Trial started for millionaire businesswoman accused of killing her autistic son

[davidn3600]

New York (CNN) -- Gigi Jordan showed no emotion as a New York prosecutor described to a jury a "chilling and horrifying scenario" in which the businesswoman who made a fortune in pharmaceuticals allegedly concocted a lethal cocktail of painkillers and anti-inflammatories and forced her 8-year-old autistic son to swallow it.

"Two fresh bruises on his nose, fresh bruises on his chin and chest suggest she got on top of him and, hopefully while he was asleep, filled a syringe with the poisonous concoction and pressed that plunger into his body," said assistant district attorney Matt Bogdanos, demonstrating how she might have squeezed his nose and pressed open his mouth to deliver the poison.

"His fate was sealed," Bogdanos said. "He didn't die fast. One by one, his vital organs shut down. It didn't take minutes. It took hours to die."

But on the first day of Jordan's sensational second-degree murder trial -- expected to last months -- defense attorney Allan Brenner painted a starkly different portrait.

Brenner described Jordan as a desperate mother ultimately driven to kill Jude Mirra by her two former husbands: One who had allegedly threatened to kill her, a crime that would have left the boy with his biological father, who she believed had sexually abused Jude.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/13/justice/new-york-autistic-death-trial/index.html?hpt=hp_t4

Both former husbands deny that any abuse occurred. Her first husband is suing her for defamation. Neither husband has ever been charged with abuse.

Legal experts say that the defense has a mountain to climb in this case. Juries almost never feel sympathy for people who kill someone to "protect them" from future abuse, even in cases where abuse is occurring...which isn't even proven in this case.
However, it's also somewhat difficult to put together a good defense case when you are on your 11th lawyer. Gigi Jordan had fired her 10 previous attorneys.

She faces up to life in prison if convicted.

[Kalidurga]

1. Maximum time allowed

in a psychiatric hospital. I rarely think a person has too many mental issues to override their capacity to know right from wrong. But, it seems she has reached that point. It isn't just a matter of not wanting to take care of her son, she has enough money to ship him off to a facility a rather nice one at that. So, there is another issue here. Her behavior points to flat out can't understand how to behave in society or like a human being.

[bluestateguy]

2. If you have money to pay for a pricey lawyer

if you can have them make up any bullshit, slickly packaged and over-intellectualized into ersatz gobbledygook that will fool a jury.

This hopefully does not happen here.