employing a firearm during a dangerous felony? No. Is it reckless endangerment with a deadly weapon? No.
So, the verbal altercation is meaningless to any of these criminal charges. And by the way, it's not a crime to have a verbal altercation with someone. No. I I guess the worst it could be would maybe somebody would characterize it as disorderly conduct.
Two two men angrily suggest throwing words at each other.
But disorderly conduct is a misdemeanor and he's not charged with disorderly conduct. And by the way, they're both involved. So it would be mutual disorderly conduct. They'd both be charged with misdemeanors. But they they weren't. Neither one was. So this is completely irrelevant. And it doesn't point a finger at Dalter Netherly in particular. A verbal altercation between two people involves both of them.
Neither one is more guilty than the other.
What else is not said here in this sentence? There's nothing said here about Dalton Netherly using a racial slur in the course of this verbal altercation.
Is it possible he did that? Is it possible there's evidence that Dalton Netherly was hurling racial slurs at Joshua Fox? I suppose so. I wasn't there. But does anyone believe that if the state had evidence of Dr. nephily hurling racial slurs at Joshua Fox in the course of this verbal altercation.
It would not be included in this affidavit. Does anybody believe that?
After all, the the racial slur would be the trigger for all the violence that happened. Certainly, the state would argue the racial slur would be the provocation that strips Dalton Etherly of his most powerful defense.
And the state's just not going to mention it.
I don't believe that. I don't believe that it could be true. I just don't believe it. I don't believe for a second that the police or prosecutor would not include whatever evidence they had of racial slurs if they had any evidence.
And as we'll see as we go through this, nowhere nowhere do they even make a claim of a racial slur, much less include evidence about it.
Again, this is just a charging document.
They're not have to they don't have to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt here. They only have to show probable cause, which I think this falls short of probable cause. But they're not required to include every fact they have. I just don't believe that that that most pivotal fact, the hurling of racial slurs, would not appear in this affidavit if they had actual evidence of it.
Continuing here. During this verbal altercation between two men, mutual verbal altercation, Etherly turned his body in a bladed stance towards Mr. Fox. Okay, let's address that. Is this a crime? Now, the people who see what they want to see, the people who want to see guilt, aggression on the part of Dalton, they say, "Oh my god, a bladed stance. There you go. He's guilty."
Guilty of what?
If you're dealing with an angry person and you're concerned you might have to defend yourself, one of the simplest things to do, the most obvious, most automatic things to do is to take a half step back. A half step back, which I guess could be characterized as a bladed stance, but it's a defensive stance. It's a defensive position.
When you're shooting a gun, you square up to the target like this.
A bladed stance. A bladed stance is no indication of guilt when it's completely consistent with innocence. Completely consistent with being the defensive party dealing with an initial aggressor, someone using or threatening to use force. Notice they don't say that Joshua Fox didn't say anything threatening.
They don't say who advanced on whom.
They don't they don't say Dalton advanced on Fox. in a threatening manner. Not only do they not present evidence of that, they don't even make the claim. So, so far we have no clue on who may have initiated this confrontation.
And and and the facts being shared are as equally consistent with innocence's guilt. And so far, they are. What are we doing here with these criminal charges?
Is that probable cause?
Probable. It's more probable than not that Dalton and Etherly committed these cited charges.
During this ver verbal altercation, Etherly turned his body in a bladed stance towards Mr. Fox. I I don't know what that means. If you're scared of someone, of course, you're going to be looking at them.
What's towards mean? How do you take a stance towards somebody? Presumably, if they're in an altercation, they're already a verbal altercation. are already faced. Is Mr. Fox is he positioned? Is his stance towards Dalton Netherly? Wouldn't we expect that to be the case?
During this verbal altercation, Mr. Etherly turned his body in a bladed stance towards Mr. Fox and reached for his firearm located in his right jacket pocket. Now, this again, the people who want to see what they want to see, they say, "Oh my god, he reached for a firearm.
He's guilty."
No, reaching for a firearm is not an indication of guilt. It's completely consistent with lawful self-defense.
Note what they're not saying here.
They're not saying he drew the firearm out of his pocket.
They're not saying he made Joshua Fox aware that he had a firearm.
And and if he if he didn't make Joshua Fox aware he had a firearm, he's not committing an assault. An assault is the crime of putting someone else in imminent fear of unlawful harm. You don't have to touch them. That would be a battery. It's the putting that person in reasonable fear of imminent unlawful harm. That's the crime of assault.
Did Joshua Fox know at this point the bladed stance, the reaching for the firearm? Did he even know that Dalton had a gun at this point? because if he didn't, he's he's not being placed in fear of the gun he doesn't know exists.
There's no there's no claim here, much less evidence that at this point before the before the physical altercation ensued. We'll get to that in a moment.
There's no claim here that Joshua Fox had any awareness that Dalton Etherly had a gun in his pocket in that which case there's no assault. There's no claim that Dalton had drawn the gun before the physical altercation ensued.
There's no evidence that Dalton had pointed the gun before the physical altercation ensued. All he did, all they're capable of claiming is he reached for something. They can't even say he got his hand on it.
What does that mean? His he his hand moved towards his right jacket pocket.
That that would be consistent with what they're claiming here. not even contact with the firearm.
And then one of my favorite parts of this. So Dalton reached for a firearm located, you know, I got a coffee mug here. If I reach for it, I may not even touch it yet.
He reached for a firearm located in his right jacket pocket. Thereafter, a physical altercation ensued. Look at the passive voice here.
It doesn't mention either man. Doesn't mention a human being. It just says a physical altercation. That's that's the operative noun here. Doesn't say the two men engaged in a physical altercation.
It doesn't say Dalter and Etherly initiated a physical altercation. It just says somehow. We have no idea how.
We have no idea what triggered it. A physical altercation ensued. What are we supposed to make of this? This statement would be true under oath if Joshua Fox was the initial aggressor, advanced on and attacked Dalton Neil for no justifiable reason. This statement would be just as true.
Not only do they not share any evidence that Dalton Neily was the initial aggressor, still no evidence of a racial slur, of course, they're not even making a claim that Dalton Neil was the initial aggressor, much less a claim of a racial slur.
Instead, they're devolving to this utter passive voice. A physical altercation ensued. We have no idea how.
We can't make any sense of this in terms of probable cause of a crime.
If the story was one of, oh, Dr. Nathley, he was a victim of an attack, this statement would still be true.
And then after the physical altercation, the unexplained, we have no idea how this happened. Physical altercation, we just transition right to Etherly discharged his firearm, striking Fox multiple times. Well, he must be guilty.
Look, he it says right there, etherly shot him. He's guilty. No, there's nothing unlawful about shooting someone.
There's nothing unlawful about shooting someone multiple times.
If you're doing it in lawful self-defense, there's nothing in this sentence that is inconsistent with lawful self-defense.
Thousands of people every year shoot someone multiple times, and it's not a crime because they're doing it in lawful self-defense. Police routinely shoot suspects multiple times and it's not a crime being committed by the officers because the shooting is justified.
So the discharging of the firearms not a crime.
The multiple hits is not a crime unless it wasn't done in lawful self-defense. Have we seen anything yet that's explicitly inconsistent with a claim of self-defense by Etherly?
What would be inconsistent?
Five elements of self-defense.
Innocence, imminence, proportionality, avoidance, and reasonables. All avenues of attack by the prosecutor. If a prosecutor can disprove any one of those elements beyond a reasonable doubt, the claim of self-defense collapses. By the way, good as good an opportunity as any to remind all of you, if you like this kind of legal analysis and you'd like to learn more, we have a book that we give away. We give this book away. The law of self-defense principles covers all these dynamics in plain English. Teaches you how to be hard to convict if you're ever compelled to defend yourself, your family, or your property. Check it out on Amazon. It's fivestar rated, but don't buy it there.
They'll charge you 20 or $25 for the book. We give you the book. We only ask that you cover the cost of shipping the book to you. And you can either just scan that QR code with your phone right there on the screen or point your browser to lawf.comfreebook.
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Not hard to remember.
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and pick up your copy. Pick up pick up copies for your friends and family.
Don't you want them to be hard to convict, too? This stuff isn't rocket science, but in my experience, few people are taught this. What most people know about self-defense law is wrong.
It's just wrong.
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law selfdefense.com/freebook.
Let's see. Couple super chats. Let me take an opportunity here. $5. Steve Dubois.
Can an argument be made for non-white jurors to be excluded from a jury of his peers? No. No. In fact, you explicitly cannot exclude jurors because because of their race, because they're they're not white.
Uh you have to make if if you're trying to uh exclude a black juror, you have to make uh you can be tasked. The other side can say, "Your honor, we we want this person to explain to the court why their exclusion of the black person doesn't qualify as racism, which is not an argument you have to make if you're trying to exclude a white person."
