CA - Joey, Summer, Gianni, Joseph Jr McStay Murders - Feb 4th 2010 #7

[missy1974]

I’m not as well informed on this trial as many of the dedicated members are. But did the state also hire a forensic accountant to review the financials or are they relying on testimony from the detectives?

From what I understand, they did after the defense did. But that is just the Defenses take on it, I'm POSITIVE the defense will ask when he was hired when he hits the stand.

And I'm off to the casino for a bit haha Will have to catch up later

 

[oceanblueeyes]

Unless a crime is committed on video, eyewitness testimony and KNOW the suspects, that would pretty much erase any reasonable doubt to me.

That rarely happens though, but jurors are able to render guilty verdicts every day in our country based on believing the evidence presented proved the defendant was guilty BARD. That's why the standard of proof is BARD, and not some imaginary or fanciful doubt. It must always be reasonable.

I do think there may be some who would need to see a video showing the entire thing to be convinced.

Imo

 

[Tortoise]

I’m not as well informed on this trial as many of the dedicated members are. But did the state also hire a forensic accountant to review the financials or are they relying on testimony from the detectives?

They didn't 'hire' a forensic accountant as such but they used one of their own in-house specialists, and contrary to what the defense argued to the judge about the people doing this in response to what the defense said they did in their opening speech, the state's forensic accountant had been brought in to the case since early part of last year if I'm not mistaken.

The state said there was no "report" but that they would submit the excel spreadsheets to the judge for him to look at. This was about a week ago.

 

[mrjitty]

He then prolly somehow got wind of Joey's bank balance and got mad. He felt entitled to that money, so he took some. Then got caught.

I believe the case is this simple.

 

[mrjitty]

Oh gee, Mrjitty, you have now taken my hopes away.

More than anything, I really do hope he is convinced he can hoodwink this jury.

I mean, he does know he has been able to successfully con others for years.

Look how quickly he went onto rook the other two gentlemen out of thousands. It shows he had to be a very great convincing conman.

Imo, CM had a business rating of a F minus minus minus!!! That known record still amazes me. Anyone here where I live with that many RIPOFF complaints would have had their business license pulled, and their business shutdown, rightly so.

Another reason I would like to see him testify is if he is convicted, the appellate issues goes way down when any defendant takes the stand on their own behalf.

Jmo

You might be right.

I hope he testifies because he has so many problems with his versions

 

[Mica]

They didn't 'hire' a forensic accountant as such but they used one of their own in-house specialists, and contrary to what the defense argued to the judge about the people doing this in response to what the defense said they did in their opening speech, the state's forensic accountant had been brought in to the case since early part of last year if I'm not mistaken.

The state said there was no "report" but that they would submit the excel spreadsheets to the judge for him to look at. This was about a week ago.

Thank you tortoise. I suspected the prosecution had an accountant expert but I wasn’t certain.

 

[Edmo]

That rarely happens though, but jurors are able to render guilty verdicts every day in our country based on believing the evidence presented proved the defendant was guilty BARD. That's why the standard of proof is BARD, and not some imaginary or fanciful doubt. It must always be reasonable.

I do think there may be some who would need to see a video showing the entire thing to be convinced.

Imo

The original poster was talking about RD vs All Doubt (No doubt about the crime/suspect). With technology now, it seems 1/2 the world have video systems and record their lives to upload, lol.

 

[citygirl]

Oh gee, Mrjitty, you have now taken my hopes away.

More than anything, I really do hope he is convinced he can hoodwink this jury.

I mean, he does know he has been able to successfully con others for years.

Look how quickly he went onto rook the other two gentlemen out of thousands. It shows he had to be a very great convincing conman.

Imo, CM had a business rating of a F minus minus minus!!! That known record still amazes me. Anyone here where I live with that many RIPOFF complaints would have had their business license pulled, and their business shutdown, rightly so.

Another reason I would like to see him testify is if he is convicted, the appellate issues goes way down when any defendant takes the stand on their own behalf.

Jmo

It would be great for him to take the stand and believe that CM might have the confidence to do it. But his attorneys are way too smart for that, IMO.

