As Hill told Jeremy's story, the prosecution pounded away in its cross-examinations at the idea that not everyone who has had a difficult life ends up committing murder.
The evidence piled up in court by the prosecution drove away some of Tsarnaev's former well-wishers, said a 23-year-old Philadelphia woman who until recently administered a Facebook page called "Free Dzhokhar Tsarnaev" that has hundreds of members.
"The government seems to be defending the 'running away' prosecutions because that's what's always been done, but the defense is weak and, I sense, vulnerable," he said.
Meanwhile, the chaos engendered by the fragmentation of war crimes prosecutions has chipped away at the public's faith in the Court.
"These guys, they're not dancers!" In fact, many of the Wave Gang and the Hoodstarz are behind bars, swept up in the same style of conspiracy prosecutions that put away members of the Gambino family and the Trinitarios in years past.
I've been thinking of that story these last few days when the internet blasted the mother of the young boy who fell into that compound, accusing her of neglect, demanding prosecution and taking away her other children.
The court has rejected a request by the justice ministry to transfer the investigation from Albertville to a specialist public health prosecutions unit 186 miles away in Marseille.
Perhaps the Sixth Amendment guarantee of counsel "in all criminal prosecutions" can be reasoned away as inapplicable to indefinite detention without charge, though I think the framers would have been astonished at the invention of a severe penalty for a suspect with fewer rights than he would have as a criminal defendant.
Once again its executives were allowed to walk away without prosecutions while shareholders picked up the tab for their deeds.
By forcing doctors to turn in their own patients, these prosecutions only drive women away from the health care and treatment they need.
But those prosecutions are likely years away, if indeed they happen at all, since any eventual Syrian peace deal could involve amnesty for top commanders.