Tread 1775 says, "Will Democrats ever allow AI to be the finder of fact?" Do you want AI to be the finder of fact in your trial?
Have you given prompts to AI? Have you seen the garbage it kicks back? The stuff it makes up?
AI is the most [ __ ] smart software system I've ever seen.
I wouldn't want AI to be my jury. Of course, the best plan, it should go without saying for all of us, the best single best thing you can do to be hard to convict is not get into fights in the first place, right? be be invisible to bad people.
So, you're not compelled to defend yourself, your family, or your property.
If you're acting in self-defense, it ought to be because you tried everything else and it didn't work. That person compelled you to use force in self-defense because you could do everything right.
You could still be convicted. You you you could go to trial and be acquitted and you're still out hundreds of thousands of dollars, maybe lost years of your life. So the best plan is to, you know, be invisible. Don't be provocative. Don't get into confrontations.
Save yourself a lot of money and a lot of risk. What we talk about in the book is what happens if you try all that and the fight comes to you. Anyway, uh let's see another another Zakuza rumble rant.
Let me pull it up. Whoops. There we go.
Says the charging reads like Ilhan Omar description of 911 when she said where some people did something right.
Completely passive voice. Unbelievably passive voice.
Unbelievable. Tread 1775 says, "I argue with AI for fun." Yeah. And it's funny because it's crazy because the the AI system is insane.
insane. By the way, uh it was very funny. I I don't know if I have it. Um someone of course many people don't like my my breakdown of this affidavit and uh some people were arguing uh well they they they sent my breakdown to uh to Grock and asked it asked it to critique my breakdown. They wanted Grock to tell them that my breakdown was nonsense. See if I can find that exchange quickly. Yeah, here it is. I did find it quickly. How about that?
Let me share this.
So this accounts Grock responds to an account that's critical of my breakdown of the affidavit of complaint against Alter and Etherly and it's fantastic. So this account, I don't know who they are, but they didn't like my breakdown. They say, "Grock, please tear up tear up this nonserious troll post." They're talking about me and my legal analysis. Tear it up decisively and quickly. It's not worth anyone reading. That's what they asked Rock to do. What did Grock respond?
It's not a troll post. Andrew Brana is a legit self-defense attorney, and his read of the affidavit is accurate. It's unusually thin, uses passive voice on who started the physical fight, admits omits any racial provocation or recklessness claim, and doesn't address self-defense elements.
Yes, it was great. Thanks, Grock.
Thanks, Grock. And uh someone else had had uh pinged me and said, "Yeah, I I passed it by Grock and they said it was good. Uh your analysis was good." And I was like, "Well, okay. I appreciate that." But listen, if Grock had had said my analysis was wrong, my analysis would still be right. I'm not I'm not relying on Grock's praise for my for my analysis.
All right, let's get back to the uh the uh affidavit which is supposed to be a statement of truth, a statement of truth. You know, before I do that, actually, as long as we took a pause for a second, I want to talk about some other truth, and that is Medicare truth.
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In fact, his incentive is completely the opposite. he's completely entitled to offer you the Medicare plans and only the medical Medicare plans that pay him the biggest commission as a Medicare broker. And of course, if it's a big commission, that has to be built into the cost of the plan. So, it makes your plan more costly. There are 24,000 Medicare plans out there, and they all vary in what they offer and what the cost is.
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All right, now we'll get back to the affidavit.
Look how much time we can spend on just a couple paragraphs and a few sentences.
It's how feckless this thing is.
Etherly discharge his firearm, striking Fox multiple times. All completely consistent with self-defense. There's nothing contradictory with lawful self-defense here. As a result of being shot, now we're going to transition to Fox's medical care. I don't know what that has to do.
I don't know what that has to do with probable cause. May maybe goes to the seriousness of the of the injury.
Serious bodily injury for the aggravated assault. I suppose that's it.
As a result of being shot, Fox was lifellighted to Vanderbilt Hospital and underwent emergency surgery.
Is that inconsistent with lawful self-defense? No, it's not. In addition, at the time the shots were fired, there were several innocent bystanders in the area, and surveillance video of the incident shows a ricocheting projectile hitting nearby walls. So I I guess that's supposed to be the basis for the reckless endangerment charge he that he wrote that that Dalton etherly recklessly endangered bystanders by some of his shots that missed Fox.
But is that evidence? Is that incontestable evidence of recklessness?
Not of the shots were fired in lawful self-defense. If they were fired in lawful self-defense, the misses are to be lamented.
Preferably, you'd like every round you fire to hit the target you're trying to neutralize, to hit the target and prevent it from causing you or other innocents death or serious bodily injury. You should be doing your best to get solid hits on what's threatening you and not be sending rounds around the community. But the law recognizes that misses happen. Over penetrations happen.
You're in a gunfight for your life.
Sometimes a bullet will go flying around the neighborhood. That's not reckless endangerment. if it was fired in lawful self-defense, which requires by definition that it was fired reasonably or it wouldn't be lawful self-defense.
And if it's reasonable conduct, it is not recklessness. Recklessness is an unjustified creation of a danger to others, not a justified creation of danger. Again, police miss roughly twothirds of the shots they fire at suspects.
Those rounds are not crimes.
And then they write just summarily Etherly employed a firearm during the commission of a dangerous felony. That's that other charge up here, the dangerous felony charge under 39171324.
U the underlying felony being criminal attempt murder one. But if it's not criminal attempt murder one, well then there's no firearm felony either.
And there's no criminal attempt murder one if he was acting in reasonable self-defense. Doesn't have to be correct self-defense. None of us are required to make perfect decisions in self-defense.
It only has to be reasonable self-defense.
Gino 463 sent a rumble rant. Let me share that with all of you.
He writes, "Almost missed the live show.
just popped in to give my obligatory harump harump. Thank you very much, my friend. I appreciate that.
And let's see, we got a couple super chats here. Have we heard anything out of the bond hearing? I didn't hear see anything breaking when I started the show, but before we sign off here, uh I'll take a look. There was a scheduled bond hearing for uh Dalton. He's currently being held on a $1.25 $25 million bond that was placed on him immediately within a day or two after the shooting and then a a more formal bail hearing was scheduled. That that should be happening today.
Um $2 here. Uh should Chud take a plea for aggravated assault? You know, whether or not you take a plea is is a it's always a difficult question between a lawyer. Well, I guess it's not always.
I mean, sometimes you get a very favorable plea deal. Um, but of course, aggravated assault, let me pull this up.
Aggravated assault is a felony. So now you're a convicted felon. You lose, you can't vote, you can't have guns, everything that follows from that.
Um, so, you know, normally if you believe, and maybe you're correct, that what you did was lawful, that you acted in lawful self-defense, you're not guilty of any crime. Why would you take a plea? Now, of course, prosecutors will try to um basically extort you into taking a plea by hitting you with the most serious charge they can come up with uh and trying to manipulate you into taking a plea deal. So, they're charging them with a 60-year felony, attempted murder in the first degree.
Now, normally in most jurisdictions, these are other serious felony charges, too. Of course, u in most jurisdictions, if you're hit with multiple charges from a single event and you're convicted, uh the sentences would run u concurrently with each other in parallel to each other. So, you're really only serving the longer the longest the single longest sentence. They don't normally run consecutively, one after the other, so that they they add up in terms of time. That's what I would expect to happen here. So, I I don't think I don't think Dalton is looking at 60 years for the murder one plus another 10 or 15 or whatever years for the each of the other felonies. I think he's looking at a max of 60, but he's what 28 29 years old. I mean, 60 years is you're 90, right? It's effectively a life sentence even without stacking uh the sentences.
So, 60 years a life sentence and they offer you a plea, no time served, five years served. I mean, even if you think you did it right, we we could have absolute evidence that this was lawful self-defense, and there's still a risk that Dalton gets convicted by a jury, there's at least a 20% chance if I have to put you in front of a jury that you get convicted. So, what's, you know, 20% of the rest of your life in a cage? Do you take a plea under those circumstances?
I I think it might be hard not to, right? I mean, just imagine if they offered Dalton a plea, aggravated assault, 5 years. He does the five years. He comes out, he's 33, 34 years old. You can still have a life. You don't you don't have a life. And he's got a kid, right? You don't have a life if you're, you know, spending the rest of your life in a cage. So, should he take it? I mean, I can't make that decision for him. That would be a decision he would have to take. But I can certainly understand the rationale.
If it were offered, will it be offered? I mean, what's the interest of the state here in offering that kind of play?
Now, if there was evidence that Dalton Etherly had been hurling racial slurs at Joshua Fox, I think the prospect of getting a plea offer would be zero.
Prosecutors have to run for reelection.
And if there were racial slurs being thrown here, I I don't think any prosecutor wants to be running for re-election where his opponent can say, "You gave that obvious racist a, you know, whether or not you believe he's an ob obvious racist." The normies would.
