Center for Criminal Justice Advocacy
IN THE
CONTRIBUTOR SPOTLIGHT #2
EDITED PROSECUTION & DEFENSE JURY ARGUMENTS
THE WIG SHOP MURDER
copyright © 2005 ray moses
all rights reserved
EXAMPLE OF
JURY ARGUMENT
Murder - Mistaken Identity Defense
Dogs that ain't killed sheep don't run.
West Texas RancherJury Argument in State v. Goldberg,
95 S.W.3d 345 (Tex. App. - Hous. [1 Dist. ] 2002)
PDR denied, cert. denied Goldberg v. Texas, 540 U.S. 1190 (2004).
[Note: If you would like to read the opening statements in "The Wig Shop Murder,
this link will take you there:
This link will take you to an explanation of opening statements in criminal cases.]
These are hyperlinks to the following jury arguments in "The Wig Shop Murder" case:
[Editor's Note: I know several very talented trial lawyers who attended the jury arguments in the Dror Goldberg "Wig Shop Murder" case. They were there because the case pitted one of the best criminal defense lawyers in the U.S.A. against a rising star of the prosecution bar. Dick DeGeurin had already established himself as the top criminal defense lawyer in Houston and one of the top fifty in the country. At the time of this case, Kelly Siegler, a country girl from Blessing, Texas, had enjoyed a meteoric rise in the Houston, Harris County D.A.'s Office. Within a couple of years of this case she was listed as one of the fifty best women lawyers in the Union. She was assisted by Lester Blizzard who opened for the prosecution. My lawyer friends who there for this clash have consistently told me that the DeGeurin-Siegler arguments were among the best they had ever heard.
Aside: The two lawyers, Siegler and DeGeurin, were to clash again in several other high profile murder cases, the most recent of which was the equally fascinating David Temple wife murder. The Temple case hyperlink will take you to the 48 Hours story that profiles the lawyers as well as the circumstantial evidence case against Temple.]
This is a brief summary of the facts of the Goldberg Wig Shop Murder case: In the late morning or early afternoon of November 27, 1998, a young, white male entered a wig shop at the Weslayan Plaza Shopping Center in Houston, Texas. He walked in, looked around, and left without talking to either Manuela Silverio or Roberta Ingrando, both of whom were working there that day.
At just before 4 p.m. the same day, the same man returned to the wig shop. Mrs. Ingrando saw the man walk up to Ms. Silverio and "punch" her in the neck, so Mrs. Ingrando ran to call the police. The man cut Mrs. Ingrando's wrist, knocking the phone from her hands. He then stabbed her several times, asking her, "Do you like it?" He also told her that he was going to cut her nose and ears and make her pretty. Mrs. Ingrando's husband, Roland, who was working in the back of the store, ran to the front when he heard his wife screaming. Mr. Ingrando threw a tray of hair rollers at the assailant, and then wrestled with the assailant briefly, sustaining several cuts during the struggle. The assailant fled the store.
At the same time, Dr. Randall Beckman was leaving a pet store across the parking lot after purchasing dog food. Dr. Beckman saw the assailant running across the parking lot. Thinking that someone might need assistance, Dr. Beckman got into his car and followed the man across the parking lot. Dr. Beckman saw the man get into a dark Lincoln Navigator and back out of a parking space. Dr. Beckman then passed the Navigator in the parking lot and was able to clearly see the driver, as the two vehicles passed driver's side window to driver's side window. After passing the Navigator, Dr. Beckman turned around and wrote down the license plate of the Navigator.
Dr. Beckman then parked in front of the wig shop and went inside to see if anyone needed his help. He found Manuela Silverio lying in a pool of blood on the floor and Mr. and Mrs. Ingrando hysterically trying to telephone the police. Dr. Beckman tried to revive Silverio, but she was dead. Mr. and Mrs. Ingrando were taken to the hospital. Mr. Ingrando's injuries were minor, and he was soon released. However, Mrs. Ingrando required surgery and was hospitalized for at least a week.
Dr. Beckman was interviewed at the scene of the crime, and he gave the police the paper upon which he had written the license plate number of the Navigator. He also described the assailant as a white male, approximately six feet tall, 18-19 years old, 165 pounds, with short-to-medium sandy blonde hair.
The police ran the license plate number provided by Dr. Beckman and discovered that it was registered to Loren Nelson, who lived nearby at XXXX Dunstan. Loren Nelson, now Loren Goldberg, lived with appellant's father at that address.
Several officers drove to the XXXX Dunstan address and located the Navigator in a covered parking area behind the house. One of the officers touched the hood of the Navigator and it was still warm, but no one was at home at the residence except the housekeeper, Marleny Vilorio. Ms. Vilorio told the officers that Dr. Goldberg and Loren Nelson were out of town and that appellant, Dror Goldberg, had been left in charge of the house. The keys to the Navigator were in the house.
At 6:07 p.m., appellant drove up to XXXX Dunstan in his white pick-up truck. Officer M.L. Sampson approached appellant and asked if he were Dror Goldberg. Appellant said that he was, and Officer Sampson handcuffed him, performed a pat-down search, and informed appellant of his rights. Appellant indicated that he understood his rights and indicated that he would be willing to talk with the officer.
Appellant was later uncuffed, and he talked with the police about his whereabouts that day. He also executed consent forms for the police to search: (1) his father's residence at XXXX Dunstan, (2) appellant's own white pick-up truck; and (3) appellant's apartment at 4301 Bissonnet. While at XXXX Dunstan, police noticed blood on appellant's shirt and a red mark on his chest. They also seized the Navigator and had it towed to the police station, where it was later searched pursuant to a warrant. Before searching XXXX Dunstan, the police took a Polaroid photo of appellant.
At 8:07 p.m., the police completed their search at XXXX Dunstan and transported appellant to the police station. During the ride to the police station, appellant told the police officer that the Navigator had been stolen in the past, but that every time it was stolen, the thief always just returned it. At the police station, appellant gave police his finger and palm prints. He also executed a waiver of the presence of an attorney and participated in a videotaped line-up. At approximately 11:00 p.m., appellant was released and went home with his mother.
Meanwhile, at 8:30 p.m., Dr. Beckman looked at a photo array containing the Polaroid taken of appellant and indicated he was 80% certain that appellant was the man he had seen running from the wig shop. Dr. Beckman and Mrs. Ingrando were later shown the videotaped line-up and both identified appellant as the assailant. If you'd like to have a summary of the case, press here.]
[Editor's Note: In Texas, the lawyers argue after the jury instructions are given and the jury is provided with a written copy of the court's instructions in writing. See Art. 36.14 CCP. Some other states do it in reverse; federal judges have a choice of instructing the jurors before and/or after the jury argument of cousel. ]
THE COURT: Thank you again for being so prompt, ladies and gentlemen. Let me tell you what we're getting ready to do. We're getting ready to hear the charge of the court, what some people refer to as the jury instructions. Then, immediately after I give you your instructions, we will hear the arguments of the attorneys. Arguments are just that. They are arguments. The lawyers are allowed to sum up the evidence and draw reasonable deductions and inferences from the evidence. You're the ones who are going to be making the decisions in this case.Tell you one other thing so you don't go back in a vacuum. A lot of times jurors go back and ask for a transcript of the case. There's no transcript of the case. You've heard the evidence. There is never a transcript sent back.If, at any point , you disagree about a particular fact that a single witness testified to, you can ask for that particular fact. For instance, "Did the boy run out of the blue house or the red house in Officer Smith's testimony from the prosecution?" Something along those lines.I always find it easier to note a time table. Let me give you the time table of the arguments this morning so you know what to expect. I'm giving each side an hour and fifteen minutes. The prosecution will begin by making its opening argument, then the defense will deliver its entire argument. We'll take a five minute break after that to allow you to use the restroom. The we will come back for the prosecution's closing argument. That's the timetable, so won't be looking at watches and can listen to everything the attorneys have to say.[Jury charge read aloud]
THE PROSECUTION'S OPENING JURY ARGUMENT:
THE COURT: Mr. Blizzard (the prosecutor who will deliver the prosecution's opening argument).MR. BLIZZARD: After the terrible crime happened, she (indicating Roberta Ingrando sitting on the front row of courtroom seats) lay down next to her long-time friend and she patted her and she said: "Wake up, Manny, wake up. Wake up, Manny, wake up."But, of course, this mother, grandmother, close friend, co-worker over the years, she couldn't wake up. She was gone. She was silenced forever. She's not here to speak. She may be looking down now; but for now, justice for Manny is going to be determined by this jury. Now in our society and the way things are today, the government, the State, does not have video cameras running for 24 hours a day in all the different places in our community. Video cameras aren't running in our bedrooms. Video cameras aren't running out in the streets. What we rely upon is good citizens to come forward, such as yourselves, and say what they saw: eyewitness testimony. It is not the government, it's not the state, it's not the police, that chooses the time for criminal conduct. This defendant Dror Goldberg chose the time and the place to commit this murder.And there was a miracle that happened because Dr. Beckman - - actually there were two miracles that happened in this case. Dr. Beckman drove by and saw the defendant running from the shop into his vehicle, and he took down the license plate, and he had the courage and the care and the citizenship to take down that plate. He understood how important it might be. His words were he wanted to see if there was something he could do to help; and, yes, he was very honest when he came in here and he testified. He testified that he was 80 to 90 percent sure that that was the individual, but he testified that he was 100 percent sure that he got the right plate. The plate goes directly back to the car that was left in the custody of this defendant.The second miracle, and this is from another doctor, another person who's dedicated himself to healing. Dr. Villareal came in and testified that he had to do emergency surgery on Roberta Ingrando, saved her life. She was very close to death. So it's by a miracle here that we are talking about murder and not capital murder (multiple murders).The issue in this case is one presented on identity. You've heard testimony time and time again, that it was not this individual, that we somehow got the wrong person. Well, let's look at all the coincidences.The defendant comes into the wig shop, takes a knife, a push knife, quickly two blows into the deceased; goes back, grabs Roberta Ingrando, fourteen more stab wounds; turns when Mr. Ingrando comes out, one more slash, and he's out the door.When Roberta Ingrando took the stand, she is a hundred percent sure that this is the individual. Dr. Beckman drives by, sees him. And all these individuals describe the same person independently. That person gets into -- runs, gets into a car, the car goes to (the address of the defendant and his parents). The police arrive there shortly thereafter, and the engine is warm. Isn't that consistent? Doesn't that tell you a clear picture as to what flowed in that situation? Lineups were conducted. Photograph lineups. Again, the defendant is identified independently. Videotape lineups. Again, the defendant is identified independently.The defendant pulls up in his car,in his truck. Another