[00:00:02] Speaker 02:
Next case is United States versus Wilson, number 247093.

[00:00:09] Speaker 02:
Council, if you're ready, you may proceed.

[00:00:41] Speaker 01:
Good morning.

[00:00:42] Speaker 01:
May it please the court?

[00:00:43] Speaker 01:
My name is Jonathan Repucci.

[00:00:45] Speaker 01:
I'm appearing on behalf of the defendant appellant, Mason Wilson, in this case.

[00:00:50] Speaker 01:
It is my hope and intention to reserve maybe two or three minutes for rebuttal.

[00:00:56] Speaker 01:
But obviously, the flow will dictate that, I suppose.

[00:01:01] Speaker 01:
The government built this child abuse and neglect case largely on inadmissible expert opinion testimony from a medical expert

[00:01:10] Speaker 01:
and law enforcement witnesses, although not endorsed as experts, nevertheless testified as such, and essentially opined that Mr. Wilson met the profile of a child abuser and was not telling the truth.

[00:01:24] Speaker 01:
This testimony invaded the province of the jury and usurped the jury's function.

[00:01:31] Speaker 00:
So when you make an objection, so the objection, Your Honor, this is invading the province of the jury,

[00:01:37] Speaker 00:
What all types of objections does that encompass?

[00:01:43] Speaker 01:
Well, I think it encompasses the cluster of 702 and 704 objections.

[00:01:53] Speaker 01:
I think 702 and 704, I think, are the clearest ones.

[00:02:01] Speaker 01:
And 702, of course, to be relevant under 702,

[00:02:05] Speaker 01:
evidence has to not do that.

[00:02:07] Speaker 01:
And so I think, clearly, that's kind of an invocation of Rule 702.

[00:02:12] Speaker 01:
Admittedly, that objection, there weren't a lot of objections in this case.

[00:02:19] Speaker 01:
And that one is somewhat, leaves something to be desired, especially for us.

[00:02:25] Speaker 00:
No, I mean, that's why I asked, because it's sort of hard to determine what the district court should be on notice of when the objection's sort of vague.

[00:02:36] Speaker 01:
I agree.

[00:02:36] Speaker 01:
I agree with Your Honor.

[00:02:38] Speaker 01:
I believe that it is sufficient to trigger the 702 objection, which I think then does kind of shift the ball over to the court a little bit to have to exercise some sort of gatekeeping function when it comes to expert testimony.

[00:03:04] Speaker 01:
Getting back to the script just a bit,

[00:03:06] Speaker 01:
These errors did affect Mr. Wilson's substantial rights, because although this case, certainly the injuries to the child are indisputable and indisputably tragic case.

[00:03:22] Speaker 01:
The case was not one of overwhelming evidence.

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By the way, on the expert testimony, we're not reviewing plain error, are we?

[00:03:32] Speaker 02:
Or are we?

[00:03:34] Speaker 02:
Because you said substantial rights, and that kind of triggered the question.

[00:03:39] Speaker 01:
Well, I think it gets back a little bit potentially to Judge Carson's observation, which is it's not.

[00:03:46] Speaker 02:
Well, what's your position?

[00:03:48] Speaker 02:
What's our standard of review on the expert testimony?

[00:03:56] Speaker 01:
My position with regard to Dr. Beeson's testimony is that two of the three claims I've raised were preserved by the objections of invading the province of the jury.

[00:04:08] Speaker 01:
The third claim that I've raised, which is the fact that the expert's testimony was essentially vouching or anti-defendant vouching, I guess, basically,

[00:04:23] Speaker 01:
when she described that things were consistent with certain injuries, that that actually crossed the line into vouching, that was not preserved.

[00:04:31] Speaker 01:
Thank you.

[00:04:32] Speaker 01:
And, you know, I guess to take it even further, because I kind of knew that this would be coming, I think, frankly, the only other objection that really was preserved was later with regard to the law enforcement witnesses.

