- Closing arguments set in trial of Florida deputy accused of failing to stop school shooter Yahoo News
- Prosecutor: Deputy fled during Parkland school massacre, putting own life ahead of students’ KTLA Los Angeles
- Closing arguments underway in Scot Peterson trial CBS Miami
- WATCH LIVE: Closing arguments underway in trial of former Parkland school resource deputy WPLG Local 10
- Jury set to hear closing arguments in trial of ex-school resource officer who stayed outside during Parkland shooting Boston News, Weather, Sports | WHDH 7News
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Tag Archives: arguments
In closing arguments, feds hammer at ‘stunning’ stream of benefits to Madigan while defense calls bribery charges ‘collateral damage’ – Chicago Sun-Times
- In closing arguments, feds hammer at ‘stunning’ stream of benefits to Madigan while defense calls bribery charges ‘collateral damage’ Chicago Sun-Times
- Closing arguments Monday in ‘ComEd Four’ bribery trial WGN News
- The week ahead: The ‘ComEd Four’ case heads to the jury Crain’s Chicago Business
- Defense attorney calls ‘ComEd Four’ bribery case ‘collateral damage’ in feds’ quest to bring down ex-Speaker Michael Madigan Chicago Tribune
- ComEd bribery trial’s closing arguments, CPD officer faces dismissal and more in your Chicago news roundup Chicago Sun-Times
Should parents of Oxford shooter face charges? How judges picked apart both arguments during appeal – WDIV ClickOnDetroit
- Should parents of Oxford shooter face charges? How judges picked apart both arguments during appeal WDIV ClickOnDetroit
- Oxford High School shooter’s parents appear in court: Five takeaways USA TODAY
- Appeals court hears arguments in case against James & Jennifer Crumbley WXYZ-TV Detroit | Channel 7
- ‘You can’t sue the king.’ Qualified immunity under attack in Oxford High mass shooting lawsuit MLive.com
- Morning 4: Charges against Oxford shooter’s parents scrutinized by judges in appeal hearing — and other news WDIV ClickOnDetroit
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Moore v. Harper: Takeaways from the historic Supreme Court arguments on election rules
CNN
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Arguments in the Supreme Court’s blockbuster election rules case played out for more than three hours on Wednesday as the justices examined claims from the North Carolina GOP legislature, which argues that state constitutions and state courts have little or no authority to impose limits on how state legislatures craft their rules for federal elections.
The controversial “independent state legislature” theory is being used by Republican lawmakers to argue that state courts could not redraw the congressional map the legislature sought to enact in 2021.
A version of theory was promoted by allies of former President Donald Trump during their attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
Wednesday’s case arises out of dispute over whether the congressional map was a partisan gerrymander so extreme that it ran afoul of the state’s constitution. But it has implications for all kinds of election rules and the ability of state courts to interpret them.
Here are key takeaways from oral arguments:
North Carolina’s GOP legislature appears to be short of five votes it would need to get a Supreme Court ruling that adopted the most aggressive version of their arguments.
Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett asked questions suggesting skepticism of the maximal version of the independent state legislature theory.
Barrett seemed troubled by the distinction lawmakers were trying to make between non-legislative state entities being able to weigh in on procedural matters around how federal elections were run versus the substantive matters around elections being out of those entities reach. Kavanaugh, meanwhile, said he thought the legislature was overreaching in how it was relying on a concurrence from then Chief Justice William Rehnquist in the 2000 Bush v. Gore case.
Chief Justice John Roberts also said that concession made by the legislature’s lawyer – who said under their theory, the governor can play a role by vetoing election rules – had undermined the Republicans’ case.
– Source:
CNN
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Kavanaugh talks Bush v. Gore case (2000)
01:20
– Source:
CNN
Those key swing votes however asked other questions that suggested that they could rule in North Carolina’s favor, however in a way that avoided blessing the idea that state constitutions could never provide a check on state election rules.
Roberts asked the legislature’s lawyer, David Thompson, whether the problem with how North Carolina courts handled the congressional map is that the state courts were relying on state constitution provisions that were too vaguely worded.
“If they had a more precise articulation of what the limits were that they were going to apply, whether it’s going to be a particular percentage of gerrymandering, departure or something more substantive, is it the problem that they’re just interpreting something that gives them free rein or is that not a consideration?” Roberts asked.
Kavanaugh and Barrett asked questions later in the hearing – including some posed to lawyers for the legislature’s opponents in the case – that seemed to play with idea.
Thompson, for what it’s worth, seemed to resist that kind of ruling. He called that the “back up” problem with what the state courts did, but held onto the idea that the state courts had no authority to use the state constitution to knock down the redistricting plan.
Voting rights experts are worried that if the majority scales back on arguments made by Republican lawmakers in its final ruling, court watchers will consider the ruling “narrow.” To liberals, watching this case with alarm, any decision that would embolden legislatures (especially at a time when most state legislatures are republican majority) would be dangerous to democracy.
A day before the election, the Brennan Center sounded the alarm. “There is no ‘Lite version’ of the Independent State Legislature,” Eliza Sweren-Becker and Ethan Herenstein wrote. They called the GOP legislature’s approach “as mealy-mouthed as it is incoherent” and accused them of backing away from an extreme version of the theory to middleground positions that would, arguably, leave some checks in place.
Brennan argues that even such compromise positions “rests on the radical proposition that state legislatures alone get to make the rules for federal elections (save for potential interventions from Congress or the federal courts).”
