Edwardo Wong’s defense lawyer told the jury that the defense and the prosecution agree on 95 percent of the facts in the case.
That didn’t stop the prosecution from asking the judge to send the jury out of the courtroom three times so they could argue that Wong’s attorney was out of line for trying to skirt procedural rules as he tried to argue specific points of law to the jury.
As Wong’s first-degree murder trial began Friday, Haywood County Assistant District Attorney Reid Brown’s opening statement lasted for about 30 minutes.
Defense attorney Mark Melrose’s opening statement lasted more than three hours.
The prosecution told the jury that they would get to hear hours of testimony including that of a 12-year-old girl who saw Wong shoot and kill Trooper David Shawn Blanton Jr., 24, during a traffic stop on Interstate 40 in Canton on June 17, 2008. The girl was in the passenger seat of her father’s tractor-trailer as traffic crept along beside the spot as Blanton and Wong confronted each other on the side of the road.
“You’re going to hear from her own lips as she tells you what she saw,” Brown said. “Three gunshots fired so close she could see the flames come out of the barrel.”
Blanton’s family wept audibly as he continued his remarks and pledged to show that Wong was a drug dealer who murdered Blanton in cold blood. Brown also told the jury they would be shown the video shot from a camera in Blanton’s patrol car that shows the traffic stop and the sounds of the confrontation and shooting.
“You’re going to hear his last words, ‘Don’t shoot me, I have a wife and a child,’ said Brown.
“You’re going to hear how he fought to stay alive in that ambulance. Then you’re going to hear from the lips of (Blanton’s) wife what happened,” Brown said. “You’re going to hear all that evidence – you’re going to be there when it happens.”
When it was the defense team’s turn, Melrose gave a detailed account of the crime, what led up to it and its aftermath that lasted more than three hours.
He began by admitting that Wong shot and killed Blanton. He conceded that Blanton’s death was a tragedy but added, “Justice demands a finding on the evidence and not on emotion.”
Melrose told the jury, “It’s not first-degree murder every time there is a shooting and a killing.”
He stipulated that, to find Wong guilty of first-degree murder, the prosecution will have to prove premeditation and deliberation, which will be impossible, because neither existed.
“You will hear about how well or poorly Mr. Wong can make decisions and judgments,” Melrose said. “Mr. Wong unfortunately has a very long track record of poor thinking. This was nothing new for Edwardo Wong.”
He told the jury that a law officer in Florida had shot his client in the back after Wong tried to take the officer’s gun and escape while shackled.
He told the jury that Wong knew from experience that law enforcement officers are capable of shooting people in the back as they flee and that he was trying to escape, not trying to kill Blanton.
Melrose wrapped up his commentary at about 4 p.m. and Superior Court Judge Nathaniel Poovey agreed to wait until Tuesday for the prosecution to call its first witness.
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