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#2 - "Expert for Hire" During her closing argument in the sanity phase, Thursday, January 8th, Prosecutor Deborah Medved implied in open court that Chuck Smith and Ed Fernandez had bribed a witness to testify on Sargent Binkley's behalf. She did this during the portion of her Power Point slide presentation outlining the salient points of the testimony of each court-appointed psychologist and psychiatrist that had testified in court. At about 11:45 a.m., she displayed her next Power Point slide entitled: "Expert for Hire" . Judge Condron found that to be a convenient place for a lunch break. Defense counsel Chuck Smith also found it a good time to approach the Judge out of hearing of the jury. After lunch, the jury remained in their assembly room as Judge Condron had a hearing with just the prosecution and defense counsel. Chuck Smith presented a case for prosecutorial misconduct by Medved. Judge Condron had the court reporter read back the critical remarks that Medved had made in the morning session. Condron took a considerable amount of time to quietly review case law from a bound book. She then read portions of case out loud to counsel, interpreting them as they applied to the issue. Her judgment was that there was not misconduct; however she concluded her decision by warning Prosecutor Medved, in no uncertain terms, not to do anything like that again. Needless to say, when the jury was called in and Medved continued her closing argument, the Power Point slide entitled: "Expert for Hire" was not displayed. Alan Lubke |