GUILTY HI - Carly Joann 'Charli' Scott, 27, pregnant, Makawao, 9 Feb 2014 - #7

[heartgoesout]

I think Rivera "playing it safe" by not committing to a theory as you suggest Pua, in my opinion could be the downfall. No jury is going to convict if they walk away feeling like they don't know what happened and certainly if they feel the prosecution appears not to know what happened... with only circumstantial evidence.
I hope I'm wrong on that.

Questions I still have.
How the heck did he pull off the timeline?
Did he have help?
How did such little bone fragments turn up without the use of a power tool? A small serrated knife couldn't have done that.
What was the actual case of death?
Where is she? and how was she disposed of?
I'm not asking in the sense of our discussions on here, I'm asking from a jurors point of view.

 

[puakenikeni]

"We are unable to reach a decision on both convictions.
We are too divided"

Sounds like separate verdicts......both hung. Brooke thinks the indecision on the arson charge due to tight timeline might be affecting the murder charge decision.
Let's hope Apo-Antics do not prevail.

Thank you for that, MM.
I heard "both counts" rather than both convictions, which would be a loaded term given there is not yet a presumption of conviction, but the point is not affected whichever wording is right.

I take the too divided to refer not to numbers but to the gap in belief. At least one juror is perceived as being too far from changing his or her mind for there to be hope of agreement. But then, a juror steps up and says that they don't all believe this. Did the foreman write the #19 communication quoted above? Was the foreman more frustrated and out of hope than others in the group, and trying to call it hung before its time?

 

[Loio]

I don't mean to blame Rivera either. He had a huge task before him and I am still in awe of the amount of resources given to the investigation of Charli's disappearance and subsequent murder. I just wish he had a little more finesse and tied everything together the way we've all come accustomed to. If Rivera and Jones had to send a single tweet on the State's case against SC, what would it say?

 

[heartgoesout]

I'd also like to reiterate to Kimberlyn, Brooke, Phaedra, Fiona and all of Charli's beloved family and friends how very sorry I am. It's an awful feeling to feel the courts have left you down. Keep fighting for the law to inform family of hearings and important court happenings. I've been there and it really sucks.

 

[heartgoesout]

I don't mean to blame Rivera either. He had a huge task before him and I am still in awe of the amount of resources given to the investigation of Charli's disappearance and subsequent murder. I just wish he had a little more finesse and tied everything together the way we've all come accustomed to. If Rivera and Jones had to send a single tweet on the State's case against SC, what would it say?

Great question. Maybe...wish we would have paid more attention to that hair submittal deadline, or better yet and I think more accurate... the law ties our hands and there's so much that's not known about what we are allowed by law to do and say.

 

[puakenikeni]

I don't mean to blame Rivera either. He had a huge task before him and I am still in awe of the amount of resources given to the investigation of Charli's disappearance and subsequent murder. I just wish he had a little more finesse and tied everything together the way we've all come accustomed to. If Rivera and Jones had to send a single tweet on the State's case against SC, what would it say?

agree, and the public is used to legal dramas where a theory and storyline is presented clearly and vigorously, because it's fiction and that is what people want in drama. Real crime like this doesn't follow the screenwriter rules, and yes, Rivera had a tough job."

A tweet encapsulating their case?
"How about: liar liar pants on fire!

 

[heartgoesout]

Kapua, was the muddied green cell phone case that was found in Stevens truck ever said out loud in court that it was hers? I don't think it was. And if it was hers and not said, why not? Surely someone could testify that it was her case, even have a picture or a receipt of it.

 

[Mamamerced]

Thank you for that, MM.
I heard "both counts" rather than both convictions, which would be a loaded term given there is not yet a presumption of conviction, but the point is not affected whichever wording is right.

I take the too divided to refer not to numbers but to the gap in belief. At least one juror is perceived as being too far from changing his or her mind for there to be hope of agreement. But then, a juror steps up and says that they don't all believe this. Did the foreman write the #19 communication quoted above? Was the foreman more frustrated and out of hope than others in the group, and trying to call it hung before its time?

