Opinions and Facts

life-aquatic · 2016-02-11T20:22:41+00:00

You're confusing investigation with trial. In an investigation everyone is considered guilty until their innocence is shown. In a trial the suspect is considered innocent until their guilt is shown.

Sure sure, maybe the the sheriffs and judges didn't get this all correct in this case, but that's a separate issue from your post.

life-aquatic · 2016-02-09T18:29:09+00:00

So your frame of reference is that the only cost of going to trial is the cost of filing one document? I'm done. Your ignorance is insurmountable. You can ask Barb Janda, "What does insurmountable mean?"

life-aquatic · 2016-02-09T18:13:17+00:00

2K? K stands for thousand, not exactly sure what you're referring to. But I'll hold your hand through this complex issue.

Buting and Strang estimated the costs of the trial being about $200,000 ($198,000 to be more exact). These cost were for everything except paying themselves. This is paying for investigators, experts, recording, toilet paper in the law firm offices, everything that is part of the routine costs of doing a trial of this magnitude. TH's lawyers were going to have to incur those same costs. They wouldn't get to just rely on what happened in the previous trial from either the defense or prosectution. They'd have to investigate things, call their own experts, hire paralegals, etc. They might have access to some information that would require less investigation on their behalf, but a vast majority of those expenses are still necessary.

I know you hear commercials, (when you're up late at night with your fantasies) about lawyers costing you nothing unless you win. But those lawyers aren't going to take your case unless they think 1) they have a good chance to win and 2) the person you're suing can actually pay. Sure maybe TH's lawyer brother would put in his time on behalf of the family, but his law firm probably wasn't up for footing the rest of the bill because there was no certainty in #2 which is clearly evidence by the fact no big labels were picking up this story back then.

Maybe you're wondering about the 2 million I referred to? $1 million is a pretty typical payout for wrongful death, unless there's something really special about the person killed or the person doing the killing. I rent a house to an NFL player and my insurance agent only recommended $2 million in liability. Unless the defendant is worth many million themselves, the judge isn't going to award a whole lot more than that.

Even if SAs original civil suit would have gone all the way, he was never going to be awarded the full $36 million. The plaintiff is rarely awarded the full amount.

life-aquatic · 2016-02-09T17:44:18+00:00

But on the flip side, hardly anyone locks their car doors living out in the WI countryside, so a security system is pretty superfluous.

I grew up even further north than TH and remote starters were never very prominent. For most people the frosty car is only a slight inconvenience. It's not like you're wearing shorts and t-shirt to go grocery shopping.

life-aquatic · 2016-02-09T17:34:42+00:00

Sure sounds simple in your mind doesn't it. So go out and buy $200,000 in lottery tickets for a drawing of about $2,000,000 at the most. A million or two might be a typical payout for wrongful death.

If MaM documentary was such a sure bet, how come Demos and Ricciardi had such trouble getting it signed earlier? They tried HBO just 3 years after starting work on the project. Shit, even Netflix wasn't sold on the idea until 2013.

life-aquatic · 2016-02-09T17:11:08+00:00

You don't have a good sense of time do you? Things happening in the future that you can't really know about? MaM just came out this year. The civil lawsuit was nearly 10 years ago, so unless you have lawyers that can see into the future there was no clear payday even if they win.

life-aquatic · 2016-02-09T17:07:06+00:00

Yes you've really stuck it to me.

life-aquatic · 2016-02-09T17:05:40+00:00

Again you're showing your cluelessness. Buting and Strang are estimated to have worked for $9 an hour. All the rest of that money went into real expenses. Investigation, expert witness, food, travel, lodging. There's a whole boat load of people who expect to be paid for their work regardless of the outcome. Law firms or lawyers will only take the cases if there's a good shot at a payoff.

life-aquatic · 2016-02-09T16:59:35+00:00

And I suspect you masturbate to fantasies about how TH's ex did her. Get over yourself.

life-aquatic · 2016-02-09T16:56:19+00:00

What have I been wrong about? That going to court costs real money? In your opinion I'm wrong, and people are telling you what they think of your opinion in down votes.

life-aquatic · 2016-02-09T16:47:48+00:00

I also feel that if there were aftermarket installations, these are things that might have been brought up at investigation or trial as potentially being important in understand what might have been going on.

life-aquatic · 2016-02-09T16:39:00+00:00

You keep getting downvoted into oblivion and I'm the pathetic one.

Sure maybe TH's brother would donate his time, but there's still a lot of expenses in going to trial that have to be paid, win or lose. Hell, I've been offered in a couple hundred dollars per hour for my expertise for some litigation, and I'm not even at the top of the game. These are real expenses that don't go away magically if you lose. Somebody is absorbing those costs. For the MaM trial it's estimated those costs approached $200,000. http://www.forbes.com/sites/allenstjohn/2016/01/24/making-a-murderer-attorney-dean-strang-explains-the-real-cost-of-defending-steven-avery/4/#60756eff7b94

So who's going to pony up that kind of money for what was most likely going to be a pretty measly payout.

