Criminal law specialist: Pinyon Pines defense ‘should be proud’ of work in Pape & Smith trial
Tomorrow, the Pinyon Pines triple murder trial jury will return to the Riverside County Hall of Justice for their eighth day of deliberations.
It’s been several weeks since the fates of Cristin Smith and Robert Pape have been in their hands, and one criminal law specialist says this bodes well for the defense.
“Those defense attorneys should be proud.” says Kia Feyzjou, a veteran defense attorney and board-certified criminal law specialist.” Whatever they’ve done to keep this jury out in Riverside County, which is generally a conservative neighborhood, they’ve done a good job.”
Feyzjou has served as a defense attorney in Riverside for 16 years and has never seen jury deliberations extend beyond 72 hours. There is a specific threshold the defense should hope for, according to Feyzjou.
“If you get past the first day, it’s a good sign. Historically, as defense attorneys you want it
to go as long as it can,” said Feyzjou. “This amount of time, six, seven days, is a lot of time. It’s an extraordinary amount of time.”
Today saw a noticeable stirring in the jury room; the jurors requested the transcripts for a particular piece of testimony from several weeks back.
{“url”:”https://twitter.com/KWidnerCBSL2/status/1003703698390781952″,”author_name”:”Katie Widner CBSL2″,”author_url”:”https://twitter.com/KWidnerCBSL2″,”html”:”&#lt;blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”&#gt;&#lt;p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”&#gt;&#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/PinyonPines?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;#PinyonPines&#lt;/a&#gt; Triple Murder Trial: Bailiff says the jury requested an entire read back of Robert Pape’s ex-wife, Sara Honaker today. There were no questions from the jury. &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/KESQ?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;@KESQ&#lt;/a&#gt; &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/LocalTwo?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;@LocalTwo&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/p&#gt;– Katie Widner CBSL2 (@KWidnerCBSL2) &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/KWidnerCBSL2/status/1003703698390781952?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;June 4, 2018&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/blockquote&#gt;n&#lt;script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″&#gt;&#lt;/script&#gt;n”,”width”:550,”height”:null,”type”:”rich”,”cache_age”:”3153600000″,”provider_name”:”Twitter”,”provider_url”:”https://twitter.com”,”version”:”1.0″}
{“url”:”https://twitter.com/KWidnerCBSL2/status/1003704678805147651″,”author_name”:”Katie Widner CBSL2″,”author_url”:”https://twitter.com/KWidnerCBSL2″,”html”:”&#lt;blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”&#gt;&#lt;p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”&#gt;&#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/PinyonPines?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;#PinyonPines&#lt;/a&#gt; triple murder trial: Bailiff says it’s the first time since the first two days when they asked for a read back of Javier Garcia’s testimony. That was 150 pages long. At that time, they also asked for a laptop to play DVD of Pape’s interview with detectives.&#lt;/p&#gt;– Katie Widner CBSL2 (@KWidnerCBSL2) &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/KWidnerCBSL2/status/1003704678805147651?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;June 4, 2018&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/blockquote&#gt;n&#lt;script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″&#gt;&#lt;/script&#gt;n”,”width”:550,”height”:null,”type”:”rich”,”cache_age”:”3153600000″,”provider_name”:”Twitter”,”provider_url”:”https://twitter.com”,”version”:”1.0″}
{“url”:”https://twitter.com/KWidnerCBSL2/status/1003705173904986112″,”author_name”:”Katie Widner CBSL2″,”author_url”:”https://twitter.com/KWidnerCBSL2″,”html”:”&#lt;blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”&#gt;&#lt;p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”&#gt;&#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/PinyonPines?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;#PinyonPines&#lt;/a&#gt; triple murder trial: The read backs are not open to the public and are done in the jury room. Bailiff tells me even he is not allowed in. Court reporter must bring all of her gear inside jury room to read the transcript back. &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/KESQ?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;@KESQ&#lt;/a&#gt; &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/LocalTwo?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;@LocalTwo&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/p&#gt;– Katie Widner CBSL2 (@KWidnerCBSL2) &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/KWidnerCBSL2/status/1003705173904986112?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;June 4, 2018&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/blockquote&#gt;n&#lt;script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″&#gt;&#lt;/script&#gt;n”,”width”:550,”height”:null,”type”:”rich”,”cache_age”:”3153600000″,”provider_name”:”Twitter”,”provider_url”:”https://twitter.com”,”version”:”1.0″}
{“url”:”https://twitter.com/KWidnerCBSL2/status/1003743968318840832″,”author_name”:”Katie Widner CBSL2″,”author_url”:”https://twitter.com/KWidnerCBSL2″,”html”:”&#lt;blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”&#gt;&#lt;p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”&#gt;&#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/PinyonPines?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;#PinyonPines&#lt;/a&#gt; triple murder trial: Today’s read back was roughly 43 pages of transcript from Sara Honaker. Bailiff says it took 35-40 minutes.&#lt;/p&#gt;– Katie Widner CBSL2 (@KWidnerCBSL2) &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/KWidnerCBSL2/status/1003743968318840832?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;June 4, 2018&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/blockquote&#gt;n&#lt;script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″&#gt;&#lt;/script&#gt;n”,”width”:550,”height”:null,”type”:”rich”,”cache_age”:”3153600000″,”provider_name”:”Twitter”,”provider_url”:”https://twitter.com”,”version”:”1.0″}
In short, they weren’t having the transcripts read back for their health; there’s something to review, something that is remaining at the forefront of their considerations.
“They’re definitely hanging up on something,” said Feyzjou. “This was a long trial so I take it they’re going to take their time to investigate things, but they’re definitely having issues with either DNA, credibility, you know, something is in there. Somebody is holding them back.”
At this moment, there isn’t much certainty besides the fact that the jury will be returning at 9 a.m. tomorrow. A mistrial wouldn’t even guarantee a case closure.
“If it’s a mistrial, they would be subject to being retried” said Feyzjou. “The attorneys would have to get all of the transcripts, which is beneficial for the defense.”
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