It's been over a decade since this tragedy. Joe Mercer III was my lawyer and a friend. Many would say he was hot-headed, with a love for guns, CONTROLLING, rigid and unrelenting with his son Joe, his previous wife and Hope. He was a expert in The Prince Machivelli philosophy (read the book). He turned me on to a website called Hedweb which was truly bizzare stuff on hedonism. He was an atheist. Hope had previous restraining orders against him but as usual, he would violate them and have them removed from his files. It was only because of who he was and who his father and the entire Mercer family was ( father connected to FBI and Board of Professional Responsibility) that this trial even occurred. Joe was the one heavily connected to the court system not Hope. It was Joe Mercer who would lie, use and abuse women and once even ordered a girl to get an abortion. He would get caught cheating on his girlfriend's and when they dumped him, he would rage. He received special favors when his office was on Gay St. Let's be honest.He's been dead long enough. People broke into Hopes house to frighten her and so if you want to talk about stacking the jury, most definitely it was too her detriment and the Mercer families advantage. There was a standard jury selection process and the DA wanted to take Ms Mercer down. She was innocent. Hope was leaving Joe the next day. She had bought a new Toyota so she could leave the Jaguar behind. She wanted the divorce and it was supposed to be simple as they had no children together and since she signed a prenuptial agreement she simply wanted out and there was no motive for her to kill him. She wouldn't get a dime. The night he died he was calling her frantically over and over. He was angry because she wouldn't take his calls. He was leaving awful messages accusing her of screwing around yet she and her mother were in line at the post office trying to make the April 15, 12 midnight cutoff for tax submission. Prior to that her and her mother had dinner. As for the gun, it belonged to Joe's father or grandfather and the serial numbers had been filed down and the hammer had been modified with a hair trigger. There are pictures of where Joe broke down the door in the guest room. He had the phones hidden (one cordless wrapped in an ace bandage.) Joe was a testosterone and porn junky.
This is all verifiable in the court records. He was a narcissist, abuser and womanizer. He brought his own gun to a fight and he lost.