That pre-trial hearing (10/6) video sure is interesting, for lots of reasons, but most specifically for what it reveals about DT strategy, and how receptive JSS was to key elements of it before retrial even began.
Nurmi didn't want to touch those forged pedo letters with a ten foot pole. He was hostile and demeaning towards JM before the retrial even began. He intended from the get-go to stall and delay the retrial with the computer carp. JSS, without hesitation, granted Nurmi's every request for a sealed hearing. Witnesses were already cloaked in secrecy, including the State's expert witnesses, and referred to by number. Nurmi did drop his objections to Karp testifying, so unless that issue came up again later on, JM must have decided against calling Karp.
The witness intimidation meme was fully developed, and being used to lay the ground work for JSS allowing witness by nameless affidavit:
MM was supposedly prepared to testify, but according to the DT his name was leaked, now he is afraid for himself, and for his wife and children if he did so. Nurmi says he’s withdrawing MM as a witness.
(Of note about Nurmi saying he's withdrawing MM. I doubt he ever intended to call him to the stand anyway, but.......JM indicates that he's received info that it was MM looking at *advertiser censored* on the Bishop's computer. The DT was trying to force JM to reveal his sources for that info (work product, doubt JSS made JM do so). JM says he'll clear it up with MM when he speaks to him. JSS asks JM the incredibly insulting question of - do you have a good faith basis for asking MM about this or are you (fishing). This after JM has just told her he had sources).
Wilmott replies to JSS's question about the "leak" well, the defense didn't do it. The information about MM appeared on the J4T website. In case JSS didn't get it, she follows up with---that's a support site for the victim, your honor. (minute 48 or so in tape--check out the body language of the whole DT and JA while they are pitching this carp to JSS. Pretty revealing).
JM replies the only folks speaking to the media are JA and the DT, and that the State had nothing to do with the leak. He asks Nurmi if MM is no longer testifying does that mean the interview set for 10/16 has been cancelled. Nurmi says yes.
Nurmi lays out what MM would have testified to about finding child *advertiser censored* on the computer, and the "confession" by Travis he had been molested as a child. Nurmi says that MM testimony supports JA's guilt phase testimony for which she had been called a liar and that it was crucial for her mitigation.
He doubles down that MM has been threatened (no evidence) . He acknowledges that yes, MM could be forced to testify by subpoena ...but never says why he won't force MM or anyone else to do so, just glides right past that and launches into his justification that scared witnesses meant JA's been deprived of her right to fully actualized mitigation.
JM responds: states his belief that the DT doesn't really want MM to testify. That the whole MM story the DT is telling, start to finish, is about creating a record for appeals. That the DT is deliberately trying to sabotage the process, including by refusing to force reluctant witnesses into court.
JM cites Karp. The State issued a subpeona to bring her in, even knowing she'd be a hostile witness. Nurmi replies it was Karp's attorneys who tried to quash, not the DT.
JM is magnificent in his smack down of MM as a liar. He also tells JSS that allowing MM testimony in via DT expert testimony would be patently unfair to the State ...as it wouldn't allow JM to rebut MM's "horrible" lies face to face.
Summary about MM- the DT was playing games with his testimony from the get-go. They wanted MM's lies put on the record, without JM being able to cross him, in order to bolster their guilt phase appeals issue of *advertiser censored* on the computer, as well as to prop up the pedo lie (with more lies). It is unsurprising JM saw all of this so clearly, and maddening that JSS either didn't see it, or saw it but was still bamboozled by the DT's absolutely transparent tripe about witness intimidation.
JSS fell for the MM witness intimidation thing based on nothing more- at best- than a screenshot of a single comment from a social media website (If Wilmott even bothered to supply it).
