Huguely Trial Dialogue Continued

Next question:

What did you think of the lawyers in this case? Did they or did they
not perform well and why?

Full disclosure: I attended the University of Virginia from 2004-2007 and lived near the Corner until May 2009 and frequented some of the bars on the Corner to the degree that I either know or know of most of the individuals surrounding the case.

It is hard to say how a particular advocate performed if you did not see their performance in person. It is even more difficult to weigh in on a lawyer's performance when you followed the entire trial on Twitter, so do keep in mind that my impressions are based upon limited exposure to the actual trial. I also should note that I went to law school in California, so I'm more familiar with California's criminal statutes than I am Virginia's. However, I'm 95% sure that I have gotten the technical details correct in this case.

I'll start with the prosecution. Based solely on the outcome of the case, the prosecution did a pretty good job. He had absolutely no chance of securing a guilty verdict for First Degree Murder - we can talk about why later if you would like - so the prosecution got the best realistic outcome possible, second degree murder based upon malice, a major factor that separates second degree murder from voluntary manslaughter.

The prosecution, if anything, was remarkably thorough. The jury foreman has since credited the physical evidence provided by medical experts to pinpoint the cause of Love's death as blunt force trauma, so the exhaustive approach that the prosecution took in regards to physical evidence seemed to have paid off. It was hard to get a sense of the impact that all the medical testimony had on the jury from Twitter during the case, but this article from Salon suggests that it made a big difference. I was also massively impressed with the emotion that the prosecution showed during his closing argument. He was thorough, exhaustive - maybe a bit too exhaustive after an hour and a half of a closing argument - and it sounds like he really got the juries attention with his emotional description of the events surrounding Ms. Love's murder.

However, A few of the witnesses who came to the stand towards the end of the prosecution's case were utterly useless and an unnecessary distraction from the evidence that eventually made a difference in the case. Morgan Moses comes to mind - from what I can tell, she was called to the stand, said that she knew Huguely for about a week prior to Love's death and that he had texted her that night to see if she wanted to hang out. The same happened with Huguely's female neighbor, who testified that Huguely had asked if she really had a boyfriend in Charlotte and questioned if a man who had entered her apartment was her boyfriend. Brea Thomas shared similar testimony. It became apparent that Huguely had texted a number of women late at night after drinking in the weeks leading up to Love's death, which made me wonder if the jury would conclude that he was simply contacting a variety of women in the hopes of hooking up with one of them. If that were the case, the jury could have concluded that he simply went to Love's house in the hopes of sleeping with her.

I also found it somewhat bizarre that the end of the prosecution's case focused so heavily on how much Huguely had been drinking, both on the day of Love's death and in the weeks and months prior. The prosecution brought up a number of teammates who essentially testified that Huguely had a massive drinking problem, and I struggled to understand how the prosecution was using these witnesses to prove to the jury that Huguely had the malice necessary to find him guilty of second degree murder. Further, had the jury concluded that Huguely was so drunk to know what he was doing, they likely would have found him guilty of involuntary manslaughter instead of second degree murder.

I was most impressed with the prosecution's examination of Ken Clausen. More than any other witness, Clausen said that he knew that something was wrong with Huguely when he returned to the apartment and that something had drastically changed in his demeanor, suggesting that Huguely might have known how much physical damage that he had done to Love when he was in her apartment. Clausen described Huguely as an individual who needed an intervention from his friends, suggesting that Huguely very well may have been in a dark enough place to commit such a crime with the deliberate, willful, and cruel actions necessary to constitute malice.

I read commentary during the trial that, absent malice, the jury could have found Huguely guilty of felony murder had they concluded that even if her murder was not premeditated as long as he was found guilty of grand larceny and a homicide charge. To be guilty of grand larceny, the jury would have to believe that Huguely's taking of Ms. Love's computer was an after thought, but that the value of the computer was more than $200. Thus, the case could have turned on the value of the computer. Oddly, the prosecution brought out a local pawnshop owner with no specialization of computers to discuss the value of Ms. Love's computer. Further, the prosecution didn't seem to prep the witness very well because the defense noted that Ms. Love's computer did not have as much memory as most Dell laptops in the same condition. Had the case turned on the grand larceny charged instead of malice, the prosecution might have regretted the poor choice in witness in regards to the value of her computer.

