Before the trial, I had no opinion G or NG in this case beyond knowing that the husband or BF is the murderer more often than any other single category (e.g. friend, stranger, other family members), but far less often than all other categories.
Since I am still on the fence, my vote was Not Guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and therefore still Presumed Innocent. Somewhat frustrated that the poll did not allow for this option.
This case, by itself, raises many issues that regularly threaten our legal and Constitution rights. At its core is the right to a fair trial, defendants rights including Brady, concept of real evidence in a virtual world, and how woefully equipped are our public institutions, our judges, attorneys, our law enforcement, members of the press, elected officials, and ordinary citizens.
Consider how difficult it already is to evaluate electronic evidence in forensic investigations -- whether provable beyond a reasonable doubt or not. Step back from the Cooper trial, look at the problems from a wider view, and use your common sense. Can you tell the difference between a valid piece of electronic evidence from one that is faked, modified, planted, doctored, or otherwise not what it claims to be? Could a jury if you were on trial?
One can suddenly face huge problems with little more than a Shockwave Flash (SWF) delivered to your browser via an email, an ad hosted by a compromised site, or with the SWF attack code embedded in a PDF file embeded in an Excel workbook embedded in a Word document. And on and on.
For this example, suppose you are browsing your favorite real crime site, searching other sites to look at related topics, and one of these sites displays images hosted by a hacked site. That SWF is really a program that executes unseen within your browser session, able to "browse" the web exactly as if done by you but without displaying anything.
Suppose this program downloaded kiddie *advertiser censored*, maybe found and used your credit card info to sign you up for special services, and even used the laptop camera to take the picture of you in your underwear propped up in bed. (Don't worry, your security settings will be set back just like they were.)
If we were a juror, would we have any doubt of the defendant's guilt?
If we were the defendant, could any of us prove that we were innocent?