Capitol v. Thomas, day 2: Say what?!

Day two of the Jammie Thomas-Rasset file-sharing trial included a statement by the defendant that even the most sympathetic observers found hard to follow -- "balanced" by a procedural error on the part of the RIAA's legal team that had Judge Michael Davis invoking skunks and threatening to toss all evidence from the morning's witness.

That wasn't Dr. Doug Jacobson's fault. The Iowa State computer science professor was simply the guy who examined the data presented by Charter Communications (Ms. Thomas-Rasset's ISP) and MediaSentry (the tracking firm retained by the RIAA). His testimony was fairly clear-cut stuff until he mentioned a log file that the defense team had never heard about -- one that Dr. Jacobson had previously mentioned to the RIAA's team.

The two legal teams in a civil dispute such as this are required by law to share all their evidence; that's just how we do things in America. Defense cross-examiner Joe Sibley cut off questioning, the judge dismissed the jury and threatened to do the same for all of Dr. Jacobson's testimony, plaintiff's attorney Tim Reynolds fell over himself apologizing, and Judge Davis eventually allowed most of Dr. Jacobson's testimony (and let the jury back in).

Reynolds had a better afternoon, first calling to the stand Eric Stanley, who originally examined Ms. Thomas-Rasset's hard drive on behalf of the original defense team. Mr. Stanley, an engineer, said that he'd originally been told that the hard drive in question was replaced in January 2004 -- but that during deposition he discovered that the drive itself was manufactured on January 22, 2005. That testimony meshed with that of Geek Squad representative Ryyan Maki, who said that the drive was installed by his team on March 9, 2005.

Later, in a remarkable turn, Ms. Thomas-Rasset took the stand and claimed she'd never heard of KaZaA before papers were served on her in 2005 -- despite the account in question using the same name she's allegedly used for everything online for 16 years, despite the computer allegedly involved being located in her bedroom and the user account password-protected, and despite Ms. Thomas-Rasset having written a paper in college defending the legality of the original Napster.

The defense declined to cross-examine the witness on Tuesday, but will presumably take the matter up today. Observers in the courtroom noted that despite the remarkable never-heard-of-it claim, Ms. Thomas-Rasset gave her testimony well, answering briefly and not elaborating. A post on Ben Sheffner's Copyrights and Campaigns blog gives an excellent sense of how he believes the various witnesses did -- and just as importantly, how he thinks the jury regarded them. Marc Bourgeois also liveblogged the proceedings once again for Recording Industry vs the People, and noted that some procedural business at the end of the day indicates that testimony is likely to be completed today, with the defense estimating that their case will take just half a day to make.