Yesterday in the trial of TN police officer Ronald Killings the prosecution had to call a witness to the stand to explain to the judge why the state’s medical examiner was not going to honor the subpoena to appear in court as scheduled. Incredible!

Sidebar: Yesterday I expressed an opinion that the jury will find it hard not to wonder whether an African American child is likely to have been treated with as much respect as a white victim would have been. Since medical examiners are part of the justice system, I’m afraid that this ME’s contempt of the trial may convince the jury that this victim is not taken very seriously.

Without CNN’s In Session cameras in that courtroom, the taxpayers of Tennessee would have no idea they’re paying the salary of a medical examiner who ignores subpoenas in order to visit his personal physician. If you or I ignored a subpoena—or even a jury summons—we would promptly land in jail on contempt of court.

Accident Reconstruction

After In Session went off the air, CNN continued to stream the trial over the Internet. Toward the end of the day, a TN state accident reconstruction expert testified about the data in the black box from Killings’ vehicle. Again, it was a moment reminiscent of the NJ State Trooper Higbee trial—but with one big difference: this time it was the prosecution’s expert who understood how to explain complex data to a jury. The upshot of the expert’s testimony is that Killings was traveling at a very high speed.

Undoubtedly the defense will argue that Killings was traveling at a speed appropriate for an officer responding to the scene of a crime. We can only hope the prosecution can explain to the jury that it was not an emergency: he was responding to a call for assistance at a place where another officer had recovered stolen property. Presumably the property did not have legs, though.

Sidebar: It turned out that the property did have legs. Another officer on a stakeout observed several suspects removing stolen property from a home in the neighborhood.

Lip Service

In addition, Killings was speeding with his personal cell phone in his hand. Yesterday the prosecution called to the stand the person who was on the other end of the call. I’m not sure what her relationship with Killings was, because the defense objected to just about every question she was asked on direct. She was a young, very attractive white woman, and her phone records show she often spoke to Killings several times a day. All we know for sure about the relevant conversation was the way it ended. According to the young woman, he suddenly said, “Oh, f---.” Then the line went dead. (The prosecution wasn’t even able to tell the jury that the call was not in the line of duty.)

The Juror Wants to Ask a Question

After one of the breaks in the trial, the judge spoke to the jury to remind them that he had informed them at the beginning that he would not permit jury questions. Apparently one of the jurors had a question he urgently wanted to ask. As I said yesterday, I’m sure after this trial the jury is going to be angry when they find out what they weren’t told.

I can guess what question the juror is longing to ask: What did Killings do when he “walked into the grass.” (It might be, “What was he talking about with the foxy lady?” but I believe we can all imagine what it was.)

At some point, every judge tells the jury they are “not to speculate” about information that’s withheld from them. But this is impossible for any human being with a functioning frontal lobe.

Furthermore, it isn’t “speculation” to discuss the evidence during deliberations: that’s what deliberations are all about.

In the Killings trial an alert juror will already (during the prosecution’s case) have heard that the first thing Killings did when he got out of his car after the impact with the child’s body was to walk into the grass.

The juror will already have heard a reading of Killings’ first interview in the police station, when he said he was worried about the open trunk of the car because of what was stored in it. He made a big point of stressing that the trunk held SWAT equipment—and he wasn’t worried about anyone at the scene taking it or anything—but he was worried about it.

The jurors are entitled to express an opinion that unless he went into the grass to vomit, then it was not the right thing to do first. And the jurors are entitled to express an opinion that his explanation for his odd behavior at the scene (worries about the contents of his trunk) was also inappropriate for an officer at an accident scene. It sounds to me like an example of what most prosecutors like to call “consciousness of guilt.”