"Because I was driving home," Morgan answered. "I had a valid license and registration, and I was not using my official position. I believed I should have been able to complete a routine traffic stop without presenting a federal badge." She paused, then added that once the encounter became dangerous, she had used the identification to clarify who she was and to help prevent further escalation.
Keene stood for cross-examination and approached carefully. He asked about the car's price, her inheritance, and her professional experience with civil-rights investigations, drawing an objection when the questions became repetitive. He then asked whether she had told Nolan he was the only thing wrong on the highway. Morgan said yes.
"Would you agree that was a confrontational thing to say to an officer?" Keene asked. Morgan thought before answering. "I was frustrated, and I knew he would dislike hearing it," she said. "It was not a threat. It did not give him a right to smash my window or force me to the ground."
Keene asked whether she had continued recording despite knowing it might antagonize the trooper if discovered. She explained that the recording had been started before any confrontation and was intended to preserve an accurate account, not provoke a response. He asked whether she had deliberately waited to reveal her credentials because she wanted to catch a corrupt officer in the act. Morgan looked toward the jury, then back at him.
"I wanted to get home," she said. "I didn't know this officer, and I did not expect him to break my car and injure me. I would have preferred never to learn his name." Keene let the answer sit for a moment before moving to another question.
On the final day of evidence, the prosecution introduced the patrol report and its revision history. An expert described what the computer system could prove about timestamps and users while carefully avoiding a conclusion about why Nolan had added certain words. The jury heard the original description of Morgan's actions and the later claim that she had moved aggressively toward the trooper before the window broke. They then saw the available video, in which Nolan moved toward Morgan while she stood beside the car.
Nolan chose not to testify. The judge instructed the jurors that they could not treat his silence as evidence of guilt, and Park did not suggest otherwise. Keene called a training witness who discussed the dangers of roadside stops and the difficulty of making decisions near fast traffic. On cross-examination, the witness agreed that training did not authorize a search solely because a driver's appearance seemed inconsistent with the value of a legally registered car.
Closing arguments focused on different versions of the same timeline. Keene urged the jury to separate bad decisions from the specific intent required for federal criminal liability and argued that Nolan had become overwhelmed by a series of misunderstandings. Park responded that the government's case did not depend on an angry gesture or one rude sentence. It depended on the repeated rejection of known facts, followed by violence and an altered account.