Opening Statements

[CyberPro]

But I'm still struggling with the 2 items that separate 1st Degree from 2nd Degree: Premeditation and Deliberation (cool-headedness) -- but when you think about strangulation taking much longer than firing a gun (less than a second for "bang, bang," and minutes for strangling until death -- several minutes and you can stop, well it just might be there, after all.) Thoughts?

As mentioned previously, I was on a jury once. Not a felony case, but the trial lasted a week. Strange thing, they will have evidence and testimony about all kinds of things, but when the jury is charged by the judge, the points of law you are to decide on are pretty sharp and narrow. After deliberating for a while, we asked for clarification on the verbage, but were told to use our common understanding of the words. In legal language, even a simple word can be freighted with meanings...