Entrapment Defense at Trial: How a Louisiana Lawyer Won a Not-Guilty Verdict in an Online Solicitation Case

Entrapment at Trial: How Police Pressure, Jury Selection, and Preparation Led to a Not-Guilty Verdict

Entrapment is one of those criminal defenses that almost everyone has heard of, but relatively few people understand.

Defendants frequently believe they were entrapped simply because an undercover officer gave them an opportunity to commit a crime. But an opportunity to commit an offense and legally actionable entrapment are not necessarily the same thing.

For criminal defense lawyers, that distinction can make entrapment a difficult defense to present to a jury.

But difficult does not mean impossible.

On this episode of Andrew & Andrew on Texas Criminal Defense, we spoke with Louisiana criminal defense attorney Patricio Ramos about a remarkable not-guilty verdict he obtained in an online solicitation case.

On paper, the case looked extremely difficult for the defense.

The client had communicated with someone he was told was 15 years old. He allegedly continued communicating after learning the purported age. Police found condoms in his possession when he was arrested. And perhaps most damaging of all, Ramos said his client gave investigators a recorded statement acknowledging that he knew the person was 15 and explaining why he had brought condoms.

Those facts would ordinarily make a defense attorney seriously concerned about taking the case before a jury.

Ramos was concerned too.

He told us:

“There was no world where I saw us winning this case.”

But the defense had something else.

The complete story of how the investigation unfolded.

Once Ramos examined the undercover operation itself—including where police found his client, who initiated sexually suggestive communications, how investigators responded when the client appeared reluctant to meet, and how police continued pushing the encounter forward—the defense began to see a very different case.

Instead of simply asking whether the defendant committed the charged offense, the defense asked another question:

Would any of this have happened without the government’s intervention?

That question ultimately became the heart of an entrapment defense that persuaded the jury to return a verdict of not guilty.

The case offers lessons extending far beyond online solicitation prosecutions. It illustrates how defense lawyers can examine government conduct, build an affirmative defense, use voir dire to identify jurors who cannot follow the law, cross-examine undercover officers using their own investigative policies, and turn seemingly small details into the central theme of a trial.

From Prosecutor to Criminal Defense Lawyer

Ramos did not take a traditional path to becoming a lawyer.

At 16, he dropped out of high school in California. His stepfather gave him a choice: join the military or move out.

Ramos obtained his GED and joined the United States Navy.

After eight years in the military, he decided to use his GI Bill benefits and enrolled at UCLA. By then, his attitude toward education had changed considerably.

As Ramos explained during the podcast, after serving in the military he approached college as an adult and viewed education more like a business transaction than a social experience.

Eventually, friends in UCLA's political science department encouraged him toward law school. He took the LSAT, received a full scholarship to law school in New Orleans, and began his legal career.

His first job after law school was not in criminal defense.

It was prosecution.

Ramos spent approximately a year as a line prosecutor with the New Orleans District Attorney's Office. But while working there, he began noticing something about the criminal defense attorneys appearing opposite him.

The good ones seemed to be doing something different.

Prosecutors generally had the facts and the burden of establishing the elements of the offense. Defense attorneys, on the other hand, frequently had to find weaknesses in apparently bad facts, challenge assumptions, develop alternative theories, and think creatively about how a case should be tried.

Ramos compared that process to approaching the case like a “war general.”

That appealed to him.

He eventually crossed over to criminal defense, where he has now handled serious felony cases including armed robbery, homicide, sex offenses, and the online solicitation prosecution that became the focus of our conversation.

The Online Solicitation Sting

The case began with a law-enforcement sting operation.

According to Ramos, his client was a 32-year-old man from Honduras who had been in the United States for approximately two weeks.

He had no criminal history.

The client went onto an adult-oriented website called MeetMe. According to the defense, the website's terms and conditions required users to be at least 18 years old, and the profile with which the client initially interacted represented the user as an adult.

That fact eventually became important.

Ramos's client had not, according to the defense theory, entered a forum populated by minors or searched for someone identifying herself as a child. He entered a platform where users were supposed to be adults and clicked on a profile representing its user as 18.

During the conversation, however, the undercover persona disclosed that she was actually 15.

The communications continued.

Eventually, sexual activity was discussed and a meeting location was arranged.

From the prosecution's perspective, that was enough.

Ramos explained that under the Louisiana offense involved in his case, the crime was essentially complete through the communications themselves. Police did not necessarily need the defendant to arrive at the meeting location to complete the substantive offense.

But getting him there was extremely useful for another reason:

Identification.

An online account may establish that somebody committed an offense. Having the person physically arrive at a predetermined location can help police establish who was actually behind the account.

That distinction became important when the defense began looking closely at what happened between the online conversation and the arrest.

The Evidence Against the Defendant Was Strong

There is no point minimizing the prosecution's evidence.

It was substantial.

After police arrested Ramos's client, officers interrogated him. According to Ramos, the client gave what amounted to a full confession.

Police had also found condoms during a search incident to arrest.

The client allegedly told officers:

“I brought these condoms for mine and her protection.”

He also acknowledged knowing that the purported girl was 15.

And the statement was recorded.

The jury was going to see it.

This created a difficult strategic decision.

The judge was apparently unwilling to accept the disposition the defense wanted. According to Ramos, the client faced a sentencing range that could result in substantial prison time, and the defense believed the judge might impose the maximum if the client went to trial and lost.

The prosecution's evidence looked strong.

But the client did not want the plea offer.

So they prepared for trial.

Approximately one week before trial, Ramos filed notice that the defense intended to argue entrapment and included a proposed jury instruction.

The decision to put the court and prosecution on notice was deliberate. Ramos wanted to make certain that entrapment would be included in the jury instructions and that there would be a clean record concerning the defense.

That preparation would become critical.

What Is Entrapment?

Entrapment laws vary by jurisdiction, so Texas lawyers should be cautious about directly applying Louisiana law to Texas cases.

But the central issue discussed during the episode will sound familiar to criminal defense attorneys everywhere:

Did law enforcement merely provide an opportunity to commit an offense, or did government agents induce conduct that the defendant otherwise was not predisposed to commit?

In Ramos's Louisiana case, he described the jury instruction as requiring the defense to establish by a preponderance of the evidence that the defendant was induced by law enforcement and lacked the necessary predisposition to commit the offense absent that inducement.

That gave the defense two major areas to attack:

1. Predisposition, and

2. Government inducement.

The first question was therefore:

What evidence showed that this defendant was looking to commit this particular crime before police entered the picture?

According to Ramos, very little.

Attacking Predisposition

The investigation included an extraction of the defendant's phone.

That could have been devastating.

If forensic analysis had revealed searches for minors, communications with children, child sexual material, similar conversations, or other evidence suggesting an existing sexual interest in minors, the prosecution could have used it to argue that law enforcement merely gave an already willing defendant an opportunity.

But Ramos said investigators found no such evidence.

There was no criminal history.

There was no prior similar conduct uncovered on the phone.

And critically, the client had encountered the undercover officer on a platform whose terms required users to be adults.

That gave Ramos a simple argument:

Why would someone supposedly predisposed to seek sexual contact with minors begin by looking for partners on a website restricted to adults?

The defense introduced the website's terms and conditions as an exhibit.

Ramos then used those terms against the undercover investigation.

The officer had created the undercover profile on the same website. In doing so, according to Ramos, the officer had agreed to terms indicating that users were supposed to be at least 18.

The defense therefore had a concrete piece of evidence supporting its theory.

This was not a defendant entering a chatroom explicitly aimed at teenagers and selecting a profile labeled “15.”

The police had entered an adult environment and introduced the purported minor into it.

That distinction became one of the defense's central themes.

The Undercover Messages Changed the Case

The most important evidence may have been contained in the communications themselves.

Ramos explained that undercover officers involved in these investigations commonly emphasize that they do not initiate or escalate sexual conversations.

Instead, investigators may describe their technique as “meeting the defendant where they're at.”

The distinction matters because investigators do not want to create an entrapment problem by manufacturing criminal intent.

Ramos expected that testimony.

And he got it.

But then he compared the officer's description of proper investigative practice with what the officer actually said to his client.

According to Ramos, the undercover communications included statements such as:

“I'm looking to have some fun.”

Another message asked whether the undercover persona needed to clean off her bed.

Standing alone, police could attempt to characterize those statements as ambiguous.

In context, however, the defense argued that their meaning was obvious.

If two children on a playground ask each other whether they want to “have some fun,” that might mean going down a slide.

If someone on an adult-oriented meetup platform asks whether another adult wants to “have some fun,” while also discussing a bed, the implication can be considerably different.

Ramos asked the undercover officer on cross-examination whether those statements could be interpreted as sexually suggestive.

She agreed that they could.

That answer gave the defense exactly what it needed.

The officer had testified that investigators were not supposed to push the sexual conversation beyond where the suspect took it.

Yet the defense now had an admission that the government's own communications could be considered sexually suggestive.

That became a major point in closing argument.

When Reluctance Becomes Evidence

The communications became even more important when the client began expressing reluctance about meeting.

According to Ramos, the original meetup location was a CVS approximately a 40-minute walk from the defendant.

At various points, the client indicated that he did not know whether he could make it.

Rather than allowing the conversation to fade, the undercover persona continued communicating.

Ramos described messages along the lines of:

“Hurry up and come over.”

The undercover persona allegedly said her aunt was falling asleep and suggested she could sneak the defendant inside.

When the defendant suggested waiting until another day, investigators introduced urgency: tomorrow would not work because the aunt would be awake.

The defense characterized this as police progressively eliminating the defendant's “exit valves.”

Every time the defendant created distance from the encounter, law enforcement allegedly supplied a reason that the encounter needed to happen immediately.

Then the messages became even more explicit.

Ramos described the undercover persona sending messages essentially demanding that the defendant come over for sex and telling him she needed him there.

Investigators also placed a telephone call.

According to the defense, the pressure continued during that call.

When the defendant complained about the distance, the meetup location was changed to somewhere more convenient for him.

That detail became particularly significant.

The defense could argue that investigators were not simply waiting for a willing participant to arrive at a location he had selected.

They were actively working to overcome obstacles preventing the meeting from occurring.

Distance was an obstacle.

Police reduced it.

Delay was an obstacle.

Police created urgency.

Reluctance was an obstacle.

Police continued communicating.

The defense's characterization was simple:

The government kept closing the exits.

And Then He Turned Around

Perhaps the most visually powerful fact in the case came at the end of the operation.

The defendant started walking toward the meeting location.

That obviously helped the prosecution.

But he did not complete the journey.

According to Ramos, after investigators changed the meeting location and the defendant approached the new location, he turned around.

He began walking home.

Police arrested him anyway.

That fact did not erase the earlier communications, and Ramos acknowledged that the substantive solicitation offense had already allegedly been completed online.

But for the entrapment theory, the defendant's physical conduct offered something powerful.

After all of the messages, all of the encouragement, all of the urgency, the phone call, and even the decision by investigators to move the meeting closer to him, the defendant nevertheless began walking away.

The defense could now point to conduct—not merely words—suggesting hesitation and disengagement.

For jurors deciding whether the defendant was predisposed to commit the offense or had been pushed toward it by government agents, that mattered.