You gave that obvious racist a favorable plea deal. You're a racist yourself.
So just just because of the political dynamics, but but again, I I'm seeing no evidence of a racial slur in this confrontation with Joshua Fox. So the absence of that may make a plea offer more amendable to the prosecutor. The trouble is there's the reality that there's no evidence of a racial slur. And then of course there's the there's the the the mythtelling, the fabrications. People look at Dalton's social media history.
They they just presume that racial slurs were thrown here with Joshua Fox and and they'll presume it so hard that they'll simply conclude it's true. even even when it's demonstrabably not. People will believe comfortable lies about controversial events um that you can never dissuade them from because they didn't reason themselves into those lies. They believe these untruths with all the might of their being despite whatever evidence you might be able to show them that it's false that they don't care. It's become a matter of faith and a matter of emotional commitment. And you can't reason someone out of a position they did not reason themselves into in the first place.
Uh Jan gifted five memberships. Thank you very much.
Myin, how you doing, man? Myin gains on uh on YouTube. I've been on Myron's show and uh um we talk. Um in fact, I saw I had a message from you, Myin. I didn't get a chance to get back to you before this show started, but I'll follow up with you uh when I'm done live streaming today. Uh Myron 10 bucks says, "The more info that comes out, the more Chud's self-defense looks more obvious. It's hilarious seeing losers on Twitter try to challenge self-defense attorney."
That's me. That's me. It is funny. You know, one of the things I find remarkable because I've bothered to uh to take a look um when I when I get these crazy comments, these completely unreasoned, often illiterate, un-grammatical, um estrogenically hysterical critiques um on X and I'll I'll just click on on the person's profile and see how many followers they have. And and often it's triple digits. More often it's double digits, 30, 40 followers. Sometimes it's one follower. Sometimes it's zero. Zero followers. And of course, somebody somebody can be right in their argument no matter how many followers they have.
But they don't feel like real accounts.
I it it feels like you're, you know, like you live in a community, a small community for years and years and years and then the community has a meeting about what should we do about the swimming pool or the trees or whatever and everyone's it's like a town hall kind of thing and everyone's giving their input. Marge from down the street and Tom the electrician and and Steven the doctor and you know all these people you've known you've lived around for years are are all giving their input on what they'd like done with the community that you all live with. You know them.
They have a reputation with them. You have a sense of their credibility and their honesty and their integrity and their good faith.
And then Akmed jumps into the conversation and everyone's like, "Who the f is this?
Where'd this guy come from?" and he wants to, you know, fill the fill the pool up with sand and he wants to cut every tree down to stumps and he wants to do all this and it's crazy.
Is is what he wants going to carry the same weight as the people in the community who've been there forever who you know for which there's a for whom there's a basis for their credibility and good faith. a stranger you've never seen before has never made a contribution to the community.
I don't think so. And and it's just it's interesting to me how often when I see arguments that I just consider ridiculous on their face, like a bladed stance means murder, and then I click at the profile and the person's got three followers.
I'm sorry, man. That dude's getting blocked. That's that's just these are time wasters. These are denial of service accounts on social media. All they want to do is waste your time and I decline to participate.
Uh Raymond Huffman, five bucks says they wouldn't let me donate to Chud again. I don't I don't know what that's about. I know there's a couple of donation links for Dalton. Um give send go, but it's got kind of complicated.
Like there was one that was tied to his phone, but the police had seized his phone or or I don't know what they did with it. So, he couldn't Dalton couldn't access the money, so they sent the set up another one. Uh just if you're interested in donating, just, you know, go on X or Google it or whatever. Uh and I'm sure you'll find a way to do that.
Amazing Disgrace, 10 bucks. Says, "Watching you fight the hordes on X over the last few days has been highly entertaining." You should, if you don't follow me on X, by the way, you should.
It's just the Brana Show at the Brana Show on X. Sometimes after the KO and they get back up and shake their fist at you while you're already on to the next one. Yeah, you can't you can't invest in these little, you know, drive by goblin sniping attacks. That would be that would be a silly waste of time.
All right, so what do we got?
We have this criminal affidavit.
And what's notable, of course, is what's not here. What's not here is any evidence of a racial slur being thrown by Dalton Etherly at Joshua Fox. Not only is there no evidence, there's not even a claim without evidence.
I simply do not believe that if the prosecutor had evidence of Dalton throwing racial slurs at Joshua Fox that triggered this violent confrontation that they would fail to include it in the affidavit. So I have to conclude they don't have such evidence. Now could that change? Could suddenly a week from now or a month from now they they they come up with a cell phone video or a witness that says yes I heard Dalton saying. I guess that could happen. And of course, as the facts change, the legal analysis changes.
But I simply don't believe the prosecutor has evidence of racial slurs, and they left it out. That they're not that they're not saying it to the media.
This the same with any any evidence that explicitly characterizes Dalton Netherly as the initial physical aggressor here.
I not only is there no evidence, everything they cite is completely ambiguous. It's completely consistent with Joshua Fox being the initial aggressor. Right?
A physical altercation ensued like it spontaneously came into existence.
They say that a phys a physical altercation ensued with no indication of how it started. who was the initial aggressor.
They're prosecuting Dalton Etherly and they're unable or unwilling to say he started the fight. He started the physical altercation because remember all this other stuff, the bladed stance, the reaching for the firearm, that all happened before the altercation became physical. That wasn't Dalton creating the physical altercation.
That's prephysical altercation. only thereafter did a physical altercation ensue.
So they're not willing or able to say a racial slur was thrown. They're not willing or able to say that Dalton Neily was the initial aggressor here. They're not actually able or willing to say anything that's inconsistent with lawful self-defense.
In fact, I don't see evidence here that to my mind supports probable cause on these criminal charges. Now, they'll they'll get probable cause, of course, because as a practical matter, the burden for probable cause is so low that all a prosecutor has to do is ask for it, and they get it 99.99% of the time. So, of course, they're going to the judge is going to say, "Good enough for me.
Good enough for me."
Judicial Commissioner, by the way, is a is Carolyn.
Carolyn, I can't read the last name.
Himbolt maybe.
Of course, it's a it's a Carolyn.
If this were a um a civil suit alleging these things as tors for which if Joshua Fox were suing Dalter and Etherly over this and claiming these this the civil versions of these offenses, they would be torts in civil law. I I would say that this this fails to state a claim. It fails to state a claim for which Dalton Neil could be held civily liable. There's just no evidence here to support it. No, there's no evidence here that's inconsistent with self-defense. They can't even s suggest an absence of self-defense here.
So, you know, it's like what's the Sherlock Holmes story about the dog that did not bark in the night?
Why is this affidavit so silent in all these key issues? If they had evidence of racial slurs, of initial aggression on the part of Dalton Ely, why is it so silent? I I think it's silent because they don't have that evidence. And if they don't have that evidence, Dalton Etherly's legal defense looks far more robust after I read this document than than before. Before it was always possible that they, you know, listen, you heard me talking about it. If racial slurs were thrown, that's a big problem for Dalton Ely. Now I have to conclude there's zero evidence of that. That's a big improvement for Dalton Ely's defense.
People were saying Joshua Fox ran at Dalton Ely and attacked him. I'm like, I I just haven't seen any evidence of that. But the fact that they're unwilling to say it was Etherly who was the initial aggressor and they're not.
They just say this this passive voice, a physical altercation ensued.
I can only infer from them their unwillingness to say that Dalton Etherly was the initial aggressor. That Joshua Fox was in fact himself the initial aggressor here. That that will be the evidence.
So, a good day. A good day for Dalton.
For Dalton Etherly and yes, I was uh arguing with many many people on X yesterday about all this.
And uh I'm not going to recount all those all those Twitter exchanges, but you can go enjoy them if you want. In fact, my breakdown shockingly actually I will mention this my uh my breakdown on X of this.
See if I can find it. Oh my gosh.
Wish I had a better way of doing this.
By the way, this is why u I'm sure they were not releasing releasing the affidavit.
So, let me share this. I'm not going to read this whole thing because we we just talked through all of this.
This was the breakdown I had put on X.
Of course, it's long. You know me, I like to talk.
Um, holy cow, we got a lot of people here today.
4,500 people. Hey folks, if you haven't yet, do yourself a favor and pick up if you like this use of force stuff and that's why you're here. Use of force law. How to be hard to convict if you're ever compelled to defend yourself, your family, or property. I teach that. In fact, we have a book we give away for free. This book, The Law of Self-Defense Principles, a real book, explains all the legal ease in plain English. Most people read this book in an afternoon, teaches you how to be hard to convict.
And we give it away. You can check it out on Amazon. It's fivestar rated, but they'll charge you 20 or $25 for the book. I'll give you the book. I'll give it to you. We only ask that you cover the cost of shipping the book to you.
The book itself is free and you can get it by just scan that QR code with your phone and the link will pop up or open up another browser window and point your browser to lawofselfdefense.com/freebook.
lawofselfdefense.com/freebook.
