spoke-:
He did not take the stand, and none of us held that against him. We all understood that, guilty or not, a young, presumably inarticulate and frightened defendant would’ve been raked over the coals by the prosecutor.
This did surprise us: After Ms. Connors said “The State rests,” Mr. Cook stood, said “The defense rests,” and sat back down!
His opening and closing arguments and his cross-examination of the State’s witnesses, were his entire case! I’m still astonished. Brent, the real estate attorney, told us something about how if Mr. Cook had introduced any evidence or witnesses of his own, he’d have forfeited his right to be the last person to speak to us, but that didn’t make much sense to me.