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Huguely Day 6: Prosecution to pick up again with its case
Feb 12, 2012 (The Daily Progress - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --
The first week of the George Huguely murder trial provided no shortage of drama.
Jurors heard from romantic interests of both Huguely and the victim, Yeardley Love, and watched a video of Huguely's interrogation with police. He cried as that tape was shown.
Huguely stands accused of six crimes, including first-degree murder, in the death of Love, his on-again-off-again girlfriend. In May 2010, when she died, they were both 22-year-old University of Virginia lacrosse players weeks from graduating.
With scores of media personnel, both local and national, having set up shot, the week started off with two entire days of jury selection. It wasn't until Wednesday that the field of 14 (12 jurors, plus 2 alternates) was sworn in to hear the case. Court officials had originally planned to sit a highly unusual three alternates, but coming up with even those 14 had proven so taxing that the judge went with 14.
Opening arguments from each side lasted about an hour.
The prosecution outlined a case that painted Huguely as a violent, jealous young man.
Charlottesville Commonwealth's Attorney Dave Chapman keyed in particularly on an email from Huguely to Love in which he wrote, "I should have killed you."
Love died, Chapman said, from blunt force trauma to the head, which was the finding of the medical examiner.
The defense told jurors it would attack the prosecution both in its interpretation of the medical evidence surrounding Love's death and in its interpretation of the circumstances that led up to it.
Defense attorney Francis McQ. Lawrence urged jurors to consider convicting Huguely of involuntary manslaughter.
Huguely's lawyers have described Love's death as an accident. Lawrence described Huguely as too simple to maintain a lie about Love's death.
Huguely went to Love's apartment that night, simply wanting to talk, Lawrence said. Things spiraled out of control and he left, Lawrence argued, but without ever realizing that Love was anywhere near dead.
Over the next couple of days, the prosecution presented much of its case.
Witnesses described a couple of fights Huguely and Love had in the last few months of her life. They outlined a tumultuous relationship that grew rockier as the spring wore on.
She was "hooking up" with a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill lacrosse player, according to testimony, while he was regularly seeing romantically, but not in a dating relationship with, a UVa student and sorority sister of Love.
In February, Huguely was seen choking Love, according to testimony. Shortly before her death, she hit him over the head with her purse when she found him babysitting high school students considering attending UVa.
Prosecution witnesses also told about finding Love and trying, without success, to revive her for more than 20 minutes.
The defense is hoping jurors will attribute some of the injuries to Love's brain to CPR and spent quite some time on cross examination.
Much of Friday was given over to expert testimony, but the prosecution also played the tape of Huguely's interrogation by police.
On the video, Huguely told police that Love let him into her apartment, but then went to her bedroom and locked the door.
He told police he punched or kicked a hole in her bedroom door and went into her room, the video showed. She got aggressive and banged her own head on the wall before the two wrestled on the floor, Huguely was shown telling police.
When police told Huguely that Love had died, he reacted with disbelief, the video showed.
In the courtroom Friday, he cried.
Much of the case is also expected to deal with Love's laptop computer, which Huguely took and threw in a dump bin. The prosecution has secured several charges against Huguely, representing different interpretations of the taking of the laptop.
The defense has argued Huguely merely took it to force Love to talk to him in yet another effort to reconcile.
This week should see the resting of the prosecution's case, the entirety of the defense's case, closing arguments and jury deliberation.
The case is currently expected to wrap up by the end of the week, with the prosecution, in particular, pushing against an extension into next week, which would necessitate a several-day gap because of the holiday weekend and other, already scheduled court activity.
___ (c)2012 The Daily Progress (Charlottesville, Va.) Visit The Daily Progress
(Charlottesville, Va.) at www2.dailyprogress.com Distributed by MCT Information
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