As Sunny’s Jury Deliberates, We See Twin Echoes — To Elizabeth’s…

June 29, 2022 ~ condor ~ Leave a comment

This is truly trivia — but the jury is working its way toward at least a few likely guilty verdicts, now.

Just as in Elizabeth’s trial and conviction, we see that at least one juror had asked to be excused for personal reasons, last week — and an alternate was seated as a juror.

We also now have two juror notes, on successive days — and the most recent one will be the subject of a hearing at 12:20 p.m. today, Eastern — I might listen in. We shall see. Here are those two docket notations:

…CLERK’S NOTICE. The Court is in receipt of a jury note as to Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani. Proceeding will be held about 9:20 a.m. (This is a text-only entry generated by the court. There is no document associated with this entry.) (crr, COURT STAFF) (Filed on 6/29/2022)

[Earlier juror note:]

CLERK’S NOTICE. The Court is in receipt of a jury note as to Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani. Proceeding will be held about 2:15 p.m. (This is a text-only entry generated by the court. There is no document associated with this entry.) (crr, COURT STAFF) (Filed on 6/28/2022)….

So — onward it goes… all our mastheads will contain NARAL branding, until all US women (regardless of state of residence) once again are guaranteed a right to bodily autonomy.

[U, X2] Sunny Balwani’s Lawyers Moved To Have Judge Davila “Reconsider” His Admission Of CMS’s Statements. It Will… Fail.

June 11, 2022June 15, 2022 ~ condor ~ 4 Comments

UPDATED @ 11 AM EDT on 06.13.2022: The government’s response to the below will win the day. The able AUSAs point out that all of this was established beyond reasonable doubt (i.e., that both Balwani and Holmes were in fact in charge of the lab), in the prior Holmes felony trial, as independent grounds to allow the testimony of Ms. Bennett, at CMS. True dat.

Second update — 06.15.2022 AM: The able judge has denied the motion. End update.

Perhaps recognizing that the testimony of a government / inspecting agent, coupled to documents about the same… setting out, in starkly clear terms, Mr. Balwani’s self-admitted “responsibility” for the lab, at Theranos — is likely fatal to his chances of acquittal, Team Balwani just moved, on a Saturday — after the close of all evidence, to have the able USDC Judge reconsider his prior admission of such testimony into evidence, this past week:

…Defendant Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani moves to strike portions of [CMS Inspector] Sarah Bennett’s testimony. Defendant argues that the testimony is inadmissible under the rule against hearsay.

The Court disagrees.

First, Defendant was the Chief Operating Officer of Theranos and, as the evidence shows, had responsibility for the lab. As relevant to Ms. Bennett’s testimony, Defendant provided CMS with a document in which he took responsibility for the lab. This is a party-admission and is thus exempt from the rule against hearsay under Federal Rule of Evidence 801 (d)(2).

Second, as the Government notes, the statements that Defendant seeks to strike were offered for the non-hearsay purpose of explaining why “Ms. Bennett did not put in her statement of deficiencies or any subsequent iteration of them a patient impact assessment with respect to the particular things she was finding.” Transcript of Trial Proceedings at 6328. Further, the testimony sought to be struck is important to give context to some of the questions asked by the defense during cross-examination….