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Good morning from Pike Co. End of Week 8 for the Pike Co. massacre trial for George Wagner IV. First up is evidentiary hearing with no jury at 9 a.m. Going over what can be used in wiretaps. Then BCI's Ryan Scheiderer and Julia Eveslage on the stand - both on camera
Rob Junk the Pike Co prosecutor is apparently sick. He wants prosecutor to proceed without him. Judge willing to grant postpone the hearing if they wanted. But prosecutors are willing to go forward. Wilson - OK with moving forward
Wilson says only concern is appearance to jury of not having county prosecutor at the table. Asks for instruction to jury. Defense says it doesn't matter to them. They have 21-24 transcripts of wiretaps to go through.
Prosecutor says defense has transcripts, this is about which ones are actually going to be introduced.
Parker says they had no way of knowing which ones they were going to use. Prosecutor Wilson agrees but that they didn't want to lock themselves in
They need to go through all the transcripts and clips of recordings maybe do that today with no jury. Wilson also says the defense will get the case Monday or Tuesday.
Wilson: law says we can use listening aids when quality is poor. They also need to argue evidence regarding the truck.
- BCI built false bed to copy what Jake testified to. They want to clarify that.
They also used undercover agents with masks on to recreate what it looked like ... but they did it again without masks on to take pictures of recreated false bed.
Defense lawyer Parker - problem Jake never identified it during his testimony. Never gave defense picture during testimony as well.
Parker: also says the truck was changed after Katy Wagner got it. That's a problem. Also says the hay supposedly on top wasn't included in the demonstration/recreation
Judge asks why prosecution didn't ask Jake about "contraption" they built to recreate. Canepa - not intentional thing to omit.
Original pictures showed shooting positions under the truck, but prosecution "forgot" to do that the second time. Wilson - only reason to do that is to rebut defense argument that there wasn't enough space for George and Jake
Canepa says defense had as much access to truck as prosecution. But defense says there were delayed delayed delayed. Wilson also says argument George wasn't there only came up at beginning of trial.
Defense denies that - saying George denied it in Montana. But prosecution says so did Jake and Angela at the Montana border.
Prosecutor: defense arguing George too big to get into compartment, so they have to rebut that. Took photos on Thursday when Jake was on stand. Got very testy between Canepa and Parker.
Judge Deering says if he allows truck pictures, jury needs to be instructed to provide weight as they see fit. On the transcripts and snippets - they have the weekend to review. He is going to allow truck pictures as long as foundation laid with jury instruction
Wilson argues precedent allows transcripts - and that they were conservative with U/I for unintelligble for parts. Also need to resolve issues with defense on whether there is disagreement on what was said. And that a jury instruction would be needed.
So today is cancelled for trial - and jury will be sent home. Final decision on the transcripts and wiretap snippets will be played will be made Monday.
Defense will be calling their witnesses starting Monday - out of order but the jury will be made aware of that.
Any explanations of the transcripts will be removed for the jury as well.
