Remember though, 10 DID vote for death. So, for those ten, everything WAS bad enough to outweigh all the mitigating evidence. The prosecution's case was enough to get them to vote for death. I submit it was two who had a soft spot for drunks/substance abusers, coupled with the fact that he wouldn't be a threat to harm more women (or anyone else, for that matter) since he would be in prison, that let him live.
This is why I *hate* that death penalty imposition has to be unanimous. IT is nearly impossible to get 12 people to hold the same opinion about any matter, no matter what it is. When only 1-2 jurors can stop the will of 10-11, then it means that instead of mitigating factors likely being truly present such that a significant percentage of society as a whole could see them and agree with them, we have a situation where 1-2 outliers have a particular hangup or soft spot that they can't see past.
IF it is unsolved, it will be because he won't help solve it. He has nothing to lose now, especially if he doesn't appeal. If he doesn't communicate what he did with her, then it means he is more than happy to know that her family and friends will suffer from ambiguous loss forever.....
The 'death' part of the penalty was well sorted out during and prior to jury selection, it got the works, outside professionals even engaged by both sides, jury questionnaires... every single juror selected for that trial had convinced a large panel of lawyers and a judge that their own principles, beliefs, moral and ethical selves were not in opposition to death as penalty.
So, in a way it is moot because death rarely means actual death and on the rare occasions it happens it's usually very many years after the trial and several long winded and extraordinarily expensive appeals.
So their verdict was not about their moral convictions on death or life..
It concerned the severity of the crime and the implications and collateral damage to all and sundry.
They voted for guilt because they had no choice. All of them.
So, taking death squeamishness out of the result, whether it's one or all 12, what could be their possible reasons for not going for the higher, more severe punishment because they too know that a DP is rarely a DP and is many years away.
We do not actually know that their amateur pharmaceutical analysis of drug interactions came from the 2 that voted against the most severe punishment.
I would really deeply love to hear their thoughts and rationale.
I wonder whether it is because they felt that insufficient evidence was presented to prove he did what he actually said he did on the tape?
It's a possibility.
The Future dangerousness is also strange because prisons are actually pretty dangerous places.. I was reading an article yesterday on Colombo's max security prison, hoping spitefully they would send him there...