Defense Attorney Joshua Weiss

You have the choice today of whether to testify or not testify. Is after talking with your attorney and going through your own thoughts, what is your decision of whether or not you want to testify? Not to testify.

Yes, sir.

Yes. Jason, we've met a number of times. We've talked about what your testimony would be. And you understand that even though you might have an opportunity to say your piece, that you would be subject to cross-examination. And I've explained to you that the cross-examination would probably be very intense and relentless. And by subjecting yourself to that, you can change the status of your case.

Whatever it is that your decision is, it is a personal decision that only you can make. Have you had enough time to consult with me, talk about whether or not, go over the benefits and detriments of testifying? Yes. Are you deciding not to testify on your own volition? Yes. And that's what your personal decision is?

Was he a violent child?

You sat through a long trial, and I know there's things, I think the state's right, you saw things that you won't forget, I won't forget. I want to tell each and every one of you, thank you for your time, your patience, your consideration. But you're tasked with a profound and somber responsibility in this part of the trial.

You get to decide whether Jason gets life with parole or never be released. Both options are severe and a significant punishment. I think it reflects the seriousness of the case, but it's critical that you remember that every tragic crime has equal magnitude under the law. Your duty today is not to ensure punishment. It's to make sure it's also portioned. I've spoken with many victims' families.

They don't care if you're shot or stabbed or strangled or drowned. or any of one of those things, every single murder is especially heinous, atrocious, and cruel. General Moyle talked to you about that yesterday. Every murder is emotional. There's always a family that loses someone. General Whomp is right. The Pace and the Bean family lost a very important person. It's tragic, sad.

And I agree the Chen family have lost a child too. There's two families hurting. It's important to know that the law distinguishes crimes that are inherently tragic with those that rise to the most egregious levels of brutality, deserving permanent condemnation. The question you must ask yourself when you're back in that jury room is whether or not this case reaches that threshold.

Does it rise to the level that Jason Chen, a 73-year-old man, be forever denied an opportunity to demonstrate remorse? rehabilitation, and redemption.

You want her to be in as tight of a package as possible to fit into this teeny little suitcase that's not designed to hold a person. She's not moving. Cuff the hands together. Shackle the two legs together and pull them together. You wouldn't go haphazard right hand to right leg, and then attach a cuff here and attach the shackle to the left leg.

That's indicative of she doesn't want to be shackled. He's just slapping the shackles on whatever he can find, whatever he can get his hands on.

On November 22nd, just before midnight, Jasmine Pace came to Jason Shen's home at 110 Treymont Street, apartment 210. It's undisputed. What happens between 12 o'clock and 2 o'clock is no proof of it. What we do is after 2 o'clock in the morning, Courtney Brewer was awakened. She was awakened by what she described as an enough strength.

What we know is that Courtney couldn't describe what was being said. She couldn't answer any questions about what the argument was over. She described it as something that you couldn't decipher. Emotions are up. Pulses are up. Everyone's aggravated. Jason Chen's scared. Jasmine's upset. Jason's upset. And Jason killed Jasmine. He got a knife and 60 times Jasmine was stabbed.

What's been disputed is the state's allegation that this is premeditated. You as a jury have the most important job. You're going to retire to a jury and you're going to be looking at all of this evidence. You're going to be looking at all of the testimony, recalling the testimony that you've heard from all of the witnesses. Investigator Crawford, Dr. Cogswell, Courtney Brewer, CSU investigators.

You're going to be going through Mounds of evidence. Days of testimony. And like the general asks you during your selection, you get to use your common sense. You get to apply what you know to the facts and the evidence that's been given to you.

What we know is that from just after two o'clock in the morning, Everything that Jason did showed that he wasn't acting rational. Rational people don't shackle individuals and put them in garbage bags. They don't shackle the individual, put them in the garbage bag, and put them in a suitcase. They don't go the next day to Walgreens and Walmart to get cleaning supplies. They call the police.

Everything that Jason Chen did It was disgusting.

He left breadcrumbs everywhere he went. He got Jasmine's phone. He used her phone. The state has asked you to believe that Jason had full control of her phone from 2 o'clock on, but they don't want you to think for a moment that he, yet again, made a mistake. He tries to not share a location, stops sharing a location, and drops a pen.

