Hi AZlawyer,
1) I noticed when I asked you Fri morn (pre Nurmie's closing) what your expectations were regarding verdict, you replied with the 1st quote above, however when replying to another poster last night, you wrote the 2nd. So I have to ask, has your confidence in a Murder 1 verdict waned at all since your first reply and if so, is it a result of Nurmi's closing arguments and/or the State's rebuttal?
2) Can you also please give me your take on the following? I thought Nurmi (surprisingly and much to my consternation) raised some strong points in closing, namely a) why steal a gun and then engage in a much more dangerous and ultimately messy knife-battle as a first option of killing a larger, stronger male? b) why not attack Travis when he was most vulnerable, e.g. when he had his back to her when she first arrived, when he was sleeping, or when by the evidence alone he was naked and facing away from her in the shower pics just mins before she killed him? My question to you is, do you think it was a mistake for Martinez not to address these ostensibly reasonable questions in his rebuttal? (he made no reference at all to b), and only repeated his one-sentence line from closing re a), namely "whether the gunshot was first or last, it's still premeditated")
3) Going back to the transcripts/3rd gas can issue I had asked you about early Fri, I personally am amazed and appalled that Martinez did not manage to obtain, and read, the 10 seconds of testimony during his rebuttal that would have nailed shut the issue of not only the defendant perjuring herself, but her lawyer at best misstating things at at worst lying. Unless all jurors happened to have taken notes during that particular part of the testimony, I can picture scenes in deliberation like "She said it, I have it here..." "Oh really, I remember it a bit differently" etc etc... Again, do you think this was a mistake on the part of Martinez, or is there any other legal issue that may have prevented him reading this to the jury?
Thanks again, and if you'd rather not answer 2) and 3) because it requires you to comment on a fellow-lawyer's performance, I completely understand.