Original subtitles

[sirens wailing]

I don't think there are very many murder cases like this one.

[gunshots]

The horror of what happened

Is something that nobody ever expects.

[gunshots]

And everything about it, the way the night started

From the defendant's point of view,

That he was just out shooting animals

And shooting at stop signs.

I grew up doing that.

But the way it evolved from that,

To end up shooting and murdering a game warden is crazy.

I got involved in this case

Because the elected da of wharton county,

Which is close to home, where I'm from, matagorda county,

Had never tried a death penalty case before.

So, these are the people I grew up with.

This is my world.

When I met justin's family, I'm pretty sure I cried a lot,

Because they're wonderful people.

And anyone who met justin's family

Would wanna get justice for him.

[theme music]

[gentle country music]

Blackburn: I'm a texas game warden.

We work where people hunt, where people fish.

Our biggest focus is gonna be making sure

Everybody's got their license and their permits and everything

That they're supposed to have in order to do that legally.

Our job's a little bit different than most law enforcement.

Most of the people we deal with don't break the law.

The flip side of that, though, is during hunting season,

Everybody we check has a gun.

In wharton county, there are two game wardens.

As game wardens, we work predominantly alone.

That night, I called my partner, justin.

We were close. We got along really good at the academy.

Id, "okay, so where are you going?"

He said, "I'm gonna go up to garwood area."

I said, "okay, where do you think I should go?"

He said, "man, I'd go up there to the bernard prairie,"

Where we noticed that a lot of the street signs

Had been shot. Like, significantly shot.

You could tell it was pretty current, recent activity.

That's one of those things that we kind of look for in

The off-season because there's not a whole lot going on,

And the shooting from a public roadway in texas is illegal.

He said, "maybe sit up there somewhere.

"maybe you'll catch somebody." so that's where I headed.

I got up on county road 279,

And I parked my truck, turned all my lights off.

Normally, I would sit on that road for two hours

And not see a car, but I saw a truck

Turn off highway 90 coming towards me,

Driving extremely slow.

That's kind of a clue for us that

They might be up to no good.

So I'm sitting in the truck

And I'm watching through binoculars,

- And he shoots. - [gunshot]

My immediate thought was, "this is the guy I'm looking for."

[siren wailing]

As I was approaching him, we were face-to-face,

Which is not ideal for a police stop.

Ideally, I'd be behind him

So I could see everything in front of me.

And when he's slowly rolling towards me, initially I thought

Maybe he was just getting closer so we could talk.

Instead, he just slowly drove past my truck.

I was just gonna write him a ticket and send him home.

Class c misdemeanor, just like getting a traffic ticket

Or running a stop sign. And he takes off.

I was kind of shocked. This isn't normal.

Now I've got a guy that's not stopping.

Failure to yield. So that's serious.

We just upped the charge.

[siren wailing]

When a suspect takes off the way he did, you have to chase him.

What are you gonna do, let people just get away with it

When they take off from you?

What kind of precedent does that set?

That's how you handle it.

Blackburn: We jumped on highway 90.

He was dri really fast, like over 100.

And my truck can't keep up.

County deputies and state troopers also joined in.

[sirens wailing]

Luckily, a constable was able to catch up to him.

The constable was able to get behind him

And call in the license plate,

And it comes back to a james garrett freeman.

You really had to watch your speed

So you didn't lose control of your vehicle.

Blackburn: We need to try to get him stop somehow,

And really the only way that we can see so far

To do that is to get stop sticks.

Rodriguez: We tried to spike the vehicle several times,

And it's almost like he knew where we were at,

'cause he would go the other way.

Justin asked, "hey, do you want me to block his vehicle?"

And I don't know what officer came over the radio and said it,

But he's like, "hey, it's your truck."

And justin did use his vehicle to block the road.

[thudding]

Blackburn: When he hits justin's truck,

Now we have assault of a police officer.

We've just upped the charge to a felony.

Rodriguez: Once he struck the truck and kept going,

I knew that this was very serious,

'cause he was not giving up easy.

We drove around the same area for almost an hour.

