One of my big concerns is that even people who follow the case and seemingly pay close attention to the facts, sometimes get confused about what Brad had and didn't have, what he said and didn't say, when phone calls were made and were not made and lots of other little items that have to be remembered.
Even some people who watch the testimony, occasionally hear something that differs from what was actually said and the meaning of what they think they heard is changed.
This worries me because it demonstrates that without a big huge obvious smoking gun, people can (perhaps easily) lose focus, some have trouble retaining details, they forget what testimony they heard, they forget what they read and have to be reminded and sometimes literally shown again. This doesn't apply universally to everyone, and I don't mean to imply it does, but I am noticing a general pattern, which I suspect happens in many cases that have lots of little bits of details.
Because we live in a society and culture of TV crime and legal shows in which everything is solved within 42 minutes of air time, often with lots of physical and DNA evidence, and folks have shorter attention spans and cut-to-the-chase expectations, the reality of a case like the Cooper murder case shows these societal traits.
My fear is that the jury won't be able to retain much of anything in their minds, past the most recent hour of what they heard, and only if it's very very simple and clear. The state is going to have to work to break everything down to an 8th graders level, using big colorful and simple pictures and getting them to understand exactly how this murder went down (or likely went down) without getting mired in techie jargon and obscure references. They literally need to use simple words, short sentences, don't get into the lawyer double-negative-speak and use very simple graphics and pictures with something big and RED and flashing for the item they want the jury to focus on and remember. Yes, I'm serious. I'm not being condescending. They need to make it just THAT SIMPLE.
For instance, if they want to show a specific cell tower that Brad's phone pinged off of (the one that happens to be closest to NC's body) then they need to make that tower big and red and have it flashing on the screen...with an arrow pointing to where NC's body was found...and showing the mileage of how close it was. I believe the jury will need to see that kind of super obvious pointer.
If they want to highlight and have attention on a specific call at a specific time, they need to brightly highlight that line item in color, make it big, and point to the thing they want the jury to notice.