The defense, on the other hand, was fairly unimpressive. I won't get into the way in which the defense handled Quagliana's illness because I was not privilege to the strategy concerns surrounding her absence, but I can discuss a few other points.

First of all, the defense should have painted Huguely as a chronically intoxicated drunk who was too drunk to know what he was doing when he killed Ms. Love. If that defense would have been successful, Huguely would have gotten involuntary manslaughter and would be facing a maximum of 10 years instead of 26. Instead, the defense portrayed Huguely as a simple lacrosse playing buffoon in the hopes of downplaying every action that Huguely took.

The defense also tried to prove that Huguely's behavior was similar to that of any other UVa student. They apparently either failed to take into consideration or disregarded the fact that one of the jurors went to UVa and could explain to the rest of the jury that while UVa students do tend to consume a lot of alcohol, they don't go around kicking down doors, vaguely threatening to kill their significant others, etc. That approach was, frankly, pretty damn pathetic.

The defense also totally mishandled one of its witnesses in regards to a technical evidence rule that deals with what an attorney can tell a witness about what another witness said during the trial and it cost them one of their two key medical witnesses. That's just bad lawyering, particularly after the prosecution did such a thorough job of explaining their medical case. If you're a juror, who are you going to believe - the side that brings half of a dozen medical witnesses or the side who only brought one expert, and that expert is hired solely to testify on behalf of the defense?

I also found it a little odd that the defense did not bring a single one of Huguely's family members other than his aunt to try to humanize him to the degree that the jury might struggle to find malice in his commitment of homicide against Love. The only opportunity that we had to see Huguely as anything other than a jaded lover or an alcoholic was when the prosecution - not the defense, but the prosecution - played the tape from the police's questioning of Huguely when he claimed that he did not know or believe that Love was dead. How could the jury conclude that Huguely was not malicious if they did not have any witnesses speak about him?

In all, it seems that the prosecution, despite its errors, vastly outperformed the defense.

Answer:

I'll agree that it is very hard to determine the quality of the
advocates in this case having only been able to follow actions through
online reporting. The material that was printed however, did paint a
picture of both sides, their strategies and shortcomings. I do want to
say quickly that we are mere law students, have never litigated a
criminal matter, and have no idea the difficulties that practicing
lawyers face when dealing with a first degree murder case. But we can
give our opinions, and here they are:

The first thing I do want to comment on, unlike my colleague, is the
defense counsel's illness that postponed the trial for two days. This
was bad for a number of reasons. Now I am not going to comment on the
severity of the ailment or if counsel could have continued on. From
all accounts, she seemed legitimately ill. The fact that both members
of the defense counsel were not able to question all witnesses that
they called seems, at first glance, a huge oversight. This delay came
in the middle of defense's case. It cost the defense two days when
they needed their case to be hard-hitting and quickly rebut the
prosecution's argument. Instead the prosecution's argument remained in
the jury's mind a little longer. Now, I do not mean to blame this one
incident on why the jury found the way they did. But, in a case such
as this where the facts do not seem overly complicated, it is very
important that both lawyers are up on all of their information. It
appears disorganized and nearsighted to only have one lawyer be able
to accomplish one aspect of the case. I am not sure if this is what
the jury felt in this case, but I do know that the judge did not
appreciate the delay. However, the judge could not step in and
continue the trial without the sick counsel because it may prevent a
fair trial.

Separately, in terms of strategy, I actually will commend the defense
on their portrait of Huguely. Time and time again they painted him as
a simple drunk, someone who could not hatch a scheme to kill. And this
was done without even calling his parents to the stand. It would seem
as if the prosecution did a lot of this work for the defense, most of
the prosecution witnesses who were acquainted with Huguely described
him as a jock with a drinking problem, but not someone with criminal
intent. The defense allowed this portrait to materialize by allowing
the prosecution to hammer home the number of drinks that Huguely
consumed the day of the murder. That number, around 20, would make
most jurors cringe and wonder how Huguely was even conscious. 20
drinks would cause such muddling of the mind that there is little
chance any intent could be made before actions. The prosecution did
not speak too much about intent, rather allowing their evidence of the
kicked in door and the threatening letter to fill in the gaps of
Huguely's intent. Rather, the prosecution focused more on malice
because they had to in order to get a conviction for second degree
murder.