Rodriguez: What was going through my head was,

"this guy is from the area, 'cause he's staying close

"and doing circles and taking the same roads."

I could see the trooper set up,

And there was really nowhere for him to go around.

And he ended up hitting the spikes.

There was a little relief, 'cause now I'm like,

"okay, this is gonna end.

"let's get this guy in custody and get him in jail."

You don't know what's gonna happen,

But it's pretty repetitive.

They either stop and give up or they get out and run.

And this night was different.

[gunshots]

[gunshots continue]

I drew my pistol and tried to put rounds

Somewhere in that direction.

[gunshots]

[gunshots]

There was a point where he disappeared

Behind his truck into the cab, and at that time, I'm like,

"I just got to try to hit this guy."

And I start firing through his back window.

[gunshots]

He re-emerges from the truck,

And this time, he starts shooting with a rifle.

- [gunshots] - [officer exclaims]

[gunshots]

You could tell it was an ak-47 or an ar,

Just the way it sounded.

[gunshots]

[bleep]

- [gunshots] - [police radio chatter]

Blackburn: I didn't wanna get caught behind my door.

Doors don't stop bullets, and so I wanted to have

Something solid between me and him.

And so I retreated back to get behind justin's truck.

Justin flanks me.

He's trying to get a clear shot.

I can see him down in the ditch.

And so...

As justin and freeman exchange gunfire,

Um...

[gunshots]

[mournful music]

I look over and I see justin's laying on the ground.

So I ran out to him, and, uh...

[clears throat]

[sobs]

I wanted to make sure he's okay.

And when I got to him, I knew he wasn't.

And, uh...

And the shooting stopped.

I saw the suspect running away from us,

And first thing I thought was there's a tree line

That I knew was there, and at that point,

I'm thinking if he gets in that tree line with that rifle,

We're in trouble.

And I just had to take a deep breath,

And I shot two more times.

[gunshots]

And that's when I saw him drop.

Once he's down, me and my sergeant

Were able to clear the vehicle and secure the suspect together.

Once we get him secured, I could hear,

Which I think was blackburn, saying,

"hey, guys, justin's been hit and he's hurt really bad."

Somebody finally took over for me doing cpr.

And, uh...

I knew justin wasn't in a good spot.

I think I asked somebody if the gunman was down and out.

Rodriguez: I said, "you just shot one of my brothers."

And he had no expression, nothing to say to us.

And he had that blank stare on his face,

Like he didn't care, like he was so angry that we caught him.

Blackburn: I'm doing cpr now!

I wanted to make sure that justin got justice.

Come on, justin. Come on.

He didn't have a violent past.

David maxwell: He had some sort of fantasy,

Being the aggressor in a shootout with the police.

Blackburn: Justin, breathe!

Siegler: After a wild shootout,

The first responders were desperately trying to save

Game warden justin hurst's life.

While the shooter, james garrett freeman,

Is arrested and transported for his injuries

To a nearby hospital,

Game warden justin hurst is life-flighted

Via helicopter to the best trauma center around in houston.

And the hurst family is notified of the shooting.

We were staying with justin and his wife.

- He and amanda. - And kyle,

Who was four months old at the time.

Amanda went into houston,

So her and I were gonna get the baby set.

Amanda hurst: I really thought justin was

Going to beat me home, but he wasn't there when I got home,

And so I thought, "well, he probably saw someone

"with a spotlight or someone called for backup on something."

So I went ahead and went to bed, and sometime in the night,

Maybe two o'clock or so, there was a knock at the door.

And when I opened the door and I saw justin's captain there,

Mi pushed him, and just, thpushed him and pushed him.R.

And I was like, "nope, go away from my door,

"I don't wanna talk to you." I tried to shut the door on him.

I knew whatever he had to say, it wasn't gonna be good.

The captain said, "amanda," he said, "justin's been shot.

"we need to get dressed

"and go to the hospital as fast as we can."

All I could think was, "we're brand-new parents."

You know, "this can't be the end."

We got to the hospital and the doctors said,

You know, "we did everything we could, but he was gone."

