"Anatomy of a Scandal"

This is a six-episode Netflix drama from 2022, which I binge-watched in one day recently. Prior to watching it I read many IMDB user reviews, most of which complained about the ending. I am writing mainly to examine the issue of whether the ending spoiled an otherwise good series, as the reviewers have claimed. Spoilers to come.

There are several questionable plot issues with the ending. The idea that the main characters aren't able to recognize their university classmates from 20 years before is ludicrous. There is no reason for the prosecutor of the rape charge, a really weak character, to have turned out to be the same woman raped by the defendant 20 years before at the end of a wild party. And now, after a name change, she is prosecuting him for a similar type of rape. On this I agree with the criticisms.

But the reviewers are really off-base in criticizing the MP's wife for leaving her husband after he is found not guilty. They miss the whole point of this fascinating story. The series starts with showing the wife at a cocktail party where she is enthusiastically greeted by all and is obviously a very popular figure in govenrment social circles. She is beautiful, charming, and seemingly has the world at her fingertips. She then finds out her husband has been having an affair with a young staffer but has recently broken it off. She and her husband work through this OK, but then the staffer accuses him of raping her in an elevator (lift) two weeks after he had ended the affair. He and his wife endure a trial, which is strictly a "he-said, she-said" case as there is no physical evidence, and no corroborating evidence other than the young woman's friend who testified that the woman had mentined the incident to he the day after it happened.

Naturally the MP is found "not guilty" by the jury, but in the process certain events of 20 years earlier come to light, and the wife realizes that her husband has been hiding the truth about this past event from her, and in essence hiding the truth about himself and what kind of person he is. The sense of entitlement of the upper class in Britain becomes more obvious and more odious to the wife, and she leaves him, taking their two kids with her to an idyllic place away from London and to a new life. This makes perfect sense in light of her new insights. It makes perfect sense that she does not want her children growing up in this type of toxic environment of entitlement.

Asa retired lawyer, I am dismayed at certain legal aspects of the case. No competent prosecutor would ever bring rape charges on this flimsy evidence. The trial itself is shown in in a believable manner, but the idea that there would even be any charges brought in the first place is totally bogus. The alleged victim didn't even say "no"; what she said was "not here", a statement the defendant emphatically denies hearing when he testifies, but which is ambiguous in any event.

The other legal problem with the plot is the idea that the MP and his friend, the Prime Minister, would be arrested for crimes committed 20 years before. Their resignations from Parliament are quite realistic, and mirrors actual scandals in Britain's past. But to also be accused of a crime on top of being disgraced seems out of bounds. In the U.S. the crmiinal statute of limitations would have ruled out such a charge 20 years after the fact. Apparently there is no statute of limiations in Britain for serious crimes, a real oddity to me.

The Topsy-Turvy MLB Standings

The All Star break is an appropriate time to take stock of what has happened so far. Never have I seen so many surprises at this point in the season. Here are the most striking examples.

1. White Sox. The Whie Sox were picked to finish last, but at the break are in first!. Granted, they are only five gmes above .500 in the weak AL Central, but still it is first place for them at this point.

2. Mets. The Mets were supposed to finish first or second, but they have been in last place virtually all season. At the break they are 15.5 games back, and 7.5 games out of fourth place!

3. Blue Jays. The Jays were favored to repeat as AL East champions, but at the break they find themselves in last, 12 games out of first.

4. Tigers. The Tigers were an easy pre-season pick for first, but they now languish in fourth, 6.5 games back of the surprising White Sox.

5. Royals. The Royals were picked for third, but at the break are in last, tied for the worst record in the majors at .392.

6. Reds. As an Ohioan the Reds have been quite disappointing, Instead of third, they languish in last place, 15.5 games out of first and 6 games out of fourth in the NL Central.

7. Rays. The Rays are in first in the strong AL East. How the low-budget Rays continue to outperform ther roster is an ongoing mystery, but here they are again, still suprising the pundits.

Homeland (2011-2020)

This Tv series ran for eight seasons from 2011 to 2020. I was able to watch parts of it on DVD at the time, but now I am having the pleasure of watching the whole thing from start to finish via Netfix streaming. The series follows CIA agents as they fight foreign terrorism. I can best describe it by discussing some of the characters.