knife, a dagger, double-edged, found within his car seat secreted underneath. Yet, another knife. You're seeing a pattern as to somebody whose weapon of choice is a blade. The Navigator is parked at an angle as if it was quickly parked, pulled in, like somebody was moving very fast.So then we do more research and more citizens come forward, and in this case it's a little different from a number of other cases because we have evidence as to how the defendant thinks. He writes a letter to his friend.Dear Josh: I am writing you this letter Monday, March the 6th. I heard about the bombings last week, yesterday and today in Tel Aviv. The rage that has filled me burns for an outlet. You know the feelings I have -- the worry, the guilt, the anger -- for not being able to do shit. These events have affected my decision to join. The fact that I may be given a chance to kill an enemy of our state is keeping me going. (Defendant's stepmother) has noticed the change in my behavior are rarely stops to talk to me. She says I scare her. No offense, Josh, but sometimes I want to pop her head like a zit.How are you doing? Still working like a horse? Out of everyone I know, you must be hungry for revenge. I pray for the day I may receive my chance. I have sent you a package. I hope you enjoy it. I am now dating a slut named Christina. I want to cut her throat. I am changing into a violent young man, and I like it. I pray you do well, and pray you keep your health. Remember , Josh, you wanted this very badly. How dare a bunch of sand niggers hurt us. Kill them all. I am coming, and I will be ready to help. If you do come this summer, call me before. Everything else is fine. I saw (name) and he sends his regards. Good luck and watch your ass.Does that sound like the intentions of someone that's normal? What does slicing the throat of a woman he refers to that he's dating as a slut, slashing her throat have to do with protecting Israel? I submit to you it has nothing to do with it, and it exhibits a very dangerous man who on the day after Thanksgiving in '98 exploded. There's other references to letters where he's talking to three girls: a nice El Salvadorian girl and a white trash poor --DEFENSE CONSEL: Excuse me. Objection. Beyond the record.THE PROSECUTOR: There's testimony concerning the other letters, Judge.THE COURT: Those letters are for the purposes of impeachment, not for the truth of the matters asserted. Sustained.THE PROSECUTOR: There's a notebook that was put into evidence; and in that notebook, the defendant details how to kill a woman."I'd stab her with a knife. A knife again. To make a number of stab wounds, small ones, so that she knows she's going to die. Red, make her red. Listen to her dying breaths, wanting to hear her beg for her life. Telling her: 'Do you like this?' Looking at her dead eyes. Telling her that she looks pretty."And when you hear these references, isn't that exactly the same words used when the defendant committed this crime when he was talking to Roberta Ingrando? Think back on the cross-examination of that officer (the officer who testified to the excited utterance of Roberta) when she took the stand. Was she impeached with that -- did that language come from any other source? No. Isn't that an important link in the puzzle? Because everything in this case points directly to this defendant.There was another page, how to rape a woman, details on how to do that. So here we have somebody who has had a problem for a long time, building and building, thinking about how to do it. Giving it a great deal of thought. Somebody who is very intelligent. Somebody who was approved to be in the Israeli Army as an intelligence officer. And the time bomb kept ticking, and the red flags were presented to the parents time and time again. And for whatever reason, they were ignored until the day after Thanksgiving when his father left town, it all exploded and came tumbling down.(The prosecutor returns to the point made in opening statement by his co-counsel that the people who think they know the defendant best know him least.) A lot of people took the stand and they testified that they didn't -- that Dror Goldberg was really not aggressive. These people really didn't know who he was. They don't know about the notebooks. They don't know about the letters. They don't know about the real Dror Goldberg.(The prosecutor discusses the forensic fiber evidence.) I want to take some time and summarize some of the physical evidence that you have that also corroborates the identification of this defendant. You've been presented with a number of boards, fibers A through H ( referring to the eight exhibits positioned around the courtroom - eight boards with blow ups of photomicrographs of each fiber showing where each was recovered from the Lincoln Navigator ). I don't want to go through all of these; but to just give you an example when you read through the boards, you'll see the arrows on the top point to where these fibers were located. The fiber found at the location at the Navigator matched to the fiber found -- that was known and retrieved from the wig shop, from the wigs that were actually worked on, from the wigs that weren't in the front of the shop but in the back of the shop and from the fibers found on the deceased and on victims and in the area. There was a microscopic comparison. There was also infrared comparison. Fiber B. By way of example where the fibers were found, the known fiber, and the fiber located in the Navigator compared microscopically, spectrograph analysis of each and where it was found. Not just one fiber matched, was consistent, not just two, not just three, not just four -- eight. Look at the wig shop. You can tell by the broken tray thrown at the assailant, that really there was quite a big fight in the wig shop. (Note the rhetorical question.) Isn't that just another very powerful instance where the eyewitness identification was again corroborated?THE COURT: That's fifteen minutes.THE PROSECUTOR: Thank you, judge.You also have the scene diagram. In the scene diagram, you can tell the entrance where the body was found, all the various testimony concerning where different things were located and where different altercations took place, becomes very clearly apparent. Police officers went out, drove the route, not once but twice; and the evidence shows that within that time frame all this action could have taken place.Introduced is the bloody clothing of the deceased. It's here and provided for you, should you want to look at it. The dagger that was taken along with the notebook is also in evidence, the defendant's and the brother's. The main difference is when you look at this, the defendant's brother's, Danny's, has a key ring on it, not the defendant's.(The prosecutor discusses the jury charge on the issue of identity.) I'm going to also highlight for you the portions of the charge. It is the instructions that the judge has given you. In these instructions, it begins with a series of definitions should you disagree disagree upon a specific point. Towards the end, you'll find the application paragraph. It's what applies the law to the facts, and in this case the issue is identity, and I've highlighted the portion "Dror Haim Goldberg." That portion is highlighted. Because that's really the issue in this case, and the thing that you should concentrate on the most here at the guilt/innocence phase.(The prosecutor discusses the jury charge on the issue of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.) The next portion I'd like to highlight is the charge on reasonable doubt and what that is. Reasonable doubt.:( indicating the visual of the jury jury charge) "Unless the jurors are satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt of the defendant's guilt." Are you satisfied? Has the State provided you enough evidence so that you are satisfied with your verdict of guilty? It is not required that the prosecution prove guilt beyond all possible doubt. It is required that the prosecution's proof exclude all reasonable doubt concerning the defendant's guilt. Not beyond all possible doubt. Of course, you would be a witness if you'd seen it yourself.Also, what's important is that determination on reasonable doubt be made after a consideration of all the evidence in the case, not just honing in on one microscopic part of the case but looking at all of the facts, all of the evidence that's been presented to you. Does it mean that your mind has to be made up automatically? No. Deliberation is a course of talking things out, determining things, thinking about it, coming to the right resolution. (The prosecutor closes his opening argument with a quote.) My time is running out. Let me leave you with this thought. Abraham Lincoln once said: "No one is above the law and no one is beneath the law." Whether you're from a prominent family and can have witnesses flown in from all over the state and all over the nation or you're from the poorest wards, no one is above the law and no one is beneath the law.Thank you, Judge.THE COURT: Thank you. THE DEFENSE COUNSEL'S JURY ARGUMENT
THE COURT: Mr. DeGeurin (the defense lawyer who will argue between the prosecutor's opening argument and closing argument).DEFENSE COUNSEL:Yes, ma'am. May I have a moment or two to set up? THE COURT: Yes.DEFENSE COUNSEL: And, Judge, I don't believe I'll need the podium if I can move it.THE COURT: All right.DEFENSE COUNSEL: May it please the Court, Dror, ladies and gentlemen.(Defense counsel emphasizes that the prosecution from the getgo has tried to minimize the fact that there is no blood evidence.) From the first words spoken to you as a jury panel by the prosecution in this case, they've tried their best to explain away the fact that there's no blood. From the very moment that Ms. Siegler began addressing you as panel members, she tried to soften the fact that the State has no physical evidence. And throughout this trial, the State has tried to, in every way possible, minimize the amount of blood on what one of the officers, the crime scene unit officer, described as a very bloody scene. From the beginning, the State has tried their best to say that the killer would not get blood on him, that the killer would not have blood on him. But the facts belie that.(Defense counsel says that the righteous anger of the survivors and victim's supporters is misdirected.) You will, as it appears, be presented with some emotion, some emotional argument. It's already started. This photo on top solves no issue in this case. This is here for emotion. I know that the emotions are high, and I know that the Silverio family is righteously angry, and I know that the many supporters of the Ingrando family are righteously angry, but they're angry at the wrong person because the evidence does not support a finding of guilty.(Defense counsel tells the jurors he is going to talk about the prosecution's use of letters of the defendant when he was younger to stir up the juror's emotions.) I'm going to talk to you about the evidence. I'm going to talk to you about what is evidence and what isn't evidence. I'm going to talk to you about what you've seen in this case, which is an effort to convict Dror Goldberg not because of the evidence in this case but because of some letters that he wrote to Josh Vogel, his former friend in the Israeli Army, at a time when Dror Goldberg, then seventeen years old, was filled with the desire to join the Army, to fight against what was going on in Israel then, cowardly terrorist bombings in the very neighborhood where he grew up. And, of course, his letters to Josh were violent; and Josh's calls to him were undoubtedly violent. (Defense counsel impliedly suggests that the prosecution is trying to enflame the juror's prejudice with evidence that the defendant used unseemly epithets.) But there's a reason why the State fought so hard to get that letter in front of you and to have it read to you. He uses language that's embarrassing and that wouldn't be appropriate, and he uses the term, as Mr. Blizzard (the prosecutor) read to you, "sand nigger," and I'm sorry that he used that term. That term, as Josh Vogel tried to back off from, is a term that's used for Arabs, and it's slang, and it's dirty, and it has no place in public language. It has no place at all.