 

[mrjitty]

So if he was paying his own debt, why did the cheque come from EIP, why didn't he pay himself and then turn around and write Metro Sheet Metal a cheque from his own account?

We heard ZERO testimony that Chase owed MSM money, so the idea that he did is no longer valid unless the State provides evidence that he did, and we have heard from 2 MSM employees, one of which did the invoicing and handled all incoming cheques.

The basis of your opinion relies on the fact that Chase owed them money (unless I misunderstood), where I have not heard any evidence of that. IF I hear evidence of that, my opinion may change

I suspect the problem was more that MSM were chasing invoices and CM knew he wasn't about to get any cheque from Joey.

But the trouble is, the staging of the crime scene won't be finished until the 8th. So hence the cheques on the 5th - but CM knew these had to be backdated to the 4th in order for Joey to have created them.

I think it fits nicely with the state case, because there simply is no reason to backdate those MSM cheques

 

[mrjitty]

It would be great for him to take the stand and believe that CM might have the confidence to do it. But his attorneys are way too smart for that, IMO.

I suspect it depends on where they feel they are at when we get to half time.

The real dynamic here, is that CM is the only person who knows what happened, so he can find the weaknesses in the prosecution case, and tailor a defence via his attorneys.

I would not be surprised if ultimately he does not testify and there is also no DK joker card played

Jurors can be illogical and I think CM might be able to swing a situation where jurors think he probably did it but can't be sure how.

That could be that narrow margin of doubt the defence set sail for

 

[mrjitty]

They didn't 'hire' a forensic accountant as such but they used one of their own in-house specialists, and contrary to what the defense argued to the judge about the people doing this in response to what the defense said they did in their opening speech, the state's forensic accountant had been brought in to the case since early part of last year if I'm not mistaken.

The state said there was no "report" but that they would submit the excel spreadsheets to the judge for him to look at. This was about a week ago.

IMO the giveaway was that McGee spent his critical opening minutes talking about how amazing his elite experts were and no time talking about the innocence of his client.

This is all about manufacturing some doubt via experts when you have no case, with DK as the hail mary.

Good on him. It's the only strategy he has with a conman as a client

 

[mrjitty]

I am curious to know how you reconcile a determination of guilt this early in the trial, with the core tenets of due process, i.e hear all the evidence, both sides must be heard & presumption of innocence.

Presumption of innocence places the burden of proof on the state. That's it. That's what it means. The state does not presume CM is innocent. Nor does a juror have to "presume innocence". The jury is in essence a blackbox. They can make their minds up one way or other at any time.

If I were a juror, I currently believe CM to be guilty.

Of course that could change if the defence come out with game changing evidence.

 

[citygirl]

I suspect it depends on where they feel they are at when we get to half time.

The real dynamic here, is that CM is the only person who knows what happened, so he can find the weaknesses in the prosecution case, and tailor a defence via his attorneys.

I would not be surprised if ultimately he does not testify and there is also no DK joker card played

Jurors can be illogical and I think CM might be able to swing a situation where jurors think he probably did it but can't be sure how.

That could be that narrow margin of doubt the defence set sail for

Completely agree

I suspect the problem was more that MSM were chasing invoices and CM knew he wasn't about to get any cheque from Joey.

But the trouble is, the staging of the crime scene won't be finished until the 8th. So hence the cheques on the 5th - but CM knew these had to be backdated to the 4th in order for Joey to have created them.

I think it fits nicely with the state case, because there simply is no reason to backdate those MSM cheques

You know what amazes me? If true that he staged the crime scene, the moxie he had to pull that off. How could he be confident that no one would notice? How did he come and go? Where did he park? No doubt he came under cover of darkness, but still how did he go unnoticed? We've heard about the 2 am log on to the computer on Feb 8th. Seems that was refuted in testimony based on poster's observation. I tried to follow but it kept timing out and the youtube channel was more commercials and expert chatter than testimony! I have resisted going back and listening to the testimony in the evening. Would much rather read a good book. LOL. Thankful for the posters that do that. I think he is guilty but waiting to hear all the evidence. At the rate this is going I could be dead in 6 months. Really feel for these jurors.