And it gave Ramos a compelling narrative:

Police did not catch a man relentlessly pursuing a child. They created an undercover persona on an adult website, initiated sexually suggestive communications, continued pressing when he hesitated, made the meeting easier when distance became an obstacle, and ultimately arrested him after he had turned around and started walking home.

That was the story the defense needed the jury to hear.

But before Ramos could persuade jurors to accept it, he had to solve another problem:

Some prospective jurors believed that anyone accused of this type of offense was automatically predisposed to commit it.

For the defense, that meant the case might be won—or lost—before the first witness ever took the stand.

Winning the Entrapment Case in Jury Selection

One of the most important lessons from Ramos's trial had little to do with the undercover messages themselves.

It was jury selection.

An entrapment defense presents a unique problem because jurors may understand the legal instruction intellectually while rejecting it emotionally.

That problem becomes particularly acute in a case involving the alleged solicitation of a minor.

Some prospective jurors essentially told Ramos exactly that.

During the first jury panel, Ramos explained the entrapment defense and asked prospective jurors whether they could follow the law even if they believed the prosecution had otherwise proven the charged offense.

Several could not.

Their position was essentially:

If someone solicits a minor, that fact alone proves that the person was predisposed to do it.

That creates an obvious problem for an entrapment defense.

If a juror begins with the premise that committing the alleged act automatically establishes predisposition, then there may be no evidence the defense can present that would persuade that juror to apply the entrapment instruction.

Ramos did not run away from that issue.

He exposed it.

Prospective jurors who admitted they could not follow the entrapment law became potential challenges for cause.

According to Ramos, the defense accumulated approximately seven or eight cause challenges from the first panel alone.

That had another important benefit.

Every juror removed for cause was a juror the defense did not have to remove with a limited peremptory challenge.

By the time the defense finished questioning the panels, Ramos believed they had assembled an unusually favorable jury.

That was not luck alone.

It was the product of identifying the central legal issue in the case and forcing prospective jurors to confront it before they were selected.

A Simple Analogy Made Entrapment Understandable

Explaining entrapment in abstract legal language can be difficult.

So Ramos used an analogy.

Imagine walking into a bar.

There is a bouncer standing at the entrance checking identification. The bouncer confirms that every customer entering the establishment is at least 21 years old and places a red wristband on each person's arm.

Once customers enter, bartenders rely on the wristbands rather than repeatedly checking identification.

Now imagine that police take a 16-year-old into the bar and give that person the same red wristband.

The teenager approaches the bartender.

The bartender sees the wristband and serves the teenager a drink.

Should the bartender be treated the same as someone who knowingly decided to serve alcohol to a minor?

For Ramos, the analogy provided a way to explain his defense theory without immediately forcing jurors into the emotionally charged facts of the actual case.

The adult website was the bar.

Its age restriction was the bouncer.

The profile representing the user as an adult was the wristband.

And law enforcement had deliberately introduced the purported minor into that adult environment.

Ramos brought the analogy back during closing argument.

His point was not that continuing the conversation after learning the purported age was harmless.

It plainly was not.

The point was that the jury had to evaluate the entire sequence of events when deciding predisposition and inducement.

The police had not found his client in a place where children were expected to be.

They had gone into an adult environment, created the persona, and then driven the encounter forward.

The analogy gave jurors a framework for evaluating that conduct.

Cross-Examination: Compare Police Policy With Police Conduct

Ramos also offered a practical lesson for attorneys handling undercover sting cases.

Listen carefully when an officer explains how the operation is supposedly designed to avoid entrapment.

According to Ramos, undercover investigators frequently describe their practice in essentially the same way:

We don't initiate the sexual conversation. We don't escalate it. We meet the suspect where the suspect is.

That testimony is designed to make the investigation sound passive.

But once the officer commits to that standard, the defense has a benchmark against which the actual communications can be measured.

That is exactly what Ramos did.

The officer said investigators were not supposed to escalate the conversation.

Then Ramos went through the messages.

Who said they were “looking to have some fun”?

Who mentioned cleaning off a bed?

Who continued sending messages when the defendant indicated he might not come?

Who said the aunt was falling asleep?

Who created urgency?

Who kept communicating when the defendant suggested meeting another day?

Who changed the meeting location when the original location was too far away?

The cross-examination therefore became more than an argument over individual text messages.

It became a comparison:

Here is what you told this jury investigators are supposed to do. Now let's look at what you actually did.

That is a powerful form of impeachment because the standard does not come from the defense attorney.

It comes from the government's own witness.

Small Messages Can Become Big Evidence

Another lesson from the case is the importance of refusing to dismiss seemingly insignificant communications.

“I'm looking to have some fun” might appear unimportant when buried inside pages of messages.

So might a question about cleaning a bed.

But context matters.

Ramos asked the undercover officer a narrow question:

Could those messages be interpreted as sexually suggestive?

The officer said yes.

That admission became useful in closing because it allowed the defense to argue that the government's witness had effectively conceded one component of the defense theory.

The undercover agent was not merely responding to sexual suggestions.

At least some of the government's own language could itself be interpreted as sexually suggestive.

For defense lawyers, the broader lesson is straightforward:

Do not read undercover communications only for what your client said. Read them just as carefully for what the government said.

Build a timeline.

Identify every escalation.

Identify who introduced each subject.

Mark every point at which the client hesitated.

Mark every point at which the officer reinitiated communication.

Look for changes in tone.

Look for urgency.

Look for promises.

Look for pressure.

Look for opportunities the officer could have allowed the conversation to end but instead chose to continue it.

And compare all of those communications against the officer's testimony about how these investigations are supposedly conducted.

In an entrapment case, the government's side of the conversation may be just as important as the defendant's.

Look for the Exit Ramps

Ramos repeatedly described investigators as closing his client's “exit valves.”

That phrase captures an important way of analyzing an undercover operation.

Instead of looking only at the ultimate agreement to commit the alleged offense, ask:

How many opportunities did the defendant have to disengage, and what did law enforcement do when he tried?

Here, according to Ramos, his client repeatedly expressed uncertainty about meeting.

The meeting was far away.

Maybe they could meet tomorrow.

Maybe he could not make it.

Those facts could be characterized by the prosecution as logistical details rather than genuine reluctance.

But the defense could characterize them differently.

Every hesitation was potentially an exit ramp.

And every time the defendant approached one of those exits, law enforcement allegedly responded by making the encounter easier or more urgent.

Can't walk that far?

We'll move the meeting closer.

Want to wait until tomorrow?

Tomorrow won't work.

Not sure you can come?

Hurry up.

The defense then had the final piece of the sequence:

The client physically turned around.

Whatever his earlier intent, Ramos could point to the defendant's actual movement away from the planned encounter immediately before the arrest.

For an entrapment defense, that sequence provided a compelling argument that the jury should examine not simply whether the defendant eventually agreed to criminal conduct, but how the government obtained that agreement.

The Missing FBI Agent and the Confrontation Clause Fight

Entrapment was not the only major legal issue Ramos confronted during trial.

The investigation was conducted by a task force involving the Louisiana State Police, the local sheriff's office, and the FBI.

According to Ramos, an FBI agent was responsible for sending and receiving the text messages at the center of the prosecution.

But that FBI agent did not testify at trial.

Ramos said the agent was out of the country.

Nevertheless, the prosecution was permitted to introduce the communications through a Louisiana State Police trooper who had participated in the investigation.

Ramos objected.

His argument was based on the Confrontation Clause and Crawford v. Washington.

The defense's position was that the FBI agent's communications were generated during an active criminal investigation designed to produce evidence and further the investigation. Because the FBI agent did not appear, Ramos argued that admitting the communications through another task-force officer deprived his client of the opportunity to confront the person who actually created them.

The trial judge disagreed.

Ramos moved for a mistrial.

Denied.

He requested an emergency writ.

He requested a stay.

Those efforts were unsuccessful as well.

At that point, Ramos believed the defense had at least preserved a significant appellate issue if the jury convicted his client.

The jury made that issue academic for this particular defendant.

It acquitted him.

But the episode illustrates another important trial lesson:

Do not abandon preservation simply because you believe the jury may ultimately acquit.

Defense counsel has to try the case in front of the jury while simultaneously building a record for the possibility that the jury returns a guilty verdict.

Object.

State the constitutional basis.

Obtain a ruling.

Request the appropriate relief.

And preserve the issue.

A strong trial strategy and a strong appellate record are not competing objectives.

Good trial preparation requires both.

Preparation Created the Opportunity

One of the most revealing moments in our conversation came when Ramos discussed how other lawyers reacted to the verdict.

The case was tried in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana.

Ramos described it as a difficult jurisdiction for criminal defendants and said the courthouse had approximately a 95% conviction rate in jury trials.

After the acquittal, other lawyers began asking him:

How did you do that?

Ramos did not pretend that he had discovered some secret formula.

He acknowledged that luck is part of trial work.

But he repeatedly returned to preparation.

Before he goes on the record, Ramos said, he wants to know what he intends to say.

Before asking questions, he wants to know the answers.

Before trial, he outlines where he is going.

That preparation mattered at nearly every stage of this case.

The defense examined the website's terms and conditions.

It analyzed the phone extraction for evidence of predisposition.

It reviewed the entire conversation rather than focusing exclusively on the defendant's incriminating statements.

It identified sexually suggestive language originating from law enforcement.

It recognized the significance of the client's repeated reluctance.

It noticed that police moved the meeting location.

It recognized the importance of the defendant turning around.

It anticipated the entrapment instruction.

It filed notice and a proposed instruction.

It identified jurors who could not apply the defense.

It preserved the confrontation issue when the FBI agent failed to appear.

None of those facts alone necessarily wins a trial.

Together, they created a coherent defense.

A Bad Fact Does Not Have to Define the Entire Case

The recorded confession may be the most important lesson of all.

Imagine reviewing this case for the first time.

Your client allegedly communicated with someone he knew was 15.

He went toward a meeting location.

Police found condoms.

Then he told investigators he knew the person was 15 and had brought the condoms for protection.

A defense attorney could look at those facts and conclude that the case was hopeless.

Ramos almost did.

But “bad facts” and “the whole story” are not necessarily the same thing.

The confession answered certain questions.

It did not answer every question.

It did not establish why the conversation began.

It did not erase the fact that the original profile represented its user as an adult.

It did not establish prior sexual interest in minors.

It did not erase the government's messages.

It did not eliminate the defendant's hesitation.

It did not explain why law enforcement continued pushing when he attempted to delay the encounter.

And it did not change the fact that he ultimately turned around.

The defense did not have to pretend the confession did not exist.

Instead, it had to place that confession inside a larger narrative.

That distinction is critical in criminal defense.

Sometimes the strongest defense is not:

“My client didn't do it.”

Sometimes it is:

“You haven't been told the whole story about how this happened.”

The Jury Returns a Not-Guilty Verdict

The strategy worked.

The jury found Ramos's client not guilty.

Ramos described the moment as overwhelming.

His client cried.

Ramos cried.

They hugged.

In the emotion following the verdict, Ramos did not speak directly with the jurors.

The prosecutor did.

According to what the prosecutor later told Ramos, the jurors' reaction was essentially:

They did not like the police doing what they had done.

That observation is significant.

The defense had successfully shifted the jury's focus.

The trial was no longer exclusively about whether the defendant had engaged in reprehensible communications.

The jury was also evaluating the conduct of the government.

