And the Verdict Is...

[XLFD]

Guilty or Not guilty?  The trial to decide this question about  Sean Phillips, father and alleged 'secret confiner' of Baby Katherine Phillips, will start its tenth day in the jury chambers early tomorrow morning.  The Ludington Torch has summarized the proceedings with analysis, and the Ludington Daily News, Mason County Press, WMOM, WOOD, Mlive, and many other local news outlets and Facebook pages have kept close tabs on this trial.  If you can do so before the verdict, explain how you would vote if you were cloistered in that room with 11 other men and ladies of the county.

 

Also follow up with any sort of rationale for your choice and state what you think will happen in the aftermath with the various characters in this small town docu-drama.  Such as:  Will Ariel be charged with something if Sean walks?  If Sean is found guilty, what then?  Will Baby Kate's whereabouts ever come to light?  What will be the lasting impression of the trial?

 

[Bernice Bernice Bernice]

I think it should be appealed! Because there
wasn't anything that proved Sean was the one
who did it. I also this Ariel should be arrested 
Put on trial. Because of her actions there is no
Way she's innocent. I mean she even was 
Taking pictures with her friend right in the 
Courthouse to put on Facebook! And in the 
One shes laying on her friends lap with the 
Biggest smile. I'm sorry but this was suppose 
To help figure out where your daughter is, 
It wasn't a field trip to have fun with the gals. 
And also heard from many different people that
hayley said "mommy took me to see Kate, she
Was in the dirt under the leaves but that's ok at 
Least I got to see her"!!! And the LPD know 
About this and Ariel still isn't a suspect? Umm
I wanna know who she's screwing!!

[Polly Purewater]

Apparently, Reasonable Doubt doesn't mean what it use to mean..... or the courts/jury don't care about reasonable doubt anymore.... there was so much reasonable doubt in this case that it could slap you in the face.... HOW did they not see it. Unfortunately baby Kate may never be found.... I hope they did give her to a family who wanted her.... its clear that neither Sean nor Ariel did...

 

Again my faith in the system has been crushed... I grew up always thinking and was taught that the system will do the right thing and cops are there to help .... well in the last 6 years I have lived in Ludington.... I have found this to be a False Statement.

[Willy]

There obviously wasn't enough reasonable doubt and there was more evidence against him than for him. If the judge thought the verdict was bogus and was contrary to the evidence he would have overturned the jury's decision but even the judge felt there was enough evidence to convict. Does anyone know if either parent took a lie detector test after the baby came up missing? Sean is going to have a lot of time to think about all of this so if I were Ariel I'd be looking over my shoulder because if it's true, as one witness testified, that Sean hired him to kill her then I think it's a good bet that he will now carry out that threat because the people he will be hanging around with will have a lot of experience in that area and I'm sure he will find someone to do the deed. Having said that, I am completely suprised that he was found guilty because I saw no evidence that even came remotely close to the crime he was accused of committing. As Aquaman said, his lawyer made a huge mistake by not requesting the case to be moved to a nuetral location. To much bad blood in Ludington to get a fair trial.

[AQUAMAN]

Quite right both Polly and Willy, and to add to this, just think, the Mason County Courthouse has (or did have a few years back) a splendid 99.9% conviction rate on all that comes in their way in hearings, that's the best record of convictions of ANY county in the State of Michigan. That tell us something?

[XLFD]

Good analysis Willy, but I worry when some people may decide that someone is guilty just by a preponderance of the amount of evidence and on how many expert and FBI investigators are involved.  The conviction rate and the history/methodology of two-thirds of our judges is well-known and 'respected' by attorneys in the know in Michigan.  This case will solidify that reputation.

[XLFD]

According to a Friday WOOD article [my commentary bracketed]:

One juror, who preferred to remain publicly anonymous, told 24 Hour News 8 there were 5-6 guilty votes immediately when deliberations began. The others were either leaning to not guilty or were undecided.

Around 10 a.m. Friday, the jurors all got on the same page, this juror said. They asked Judge Richard Cooper to clarify the unlawful imprisonment charge, and Cooper's answer helped the jurors understand it better.

The anonymous juror explained reasons why a guilty verdict was returned:

-- "The fact that the child was in the car. The that (Sean Phillips) ended up with the kid's clothing in his pants and all the other stuff in the trunk was all I needed."  [Only Ariel placed Baby Kate in the car when Sean drove off.  She lied about other things that happened around that time.  The 'stuff' would be typical of any car which was the main transport of any baby.]

-- "The prosecutor initially said nobody's going to like (Ariel) and I don't think anyone on the jury did like her." [And yet when Ariel's employer said she had said her life would be so much better without Kate in her life just before Kate came up missing, and the rest of her courtroom behavior, they could not muster reasonable doubt.]

-- "Some jurors are not certain (Ariel) didn't have something to do with it. Some jurors think she may have been involved somehow."  [And yet the prosecution always used the premise that Ariel was not involved at all with the disappearance.] 

-- "Some of the jurors viewed the note (found in Phillips pants after he was arrested) as evidence, almost an admission" of guilt because it said Baby Kate was safe someplace. [Yet though the prosecution used and admitted forensic evidence on Sean's shoes (that he may have not been wearing that day) regarding soil and plants found on it, they never had the note analyzed for fingerprints and handwriting analysis.]

-- "It's emotionally draining, mentally draining. You don't want to send someone to jail without looking thoroughly at all everything that was presented. The worst thing of the trial was coming in there and saying 'guilty.' You're changing someone's life. His life will never be the same again."  [which is why the 'reasonable doubt' standard must be reached.    Half the jurors had originally been there, but what swayed them over?] 

As to where Baby Kate is, the anonymous juror said, "It's all guesswork. Hard to say. Alive would be the best scenario. Hopefully she is." 

Amen.  But she wasn't found over the weekend, and the State put it's priorities on prosecuting Sean Phillips instead of finding Katherine Phillips all along.  The best way to show that is by noting that they waited 9 months to investigate the couple they had already found on the computer back in July 2011 at an adoption site.  Or is it that they ignored the possibility that the mother had a part in the disappearance, and defended her even with the lies she told? 

 

mm