Author Archive

4pm Update: An Early Day The day’s wrap is coming soon.  Until then: Nicholas Petraco finished cross and re-direct, and the court rose.  Tomorrow, one witness for the defense; court reconvenes at 2:15 pm.  1:30 Update: In-and-Out Burger Surprise!  Defense had asked to regroup mid-way through Petraco’s testimony, leading to a 10 minute break.  Reconvening, Schertler rose to...
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Impermissible Speculation, or Reasonable Inference? First, the end of the day’s events.  At 4pm Judge Leibovitz – to the apparent irritation of some legal counsel – reconvened to begin hearing argument in the motion to acquit, brought under Rule 29 at the close of the prosecution’s case in chief.  Recall from Sean’s post that these motions may...
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5:00pm Update: Adjournment A full recap of the day’s activity hits around 7:00pmET…  The prosecution finds its feet and the defense tries to trip them up. 3:00pm Update – If the Knife Doesn’t Fit… Detective Bryan Waid was called back to the stand to authenticate the “exemplar” knife obtained by MPD to act as a dummy of the...
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An End In Sight – With Stipulations Judge Leibovitz returned to the bench this afternoon at 2:30…and promptly left for a walk.  The reason: defense and prosecution negotiations were close – very close – to a comprehensive set of deals that could allow motions to proceed, the government to call one final witness, and then rest.  The break...
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2pm Update:  What were we saying about stepping on the gas earlier? 11:30, Det. Daniel Whalen was called.  A 27+ year veteran of the MPD, and homicide detective for over 20. Whalen was investigating the August 2nd murder, but it was the 1509 Swann burglary that brought him to court.  AUSA Glenn Kirschner engaged Whalen on a...
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Drama…and Tedium It’s been a while since things moved so expeditiously in Judge Lynn Leibovitz’ courtroom…and that’s probably saying something. “What’s the plan?” asked Leibovitz, prompting thought that the government would bring nine additional witnesses barring a new agreement w/the defense that could slim that number.  Through the day we got a clear sense of the plan...
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3:30 Update As expected, the first witness called after the lunch break was Jason Torchinsky.  Close friends by all measures, attorney Torchinsky was also close to Kathy Wone at the time of the murder, and served unofficially for a brief time as Kathy’s counsel.  Torchinsky testified on two main areas – first, the Sunday evening phone...
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5:00pm Adjournment The first half hour of Joe Price’s videotaped interrogation was played in court this afternoon.  Seeing it is far different than reading it on the printed page. The trial reconvenes at 9:00am tomorrow.  A full recap of today will go up by 7:00pm 3:45pm Update The afternoon session evidence kicked off David Schertler’s continued cross of...
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The Pace Picks Up Six things we learned today: 1: Needle Marks.  EMT Jeff Baker made the point repeatedly that the needle puncture marks found in the autopsy were not from any efforts to resuscitate Robert either at 1509 Swann or en route to George Washington University Hospital.  This, despite the defense best efforts to knock...
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Opening Statements, and Katherine Wone Takes the Stand So what was learned today? Defense Pushback on Knife.  In their opening statements, all three defense counsels Bernie Grimm, David Schertler and Thomas Connolly addressed the question of the knife, with Schertler insisting – using a very large blow-up image – that the knife found on the scene...
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