That is precisely what an entrapment defense requires.

The verdict also dramatically changed the client's future.

Ramos said his client subsequently entered immigration detention and ultimately returned to Honduras.

Whatever immigration consequences remained from the encounter, he left the criminal prosecution without the felony conviction that would have followed a guilty verdict.

The Broader Lesson for Criminal Defense Lawyers

There is a temptation when reviewing a difficult case to immediately divide the evidence into “good facts” and “bad facts.”

That can be useful.

But it can also be limiting.

The better question is often:

What story do these facts tell when they are placed in chronological order?

The prosecution's story in this case was straightforward.

An adult communicated sexually with someone he knew was 15 and traveled toward a location where he expected to meet her.

The defense could not erase those facts.

Instead, it supplied context.

The defendant entered an adult website.

The undercover profile initially represented itself as an adult.

Police introduced sexually suggestive language.

Police continued communicating when the defendant hesitated.

Police created urgency.

Police changed the meeting location when distance became an obstacle.

The defendant eventually turned around.

And investigators arrested him as he was walking home.

Same case.

Different story.

The job of the defense lawyer was to make certain the jury heard both.

Conclusion: Fortune Favors the Prepared Defense

During our conversation, Andrew Decker quoted Louis Pasteur:

“Fortune favors the prepared mind.”

That may be the best summary of this trial.

There was undoubtedly some fortune involved.

Trials are unpredictable.

Witnesses sometimes give unexpected answers. Jurors sometimes surprise both sides. A single admission during cross-examination can suddenly become far more important than anyone anticipated.

But luck does not explain why Ramos knew to ask the undercover officer whether her messages were sexually suggestive.

Luck does not explain why the website's terms and conditions were admitted as an exhibit.

Luck does not explain why the defense identified prospective jurors who would refuse to apply the entrapment instruction.

Luck does not explain why Ramos had a proposed jury instruction ready.

And luck does not explain why the defense preserved a constitutional objection when the FBI agent responsible for the communications failed to appear.

Preparation created opportunities.

Then the defense recognized those opportunities when they appeared.

For Texas criminal defense attorneys, the precise Louisiana entrapment standard discussed in this episode should not be substituted for Texas law. The procedural rules governing affirmative defenses, jury instructions, burdens of proof, online solicitation offenses, and preservation can differ significantly between jurisdictions.

But the trial lessons travel well.

Read the entire conversation.

Study what the undercover officer said—not merely what your client said.

Learn the investigative protocol.

Compare the officer's conduct against that protocol.

Search the digital evidence for both inculpatory and exculpatory evidence.

Identify every opportunity your client had to disengage.

Pay attention to what police did when your client hesitated.

Develop a way to explain the defense in ordinary language.

And use jury selection to find out whether prospective jurors can actually apply that defense to an emotionally difficult accusation.

Most importantly, do not decide that a case cannot be won simply because it contains terrible facts.

Sometimes the facts that initially appear to end the case are only the beginning of the analysis.

As Ramos's client learned, a case involving an apparent confession, condoms, incriminating messages, and a planned meetup can still end with two of the most important words a criminal defense lawyer can hear:

Not guilty.

Key Takeaways

1. Read every undercover communication

Do not focus exclusively on your client's incriminating messages. Determine who introduced sexual topics, who escalated them, who reinitiated conversations, and what the undercover officer did when your client attempted to disengage.

2. Investigate predisposition independently

If predisposition matters to the applicable entrapment standard, look beyond the charged conversation. Phone extractions, prior communications, browsing history, criminal history, prior conduct, and the circumstances under which the parties encountered one another may become important.

In Ramos's case, the absence of similar material on the client's phone supported the defense theory.

3. Examine where law enforcement found the defendant

Context matters.

Ramos emphasized that his client was not searching a forum intended for minors. He was on a website whose terms required users to be adults, and the undercover profile initially represented itself as an adult.

That fact became central to the defense's argument against predisposition.

4. Get the platform's terms and conditions

In an online sting prosecution, the platform itself may contain useful evidence.

Age requirements, representations made during account creation, community rules, and other terms may help establish what a reasonable user expected when entering the platform.

5. Learn the undercover operation's rules

If officers testify that their policy is not to initiate or escalate sexual conversations, hold them to that representation.

Compare their stated procedure message-by-message against what actually happened.

6. Look for “exit valves”

Identify every moment when the client could have disengaged.

More importantly, determine what law enforcement did next.

If the defendant hesitated and police responded with increased pressure, urgency, promises, repeated messages, phone calls, or more convenient meeting arrangements, those facts may matter to an entrapment analysis.

7. Turn abstract law into an understandable story

Ramos's bar-and-wristband analogy gave jurors a way to understand his defense before confronting the inflammatory facts of the actual charge.

The best legal analogy is not necessarily the cleverest one.

It is the one jurors can remember during deliberations.

8. Voir dire the actual defense

Do not merely ask jurors whether they can “follow the law.”

Explain the issue.

Ramos discovered prospective jurors who openly admitted that they would convict even if the defense established the legal requirements for entrapment because they believed the alleged conduct itself automatically established predisposition.

Finding those jurors before trial testimony began was critical.

9. Preserve appellate issues even when you believe you can win

Ramos objected when communications involving an absent FBI agent were admitted through another task-force officer.

After losing the objection, he continued seeking relief and building a record.

The acquittal ultimately meant his client did not need that appellate issue.

But defense counsel cannot know the verdict while the trial is happening.

Try the case for the jury while preserving it for the appellate court.

10. Do not let the worst fact become the entire case

A confession is devastating.

So are incriminating physical evidence and damaging electronic communications.

But the existence of powerful prosecution evidence does not eliminate the defense lawyer's obligation to investigate the circumstances surrounding that evidence.

The question is not simply:

“What evidence does the State have?”

The better question is:

“What happened before, during, and after the evidence the State wants the jury to focus on?”

Sometimes that investigation changes the entire case.

11. Preparation creates opportunities at trial

Ramos did not know the undercover officer would give him exactly the admission he wanted.

But he knew enough about the evidence to recognize the opportunity when it appeared.

That is what trial preparation accomplishes.

You cannot script a jury trial.

You can prepare well enough to capitalize when the trial gives you an opening.

12. Entrapment is ultimately about government conduct too

Criminal trials naturally focus on what the defendant allegedly did.

An entrapment defense forces jurors to examine another actor:

The government.

What did law enforcement do?

What did officers say?

What conduct did they encourage?

What happened when the suspect hesitated?

Were officers investigating criminal intent that already existed—or helping create the circumstances that produced it?

In Ramos's case, those questions changed what initially looked like an unwinnable prosecution into a not-guilty verdict.

Contact Patricio Here

Patricio Ramos

Frequently Asked Questions

What is entrapment?

Entrapment generally concerns situations in which law enforcement goes beyond merely providing an opportunity to commit an offense and instead improperly induces criminal conduct.

The exact definition and burden differ by jurisdiction.

In the Louisiana case discussed in this episode, Ramos described the defense as focusing heavily on whether law enforcement induced the conduct and whether the defendant was predisposed to commit the offense without that inducement.

Texas attorneys should apply Texas statutes and Texas case law rather than assuming that Louisiana's entrapment standard is identical.

Is it entrapment whenever an undercover officer asks someone to commit a crime?

No.

The mere fact that an undercover officer provides an opportunity to commit an offense does not automatically constitute entrapment.

That is one reason entrapment can be a difficult defense.

The analysis generally requires closer examination of the government's conduct and the defendant's willingness or predisposition before the government's involvement.

What made the entrapment argument important in this case?

Several facts became important to Ramos's defense.

The defendant initially encountered the undercover persona on a website where users were supposed to be adults.

The undercover profile initially represented the user as an adult.

Ramos said investigators found no prior evidence on the defendant's phone indicating an interest in minors.

The defense also identified sexually suggestive communications originating from law enforcement and repeated efforts by investigators to keep the proposed encounter moving forward after the defendant appeared reluctant to meet.

Finally, according to Ramos, the defendant had turned around and begun walking home before police arrested him.

The defense argued that those facts should be evaluated together when deciding whether the defendant was predisposed to commit the offense or had been induced by law enforcement.

Why were the website's terms and conditions important?

According to Ramos, the website required users to be at least 18 years old.

The defense introduced the terms and conditions as an exhibit.

That allowed Ramos to argue that his client had not entered a location where minors were expected to be found. Instead, the government had created a fictitious persona inside an adult environment.

That distinction supported the defense's argument concerning predisposition.

Why did the phone extraction matter?

Digital forensic evidence can cut both ways.

If the defendant's phone had contained prior communications with minors, searches for minors, or similar material, the prosecution potentially could have used that evidence to strengthen its argument that the defendant was already predisposed to commit the offense.

Ramos said the extraction did not reveal such evidence.

The absence of similar conduct became part of the defense case.

Can an undercover officer send sexually suggestive messages during an investigation?

The legal significance depends on the facts and applicable law.

The important point from this episode is that defense attorneys should not assume the government's messages are neutral simply because they came from law enforcement.

Ramos testified during the podcast that the undercover officer described the investigative practice as not escalating the sexual conversation beyond what the suspect initiated.

Ramos then confronted the officer with messages the defense believed were sexually suggestive and obtained an admission that certain statements could be interpreted that way.

That comparison became an important part of his closing argument.

What does it mean when Ramos says police were “closing the exit valves”?

Ramos used that phrase to describe moments when his client appeared to create distance from the proposed encounter.

For example, the defendant indicated that the meeting location was far away and suggested meeting another day.

According to Ramos, investigators responded by moving the location closer, insisting that the encounter needed to happen immediately, and continuing to communicate.

The defense characterized those actions as law enforcement preventing the encounter from naturally ending.

Why was the defendant turning around important?

The defendant had initially started toward the proposed meeting location.

But according to Ramos, immediately before the arrest he had turned around and begun walking back toward his home.

That did not erase the earlier communications.

Ramos acknowledged that the prosecution considered the substantive solicitation offense complete through the online communications.

But the physical decision to walk away supported the defense's broader argument that the defendant's conduct reflected hesitation rather than an unwavering predisposition to complete the encounter.

How did jury selection affect the case?

Jury selection was critical.

Ramos asked prospective jurors whether they could follow the entrapment law even if they believed the prosecution had otherwise established the charged offense.

Several prospective jurors admitted that they could not.

Their position was essentially that anyone who engaged in the alleged conduct was automatically predisposed to commit it.

Those answers allowed the defense to pursue challenges for cause and avoid using limited peremptory challenges on some unfavorable jurors.

Ramos believed the resulting jury was unusually receptive to fairly considering the actual entrapment instruction.

What analogy did the defense use to explain entrapment?

Ramos used a bar analogy.

Imagine that a bouncer checks identification at the entrance to a bar and gives everyone who is 21 a red wristband.

Bartenders then rely on those wristbands when serving alcohol.

Now imagine police secretly put the same wristband on a 16-year-old and send the teenager to order a drink.

Ramos used the analogy to explain his theory that the government had inserted a purported minor into an environment represented as being restricted to adults.

He returned to the analogy during closing argument.

Was the defendant actually communicating with a minor?

No actual minor was described as participating in the sting.

The person communicating with the defendant was an undercover law-enforcement persona represented to the defendant as being 15 years old.

Did the defendant confess?

