Thread by @socialistdogmom

jacob goodwin (defended by foghorn leghorn, esq) will be in charlottesville circuit court today facing trial for felony malicious wounding charges.
goodwin is on tape kicking deandre harris to the ground as he struggled to escape his attackers on august 12.

i missed this pre-trial motion the other day... i was sitting in albemarle county court a few blocks away, waiting for this very busy nazi lawyer, who was late to cantwell’s bond hearing. must be tough to be the only lawyer in VA both stupid & evil enough to take all these casrqGn

i’m reviewing my notes from the preliminary hearing back in december... how naive i was then! who would’ve guessed that goodwin’s attorney’s defense strategy would involve sending more white supremacists to jail? certainly not tyler davis, anyway.

tyler davis, another of harris’ assailants, was of zero interest to the CPD until elmer woodard, goodwin’s attorney, insisted they look into the man on the tape he called “boonie hat.”
davis is now home in florida with an ankle monitor awaiting trial.

https://twitter.com/socialistdogmom/status/984446180443742210?s=21

here’s the recap from december 14, which included goodwin & ramos’ preliminary hearings (both facing trial this wee

https://twitter.com/socialistdogmom/status/941479674693251072?s=20

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heading downtown now. i’ve no interest in paying $20 to park all day at the literal scene of the crime, so i’ll park a ways off & walk in. be cautious today, cville. billy roper’s shield wall promised to be here doing “security.”

interesting point from @EmilyGorcenski’s livestream this morning: jurors are prohibited from visiting the scene of the crime. where will they park?!

quite the line outside the courthouse. i’d assumed they brought the potential jurors in another entrance, but that must not be the case. heard a cop say the pool is “100+, maybe 150.”
potential jurors in the line saying they WERE told to park in the market street garage.

docket has us starting at 9:30. i’m in line with the jury pool, still passing through security. no way are we starting on time. and i have no doubt voir dire is gonna be a long and excruciating process. even if it weren’t elmer... and y’all know that man loves to drag things out.

powering off now... i’ve got three pens & a notebook. see y’all in the recesses.

well this is a turn. the jury pool is so large, they aren’t allowing the public into the courtroom for voir dire. the bailiff told me they reserved only 9 seats for the media & i don’t qualify 😂

cville communications manager brian wheeler tells me the clerk of the court promised the public would be allowed in as space opens up. hopefully someone tells the bailiff that.

the jury pool is 126 people. that’s over twice the usual size.

i guess billy name searches. no sign of the shield wall, but there is one member of the now-defunct TWP

i’m still stuck outside. twenty or so folks dismissed from the jury pool just exited.

kessler had promised to be here covering the trial. a member of the press who was inside tells me he isn’t in there. maybe he’s planning to show up this afternoon after jury selection.

bailiff says there’s a court order against any electronic devices on the premises today. not even in the lockers in the lobby, where you typically leave your phone. even members of the press. unclear when i’ll be allowed in, but i have to walk back to my car to lock up my phone.

so much for public proceedings.

hey, @CvilleCityHall, what’s the deal with this? this is a public proceeding. barring the public is a bad look.

a member of the local press out here got in, came out to give an update, and is being barred from re-entry. this isn’t about space. 20 people have already left.

jason kessler just arrived and was also turned away by the bailiff.

i saw denise lunsford go in this morning. she’s the former albemarle county commonwealth’s attorney & the defense attorney for james alex fields. i suspect she’s taking notes on the voir dire process for goodwin, looking ahead to fields’ trial at the end of november.

i asked the bailiff again when i might be admitted. she said not until the jury is seated, after voir dire has been completed. i pushed back — there’s room. this is a public proceeding. she tells me there’s a court order. i asked to see it.

she sent me downstairs to the clerk’s office, where i’m told there is no such written order, just a verbal one. i told them the bailiff has a signed order and i’d like a copy. several phone calls later, they’ve agreed the order does exist and i do have a right to see it.

here’s the copy of the order i paid a dollar for. note that the text doesn’t say the public is barred from voir dire... it’s about room capacity. the text of the order & the enforcement are very differe7Rj0

both the clerk and the bailiff shrugged and told me i’d have to take it up with the judge when he’s not busy. as this order covers both today’s trial and ramos’ starting wednesday, i absolutely will. these proceedings are public. i am the public.

it’s worth noting that the prohibition against leaving your phone in the lockers is only if you’re going into the courtroom. the bailiff had no issue with me locking my phone up to go down to the clerk’s office. this isn’t about security. it’s about imposing barriers to access.

the jury pool is milling around outside taking a break. as i pointed out to the bailiff, if her argument about letting people in being a “disruption” is the real motivator here, it’d be no problem to let me in when they go back in after their break. but it’s still a no.

denise lunsford told one of the reporters that things are moving along quickly, around 70 jurors left in the pool and opening arguments could begin as soon as 1pm. considering it’s elmer & they’ll have to break for lunch, i’m skeptical.

