...just how exactly the prosecutor knew what Grace spoke to Jonathan's parents about? She even quoted the exact words "grief" and "guilt"!
I am guessing this was the task Grace gave Sylvia - to pass on this information - but there was literally no other possible way for the prosecutor to know, and Haley would have caught that.
That whole sequence was contrived and would have never have happened in court as it played out in the show. There was no exception to the hearsay rules that would have allowed the prosecutor to bring up the conversation of the mother. The only way for the prosecutor to know what was said was if they had tapped the phones in which case the defense would have been made aware of the conversations as the prosecutor would have wanted to use that type of information from the start and it would have been shared with the defense.... or if Slyvia had passed along what was said it would have been even more problematic as the hearsay would have been even more problematic as it would have been hearsay from someone that had not even heard the conversation and was simply passing on information from Kiddman... just wouldn't have been allowed.
shareagreed
shareMy wife and I discussed this and I'm not completely sure that the DA wouldn't have done a deep-dive on Hugh Grant's background and childhood. It's possible they could have figured some of it out.
But I also wonder what kind of legal grey area they were in with Sylvia -- an attorney and officer of the court -- conspiring with the DA. It feels like there are some ethical corners being cut, if not some legal ones regarding discovery. If Sylvia is pipelining information, doesn't that make her a source or witness?
I'd wager that Hugh Grant gets the jury verdict tossed on appeal due to inadmissible testimony and hearsay, the question is whether the DA goes for a re-trial.
You are probably right. The other unrealistic aspect about all of this was that Haley allowed Grace to go on the stand in the first place knowing about her phone call to the police from the summer home. I mean, Haley couldn't have possibly not known about that, right? And it definitely didn't look (sound) good for Grace's testimony.
I think Grace going on the stand was a hail Mary pass as the clock was running out to sell the jury on Grant's credibility, backstopped by Grace's Hah-vahd PhD in psychology. If they let Jonathan testify in his own defense, why not Grace, especially since she was pushing for it herself.
Plus, Jonathan was not only having an affair he had a baby with Elena. If after all that Grace can compellingly testify to her husband's basic character being sound, especially with her professional background, it might flip a lot of jurors. There's plenty of women who would be so done with their husband once he had knocked up his mistress that they would put up with him being wrongly convicted just to spite him. It's not like she's some broke-ass stay at home mom who needs her man freed from jail to keep from being evicted, her life is probably *better* without him in every conceivable way.
So I grant Haley a lot of latitude on this one. Desperation move and she never counted on Grace deceiving her and feeding information to the DA.
Even the phone call wasn't that bad, Grace just intentionally muffed the explanation.
Well, how to do reconcile "he isn't capable of violence" with "I am terrified for my life"?
It would have required some exceptional verbal gymnastics to make that argument work in court, and even then, I don't think that would have worked on me if I were a juror listening to that.
I mean, given that this is a man she had spent almost two decades of her life with, her reaction to his appearance at the summer home was really over-the-top, and not at all consistent with someone you think of as "safe".
So exigent circumstances, his unexplained absence and sudden reappearance and hand-over-mouth tactics wouldn't be enough to make someone scared at the time without thinking they were long-term capable of violence?
You have a point, but I think there's an explanation about short-term fear based on a foreign and strange situation and a belief in his long-term lack of violent tendencies.
Normally, though, when you love someone, let alone have spent a significant part of your life with them, you automatically trust them over anything or anyone else. Grace otoh was genuinely terrified in that moment, which probably means that she suspected he was a sociopath all along (or for some time).
I don't know about that -- her short-term trust had been eroded -- not in Cleveland, not working where he was, the ground under her was shifting fast. If she suspected he was sociopathic, she didn't seem to demonstrate it prior to the charity event.
shareI think the moment she volunteered to go on the stand it was hinky. To me the most telling line of the episode was when Grace said "I'll do what is best for Henry," which is when I turned to my wife and said she's going to throw him under the bus. Not exactly a deep insight of course.
I'll note that if Grace had stuck to her first impulse and not let Jonathan back into her life even a jot he'd have had a public defender and stayed in jail...
What about the 8000 ln king kong gorilla, why the eff would Jonathan not have tossed the murder weapon into a river as he drove over a bridge (since he clearly likes them) or, how about the lake that is, you know, 20' from the outside fireplace. And Henry just finds it right away...? That was incredibly contrived.
I think that's actually the OCEAN 20 feet from the fireplace, but yes, he had like days running around the NYC metro and its many bodies of water to dump that dumb hammer. Or really anywhere for that matter.
So much of this whole series felt contrived. If Grace was that close to Franklin and Franklin is such a "cocksucker" (plus never really seemed to like Jonathan anyway), I was surprised the whole time she wasn't fully lawyered up from the beginning.
People like Grace don't just have idle chats with suspicious cops unless said cops are being given direction on who they should be arresting/shooting. They are normally having their $1000/hr lawyers call the Police Commissioner or Mayor (who they are on a first person basis with) telling them to send those detectives elsewhere or at least telling the detectives to fuck right off unless they want trade their gold shields for cereal box badges and a job as a prison guard in North Dakota.
"My wife and I discussed this and I'm not completely sure that the DA wouldn't have done a deep-dive on Hugh Grant's background and childhood. It's possible they could have figured some of it out."
If that was the case then she would have had her own witnesses presenting that information.
> But I also wonder what kind of legal grey area they were in with Sylvia -- an attorney and officer of the court -- conspiring with the DA.
Everything that went on in the court room was just comically idiotic.
that whole scene was stupid
shareEverything that happened in the court room was just absurd.
share