Patricia Aiken
A new act in the re-trial is that Diablo allows the jurors to write down their questions after every witness is finished. Then a sidebar is called where the attorneys all meet behind a wooden panel and discuss which questions will be answered. The government uses those questions to gauge how the jury is reacting to witnesses and the next day directs their questioning accordingly. This strategy appears to be backfiring. The jurors are asking questions that the defense is barred from asking.
Also differing from the first trial is a timeline that the government has meticulously pieced together from Fedbook posts and cell phone calls. They are desperate to tie Ricky Lovelien to Operation Mutual Aid leader Ryan Payne by two phone calls and a LIKE on Fedbook for an OMA fundraiser. They insist that the ride that Parker, Stewart and Drexler took from the protest site to the Toquop Wash in the back of Lovelien's truck due to parking and logistical challenges links them to the conspiracy. In fact, they didn't so much as know Lovelien's name until they were met him again on the transport to Nevada two years later. Diablo wholeheartedly agreed with Myhre that there doesn't have to be any verbal agreement to a conspiracy- "just a wink and a nod" will suffice.
The government is quite chuffed with this timeline. So much so in fact, that during a sidebar, FBI agent Joel Willis came back to his seat behind the Prosecution's table and gave his female colleague in the seat next to him a fist pump indicating "We got 'em now".
Replies