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You know, there was one, to Agent Springer, there was an objection that was

[00:04:53] Speaker 01:
sustained, but then the testimony continued without any further objections.

[00:05:01] Speaker 01:
And that objection was that it was getting into expert testimony.

[00:05:08] Speaker 01:
That same objection was raised with regard to Detective Poffel's testimony

[00:05:14] Speaker 01:
As getting into expert testimony those are the only objections that were made so you know everything else in the brief then does Has to be reviewed for plain error and I acknowledge that But you know because you know because of course it's my position that those

[00:05:37] Speaker 01:
objections were preserved with regard to Dr. Beeson's parental expectations testimony and her medical diagnosis testimony.

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That's where I kind of wanted to begin the discussion.

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The parental expectations testimony, Dr. Beeson testified that because a two-month-old baby with bruising seen on BW's cheek

[00:06:01] Speaker 01:
clearly needs medical attention, and that a parent would know that, would know what she would expect the parent to bring that child to the doctor.

[00:06:15] Speaker 00:
What if the question had not been, would you expect the parent to bring that child to the doctor, but it instead had been,

[00:06:23] Speaker 00:
Dr. Beeson, what would you expect a child with these injuries to act like at home?

[00:06:33] Speaker 00:
Oh, I would expect the child to be crying a lot and exhibiting signs of pain.

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And the next question would be, what would you expect the level of discomfort and crying to be different than a baby who may be crying because it's tired or because it's hungry?

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And the doctor says, yes, it would be a much more noticeable sign of distress and crying and this and that.

[00:07:01] Speaker 00:
Would that be appropriate?

[00:07:04] Speaker 01:
I think that would be appropriate, Your Honor.

[00:07:06] Speaker 01:
And I think, frankly, there was testimony to that effect in this case.

[00:07:12] Speaker 00:
I'm just wondering if there's a big difference between her wrapping that up and saying, I would expect a parent to bring that child into the doctor.

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then if she just said, people would notice that there's a big difference between a baby with gas or a baby that's hungry and what this baby would have been exhibiting.

[00:07:37] Speaker 01:
Well, I think the significant distinction, Your Honor, is that when you're focusing on what you'd expect the parent to do, the focus has now shifted away from

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kind of a medical situation with a child and what the child would be exhibiting, which of course this doctor was extremely qualified as a pediatric specialist.

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But it shifts the focus on to the defendant.

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And I think that's where the problem comes here, is that by testifying to what she expects a parent to do,

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the natural inference, it basically created a syllogism for the government, right?

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And that government was, well, a reasonable parent, a parent confronted with these injuries would know she needed medical attention.

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Mr. Wilson did not seek medical attention.

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Therefore, his failure to do so was willful.

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And so that's where- She didn't say that.

[00:08:43] Speaker 01:
She did not say that that was willful, right?

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And that kind of leads to the 704 question, the Mary Boy question.

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And I do acknowledge, I was reading carefully, trying to read carefully, some of the cases of Mary Boy, Goodman, Diaz, that sort of thing.

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And this case is a little bit different in that she doesn't use the magic language.

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But I think

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It really is the functional equivalent of that.

[00:09:14] Speaker 00:
Can I ask you a question about the abuse and neglect diagnoses by Dr. Beeson?

[00:09:24] Speaker 00:
Was there any evidence in the record other than her saying so, that those are actual medical diagnoses?

[00:09:31] Speaker 00:
I mean, could I look on WebMD and see that that's a medical diagnosis?

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I suspect that's a yes.

[00:09:39] Speaker 01:
I expect that it is a medical diagnosis.

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But there wasn't any other evidence in the record other than that she certainly I think it is a medical diagnosis.

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And I think that naturally probably leads the court to say, well, doesn't that happen all the time?

[00:09:57] Speaker 01:
Isn't that exactly what an expert should do?

[00:10:02] Speaker 01:
with this case is that the medical diagnoses that she testified to were child abuse, child abuse confirmed, child neglect.