Conservative Carrie Severino, a former Justice Clarence Thomas clerk, accuses the left of a “disinformation campaign” in the National Review. From her perspective, it is not the state legislature that is “rogue,” it is the North Carolina Supreme Court that struck the maps in the first place that went too far. She urged the justices to scale back on a state court’s ability to engage in what she called “unfettered policymaking” and she said that in the case at hand the state court had concocted from state constitutional provisions’ “open-ended guarantees” that by “fiat” created a new map.
Some of the members of the court’s conservative wing – particularly Justices Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch – have already indicated in writings for other cases that they’re sympathetic to the arguments of the legislature. That was clear in how they pushed back on the arguments put forward by the opponents of the independent state legislature theory.
Alito posed a series of hypotheticals meant to test the limits of arguments that looked at different scenarios where a state supreme court would commandeer the job of congressional map drawing from state legislatures.
Wednesday, Alito repeated some of the arguments he made back in March when he sided with the GOP lawmakers at an earlier phase of the case. In that order, he said noted that challengers believe that the state Supreme Court in the case at hand went too far.
“If the Electors Clause is taken seriously,” he wrote, “there must be some limit on the authority of state courts to countermand actions taken by state legislatures when they are prescribing rules for the conduct of federal elections.” Alito seems to believe that if a state constitution speaks concretely on an issue such as partisan gerrymandering, it can constrain a legislature. But if, instead, the state court points to what Alito would consider “vague provisions” then it has less power.
Gorsuch, for his part, raised the possibility that state constitutions would mandate partisan gerrymandering or adopt the pre-Civil War constitutional understanding that a slave would count as three-fifths of person.
The liberal justices, not surprisingly, had aggressive questions for the proponents of independent state legislature theory.
Justice Elena Kagan brought up the recent cases where the Supreme Court seemed to sanction that entities other than the state legislature can have say on election rules.
“In all recent cases, we’ve said, ‘Of course, state courts applying state constitutions typically constrain state legislatures, when they redistrict, when they enact election laws,’” she said. Later on, she also warned of the “consequences” if there were no state constitutional checks on a state legislature, arguing it would allow state lawmakers to remove protections for voters enshrined in state constitutions and even meddle with the certification of elections.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor tackled the historical arguments the legislature was making, telling its lawyer that six of the 13 colonies were “doing something that’s contrary to what you’re saying.”
As the lawmakers’ lawyer attempted to answer, she accused him of trying to “rewrite history.”
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson pointed out that it was state constitutions that gave the state legislatures their authority to write state laws, including election rules. Critics of state independent legislature theory argue that the word “legislature” in the Elections Clause refers to the entire regime – including state courts – a state has set up, via its constitution, for governance.
“I guess what I don’t understand,” Jackson told the legislature’s lawyer, “is how you can cut the state constitution out of the equation when it is giving the state legislature the authority to exercise like legislative power.”
The 6-3 conservative Supreme Court has made clear that its roots are often in “originalism” – the judicial doctrine that says that the Constitution should be interpreted based on its original public understanding.
As such, these days, both sides of the ideological spectrum often pepper their briefs with references to “historical tradition.” That continued on Wednesday as both liberals and conservative argued that history was on their side. Jackson made the point that the founders sought to constrain the power of state legislatures.
As she did earlier in the term in a case challenging the use of race in college and university admissions plans, Jackson put forward a progressive view of originalism. In that case she noted that drafters of the 14th Amendment understood race-conscious measures would be needed to ensure the equality and liberty promised in that amendment. Framers did not rely on race neutral guarantees. Instead, they equal protection guarantees were promised in a race-conscious way.
In olden days (i.e. pre-Covid) oral arguments had a totally different feel. The late Chief Justice William Rehnquist was so diligent to time limits that he was known to stop a lawyer mid-word if the red light flashed. But around the time of Covid, Roberts, who was tired policing arguments where justices would interrupt the lawyers and their colleagues to get their questions in, the court began changing its format.
It has now evolved into two separate parts. At first an advocate can field questions from any justice, but then justices are allowed to go one by one to ask any follow ups. The biggest plus is that Thomas now speaks up at every oral argument. He appreciates the new format which allows fewer interruptions.
But it also means that arguments go long over their allotted time. In the old days it was much easier to gauge what a particular justice felt about a case, because he or she would save their questions for what they saw as the nub of the case. The longer format , allowing more questions, makes it harder to discern what a particular justice really cares about.
Trying to read tea leaves at oral arguments is always a hard game. But these days, it’s much harder.
Supreme Court Oral Arguments on Moore v Harper May See Democracy On the Line
In Moore v. Harper—scheduled for oral argument on Wednesday, Dec. 7—the Supreme Court will decide whether to resurrect the previously dead “Independent State Legislature Theory”–in a way that some commentators believe may pose “an existential threat to our democracy” and could enable “the Republican blueprint to steal the 2024 election.”
Proponents of the “ISLT”–Independent State Legislature Theory–believe that the U.S. Constitution bestows unreviewable power upon state legislatures to determine how congressional elections–and by extension Presidential elections–are conducted.
The case is so controversial that more than 70 amicus briefs–“friends of the court”–have been submitted, including everyone from former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to the ACLU, with 48 of them being opposed to the legitimacy of the ISLT.
Just what is the ISLT? Its proponents claim that the “Elections Clause” of the U.S. Constitution, which states that state legislatures shall prescribe the “Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives,” means no court can review any actions taken by a state legislatures with regards to voting in the state.
