Naresh Bhatt could either be found guilty of first-degree murder or could be acquitted, a legal expert has opined. This comes after Bhatt gave a bombshell testimony, in Virginia, on Thursday, telling jurors that he dismembered his wife's body after finding her dead. Bhatt stands accused of killing his wife, Mamta Kafle Bhatt.
However, he reiterated the claim that she died by suicide but confessed to dismembering her body and attempting to hide it. Bhatt claimed to have found his wife unconscious, surrounded by vomit, blood, and an open packet of insecticide, the night she went missing. He further admitted to cutting her up with a saw.
It has now been reported that after attorneys met the judge on Friday, it was decided that they would offer a waterfall instruction down to second-degree murder, but not manslaughter.
What to know about the case
Mamta, a young mother and nurse, had vanished over two years ago from her home in Manassas Park. Three weeks later, cops arrested Naresh Bhatt and charged him with first degree murder, concealment of a dead body, and defiling a dead body. The legal expert, however, felt that it was unlikely the jury would find Bhatt guilty of second-degree murder.
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{{/usCountry}}CBS News-affiliated WUSA9 spoke to Frank Salvato, a criminal defense lawyer in Virginia, where the Bhatt case is being tried.
What lawyer said about Naresh Bhatt's case
As per the lawyer, with the new jury instructions, they can find Bhatt guilty of second-degree murder. If the jury decides that the act was not premeditated, and willful, which are criteria for a first-degree murder charge, they could still find Bhatt guilty.
However, as per the criminal defense lawyer, Bhatt's case is an “all-or-nothing situation.” He told the local publication, “It's either gonna be an acquittal or the jury's gonna find him guilty of premeditated murder. I don't see it as a second-degree case. You never know what a jury will do.”
The lawyer also explained what a waterfall instruction means. One starts with the highest defense and it decreases. In Bhatt's case, the judge has said that even if there is no malice, as defined under Virginia law, he can still be found guilty on the second-degree charge.
Salvato also explained that since Bhatt had conceded to the other charges, he'd be found guilty of those, and noted that the likely legal strategy by the accused's team was that the jury would find there's reasonable doubt of him killing his wife. However, the legal expert warned that it was a “gamble” on Bhatt's part.
“One strategy in this case would be for him to have pled guilty to any of those related charges, but I think what he decided, with or in conjunction with his attorneys, is, let's send it to the jury. Maybe they come back on just these lesser charges that he admitted to, and then we gamble on the murder charges,” the legal expert explained.