They want you to believe that Jasmine was shackled when she was being stabbed. Dr. Coxwell was asked very specific questions, questions that you can remember. You can look back through your notes and recall his testimony and discuss this among yourselves. There were no ligature marks on Jasmine's wrist. There were no ligature marks on Jasmine's ankles. There were no cuts. There were no bruising.

The state would like for you to believe That's because she couldn't move. She couldn't break the shutters. She couldn't break the handcuffs. The reason they aren't there is because they were not applied so that Jason could stop her. They were applied so that you could fit her into garbage bags before putting her into a safe place.

The law is clear. We're not asking you to believe that Jason had hours, days, months that he's playing this out. But you have to know with moral certainty that he had a moment to reflect and that he didn't. It's the state's burden to show you that he had that moment of reflection and that he chose to disregard and to continue to engage in acts that killed Jasmine Pace.

Ladies and gentlemen, that's not you.

Premeditation means that the intent to kill must have been formed prior to the act. What we've heard for days is everything Jason has done after. This is not you going to the jury room and determining that there's postmeditation. Premeditation. Everything that Jason did before Jasmine's death.

It's not necessary that the purpose of guilt pre-exists in the mind of the accused for any definite period of time. The state says each of those actions, 120 movements, that Jason should have had the ability to report. They haven't shown that he did.

Specifically, voluntary manslaughter requires that the killing result from a state of passion. The state's witness talked about it. They talked about the individual that inflicted these wounds being in a state of anxiety or a state of passion. right here in your journey instructions. That is something for you to consider.

It does require there has to be a state of passion that's produced by adequate provocation. You heard a yelling from the floor below that was enough to wake an individual up at two o'clock in the morning. So loud that she couldn't even make out what was being said.

This has been a hard case. Jasmine deserves justice. You have given Mr. Chin the benefit of a fair trial. Your attentiveness has been very clear throughout this, and it's much appreciated. In reviewing this evidence, we ask you to return a verdict.

In opening statement, I told you that we would give you the dots and we would help you connect them. Every single fact we mentioned in opening statement, we proved beyond a reasonable doubt. Every single fact we committed to, we proved to you beyond a reasonable doubt because that's what opening statements are for. To give you the evidence you're about to see.

And then you heard from Mr. Chin's attorney who committed to a very specific story. Remember, we didn't just talk about that story, right? We backed off that story because, uh-oh, that story doesn't work anymore. And we're going to talk about that story. This entire trial has been muddy the waters. It has been muddy the waters to confuse the jury.

The opening statement from the defense was meant to confuse you. It was meant to have you thinking about other things, possible defenses that the state disproved. Not only did you not hear evidence of what they said in their opening statement, the state outright disproved it.

Let's talk about what we committed to in opening statement as Jason Chin's attorneys. They met on Tinder, wrong? You have text messages. They met on Bumble. Simple thing, but we're just starting with the untruths that the state disproved. They traveled to Chicago together that summer, wrong end of October. You have text messages that show that he asked her to go to Chicago.

You heard that you will see messages where you'll see that one of them likes one of them more than the other. Oh, but Jasmine liked him more than he liked her. Wrong. You never saw proof of it. In fact, you have all the messages that they didn't want to show you. They wanted to put them in evidence and then just hope that maybe you'll waste your time reading them. So what did I do?

I put them on the screen for you. That weekend before he killed her, he asked her to come over. Oh, she likes him more? No. If you want to waste your time reading the messages, read them. You'll find out that that was not true. What they committed to an opening statement was not true. They drink wine, smoked pot, smoked wax. We didn't hear that just now, did we? Why? Because it's not true.

They committed to a story to throw mud at the wall and it was never true. It was meant to confuse you. And then also how offensive the victim drank wine. So he murdered her. The defendant was smoking wax. No proof of it. Zero proof of it. Didn't happen, but let's say that it did. The defendant smoked wax marijuana. So he murdered her.

That is no defense, but it's certainly not a defense when you say it and you've never proved it. You committed to this in your opening statement. And by the end of trial, when the jury's no longer confused, you don't want to talk about anyone. In order to open one of the bottles of wine in the bedroom,

Jason had to go to the kitchen and get a kitchen knife to take off that plastic wrapper that goes around the top of the wine bottles. We've seen that knife. Well, we've seen part of it. We'll never know where the other part of it is. We've seen part of it, right? So he was able to get it off the top of the wine bottle. They finish off the bottle.

