12 Angry Monkeys: Epilogue

Spent a couple of hours with the DA yesterday, basically answering his questions about the deliberations and giving him advice on the retrial.

What witnesses worked, which ones didn't. How he more or less got blind-sided by the defense (the whole 'gun in other car' story didn't appear until the trial), how he needed to mount a defense of his own for the surviving victims in the car, how the defendant ended up looking sympathic to the Jury. And finally how as fabricated as the defense story was he didn't counteract it with a story of his own.

All and all very interesting what goes into a prosecution strategy, what works and what doesn't, etc.

I also mentioned that the defense theory of the two .44 shells coming from a Desert Eagle in the victim's car was pretty shakey.

"Although I never mentioned this to my fellow jurors, I used to own a Desert Eagle and the operating handbook specifically says 'Don't use .44 special.' Since I was under instuctions to only use facts presented in the trial, I never brought it up."

I also mentioned that the defense theory that the victims shot and then conspired to cover it up didn't hold water. The ME testified the fatal shooting victim would continue to breath no more than 1 minute after the shooting. On the 911 tape you can hear someone in the background shouting 'he's still breathing!' And finally you can hear the cops showing up a few minutes later on the tape. So when exactly could they have gotten their story straight?

He mentioned enthusiastically he'd use both of those in the retrial ;)

Then I ran into the two homicide detectives out in the parking lot and got their version. Talked to them a bit about how frustrating it was for them, but how they are pretty happy with what they got (contrary to my expectations, the defendant could be looking at more than 30 years because of 'stuff that happened before that they can't talk about')

They also gave me their contact info and said "when this is all over give us a call and we'll give you the details you aren't allowed to hear."

Also all of them said "if you ever uh, you know, need anything, let us know."

I'm not sure, but did I just get a "get out of jail free" card?