I am pulling this over from the trial thread, but unfortunately I do not know how to officially quote it.
Post# 1030 by collete:
Even though he has made this trip many times, the trip still takes longer than the LE says it does. If they have such a good case, why do they have to lie about many facts? That is the problem with this case. Also Harris usually went to CFA drive thru so things were different that day.
Respectfully, the trip is that short. While LE has been less than truthful about many things that have been released, it is .6 miles from CFA to the Tree House. The 0.6 miles includes an extra 0.1 mile for making the U-turn to avoid the center median. It is about 0.15 miles, including the U-turn, from CFA to the middle of the intersection. It is less than 0.1 miles from the CFA exit until the turn lane starts. I have driven through that intersection over 1,000 times (twice a day for 4+ years), and I can assure you that it is just as close as LE says that it is. In fact, I think that the State did a terrible job during the opening statements with not conveying to the jury exactly how close the turn lane is to the CFA exit. The turn lane is actually immediately in front of the CFA exit, but Ross had to backtrack about 100-150 yards to avoid the median.
But what of traffic? I've been in traffic many a time , both in cities and on highways, when distance meant little in terms of time spent driving. Worst in recent past was getting stuck on a trip west in Sunday return traffic going into Denver, when we averaged literally one mile an hour for 2 1/2 hours.