CRUNCH TIME IN THE MICHAEL BALL TRIAL

Well as I suggested yesterday it appears as if indeed Michael Ball's lawyer is attempting to impugn the testimony of the prosecution's star witness. Today's Waterloo Region Record carrys this story titled "Howlett died of overdose: defence". The defence are trying to imply that Erin Howlett not only died of an overdose but that it was from drugs supplied by the prosecution's same star witness, one Mr. Warwick. Furthermore the defence have laid out a scenario that certainly would give Mr. Warwick a motive for so pointing the finger at Michael Ball. Mr. Warwick was under considerable pressure from the Waterloo Regional Police to rat on Mr. Ball. In fact apparently the police had first advised Mr. Warwick as to how they believed that Mr. Ball had allegedly killed Erin Howlett. Mr Warwick, then under pressure, advised that Mr. Ball had confessed to him the same methodology that police had described to Mr. Warwick in the first place.

While reasonable doubt is the criteria, historically juries have seemed intent on assigning responsibility for a murder to someone. It's perhaps a physcological necessity to be able to have someone to blame for a tragedy rather than throw their hands in the air and say they don't know who did it. Canada and the U.S. are rife with examples of wrongful convictions for murder, even to the point of convicting people for murders that later are proven to be accidental deaths or even natural causes. In this particular case I don't know who or whether anybody did it. Hopefully the fog will clear with further testimony.