Mike Farrell is in the great tradition of leftist nutcakes. Of course he sides with the murderer! All liberals are drawn like a magnet to the diseased, the criminal and the abnormal. Just as surely, they are obsessed to reject the good, the healthy, the normal, the enduring, the true, the civilized.
Now, one mustn't jump to the conclusion that they do this because they themselves are diseased, criminal and abnormal, and side with their own kind. They are and they do, of course, but there's more to it. Liberals are haters. They hate everything about America, starting with themselves. When Farrell goes to bat for a wife-killer, he's saying "in-your-face" to everyone else and to the America he loathes. He's saying it to God, for God and His creation is what he really hates. That's the hallmark of the Left -- hatred for God.
The Serpent is still busy.
You went straight to the core with Farrell. Sometimes things that look mysterious, convoluted, and complex are simple when one understands that core.
You hit the nail on the head - the left hates. And not only hates, but hates with a passion that often detours them from reality.