The specific case before the U.S. Supreme Court is about gerrymandering–the practice of redrawing Congressional districts to favor one party-and arises from the North Carolina Supreme Court’s decision to strike down its Republican state legislature plan to grossly manipulate the state’s congressional districts in favor of Republicans as being unconstitutional under the North Carolina state constitution.
The North Carolina Supreme Court found that the Republican plan was an “egregious and intentional partisan gerrymander” that would give a “greater voice” to Republican voters over “any others.”
After a state court appointed a special master to design a fair map, two Republican legislators asked the U.S. Supreme Court to step in and rule that no North Carolina court can review the state legislature’s decision because the ISLT would make such review a violation of the U.S. Constitution.
SCOTUS’ decision to accept Moore v. Harper’s arguments is alarming because the ISLT interpretation of the U.S. Constitution has been repeatedly rejected by the highest court in the land, dating back to 1916 with numerous decisions recognizing that state legislatures must still adhere to their own constitutions. And those state constitutions regularly create the sharing of legislative power with courts and governors (veto power) even when it comes to election laws.
So given the demonstrated capacity of the new SCOTUS conservative supermajority to ignore and overturn precedent—most notably in the Dobbs decision which struck down the protections for a woman’s right to abortion that had stood for decades–the decision to hear the case raises the likelihood that the conservatives may again be looking to overturn precedent.
Indeed, interest on the part of conservative SCOTUS justices in using ISLT to help Republican outcomes was seen in the 2000 Bush v. Gore case, where then Chief Justice Rehnquist’s concurring opinion referenced ISLT in saying that another reason to stop the Florida Supreme Court from ordering a state-wide manual recount–which might have given the Presidency to Al Gore–was because the Florida Supreme Court was violating the Elections Clause. More recently, Justices Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, Alito, and Thomas have all expressed interest in supporting ISLT.
If these four conservatives were joined by either Chief Justice Roberts or Justice Amy Coney Barrett then SCOTUS might make ISLT the law of the land. So what could this mean?
For starters, gerrymandering would be completely uncontrollable, meaning whichever party controlled the legislature could redraw Congressional districts at their whim whether or not such maps violated the state’s constitution. And just in case you are wondering if federal courts could step in: the answer is no, as to gerrymandering, because a conservative majority of SCOTUS-Chief Justice Roberts, as well as justices Gorsuch, Alito, Thomas and Kavanaugh–ruled in the 2019 case of Rucho v. Common Cause that gerrymandering was a purely political issue that federal courts could not review.
The veto power of governors over any state election laws could also be nullified making the legislature the only branch of state government in the area of election law.
At the Presidential election level, ISLT could be used to “take power away from voters when picking electors for the Electoral College or to make state lawmakers, not courts, the judges in disputes after the election”–similar to the theory behind the fake electors scheme that Trump supporters tried to use to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Indeed, John Eastman, the creator of the idea that new slates of electors could be submitted and/or that Vice-President Pence could overturn the election has submitted an amicus brief in Moore specifically calling for SCOTUS to overturn any precedents that have previously rejected ISLT.
A conservative majority of SCOTUS decisions to embrace ISLT would also create a flood of election cases that would enormously burden a federal court system already seeing a record high of such cases by “invent[ing] an entirely new constitutional cause of action.”
In a recent panel discussion hosted by the Brennan Center for Justice and the New York City Bar, Professor Carolyn Shapiro noted that the ISLT would instantly transform every election case into one with federal question jurisdiction, thus throwing all of these cases into the federal courts.
As the court of last resort, SCOTUS would become the sole decision-maker for all election disputes which arguably would make it a super judiciary holding far greater power than either the Executive or Legislative branches of government.
If this should come to pass, the SCOTUS conservatives will no doubt rely upon the so-called “originalist” doctrine as a fig-leaf to hide their real motivation. That real motivation is simply the exercising of their new-found power. They will do it because they can.
In Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel, Frankenstein, a young scientist, Dr. Victor Frankenstein, discovers a method by which he can resurrect life from the dead and creates his own monster. As we all know, the monster becomes uncontrollable and ultimately turns upon its creator. Dr. Frankenstein’s motivation is never made explicit by the author, but he appears to do it because he can.
SCOTUS, an institution which has now managed to lose the trust of the majority of Americans might do well to remember this tale about what destruction can be wrought by the unchecked use of power.
Man accused of driving a car through the Waukesha Christmas parade delivers tearful closing arguments
CNN
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Darrell Brooks told jurors Tuesday during closing arguments he did not intentionally plow a SUV through a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin, last year, which left six dead and dozens more injured.
Brooks has been representing himself during this roughly three-week trial. He tearfully asked jurors during his 50-minute closing argument to consider whether the car could have malfunctioned during the incident last November and the effects the trial – along with the negative press – has had on his family.
“What if the vehicle couldn’t stop because of malfunction? What if the driver of the vehicle was unable to stop the vehicle? Because of that fact, what if the driver may have panicked? Does that make the driver in a rage and intent on killing people?” Brooks asked, claiming there was a recall on the vehicle he drove that day. Waukesha County Judge Jennifer Dorow struck those comments from the record.
“I’ve never heard of someone trying to intentionally hurt someone while attempting to blow their horn while attempting to alert people of their presence,” Brooks said.
The defendant went on to repeatedly allege there had been “misconceptions” and “lies” told about him during the trial. After saying that his conscience is clear and that he had made peace with God, Brooks spent much of the final 10 minutes of his closing remarks repeatedly telling the jury to be at peace with their verdict and not to have any regrets.
