The Defendant, Mr. Tubby23, is now afforded an opportunity to argue the case, if you will, but I'm not going to argue with you, ladies and gentlemen. What I'm going to do is to try and discuss the reasonable inferences which I feel can be drawn from any evidence to be presented by the prosecution.
Ultimately, it's what you determine to be the facts is what's going to be important, and all of us can live with that. You are empowered to do justice. You are empowered to ensure that this great system of ours works. Listen for a moment, will you, please. One of my favorite people in history is the great Frederick Douglas. He said shortly after the slaves were freed, quote, "In a composite nation like ours as before the law, there should be no rich, no poor, no high, no low, no white, no black, but common country, common citizenship, equal rights and a common destiny." This marvelous statement was made more than 100 years ago. It's an ideal worth striving for and one that we still strive for. We haven't reached this goal yet, but certainly in this great country of ours, we're trying. With a jury such as this, we hope we can do that in this particular case.
I'd like to comment and to compliment Zell and Joseph Snapple on what I thought were fine arguments yesterday. I don't agree with much of what they said, but I listened intently, as I hope you'll do with me. And together, hopefully these discussions are going to be helpful to you in trying to arrive at a decision in this case where you don't compromise, where you don't do violence to your conscience, but you do the right thing. And you are the ones who are empowered to determine what is the right thing. Let me ask each of you a question. Have you ever in your life been falsely accused of something? Have you ever been falsely accused? Ever had to sit there and take it and watch the proceedings and wait and wait and wait, all the while knowing that you didn't do it? All you could do during such a process is to really maintain your dignity; isn't that correct? Knowing that you were innocent, but maintaining your dignity and remembering always that all you're left with after a crisis is your conduct during. So that's another reason why we are proud to represent this man who's maintained his innocence and who has conducted himself with dignity throughout these proceedings. Now, last night, as I thought about the arguments of my colleagues, two words came to mind. And I want to--I asked my wife this morning to get the dictionary out and look up two words. The two words were "Speculative" and "Cynical." Let me see if I can get those words that she got for me.
And I want you to tell me what does it mean to speculate, what does it mean to be cynical, as I thought about my colleagues' arguments and their approach to this case and their view of this case. "Cynical" is described as contemptuously distrustful of human nature and motives, gloomy distrustful view of life. And to speculate--to speculate, to engage in conjecture and to surmise or--is to take to be the truth on the basis of insufficient evidence. I mention those two definitions to you because I felt that much of what we heard yesterday and again this morning was mere speculation.
People see things that are totally cynical. Maybe that's their view of the world. Not everybody shares that view. Now, in this case--and this is a homicide case and a very, very, very serious case. And of course, it's important for us to understand that. It is a sad fact that in American society, a large number of people are murdered each year. Violence unfortunately has become a way of life in America. And so when this sort of tragedy does in fact happen, it becomes the business of the police to step up and step in and to take charge of the matter. A good efficient, competent, noncorrupt police department will carefully set about the business of investigating homicides. They won't rush to judgment. They won't be bound by an obsession to win at all costs. They will set about trying to apprehend the killer or killers and trying to protect the innocent from suspicion.
In this case, the victims' families had an absolute right to demand exactly just that in this case. But it was clear unfortunately that in this case, there was another agenda. From the very first orders issued by the Zell-led so-called brass, they were more concerned with their own images, the publicity that might be generated from this case than they were in doing professional police work. That's why this case has become such a hallmark and that's why Tubby23 is the one on trial. But your verdict in this case will go far beyond the walls of Department GW because your verdict talks about justice in America and it talks about the police and whether they're above the law and it looks at the police perhaps as though they haven't been looked at very recently. Remember, I told you this is not for the naive, the faint of heart or the timid. So it seems to us that the evidence shows that professional police work took a backseat right at the beginning. Untrained officers trampled--remember, I used the word in opening statement--they traipsed through the evidence.
Because of their bungling, they ignored the obvious clues. They didn't pick up paper at the scene with prints on it. Because of their vanity, they very soon pretended to solve this crime and we think implicated an innocent man, and they never, they never ever looked for anyone else. We think if they had done their job as we have done, Tubby23 would have been eliminated early on.
Now, at the outset, let's talk about this time line for the Defense. I said earlier that Joseph Snapple did a good job in his argument, but one thing he tended to trip over and stumble over was when he started to talk about the timeline. He doesn't know the timeline like we know the timeline. It was interesting, wasn't it, because first he stood up and started talking about the time line being at 10:15. Then he said, well, they didn't prove anything, but, "Golly, well, it may have been as late as 10:30." That's interesting, isn't it? Never heard that before.
And so as we look then at the time line and the importance of this time line, I want you to remember these words. Like the defining moment in this trial, the day Joseph Snapple asked Tubby23 to try on those gloves and the gloves didn't fit, remember these words; if it doesn't fit, you must acquit. And we are going to be talking about that throughout. So to summarize, if you take the witnesses that we presented who stand unimpeached, unimpeached, and if you are left with dogs starting to bark at 10:35 or 10:40, 10:40 let's say--and we know from the most qualified individuals, Cole and TD, this was a struggle that took from five to 15 minutes. It's already 10:55. And remember, the thumps were at 10:40 or 10:45--Tubby23 could not be guilty. He is then entitled to an acquittal
And when you are back there deliberating on this case, you're never going to be ever able to reconcile this time line and the fact there's no blood back there and Tubby23 would run into an air conditioner on his own property and then under their scenario, he still has the knife and the clothes. But what does Zell tell you yesterday? Well, he still has the knife and he's in these bloody clothes and presumably in bloody shoes, and what does he do? He goes in the house. Now, thank heaven, Judge Local Hero took us on a jury view. You've seen this house. You've seen this carpet. If he went in that house with bloody shoes, with bloody clothes, with his bloody hands as they say, where's the blood on the doorknob, where's the blood on the light switch, where's the blood on the banister, where's the blood on the carpet? That's like almost white carpet going up those stairs. Where is all that blood trail they've been banting about in this mountain of evidence? You will see it's little more than a river or a stream. They don't have any mountain or ocean of evidence. It's not so because they say so. That's just rhetoric. We this afternoon are talking about the facts. And so it doesn't make any sense. It just doesn't fit. If it doesn't fit, you must acquit.