[00:10:13] Speaker 01:
And these are exactly the charges that Mr. Wilson was facing.

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And so the potential for confusion and really unfair prejudice,

[00:10:31] Speaker 01:
It doesn't take a great leap for the jury to say, well, the doctor told us that this was child abuse, and the doctor told us that this was child neglect, and therefore not much for us to do here.

[00:10:45] Speaker 01:
And in fact, in closing argument, the prosecution actually made exactly that point, which really kind of crystallized the prejudice of it.

[00:11:00] Speaker 01:
And she said, you know, sorry, let me see if I can find it exactly.

[00:11:06] Speaker 01:
I wanted to get it just right.

[00:11:09] Speaker 01:
Well, yes.

[00:11:11] Speaker 01:
No, sorry.

[00:11:14] Speaker 00:
Well, it was emphasized in close.

[00:11:16] Speaker 00:
We can look that up.

[00:11:17] Speaker 00:
Yes.

[00:11:18] Speaker 00:
What was the cross-examination on that?

[00:11:20] Speaker 00:
Did someone ask the doctor, Dr. Beeson, you don't know that Mr. Wilson did this, do you?

[00:11:29] Speaker 00:
I mean, did they confirm?

[00:11:30] Speaker 00:
She didn't know that he did it.

[00:11:32] Speaker 00:
Did they confirm that on cross-examination?

[00:11:36] Speaker 01:
I don't recall that being a subject of cross-examination.

[00:11:40] Speaker 01:
And frankly, my recollection is that the defense lawyer did not, probably for good reason, want to engage this highly qualified expert

[00:11:53] Speaker 01:
very much on her diagnoses.

[00:11:55] Speaker 01:
So I think that it did not get exposed on cross-examination.

[00:11:58] Speaker 01:
OK, fair enough.

[00:12:04] Speaker 01:
But I did find it.

[00:12:06] Speaker 01:
OK, good.

[00:12:08] Speaker 01:
In closing argument, the prosecution said, if it really was an accident, then why does Dr. Beeson, a board-certified child abuse pediatrician, still diagnose child abuse and not an accident?

[00:12:23] Speaker 01:
And so clearly, this testimony was playing a powerful role in the prosecution's case.

[00:12:30] Speaker 01:
And it was objected to.

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And so I think that's a primary issue in this case.

[00:12:40] Speaker 01:
I see I'm running out of time very quickly.

[00:12:43] Speaker 01:
So I think I will go ahead and reserve it and see what my adversary has to say.

[00:12:48] Speaker 01:
Thank you.

[00:12:48] Speaker 01:
Thank you, counsel.

[00:12:50] Speaker 03:
May it please the court, my name is Linda Epperly.

[00:12:52] Speaker 03:
I represent the United States in this matter.

[00:12:56] Speaker 03:
Your Honors, this case involves, by its very nature, testimony that has to be given not directly from the victim because of the victim's age, but from the people who interacted with this family.

[00:13:11] Speaker 03:
We had a two-month-old victim who could not even roll over on its own at that point.

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end up with 10 fractures, eye injuries, ear injuries, bruises, scratches after only three days in the defendant's care.

[00:13:30] Speaker 03:
The main questions on appeal is the question of expert testimony and the question of whether or not there was plain error in closing.

[00:13:41] Speaker 03:
There is no question.

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but that the defendant gave varying stories at varying times in this case.

[00:13:50] Speaker 03:
He first said that the injuries were caused by a headbutt when the infant reared back its head and collided with his collarbone.

[00:14:01] Speaker 03:
He second said that the infant rolled off the bed.

[00:14:04] Speaker 03:
His third version, as the medical results continued to come in, was that the baby had rolled off the bed

[00:14:14] Speaker 03:
I'm sorry, rolled off of him as he was lying on the bed, and then he accidentally stepped on the child.

[00:14:22] Speaker 03:
The importance of the expert testimony here at bottom is whether or not there is a medical diagnosis of child abuse and child neglect.