the bailiff came out to let the *reporters* know they can come in now if they want, but it’s still closed to the public. and even reporters aren’t being allowed to leave electronic devices of any kind in the lobby lockers.

this may seem like a petty concern, but reporters duck in and out of the courtroom throughout the proceedings to provide updates. they need access to their devices to do their jobs. forcing them to stow phones & cameras offsite restricts the press.

well i think they noticed. they’re letting me in.

all but 21 of the jury pool have been dismissed for lunch. they’ll be back at 1:25. they’re doing individual voir dire in chambers now with the 21 they kept back. saw some cops bringing in pizza and bottled water, i assume for them.

elmer highlights so far: “my favorite lawyer is perry mason [...] i watch a lot of perry mason.”

here’s an odd jury selection question from elmer: “is there anyone here who doesn’t think being prepared for difficult situations is a good idea?”

and another, about which he conferred with CA platania before asking: “is there anyone here who thinks that anyone other than the individual charged should be made to pay for the death of heather heyer?” unclear if this was struck, but i didn’t see anyone answer.

headed back in soon. we’re unlikely to see opening arguments before 2. how are they gonna finish this in two days? have they MET elmer?

of the 21 jurors taken back for individual voir dire, 2 were dismissed. so the 19 have been sent to lunch & now they’re doing the entire process from the beginning, 2 at a time, until they get 2 more. this means 75-80 folks are stuck here a bit longer...

they must’ve been successful picking their final 2 for the pool of 21. they’re letting the rest of the herd go home. our original 19 will be back from lunch in half an hour, then the final selection will occur... we’ll hear opening arguments sometime today.

just heard jason kessler tell a reporter he has no regrets about the events of august 12, 2017. no regrets.

they have no regrets. no remorse. a woman was killed and they are laughing. remember this.

heading back in now. hopefully we’ll get through the last of jury selection quickly & get to the actual trial.

and we have a jury! they’ve got a brief recess to move their cars & call their families. should be hearing opening arguments around 4:15pm.

i’m realizing now why the lawyer sitting in the first row of the gallery looks familiar to me — i BELIEVE she’s the co-counsel for tyler davis’ defense (the man who was only arrested for this same assault at the insistence of this defendant’s lawyer)

https://twitter.com/socialistdogmom/status/990917966224076800?s=21

ok, back inside! after 7 hours out here, the actual trial is about to start.

well folks, they’re still going. but i have an obligation to my chapter & @CvilleDSA is having our monthly meeting tonight. i’ll catch ‘em tomorrow & i’ll get my notes from this afternoon up tonight.

only just now home after spending 9-7 in court and 7-9 at a chapter meeting. let’s walk these dogs, have some dinner, then i’ll sit down with my notes from today and look ahead to what we can expect tomorrow...

so remember tyler davis? the assailant in the deandre harris case who was only caught because goodwin's attorney elmer woodard, INSISTED the CPD look into the man he called 'boonie hat?'
well he's been subpoenaed AS A DEFENSE WITNESS.
nbc29.com/story/38051427…

somehow i feel like he's not going to be feeling very charitable toward jacob goodwin on the stand tomorrow.
besides, elmer's whole "somebody else hurt him worse so my client is innocent" line of reasoning isn't exactly legally sound.

so i've got 14 pages of notes from today. and, as keeps happening, by the time i sit down with my notebook after a day in court, i'm too tired to make much sense of it. guys, i've been at this since 8am. that's nearly 16 hours. so let's keep this brief (unlike elmer)

it took until 3:30 to empanel a jury. the commonwealth didn't give their opening statement until 4:20pm. elmer gave his at 4:35. at 5:03, ACA antony called deandre harris to the stand. not 15 minutes later, things broke down.

despite having seen ALL of the videos MANY times over the course of MONTHS, elmer chose this moment, 5:18pm on the first day of the trial, to object to the admissibility of the CW's 5 videos. the jury was sent out. a 90min evidentiary hearing ensued.

TL; DR: all five videos were admitted. the judge, ACA antony, & CA platania were all very visibly losing their patience with elmer. a number of times the judge admonished elmer for not filing a motion in limine about the videos BEFORE the trial.

MULTIPLE TIMES elmer had to be reminded that he was being allowed to voir dire deandre about the videos to determine their admissibility... but he was NOT to cross examine him. yet he kept doing it. repeatedly. painfully. as frustrated as everyone seemed, they really let him go.

look, honestly the man's a moron. at one point he objected before the CW even started playing a video (the jury was not present). when asked what his objection was, he said: "i objected because i don't know what they're gonna show, maybe when they show it, i won't object to it."

there are some more interesting tidbits in here, but nothing materially important to know before tomorrow. i've got to get some sleep. and so i leave you with this gem from elmer at the december preliminary hearing.

https://twitter.com/socialistdogmom/status/941484781673607168