Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you are here because one person in this courtroom decided to take law into her own hands. The defendant, Mrs. Dominique Stephens, murdered the man that she vowed to love. This sole act by the defendant is violation of all morals and her husband’s right to live. Afterwards, she even felt guilty about this violation of justice and called the cops on herself, and she later signed a written statement stating that she is guilty of the murder of Mr. Donovan Stephens. Then the defendant later recanted this statement and said that she only killed Mr. Stephens in self defense. I ask you what is self defense when the man she murdered laided defenseless and unconscious on his bed? The defendant is only claiming that she acted in self defense to get away with the cold-blooded murder of the man she claimed to love. The defense during this case tried to convince you that Mrs. Stephens was a helpless abused wife. Let me ask you, is Mrs. Stephens helpless when she was able fire a gun and put three bullet holes in her husband? And how is she helpless when she was given many opportunities to escape from her husband for her safety and her children’s safety? However, this story of Mrs. Stephens being helpless is all the defense has. But how can you, the jury, believe a story from a woman that would lie to doctors, to police, …show more content…
They have told you the true story of what happened that fateful night on June 17, 2016. Their testimonies show you that the defendant was not helpless and that she had many opportunities to leave her husband. In addition, their testimonies showed you that the defendant knowingly and premeditatedly murdered her unconscious husband. Unlike the defense, the prosecution and its witnesses have no gain by lying to
I think it would be difficult for the prosecution to form an argument off of my points. The prosecution admitted that they don’t argue that Ms. Stephens is a victim of abuse, but rather is not suffering from battered woman syndrome. Once I use all of my witnesses and explain how Ms. Stephens is a clear case of battered woman syndrome, I think they will have a difficult time arguing that considering she clearly has every sign and symptom. The only argument I think they can use would be that because Mr. Stephens went to take a nap, Ms. Stephens could have just called the police and not shot him herself. I think members of the jury may also agree with this purely on the basis that those who aren’t victims of abuse can easily have the mindset that
On October 1, 2003, Dawna Cantrell was arrested and charged with the murder of her husband and two counts of tampering with evidence. Ms. Cantrell’s competency was questioned after evaluation by the defense expert, Dr. Eric Westfried. After subsequent evaluation by the state’s expert, Dr. Edward Siegel, both experts found that Ms. Cantrell had a “persecutory delusional disorder” and that her mental illness precluded her from assisting her attorney in her defense. The trial court found her incompetent to stand trial and ordered a dangerousness evaluation.
Based on the experiment, it revealed that it was literally impossible for someone to have shot themselves from the distance stated at trial, even for a tall person, who tends to have longer arms. The defendant’s primary challenge to the government was that there was insufficient evidence of his wife’s arm. This argument could be used to defend him, the accused one because in reality, there is no evidence
Conclusion: Even though the defendant’s attorney can establish after a thorough research that potential defenses exist regarding the elements of “dwelling house” as well as “breaking,” two probable defenses appear promising. To be precise, the defendant, John, only entered Mary’s condominium with certain parts of his body. Therefore, it is through research that the attorney can declare that one’s entire body ought to be inside the house to make an “entering.” In addition, additional information is required to establish whether the crime was done during the night. However, if it did not, then, John has a precise defense to this crime charges.
The public has reacted with incredulity that the court’s definition of behaviour showing “innocence of murder” could include the extended deception and dishonest conduct of this man, who has continued, day after day, month after month, year after year to conceal the truth about his wife’s death (Couriermail 2016). The success of Baden-Clay’s appeal in turn, influences others in similar situations of spouse homicide and not only allows but encourages this deceptive behaviour. This would surely be detrimental to all of Queensland society and create an unsafe culture by opening this type of opportunity for future homicides and killings if all it takes to win a spouse homicide case was to dispose of the body so that there is no recognisable signs of trauma and enough evidence to be convicted of
Her defense stated that her kid drowned, her father knew and was covering it up, and that her father had been touching her since she was a child. Casey was all over the place and it was clear as day that she responsible for the death of her child. With all the evidence the prosecution had to go off they in my mind didn’t have enough evidence to support their claims. In this case the police report wasn’t bad or not well written it was just that Casey’s telling to the police were lies. Each side present their cases and evidence and in the end it came to the jury to make the final decision.
