After Officer Rasmussen testified, it was time for both sides to actually rest. For real this time. The videos were played for the judge again, each of them, from start to finish straight through. Then Todd Jackson made his closing arguments for the prosecution. Surprisingly, they pull any last minute stunts or ambushes.
After Jackson’s statements, we took a brief recess. I don’t think I even knew who was going to make the closing argument on my behalf. Once again, at a critical juncture in the case, Jason Short deferred to his much less experienced junior partner, Chris Trotter, to make the final arguments. Trotter turned to me as we were filing back into the courtroom, and I asked him how he felt about the closing, and he said “Oh this is going to be an annihilation” implying that he was going to easily steamroll everything Jackson had just said.
You can probably guess where this is going.
I proceeded to watch Christopher Trotter stumble, bumble, and mumble his way through a shoddy closing argument, with his weak mousey voice so quiet many people in the courtroom couldn’t even hear him. Even in the official transcript from all of the proceedings, there are numerous “inaudible” parts because the stenographer could not hear what he was saying.
Not the mark of someone who is the least bit confident in anything they are saying or doing.
During the closing statements, Chris Trotter:
1 – Never moved to impeach Officer Ryan Rasmussen’s inapplicable testimony. Since the judge had previously declared my own experiences and training to be inadmissible, you’d think any halfway competent attorney would be able to successfully argue that someone else’s training and experiences would be even less admissible and less applicable.
2 – Never mentioned several case laws that were applicable and could have helped me, including 1) State v Sandoval, where the Oregon Supreme Court ruled that a person does not have to retreat or exercise any other action before acting in self defense. 2) State v Oliphant (Wood), where the Oregon Supreme Court ruled that only the mindset of the person claiming self defense is relevant to the self defense claim, not the intentions or mindset of the people causing the person to believe they have to act in self defense.
At a certain point the judge even asked if it was relevant that there not antagonists behind me. This would have been a perfect opportunity to cite Sandoval. But Chris Trotter missed that opportunity to argue for his client.
3 – Never pointed out each and every crime that the hostile gang was committing against me. Trotter, or anyone, literally anyone with half a brain, could have easily made the case that the gang had committed crimes of
- Harassment (A person commits the crime of harassment if the person intentionally: Harasses or annoys another person by: Subjecting such other person to offensive physical contact; or Publicly insulting such other person by abusive words or gestures in a manner intended and likely to provoke a violent response)
- Menacing (A person commits the crime of menacing if by word or conduct the person intentionally attempts to place another person in fear of imminent serious physical injury.)
- Coercion (A person commits the crime of coercion when the person compels or induces another person to engage in conduct from which the other person has a legal right to abstain, or to abstain from engaging in conduct in which the other person has a legal right to engage, by means of instilling in the other person a fear that, if the other person refrains from the conduct compelled or induced or engages in conduct contrary to the compulsion or inducement, the actor or another will: Unlawfully cause physical injury to some person;)
- Riot (A person commits the crime of riot if while participating with five or more other persons the person engages in tumultuous and violent conduct and thereby intentionally or recklessly creates a grave risk of causing public alarm.)
- Conspiracy (A person is guilty of criminal conspiracy if with the intent that conduct constituting a crime punishable as a felony or a Class A misdemeanor be performed, the person agrees with one or more persons to engage in or cause the performance of such conduct.)
4 – Remember that part about the indictment not listing any names of the alleged “victims” (the people who started the fight and chased me up the block)? Well it turns out only two of the ten supposed “victims” were ever identified, and they were the only two who came forward and testified. The other eight? No one knows who they are. Several of them had masks over their faces. They never came forward, they never testified, their identities were never revealed.
Now, you’d think an attorney with half a brain would argue that my Constitutional rights to face my accusers were being violated, since eight of these people never accused me or testified, yet were still listed as sixteen of the twenty-one counts against me.
But not Chris Trotter. He didn’t seem to care that his client’s right to face accusers was being violated.
5 – Vaguely glossed over a few of the dishonest statements made by multiple witnesses. Chris Trotter did not go through each one, piece by piece, lie by lie, to tear them apart. He vaguely asked the judge to consider “witness false in part” but never made a formal motion to impeach those testimonies.
6 – Never motioned to impeach any testimony based on witness bias. Since several of the witnesses knew who I was before the incident and didn’t like me. One would think a reasonably competent attorney would have brought this up and moved the court to impeach those testimonies. But Chris Trotter didn’t seem to think this was a problem
7 – Never established that I was there working. There were some vague references, but DA Jackson had challenged this assertion during Trotter’s closing statement, even though Jackson himself personally knew that I was there working as a member of the media.
8 – Never presented my Concealed Handgun License or any of the actual material that I had personally trained on over the years.
9 – Remember when I had mentioned that Kerensa (the 400 pound guy who let the attack on me) testified that he didn’t speak with any police that evening? Well, he’s actually in one of the videos speaking to police immediately after the incident. The officer even wrote down a few rudimentary statements of Kerensa. But for some inexplicable reason, Chris Trotter stopped that particular video several minutes before it showed that part, and never tried to show how Kerensa lied about this.
Here’s that video (should start playing at the 8:26 mark):
10 – Remember how I had made several screen captures from different parts of the video to highlight what I considered weapons that the mob had? Remember how Trotter didn’t think those were relevant? Well it reached a certain part during closing statements when Chris Trotter started fumbling around with the remote for the old school DVD player in the court room (yes, DVD, the courts operate 15 years behind everyone else with technology) trying to pause it on certain parts that showed these exact things that I had screen grabbed. He couldn’t get it to pause on the exact parts, so he just settled with something like “Well, it’s in there.”
11 – Speaking of those flagstaffs, Chris Trotter never established that I had personally witnessed black-clad protesters using flag poles as weapons at prior protests, and that knowledge influenced my heightened fear in the moment of this incident.
After Trotter’s excuse for closing arguments, DA Todd Jackson had one last chance to rebut the things Trotter said.
At one point, Trotter turned to me and said something like “When the verdict is announced, you have to remain calm. No whooping or cheering or anything like, okay?” to which I said “You’re assuming we’re going to win.” And he goes “Oh I’m quite certain.”
Then it was up to the judge to decide my fate. Shockingly, he didn’t go back to review anything. He didn’t step away from his position to go back to chambers to deliberate to himself. He didn’t ask further clarifying questions. He issued his verdict right then and there.
With all of these repeated failures by Jason Short and his junior assitant, Chris Trotter, combined with the low-confidence mousey voice, you can guess what that verdict was.
Guilty. On all counts. 21 counts, including 10 felonies, for trying to do my job, being targeted, being physically attacked, trying to leave the area to avoid further altercation, being chased as I was trying to get away from even what the judge called “antagonists”, and ultimately taking the necessary actions to prevent the gang from doing serious harm to me, as I was trained to do in such situations by DPSST instructors.