If they want to use it at trial, yep, they'll have to share.
I think there must be some procedure where they could get it now, too. Truthfully, though, I think they had it already. I don't think they were surprised by it in the least.
Ah, I dunno -- I kind of think they were at least a little surprised. Well, maybe.
I just watched the hearing for the third time -- including running the post part over a few times in this watching -- and I do see some response. (Maybe.)
At one point, Buford leans over for a little conversation with Hogue. It comes about the time Winters has finished the "lose it on TV" part. I can't help but wonder if Buford was catching the dissonance of that part, timeline-wise, with being a genuine SM post -- I know that's one of the first things that jumped out at me. (Of course, he could have been commenting on what he had for lunch before the hearing, FAIK!)
SM does do some scribbling during part of the post-reading. And, as soon as Winters finishes up with the post and closing comments about it and moves on to something else, SM does sort of tug at Buford to get his attention and they put heads together for a conversation. (Oh, to be a fly on the defense table!)
Not related to whether the defense side was surprised ...but I also noted that, at one point
before reading, Winters
does say something pretty much equivalent to "He wrote this" -- though he also says something along the lines of "this was under the moniker SoL". After reading, he doesn't say anything like "he wrote this" -- seems like he starts to but then substitutes a rather awkward thing along the lines of "this is from the posting that he does".
Another random observation -- and GypsiesTramps&Thieves, I believe, touched on this a few pages back -- is that the print reports of the post Winters read, on both
The Telegraph web site (macon.com) and on the web site for Macon Channel 13 TV (wmaz.com), leave out part of what Winters reads. He says (I believe), "See my sexy neighbor/classmate come home late,
wasted from a graduation party." Both print accounts leave out the part I've italicized.
I expect maybe they omitted that phrase out of respect for Lauren. I certainly mean no disrespect to her by quoting it here -- after all, I think the post is a "fake" one, a joker's imagined version of events. But the omitted phrase is important, because, as far as we know, Lauren wasn't coming home from a party the night she was last heard from, and certainly probably not a graduation party, since she had graduated in May and this was late June.