 

[Bobcat1]

I have a question for everyone. The call to the QB to cancel the account was first on 2-8-2010 at 2:44pm (IIRC) that day. Can anyone tell me if there is any testimony about the whereabouts of CM on that day at that time when he made the call to QB? Also they show his call at 7:36AM on the 2-8-2010 (shown below), is there any testimony or evidence that tells us where CM was when that call was made?

This is all we know on page Prelim 91-92

28 Q Okay. Now, turning your attention to February 8th, what
92
1 did your analysis of the defendant's records that day reveal?
2 Well, let me ask you this, 'cause we are, we're drawing
3 near on lunchtime.
4 Between 7:36 A.M. and 1:31 P.M., is there any activity on
5 the defendant's --
6 A Between 7:36 and 1:31?
7 Q Correct.
8 A There is one, one incoming call that goes to voice mail,
9 does not generate a cell tower, though. So, there's no location
10 information.

Feb 9th
A At 2:44 P.M., it stated the user canceled QuickBooks

3 online subscription.

4 Q Do you know if that was done via phone call or online?

5 A It was through a call-intake center. It was done on a

6 phone call.

7 Q And did you review the defendant's cell phone records

8 from that date, February 8th, 2010?

9 A Yes, I did.

10 Q At around that time, was there a phone call to QuickBooks

11 online?

12 A Yes, there was.

13 Q And how long does that, how long did that call last?

14 A The phone call lasted 107 minutes.

15 Q The next day, February 9th, was there any other activity

16 on the QuickBooks account?

17 A Yes.

18 Q And what happened on February 9th, based on your review

19 of the records?

20 A At 8:06, 08:06 A.M., it stated: "The user again

21 cancelled QuickBooks online subscription."

22 Q Did anything else happen that day, February 9th?

23 A Yes, there was customer service notes placed on the

24 account.

 

[dlkutac]

I would agree, as evidence is presented, that presumption of innocence will be impacted, but wouldn't it be important to the concept of due process, to hear all the evidence before coming to a determination?

Isn't a fair trial predicated on the belief that it is only with the totality of the evidence that we can make a fair and impartial determination as to guilt?

Wow, love this question. Impartial due process as it relates to the presumption of innocence? Bottom line, imo...I don't think it's humanly possible because of the nature of the human brain.

As a juror, you begin at innocent. As testimony accumulates, it becomes part of the process. That process, which comes naturally to humans, is to categorize information based on recognizable patterns. That is how we label and file things in our brain to make sense of information.

As information is obtained, we assign a value of importance based on how it is fits or doesn't fit into a perceived pattern - in this case, pattern of guilt or pattern of innocence. A juror is aware of the overall balance as the information accumulates, and while they certainly can say they are not leaning one way or another, they are definitely aware of the tipping of the scale. The opinion being formed is fluid. It has to be in order to know where to focus when going into deliberations. Otherwise, every single thing that was presented during trial would have to be discussed all over again to be assigned a value. Obviously, much of the testimony is re-discussed in deliberations, and that is where individual categorizations can be changed to have more or less weight. I don't believe you can listen to six months of testimony and truly have no opinion as to which way the scale is tipping. Due process doesn't really exist as technically defined. It exists a fluid process, not a fixed one.

At websleuths, we are not held to the standards of jurors, which allows us to formulate theories that may be completely wacky. Frankly, I think trying to set up a separate thread to "act" like we're jurors is absurd. We've been exposed to way to0 much information to try to revert to a clean slate.

 

[mrjitty]

Completely agree

You know what amazes me? If true that he staged the crime scene, the moxie he had to pull that off. How could he be confident that no one would notice? How did he come and go? Where did he park? No doubt he came under cover of darkness, but still how did he go unnoticed? We've heard about the 2 am log on to the computer on Feb 8th. Seems that was refuted in testimony based on poster's observation. I tried to follow but it kept timing out and the youtube channel was more commercials and expert chatter than testimony! I have resisted going back and listening to the testimony in the evening. Would much rather read a good book. LOL. Thankful for the posters that do that. I think he is guilty but waiting to hear all the evidence. At the rate this is going I could be dead in 6 months. Really feel for these jurors.

