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: Chris King's 1st Amendment Page

Dan Talbot murder trial -- KingCast receives exclusive commentary from Juror, "Shady Soto was the weakest link."

By Christopher King

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In response to the "weakest link" post, it was Officer William Soto, and it supports my contention that a hung jury was close. Before I had video access I noted "Soto blasted on cross-examination."

I was a juror on this trial. We discounted Soto's testimony pretty much as his was so different than everyone else . This cop was pretty shady all around. He was the one who removed the two guns (his & talbots) from the murder scene. His testimony had changed much too often from the Grand jury account .. Lodi having the gun that ended up killing Talbot just made no sense. The elder Hung, Bobby and Tommy were the only 3 it came down to. We believed Tommy was coming clean and telling the truth. Hung is a worm of a human being. None of his testimony was taken to account.He threw his own kid brother under the bus... He did not have to involve him at all . ALL roads lead to Bobby no matter how you slice it. We spent hours on trying to decide if he was to be convicted of murder 1 or 2. We had two hold outs for murder 1 and thought we would be a hung jury. In the end it was pretty clear we all made the correct decision.

I'm not so certain I come to the same conclusion, but part of the reason for that is because of the proffered testimony of one Michael Racca -- that the Jury did not hear. And also given the suppressed Adjutant evidence of Officer Talbot's plain clothes shooting history as previously referenced, the Jury might have thought twice about who pulled the trigger first on that fateful day. In fact I'm almost certain the Jury would have recognized reasonable doubt at that point, and if someone else shoots first then it's all about self-defense, you have no time or safe place to retreat to, you're in a field about to get capped.

Anyway, I wonder how much longer some of these LE will be around. I foresee some personnel (and hopefully policy) changes on the Horizon.

-Negrodamus.

Full post as published by Chris King's 1st Amendment Page on February 04, 2010 (boomark / email).