According to Ramos, his client gave investigators a damaging recorded statement after his arrest.

He acknowledged knowing the purported age and discussed bringing condoms.

The jury heard the statement.

The defense therefore did not attempt to build its case around denying that the communications occurred.

Instead, it argued entrapment based on the circumstances surrounding the government's investigation.

What was the Confrontation Clause issue?

Ramos said an FBI agent was responsible for the text communications with his client but did not testify at trial.

Another officer involved with the task force was permitted to introduce the messages.

Ramos objected and argued that admitting the communications without the FBI agent violated his client's confrontation rights.

He specifically referenced Crawford v. Washington.

The trial court rejected his argument.

Ramos sought additional relief, including a mistrial and an emergency writ, but the case ultimately ended in an acquittal before an appellate court was required to resolve the issue.

Did the jury explain why it acquitted the defendant?

Ramos did not personally speak with the jurors afterward because of the emotion surrounding the verdict.

The prosecutor did.

According to what the prosecutor later told Ramos, the jurors generally indicated that they did not like the way police had conducted the operation.

That reaction suggests the defense successfully persuaded the jury to examine not only the defendant's behavior but also the conduct of law enforcement.

Does Louisiana entrapment law work the same way as Texas entrapment law?

Not necessarily.

The episode repeatedly notes differences between Louisiana and Texas criminal procedure.

Texas attorneys should analyze entrapment under Texas law rather than relying on the Louisiana standards or procedures described by Ramos.

The strategic lessons from the episode—scrutinizing government conduct, examining predisposition evidence, preparing jury selection carefully, and comparing investigative policy against actual police conduct—may still be useful across jurisdictions.

Resources Mentioned in the Episode

Andrew & Andrew on Texas Criminal Defense

Website: TexasCrimDefense.com

The podcast focuses on Texas criminal defense practice, trial strategy, statutes, cases, courtroom experiences, and practical lessons for criminal defense attorneys.

This episode expands on a prior discussion regarding statutory defenses, including entrapment.

Patricio Ramos

Ramos practices criminal defense in Louisiana and appeared on the episode to discuss the online solicitation trial and his entrapment defense.

At the end of the episode, Ramos directed listeners to the website for the firm where he practices and encouraged prospective clients to specifically request him when contacting the office.

Firm mentioned: Barry Ranshi Law Firm

Website stated during the episode: BarryRanshiLaw.com

Before publication, verify the firm's spelling and current URL against the guest's official website. The transcript is an automated Otter.ai transcription, and names and URLs are particularly susceptible to transcription errors.

Grit by Angela Duckworth

During the personal portion of the interview, Ramos recommended Grit by Angela Duckworth.

He connected the book's message about persistence and consistently showing up with his own path from high-school dropout, to military service, to UCLA, law school, prosecution, and eventually criminal defense trial practice.

Cases Mentioned

Crawford v. Washington

Crawford v. Washington was specifically referenced during the discussion of the absent FBI agent and the defense's Confrontation Clause objection.

Ramos's argument was that the FBI agent had participated directly in an ongoing law-enforcement investigation and had personally generated the communications being introduced against his client.

Because the agent did not testify, Ramos argued that introducing those communications through another officer deprived the defendant of his constitutional opportunity to confront the witness responsible for them.

The trial judge overruled the objection.

Statutes and Legal Issues Discussed

Although the transcript does not provide statutory citations, the episode discusses several legal concepts that can be referenced in the article and show notes:

• Entrapment

• Predisposition

• Government inducement

• Computer-aided solicitation of a minor under Louisiana law

• Undercover internet sting investigations

• Jury instructions

• Burdens of proof applicable to defenses

• Challenges for cause

• Peremptory strikes

• Miranda waivers

• Motions to suppress statements

• Searches incident to arrest

• Digital forensic extraction of cellular phones

• Confrontation Clause

• Crawford objections

• Motions for mistrial

• Emergency writs

• Appellate preservation

Andrew Herreth 0:05

Hello, defenders. Welcome to another episode of Andrew and Andrew on Texas criminal defense. My name is Andrew Herreth, and joining me, as always, is mr. Andrew Decker. How are you, sir?

Andrew Decker 0:17

Well, I'm a little tired. I had a motion to revoke hearing this morning that he had been adjudicated, and this was a motion to revoke. He had already had a motion to adjudicate that had been found, and then now months later, his motion to revoke, and the judge kept him on probation.

Andrew Herreth 0:38

That's a win.

Andrew Decker 0:39

That that's a. I mean, it

Andrew Herreth 0:41

may be a win. No, it's

Andrew Decker 0:44

it's a win. It's a win. Basically, our argument was, Judge, he's 20 years old. He obviously has an alcohol issue. Him getting sober will be better for him in 20 years than any amount of jail time. And the judge heard that. Yeah, it helps that I know the judge and you know know know his soft spots and kind of went towards them. Then I spoke just to finish the CLE about an hour ago on statutory defenses, including things like entrapment. mr. Herreth,

Andrew Herreth 1:17

I was going to say maybe now your client can can take a vacation out to New Orleans, enjoy that that town a little bit, maybe not too much.

Andrew Decker 1:26

Yeah, not no alcohol, none.

Andrew Herreth 1:28

No, no alcohol. But if he gets in trouble, he can definitely call our guest for the show. Yeah.

Andrew Decker 1:34

So, who's our guest, mr. Herreth?

Andrew Herreth 1:36

Well, our guest today emailed us right after our last episode on statutory defenses, Patricio Ramos has an incredible story to tell. He is a defender out in Louisiana. He's going to share with us how he got into the criminal defense game, what's going on with this trial, and how he can touch or maybe expound a little bit on practical usage of these statutory defenses in the thick of it in trial, Patricio. How are you, sir?

Patricio Ramos 2:05

I'm doing good, man. It's great to be here with y'all. I've listened to every episode. I think y'all are great mentors for people like me that have not been doing this for very long. I do seek advice from all of your podcasts every single time I have a question,

Andrew Decker 2:17

man. Patricio, you need you need help.

Andrew Herreth 2:20

Well, we love to hear it, man. I mean, you know, we're just, you know, I don't know. I always like to say, like, we're just two idiots trying to figure it out. And really, when we started the show, we we wanted to talk to great lawyers because it makes us better lawyers. And and this is this episode surely is is no exception to that rule. Just quickly tell us, you know, tell our guests how how you got into criminal defense.

Patricio Ramos 2:52

That's an interesting question because you know I was living in California as a 16 year old. I've never seen a lawyer in my life, and I made the stupid decision to drop out of high school, and my stepdad at this time says, "Go join the Navy or get out of my house. So, like, I get a GED, I join the Navy, and after successfully doing eight years in the military, I was like, "I need to use my GI Bill. So I end up at this college that's a good school, UCLA, and all of a sudden there's all these people that have these vast goals to like be lawyers, be doctors, and it kind of just became I'm part of the the herd now. Like I need to do something great now because I'm around these people. So I just you know met some friends that were in the political science department, and we just took the LSAT together, and I got a full ride to a school in New Orleans, and that was fun. I went I went to Loyola University College School here in New Orleans after. Let me ask you a

Andrew Herreth 3:53

question real quick, just about your early life experience. Like you, I mean, that's a pretty ballsy move to to just like as a young kid, say school's not for me. I don't like high school. Do you think, like, if you would have stuck through it and done the traditional route of going straight to college, that you would have gotten as much out of your college experience as you did with you know going to the Navy first, like going as an older student? You know,

Patricio Ramos 4:19

no, I don't because after after getting out of the navy, I was a real adult who viewed school as a business transaction and not a social experience. So I believe I got not only did I go for free because of GI Bill, I was there on a mission, not a social, you know, a social on the social scene. I was there for business. I knew what I was there for.

Andrew Herreth 4:39

No, I so I I cannot say the same for myself. Like I was absolutely there for social social reasons. Like I went right out of high school, like traditional, you know, drunken frat kid. Well,

Andrew Decker 4:53

and I happen to know some of his friends from college, and they concur that Mister Herreth was there for the party. Yeah, not much has changed. I'm still here for the party. I just don't drink anymore. Yeah, it worked out really

Patricio Ramos 5:06

well because obviously going through the military first, you go to undergrad for free, and then you go to law school for free. So I'm not. I don't have any debt from school. It's a. It's great to be starting my career that way,

Andrew Decker 5:18

brother. You won. You won on that.

Andrew Herreth 5:20

That's yep. Yeah. I mean good for you and you know you're in a I imagine you're in a you practice in a town that you really love New Orleans is a great great city even after not you know like I think it obviously everybody knows the party scene in New Orleans but like just the food like go there and don't drink and just eat the food. You're gonna have a wonderful time.

Speaker 1 5:43

Yeah, it's a great city. I can't. You know, I didn't. A lot of people don't even know it's such a great city until you come here. I mean, I never even imagined I'd be here when I got here. I was like, "Oh, it's an awesome city.

Andrew Herreth 5:53

It's a wonderful city. So, okay, so you've been practicing for how long now?

Patricio Ramos 5:58

I've been practicing for three years.

Andrew Herreth 6:00

And why? I don't know if we covered this, but why criminal defense?

Patricio Ramos 6:04

So that that just happened. So my first year, I fresh out of law school, I went to the New Orleans District Attorney's office, and I spent a year as a prosecutor there. And in that time as a line DA, there was you know defense attorneys that came in, and you know, you learn the names, you learn the characters in the courthouse pretty quick. Who's who, who's who. And one thing I did notice very quickly is the good defense attorneys always were much cooler than us line DAs. They were always smarter. They were better litigators. They just had something that we did better in that office,

Andrew Decker 6:43

better looking too. But you know, I mean, that's

Patricio Ramos 6:46

and I quickly, I quickly realized that the the path to being a really good attorney is probably to go on the defense side and do that type of work because it's you're much more in the you're theorizing how the case should go. You're you're grasping at straws because like you're the facts are never in your favor, so you're you're you're analyzing the case almost as a war general rather than someone who's just trying to check boxes on elements as you are as a prosecutor. I loved that part of it when I saw it. I was like, this is something I want to do.

Andrew Herreth 7:18

Right.

Patricio Ramos 7:19

So that's how I you know I just saw. I was like, defense attorneys have more fun with the facts of the case than prosecutors do, and that's just why I did the switch.

Andrew Herreth 7:27

Yeah, right on. Yeah, no, it is it is

Andrew Decker 7:30

a more fun side of the of the bar. Yeah, and you get to be creative because, as the prosecutor, you have to, as you said, check the boxes. Did I get all the elements proven on the defense? You get to kind of open any box you can to try to show this guy didn't do it. You can't prove all the elements, or that there's something else there, and and that's what we're really here for today. But wow,

Andrew Herreth 7:59

man, yeah, I I I agree. I've done my time in a DA's office. I agree, and I like my. I remember one time my chief, the misdemeanor chief, was like just kind of talking to me and was like, "Can you just like be less of a defense attorney when you're a prosecutor? And I'm like, "What? What? So, anyways, I was getting a reputation even back then, I was just like, I guess, dismissing too many cases. I don't know. So we have this case. Well, okay. So, so you leave the DA's office. Do you go out on your own? Are you with a firm or a mentor? Or

Patricio Ramos 8:34

so I'm. I'm with a firm right now. It's me and one other guy. We both practice, and we just do the best we can.

