I'm leaning toward neither of your options. I'm not sure his lawyer could have done any better than he did. Maybe a celebrity defense attorney might have swayed the jury a little. This is one of those situations where the community just lined up for a guilty verdict. There's no way he could have been put on the stand, and there's no way to fight angry citizenry determined to drive you into the windmill and set it afire, whether you are guilty or not.

A change of venue might have helped a little, but the spree testimony was devastating. As Jack Venice says, his biggest mistake was not having a cameraman with him, shooting everything. A lesson for the wise.

And it does sound like he was off the reservation--he says he was shooting a film but Shane's World didn't know it? And there was no crew with him? Strange to say the least.

Probably wouldn't have gotten a conviction without the co-defendant turning, so if there's any room to argue prosecutorial misconduct at all, it may rest there.