Carrie Mathison. This character, played by the amazing Claire Danes, is the series' central character. She plays a totally committed and obsessive CIA agent in the fight against foreign terrorim. Her obsessiveness is enhanced by her bi-polar condition, which flares up periodically. Danes expresses more with her facial espressions than most actors can express with pages of dialog. She has deservedly won six major acting awards for her work in this series, along with many more nominations and minor awards.

The series begins with a foreign terrorist who is about to be executed whispering to Carrie that a former U.S. prisoner of war has been turned. Carrie assumes it is Nicholas Brody, who has recently been rescued after eight years of captivity and has returned to the U.S. She orders, without agency authority, to have Brody's house put under constant surveillance in order to obtain the evidence to prove that that he was turned. It lasts for a month, with no clear evidence having been gathered, and the surveillance has to be shut down.

She remains convinced of Brody's' guilt until another prisoner of war, previously thoguht to have died in captivity, is discoverd to be alive and working for Al Queda. For several episodes she is baffled by how she could have been so wrong about Brody. But then it turns out Brody has also been turned, as we learn when a tape surfaces that he made in anticipation of conducting a suicide bombing of top government officials.

Sol Berensen. This character, wonderfully played by Mandy Patinkin, is a veteran CIA officer who is a mentor and father figure to Carrie Mathiessen. He is basically a kind man who believes in Carrie and supports her, but he also has to balance that with his desire to defend the CIA's reputation. He becomes the acting head of the CIA at the start of the third season, after the death of the former head.

Jessica Brodie.This is Nicholas Brody's wife, played by the the beautiful Brazlian-American actress Morena Baccarin, also known for her role in "Gotham" as Leslie "Lee" Thompkins. During the eight years Brody was in captivity and presumed dead, she began an affair with Mike, Brody's best friend. When Brody is rescued and returns home, she tries her best to make a life with him and their two kids, but Brody has been forever changed and it just doesn't work out.

Nicholas Brody.This is a very weak character, a dull and wooden performance by the actor who plays him. He conveys no emotion, there is nothing there that causes us to care about him, to take any interest in him. This is the biggest drawback of this otherwise fine series. The first time I was bored was in the final episode of the second season when Brody and Carrie are discussing whether they have a future together. She helps him obtain a new identity and get across the border into Canada, and I was hoping that would be the end of him. But, unfortunately, we see him again in Season three when he mysteriously appears in Episode three in Caracas, with no explanation of how he got there. The love affair between Brody and Carrie is completely unbelievable; surely a better actor would have been able to pull this role off, but not this one.

Dana Brody. This is the 16-year-old daughter of Nicholas and Jessica Brody. She is a senstive soul who is always the fisrt one to sense when something is wrong. She has there teenage romances, all quite believable and touching.

William Walden. This is the Vice-President, an unsavory charzter who is gungho to root out the terrorists by any means necessary. When Brody returns from captivity, Walden proposes Brody for Congress and then picks him to be his running mate for his upcoming run for president. Walden's plans get derailed when he is killed by an electronic sabotage of his pacemaker.

David Estes. This is the CIA Director, a protege of VP Walden, and just as hard-hearted and cruel and opportunistic. He dies, along with 218 others, in the bomb attack which takes place at Langley during the funeral of VP William Walden. After his death, Sol takes over as Acting Director for the CIA.

Peter Quinn. This strong character, a CIA assassin expertly played by Rupert Friend, shows up in season two and ends up appearing in 58 episodes, third-most after Carrie and Sol. At one point Estes orders him to kill Brody, but Quinn refuses, telling Estes that he is "the guy who kills bad guys", and Brody isn't a bad guy at that point.

Dar Adal. This CIA man is a strong character, played by accomplished actor F. Murray Abraham. He is a real hard-ass, which is obvious from the first time we see him. But the full extent of his evil cruelty isn't obvious until season six, when he feeds false intelligence to President-elect Elizabeth Keane about the Iranians violating the nuclear agreement, and then is involved, or at least his people are involved, in an attempt to assassinate the president-elect. He ends up in federal prison, which is where he deserves to be.

Maggie Mathison. This is Carrie's sister, one of my favorite characters, played by the amazing Amy Hargreaves. There is just something special about her, that twinkle in her eye, that certain indefinable spark that makes a person special. She is a medical doctor who helps Carrie cope with her bi-polar condition. After Carrie's daughter Frannie is born, Maggie takes csare of the baby while Carrie is overseas, and then in season seven when Carrie is back in the states, Carrie and Franny live with her. Eventually she gets custody of Franny as Carrie's life is just too chaotic to be a custodial parent, with Carrie having every other weekend visitation rights.