Andrew Herreth 8:41

Yeah, right on. All right, it's all you can.

Andrew Decker 8:43

It's all you can do.

Andrew Herreth 8:44

Yeah, yeah, heck yeah. We have this trial, so start start talking to us about this this case, and you know, like give us as many details as you want, or as you deem appropriate.

Patricio Ramos 8:58

Yeah. So the facts of the case are very simple. I'm sure y'all have dealt with them. Essentially, the there's an undercover agent that gets the client essentially hot and ready, and then they're like, "Oh, by the way, this is my age, right? It's usually somewhere between 14 and 15. I don't know why they never pick 13, because if you pick 13 and they're convicted, the consequences are much higher than someone that's 14 or 15. But I think in their head they think 15's a number what someone will bite on. Maybe the they think the defendant if they say they're 13 they're not going to bite on the apple. But 15's like the number I see a lot. So they get you hot and ready. They say I'm 15, and then sex is introduced at some point, and then a meetup location is you know is set, and then they say all right. They place a phone call, and they always have you know this FBI agent or this other local task force, and they they talk in a voice that is de-aged purposefully, and they send these pictures that are de-aged adults purposefully, and they say things that lead you to believe that they're. Promising sex, and then you just show up, and they arrest you, and then all of a sudden you're charged with computer aided solicitation of a minor, and you're in the court system.

Andrew Herreth 10:10

Yeah, and that's how all

Patricio Ramos 10:13

these cases go. Now, in this case, in particular, my client was a in the United States for two weeks from Honduras. He has no criminal history, and he's on an adult website. Right? It's it's akin to maybe Tinder, but this this specifically specific one is called Meet Me. The terms and conditions specifically state you must be 18. Everyone on this website holds themselves out to be 18 years old. He clicks on a profile that says I am this age, 18 years old. There's nowhere on the profile that says I'm a minor. They engage in a conversation, and the age comes out, and my client continues to speak, and the crime is essentially completed.

Andrew Decker 10:54

Right. So, just out of curiosity, how old is your client?

Patricio Ramos 11:01

He's 32 years old.

Andrew Decker 11:03

Okay, all right, all right. Go ahead.

Patricio Ramos 11:07

So, in the course of the trial, we're trying to get the judge to understand. Look, he has no criminal history. The minimum on if the statute has a carveout, if it's a person reasonably believed to be someone under 17, it's a minimum of two and a max of 10. If it's an actual minor, the minimum is five. The judge is at five. We're like judge. He has no criminal history. He's been here for two weeks. We can we can settle this for two years. She's absolutely not. He can take five or go to trial. And I know this judge. He's going to give him 10 if he goes to trial. So I'm like talking to my client. I'm like, look, this is our situation. Given the fact that, and here's some more details. And when he was arrested and interrogated, he gave a full confession. He had been searched incident to arrest, had condoms in his pocket, and he told police officers, "I brought these condoms for mine and her protection. I knew she was 15. Blah blah blah. Full confession. All recorded. The jury's gonna. The jury saw all of it.

Andrew Decker 12:07

Oh, all right. Yeah,

Patricio Ramos 12:08

it was. I mean, there was no world where I saw us winning this case. I mean, there's there's no world. But strange things happen, and the judge essentially said, he can take five. And I was like, "Fine, we're ready to go to trial because the client wasn't want to take five, right? And I wasn't going to advise him to take five because I just thought it was an unreasonable deal. So we show up to trial about a week before we file our notice that we are intend to argue entrapment. And the reason we filed the notice is because we wanted to make sure this judge adds it to the jury instructions, and there's no, there's nothing going on. We just need to make sure that those jury instructions are added because we are going to tell the jury that that the prosecutor is going to satisfy their burden, but we're also going to satisfy our burden, and if we do, you have to find out not guilty. And it's an interesting defense because when you read the jury instructions, it says if you find that he was induced by law enforcement and he has no predisposition to commit the crime, you must find him guilty. And then there's another section of it that says, but if you find that he would have committed the crime regardless of law Enforcement inducement. You must then you you can't find him. You can't find that he was entrapped. So we hung our hat on a lot of things. Right, he had no criminal history. They extracted his cell phone, and they didn't find any lustful disposition in any way towards any minors. He's never done this before. We argued he was on an adult website. We argued that the state trooper had made the first sexual suggestive thing in the conversation, and that that was basically how we argued that he was not predisposed. And obviously, he was induced by law enforcement. They went on to a website where only adult, well, where everyone holds themselves out to be an adult, so the predisposition spot was checked. Another interesting thing that we got out on cross examination was that it's policy in these investigations that you you never escalate the sexual conversation. You're supposed to meet the defendant where they're at, but that's not what happened here. There was text messages from the undercover agent that said, "Hey, I'm looking to have some fun. So on cross, I got the the undercover agent to say, "Like, couldn't that be interpreted as sexually suggestive? And she said yes. And that was we hammered that in closing, and then we hammered the fact even further that she kept making sending messages to my client when my client was like, "I don't know if I can make it today, and she would say things like, "Hey, hurry up and come over. My aunt's falling asleep. I can sneak you in. He'd be like, "I don't know if I want to.

Andrew Decker 14:56

Yeah, and then he-it

Patricio Ramos 14:58

just the pressure kept mounting. She was shutting off all the exit valves because he was trying to exit peacefully. He,

Andrew Herreth 15:04

yeah.

Patricio Ramos 15:06

And then there was just some crazy messages sent after that, where she was just after he she sensed he was backing out. She would be like, "Come over and f me right now. I'm waiting. Please, I need you here with me. And he would, and then then they make a phone call to him. He picks up the phone, and they start pressuring him even more. They're like, "Come on, hurry up! I'll meet you at CVS. We can get this done. Blah blah blah. My aunt's sleep. It's just mounting pressure. My guy's like, "Wait, wait, can we do this tomorrow? Can we do this tomorrow? They're like, "No, because I can't sneak you out in the morning because my aunt's going to be awake. So she's they're creating this trap where if he doesn't do it now, it's never going to be available. Well, and

Andrew Decker 15:45

he's-it-it sounds like he's trying to do the whole, not to in one level maybe ghost her right, like no, I can't do it today, maybe tomorrow, right? You know, just put enough distance into it that it that that she goes away, or that he's trying to politely say, "I don't think I'm interested.

Andrew Herreth 16:04

Right, right, right. Like he's just had like this. Okay, he's just had this like post nut clarity, essentially. Like, all right, like he. Sorry, Decker, but but he's he's had this like moment, this revelation probably in his mind, like what girl pushes this hard for sexual activity? Exactly what I mean? Yeah,

Patricio Ramos 16:30

a 15-year-old too at that,

Andrew Herreth 16:32

right?

Patricio Ramos 16:33

Allegedly 15, but yeah, it was there was a lot of pressure put on him. They closed off all the exit valves for him not to be able to disengage from this encounter, and not only that, they they arrested him as he was walking back to his house. He was no longer going this direction where the meetup was. He has made he had made an affirmative decision to go home, and they had rerouted. Whoa, whoa,

Andrew Decker 16:56

whoa! Hold on, hold on. So he's on it. He's on his way. Yeah, he's on his way to meet up.

Patricio Ramos 17:02

He's on his way. CVS is the is the meet meet up location. You know the CVS pharmacy and drugstore,

Andrew Decker 17:07

right? So how far does he have to walk to get to CVS?

Patricio Ramos 17:12

40 minutes is what he tells her. It's a 40 minute walk for me.

Andrew Herreth 17:16

Damn, he's gonna how far he's gonna walk to meet a girl.

Patricio Ramos 17:21

Yes, and how far does he get

Andrew Decker 17:23

before he turns around?

Patricio Ramos 17:25

So he he gets he pretty he gets pretty close, but once he's when he's about halfway there, they change the meetup spot because he's he's like, look, it's a far walk. We can do this tomorrow, and they make it more convenient by saying, well, no, no, I'll meet you over here. Let's find a new location closer to your house, and then they reroute him, and he gets almost to this rerouted location, and he starts turning around. But then they arrive and they arrest him.

Andrew Herreth 17:50

Like, does he? What do you mean he starts turning around? Is he like full on? Like, all right, I'm gonna go back to my house.

Patricio Ramos 17:56

Yeah, he's. That's exactly what he's doing. He's he's turning around and walking back home because he's no longer going towards the meetup, the second meetup location, he's turned around at this point and started walking home.

Andrew Herreth 18:05

Yeah, but he's within he's

Patricio Ramos 18:06

within like minutes of the meetup location, so they know where he's at,

Andrew Decker 18:10

right? But as as you said earlier, and this is the case in Texas on an online solicitation of a minor, slightly different name, but sounds like the same offense. The once you are have engaged and encouraged a sexual activity while online with a minor, you have committed the offense, and you said that earlier, right? But they really kind of need you to come to the to a location so that they know it's you, right? That it otherwise it gets real hard to find who really perpetrated this, yeah, it's

Patricio Ramos 18:43

more it's more for identification purposes than completion of the crime. The crime's done; they just need you there to identify you, right? Otherwise, actually,

Andrew Herreth 18:50

the person on the other end of the connection,

Patricio Ramos 18:52

exactly.

Andrew Herreth 18:54

Got you. Dang! Wow. Well, but

Andrew Decker 18:55

as to as to the as to an offense of actually engaging with a minor, it sounds like on multiple occasions he is trying to disengage, turn away, try to discourage, but the officer keeps, and that is something different. I talked about one on the podcast on our statutory defenses, where it's not as heavy-handed on the part of the the state, the undercover officer. So interesting, interesting difference. So continue that. One

Patricio Ramos 19:30

piece of advice that I took from this that I am going to that I think would help all criminal defense attorneys in these cases is that the FBI agent or the state trooper is going to testify to this exact statement every single time. They're going to say, "We do not push them to. We don't propose sex. We meet them at their level, right? So they're going to try to say that we're not the ones that propose it. We meet them at their level. So you need to look at the text chain and see what kind of things is this agent saying. Like in my. The agent would ask questions like, "Do I need to clean off my bed? Like, why would you ask that question? That's obviously suggestive of sex, and you need to work that into your cross examination and your closing. Like, this is suggestive of sex. They're saying they're not supposed to meet you; they're supposed to meet you at your level, not be suggestive of sex. You're supposed to take these facts and turn them into they are suggestive of sex and they are pushing it. So, little facts like that in the conversation, things like I'm looking for fun. These are all sexually suggestive things on these websites. You just got to, but their policies are that they cannot straight up say I'm looking for sex. They have to do it in a roundabout way. So as defenders, we have to take those facts and turn them into the undercover suggesting sex first, rather than your client, because that's that's how they testify. They say this is how we avoid entrapment. They're going to say that because the prosecutor is smart. He said, "Now, now, agent, how do you avoid entrapment? That way, you don't fall into that. And they'll tell you that that's what they're going to tell you. We meet them at their level. We don't ever go further than they go. So you got to be weary of that. That's. I mean, I was so annoyed when she said that on the stand. I was like, "How am I going to flip this on her?

Andrew Herreth 21:06

Well, but a

Andrew Decker 21:06

great job of doing the whole. I have to clean off my bed and

Patricio Ramos 21:10

yeah.

