CAPTURED - Eric Robert Rudolph

[Cloudbringer]

I'm guessing life in prison at least. Do you think they'll prosecute all his family who hid him?

[Ziroc]

Originally posted by Cloudbringer: I'm guessing life in prison at least. Do you think they'll prosecute all his family who hid him?

I don't know, but I just heard the FBI say that some people that may have helped him, may not have even KNOWN they were helping him (Not knowing WHO he was).

I dunno... With this case, the Petterson trial and now the Martha Stewart trials, I know the media is going to make all these another OJ... (ugh). I'll skip the daily news for a year or so..

The Media and the Petterson trial is sick. Every BIT of info they get, that hang on, and pick apart. how many times do I have to hear "The baby had plastic around it's neck and a gash in it's (IT'S?!?) throat. They call the baby 'it'. god...

[Cerek the Barbaric]

I think he will definitely get the death penalty. Emily Lyons is going to be a powerful witness and he killed a police officer. What's more, the bomb in Birmingham was detonated by remote control - not a timer!!! That means that Rudolph watched and waited until the police officer was next to the bomb before setting it off.

The only thing that will offset the maliciousness of the act is the fact that there was an eyewitness who saw Rudolph walking away from the building. He was the one that provided the description and tag number of Rudolph's truck. He said he noticed Rudolph because he was walking away from the abortion clinic...and he didn't turn around when the bomb went off. So Rudolph's defense attorney could argue that Eric didn't realize the guard was standing next to the bomb OR that Emily Lyons was in harms way either. He just walked far enough away to try to avoid suspicion and set off the bomb without looking back (kinda like locking your car with your remote keychain as you walk away from it).

AFA the people who may have helped him remain hidden....the F.B.I. are looking for them as we speak. Anyone who is found to have aided Rudolph could face federal charges of harboring a fugitive.

One other note that I heard on the news. Rudolph can NOT be charged as a domestic terrorist...because his attacks occurred long before 9/11 or even the Oklahoma City bombing. None of the new "terrorist laws" were on the books at the time of his attacks.

[Timber Loftis]

I'm glad he can't be charged as a domestic terrorist. Those laws are simply more cracks in the eggshell of rights we have against tyranny. All they do is limit due process. Which anyone should get, no matter how abhorrent we may think their crime -- innocent until proven guilty and all that junk. Without a fair and blind procedure, you cannot trust its results. Put simply, there are laws aplenty to fry this guy without those darned domestic terrorist laws.

I was called on to defend this guy. Whoa, that's harsh. What did I do against you Cerek, to deserve such a cruel twist of fate? [img]graemlins/1ponder.gif[/img] Then I get here and find out that LilLil and Ronn Bman are actually needing lawyers too. [img]graemlins/awcrap.gif[/img] I didn't have time to post today, but reading through those past pages was just like watching a horrible train wreck and being unable to avert my gaze.

Cerek, I'd be happy to visit. And, I come from a small KY appalaicha town and it is not true that everything is known to everyone. Heck, there are more drug addicts there than anywhere else I've ever seen, but my parents kepts me sheltered from it VERY well until I moved away at age 15. How I could have missed it I'll never know. [img]graemlins/dontknowaboutyou.gif[/img]

Ahem... back on topic.

First, I likely would not defend this case. The best defense, given my limited knowledge of the facts, would be "Wasn't Me" a/k/a "mistaken identity." In the face of a federal manhunt and knowing how witch-trial-like the world can be, if the guy was in fact innocent running is a perfectly fair option. I know the one mis-identified guy was let off the hook, but that doesn't mean the system can be trusted to always exhonerate the innocent. Just look at death row. This defense would require nitpicking witnesses, photos, video surveillence, etc. Very tough -- especially in this instance.

Next, "Insane in the Membrane." C'mon, you guys knew this. YOu needn't be a lawyer to think of the first next best thing. In this case you combine insanity and a community that TV has already ready-prepped as "racist, backward, etc" and try to turn our little mass murderer into some sort of sympathetic social victim. This makes us all feel like we're at the pie eating contest from Stand By Me, doesn't it? [img]graemlins/repuke.gif[/img]

Here's a common problem these days that relates to this. The lawyers insist on the insanity defense, but the defendant doesn't want to cop it. This often happens where, like may be the case here, the defendant is all about "making a statement." Then, you end up with the lawyers, who *robotic voice* must always preserve the client's best int-er-ests */voice* against their own client, who is of course too crazy to know he needs to plead instanity. This can work to his benefit, as he can delay things for up to a good year or two over fights with his lawyer(s). In fact, this may be a wonderful strategy -- it works for many. But only for a while.

In the end, this is going to come down to a struggle to keep him off death row and only in jail for life.