Defendant has only made statements to ruin Coach Josephs’s reputation. Coach Josephs was the only coach cleared of any involvement in the scandal, but Defendant was not satisfied with the police investigation. Defendant was not satisfied with Coach Josephs’s offer to testify at Court. Defendant will never be satisfied because she wants Coach Joseph to pay for her son’s death, and she has proven that she is willing to make reckless false statements to make him pay. Every statement Defendant makes is targeted at damaging Coach Josephs’s reputation, which makes them
It was a dark and windy night in the town of Rowlett, Texas. On June 6th, 1996, Darlie Routier and her sons Devon and Damon Routier were awaken by the tip of a knife. Although it may sound insane, this was all due to a mother who did not have the patience for the children and valued her appearance more. in the opinion of her friends (Montaldo,2015,1). In reality this woman was sentenced to death row because her whole case was faulty.
Opening Statement: Prosecutor May it please the court, counsel, members of the jury: this is a case of murder, involuntary murder. We are all here today to bring justice to the state of Massachusetts. What you are about to hear may stun you. We are gathered here today to charge Abigail Williams with involuntary manslaughter.
The pathologist identified bruises on Rust’s knuckles that were consistent with having hit Lavallee. Miller had the doctor “confirm that Battered Woman Syndrome is not a psychiatric term”(Sheehy, 2014, 22). One of Miller’s strategies was to get Lavallee to testify on grounds that if she did not, the defense would be “introducing medical and psychiatric evidence without an evidentiary foundation”(Sheehy, 2014, 33). Nonetheless, the judge decided Lavallee was not required to testify so Miller went on to persistently try to get Dr.Dirks to state that one emergency visit a year is normal. Miller continuously tried to suggest that Lavallee’s injuries could have been caused by anyone, not just Rust because her injuries were quite often ‘singular’.
The opposing side of the argument may say Mary planned on the death of her husband though evidence says otherwise. When Mary went down to the freezer she “took hold of the first object she found” displaying how Mary didn’t deliberately grab a weapon to use on Patrick’s death and his actual killing was not clearly thought-out by Mary, proving diminished capacity and not murder. Mary Maloney deeply loved her husband and her child, through Patricks’ violence push her to her limits. No criminal intent was for sought when Mary’s state of mind obscurely went after Patrick. All in all Mary wasn’t in her right mind whyen all of this took place.
The Trial: One piece of evidence that was used to convict Steven of the murder of Lynne, was the fact he was the last person to have seen her alive on June 9th. The legal issue that arose from this claim was that witnesses corroborated Steven’s story. Steven old police that the last time he saw Lynne alive was when he left her at the intersection of the County Road and
During a interview with Jay, they asked why he did not call the police, after seeing Hae’s body, that gotten murdered and is in a trunk of the car. Jay said he did not because he was worried that if he ratted out Adnan, that Adnan would tell the police that Jay sells drugs. Jay just saw a dead body and was afraid to call the police because he thought Adnan would tell them that he sold weed. How is that an excuse not to call the police when you know someone just murdered someone else? Even if Adnan told the police about Jay’s criminal activities, it is not like drug sentence is as long as a murder sentence.
Relationships, lies, murder, conviction. These are all aspects that come into play when talking about the January 13th, 1999 murder of high school student Hae Min Lee. Adnan Syed, Hae’s 17-year-old ex-boyfriend was convicted of her murder in 2000. The problem with this is that the only evidence the state had to convict Adnan was the stories told by others, specifically someone named Jay who was with Adnan for some of the day Hae went missing and had possession of Adnan’s car and cell phone. He claims Adnan made him come pick him up after the murder was committed and assist him in burying Hae’s body.
Insanity is not a valid defense for one main reason. You are either crazy or you are not. In the end, Mack Herring was acquitted for murder. He felt as if he was pressured into doing it and he also thought he was helping her by committing the crime.