Chase Merritt Charged W/Murder of Joseph, Summer, Gianni and Joe Jr McStay #4

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What will be interesting to see is how the DT chooses to cross examine the state witnesses.

I have seen other defense attorneys who made big blunders during crossing witnesses especially witnesses who are family members.

I don't think this DT can contain themselves even if it's better for their client.

They know this is the last time to show out for the camera aka documentary.

Imoo
 
If Mike is recalled the state needs to ask him how it felt for the defense to imply he was involved in the murder of his own brother, and family.

Imo

I wonder how much CM'S family will continue to purjure themselves. And this is why I have no sympathy for them, except for the underage child. As he is hostage to his situation. The rest know exactly the type of person he is. It will all come out this week, and those testifying on his behalf will look like fools.
 
I wonder how much CM'S family will continue to purjure themselves. And this is why I have no sympathy for them, except for the underage child. As he is hostage to his situation. The rest know exactly the type of person he is. It will all come out this week, and those testifying on his behalf will look like fools.

We can look for it to continue. Imo.

Imo, juries expect this from family members of the convicted. It's what they do even if it means telling untruths.

Imo, jurors know these family members have biases so just like they discounted their testimony in the trial they will do the same in this phase.

Believe me Imes or Melissa is going to remind the jury CM showed no mercy at all for the four he brutally murdered with a sledgehammer.

I feel some sympathy for convicted defendants children.

They dont realize they are only being used as pawns. CM has long shown he doesnt care about anyone including CJ, and his three children.

I will be appalled if they put his young son on the stand, and imo the jury will be too.

Imo
 
Criminal Court Process

Death Penalty Case
Prosecutors call a death penalty case in California, a “special circumstances” case. Under California law, there are only limited murder cases in which the death penalty may be sought against a defendant.

The criteria for a death penalty are so-called special circumstances and the law is very specific on what special circumstances may be alleged. Special circumstances include: intentional murder for financial gain, multiple murder, and murder by a destructive device such as a bomb or other type of explosive, murder to avoid arrest, murders by lying in wait, murder during a robbery, kidnaping, rape or other crime, etc. The categories of special circumstances are found in Section 190.2 of the California Penal Code.

In a death penalty trial, the first phase deals with the guilt or innocence of the defendant. If a defendant is convicted of first-degree murder, the jury at that time must determine if the special circumstance(s) alleged by the prosecutor is true. If true, the second phase—the penalty phase—of the trial is held. The penalty phase consists of opening statements, testimony and closing arguments by both sides on why the defendant should or should not receive the death penalty. If evidence in the guilt phase of the trial can be called clinical, evidence in the penalty phase can be viewed as extremely emotional.

This is the portion of the trial in which the prosecutors try to persuade the jurors that the defendant should die for taking the life of another human being. Defense attorneys, meanwhile, pull out all the stops—including tearful testimony from mothers, fathers, children, wives, husbands, and friends—to show why the defendant should not die for what he did.
In a special circumstances case there are only two possible verdicts: death or life without the possibility of parole. If a jury is unable to decide the question, a mistrial is declared by the trial judge and it is up to the prosecution to determine whether it wants to retry that phase of the case before a new jury or settle on the sentence of life without the possibility of parole. After the jury reaches its decision on the penalty, a date is scheduled for formal imposition of the sentence by the trial judge.

A defense attorney can ask the trial judge to overturn a jury’s verdict of death and instead give the defendant life without the possibility of parole. The defendant himself might beg for his life during this proceeding. It would be extremely rare for the trial judge to change the recommended sentence, however, since jurists are loath to overturn verdicts by a jury. And, of course, the prosecution would be adamant that the jury verdict stand. In California, all death penalty convictions are automatically appealed directly to the state Supreme Court.
 