She goes into the kitchen to get another one and she sees those tender messages. The tender messages are significant. Mostly because that was their adequate provocation. The only adequate provocation you ever heard in this trial was an opening statement, which is not evidence. And then what was the state able to do through an expert who nobody can deny that Mark Hamilton is an expert?

He put those tender records on the screen and he explained them to you. They are records that cannot be toyed with. They are records that T-Mobile holds regardless of whether you delete things. Those are his Tinder records. And not only did he not have Tinder notifications from that morning, he didn't even have Tinder notifications from November 22nd. That was their adequate provocation.

It didn't happen. We know for a fact it didn't happen. So now they stand up here and they say adequate provocation. He was provoked with zero evidence whatsoever. What the evidence was is that he chased her to the door of that apartment. Ms. Paglino Brewer was the state's best witness and I didn't even call her. I wish I would've. She nailed down our timeline.

If you didn't already believe the timeline because she sent her mother her location at 2 18, Courtney knows it. Courtney looked at her phone at 2 11 in the morning after she heard a scream of a woman in quote distress. And here's the kicker. They want you to believe this fabricated story that there's no proof of. But how does Courtney help us? Because she attacked Jason.

Again, we're uncommitted to this story now, but let's just go back to their opening statement. She attacked him with a wine bottle and then subsequently after he kicked her 98-pound body, according to opening statement, he kicked her 98-pound body to the floor where she fell on wine glasses.

She then subsequently came at him with a wine glass and he stabbed her irrationally and very fast, 60 times. Not true. Why? Because of Courtney and because of that phone location. Courtney was 2.11 a.m. The phone location to her mom was 2.18, seven minutes. She screamed profusely. Things happened. She was able to know she was in enough danger that she needed to send her mother, her location.

It wasn't fast. It wasn't fast at all. And we know that two 11 is seven minutes from two 18. It wasn't fast. She knew she was in danger. She tried to get out of the door and Courtney told you that she heard a door slam. Jasmine knew she was in trouble. She had time to use her phone before he started killing her.

He kicked her. He kicked 98-pound Jasmine Pace, and then he ran away. But he couldn't get the bathroom door closed because of a backpack. Couldn't close the door on 98-pound Jasmine Pace. So we had to run to his bedroom. Jasmine's right there coming at him with this broken glass.

In closing, they don't want to talk about the story that they committed to because the story they committed to was that he killed her in the bedroom. Quote, and he gets back into his bedroom and Jasmine's right there coming at him with this broken glass. Jason sees the knife and he reacts and he stabs. Okay, we got two problems there. First of all, his own expert, who I wish I would have called,

good expert, says that there's something that happened in the bathroom. There is blood spatter on the wall in the bathroom. Like General Moyle showed you, there is blood in the grout in the bathroom. We know she was moved. Why do we know she was moved? Because Dr. Cogswell testified

that on the ground in the bedroom where you see all of the blood, which was almost all of the blood that was in her body because he was only able to get a small vial of blood because it had all leaked out on the carpet. that for that blood to be on the carpet, she had to be laying on her wound side. That's what he said.

Because if she was not on her wound side, the blood would have soaked down to the other side of her body and the medical examiner would have been able to see that. He said she was wound side down. We know she was moved. We know she was moved and we know there wasn't enough room right there to just simply flip her over. She was killed.

Stabbing began in the bathroom and then he drove her into the bedroom where he put her on her side with the wound so she could bleed out. We know that. What else is the problem with this? Jason sees the knife and he reacts and he stabs. She's coming after him. He sees the knife and he stabs. The problem is...

Without question, over and over again, in writing, our medical examiner says her wounds match her fetal position. It is not true. Trying to confuse you.

Really, the worst part of the opening statement is he's scared. For what his future entails. But more importantly, the shame that he's going to bring on his family, the shame that comes with everything that is being accused of today. Manipulative. Selfish. He's scared for what his future entails. He's so scared that he texts on Tinder Victoria at 9.52 with some corny pickup line.

He's so scared for his future that he's playing video games with his friends later that day. Don't worry about Jasmine Pace who's dead in your apartment the entire day until 6 p.m. when you take her to Sub Creek Road. Keep in mind, when he Tinder messages Victoria, Jasmine is dead in his apartment. Uncontested facts. Is this the mindset of someone that just irrationally stabbed a girl 60 times?