Conclusion. In season three Brody is sent into Iran, with instructions from the CIA to seek asylum there so as to get close to Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander Danesh Akbari and assassinate him, so that CIA asset Majid Javadi can take his place, creating an opportunity for a U.S.–Iran rapprochement. Brody does his job but the CIA refuses to extract him from iran, so that the larger mission can go forward as planned.

One of the central themes of Homeland is that anti-terrorism work often forces impossible moral tradeoffs. Brody's death is arguably the series' clearest example: he finally redeems himself by accomplishing his mission, only to be sacrificed because his survival would jeopardize a major geopolitical success. The show intentionally leaves viewers wrestling with whether that sacrifice was justified.

Before his execution Brody is permitted a final meeting with Carrie, who is still hoping to rescue him from Iran. During that meeting he wrestles with the moral ambiguities of his situation, saying, "In what universe can you redeem one murder by committing another." Later in the conversation he tells Carrie, "I'm OK, I really am. I just want it to be over."

In the fourth season we see Carrie serving as head of the CIA operation in Pakistan. Her main adversary is not just the Taliban and other terrorist groups, but aslso the ISI, the Inter-Services Intelligence, Pakistan's main intelligence agency. This is a powerful organization, established in 1948, shortly after Pakistan's independence. Just as is the case in real life, in Homeland the ISI is depicted as hopelessly duplicitous, half on the side of the terrorists and half on the side of the government which is supposedly trying to fight the terrorists. Hence the Obama Administration's decision not to inform the Pakistani government about the raid which killed Bin Laden.

The first two seasons of Homeland take place in the U.S., but the nest few seasons take place abroad, in various hot spots including Pakistan, Afghanistan, Germany, Russia, Syria, and Lebanon. The show depicts the CIA engaging in assassinations and engaging in activities within the U.S. borders, both contrary to its charter. The real issue here is how to get the CIA to stay within its stated mission, and how to improve the intelligence-gathering process.

Also, how to get the exective branch to take the intelligence seriously. Just recenty we heard that the recent strike on an Iranian school which killed more than 170 people happened because the military did not heed the CIA warnings that the intelligence saying it was a military installation was outdated. Not to mention Jimmy Carter's 1979 blunder in ignoring the intelligence telling him that our embassy in Iran would be in danger if he let the Shah into this country.

Supreme Court Rejects Dershowitz Appeal

Alan Dershowitz has courted controversy during his entire career. Indeed, the cover to his book Contrary to Popular Opinion calls him "America's most controversial lawyer".

This makes his defamation suit against CNN all the more inexplicable. His suit was filed shortly after his controversial remarks during the first Trump impeachment trial in January of 2000. He sued CNN for $300M on the dubious claim that he was defamed by the way they described his comments. CNN had carried his comments in full, and then had him on twice in the followng days to explain them, and yet Dershowitz still sued, a horrible mistake of judgment on his part.

A trial judge granted summary judgment for CNN, finding that Dershowitz had shown no actual malice by CNN, and an appeals court upheld the judgment 3-0. Now today the Supreme Court refused to hear the case, effectively ending the suit after six years.

The only way the Supreme Court was going to hear the case is if they wanted to reexamine the 1964 Sullivan case, which held that a public figure must show acutal malice to win a defamation suit. Gorsuch and Thomas were ready to do so, but the other justices were not.

The case illustrates the importance of retaining the actual malice standard, as a lesser standard would open the door to nuisance lawsuits against media outlets whenever somebody was offended by their coverage. The rationale behind the standard is that a public figure has a better way to correct the record, which Dershowitz certainly has in light of his fame and fortune. He has deliberately courted publicity and controversy, and he cannot now plausibly claim to be harmed by innocent comments made by CNN in the course of reporting on the Trump impeachment.

I have previously written about how Dershowitz has been losing his mental faculties. Sadly, he seems to have only gotten worse in recent years.

"Presidential Courage", by Michael Beschloss

Michael Beschloss is one of the top presdential historians active today, along with Jon Meacham and Doris Kearns Goodwin. His 2007 book "Presidential Courage: Brave Leaders and How They Changed America 1789-1989" is a fascinating and detailed account of how nine different presidents handled difficult and often unpopular decisions during their presidencies.