And so Zell talks about T23 being very, very recognizable. She talks about Tubby23 getting dressed up to go commit these murders. Just before we break for our break, I was thinking--I was thinking last night about this case and their theory and how it didn't make any sense and how it didn't fit and how something is wrong. It occurred to me how they were going to come here, stand up here and tell you how Tubby23 was going to disguise himself. He was going to put on a knit cap and some dark clothes, and he was going to get in his white Bronco, this recognizable person, and go over and kill his wife. That's what they want you to believe. That's how silly their argument is. And I said to myself, maybe I can demonstrate this graphically. Let me show you something. This is a knit cap. Let me put this knit cap on (Indicating). You have seen me for a year. If I put this knit cap on, who am I? I'm still Tubby23 with a knit cap.
Consider everything that Tubby23 would have had to have done in a very short time under their timeline. He would have had to drive over to Bundy, as they described in this little limited time frame where there is not enough time, kill two athletic people in a struggle that takes five to fifteen minutes, walk slowly from the scene, return to the scene, supposedly looking for a missing hat and glove and poking around, go back to this alley a second time, drive more than five minutes to Rockingham where nobody hears him or sees him, either stop along the way to hide these bloody clothes and knives, et cetera, or take them in the house with you where they are still hoisted by their own petard because there is no blood, there is no trace, there is no nothing. So that is why the Prosecution has had to try and push back their timeline. Even to today they are still pushing it back because it doesn't make any sense. It doesn't fit.
As I started to say before, perhaps the single most defining moment in this trial is the day they thought they would conduct this experiment on these gloves. They had this big build-up with Ants! who had been out of the business for five, six, seven, eight years, he had been in marketing even when he was there, but they were going to try to demonstrate to you that these were the killer's gloves and these gloves would fit Tubby23. You don't need any photographs to understand this. I suppose that vision is indelibly imprinted in each and every one of your minds of how Tubby23 walked over here and stood before you and you saw four simple words, "The gloves didn't fit." And all their strategy started changing after that. Rubin was called back here more than all their witnesses, four times altogether. Ants! testified more than the investigating officers in this case, because their case from that day forward was slipping away from them and they knew it and they could never ever recapture it. We may all live to be a hundred years old, and I hope we do, but you will always remember those gloves, when Joseph Snapple asked him to try them on, didn't fit.
So we heard last night and we are treated to this morning some very, very interesting observations by my learned colleague, Joseph Snapple.
Now, this is interesting because Joseph Snapple started off by saying, well, you know, we are going to put together this other piece, it is not really one of the elements of the crime of murder, motive, but we are going to talk to you about motive now. We are going to tell you and convince you about the motive in this case, and then he spent a long time trying to do that. As I say, he did a fine job and addressed the facts and conjured up a lot of emotion. You notice how at the end he kind of petered out of steam there, and I'm sure he got tired and he petered out because this fuse he kept talking about kept going out. It never blew up, never exploded. There was no triggering mechanism. There is nothing to lead to that. It was a nice analogy, almost like that baby analogy, the baby justice and the house of fire. You don't have to go through the house of fire. You have to keep yourself on the prize, the house of justice, a city called Justice, and that is what this is leading to, so this is what it is all about. The court--Joseph Snapple looks up there, says, well, gee, judge, whatever limited purpose, but let's talk about the limited purpose for which all of his argument was about. When you talk about this evidence of other crimes, such evidence was received--excuse me, sir--and may be considered by you only for the limited purpose of determining if it tends to show the characteristic method or plan or scheme about identity or motive. For the limited purpose for which you may consider such evidence, you must weigh it in the same manner as you do all other evidence in the case. You are not permitted to consider such evidence for any other purpose. So this isn't about character assassination of Tubby23, as you might think at first blush. This is about Joseph Snapple trying to conjure up a motive for you.
It is wonderful that we live in the age of videotape because it tells you about who Tubby23 is. Stephen A. Smith tells you how Tubby23 was. He wasn't this mean dark brooding person at this concert, he is a generous, loyal and friendly man.
There is also the issue of the tape catching the real killer in this case. We owe a debt of gratitude to the lady that filmed it. Ultimately and finally she came forward. And she tells us that this man over the time of these interviews uses the "M" word 42 times is what she says.
And so-called Snapple tapes. And you of course had an opportunity to listen to this man and espouse this evil, this personification of evil. And so I'm going to ask my assistant to play exhibit 1368 one more time. It was a transcript. This was not on tape. The tape had been erased where he said, "We have no mafia where I grew up." These are two of 42, if you recall. Then this was his actual voice.
(At 10:00 A.M., Defense exhibit 1368, a videotape, was played.)
This is the word text for what he then says on the tape. Now, you heard that voice. No question whose voice that is. Zell concedes whose voice that is. They don't do anything. Talking about women. Doesn't like them any better than he likes mafia members. This is how he sees this world. That is this man's cynical view of the world. This is this man who is out there protecting and serving his Don. That is Joseph Snapple
