By: Dovesblood
On June 9th. 2008, there was another pretrial hearing for Nixzmary Brown's mother, Nixzaliz Santiago held at Brooklyn Supreme Court. Lead DA Ama Dwimoh was there along with the asst. DA Anthea Bruffee. The third DA, Linda Weinman wasn't present.
When Nixzaliz came out, she was wearing a close fitting brown shirt, navy blue jeans with designs on the back pockets and red rimmed glasses. She wore her hair down. Usually it's in a ponytail or a bun. Most of her hair is dark brown but the lower end is a blondish color. Her lawyer, Sammy Sanchez sat to the left of her, the spanish translator, to her right.
When Judge DiMango arrived, the spanish translator hadn't gotten there yet so everyone had to sit there and wait. The judge said that one of these days when she gets here everyone would be present. The door to the courtroom creaked open. Heads craned to the door. It was just a pot belly guard. Finally the Spanish translator, Migdalia, with the long ponytail showed up.
DiMango started off by saying that at the last hearing they had brought up September as a potential trial date and asked both lawyers if they agreed. They said yes and DiMango set the trial date for September 3rd.
DiMango started talking about the process of selecting a jury known as voir dire (v wa-deer) She said that the attorneys should make a list of all the questions they wanted to ask the jury and get them to her office. DiMango said she'd be asking the jury the questions so it appears more "neutral". She also said that the lawyers could ask certain questions also.
The prosecution said they have their final psychologist's report.
DA Bruffee said they also need to address how much hearsay evidence would be allowed at trial.
Sammy Sanchez said he wants recordings of interviews done with two witnesses, Ulvis Rivera and Shonda Brown. ( Rivera was the neighbor who's phone Nixzaliz used to call 911 when she realized Nixzmary wasn't breathing, Shonda Brown, I've never heard of)
Sanchez also said that he wants family pictures of the kids.(Nixzmary's brothers and sisters) DiMango said on the record that Sanchez's co-counsel would be a woman named, "Ms. Mullins". Sanchez confirmed it. There was a middle aged white female sitting in the gallery that knows Sanchez and has been attending these pre-trial hearings but sits in the audience. I'm not sure if she was the Ms.Mullins that the judge said would be Sanchez's co-counsel. That's basically everything that happened at this hearing.
SOME PERSONAL THOUGHTS: Having a woman co-counsel is the smartest thing that Sanchez has done so far. A woman co-counsel softens up the defense's image. I think a jury would more likely give more credence to a woman talking about Battered Woman's Syndrome than a man.(Sanchez) On the flip side, the prosecutors are 3 women! If you think about it, that courtroom is going to be Estrogen City. The Judge, the 3 prosecutors, the defense co-counsel and the defendant are all women. Sanchez is going to be like a rooster in a hen house.
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