Next day
Report from the first day of Albert and Mulholland's trial follows:
Day's events up to 5:30pm included:
pretrial motion to allow evidence of Gammage's behavior in previous encounters with police (I thought I heard Judge Cashman agree to allow this, but he was mumbling quickly and I've since heard on radio that he did not allow this motion).
Opening statements by D.A. and by both defense attys Testimony of James Holiday (friend of Gammage) testimony of Sean Payne (friend of Gammage) Testimony of Patrick O'Keefe (video photographer for WPXI tv-footage of scene taken at 3am, oct 12) testimony of officer Keith Henderson
Highlights according to my perspective:
Following the motion mentioned above, both the DA and defense attorneys narrated the events of Oct 11-12 according to their perspectives. Nothing to note here except the underlying arguments:
DA seemed to be setting up for the claim that the officers were generally doing what they were supposed to up to a point. I guess this allows for conviction on the charges, but to my mind he gave up way too much ground, especially considering that the defense was quick to move to saying Gammage "made this anything but a routine traffic stop," and laying the groundwork for a defense on the grounds that the cops were acting according to their training.
The DA's opening statements seemed to me to fail in several ways:
He made no attempts to establish Gammage's good character.
He gave away ground by suggesting at points that before the stop, Mulholland was "doing his job" patrolling, and that when following Gammage he "starts to think something's wrong with the car or the driver." (thus, he granted good-will where he didn't need to.
When narrating the events of the fight, he said that at the point of the initial conflict with Vojtas, "Gammage is not cooperating."
As of the time I left the court, there was no mention of race.
DA offered no opening refutation of the "followed their training" argument.
Also, he talked about Mulholland following gammage, but didn't mention how close. Nor did he mention that Mulholland's car was on an entryway to the highway (right next to road), where it might have been possible for him to note Gammages race, etc. These facts seem important to me.
Speaking of Henderson's initial flashlight blows to Gammage's thighs, the DA said H. was trying to "desensitize" Gammage by hitting him.
Defense attorneys focused on training, pointed to Henderson (not charged) as the only person fighting from beginning to end. Focused on Gammages comment: "I'm going to kill you, you cocksucker." Also, continual focus on Gammage's fighting back.
Mulholland's atty. says gammage not hit with blackjack and implied that he wasn't hit with a baton. this goes against the reports of Richard Lyons.
Alberts atty. brought up the issue of window tinting. Also focused on Mulholland being under Gammage at one point. Atty. suggested that Albert put baton on Gammage's back on entering. This was contradicted by Henderson later on who said that he saw the baton put across G.'s neck and chest and then felt gammage pull back and then fall forward abruptly. (suggestion being that the baton was across G.' s neck, but this conclusion was not allowed by Judge).
Gammages friends were then questioned:
established that Gammage had only 1 beer.
Defense atty.s attempted to discredit testimony by focusing on timing of events and on whether music was on in car they were sitting in earlier in evening.
Channnel 11 footage and photographer were uneventful
Henderson's testimony was too lengthy to summarize but points of interest follow:
Tension over use of baton above.
He focused on Gammage's aggressiveness and refusal to cooperate.
Claims he hit Gammage twice in thighs when onthe ground. This doesn't accord with Richard Lyons comments, which noted many hits in groin and thighs.
Never mentioned "we got another one"
That's all I have time to say, but I think it covers most of the ground.
Joel Scilley
Next day