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[GRAPHIC: Fox News Live]
NEWS ANCHOR: This video sparked outrage across the country. A 93-year-old war veteran beaten up in broad daylight by a guy who wanted his car. Now that suspect is facing prosecution. But what happens to the bystanders who did nothing to help? Let's talk about it with defense attorney Ann Fitz.
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NEWS ANCHOR: Ann, thanks for being with us.
ANN FITZ: Thank you for having me.
NEWS ANCHOR: All right, so the judge has really thrown the book at this suspect. I mean no conviction yet, but the judge upped the bail to a million bucks. Clearly this guy is, is facing, you know, some serious trouble.
ANN FITZ: Yeah, he is.
NEWS ANCHOR: The, but what about the people who we see there in the background as, as this poor old guy, 93-years-old, is getting punched 20 times at least, left with a hearing problem as a result of this beating--what happens to the people who didn't do anything? Anything?
ANN FITZ: Well, you know, technically they could be charged with aiding and abetting the crime by the prosecution. However, the prosecution is probably going to want to call these people as witnesses to testify during the jury trial. So they're not going to want to have charges pending against them as well.
But as defense counsel, what I would do is having those witnesses on the stand, I would bring that up, why did you stand there and not do anything to stop that, in order to try and impeach their credibility.
NEWS ANCHOR: Well, who does that help? Does that help this suspect?
ANN FITZ: That would, that could help Mr. Bradley. Anytime a defense attorney has a case like this where you don't really have any facts to work with, you want to do all you can to twist the focus off of your client and onto others that may be culpable.
NEWS ANCHOR: What's the jury going to think about that though?
ANN FITZ: Well it depends on what kind of jury there is. The jury may think to themselves, yeah, if I were there, I would have done something about it. And they may hold that against the witnesses and not necessarily be more lenient on Mr. Bradley, but it at least opens up an avenue of this crime could have been mitigated by having other people help.
NEWS ANCHOR: The suspect, 22-year-old Deonte Bradley reportedly has been threatened by other inmates in the jail population.
[GRAPHIC: Deonte Bradley]
NEWS ANCHOR: Does the judge, is he obligated to do anything for this kid to, try to keep him from getting beaten up himself while he's in jail?
ANN FITZ: Well technically once a prisoner is in state custody there, there is some sort of standard that the state has to take in order to protect that prisoner. So a lot of times what they do is they'll put them in isolation so that other prisoners don't beat them up. But there is, there's actually no distinct obligation that the judge would have in this case to protect that defendant.
NEWS ANCHOR: Supposedly there, there is evidence that, that Deonte thought that his victim was white and that's why he hit him, or that's why he attacked him the way he did. Is there grounds for additional, some kind of race-based charge here?
ANN FITZ: Yeah, there, there certainly would be some sort of hate crime charge that they could tack onto that. But of course, you know, you have to prove the specific intent of wanting to assault this man because he was white and that may be difficult for the prosecution to prove.
NEWS ANCHOR: All right. What do you think is the best chance for a conviction though?
ANN FITZ: If there is--it definitely seems like the weight of the evidence is in favor of the prosecution. But you never know. There's no case that's actually a slam dunk case. And if the prosecution were to approach it from that standpoint going into the trial, they may encounter some difficulty because you just never know what a jury is going to do.
NEWS ANCHOR: Yeah, that's for sure. Ann, thanks very much for being with us.
ANN FITZ: Thank you.