And yeah, if you're on YouTube, um, another nice thing you could do would be to um, go ahead and hit that like button.
That's always appreciated. And subscribe.
It's always nice when we get subscribers.
Let's see where are we at currently cuz our goal for the channel is a million.
And we get a little bit closer every day. Here we go. Let's see.
We're currently at 285,746.
We'll probably hit 286,000 today. But if you have not yet subscribed and you like this kind of content, there's the button. Pound it. Pound it until it weeps. And maybe even more important, hit that like, thumbs up button because that fools the YouTube algorithm into putting this content in front of naive eyeballs who've not seen it before.
That's how we really grow our community.
That is the best way to do it. subscribe and like and whatever that is on u on Rumble the YouTube algorithm into putting this content in front of All right. Well, it looks like we did get the law of self-defense stream started eventually. Uh I'm going to look through their comments as well. So that's at lawofselfdefense.com.
lawof selfdefense.com. Same place you get the free book. lawof selfdefense.comfreebook.
We have our own membership there.
Let's see.
Um, I'm just looking.
Uh, hold on. Grabbing my tie. That's me.
Sorry to everyone in the law self-defense community about the stream not working, but we did get it up. It looks like um let's see.
Steven writes a law self-defense member.
My non-expert opinion, uh, Dalton is a dumbass and probably deserves a dope smack, but he didn't break any law beyond harassment or being a public nuisance or whatever it's called here.
Um, yeah, I'm not sure even that happened in this confrontation. He's certainly provocative in many of his clips. Um, I would not urge anyone in the law self-defense community to be to be going around in public creating social media content in which you're calling black people the nword to their face. I I don't see that ending well for anybody. I know all about the First Amendment arguments and I know all about how you it it's just a word and anyone should be free to say the word. And I agree. There's no law against saying the nword. There's no law against saying the n-word to black people to their face. I don't think you should expect it to end well, however. And the best way to win a fight is to not get into the fight in the first place. I mean, just look just look at Dalton. Just look at what's happening here.
Even if it turns out he did nothing illegal. Even if it turns out he's unanimously acquitted by a jury on every one of these charges, he did nothing wrong. He still risked 60 years in prison. The rest of his life in prison.
He'll have spent a fortune on this legal defense. What whatever he's able to raise will almost certainly be spent on this legal defense given the stakes. and he may end up being compelled to take a felony plea deal to avoid the risk of 60 years. I mean, was was all that worth it? I mean, maybe it was. I'm not I don't tell people what to do. I'm not telling Dalton Netherly what to do. I'm not telling any of you what to do. Do whatever you like. I I just want you to be able to make informed decisions under understand the risks you're incurring.
They're effectively life-ending.
Uh yes. And for those in the law self-defense community, I will post this video up in the blog as well when when we get off the show.
Let's see.
Uh Andrew asks, "Law self-defense member Andrew, does a self-defense claim have to be considered an improbable cause? Is the shooting of the gun and injury all that is required for attempted murder?
Yeah. The probable cause document uh to be fair doesn't doesn't have to say anything about a defense. It only has to share it's it's a one-sided argument, right? It it's the state only has to share evidence of guilt sufficient to support probable cause. They're not obligated to provide the other side of the story. That's what the defense will provide later in court. Um, I just don't believe I do not believe that if the state had evidence of racial slurs being hurled by Dalton Etherly at Joshua Fox in this confrontation that they would have left it out of that affidavit. I simply don't believe it. I don't believe if they had evidence to support a claim that Dalton Eily was unquestionably the initial aggressor in this confrontation, they wouldn't include it.
That's that's my issue here. The dog that did not bark in the night.
Let's see.
Uh Nathan says, "Uh, I was watching on YouTube and I came back here, the law of self-defense member site. Um, I prefer do the law self-defense shows here and on his other media as advertising to increase membership. As a law self-defense member, we have access to his large archive of past use of force shows, including the written house trial stuff, the George Zimmerman trial stuff, all that. It's got to be thousands of uh archived blog posts at this point. Uh yeah, it's good to be a law self-defense member. I love the law of self-defense membership. And by the way, being a law self-defense platinum member, our higher level of membership, uh, is the only way to have me as part of your legal team if you're involved in a use of force event.
And if you are a platinum member, you get me on your legal team for free. When when we took outside consults from non-members, our minimum retainer was $10,000. Uh, the our platinum members get get my legal consult at no charge.
At no charge. and that covers them not just through the trial, but if there's a retrial or there's an appeal, as long as they're continuing to fight the legal battle, um, I'm there with them with our platinum members making all these kinds of arguments and analysis you see me doing in these shows.
Let's see, we got a couple um, more Rumble rants. Let's take a look at those.
Uh LC90635 bucks says, "Wouldn't offering a 5-year plea deal after charging him a crime that carries 60 years be indicative of a weak case?" You know, I mean, it could be. That would be a reasonable interpretation, but you just never know.
Uh first of all, you know, many prosecutors are not any more rational than any other normal human beings. So, they're not they're not always making well-reasoned decisions on charging or on on plea offers.
They're just making decisions. Uh, and the decisions don't have to be based on any legal merits. It could be based on I don't like the politics of this case or I'm busy or I'm going on vacation or I don't want to bother. Or alternatively, it could be, you know, this really looks like a a shitty case that probably shouldn't be brought, but we just hired a new prosecutor in the office and we want to give her some court time. So, we're going to hand her this case because she can't really screw it up.
That it it should be lost. Worst case, she loses it. No harm, no foul. Maybe she gets a conviction. But in any case, we'll use this defendant. We'll we'll charge him not on the legal merits, but just to give some experience to the new girl in the office.
And of course, the defendant is is put is literally tortured in this process and maybe gets wrongfully convicted and sent to prison, but as long as the new girl got some trial experience, it's all good. That that's often how these decisions are made. They shouldn't be made that way.
Uh Duck Fat five bucks says, "The Tim Cass crew went over your expost last night. They seem to approve of it." Oh, I didn't have a chance to watch that. Yeah, my buddy uh Jack Pobic was on the show last night, right? He texted me. He said he would uh he would bring it up on the show. I've been talking with Tim to come on to talk about this case. Uh but he was traveling and then I was I was traveling. Oh, my daughter was having a graduation on Tuesday. Uh so I couldn't go out and then Tim got sick and so I'm not sure what's happening with that. I I always love to go on Tim's show. It's always a real fun time for me. So I'm looking forward to the possibility of uh doing that again. Maybe they emailed me while this show was happening. I'll take a look afterwards. Jonah fan, by the way, uh I've I've been on Myron's show, too.
I was there last week and I imagine I'll be back again. Um, always fun to go to Miami and be on Myron's show in person.
Uh, but we did the last one virtually, so you can find that in uh my show content. Jonathan writes, uh, five bucks. Thank you very much. I think it's because they discovered who he was after the charge for not paying his dinner bill. This is about that finding. Um I'm I'm not sure what you mean there. So, uh Dalton had apparently been at a Well, I I actually know where he was. I don't think they named the restaurant. Uh but they mentioned it was a um a steakhouse in the Omni Hotel in Nashville. If you don't know the Omni Hotel, it's attached to the Country Music Hall of Fame. I've stayed there. And there's there's one major steakhouse in the Omni Hotel. It's Bob's Steakhouse, which is excellent, by the way. if if you want to drop a bunch of money on a good steak. Um it's hard to go wrong with Bob's in the Omni Hotel in Nashville. But apparently Dalton went there and ordered a couple of appetizers and he was live streaming. Um now they they told him not to live stream.
Apparently they may have known who he was by reputation as this provocative social. They they didn't really want him there. And so when he was live streaming from his table, they gave him a hard time. They basically kicked him out. Um, and then when they kicked him out, his tab wasn't paid and they they called the cops and said this guy left without paying the tab. So that resulted in a charge. Um, and uh I'm I'm not sure what the status of that charges that happened just a few days before this shooting occurred.
Um, you know, another interesting question, by the way, is um is um the gun. The gun. So obviously what what had happened just preceding the confrontation with Joshua is my understanding is Dalton Etherly was in the Montgomery County courthouse for some civil matter I believe. I don't think it was related to this restaurant thing we just discussed but some civil matter. He was in the courthouse for that. Um and you know I've been in a lot of courouses and the courouses I've been in have security. You you can't bring a firearm into the courthouse. Um, so he couldn't have brought a firearm with him into the courthouse. Yet, when he leaves the courthouse and has this confrontation with Joshua Fox, obviously he has a gun on him. So, I don't know if if he left the courthouse and like went to his car and secured his, you know, got his gun and put it on or I don't know if the Montgomery County courthouse allows you to check a gun. I mean, I'm not sure I've seen that before. I mean, obviously, you know, for officials, but for uh for lay people just for a court appearance, they just want you to show up without a gun. I don't think they want you handling a gun there. So, I don't know. I don't People keep asking me what what's the deal with the gun.
