Scipio, I know that you tend to deal ONLY in facts but I feel certain, that on occasions, you've told us what Jeremy has been thinking and the reasons he was thinking particular thoughts, and the things he's said and why he's said them. However, I don't recall, regarding Julie, that you've ever questioned much that she's said, rather, you seem to have excused it, even dealt with it on what would appear to be, a more emotional level?
I have been highly critical of Julie. I have not excused anything. I simply providing explanations of why she did things I didn't say such explanations excuses her behavior in a moral sense. It is easy to understand why one who loves and would miss someone would not want to lose such person to jail. It is also easy to understand how someone could close their eyes to red flags and choose to believe their loved one would not actually kill someone. These things happen regularly. How many people ignore warning signs before loved ones go on murdering rampages? You even have people complain that their loved ones were shot and killed by police during the course of committing violent acts. They just killed 5 people and then say police should have taken their loved ones alive...
Just because I acknowledge that is how numerous people think that doesn't mean I am justifying it as morally correct.
The legal analysis I provided regarding her potential liability is very straightforward.
1) she clearly didn't participate in carrying out the crime, she was home too far away to have participated even if she could have sneaked away without her roommates hearing she would not have gotten home in time to be called to the phone.
2) There is no evidence to establish she came up with the idea of committing the crime and enlisted Jeremy to carry it out or encouraged hi to do it- solicitation/conspiracy.
3) There is no evidence he enlisted her to assist in the planning and she did some overt act to assist him thus becoming a co-conspirator.
So there is nothing to support her being a principal. He clearly didn't need her help to do anything. Only testimony from Jeremy to some of these things could constitute evidence and then you would have to weigh his credibility among other things like if he can provide any corroboration.
With respect to her being an accomplice after the fact there is nothing to suggest she helped him dispose of evidence that he hid or anything like that.
If someone tells you they are planning a crime and you do nothing to stop it that doesn't make you part of a conspiracy. When you agree to take part and commit an overt act in furtherance of it then you become part of it. If you know but do nothing to stop it then you are morally bankrupt but not legally culpable. If you have some special legal duty like a child's guardian and do nothing to stop someone from abusing your child that is different because you have a special legal duty you owe but in general you have no such legal duty.
Julie omitting the incriminating things she knew doesn't constitute any criminal violation BUT if she spread disinformation in an effort to deceive police that is different. Since she told police so little it provides very limited opportunity to provide disinformation. The only disinformation she potentially could have provided pertains to the calls she received at 3am and 6am. IF she knew he made up receiving a call from WHF either because they discussed it in the past or discussed it during those very phone calls and arranged for her to lie and pretend he told her he received a call and sounded upset then that would constitute providing disinformation because she told police something that didn't actually happen and it was meant to help give police a false impression.
No evidence exists to establish this though. There are only 2 ways to get evidence of such- Julie to admit it or Jeremy to claim it. Unless she wrote down notes or he provided her with written instructions and police had found such the only way to get evidence of such would be to get one of them to assert it.
If she did spread disinformation and refused to confess the ONLY way police would be able to even try to pursue her would be if Jeremy rolled over on her. So she would be motivated to protecting Jeremy so that he would not end up rolling on her.
This is why it is so difficult to flip criminals against one another. The main time you have people flip is when they are going down for a different crime and for leniency they agree to rat someone else out or they are going down for that exact crime because solid evidence implicates them and either:
1) they decide they don't want to take the fall alone because they feel it will be unfair for their partner to get away unscathed
or
2) their partner did the worst things and you don't want to take the fall for those so admit to the lesser things you did and rat the person out for the more substantial things
or
3) you decide to lie and blame someone else for doing things you did and make up that your role was lesser than it actually was
Only when police have decent evidence do you most people flip though. On occasion you get someone who confesses right away and implicates everyone else despite no evidence just because they can't hack lying during the interrogation but this is not the majority of the time. It would be so nice if it were but most people want to see a camera with their image or DNA evidence or the like before they will consider admitting to anything and their lawyers will tell them not to admit a thing or say a word. Their lawyers will advise them to force the government to make a case against them on its own.
Is that morally beneficial? No, but legally that is what the system allows. No one can be legally compelled to give witness against themselves.
