well judge Sydney Stein made two significant pre-trial rulings about the experts menendez's defense team is allowed to use during the trial striking his attorney's request to have a psychiatrist testify about the senior senator's alleged generational trauma that led him to hoard money in his home and put parameters on their use of an accountant to speak to his spending habits I'm joined Again by attorney and former Federal prosecutor Brian Whistler for more on how much weight those decisions hold and today's open wining statements Brian Whistler good to see you again so I'm curious about the importance the significance of these opening arguments and just how much value they have um when the jury is weighing the case yeah well there's of course a mix of opinion about that um I think generally speaking obing argument is designed to serve as providing the jury with a road mapap and both parties have an opportunity to share what the jury can expect to hear and also to frame what they want them to take away from the truck now from a pure legal standpoint opening arguments are not evidence as the judge will instruct a jury at the conclusion of the trial um however as you can imagine everything kind of informs a juror's perception whether or not it comes from from a lawyer or from a witness so there is some importance I think in terms of creating expectations but for a trial that's going to consume the better part of a month there's some that would say well the jury's just not going to remember much so you don't need to devote too much energy to it but it certainly is an opportunity to lay out what each side uh believes will be uh forthcoming uh let me shift gears there were a couple of pre-trial decisions that judge Sydney Stein made yesterday one uh could potentially poke a hole in the defense strategy which uh is about the psychiatrist that menendez's attorneys wanted to bring forward to essentially give a reason uh as to why he would have stashed lots of cash in his home how significant a blow is that I think it's fairly significant because uh the the design of that element of the defense was to help explain from an expert standpoint why this particular uh defendant would be keeping that much cash at home along with the gold and and it was a fairly sophisticated uh argument in terms of from I guess a psych a psychiatric standpoint explaining intergenerational trauma and the family the two traumatic family events uh in the Senator's life that purported to explain uh why he uh conducted himself in that in that respect so I mean there are C certainly going to be other efforts I imagine from the defense to try to come at that but the expert testimony has been excluded the judge found that there wasn't significant scientific basis for that and it would been relying on impermissible hearsay uh so that testimony was excluded yeah it didn't stand up according to the judge uh and so I should clarify uh that she cannot testify this uh psychiatrist uh his team though is also anticip ating bringing aboard a CPA an accountant to help talk about some of the financial TR transactions what role would the accountant play um and is that a key to the case that they'll present I mean I think it's certainly um you know a a a prominent factor in terms of having a independent third party review the Senator's spending habits and basically comparing in flows to outflows what the defense wanted to have occur was for the accountant to opine whether or not the senator uh engageed and lavish living that aspect of the testimony was precluded by the judge so remains to be seen just how significant a role the accountant will play Brian Whistler thanks so much we will be chatting with you again soon great to see you take care br [Music]