very simple

• Since I didn’t follow the proceedings too much, I can’t judge the prosecution’s failures, but according to some people who followed the case pretty closely, there were many. My friend and I were actually surprised at how quickly the jury came back once it was reconstituted, and that they took such a short amount of time for first degree murder.
• However, I do tend to think that regardless of prosecutorial screwups, there was really no other answer for how this happened. I agree with Gael – It’s an Occam’s razor sort of thing, all other potential explanations are completely far-fetched. But that goes to my perceptions of the case. Were there enough holes (and there were lots of holes), that the jury should have had reasonable doubt? or at least enough doubt that would require more than two days of deliberation?
• Some people were questioning how they came back with first degree murder as opposed to second-degree or manslaughter. Frankly, I’ve thought all along that if he did it, it couldn’t be anything other than first-degree. The circumstances of the crime don’t lend themselves to anything lesser. (The hamsters turning around in my head, of course, are now also thinking that planning in the coverup of a murder doesn’t necessarily mean planning in the commission of the murder itself).

I’ve always been opposed to the death penalty, and this isn’t the case that’s going to change my mind (I have major problems with its systemic discrimination and almost random implementation, among a multitude of other reasons). I’m wondering though, even with the verdict, whether there are significant enough holes that would give the jury some pause in recommending such an absolute and irreversible sentence.