I wondered how the government was going to make sense of nearly five months of witnesses and put their testimony into a framework that jurors could work with.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Inciong did an excellent job yesterday of doing just that.

I defer to Civil Beat reporter Madeleine Valera, who had an excellent story this morning that does a fine job of capturing the main points and overall thrust of Inciong’s presentation to the jury (“Prosecutors Describe Vast ‘Criminal Underworld’ Controlled By Michael Miske During Closing Arguments“).

Inciong began with broad characterizations of Miske and his criminal enterprise.

Miske’s world was one of greed, intimidation, retribution, and violence.

“And at the epicenter of that criinal world was the defendant, Mike Miske,” Inciong said, pointing back across the courtroom to where Miske was sitting.

“His greatest weapon was money, and the power and influence that it brought him,” Inciong told the jury.

“It was combined with his reputation for violence and penchant for retribution,” Inciong said. “Anyone who dared to cross him even in the slightest way was a target.”

“Miske believed everyone had a price and anything could be bought,” Inciong said. “Sadly, in many instances, he was right.”

Inciong then reminded the jury of key parts of the final jury instructions, which were explained to the jury by Judge Derrick Watson last week.

He started with conspiracy, as nine of the 16 charges against Miske involve conspiracy.

“The crime of conspiracy is the agreement to commit the crime,” Inciong reminded the jury. “It doesn’t matter whether the crime is committed.”

To gain a conviction, it is enough to prove that two people had an agreement to commit a crime, and at least one concrete step towards making it happen took place, Inciong said.

A few minutes later, he underscored that the jury is supposed to consider all the evidence, direct evidence as well as circumstantial evidence. He then presented a simple example of the difference.

Suppose you leave your house and as you’re walking to the car, it’s raining. You look up, the rain drop are hitting your face. You get wet. You get to the car, and the car is wet. You get into the car, and you have to run the windshield wipers i order to see out. You know it’s been raining, because you have direct evidence of it.

But say you’re inside the house and you hear thunder. That doesn’t happen too often. Then perhaps you hear wind blowing outside, maybe some muffled sound of something hitting the roof. When you open the door and walk outside, it’s sunny. But you notice the grass is wet, there are puddles along the walkway, and your car is also wet. When you get into the car, you have to run the wipers to clear off the drops of water.

You didn’t see it raining, but “are you any less sure that it rained,”you have more than enough circumstantial evidence to know that it had been raining?” Inciong asked rhetorically. “Of course not.”

Inciong stressed that the law allows jurors to consider circumstantial evidence the same as direct evidence.

One thing that probably isn’t apparent to casual observers is that over the course of the trial, while listening to the testimony of the hundreds of witnesses, jurors had not been given details of the multiple charges contained in the grand jury indictment of Miske. The charges were not spelled out until after both the prosecution and defense had rested their cases last week.

So to provide order, Inciong used a copy of the final special verdict form that jurors will use like a scorecard to guide their deliberations.

Using the verdict form as a guide, Inciong then stepped through the charges, one by one, listing the incidents of each that had previously been described by witnesses and supported by documents, photos, and other exhibits.

I’ll try to come back later and summarize more of his presentation. For now, go back and read the Civil Beat story this morning.