(Defense counsel expressly suggests that prosecution's use of letters containing inappropriate language about women and ethnic groups is a ploy to keep the jurors from concentrating on the true issue - identity of the perpetrator.) But there's a reason why the State wanted that letter in front of you. And it's not just "I want to pop her head like a zit," or "I'm dating a slut," or "I'm becoming a violent young man." It's because of that language that they wanted it in front of you in hopes that it will raise your emotional level and you'll ignore the fact that there's no evidence. And you'll ignore the fact that the proof of identity of the perpetrator, which is the real question in this case, is so weak. What did Beckman say about identify? He described a young blonde man running through the parking lot in a black or dark jogging suit with a white stripe. When he was shown the photo spread, he said, "I can't say, or "I won't say, I couldn't say," or "I wouldn't say for sure." He, police officer Steve Straughter, the African-American detective, who showed him that photo spread, who is not involved in the case in any other way, said, " He told me he wouldn't say or he couldn't say for sure, but the man in Place Number 3 looked familiar."And when he testified to you, what Dr. Beckman said was, "When I saw the photo spread, No. 3 looked familiar."Well, how sure are you?" Sraughter said. "Well, on a scale of one to ten, how sure are you?" " I would give it an eight." And that's what he (Dr. Beckman) signs on the back of it. What does that mean? Well, if you run the simple numbers, it means that there's a twenty percent chance he was wrong; and he was acknowledging there is a twenty percent chance he was wrong.Look at the photo spread and look at the people in it, and see if any body in the photo spread other than Dror Goldberg stands out. The fact is the photograph itself of Dror Goldberg is different from all the rest.And then what happens? Well, a week or two later they bring the video tape to Dr. Beckman; and Dr. Beckman again looks at the videotape and says well the person in No. 5 looks familiar and I'm not sure. There's a twenty percent chance that I'm wrong. That's what he says when he says it's eighty percent.Look at that video. Look at that. You'll have plenty of time. Look at the people they put in the video. Does that person fit the description given by the witnesses? That's (indicating the graphic) Culper, a Hispanic young man. Does that person fit the description given by the witnesses? That (indicating the graphic) person's name is --well, I didn't put it on there; but that's one of the guys in the lineup.And you remember what Harris said? Now, did you get the idea when Detective Harris testified that he was being testy, that he was trying the best he could to help the State? Well, didn't you? What did Harris say? Nobody in the lineup had any facial -- well, some guys have a fuzz. That's not fuzz. Look at that. And what about the others, and we had to work hard to try to find better pictures of the others. Remember all of the people that they say saw the killer run said he was about six feet tall.This (indicating the graphic) is Meztger, another person in the lineup. When you look at it closely -- I'm not going to take time to fiddle with this. You've looked at it already. He's about five six. Look (indicating the graphic) at this guy. This is Vines. He's about five four.And here's (indicating the graphic) the final guy. And he looked about six -- a little less than six two.Was the lineup procedure fair? Well, of course, when they show the videotape to Dr. Beckman, he's going to say, "That guy looks familiar." It's the only person in common between the photo spread and the videotape. And to they tell Beckman: Well you picked out the same person that somebody else picked out? Do they? Beckman says, in his testimony, no; but he says to the lady that interviews him on an anonymous basis that he agrees it was him, he was told that they both picked the same young man and there were indications that he was well-connected with a prominent father and mother.Well, it they told Beckman that, don't you know they told Roberta that in some way? Roberta said when she saw the videotape -- and she had to see it twice. And, please, in evidence is the actual tape of their interview with Roberta and you can hear her voice. You can hear what she said. It's not -- it's not the entire interview, but it's the part of the interview in which they've asked her again, "Now we have already shown you the videotape and you identified somebody, didn't you?"(Defense counsel recalls the statements of the prosecution's eyewitness, Roberta, after seeing the defendant in a lineup.) Remember several times in the trial when we objected, and they objected, to leading questions, leading the person with what you want the answer to be. See if those are leading questions that she's asked. But even then she says: Well, when I closed my eyes, the person in No. 5 scares me; so I think that might be him.Are you sure?Well, no.How sure are you? Could you tell us where it was between one and ten on a scale?I'm not quoting exactly. It's in there.About eight, about eighty.Well do you want to file charges on this man?Yes. I want to find out if it's him?Now, this is a woman that we acknowledged who's gone through a terrible ordeal. She's almost killed. She's described how the killer hugs around her and hits her, stabs her. She doesn't realize she's being stabbed at first. Hits her, cuts her nose, stabs her in the neck so hard it goes entirely through her neck.And the prosecution says, "There's no blood." I'll concede that when a person is stabbed in, say, the stomach or the chest area and they have clothes that cover that area, well, the clothes are going to absorb the blood at first. It's not going to take the blood off the knife. Will it wipe the knife clean when it comes out? Well, maybe it will wipe a lot of the blood off. It's not going to wipe all of the blood off.This is a woman who sees the killer with her necklace in his hand, and we see the necklace, and it's bloody, and she does not describe any gloves. Late in the case, the prosecution starts saying something about gloves. Mrs. Ingrando sees the killer's hands and doesn't describe gloves. And Mrs. Ingrando, by the time she gets to trial, then says 100 percent sure, "It's Dror Goldberg." What happens between when she says, "I'm not sure, I can't say for sure, I want to find out if it's him" and when she walks into court and says, "I'm now 100 percent sure"?Well, she's seen him - Dror - on television. She's seen Dror in custody. She's seen Dror's photograph in the newspaper. And did the police tell her that she'd picked out the same person that Beckman had? Well, we know that Beckman told a reporter that the police told him that.Post event information - Dr. Loftus says - can heavily influence the certainty expressed by a person. Dr. Loftus also tells us that perception is at play, perception; and I'll come back to that. Dr. Loftus says that post event information heavily influences the confidence that a witness says she has in the correctness of her identification.Let me say a word about Dr. Loftus. Dr. Loftus never met or saw or talked to Dror Goldberg before she walked into this courtroom. She said hello. Dr. Loftus has spent all her professional life doing what she does which is research, writing, and occasionally testifying. She's taught at the FBI . She's taught at many law enforcement schools. Most of her testimony has been on the defense side because of the nature of her research. And because of that, she's attacked personally.I want you please to simply look at the 40 or 50 page CV (curriculum vitae) that's in evidence. You can cherry pick out of there some cute titles on magazine articles, as the prosecution did; or you can look at it dispassionately and see the credentials of this lady. And she has the fortitude to come before a jury in a court in a case that's hotly contested, knowing that she's going to be attacked personally. And she was, and I don't agree with that. I think she's a scientist, and I think that her training, her ideas, what she has to say ought to be listened to. You can accept it or reject it without engaging in personal attack.And I tried in my cross-examination of the prosecution's witnesses to do exactly that, to examine what they say and then to ask them if they agree that they could be wrong or if other things could happen. And I think that you'll see and you'll recall with Reidun Hilleman, whom I respect, I treated her that way.But the prosecution asked her how much she's paid, asked Max Courtney how much he's paid; as if to say, well, you're just being paid to come here and say what you do. Well, I could ask Ms. Hilleman if she's paid by the police department, which she is, which is her only client and whether that might affect her credibility. I just don't think that's relevant.Of course, a scientist who spends time researching a case, looking at evidence, and spending time coming here and testifying is entitled to fair compensation for the work they do. So enough about that.But the prosecution says as uncertain as Roberta Ingrando is, or was, about her identification and as uncertain as Randall Beckman is, or was, about his identification, Randall Beckman got the license. And you're going to hear a lot more, I'm sure, from Ms. Siegler about the license number and about Dr. Beckman and how it was a miracle that he was there.And, you know, anybody can make a mistake. Everybody makes mistakes. Remember when as a panel I asked for a show of hands how many people could remember your own license plate number, and there was just a smattering of hands. But he wrote it down, the prosecutor says. Well, did he write it down wrong? You know, it would be a miracle if he wrote it down wrong and it came back to a black Navigator, wouldn't it? But there were eighteen Navigators in the Houston area alone with almost the same license number. Not only that , there are seven dark -- remember he described it as dark -- seven dark Navigators with almost the same license plate. How do they differ? In either the last digit or the last two digits.Now what did Dr. Loftus say about what the research shows in a person's perception and the ability to recall even when they write it down. She said that in a series of numbers, the ones most likely to be remembered and gotten right are the first in the series. The more the numbers, the more varied the types -- for instance, in this case both letters and numbers -- the more difficult it is when you get to the end of a string of numbers to remember that, to write it down correctly, to perceive it correctly. And perception is what's at play.How much opportunity does Beckman have to see that license plate? Well, let's take his own words. Remember he said for most of the time when he saw the young man, the young blonde man in a dark jogging suit with a white stripe run through the parking lot -- run from the wig store, run through the parking lot -- he was twenty yards behind him. That's sixty feet. He turned down the same aisle -- he turned down the same aisle where he saw the young man run; and as he did and the Navigator backed out,he tried to get the front license number, but he couldn't. And so the car passed him and he passed the car, going in opposite directions, and the car sped away -- remember when he testified, he kind of downplayed the speed of the car, the Navigator. But what he told Charlotte Aguilar was that the car raced away. So he reaches for a piece of paper, he reaches for a his pen, and he looks away to write down the number. He writes down a number, looks back up to confirm it, and the car is gone.Is there a chance that he got the number wrong? Well, if he got the number wrong, surely it wouldn't come back to be a Navigator. It would be a miracle if seven dark Navigators in the Houston area had almost the same license number.Now, let's get back to the really hard physical evidence that doesn't depend on perception, memory, recall. What would you expect to find, what would you expect to find in a scene where a bloody stabbing had taken place? You would expect to find the killer's fingerprints. There were identifiable fingerprints found at the scene where they were told to look, but the fingerprints were not Dror Goldberg's. You would expect to find the killer's hair in a struggle. And, remember, Roland Ingrando says, he tells you on the stand: Well, I went for the killer with my hands out, and I threw a tray at him. And he downplays the struggle.
