A few weeks later, Elliot's trial begun. Olivia, Fin, Amanda and Sonny all showed up early that morning. Amanda and Sonny both had to attend because of the investigation, while Olivia and Fin were there to support Elliot.
As they walked in, Olivia saw several familiar faces.
"Alex! Casey! John!" she said walking over to her old colleagues.
"I knew I would see you here," said Alex Cabot bringing Olivia in for a hug. Alex was now an executive ADA in Manhattan. She hadn't seen any of the SVU in a while.
"Great to see you old partner," said Fin hugging John Munch, who was recently retired from the NYPD.
"How are you doing Casey?" said Olivia.
"Good," said Casey who was now an ADA in Queens. "I told my boss I came here to observe because it's got so much attention. But of course I really wanted to be here for Elliot."
Amanda had worked with Alex and Casey before, so they exchanged handshakes. Olivia then introduced Sonny to Alex, Casey and John. After that, they all went and took seats in the courtroom.
Soon opening statements began. Strauss stated that this had been nothing more than a revenge killing, while Rita stated that the shock and anger that Elliot's child had been molested triggered extreme emotional disturbance and Elliot had not planned to kill Matt.
First to testify for the prosecution was Matt's neighbor Marta.
"What did you you hear coming from Matt's apartment?" asked Strauss.
"I awoke because I heard two men arguing. One of them was screaming at the top of his lungs," said Marta.
"Was this person screaming Matt Wooten?" asked Strauss.
"No," she said. "I had never heard this voice before."
"Could you make out what he was saying?" asked Strauss.
"I couldn't make out the whole thing," she said. "But I did hear something about someone's son being raped."
"Then what happened," asked Strauss.
"I heard a loud crack then a piercing scream," she said. "That was when I called 911. The bangs continued and the screaming stopped. Then there was a minute of silence until the police showed up."
"Thank you," said Strauss. "No further questions."
Rita stepped up to the witness stand.
"Did you hear anything else during the argument besides screaming?" she asked
"Yes," said Marta. "After I heard the part about the son being raped I heard somebody laugh. I could tell by the voice it was not the person that screaming."
"So the person laughing was whoever was not screaming," said Rita. "Therefore after Elliot Stabler accused Matt Wooten of raping his son, Matt laughed at it. That is extreme emotional disturbance to me."
"Objection!" said Strauss. "There's no evidence Matt was the one that laughed."
"Your honor Matt and Elliot were the only two people in that apartment," said Rita. "So if it wasn't Elliot who laughed who else could it possibly be?"
"Overruled," said the judge.
"Thank you," said Rita. "No further questions."
Marta stepped down. After a short break Melinda Warner took the stand.
"Dr. Warner," said Strauss. "How exactly did Matthew Wooten die?"
"He was hit in the head with a baseball bat about least twenty five times," said Melinda. "This caused hemorrhaging in the brain and he bled to death."
"Is the head a sensitive part of the body?" asked Strauss.
"Um… yes," said Melinda, surprised he asked such a simple question.
"So by hitting Matthew Wooten in the head with a damaging object like a baseball bat, does this show intent to kill?" asked Strauss.
"I believe so," said Melinda.
"How many blows would it take to kill someone?" asked Strauss.
"It could take as little as four or five," said Melinda. "But it depends where exactly the blows were directed towards and the strength of the person directing them."
"Therefore was this overkill?" asked Strauss.
"It could have been?" said Melinda
"Thank you," said Strauss. "No further questions."
Rita then stood up and abruptly asked: "Prior to the murder, who owned the murder weapon?"
"Objection!" said Strauss. "Relevance."
"I'm trying to prove intent," said Rita.
The judge paused. "I'll allow it," she said. "But please be clear Ms. Calhoun."
"This baseball bat belonged to Matthew Wooten," said Warner.
"So my client didn't bring the bat with him when he went to go talk to Mr. Wooten," said Rita
"That is correct," said Melinda.
"So he had no plans to kill Matthew Wooten until he admitted and laughed about my client's son being raped putting him in an unstoppable state of disturbance!" said Rita.
"Objection!" said Strauss.
"Withdrawn," said Rita. "Did the murder show an intense amount of rage."
"In my opinion," said Melinda. "Yes."
"Thank you," said Rita. "No further questions."
Melinda stepped down from the stand.
The next people to testify were the homicide detectives. They mostly repeated the same stuff Melinda said about how Elliot had picked up baseball bat that Matt had owned and struck him in the head with it until he was dead. They also presented Elliot's police records to the jury. Rita, however, pointed out that Elliot had only had one violent outburst and that it was against a pedophile that had posted a picture of his daughter online. After that, the prosecution rested and the court was dismissed, as by then it was late in the day.
As they were walking out Olivia asked Alex and Casey "So what's your prediction. I mean your the ADA."
Alex smiled. "Strauss got a lot of the details out but Rita put up a good argument too. Once the defense goes, I think it's very unlikely they'll convict Elliot of murder 2."
"Yeah," said Casey. "But they'll probably go for man 1 or ideally man 2. I mean it's pretty clear what he did."
"Well," said John. "It all depends how the court picked the jury. I mean with the amount of publicity this trial has generated…"
"Oh please John," said Amanda smiling. "I don't think there's a conspiracy this time."
They all laughed. "He's a conspiracy theorist," Olivia told Sonny.
"Anyway," said Alex. "I'll see you all back here tomorrow."
They all said goodbye to each other and parted ways.