As the defense wrapped up its case yesterday in the Dossett-Leath trial, defense attorney Jim Bell  told the jury to be very careful if they inserted the demonstration dowels into the bullet holes in the mattress during their “investigation.”

Yet another puzzling courtroom development for this non-lawyer: I thought jury investigations were considered misconduct. I chose my URL because of that, with tongue-in-cheek. I guess I’m going to have to research which jury investigations are forbidden and which aren’t.

Another puzzle is why the medical examiner’s report was not admitted into evidence so the jury could read it during deliberations. If I heard correctly, the jury in the Dossett-Leath trial must rely entirely on memory to understand the highly technical autopsy testimony.

Yesterday the jury questions once again made the attorneys’ questions look jejune, and the jury demonstrated once again my belief that most judges have trouble sorting out scientific fact from junk science. And no one seems to understand statistics or math.

If you aren’t following the Dossett-Leath trial, shame on you. This is a real courtroom drama. Briefly, in 2006 the cops were called to a scene of suicide and found that three shots were fired. This convinced them they were dealing with a homicide. Being a small, rural community they had not seen enough suicides to know it’s possible for an intoxicated person to botch the suicide once or twice before succeeding.

During the trial, the prosecution’s firearms expert, Donald Carmen, claimed he could tell that a bullet fired into the mattress where the body was found was the third and final bullet fired. On cross-examination the defense failed to contradict him. (Keep reading to see why I think this cross-examination may have been masterful rhetoric by defense attorney, Bell.)

First, the jury questions: One juror asked how it was possible the gun was not found in the hand of the supposed suicide victim. It boggles the mind that no one had previously asked any of the witnesses this question. The defense expert witness replied that when you’re brain stem is severed, all your muscles relax; and gravity pulls a heavy gun downward.

Another juror asked a question that may have saved the defendant’s life and liberty: How could a shot have been fired after the fatal shot was fired? The expert replied in so many words, “The third and final shot was the fatal shot.” (The prosecution expert had claimed otherwise.)

Finally, one of the jurors extensively questioned the defense expert about the trigonometry of the bullet trajectories. Judge Richard Baumgartner admitted he did not understand the jury question, but the expert did, and she explained the angles very clearly. Since this is the heart of the defense, if I were the defense attorney in this case, I’d have been rather shocked to hear that Judge Baumgartner could not do the math. Don’t misunderstand: I like this judge. I don’t think he’s unusual in this regard. Most Americans are mathematically illiterate. But I think maybe the ABA needs to develop a little science and math training for judges.

The defense strategy in this case intrigues me. It could succeed, I think, even though everything is stacked against Ms. Dossett-Leath: pretrial publicity, cameras in the courtroom, a vengeful stepdaughter, county politics, a confused scene of death, and a botched and biased investigation. Or—and don’t forget the real strike against her—she’s a strong-looking, attractive, middle-aged nurse.

It appears to me that attorney Bell’s strategy from the beginning may have been to introduce several theories of homicide and suicide in his opening statement to confuse everyone—jury, judge, opponents, and TV commentators. Ordinarily, I would “object” to anything that confuses a jury, but in this case it permitted the defense to cross-examine prosecution witnesses from a variety of perspectives without having to reveal the foundation of the defense case (which yesterday was finally revealed to be the bullets).

Because of courtroom rules, I understand, Mr. Bell could not question witnesses about evidence that had not yet been introduced (he had some interesting evidence up his sleeve, though).

By the time the prosecution rested, it was looking bad for Ms. Dossett-Leath. The jury had heard evidence that seemed to exclude suicide as a possibility: the M.E. said the victim would have been unconscious when the shots were fired; investigators said the scene had been manipulated by the shooter after the fatal shot was fired; the firearms expert said the trajectory of the bullets proved the shooter was standing somewhere around the foot of the bed. When the judge rejected the motion for dismissal, he pointed out that even the defense had admitted a homicide was possible.

Want proof this lulled the prosecutor into complacency? When the defendant’s daughter declared on the stand that her mother could never kill anyone, he didn’t even object. (The Knoxville, TN, Knoxnews.com has clear, interesting, detailed coverage of this.)

CNN legal commentators said the jury’s body language during the daughter’s testimony indicated they were not comfortable with her testimony. I think I heard someone say the jury “didn’t buy it.” But more likely it was that they were feeling her pain. I can tell you that when I had to listen in the jury box to a child testify, I was in agony. It had nothing to do with buying or not buying the testimony. (I guess lawyers are like doctors—they have the human responses trained out of them. I can’t explain the CNN comments any other way.)

I’m not claiming the defense case was impeccable. They brought on a retired arson investigator to testify about the sloppy procedures followed during the investigation. The judge would not admit him as a homicide expert. The jury must have been very disturbed by this. If I were on the jury, at that moment I would have been convinced the defense had no case. Jurors may even have resented the defense for bringing this witness.

Then (I think it was next) the defense brought on a lovely, elderly lady who went to church with the defendant and the victim. She testified that they held hands during services. Oh, my.

I don’t know: was this callous manipulation of the jurors’ emotions? Was the attorney lowering expectations to the pits on purpose? Maybe. If so, it was masterful rhetoric. Why? Because he did what every great rhetorician does: he saved the best for last. And the darkest hour is just before dawn.

The defense finally brought on a crime-scene expert named Celia Harnett. From a rhetorical perspective, Ms. Harnett had an uphill battle at that point: jury expectations for the defense experts had to be very low. Fortunately, Ms. Harnett was more than up to the challenge.

Her first bombshell was literally  bullets. Her lab found two bullet fragments the Tennessee crime lab overlooked: a fragment in the bed’s headboard and a fragment in the box springs. This proved (at least to this former juror) that the prosecution’s investigation was criminally sloppy.

Her second bombshell: crime scene photos showed blood spatter that indicated the victim’s head was on his pillow when the final bullet was fired. However, the photos were improperly taken and the investigators subsequently obliterated all blood-spatter evidence by mishandling the pillowcase and bed clothes.

Her third bombshell: with the new fragments it was possible to mark the true trajectory of two of the bullets. She proved all three shots had to have been fired by someone in the bed.

It was almost a Perry Mason moment. If only the stepdaughter had stood up and shouted, “I’m so sorry I thought you did it.”

After that, the prosecutor couldn’t think of a single thing to cross-examine Ms. Harnett on. He questioned her about her foreign accent. He tried a tepid impeachment based on her billing practices, but, frankly, if I were a juror in that courtroom I would have thought she was worth every penny of it.

The defense rested. The prosecution didn’t even bother to bring on its rebuttal witness, a blood-spatter expert.

I fault the defense for failing to ask some of the questions the jury finally asked. Maybe Mr. Bell was so excited about how well the defense was going that he forgot to ask them. Or maybe he was planning to cover the topics in his summation. I wouldn’t have let the opportunity pass—but I’m not a lawyer. Most of what lawyers do is a mystery to me.

Note: Jim Balloch of Knoxnews has a great summary of the flaws and bombshells in the defense case. I’m very confused by CNN’s coverage of this case, though. For example, yesterday the CNN website called this an “Alzheimer’s murder trial.” Alzheimer’s had nothing to do with it other than at one point the victim feared he had early-onset Alzheimer’s. This erroneous headline suggests he was murdered because he had Alzheimer’s.

Jury instructions and closing arguments will be Monday. The judge implied it should be possible for the jury to reach a verdict then, too. We shall see. This is where “jury dynamics” really come into play. Will the math teacher/engineer/trig-loving juror be able to explain trajectories to his compeers?