Wednesday, April 11, 2007
The Lonoke prosecution
The judge in the Lonoke corruption case has informed jurors that the end is near. It may come by the end of this week. The former chief of police and his wife are on trial for escapades with state prison inmates, drug charges, and some other offenses against the public trust.
This has been going on for five weeks now. I have not been in the courtroom, nor am I intimately familiar with the evidence. The jury can be counted on to render a good verdict based on the evidence presented. This brings me to the point of this little chat. Merely based on newspaper and television coverage, I have a bad feeling for Lona McCaslin’s case. The prosecutor has set forward an entertaining, and even sometimes astounding, case of strenuous sexual encounters in the most imaginative settings. I have not, however, heard the evidence of wrongdoing so serious as to warrant a trial that will have dragged on for two months.
The jury must be dying of boredom. The charges against one of the defendants have been severed and that must look odd to jurors, who presumably have not been following news coverage and are clueless. The jury will get it right, I am certain, but this case looks mighty thin.
(Broadcast April 11, 2007)
This has been going on for five weeks now. I have not been in the courtroom, nor am I intimately familiar with the evidence. The jury can be counted on to render a good verdict based on the evidence presented. This brings me to the point of this little chat. Merely based on newspaper and television coverage, I have a bad feeling for Lona McCaslin’s case. The prosecutor has set forward an entertaining, and even sometimes astounding, case of strenuous sexual encounters in the most imaginative settings. I have not, however, heard the evidence of wrongdoing so serious as to warrant a trial that will have dragged on for two months.
The jury must be dying of boredom. The charges against one of the defendants have been severed and that must look odd to jurors, who presumably have not been following news coverage and are clueless. The jury will get it right, I am certain, but this case looks mighty thin.
(Broadcast April 11, 2007)
