Today, a jury convicted Rudy Fleming of first-degree murder in the shooting death of a dear, dear friend of mine, Nicole duFresne. 

Nicole deserves to be remembered a hell of a lot more for how she lived, than how she died.  In some ways, that's one of Rudy's greatest crimes—his tarnishing of her potential legacy.  She was an awesome human being, who had already contributed so much in her short time on this earth, and would have been remembered for so much more than how she was murdered one cold January night, if fate had not intervened to place Rudy Fleming in her path.

I'm no big law and order guy.  I usually find myself sympathizing with the defendants in criminal cases more often than their accusers.  And Rudy certainly had a hard life of his own.

But his defense strategy was shameless and cowardly, blaming Nicole for reacting "too aggressively" after he pistol-whipped her fiance Jeffrey and waved the loaded gun around at her and her friends.  It was like they were using Nicole's big, beautifully loud personality against her—"if she wasn't so self-assured, so strong, she'd be alive today".  All of this was in the hope of getting the blame spread around, so that the first-degree charge would be thrown out. 

So it is with a sense of great vindication that I announce that it was not.  By convicting Rudy of first-degree murder today, the jury told the world that the only person remotely responsible for Nicole's death was Rudy Fleming himself.  The libel that his defense attempted to smear Rudy's innocent victim with was exposed as the lie that it was.  That is sweeter justice for me than the clanging shut ring of cell bars could ever provide.