I get the impression the juror who asked to talk with Cardoza was implying s/he and others might be feeling a bit badgered by at least one juror to not have the courage of their own beliefs. Hope that is not the case.
I find your thought very interesting about it possibly being the foreman trying to call it hung before its time.

http://www.mauinews.com/news/local-news/2016/12/jury-were-divided/

 

[puakenikeni]

I think Rivera "playing it safe" by not committing to a theory as you suggest Pua, in my opinion could be the downfall. No jury is going to convict if they walk away feeling like they don't know what happened and certainly if they feel the prosecution appears not to know what happened... with only circumstantial evidence.
I hope I'm wrong on that.

Questions I still have.
How the heck did he pull off the timeline?
Did he have help?
How did such little bone fragments turn up without the use of a power tool? A small serrated knife couldn't have done that.
What was the actual case of death?
Where is she? and how was she disposed of?
I'm not asking in the sense of our discussions on here, I'm asking from a jurors point of view.

Yes, I completely agree, all excellent questions the jurors would have.

Rivera did explain that circumstantial evidence is not lesser than eyewitness. Witnesses can lie or perceive things incorrectly.
Circumstantial evidence is just a set of facts where one uses reasoning power to make sense of them, he explained.
But I totally agree about the bias against it.

Playing it vague allowed him to focus on his legal burden of proof, which he met. It prevented Apo from being able to grab at even more assertions of how it went and point out that the state could not prove that. The problem is that even closing arguments must be or should be based on the facts in evidence. Rivera played by those rules and Apo did not.

He argued that Charli was wearing an ice cream dress and not the black skirt, which was ridiculous. Her sisters knew she had changed before dinner. They were the last to see her before she encountered Steven. The ice cream dress was at Charli's house. Apo argued ridiculous points and had to be admonished by the judge. One can only imagine the chaos Apo would have made if Rivera tried to lay out a straightforward story with unproven elements, which is all he had.

The painful truth is that for every story one can lay out, there are others that could also be valid, due to elements that are unknown.

 

[heartgoesout]

agree, and the public is used to legal dramas where a theory and storyline is presented clearly and vigorously, because it's fiction and that is what people want in drama. Real crime like this doesn't follow the screenwriter rules, and yes, Rivera had a tough job."

A tweet encapsulating their case?
"How about: liar liar pants on fire!

I disagree. The jury doesn't want theatrics they want the crime to make sense. Not jumbled pieces. I agree, too much crime TV skews reality of what really happens in a court room but the brain needs a visual, or a story if you will, that ties the evidence to a believable and understandable happenings. Not well go figure it out for yourselves.

 

[MakaniKitty]

Amen to that, Pua. Apo should've been reined in from the start. I believe he's the primary reason this trial went on so long, he objected to damn near everything and put up the most ridiculous arguments. He wasted tons of time and this should not have been allowed, IMO.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

 

[puakenikeni]

I get the impression the juror who asked to talk with Cardoza was implying s/he and others might be feeling a bit badgered by at least one juror to not have the courage of their own beliefs. Hope that is not the case.
I find your thought very interesting about it possibly being the foreman trying to call it hung before its time.

http://www.mauinews.com/news/local-news/2016/12/jury-were-divided/

Badgering sounds likely to me. A strong or dominant personality making forceful arguments maybe. Maybe they are tired of dealing with that. But then when reality hits of what they have just done to all that time and work and the family hoping for a bit of justice, they shake it off and remember they have a tough job and a duty?
But do the majority see a crack where the holdout(s) could be open to new reasoning?

 

[heartgoesout]

SBM ..."But do the majority see a crack OR are the holdout(s) open to new reasoning?

This.^ The scary question of the hour.

 

[puakenikeni]

I disagree. The jury doesn't want theatrics they want the crime to make sense. Not jumbled pieces. I agree, too much crime TV skews reality of what really happens in a court room but the brain needs a visual, or a story if you will, that ties the evidence to a believable and understandable happenings. Not well go figure it out for yourselves.

I think we actually agree more than you think. I'm not saying they want theatrics, but agreeing with you that they want a story, a way to think about what happened both in visuals and in chronology.

