Nicole Mitchell and her legal team. (WCCO)
On Friday morning, the defense called two more witnesses on the senator’s behalf: her aunt Cindy Lee Marky and Jay Brody.
Judge Michael Fritz then gave the jury their instructions before Becker County Attorney Brian McDonald and defense attorney Bruce Ringstrom Jr. gave their closing arguments.
The jury was officially handed the case at 12:37 p.m. Below is a summary of Friday’s proceedings.
Cindy Lee Marky testifies
The first witness the defense called on Friday morning was Cindy Lee Marky, Nicole Mitchell’s aunt and sister of Rod Mitchell, the senator’s late father.
Marky was questioned about her knowledge of Carol Mitchell’s condition. She recounted a story where Carol Mitchell introduced Marky to her own daughter at a wedding, as well as other anecdotes about her apparent forgetfulness.
Marky also noted Nicole Mitchell was possibly set to inherit tens of thousands of dollars from the estate of her other aunt, but that money instead went to Carol Mitchell because the aunt hurriedly put together a will shortly before her death.
A text conversation between Marky and Carol Mitchell sheds light on the latter’s concerns with the senator.
“I’m so worried Nicole is determined to take me to the cleaners,” Carol Mitchell wrote. “I don’t care if she gets that CD of Rod’s and those two checks from Rod’s sister Laurie that passed away from her estate. Nic can have them too, but the house and everything else is mine.”
The CD, or certificate of deposit, in question is worth around $160,000, according to Marky’s testimony.
Jay Brody testifies
Jay Brody, superintendent of the 126th Combat Weather Flight in Wisconsin, used to be under the senator’s command in the Air National Guard.
Brody testified he was also friends with the senator outside of work and discussed their personal lives together, including Carol Mitchell’s condition after her husband’s death, noting how Rod Mitchell “had taken care of all the things like the bills and finances.”
Brody said she was an honest and trustworthy commander who stood up for him as he dealt with his daughter’s terminal illness.
“And, so immediately one of our first interactions was, Nicole Mitchell going to bat for me with our higher headquarters command over some issues with my daughter’s hospitalization and things like that,” Brody said. “She cares more about her people probably than herself, in a lot of ways.”
The prosecution’s closing arguments
Becker County Attorney Brian McDonald claimed the rift between the “strong-willed women” existed before Rod Mitchell’s death, but Carol Mitchell’s alleged decision to bury his ashes “knowing [Nicole Mitchell] couldn’t attend” nearly a month before the break-in was the tipping point that led the senator to commit a crime.
He said Nicole Mitchell drove hundreds of miles in the night, outfitted with a pry bar, flashlight, special “flashlight gloves” and “her best ninja suit” to break into her stepmother’s house in a fashion befitting her character.
“The defendant is a doer, a person who takes charge and gets things done, a senator and a military commander, for God’s sakes,” he said. “Not even her moral compass could deter her from her mission.”
McDonald pointed to the senator’s testimony on Thursday when she admitted to lying to responding Detroit Lakes officers four times because she “didn’t want to upset” her stepmother.
“Ladies and gentlemen, don’t forget she’s had 15 months to think about this, prepare for her testimony yesterday to craft her story around the evidence,” he said. “What the defendant said in those tense moments after being detained by the police is the truth, period. She said she was there to take items, and that readily proves her intent to commit a theft.”
The defense’s closing arguments
Defense attorney Bruce Ringstrom Jr. reiterated to the jury that the senator broke into her stepmother’s home for a welfare check, and while she “exercised poor judgement” by doing so, she didn’t commit an actual crime.
“The state needs you to believe that Nicole Mitchell would … throw away her career, that she would throw away her family and she would throw away her ability to be a foster parent for a shirt she knew that she was going to get,” Ringstrom said.
He downplayed the prosecution’s characterization of the two women’s relationship as “acrimonious,” saying it’s common between people who love each other, with both connected through their love of Rod Mitchell.
And as for the senator’s admission in police body camera footage that she’s “clearly not very good at this” — which the state claims points to her guilt as a failed burglar — Ringstrom said Nicole Mitchell only failed to provide the best care possible for her ailing stepmother.
Ringstrom then compared the duty of the jury to find reasonable doubt to the collapse of the 35W Bridge in Minneapolis in 2007, which resulted in the deaths of 13 people.
“The prosecutor’s case is like a bridge. If there’s any reasonable chance that the structure could fail, then it has to be scrapped. It doesn’t matter if it’s mostly good. It doesn’t matter if it looks good. It doesn’t matter how much it costs. It doesn’t matter whose reputation is on the line. It doesn’t matter who desperately wants you to believe that the bridge is sound,” he said. “If there is any reasonable question about its integrity, then it should be scrapped because the stakes are just too high.”
Nicole Mitchell spends hours on witness stand Thursday
She spent more than five hours on the witness stand Thursday, admitting she broke into the home of her late father, Rod Mitchell, but saying her sole purpose was to check on stepmother Carol Mitchell, who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease, and not to harm her or to take anything.
At one point, she denied the idea that she could be trespassing.
“To me, I understand I did the wrong thing,” the senator said. “To me, it felt different because it was my parent’s house and I had a key and I’ve been in and out of there for years.”
Nicole Mitchell has survived multiple expulsion attempts by her Republican Senate colleagues, but the body’s DFL Caucus did remove her from committee assignments and caucus meetings days after her arrest.
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