It’s not being mentioned, but the witness in the car Ms. Hill appeared extremely under the influence of something, so much that the Judge noticed and the Defense and Prosecutor bailed on questioning her. I guess it’s irrelevant since it was not confirmed.

Anonymous wrote:Why doesn't Eric Nelson have other lawyers in the courtroom with him?

He does. There has been a female attorney there all the time that was introduced as an “assistant” but I have seen confirmation she is an attorney. Nelson has handled all the talking in court though so I’m sure that’s the defense teams explanation as to why they labelled the roles that way. They would want the optics of not having a huge team behind them, being like any other average defendant.

Why doesn't Eric Nelson have other lawyers in the courtroom with him?

Oh, man. Shawnda Hill DOES NOT WANT TO BE THERE!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh gosh, this next witness isn't doing so great either. I get that this would make someone super nervous but she's kind of mumbling, over answering questions, and keeps smiling/laughing.

She's also contradicting herself and what she wrote in her report.

i think the difference in nervousness is just from these witness not really wanting to be there/in this spotlight, vs the experts seen in prosecution. these first two are only there because of a prior interaction with the victim and don't have a choice but to be there. a lot of the prosecution experts volunteered to be there.

all theyre doing is establishing prior behavior.

Also, Defense was limited by the judge in what he could ask these two witnesses. He probably will weave it in when experts are called.

The prosecution went slowly with witnesses building their case, this feels rushed. It was stated that defense might wrap up on Thursday, closing arguments on Monday.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's up with the defense's first witness? I don't get how he has helped the defense??

Trying to show similar arrest behavior and slip in the ingestion of drugs.

But doesn't that help the argument that the drugs didn't cause his death? He didn't die in any of those other instances.

Anonymous wrote:Oh gosh, this next witness isn't doing so great either. I get that this would make someone super nervous but she's kind of mumbling, over answering questions, and keeps smiling/laughing.

She's also contradicting herself and what she wrote in her report.

Anonymous wrote:What's up with the defense's first witness? I don't get how he has helped the defense??

Trying to show similar arrest behavior and slip in the ingestion of drugs.

Oh gosh, this next witness isn't doing so great either. I get that this would make someone super nervous but she's kind of mumbling, over answering questions, and keeps smiling/laughing.

Poor guy can't hear a thing.

What's up with the defense's first witness? I don't get how he has helped the defense??

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I had a terrible premonition that this was going to be a hung jury.

Lots of overtime for fire departments, police departments and the national guard of that happens

That’s too bad. The jury shouldn’t feel threatened.

Anonymous wrote:It’s pretty hard to call a policeman doing an arrest “... during the commission of a felony ...” That’s using 20/20 hindsight.

Although we haven’t seen the final jury proposals, I don’t think the judge will choose to include the defense’s proposed “20/20” specification because it’s distracting and redundant. In the Noor jury instructions, the wording was “a reasonable police officer, in the same situation, without the benefit of hindsight.” They actually used the wording “peace officer” instead of police officer. The Noor case did not involve an arrest. But I think for that section about reasonable use of force, we could speculate that Judge Cahill would go with pretty similar wording.

So the question is whether a lawful arrest can become a felony assault if force is escalated beyond “what a reasonable police officer, in the same situation, without the benefit of hindsight, would believe to be necessary”, and that’s essentially what this jury is deciding.