Allen: When he was a young kid,

Justin was interested in the outdoors.

Later on, he graduated from a&m

And went to work for texas parks and wildlife.

Amanda: Justin and I met. I was in college still,

And he was already working for tpwd.

I spent my first summer as his intern.

We worked together banding mottled ducks,

Tagging alligators.

Justin wasn't an attention seeker.

He didn't like the focus to be on him.

Very easygoing, very lighthearted.

We dated for three years

And spent a lot of time just doing outdoor activities.

The first time he made me a homemade chicken fried steak

With homemade biscuits, I knew I'd hit the jackpot.

[heartfelt music]

Justin and I were married in April of 2001.

It was perfect.

Pat: And then he was accepted into the game warden academy.

It's an honor, really, to become a game warden in texas.

Justin was kind of our top cadet.

He taught us waterfowl identification as a cadet.

He had a passion for ducks and geese and waterfowl.

Kyle was born in November of 2006.

[tearful] he was so excited about being a dad...

And he never got the chance.

Justin's birthday was March 17th,

And when he was killed,

He made it 20 minutes into his 34th birthday.

I kept asking "god, why did you take my son?

"he had so much to offer. Why?"

Game wardens have a very dangerous job.

What I used to know about game wardens from sitting out

At the deer lease opening night of deer season,

Knowing they sneak up on you to check on you,

Catching you at night if you're out spotlighting,

Looking for coons to shoot, which is what we did growing up.

You're on the lookout for game wardens,

But I would feel like the main thing you think when you see one

Is you just wanna flee or run away.

You sure never think a shootout's gonna happen.

The night this shootout happened, it was involving

A couple of different law enforcement agencies.

[police radio chatter]

There are 254 counties in texas.

Except for the five largest,

All the other counties typically call in the texas rangers

For their expertise and their assistance.

So the texas rangers take the lead in this investigation too.

Maxwell: I got to the crime scene before daylight,

And once the sun comes up,

We start putting markers at every piece of evidence.

Freeman, he used two weapons:

A glock .357 sig,

And he had an ak-47.

We also have the defendant's truck.

We find out that he has multiple weapons in his truck

In addition to the weapons he used.

We also have all the vehicles there,

Which are evidence.

Over a dozen bullet holes in my truck.

I had one go through the windshield

And exit behind my headrest,

The back window.

He was shooting where I should've been,

Or where he thought I was.

After the crime scene, I go to the hospital

Where freeman is being treated

And talk to him about why he did it.

Well, freeman was shot four times in the extremity,

But his condition at the hospital

Was surprisingly good.

He had some through-and-through wounds,

But those were doing fine.

He had to have surgery on his ankle,

But he was doing well, and he was very coherent.

I read him his rights, and he talked to me

Without really any hesitation.

I asked him what was going on that night.

He said, "I decided I was gonna go out

And do a little night hunting with my .22

"and shoot at a possum or something like that."

After he shot one, the next thing he knew,

He had lights on him and a game warden was there,

And then he ran.

He had no outstanding warrant,

Or he didn't have a lot of violations

Of the law on his record.

He just decided that he was gonna try and run,

And then at the point in time where he couldn't run anymore,

He decided that he was gonna have a shootout.

He told me he didn't really understand

Why he did what he did,

But accepted the responsibility for what he did.

After texas ranger david maxwell interviewed

James garrett freeman at the hospital,

He was officially charged with capital murder.

Under texas law, he's facing the death sentence.

This case is different because you have a defendant

Who, I found out later, he didn't live a life of crime.

But one night in his life,

One night of god knows what was going on in his head,

And a whole world was changed

Just by stupid decisions.

And there are consequences for every one of those decisions.

Ise,

The same promise I make to all victims:

I won't quit, and I will not give up.

I will do what needs to be done. I always have.

In 2007, the man in charge of our office,

The da's office in harris county,

Basically imploded for lots of reasons.

The office was in chaos,

And no one knew what was gonna happen next.

Some friends encouraged me to run,

So I ran, I campaigned.