In discussing Washington's problems with Jay's Treaty, Beschloss destroys the myth that Washington's eight years were a time of idyllic national unity, and that Washington could have had a third term had he wanted it. Washington's first term had already been marked by considerable dissension, wtih frequent bickering between his Cabinet members Hamilton and Jefferson, who became the leaders of the two emerging parties, the Federalists and the anti-Federalists, later called the Republicans. Washington urged them to get along, but Jefferson resigned as Secretary of State in disgust after the first term and went home to Monticello.

But it was in 1794, duirng his second term, when things really blew up. In an attempt to avoid another war with Great Britain, which had been intefering with US shipping as well as arming Indians and spurring them to atack settlers in present-day Ohio and Michigan, Washington sent Chief Justice John Jay to Britain in May of 1794 to negotiate a treaty to settle the issues. Although Hay had negotiated a treaty by November, due to communication delays it didn't reach Washington until the following Spring.

Washington disliked the treaty but he sent it to the Senate anyway, taking seriously the Senate's "advise and consent" duties under the constitution. The Senate barely approved it in a party-line vote, the Federalists approving and the anti-Federalists disapproving. The outcry againt the treaty was furious. A Philadelphia throng burned a copy of the treaty along with an effigy of John Jay, and there was even talk of impeaching Washington.

Ultimately Washington decided to sign the treaty, but a House vote was necessary to obtain the funds needed to implement it. After a bruising debate, the House voted 49-49. The tiebreaking vote then went in favor of the treaty.

All the controversy and mean-spirited party politics so discouraged Washington that he decided not to seek a third term. Beschloss writes that "The struggle over Jay's Treaty had destroyed Washington's dream that America might forever be governed by national consensus--no parties, no factions, just patriots. By the fall of 1796, the country was bitterly divided between Federalists, derided by their foes as 'the British party', and Republicans, lampooned as 'the French party'. Washington's final Cabinet included not a single Republican. He scarcely spoke to his old Founding brother Thomas Jefferson."

Beschloss offers this thoughtful analysis of the Jay's Treaty battle: "The precedent Washignton set with his leadership on Jay's Treaty was that a president should not merely preside. He must use his unique standing--even if it made him unpopular or cost an election--to convince Congress and the American people to accept unpopular notions that may be in their long-term interest."

Jay's Treaty ultimately did work well, and contributed to the peaceful settlement of the Northwest Territory. By the time that John Adams took office in 1797, the issue was imminent war with France. Adams fought this battle throughout his term, and to his credit he was able to avert war with France.

The irony is that word of the peace treaty settling what came to be called the "quasi-war" came a month too late to save his presidency, as the voting in the 2000 election had already taken place, resulting in Jefferson winning comfortably over Adams. Beschloss concludes that "Adams deserves lasting credit for his political sacrifice...Adams's personal tragedy was that he did not need to forgo a second term to make peace with France. Had he handled his Cabinet, Congress, his rivals and the public with more finesse, he could have saved his career...Just as he had once described Jefferson, Adams was more talented as political philosopher than working politician. His inability to fathom complex men like 'Washington and Hamilton would have been comic were the result not so painful."

I have serious problems with Beschloss's third crisis, the matter of Andrew Jackson and his opposition to the Second Bank of the United States. This was a bold action that to me is more foolhardiness and stubbornness than it is courageous. It does not belong in this book. Jackson ultimately succeeded in killing the bank, but at what cost?

Indeed, Beschloss himself seems to agree with me when he writes in conclusion: "By destroying Biddle's Bank without some more accountable replacement, Jackson peddled the dubious notion that America did not need a central bank to preserve a sound currency. Through eighty years of boom and bust, until Congress established the Federal Reserve in 1913, millions of Americans suffered."

I also have problems with the fourth crisis, the matter of Lincoln's re-election for a second term in 1864. The war was going badly and all signs were that Lincoln would be defeated. Lincoln himself was certain that he was going to lose the election. Then, on September 1st, Sherman took Atlanta and everything changed. Lincoln ended by winning easily.

I'm not sure what the basis is for claiming this was an act of "courage". Lincoln was simply being realistic, an admirable quality certainly but different from courage.

Perhaps the courage to the author lies in Lincoln's being unwilling to negotiate a peace with the Confederacy as a way of saving his presidency. To me a peace would have been preferable, and I emphatically disagree with Lincoln's war on the Confederacy, and his continuation of it for four long years. Decisiveness is not necessarily "courage", and it is not a good thing of any kind if undertaken for wrong ends.