Tuesday, June 11th:
*Penalty Phase starts (@ 9:30am PT) - CA - McStay Family: Joseph (40), Summer (43), Gianni (4) & Joey Jr (3) (Feb. 4, 2010, Fallbrook; found Nov. 11, 2013) - *Charles "Chase" Ray Merritt aka Charles Ray Mandel aka Charles Ray Morritt aka Chase Meredith aka Chase Jarvis (57/now 62) arrested (11/5/14) & indicted (11/7/14) of 4 counts of murder with special circumstance; plead not guilty. DP case.
Trial started 1/7/19. Dark on all Fridays. Jurors started with 8 women & 4 men; now have 9 women & 3 men (alternates started with 4 men & 2 women-alternates left 1 men & 1 woman). Took about 22 hours of deliberations for guilty verdict.
Trial Days (1-63: 1/7/19 thru 6/7/19) reference post #535 here:
GUILTY - Closing Arguments- Chase Merritt Charged W/Murder of Joseph, Summer, Gianni and Joe Jr McStay #3
6/10/19 Verdict: Guilty of first-degree murder for all 4 McStay family members. Finding of multiple murder special circumstance, true. Merritt now faces a possible death penalty. The same jury will hear evidence in the penalty phase. Starts 9:30 a.m. Tuesday 6/11. The state estimates they'll take 3 days for the penalty phase, defense 2 days.
 
The DT should always be mindful they are in front of a jury that knows BARD CM is a baby killer.

They cannot pizz them off by implying they got it wrong. All that will do is insult the jury.

I really doubt this DT will care about any of that, and will go full throttle when completing their pro defense documentary drama rama!

Imo
 
Last edited:
:) Good Morning, Y'all !

I am going to TRY to watch at least some of the Penalty Phase today ... and I will behave ... LOL

Anyway ... I need some help with inserting smileys if anyone can please help, or send me instructions.

Thanks.
 
I'm following along silently and just wanted to pop in to thank everyone for their thoughtful commentary. I'm so glad there was a guilty verdict yesterday. I hope this brings some form of comfort to the family and friends of Joseph, Summer, Gianni and Joe jr.
 
What you describe makes me think of “wound collecting.” It’s a common trait of mass murderers, and I suspect it’s what brought Chase to to the point of killing the McStay family.

On Wound Collectors

Interesting article. However, I would venture this: At the bottom of "wound collecting" is narcissism. Most of us realize that, in the grand scheme of things, insults and injustices are part and parcel of life, and that we're not so "special" that we should be exempt from such. We eventually realize in life that we can overlook all but the worst of it (experiencing some of it keeps us humble!) and seek justice for the rest, rather than vengeance.
 
:) Good Morning, Y'all !

I am going to TRY to watch at least some of the Penalty Phase today ... and I will behave ... LOL

Anyway ... I need some help with inserting smileys if anyone can please help, or send me instructions.

Thanks.

Click the smilie face in the posting window toolbar to get the (small) selection we have on this format. There is an extended set but I'm not sure where it's located, maybe someone else knows and can assist.
 
rsbm

What I've observed in this case, in general and not specific to any particular poster, is that some who said they didn't think the evidence was sufficient for a conviction didn't progress from this stance as the trial unfolded. The trial is not opening statements, it's a fluid thing, things were not crossed off lists as they fell to the unreasonable or downright obviously fabricated side, leaving the only one reasonable conclusion. And then there are others who are and were always fixed on a different perpetrator or group of perpetrators at the start of trial and didn't follow the trial, who persist with incorrect facts and still insist the only evidence against Merritt was theft of money which is not evidence of murder.

I'll give some examples of what the evidence proved while opinions did not shift -

Cathy Jarvis admitted in conversation with Merritt in the jail in February this year that she does not know where Merritt was that night. Wave goodbye to your alibi right there Merritt - her testimony was perjury. We can forget anything and everything else she said, including Merritt getting cheques on the 4th.

The phone call from Joey's phone at 8.28 that night that did not connect to Merritt's phone which was off the grid she could not have seen.

She was calling him from 6 pm and he wasn't answering for 3 1/2 hours.

Merritt uttered the first ever lie in February 2010 that Joseph wanted to delete QB (custom account) to hide money from Summer. The hiding QB from Dan was an attorney/client fabrication for trial and the DKDI defence. Where's the critical thinking?