I got into a run-off, and then I lost the race for da.

I really felt defeated. I felt like a loser.

I found myself thinking, "what am I gonna do?"

'cause the lady who beat me was never gonna keep me,

And I was never gonna work for her.

And then a friend of mine named ted wilson

Was friends with josh mccown,

The elected da of wharton county,

Which is close to home where I'm from,

Matagorda county.

And josh called ted to say,

"I need some help on this death penalty case.

"I don't have the experience. I've never tried one before.

"do you know anyone who can help me out with that?"

And ted came to me one day in my office and said,

"kelly, what do you think about working

"with the wharton county da?"

And I went, "home? What?

"yeah, heck yeah. I'll help him."

I grew up in weston, texas, which is in matagorda county.

I think growing up in a small town

Is most wonderful way to grow up.

It makes you friendlier, it makes you more honest,

It makes you more open.

The county north of matagorda county

Is wharton county.

I know wharton county so well.

I have cousins from all over the whole county.

I can tell you the mascots of all the high schools

Because of all the football games

We played with everybody there.

I spent summers in wharton county.

It is like home.

[hopeful music]

So I went down there to meet with josh

Before I quit my job officially at the da's office.

And walking into that courthouse, you know,

You have to remember that I'd spent my whole career

In houston at our courthouse.

So I'm pretty sure they were all eyeballing me,

Wondering how I was gonna be,

Because I would've been doing the same thing.

This is a woman who's tried 19 capital murder cases

And gotten convictions in every one of 'em.

So we hired kelly as special prosecutor.

Ler: I came to work my first day

And started reading the file.

It was pretty easy to understand who justin hurst was.

He grew up wanting to be a biologist

'cause he loved nature and animals

And the water and all that.

And then the rest of his life story with amanda and his son

And his parents and everything about him.

You couldn't find a more righteous victim

In law enforcement than justin hurst.

James garrett freeman-- most people called him garrett--

Grew up in wharton county, born and raised.

Liked to hunt and fish.

I know lots of boys that go night hunting,

And they have guns and they're drinking beer

And things could go crazy. That's what I thought.

"he must have been really drunk, right?"

But freeman wasn't,

So that part never made any sense.

James garrett freeman's family hired stanley schneider

To represent him. I know him very well.

At that point, tried three cases against him.

He is a big city lawyer.

He's also not even from texas.

I've seen him in the courtroom.

I've seen how he talks to people.

I've seen how he talks to jurors.

There's no way stanley's approach and personality

Is gonna play in wharton county.

And in a capital murder like this case,

You had the death penalty, everybody knows what that means.

But then the legislature enacted a new law,

And you have, for the first time since 2005,

Life without parole.

I think it's a very good thing that we now have this option,

Because every crime and every defendant

And every victim is so different.

In the beginning, josh mccown, as the elected da,

With the family say-so, offered life without parole.

Every time I've heard of a family that stands up

And says, "I don't need the ultimate punishment

"for my loved one, I can show a little mercy."

That's a rare thing.

Normally it's the death penalty

For killing a law enforcement person,

But we did not want the law enforcement people

At were involved to have to go through all the trial

And relive that night over again.

- Justin, breathe! - Breathe, justin! Breathe!

- [sirens wailing] - come on, justin, breathe.

But the defendant and his counsel refused it.

Siegler: Then after I was officially on the case,

All of a sudden, stanley then wanted to revisit

The offer of life without parole.

And at that point, josh called justin's family

Back into his office with me

To see what they thought about it at that point.

[tense music]

I remember whenever I first got involved with the case,

When I came to wharton county and met josh that first day

And he told me about his relationship with all of y'all,

I could tell already that that relationship

Was different than anything I'd ever seen before.

Just being small town and local, like, I mean,

We all just knew each other, so when it happened,

I mean, it didn't just happen to us,

It happened to becky and it happened to josh,

And it happened to a lot of wharton county.

Siegler: Right, well, they also all saw what you went through.

Amanda: I do have to tell you, though,

That when we sat in josh's office

And you were writing on a yellow notepad--

Do not ask me why I can remember that detail--

But you were writing like crazy,

Asking me details about that night.

