Yesterday, after sitting through 21 days of an intense jury trial, jurors in the Brandon and Jesse Widmark jury trial finally got to hear closing arguments.
When Deputy District Attorney Roger Rees gave his closing argument, Courtroom 3 was packed.
Few people including Humboldt County Sheriff William Honsal stood in the back of the courtroom. Humboldt District Attorney Stacey Eads, Deputy DA Whitney Timm who has sat in every day of the trial when she could, several other Deputy DAs, DA Chief Investigator Kyla Baxley, most of the DA Investigators which include former EPD officers, HCSO Deputy Luke Mathieson and HCSO Deputy Chad Crotty who are two of the four deputies involved in the OIS and two of victims listed in the charges and other HCSO deputies sat silently as Mr. Rees gave his hour and half closing argument.
Mr. Rees said that he would play the same video narrated by Sheriff Honsal that he played during his opening statement. Mr. Rees then went through each count, elements of the crime and gave a very focused, powerful presentation highlighting the testimony and evidence.
Mr. Rees said Brittaney Nunes gave a first hand view of the day long crime spree by the Widmark brothers. "Every day after that was corroboration of three separate crime scenes." 25 USB drives are just some of the evidence that jurors will have access to during their deliberations. They can watch video from Bayshore Mall, Applebee's and Leon's Car Center. Mr. Rees said it was a choice to present victim testimony from "regular people" before law enforcement. "They don't sign up to shoot people but people like Jesse Widmark and Brandon Widmark put them in a position to shoot at them. There were many effective moments in Mr. Rees' closing and just one of them was when he mentioned one civilian witness. He said he asked her if a car had driven by and she took three minutes to answer a simple question about being so thankful to law enforcement for getting her out of harm's way.
Jesse and Brandon Widmark have to be the dumbest criminals and are in denial. During Mr. Rees' closing, they were whispering to their attorneys. Ms. Andrea Sullivan represents Jesse Widmark; Ms. Rebecca Linkous Brandon Widmark. Maybe when you are facing 18 felonies and several special allegations for certain counts and several counts which are life in prison; you should shut up and let your attorneys focus on their upcoming closing arguments.
Jury deliberations started at 4:08 p.m.
Jurors resumed deliberations on 3/10. At 1:30 p.m., there were two notes from the jury asking for readback of testimony as well as "a mouse and coffee." Judge Steward lightened the mood clarifying they were asking for a computer mouse. There was another note around 2:29 p.m. about readback and clarification of charges. The last note on 3/10 was at 4:15 asking for readback of the testimony by the officers. Jurors left at 4:21 p.m.
Deliberations continued on 3/11. At 9:43 jurors were still waiting for foreperson, at 9:45, court staff and bailiffs contacted the jury foreperson and she said she was running late. Jurors were in deliberation by 9:50, at 10:15 court reporter went in to do readback. Saw court reporter go in again at 1:39 to do readback with jury services bringing in coffee.
3/7 court minutes:
3/10 court minutes:
Second amended information:
Previous post:
https://johnchiv.blogspot.com/2025/03/defense-motion-to-dismiss-charge.html?m=1
I am no longer listing every previous post on the trial or all the posts I have done on this case. In the last few days I have done several posts. They can be accessed via the search feature.**
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