All the cases I have followed have staging - ranging from 10 mins to overnight to days. I suspect it's rather a needs must situation

Staging is the thing that really appeals to my inner nerd - because you need to write a script, and choreograph

So you've just done some murder. Stupidly you've done the murder(s) in a dumb place/way that requires staging.

IMO the incentives are in favour of staging for as long as you can, because if you only have one night, you will make significant mistakes.

The McStay case involves significant staging on any view. By rights the family are tucked up in bed.

To make it look like they are "missing" you need to drive their car to the border and hide them in a shallow desert grave. At the minimum you need to force them out of their house. At the maximum you need to clean up a 4x murder.

Yes it requires moxie - but what are the other choices?

 

[citygirl]

Wow, love this question. Impartial due process as it relates to the presumption of innocence? Bottom line, imo...I don't think it's humanly possible because of the nature of the human brain.

As a juror, you begin at innocent. As testimony accumulates, it becomes part of the process. That process, which comes naturally to humans, is to categorize information based on recognizable patterns. That is how we label and file things in our brain to make sense of information.

As information is obtained, we assign a value of importance based on how it is fits or doesn't fit into a perceived pattern - in this case, pattern of guilt or pattern of innocence. A juror is aware of the overall balance as the information accumulates, and while they certainly can say they are not leaning one way or another, they are definitely aware of the tipping of the scale. The opinion being formed is fluid. It has to be in order to know where to focus when going into deliberations. Otherwise, every single thing that was presented during trial would have to be discussed all over again to be assigned a value. Obviously, much of the testimony is re-discussed in deliberations, and that is where individual categorizations can be changed to have more or less weight. I don't believe you can listen to six months of testimony and truly have no opinion as to which way the scale is tipping. Due process doesn't really exist as technically defined. It exists a fluid process, not a fixed one.

At websleuths, we are not held to the standards of jurors, which allows us to formulate theories that may be completely wacky. Frankly, I think trying to set up a separate thread to "act" like we're jurors is absurd. We've been exposed to way to much information to try to revert to a clean slate.

Great summation. Do you know if the jurors are allowed to take notes?

 

[mrjitty]

The more I have come to know the details of the case (and I have come late to it) the more i am convinced the critical question is not how the crime scene was staged but why.

What's the reason to put the bodies in a shallow grave and put the Trooper at the border?

why not just let the bodies be found?

 

[JMarsh]

Thanks for this! I have highlighted in red which days are FRI, SAT, SUN, there is clearly a pattern. For the most part, they didn't speak much on Sat/Sun. At first I was going to reply that this actually shows that the lack of communication after the 4th is telling (which it still is); however, I am not so sure about the lack of communication on the Fri/Sat/Sun would be as telling ... but come Monday, it's definitely out of the ordinary for there not to be a bunch of calls.

They met on the 4th. They didn't need to speak by phone as much.

Just high lite the post you want - right click - copy - and paste over here in the Reply box. Put [ quote = Tortoise ] in front of the stuff - and at the end put [ / quote ] without the spaces!



In a court of law - yes! But this is a discussion forum - so people have already decided or close to it - or NOT! on guilt or innocence.... JMO

So then, evidence doesn't really matter? I think I'm beginning to understand. This is for entertainment? Not really to know for certain if they have the right person on trial?

 

[JMarsh]

Presumption of innocence places the burden of proof on the state. That's it. That's what it means. The state does not presume CM is innocent. Nor does a juror have to "presume innocence". The jury is in essence a blackbox. They can make their minds up one way or other at any time.

If I were a juror, I currently believe CM to be guilty.

Of course that could change if the defence come out with game changing evidence.

Well yes, but we haven't even finished with the state's case, and the rebuttal to that is also part of the determining of the validity of the state's case. I get that we are on a blog and that this is really more about being entertained than anything else. I'm just surprised an attorney isn't more adamant about hearing all the evidence before deciding. But I respect your position.