Andrew Decker 21:10

Do you want to have some fun? If you're, if if I were at if I were two six year olds at a playground and I said, "Do you want to have some fun? Again, we're two six year olds. I'm thinking, go down the slide, go on the teeter totter, right? If I'm 213 year olds or 15 year olds going, hey, do you want to have some fun? I might think that we're going to to an arcade or going going to see a movie. If I'm in an adult meetup website that probably has a sexual orientation, like in the in the very nature of the room, and someone says, "Do you want to have some fun? I doubt they're asking. Do you would you like to go for an ice cream sundae?

Patricio Ramos 21:50

Exactly, and that was what we that that was the whole that's the that was the whole point we were trying to get on cross. Is this you know we wanted to make sure that she could answer that could these be interpreted as sexually suggestive? And she said yes. I'm like, wow, you said yes. That was what I was thinking in my head when she said. I was like, thank God she said yes.

Andrew Herreth 22:07

I mean, obviously, like, I mean, what? How? How could you, with a straight face, tell a jury, let's go have some fun. I'm cleaning off my bed. My aunt's going to be asleep. Like, how are those not sexually suggestive,

Patricio Ramos 22:23

exactly.

Andrew Herreth 22:24

So interesting. All right. So when, like, at what stage of the case did you come on? Did have you had this case from like from first setting in court or? So no. So there was a similar. Yeah.

Patricio Ramos 22:39

So we got it right after. So the public defender had it up until right after they had a motion to suppress the statements. They were trying to argue that because he's from Honduras, his English wasn't so good that he didn't give a knowing, intelligent waiver his Miranda rights. So he lost that. The defense attorney never took a writ on it, probably rightfully so. I mean, he signed a Miranda form in Spanish, saying he understood his rights, so that was not an issue, but we got it right after that. And in Louisiana, pretty much right after you do any motions to suppress evidence or statements, I mean, the next setting is a plea status or a trial date. So we got it right as it was ready to go to trial.

Andrew Herreth 23:13

Gotcha. Okay, so not much time for you guys, really.

Patricio Ramos 23:17

Yeah. And these these files aren't factually intensive. They're very much all the same. It's they're like, I mean, it's like assembly line criminal justice. You know, like let's let's line them up. And another interesting thing that this undercover agent, these undercover agents go out in gangs of in Louisiana. They rent out Airbnbs and just set up these computers in these rural parishes, and they just fish online for people, like she said. That she's like, yeah, we actually, you know, we go out and we just rent Airbnbs and we set up shop, and we just go into on online chat rooms and just fish. I'm like, Jesus Christ, which does

Andrew Decker 23:53

in and of itself feel like a weird form of entrapment. It's it's the prove to me that that this person ever would have tried to find a kid, right, a teenager, but for you setting up this this sting.

Andrew Herreth 24:13

I mean, if these has these officers are they trolling like 18 and up sites and room chat rooms or whatever, or are they going to like Roblox? You know, like Roblox has kind of a notorious reputation of like being filled with predators and children, and I and all these like cases that I hear of, like nobody's going to like where kids are to try to going to where adults are to try to entice some some people into you know something they shouldn't be doing or whatever,

Patricio Ramos 24:46

and that worked in our favor. I was like, why aren't you looking for people that are in open forums? This is this is closed off to adults. What are you doing? Like,

Andrew Herreth 24:54

yeah, you're

Patricio Ramos 24:55

going somewhere where there's no one's holding themselves out to be a child. You mean you're creating fictitious. Accounts where you're holding yourself out to be an adult, and I said that in closing. Like I can understand if you could say he's predisposed if he clicked on a profile that said I'm 15, but he clicked on a profile that said I'm an adult.

Andrew Herreth 25:10

Right, right. Yeah, man, that's exactly right. Yeah, I mean, like you know, and if you're going to like some of these sites are like explicitly for sex, and so people are already like primed up for sex. So, and I mean, I got the

Patricio Ramos 25:25

terms and conditions of the website in through as an exhibit as well, and they, you know, terms and the exhibits are clearly right there. You must be 18 to access this website. You're bound by law that you hold yourself out to be 18. Everyone here is a. I mean, it was all there in the terms and conditions of this website. I asked the you know the undercover agent did she agree to the terms did she check the box when she signed it up said yes I mean it was it it was all there

Andrew Herreth 25:47

yeah right on

Andrew Decker 25:48

yeah I've tried to I've tried a similar case in it in it mine the guy the guy may have kind of done the whole you want to have fun piece first right so ours wasn't quite we didn't get a entrapment in the jury charge, but the jury still felt that, and it's why they, even though the state had been offering him pen time only, gave him a probation because they were like, we don't think there was nothing showing he would have done this, but for the the sting.

Andrew Herreth 26:21

Yeah, that's we can't do

Patricio Ramos 26:22

that in Louisiana. We don't get, you know, there's we the I didn't even know the jury could pick the sentence in Texas. I mean, the the judge is you know bound by the statute here. I mean, there's no probation if the statute doesn't allow it. Yeah,

Andrew Decker 26:33

just different laws. Yeah, yeah,

Andrew Herreth 26:35

you know, in Texas, we talked about this prior to recording, but in Texas, we always hear about how like different and weird Louisiana laws are. I mean, I you know generally speaking, how different? Other than that, how different do do you find you know Texas laws and Louisiana laws?

Patricio Ramos 26:56

I mean, I don't know. I mean, I I find I don't I've never looked at a Texas penal code, but I mean, I listen to your podcast, and the same advice works here. So I take that for what it's worth.

Andrew Herreth 27:06

Okay, all right. Which is why we wanted you on the show because we haven't heard of any. You know, I'm I'm sure there's some Texas attorneys out there who have like won on an entrapment defense before. Nobody's ever reached out to us, and you know, this is a fascinating story. So, so you know, we wanted you to tell our listeners like how you went about getting this,

Patricio Ramos 27:25

and the jury selection was where like it really started this. It started to come together because we had this jury panel, panel number one, all right, and we had the vast majority of that panel, and they straight up said, like, even if you show me all the elements of entrapment, and the law says I must not convict, I I cannot find him guilty if you satisfy entrapment. They were they said I can't because anyone that's soliciting a minor at any time is automatically predisposed. So they essentially they're saying they can't follow the law. So we were racking up cause strikes, at least seven or eight in panel number one. We got all the you know we were able to conserve a lot of our peremptory strikes, and we were able to get a panel that we loved. And then panel number two was even crazier because my old chief, the old chief of appeals from the Orleans Parish District Attorney's office. My good friend was on the panel. He's just like comes in. He's on the panel, and he, of course, he's gonna he's gonna answer a question in a way to get himself struck because he doesn't want to be there. And he's you know he says the same thing this girl said on panel one. I don't care. I have a daughter. I mean, anyone that's you know tries to solicit someone. I don't care if you can show they're not predisposed and they were induced by law enforcement. I'm going to find them guilty. I can't, you know. I don't care what you show me. I don't believe they're not predisposed. Anyone that does that cannot, you know, is automatically predisposed. So, and then he says, for some reason, he's like outlandishly says, "And I have a prosecutor bias. I don't know why he said that, but apparently he didn't want to be on the jury, so I say okay, thank you, Mister Mister Scott. That's you know I'm not gonna say his first name, but yeah, Brad Scott. Shout out to Brad Scott, Chief of Appeals, New Orleans Parish District Attorney's Office. I love that man. Anyways, so I ask every jury, everyone on the panel, like who here agrees with Mister Scott? A lot of people raise their hands, and then we're just striking, striking, striking. And then after that, I go through again. Now, who here? And I tell them, you're going to find him guilty. The state's going to meet their burden. Who here? Even if the state meets their burden, if I meet my burden, are you going to find him not guilty? Can you promise to follow that law? And everyone, you know, everyone that's left over, yes. So we're like at that point where we just go up at this point, and you know, we use the rest of our back strikes after that panel, and we're like, man, we just got the perfect jury. We got rid of everyone that hated us because a lot of people hated us, and we got all the reasonable people, and it worked.

Andrew Herreth 29:59

Ain't that incredible? Jury selection actually works if you do it right. Yeah, yeah.

Andrew Decker 30:06

So obviously, you brought up entrapment as a possibility in your jury selection because that would be something you would have the burden of proof on.

Patricio Ramos 30:13

I did. I used an analogy that you know I I feel like it resonated with most of them. I just said, look, if you're at if you're at a bar, and at the door, there's a bouncer who checks IDs and makes sure you're 21 before he lets you in. And at the door, before he lets you in, he puts a red wristband on your on your arm. And at that point, the person with the red wristband can now go into the bar and purchase drinks without showing an ID. All right, and then at that point, I'm saying that, you know, if you pour someone a drink who has that wristband, if it's someone that goes in to buy that drink, is sent in by police officers and they're 16 years old, they don't say anything. You pour the drink just on the fact that you saw a wristband. Are you guilty of you know serving alcohol to a minor? And they were like, "No, that's, and I was like, "What is that? And you know, and sure enough, they're like, "Well, that's entrapment. I was like, "Yes, that's entrapment. And then in closing, I brought that back. I was like, "The police officer just forced my client to pour a drink for them. This is an adult website. It's the same as the bar. Everyone that's on this site supposed to be an adult. And that that that just that's that's how I did the analogy for that, and it it seemed to work. I mean, I hope it did. It makes a lot of sense in my head.

Andrew Herreth 31:27

How much pushback from the court did you get on having the entrapment language included in the charge?

Patricio Ramos 31:35

There was really no pushback. I mean,

Andrew Herreth 31:38

okay.

Patricio Ramos 31:38

If you read the jury instructions, actually defense friendly because our burden is only a preponderance of the evidence to show that he was induced by law enforcement and he had no predisposition to commit the crime but for law enforcement inducing him. So it's a very favorable jury instruction.

Andrew Decker 31:55

Yeah, the predisposition piece I think is slightly different than in Texas. In Texas, it's But for basically the the they would not have ever committed this crime except for the pressure from exactly from from the state. So that's a different level, right? Because my guy, I think we could have shown he had no predisposition, and it's why I ended up getting probation from the jury because they were like, we don't think that he would have done this if you hadn't set the trap. Like, there's no indication he was looking for a teenager. So your your defense of entrapment is a little more defense friendly than the state of Texas

Andrew Herreth 32:37

is. Exactly,

Patricio Ramos 32:38

and and and it does read after it gives that instruction, it also says. However, if you find that he had the intent to commit this crime, then you still you you still must find him guilty, right? But there was no indication that he had the intent to commit this crime, but for inducement from law enforcement. There was nothing. There was nothing in the evidence other than his conversation with the police officer,

Andrew Herreth 32:58

right?

Patricio Ramos 32:59

And his statement, which I thought we were going to get launched on. I thought we were going to be the jury was going to hate us after they played a statement, but they're reasonable apparently.

Andrew Herreth 33:06

Yeah. So you said that before trial, you did you file something with the court to put them on notice that you're using the entrapment defense?

Patricio Ramos 33:17

I did. It was just a standard notice, and then I included a proposed jury instruction because I did not want any issues like if I just raise entrapment as a surprise to the prosecutors, and the judge is like, no, you need no because you know some some defenses in Louisiana. Like I know when we argue self defense in a murder case, we have to include that. We have to let the prosecutor know like, hey, it's now your burden to prove you know beyond a reasonable doubt that this wasn't self defense. Right. So I just, you know, went by that same mindset that let me let the prosecutor know that this is our plan. Make sure it it gets into the jury instruction. There's no issue.

