I would also be concerned that in their desire for someone to 'pay' for the death of a little innocent child that the jury might end up feeling that the lesser charge would at least ensure that MM doesn't walk free even if they have reasonable doubt for the murder charge?
I have a lot of doubts over this demon talk. In Sprinsky's testimony he said he saw MM shut Bella into the closet and he was asked if MM said why he'd done that. Sprinsky said he 'knew' MM had done that because he thought Bella was a demon. Yet RB said MM told her he'd done it because Bella was "being fresh with him".
MM may also have a predisposition to calling young children 'demons' in the same way that others might use the word 'brats'.
So whoever did cause Bella's death, I think it was more likely manslaughter in the sense that they were annoyed by Bella not going to sleep, got frustrated, and the result was Bella's death.
Most times when I read about male partners/fathers killing a child in this situation, though, it's usually quite violent with the child being heavily beaten, shaken, and sometimes thrown.
I don't think we saw (but the jury did) the image of the bruised area on Bella's abdomen. I would be curious if that lines up reasonably with the diaphragm....one of them might have carried Bella back to the bedroom holding her tightly by her arms (leaving the marks on just behind the elbows on each arm?) and then put her roughly on the bed and put a hand on her chest/abdomen area with the ball of the hand quite firm and ended up breaking Bella's breathing circulation? Would that be reasonable? (I obviously don't mean a reasonable way to treat a child but a reasonable explanation for the marks on the body combined with the fact that Bella is deceased).
I think Shapiro tried, though not very well, to suggest to the ME that the second condition offered as possible cause of death (the one where the heart stops suddenly due to a blow) would probably require a much firmer sharper blow, such as that from a thrown football or baseball type object that's been thrown with force behind it....I'm not clear whether or not either of them could have produced such a force in that bedroom situation, and for heavy force to not produce broken bones? Again, I think there has been a severe lack of technical analysis of what can reasonably be implied from the medical/DNA data. It's an awkward situation because you can often find an expert to testify to almost any implication, yet at the same time laypeople do need assistance in understanding what is or isn't a reasonable implication to draw from the evidence presented to them.