Judge John Crandall of Herkimer County is presiding over the proceedings. This will be a bench trial meaning instead of a jury, Judge Crandall will decide on Roth's future.
Former Lewis County Assistant District Attorney Caleb J. Petzoldt is prosecuting the case. He's now with Onondaga County.
High profile defense attornies Gary Miles and Mike Young are again teaming up to handle the defense.
Lewis County contracts out the work normally done by a public defender.
Before things got started, there was a mix up with 60 pages of grand jury testimony that the defense didn't get until just an hour before court began. They will be issued an hour break after the first witness to go through that.
It also sounds like Brenda Roth may take the stand.
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As I did with Kyle Box, I'll put a quick TV version for those who don't want to read the books I write each day.
Opening statements Monday revealed two very different ways to view what happened the night of December 27th 2014 when a 15 year old boy, Derek Holton overdosed at the home of a friend.
The mother of that friend, Brenda Roth, is facing charges manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide. But why is up for debate.
The prosecution says Roth not only allowed four 15 year old kids to use over the counter and prescription drugs to get high, but when Holton was first noticed as having trouble breathing, she refused to allow anyone to call 9-1-1
"Derek would be just fine." the prosecution claims Roth told the kids. 'He just needs to sleep it off."
The next morning when everyone woke up to find him dead, Roth is accused of having the kids thrown away the evidence of drugs and lie to the cops about who knew what.
"She began clean up of the crimes immediately." the prosecution said.
But the defense says there's a difference between illegal and immoral and the law knows that. Defense attorney Gary Miles says Roth was not only not aware the kids were doing drugs, but she had no responsibility to do anything.
"She did not assume the duty of a parent when he was there." Miles told the judge.
If fact, Miles says in New York State, she doesn't have to call police. Hence the immoral versus illegal.
"We don't have Good Samaritan laws in New York." Miles said. "The law can't impose immoral liability."
Two of the teenagers at the party took the stand Monday. They admitted to stealing the drugs from stores and using them to get high and claimed Roth did indeed tell them not to call 9-1-1 that night and then claimed Roth told them to throw away the empty packages before police arrived.
The defense claims she did try to call her EMT boyfriend that night but couldn't reach him.
They say Roth never saw anyone taking drugs.
The trial resumes Tuesday morning.
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Petzoldt begins opening statements. He's very passionate with his words.
He claims the 12/28/14 death of 15-year-old Derek Holton could have been prevented by Roth, Holton got drugs from Roth and Roth prevented anyone from calling 9-1-1 to help him.
He says Roth also refused to allow anyone to answer phone calls Holton's mother was making to Holton's cell phone that night.
He says Roth told the kids that night, when Holton was having trouble breathing that Holton would be fine, he just needed to sleep it off.
Everyone went back to sleep, only to wake up and find Derek had died.
That's when Petzoldt says Roth began to clean up the crime and told the kids there to lie to police.
"If she really believed she didn't do anything wrong, why ask to have drugs removed from the house and why ask others to lie to police?" Petzoldt asked.
He compared the entire night to someone watching children play Russian Roulette and eventually the gun went off.
Roth faces charges of manslaughter, criminally negligent homocide and more.
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Gary Miles handled the opening for the defense.
He opens by saying he admires Petzoldt's passion but facts are what matter.
He says Roth wasn't aware anyone was doing drugs that night as she was in her room and didn't come out.
He says when first alerted to Derek's troubles, she tried calling her boyfriend, an EMT. He says everyone had cell phones and no one else called either.
He then gets to his defense. "The prosection is blurring lines between criminal and immoral."
Miles aruges that Roth never assumed the duty to protect Holton. She did not assume the duty of a parent when he was there.
He says New York does not have Good Samaritan laws and the law cannot impose immoral liability.
It's impossible to write that and not think of the Seinfeld finale.
He says no drugs were moved and the packaging that was found in a shed in the trash, were in plain sight and could have been from anytime.
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Derek's mother Amber takes the stand as the first witness. She's visably an emotional wreck as she does.
She said Derek often went to hang out with friends and that she texted him earlier in the day on a few occasions and he responsed.
She hadn't heard from him in a while and started calling around midnight but he didn't answer.
She says she tried three or four times because it was very unusual for him to not pick up.
A trooper called her later the next day (later that day because it was after midnight when she tried calling) to tell her that Derek had passed away.
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Gary Miles cross examined the mother.
He asked every witness about a contract high school sports athletes typically have to sign about not doing drugs or alcohol while on a team. No one today could confirm that happens at Carthage. I did in my high school. I had to sign one myself.
We learned through this that the defense claims Holton was at a party the night before too, only his mother claims to have not known he was even gone the night before.
She called him a mama's boy and someone who'd always respond to texts or calls.
Derek told his mother he was spending the night wtih a friend, but it ended up he did not. He says she never made that effort.
But Miles wondered why she never called the friend he claimed he was staying at that night. "I trusted him." she said. "I wasn't going to disrupt that home" (so late) she said.
We also learned Derek took ADHD medication and another pill to help him sleep at night.