“Whatever you decide, make sure you yourself can live with it. That’s the magnitude of the power that you have,” Brooks said. “Be at peace with what you decide.”
Waukesha County District Attorney Susan Opper rebutted Brooks’ claims, saying he wants jurors to care about his family when other families in this tragedy will never be able to see their loved ones again.
“There are 68 victims in this case, folks. That’s not an accident,” Opper said.
Despite Brooks’ claims of him not intentionally striking people with an SUV, Opper repeatedly told the jury there is overwhelming evidence showing Brooks was fully aware of his actions when he drove his SUV through a crowd of hundreds of people.
“He reached speeds of approximately 30 mph. That’s intentional. He plowed through 68 different people, 68. How can you hit one and keep going? How can you hit two and keep going?” Opper asked.
Opper also told jurors not to be distracted in their deliberations by the conduct of Brooks during the trial.
“You must not, not, not consider anything about Darrell Brooks other than his conduct in downtown Waukesha on the evening of November 21, 2021,” Opper told the jury. “Nothing he’s done before that, nothing he’s done since that. When you go back to that deliberation room, please obey Judge Dorow. Confine your comments to his conduct on November 21.”
Jurors will now deliberate whether to convict Brooks. After deliberating for an hour and 45 minutes Tuesday, the jurors completed their first day of deliberations without reaching a verdict. The jury is expected to return to court to continue their deliberations on Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. ET.
Brooks pleaded not guilty to more than 70 charges, including six counts of first-degree intentional homicide. He previously pleaded not guilty by insanity, but his public defenders withdrew the insanity plea in September. The attorneys later filed a motion to withdraw from the case, and the judge ruled to allow Brooks to represent himself at trial.
Brooks’ unusual decision to represent himself in court and his persistent disruptions along outlandish behavior have caused constant disruptions throughout the trial. He has spoken over prosecutors and the judge, asked vague questions, challenged the court’s jurisdiction and declared “Darrell Brooks” is not his name.
Judge Dorow has repeatedly removed Brooks from the court for his outbursts and placed him in a nearby courtroom, where he can communicate via a monitor and microphone which is most often muted.
Parkland shooter’s death penalty trial nears its end as the prosecution and defense make closing arguments
CNN
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Prosecutors have called on a Florida jury to recommend the Parkland school shooter be put to death, saying in a closing argument Tuesday he meticulously planned the February 2018 massacre, and that the facts of the case outweigh anything in his background that defense attorneys claim warrant a life sentence.
“What he wanted to do, what his plan was and what he did, was to murder children at school and their caretakers,” lead prosecutor Michael Satz said of Nikolas Cruz, who pleaded guilty to 17 counts of murder and 17 counts of attempted murder for the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in which 14 students and three school staff members were killed. “That’s what he wanted to do.”
But Cruz “is a brain damaged, broken, mentally ill person, through no fault of his own,” defense attorney Melisa McNeill said in her own closing argument, pointing to the defense’s claim that Cruz’s mother used drugs and drank alcohol while his mother was pregnant with him, saying he was “poisoned” in her womb.
“And in a civilized humane society, do we kill brain damaged, mentally ill, broken people?” McNeill asked Tuesday. “Do we? I hope not.”
With closing arguments, the monthslong sentencing phase of Cruz’s trial is nearing its end, marking prosecutors’ last chance to convince the jury to recommend a death sentence and defense attorneys’ last opportunity to lobby for life in prison without parole.
Prosecutors have argued Cruz’s decision to commit the deadliest mass shooting at an American high school was premeditated and calculated, while Cruz’s defense attorneys have offered evidence of a lifetime of struggles at home and in school.
Each side was allotted two and a half hours to make their closing arguments.
Jury deliberations are expected to begin Wednesday, during which time jurors will be sequestered, per Broward Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer.
If they choose to recommend a death sentence, the jurors must be unanimous, or Cruz will receive life in prison without the possibility of parole. If the jury does recommend death, the final decision rests with Judge Scherer, who could choose to follow the recommendation or sentence Cruz to life.
In his remarks, Satz outlined prosecutors’ reasoning, including the preparations Cruz made. For a “long time” prior to the shooting, Satz said, Cruz thought about carrying it out.
Revisiting ground covered in the trial, the prosecutor said Cruz researched mass shootings and their perpetrators, including those at a music festival in Las Vegas; at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado; at Virginia Tech; and at Colorado’s Columbine High School.
Cruz modified his AR-15 to help improve his marksmanship; he accumulated ammunition and and magazines; and he searched online for information about how long it would take police to respond to a school shooting, Satz said.
Then, the day of, Satz said, Cruz hid his tactical vest in a backpack and took an Uber to the school, wearing a Marjory Stoneman Douglas JROTC polo shirt to blend in. Based on his planning, he told the Uber driver to drop him off at a specific pedestrian gate, knowing it would be open soon before school let out.
“All these details he thought of, and he did,” Satz said.
Satz also detailed a narrative of the shooting, which he called a “systematic massacre,” recounting how the shooter killed or wounded each of his victims, whose families and loved ones filled the courtroom gallery.
Cruz, wearing a striped sweater and flanked by his public defenders, looked on expressionless, occasionally looking down at the table in front of him or talking to one of his attorneys.
“The appropriate sentence for Nikolas Cruz is the death penalty,” Satz concluded.
In her own statement, McNeill stressed to jurors that defense attorneys were not disputing that Cruz deserves to be punished for the shooting.
