She is appalling, her behavior in court is completely disrespectful, and I suspect that what we're seeing on the stand under cross is much as we'd see from her whenever her beliefs are confronted. She is not only ridiculously obstinate with Juan, but also the Judge.
Many times yesterday I watched her set her jaw, raise the power of her voice and flat out ignore admonitions by both Juan and the Judge to answer "yes or no". She talked over both of them. Repeatedly. Words were being said to her she was determined not to obey, and she stuck to her guns. She even turned her head away from the Judge when told by her to answer "yes or no", didn't acknowledge her words at all, and if she did stop talking as the judge spoke then did the next words out of her mouth were anything BUT "yes or no". So disrespectful.
Since that behavior comes so easily to her, and she exhibits no bashfulness or shame for her actions in court (the smugness on her face with the "time out"!), I suspect it is her "go to" reaction whenever she is genuinely confronted and has been that way for years on end, perhaps even down to early childhood. A firmly embedded, long practiced confrontational style.
She strikes me as anything but gentle when push comes to shove. We are seeing the real ALV under cross.
I hope two things. That her behavior strikes others in the court in the same way, and that the defense team listens only to people who agree with their point of view (ie: look at mean angry Juan being mean and angry to this grandma).
I do have a project in the works with the Victims Advocate office. I'll have time to work on it after the trial's over.
