Animated aerial park presentation

Discussion of animated aerial park presentation to be used by the Prosecution

June 10, 2004

JUDGE: And there's an issue with that witness, is there?

DISTASO: Yes.

JUDGE: And this is going to be done out of the presence of the jury?

DISTASO: I think that's what the defense is requesting.

JUDGE: Okay. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I have to rule on some issue here out of your presence, so we're going to excuse you. And then as soon as I've ruled on this thing, one way or the other, we'll bring you back in and pick up where we left off. So if you will go out with Jennae and wait until we re-summon you. (Jury exits)

JUDGE: Okay. The record should reflect that the jury's been excused and they've filed out of the courtroom. First of all, who is your next witness going to be?

DISTASO: Officer Wend, your Honor. He flew in the helicopter. And what I,

JUDGE: How do you spell it?

DISTASO: wanted to do,

JUDGE: How do you spell it?

DISTASO: W-E-N-D.

JUDGE: Okay. Go ahead.

DISTASO: And what I wanted to do was, I just got this I think last, I mean, I don't think it was last night, I think it was a couple days ago, and it was one of those little animations, like I showed in opening statement. Just of the whole park. Since this jury has no clue about Modesto, or anything else, I wanted to show that. It's basically the same thing, I can show the court right now. It's five minutes long. It's basically the same thing as those aerials we've been using. It just shows the entire length of the park. I think the defense is objecting because they don't have a copy of it; and it's true, they don't. I just got it my myself.

GERAGOS: I was just shown the item at the lunch hour. I imposed upon your staff to let me watch it for five minutes. I would like to have a copy of it prior to doing anything with this witness, because if I have a copy, they want to show it, and it's one of these key-lock systems where it's a satellite photo and then they zoom in on it and take various angles. If I have it in order to do cross-examination, I wanted to be able to take different angles and be able to ask the officer certain things around it. As it is right now, technically I think it's argumentative because it's showing various locations and showing other things that they want to narrate. It's as if they, it's a one giant leading question, so to speak. And I don't think that it's fair that I be given a preview of it at 12:05 in order to cross-examine at 1:50.

JUDGE: That's the problem.

DISTASO: I will say this, your Honor, I did offer to show it to Mr. Harris this morning and, Pat Harris, not prosecution Harris.

JUDGE: I assumed prosecution Harris has seen it.

DISTASO: He's seen it. You know, I told him basically it's aerials of that thing and he said he was satisfied. So, you know, and then, and then Mr. Geragos, you know, I made a point of stopping at lunch and telling him again I'm going to use it with this witness, and now we have this problem.

JUDGE: All right. Let me make a Solomon-like decision. Is there any reason why you can't reproduce that, present it to Mr. Geragos and call this next witness on Monday? So he has an opportunity to review it?

GERAGOS: That's all I'm asking for is he reproduces it, gives it to me, I can then do what I want to do, which is point out other certain areas.

JUDGE: Yeah, that's fine. You got it at the last minute. I'm not blaming you, Mr.

DISTASO: Right.

JUDGE: I think this is something that's going to happen, it's going to be a chronic problem in this case, because a lot of this such is coming in late. It's not your fault.

DISTASO: Right.

JUDGE: I guess,

DISTASO: I understand, though,

JUDGE: if he only gets it at the last minute, it really doesn't give him an opportunity to prepare his cross-examination. So since it's not any, it's not any big deal, it's just the park, you already got pictures of the park, so we can call Wend out of order. You can have him come back on Monday, if you want. Can you give him a copy of that over the weekend so he can take a look at it?

DISTASO: I can. Actually, what I'm going to do, then, is I'm just going to call Officer Wend, and I won't use, I'll use this with another witness, so I can show it later.

JUDGE: Fine.

DISTASO: That will be fine.

JUDGE: That's fine. You call Officer Wend, and if you can use that with another witness, just prepare a copy, give it to Mr. Geragos. And then for whatever it's worth, he has a chance to review it to prepare his cross-examination, then whatever officer you call, you can even recall Officer Wend if you want.

DISTASO: That's fine.