“We are asking you to punish him and to punish him severely,” she said. “We are asking you to sentence him to prison for the rest of his life, where he will wait to die, either by natural causes or whatever else could possibly happen to him while he’s in prison.”
The 14 slain students were: Alyssa Alhadeff, 14; Martin Duque Anguiano, 14; Nicholas Dworet, 17; Jaime Guttenberg, 14; Luke Hoyer, 15; Cara Loughran, 14; Gina Montalto, 14; Joaquin Oliver, 17; Alaina Petty, 14; Meadow Pollack, 18; Helena Ramsay, 17; Alex Schachter, 14; Carmen Schentrup, 16; and Peter Wang, 14.
Geography teacher Scott Beigel, 35; wrestling coach Chris Hixon, 49; and assistant football coach Aaron Feis, 37, also were killed – each while running toward danger or trying to help students to safety.
The lengthy trial – jury selection began six months ago, in early April – has seen prosecutors and defense attorneys present evidence of aggravating factors and mitigating circumstances, reasons Cruz should or should not be put to death.
The state has pointed to seven aggravating factors, including that the killings were especially heinous, atrocious or cruel, as well as cold, calculated and premeditated, Satz said Tuesday. Other aggravating factors include the fact the defendant knowingly created a great risk of death to many people and that he disrupted a lawful government function – in this case, the running of a school.
Together, these aggravating factors “outweigh any mitigation about anything about the defendant’s background or character,” Satz said.
Satz rejected the mitigating circumstances presented during trial by the defense, including that Cruz’s mother smoked or used drugs while pregnant with him. Those factors would not turn someone into a mass murderer, Satz argued, adding it was the jury’s job to weigh the credibility of the defense witnesses who testified to those claims.
Satz cast doubt on the defense’s other proposed mitigators. In response to a claim that Cruz has neurological or intellectual deficits, Satz pointed to the gunman’s ability to carefully research and prepare for the Parkland shooting.
In response to claims Cruz was bullied by his peers, Satz argued Cruz was an aggressor, pointing to testimony that he walked around in high school with a swastika drawn on his backpack, along with the N-word and other explicit language.
“Hate is not a mental disorder,” Satz said.
During trial, prosecutors presented evidence showing the gunman spent months searching online for information about mass shootings and left behind social media comments sharing his express desire to “kill people,” while Google searches illustrated how he sought information about mass shootings. On YouTube, Cruz left comments like “Im going to be a professional school shooter,” and promised to “go on a killing rampage.”
“What one writes,” Satz said, referencing Cruz’s online history Tuesday, “what one says, is a window to someone’s soul.”
In their own case, the public defenders assigned to represent Cruz have asked the jury to take into account his troubled history, from a dysfunctional family life to serious mental and developmental issues, with attorney McNeill describing him earlier in the trial as a “damaged and wounded” person.
“His brain is broken,” she said during her opening statement in August. “He’s a damaged human being.”
Among the first witnesses was Cruz’s older sister, Danielle Woodard, who testified their mother, Brenda Woodard, used drugs and drank alcohol while pregnant with him – something McNeill said made his brain “irretrievably broken” through no fault of his own.
“She introduced me to a life that no child should be introduced to,” she said. “She had no regards for my life or his life.”
The defense also called teachers and educators who spoke to developmental issues and delays Cruz exhibited as a young child, including challenges with vocabulary and motor skills. Various counselors and psychiatrists also testified, offering their observations from years of treating or interacting with Cruz.
Former Broward County school district counselor John Newnham testified Cruz’s academic achievements in elementary school were below expectations. Cruz would describe himself as “stupid” and a “freak,” Newnham said.
Despite these apparent issues, Cruz’s adoptive mother, the late Lynda Cruz, was reluctant to seek help, according to the testimony of a close friend who lived down the street from the family, Trish Devaney Westerlind.
Newnham’s testimony echoed that: While Lynda Cruz was a caring mother, after the death of her husband, she would ask for help but not use the support available.
“She was overwhelmed,” Newnham said. “She appeared to lack some of the basic foundations of positive parenting.”
Westerlind still accepts calls from Cruz and, says though he’s in his 20s, Cruz still talks like an 11-year-old child.
Cruz’s attorneys acknowledged as he grew older he developed a fascination with firearms, and school staff raised concerns about his behavior to authorities, McNeill said.
In June 2014, an adolescent psychiatrist and a school therapist at the school Cruz attended at the time wrote a letter to an outside psychiatrist treating Cruz, in which they expressed concern Cruz had become verbally aggressive and had a “preoccupation with guns” and “dreams of killing others.”
The psychiatrist, Dr. Brett Negin, who testified he treated Cruz between the ages of 13 and 18, said he never received the letter.
As part of the prosecution’s case, family members of the victims were given the opportunity this summer to take the stand and offer raw and emotional testimony about how Cruz’s actions had forever changed their lives. At one point, even members of Cruz’s defense team were brought to tears.
“I feel I can’t truly be happy if I smile,” Max Schachter, the father of 14-year-old victim Alex Schachter, testified in August. “I know that behind that smile is the sharp realization that part of me will always be sad and miserable because Alex isn’t here.”
Before the prosecution rested, jurors also visited the site of the massacre, Marjory Stoneman Douglas’ 1200 building, which had been sealed since the shooting to preserve the crime scene – littered with dried blood, Valentine’s Day cards and students’ belongings – for the trial.