Beschloss adroitly pivots to his fifth crisis, that of Teddy Roosevelt, by noting that TR's Secretary of State, John Hay, is the same John Hay who served as Lincoln's secretary during his presidency. The "courage" attributed to Roosevelt was his purusit of his trust-busting activities even when they threatened to derail his nomination for a full term in 1904. Ultimately his antagonist, Mark Hanna, died and Roosevelt cruised to the nomination, with the convention balancing the ticket by nominating a McKinley conservative for the VP slot.

And next we come to FDR and the 1940 election. Again, I am hard-pressed to understand what the supposed "courage" was here. He did run and win, showing remarkable politial skill and using his considerable charm to good advantage. But is this courage?

Beschloss conludes: "One danger in Roosevelt's approach was his deception and secrecy. By vowing in 1940 that Americans would fight in no 'foreign war' and that he had no 'secret understanding' with Churchill, he made himself vulnerable to the Tyler Kents and Joe Kennedys who had powerful evidence to the contrary. Any president with dangerous secrets is hostage to those who know them. Kent and Kennedy both came close to tattling everything they knew. Had they done so, FDR might have been voted out of office."

The next crisis was the Harry Truman decision on whether to recognize the new state of Israel. Truman was as anti-Semitic as the country as a whole, but he studied the issue with an open mind and eventually came around to the idea that recognizing Israel was the right thing to do. And it proved to be crucial to the survival of the new state. It would have been easy to sit back and wait to see what would happen after the partition, so Truman deserves much credit here for his courageous leadership.

The next crisis was the civil rights crisis that JFK faced. JFK gradually came around to supporting the civil rights movement, even though it imperiled his re-election chances in 1964. Indeed, he told a group of civil rights leaders that "I may lose the next election beecause of this. I don't care."

One interesting thing I learned from this section was that JFK had a taping system for White House conversations. Indeed, Nixon's was far from the first such system. I see now that FDR, Truman, Ike, JFK and LBJ all taped their White House conversations.

And last we have Ronald Reagan, whose courage was in seeking detente and arms reduction with the Soviet Union.

I still take issue with the author's emphasis on "courage". I submit that "Presidential Leadership" would be a better title, leadership being a broader term that could encompass all nine of the crises described in this remarkable book.

Findlay Bridge for 6/5/26

Five full tables for this event, which is an ideal number because the room is really too small to accommodate a larger group, plus at five full nobody has to ever sit out, and each hand gets played five times which makes for 4 possible points for each hand.

Ron and I had a bad day, finishing at 42%, 9th out of 10 and only a half-point out of last place.

Here are the hand-by-hand results.

Board 1. A memorable hand. Ron opened 1NT, and I had 17 points with a solid 6-card heart suit, including all the honors! I simply jumped right to 6NT, in lieu of trying Berber and risking getting confused on the way to slam. We made 7, and on the way home I was thinking there might have been a way to bid the grand slam. But when the results came in, I saw that noone else had bid the grand slam, and so we tied for top board. Three of the other pairs bid 6H instead of 6NT, two making 7 and the other only 6.

Board 2. We played 4S and made 6. The other boards all bid the game but not a slam. Two made 7, and two made only 5, so we were right in the middle.

Board 3. They played 4H, making 5. Same result at three of the other boards. One pair, Ronald & Tim, bid and made a small slam.

We scored 8 points on boards 1-3 against Ed & Linda, for a +2 result against a team we usually do well against.

Board 4. They played and made 1NT. We got top board, as two other pairs made 2, and the other two pairs got outbid and set the overly ambitious bidders.

Board 5. We played and made 4H. Same result at three other boards, while the fourth failed to even bid the game.

Board 6. They played 3NT, makng 6. Same on one other board, while another made only 4, and two others bid slam and went down, so we tied for bottom board.

We scored 7 points on boards 4-6 vs. Bob & Karen, for a +1 result against a good, veteran team.

Board 7. This hand was passed out at our table, while there were bids at the other four tables, all of which went down! We were rewarded with 3 points for our restraint.

Board 8. We set their 4H by one, tyng for top board.

Board 9. We got into a horrible 3NT contract and went down by 3! Nobody else bid a game, and one hand was actually passed out!

Despite the bottom board on board 9, we still scored 6.5 points vs. Dave & Gene, for a +.5 against one of the weaker teams.

Board 10. They bid 2NT, making 3, giving us bottom board.

Board 11. We got set by one at 2D, tying for botton board.

