Man who attacked judge in viral video wants new trial, says attorney was ineffective

A man who leaped over a judge’s bench to attack her in what became a viral video is asking for a new trial, arguing that his prior attorney was ineffective.

Deobra Redden, 32, is serving a 26- to 65-year prison sentence after admitting that he tried to kill District Judge Mary Kay Holthus in the January 2024 attack that injured Holthus, a marshal and a police officer and led to Redden being spoofed by “Saturday Night Live.” At the time, Holthus was sentencing Redden in an attempted battery case.

In a brief filed with the Nevada Supreme Court Dec. 22, public defender Kelsey Bernstein argued that attorney Carl Arnold’s performance was deficient in multiple ways.

“From failing to file any pretrial litigation whatsoever to abandoning his client on appeal, and at every step in between throughout the trial proceedings, Trial Counsel failed to subject the State’s case to meaningful adversarial testing,” wrote Bernstein.

Redden also pleaded guilty “without any negotiations,” meaning he received no benefit for admitting guilt, she said in the brief.

Arnold said in a phone interview that Bernstein was doing her job by trying to get Redden a new trial. He conceded that he never considered requesting a change of venue and that attempting to disqualify the district attorney’s office would have been a good idea. Those were things Bernstein said he should have done.

But he disagreed that he was an ineffective attorney for Redden and said he did not abandon his client.

“Number one, I was doing this free of charge for his family,” Arnold said. “Number two, once he heard the testimony, he himself asked that we go ahead and resolve the case. He wanted to deal at that time. He didn’t want the trial to continue.”

Redden pleaded guilty but mentally ill to counts including attempted murder, battery and intimidating a public officer during his trial in September 2024 after Holthus testified.

Arnold said Redden’s plea allowed him to ask for a minimum sentence and also request that the court consider his client’s mental illness and order treatment and hospitalization, not just prison time.

Considering the high-profile nature of the case and the fact that it represented an attack on the judicial system, he said, “I thought them conceding that he’s guilty but mentally insane was sufficient enough of a concession.”

But Bernstein cast the plea in a different light.

Arnold told jurors that Redden did not intend to kill Holthus and had been unmedicated for two months when he attacked her. But his expert had determined — contrary to Arnold’s defense — that Redden could tell right from wrong and “was not under the influence of a psychosis” when he committed the crime, according to the brief.

“Then, faced with a defense theory that Trial Counsel promised but could not deliver, Trial Counsel sought to untangle the web he wove by having Redden plead guilty to everything without negotiations,” argued Bernstein. “Trial Counsel’s performance under these circumstances is nothing other than ‘objectively unreasonable.’ Looking at the record as a whole, it is apparent that Redden’s eventual plea was Trial Counsel’s desperate attempt to dig himself out of the hole he created — at Redden’s expense.”

Arnold said Bernstein’s argument was “artful rhetoric,” but did not make sense because even if Redden was completely competent, it was still possible to assert that he had no intent to kill Holthus.

After the sentencing, Arnold started the appellate process in the Nevada Supreme Court, but when he failed to file an opening brief, the high court removed him from the case, referred him to the State Bar for investigation and ordered him to pay a $250 sanction.

Arnold said he hadn’t received emails from the court. “Once we received them, we attempted to file, but it was too late,” he said.

According to Bar Counsel Daniel Hooge, Arnold agreed to a stayed suspension of six months while he is on a year of probation. The Supreme Court is reviewing the disciplinary decision, Hooge said.

“Trial Counsel’s complete abandonment of Redden on appeal shows the same level of ambivalence that Counsel displayed throughout the proceedings — when the cameras were gone, so was Counsel’s effort,” wrote Bernstein.

Arnold pushed back on that argument, too.

“To sit here and say that I was doing this for the cameras is ludicrous, and the cameras weren’t there when we were at the jail and the prison talking to Mr. Redden and trying to make sure that he wasn’t crucified for this,” he said.

Contact Noble Brigham at nbrigham@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BrighamNoble on X.