And uh I don't have a good explanation.
I would like to know how that worked. I I don't think it indicates a crime or criminal intent regardless of how it happened, but it is kind of an unanswered question.
Mindrop says it was a Glock. It's a porcelain gun that doesn't show up on metal detectors. Well, yeah, that's not true.
The the slide and the barrel are very much made out of steel on a clock. I I know you know that. Um GTO 46310 bucks on a rumble rant. There's no question that Chud is a provocator and he's made some questionable comments, but the argument for murder over manslaughter seems extremely weak.
Uh yes. So, I I've talked about this before. Um, manslaughter, voluntary manslaughter, right? Involuntary manslaughter is a reckless form of killing, right? Not just reckless endangerment, but you acted recklessly, an unjustified creation of a risk. You do it anyway. And you kill somebody.
That's involuntary manslaughter. So, a DUI homicide. You get drunk, you get behind the wheel, you're driving. You're not trying to hurt anyone. You're just trying to get home. So there's no intent to harm anybody, but you know you're creating an unjustified risk of harm and um and you do it anyway. You drive drunk and then unintentionally you run somebody over and kill them. Well, that reckless killing is a form of involuntary homicide. Involuntary in the sense that you didn't want to harm them, but it resulted from your reckless decisions and and conduct. There's also uh voluntary manslaughter. Voluntary manslaughter is when you did intend to hurt that person. You wanted to hurt them, but you didn't do it in cold blood. You wanted to hurt them. You wanted to kill them, right? Manslaughter is a killing, an unlawful killing. Um, voluntary manslaughter is when you wanted to kill someone, but you did it in hot blood, not cold blood. You did it under what the law calls adequate provocation. And the classic example is uh somebody a man comes home, finds his wife in bed with another dude, whips out a gun, kills them both. That's those are unlawful killings. The law doesn't allow you to kill somebody just because they're being unfaithful to you. Um but what the law says is listen, if he had just executed them in cold blood, that would be two murders. But because he did it under adequate provocation, because he did it in hot blood, we're going to mitigate what would have been murder convictions to manslaughter convictions.
So that's how voluntary manslaughter works. And it's very common for voluntary manslaughter to be the appropriate charge when someone is unlawfully killed in the course of a fight. So both men are in a fight and somehow the fight escalates and one kills the other. The the fact that there was a a fight that led to the killing.
The fight is the hot blood. The the fight is the adequate provocation. So instead of the killing being murder like if you had walked up behind him on the street and just shot him in the head, uh the killing becomes voluntary manslaughter, a mitigated form of murder. And of course, murder can be life in prison without possibility of early release. And manslaughter is more commonly, you know, 10 years or 15 years and maybe you serve a third of that and get out on good behavior. Uh so you can still have a life. So a manslaughter conviction is still very serious but uh much less so than a murder conviction.
here. Um, I think there's a perfectly reasonable argument for this should be attempted manslaughter, not attempted murder because of the verbal confrontation that preceded the fight going physical. Uh, I my my concern early on when we didn't know whether there had been racial slurs thrown by Dalton Etherly is that again, the voluntary manslaughter is is a mitigated form of murder. Basically, you're getting a break because the the system is recognizing this happened in hot blood under adequate provocation. But if the hot blood resulted because of your provocation, because Dalton Etherly was throwing racial slurs, then I could see why the prosecutor would not would not want to charge voluntary manslaughter, would not want to mitigate the killing, would not want to do Ether Lee a favor if if he triggered the physical confrontation with racial slurs. But now now we can only infer from what we're seeing in this affidavit that there is no evidence of racial slurs. So that to my mind reopens the door. Why why wouldn't this be at worst attempted manslaughter as opposed to attempted coldblooded murder and we have some super chats too. So let me get to those. Two bucks. Thank you Joel. I appreciate that. And five bucks.
Thank you very much. I'm going to check out the bond. Thanks for reminding me.
Um, there was a bond hearing for Dalton today. I didn't have any breaking news on it when I started the show an hour and 25 minutes ago, but I'll check it before we sign off here. Uh, what's the status already? Uh, update on Chud's Bond where we can watch it live. I looked for a live stream. I couldn't find it. Sorry. Uh, $5 from I can't pronounce that. I made a Twitter just to follow you after you stomped Misfit Patriot.
Misfit Patriot is a very funny guy. He he was the first person I saw who had secured a copy of this affidavit. He's hard in on Dalton should uh be convicted of all the things all the time. Um and his interpretation of this affidavit that I just shared with all of you is that it's it's absolute proof of guilt on every criminal charge.
For some reason, he just has it in for Dalton. He's incapable of having an objective view misfit Patreon. But he's on X if you want to follow him. He's uh he muted me so he doesn't have to hear what I have to say about the case anymore. Uh Spud6423 $2. If one is biracial, can you use only one half the word?
You people are so funny. Just the first half of the n-word.
Uh Nick P43485 says, "Could an otherwise legal self-defense shoot become illegal if they think putting bystanders at risk is not a reasonable action if other options are available?" One of the requirements for lawful self-defense is that your conduct is reasonable.
If your conduct is unreasonable, which would be necessary for it to be reckless, recklessness is unreasonleness. If your conduct is unreasonable because it's reckless, there is no self-defense.
So either your conduct is reasonable and it's lawful self-defense or at least can be if the other elements of self-defense are satisfied or your conduct is reckless, unreasonable. It it it's one or the other. And of course, a jury is would ultimately decide. So I mean, you can imagine very similar shootings, right? So someone's attacked on the street with a I don't know, a machete wielding maniac and they pull out their pistol and they they put the front sight and upper chest of the attacker and they fire a number of rounds and one of those rounds misses and goes down the street.
If they were acting in reasonable, lawful self-defense, that that missed round is not a crime. It it doesn't carry criminal liability. It doesn't even carry civil liability properly understood. But say for example, uh they cover their eyes and they just do a mag dump in the general area of the aggressor. I would say that's not an that's not a reasonable way to use a handgun in self-defense. And if the conduct's unreasonable, then yeah, some of those rounds that you spray down the street could be deemed reckless and could be um a basis for reckless endangerment or or involuntary manslaughter. So everything you do in self-defense has to be your, you know, your perceptions, your decisions, your conduct has to be that of a reasonable and prudent person. If you're acting unreasonable, it's it's not self-defense. And if it's not self-defense, it could well be recklessness.
Um Jeffrey says, "Get the book. Get the book. Get the book. Don't forget about the book." I can't believe everyone doesn't have a copy of this already, but um law of self-defense principles. It explains all this. It It explains the five elements of self-defense. It explains recklessness, involuntary manslaughter. All in plain English in a single book that we give away for free.
We give it away. Check it out on Amazon.
It's it's uh fivestar rated uh but they'll charge you 20 or 25 bucks for the book plus shipping and handling. We only ask you to cover the cost of shipping the book for you the to you.
The book itself is free from us and you can get it right there. Just scan that QR code on the screen. Uh point a browser or alternatively point browser to lawofselfdefense.com/freebook.
lawofselfdefense.comfreebook and uh and get it for free. We'll mail it to you. Just just cover the cost of shipping. That's all we ask. Um Jeffrey Peak says, "Get the book as a law self-defense and Msada Yub instructor."
By the way, Msada Yub wrote the forward to the book. If you know Moss, if you don't know Moss, you're doing it wrong.
He's uh one of the uh most famous and wellrespected self-defense and self-defense law instructors in the country. In fact, it was my attending as a very young lawyer many years ago. I think it was 1995 or 1996. I attended Moss's a week-long course, what what he then used to call L51. I think he calls it MAG 40 now for 40hour course. Um, it changed it changed my life. I do this use of force law stuff. I focus my entire legal practice on use of force law only because I took that week-long course with Msada. you know, I'm standing on the shoulders of giants when I do all this stuff. Um, so I would I would definitely encourage anyone who has the opportunity to take instruction from MSAD to do so. You can find him um MSAD Aub Group is the the name of his organization. MSAD. It it's uh it's two A's, by the way. It's misspelled in the comment here. Uh MS A MSAD Group on Google should pop it right up. He's great. Uh, it really helps if you know the line. You have to stay as far away from as possible. Yeah. Unfortunately, it's not that people generally don't know self-defense law. It's just that what they know is wrong. And it's wrong because they were they were taught by people who don't understand it. Most most firearms instructors don't know self-defense law. Most cops don't really know self-defense law. Not as it would apply to a civilian. Uh, most lawyers don't know self-defense law. In my three years of law school, we spent maybe 5 minutes talking about self-defense law.
and and most lawyers are not criminal defense lawyers and most criminal defense lawyers uh their clients are criminals. So even they don't have much experience with good guy cases of self-defense.