But what he said to the officers, what's on tape -- and, remember, the tape's not in. But I asked him about that, and I asked the officers about that and, sure enough, what he said on tape was he tackled the man. And as he did, Roland Ingrando said, he was reaching for him and the man stabbed him. And he thinks, Roland Ingrando thinks, that that's when he got both cuts in the web of his hand between his thumb and finger and in his chest. Now, think about that for a moment. Remember, the prosecution says the killer didn't get any blood on him. Rolando Ingrando, as he tackles the man with his hands, he's stabbed in the hand and they wrestle and the man gets up and runs off.And where does that happen? It happens in the back, it happens in the back of the wig shop. Remember the phones, the phone where the man, the killer, goes to Roberta Ingrando, is right here (indicating the blowup photograph), the very back of the wig store. This is State Exhibit No. 88. That's where the telephones are that Roberta Ingrando is calling 911.Remember what she says? (Defense counsel speaks in the present tense.) She's calling 911, she has the phone in her hand, and the man hits her hand. She doesn't realize it at first, but she gets a terrible cut across her wrist . Tendons are cut. There's no sleeve to cover it. There's no dress or jacket or anything to absorb the blood. A terrible cut across her hands. You've seen the photographs. There's a lot of blood around those telephones. Another opportunity for the killer to get blood on him.But there's a struggle. There's a struggle, according to Roland Ingrando, what he says to the police, what's tape-recorded. There's a struggle. There is hair, unknown hair, found at the scene. It's not Dror Goldberg. Killer's DNA, we don't know. We don't know because what the crime scene unit guy did, he took only six samples of blood. He took one of the spots outside. He took part of what was on the push bar for the door. He took one of the drops that was by the cash register. He took another swab from the cash register door and another some place else. Six samples. But there was a lot of blood.Killer's footprints? Unidentified footprints in blood. Not only are they unidentified, they show how they were laid down. There's a struggle. There's a smear. Then there's a a footprint on top of it in blood; and after that, there's drops of blood. Now, that's the sequence of how those prints were put down. A good crime scene unit or detective or scientific person would have said, "Let's get everything that was here. We have got a record of it. We know exactly who's on the EMT team. We know exactly who the police officers are. There's a record of everything. Let's get them down here. Let's look at their shoes. Let's take a shoe impression. Let's either eliminate this from suspicion or let's see." They didn't do that. What we do know is that's not Dror's shoe print. They took the shoes that were on him, and they don't match and they have no blood on them. And then Detective Sampson searched his father's house and searched Dror's own house. If there were any shoes that came even close to matching that (indicating the photograph of the bloody footprint), they would be here. They would have had them. They had the opportunity. Why did they have the opportunity to search? Because Dror Goldberg gave them consent to search. The killer's blood? Again, we don't know whether it's there. We know that Dror Goldberg's blood is not at the scene.What evidence would you expect to find in the getaway car? Now, that's why the prosecution has taken so much effort to try to downplay the amount of blood in this case from the very beginning of the case. Why? Because there is no blood. In a getaway car from this crime scene, you would expect to find Roland's blood and Roberta's blood. This is by transfer from one surface to another. Because the man that stabbed Roberta, the man that stabbed and struggled with Roland, surely got some blood on him. You'd expect to find blood there. If you found wig fibers, you'd expect to find wig fibers with blood on them. No sir. Blood on the driver's seat rubbed off from clothes? Blood on the floor mat from the shoes? Blood on the gear shift lever from the hand? Blood on the brake pedal, accelerator pedal, the keys? Detective Sampson got the keys from inside Dror's house. No blood on any of them. What would be the first thing that the killer would get as he ran from the wig shop? The car keys. In a pocket, some place. He'd reach for them with one hand or the other. And in the meantime, the knife had to be disposed of. The knife surely had blood on it. Where's the killer going to wipe if off? On the clothes? They don't find the clothes, of course. That's gonna be one answer. Is the killer going to get enough blood on him to be detected? Enough blood? Blood can be detected even years after it's been put down. Now, the door handle; that's the first thing of a car that the killer would have touched. But they take the car into custody, and there is no blood anywhere on the car except for some dog blood on the back. The police got Dror into custody and tested his shoes, pants, T-shirt. It had a little bit of his own blood on it from playing football. His sweatshirt. And the prosecution brings it out, the sweatshirt and the sweat pants, to show that they're dark colored. You remember that? What did every person that saw the killer say about the killer? He had on a dark or black jogging outfit with a white stripe down the side. They're consistent about that.The knife that's in Dror's truck, they test that, and there's no blood, no hair, no fibers, no nothing. The knife has nothing to do with the case. Why is it here? Well, I guess because the State says he had a desire for knives. And so they bring you this knife that's in his car and this knife which is a toy, a curio, that he had when he was seventeen years old. It's a curio.And Mr. Blizzard (the prosecutor), with all due respect, says, well, Danny's has a key chain on it. Well, this is a key chain knife. It's a curio. They both had one. And this one (indicating). Why do they bring you this? Because the evidence of guilt is so weak that they know they have to shore up their weak case by either getting you angry at Dror or making you think that he's some kind of crazed pervert because in 1995 when he's a sixteen year-old kid in high school, he had sexual and violent fantasies.And so they bring this woman -- who neither Dr. Goldberg nor Michele nor the vice principal remembers even being there -- to testify about what she remembers in the notebook. And Ms. York tells you, "Look, if it had been a big deal, I would have remembered it. We find things in notebooks all the time. We call the parents, and that's the end of it."What were the consequences? Michele followed up. She sent Dror to meet with Dr. Austin. Dr. Austin did testing, found nothing out of the ordinary. Dr. Austin was told about the notebook. But if the notebook had been as Sergeant Griest described it, two things would have happened. They would have kept it as evidence. They didn't. And the sergeant would have written something about it in her report, and she didn't. So what they kept was presumably the marihuana roach, the curio knife, and a letter.Now, you know, we read this letter. You read it along with us. It's not even Dror's letter. It's a letter from a friend. And it talks about - talks about things that kids talk about.(Defense counsel utilizes a time line and quotes from the transcript.) I want to talk a little bit about what happened on Friday, November 27th. What I've done is, I've made for purposes of discussion a time line; and this is all from what is in the evidence. It's a compilation of what various people have testified about. I'm just going to have to zoom in on it so we can see what it deals with. It starts, for this purpose, when the police arrived at Dunstan at 4:45 p.m. We're not sure exactly what time, but when Marleny leaves, the police interrogate her. And she tells them the same thing she tells you. And Marleny says, first to Ms. Siegler (the prosecutor) and then again on cross-examination, Q: Did he walk the dogs again?A: Yes.Q: How long did he walk them?A: About fifteen minutes.Q: After the defendant left the house at 3:30, when did you see him?A: He came back to the house.Q: He came back to the house?A: Yes, ma'am.Q: What time?A: 3:45.Q: What time did he go to walk the dogs?A: About 3:30.Q: What time did he leave in his white pickup truck for the second time that day?A: At 4:30.Now, Ms. Siegler then leads her around a little bit and gets her to change; but she comes right back to it. She comes right back to it. This is still Ms. Sigeler:Q: He left in the white truck after feeding the dogs at 3:30?A: Yes.Q: Then he came back and left at 4:30?But that's not what she really said. What she said was he left at 3:30, walked the dogs, and came back in fifteen minutes, came back at 3:45. And, sure, enough, back to 3:30:Q: Dror went out to walk the dogs at about 3:30.A: Yes.Q: You testified a little bit ago that was gone about fifteen minutes when he walked the dogs, is that right?A: Yes.Q: And then what you said was Dror actually came back from his 3:30 leaving the house, he came back about 3:45, right?A: Yes.Q: And the next time he left the house was about 4:30? A: Yes.Q: It it true that each time you saw Dror leave, he left in his white pickup truck?A: Yes.Q: And the white pickup truck was parked in front of the house?A: Yes.Q: So when Dror left, he would go out the front door to drive the white pickup, correct?A: Yes.Q: Any you never saw Dror go out the back door that entire day, is that correct?A: No.Q: But them that is correct, he didn't go out the back door that day?A: Yes. That's correct.Q: When you do your washing and ironing, what part of the house do you work in?A: In the washroom. The washroom is next to the back door. (Defense counsel speaks parenthetically.): Remember, she said the back door had a large window that looked out onto the carport.
Q: At any time when you were working in this portion of the house, you would be able to see whether anyone was in or out of the house out of the back door, is that right? A: Yes.Q: During the entire time, did you see Dror go out the back door?A: No.There's another place in here where she says - and you'll remember it - that she never saw the Navigator move that day. It was always in the same place. Every time she looked out the back door, the Navigator was in the same place in the carport; and she could see the Navigator from where she worked.Now, again, to the time line. Let's get over this as quickly as we can. Excuse me. That's the police activity time line. That's what we were on. I'm sorry. I'm getting flustered. Let me go back to the general time line.This time line is really for Dror's activity from a number of different sources and a number of different witnesses. Twelve-thirty, Dror cases a check for Danny. That's the evidence from the bank. One o'clock, Dror eats lunch with his mom and Danny. That's from his mom and Danny. At some time that we don't know, he picks up his laundry a the apartment and takes it to Dunstan. We know that from the detective who finds the laundry, who's told that by Dror; and he searches through the laundry. Sometime before four o'clock -- again, not a certain time -- Dror rents an adult video from Mid City Video. We know that because it's the last video rented by this man that works there on his shift, and he leaves at four o'clock. And why do we know about the video? Because Dror told the police about it.Dror talks to Andy Turner at the West U Pool and Athletic Club sometime before four o'clock. We know that from Andy Turner. Andy Turner says the lifeguards get there at four o'clock. And he knows it was before then. Dror goes in and he works out a little bit. About two-thirty - you have to understand that Marleny's times are approximate - she says Dror comes back from wherever he had been. At three-fifteen, Wes Mabry and Jeff Ceden call Dror for the first time about the football game.Now, the cops, the police, check this out. How do they know about it? Dror told them about it. And Wes Mabry and Jeff Ceden are sitting at the same house, at Jeff's house, when they call him about three-thirty, that's because it's approximately three-thirty from Marleny when Dror leaves to walk the dogs. He's wearing white shorts and a T-shirt. It takes him about fifteen minutes. Then he comes back about three forty- five. Those are Marleny's approximate times. We know they're approximate because at three thirty-five Dror calls and talks to Billy Chasen. She