Court resumed at 9 AM with the news that Rhonda Quagliana is still sick — “projectile vomiting,” according to Fran Lawrence. I am sure that Rhonda is thrilled to know that her gastrointestinal status is the subject of worldwide tweeting and blogging.
Rhonda was the attorney who was most prepared to handle the medical witnesses, and this is a highly technical area. I am sure that she worked to prepare those witnesses, and to thoroughly understand the subtleties of the medical principles involved. The defense wants her to be able to present those witnesses. The court went ahead with the non-medical witnesses — Huguely family members, friends, a biomechanical expert, and a witness to value Yeardley Love’s computer — this morning, and has now recessed until tomorrow (Saturday) morning.
The first witness was Michael Woodhouse, a biomechanical expert, who examined the wallboard in Yeardley Love’s apartment to see if there was any evidence that her head had been slammed into the wallboard. You may remember that in George Huguely’s statement, he said that Love kept hitting her head on the wall. This has been interpreted by the prosecution as tantamount to a confession that Huguely had shaken her and had repeatedly hit her head against the wall. There is always a problem in a case like this, for both prosecution and defense — how much weight do you give to the defendant’s statement, particularly when it is clear that the defendant was drunk? The prosecution, of course, picks and chooses — Fact A is bad for the defense and good for us, so we assume that he is correct about that; Fact B is good for the defense and bad for us, so we assume that he is lying about that. The defense reverses the picking and choosing. When I argue a case like this to the jury, I will sometimes say to the jury, “You are probably very suspicious of what the defendant says. You probably think he is bound to be lying to protect himself, or to cover things up. So I suggest that you analyze his statement by only giving credit to those parts of the statement that are backed up by physical evidence.” And then I analyze the physical evidence to see what we can say that we know. Then, let’s try to figure out what pieces of his statement are fairly tied to the things that we know. Finally, what parts of the statement can we pretty much reject, because they don’t fit the known facts?
Here I can imagine a juror who is applying that logic saying, “Huguely says her head kept hitting the wall. What is there to prove that happened? Really, nothing. The wall doesn’t show it. There is no evidence from the autopsy that suggests that Huguely was grabbing her and shaking her with enough force to leave marks on her skin. There is no skull fracture. The most serious-looking externally visible head injury is a large bruise on her right temple-to-forehead area. This could have happened from many blows or by one fall, according to the medical testimony. The coup-contrecoup injury had to have happened by one (and maybe only one) pretty serious impact. The brain stem injury had to have happened by one (and probably only one) very serious impact that had some twisting component to it. This all suggests to me a fall, not repeated blows against a wall.”
The next two witnesses were friends of Love and Huguely, who were present during the angry confrontation a few days before Love’s death in which Love came to Huguely’s apartment and confronted him about texting other women.
Then Ben Thomas, a computer consultant, testified that in May, 2010, Yeardley Love’s computer only had a value of about $100 to $150. He said that it was an older model with a slower, less reliable processor than other comparable computers on the market. This matters because if the value is $200 or more, Huguely could be guilty of larceny; if the computer is not worth that much, it would only be petty larceny. Grand larceny is a felony, punishable by up to 20 years in prison; petty larceny is a misdemeanor, punished by only up to 12 months in jail.
Finally, Huguely’s aunt and godmother testified that she had seen Love and Huguely together in a bar on the Corner (for those not from Charlottesville, this is the area across the street from the Grounds, along University Avenue, roughly between 13th Street and Chancellor Street — a student hangout area) a night or two before her death, and they seemed cordial. A short video from that night was played, and it showed Love and Huguely holding hands.
That pretty well does it for the evidence today. Judge Hogshire is having another hearing at 1 PM today, at which I expect we will hear more about how he plans to move forward.
Go to WVIR’s website for their very thorough description of the proceedings.