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And responding to Judge Carson, there may well have been testimony in that pretrial hearing that dealt with those fields, but I cannot tell you if there was.

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But I don't think we'd be limited to just what was here at trial, because there was a lengthy pre-trial hearing about qualifications.

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And no one seemed to question that she was qualified.

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But her testimony was important in explaining not only this expectation of what a parent should do, a generic parent, which would be inherent in a diagnosis of child neglect, because child neglect is based on expectations we have

[00:15:13] Speaker 03:
about what a parent should do.

[00:15:14] Speaker 03:
They should feed a child.

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They should clothe the child.

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They should make sure the child has medical care.

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And the way that we find neglect is when a parent does not follow through with those things.

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We would expect a reasonable parent to do these items as here, and when they do not, that may reach the level of child neglect, particularly with injuries like this.

[00:15:38] Speaker 03:
The testimony was also important in explaining why the stories offered by the defendant were impossible, implausible, nonsensical.

[00:15:50] Speaker 03:
The child could not, because of the child's age, generate enough force to rear back into the defendant's head and cause the sort of bruises that were seen on the cheek, and for various reasons that are detailed in the record.

[00:16:05] Speaker 03:
We go into each of these injuries, like I think it's page 15 to 18 of our brief, one by one as to what the expert said about why the explanation would not make sense.

[00:16:21] Speaker 03:
The child could not have been injured by rolling off a bed or rolling off anything because at the age of two months, the child cannot roll over on its own.

[00:16:30] Speaker 03:
But the overwhelming finding on all of this plethora of injuries

[00:16:35] Speaker 03:
was that they were injuries to different planes of the body.

[00:16:39] Speaker 03:
One simple explanation or one accidental event was not going to explain them.

[00:16:44] Speaker 03:
And that's just black and white.

[00:16:46] Speaker 03:
I mean, they can see it in the x-rays that you don't fall and end up hurting various parts of your body when they're on different planes.

[00:16:57] Speaker 03:
We did not spend a lot of time in our brief on the lay witnesses and when they may or may not have strayed into expert testimony.

[00:17:05] Speaker 03:
In all honesty, this was a complicated case to make sure we got all the facts laid before the court.

[00:17:11] Speaker 03:
But I think the way that we chose to make that argument was that even if there was a stray venture into what could arguably be expert testimony, it was not plain error.

[00:17:24] Speaker 03:
Even if it was properly preserved, we could prove beyond a reasonable doubt there was harmless error, given the facts of this case, where we have this baby with known injuries

[00:17:34] Speaker 03:
and only two caretakers, the mother who cared for the child with no problem for two months, and then the defendant who had only taken over care in the last three days.

[00:17:46] Speaker 03:
Secondly, we believe that there was no plain error in closing.

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Obviously, much of the closing here was dramatic.

[00:17:55] Speaker 03:
The facts were dramatic.

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Much of the closing probably seemed prejudicial, but here the facts are prejudicial.

[00:18:05] Speaker 03:
The important things this court considers in closing argument is the argument when viewed in context, a response to arguments made by defense counsel.

[00:18:17] Speaker 03:
Here that was true.

[00:18:19] Speaker 03:
In defense counsel's closing argument, they argued at various times that it may have been accidental, that we hadn't proved willfulness or malice.

[00:18:30] Speaker 03:
At one point, they denied that the defendant injured the child at all.

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At another point, he said, well, the mother was with the child day and night, which up until three days before was true.

[00:18:43] Speaker 03:
But we needed to respond to all of those things.

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We did not engage in the kind of behavior that this court has frowned upon, like calling the defendant a liar or something like that.

[00:18:54] Speaker 00:
Isn't it sort of like calling him a liar, saying he told a stupid story?

[00:18:59] Speaker 00:
and that his explanations were BS?

[00:19:05] Speaker 03:
It was going a ways, a ways further than probably we normally see in federal court.