The defense’s case came to an unexpected end last month when – having called just 26 of 80 planned witnesses – public defenders assigned to represent Cruz abruptly rested, leading the judge to admonish the team for what she said was unprofessionalism, resulting in a courtroom squabble between her and the defense (the jury was not present).
Defense attorneys would later file a motion to disqualify the judge for her comments, arguing in part they suggested the judge was not impartial and Cruz’s right to a fair trial had been undermined. Prosecutors disagreed, writing “judicial comments, even of a critical or hostile nature, are not grounds for disqualification.”
Scherer ultimately denied the motion.
Prosecutors then presented their rebuttal, concluding last week following a three-day delay attributed to Hurricane Ian. Their case included footage of Cruz telling clinical neuropsychologist Dr. Robert Denney he chose to carry out the shooting on Valentine’s Day because he “felt like no one loved me, and I didn’t like Valentine’s Day and I wanted to ruin it for everyone.”
Denney, who spent more than 400 hours with the gunman, testified for the prosecution that he concluded Cruz has borderline personality disorder and anti-social personality disorder. But Cruz did not meet the criteria for fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, as the defense has contended, Denney testified, accusing Cruz of “grossly exaggerating” his “psychiatric problems” in tests Denney administered.
When read the list of names of the 17 people killed and asked if fetal alcohol spectrum disorder explained their murders, Denney responded “no” each time.
Correction: An earlier version of this story misspelled the first name of defense attorney Melisa McNeill.
Attorneys set to begin closing arguments Monday
One of the jurors in the federal criminal trial against R. Kelly and two former associates reported she was having a panic attack in the middle of closing arguments Monday and has been excused from the panel.
The juror, a white woman who works for a public library, told courtroom personnel during a break that she “doesn’t think she can go on one minute more” and that waiting overnight would not help, U.S. District Judge Harry Leinenweber said. After a brief discussion, the woman was replaced by an alternate juror, a white man who appeared to be in his 60s.
The development came after about four hours of closing arguments in the case, first from prosecutors and then by the lawyer for Kelly’s former business manager, Derrel McDavid, and former employee Milton “June” Brown.
The judge sent the jury home until 9 a.m. Tuesday, when Kelly’s attorney Jennifer Bonjean will deliver her closing argument, followed by prosecution rebuttal, jury instructions and then deliberations.
Prosecutors began by reminding jurors of their strongest evidence against the singer: The multiple videos they viewed showing Kelly abusing his 14-year-old goddaughter, “Jane.”
“Kelly and his team, they did their level best … to cover up the fact that Robert Kelly, R. Kelly the R&B superstar, is actually a sexual predator. They did their best, but in the end, they failed,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth Pozolo said. “We are here today because those tapes that they concealed for 20 years are no longer their secret. You have seen the tapes. You have seen what Kelly did to Jane.”
Meanwhile, the attorney for Kelly’s co-defendant, Derrel McDavid, told jurors in his closing argument that the prosecution was riddled with reasonable doubt and based on untrustworthy witnesses, and that McDavid had no way of knowing whether Kelly was really sexually abusing minors.
“The man didn’t know,” Brindley said. “They’ve got nothing. … Their case can’t be trusted.”
Brindley had particular scorn for the testimony of Charles Freeman, whom he called a “talentless tactless T-shirt man” whose testimony about busting into a Georgia home “like Shaft” to recover a sex tape was “just plain stupid.”
“Like (Freeman) if you want, but you can’t believe him because he didn’t act like an honest person and his own words betrayed him as a liar,” Brindley said.
Attorneys began their arguments after four weeks of evidence and testimony, and the presentations promise to be fiery as well as lengthy. Arguments from prosecutors as well as lawyers for Kelly and former associates McDavid and Milton “June” Brown are expected to last all day and could even spill into Tuesday, when jury deliberations are set to begin.
Kelly, McDavid and Brown allegedly worked together to cover up evidence of Kelly’s abuse of Jane, especially while Kelly was facing Cook County child pornography charges for one of the videos at issue in this trial. He was acquitted on those charges, in part because he pressured Jane and her family to lie, according to prosecutors.
Pozolo reminded jurors in explicit detail about what they saw on those videos back during the first week of trial.
“That child, who had no prior sexual experiences in her life, was forced to lay on that floor while that man sitting right over there urinated on her. That degrading act is forever captured on that video,” she said. “That abuse is forever memorialized.”
As she continued, Pozolo walked over to within a few feet of Kelly’s defense table and pointed directly at the singer. “Who does that?” she said. “Who uses a 14-year-old child to film a video like this? This man. Robert Kelly.”
Kelly, seated between his lawyers in a light gray suit and glasses, stared straight ahead during that dramatic moment. Later, as Pozolo detailed the charges against him, he bowed his head and shook it slightly back and forth.
McDavid, meanwhile, has stared straight at Pozolo for much of the argument, sometimes shaking his head or leaning back in his seat with an arm slung over the chair back as she makes particular points about him.
McDavid’s lawyer, Beau Brindley was scheduled to deliver his closing argument after a lunch break.
Near the end of her roughly two-hour argument, Pozolo displayed photos of Jane, and two of the other alleged victims, Pauline, and Brittany, from their young teens on large monitors in the courtroom.
She also reminded jurors of what R. Kelly looked like around the same time, putting up a photo of him wearing sunglasses, his head shaved, singing “I Believe I Can Fly” at the 1998 Grammys.
Prosecutors also anticipated defense attorneys’ attacks on prosecution witness Charles Freeman, who testified that he was paid to recover incriminating video footage at the behest of Kelly and his team.