So just because someone has a title like cop or lawyer or firearms instructor doesn't mean they know this stuff. Trust me. And I mean the good news is you can learn what the law actually is with at lawselfdefense.com/freebook.
become hard to kill and hard to convict.
That's our mission here at Law of Self-Defense.
Cinjun Ranger, how you doing, man? Says, "I'm at home today. My HVAC is on the fritz. It's either the capacitor or it's low on freon." Well, that sucks. And if I recall correctly, you're someplace pretty warm. Louisiana, I think that would do that would match the cinjun part. Two bucks. How are things in country music land? So, he's referring to me moving to Tennessee. I'm not there yet. And we're not moving to Nashville.
We gave a pass on Nashville. We're moving uh further east in the state to the Knoxville area.
Very soon, our house there is being built, but it's not ready to move in yet.
And I can't wait to get there. Colorado has gone completely insane. Sean Connelly five bucks says the process will be the punishment here could well be they often do that the process the legal process as the punishment the provocation here in the eyes of the state are his prior acts and statements this is nothing new yeah I suspect that's the case dirt cheap 1776 five bucks thank you very much says people in the courtroom are saying there is 11 videos clearly showing self-defense one observe server says Fox said I was going to kill him.
Well, I'd love to see that video. The more evidence, the better, by the way.
Um, in good guy cases of self-defense.
They generally don't get in trouble and and there's a difference between good guy cases and bad guy cases. Bad guy cases, bad guy claims of self-defense are usually pretty easy to defeat because they have inherent defects. the bad guy just was so clearly outside the legal boundaries on one of the required elements of self-defense that it's it's just crushed early on. But good guy cases of self-defense tend to be more robust if the defender knew what he was doing or or maybe accidentally stayed inside the legal boundaries. And for good guy cases of self-defense, you generally want more evidence. More evidence is good for good guy cases of self-defense. Those cases tend to get into trouble not when there's too much evidence in the case, but when there's too little evidence in the case and and and the use of force looks ambiguous or fabricated, um then then then the claim of self-defense can look weak. So, generally, if you're involved in a good guy case of self-defense, you want more evidence. You want video surveillance cameras. You want uh eyewitnesses who'll testify. You want as much evidence as you can get in because if you did it right, that evidence makes you hard to convict.
Makes you makes it hard for the prosecution to disprove your claim of self-defense beyond a reasonable doubt.
So, the more evidence that that Dalton can aggregate in this case, uh the more likely it is we'll have a robust claim of self-defense.
Uh, I have such sites to show you. I have such sites to show you. 10 bucks. Thank you. My favorite line from Assad is still, "When the prosecutor asks, you are aware that you're under oath?" You reply, "Yes, sir." Just as well as I'm aware that you are not.
So, I did a uh I did a I was an expert witness for um a self-defense case. It was a homeless guy. So, I I I did it pro bono and uh I'm on the witness stand and the um and because I was doing it proono, you know, one of the questions that that lawyers always like to ask the other side's expert witness and I was an expert witness for the defense for the public defender's office um who was representing this indigent defendant who' killed somebody. He was being charged with uh with murder and and other serious felonies. So, it was a murder case. And um one question lawyers always like to ask the other side's experts is, you know, aren't you getting paid? How much are you getting paid? You know, to suggest that the uh expert opinion testimony you're providing was just bought, right? It's not honest.
It's not being offered in good faith.
You're just a paid hired gun. But I was doing this case pro bono and the prosecutor knew that. So they they couldn't say, "How much are you getting paid?" So, she had to say, "Uh, well, I understand it was a u it was I'll just say it. It was a very butch woman, like a crew cut that, you know, as wide as she was tall. It was it was that kind of prosecutor." She goes, "I understand, Attorney Brana. You're here providing your expert testimony. Uh, and you're not charging. You're doing it pro bono, but isn't it true that if there's an acquitt in this case that it would at least help, you know, your reputation?
And I answered, uh, yeah, I suppose so.
Just like if there's a conviction, it'll help your reputation.
That was that was the last question she asked me. She was all done after that.
That was great. By the way, we got an acquitt. every charge we got an acquitt of that uh that indigent defendant not guilty not guilty by u on grounds of lawful self-defense by the way they in that case in the closing arguments the public defender used my slides the slides I I prepared for my expert testimony used my slides in her closing argument which I thought was very smart and they were excellent they were excellent slides Truman just became a new member thank you very much and Ames Ames division became a YouTube member. Thank you. I really appreciate that.
Have a couple of Rumble Rants here.
Uh let's see. Share this. Uh Gito 4635 bucks. Did he show up for court or was he arrested? If the latter, perhaps they had taken it from him and then returned it to him afterwards. No. Oh. Oh. The court before the fight with Joshua Fox, right? He was I believe he was in court for a civil matter and he was scheduled to be there that he was wearing a suit jacket and stuff like that. I don't think he was there because uh he'd just been subject to arrest. I don't think uh Jonathan his Chud persona. Um yeah, I'm not sure what you're trying to get to, but that definitely uh would incentivize the prosecutor to be more aggressive in this case. I know it's I know the First Amendment. I know it's just a word, but there is an Overton window of socially acceptable behavior, and it does not include calling black people the n-word to their face. That doesn't justify their violence towards you. If they react violently, uh if if they were to attack you for doing that, they would be wrong. They'd be committing a criminal assault and battery.
But when you're being evaluated later by normies on a jury, normal people, normies have been socially conditioned their whole lives to viscerally recoil if they were to see a a white man calling a black man the nword to their face. That's just the way it is. You don't have to like it.
Uh Cajun Ranger, I got a 2026 Honda Rebel 1100 DCT a couple weeks ago. Remember the annual Brana Cox bike ride once you get in place? Yeah, I I love riding motorcycles. I love riding my motorcycle. That's a good bike. The Honda Rebel. Uh the DCT, if I recall correctly, that's the clutchless one, right there. There's no clutch you have to work. Um people people like those.
I've never had one though. I've always had a just a normal clutch on my bikes.
Tam uh Tama Drummer Tama Drummer says, "I know it's completely cynical, but I believe many of the state's attorneys are completely corrupt, just simply power- hungry and disinterested in the truth."
You know, I think that's true. I I I almost feel bad about it because if I'm always inclined to say it didn't used to be this way when I was a young lawyer, but I have to confess if if I were if I were challenged on that, I don't know if I could back that up that it's gotten worse that it that the prosecutors used to be professionals and now now they're, you know, power hungry and disinterested in the truth. It might have been that way the whole time. I I just I I was too naive to see it when I was younger. I certainly see a lot of it now and and of course the more you see of it the more cynical you become but I see these you know we see the George Zimmerman prosecution which was 100% politically motivated. Uh the the prosecutor in the George Zimmerman trial the local prosecutor for Zimmerman he quit rather than be politically pressured into bringing charges. He quit. He resigned.
He gave up his career rather than wrongfully charge a man who had engaged in clear lawful self-defense. George Zimmerman's shooting of Trayvon Martin.
I I've I' I'd never seen a self-defense case as clean as that one that was brought to trial. It was egregious. The local pro uh cops wouldn't charge. Uh the local prosecutor wouldn't charge. He quit. But once he quit, it created a vacuum and it provided an opportunity for the the governor of Florida, who was not Ronda Santis at the time. I forget who the governor was. Um, but the governor of Florida uh could assign then a prosecutor. And there was a prosecutor who raised her hand. Deborah Nelson.
Deborah Nelson.
Or was Deborah Nelson the judge?
It doesn't matter. There was a prosecutor out of Jacksonville, a a white woman uh who was running for reelection and she had prosecuted some cases some some black people in the community. Um, and she'd been made very unpopular in the black community by charging these cases. One was a a 13 or 14 year old black boy who'd murdered someone, and it was an appropriate prosecution. He he'd murdered someone, but it was made to look racist, the prosecution. So, that made her unpopular. She uh she charged um a woman called Marissa Alexander uh who claimed to be a victim of spousal abuse who fired a bullet at the head of her husband when the husband was standing there with the two little kids. The bullet missed by inches, hit the wall behind him. Uh she was crazy. It's pure luck she didn't put that bullet right through that guy's head for for no justification. um and she got charged with manslaughter and that made uh the prosecutor very unpopular. So now the prosecutor is running for re-election and there's a sizable black demographic in Jacksonville, Florida and there were marches being led against her by Al Sharpton and the usual crowd. She was going to lose her election and then she saw an opportunity to persecute George Zimmerman.
Now she could regain favor with the black community by charging this white Hispanic over the killing of of the thug who was Trayvon Martin. It was purely politically motivated. And and by the way, of course, Zimmerman was acquitted.