[00:19:09] Speaker 03:
But this is not the type of case we typically see.

[00:19:13] Speaker 03:
This court has granted defendants a wide latitude in closing argument, so long as they are not making personal attacks, so long as they are not drawing unreasonable inferences, engaging in

[00:19:29] Speaker 03:
openly prejudicial behavior.

[00:19:31] Speaker 03:
None of that happened here.

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And there are cases in our brief that give details of cases where this court has approved similar comments.

[00:19:38] Speaker 03:
Here, there was a calling it a stupid story.

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At some point, you've got to look at those varying explanations the defendant gave, and you've got to argue that they do not make logical sense.

[00:19:50] Speaker 03:
Well, saying it's a stupid story is the functional equivalent of that.

[00:19:58] Speaker 03:
The final comment I'd like to make is that there was a claim that our prosecutor went to the point of civic duty and asking the jury to respond to its civic duty.

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We'd like to point out for the record that we were not the first people who mentioned civic duty.

[00:20:16] Speaker 03:
That was also a response to a defendant argument.

[00:20:19] Speaker 03:
And in fact, our prosecutor indicated that the jury should not base its decision on emotion but on what the defendant did here.

[00:20:27] Speaker 01:
I assume the jury was advised that statements by the attorneys is not evidence.

[00:20:34] Speaker 03:
Argument is not evidence?

[00:20:35] Speaker 03:
Yes, Your Honor.

[00:20:36] Speaker 03:
There was an instruction to that effect given, and we overall would argue that that would cure any potential error.

[00:20:43] Speaker 00:
Would you, this is sort of broad, so I apologize in advance, but would you like to say anything about Springer and Pofl's testimony about how, I mean,

[00:20:56] Speaker 00:
That seemed a lot like testimony designed to suggest that he was a liar.

[00:21:04] Speaker 03:
To some extent, but that is part of what both of those witnesses are trained to do.

[00:21:11] Speaker 03:
They investigate child abuse.

[00:21:14] Speaker 03:
Part of investigating is gathering stories from the various witnesses, determining what does and doesn't make sense so that they know

[00:21:24] Speaker 03:
whether they need to go further down this road, whether there was a reasonable explanation.

[00:21:29] Speaker 03:
One of the things that factors in all that analysis is whether a story makes sense.

[00:21:34] Speaker 03:
That would be our comment.

[00:21:36] Speaker 02:
OK.

[00:21:36] Speaker 03:
Well, could I follow up on that?

[00:21:38] Speaker 02:
Sure.

[00:21:40] Speaker 02:
So Agent Springer at one point said, it's common for perpetrators of child abuse to provide accidental causes of injuries.

[00:21:50] Speaker 02:
And Officer Pofl testified.

[00:21:54] Speaker 02:
It's common to minimize a child's injuries.

[00:21:59] Speaker 02:
That seems like that isn't really lay testimony.

[00:22:06] Speaker 02:
Or if it is, it's lay testimony expressing an opinion, or it's expert testimony.

[00:22:12] Speaker 02:
And they may have the experiential expertise to say that.

[00:22:18] Speaker 02:
But what I'm interested in your telling us is how we should analyze

[00:22:23] Speaker 02:
that testimony here, because it seems like there was no Rule 702 determination that was made that they were qualified to testify as experts.

[00:22:35] Speaker 02:
So what do we do with that?

[00:22:40] Speaker 03:
I don't have a good suggestion, Your Honor, unfortunately.

[00:22:44] Speaker 03:
To me, it's similar to any investigator who testifies.

[00:22:47] Speaker 03:
They're going to lay out the steps in their investigative process.

[00:22:51] Speaker 03:
And I believe that's what they were doing here.

[00:22:53] Speaker 03:
Although I can see that this is one of the instances that we referenced in our brief that may come close to that line.

[00:23:00] Speaker 02:
Well, one reason I'm asking this is I think, speaking for myself, I've seen this issue come up more often.