remembers the time because she responded to him, "It's three thirty-five, and Nathan's not here, and I don't think he has time to play anyway, but call back in a little bit. He should be here. That's from Billy Chasen.At three thirty-six, we know that to be an exact time because of the records of Mary Swift, Mary Swift drives up to the front of her house. Dror's pickup truck is in the front. She wants him to move it because her mother's coming over that night. She wants Dror to put the dogs up. The dogs were out all night the night before and were barking; and Danny had some party there with the parents gone the night before.So she tells Dror. Dror is very polite to her: "Yes, ma'am. I'll do that." She waits for a few minutes in front of her house for her daughter to put up her groceries that she has just gotten, and then they leave. She figures it's about three forty-two when Mary Swift leaves. As she leaves and drives around the corner, she sees the Navigator in the driveway where it's usually parked. And she calculates that's at three forty-two. Now, what she does then is very important. She drives from her house which is just across the street from Loring's house and she drives up either on Bissonnet -- she doesn't remember whether she used Bissonnet but she does remember it was blocked off or there was a lot of construction going on and she might have gone on a side street through the neighborhood.And she and he daughter go to the House of Flame which is on Kirby at about Bartlett or North Boulevard. It's on this exhibit. (Indicating a map) Now that's much closer to her house, which is right by Loring's house, than the Weslayan Shopping Center. You can tell that from the map. Weslayan Plaza Shopping Center is here but the House of Flame is here and she and her daughter go there. She shops for about ten minutes and she checks out and when she checks out it's four fourteen.Now, what you have to do is just use your common sense. It took her roughly -- from three forty-two to four fourteen -- roughly thirty minutes just to go from her house on that day, the busiest shopping day of the year, to about half or less than half the distance than she would have gone it she would have gone all the way to the Weslayan Plaza Shopping Center. You take ten minutes off of that because she said she shopped for about ten minutes, got some trinkets and checked out at the House of Flame and she checks out at four fourteen. The she goes out to the Weslayan Plaza Shopping Center because then she goes to Bering's Hardware Store. Now, there's two receipts from Bering's; and they're very telling. One of them says four sixteen, which is two minutes after the House of Flame, and it couldn't be right because what she tells you is she's in the checkout line for that receipt, she calls her husband on her cell phone and her phone records show she calls her husband at four twenty-two. Close together. It takes her from four fourteen to four twenty two to get to Bering's and call her husband on her cell phone, and that's from the House of Flame which is much closer. She calls her husband a second time to ask him about the gas that she's going to buy and that's on the card also.THE COURT: About twenty minutes, counsel.DEFENSE COUNSEL: Thank you.I've got to rush through this. Next, Mary Swift, as she leaves, she sees a Navigator in the driveway. At about three forty-five -- again, that's an approximate time -- Marleny says Dror comes back from walking the dogs. I suggest to you this Mary Swift asks Dror to move his truck and put up the dogs. It makes sense that following that phone call, Dror did just that. Because as Marleny says when Dror left later at about four thirty, the dogs were in the house. So at some time Dror responds to Mary Swift's call and takes the dogs for a walk and puts them up. So that's why I suggest to you that, again, as Marleny says, her times are approximate, Dror returns from walking the dogs at some point.From three forty-five, when he returns from walking the dogs, to four thirty, both times are approximate, Marleny says she did not see Dror leave the house. And she said that that's the same thing she told the police. And you remember when I asked Sampson, "Didn't you talk to Marleny at the scene? No, I didn't because we didn't have anybody that could speak Spanish for a while, and then we had somebody that could speak Spanish and I asked her some questions."At three fifty -- and that's a fairly close time -- Wes and Jeff call Dror again about the football game being at four thirty. They believe --Wes believes, Jeff believes -- that they call during the last ten minutes of Jeopardy, which is on from three thirty to four. And it was during the time they play final jeopardy which they say is the last ten minutes. That's how they know it was about three fifty. They talk to Dror. He's still at the house. Remember how long it takes Mary Swift just to get to the House of Flame, do her shopping , and so forth. Marleny does see Dror leave in the white pickup. She thinks it's about four thirty. And he's dressed in his beige shorts and his white shirt.At three fifty-seven, and this is from Danny, Dror leaves a message on Danny's call notes. Remember the officer asked him about it. Remember I asked the officer, 'Did you look at the pager? Yes. Do you remember what the pager said? Only that it said 911-111." 911 means call right away, 111 is Dror's code. "Did he tell you about the message? Yes. He told me the message." When he interviews Danny, police officer Sampson says, "He told me about meeting at a football game." Now, Ms. Siegler (the prosecutor) asked Sampson a question about that and Sampson says, "I don't remember what the pager said." "Well, look at your report," she says. And he looks at his report. He says, "Well, my report says that he told me it was four thirty when he got the page." Remember when I asked him, "When did you write that report, look at the date on it." He looks at the date on it. It's over a month and a half later. But Danny remembers the page being at four o'clock, and so does Julie, who was with Danny at the car stereo store. And that's why that's in there. Julie remembers the page and she remembers talking to Danny and Danny saying, "Well, I can't take you home, go to my house and change, and be at the football game by four thirty. There's not enough time. Then at four o'clock -- this should be approximate time right here (indicating the time line exhibit) -- Wes and Jeff call Donald Brooks. Donald Brooks testified, "I got the call from Wes and Jeff. There's a football game at four thirty. I tried to get there. Traffic was too heavy. I turned around and went back home." He's coming from the Third Ward but he got the same phone call, football game at four thirty.Four o'clock, Dror pages Danny. Danny receives the page, gets the message, so forth. At about four fifteen - this is approximate also. Remember what Marvin Chasen says, "I got a call. It was from Dror. What I know about it is it was before four thirty. I can't be more specific than that." "Could it have been four twenty-nine?" Ms. Siegler asked. "I don't think so because I know there was some time between when I got the call and when my wife and my daughter came home because they came home at four thirty. "So sometime before four thirty when Dror calls the Chasens. The police know about that phone call. They asked Dror about it. He told them about it, and they checked it out.Dror leaves in his white pickup. Marleny sees him leave. She thinks it's about four thirty, that's approximate. The football players see him arrive at any time from four twenty to four forty, and they have different recollections. You can imagine you're out there playing football, you're warming up, you don't wear a watch. They all know Dror got there. They all know he drove up in his white pickup truck. They all know he played football that day. But they don't know exactly what time it was. They know about what time it was. They played the football game from roughly four twenty five to around five thirty. Dror goes up to his apartment, then Dror leaves and he comes to the Dunstan house where the police have already arrived. The police are interrogating Marleny as he drives up.In the meantime, Beckman is down at the police station giving his statement which is signed at five forty-four p.m. Dror gets there at seven after six. He drives up. Now, remember, he drives down Dunstan from the west, driving east; he drives down Dunstan from the west, driving east; and when he gets a block away where there's a place where he can turn either right or left and not even show up, there's plenty of room, plenty of availability, plenty of visibility, to see that the cops are all there. If Dror was guilty, he would have turned around and fled the scene right then. The nest person to get there would have been Danny. He would have been the closest suspect around and he kind of fit the description. Didn't have blonde hair. Dror didn't have blonde hair either. But he looked a lot like him. And he would have looked familiar to Dr. Beckman just as Dror looked familiar to Dr. Beckman because Dr. Beckman must have seen him multiple times in the hospital lunch room and probably saw Danny too. And if Danny had been identified by Dr. Beckman, Dror would be up here defending Danny right now.Remember when I asked Dr. Beckman very specifically, "When you saw the young man running across the parking lot, had you ever seen that person before?" "No" If it had been Dror that ran across that parking lot, he would have placed him: That's the same guy I saw over at Bellaire. Who is that kid? That thought never occurred to him. Why? Because it wasn't Dror.THE COURT: About ten minutes, counsel.DEFENSE COUNSEL: Thank you , your honor.Instead of driving off, he drove on up. If he had driven off, they never would have seen him. Can't even get all the way into his own house, has to park two doors down, gets out of his white pickup truck, walks up to the police officers who are standing around in front of his dad's house; and says, "What's going on?" Whereupon, they take him into custody, immediately they handcuff him. Remember what Marleny said: They grabbed him and took him around to the back. And there he started hyperventilating, saying "What's going on?"The detective says, "Sit down, calm down. We want to ask you some questions." He sits down, calms down, and he starts answering questions. He doesn't say get me a lawyer, I want a lawyer. His mother might have said, "Every time you get into any trouble, I want you to talk to a lawyer; don't say anything." That didn't happen. The questioning, that's Harris trying to shore up a weak case.That fine young lady over there didn't slap her son in the back of the head the moment she saw him after she had been waiting for him for six hours at the police station. Dror Goldberg said, "Sure, I'll answer all of your questions. What do you want?" "Give me a time line. Where were you?" He gives him a time line.And the State objects when I asked Sampson what did he tell you. I tried to get before you what he said to Sampson, and I got a lot of it because I got what Sampson checked out. Everything that Dror told Sampson that Sampson checked out, checked out to be true.Dror consents to a search of the house. Is that one here? (referring to the PowerPoint presentation) Yeah, here it is. Consents to the search of Dunstan. Sampson searches Dunstan. At some point, we don't know exactly when. Sampson opens the Navigator. He admitted it. He had to. He knew that the way the wheels were turned in order to get in there. In order to turn the wheels to get in there, you have to turn the wheels. And you can get it back out when you pull it back out to tow it but then when you try to tow it, the car is going to go all the way across the road unless he gets in, takes it out of gear and straightens the steering wheel. Now, the temptation for police officers who think they found the getaway car that might have the murder weapon in it, to look through that car is very great. Sampson said they did not. Sampson said he didn't want any cross-examination because there were three officers there at Dunstan who had also been inside the wig shop. Sampson says, "No, I just opened the door, and I had to put the brake pedal on, and I had to take it out of gear, and I had to use the key, but I didn't let anybody else get in there."And Andy Turner -- who is not a particular friend, just friendly with Dror and who happens to live across the alleyway -- walks by and sees that both passenger doors are open. Don't you know that those police officers wanting