This is just me talking out loud and I have no idea what she was actually thinking, but it sure seemed afterwords that Amber Holton was not happy with Gary Miles and what he asked her on the stand. She wouldn't be the only one.
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Next to the stand was Mackenzie Barbee, one of the 15-year-olds at the party.
She actually stayed at Roth's home the night before too.
She says Derek didn't join them until the day of the 27th though.
She described the day of the group trying to get a hold of Triple C's, (Corcidin Cough & Cold) pills.
I have never heard of this before.
Apparently if you take them when you aren't sick, you can get a high. None of the kids were sick.
MacKenzie says she the group also acquired Triple C's the night before, but she only took two the night Derek died (something another friend would say she took more of.)
She testified that Brenda was in her room the entire night and didn't see them taking the pills.
She says she went to sleep before anything was wrong with Derek and was woken up at 2am when people noticed Derek was struggling to breathe. "His eyes were closed." she said.
She claims she told Brenda to call 9-1-1 but Roth was "too scared". She says she also wanted to return the calls and texts made by Derek's mom but Brenda told them not to.
That's when she testified that Roth told them he needed to sleep it off. She says everyone went back to sleep.
About four hours later she woke again to the worries Derek had died.
A man named Michael Ott was called and he called 9-1-1 when he arrived about 20-30 minutes later.
Mackenzie says that's when Brenda told them to discard the trash and tell police that Derek had shown up in the middle of night and no one knew he was there. She admits she did that, lying to police when they first interviewed her.
She claims she never saw anyone take any other drugs.
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Miles cross examined Mackenzie Barbee.
She said Brenda was no there when we got the Triple C's and Brenda never saw anyone take them. But she did testify that at one point Roth was talking to her daughter, one of the four teenagers there, 'No. You've had enough." and that girl saying, "He just wants one more." (referring to Derek).
Miles hits that point by saying she never told police that in any statement and not in in the grand jury testimony. She never said this until witness prep he said. Miles then said either way she had no idea what they were discussing and she agreed.
As for other drugs, Barbee says she did end up with Oxycontin in her system, but only because she was eating pizza and it fell on the floor and oxy that was on the floor got stuck to it and she didn't notice it.
She also says police never told her it was a crime to sign a sworn witness statement that was knowingly a lie. She says she never read the disclaimer on the document either.
She admitted again to lying to police, using the story she claims Brenda gave her. She says later she got home and told her mom everything. She claimed Derek was a pot user and again that Brenda didn't see anyone take drugs.
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Next witness was NYSP Investigator Michael Kosakowski. He responded as a crime scene technician.
He discussed his travels around the home and the evidence he collected.
A steak knife (assumed the one used to cut the pills and allow them to snort them through a straw).
He found packages of empty medications and prescriptions in various rooms and he took photos of that and logged the items into evidence.
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Mike Young did the cross here.
He says the officer had no idea where the garbage was in the bag. Was it on top? The Bottom? The officer admitted he did not know.
Young says the bags were in plain sight as to suggest no one was hiding anything.
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Next witness is Ayana Noyes, another teenager at the party.
This is also when we learned the kids were stealing the medications from stores in Carthage.
Noyes says you have to be 18 to buy them and they stole them from the Rite Aid in Carthage.
She says she took 12 of the pills that night. She also says she saw Derek snorting stuff through a straw and she saw Brenda hand pills to Brenda's daughter telling them to give the pills to Derek because she was too, "F*&^ED up to have them."
She says Holton had very small pupils and wasn't responding when they first noticed troubles. She says he was frothing at the mouth.
But she does say it sounded like he was snoring and when Brenda suggested he needed to sleep it off, she didn't think anything of it.
At this point Holton's mother who testified earlier is struggling to hold back the tears as she sits in the courtroom with the rest of the people watching.
Noyes says Brenda made them take stuff out of the house before calling police and gave the same story Mackenzie Barbee did about the lies to police.
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Gary Miles on cross.
Noyes admitted to stealing the pills they took the night before. She then said a friend stole the pills for that night.
The rest of this is more so how things were said rather than what was said.
Most the questions he asked which were very similar to the ones asked to Barbee, Noyes didn't remember, couldn't recall or said she was confused by.
She did at one point say Mackenzie took 10 pills, but Barbee earlier claimed to take two and flush the rest down the toilet.
Miles would bring up a question and then refer back to what was said in the Grand Jury testimony because it seemed to me that things weren't matching up with what was said. That or there'd be a situation where Miles couldn't hear her or answers would change.
Noyes said it was two years ago and she couldn't remember.
I think both parties were growing frustrated with each other and it seemed afterwords that Noyes was upset with questioning as well.
Although lets face it, she's still a teenager and he's a defense attorney trying to help his client, the questioning has to be tough and exact and that's a tough spot for any child.
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At this point it was 3pm and the judge decided to call it a day.
We were told that the trial could be over Wednesday or Thursday but that could be thrown off by snowfall tomorrow. He's driving in from Utica. Miles from up north and Petzoldt from Syracuse. So we'll see.
Court is set to begin at 9:30am Tuesday.