2-29-08 Briana Waters trial is in deliberations.

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2008/02/372847.shtml

2-29-08 Briana Waters trial is in deliberations.
author: courtwatch

2-29-08 Brianna Waters trial is in deliberations and could be done today.
The trial part of the Briana Waters case is over as of this morning when
the jury was given last instructions by the court to begin deliberations.
This morning, The defense objected to the prosecution's closing statement
and called for a mistrial. The objections were based on the grounds that
Mr Bartlett misspoke about several points during his closing statement.
The worse one was that he referenced and placed on the jury's screen an
exhibit that had not been offered nor admitted to the court. The exhibit
in question was Justin Solondz's bank records during the time of May 2001.
There was an ATM withdrawal on May 19th 2001 of $200. This was the same
day that Rob Corina rented a car allegedly at the request of Brianna
Waters. The prosecution claimed that Justin gave the $200 to Briana to pay
for the car rental which was about $187. Mr Corina had deposited $200 to
his bank account the next week. The defense motioned for a mistrial in
light of the fact that the prosecution was using the car rental records as
well as Lacey Phillabaum's and Rob Corina's testimonies to tie Brianna to
the arson at the Center for Urban Horticulture. The prosection didn't
think the exhibit was of enough importance to have a mistrial. The Defense
did. Suprise suprise, Judge Bergess chose to not allow a mistrial and
called the jury in to give curative instuctions so that the bank records
of Justin Solondz were not to be taken into account when discussing the
verdict. The Defense has made an objection for the record to help
facilitate an appeal if needed.