No. And then he lies over and over and over again. And this is something that General Moyle didn't mention. He lies to Katrina Pace on the phone. He says he hasn't seen her since Saturday. A lot. Then he gets to his parents' house in Nolensville and he's trying to come up with a story. Not the story you heard Monday, but he's trying to come up with a story.

It says the last time I saw her was the 18th of November. The other sticky note on the desk says the last time I saw her was the 19th. Trying to get his facts right. He knows he's being looked for. He knows law enforcement's trying to contact him. Why? Because he's got Zach Crawford's number written on a post-it note. Does he ever say, hey, I killed her because she came to me with a wine bottle?

No. He's got Zach Crawford's number written on the post-it note. He's scared for what his future entails.

I'm going to ask y'all to do something for me. It's been a long week. I'm only going to have a couple more requests. When you think about this trial in 10 or 15 years, you tell somebody about the jury that you had to serve on in Hamilton County, tell them about the case. I don't want you to remember this case as the case of State of Tennessee versus Jason Chin, the trial of Tennessee. Jason Chen.

I don't want you to remember it with the suitcase that the girl left on the side of the road. I want you to remember this trial as the trial for Jasmine Pace. Because we talked a whole lot about criminal defendants. You've heard the name Jason Chen a whole lot since we started jury selection last week. Victims matter. Jasmine Pace is not just some girl listed in an autopsy report.

She is not the photos that you have seen. Don't minimize her to a name on an indictment. She's a person. She had families that loved her. She was a friend. She was a granddaughter. Please don't minimize this trial to the trial for him. I'm going to ask that you take all this information.

All the notes you've made this week, all of the closing argument information, you're instructed to go back there and begin with first-degree premeditated murder. Go back there together and find him guilty, please.

There's no evidence the defendant was put in a reasonable state of fear where he could have believed that self-defense would have been justified.

to let the request for self-defense instruction be denied.

Did you do any other scientific test as a criminal investigator firm that was blood?

And in that standard operating procedure, did you do a control test first?

But General Moyle had one more piece of evidence. Receipts.

Have you received specialized training on the application of blue spot?

I'd like to focus on the clean products. What type of clean products?

How does it look different than that of blood?

Did you have an opportunity to look at the suitcase?

Now I'm now going to retrieve from what's been briefed me about.

Where I moved at this time, I-173 into evidence.

Did you go to the medical examiner's office as well?

And what happened when you all arrived at the medical examiner's office?

Your Honor, I would also give an admonition that at least one of these photos, some people may find disturbing. Listen to him on one photo. I braced myself. Yes, I do. He's the Hamilton County Medical Center. He's

There appears to be an italic object.

So you mean after a Blue Star application had already been applied?

And you walked through this scene?

If there was blood on the floor, would your booties suck up the blood?

It's possible for even crimes in the best of your community to see, right?

For what purpose?

He wanted me to collect a DNA sample from the parents of the victim. And what type of sample did you collect? I had collected buccal swabs, which is a swab of the inside of the cheek. The skin on the inside of your mouth is very soft. It sloughs off cells easily, so it's a good source for DNA. Sir, on that needle, it's been marked for identification purposes as exhibit 1193.

Who collected that swab from Katrina Pace? I collected that. At the homicide office? That's correct. On what day? November the 30th, 1922.

Sir, I'm now showing you 2032. Do you orient us to this book, correct? If I could point to the suitcase to this area here that we're x-raying. And again, we see another one of these reinforcing ribs, a few more rivets, et cetera, et cetera, a zipper. And here we have a knee. You can see the kneecap here and the lower leg, the shin, and the fibula that goes along with it. This is the thigh bone.

Here you see a hand or the bones of a hand. You can see the top of the skull as well here. Thank you, sir.

How would you describe the Blue Star reaction that you yourself observed inside Mr. Chen's apartment?

Is there a strong blue star reaction...

Why did you do that?

Without search warrant, they could not open a drawer and look for those themselves.

Anything that would lead to finding Jasmine. How long were you in the apartment?

The state now has their chance to cross-examine Travis Pace, and it feels like a showdown. I did. By who? The state.

20 years.

Other than moving her credit cards and her driver's license. I don't know if that's planted.

I didn't.

No.

Yes. Well, certainly. Because he lied about speaking with her, about the duration, about the timing.

The fact that that wasn't happening was the biggest immediate flag. He's my number one suspect.

No, he lied.

He lied about that.

I don't remember exactly.

