I think you are right that the defense case will rest on the lead up to that fateful night, they will portray Molly as the victim consistently in order to draw attention away from the violence of the crime itself. It is for this reason, I believe that they drew attention to the DA 'staring at' Molly, again she is the victim, somehow, anyone connected with Jason victimizes Molly, this can only encourage the jurors to empathize with her.
I find it very interesting that even on a victim friendly forum, the DV element of the case is so biased against Jason. Basing our information solely on what is in the public domain, what we know about the credibility of everyone involved thus far, and the information released about what happened in the house that night (events not consistent with TM account of what happened) there is still overwhelming pressure on the Prosecution to prove that Jason was not an abuser.
On a sidenote - I struggle to make the link between naked&drowsy and explosive rage. So far, IMO there has been no reasonable explanation provided for Jason seemingly going to bed in a normal fashion and the explosive rage that ended in choking of Molly. I would have thought if there had been a build up of tension/arguing to the point he was so wound up he felt the need to choke Molly, that he wouldn't have taken the time to strip naked. The kids being put to bed in such a calm way that they were seemingly able to fall asleep without a problem, and SM & TM felt safe enough to retire to their own bedroom and also fall asleep. How does a situation escalate to the point indicated in the autopsy so quickly? Without waking the rest of the house at least?
IMO, so far none of the information available indicates that the prosecution is any less confident in a conviction. Personally, I think their case is only getting stronger each time the defense is discredited so I would be surprised if they struck a deal.
There is some really interesting information in IPV (intimate partner violence) and the role of gender stereotypes in this area. If the prosecution builds a case around this I believe the defense will have alot of work to do to poke holes in their case, particularly if the information regarding Molly's past is admitted into evidence.
This article in particular has lots of points to note -
https://www.researchgate.net/profil...science-revised-and-stripped-August-25doc.pdf
Some interesting points of note -
The gender paradigm is the view that most domestic violence (DV) is maleperpetrated against females (and children) in order to maintain patriarchy...Research evidence contradicts every major tenet of this belief system: female DV is more frequent than male DV.
Dutton (1994) pointed out how IPV had higher incidence in lesbian relationships, suggesting an explanation in attachment threats rather than gender. -
this could be relevant in relation to Molly and the breakdown of the relationship. This would again support the theory that it was her fear of losing the children that lead to the violence that night.
U.S. national surveys find that mutual violence, matched for level of severity, is the most common form of IPV (Stets & Straus, 1992; Whittaker et al., 2007) and that female IPV against a nonviolent male (husband battering) is 2.5 times as common as wife battering.
The gender paradigm also sees to it that female violence is ignored, discounted as not serious, explained away, and not subjected to state intervention.
Women’s use of IPV, far from being reactive to male violence, is predictable as early as kindergarten age (Serbin et al., 2004) and certainly by their teens -
again, if the information we currently have regarding Molly, particularly the information provided by Keith MacGinn is correct, then Molly may have already displayed a predilection for violence within the home.
When asked about using IPV for selfdefense, the majority of women do not list it as a motive.
The overlap of wife abuse–child abuse in the community is actually only 6% (Appel & Holden, 1998). One should not assume child abuse will occur, even if unilateral spouse abuse has been proven.
in a community sample of 1,615 dual-parent households, McDonald and her colleagues (McDonald et al., 2006) found children were more likely to be exposed to family violence perpetrated by their mothers than by their fathers.
These also include the data on developmental trajectories for female aggression (Ehrensaft, Cohen, & Johnson, 2006; Moffi tt et al., 2001; Serbin et al., 2004), which clearly show that female IPV is not a response to male aggression but follows similar developmental pathways as male aggression, including crystallizing into a personality disorder.
In experimentally controlled studies, the gender of perpetrator and victim determines whether identical actions will be perceived as abusive. The perception of what steps should ensue (arrest if the perpetrator is male) is also infl uenced. This was true both for subjects drawn from the general public and for psychologists. In March of 2008, ABC News ran a staged sequence in which a man harangued a woman on a public park bench (screamed at her and slapped her). People intervened immediately. When the genders were reversed, no one intervened, and one woman cheered on the female perpetrator because she “knew he must have done something—cheated or something.”The Zeitgeist of intimate abuse is thus complete—the abuse is attributed to “something a man must have done.” It is simplifi ed from its complex causes and reduced to a gender explanation—the “availability heuristic” of male abuse—one that is true for only about 6% of all reported DV (Stets & Straus, 1992). Women’s responsibility for contributing to abusive relationships is minimized.
Certainly pertinent info, given the divided views in this regard.