While the defense has sought to discredit him, prosecutors said, it is the defendants who chose Freeman to do their dirty work in the first place.
“No, they didn’t call an upstanding citizen to get those tapes back, they didn’t go to someone who’s liable to go to police,” Pozolo said. “No, they went to Charles Freeman … they knew Freeman would do this job for money and he would do it while keeping his mouth shut.”
And while defense attorneys on cross-examination seized on inconsistencies in testimony from Lisa Van Allen, the “core” of her testimony has remained the same for years, Pozolo said.
Van Allen, a sometime girlfriend of Kelly’s, testified she took a tape from Kelly’s gym bag that depicted her and Kelly with an underage “Jane” — and then Kelly’s team offered her hundreds of thousands of dollars to get it back.
Her shame and pain for having had sexual contact with Jane were evident on the stand, prosecutors said.
“Is that the demeanor of someone who wants to be here?” Pozolo asked jurors. “Is that the demeanor of someone seeking money and fame?”
The tape purportedly showing Van Allen, Kelly and Jane has not been shown to jurors. The defense has said that’s because it does not exist, and that Kelly’s team in fact was paying to retrieve a sex tape showing Kelly’s wife. Prosecutors, however, allege that it did show child pornography, but Kelly’s team successfully covered it up.
Both Van Allen and Jane testified about the taped sexual encounter. And McDavid withheld Van Allen’s full payment until after Kelly’s Cook County child pornography trial, Pozolo noted.
“The fact that McDavid withheld $50,000 from Lisa … shows you Derrel McDavid knew what was on that threesome video. This was not a ‘regular porno’ as def counsel wants to call it,” she said. ” … If it was a regular porno that would embarrass Kelly, they would just pay the money.”
And while Brown was lower on the totem pole, “common sense” points to his full knowledge of Kelly’s abuse of Jane, Pozolo noted.
Travel records show he was in Mexico at the same time as Jane and her family after Kelly paid for them to get out of the country, and shortly afterward he was tasked with driving her to get a tattoo of his name covered up, she said.
And when prosecution witness Keith Murrell arrived with an incriminating tape, Brown told him he had the “golden egg,” Pozolo noted.
“Brown was not some innocent bystander who robotically made hotel reservations and drove people to the airport. Brown knew full well what was going on,” she said.
Prosecutors also anticipated likely defense arguments about “Tracy,” who testified at this trial she was 16 when she first had sexual contact with Kelly. A lawsuit filed in the early 2000s, however, claimed she was 17 – the legal age of consent in Illinois.
But for the criminal charge related to Tracy, Pozolo said, all that matters is whether jurors believe she was under 18 and not 17.
And prosecutors did not call one anticipated complaining witness, “Brittany,” to the stand during trial. But Pozolo reminded jurors that two other witnesses, Jane and “Pauline,” both testified that they had sexual contact with Kelly and Brittany repeatedly when the girls were underage.
In sum, Pozolo said, “Robert Kelly abused many girls over many years. He committed horrible crimes against children. And he didn’t do it alone.”
“All these years later the hidden side of Robert Kelly has come to light,” she said. “The truth has come out.”
Brindley, meanwhile, began his closing argument by saying McDavid was following the guidance of an experience legal team, including criminal defense attorney Edward Genson and longtime entertainment lawyer Gerald Margolis, who would never had staked their careers and reputations to protect child pornography.
“The question I start with is would they ever do that?” Brindley said. “These men, would they ever do that? Does it make sense that all of these men would do that for someone they knew was abusing children? Really?”
Brindley said that the government’s own witnesses contradicted the allegations that McDavid was knowingly participating in a conspiracy, including whether McDavid was even present for a meeting in an Oak Park hotel room where Kelly allegedly fessed up to Jane’s parents about the relationship with their daughter.
“They want Derrel to be in that room. But I’m sorry to say the evidence says he was not,” Brindley said.
Brindley also noted that Jane’s mother, Susan, testified she didn’t believe that payments Kelly made to the family was to buy their silence.
“What is striking is the U.S. government trying to get Derrel McDavid, and in so doing moving away from what their own witnesses said,” Brindley said.
Brindley chose to abandon the lectern and instead stood directly in front of the jury, walking back and forth with a microphone pinned to his lapel. The microphone seemed superfluous, given that Brindley spoke at top volume for most of his presentation.
He argued in the cadence of a preacher, waving his hands and thrusting his fingers in the air to emphasize certain things.
He was accompanied by a brightly colored slideshow that flashed his main points on the screen, often in huge white text on red and yellow backgrounds: “That story is just plain stupid,” one slide stated about Freeman. And on a subsequent slide, just one giant word: “Ridiculous.”
After Brindley wrapped up and returned to the defense table, McDavid took off his glasses, sniffed quietly, and wiped away tears.
The defendants rested their cases Friday afternoon. While prosecutors had hoped to call witnesses in rebuttal — particularly Kelly’s former manager Barry Hankerson — U.S. District Judge Harry Leinenweber said they could not call any witnesses who were not ready to go immediately Friday afternoon.
Leinenweber is “under pressure” to move things along quickly, he said when prosecutors asked to briefly present witnesses Monday. “Either do it today or not.”
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Leinenweber also denied prosecutors’ request to prohibit defense attorneys from quoting from trial transcripts during closing arguments.
“Use of transcripts during closing is likely to skew or displace the jurors’ independent recollections of testimony and other evidence at trial, creating a reliance of the portions quoted rather than their memory of the evidence in whole,” they wrote over the weekend..