And many people said, "Oh, look, the prosecutor the prosecutor lost because it was an acquitt." The prosecutor only lost if you don't understand what was actually motivating her. She knew she had very little prospect of getting a conviction. That wasn't her point. Her point was to win re-election, regain favor with the black community. Now, the marches, she was at the head of the marches, standing right next to Al Sharpton instead of those marches being against her. So, her real purpose in in persecuting George Zimmerman was not to get a conviction. She would happily have taken one, of course, but that wasn't the real purpose. The real purpose was to turn around her political fortunes and and be reelected. And guess what?
She got reelected.
So although Zimmerman was acquitted, I would argue that prosecutor won that trial in terms of her actual motivations for bringing the prosecution. Kyle Writtenhouse, again, completely politically motivated prosecution. Kyle Writtenhouse committed he he never shot anyone who was not actively attacking him with lethal intent.
And it's all on video. It was incontestable. But they tried to convict him over inuendo in nonsense and pinch and zoom. We watched the trial. And by the way, I I didn't know Zimmerman when he was being tried and I didn't know Writtenhouse when he was being tried.
Uh but I've come to know both of them since then. And um and George Zimmerman is one of the nicest guys you will ever meet. just a plain nice guy.
Probably one of the least racist people I've ever met, despite all their efforts to characterize that guy as a racist for having killed Trayvon Martin in lawful self-defense.
And I didn't know Kyle Writtenhouse when he was being tried. Uh but I've come to know Kyle since then.
In fact, here we are. That's me and Kyle Writtenhouse at a uh at a shooting event down in Texas uh a year or two ago. Uh just a plain nice guy. Kyle is genuinely just just a nice young man and they tried to put him in a cage for the rest of his life. Binger did uh for political purposes. It's absolutely reprehensible.
Uh Truman five bucks says they admitted Fox punching Etherly prior to the very mean bladed stance. And what's the felony the shooting occurred during? Is it also the shooting?
Well, the the underlying the predicate felony is the attempted murder and then another charge is using a gun for a felony. So, it's the same predicate felony or I guess the felony the predicate felony could also be the the aggravated assault. It's however you want to make it.
Uh let's see. Uh Regina Reynolds, member for three months. Thank you for that support.
Hey, thank you. Thank you. She's refreshing my recollection. In the 2020 Trayvon Martin case, the Florida governor was Rick Scott. The special prosecutor brought out of Jacksonville was Angela Corey. And the judge was Deborah Nelson. By the way, you want to hear something funny about Deborah Nelson?
Deborah Nelson was the was a judge in the criminal prosecution of George Zimmerman and she was uh I have to say she was she was outright hostile to the defense. So virtually every ruling she made was in favor of the state and against the defense. And and I know a number of those rulings were outrageously wrong because from time to time the defense would immediately appeal a negative rule ruling from Judge Deborah Nelson to the Court of Appeals in Florida and they would rule in the defense's favor and overrule the judge. So she was making bad calls, but all of them were against the defense with with very rare exception and uh hostile to George Zimmerman. And then of course George gets acquitted, right? So he'll never have to see Judge Deborah Nelson again.
Right. Wrong. In Florida, the judges go back and forth between criminal court and civil court. And after George Zimmerman was acquitted in the criminal trial for the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, he decided to sue a bunch of the media because they they fabricated false versions of what had happened. They doctorred the 911 call. They they changed the the tinting and color of his face and photographs. all kinds of contemptable things. And he sued them civily in Florida. And guess who the judge was in his civil suit. It was Judge Deborah Nelson. She had Zimmerman in her courtroom again. Now it was being a judge of his civil suit against the media. Well, she's still hostile to Zimmerman, so she dismissed it. And she dismissed the civil suit, saying, "Well, you're a public figure.
He's only a public figure because someone tried to murder him in in a trial in which he was acquitted in front of you, Judge Deborah Nelson.
So anyway, the civil suit gets dismissed and now you're thinking, well, surely George Zimmerman will never have to deal with Judge Deborah Nelson again. And you would be wrong. You would be wrong. A few years later, George Zimmerman's in a car driving to a doctor's appointment and some lunatic in an adjoining car shoots at him, tries to kill him, puts a bullet right into the doorframe of the car by George Zimmerman's head. That guy gets prosecuted for attempted murder.
Now, George Zimmerman was the victim of that guy's attempted murder. And and Zimmerman is testifying in court about how this guy tried to kill him. And guess who's the judge in that prosecution? of the guy who tried to kill George Zimmerman. It's Judge Deborah Nelson.
She must have been thinking, "Man, I cannot get rid of this guy. I cannot get rid of this George Zimmerman."
Uh, Cinjun Ranger, five bucks says, "Uh, can I get a selfie with Brana Sands the murder trial without the murder trial?" Yeah, I do selfies. Sure, we'll we'll meet up when I get to the East Coast. When I get east of the Mississippi, I should say. Uh, time on my side. gifted five memberships. Thank you so much.
I really appreciate that. The memberships make a big difference here.
All right. I said we were going to check out news of the uh the bond hearing.
So, let's go ahead and do that.
Uh okay. Well, there is some news here.
I'm going to pull up some of these tabs.
So, let me see what I can find. So, here's one. Take a look at this first.
um this account and I I don't know these people so I'm not attesting to the veracity of this. These are just reports. Uh saw CCTV of Chud the Builder. So um closed circuit TV surveillance cameras video of Chud the Builder walking away from Joshua Fox before Joshua Fox walked up to Dalton and attacked him. Also, Joshua Block presumably presumably said, "I'm going to kill you." while having a PTS episode, judging from what the defense said. Video with audio from the live stream was not admitted and not looked at by investigators for whatever reason.
Well, the investigators are not they're not trying to tell the whole story.
They're they're trying to at this stage of the proceedings, they're just trying to tell a story of guilt. I mean, the investigators work for the prosecutor effectively.
Again, I don't know if any of that is true, but that's what's being reported.
Um, so here's that same account, Anthony Vu, but it's a it's um he's on video now. It looks like he's in the courthouse. That that certainly looks like a courtroom doors behind him. Let's let's hear what he has to say. Let me make sure I've got the uh the echo turned off.
And again, I don't know this guy, but he he appears to be personally present in the courtroom.
Oops. Here we go. Um, I just got removed from Ched the Builder's uh court hearing, but I am here to say that it's probably safely a self-defense issue.
Um, the other guy, Joshua Fox, definitely attacked uh, Chud the Builder, and it's going to be a clear-cut case of self-defense. So, any any holding of him on bail is total of [ __ ] and um, he needs to be released. Chad did not wrong. He was right to defend himself.
Um, Josh Black was uh, having a PTSD episode. Um he attacked approached um Chun first and um threatened his life.
He said he was I was going to kill him.
Um so that's that.
All right. So again, I don't know this guy. I'd love to see whatever video he's referring to. I want more evidence. More evidence. More evidence.
That's always what I am looking for in these cases.
Uh, let's see.
Any updates?
Any updates? I'm not seeing anything substantive, folks.
Let me do an explicit search.
By the way, I hear this character Jack Lang is outside the courthouse. He's another kind of social media provocator.
Um I don't I don't think his presence is helpful to anything, but he's got a lot of a lot of fans, I guess. Jack Lang, let's see. Um, Dalton, Ether Lee, Chud, the Builder, Bond, Bale. Let's see what X pulls up with that search.
Uh, bond hearing updates.
Oh, let me This is not that useful either. It's from 3 hours ago. I saw this before I started uh today's live stream.
this account has been doing some great work. Uh so if you're on X, I would encourage you to give him a follow. He's done a lot of research on um because uh Dalton's being held on $1.25 million bail. I I I a bond. Uh I covered this a few days ago.
It's it's outrageously high compared to bonds for much more serious charges, murder, multiple murder, child murder um out of the Montgomery County courthouse.
So it's it's bizarrely it's a multiple.
It's like 20 30 times higher. Um and I I only know that uh from objective research because this account archetype theory did that research. So a good follow. He's saying here uh bond hearing update. This is from 3 hours ago. So it's before the bond hearing even happened. Uh this may only be a hearing uh be a what's called a source hearing, not a not a bond amount hearing.
So, you know, bond bond varies a lot from state to state, jurisdiction to jurisdiction, the rules for issuing bond and the procedures that are followed.
Uh, so it's not possible for me to really make generalized statements about how bonds are done in Montgomery County, Tennessee in particular. But a source hearing is when a prosecutor is trying to argue that somehow the the the money, the resources you're using for your bond are illegitimate. Um, for example, if there, you know, you rob a bank and then you try to use the money that you robbed from the bank for your bail, that that kind of thing. Uh, and of course, people have been raising money for Dalton E or Lee on Gifts and Go and other platforms.
And so, the prosecutor may be trying to make the argument that he shouldn't be allowed to use that money for bond.
Dalton shouldn't be allowed to use that money for bond. Um, or alternatively, he may be saying, "Well, we set it at 1.25 25 million when he was destitute, but now he's raised a million. I'm just making that number up. Um, so we should just add that dollar amount to the existing bond. Make it 2.25. Just keep increasing the bond as he keeps raising money so that so he can never make bond.
