Current news from the
West Seattle Herald:
By Steve Shay
2011-09-03
UPDATE 11:00 p.m. Tuesday, Seattle time
(Wednesday, 7:45 a.m. in Perugia, Italy)
Chris Mellas updated the West Seattle Herald by email with Tuesday's courtroom session. We inserted clarifications in italics in parentheses. He is currently on his way to court Wednesday. They are nine hours ahead.
We asked him why court meets during weekdays in this juried appeal trial now, when, during the first trial, court was mostly in session Friday nights and Saturdays to allow jurors to go to their weekday jobs.
"Court meeting every day? Because the judge said so. I guess is that the judge wants this done and over with. Perhaps he has other obligations in October, or he is just done with this case. I don't know for sure...but I like that it is moving toward a conclusion at a rapid pace. Amanda likes it too.
"This appeal will likely be done with a decision on the verdict within the last weeks of September, if nothing is added to the schedule.
"So, the last hearing had Stefanoni (police forensics investigator Patrizia Stefanoni who works for the prosecution) finish up on the stand, then ( Giuseppe) Novelli (The prosecution's DNA expert) went, and then someone who went for the Kerchers, (because of the family's civil suit against Amanda and Raffaele) and then ( Adriano) Tagliabracci went. He is the expert for Raffaele. He finished out the day. He is the one threatened by the prosecution to not say anything that he would regret. Everybody jumped on ( Prosecutor Manuela) Comodi for her threat, the judge included.
"He also got Stefanoni to admit that she stored evidence in Amanda's/Meredith's freezer, which just shows how unprofessional and uncaring the investigation was in regard to contamination, procedure, etc. Stefanoni just nodded and said 'yes' when asked. The picture was on the screen for the world to see, and it was expressly her job.
"Amanda was happy with the results of the day. The prosecution tried their best to make headway in discrediting the courts experts and the evidence, but she felt they did not succeed at all. Others I spoke to felt t it was a good day for the defense, even though we mostly heard from prosecution people. Their answers, in cross examination, were detrimental to their position overall. Novelli was shown to be disingenuous because he directly conflicted with things he has said in the past regarding policies, procedures, quality of evidence.'This is different' was all he had to say, and when he was asked 'In what way is this different?' he would offer no scientific reason. He would just dance around the topic like a veteran politician.
I think today (Wednesday) will be a short day too. Not a 6:30pm-ending day like the last two."
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