Board 12. I opened a weak 2H and Ron inexplicably went to 2S. I ended up having to play 2NT, going down 3.

We scored a pathetic .5 points vs. Warren & James on boards 10-12.

Board 13. We set their 1D bid by one.

Board 14. We played 4S, making 7! Same result at two other tables, while one table made 6NT, and Bob & Karen bid 6S for top board.

Board 15. We sewt their 1H bid by two, tying for top board.

We scored 5.5 points vs. Mike & Arlene on boards 13-15, for a decent net -.5 against another good, veteran team, a co-winner of this event.

Board 16. We set 2D by one, for top board. The other pairs playing our same cards all got the bid, so we judged well to let our opponents play their 2D bid.

Board 17. We played 3NT and made 4, tying for top board.

Board 18. My partner Ron played 2H and made 5, the only player with our cards to make 5. Unfortunately for us, three of the other pairs bid the game, so we got only 1 point.

We scored an impressive 8.5 points vs. Ruth and Lester on boards 16-18.

Board 19. We went down 2 at 4S. Another bidding disaster, as nobody else went to game, and one hand was even passed out!

Board 20. A passed out hand, which turned pout well for us as we got 2.5 points.

Board 21. Our usually strong defense failed us as they bid 4H, making 5, the only pair to do so.

We scored 2.5 points vs. Jim & Kathy on boards 19-21, for a -3.5 result against the strongest regular pair.

Board 22. We went down 2 at 2S, for bottom board.

Board 23. They bid 4H, making 5. Same result at 3 other gboards, while the 4th also made 5 but didmn';t bid the game.

Bpard 24. We got top board as my partner played and made 3NT, while everyone else went set!

We scored 5.5 vs. Clarence & Teresa, a delightful pair who we usually do well against.

Board 25. They bid and made 6S. Three other pairs also made 6S but only bid game, so all credit to our opponents for their bidding success.

Board 26. We played 3D, making 6, but we lost out to three other pairs who bid and made a NT game.

Board 27. They played 2H, making 3, giving us a tie for bottom board.

We scored only 1.5 points vs. Ronald & Tim, the co-winners of the event.

How Did the Michael Peterson Case End?

Michael Peterson was convicted in 2003 for the murder of his wife, Kathleen Peterson, and started serving a sentence of life without parole. Even though the prosecution's acase was built entirely on conjecture, with no direct evidence, his appeal was denied.

Peterson might well have spent the rest of his life in prison, but for the case of Greg Taylor. Taylor was convicted of murder in 1993 and sentenced to life in prison, based on the testimony of a blood analyst who testifed that a spot of blood found in the defendant's vehicle belonged to the victim. A North Carolina innocence project invetigated the case, and in 2010 a three-judge panel exonerated the defendant, based on new testing which found that the blood was not even human blood! This evidence was apparently available before the trial but was supressed by the state.

The blood analyst who worked the Taylor case was the same one involved in the Peterson case, a bum named Duane Deaver. Investigation into all of Deaver's cases found that he had suppresed tests which didn't support the state's theory in 230 cases! His testimony in the Peterson case was re-examined and found to be false. The North Caarolina Attorney General who invetigated Deaver was Roy Cooper, the same Roy Cooper who has since served two terms as governor and is now running as a Democrat for the Senate.

Peterson's original attorney agreed to work pro bono on the Motion for a new trial, but after that he told Peterson that he couldn't go through another trial. A new attorney, appointed this time as Peterson was now indigent, worked the case. The main thing she did during her representation was to file and argue a Motion to Dismiss the case based on due process violations. The main thrust of this argument was that the state lab had never done any testing on the fluids found on Kathleen Peterson's body. The state came up with its theory of MIchael Peterson's guilt early on, and simply refused to do any investigation into alternative theories, such as a third-party intruder being the perpetrator. Despite the compoelling arugment, this Motion was denied.

Peterson's new defense team was preparing for a retrial when a new DA raised the possibility of a plea deal. Peterson's original attorney got involved again at this point, and worked out an Alford plea, which is where the defendant pleads guilty without admitting guilt. Peterson was sentenced to time served for his plea to voluntary manslaughter, and that was the end of the case.

I have to mention the ugly, hate-filled participation of Katheen's sister Candace. Never have I seen a person so consumed with hate. She talked at every court appearance, as she was entitled to do under the "victim's rights" laws which are so prevalent today. She treated the prosecutors as her own personal attorneys, which of course is false, as the DA represents the entire public, not any individual.