After the jury left the courtroom on Wednesday, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Mark Windham told Deputy District Attorney John Lewin to finish his cross-examination of Robert Durst by end of court Thursday. This was following another long day of testimony by the former heir to the Durst family real estate fortune. The multi-millionaire has been on the witness stand for more than a week. Lewin has been hounding Durst for much of that time.
Today marks a major shift in Judge Windham’s rulings in the case – especially as it pertains to Durst’s testimony. His honor had been overruling the vast majority of the defense’s objections. But today the judge began to sustain many of the objections from the defense. A lot of the objections were in response to the amount of time that Lewin is taking with his cross-examination, which he wanted to continue into next week.
Lewin continues to repeat various questions as he goes over certain aspects of each area of his case. If Durst does not answer his questions in the way he wants, then Lewin will continue to ask the question. He may change the wording or fit in a sarcastic remark, but he continues to ask the question. This is causing Durst’s testimony to take a very long time. But, Durst’s age and charm may cause one or more jurors to brush some small discrepancies off in his testimony. Perhaps this is why Lewin continues to hammer Durst over and over with his questioning.
Not All Lies Matter
Deputy District Attorney Lewin seems to want to catch Durst in every little lie that Durst tells. There are multiple problems with this strategy, however. First of all, he only needs to catch him telling the big lies. The smaller lies string Durst’s testimony out over a longer period of time. In other words, Durst tells a lot of lies. This was made clear in HBO’s documentary on Robert Durst, “The Jinx,” which the jury viewed parts of during the trial. Lewin’s obsession to catch Durst in every little lie is causing his cross-examination to seemingly never end. This has to be boring the jury.
Another problem with Lewin attempting to catch Durst telling every little lie is that there has been so much time since the murder of Susan Berman that it’s plausible for Durst to be off a little bit on the tiny details. This is a murder that took place about 20 years ago and Durst is not getting any younger. Berman was murdered in December of 2000.
Ending the Durst Cross-Examination Helps the Prosecution
Lewin continues to jump back and forth in the timeline and between three different murders over the course of 40 years. Not only is this difficult for a man to follow that admittedly used drugs, but it has to be difficult for a jury to follow. He has gone over the disappearance of Kathie Durst from 1982. Lewin has asked about the dismemberment of Morris Black. Today Lewin spent the day finally asking Bob Durst about the murder of Susan Berman. But after court today, when Judge Windham informed Lewin that he will limit his cross-examination of Durst, Lewin argued that he still needed to inquire about Morris Black.
Lewin does not still need to inquire about Morris Black. He has already asked a number of questions about Black. Lewin also argued that Durst’s answers are the reason for the lengthy testimony. But it seems more likely that Lewin seeks specific answers to his questions and will take as much time as it takes to obtain them. With the judge capping Lewin’s cross-examination, he forces Lewin to fit in only the remaining important questions on Thursday. But, Durst is likely to counter the move by taking a long time answering Lewin’s questions. He already is taking a long time to answer the questions, but he may take longer to answer them on Thursday.
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