I was really surprised by two logistics things yesterday: that they ever spoke without masks at all (we never take ours off inside or out here) and that Bilinkas was allowed to walking around like he did. Iâd have thought for covid protocol all parties would need to remain masked at all times and seated or standing right at their chair.
IF someone did remove a mask to speak, I would have expected theyâd need to mask up before walking over to the officer or bench area.
That was legit surprising to me.
At the very beginning of the hearing Shellhorn asked if he could remove his mask and the judge said, âGo aheadâ.
Someone asked about body cams, the article mentions the statements were unrecorded. The officer testified to be within 2-3 feet of MB when the statements were made and the speech itself was clear, but he was blank faced and talking to himself.
Wow, thatâs truly surprising to me.
Interesting article. I donât know who she is, but she seemed to get things right and also wrote in a straightforward, concise manner.
Another aside: I thought the officer was very well spoken and composed. I guess itâs not unusual for an officer to be that position, but he handled it all very well and made a solid impression.
Yes, IMO he was the best of the three officers.
Jaffers changed RGâs name to Richard!
Oh I see she called him Richard.
I was curious and read a bit more of her site. She lost me completely calling the McDonald case Jane Does, âunderaged womenâ. She later says teens, but underaged women is a BS term and no decent person, let alone a journalist, would ever use it.
What strikes me is that the police officer treated one party so lightly when in fact that officer had no idea in what ways the fighting parties were involved or which one carried criminal burden.
The testimony seems to backup the defense claim of mental disease and defect at that time.
The cop said heâd never been there before but was aware of an on-going situation. Grand jury or not, it sure seems like this was shoved through with unusual police procedures.
And to reiterate, were I a juror the fact there were only 3 bullets in the gun in the beginning tells me its NOT premeditated murder.
Think about it: If you were planning to shoot someone and plotted it out with recordings of coconspirators near and far as has been suggested on this forum, would YOU only arm your weapon with 3 bullets? No, youâre shoving in a magazine and maybe are carrying a spare. Even school shooters donât do their dirty deeds with 3 bullets.
This is a huge glaring question in my mind and Iâm sure the potential for a juror to agree is definitely there. And just like that âbeyond a reasonable doubtâ goes POOF.
Hell, according to this testimony MB wasnât even in POSSESSION of the gun. He certainly didnât have control of it when cops came. Not sure how NJ law reads possession of an empty gun with two bodies laying on top of it.
This is what is so curious to me. How could an outsider know anything at all about that situation? Why would that outsider completely take the word of one actor of the others? It makes no sense.
For instance, I have experience in a Family Law legal clinic during law school. I learned so much about domestic violence during that internship. That is now a lens through which I see a lot of situations.
Had I been first on that scene and seen: a woman critically injured and bleeding, a man injured and bleeding and subdued, and man with no blood at all on him able to communicate fully, the other two parties unable to do so, I might reasonably suspect: the guy who seems to have gotten out of this with the fewest injuries and is controlling the situation might be the aggressor in a domestic dispute with the woman and the other bleeding guy may have gotten in his way.
Not that that was true (we know it wasnât) but it is a very reasonable assumption with those facts. If I just believe the guy most in control at that moment, then I just let the shooter go off on his merry way and cuffed the bystander. ETA: Iâd say this scenario is actually easier to believe than that someone pre-planned a killing to take place in broad daylight DURING a visit by reps of a govât agency. Not that itâs true, just that itâs a reasonable interpretation and more believable than the (possibly true) alternative, to my mind.
Again, before anyone loses the plot over this hypo: I do not believe this is what happened. What Iâm saying is, that LEO did not, by his own admission, know what happened. Given that, why did he wholly believe one party and act on that partyâs info and fail to secure that party and the scene?
And, again, being the most pro-victim here, Iâd be livid that the handling was so unusual and failed to clear RG of, say GSR on his hands, or keep a proper chain of custody of various bits of evidence, as it may hurt the prosecutionâs case. The most pro-victim stance you can take here is insisting the protocol was air tight, the scene and the evidence secure, all parties searched for weapons, GSR, etc., all so as to leave no doubt at all about which party discharged the weapon, etc. and completely clear the two innocent parties.
As it stands, the handling seems to have created a lot of room for doubt.
Oh and for folks who are wondering:
Being indicted by a Grand Jury doesnât mean jack sh*t as far as guilt. Those proceedings heavily favor the prosecution and arent even close to resembling a trial. All that proceeding does is ask the question if there is enough suspicion to go to trial. And where the evidence is so one sided and where there is no defense opportunity itâs no surprise that this case as well as many others go to trial - with the defendant often being acquitted.
And a âtrue billâ is just a fancy way of saying there was enough evidence to go to trial to ask the question of guilt. Grand Juries are the Prosecutions playground so no surprise the GJ hands down more true bills than no bills. So do not take the mere fact there was an indictment to mean guilt and that the case has been established.
Letâs discuss Grand Juries. @FitzE please help me outâŠa GJ is a group of people brought together to hear evidence a prosecutor provides, no judge or defense involved, with closed, secret records to decide if and what charges are to be brought. Right? Seems the prosecutor can have all the slam dunks he wants!
Great mindsâŠI just mentioned the same thing!
Hopefully our litigation and court experts (like KnightsMom, thank you for that info) will chime in. I mean, you want to do a complex floating off-shore wind project in Asia or Europe dealing with economic regulations, maritime law, environmental law, and complex, cross-border, multi-stage financing - Iâm all in!
Criminal law, trial logistics, court procedure, litigation, etc.: youâve got your CanteringCarrots, your KnightsMoms, your vxf111s, etc. Iâm all ears for what these folks have to tell us about the logistics of these cases.
There are also things called Secret Indictments which go on without the defendant even knowing they are being accused of something. This is basically just the prosecutor talking to the Grand Jurors alone with no defendant even aware. That is not the case here but just an interesting fact to illustrate how one sided these things are
Secret indictments are done all the time in organized crime situations FYI.
Also relevant is that a Grand Jury indictment doesnât even mean all jurors agree as to sufficient proof to go to trial. The bar is set rather low. Still in the prosecutionâs favor but low.
Being called to sit on a Grand Jury is different than being a regular juror. A regular juror hears one case and one case only whether it be a criminal trial or a civil trial.
Grand juries hear a parade of cases and sit for weeks.
Question: there was a tie-out or cable tie for the dog. Was s/he on it or was the dog loose in the yard?
I have a dog of similar size and that is not small. I can also put said dog into the house, close the door and it is secure. Particularly since I use a flat line (repurposed lunge line) and therefore it can stay on the dog AND the door securely closes on it.
If my beloved was shot, I donât have minutes to spare entering my home.
