Thanks for the post, and especially the link to Legalinsurrection. Very nice summary of the day’s action, indeed.
One minor point: Is it just me, or does “Diane Smith, Crime Scene Technician, Sanford Police Department” strike other Freepers as looking like a total moron. Something about her facial expression. I’d say that she looks like a retard, if that weren’t so very politically incorrect.
Her response style was so obviously over-coached and unnaturally mechanical that I couldn’t even watch it all. Every response was the same: She would take somewhere between 1.5 and 2.0 seconds to drop her head to the microphone, always answer “Yes, that is correct”, pause another 0.5 seconds, look at the jury, and slowly back away from the microphone. That went on for an hour.
Are we going to go by her looks, or her testimony?
She was very sharp, answered questions crisply and clearly, and identified every 'marker' in the photos the Prosecution put on display without any delay or mistake.
It's just you. I thought she was a very professional witness.
There are some beautiful girls who are less smart than an average girl. Simple math tells us that there must be a corresponding number of homely girls who are smarter than average :-) Barring some serious genetic damage, the appearance and the intellect are unrelated; the probability of being both beautiful (pb) and smart (ps) is then pb × ps.
There is more to it than mere statistics. Good looking girls have an opportunity to work in glamorous fields - performing, presenting, acting, modeling, gold-digging, to name a few. You are not very likely to find them in the job of a crime scene tech who sometimes has to comb an acre of land with a magnifying glass, in rain. We saw how they worked in Boston. Regular girls have to work for a living, and this job is better than many other (like at a poultry processing plant, for example, unless you are a professional chicken hater.)
I thought she answered every question in a clear and concise manner....for hours. She is trained to testify in court so no emotion. Just the facts.
She looked like a slob. She wore her work uniform to the trial...which is tacky for someone not sworn LEO