It was literally like... it was not a modest photograph posted on Facebook and anybody that knew Jasmine knew she would not have posted that and it was a different timeline of her photo so it wasn't even recent either. There was so many problems with it that it drew immediate red flags to everybody in the family and friends and people that knew her.

She has tattoos, and we can know basically what month and year it is on which tattoos she has.

They were missing.

It does.

He did what?

and that they knowingly went on a trip to Chicago together, and that his name was relevant. We knew they were at least somehow close enough to take a trip to Chicago. More than that, I wasn't aware how much more they were dating or not dating, at least enough to go to Chicago.

Did anyone in your party... same time you were? Yes, I believe she was. Were you present when any items were taken from the apartment? If so, would you recall being collected? Were you present when any items were taken from the apartment? No, I was not present. Did you take anything from the apartment you took? No, I did not. Possibly And I really don't recall.

Possibly we would have on the very next entrance, right after the police had left, we kind of all concluded that their help was going to be less than expedient. And we may have actually grabbed all of her IDs and stuff at that exact moment. But it's a blurb.

One of the arguments is this is the most blood that they have ever seen. Our argument, our rebuttal is they're not seeing just blood. What we're seeing is the cleaning materials that we talked about that all these people that have contaminated the scene. So, yes, the report is probably right. I have one on contamination.

But it's not just blood that would have been trapped throughout the apartment. It would be in the cleaning materials, too. And he can opine on that as well.

Here's what I have to watch you do. His opinion is that nothing can show where she died. However, a big party incident took place in the bedroom. As far as the investigation, more blue stars should have been applied.

On the night of November the 22nd and early hours of November the 23rd, was there an incident that you recall?

Can you kind of take us, and you can go slowly through, the events that woke you up and everything that you heard from that point until you get here?

One person's footsteps or two footsteps?

You said towards the front door. Was it towards the front door or towards the bedroom?

You had said that you heard a scream. Can you describe the scream?

And you said you could hear arguing. Did that sound like an argument or a fight?

And that was something in our voice?

After hearing the scream and the arguments and the footsteps, what did you do?

You said you could hear the arguing?

You couldn't make out what was being said?

Did you hear any crying?

Did you call 911?

Why not?

Did you ever contact the authorities?

Why did you contact the authorities?

And is what you told Crime Stoppers then the same thing they should tell you?

Her playing hours? On November 23rd, 2022, Jason Chadwick killed Jasmine Pace. He didn't do it with premeditation. This is a momentary mask on for Jason. In November of 2022, he was a senior. The year before, he and Jasmine started to meet again. They met on a trip. In 2021, they dated for a few months, but they lost touch.

Jasmine started getting feelings for Jason.

And on the night of November 22nd, around 11 p.m., she came over to Jason's house. And they did what they always do. They climbed, they smoked pot, they smoked glass, they watched movies. On the night of November the 22nd, they were drinking wine from the back bedroom.

In order to open one bottles of wine in the bedroom, Jason had to go to the kitchen and get a kitchen knife and take off that plastic wrap that goes around the top of the wine bottles. So he was able to get off the top of the wine bottle with the plastic wrap and he placed it on his nightstand.

Jasmine looked at his phone and saw all these messages about the girls. And this was purely her. She was already angry. And it sent her into anger, into a rage. And they started yelling, fighting, murdering. Jason came into the kitchen. Jasmine attacked Jason. with an empty wine bottle. And in reaction, Jason kicked her and she fell backwards, knocking over wine glasses.

She picked up one of the wine glasses and ran towards Jason. Jason treated her, going from the kitchen to his They tried to run from the bathroom into the bedroom, but there was a pocket door, and it's impossible to close. He gets back into his bedroom, and Jasmine's right there, coming at him with his broken glass. Jason sees the knife. He stops. He blacked out. Your heart is racing.

And I wish I was telling you right now that Colin and I wanted him to call the police. But he didn't. From there, Jason decides that he has to cover the son. He has to hide with the son. Places Jasmine in trash bags. Puts the handcuffs on her after she is dead. So that way she can fit into the trash bags. And so they put her into that sequence.

where he then takes her body in an extra case and drops her by the bank so that they can see her. He then sets on a horse to try to clean up the apartment to his best of his ability. He tries to hide the fact that what he did by texting Desmond's parents, pretending to be here on social media, whatever he can do, is selfish and it's wrong.