to do a good job, wanting to catch a killer, thinking that they've got the getaway car, would have opened those doors and looked for bloody clothes, bloody knife. Dror still says, " Go ahead, search. You want to search the house, search the house." Sampson searches the house.Dror consents to search the pickup that he drives up in. They search the pickup. They find a knife that had absolutely nothing to do with the case. Dror consents to a search of his apartment, and Detective Sampson, some time after that, goes out and searches the apartment and he had free reign. He could have brought anything that he thought even arguably could be evidence, such as shoes for shoe prints, such as clothes, to be tested. Dror gets to the police station at eight twenty. He, again, is interviewed. He, again, answers all the questions that they have for him. He, again, gives them the time line of where he has been that day. Not only does he give them an oral statement, he gives them a written statement. It's not in evidence, but the State objected. It's very unusual for the State to object when a suspect gives a written statement. But it's not in evidence. But we do know that he gave a written statement, and we know that the officer set out to check it out. And if there was anyone or anything in the written statement that was wrong, they would have brought you evidence; but everything that they checked out, checked out. (Defense counsel emphasizes his points by numbering them, e.g., first, second.) Now, Harris says, "Well, while we were riding over to the police station, he gives me another statement. He (referring to the defendant) said would it matter if my father's Navigator was stolen before." That's what Harris writes down later in his report. But let's look at that. First, it's not his father's Navigator. It belongs to his stepmother. It's Loring's. Secondly, I don't believe that the evidence supports the making of that statement. His father's truck was stolen. The Navigator had been broken into. Danny's truck had been broken into. Maybe there was a conversation about that, but Dror wouldn't say "my father's Navigator." He might have said "my father's truck was stolen." Dror signs his written statement at eight fifty-nine.By the way, police are showing Beckman a photo spread at almost the same moment. Why not have Beckman wait -- as Beckman said he was willing to do -- for fifteen minutes, thirty minutes, an hour to see an actual lineup? He was willing to do it. What would have happened? Would he have then said -- and you know the quality of that lineup is real bad. You've seen the video. Might Dr. Beckman have said if he was sitting there in person -- might he have said, "Wait a minute, that's the kid I have seen over there at Bellaire, at the hospital," instead of simply saying to the officers, "Well, he looks familiar, but I wouldn't say for sure that that's the one that I saw at the wig shop."Dror agrees to be in the lineup. It takes some time. He's put in the lineup. The lineup is videotaped. The he's interviewed a third time by Detective Alderate. He gives the same information. By that time, they've got much of the investigation at the scene, all the investigation at Dunstan, and at the apartment and in Dror's car and they've got Beckman even saying, "Well, I've seen this lineup of the photo spread, and I can't say for sure."So they released Dror with no charges. And his mother is overjoyed to see him. And Dror is scared. Think about it. Think about how you or your kid would would be scared to have just gone through what Dror had just gone through. He's rousted up by the police. He's handcuffed. He's questioned. He's put in a lineup with -- you saw the type of people he's put in the lineup with. He's scared. And in the next few days, the retaliation, the harassment, begins; and it's a terrible scene. He can't concentrate on his studies. He wants to drop out of school. His grandmother and grandfather in town, they're going back to Israel. His father makes the decision for him and sends him to Israel.He stays there for about a month and a half. He comes back. He's homesick. Nothing has happened. No charges have been filed. Nothing has happened except the continued harassment, dead flowers left on the porch, a dog is poisoned, posters go up in the neighborhoods. His father is worried about his safety, so his father encourages him to leave again. His father comes to my office. His father calls the police. His father gets the information. There are no charges. There's no restrictions. So he gives his son some money, his uncle has already given his some money, he draws out part of his savings account; and he leaves. When he leaves, there are no charges and no restrictions; and he's gone.A month later they indicted him; and his dad, his mom, his stepmom are all surprised by the indictment. Why? Because what they all knew about the proceedings is that the witnesses that are called to the Grand Jury are all favorable witnesses. Marleny is called. Loring is called. The football players are called to the Grand Jury. And, yet, the Grand Jury indicts. So they are surprised, and they immediately start talking about finding him.THE COURT: Start winding up, counsel.DEFENSE COUNSEL: Yes, ma'am.They can't find him. It takes awhile. Dr. Goldberg puts an ad in the International Herald Tribune. Dror answers it. Dror answers it and tells him, "I've been sick." "What are your symptoms?" They go over it. Dr. Goldberg realizes from what Dror tells him that he's got seizures. "Stay where you are. I'll be there." He gets there in two days. In two days he makes arrangements to get to Bangkok, sees him there, takes him to a clinic. He can't remember the name of the doctor because the doctor's name has about seventy-five letters in the name and just about as many syllables. But it's a good place. It's clean. It's a sophisticated place. It's the Paris of the Orient. And the clinic, the hospital, is a good place.He tells him to remain there to get his Tegretol levels at a therapeutic level so he doesn't have a seizure on the plane; like Dr. Goldberg has seen happened before where a plane had to be diverted and land in Bangor, Maine, so the person who had the seizure could be treated. Dr. Goldberg treats people with seizures. That's what he does. The doctors there -- we know this from the police officer in Germany, the doctors send him with medication from Bangkok to Frankfurt, and we've going to Mexico City and then to Houston to surrender.How do we know that? Because on June 14, Chuck Rosenthal, the District Attorney, was notified by me that we found him, we found him through an ad in the Herald Tribune, that he'll be coming in and that would the bond remain the same. And then there was letters that the State doesn't want you to see between me and Chuck Rosenthal about that and there's a tape recording of me and Chuck Rosenthal on June fourteenth. He (indicating the defendant) travels on June the twentieth. He leaves the transit lounge in a six-hour stayover, big surprise; and he's arrested because of the international warrant. Just the thing Dr. Goldberg didn't want to happen, didn't want him to be stopped on the way and for the State to claim "We have got him." Because on June fourteenth we had already told Rosenthal he was on his way back or would be soon.And what does the German police officer find? He finds his Tegretol that he'd been prescribed by the doctors at the clinic in Bangkok. Well, the prosecutor says it's just a fake. Well, what do the German police do? They take him to the clinic. And what does the clinic do there? They examine him. We know that because Dr. Steiner has seen at least part of the records and sees that there were continuous EEGs, a 24-hour EEG, a MRI, CT scan; and then the doctors there diagnosed seizures and prescribed Tegretol. But he's stopped; and now the State claims that they found him, that they captured him trying to escape. But the evidence, ladies and gentlemen, is there: the evidence of the reservations that were made, the evidence of the tickets that were purchased, what he had in his possession. And the prosecution's final gasp: Well, Dr. Goldberg, you had Loring go down at nine forty to the Continental desk to pick up the tickets so you can wave them around in court as proof, some last minute proof, that Dror was coming from Mexico City to Houston with you. But the Continental man comes in and says: Wait a minute, those reservations were made on June the 18th. And why did they fight so hard? Why in their two total hours of cross-examination of Dr. Goldberg, why did they spend one hour and thirty minutes of their two total hours just cross-examining Dr. Goldberg about the trip back? Because that's all they've got. They're shoring up a weak case with evidence that does not prove guilt. Dror Goldberg was on his way back to surrender, and the District Attorney, Chuck Rosenthal, knew it. There's no proof that somehow the State knew that he was going to fly through Frankfurt and had him arrested there. I can't even say that. Do I have suspicions? Well, I'm a little paranoid. But the truth is, the facts are that he had a flight all the way to Mexico City and his father had already made reservations on the 18th for him to come to Houston with him the next day. And his baggage was already on its way, if not on the plane that was going to Mexico City, the officer had to go get the baggage off. One further --I know I have to wrap it up, judge. It's not going to take long.This is very important. This is what I made as a time line of what happened at Weslayan Plaza. We don't know exactly the times of these first two things. But Mary Ellen Ditto saw a young blonde man in the Tuesday Morning store swinging his arms. How is that relevant? She said she thought that she could identify him. It coincides with what Roberta Ingrando sees, a young blonde man in a wig shop sometime earlier that day swinging his arms; and she describes it as a monkey way of walking.What do they do? The police go to Mary Ellen Ditto, and they show her the photo spread. She picks somebody else out. They close their book and don't even report it. Three fifty, the approximate time: Roland Ingrando sees a young blonde man wearing a black jogging suit with a white stripe outside the wig shop, bends down to tie his shoes. It's after that, don't know how long after that, the same blonde man -- you notice blonde. They all say "blonde." Even Roberta Ingrando when she sat on the witness stand and looked over at Dror said, "Well, his hair is darker now." That's the color of his hair. Does it get lighter in the summer. Well, you know, a lot of hair gets lighter in the summer. This wasn't the summer. It was November the twenty-seventh. That same blonde man comes in, stabs the people in there, and runs out. Beckman sees a young blonde man in a black jogging suit with a white stripe run through the parking lot and flee in the Navigator. And Delores White, from the post office, in a perfect position to see, describes seeing a young blonde man in a black jogging suit with a white stripe run through the parking lot; and they take her the lineup videotape and show it to her. She says the man's not in that videotape. And we come back to this. The State has done their best to try to explain the absence of blood. But what they have to remember and what you have to remember is that the killer engaged Roberta Ingrando at the back of the store after Manuela Silverio was dead or dying here; and from there, he had to come back through where this pool of blood was and then go out the door. Floyd McDonald was with the Houston Police Department for forty years. He's retired now. And on three or four occasions, I think he said, in his career he's testified in cases that I've had. This is the third or fourth. And after a career of forty years spent working for the State, he says I've never seen a case like this where the killer didn't get some blood on him and that blood would have been transferred to the getaway car. And the State has done their best and the prosecutor is the best and they can't explain the lack of blood. Dror Goldberg is not guilty. Not guilty means not proved guilty. If you have a reasonable doubt, if this was your most important affair and you would hesitate to act, that's a reasonable doubt and you must say not guilty. Thank you. THE PROSECUTION'S CLOSING JURY ARGUMENT - Ms. Siegler:
1.(The prosecutor begins the closing portion of the jury argument.) We all know that y'all are tired, but a lot of people here today have waited a long time for this day and I just have a few more things I want to say to y'all.
