The Defense Rests. Donna decides after a long day in court. | Case Brief

The Emily Show

Baker Media, LLC.

True Crime, Entertainment News, News

4.9 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 4 September 2025

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Watch the full coverage of the live stream on ⁨The Emily D Baker⁩ YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/R1zhYkOKL1U Day 8 of the Donna Adelson trial happened on September 3, 2025 and the main question was whether Donna Adelson would testify? Ultimately, she did not, after attempting to get more time from the court to make her decision. The defense rested their case, and the prosecution will not be bringing a rebuttal. Closing arguments are scheduled for tomorrow morning, September 4, 2025.A significant portion of the day was spent discussing a second violation of the witness sequestration order by the defense. The judge expressed frustration that her instructions were not being followed, as a defense expert witness was present in the courtroom during another witness's testimony. Despite the prosecution's request for exclusion, the judge reserved her ruling, noting that exclusion is an extreme remedy and could create appellate issues if Donna Adelson is convicted. The defense called two witnesses: Kristin Adamson, Wendi's Previous Family Law Attorney and Linda Bailey, a Family Law Attorney Expert, to discuss the Markel divorce case. Their aim seemed to be to downplay the contentious nature of the divorce, arguing it was a "normal" case and not as emotionally charged as the prosecution portrayed. However, the prosecution's cross-examination highlighted that even routine legal matters can be highly impactful and emotionally charged for the litigants involved, echoing Donna Adelson's own emails about the divorce being critical. With the defense and prosecution both resting, the court moved to the charging conference to finalize jury instructions for charges including first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and solicitation of murder. The trial saw 27 witnesses for the prosecution and 12 for the defense over eight days. The upcoming closing arguments are expected to be lengthy, and deliberations could begin tomorrow. Donna Adelson's decision not to testify was likely strategic, as her testimony could have potentially hurt her case. The argument that she needed more time to decide on testifying is dismissed as unlikely to succeed on appeal, given the extensive time and continuances already provided to the defense. RESOURCES Donna Adelson Road So Far - https://youtu.be/rlN7cBdTikw Donna Adelson Trial Playlist - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsbUyvZas7gL0_OPy2AliqyEjGcI8QzBu Donna Adelson Trial Daily Case Briefs - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFdNnRZUqH62ToyQCgLbRavztmRy0ohXN Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back. It's time for a case brief, keeping you in the loop with the cases you care about most,
0:04.0	just more briefly. If you want the full coverage, it's linked in the description below. But for now,
0:08.7	let's get into it. Today is trial day eight. The question that looms large is will she or won't she?
0:16.0	Donna Adelson going to testify? She going to testify today? How many more witnesses can the defense possibly have?
0:24.0	Because I don't know what they're doing, but it sure seems like they were kind of stalling for time
0:28.8	yesterday. Maybe it was just me. Donna had her friends testify yesterday. She had a tech expert
0:34.6	testify yesterday who said basically, oh yeah, well, the state didn't deduplicate things,
0:39.3	so their numbers are a little higher, but other than that, everything I agree with.
0:42.7	How many more witnesses can they possibly have?
0:45.7	And at minimum, Ms. Kaplanman, exclusion is always the most extreme remedies,
0:51.4	and that is disfavored by Supreme Court in the appellate courts.
0:55.5	I don't know what remedy I could pursue, Judge.
0:58.3	I was the only one that comes to mind.
1:02.4	Well.
1:02.5	I'd like him to stop violating the rule of sequestration.
1:05.2	That would be the remedy I would see.
1:07.5	Not another witness sitting in the courtroom.
1:10.6	We ended court yesterday with the judge saying, no more violating the rule of sequestration.
1:16.2	However, the judge said, we need to take a look at the sidebars to see if we discussed this witness being able to be in the courtroom.
1:29.3	So there seems to be some disagreement about whether this was previously discussed or not because of what the judge said.
1:36.6	I mean, I think it's clear from the totality of this that I am agreeing for their experts to review the testing of other experts in that
1:47.6	in reference to lay witnesses, experts are not going to listen to the testimony of lay
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