JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC

Often in big murder trials, pivotal and revelatory minutes occur suddenly and with little warning to the jury and spectators.

Such was the case today in the David Jungerman murder trial, which could go to the jury on Thursday.

From the outset of the trial, lead defense attorney Dan Ross has been trying to establish that sloppy and lazy police work tainted evidence gathering in the aftermath of the fatal shooting Oct. 25, 2017, of lawyer Thomas Pickert.

Ross has effectively elicited testimony about investigators failing to file reports, approving their own reports instead of having a supervisor do so, and improperly correcting reports after they had been committed to the department’s computer system.

Taken as a whole, the failings have made the department look very bad and have pointed to the need for a complete overhaul of the department by a new, outside chief.

Today, however, the lead prosecutor — Tim Dollar, a private attorney who is prosecuting Jungerman as a contract employee — turned the tables on Ross by exposing a sloppy piece of defense work related to video footage of a white van similar to a van that Jungerman owned.

The prosecution contends that Jungerman drove the van to and from Raytown, along 63rd Street for the most part; that he shot Pickert in Pickert’s front yard in Brookside about 8:02 a.m.; and that he was back at his home in Raytown by 9 a.m.

Buttressing their case is video footage of a van that is strikingly similar to Jungerman’s van — and which very likely was his van. The defense has done everything it could to suggest that the van in the video, while it might resemble Jungerman’s, was not, in fact, his. (He told police early on he was at home that morning and that his van did not leave his property.)

In one exhibit, one of the defense attorney’s circled a short, black bar that appeared to be on the van in a still shot from video police obtained from an ATA bus. The bar, several inches long, appears to be on the lower part of the van on the driver’s side door. The point of circling the bar on the photograph was to differentiate the van in the photo from Jungerman’s van, which does not have a black bar on the driver’s side door.

However, on cross examination of a police detective called by the defense, prosecutor Dollar established that the black bar was a result of the bus’s windshield wiper being superimposed on the van, as well as on other vehicles passing in the opposite direction of the bus. (The camera was inside the bus, pointed toward the driver and the windshield. Traffic passing in the opposite direction was visible through the windshield.)

As he prepared to pounce, Dollar paced back and forth between the prosecution’s table and the witness stand, where Detective Heather Leslie sat, watching and listening intently.

“This was an attempt to mislead the jury, wasn’t it?” Dollar said loudly and pointedly.

“Yes,” Detective Leslie replied.

“The mark wasn’t on the van at all, was it?”

“No,” she said.

“No further questions,” Dollar said, taking a seat.

**

In effect, much of the chipping away that Ross had achieved by focusing on the investigators’ failures was undone by his own side’s failure to pin down a critical detail.

It was one of those “gotcha” moments that make the recounting of basic, sometimes tedious testimony worth sitting through. It was also one of those times that often make a big murder trial some of the best real-life drama available.

**

After the jury was dismissed about 4 p.m., the lawyers on both sides and Judge John Torrence discussed how and when the case would wind down. Ross said he had two or three more witnesses to call on Thursday. He suggested that the prosecution and defense make their closing statements on Friday and the case be submitted to the jury that day.

Dollar pressed for closing arguments to be made Thursday, saying he expected the last of the defense testimony to go quickly.

After listening to both sides, Judge Torrence said, “Let’s aim to submit (to the jury) tomorrow.”

Ross nodded in acquiescence, and the clutch of lawyers and support staff began scooping up their files and heading out of the courtroom.