In a startling coup de théâtre, Truc Do’s PowerPoint presentation included slides of the Mui Ne sand dunes, located, she said, in the part of Vietnam her family is from.

“This is not a screen saver,” Do said. More pointedly, she likened the slides’ shifting sand mountains to what she claimed were defense attorney Doron Weinberg’s ever-changing position regarding the trial’s expert-witness testimony.

When it was veteran defense lawyer Doran Weinberg's turn:

[H]e took direct aim at Do’s PowerPoint photographs of those sand dunes.

“I was born in Haifa,” Weinberg tartly said, “at the foot of Mount Carmel. We have rock-solid mountains, they don’t shift.”

Of course, closing arguments are not evidence. Weinberg had 14 points that he said show reasonable doubt, including DNA tests the prosecution could have, but did not perform. In rebuttal the principal prosecutor, Alan Jackson, a Texan who apparently favors the use of a drawl and vernacular, told the jury the defense could have conducted the tests if they were important.

In my view, that's a bad argument. The defense has no burden of proof. The burden of proof is on the prosecution to prove the charges beyond a reasonable doubt. Most jury instructions on reasonable doubt informs the jury that a reasonable doubt can arise from the evidence presented or the lack of evidence presented. Since only the prosecution has the burden of proof, why concede further tests could have b