One observation that struck me from Lacasse's (second round of) testimony was that Wendi was "a compulsive liar and not a very good one." That tells us a lot about her testimony. Examples:
--In the first trial, she famously said she didn't know how to spell "Jibbers" when the DA asked because she'd never seen it spelled out. Then the DA pointed out that she had already testified that "Jibbers" was the name she used to store Dan's info in her cellphone.
--In the second trial, when asked whether it was "very important" that she move from Tally to Miami, she said, "It wasn't very important." Cappleman let that one go, perhaps because it was so clearly counter to the weight of the evidence.
--On cross in the last trial, DeCoste asked a terrible question: "Can you think of anyone besides your family who would have wanted Dan dead?" Here's why that was a terrible question: It gave Wendi the opportunity to go wild spinning out every conspiracy theory possible and thereby deflect blame from her family and onto countless other possible murder-plotters. Remember, in her initial police interview she said, "Dan had a lot of enemies." So she could have buried DeCoste and scored points by saying, "Oh it could have been anyone, like (1) someone related to the Prodfather case he was consulting on, (2) some angry student who couldn't get a job during the recession, (3) some 'scamblogger' who was targeting Dan as a smug law professor [FWIW: A lot of people in Dan's field actually did propose this as a possible explanation]; (4) some other professor who was jealous or pissed at Dan for being an
professionally [NB: Dan was very talented, but could be incredibly brusque and alienated a lot of profs who had different views from him]; and/or (5) some random person like an angry FL motorist toting a gun who Dan cut off in traffic." None of these are true but the point is that DeCoste made a fundamental mistake of allowing a witness the opportunity to speculate wildly on the stand, and instead of taking the invitation to her advantage and letting her tendency to make
up run wild, Wendi got flummoxed, looked at the judge, and said "That calls for speculation" in an awkward lawyerly attmpt to avoid the question.
So returning to Lacasse's observation: She's a compulsive liar and not a very good one. These examples illsutrate both points beautifully. First, these are not only lies but compulsive ones in the sense that they are totally unnecessary. The first two didn't really advance her case. What would it have mattered if she volunteered how "Jibbers" is spelled? The jury wouldn't have cared. But by lying about it, thinking that the DA couldn't prove that she did know how to spell it, she caught herself up in a lie and ended up harming her cause. It's one thing to lie, what makes it habitual or even compulsive is to do so when you don't even need to.
Then when DeCoste screwed up and gave her a massive opening to propound countless alternative theories for who killed Dan, suddenly Wendi's habitual mendaciousness escaped her and she clammed up. Hence the "not very good at it" means two things: First, her lies are transparent, unnecessary, and so easily exposed they end up hurting her case. And second, when lying might actually help her, she suddenly forgets how.
I dunno if this means anything material for the case but it's satisfying to see someone so poised and self-confident undermine themselves. And second, it relates to the bigger issue--did CA, DA, and maybe also WA really think they could get away with murder using some mid-range thugs for a bargain basement price? Yeah, they apparently did--and happily seem to be in the process of being proved egregiously wrong.
