Quote:
Originally posted by Cowperson@Nov 10 2004, 09:30 PM
From what I know about the investigation they did not interview several witnesses who claimed to see her alive later in the day she was reported to have disappeared and they ignored many accounts of another potential suspect.
The defence promised to produce said witnesses and failed to do so before closing arguments.
Promising and then failing to deliver are considered by some legal observors of this case to be a blow to the defence.
Still, they really don't have a lot on this guy, even though he appears to be guilty.
Cowperson
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Well, the defense has no obligation to produce anyone. They only have to refute the charges as laid out by the prosecution. I have no idea why they did not go down the road of producing the other witnesses, but they chose not to. It does not mean they couldn't, only that they chose not to. It could be that they did not want to confuse the jury or cloud an issue they felt was worthy of taking out and blowing holes in the prosecution's case. I'm not an attorney and don't know what they were thinking, so I can't say why they did not bring these people to the stand. Like I said, I don't think the police and the prosecution have done their job very well and that should get Peterson off (they have not proved guilt and have barely provided a motive). It will be interesting to see what the judge's instructions and actions have on the deliberation process.