Sharing Grief, Sharing Strength

Petrie started his closing summations when we came back from lunch on Thursday afternoon. Gone were the flat screens on which we watched Pickton's defence team lay out their power point presentation. Instead, there was just the simple wooden podium placed right in front of the jury box.

Petrie started off by saying this trial has “been a long go”, and that the breaks were a detriment because we forget things over time. He estimated he would take two days in total and asked the jury to interpret the evidence as a whole. He would attack defence's theory and prove it unwise.

Petrie made it clear that what he says, and what the defence team says, is not evidence. The evidence is what the jury heard and the facts are what they decide.

He also spoke to how the judge will probably take three days to go over law and how it applies in this case.

He then started in on different aspects of the case, such as how nothing in Pickton's deficits in comprehension spoke to weak or feeble mindedness; how references of weak mindedness and fear relating to Pickton's state of mind during the interrogation are inferences they are asked to draw. It is not evidence - evidence comes from the witness box.

He asked the jury to look if the leaps made by defence are based on evidence and to apply common sense and common wisdom.

Petrie acknowledged to the jury that all of their questions were probably not answered, but there were reasonable inferences one could draw from the information. He spoke to how they may reject some, all or none of the evidence - it is their job to decide what is true.