Um, that's the kind of thing you would do in a in a source hearing, which which may be what happened today.
Let's see.
Um, I don't know if there's anything more.
Oh, this is this is new. Let me share this. This is new information. Um, breaking investigator tells the courtroom, this is half an hour ago, that 12 different cameras captured the altercation involving Chud the Builder.
Well, that should be decisive.
12 different cameras, 12 different perspectives. The footage could become a major factor. You think so? The footage could become a major factor as the case continues to unfold.
Yeah, for sure.
Okay, let's see.
Uh there's also people been gathering a petition to go to the courthouse to object to the high bail. Um and the bail issue is a major issue. I I presume that uh Dalton's lawyer, Jake Fendley, uh who who by all indications that I've I know he made a statement that many people don't like, but in terms of his apparent qualifica, I don't know. I don't know attorney Jake Fendley. Um but what I've seen as a kind of a description of his uh experience as an attorney, he looks to be extremely experienced from a family of of criminal defense attorneys.
So he he I I'm presum and and I may talk to him this afternoon noon. So we Dalton's lawyer Jake Fendley and I have been uh playing uh phone tag with each other and I I he reached out to me obviously I he reached out to me um probably I presume at the urging of his client and um and we've been playing phone tag.
Uh I I I I don't want anyone to get excited about this. I I get a lot of inquiries about self-defense cases and I consult on very few of them and Dalton Easterly is not a platinum member, so he's not automatically entitled to a legal consult from me. Um, so I would not expect to see me participating in this legal defense. So don't get too excited. But but I I do plan to have a conversation. I mean to return attorney Fenley's call and u you know we can chat see what happens.
There there are a lot of self-defense cases. I work on very few. I wouldn't expect this to be an exception, but there's a petition of a lot of cases to try to get the bail reduced. And um and it is a big issue in um in Tennessee here because the Tennessee Constitution actually requires that bail be set at the minimum level required to ensure that the defendant's going to show up to court. That's which is the real purpose of bail. It's not supposed to be punishment.
Oh, this is new, too. Okay, so this is um No, this is not new. May 18th. I don't I don't know what that means.
Let's see.
Yeah, I think this is one of those accounts that's just uh just anti anti-Dton. So, I'm I'm not going to repeat any of that until until we have it verified from some credible source.
Couple super chats. Five bucks.
Thank you. Says, "Heard prosecutors will try to block Chud from using do donation money for bail. How can they do that?"
Well, I just I just covered it that to the the extent I'm able. Uh Cinjun Ranger says, "Shane needs a pay raise."
Yeah, Shane's awesome. Shane is my moderator here. Has there been a lot of nonsense in the chat? I don't I don't usually look that close at what the chat is doing to be honest.
Um, let's see what happened to um, did I lose my rumble?
Um, so I'm not I'm not seeing anything substantive on the bail hearing yet.
I'll keep looking as long as we're here together. Um, if you have questions or comments for me, we've been going for two hours, folks. So, um, the chat is great. Awesome. If you have questions or comments for me for there's a lot of new people here by the way. Again, I don't mean to beat beat a dead horse, but there people are coming in and out of the show all the time over the course of of two hours. Um, and I want to make sure everyone's aware if you care about this use of force stuff, if you want to know how to be hard to convict, if you're ever compelled to use force in defense of yourself, your family, or your property, the least you can do for yourself. The very minimum is get a copy of our free best-selling book, The Law of Self-Defense Principles. It explains the legal boundaries for defense of yourself, defense of your family, defense of property in plain English. Most people can read this book in an afternoon. And we give this book away. You can look at it on Amazon. It's fivestar rated.
They'll charge you 20 or 25 bucks for the book plus shipping and handling. We only ask you to cover the shipping to you. The cost of shipping the book to you. We give you the book for free. For free. And you can scan that QR code on the screen or point a browser to that URL. lawfselfdefense.com/freebook.
Freebook. lawofselfdefense.com/freebook.
Uh but if you have questions or comments for me about this case, uh now would be the time. Uh Cinjun Ranger as Shane's union foreman, he needs he at least needs to get lunch. I need to get lunch, too. I'm starting to get hungry myself.
Uh, let's see any more Rumble Rants, super chats.
Yeah, this uh I'm not sure I've ever seen a affidavit of complaint, a charging document from the prosecution over charges this serious uh that was this lame, that was this light, light in the loafers. As my uncle Veto used to say, light in the light in the loafers.
Let's see if there's what's new here.
I'll take another look.
Here's an image of Dalton Etherly. That must be his lawyer.
I I' I've never seen Jake Finley, but I presume that's his lawyer there. um in the courthouse right now. Waiting on the bail status for this hearing. That was two hours ago. See if there's any updates to that.
Ched the builder bond hearing is live now. No, that that wasn't that's only a minute and a half clip.
Uh web 3 live news says, "I've not seen anyone covering it live inside the courthouse. Checked lots of streams for folks who claim to want to bail this guy out and go above and beyond. The coverage is lacking big time. We got a single single picture out of all the coverage so far. Yeah, I was not able to find any live streams. So, let's see.
Yeah, people are still saying as recently as an hour ago.
There doesn't seem that's Ched is constitutionally protected.
It's not it's not a free speech case, folks.
We're getting a mixed bag of stuff there.
One last search and then I'm going to go ahead and wrap up today's show. Let's see. Dalton, Ether Lee, Ched the Builder, Bale Bond today.
Uh, let's see. Yeah, I'm not seeing anything new.
All right, folks. I'm going to go ahead and uh and wrap things up and wrap things up for this show. And I I had planned I had planned a membersonly show. Um but I've been talking for over normally we do an hour open access and an hour member show, but I've been talking for two hours already. Uh I was going to do a membersonly show on why Massie lost. Uh I'm not going to do that right now. I I may uh I may go to it later today. Um but I can feel my voice is starting to go after talking non-stop for two hours. So, uh, apologies to the members if we don't do it today. We'll definitely cover it, uh, tomorrow.
However, and thanks to all of you for being here for this. Don't forget if you're on YouTube to subscribe. Hit that subscribe button. Hit that thumbs up like button. Uh, our goal for this channel is a million subscribers, and we get there a little closer every day with your support. It's really appreciated.
Um, hit that like, thumbs up button.
That's perhaps the the biggest indicator to YouTube to share our content more broadly.
And uh let me take a last look for uh Rumble Rants.
Somehow I closed that window.
It looks like I got all of those.
All right, everybody. Uh follow me on X at the Branker Show. It's a good time on X. We have a lot of fun. And uh and of course I'll be back. If not this afternoon, I'll definitely be back tomorrow morning at the usual time 11:00 a.m. Eastern time for our open access shows. Usually followed by a members only show after until we meet up again.
I remain attorney Andrew Branka for the Brana Show and oh wait a minute, wait a minute.
I almost forgot the law of self-defense community.
Let's see if there's any new comments there.
Uh Jeffrey says, "People are asking about the platinum program cost." If you'd like to learn about being a a platinum member of Law of Self-Defense, you get my legal consult for free if you're involved in a use of force event.
Uh go to lawofselfdefense.com/platinum.
It's only about a dollar a day to be a platinum member, folks. and guarantee you have me on your legal team should you ever be compelled to defend yourself, your family, or your property.
Uh, I don't know if I have a banner for that. Here, here it is.
lawselfdefense.com/platinum.
lawselfdefense.com/platinum.
Uh, for a buck a day, you you're guaranteed to have me on your legal team. Should you be compelled to defend yourself, your family, your property against criminal predation, it's hard to make it much cheaper than that. Buck a day at lawofselfdefense.complatinum.
Platinum.
Oh, another super chat. Cinjun ranger again. You can do it.
Two bucks.
Thank you, man. I appreciate that. All right. Is that it for everybody? Is that it? You got the free book.
lawselfself.comfreebook.
You have the platinum membership.
lawselfdefense.com/platinum.
Of course, I will continue to share my honest expert opinion on this Dalton Ether Lee case as things develop.
Um, and uh, yeah, there's no friend of the court at the trial level. I can't just be a friend of the court. And I would not I would not interject myself into another lawyer's relationship with their client. So, bond, somebody says bond was not reduced. Do we have firm news of that? I'll do I'll do another search.
Dalton Etherly, Chud the Builder, Bale Bond.
Let's see.
Um, I'm just seeing a lot of uh different accounts sharing the same unreliable information. So, I'm not going to bother sharing that with all of you um until I can confirm something with uh with of more substance than what I'm seeing what I'm seeing here. All right, folks. Until we meet up again, either this afternoon, I'll I'll send out a notice when we do a members only show or certainly no later than tomorrow morning 11:00 a.m. Eastern time, I remain attorney Andrew Brana for the Brana Show. Stay safe.
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