At any time during the past three weeks, did any of you stop to think about what the last thoughts might have been in Manny's head before she died? (The prosecutor poses the first of many, many rhetorical questions.) Do you imagine she thought: Why are you killing me? Why me? You don't want any money. You don't want any jewelry. I don't know you. You don't hate me. Why are you killing me?And the answer to that is - because this man who sits here before you today, this defendant, Dror Goldberg, (indicating the defendant) just wanted to see what it was like to kill somebody. And you know what's even sadder really? The person that he wanted to practice his fantasy out on was Roberta Ingrando. And all Manny really was was an obstacle in the way of him being able to fulfill his fantasy. He didn't want to practice it on Manny. He practices it on Roberta. That's why the twelve of you are sitting here today. 2.(The prosecutor explains the defensive theory.) And you know what the defense really boils down to? They want you to think that you have to have a reasonable doubt because you can't believe that someone who looks like him, who was raised like him, who has all that he has, could commit a crime like this. They want you to think because somebody who looks like the All-American Boy couldn't be this evil, that he didn't do the murder. You know what? We all want to think we know evil when we see it. If you see someone who's a horrible person, you can tell by looking at them that they're evil because it makes us feel safer and makes us feel better because we live in this crazy city that we live in. 3.(The prosecutor tells the jury that the defendant is a rare type of murderer and that the only thing that stands between him and going free is the twelve of them.) But the truth is in the body of Dror Haim Goldberg beats a heart and ticks a brain that's consumed with evil. It's scary, and it's horrible. You'll never see another defendant like him. You're never going to hear another case like this. Because you know why? He's very rare. He's very rare and he fits no mold that you've ever thought of as far as someone who commits a murder. And because he's so rare and because he fits no mold -- look at him. He's the All-American Boy. He's also intelligent, and he planned this crime, and he acted with deliberation every step of the way and the only thing that stands between him and going free is the twelve of you.4.(The prosecutor gives "We've done our jobs," "We didn't make the facts," and "There are some questions that are never going to be answered" arguments.) We have done all that we can: the Houston Police Crime Department, the crime lab, the DA's office. There's nothing else we can do. Because you know what? We didn't make the facts, and we didn't make the evidence. He did. (Indicating the defendant) You will leave this trial when it's over with questions that are never going to be answered. And for the rest of your life when you think about your time as a juror, you're going to ask yourself: How did he turn out like that? What went wrong? What about this, and what about that?5.(The prosecutor talks about reasonable doubt.) That doesn't mean there's reasonable doubt. And you know why the twelve of you are sitting on this jury? You're on this jury because you promised us certain things. And one thing that Mr. DeGeurin talked about was reasonable doubt. You know, you have the legal definition in the charge of the court. You know what it really means? It boils down to this: If you believe from the bottom of your heart, with all your heart and with all your gut, that this defendant committed the murder, then you will find him guilty. It's the same burden of proof. MR. DEGEURIN: Excuse me. Objection. Going beyond the court's instructions, Judge, on reasonable doubt.THE COURT: That's overruled. The law will be sent to you in writing. That's overruled.MS. SIEGLER: 6. (The prosecutor reiterates her version of the defensive theory.) Their defense is you have to have a reasonable doubt because how can you believe that someone like Dror Goldberg who's so nice looking, who's so educated, who's so intelligent, with the wonderful, beautiful mother and prestigious doctor dad and the loving stepmother and two loving brothers raised in Bellaire, Texas, with all that money and that position and everything the world had to offer, how could you believe that someone who looks like him could do a murder like this? That's what they're really saying: that you have to have reasonable doubt because he doesn't look like a killer.7.(The prosecutor says all the evidence points to the defendant.) You know what? All the evidence and all the facts and everything in this case points to one person: Dror Goldberg. 8.(The prosecutor harkens back to what she had told the jurors earlier in voir dire questioning, i.e., that she promised not to waste their time and not to insult their intelligence.) I promised you the first day that I met you that I would never repeat myself and that I would never try to insult your intelligence by asking questions or saying things you didn't hear yourself. I hope that I have kept that promise.9.(The prosecutor reminds the jurors of their pledge to be able to convict on the testimony of one believable eyewitness whose identification they believed BARD without the necessity of any forensic evidence.) The reason each of you are sitting on this jury is because you told Les (co-counsel) and me one thing. We asked you this question: "If the only evidence that the State had was one person looking you in the eye and telling you: 'That is the man who committed the crime.' And "if we proved all the elements beyond a reasonable doubt and you believed that one person was telling the truth, and there was nothing else in the whole world -- no other witnesses, no fibers, no blood, no gun, no motive, no fingerprints, no footprints, no nothing -- would you, if you believe that one person, find the the accused guilty of murder?" Y'all are sitting in those chairs. None of those other people are. Because each of you told me: "Yes ma'am." I told you that "This is the time to speak now or forever hold your peace," remember? So if somebody goes back there when y'all start deliberating and says: "I just need more evidence, I should have told Kelly and Les that I was going to need more." Uh-uh. It's the job of the other eleven to say: "No, that's not how it works. The law is the law, and you're sworn to uphold the law because you are sitting on a murder jury."Why is the law that way? Why does the law say if you believe one witness, if you believe them, that's enough to find somebody guilty of murder. Because that's the way it ought to be . Do you think that Manny is any less dead because there might have been only one witness? Do you think that Roberta is any less stabbed because there might have only been one witness? No. A crime is a crime, and a murder is a murder, no matter how much evidence the State has, as long as you believe whatever it is the State has. [Editor's Note:This argument is a little tricky. There is no real dispute that there was a senseless murder. Whether there was a murder is not the real issue though the preceding argument seems to make it one and use that as a bulletproof springboard to argue that it doesn't matter at all whether there was only one eyewitness, as long as the jury believes that witness.] So start with that basic premise (that identification of the culprit can be sustained on the evidence of one believable eyewitness). If we only had one witness, if we only had that lady sitting right there (indicating the witness sitting on the front row) -- Roberta Ingrando. If she was all there was, what do you know about her? [Note: The prosecutor is beginning to lay the groundwork for a future argument that will say in effect: Under the law, you can convict the defendant on the testimony of Roberta Ingrando alone, but, folks, we brought you so much more evidence than the law requires. In later argument, she will recount the other evidence.] 10.(The prosecutor fearlessly faces square-on the weaknesses in her case, i.e., the absence of tangible and forensic evidence such as fingerprints, footprints, blood in the defendant's Lincoln Navigator, the bloody knife, the bloody shoes, etc. Forensic evidence is the kind of evidence that many jurors who watch the various C.S.I. television shows have come to expect in copious quantities when they come to the courthouse.) From the very beginning, the State put on all the evidence. We never tried to hide anything. We never tried to change anything. We put it all out there for you to see. Because you know what? If twelve citizens that hear this evidence don't think he's guilty, then find him not guilty. But if you think, and you appreciate the fact that the evidence is the way it is because it was done that way and that's enough to find him guilty, then that's what you have to do. But we put it all out there from the very beginning.11.(The prosecutor explains, harkening back to the testimony of two medical doctor, why the killer didn't step in the blood and thus carried no blood away with him.) Two doctors -- Dr. Villareal (the doctor who operated on Roberta Ingrando) and Dr. Milton (the medical examiner who did the autopsy on Manny) -- independent doctors not paid by anybody to come in here and testify about what happened. Dr. Milton told you when he did the autopsy of Manuela, what did he find out? In her heart, around her heart was pooled 1.7 liters of blood. She bled to death, but she bled to death with the blood staying inside her body where it shouldn't have been. That's the explanation of why her blood wasn't all over the place. Beckman (a witness) told you and Roland (a witness) told you that pool of blood was underneath her. It wasn't even seen until they turned her over. Mr. DeGuerin (opposing counsel) tried to say the killer had to step in that blood. That's a crock! The blood was underneath her as she bled to death. He (indicating the defendant) never got Manny's blood on him.12.(The prosecutor explains why the defendant picked the wig shop for his experiment in killing a woman and points out that if he hadn't picked up the transfer fibers there might not have been any forensic evidence linking him to the crime.) Did you ever ask yourself these questions during the past two and a half weeks: What if he hadn't chosen the wig shop? What if he had picked out a convenience store, post office, something without those fibers (the fibers of synthetic hair found in the defendant's vehicle)? We might not be here today. Why did he pick the wig shop? Well, you know it was a slow business day. You know that Roberta's a pretty woman,and you know that they were two pretty easy targets. Use your common sense. 13.(The prosecutor discusses alibi and explains why the defendant's alibi evidence did not account for his whereabouts at the critical time when the murder took place.) Alibi. You know what an alibi is? Alibi is one's explanation for one's whereabouts at the critical time. You know what you got from this case from the defense? You got an explanation of where he was every time but the critical time. Some of the best evidence you've got in this case about his whereabouts came from them. Because from 3:50 to 4:30 -- that's being the most generous to the defendant - you don't know where he was. [Note the repetition.] You don't know where he was. He has no explanation for where he was at 4:00 o'clock, and he has nobody to say where he was from 3:50 to 4:25 or 4:30. 14.(The prosecutor points out that the crimes occurred in a matter of a few minutes.) Use your common sense. Someone who's as smart as he is, who's as premeditated as he is, who knows what he wants to do, is not going to dawdle and take his time, stop to get a coke on his way home. He's going to drive there directly but not too fast enough to get the cop's attention, park his car. He's already dressed. He's already got his knife. He knows where he's going. He's been there before. He walks in the door. He sees Manny. She's dispensable. Stab, stab. She's down. Then he's to where he's going. He's to Roberta. Doing what he came there to do, stabbing her over and over and over and over and over again.15.(The prosecutor reminds the jurors of the test drive of distance from the wig shop to defendant's home where the Lincoln Navigator with its hood still warm was found.) We gave you two video tapes just to show you, just so you know for sure, with people driving that route how long it takes to drive that route. Remember what Officer Ann Waltman told you? She was the officer who first got to the house, who first felt the hood of the Navigator at 4:30. She was also the person who drove the route from the wig shop to the house as close in time to the real time as anybody else. She got there in less than fifteen minutes. Using the Key Map to get herself there because she didn't know how to get there directly, driving the route of whatever construction might have been on Bissonnet at that time, she got there in less that fifteen minutes. 16.(The prosecutor recalls the defense lawyer's unkept promises from the defense' opening statement concerning proof of the defendant's whereabouts at the critical time when the killing was taking place.) Mr. DeGeurin's opening statement -- I wrote it down -- he told you the defendant's alibi is going to be: he was on the phone, he was running errands, and he was driving to and was playing football. That ain't what happened. Because from 3:50 to 4:30, they didn't put on one person who could say where this defendant was. And you sure don't know what he was doing at 4:01. The first person to ask him where he was was Sampson (the police officer who questioned the defendant), and he (the defendant) told him (the officer) what he'd been doing all day long.17.(The prosecutor calls attention to a missing defense witness - the clerk who the defense claims allegedly rented the defendant a porno tape.) And he never mentioned squat about a porno movie and that porno movie -- you know, again, they (the defense) brought you the mother of the football player, that didn't even show up that day, to testify. Remember Mrs. Brooks -- the mother of a guy who didn't show up -- she testified. But where was the person that the defendant -- if it was the defendant -- rented the porno movie from? Mr. Kim. He's not dead. He still works in the store. He even sleeps there some nights. Where was Mr. Kim? They didn't bring you Mr. Kim. There's no evidence to you that this defendant is the one who rented the porno movie, and there's no evidence to you that this defendant ever watched that porno tape and there's no evidence to you that he was watching anything at 4:01. All that is is a loving father's attempt to try to make a jury believe what he wants to believe with all his heart.18.