Andrew Herreth 33:50

Yeah, wonderful. Good deal. Yes. See, in

Andrew Decker 33:53

Texas, in Texas, those are things that we can surprise them with at trial, and then ask for the instruction basically on any sentiment of the evidence, at least in self-defense and in entrapment. It might be a little bit higher, but you would not have to notify the state ahead of time on that as a defense.

Patricio Ramos 34:16

And you may have to. You you may not have to notify them in this situation. I just did it that way. I mean,

Andrew Herreth 34:21

yeah,

Patricio Ramos 34:21

it's the first time I saw it. I just I wanted to make sure the record was clean and the judge didn't have any pushback.

Andrew Herreth 34:27

Yeah, yeah, makes sense.

Patricio Ramos 34:29

Yeah.

Andrew Herreth 34:29

So, and and this may be another distinction between Louisiana and Texas again. But you said for jury selection, you kept referring them as to panel one and panel two. So, yes, explain that a little bit for us.

Patricio Ramos 34:42

So a panel is just you know, 20 to 40 people, prospective jurors that come in, and you know they're they're the people you ask questions in the panel. And the panel number two would be the next 40, right? If you don't get a jury in the first panel, a second panel comes in of jurors.

Andrew Herreth 34:58

Ah, okay, okay,

Patricio Ramos 34:59

yeah, and. That's that's what

Andrew Decker 35:00

I've assumed, but yes, thank you for the explanation. Round one and round two of

Patricio Ramos 35:05

jury selection. I got you.

Andrew Herreth 35:07

And so, if you don't, do you just keep going with additional panels? If by the second panel you don't get one, ah, okay. So we would we would just the if the panel got busted, then we would just reset for another jury day and pick a whole other you know 60 people to come in.

Patricio Ramos 35:21

Yeah, you can run out of jurors if you have too many panels here. I mean, it's crazy.

Andrew Herreth 35:24

Yeah, for sure.

Patricio Ramos 35:26

But yeah, the panels can go all day until you have 12 jurors and two alternates. I mean, you're just going until you know you have okay. So,

Andrew Decker 35:33

so I'm going to ask question because it sounds like it is a little bit different. They bring in 40 people. Let's say of that 43, of them you could make as jurors. Do you do they then sit on your jury and you bring in the next 40?

Patricio Ramos 35:49

Yeah, you you have three in that panel, and hopefully you know the judge's going to be mad, but she's going to be like, "Come on, y'all need to get a jury in the second panel because two panels is like where judges start getting impatient, and the third comes in, they're just like, come on. So,

Andrew Decker 36:00

so in Texas, if you can't seat all 12, and if necessary, alternates in this panel, and that's why ours are more like 60 to 80. If you can't seat them in this panel, you they leave and you start, and you have zero, and you have to do it. Start all the way over. So we call it busting a panel, and nobody is sat where with you in Louisiana. This is a difference. It's an interesting difference. You could pick two or three from this panel, two or three from panel two, two or three from panel three, until you get your 12. And if alternates are required, alternates as well.

Patricio Ramos 36:36

I believe so.

Andrew Herreth 36:37

Dang. Oh,

Andrew Decker 36:38

cool. That's great. All right. I like. I like, I like knowing things.

Andrew Herreth 36:42

Yeah, that is that is an interesting distinction. So, were you able to talk to any of the jurors after the verdict came in?

Patricio Ramos 36:49

No, and this this is why the client and me look. I've I've never had such a good feeling. I mean, we were just he was crying, I was crying, we were hugging. It was just

Andrew Herreth 36:59

sure.

Patricio Ramos 37:00

I just it what just wasn't on my mind, and I I know I should have talked to them to see what their thoughts were, but I spoke to the prosecutor afterwards, and he told me that he spoke to them, and he told me they basically said, "Look, look, I mean, I just don't like cops doing stuff like that. That was the general thing he got from them.

Andrew Herreth 37:17

Gotcha.

Patricio Ramos 37:18

So,

Andrew Herreth 37:18

man, good on them.

Patricio Ramos 37:20

Yeah,

Andrew Herreth 37:21

that's great. Yeah, that's and if y'all know

Patricio Ramos 37:23

anything about Louisiana, this is in Jefferson Parish, which is about five miles away from New Orleans. In New Orleans, you have the most liberal jurors. If you go any other parish in this damn state, I mean, you're just stuck the most conservative jurors that are they hate you. They want everyone in jail. This courthouse in particular has a 95% conviction rate at jury trials. I mean, what I did, I mean, I don't even know. I just, it just people were calling me. Like, how'd you do that? I was like, I don't know. I just kind of did it. I don't know if it's repeatable. I don't know. I just showed up. I prep every time I do something. If I'm going to go on the record at all, especially on a trial, I make sure I know everything that I'm going to say before you know. I know every answer to every question. I have everything outlined, and I know where I'm at. And I just think it's just preparation and a little bit of luck. I mean,

Andrew Herreth 38:10

preparation was trials, absolutely,

Patricio Ramos 38:13

because this was never supposed to happen.

Andrew Herreth 38:15

Right. To to

Andrew Decker 38:15

quote Louis Pasteur, "Fortune favors the prepared mind.

Andrew Herreth 38:19

Yeah. Yeah. Look at you, Deckard! Dang, I wasn't prepared for that. So, anyways, man, Patricia could be the name of this podcast if we don't let AI handle it anymore. I know, right? I don't. Yeah, that that'll be a great title. But our AI overlords will definitely not allow that to happen. Patricia, we have we have stopped letting mr. Decker name our podcast episode because AI says it's not very SEO friendly. That's the reason for that joke. The so so your client now, what's life like for him now? So he's he's

Patricio Ramos 38:57

back in Honduras. So he went into immigration detention about a few days after, and then he self-deported back to his family. He emailed me. He's happy. He's like the most grateful guy in the world, and he was a real cool guy. He was like, he had a PhD in Honduras. He was a UNICEF psychologist, a musician. I mean, this is he he well spoken. He's not the he's not the I don't

Andrew Herreth 39:19

I

Patricio Ramos 39:20

don't want to say this, but he's not the classic person you would think would do something like this. Sure,

Andrew Herreth 39:24

sure.

Patricio Ramos 39:24

So

Andrew Herreth 39:25

yeah,

Patricio Ramos 39:25

he looked he looked good in a suit at trial. You know, I know he was coming out from the jail, but he looked good. He didn't look like a creep. He just it just it just those

Andrew Decker 39:34

things those things also make a difference, right? If he if he looked like like he had never left his basement, for lack of a better term. That's going to hurt you. Yes, it is amazing how things like how you look as the attorney, how your client looks. Do they look well put together? Do they look do they look smart? Do they? It does. Does make a difference. It makes a difference. We don't want to say that it does, but it does. And the fact that honestly, my guess is that this came in at trial that he was from out of town, from Honduras. The fact that he got a not guilty also overcomes that like anti-immigrant feel that is really currently pervasive in our country, good or bad. But that becomes a burden, a little, a little piece of extra weight on the scale against your client at trial.

Andrew Herreth 40:28

Did you ever bring that up? Like, you know, how many, who out there is just automatically thinking because of the way maybe he looks, the way his, you know, the the color of his skin, the color of his hair. I mean, whatever. Like, is that going to affect you? Like, did you bring that up during jury selection?

Patricio Ramos 40:45

So I don't do it. I mean, when I'm talking about the presumption of innocence, I might talk about things like he, you know, people are going to say things about him. On, you know, there's going to be witnesses are going to say things he did, and he may have some reactions. Are you going to be? Are you going to judge him by that? You know, just to see if they're going to judge him. You know, if he has any type of behaviors that you don't like, smirks or any type of way. But no, I didn't talk about skin color or anything like that. Yeah, that was just attorneys

Andrew Herreth 41:08

do it really well, and and and I've I've I've tried it. I try to bring it up. I try to like kind of take the wind out of everybody. Every you know everything that I think would be counted against us in jury selection, and it's I've gotten some like really interesting feedback. Like I'm like, well, somebody here tell me what they notice about you know my client, and they're like, oh, well he he he wears a nice suit. He looks good in a suit, you know, or he looks like a fine young man or looks like a fine young woman. And I'm like, okay, let's more specific, you know, and and I try to get it. I'm like, what? He's not hiding it. Like it's his skin color. Has anybody noticed that? Is it like, is that going to play it? And I know in some of the counties that Decker and I have practiced in, like, yeah, that you may get a few brave souls raising their hands saying, yeah, that matters to me. And that's great. That's good to know because you could just you need you cannot have them on your jury, you know. Right.

Patricio Ramos 42:04

I mean, I've had judges in these rural parishes in Louisiana ask me if I speak Mexican. I'm like, are you kidding me? Like, I'm Hispanic, but I mean, do I speak? I mean, do I speak? You're a judge. Well, and I like the fact the

Andrew Decker 42:15

fact that it's you speak Mexican. It's not you speak Spanish.

Patricio Ramos 42:19

Spanish. They would ask they

Andrew Herreth 42:20

would ask the white guy if they spoke American, though you know what I mean. Like it's like they just just ignorance, you know. And that's Jason Niehaus once said on this on our podcast, the the bench is not a meritocracy, so we're not getting you know the best and the brightest up there in these robes, met a lot of fantastically smart judges. I'm just saying that did not

Patricio Ramos 42:46

another issue I didn't mention in this trial that the judge ruled against me, but I I think I was right. So this was a task force between the Louisiana State Police, the local sheriff's office, and the FBI. Now the FBI was the person that sent every single text message communication to him and received every response from him, and the FBI agent never showed up to the trial, and they got all the messages in. What's that? What's that tell you? Does does that does that sound right?

Andrew Herreth 43:14

No, no, that's a violation of your confrontation clause. Like your and Crawford, right? Because it's an ongoing

Patricio Ramos 43:20

investigation. Right, so so we we we we objected to that, and and now before this objection, the judge had already arrested a juror for saying he doesn't want to be there. So she she she put him in jail for 48 hours already.

Andrew Herreth 43:35

Shut up! I swear,

Patricio Ramos 43:37

and I was objecting because the judge was. I was like, "This is a violation of Crawford. This is a violation of confrontation. These are testimonial statements trying to entrap my client to commit a crime. Essentially, this is an investigation they're doing. These are what these questions are for-to forward an investigation to a potential child sexual assault, right? And she ruled against me. I was like, "Judge, are you serious? And I, I, I moved for a mistrial, denied. I moved for an emergency writ. I asked for a stay. She denied it. So at this point, we're like, well, at least he has a great issue for appeal when we lose. I mean,

Andrew Herreth 44:12

absolutely.

Patricio Ramos 44:13

But that was another thing that went on the trials. Like you let these FBI agents' text messages come in when the FBI agent was on vacation on the other side of the world. Didn't even show up to the courtroom. This LSP trooper that was part of the task force was getting in all these messages because she had seen him in the course of her investigation. I was like, "This is BS. I cannot believe this is happening.

Andrew Herreth 44:33

Absolutely. What did? What? Just curious. What? Any comments from the judge when when you got your not guilty,

Patricio Ramos 44:42

no, no comments. It was just you know she just asked for the jury slips to verify and released them of all his bond obligations, and that was it. She went back to the back to her chambers pretty quick.

