Brad Cooper: Appeal info

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Madeleine74 said:
I believe Amanda Lamb got the first part of her statement correct -- the part about "no dissension in the jury room." That jury did get along extremely well throughout the trial and they did work well together to come to a unanimous decision. The part she got wrong is that they all thought he was guilty *from the beginning.* They clearly did not, and over 2+ days of deliberations decided on guilt. It's possible the juror she spoke to got it wrong; it's also possible she heard it incorrectly or interpreted it incorrectly. Either way, it took the jury 2+ days to decide unanimously.
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I agree with everything you said here. I was just pointing out that the initial vote was 2/2/8 and then 10/2 at the end of the day. Of course, it was months later when the book came out, so memories could have changed by then. I got that info right after the trial.

I know one thing....I'm ready to find out when this is going back to trial. What ever happened to the concept of a speedy trial? Isn't that the defendants right? Seems like they could keep him in jail indefinitely since they haven't even set a date. How long do they actually have to set a new trial date?
 
You are way nicer than me.

IMO, AL's nose is growing longer and longer
 
dgfred said:
Like I said... no evidence withheld. Their guy just didn't get to testify.
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Their first guy did get to testify (J Ward) but the judge limited him in scope to areas involving "network security" and not the computer HD. The 2nd guy, who they found in a pinch (Massucci) had not yet completed his report as of the day he testified since he had been engaged by the defense a couple or 3 days before, though he did say during his voir dire he agreed with Ward's report. The judge didn't allow him (Massucci) to testify because it would cause a delay in the trial.
 
You both are sortof correct but not quite.

1. Testimony is evidence. As was Jay Ward's report. As I can recall, Jay Ward's report was not entrered into evidence (I am not 100% certain of this though).
2. Prosecution did not hand over the MFT file to the defense until the trial was underway. This was central to the Jay Ward testimony, because it was the MFT data that Jay Ward analyzed. Part of the prosecution's argument was that Ward was not qualified to extract the data. The prosecution also argued that they provided all the data to the defense because they provided a copy of the original hard drive, from whivh the MFT file was extracted, then hid behind National Security to avoid giving the defense the MFT file extracted by the FBI. This is where Boz got really deceptive, because he repeatedly claimed that the defense had all the data for an extended period of time, which was an outright lie.
3. When Ward was excluded from testifying as a forensic expert due to his inexperience with the extraction tools, theoretically this would have tainted the extraction that he performed in order to generate the MFT. The defense attempted to circumvent this by offering to have Ward testify based on the FBI-generated MFT file, which was nearly identical to the one created by Ward. The court erred when he was restricted from testifying about the FBI MFT file, as his experience in examining computer data for intrusion was far superior to the jury's, and this did not require experience using forensic tools.
4. Massucci was restricted from testifying because he was not on the witness list, and therefore this violated discovery rules. The appeals court found that the trial court erred in restricting his testimony, because the defense was not using Massucci to gainan unfair tactical advantage (he was going to testify to basically the same thing Ward was), because there were alternate options available to the court besides restricting the testimony, and because his testimony was central to the defenses case following the limitations on Ward's testimony.


The net result was that a critical piece of evidence was withheld, and that was the expert opinion that BC's computer had been tampered with and that the files that directly implicated him in the killing were placed there by a third party.
 
My point was that it was misleading to say 'evidence' was withheld. Testimony wasn't permitted would have been clearer IMO. Testimony isn't evidence IMO unless it is relevant to the certain case. If he didn't say anything of importance on the stand... what would the 'evidence' be? The appeal succeeded because the guy didn't get to testify... not evidence withheld IMO.
 
Legally (regardless of opinion), testimony is evidence, especially expert testimony. If a witness says something irrelevant, then a lawyer can object, as irrelevant testimony is as you say not evidence. In addition, his written report is also evidence, Just like the blood guy. Just like the bug guy.

You can argue that evidence was not withheld by the prosecution to the defense (although that is called into question as well wrt the MFT files and the FBI tests), but no matter which way you slice it, evidence [relevant and critical to the case] was withheld from the jury.
 
Well, in that case anybody that had a witness that wasn't allowed to testify would possibly be kept from giving 'critical/relevant' information. So a judge says somebody can't testify... then you say evidence was withheld from the jury. In reality... you don't really know that yet.
 
Thanks, Skittles....so, a plea deal would be acceptable by Nancy's family.
 
If he pleas to second degree murder, what is the minimum-maximum years?

TIA
 
SStarr33 said:
I wonder what they offered? 2nd degree?
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Hi Starr, we are thinking alike. Yes, he would plea down from Murder 1 to a lesser charge.

Sentencing could be anywhere from 11 years -25 years with time served. maybe?
 
Skittles said:
Yes, I'm sure the DA would never have offered the plea if it wasn't OK with Nancy's family.
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It wasn't what Janet's family wanted in the Abaroa case, but they said they understood. I doubt they were very happy because Raven got himself a really sweet deal......pleaded all the way down to manslaughter.

Nancy's family lives in Canada, I believe, so that may be a factor in all of this too.
 
I had heard rumblings back in 2011 along the lines of Trenkle approaching the DA to inquire about a plea deal, after the Google search info came out in court, but I hadn't heard that a plea deal had actually been offered/approved or even presented to BC. Something less than 1st degree murder would then be 2nd degree. I can't imagine the DA's office going from 1st degree murder down to manslaughter, so I am thinking he was offered 2nd. Wonder if the offer ever was presented to BC or if such offer never got past his other lawyer at the time?
 
With the stance as taken by each side, a plea to second degree murder is hard to accept

Either the computer evidence about the google search represents something Brad did, or not. If it was something he did, its clear this was a pre-planned murder and the penalty for first degree murder should apply.

If the google search is false or was somehow planted, Brad should walk. If that kind of evidence was planted who knows what else wasn't true?

Second degree murder does not fit any reasonable factual matrix vis-a-vis Brad as a suspect. He either planned it or he was set up. And I'd say the chances of a setup on these facts are nil.

The practicality of a plea could trump justice in this case, whichever side you are on.
 
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