In a joint response, attorneys for all three defendants shot back, saying such a prohibition “would amount to hiding the truth from the jury and, in turn, usurping them of their truth-seeking function.”
“It has taken over three years, but (it) seems that the government has finally come to the realization that their case is based on the stories of liars, con artists, and extortionists whose word cannot be trusted,” they wrote.
Kelly, 55, faces an indictment charging him with 13 counts of producing and receiving child pornography, enticing minors to engage in criminal sexual activity, and conspiracy to obstruct justice. McDavid and Brown are accused alongside him in an alleged scheme to buy back incriminating sex tapes that had been taken from Kelly’s collection and to hide years of alleged sexual abuse of underage girls.
jmeisner@chicagotribune.com
mcrepeau@chicagotribune.com
Bannon trial: Defense presents no witnesses, closing arguments Friday
Nichols is weighing a defense motion challenging whether prosecutors have met their burden of proof, as well as defense arguments that Thompson’s testimony is essential to their case.
Before sending the jury home Thursday, the judge said a woman on the panel had to withdraw from service because of a medical issue, though he sought to reassure the jurors that it wasn’t covid or anything else contagious. That juror will be replaced with one of two alternates. Without mentioning the prime-time congressional hearing scheduled Thursday night about Jan. 6, the judge also reminded jurors to steer clear of news reports about the Capitol attack, as he has throughout the trial.
Bannon did not testify during the trial. Speaking to reporters outside the courthouse Thursday afternoon, he said the real issue in the case was not the extent of his cooperation with the Jan. 6 committee, but whether the committee was willing to negotiate with him.
In the past, Bannon said, he has given “I think, 50 hours of testimony, every time the exact same way,” before investigations by a special counsel and by the House and Senate Intelligence Committee, with a lawyer present invoking executive privilege at times over communications involving then-President Donald Trump.
“We’ve worked it out and every time, and every single time, more than anybody else in the Trump administration … Stephen K. Bannon testified,” Bannon said.
Unlike the House Jan. 6 probe, however, those investigations came while Trump was president and spanned conversations that Bannon had while he was in the White House before leaving in 2017.
In issuing a subpoena to Bannon, the Jan. 6 committee said it wanted to question him about activities at the Willard hotel the night before the Capitol riot, when Trump supporters sought to persuade lawmakers to overturn the 2020 election results.
The committee said Bannon spoke with Trump by telephone that morning and evening, the last time after Bannon predicted “hell is going to break loose” on Jan. 6.
Closing arguments begin in Nipsey Hussle murder trial
The closing arguments in the murder trial of Nipsey Hussle began in Los Angeles on Thursday as prosecutors claimed his killer came strapped with two loaded weapons and a plan to shoot the rapper dead.
The rapper was murdered when nemesis Eric Holder allegedly unloaded at least 13 shots from a semi-automatic weapon and a handgun in front of the Marathon clothing store in South Los Angeles in 2019, according to prosecutors.
Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney John McKinney said Holder deliberately killed Hussle and injured two other men — and insisted the slaying had nothing to do with a “snitching allegation.”
“He walked up to the group and said to Nipsey Hussle, ‘You’re through,’” McKinney said to jurors. “He didn’t say, ‘I’m not a snitch … Why are you talking about me?’
“I submit to you that the motive for killing Nipsey Hussle had little or nothing to do with the conversation they had. [Holder] already had a preexisting jealousy toward Nipsey Hussle.”
Holder’s murder trial began earlier this month, more than three years after he gunned down Hussle — whose real name is Ermias Joseph Asghedom — on March 31, 2019.
Los Angeles County Deputy Public Defender Aaron Jansen said Holder shot Hussle in the heat of passion because the “Racks in the Middle” rapper accused his client of being a snitch.
Holder, 32, is facing multiple charges, including murder, attempted murder and possession of a firearm by a felon.
McKinney said on Thursday that the attack on Hussle “was personal” and video footage showed Holder kicking Hussle while the rapper was on the ground bleeding and fighting for his life.
Hussle and his accused killer grew up in the same neighborhood and belonged to the same street gang — the Rollin 60s Crips. The similarities between the two men ended there as Hussle gained stardom for his music, while Holder struggled with his own rap career, McKinney told jurors.
“When people get successful, they make money, they leave their neighborhood … this man was different,” McKinney said to jurors as he put up a smiling picture of Hussle on a large television screen. “He wanted to change the neighborhood. He invested in the neighborhood — and the neighborhood loved him.”
Jansen admitted to jurors that his client shot Hussle but denied that it was premeditated. He said Hussle’s accusation that Holder was a snitch inflamed his client.
Jansen said Holder should have been charged with voluntary manslaughter instead of murder. The lawyer insisted his client did not intend to shoot the other two men — Kerry Lathan and Shermi Cervinta Villanueva — because he did not know them.
McKinney, however, said on Thursday that Holder planned the killing.
“The evidence showed he went over there, willing to kill everyone in that space,” McKinney said. “Nipsey was clearly the target but (Holder) was willing to kill everyone or chase them away.”
Lathan, 56, suffered major injuries from a shot to the back and is now wheelchair-bound in a convalescent home. Villanueva, Lathan’s nephew, was only grazed by a bullet. Both men testified during the trial.
The trial was continued on Tuesday after Holder was reportedly attacked by inmates after he was transported back to jail after he left court on Monday.
McKinney will continue his closing argument on Thursday and will be followed by the defense.