And you sat there, and I'm thinking--

All I can think is, "this big-time lawyer from houston."

You know, "I'm sure she's got her stuff together,

"but how is she gonna be able to relate to us?"

And you sat over there and listened to me tell my story,

And you were sobbing and just writing and sobbing.

I was like, "holy cow, she's got a tender spot."

- [laughing] - oh, god. Yeah.

And then when you told me you were from blessing, texas,

I was just-- I was like, "she's mine.

"this is my girl right here."

I remember the first time I met y'all to talk about,

Can we resolve the case without a trial?

- You remember that day? - Amanda: Yeah.

And josh, more than I've ever seen any prosecutor do,

Left-- left a lot of--

Not the final decision, but a lot of it up to y'all.

I remember we decided, you know, what our decision was,

That we would give him the offer of life without parole.

And do you know-- do you know why he didn't take it?

- No. Mm-mm. - I think that his lawyer

Thought that he was gonna beat the case

Because josh didn't have death penalty experience.

I think that that was a very significant part

Of how that all played out.

I remember you saying, "then we've only got one way to go."

When you choose to kill law enforcement,

The people whose job it is to defend us and protect us,

And you do that ultimate step,

You have to be looking at the ultimate punishment.

I mean, but there are people that disagree with that.

The family felt like they had left life without parole

As an option for plenty of time,

And they didn't wanna do that anymore,

And they were ready to proceed with going through a trial

And seeking the death penalty.

♪♪♪

I'd been prepping for this case for about a month,

And now it's finally time to pick the jury.

Everybody in wharton county

Expected josh and me to get the death penalty,

And the only thing we had to do wrong was pick one bad juror.

It's got to be unanimous,

And we have to try the case for guilt and punishment.

So one of those jurors this round or this round

That says, "I just can't do it," we've lost.

[tense music]

We started opening statements that first day.

The courtroom was pretty packed.

My goal was to tell a story about that whole night

And how it all went down, and so we started with the way

Freeman went out that night to go night hunting,

Scott blackburn tried to pull him over,

And how it progressed into how he was able

To load those weapons before he stopped.

He knew when he got out of the car

That he was gonna start firing.

And then the way he parked his car to try and take out

Not just justin hurst, but six other cops,

And walk the jury through that so they would understand

The calculated, premeditated massacre

That freeman tried to orchestrate that night.

I've never seen someone five foot tall

Fight like a bulldog like kelly siegler.

Stanley schneider and lee cox give their opening statements

Where they lay out suicide by cop,

Which means that in that moment on that night,

He wanted the cops to shoot him

Because in that moment, he was depressed.

That was gonna be his defense.

[sirens wailing]

There are people who attempt to draw out an officer

And put them in a difficult situation

Where the officer believes they have to shoot.

I think that could apply here,

But one has to be able to try and establish that

Through past suicide attempts, through obvious depression.

Siegler: If stanley schneider is successful

In making the jury believe

This all happened because of suicide by cop,

Garrett freeman could be found not guilty of capital murder,

Not guilty of murder, not guilty of anything.

In the process of going over the evidence

And deciding what we're gonna present,

What we're not gonna present,

We as a team made the decision not to present the confession.

My thinking was, along with josh's,

Why would we use that? We'd rather have him

Take the stand if he wants to tell his story.

Then he would have to undergo cross examination

And explain everything else.

- [sirens wailing] - [gunfire]

When you see the video of what happened...

- [sirens wailing] - [gunfire]

...That's all you need.

- [sirens wailing] - [gunshots]

I wanted to make sure that everybody on the jury

Understood all the things that were going on strategically

On the side of freeman and the cops.

Freeman was crouched down below the line of the truck bed,

Shooting directly at justin.

Becky ivey: Justin was drawing freeman's fire

So the other officers could move out,

And they could then fire on freeman.

Had he not done that,

The loss of life would've been tremendous,

Because he was showing no mercy.

- Justin, breathe! - Breathe, justin, breathe!

