Craig Weston's firm, Voss and Pruitt's union-appointed defense team, filed an emergency motion for recusal at 11:00 a.m., citing Naomi's status as an alleged victim as grounds for reassignment. The motion was submitted to Chief Judge Sutton's office for processing.
Sutton's assistant called the filing clerk at 11:53 to request the standard reassignment paperwork.
At 12:07, two federal agents from Dana Crest's team walked into Sutton's office and served him with a preservation notice covering all communications between his office and the Columbus Police Department's union representative going back four years.
Sutton's assistant said he would need to consult with his attorney. The federal agents said that was completely understandable. They sat down in the waiting area and made clear they were in no hurry.
By 2:00 p.m., Craig Weston's firm had quietly withdrawn the recusal motion without explanation. The paperwork was pulled before it reached the clerk's desk.
In her chambers, Naomi received a text from Thomas Avery. Motion withdrawn. No reassignment.
She read it. Set the phone face down on her desk. Picked up the afternoon's case files.
The hearing resumed at 2:30. She walked into the courtroom exactly on time. And the gallery, which had grown since morning, rose to its feet in a silence so complete and so heavy that it felt less like respect and more like reckoning.
The courtroom on the third day held a different kind of air.
Not the tense, expectant air of the first morning. Not the raw, stunned air of the second. This was heavier, more settled. The air of a room in which something irrevocable was about to happen, and everyone present understood it, and the understanding had moved past anxiety into a kind of grave, collective stillness.
Every seat was filled. Dana Crest's team occupied a full row in the gallery, their presence acknowledged by no one and noticed by everyone. Three federal agents stood along the back wall at measured intervals. Reporters had claimed their section before 7:00 a.m. and had not left it since.
At the defense table, Voss sat alone. His attorney was beside him, but something about the distance between them suggested that the attorney had already begun, internally, to create separation.
Pruitt's seat was empty. His attorney sat beside the vacancy with a closed folder and the expression of a man waiting for a verdict on something that had already been decided.
Naomi entered and took the bench. The room rose and settled. She opened the session without preamble.
"Before we proceed with today's scheduled testimony," she said, "the court will address two matters that have arisen in the course of this proceeding."
She lifted the first document from her file.