Robert Higbee took the stand today which was expected.  I think he did really well, although he had it rather easy from what I saw.  I also think it was the right move and that he was obviously well prepped. 

I think the prosecutor really missed the point on cross.  In fact, it was hardly a traditional cross, even for a prosecutor.  Prosecutors generally seem to yell at defendants on cross but this prosecutor didn’t even do that.  If I had Higbee on cross, I would have probably ripped him apart and made him look horrible in front of the jury. 

If I am the prosecutor, I pull every, single stop that Higbee ever made and question him about a wide variety of them.  I also get into the number of times he has pulled people over, all of his training, etc.  The goal here is to show that out of all of his stops, this is the most stress-free, routine stop he has ever had.  Thus, the story about him having this laser focus is garbage.  In addition, I understand that he teaches other troopers, so how can someone of his training and experience screw up and not be aware of the possibility of a stop sign?

The prosecutor can then wrap this up by arguing that he screwed up and he tried to cover it up.  Sure he is an honest, nice guy but his world was crashing around him and he has never been in this situation before.  He had to lie and he thought that no one would look into it because he didn’t know the black box existed.  Luckily for Higbee, I’m not the prosecutor on the case.