What are the reasonable possibilities for who could have raised the cheque in the house at 8 pm that night in the same peculiar manner cheques were raised that week and the next? Who? Joseph the account owner or Chase the payee. Once you know that they were murdered and buried and not traipsing across the border, in what world is it reasonable to assume Joseph and Summer were alive after that critical event but not using their phones? In what world is it reasonable to assume that Chase unknowingly raised a cheque with the exact same memo line next day? Or that Joseph would print a cheque alignment page and try to create a cheque he'd already asked Chase that day to write, and then just leave it mangled in his printer, or would delete it same as Chase did on a cheque which had a forged signature on the 2nd; that someone a ghost maybe but not Chase would go back and try to bury the QB activity in the early hours of the 8th but that Chase would as a matter of coincidence call QB that day and the next to delete QB custom from the cloud; that Chase would backdate cheques to the only possible last date Joseph was alive to write cheques. Where's the critical thinking, or discussion of what is reasonable?

It's more than theft - as all these many MANY incriminating details illustrate - it's what happened in the house at 8 pm on the 4th, the forgery before the 4th, Joseph's calls to the bank and log in to QB sandwiched in between all the while bombing along the freeway to Rancho, Chases's phone activity that lunch time, Joseph's last call to Chase coinciding with Chase's phone going dark, Cathy's fabricated (null) evidence, and the attempts to wipe QB in the days afterwards before reporting Joseph missing.

Supplemented by knowing Chase with his phone was in the desert where the family was buried. Not explained by the defence as some postulate without pointing to a shred of evidence and not a whiff of Vlad. Who needed them missing? - as McGee pointed out in his opening. This was more than murder, it was a need to hide the family and evidence of murder. The Trooper was staged for the wild goose chase and whose evidence was in it? Not some other random unidentified profile - Chase's.

So finally, upwards of 11 touch-DNA profiles in the graves. But none belonging to the McStays, proving BRD that those touch-DNA results are not representative of what went into the graves over 9 years ago.

It's frightening to think some have 'convicted' DK or Mike in their own minds, based on early dislike and prejudice, accused SBSD of tunnel vision and bias based on nothing, but maybe malice, all the while ignoring their own biases, and ignoring the evidence in this trial.

It's fruitless IMO to keep stating over and over again that reasonable doubt exists all the while refusing to acknowledge the number of convoluted and mostly ridiculous (and as we've seen brazenly fabricated) alternative explanations that are required, most of which don't pass the smell test but none of which do when viewed all together, and not recognizing what totality of evidence means in this case. I have to wonder about some people's motives for maintaining a position throughout a trial which revealed the answers and much more about the underhanded tactics of the DT and their attempts to sabotage the trial since their case flopped with the jailhouse tapes, particularly when the prosecution did not overstate their case in opening speeches and many jumped off that to say they thought then he was guilty but the prosecution didn't prove what they set out to.

MOO

(sorry I got a bit of a bee in my bonnet this morning. :D )

Awesome post

I think we talked about this in the context of DK. People refuse to confront the evidence

I get it at the start of the trial when malone lied when he knew DKs alibi since 2016 but there is really no excuse after DKs alibi emerged at trial in all its wonderful detail
 
:p:D:p:D
Click the smilie face in the posting window toolbar to get the (small) selection we have on this format. There is an extended set but I'm not sure where it's located, maybe someone else knows and can assist.

:) Hello,

Thank you. And yes, I am looking for the "extended set" ... I luv the smileys !

:p:D:p:D
 
Thank you.

I believe the documentary will be uppermost in their minds.

JMO

Absolutely. I wouldn't be surprised if a makeup artist does their makeup before their grand dramatic ending. Jk or maybe not! Lol!

Tortoise, before we get started on this important phase, I wanted to tell you what a wonderful asset you have been throughout the trial.

You have been so thoughtful taking your time to transcribe so much for all of us or when laying out all of the facts making them easier to understand.

Oh, and your 'bee in your bonnet' awesome post this morning shows how intelligent you are, and how you express yourself extremely well.

Thank you for all of your hardwork. I know everyone deeply appreciates it as much as I do.

Hugs to you my friend.

Jmho
 
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