Andrew Herreth 44:54

Oh, wonderful! Yeah, she looked happy about it. It it

Andrew Decker 44:57

is strange sometimes the judges can be. More hurt by the not guilty verdict than the state

Andrew Herreth 45:06

is even. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Look, prosecutors

Patricio Ramos 45:08

are generally pretty cool about this stuff. You know, they understand. You know, we're all doing our job. You know, you y'all statistically win in this poorhouse 95% of the time. I don't think they're losing sleep over it.

Andrew Decker 45:18

Yeah, nationwide, it's like 85% of all cases, all criminal cases that go to trial, end up with a guilty verdict. So you win one or two, one or two across a lifespan as a defense attorney, and you might have out outplayed your defense kind of deal.

Andrew Herreth 45:37

Yeah, yeah. I hope I'm not

Patricio Ramos 45:39

running out of these. You know, I hope you know just because I got one, I never do another one. I really doubt

Andrew Herreth 45:43

that, Patricio. It sounds like as prepared as you are, it sounds like your clients are well served out there. I bet you start hitting home runs pretty pretty consistently.

Patricio Ramos 45:55

We'll see. I mean, I do stay in the jails. I do try to keep my clients, you know, in their spirits. You know, I try to do everything that good defense attorneys do. I mean, that's what I try to do because I see a lot of shitty defense attorneys out there, you know, that don't do the work.

Andrew Herreth 46:07

Yeah, yeah, that is unfortunate.

Andrew Decker 46:12

So, was this an appointed case?

Patricio Ramos 46:14

No, no, it's a private client.

Andrew Decker 46:16

Oh, wow! All right, well

Patricio Ramos 46:17

done.

Andrew Herreth 46:18

Yeah, yeah. The so what's life like next? Like you got a bit another another trial on the horizon.

Patricio Ramos 46:25

I do. I have a I have a homicide trial september 21 in the same parish.

Andrew Herreth 46:31

Ooh, I have

Patricio Ramos 46:32

a few few bench trials coming up, and then November I have a aggravated rape, and then obviously that's going to be a rough one.

Andrew Herreth 46:40

Yeah, yeah, those are tough. Yeah, yeah. The thing about private

Patricio Ramos 46:43

life, yeah, the thing about private practices that you really get these heavy cases right away because they just hire you, and you're just like, you don't, you know, it's not like the DA's officer. You got to move up to homicide. You got to move up to this sex crimes unit. You know, you're you get whatever comes through the door. So I've been handling, you know, a lot of armed robberies, a lot, you know. Working on three murders right now, and you know, it's it's it's whatever. It's just work. It's not. It's nothing that's overly complicated. The stakes just happen to be higher.

Andrew Herreth 47:08

Right. Right. Yeah, that's that's exactly right. Yeah, that that's the heaviest part I think of most of these cases. Like, I mean, when you have you know a sympathetic victim, you have to hear this like heart wrenching testimony. Yeah, that that will kind of get to you eventually if you have feelings and emotions, but but for the most part, it's just it's the weight of what's at stake for your client. Yep, that really that really is a heavy burden, man. Well, congratulations on this one. You knocked it out of the park. Your client was well served. Is now happy. And I was going to say, if they don't have any other criminal history, this this would save their. I mean, they've been deported, and so that will complicate things. But at least they don't have any felony, or in the federal system, aggravated felony on their record. If they did want to immigrate to the states later.

Patricio Ramos 48:02

Yeah, I mean, I mean, after that experience, I, I, wouldn't come back.

Andrew Herreth 48:06

Yeah, yeah.

Patricio Ramos 48:07

Like, stay away from the United States, brother. Just stay away.

Andrew Decker 48:10

Oh yeah, definitely.

Andrew Herreth 48:12

Yeah. Why would you want to?

Andrew Decker 48:13

Wow. What a great what what a great reminder that some hard work, a little bit of creative work, is, and we hear this all the time when we have guests on. That a little being being prepared, right, and being a little bit creative can really change the course of a trial and get some great outcomes. So well done, well done. Thank

Patricio Ramos 48:38

you.

Andrew Herreth 48:39

Well done, indeed. So we wrap up our interviews with asking some more personal, non-light legal related type questions, and so we're going to do that with you now, Patricio. What is your like favorite band or musical artist?

Patricio Ramos 48:58

My favorite band. I don't know if you'll ever heard of them or not. Maybe you'll have. It's My Chemical Romance. It's a emo band from like the early 2000s.

Andrew Herreth 49:07

Yeah, Decker celebrates their entire catalog.

Patricio Ramos 49:09

Me and my girlfriend are actually going to San Diego next month to see them on tour. We went last year in July. We went to San Francisco to see them on tour. We are big fans.

Andrew Herreth 49:19

Right on, man. That that's awesome. Enjoy

Patricio Ramos 49:21

it. Yeah, yeah, it's an amazing show. It's it's it's almost like music opera. They they put on the best show.

Andrew Herreth 49:29

Yeah, and you need to find find ways to do that kind of consistently throughout the year, just so you can like maintain that sharp edge and trial. You know, like you, it's really easy to get burnout in this in this profession. So, man, I'm I'm happy to hear that you're going and taking that time to do that. Something you love. It's

Andrew Decker 49:44

also it's also good for your your relationship. Oh yeah, how to take those weekends away to be with each other to do something you both love. So good for you. That's that's that's winning on two two counts to go to San Diego and and hear your favorite band. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So, favorite book or one that you would recommend to our audience?

Patricio Ramos 50:08

So, I'm not much of a reader, but I do have a book that I would recommend, and I do like it. It's by Angela Duckworth. It's called Grit, and it's essentially how I've lived my life. I just I feel like I'm a tortoise who shows up every day, and good things start to happen after a while, and it's really just a sequence of life events of different types of people in different professions. And now they got there just by having this quality that is something everyone can have if they train it. It's grit. That's just essentially it's just being able to get knocked down and just get up. That's essentially what it is. It's very simple. Just show up every day, and good things happen. I mean, if it gets hard, keep showing up. Good things will happen. That's essentially how I lived my life. I've never been really a talented person. I told you all in the beginning. I mean, I was a high school dropout. I did not. I don't have a single lawyer I've ever known. I just kind of went to the Navy, and after that, I showed up and showed up and showed up and then I showed up to school and then I showed up to the LSAT and then I showed up to law school and then I showed up to work and I interned and I don't know all of a sudden things just happen.

Andrew Herreth 51:11

Yeah, that's that's how I always described law school. Also, as like the one thing like law school doesn't you know for for a lot of people it is academically intense but it just takes grit like you just have to do the work, and if you can just grind out the work, you're gonna be fine. That's that's a great great outlook on life. And as Wayne Gretzky

Andrew Decker 51:30

said, you will miss every shot you never take.

Patricio Ramos 51:32

Exactly. You are

Andrew Herreth 51:33

you're just looking up quotes today, aren't you?

Andrew Decker 51:37

No, no. These are these are things these are things that carry with me, Mister Herreth. You know that floating around in your in

Andrew Herreth 51:41

your noggin-that's crazy, man. I

Patricio Ramos 51:44

still can't believe I'm on the show. This is crazy. It's not going to be-it's not going to be

Andrew Herreth 51:48

the last interview, bro. We're gonna-we're gonna have you on again. We want to hear more. You know, adventures of Petrusio as these trials start racking up. What about like the best piece of advice you've ever been given?

Patricio Ramos 52:00

So I did get some advice when I first started criminal defense when I left the DA's office, and it was essentially that as a defense attorney, you don't have the liberties of not being the smartest person in the room. You you have no choice because you're working from the bottom, and you have to be the smartest person in the room because there's inmates watching, your clients watching, and those inmates and those people in the audience that are watching are how you're going to earn money. So if you go in prepared every single day, you do every single hearing, every preliminary exam, every probable cause hearing, every single motions hearing, you file all the proper motions, you argue them, you do it like you have to be the smartest person when you do it because that's how people are going to look at you as someone that's well put together, and it's going to translate to money. So essentially, the advice was: as a defense attorney, you have to be the smartest person in the room. You have no choice. That was that was the advice. the

Andrew Herreth 52:53

The good thing is, like, I think it gets easier. I mean, you know, like over time, after doing this now for, I've been licensed for almost 20 years. You know, it does get like easier. You know these answers off the top of your heads, and and when you host a podcast, also maybe you should start one. You said there's not a very good one in Louisiana. Maybe you should start one because when you when you host a podcast, you know people will start talking about things like, oh, I don't really know what is the, you know, what is the statutory defense, you know, and not like you know we can pull it up. I know Decker's had this. He's had. He's now like the open range expert in North Texas because of a podcast episode led to a case, and and so yeah. I mean, it it gets as you like the more that you work, the more experience you can get. That part does get easier, but you're right, man. You you have to know the answers. If your client's looking at you and you don't know like what the punishment range is, or like you know what a class you know class A possession marijuana is up to you know up to four ounces of marijuana. You're like fumbling with that with the easy stuff. They're not going to trust you with the hard stuff, right? So, right, man. All right. And what about if somebody in in Louisiana needed some help with a with a case? How could they get a hold of you?

Patricio Ramos 54:22

Yeah, so I do work for the Barry Ranchy Law Firm. So just go to BarryRanchyLaw.com. My bio's there specifically when you call, request me. That way, I can get my portion of the fee. You know, sort of way on, dude. Yeah, but yeah, I mean that's how you reach me.

Andrew Decker 54:37

Eat which gill.

Andrew Herreth 54:38

Yeah, yeah. We'll we'll get that. Put that on the show notes. Your the the website. We'll link to the website, and obviously, yeah, ladies and gentlemen, if you even if you're a Texas resident, go out to New Orleans and have a little bit too much fun, you need to be giving Patricio a call. Hard worker gets. Advice: If she says

Andrew Decker 55:01

she's 15 on the website, just stop talking to her.

Patricio Ramos 55:04

For the love of God, don't talk. Yeah, don't

Andrew Decker 55:06

don't don't have that much fun.

Andrew Herreth 55:08

Don't have that much fun. Don't have that. To quote Tim

Andrew Decker 55:10

Moore, again, my last quote of the show: Don't do that.

Andrew Herreth 55:14

Don't do that. Don't do that. Don't do it. Decker, you got anything else?

Andrew Decker 55:18

No, I think that's it for me today. Minus, you can find us on the web@texascrimdefense.com. You can find us at Facebook at Andrew and Andrew on Texas Criminal Defense. You can obviously find us on your favorite podcast app. So you know Patricio has been listening to us. The best way to grow our audience is to tell a friend or loved one that you found Andrew and Andrew on Texas Criminal Defense and you thought we were above average?

Andrew Herreth 55:44

Yeah, that's all. That's all we strive for. It's all we strive for.

Andrew Decker 55:48

Trying harder to suck less every day.

Andrew Herreth 55:53

That's grit right there, y'all.

Patricio Ramos 55:55

Yes, sir.

Andrew Herreth 55:57

So y'all have a good day. Oh, one sec. Yep. We're for how do we do this, Decker? Usually in this part, I just did. Oh, so for Andrew Herreth, I'm Andrew Decker, and for Andrew Decker, I'm Andrew Herreth. Y'all be good.