[00:23:08] Speaker 02:
in recent years where the issue is raised as to whether the investigator in the course of testifying is wearing the fact witness hat or the expert hat.

[00:23:23] Speaker 02:
And this seems more like the expert hat.

[00:23:26] Speaker 02:
And so, I mean, I appreciate your candor in trying to answer the question, but I'm just looking for help on how to approach it.

[00:23:35] Speaker 03:
I'm sorry, Your Honor, I didn't mean to speak over you.

[00:23:37] Speaker 03:
I totally understand.

[00:23:38] Speaker 03:
I mean, part of when they, particularly the cases that I've seen with child abuse experts, part of the beginning of that testimony is laying out what training they've had so that their testimony makes sense, so that the jury understands they're somebody who has some skill and a process in running these investigations.

[00:24:00] Speaker 03:
And the issue has come up.

[00:24:03] Speaker 03:
The other context that I recall seeing this in recent years would have been in drug cases where a DEA agent was going to testify not only about what happened on the side of the road, but the analysis of how pure the drug was or something to that nature.

[00:24:17] Speaker 03:
And I think this court has drawn some lines there that have been workable as far as calling some agents as pure fact witnesses, other agents perhaps to give the expert testimony.

[00:24:33] Speaker 03:
That would be difficult to do, I think, in these cases.

[00:24:36] Speaker 03:
I'm just thinking from personal experience.

[00:24:39] Speaker 03:
The child protection, it's so over.

[00:24:45] Speaker 02:
I may be going off a little bit on a tangent here, but it does seem to me that when the prosecutor calls the detective, the prosecutor could make it clear to the court that this

[00:25:01] Speaker 02:
This witness is being called to talk about the investigation based on personal knowledge.

[00:25:06] Speaker 02:
But I am going to ask some questions about the draw on this person's experiential expertise.

[00:25:15] Speaker 02:
And I'm going to lay the foundation for that testimony.

[00:25:19] Speaker 02:
It seems to me that making that record would help.

[00:25:23] Speaker 02:
Maybe I'm making a plea for help for when we get the case on appeal.

[00:25:26] Speaker 02:
But it seems to me, rather than just

[00:25:31] Speaker 02:
let things go, it might be useful to have that on the record.

[00:25:37] Speaker 03:
My other fear, if that is the road the court pursues, my other fear is that then we may have objections that witnesses who were there giving facts are in fact

[00:25:53] Speaker 03:
giving expert testimony that invades the province of the jury or that somehow crosses that line.

[00:25:58] Speaker 03:
And I can see that being a thicket.

[00:26:00] Speaker 02:
Fair enough.

[00:26:01] Speaker 02:
Fair enough.

[00:26:02] Speaker 02:
I'm getting a little off topic here.

[00:26:03] Speaker 02:
But I will get back on topic with one more question for you.

[00:26:09] Speaker 02:
I'm also curious as to what your position is on Mr. Wilson's challenge to Ms.

[00:26:16] Speaker 02:
Henson's trial testimony.

[00:26:19] Speaker 02:
I didn't see that in the brief.

[00:26:21] Speaker 02:
That's the one where.

[00:26:25] Speaker 02:
She's talking about asking Mr. Wilson not to lie when they got back from the hospital.

[00:26:35] Speaker 03:
If that doesn't ring a bell, we can... No.

[00:26:39] Speaker 03:
She's alleging that he asked her to take some responsibility for what happened.

[00:26:44] Speaker 03:
Is that... Right.

[00:26:49] Speaker 03:
It seems to me that that's...

[00:26:52] Speaker 03:
would be perfectly admissible?

[00:26:54] Speaker 02:
I mean, they're arguing that it's a Rule 608 evidence rule violation.

[00:27:02] Speaker 03:
I don't see it, Your Honor.

[00:27:04] Speaker 03:
I don't.

[00:27:05] Speaker 03:
To me, that was a perfectly reasonable question, and certainly explanation as to potential consciousness of guilt of the defendant that he's asking someone else to lie so he is not in as much trouble.