Come on, justin! Breathe!

Blackburn: I truly believe I'm here because of him.

I feel like he saved my life.

And the others'.

Maxwell: Josh mccown was the one who took me on the stand,

And we went through the video.

The way he positioned the truck,

It's just what we teach our officers to survive.

And as he was firing on the officers,

He worked his way down and worked his way back to cab,

Which is his best cover, when he fired the last shot.

That's someone who's counting.

That's what we teach our police officers to do,

To count your rounds,

Make sure that you don't run out of ammunition

When you don't have cover.

He's very experienced and very practiced.

I found out when I interviewed him

That he practiced almost every day with his weapons.

And my theory is that he kind of...

Fantasized about being in a situation like this.

Why did he do it that night?

Nobody knows.

He did everything in his power to provide himself

With the best angle, the best cover.

Nothing of his actions indicated in any way, shape, or form

That he was trying to kill himself.

- [siren wailing] - [gunshots]

To me, it was important that every single officer

Involved in the chase that night,

In the shootout that night, for each of them take the stand.

And I wanted the jury to see that those men

Who testified in that trial, it changed their lives forever.

There are many lives that were affected

By the actions of freeman on that day.

And every officer out there

Was traumatized by what happened that day.

People get this idea that cops just wanna get in shootouts

And have all the glory, and that is far beyond the truth.

I would not wish this on anybody, any officer

To have to even shoot somebody in their career,

Much less have their par get killed.

[solemn music]

Siegler: Scott blackburn is the person

Who is the beginning of this story.

He's the other game warden

Who was best friends with justin hurst.

Scott blackburn was probably the most important fact witness.

You wanna make sure when you're laying out

This whole crazy way it went down to the jury

That they understand what all was going on

In scott blackburn's mind it wenas it started jury

All the way until it ended.

And you try your best to put into evidence

All the little actions and steps that freeman took.

I demonstrated how freeman was using his guns.

When he came out with the pistol,

He took what we kind of call a military stance

Or a law enforcement stance,

Aiming at my vehicle and sergeant tijerina's vehicle,

And he was going back and forth,

Kind of a sweeping motion from vehicle to vehicle.

[gunshots]

The tricky part with scott was that he was so...

Involved, invested, and traumatized,

And it was just painful to watch him have to tell the story.

When I testified, I wear this--

I called it "end of watch" bracelet.

[sniffles] and so it has justin's name on it

And the day that he died.

But when the defense cross-examined me,

We watched the entire dash cam video together

And critiqued every single thing I said.

Siegler: I think that scott blackburn

And all the other officers involved that night,

They all did a wonderful job,

And there wasn't a person in the courtroom

That doubted one word that they had to say.

When josh and I rested our case,

We both thought that it was going very, very well.

Ivey: Stanley had the freeman family testify

To the fact that freeman had no violence

In his background, and this was not him.

Siegler: The world of people that knew freeman

Was a really nice group of people.

His parents were wonderful from everybody you talk to.

We were dreading that, because we knew

They were gonna be good witnesses, and they were.

They tried their best to explain what happened that night,

But I think the question that we all had, and maybe they had too,

Was "but why? Why? What was going on to make him do this?"

And I don't think any of them had that answer.

[somber music]

Dr. Jerome brown was called by the defense as an expert

To try and establish even better this theory of suicide by cop.

Mccann: The test that dr. Brown administered to mr. Freeman

Is essentially a risk assessment survey for characteristics

That mental health professionals have identified

As tending to elevate or decrease a risk.

Personal responsity, substance abuse,

Familiarity with firearms.

All of those things are involved in those assessments.

Siegler: I know dr. Jerome brown very well,

And I've cross-examined him before.

And stanley should realize that if he's gonna call a shrink

To the stand, I'm gonna read the paperwork.

We got a chance to look at his records

On james garrett freeman,

Which has showed that he wasn't significantly depressed,

Which is huge if you're gonna claim suicide by a cop.

Kelly really crossed him hard.

And when dr. Brown was through,

He was out the back door real quick.

He didn't talk to anybody.

