I just found it really weird that Branca would go on and on about attempted manslaughter… when that isn’t applicable to NJ law.
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I wonder if there would be enough interest in it to actually make a profit on such a book.
Also, I wonder if he would want to spend the time looking back on it, regardless of the profit potential. Based on the way he looks now, he might prefer to just walk away from the whole mess and not look back.
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You know that MBs musical freestyle was to Queen…?
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How/why do these people come to court to testify unprepared, especially if they are professionals? I am reeling over the testimony of this Ed David, attorney. Wow. Just WOW!! Playing with rubber bands, casually dressed (he must have had a golf date this afternoon), the event happened “4 years ago”, argumentive, and of course, more “I don’t recall” responses.
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Can someone do a succinct, factual recap of which witnesses testified and what they said?
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All 6 days or just today?
My friend who is a tribunal judge has said they has to double check every legal argument the lawyers make because they often get it a bit wrong. No lawyer in the world has every statute in every area of law memorized and certainly not for every jurisdiction. Is why you are licensed for a given state or province.
Lots of times lawyers commenting publicly are trying to make a point about a general principle or they are actually lobbying for a political issue. Just take it as chatter.
As far as age, whatever age MB was at arrest, 2 and a half years later he is now 2 or 3 years older depending on birthdate. So it depends what source you are quoting.
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Just today.
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No, I did not. I focused on the stomp…stomp…STOMP.
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They set our to destroy him and, sadly, they have been successful…so far.
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I know this isn’t 100% relevant, but LK’s Instagram bio still has BarisoneDressage listed/tagged. Considering she was active on SM just a few weeks ago on it, seems strange to still have that listed.
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There’s a difference between inspections for closing a sale, and new construction inspections for Occupancy Permits.
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Well for me that underscores how cruel, tacky, tasteless and entitled a person can be. My only question is whether this has been her personality all along and addiction laid it bare, or if it developed as a consequence of her addiction problems.
I lean towards the former.
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I’m sorry, the hay man has me sobbing. He brings home how these evil people affected so many others in their drive to break and destroy a highly respected man, friend, businessman, teacher, leader, “a dignified, elegant man”… a good person. There is a very special place in hell for people of their particular level of evil.
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I expect it’s tagged so it comes up in searches for Barisone. The shooting is the biggest thing that’s ever happened in her life and the only thing that could conceivably be of geberal public interest.
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Briefly…
The prosecution finished their case this morning with three witnesses. Two police officers, and the lawyer who was the famed ear witness on the phone call with LK at the time of the shooting.
The two police officers testified to their interactions with MB at the crime scene on the day of the shooting, and how he looked and what he said in the hospital afterwards. The defense lawyer pointed out a few inconsistencies in their reports and their procedures.
The ear witness lawyer testified about his conversation with LK on August 7th. He said he had only been on the case for a day or two at that time. He also said that when he met with LK, LK‘s father, and RG the day before the shooting to discuss MB’s efforts to evict them, he was unaware that they were recording that conversation. And he did not actually remember RG being there for the conversation, although RG has testified that he was there, and it seemed to be proven by the transcript of that recording.
Anyway. He said that he was on the phone with LK for about four minutes, and then he heard her say something like, “Michael Barisone has a gun. He just shot me in the chest.” He said he heard two (and only two) gunshots, and after that he tried to call them back to see what was going on, but he could not reach them, so he called 911.
The defense attorney questioned him pretty extensively about the details, and the witness seemed to get quite flustered and excited in the process. There seemed to be some inconsistencies between what he had to say today and what we heard on the witness stand last week.
After that, the prosecution rested and they stopped for the lunch break.
After the lunch break, the defense lawyer started calling his witnesses. He called eight witnesses in total today. They mentioned MB’s condition when they interacted with him, which they all said was completely off the rails by that time.
The first witness was the private investigator who was hired by MB to do a background check on LK and RG. He basically just said that he did the background check on them, and then the prosecutor objected, there was a sidebar, and that was the end of his testimony.
The next witness was what we have been referring to as the hay guy, although I’m not sure that’s entirely accurate. I believe he said he worked at the local nursery and did different things periodically for MB.
And the week before the shooting, he was the one that MB hired to sit in his car in front of the barn each night from 8:00 PM to 6:00 AM to make sure that nobody unauthorized came in the barn during the night. He also described the recent change in MB from how he had known him to behave for the last 20 years.
He said that MB was up at all hours all during the night walking around and keeping an eye on things, and that MB was almost unrecognizable by that point. I would suggest just watching the video of the hay guy’s testimony. It’s not very long, and it’s well worth a look.
Edited to add: Here is the link to the video, which Horse Daft kindly posted a bit further down the thread. The part with the hay guy, Larry Davison, starts around the 8:00 mark. He is immediately followed by the health department witness, whose testimony is also well worth a look.
After that, the defense lawyer called a woman who works for the local health department who had also dealt with MB several times over the years regarding different projects and improvements at the farm. She was one of the people who came out to the farm on August 6th following the complaint filed by LK and RG. The health department witness agreed that MB was completely different from the way she had seen him behave over the years to the point where she could hardly believe it.
She also said that she got such a bad feeling from RG when she met him that she literally backed away from him and let her associate deal with him.
The rest of the witnesses were people who had never met MB before, but they all agreed that he was distraught and disheveled and basically in terrible shape. They included two people who had come out on August 6th to inspect the property for fire code violations, the two EMS workers who had taken MB to the hospital in an ambulance, and the doctor who had treated MB at the hospital.
The first fire department guy agreed that MB looked like he was in terrible shape, and I think he was the one who described MB sobbing just a few minutes after they met him.
The next fire department guy, who was the fire marshal, I believe, went into more detail about the violations they found on the property and what they did about them. He said that because of the violations, the property (including both the house and the barn) had to be vacated because it was not safe for occupation.
He testified that he put up notices to that effect, and told MB that nobody could sleep in the barn or the house, which was when MB and the others moved their mattresses out from the barn lounge onto the barn porch instead.
He then testified that LK/RG emailed him pictures or maybe videos of the house that night of August 6th that looked like the code violations had been fixed, which meant they could stay in the house.
BUT. The fire marshal said he did not communicate that change of occupancy status on the house to MB, so the next question is if MB knew that LK and RG were still staying in the house. Or did he think the house was empty because they had vacated it, per the fire marshal’s orders? The answer to that question is undetermined at this point as far as I can tell.
After that, the defense lawyer separately called the two EMS workers who had come to the scene after the shooting on August 7th. They both talked about MB’s injuries and condition, including his mental state, which they agreed was altered by that time following the shooting.
Then the defense lawyer called the doctor who had treated MB at the hospital. The doctor went into some details about MB’s injuries, and also agreed that his mental state was altered at that time when the doctor saw him in the hospital.
I’m sure others will weigh in with more details, but that is the basic version of the day’s events.
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Re bolded. Are you saying that in NJ the defense has the burden to prove insanity by a preponderance of the evidence?
That is quite different from the prosecution having to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he is sane.
Apparently her C.V. lacks breadth and depth.
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I can imagine she is not receiving the type of attention she craves and demands. No wonder she’s locked down most of her SM accounts to prevent the public from contacting her.
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I’m guessing LK thought her ear witness and his testimony to hearing her say, “Here comes Michael and he has a gun!” was supposed to be a “bombshell”.
Sounds kind of staged to me. Can you say, “Set. UP”?
When does Arnie the farrier testify? That’s where we get to hear about, “Finish(ing) the bastard.”
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