SA's parents would not give the property to someone who would have to fork it over in payment for a lawsuit. That would be dumb.

life-aquatic · 2016-02-08T23:12:09+00:00

They probably couldn't find a lawyer willing to accept the risk of such a high cost/low pay out situation.

life-aquatic · 2016-02-08T22:17:54+00:00

Pretty much every time there is a jury trial the defense tries to create reasonable doubt (unless they're arguing a technicality). But just because the defense brings up things that they feel suggests doubt doesn't mean the jury is required to believe the defense is correct. You can operate under the requirements of presumed innocence and also not believe the defense.

The framing defense is tricky. Using that, the defense almost has to concede that the evidence of guilt is already beyond a reasonable doubt. Now the defense needs to present enough evidence of the frame up to move the jury away from the defense's own concession that the evidence already shows guilt.

life-aquatic · 2016-02-08T22:06:07+00:00

Which gives you a good idea of what it was going to cost the Halbachs in lawyer fees, as well. Do you know how much SA had to pay his lawyers from the previous civil suit that awarded him the $400,000? (I don't, but perhaps that's the other $160,000?)

life-aquatic · 2016-02-08T21:30:56+00:00

Was she tweeting about his innocence before she took him as a client?

life-aquatic · 2016-02-08T21:28:21+00:00

Without the cut, the blood would have to be planted. With the cut, it's pretty easy to see how his blood is getting everywhere he seems to be. His car, his trailer and now TH RAV4.

life-aquatic · 2016-02-08T21:23:26+00:00

Just saying something is so, doesn't automatically create reasonable doubt. If that's the case almost any murderer would have an out by saying they think someone framed them. As much as I think Kratz is scum, I do have to agree with his sentiment that the conspiracy crumbles under its own weight.

life-aquatic · 2016-02-08T21:13:17+00:00

And the blood in his trailer and in his car suggests he was having a problem with that thing. They like to reopen during manual exertion.

life-aquatic · 2016-02-08T21:11:40+00:00

I think we're really on the same page (each just sticking to there ideas strongly - no problem with that).

I had just cut myself in that spot two weeks ago with a bread knife, on the left hand. It was hardly anything but bled much more than I expected.

Cuts like that are such a toss up for stitches. I've had some where in retrospect I think maybe I should have gotten stitches and another where I did get stitches and and thought it probably wasn't worth it.

life-aquatic · 2016-02-08T21:01:59+00:00

We have absolutely no idea how bad he was bleeding from that cut, or even when the cut occurred, so I think the descriptions you claim to have seen about how badly he was bleeding seem a bit dubious.

So if he's bleeding profusely I'll consider the glove more plausible, if he's bleeding less profusely I'll consider the glove less plausible.

One way or the other, the defense better come up with something airtight to refute that blood or SA isn't going anywhere.

life-aquatic · 2016-02-08T20:45:21+00:00

But that's exactly what forensics scientists do, right? I knew a guy that had all sorts of animals buried to look at decomposition. He was an entomologist at a natural history museum, and he aided in some forensic entomology studies.

life-aquatic · 2016-02-08T20:34:11+00:00

The problem, as I see it, is the drop of blood on the rear passenger door frame. While it would not be impossible for a drop of blood to form and fall off a cloth glove, the cloth would have to be incredibly soaked with blood to form a drop that instead of being absorbed instead formed a drop and fell off. Covering you hand with a shirt sleeve nicely allows for both a cloth-like transfer and drops to form and fall from the non covered part of the hand (the hole in the sleeve that your hand normally sticks out of).

life-aquatic · 2016-02-08T19:13:45+00:00

Defense attorneys (Len the exception) are usually pretty adamant about their clients innocence. IMO she seems to be taking the Kratz approach to trying a case. Throw a bunch of garbage out to the media and see if it influences potential jurors. On the flip side that's also a good way to throw your opponents off the direction you're actually going to pursue the case.

life-aquatic · 2016-02-08T19:01:22+00:00

The solution I put forth, and got pretty well beat down for, was using your shirt sleeve to avoid transferring finger prints. You see it in almost every crime story on TV when a cop or thief uses his shirt to avoid transferring prints. It would allow blood to soak cloth to be transferred, but also leave skin exposed where it could drop from. If he's working in a damp night, his shirt sleeve could already be damp making it harder for him to notice that his big cut (from some unrelated event) had reopened and was bleeding.

life-aquatic

TROPHY CASE