Fantasia Case Study

After Ugarte pulled O’Brien off Fantasia, Ugarte told O’Brien that they are officers, and as soon as O’Brien saw her uniform, O’Brien stopped punching.
O’Brien’s act interfered the arrest and resulted in Friedbrain’s escape.
In the cross examination of Ugarte, the defence attorney asked Ugarte about was she sure that O’Brien heard her yelling stating that were police officers, and in response, Ugarte seemed not sure about whether O’Brien would hear her clearly. Ugarte also agreed to the defence attorney that there was a possibility that O’Brien did not heard her yelling due to the long distance (20m away). Apart from that, when a person was angry at the moment, sometimes people would miss what was happening outside the thing which he/she was
focusing at.
In the past, Fantasia was suspected of two criminal charges for using too much force, but later on, the charge was dropped because the victim didn’t come to court. (credibility dropped).
Fantasia also stated that she was an officer on duty to O’Brien. But there was a possibility that O’Brien did not hear her clearly. In O’Brien’s testimony, O’Brien stated that he couldn’t hear things clearly at the time at the scene.
Fantasia tried to pull out her police badge out of her pocket, but then O’Brien punched her to the ground. The defence attorney asked Fantasia if there was a possibility that O’Brien thought Fantasia was about to pull out a firearm or a knife, Fantasia agreed. O’Brien see that as a threat, and out of self defence, he punched Fantasia using reasonable force to prevent Fantasia from hurting him.
Fantasia was bodily harmed with significant scars due to the assault of O’Brien.
When the defence attorney asked Fantasia whether she had been testified in court before, Fantasia responded that she can not answer that question. But later on when the defence attorney clearly stated that whether Fantasia was the one who testified in court against Friedbrain 3 years ago, Fantasia said yes. This is inconsistency. Fantasia lied in this case and this was a factor which lowered her credibility in court.
When the defence attorney was asking Fantasia about the case of Friedbrain, Fantasia’s voice lowered and seemed not to be confident about what she was saying.
When the defence attorney asked Fantasia if she had lied under oath before, Fantasia said yes, and this also lowered her credibility.
Fantasia agreed to the statement of she lied in order to get Friedbrain a longer sentencing. This is a factor that would prove that Fantasia are more likely to solve problems due to what she feel but not on the neutral side which always judge things reasonably and fairly.
O’Brien was short sighted and was across the street. O’Brien thought there was just a simple fight between two people. There is a possibility that he didn’t see what happened clearly.
Since Fantasia was not dressed in the police uniform due to her undercover duty, O’Brien could not recognize Fantasia as a police officer.
As soon as O’Brien saw their fight, he told his fiancee to call 911.
O’Brien had a bottle of wine when they ate dinner. Since O’Brien had drunk a little, so he couldn’t hear things clearly. He didn’t hear clearly to what actually Friedbrain or Fantasia were saying.
O’Brien wanted to help the one on the bottom and not meant to harm anyone.
During an argument between the Crown’s and defence’s attorney, the Crown’s attorney even stated that O’Brien might lie under oath, that was not respectful. There was no evidence that O’Brien would lie under oath or anything which lowered his credibility
before.
When the Crown’s attorney asked O’Brien if there is a possibility that Fantasia was about to arrest Friedbrain with no hostile actions, because O’Brien is short sighted. In response, O’Brien said yes. That means O’Brien’s short sighted eyes may have made O’Brien misunderstand what Fantasia was doing at the moment, and thought Fantasia and Friedbrain was in a fight.
O’Brien heard Friedbrain yelled “help me” but did not heard Fantasia said “stay back, I’m a cop”.
O’Brien agreed with the statement saying that he automatically presumed that Fantasia was pulling out a weapon rather than her badge, because Fantasia was not dressed in the police uniform.
In the defence attorney’s closing statement, they repeated the whole story from O’Brien’s perspective and make the jury feeling like they were O’Brien, and they were experiencing the whole situation on that day. The defence attorney repeated that “O’Brien is not guilty” several times during the closing statement, and that really could influence what the jury was thinking and instill the perspective of “O’Brien is not guilty, and he just wanted to help save his community” into their mind.