(The defense objects to the prosecutor's argument as an alleged comment on the defendant's failure to testify in his own behalf.) Mr. DeGeurin argues to you: "The State objects to me (DeGeurin) trying to get out of Sampson what the (the police officer who took the defendant's statement) what the defendant told the officer about his activities that day. Then he says- Mr. DeGeurin says: The State object to me trying to get in the defendant's written statement, and that's rare around here that that happens."Do you know what? Directly in response to Mr. DeGeurin's comment [Editor's Note: The prosecutor is getting ready to say something she could not say except for the fat that her response was invited by the defense argument. This is the doctrine of "invited error."] is this: Do you think that I can cross-examine a piece of paper? Do you think I can cross-examine from Sampson what the defendant told him.? No. Strategic reasons keeps us from letting things in because we're trying to make the trial end up the way we want it to end up, for strategic reasons. We didn't want his story coming in without him telling the story.MR. DEGEURIN: Object to that as a direct comment on the choice of the defendant not to testify.THE COURT: The defendant has a right not to testify. That's written. And you should not ever consider the fact that the defendant did not testify as any evidence against him. You may continue.MR. DEGEURIN: Ask the jury to be instructed to disregard that comment.THE COURT: The jury will be instructed to disregard any part of that comment that you may have felt commented on the fact that the defendant did not testify and you shall not consider the fact that the defendant did not testify as any evidence whatsoever against him.MR. DEGEURIN: We move for a mistrial.THE COURT: That's denied.You may continue[Note: Did the defense lawyer preserve his objection for appeal? If so, why?]19.(The prosecutor deals with the defense allegation in argument that the Lincoln Navigator was cross -contaminated by the police.) Cross-contamination. Mr. DeGeurin said there was cross-contamination in the Navigator. No, there wasn't. No, there wasn't. Officer Sampson didn't go inside that truck. The wrecker driver did. You think the wrecker driver is in on this conspiracy too and planted a couple of wig fibers when he chained the wheels to tow the truck away?20.(The prosecutor discusses the evidence of flight by the defendant.) This talk about flight evidence, let's talk about that for a little while. You might believe and you might be right that Dr. Goldberg's position was his son should come home and deal with it, because he wants to believe with all his heart that his son didn't do it, and he'll get found not guilty. But you know what the problem with that is? Dr. Goldberg's feelings or intentions have nothing to do with his son's. Nothing to do with his son's. [Note the repetition.]And you have no evidence before you at all in this trial that this defendant made any effort to turn himself in. His daddy did. They hired Dick DeGeurin in December of '98. His daddy made lots of steps, had lots of wishes; but that has nothing to do with what his son wanted to do. Use your common sense. Just because a defendant hadn't been indicted yet when he left for Mexico in January of '99 doesn't mean he didn't know what was going to happen. Their wishful thinking that he might not be indicted doesn't mean they weren't laying plans in case he was. You have a father, you know, who's very involved, very intelligent, very much wants his son to do what he wants to do. You have a father who told you they argued the day his son left. [Editor's Note: What is the figure of speech where you begin successive sentences with the same phrase? Anaphora.] Think about that day he left. [Note the command.] He left on January the 26th of '99. On the very day he left, he makes sure that his Israeli passport is renewed. Daddy said: "We're required to do that as Israelis. We can't go around with expired passports." Well, you know what? [Note the umpteenth rhetorical question.] He'd just come back from Israel, and the passport expired in July of '98. He'd already made at least one trip to and from Israel with an expired passport. That's bull. That's a lie. He renewed his passport so he would have two good passports just in case. And on the very day he did that errand, to renew his passport, he left the country; and he went to Mexico City. From all the evidence you have, nobody knew where he was going? Do you really believe that? Do you really believe that this family, so close, let their nineteen-year-old son leave the country when he was suspected of murder and they didn't say: "Where are you going , Dror? Do you need some money, Dror?" They didn't help him pack. They didn't make sure he had everything he needed. He didn't go away for two weeks, He went away for half a year. Who drove him to the airport? Somebody did. You really think they didn't know where he was going? If you do, that means he didn't tell them.21.(The prosecutor points out that the defense seeks to cloak the defendant's flight from possible indictment by calling it a "trek.") They want to describe it to you as a trek. A trek is something Israelis take after they've been in the military. A trek ain't something you take to get out of the country when you're suspected of murder. Why close his savings account and his CD account? Those were closed in April of '99, during the time he was gone and missing or wherever. Why did they close those accounts? He wasn't dead. They didn't think he was dead. They closed them because they knew he might not be coming home. What happened to that money?22.(The prosecutor talks about Dr. Randall Beckman, the physician who saw a man he identified as the defendant running from the wig shop immediately after the murder, a man he followed through the parking lot to a Lincoln Navigator whose license plate number Dr. Beckman copied down.) Dr. Randall Beckman. None of us would be here today if it were not for that man. We wouldn't be here. [Note the repetition.] The defendant would have gotten away with it, and the crime would have gone unpunished. We're here today because of him. You need to remember [Note the command.] a couple of things about him. If I could make up an ideal witness, he would be it. [Note: Is the prosecutor vouching for her witness? If so, how could this be avoided by rephrasing?] It's kind of like the hand of fate is at work in this case, putting Randall Beckman there buying dog food the day after Thanksgiving a year and a half ago.You remember that man's attention to detail. You remember the way he described to you that the guy ran out of the store, and he could even tell that the right hand was held a little funny because as he ran, the hands weren't moving the same. You remember all that? The way he described it, so perfectly,everything? He's a doctor. He's educated. He writes down things for a living. He pays attention for a living all day long. And when his attention was brought to this person running out of the store, he was curious. He wasn't stressed. He wasn't alarmed. He was curious. So he paid attention. And he followed him. He wrote down the license plate number. Do you really think [Note: This is a lead to a rhetorical question.] he got it wrong? He didn't get it wrong. He didn't get anything wrong.23.(The prosecutor refers briefly to Dr. Elizabeth Loftus the defense expert on the subject of difficulties with eyewitness identification.) Elizabeth Loftus told you about all the reasons why eyewitnesses err. Maybe y'all might have thought I was a little rough on her. If I was, it was because that woman has an agenda. And with that agenda that she's pitching to juries every day -- we let her testify. [Note: In light of the Innocence Project's recent revelations of numerous convictions based on eyewitness misidentification being reversed when DNA proved that long incarcerated convicts were innocent, this argument might be riskier than it was in year 1999.] She told you that all the time judges don't let her testimony in. [Note: This may not be quite what Dr. Loftus said, but defense counsel did not object.] We didn't make one objection to her testimony. [Note: 100% true.] We let you hear it all. You can listen to whatever you want to of her testimony and do whatever you want to with it. One thing she told you is the reasons why eyewitnesses err is these: Because of stress, because of weapon focus, because of cross-racial identification, because they fervently desire to help the police or were pressured by the police. Do any of those have anything to do with Randall Beckman? No. No weapon focus. Nobody saw a weapon. No cross-racial ID. Everybody is white. No pressure by the police. No stress on Randall Beckman. None of that has anything to do with Randall Beckman. She (Loftus) didn't talk about any of that. She forgot that part of her books.24.(The prosecutor's recitation and listing of the "mountain of coincidences.") Has it dawned on y'all yet the number of coincidences in this case that y'all are going to have to ignore to find this defendant not guilty? Use your common sense and think about the mountain of coincidences. Do you think it's just a coincidence that the license plate 1WL V84 does, in fact, comes back to a Lincoln Navigator? Do you think it's just a coincidence that the license plate number 1WL V84 just happens to come back to a black Lincoln Navigator less than seven minutes away?Or maybe it's just just a coincidence that the person left in charge of the Navigator -- Dror Goldberg -- exactly fits the description of not one, not two, not three, but four witnesses. Is that just a coincidence? Is it just a coincidence that four different people - even the lady that didn't identify him - say he's six foot tall, and he really is; that he weighs 170, 165 pounds, and he really does; that he has dirty blonde hair, and he really does? Is it just a coincidence that the person in charge of the truck that day comes back to that license plate and and he looks just like they said he would look?Or maybe it's just a coincidence, maybe Roberta knew when she said: "As he stabbed me, he said, 'Do you like it? Does it make you feel pretty?' " Maybe she knew back in 1995 he wrote the same thing in a notebook. Do you think that's just a coincidence? Or maybe it's just a coincidence that the license plate number matches the description of the truck, and what turns up in the truck but wig fibers. Do you think that all those wig fibers are just coincidences, eight of them right there?The overwhelming coincidences that come back to this defendant are unbelievable. Maybe it's just a coincidence that the hood was hot at 4:30 because he had been driving. Maybe it was just a coincidence that in all the case that they put on, nobody can say where he was from 3:50 to 4:30. Is that just a coincidence when wig fibers are in the truck, when the license plate matches, when it's less than seven minutes away, when the descriptions are right, when the identifications are dead on? Are all those just coincidences?Maybe it's just a coincidence that the wig fibers found in the truck are completely consistent with the same kind of fibers found on Manny's hand and also Manny's clothes as she lay there on the floor, just like off of Roland's pants as he fell to the floor. Is that just a coincidence? Do you think it was just a coincidence that Roberta was stabbed with a knife fourteen times and in 1996 this defendant told a friend he wanted to slit the throat of his own girlfriend? You think that was just a coincidence? No. 25. (Time for deliberation and a verdict.) Now it's time soon for twelve of you to start deliberating , and deliberating means what Les (co-counsel) said. It means it's time for y'all to sit down together and talk about it and reason together and come back with a verdict. It's time for this case to finally be resolved by you the jury.26.(The prosecutor talks about the defendant and he was about to explode.) And when you go back there to deliberate, you have to always keep in mind what you know about this defendant. You know he's intelligent. He scored high for the United States Air Force. He could have been in the intelligence division of the Air Force. He's the oldest son to an MD, an Israeli soldier; who pretty much hadn't done anything very well his whole life, didn't do very well in school, didn't do very well at football, didn't get into the Israeli Army like he always dreamed of doing. What does that mean? That means that someone who's as sick and evil as he is, who has desires and dreams that you know he couldn't control to the point of contemplating suicide, is about to explode. And on the day that daddy left the State in November of '99, he exploded. 27.(The prosecutor points out that the people who thought they knew the defendant didn't really know him. Also, the prosecutor reminds the jurors that they are never going to understand how the defendant with loving parents and so many advantages got to be this way.) And all these people who came in here from Bellaire who think they know him, who want to believe that they know him -- can you imagine how you would feel if you thought you knew somebody and you turned out to be so wrong and you let that person around your children and around your daughters and around your family. You don't want to believe that you could be that wrong about anybody. But the simple truth is they were that wrong and they're still that wrong. They had no idea about the things he wrote in that notebook. They never knew that when he was sixteen years old, he was talking about stabbing a woman until she bled all over her body; that his sick mind was filled with thoughts of "Do you like it? Does it make you feel pretty? "; that he wanted to hear her gasping breath. They had no idea then, and they have no idea now. And however much of an idea his own parents know, they still love him. His thoughts controlled him so much he contemplated suicide. That's what you know about him. Occasionally, in moments of clarity, you realize he was sick to the point that when was sixteen, he thought about killing himself. 28. (The prosecutor's closing words remind the jury that there will always be unanswered questions and ask for a verdict. Note the repetition of words and phrases, e.g., "never," "just is," guilty.") And you are never going to understand how he got to be this way with those wonderful parents and all that he had. You're never going to understand it. He just is. He just is evil. He just is sick. And you know what else he is? He just is guilty. Find him guilty. 
