Letters to the Editor
-
Did she or did she not?
Having myself been foreman of a jury in a recent trial, albeit one of less importance than this one, all I can say is that if those two witnesses both got up and testified that Briana was present at the fire bombing, and it was completely untrue, and they fooled the jury, then they have their consciences to answer to.
However, getting on the witness stand and testifying to something completely untrue and withstanding cross examination is not easy to do, and obviously the jury believed the two witnesses and did not believe the defendant. Making such determinations is what juries are supposed to do.
The evidence of the purchase receipt at 7:12 p.m. is inconclusive. She could have been there soon after 8:00 p.m. It is not as if she was three hundred miles away. Olympia is connected to Seattle by I-5.
The article does not say what the purchase was. It could have been gasoline for her car, and she could have been en route, and the gas station could have been on the road to Washington. A key point would be the nature of the purchase and the location of the purchase in Olympia.
If she was there, then she IS a terrorist. The difference between regular arson and terrorism is that the regular arsonist gets a kick out of seeing emergency services show up. The terrorist commits an act as a way of trying to subvert normal political processes.
Most of the article reads more like a defense final argument than a balcanced account of the case. Based on what I have read here, I would not care to second guess the jury.