Yilma's Court Case Analysis

Arguments and evidence presented by the prosecution as well as both the council for Ponder and the council for Yilma allowed for the majority of the truth of the case to be put before the jury, and resulted in justice in Ponder’s case, but not in Yilma’s. The prosecution team’s preparation of evidence allowed for the truth regarding the murder charge to come out, however, we did not present enough to convict either defendant of robbery because of the lack of physical evidence that would suggest a robbery took place. Both defense teams made attempts to discredit the evidence utilized by the prosecution, but only Yilma’s defense was successful. Although Yilma’s defense team was successful in having her found not guilty, I believe that this decision …show more content…
In this essay, I stated that the jury would find defendant Rebekah Ponder guilty of the murder of Walter White, and would find the defendant Elshaday Yilma complicit. Also, I claimed that evidence would be found insufficient for the jury or an otherwise reasonable person to convict either defendant of robbery. Ultimately, my prediction was not far off from the actual decisions made by the jury. After analyzing the evidence put before them by the prosecution and both defense teams, the jury found Rebekah Ponder guilty of murder, and not guilty of any form of robbery. This outcome matches what I believed Ponder would be convicted of. However, Elshaday Yilma was found not guilty of either complicity to murder or any form of robbery. Ultimately, I believe that the prosecution team and I did our job by putting the truth of the case before the jury, however, although justice was served in the conviction of Rebekah Ponder of murder, I believe that it was not right for Elshaday Yilma to be found not guilty of …show more content…
I feel the need to clarify that my perception of the decisions made by my team probably differ slightly from the other members, and my personal interpretation of our thought processes may not be accurate. However, I have discussed these same issues with the rest of the prosecution team and they seem to agree. During conversations with both defense teams, it was made clear to me that both councils were confused as to why the prosecution had decided to pursue robbery charges. In my opinion, the prosecution’s decision to charge Ponder and Yilma with robbery was based only on our belief that it was expected of us. Before the trial, when we the idea of pursuing robbery charges was presented to us, we couldn’t understand how robbery was a part of the crime. Later, when it was time for us to decide on our charges, we had not yet pieced together our story of the case, and we were still in the process of re-interviewing witnesses. Because of this, we did not yet have enough information to decide if there was adequate evidence to prove the elements of robbery beyond a reasonable doubt. Ultimately, the prosecution decided to charge both defendants with robbery “just to be safe”. We assumed that we would uncover another aspect of the story, or an otherwise overlooked piece of evidence that would make robbery a very clear part of the case story.