Jurors begin deliberating today.
In the final day of closing arguments, McKesson pointed to Kennedy’s behavior in the months up to and after Nov. 15, 2004, the day the Hawkses were slain. There were photos of Kennedy at church functions, working with the elderly during the summer. There were the months after the killings, when it appeared Kennedy made no effort to collect any money from the job, conceal evidence or even try to flee.
These, McKesson told jurors, are the actions of an innocent man. And it’s not the defense’s responsibility to provide an alibi, it’s the prosecution’s duty to prove its case, McKesson said.
“How dare Mr. Murphy assign [Kennedy] a job in the criminal justice system?” he said. “Don’t ignore one side at the expense of the other.”
Murphy countered during his rebuttal that when Kennedy chose to testify in his own defense, he opened himself, and his defense, to scrutiny.
“Everybody’s the same on the witness stand. And that’s how I dare assign him a job, he dared to take the stand and he didn’t tell the truth,” Murphy said passionately. “He chose to take the stand with the big boys. That guy lied to you 50 times.”
In a nearly four-hour monologue, McKesson went point by point through Murphy’s case, highlighting what he believes are weak links, miscalculations and untruths.
As Murphy did in his closing argument, McKesson first addressed cell-phone records, which a Verizon Wireless representative testified likely puts Kennedy’s phone at the crime scene.
