Episode Details

Brendan Banfield is facing life without parole. He's 40 years old. Unless something changes on appeal, he dies in a Virginia prison. Tonight on Hidden Killers Live, defense attorney Bob Motta breaks down what comes next — and whether any of it has a real chance of working.

Appeals aren't about whether the jury got it wrong. Appellate courts don't retry cases. They look for legal errors the judge made that affected the outcome. Banfield's team has several potential arguments, and we're examining each one live with your questions.

The Juliana deal is one angle. Murder dropped to manslaughter, time served, she walks free after testifying against him. The defense will argue that's so coercive it taints her testimony. Bob explains why courts rarely buy that argument — but also what makes this case potentially different.

The digital forensics fight might be more promising. The prosecution's own investigator got pulled off the case when his findings didn't match their theory. If evidence was suppressed, that's a Brady violation — one of the few things that can actually overturn a conviction. But proving suppression and proving it mattered are two different legal battles.

Bob also tackles the "harmless error" doctrine — the standard that kills most appeals by letting courts acknowledge mistakes but say they wouldn't have changed the verdict anyway. How do you get past that when a jury heard weeks of testimony?

Join us live as we break down Banfield's appellate options and take your questions about what happens next.

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This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.