I worry about that too
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I understand that but I didn’t know that it permitted one person to decree an entire plea of the defense was not to be considered.
I mean, if Barison had ONLY pled self defense but couldn’t remember and therefore couldn’t put forward his version of the event, would the judge then be able to say “guy’s guilty because there is no evidence it was self defense”?
Seems like the judge is making a decision that SHOULD be up to the jury to rule on.
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I thought the rebuttal psychologist was very effective and his credentials were stellar. Both he and the defense psychiatrist are board certified in the forensic portion of their fields. The rebuttal pointed out the defense psychologist used the state psychologist testing and ran it through a now debunked software program. The defense psychologist disagreed with that of course. The state psychologist also said he found MB to be malingering wrt amnesia.
I don’t know if all the mental health experts and testimony will end up canceling each other out as a lot of gobbledygook. Then it’s guilty or not guilty. Testimony had MB with the last known possession. He had means and motive. He drove to the house.
I think the nice young woman the defense intended to use to show LK/MB bad and MB good (mom is in a romantic relationship) have opened the possibility that MB may have a history of carrying on with more than one woman at a time and deceiving at least one. When did relationships start and stop. They heard of recent divorce, money, two girlfriends, and another attractive woman in her 40s that he is accused of shooting twice. So his male friends spoke to his honesty. His loyal kind lawyer friend made a big deal of being two men together in sport of women and I don’t think that will help either. I don’t know if that will work for him or against him but it seems to make it more unclear about motives for everyone. One of them, I think the last psychologist, said he told him he let her come back up with him in 2019 because of money issues from the divorce. Is that hearsay and only to be used for state of mind? The other two, the defense psychiatrist and psychologist said MB grabbed the gun and rove over there. Is this hearsay and only to be used for state of mind? The defense lawyer was very practiced at sliding in comments not allowed in a court of law and really had the judge working to keep him in check. Did he outsmart himself with some of his own witnesses? Who was jealous of who? Was anyone really jealous? Is LK angry because she feels like just another client that was wooed by a BNT as a cash cow? Is this some of the cause of the high intensity of emotion of all parties? Did he get so careless with assuming women would fall all over him and he could handle them that he could care less about mixing business with pleasure and couldn’t handle it when it blew up in his face?
An all male jury may really feel for MB of they may be harder on him for not performing simple reference checks and using eviction protocols and being wealthy and successful yet being cheap about getting repairs done to code. They may be more inclined to hold him accountable for his own actions.
It will be very interesting.
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How sad is it that he is still so terrorized that when the topic came up that he would have to be released pending trial due to the extreme time delay, that he told the judge he preferred to remain in jail. Think about that. Did you see him shaking like a leaf when that disgusting man took the stand and sneared at him?
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I’m thinking that if the jury is of above average intelligence, they will think, “Wait a minute. Everyone agrees there was a scuffle - accompanied by a biting dog. But the two “victims” and their “ear witness” did not have matching stories about the sequence of events, and no one was tested for GSR. Where is the evidence that the defendant and he alone had possession of the gun when it discharged? I’m not sending a man to prison for attempted murder when I have reasonable doubt about what may have happened.”
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So a hung jury may not be a bad thing in that the State may decide not to retry him?
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You always have the option of not reading CoTH forums 
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Hut-ho - I thought he was extremely well credentialed too. But OMG how could you miss the performance on the stand? It was like something out of a TV show! Blustering and bloviating and name-dropping. Yelling at the defense cross examination as though angry that anyone could possibly question how entirely RIGHT he was about everything! Stating TWICE that MB drove up and shot LK as though it was established fact? (It most certainly is NOT established fact. And both LK and RG gave entirely different testimony as to the series of events!) That guy was so not believable. You sure watched a different trial than the rest of us.
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I found him to be a carnival barker.
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There is no evidence to support it, so he can’t put it forward. The fact he took the gun and drove down there, takes away any self defense argument. You can’t lodge a defense when there is no evidence to support it. You can pick what defense you are putting up / self defense/passion/battered wife/gay panic etc but there has to be evidence accepted by the courts to support it. There was none, as per the judge.
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Agreed. I mean why have a jury at all?
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???what
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I don’t know where y’all are on this thread -
I just finished yesterday’s testimony this morning - OMG Pornstache - could he have been more obnoxious? A solid 10 minutes on his CV? That he was reading to the jury?
I couldn’t stand his attitude enough to fully pay attention - does anyone know where time wise the MHG text comment happened? I missed it and would like to catch it in the full context.
Thanks for any help!
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This Judge is deciding the case .
I sure hope the juror sees through all this BS
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See, that I don’t agree with (I know, I know, I’m not a judge or trained in law in any way).
The fact that MB felt he needed a gun with him could be because he planned to gun the lot of them down in the driveway OR it could be because he was afraid for his life, something both of the prosecution’s expert witnesses both attested was true.
If he was going into a situation where he felt he was in danger, how can the judge completely dismiss a self defense claim, especially when the victims admitted to threatening him for weeks before hand?
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If MB is found Not guilty by insanity The judge will put him in an asylum for up to 40 years
That’s not how it works. Mental health professionals advise on psychological status of the individual, and advise on if/when they are safe or not safe to re-enter society
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Self defense doesn’t work that way, it has to be immediate threat of greater force with no escape, fear for your life. Not fear for your life so go take care of things.
Not saying thats what happened but thats what the judge says the evidence shows.
Even if someone attacks you with say a rope, you can’t always get away with shooting them, because the force of a gun is much more than a rope. It’s very complex. There can’t be any show of preparation for self defense.
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Schlesinger said he was malingering.
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So he drove to a location on his own property. He did get the gun. But by that reasoning you can never have a self defense argument because just having a gun shows intent. He did everything he could to deal with the problem properly and it was not in keeping with his normal character to just go shoot someone.
I am sure that the political pressure to find him guilty is huge.
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