Henry v MOA - Fatigue Won The Afternoon

Defense attorney didn't get his turn to question Keven Vandegriff until 2:35.  For the first hour and a quarter, Meg Simonian continued her high speed imposition of her narrative of the case onto Vanderbilt.  She sounds like someone who 'knows' the truth and can't believe her target keeps slipping away.  He wasn't as compliant as in the morning.  Simonian would ask a question and when the answer didn't come out the way she expected, she pull up a transcript of a phone call, a deposition, an interview and read long sections to the point that Vandegriff, would say:  "What exactly is the question?"  But she usually had a quote where he said, or at least sounded like he said, something different.  It was tiring, like a wild ride, and when you finally get off you realize how tightly you were holding on.

I don't even know what to pull out as examples of things.  Some of it is just how fast she spoke and the tone of her voice.  Some of it was that I thought the attorneys were supposed to ask questions, but she was telling (often reading) to Vanderbilt and then finally asking, "righ?" or "do you agree?"  Sometimes it was like she was arguing with him.  He'd say something and she'd challenge it more than ask a question.


Simoninan wanted to know what hard evidence Vandegriff had that there was a big drug thing among the National Guard recruiters.  Carson told him.  And:

V:  That fact well established.  Jumpout police reports.
S: Police reports from 2010 did not support any suggestion of investigation into recruiters in the Guard.  They talked about Guard, but no the recruiters.
S:  What documents did you have about the Guard.  Suspect?
V:  Prieto was in Guard.   What was told to me was Guards.
S:  Two officers [Carson and McMillan] from APD who couldn’t produce a single report, audio,  notes, memo that they were doing investigation?
V:  No I accepted their word for it.
S:  You said you had enough evidence to sustain a policy violation by Henry?
V:  Yes

Or, later:

V:  Payne said they (Carson and McMillan) were two of the finest officers he’d worked with and had asked them to assist him with continuing it.  Said how disappointed he was with Tony for talking to Katkus.
S:  We did ask Payne, know what he said?  “Are you shitting me?”  That’s what he said.
V:  I didn’t talk to him about Henry because not relevant to the questions I was asking him.
S:  You know he was not assigned to operational part of investigation.  Annie K was the lead and he was just administrative.
V:  No I didn’t understand that

While he sounded cooperative in the morning, in the afternoon it was less convincing.  

He gave, what seemed to me to be less than strong answers for why he didn't interview more people and why he didn't ask more questions of the ones he did interview.  Basically he had his game plan.  It seems like he'd made assumptions and thus didn't need to get more information on certain things. 

But it's also somewhat unfair to second guess every decision someone made years ago.  While there are lots of public administrators that I'd like to see made to answer questions like this, some situations don't have any good options.  

Simonian pressed him on why he and Carson kept pressing to deal with Jason Whetsell's rumored medical problems.  But had Whetsell been the cause of an injury or death, Simonian would be hounding him for why he hadn't done more.  

When Parker took over the questions at 2:35 I was having trouble concentrating.  The speed slowed way down.  This was a friendly inquisitor now, finding holes in the points Simonian had made.  But it was so hard to keep going.  

And I wasn't the only one.  Simonian had a few more questions left when the Judge tried to figure out where to stop for the day.  Let her finish her redirect and stop?  Stop now?  When he asked the witness, who had been on the stand since we started, he called it a day at 4:30.  

You should be able to read a more organized account in tomorrow morning's ADN or find something at KTUU.  

[I've considered whether I should just put up my rough notes as I have in other situations, but they are just too rough and I'm too tired to clean them up.  Sorry.  Actually, you should probably thank me.]

You can get to an index of all posts on this trial at the Henry v MOA tab under the blog header at top.  Or click here.