Report: Day 2 of the Randy Blythe Trial
Today was the second of five scheduled days for Randy Blythe’s manslaughter trial in the Czech Republic (read about the first day here), and the focus seems to have been witnesses for the prosecution — namely, three friends of deceased LoG fan, nineteen-year-old Daniel Nosek.
One of these eight witnesses asserted that Blythe was behaving in an “extremely aggressive” manner on stage, which, uh, might be the dumbest thing I’ve heard today, ’cause I can’t think of a decent metal musician who doesn’t behave in an n “extremely aggressive” manner on stage. Still, that could be not-terrific news for Blythe, because I still can’t for the life of me figure out how the Czech legal system works, and who knows what they think of metal singers in general anyway.
Better news, I would hope, is that, according to WTVR, other witnesses gave conflicting accounts of the concert’s events:
“One of Nosek’s friends said Blythe was off of the stage when Nosek climbed up and that the singer ran from backstage to push the fan off. Other witnesses did not mention that.
“Many of the witnesses struggled to recall the events of that concert nearly three years ago, [Prague Post reporter] Crane said.
“During the testimony Blythe challenged one witness who claimed ‘several incidents’ happened in the first half of the show, Crane said. Blythe argued video evidence shown in court refutes that claim.”
There are also conflicts regarding the claim that Blythe at one point asked if Nosek was okay, halting the concert until he received confirmation that he was.
Not that I’m saying the American legal system is better or anything like that, but I know that here in the States, “reasonable doubt” regarding Blythe’s guilt would be enough to get him acquitted — and the fact that the witnesses can’t seem to agree on what happened, coupled with Blythe’s own testimony yesterday, would seem to suggest that there’s plenty of reasonable doubt here. Fingers crossed that the Czech legal system has some equivalent concept.
The trial continues tomorrow. More news as we get it.
[via Metal Injection]