(psssst... if he's guilty, that is)

[Attalus]

Originally posted by Timber Loftis: I didn't have time to post today, but reading through those past pages was just like watching a horrible train wreck and being unable to avert my gaze.

All too true. Anytime I see the phrase "Moderators are not gods," I know the hammer is about to come down. But, back on topic, isn't it in fact very difficult to use the insanity defense successfully? Outside California, that is.

[Memnoch]

Good to see we're back to our regularly scheduled programming.

[Cerek the Barbaric]

LOL, you didn't do anything to offend me, Timber. I asked you how YOU would defend the case because a) you're a lawyer, and b) you love to play the Devil's Advocate. Sounds like your strategy is pretty much what MOST defense lawyers would follow. I was just wondering how you would even be able to prepare a defense when the media has pretty much found Rudolph guilty and spread it nationwide?

According to a couple of legal analysts for CNN, the basic strategy will close to what you said....nitpick the witnesses and attack the evidence.

The first will be fairly easy. To my knowledge, there is actually only ONE verifiable eye witness that can actually place Rudolph at the scene of ANY of the crimes. That is the guy in Birmingham who saw him walking away from the clinic as the bomb went off. Even so, it is doubtful he got a very good look at his face....and as Murphy's mayor pointed out in Saturday's press conference....Eric Robert Rudolph is a very "average" looking guy. He could easily blend in with a crowd. The witness was also the one that identified the pickup AND provided a license number...so he MAY have been close enough to get a good look at Rudolph's face. We'll just have to wait for the trial on this one.

As for the physical evidence - there is quite a bit of it. The police in Atlanta and Birmingham both recovered several of the nails from the bombs. They also recovered the base plate they were set against along with other fragmentary components. A search of a storage unit here in Murphy that was used by Rudolph produced all of the same components recovered by the police from the crime scenes. They even found a recent tracking the purchase of the nails to a hardware store in Franklin, NC (about 45 miles away). The problem is that ALL of these items are very common in ANY hardware store.

It would be easy to explain why Rudolph would have any ONE (or even a few) of these components in a storage unit. It will be more difficult to explain how he happens to have an exact match to the components of the bombs that were used, but I don't know of any way the police can absolutely and conclusively prove that the components of the bombs came from that particular storage unit. The physical evidence against Rudolph is strong, but still only circumstantial.

Any DNA or fingerprints at Centennial Park could easily be explained. Atlanta is a 2 hour drive from here and several Murphy residents went to see at least some of the events. It would be harder to explain away any such forensic evidence in Birmingham since most "tourists" probably wouldn't be sightseeing in that area.

[Sidebar Nitpick - Just for the record, our actual population here is closer to 8,000 than 1,300. Our mayor gave a figure of 1,600 in the press conference on Saturday. That must be the "official" population within the city limits ONLY. This is a rural area, and giving the population of those that live "in town" is nowhere close to a actual number of residents ].

[Cerek the Barbaric]

Originally posted by Ziroc: quote: Originally posted by Cloudbringer: I'm guessing life in prison at least. Do you think they'll prosecute all his family who hid him?

I don't know, but I just heard the FBI say that some people that may have helped him, may not have even KNOWN they were helping him (Not knowing WHO he was).[/QUOTE]That's an interesting point, Ziroc. My wife and I both agree that neither one of us would have recognized him at all. The last "artist sketch" was done 5 years ago. At that time, Rudolph had a beard and wore his hair in a long ponytail. He has lost a LOT of weight since then and the stress of his experience has aged him somewhat. If he put on a pair of sunglasses, most people wouldn't have even given him a second glance.

[Attalus]

I hear ya, Cerek. Our population is 3500+or -, but it iss really like 10,000.

[Epona]

Originally posted by Cerek the Barbaric: I was just wondering how you would even be able to prepare a defense when the media has pretty much found Rudolph guilty and spread it nationwide?

This is always something that concerns me. I've not seen much about this case, but I know how our media reports things - and the sort of reporting that goes on makes it very difficult (if not impossible) for anyone suspected of a high profile crime to get a fair trial - and as Timber said, everyone should be entitled to a fair trial, with the facts put before a jury and a judge. Any juror in this case will already know many things about the crime, many of which are likely to be media conjecture, rather than straightforward facts.

It sounds to me that it is almost certain that this guy is guilty, but he should still have a right to a fair trial to determine that guilt - anything less than the right of a citizen to fair trial by jury I would consider a step towards tyranny.

But this raises the question of media involvement and reporting of such cases. In a case such as this, I daresay the media played a role in having the guy apprehended - people knew what he looked like, knew his name etc. Should the media be restricted in what they are allowed to say about a case before trial in order to preserve the right to a fair trial? Or would you see it as a worse infringement of freedom to restrict the media?