I'm pretty sure they were regretting putting him on stand.

We were in there through the entire time.

- It went on for three weeks. - Three weeks.

We watched the young man.

He showed no emotion.

There was no expression on the kid's face.

The trial was dreadful.

It brought back all the pain all over again.

♪♪♪

I remember telling the jury that he tried his hardest

To massacre seven cops.

That would've been the worst law enforcement massacre

In american history at that time.

It's not real complicated, ladies and gentlemen.

He didn't wanna go to jail.

And when you kill a cop

After you tried to kill six other cops,

If that's not capital murder, then what the hell is?

[suspenseful music]

The jury deliberated and came back with a verdict

In about four hours.

It matters where people are from,

And these people in this jury,

They're from wharton county, texas.

And I thought I knew then how they were gonna appreciate how

This crime went down, and they weren't gonna put up with it,

And they didn't put up with it,

And that's what their verdict was.

He was found guilty.

It was a relief to hear the verdict.

There was no...

Joy on our part in hearing that.

Siegler: Getting him found guilty of capital murder

Is what we were expected to do.

The real challenge here was always,

"but does he deserve the death penalty?"

Once we start part two of the trial,

We didn't have a lot of evidence.

He didn't have prior crimes where

We're gonna bring in victims or cops.

It was more about, what is the defense gonna do now,

If anything, to make a jury think,

"I don't wanna give him the death penalty

For any reason at all."

♪♪♪

The defense brought in dr. Daneen milam,

A different psychologist,

To talk about her testing of freeman and what she saw.

And I remember reading her paperwork, thinking,

"oh, I don't know that I would put her on

"in the punishment phase of the trial,"

Because on cross examination, I was able to show the jury

That buried in all of her paperwork

Was also the finding that when you test freeman,

He has impulse control issues, he has anger issues.

That's the last thing you want to be able to introduce

Into evidence in a capital murder case

When the issue before the jury is,

"are you gonna be a future threat?"

Well, the most common future threats

Are the people that can't control their anger.

- [sirens wailing] - [gunshots]

Maxwell: He's a continuing threat to society

Because no one who knew him his entire life

Could've predicted what he did that day.

That means nobody could say with any certainty

That he wouldn't do this again.

Siegler: We waited overnight

For a verdict for the death penalty,

And that next day,

The jury came back around right before lunchtime

And gave him the death penalty.

Ivey: It's bittersweet.

You feel horrible for his family,

For freeman's family, because now they've lost a son.

But yet you feel a sense of justice for the hurst family,

Because this person who took their son away

Can't do that to anybody else.

Before I ever even came on board,

Garrett freeman was offered life without parole,

And he didn't take it.

And had he taken it, he would still be alive today.

[gentle music]

When I think about y'all's case and the trial,

The thing that stands out to me is what happened

After the death penalty verdict came down

And the jury had left.

Do y'all remember what happened?

- I remember hugging his family. - His parents.

James garrett freeman's parents,

They had nothing to doh what their son did that night,

And they paid the price for that.

What they went through, too, is really, really sad.

To bury their child, and especially

After making such a poor decision.

- You know? - I know.

God, no mom should ever have to go through that.

You know, our community loved on us

And held us at high esteem at all times,

And I can't imagine being on the other side of that.

She wasn't on trial.

- She didn't make the mistake. - Siegler: No.

They were just normal people like us, you know?

After justin's death, of course, you know,

You go through a roller coaster.

And I was livid, how anybody could just take

Such a sweet soul and gun him down like that.

And then it took a while for me to realize

That it was never anything personal,

Because the guy didn't know justin.

And had he known justin, there's no way he could've done that,

Because justin was just a good person.

He was a good, wholesomeson.

My god, what a wonderful man.

There was nothing bad about justin.

There's not a day go by that you don't think of justin.

That's the way it will always be.

To have that actual father figure

Take you hunting and fishing,

Teach you how to tie ropes and fishing line,

It's not there for me.

But she's been here my whole life,

Helping me through all of it.

- She does her hardest. - We've done good, haven't we?

♪♪♪