The trial of Juan Mendez, Jr., for the brutal murder of his estranged wife and mother-in-law seems to have ended swiftly today when the jury spent less than 2 hours in deliberations before finding him guilty.

Had I been a juror (of which there were oddly only six) I would have been the “hanged juror” once again, because I could not have voted guilty. I found the “ear-witnesses” completely unbelievable and the “forensic science” among the worst I have seen.

I am not a lawyer, but I have an opinion about the rhetoric of this trial: it represents the worst of legal presentations to a jury. Both the prosecution and the defense deceived the jury throughout the trial. Ultimately, the prosecution appealed to the jury’s emotions, not their minds.

I suspect it was the prosecutions’ rebuttal argument today that condemned Mendez: the prosecutor made two claims—which apparently the jury believed: 1) There is a gap of several hours in Mendez’s cell-phone usage at the time the murders occurred, and 2) the handle of the murder weapon had Mendez’s DNA on it. The problem I have with these points is that 1) the gap in phone calls was in the middle of the night when most people are asleep and not using their cell phones (and the time of death was never established), and 2) the DNA in question could have come from Mendez’s child, possibly transferred there from his mother’s hand.

Thanks to the Florida News Press, the Mendez trial was recorded and is now archived online. It makes an interesting case study in what not to say to a jury. I look forward to having some spare time this week to work on it.

But as I said earlier, I won’t shed any tears for this wife-beater as he heads to prison for life.