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NOTE: LIVE COVERAGE: “Loud Music” Murder Trial, VERDICT WATCH

Today the Dunn trial managed to wrap up all of the evidence to be presented to the jury, including a bit of rebuttal evidence once the defense had rested.  All the criminal charges--first degree murder, three counts of attempted murder, and firing into an occupied vehicle--are moving forward, as is the legal defense of self-defense. Notable today was the testimony of the defendant, Michael Dunn.  On direct he recounted the events leading up to, during, and following his shooting of of Jordan Davis, as was necessary if he hoped to get a self-defense jury instruction.  He was unshaken by the ~ 3 hours of cross-examination of Assistant State Attorney John guy. In my opinion, however, he came across as cool, aloof, and lacking in empathy.  This would normally be a small matter, except that the sole evidence of self-defense comes from his own testimony, and his credibility is already seriously damaged by his flight from the scene and his failure to contact police be he was arrested by them. Closing arguments are scheduled for 10AM tomorrow morning, with perhaps some final argument ironing out the jury instructions beforehand.  We'll be live here at Legal Insurrection whatever time court starts up and the video feed is live. OK, let's get to the events of the day:

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I wonder who he thinks they will vote for? Let me think about that a while, ahem, tough call....

NOTE: LIVE COVERAGE: “Loud Music” Murder Trial, VERDICT WATCH

---------------- Welcome to day five of our live coverage of the "loud music" 1st degree murder trial of Michael Dunn in real time. Here are a couple live video feeds, with the smaller, upper-most feed proving the most reliable yesterday. Expectations are that this morning will see the last two defense witnesses. One of these is expected to be some kind of expert on stress reactions, but is a bit of a "surprise witness" from the perspective of the State. A hearing will be held at 8AM to discuss whether to allow this testimony, in the form of a Daubert hearing. The second witness, I expect, will be the defendant, Michael Dunn himself. At present there seems insufficient--meaning no--evidence of self-defense necessary for the defense to meet its burden of production on the issue of self-defense. If they fail to meet this burden the jury will not be instructed on self-defense and a conviction is certain. Our end-of-day wrap-up discussing these issues as well as yesterday afternoon's testimony can be found here: “Loud Music” Murder Trial Day 4: Entire Self Defense Narrative At Risk At the bottom of the post is a live Twitter feed with my live tweets and those of others reporting on the trial. We plan to do a brief mid-day summary when the court recesses for lunch, then our usual lengthier coverage/analysis after the court recesses that day's end.

Last week, we noted that Japan and India were allying to protect themselves against China's regional ambitions. These developments finally seem to have made it to the "Resolute Desk", which has responded with another of its classic "strongly worded messages" in regards to China's intentions to expand its defense zone.
The Obama administration has significantly sharpened its rhetoric about China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea over the last week amid growing pressure from allies in the region for Washington to take a firmer line. In public statements in recent days, senior US officials placed the blame for tensions in the region solely on China and warned that the US could move more forces to the western Pacific if Beijing were to declare a new air defense zone in the South China Sea.
China's reaction was as expected by those who are versed in the Obama Administration's foreign policy approaches.
China has accused the United States of undermining peace and development in the Asia-Pacific after a senior U.S. official said concern was mounting over China's claims in the South China Sea.

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NOTE: LIVE COVERAGE: “Loud Music” Murder Trial, VERDICT WATCH

---------------- Welcome to day four of our live coverage of the "loud music" 1st degree murder trial of Michael Dunn in real time. Here are a couple live video feeds, with the smaller, upper-most feed proving the most reliable yesterday. Before we get to that, there has been much discussion and some confusion about the number, sequence, and tempo of the gunshots fired by Michael Dunn at the red Durango SUV in which Jordan Davis was followed.  Those interested can hear the shots fired on the gas station surveillance tape here:  “Loud Music” Murder Trial: Sequence of Gun Shots. At the bottom of the post is a live Twitter feed with my live tweets and those of others reporting on the trial. We plan to do a brief mid-day summary when the court recesses for lunch, then our usual lengthier coverage/analysis after the court recesses that day's end.

Allan Bloom's masterwork The Closing of the American Mind is so laden with thoughtfulness that a reader could stop to reflect on nearly every sentence. Plus, Bloom accomplished the extraordinarily difficult task of writing a serious work about education, politics, history, and philosophy in a...

Alana Goodman at The Washington Free Beacon has published The Hillary Papers (embed at bottom of this post). Here's Alana's summary:
The papers of Diane Blair, a political science professor Hillary Clinton described as her “closest friend” before Blair’s death in 2000, record years of candid conversations with the Clintons on issues ranging from single-payer health care to Monica Lewinsky. The archive includes correspondence, diaries, interviews, strategy memos, and contemporaneous accounts of conversations with the Clintons ranging from the mid-1970s to the turn of the millennium. Diane Blair’s husband, Jim Blair, a former chief counsel at Tyson Foods Inc. who was at the center of “Cattlegate,” a 1994 controversy involving the unusually large returns Hillary Clinton made while trading cattle futures contracts in the 1970s, donated his wife’s papers to the University of Arkansas Special Collections library in Fayetteville after her death. The full contents of the archive, which before 2010 was closed to the public, have not previously been reported on and shed new light on Clinton’s three decades in public life. The records paint a complex portrait of Hillary Clinton, revealing her to be a loyal friend, devoted mother, and a cutthroat strategist who relished revenge against her adversaries and complained in private that nobody in the White House was “tough and mean enough.”
Much of the portrayal is of the bitter, brutal, belligerent Hillary we all know. But her early support for single-payer, despite later denials, is directly relevant to the Obamacare debacle that will be an issue in the 2016 election. Again Alana summarizes: