The Crash: What Should Mackenzie Shirilla's Defense Have Actually Looked Like?

If Mackenzie Shirilla had walked into Bob Motta's office instead of her actual attorney's, the case might look very different right now. That's not speculation — it's a function of what was missed, what was never pursued, and what was fumbled at every critical turn.

The POTS defense should have been the centerpiece of the trial. A medical condition that can cause sudden loss of consciousness in a seventeen-year-old driver at five-thirty in the morning is not a throwaway detail. It's the case. But Shirilla's attorney mentioned it and moved on. No medical expert. No records connecting the condition to the crash. No explanation for the jury — except there was no jury either, because this was a bench trial in front of a single judge.

After the conviction, a neurologist found evidence supporting the medical episode theory. The defense team filed a post-conviction petition containing that opinion — one day past the deadline. One day that foreclosed the court from considering expert evidence that might have changed everything. And the prosecution's key prior incident — the I-71 threat — had a competing version in text messages that the defense never introduced.

Bob Motta is a criminal defense trial attorney and host of the Defense Diaries podcast. He rebuilds the Mackenzie Shirilla defense from scratch — what he would have done differently, which experts he would have called, how he would have handled the memory claim, and whether the cumulative failures in this case cross the line into ineffective assistance of counsel.

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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.

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