By bringing up TV drama, I only meant that it usually follows rules of laying out a story, and seldom does a crime drama take the path of not offering closure and certainty. Some of the less formulaic ones do now, and are more like real life.

A mystery novel is similar. At the end, the detective or other investigator takes all the weird facts that seemed impossible to connect and explains them in a way that finally makes sense.

People want that ...

 

[Mamamerced]

Badgering sounds likely to me. A strong or dominant personality making forceful arguments maybe. Maybe they are tired of dealing with that. But then when reality hits of what they have just done to all that time and work and the family hoping for a bit of justice, they shake it off and remember they have a tough job and a duty?
But do the majority see a crack where the holdout(s) could be open to new reasoning?

Hopefully the two requested transcripts will accomplish that. We can only hope.

 

[heartgoesout]

Detective Kenda, Homicide Hunter...
there's always that twist at the end where it's not who you thought it would be in the beginning.
Totally agree with crime TV skewing storylines for drama. But there's always that aha! moment where it makes sense. Maybe the jury never felt that aha! moment where the evidence makes sense. Because it many ways it still doesn't. I agree that the reasonable doubt has been met and circumstantial evidence instructions should be adhered to but there's always that little voice inside a jurors head...am I making the right decision. I don't envy them. This has to be a nightmare for them.

 

[Loio]

Pua, you asked if any of the jurors seemed likely to be pro-defense and in my opinion only, I think Tom Selleck's counterpart, right smack in the center the action is trouble. Forgive me for judging a book by it's cover because he's a good looking guy and I don't know him personally but he had the body language of an intelligent and well read individual. I always felt he would take up sides with the defense.

I wrongly judge people's character by their shoes and this guy wore tidy sneakers and loafers.

 

[Loio]

I feel like I missed the aha! moment too. Rivera closed strong though, made me wonder where that drive came from all of a sudden.

On a side note, Rivera and Wendy Osher were both on a judging panel for the Miss Maui pageant in November. Seems like that would've been a conflict of interest having a city prosecutor as a judge.

 

[Kapua]

The ping was 10:56 or basically 11:00 PM.

Was the arson smoke at 12:30 or was it earlier?
He left Haiku at earliest 8:45 and went to Paraquat's, went into thick jungle at pathless night, killed her, and then on to Nahiku and Hana and either back the same way to Peahi or around through Kaupo--all in under 4 hours.

I think there is time if he did little or nothing with the body (after the murder) that night.

I think it is hard to relate to how someone plans a murder and does not plan to take care of the evidence right away. That part took me a long time to accept. That is where they need to buy into the maggot timeline and the covering and uncovering.

Rivera played it safe in closing by not committing to a theory of just how it happened. However, there's all this testimony and evidence yet no coherent narrative of the timeline, no story that puts all the pieces (no reference to dismemberment intended) together coherently.

10:56 then. Whatever. Let's not quibble over 10 min.

My point was that the phone pinged close to 11 and us Websleuthers were trying to make sense of the timeline following Jennifer Taylor's testimony that she saw him in Hana between 9:30 p.m. and 11:30 and Taylor Farner's testimony that she saw him between midnight and 2 AM. And someone can refresh my memory about when those 2 witnesses smelled smoke. Check the Timeline and Media Links thread for the estimated travel times and you can see why the jury would have the *same* challenges with reconciling the timeline.

 

[heartgoesout]

Playing off Loio's post. If you had one doubt of guilt in this case what would it be?

For me I think I have answered most of my own questions of who, what, when, where, why and how, if even simply enough beyond a reasonable doubt for a guilty verdict.

Who. Steven Capobianco. He is the only one with evidence of lies surrounding Charli's disappearance.
What. Murdered Charli and Joshua.
When. In the late hours of February 9th 2014. Evidence puts him there.
Where. Either in her vehicle or in the jungle of Paraquats.
Why. He did not want a child nor Charli ruining his perceived life.
How. I don't know. This is the part my one doubt would come in. This includes the timeline and how he managed to do this horrendous crime with a serrated knife only.