Thank you, your Honor.
CLOSING ARGUMENT BY MR. SCHECK:
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, good morning.
THE JURY: Good morning.
Let me join with everybody in thanking you for your service. I can--the frustration, the loneliness, the sacrifice you have made in this sequestration is something that we understand or we are trying to understand. As the Judge has pointed out a number of times, my colleague, Mr. Neufeld and I, we are from New York city. More specifically, we are from Brooklyn, and we've been out here quite unexpectedly for a lot of months. And I remember when that detective from Chicago testified about having those keys that you stick in and out of the doors and little lights go on, umm, every day going in and out of those doors again and again, and again like groundhog day, everything repeating itself, the monotony, the loneliness, the frustration. We sit around and we talk sometimes in amazement at how you deal with this and how appreciative we are and--well, it is just really a honor and a privilege to present this case to you. And as lawyers that dealt with some of the forensic evidence in this case, which was detailed and complicated, and I'm sure I speak for myself, Mr. Blasier, Mr. Neufeld, Mr. Clarke, for the Prosecution, Mr. Goldberg, that we had a job. Our job was to make it simple, to make it cogent without sacrificing any meaningful detail. That is our job. And I can't tell you how appreciative we are because you paid attention, you were patient, you followed the evidence. I know that. I watched it. Now, you know it is our job to make it simple, to make it cogent without sacrificing detail that was important, and sometimes we let you down. I know that. Some days when we were talking about some of this, it was hard, and we came back to it again. And I think both sides tried to clarify the issues as much as we could, but you never let us down, because those were long days, but you were more than fair with us. I know you followed and paid attention to this evidence. So it is a privilege and honor to have presented that evidence to you and I must also say that standing before you right now is a terrifying responsibility. It is a terrifying responsibility because we think the evidence shows that we represent an innocent man wrongly accused.
We think the Prosecution hasn't come close to meeting its burden of proof in this case beyond a reasonable doubt and we--
KEY QUOTEstanding before you right now is a terrifying responsibility. It is a terrifying responsibility because we think the evidence shows that we represent an innocent man wrongly accused.
we think the Prosecution hasn't come close to meeting its burden of proof in this case beyond a reasonable doubt
every day going in and out of those doors again and again, and again like groundhog day, everything repeating itself, the monotony, the loneliness, the frustration