Celebrity Lawyer Christopher C Melcher Explains the Mollie Tibbetts Murder Trial on Court TV

Welcome back to Court TV Live. I'm Michael Ayala here with celebrity lawyer Christopher C. Melcher of top family law firm Walzer Melcher LLP. We are still awaiting a verdict in The Killing of Mollie Tibbetts Murder Trial. The jury has gone home for the day after deliberating for three hours and 15 minutes on whether Christhian Bahena Rivera is guilty or not guilty of first degree murder. Now, during the course of the case the defense attempted to point the finger at other persons in the disappearance and murder of Mollie Tibbetts. Do you feel like this is a little long for this particular case and what could this jury be hung up on?

Chris Melcher: Is this first degree versus second degree murder? For a first degree murder conviction we have to show premeditated murder, some kind of planning, deliberate act. I wish that the prosecutor would have explained that this premeditation could only take a second under the law, that we don't have to show that there was years of planning or detailed thought given to the murder, that the premeditation or deliberation could happen in an instant and also could happen even if you're angry.

Michael Ayala: There was something else he said that I found a bit curious. It almost seemed as if he was saying that you could impugn the motive from the way the crime was committed. The fact that she was stabbed so many times and the way it was done, that tells you about the anger which then leads you to understand the motive... In Iowa, character of the person can be considered. He doesn't have much of a problem background... Seems to be problems with his confession to police & on the stand, so maybe the jury is struggling with that aspect of this case; the fact that what do they do as a juror when they don't really believe either story. They don't have a real theory, the state does, as to how he actually killed her. I think that might be a place where they're struggling.

Chris Melcher: Defense attorneys put as much doubt out there as possible.

Michael Ayala: Christhian Bahena Rivera himself blamed two masked men. His attorneys blamed everyone, from Tibbetts' boyfriend to nearby farmers with a history of abuse...In terms of the strength of where their case lied it was the fact that there wasn't any real theory as to how he actually killed her, when he killed her. They didn't really have any evidence connecting him to the actual murder and the fact that he is a guy who had no motive here.

Chris Melcher: It was the best that they could do, but ultimately no murder makes sense, and so every closing argument by the defense could have the same thing. They were a little bit mixed in some of the messages. They were talking about, "Well, he's only 125 pounds," but, well, this murder happened with a knife and you don't need to be that big to kill somebody with a knife.
Then also commenting that he was an undocumented alien or immigrant, didn't speak the language, didn't have any contacts here. Well, that could also go to potentially a reason why he wanted to kill her because I think there was some evidence that she had said that she was going to call the police or something like that when he was approaching her, at least that was the theory.

We have to maintain credibility so that the jury will listen to us. I understand that they're trying to implicate Dalton Jack there as a potential suspect or at least to show reasonable doubt that the police didn't sufficiently exclude him. This has always bothered me because these witnesses like Mr. Jack have no say in the case, they can't defend themselves. They can't sue for being defamed. They're basically being accused of something that they didn't commit and it's very convenient for the defense to do this. The other thing that the defense said in the closing was correct, in most cases, that the prosecution has to prove everything. I get all that beyond a reasonable doubt, but here the defendant took the stand. We rarely see that in a murder trial and so the jury has the right to disbelieve his testimony. Prosecution doesn't have to prove that the defendant's own testimony was right, the defendant has to be credible. If he's not, the jury can infer then from his lack of credibility in his story that he's guilty.

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