[00:27:21] Speaker 03:
If there are no further questions, we would ask the court to affirm.

[00:27:26] Speaker 02:
Thank you, counsel.

[00:27:28] Speaker 02:
Mr. Rappucci, your rebuttal.

[00:27:38] Speaker 01:
Thank you, Your Honor.

[00:27:42] Speaker 01:
You know, some of Ms.

[00:27:44] Speaker 01:
Hepperley's comments to the court kind of

[00:27:48] Speaker 01:
helped crystallize for me what I'm trying to say.

[00:27:51] Speaker 01:
I mean, she was arguing that this is about what we expect reasonable parents to do, and that the facts here, the closing was dramatic, but the facts were prejudicial.

[00:28:06] Speaker 01:
The overarching point of this case, and I guess it ultimately kind of funnels it into the cumulative error piece, is that at every step,

[00:28:18] Speaker 01:
the government was putting its finger on the scale in terms of making Mr. Wilson out to be a liar.

[00:28:28] Speaker 01:
And the common theme here is that this was a case, as Ms.

[00:28:34] Speaker 01:
Hepperly points out, there was certainly a lot of circumstantial evidence that Mr. Wilson was responsible for these injuries, right?

[00:28:43] Speaker 01:
The jury didn't need to have impeccably credentialed

[00:28:48] Speaker 01:
medical experts and officer Detective Poffel, an incredibly credentialed expert who wasn't qualified as an expert, but clearly testified as an expert.

[00:29:02] Speaker 01:
And so at every stage, the government was adding weight onto an already prejudicial, and the government certainly has a right to try its case.

[00:29:13] Speaker 01:
I understand that.

[00:29:15] Speaker 01:
But the common theme here is that at every turn,

[00:29:19] Speaker 01:
They're just piling on vouching and piling on that Mr. Wilson's stories are incredible.

[00:29:28] Speaker 01:
Well, the jury got to hear his stories.

[00:29:30] Speaker 01:
It would have been more than enough to say, look, these stories, he's inconsistent.

[00:29:34] Speaker 01:
The jury doesn't need these very qualified experts to say, yeah, with Pafo, I know

[00:29:43] Speaker 01:
a lie when I see one, I'm specially trained, I'm certified in the read technique and I'm looking for indicators.

[00:29:51] Speaker 01:
It's just, it's very cohesive.

[00:29:57] Speaker 01:
They all kind of come together to kind of have a tidal wave of extra weight on the scale in a case that the jury was perfectly capable of sorting this out on its own.

[00:30:10] Speaker 01:
I think it's important to recognize that it does, it's easy to say, well, wait a second, this was overwhelming evidence, right?

[00:30:16] Speaker 01:
But the jury pushed back on that because this was a two-day trial, and I see I'm out of time, but if I could just finish my thought.

[00:30:24] Speaker 01:
You know, this was a two-day trial.

[00:30:26] Speaker 01:
The jury deliberated for two hours, then sent out questions tending to suggest that it wasn't fully convinced that it was Mr. Wilson and that, frankly, Ms.

[00:30:37] Speaker 01:
Henson had a role in this.

[00:30:39] Speaker 01:
And then went back and deliberated for two more hours.

[00:30:42] Speaker 01:
So four hours in a two-week case, that's quick.

[00:30:46] Speaker 01:
Four hours in a two-day case, that's lengthy deliberations.

[00:30:50] Speaker 01:
And so there were issues here, the mens rea issue and whether, in fact, it was Mr. Wilson who caused these injuries.

[00:30:57] Speaker 01:
So it's not quite right to say this is a case of overwhelming evidence and nothing to see here.

[00:31:03] Speaker 02:
Thank you, counsel.

[00:31:04] Speaker 01:
Thank you.

[00:31:07] Speaker 02:
The case will be submitted and counsel are excused.

[00:31:10] Speaker 02:
Thank you for your arguments.